Nutrition for All!

I love to eat, but I hate to grocery shop and prepare food. I love restaurants. If I had sufficient funds, I would never buy real groceries. I'd buy all those freezer/microwave deals and lots of cookies, maybe some real fruit, but not meal ingredients. Give me I.H.O.P. for breakfast, Subway for lunch and Chili's for dinner - sometimes Texas Roadhouse. I think I could make those rounds every day and be happy. As it stands, I'm throwing things together out of convenience and based on taste. This afternoon, for example, I arrive home and don't feel like preparing food, so drop a pair of brown sugar Pop-Tarts into the toaster and wash a golden delicious apple, dinner! Yesterday I ate a salad (lettuce, carrots, green peppers, tomato, cucumber, cool ranch Doritos [crushed], cubed ham, shredded cheese and ranch dressing). That was all, unless you count Cadbury Cream Eggs, I had a few of those. Friday I ate one of my specialties, rice with cream of chicken soup, canned chicken, black olives, peas, pineapple and hot sauce. This is my standby. I'll make up a bunch of that and eat it for a week. But that's all I ate that day, along with an apple fritter I picked up on campus on my way to class, but that was all. Somehow, I remain alive and feel pretty good most of the time. It really is amazing what our bodies can survive on...

The rest of this post can be found in the Ajax's Whimsical Revolution ebook for Amazon's Kindle. The book is a compilation of my favorite posts, 78 to be exact, of which this is one. If you don't have a Kindle e-reader you can download the free Amazon Kindle app for PC or Mac.

What If The Titanic Actually Made it to New York?

Yes, that is the question posed by Hollywood director Martin Scrosese and writer Jay Cocks, in their movie Gangs of New York (2002). First of all, I must say, I've never seen Gangs of New York, except for about 30 minutes worth on television. I am not qualified to write a review of this movie, but for some reason the idea hit me that I should, so now I am. As my title suggests, this movie is about what would have happened if the Titanic had actually made it to New York. Before we get to that part of the plot, however, let's start at the begining. The movie opens with a young boy seeing his father brutally murdered, I think. I don't know what that has to do with anything because next thing we see is the Titanic arriving and Leonardo DiCaprio walking up the dock. He is alone though, so I'm guessing Kate Winslet got tired of their little love boat trist and went back to the angry rich man. Money always wins out over 19th century immigrant charm. It is so unfair. Anway, Leo gets a job working for Doc, stocking shelves and sweeping up, but mostly hanging around the alley stacking cases of Coke and fretting in the basement. He frets a lot. Before long, that snake oil salesman from Disney's Pete's Dragon (1977), played by Daniel Day Lewis, comes along and tricks Leo into fighting with his gang for control of Times Square (it wasn't Times Square yet, but you can tell that's what it will become because they are building the New Year's Eve ball on top of the saloon). Daniel Day Lewis needs Leo because he has a hard time saying the name of the town he was just run out of, and Leo, being an immigrant, is able to pronounce the European name. You might think this sounds a little too much like West Side Story (1961), and you are right, its basically the same movie, only instead of 1960's era ballet and show tunes, these guys actually beat each other to death. So Leo and the snake oil salesman get their group together and go to Times Square where several other groups are assembled, at least one group is from the Broadway set of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, as witnessed by their flamboyantly colored suits. Why they were invited to the tussel I will never understand. I won't spoil the end of the movie for you, you'll just have to watch it, but I wouldn't recommend it, I hear it gets pretty graphic. All in all it is a story of romance and fun and friendship bonds that last into retirement years spent in rocking chairs on the fire escape.

Waking Up is the Worst Part of the Day

I really don't like waking up. Especially when the temperature outside is 70 degrees less than the temperature inside. My alarm sings the "Psych" theme song and I wake up, but then I remember that old Christmas classic, "the weather outside is frightful, and my bed is so delightful..." or something like that. I'll tell you why waking up is the worst part of the day; there are two reasons.

1. Elementary school playground logic - Sleeping is comfortable and stress free, being awake is less of each of those. This discrepancy causes cognitive dissonance. We are happy asleep, but we are waking up, and probably would prefer to stay asleep. This means our actions are not in line with our thinking, hence the dissonance. How do we deal with dissonance? Rationalization! Adding a new cognition, or thought, to be precise. This is why I like to use elementary school playground logic. Remember this "first is the worst, second is the best, third is the one with the hairy chest"? This is adding a new cognition. In order to feel good about yourself when you come in second in the race for the swings at recess, you sing this little song to the person who beat you, and for good measure you alienate the person who came in right after you. Makes perfect sense. Anyway, I add this cognition, and it works, because the first thing I do each day is wake up, practically speaking. Technically you could say the first thing I do is sleep, as I am asleep at midnight when the calendar says it is a new day. But to embrace that idea would be to harsh on my buzz from harshing on waking up. If I acknowledge that the first thing I do each day is sleep for 6 hours, how do I have any ground to stand my complaints on? To sum it up, the first thing I do is wake up, and first is the worst...

The rest of this post can be found in the Ajax's Whimsical Revolution ebook for Amazon's Kindle. The book is a compilation of my favorite posts, 78 to be exact, of which this is one. If you don't have a Kindle e-reader you can download the free Amazon Kindle app for PC or Mac.

Introduction

My name is Ajax. I'm just a person. I have a lot that I think about and a lot that I like to say, just like every other person. Sometimes I get tired of my regular routine and I just want to do something different. Today, that something different is to start a blog.

I am a university student in the United States. I have served in the United States Army and have spent some time in a volunteer service position. I have worked for a state goverment department for a few years as well. Finally, nine years after graduating from high school I decided to try college. I have both enjoyed and despised college. For one, I like to learn. I enjoy reading about things that are new or generally interesting to me. I like to try new things and problem solve. I enjoy using my creativity and rational thought processes. So what about college makes me despise it? Sometimes the social interaction, but mostly I don't like the established methods of learning that college embraces. I like learning, but I like it on my terms. Probably just like everyone. Here is the thing, I don't think I'm that much different than anyone else. I certainly don't think I'm better than most people, but I know I'm not worse than most people either. Regardless, sometimes I like college, other times I don't; sometimes because of school and sometimes the social atmosphere. For better and for worse.

I don't want to implicate people or places or groups with my musings and rants, so I'll try to keep this anonymous. The only other background necessary is to know that my school is highly conservative. This is one of the reasons I like it. My values fit in well with those of the school. Unfortunately, in my opinion, some people when in groups lose their ability to exercise common sense or to think outside of themselves. This is what I mean when I say I don't always care for the social atmosphere where I am. It is all part of my learning experience. College teaches me practical, academic skills and ideas as well as human relations. Each as vitally important for living life as the others.

My best friend encouraged me to do this blog. He is the one that benefits from my daily adventures and the stories I live - and subsequently relate to him. He either thinks my stories are entertaining enough to share, or he is sick of them and wants me to shift my pouring out of thoughts to another victim. I choose the first option. He is the one that named me Ajax, and gave me the title of being a whimsical revolutionary. He is the Muffin Man. Maybe I'll tell his story one of these days, or allow him to.

Well, getting this down is the first step. As I do have responsibilities to attend to, I must be going. Remember, I'm just a person. I have things I need to do to maintain my life from day to day. I live in a society that has certain expectations of contribution from me, in return for which I receive basic safety and security. I support the United States, with all of its failings. My revolution isn't governmental, it is personal. Individual. There are answers to our problems as a society, but we have to unite to find them, and they might not be easy, but they don't have to be harder than we make them. Things in the world are bad, but they can be worse. It starts with the individual, no governmental faction is going to rescue us from this. I don't know the answers, but I like to speculate and tell people what I think, hence this blog. If you don't like Ajax's whimsical revolution, take it up with Muffin Man, he encouraged me. You can write him a letter, his address is Muffin Man, The Moon of Earth. Seriously, he lives up there...maybe.