DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

So I’m standing in the kitchen, making some sort of macrobiotic vegan meal with the recommended balance of Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids and all 9 essential amino acids — ok, just kidding, I was waiting for a frozen burrito to heat up — when I hear an electronic chirp sound from down the hall. I don’t keep birds, especially battery-powered birds, so the sound must have come from a smoke alarm.

On my way down the hall, I hear the sound again, coming from inside my office. Inside, I step up on the chair and twist the alarm down from the ceiling. It chirps again, loudly, and I nearly topple over in surprise. I recover my balance, step down, and pull the battery out of the back of the unit.

Returning to the kitchen, I’m checking on the state of the frozen block of pureed vegetable goo in the center of my entree, and I hear a chirp sound from down the hall. I pause, considering my options. Without moving my head, I slowly scan the room with my eyes: Who’s fucking with me this time?

Back in the office, I double-check the alarm I’ve just eviscerated. The battery really is disconnected. I put it back in. The alarm chirps at me, loudly. I take out the battery. Then I hear a chirp from the hallway — ahh, the other alarm. What are the odds that both alarms would die within minutes of each other?

I resolve not to repeat my grab-and-spin dance to retrieve the second alarm until after dinner. And I retire to the lanai for a refreshing meal, except for the cold part in the middle.

Later that evening, I relate the above story to my wife, and, reminded of the unfinished business, arrange a stool and climb up to check on the remaining alarm. I flip open the cover to face an unexpected surprise: the battery is disconnected. A centimeter of air separates the battery from the terminals. I don’t see any tiny 9V sparks bridging the gap.

“That can’t be right,” I say stupidly as I push the battery forward in its track until it makes contact. The alarm responds with a full-throttle shriek, as if, just before connecting the battery, I’d set fire to my hair. In surprise, I nearly topple from the stool, but recover (with surprising grace), to immediately document the event upon this website, along with the question: Which one of you is doing this?

Human Cannonball Misses Target [CNN video]

More, from the Miami Herald: Family members said he overshot an inflatable cushion by 25 feet, landed on his feet and then, carried by his momentum, crashed headfirst into a temporary fence made of fiberglass.

Update! New evidence suggests the cannonball actually landed on his head.

I was just telling my wife about a song on “side one” of the new Dream Theater “album,” which is in actuality a 2-CD recording that has no “sides” at all. I have to laugh — not only do I still own vinyl; I still think vinyl.

Steve Rubenstein, in the spirit of Jon Carroll’s grassroots anti-junkmail campaign, offers a great suggestion for fighting back against telephone solicitors. Your blood pressure will stay low, the solicitor will lose money, and the person whose phone number is 1 higher than yours will thank you.

I’ve been following the diet-and-fitness cycle around the back side of the loop, and have recently refocused my efforts: cleaner diet, better and more rigorously-scheduled exercise. The display on my treadmill tells me that I burn 500 calories in a typical workout, which I feel great about, as it helps justify my typical breakfast, which I affectionately call “the thousand-calorie bowl of cereal” — basically as much granola as I can fit in the bowl. I have to carry the rice milk to the table now because there isn’t enough room in the bowl for it.

Geeks have an odd but traditional bond with cereal. Recall that in Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson goes on for five pages about “world-class cereal-eating,” describing in detail the architecture of Captain Crunch, the ideal temperature and composition of milk, and a comprehensive technique for consuming large quanities of both before they combine to form a “pit of loathsome slime” in the bowl. (If you already own the book, see Crunch, p. 475 of the Perennial paperback edition. If you have a different edition, the passage in question immediately precedes the PERL script referenced (by page number) in the Acknowledgements.)

The geek/cereal connection can’t touch the geek/caffeine connection, of course. ThinkGeek has so many caffeinated gifts, they have to break them down into three categories: caffeinated drinks, caffeinated candy, caffeinated accessories. Assuming you’d enjoy drinking something called Bawls, you can even set up scheduled deliveries. Heh.

I feel fortunate that I never developed a need for caffeine, which is basically a habit-forming chemical stimulant that’s been implicated in a number of health concerns, but which according to the National Coffee Association will not cause coronary disease, birth defects, or osteoporosis.

Of course I’m missing out on coffee culture — the privilege of sitting on the curb outside a designer coffee place on Sunday morning, $4 latte in one hand, cellphone and SUV keys in the other, to vigorously debate the fall of civilization as evidenced by the long line at the cinnamon- and cocoa-shakers.