Would You Believe? A Friday Fiver

1. Would you believe that ... I am ending the week with my to do list entirely done, except for the item that I need to call Shadalan because she and I seem to play endless phone tag. Endless. I don't know how this happened, because please believe that having a job and running a second business and starting another business and getting ready for a weekend in Denver and then a wedding and then three weeks on the Asian subcontinent is extensive, especially when you were on a mountain with no phone or internet for the previous week. I'm pretty happy.

2. Would you believe that ... this is the actual image from an ad running on Facebook:



And the text that accompanies this ad is "This is pretty gross, huh?". And it's for weight loss. Now, I don't necessarily think that being on the non-anorexic side of things is gross, though I do think that being a size ten and dressing like you're a size four is gross. You wouldn't see me trying to squeeze into a size zero because that size would be too small for my body and I would look fat and messy. But, you know, I can't decide if I find the ad offensive or not, honestly? I mean, I do not think that we need to be dogging on the overweight folks who, in actuality aren't overweight. However, I think we also go too far with the "love your body no matter what" mentality, and the truth is that most people are going to look at some nasty, white trash muffin top and think that it's gross. I might actually applaud the ad for it's honesty. I don't know. What I do know is that that may be one of the most brilliant ads ever because you can't not look at it. It's totally shocking, and I bet it shocks some people into purchasing, which is unfortunate because ...

The other thing I know is that putting a pink patch on your arm with some herbal supplements in it will not cause you to gain weight.

3. Would you believe that ... I'm going to Mongolia in about two weeks? I remember being in high school and dreaming that some day I'd see the world, and now we're riding horses across the desert in Mongolia for two weeks. Crazy, right? I am excited beyond belief. I need an extra camera battery. I need to find a cat sitter. I need to book a flight back from Pennsylvania for after. I need ... to relax about it and let it run its course.

4. Would you believe that ... that there is a bar in San Francisco called "Would You Believe." It's in Chinatown 3 and specializes in mixing Kaluha with ANYTHING. It is the Asian gangster dive bar of all Asian gangster dive bars. The night that shamus and Slappy and I were in there there were actually police trying to track down a gang leader, and only one person other than us who was white. And it is one of my most favorite places on the entire earth.

5. Would you believe that ... the rest of that Kid Rock album is actually pretty good? "How to seek salvation when our nations race relations have me feeling guilty about being white?" That's a pretty good lyric. "Rock and Roll Jesus" is a good song for what it's supposed to be doing. Yeah, I'm going to say it. I liked the album, just hated the single.

Happy weekend.