“Dreaming as a Goal.”

check out this short article (attached in full below, but it is found here)

“Every Monday this month we focus on some fun and healthy goals to consider in this New Year!A healthy (and inspiring) goal for 2007: Embrace daydreaming. Harnessing the power of visual imagination is an efficient and enjoyable way to activate the relaxation response. Try picturing a place from your past, where you felt happy, secure, and peaceful. Then imagine yourself there, making all the sensory impressions – smells, sounds, sights – as sharp as possible. Daydreaming is a simple, cost-effective way to feel happier and calmer in no time” 

Well… there we have it folks…  It’s official…  I have just set my new-years resolution…

“Dreaming as a Goal.” This year I hereby pledge to daydream more! being it is a “simple, cost-effective way to feel happier and calmer”.   In order to obtain and maintain Maximum relaxation… I feel i’ll need to do this at the top of every hour… for at least 30 minutes or so.  If my boss happens to catch me I just tell them that i’m following the lastest cutting-edge health advice!  since it IS a goal i wonder If I should add this to my list of objectives and accomplishments?  I think I’ll put it just after “take more naps during the day” and before “take plenty of breaks”.  What do you think?  what are some other ‘goals’ you’ve set for yourself this year? you can either post here or at the ‘new years resolution 2007’ post. found (here)

new story #2 : Explorers Extraordinaire

It’s time for another free-for-all story.  [much cheering is heard in the background]  Same rules as last time, which I’ll recap for the new readers :

  • Keep it clean.  Don’t use any cuss words nor introduce any “adult” situations.
  • Write whatever you want (except as noted above), but keep it somewhat short.
  • You can write multiple times, but not back-to-back (even with different aliases).
  • If two people write at the same time and they both won’t fit in the storyline, the latter one will be deleted.  (Nothing personal; it’s just to keep the continuity of the story.)
  • Have fun!

That’s it.  Now let’s get started…

*****

Pierre and Jacques were finishing their French caramel lattes in celebration of their just-signed contract when Jean Paul walked into the room.  Pierre, the self-proclaimed leader of the group, explained the news to J.P. (Jean Paul), that their idea of exploring and documenting the world’s mysteries had finally been accepted and funded.  Just an hour earlier, they had received the call from The Exploration Channel.  The contract called for 10 episodes, and the budget for each episode was $100,000.  That figure blew their minds, because their business, Explorers Extraordinaire, had never made that much money in an entire year, and now they could make a million dollars in one year.

The three men were chosen for their eagerness about the quest and their unusual sense of humor, along with their sense of reckless abandon, as some of the future projects may be quite dangerous.  The timeline was somewhat short, because the producers wanted to bring this show to television while nature / adventure shows were still popular.

The first exploration was to discover the truth about Nessie, the .  That seemed like a popular yet fairly easy mission to start with.  They had seen a documentary on Nessie just a few weeks ago, but the people on the show never found nor caught this monster that supposedly exists.  They each thought up various ways to catch it, and they were very eager to get started.  That afternoon, Jacques and J.P. started interviewing potential crewmen while Pierre began developing a plan.  They expected this first assignment to be a piece of cake, but little did they know what the future had in store…

Square Watermelons

I’ve been meaning to post on this for some time now. 
Apparently  there  is  a new    craze taking place in
Japan for growing square watermelons.  (okay.. .not so new now… most articles referenced were written in 2001) 

The reasons given for growing a square melon?  

1) They won’t roll off the table, and 2) they can be more efficiently stacked in a refrigerator. 

Unfortunately they aren’t too cost effective to buy… at about $83 a piece (in Japan).  Read about it (here) and (here).  I also read some articles that touted the benefits of the square watermelon because it could be sliced like bread… and stated that they were preferable because they wont “roll around in the fridge”.  

According to the article (here) they will also soon be sold in the UK.  If you are interested in growing your own square watermelon you can buy a book (here) that details how you can learn to grow your own (for about $20… still cheaper than $83 bucks and a plane ticket to Japan or the UK).  But I tend to adhere more to (this) mindset of thinking:  “it’s quite self explanatory. Put a small watermelon from your garden inside a box and let it grow.”  

If you read the comments section of that last link you will see that apparently you can also grow square tomatoes or just about any fruit.  Apparently you can also do it with Pumpkins (In order to have a ‘face’ or ‘design’ be grown into it.  But one particular guy was using “cast iron molds” and apparently the “neighborhood was terrorized by them b/c they would explode like a bomb when pumpkins outgrew them.”  All in all… good stuff.

new car advice

I’m thinking about getting a new vehicle… something really nice and loaded.  What are some features I should ask for?  (This can include devices not standard on cars or even not invented yet.  Feel free to use your imagination.  Let’s have fun with this.)