How To Make Tomato Sauce (A Comic)

A (hypothetical) confrontation between me and a grumpy customer. I'm not even going to tell you how long this took....Enjoy?

Chicken or the Egg?

I was stackin apples a couple days ago, and began pondering some heavy stuff. How much control do we really have over our lives? Are there universal ingredients to perfect happiness, or is it relative to everyone based on personality? And above all, which came first: The Chicken or the Egg?


AHA! Now THAT'S a question I believe I can answer. It took some careful speculation and hypothesizing, and several other scientifically based actions as I questioned how something could come from nothing, and so forth.

And then I had an epiphany.

My friends, the real question is: the barbecue or the frying pan? Here's why:

 Law number A: If there was a need to cook a new item, that need would be met...and therefore that item would be cooked. I believe Darwin said this, in some form or another.

If that new item was the egg, then surely these Neanderthals wouldn't bother with a barbecue for the chicken, as they'd wrack their jelly-brains for a way to cook this potentially delicious new egg.

And if the chicken came first, then they wouldn't waste their time with a frying pan. They'd toss the bird on a rotisserie spit and barbecue that sucker. Right?

That's detective work. Here's where it gets interesting.

The cast-iron frying pan couldn't have possibly been invented until the Iron Age (circa 1000 BCE), with the arrival of Teflon not until a few years later.

The idea of cooking something over hot coals is clearly much older than that, as some archeological sites have found remnants of BroilKing manuals from 25 000 years ago.  Back then you bought a 'build your own fire' kit. So we can safely assume that since the barbecue was invented first, the Chicken, in fact, must have existed before the egg. Cause and effect.

So where were these chickens coming from if there were no eggs?

It wasn't until the failing numbers of Storks stopped bringing baby chickens to their mothers that evolution introduced a new adaptation: the egg. And that gave way to the birth of the iron age, as suddenly humanity needed a frying pan.

I'm glad safeway pays me to come up with this stuff.

And just so you know:
I updated Wikipedia with this theory so everyone will know the truth. You're welcome.

I think all this pondering of eggs is because I stupidly purchases 120 extra large eggs a week ago. Only three people eat eggs in my house. So in order to finish them in even a MONTH, we need to eat 30 eggs a week, that's 10 eggs a person per week. That's too many eggs. I could go for some chicken.

I Miss My Sister

My younger sister, Teja, has been gone three months as part of an exchange trip. She just left Quebec, and now she's off to Mali for the remaining three months. The wonderful picture of autumn was taken by her before she left for Africa. Teja is one of those people who consistently shows me up in everything, including academics. She is super hard working, too wise, and a great friend. We need more people like Teja in our lives, that's for sure. But she ain't dead, she's just saving the world one day at a time. So let's stop talking like it's a freakin' eulogy.

Instead, let's make fun of her.

Ah yes...there's the Josh we know.

A long while back (three years ago?), we were taking care of our two much-younger siblings, and had just finished putting them to bed. She, of course, did most of the work, and I did whatever I felt like. In this case, it was playing Playstation. Anyone else have trouble pausing Turok to do chores?

"Hey, Teja," I said, as she came down the stairs after putting the kids to bed, "The dog needs to go out." I almost never refer to the dog by its name, Ginger, for fear that it might think I like it. And to think I spent HOURS arguing with my parents when I was 10 about how it was terribly unfair and outright dumb that we couldn't have a cute widdle puppy dawg to pway wif when we gots home from book-learnin'. But that fad died and the dog lives on. So here we are, 8 years later, and I don't even want to walk outside and watch it pee. Can ya blame me?

Sshh.

"Josh, you take her out. I'm going to feed her after."

"Nah..you can take her out too. I'm busy."

"I have a TON of homework to do and dishes aren't done yet!"

"Ok," I sighed. I can be reasonable. "Tell you what. We'll flip a coin. Heads, I win. Tails, you lose. Aight?"

"...fine. But if I win, you're feeding her--and doing the dishes too."

"Ok."

And so I flipped that quarter and let it land right on the floor so she would know I hadn't rigged this in any way.

"Tails. You lose."

"Gah!" she said, as she went to grab a leash.

I chuckled to myself evilly as I realised I was getting away with this.

(If you haven't figured this out already...this joke's on you too)

As she's heading out the door, she throws a glance at me and sees my suspicious smile. Her eyes widen and she gasps. "Wait a minute!"

Oh no, I thought. She's figured it out.

She walked towards me with an outstretched hand, brows furrowed. "Let me see both sides of that coin!"

Miss you lots!

Also...

*~^~^~50th Post~^~^~*

Booya.

I just discovered this comic today!

A man decided to go for a walk

since it was a really nice day. He called out to his pet centipede who was upstairs.

"Hey Centipede! Let's go for a walk!"

A couple minutes went by, and there was no response.

"Hey Centipede! Let's go for a walk!!"

Still no response, the man was getting impatient.

"HEY CENTIPEDE! LET'S GO FOR A WALK!"

The centipede yells back:

"Take it easy! I'm putting on my shoes!!"

A Taste of Pavement

On June 25th, I got hit by a car.>>

Here's the story...

It was 11.10pm and I was biking home from Safeway after work. I was heading eastbound through the stoplight intersection at Dalhousie drive and Dalford Road. It was dark(I was wearing black pants and shoes, and a brown hoodie. No helmet. Feel free to chastise; I fully understand how stupid that is), and the streets basically empty. The wind at my back, I was going at least 40km/hr through the stale green light. A black SUV (Hyundai Santa Fe) approached the intersection from the opposite direction and signaled to make a left hand turn (across my path).

Fully comprehending that I had the right of way, I proceeded through the light (as I did, it turned yellow....irrelevant) expecting him to yield. He slowed down for a split second and then accelerated as he turned--smashing into me and my bike. Luckily, he hit the back half of my bike, narrowly missing my legs. I catapulted forward about 8 feet and bounced along the pavement landing primarily on my left side and face. Again, this is that moment where I cringe to think about how it should have been since I had no helmet. I wish I could remember the actual flying-through-the-air part, but your brain shuts right down when things like this happen.

My bike landed on top of me, pinning my body to the ground. I couldn't move a muscle. First word out of my mouth: "OW!" in a more irritated and strained than frantic voice. I could feel my legs and feet, but the weight of the bike was too much to pull free from without extreme pain. Almost a minute later, as I laid there trying to catch my breath and figure out if I had broken anything, a white man in his early 30s got out of the SUV and walked slowly towards me.

"Hey, buddy," he said in a vaguely curious voice, "you OK?" He stops beside me, staring down.

Heck no, I'm not okay. I just got hit by a car. What a dumb question. But I'm breathing, not gushing blood, and nothing is broken.

"Yeah...can you take the bike off of me?"

I laid there trying to figure out how to move my legs without sending brutally sharp pain up to my neck. A car slows down beside us and rolls down his window. "Hey guys...did you know your car is blocking the road?"

I looked at the black SUV behind me. He had completed his turn and then stopped. Fair enough, it was blocking traffic, but could this guy not clearly see I had just taken quite the fall?! I shook my head at him. Gosh, I thought, now I feel bad since I'm blocking the road too. Pffff...idiot.

Almost as soon as I stood up, I checked my bike for damage. The handle bars wouldn't turn, but nothing was noticeably messed up. He handed me my backpack and water bottle and said "I'm sure I had my turning signal on, so I don't know how that happened. I didn't even see you. But you seem to be okay, so i'm going to head off.

This frustrated me on so many levels. First, I don't care if he had his turning signal on. That means he plans on turning left--it doesn't imply that he's planning on taking out a biker as well. Also, just because I can stand up doesn't mean I'm fine. I still couldn't stand up straight. I had lower back spasms with every step. My bike wasn't in working order. How did this guy expect me to get home?

I made a note of his license plate and car make/model, and told him he should drive me home. He said he had to pick up his fiancé from Safeway first (she worked at the Dalhousie store). I laid on the side of the road and called Darcy. I calmly told him that I was hit by a car, and asked him to look up the legal aspects of this situation. I definitely handled the whole thing with a level head. The other guy (his name is Andrew) was either in shock (understandable) or not very bright. He dropped me off at home where we inspected the damage on his car: a powdering of dust from my bike. I later realized my bike was in perfect shape; the handle bars had just been turned 360 degrees, causing them to not turn properly.

How is this possible? I was hit pretty hard with no helmet. And all I had to show for it was a tiny cut on my ankle from the bike landing on me. My bike was in perfect shape. DUST on his bumper? Granted, my body has been a mess for the last few days and only now can bend down to touch the ground. But seriously, I got very lucky.

I filled out a police report the next day. The police called in the driver (Andrew) and asked for his version of the events.

Andrew claimed I knowingly ran a red light and apologized for it after he hit me. Funny, since he offered to pay for any bike damages. The cops can't really rule it one way or the other since nobody else saw this happen. I don't really know what my options are legally, but I plan on finding out. I wouldn't be all that angry if he hadn't lied. But now it's war.

I have more to write about, but it can wait for a couple days. Congratulations for actually reading this whole post...sorry for the length. Feel free to leave a comment.

Bonus joke: "Doubly-wrong"

"Hey Josh, I saw just-born kittens today. I named one 'Cat'. "
"Of course you did, Darcy, that's just like you: simple and minimalist."
"One of the other ones was named Napoleon."
"As in the explorer, or the ice cream?"