Dental Problems

Many people find dentist visits to be, at the least, anxiety provoking. I have an extensive history with dentists dating back to when I broke a tooth in the second grade. In fact, an oral surgeon once uttered the word, Oops!" while working in my mouth. That's reassuring huh? Despite that history, the most frightening part of dental visits is...receiving the appointment reminder card in the mail. 

What? Yes, that's right. The appointment reminder card freaks me out. Every time. Again, not because I fear the dentist. I like my dentist. We chit chat about our kids who play baseball. My hygienist is delightful and I've seen her for the past 15 years. It feels like I'm just visiting old friends when I go to the dentist. So why does the appointment reminder card freak me out? It's simple. It's because the reminder card is in my own handwriting. At the conclusion of each appointment I'm handed a postcard on which I dutifully fill out my own name, address, and next appointment. My hygienist then takes the card and five and a half months later mails it to me.

So why the freak out? The freak out happens when I return home on any idle Tuesday and get my mail. As I rifle through the assorted bills and junk mail suddenly I come across a handwritten postcard that stands out because it's handwritten, as so little mail we receive these days is. Usually when I receive mail with a handwritten name and address I don't recognize the writing. This time however the writing is oddly familiar. I know it, but at first I don't know to whom the script belongs. I think, "why do I know this writing?" It's just a brief moment, but for some reason I hate that moment of knowing that I recognize the writing but I'm not certain whose it is. It's kind of an eerie feeling as if someone is screwing with me. Like it might be a serial killer dressed in a clown costume taunting me by mail before he stalks me in earnest and eventually sneaks into my house to leave my bunny boiling in a pot on the stove for me to discover. Yes, for that one tenth of a second before I recognize my own handwriting, it's that kind of thing that flashes through my mind. Is it just me, or does everyone else hate getting mail from themselves? I wish they would just let me send myself an e-mail. 

If you enjoy my nonsense and want to send me an electronic reminder which won't freak me out you can click the Facebook "Like" button below, follow me on Twitter @ThePhilFactor or subscribe to The Phil Factor on your Amazon Kindle or your new Kindle Fire. 

 

Unusual Things I'm Thankful For

In the United States it's traditional to get together with family on Thanksgiving and share the important things you're thankful for before gorging yourself on a meal centered upon the large, dead carcass of the ugliest bird in North America. Every year everyone shares the usual platitudes about being thankful for family, friends and good heath. Duh! Who can't come up with that? When I decided to write this I set out to write a positive, uplifting post so that my loyal readers don't think that my every thought and written or spoken word are tinged with biting sarcasm. So without further adieu, here are some of the everyday things I am thankful for:

Satellite radio. I have over 150 stations to choose from. I can pre-program 30 of them, making them available to me at the touch of a single button. I don't ever have to listen to a radio commercial ever again. I can put my satellite radio on one station and drive my car clear across the country without ever changing the channel. All because somewhere, several miles above the Earth, is a giant satellite beaming the radio signal directly to my car. I don't care if they discover that these satellite waves, possibly going straight through my skull on their way to my radio, cause tumors. The trade off is so worth it. 

Scallops wrapped in bacon. In my opinion there is nothing else edible that can cause me to go into a swoon like scallops wrapped in bacon with a little toothpick through them. I highly recommend removing the toothpick before ingesting these wonderful little delicacies. The taste isn't half as good when half of a toothpick is scraping it's way down the inside of your esophagus. If there is a Nobel Prize for cooking somebody should get one for this idea. Now these are a food to base a holiday around!

The Name Game. You know the name game right? That little rhyming thing where you take any name and impose nonsense syllables upon it. With my name it goes like this: Philly Philly bo billy, banana fana fo Philly, me my mo milly, Philly! I didn't learn how to do this until I was 21 years old and it never fails to cheer me up or make me smile. I want to see everyone do the name game with their own name when you post a comment below. (Just for fun at home, try it with the name Ducky)

The interwebs. Thank you Al Gore for inventing it for us. Without it how would we ever find our perfect match using 29 personality variables?  Also without the interwebs I could never get the daily positive reinforcement for my ridiculous thoughts and theories that I get when I check my blog and see how many page views I got. I was always that kid that caused your teachers and parents to say, "Don't laugh, you'll only encourage him." Thank you all for encouraging me. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

If you enjoy my nonsense and want to show how thankful you are for it please click the Facebook "Like" button below, follow me on Twitter @ThePhilFactor, and subscribe to The Phil Factor on your Amazon Kindle.

 

The Curse of Bradley Cooper

People Magazine recently named their Sexiest Man Alive, and again, it wasn't me. Bradley Cooper?!!? Puh- leeze! I scrape stuff off my shoe that's sexier than Bradley Cooper. Have you noticed they always choose actors? Not once have they considered a blogger. First of all, I wasn't even interviewed. How fair is that? Go on, compare his picture, which you have to Google to even find, while I put mine right here for all to see, with mine in the top left of the page. His picture, my picture. His picture, my picture. His picture, my picture. I've been doing that all night and I still don't see it. Sexier than me? Who is doing the rating? Ray Charles? Stevie Wonder? (Why aren't there famous blind women?) I'm mean, c'mon, as far as I know he is completely unemployed right now. Meanwhile I have a full time job with health insurance and everything!

And how about Facebook, the social convention by which all human value is measured. Does Bradley let you be his Facebook friend? No, of course not. He is snooty. Snooty? Snotty! I of course will quote Ferris Bueller and let you be my Facebook friend. Check. Scoreboard, Phil again. And talk about snotty! He goes by his full name, Bradley. He's too good for Brad isn't he? Do see me going by Philip? Of course not. The Philip Factor would sound stupid and snotty. 

Raise your hand if you've read Bradley Cooper's blog? Of course you haven't! He doesn't have a blog. I do. I have a blog, a full-time job, health insurance and the ability to use what I've learned about personal hygiene. Cooper? No, no, no, and a big NO on the hygiene. Ask yourself this, who have you spent more time reading about this year, him or me? We all know the answer to that. You've been to my blog at least once or twice a week. How many times a week do you go out of your way to read what Bradley Cooper has to say? In fact, you see my picture everytime you visit this blog. Because of that you've definitely looked at my picture more than you've looked at Bradley Cooper's this year too. Do you know why? That's right, because I'm sexier. Case closed. In fact my argument here is so watertight that I doubt Bradley (read with sarcastic tone) will even attempt to refute it. In fact Bradley, if you disagree, feel free to post a comment here stating your case. 

Addendum: I had written all of the above last night with the intention of posting it this morning. Today I got up, took my dogs out, and as I re-entered my home I turned for a moment and as I turned back, the door I had just opened, much to my surprise, decided to meet me halfway, causing a 1 1/2 inch gash in my forehead that required four stitches. Bradley, you and your witchy ways may have delayed me from posting this, but I was not to be deterred. My hope is that the new scar on my forehead will only increase my ruggedly, handsome good looks to the point that People Magazine will see the error of their ways and I will supplant you. 

If you enjoy my nonsense and want to support my bid for Sexiest Blogger Alive you can subscribe to The Phil Factor on your Amazon Kindle, follow me on Twitter @ThePhilFactor and of course, scroll down a little and click the Facebook "Like" button below.

The Fountain of Youth

I've discovered the Fountain of Youth. We'll, I didn't really discover it. Someone else did and told me about it, and now I'm telling you. Well, I'm not telling you NOW. If I told you in the first paragraph you wouldn't continue reading would you?  We all want to live forever though don't we? I know I do, as long as I get to keep all my mental and physical faculties intact. Since I can't imagine myself any other way, I'm pretty sure that's how it's going to work out.

I like my teeth. I use them almost every day. They keep my face from caving in, and damn it although it may sound vain,  that's important to me. So, I've always been good about brushing my teeth at least twice a day because I hope to keep my real teeth for as long as I keep all the other parts of my body alive and functioning. According to some real, medical research I've been reading, (yeah, when motivated by the desire to live forever I'll read anything) your teeth, and mine, are important to survival, and not just because they allow us to eat food, which I'm led to believe is also important to survival. Maybe I should re-phrase that, the teeth themselves aren't all that important to survival, except for the eating part. It's the care and maintenance of said chompers which leads to a longer lifespan. 

About 5 years ago I did one of those surveys on www.realage.com to see how long I would live, and much to my surprise, how often I flossed my teeth had a significant impact on how long I would live. So, I dedicated myself to flossing at least weekly. Then about two years ago at my annual cleaning the dental hygienist said I needed to floss more because I was getting, get this, "calculus" between my teeth. Oh the horror! Calculus! I was so not a math major in high school. I barely passed trig, so I sure as hell was not ready to deal with Calculus in my 40's. I will do anything to avoid math, and calculus between my teeth did not sound good. So I re-dedicated myself to my grueling weekly flossing regimen. 

Ok, as brilliantly funny as my blog posts are, this is getting long, so I'll get to the point. I recently read that flossing your teeth daily will add 3-5 years to your life. To recap, I want to live forever, which means that eventually you'll all fall off my Facebook friend list, and hopefully you'll stipulate in your will that your children continue to read my blog. What it also means is that I'm actually flossing my teeth daily. In fact, I thought to myself, if flossing your teeth daily helps you live up to 5 years longer, I'm going to floss twice a day so I can live 10 years longer. That's right, my plan is to push the upper limits of human longevity as far as possible. Once my gums stop bleeding and my flossing muscles are no longer sore, I'll up my flossing to three times daily and then maybe four, with the longevity benefit obvious. You do the math. 90 years from now when I'm President and I  open the time capsule at the Smithsonian in D.C. and a copy of this blog post is there I think my point will have been made. 

If you enjoy my nonsense and want to bequeath the gift of humor to future generations you can subscribe to The Phil Factor on your Amazon Kindle and follow me on Twitter @ThePhilFactor.

 

 

 

 

We're All Gonna Die!

“We’re all gonna die!” It seemed very funny to shout that out during a fire drill my freshman year at Cicero High School. It was still funny to my friend John Martin and I after we realized our only consequence would be a stern talking to by the principal. Yes, when confronted I dragged my friend into it. “He dared me to,” I said. What had really happened was that in the midst of 2000 students being evacuated from our high school I had turned to my friend John and said, “Do you dare me to yell ‘We’re all gonna die’?”  Of course John took me up on my offer and unwittingly became my accomplice when I caught heat from the man.  At the time I was young and foolish with no concept of my own mortality. I thought death was something to be laughed at. I no longer think death is funny. 

I generally still do not believe in my own mortality, but I’m starting to hedge my bets in this regard. Just because it happens to other people doesn’t mean it will happen to me. As my mother always said, “If your friend jumped off a bridge does that mean you have to also?” Much to my mother’s eternal satisfaction I am answering NO. If you want to die, go ahead and do it, but I refuse to be a follower. 

My problem is that earlier this week scientists with a telescope larger than a third world country notified us that an asteroid would be buzzing our planet last night close enough to knock some branches off of the trees in my back yard. I may not believe that I am going to die, but I’m not completely unrealistic. I will admit than an asteroid, in most cases, is larger than me and if it hit me in the head I would have a hard time surviving that. Yes, I know I have a large head, but not large enough that it has it's own gravitational pull. Yet.

Who I’m really angry at is the scientists. Damn them and their ever inquisitive minds! Why did they have to tell me this? Did anyone here really want to know that getting hit by an asteroid the size of Rhode Island is a possibility? In this case ignorance was bliss. Why couldn’t the scientists just leave well enough alone? My entire life I’ve been at the top of the food chain and that has been a pretty secure feeling. Now this. Now I have to spend the rest of my life staring up at the night sky looking for black holes and asteroids. In general I figure that if a really big one hit the Earth I’d be fine as long as it didn’t hit me directly in the head. 

Maybe all this is why the scientists developed the male birth control pill. They just figured that if “we’re all gonna die” then we might as well start gettin’ jiggy with it. Yes, that’s right, I said jiggy. I'm bringin' jiggy back.  In fact, that’s probably the new science geek pick up line. “Hey baby, you know we might get hit by an asteroid any minute, so why don’t you just go ahead and get jiggy with me?” Obviously I'm cool enough to say jiggy, but the scientists aren't. When I'm elected President, or Sexiest Man Alive, whichever comes first, I'm going to pass a law stating that if the scientists see an asteroid headed our way unless they have some way to make the entire planet duck out of the way they should just shut the hell up.

 

If you enjoy my nonsense and want to make sure you don't miss an episode until the big one hits, you can subscribe to The Phil Factor on your Amazon Kindle and follow me on Twitter @ThePhilFactor.  And if you're a Cicero High School alum click the Facebook like button below so we can continue to reminisce together about our high school highjinks. And tell John I said Hi.

Daylight Stupid Time

Yeah, I posted this before. And I'm going to keep posting it until it changes. Yes, it's happening again. This weekend, in case you didn't know, Daylight Savings Time ends.First off, why isn't it called daylight spending time since we are using more daylight in the summer months?

I don't know if other countries do this, and I know that all of the states in the U.S. don't abide by it. Daylight Savings time is when we move our clocks forward an hour in the spring and move them back an hour in the fall. I think it was created about 100 years ago to give farmers more daylight in which to do their work in the fields. Call me crazy, but why the hell didn't someone just suggest that the lazy ass farmers drag themselves out of a bed a little earlier each day? Because those cud chewing, overall wearing, udder jerking lay abouts can't be bothered to set their alarm clocks we are all stuck changing time. I don't know if anyone else noticed, but about 7 or 8 years ago the U.S. Congress, in another colossal waste of their time and our tax dollars, extended daylight savings time by a few weeks on either end. At this point the farmers (except the creepy Amish ones) all have electricity and alarm clocks, which may not have been the case 100 years ago. Reportedly the reason Congress is doing this is to save energy. How will changing our clocks twice a year save energy? Don't we set our thermostats and use heat based on the outdoor temperature, not how light out it is? I'd like to save the energy I expend changing my damn clocks! I'd like Congress to tell me when I get that back. Congress is again proving to be the biggest collection of morons outside of...well...I guess I can't think of a bigger collection. Why doesn't Congress set their alarm clocks an hour earlier so they can get up early and get more of this important work done? I for one am not going to go for this stupid daylight savings time thing anymore. I don't work at a farm or for Congress, so I told my boss that for 6 months I'll be to work an hour early or late, however it works out. When I'm elected President, or Sexiest Man Alive, whichever comes first, this is going to change.

If you enjoy my nonsense and need something to do in that extra hour this weekend you can subscribe to The Phil Factor on your Amazon Kindle and follow me on Twitter @ThePhilFactor.