I went for a jog the other day, and was surprised to run through several clouds of gnats. This is obviously not a huge deal, but it is a bit annoying to have little bugs plunging into your mouth and eyes. However, what I thought was strange, is that this particular day, was the first warm day we had had in a little while. When it is cold out, there are not any bugs to speak of. But the first day that it had warmed up, they were out in numbers.

I'm just curious what gnats do while it's cold. Where are they all hiding? Do they just sit somewhere till it gets warm enough to fly into peoples' eyes?? They are like a bunch of kamikaze's, waiting for it to warm up so they can die in order to slightly irritate someone. I wouldn't mind sitting down with the king of the gnats, and explaining that these kamikaze deaths are not necessarily the honorable deaths that they think they are.

"How are you doing mr. gnat??"
- I'm doin alright, thanks...how can I help you??
"Well, I've noticed that your followers seem to try and fly into people's eyes and mouths."
- Ahh...yes, I was wondering when this was going to come up. It is the nature of war my son...we have many that are willing to die in honor, to protect ourselves, and our way of life.
"To be frank with you, people are not really at war with gnats...we just can't see you and accidentally walk into you....We would rather stay away from you honestly. Furthermore...about the honorable deaths you speak of...they don't really achieve very much at all...it just kind of irritates us for a minute till we get the dead body out of our eye or mouth."
- I see...you understand why this is very disturbing news to me....we will now need many more soldiers willing to die to slay our enemy.
"No...no, actually that wasn't my point. I don't think you will be able to kill any humans that way...you are just sacrificing gnats for nothing.
- That is your opinion...as soon as the weather warms up permanently...we will be out in full force, defending ourselves!! (flies out of the room)


Well that didn't go as planned. Sorry everyone, I may have just made our relationship with the gnats much, much worse.


Happy New Year, and beware of the gnats.

Sometimes I have a weird fantasy where I pretend to tour someone around from a long time ago. When I say a long time ago, I'm talking like pre-electricitybeingdiscovered. Actually, I think it's usually someone from really far back, like middle ages far.

I play out the conversations and imagine driving a man from the past around in my car. He would obviously be so astounded by the speed of the car. I would then play him different samples of music, and then laugh because he would say something like, "this isn't music, this is just noise!"

But then I kind of hit a reality check in my fantasy. This guy would actually be horrified. He probly wouldn't get in my car because his logical line of thinking would cause him to conclude that it's an evil machine. He would be horribly confused and scared by loud music coming from speakers in my car, and wonder where the people were that should be playing it. He would then maybe have to conclude that the sounds are coming from evil spirits in my evil car. Finally, he would potentially conclude that I was also evil, and that I was trying to hurt him.

I try and calm him down, but it's too late. He's already gone and gotten a bunch of his friends from the past and they all declare war on me and my car.

I see them coming down the road in a frenzied anger, and I quickly jump in my car and drive in the opposite direction. They slow down, and then stop in my driveway...not really sure what to do next. They should have thought this through a little better.

As I'm driving along, escaping the war-hungry middle aged men (referring to their age and the time period they come from), I stop near a park, and locate one of the local doves. I quickly tie a note to his ankle, and send him off to my driveway to deliver a message. (I figure that a message by dove won't really freak them out at all, and plus, they don't have cell phones or anything, so it's not like I can send them a text).

The message reads:

Dear Middle Aged men,

I hope that your English is close enough to mine that you are understanding this message. I am sorry that I scared you. We come from different times, and I think that it would be wise for you to return to your time. Fighting will not do us any good. Please leave by sun down.

Julian

P.S. I think that it's kind of weird that you are so freaked out by my car and by modern music, but you don't mind traveling through time in a time machine. Just wanted to point that out.

(End of message)


Anyways, so as you can see, my fantasy quickly turns sour. It pretty much always ends up in war, or something close to it when I imagine hanging out with someone from the past. Maybe I'll start imagining hanging out with someone from the future, and see if we can avoid getting violent.

I was watching discovery channel, or animal planet...one of those two the other week, and I saw a segment on the colossal squid. I had heard of a giant squid before, and when they started talking about it, I assumed that a colossal squid was a really big giant squid. However, I soon learned that the colossal squid is actually a different species of squid, and is bigger than the giant squid. I bet scientists felt stupid when they were thinking of a name for it, and they had already named a species, "giant squid."

"Hey, we found another species of squid!"
"Wow! what's it like??"
"it's huge! It's actually bigger than a giant squid!"
"You sure it's not just a really big giant squid??"
"Yeah, it has a different body type, different tentacles...lots of differences!......what's wrong???"
"Well, what are we supposed to call it?? Really giant squid??"
"Oh, yeah...I dont know."
"I told Ron!! I told him not to name the species giant squid!! I told him we might find something bigger!!"
"Look, it's not a big deal, we can just call it colossal squid or something..."
"yeah, I guess so....it sounds kinda stupid though...."
"Kinda...but we'll get used to it..."
"I guess so..."

anyways, here is a picture of the first colossal squid caught. They can grow up to 50 feet long including their tentacles. This one was about 33 feet long. They also have sharp teeth lining their tentacles...and some of them swivel. So try to avoid swimming to deeper than 1000m in the ocean, cuz they can be quite dangerous.

I was driving home from downtown Raleigh earlier tonight, and I passed a Denny's. Normally, I wouldn't have been phased by a Denny's....passing one is a fairly unimportant, uninteresting event. However, the sign outside the Denny's was advertising something I found quite unusual. It read... "We have a turkey sausage." Now, I guess the type of person who likes a turkey burger, would also be interested in eating a turkey sausage. However, I didn't realize that turkey sausages were such a sought after item, that one would advertise specifically for them. Did the restaurant get busier once people knew that they had turkey sausages??

I would stop here, but I also have to point out that the sign specifically read, that they had a turkey sausage. I can't imagine the swarms of people who must be turning hard into the Denny's parking lot to take a crack at getting that last turkey sausage. I mean, people are probably calling their loved ones proclaiming the gravity of this event...

"There's only one left!"
"One what???"
"One Turkey Sausage!!"
"NOOOO! Do you think you have a chance at it????"
"I don't know! I'm pulling a u-turn at the next light and getting there as soon as I can!"
"Hurry honey!! HURRY!!!"....

(calls back 5 minutes later)

"Hey! False alarm....turns out it was a typo....they don't only have one left."
"Oh my gosh...they really need to get that fixed! Did you complain??"
"Oh don't worry, I gave them a piece of my mind.....a real piece of my mind!!!.....well, do you need anything from harris teeter?? I'm gonna stop by on the way home."
"No, I think I'm good.....oh actually, could you get a little more cheese??? extra sharp cheddar would be great."
"No problem."

I realized recently that my blog doesn't have a lot of spunk. What I mean by that, is that I don't have any pictures posted. So I thought I would post this really cool picture for ya'll.
"Julian, why did you choose a picture of a duck?"
..what do you mean?
"I'm just curious as to why you chose a picture of a duck, because it doesn't seem to have any relevance to your blog."
..you don't like it?
"I mean, it's fine...it's a nice looking duck. But I just feel like it's kind of random."
..oh. Do you not see the illusion?
"Umm.......no, I just see a duck. Is there one?"
..Nope....but that's the illusion.
"I'm confused...the illusion is that there isn't an illusion?"
..Yep!
"That actually doesn't make sense."
..It does make sense...you think that there's an illusion, but then when you look for it, there isn't one.
"Well I didn't think there was an illusion until you told me there was."
..But there isn't one.
"Well....I know that now.......you're an idiot."
..hey, you win some you lose some................so do you like the picture?
"Yes, it's a very nice duck."
..thanks.

I was at the beach a little while ago, and I realized how much I loved just going for walks along the water's edge. It is so comforting to have that thin layer of water rushing back and forth over my feet as I venture along in deep thought. I like it so much, that I think it would be cool if all the sidewalks in the world had a thin layer of water on them, and we could walk around barefoot. Of course this idea, having a multitude of problems, could probably never happen. I would say I'm 82% sure that it could never happen. However, I wouldn't mind settling for having a thin layer of water all throughout my house. Just kind of rushing around from little jets, escaping into vents, and cascading down the stairs. People would come into my house and ask...
"Should I take my shoes off??"
I would answer..."I think that would probably be a good idea!!! HAHA!"
Then they would look around, and say..."Oh...haha, I get it! You have a thin layer of water everywhere! How comforting for a person's feet!"
I would be the most popular guy in town...they would call me "the water man"...
"Julian, couldn't you think of a better name?"
"I SAID WATER MAN!"

Anyways...this is just a little dream I have. I'm about 53% sure that it probably won't ever happen. But hey, you can't fault a guy for dreaming.

Sometimes, if I'm in a quiet room with someone else, and neither of us are talking, I like to look over to them and silently mouth words so that maybe for a split second, they think they are deaf...
"Julian, What are you doing?"
"Did you think you were deaf?"
"No."

I think they did, really...

I actually have another story that is related to deer. However, this one is entirely true, and doesn't have any fictional dialog.

The other night, I decided to go for a run. It was about 8:30, and so it was starting to get dark. I decided to do my normal five mile loop, that brings me onto a paved nature trail for the last mile and a half. My run was going great and it felt good to be exercising in cooler temperatures. Eventually, I started approaching the trail, and it was then that I realized that that it was really dark out, and the trail wasn't lit at all, apart from occasional houses that peered through the thick forest on either side.

I came up to the trail and slowed to a walk just for a few seconds as I examined the darkness ahead of me. Just then, something caught the corner of my eye, apparently as I caught the corner of their eyes, and all of us jumped and ran at the same time. It quickly came to my attention that this was indeed four deer that had been standing a few feet away from me. I don't know what I thought it was for that first split second, but I tend to be easily startled, and wasn't a huge fan of that encounter.

It then dawned on me that there was probably going to be a whole lot of deer along this dark path. So I decided to warn them of my approach so that they could get clear of me, and no one would get startled. I decided to use the sound "heep," something I picked up from some friends, to bring attention to myself as I ran along. It was really surprising how many deer were chillin along the trail, and I was very pleased that my strategy was working, as they jumped off into the woods well before I was near them.

As I mentioned before, there were indeed some houses that lined the woods, and occasionally you could see the back decks through the woods. Eventually there was one house, that was clearly visible, and I noticed right away that there were three women standing on the back deck, peering cautiously in my direction. I slowed down without saying anything. Then one of the women said, "are you a person??" I immediately realized that I had been uttering a very peculiar sound quite loudly for the last five minutes, and it was probly pretty audible to anyone nearby. I responded..."yeah, sorry....I was trying to scare off the deer so they wouldn't startle me." The woman replied..."oh...well you kind of scared us...maybe you should try and say a human word next time so we know you're a person, not some weird animal." I laughed along with them, apologized, and continued on my way. I was a little embarrassed, so i discontinued my audible warnings to the deer. Luckily, I think I had already scared all of them off, and made it home without any more encounters.

So I was looking out my window this afternoon, and there was a deer running around in the street. This would be quite normal if it had been nighttime, but it was 2 o'clock in the afternoon. So naturally I stepped outside to figure out what was going on.

Me: "Excuse me miss, is there something I can help you with?"
Deer: "umm...actually, I'm looking for cub road..do you know where that is?"
Me: "Yeah, actually you have to go back out onto the main road...wait...what are you doin there?
Deer: "I'm late for a lunch date..."
Me: "Like with a person??"
Deer: "Well yeah...what do you mean??"
Me: "Well you are a deer."
Deer: "Oh...so I'm just a deer."
Me: "I didn't say, just a deer."
Deer: "you know what, just go back into your people house, and dont bother inviting me in, because I am just a deer!!"
Me: "I wasn't going to invite you in...I dont know you at all..."
Deer: "Well good!"
Me:"......yeah, so I have to go..."
Deer:"fine! go inside your people house, and sit in your people chair, and do people things!!"
Me:(walking back to the door) " yeah, ok, I hope you find your way....goodbye"
Deer:"Goodbye, you unhelpful piece of...(door slams shut)"

That's the last time I try and help a deer.