"this will make a great blog entry"

Those are the words that spun through my mind as I sat in the dentist chair today, inhaling as much nitrous oxide as I could draw through my nose in a single breath... although now, several hours later I can not even vaguely remember what it was that would have made such a compelling blog entry... not that its going to stop me from rambling on about the incident anyway.

One thing I find interesting about nitrous oxide is that it isn't used in place of anything at the dentist, but simply a means to enhance the relaxation factor of a patient.

Today, as the apparatus was strapped over my nose my first thought was that I was doing something horribly wrong and possibly illegal. It may sound silly but I felt incredibly guilty. Was I pulling one over on my dental professionals? What ever went down I could not let on that I was enjoying it. By "enjoying it" I mean the gas, not the visit to the chair.

About 5 minutes after "the gas" had started flowing I could feel my finger tips getting tingly and I kept noticing how tense I was in my neck. I would let it droop a little more into the chair before realizing I was still too tense and needed to relax some more. After ten minutes I couldn't have been settled any deeper into that chair if I had been traveling at 800 g's through space and time. And that was when my cover was nearly blown.

The radio playing in the office started blasting that Michael Jackson song from so long ago, you know the one about how "it don't matter if you're black or white" and I started laughing out loud. I panicked thinking that I was about to lose my gas privileges but covered it nicely by admitting (quite truthfully for that matter) that I always laugh when I hear that song.

And no, it's not because I'm a racist who is misguided enough to believe it actually does matter what color you are. That is preposterous. I pretty much laugh at any song where Michael Jackson is belting out the lyrics... except for maybe ABC, cause that song rules and anyone who doesn't think so is a bitch.

But by then I didn't care about anything because I was drifting on clouds imaging what a great blog entry this was going to make. I was at the dentist for a cleaning. A deep cleaning, which I soon discovered is far less pleasant than the cleanings of my youth which were by far the least traumatic of all dental appointments. Imagine my surprise when I walked away feeling like I'd been punched in the side of the face.

First I got numbed up locally before the dentist came in to really deaden my face. When the good Doctor arrived I was reminded of the scene from Planet Terror where the anesthesiologist talks about her three little friends in the form of three different colors of needles.

While he (the dentist that is) was getting me all numbed up I kept thinking I absolutely had to make some joke about how nice it would be to get all numbed up while standing in line at the DMV... God, I'm glad I didn't actually make that joke. Although it would be nice to get some sort of shot when you get your number that reads 8,326 and the loudspeaker announces "now serving number 2!"

But I digress.

After a while I also noticed how slowly my thoughts were rolling through my head. They were coming out at the speed of a dot-matrix printout. I remember thinking to myself at one point "wow, my thoughts are really slow" and before that entire string of words completed itself inside my brain, someone had walked into the room where I was having my work done and carried out a fairly lengthy conversation with the hygienist that was working on my teeth. It was as if I was stuck in the slow lane of the fourth dimension.

Perhaps this blog entry blows chunks but at least I didn't blog about blowing chunks... although I suppose I can make no promises for the future except that you probably know I won't ever do it.

Many of you may be aware I have a weak stomach and despite the fact that I have several entertaining stories about worshiping the porcelain god, the thought of even relating them makes me want to vomit... excuse me!

meeting of the minds

I'd comment but I'm laughing too hard.

one mystery of the universe revealed

Ever wonder what happened to all that sawdust from your high school wood shop that wasn't used to soak up vomit?

I used to wonder but now I know. You might know too if you've ever paid less than two dollars for a one pound bag of corn chips.

YouTube Saturday

Last year my wife got tickets to Muse for my birthday. I had heard they were amazing live but nothing could have prepared me for a show that was ultimately one of the coolest things I have ever witnessed that did not feature Bruce Campbell. This is one of those rare bands who seem to write music for the specific purpose of playing it live. Some bands don't sound quite right live compared to the over-produced tracks they put on the airwaves but not these guys. This will sound like bragging, but I really believe that if you haven't heard them live then you haven't heard Muse. The night was a little surreal considering that the lead singer for the band that opened was Juliet Lewis. That's right, she has a band. That part if the evening was a little odd...

But I digress.

The last song Muse played was a little ditty called "Stockholm Syndrome." As far as I'm concerned, this six or seven minutes alone was worth the price of admission.

Why do I even bring any of this up at all?

I haven't really had more than an hour of sleep over the last two and a half days (and I mean one hour total) and today is the second time I've taken a sleeping pill to get some rest but for whatever reason, the little blue friend of mine (in pill-shaped form) that has never let me down is failing me the second day in a row.

And I digress even farther.

The bottom line is that I've tried to take my mind off things by watching some YouTube and after poking around a bit, I hit on this performance from 2004. I can only warn you that it doesn't do much justice to the live experience but I really wanted to post something that was not only upbeat, but kicks ass.

I'm sure I'll be back soon enough to my ranting and raving about life, the universe, and cheese fries quicker than something that happens really fast. But for the time being... for this morning, I give you Muse playing one of the finest entries in their kick-ass repertoire.