Alright, so. I was going to just post this in the bool thread, but then I realized that there's such an incredibly high volume of truly WTF-worthy stuff that happens to me that I might as well just make my own thread and update it every time. I figure that it's good to have a record of things, so that when I eventually finish the very short road trip from my current mental state to insanity my psychiatrists will be able to see that it really wasn't my fault.

Like, today.

Today I found out that my hair is only blonde at the ends of the hairs themselves, which means that I have a genetic predisposition towards frosted tips, whether I want them or not. I've been told that this means that my hair is gay, which would certainly explain a lot of the childhood taunting I received.

The other WTF-worthy thing that happened today involved Rob's Personal Quest To Be A Better Person, which is really just a fancy way of saying that I realized that I am actually kind of a totally selfish person and decided to fix it.

So, today, I get out of my car and am heading into my university to teach myself to play "Only The Good Die Young" on the piano, (because if you're going to self-teach a musical instrument using the internet, you might as well start off with the advanced stuff, since everything after that will be easy), when I see a homeless man sitting on bike, looking like he is in extreme pain.

Well, never fear! Rob to the rescue!

I gallantly ask the guy if he's okay. He informs me that he is suffering from back pain, and would really like five dollars to get some painkillers - which he immediately admits is a euphemism for beer.

Sadly, I don't have five dollars. But I do have some Advil, which is great for back pain. I tell him this, and he accepts.

This man has obviously never had Advil in his life, or else has never taken drugs in pill form. He must also have been drunk out of his mind, because I cannot fathom any possible way that this could have happened otherwise.

He sticks the gel capsules into his mouth and chews them. Like they're gummy candy or something. I made the mistake of taking an Advil cap that had leaked at little, once. Only once. There is nothing on earth that tastes that bad, and this is coming from a man who once full-on licked the Lincoln Memorial and spent this summer accidentally eating scrapings from the underside of an industrial lawn mower. Heck, I'm getting a bad aftertaste in my mouth just thinking about it.

The homeless man, however, is completely unfazed, then proceeds to ask me if I like his new bike. I agree that it is, in fact, a nice bike. He asks me what I think it's worth. The heck if I know. I just shrug. He tells me he thinks it's worth $2,200 or so. Since men who can't afford $5 beer are incredibly unlikely to be able to afford $2,200 bicycles, I nod, suddenly realizing that I am, in fact, talking to a criminal while holding a backpack containing my laptop computer and standing next to my car (which is, mercifully, locked).

It is at this point that the homeless man decides to tell me that the pills taste "spicy." Not, "like someone's making me eat a pile of leaves," or "really fricking awful," but "spicy".

I now begin edging towards the door.

"WHY DO THEY MAKE THOSE PILLS SO @#$#@ING SPICY!?!?" the homeless guy demands.

At this point, I abandon all pretence and simply run away from the guy, who is standing there with blue spittle foaming from his mouth, screaming the word "spicy" over and over.

Suffice it to say, I imagine that Sainthood can't be too far off, at this point.

lol'd

you gave an intoxicated guy some pharmaceutica?

way to go rob (:

He is probably dead.

Yes, well, at least he died painlessly.

bosco!!!!!!!!!

Besides, he was a criminal. Spider-Man would totally have my back on this one.

On a random whim, I decided to go give blood. It's a constant mystery to me why Canada Blood Services retains my number, since I had a yearlong feud with them back in 2009. (They required me to get a physical in order to become a regular donor. Their doctor refused to be in the office at any time that I might conceivably have been available, and as a result I had my donor appointments delayed for almost three months. They tell you when you go in that every donation saves three lives, so when they were cancelling my sixth straight appointment I told them that their doctor had killed eighteen people because of his unavailability, and I sure hoped he was proud of himself. When they finally did get me in to make a donation, I was rejected due to having had a toothache the previous week. I proceeded to laugh heartily and leave the office. They then called me a year later to ask for another appointment, which I showed up to with a fake blood pouch that I bought via the internet, and had filled with red juice. I drank it while I was sitting in the chair, and told them I was replenishing. They really hated that.)

The blood giving itself was entirely uneventful, except that the French nurse couldn't get over how perfect my veins were, and extolled their virtues for like two straight minutes. I'm apparently like the George Clooney of veins, or something.

However, after you give blood, you're supposed to completely avoid strenuous activity for like eight hours. I walked out of the building and into a massive hailstorm, to discover that my tire was flat. Luckily, I have four spare tires in the trunk. Of course, I have to haul all of them out to access the jack, then put three of them back in. Then I remember that I need the tire iron, and haul them all out again, get it, and put them all back in. Then I realize I'm missing the handle thingamajig for the jack. Repeat the tire hauling. With one usable arm. In the worst storm we've had in about six years.

Having successfully extricated the jack, I proceed to hoist the car and change the tire, which is incredibly fun, since the jack is one of those old ones you have to turn a crank with, and it wobbles dangerously and threatens to drop the car at any given moment while I'm trying to loosen the nuts. I actually almost passed out while doing this, and managed to figure out which side of the tire goes onto the axle in only two tries.

Anyway, the moral of this story is that it is apparently possible to change a tire with one arm immediately after losing a pint of blood, but it's incredibly difficult, and will make you feel like someone's beating you over the head with a sledgehammer.

The fake blood pouch was a great idea!

Rob @ 23/8/2012 23:07

On a random whim, I decided to go give blood. It's a constant mystery to me why Canada Blood Services retains my number, since I had a yearlong feud with them back in 2009. (They required me to get a physical in order to become a regular donor. Their doctor refused to be in the office at any time that I might conceivably have been available, and as a result I had my donor appointments delayed for almost three months. They tell you when you go in that every donation saves three lives, so when they were cancelling my sixth straight appointment I told them that their doctor had killed eighteen people because of his unavailability, and I sure hoped he was proud of himself. When they finally did get me in to make a donation, I was rejected due to having had a toothache the previous week. I proceeded to laugh heartily and leave the office. They then called me a year later to ask for another appointment, which I showed up to with a fake blood pouch that I bought via the internet, and had filled with red juice. I drank it while I was sitting in the chair, and told them I was replenishing. They really hated that.)

This has to be the best thing I've read in a while.

BTW, when they say don't do any strenuous job they do really mean it. The lack of blood means less blood that goes to your brain (your heart pumps a bit faster because of the lose, and making a heavy job makes it pump harder and thus the headache). And you shouldn't be driving at all (in case you faint).
That wasn't random crap, that was you not paying attention to the things they tell you not to do.

Also, don't ever help somebody if that means you need to go out of your car.

Darth Lego @ 24/8/2012 13:15

BTW, when they say don't do any strenuous job they do really mean it. The lack of blood means less blood that goes to your brain (your heart pumps a bit faster because of the lose, and making a heavy job makes it pump harder and thus the headache). And you shouldn't be driving at all (in case you faint). That wasn't random crap, that was you not paying attention to the things they tell you not to do.

Well, I'm well aware that there are valid medical reasons for why you shouldn't do anything strenuous, and I did actually do the responsible thing and try to call a few other people to see if anybody could come change the tire for me, for that exact reason. It turns out everybody I know well enough to guilt into doing that kind of thing was busy all night, so my options were either to stay at the clinic overnight or just tough it out. The fact that I got screwed by fate to that degree qualifies as random crap, I'd say.

Also, they've never once told me not to drive after donating. That was something like my tenth donation, and I've driven just fine after all of them.

Rob @ 24/8/2012 8:30

Darth Lego @ 24/8/2012 13:15 BTW, when they say don't do any strenuous job they do really mean it. The lack of blood means less blood that goes to your brain (your heart pumps a bit faster because of the lose, and making a heavy job makes it pump harder and thus the headache). And you shouldn't be driving at all (in case you faint). That wasn't random crap, that was you not paying attention to the things they tell you not to do. Well, I'm well aware that there are valid medical reasons for why you shouldn't do anything strenuous, and I did actually do the responsible thing and try to call a few other people to see if anybody could come change the tire for me, for that exact reason. It turns out everybody I know well enough to guilt into doing that kind of thing was busy all night, so my options were either to stay at the clinic overnight or just tough it out. The fact that I got screwed by fate to that degree qualifies as random crap, I'd say.

That do counts as random crap, but you could have gone in a cab or get someone else to take you. It's better to be prepared.

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Also, they've never once told me not to drive after donating. That was something like my tenth donation, and I've driven just fine after all of them.

Maybe in Canada they do things the other way, but it's expected from the person to take out your blood to inform you this...

Today I made my logic professor swear at our class.

It all started when we were working on counterexample argument deconstruction. How it basically works is you get an argument like, "All meticulously constructed timepieces are true works of art, for all Swiss watches are true works of art and all Swiss watches are meticulously constructed timepieces." To disprove the argument, you substitute plainly-evident things for the things in the argument. So, you'd get, "All mammals can swim, because all whales are mammals, and all whales can swim."

At this point a guy named Mitch raised his hand and asked the professor if this was true. The professor then stopped, and had to think of whether or not all mammals can swim. I raised my hand, and said that sheep cannot swim.

Professor: "What, seriously?"
Rob: "Yes. They're too stupid to swim. They'll just stand there while the water rises around them, and drown. It's been documented."
Mitch: "That, or they'll just stand there looking up at the rain until their nostrils flood and they drown that way."

Since nobody could remember a sheep ever swimming, we accepted this as a reasonable disproof of the argument, and we moved on. About an hour later, we wind up with an argument of the following form:

"All dogs fall into either the category of Fish or the category of Animal. All dogs are animals. Thus, no dogs are fish."

At this point Mitch raises his hand again.

Mitch: "But, sir, there are dogfish. It's a kind of shark."
Professor: "Uh..." *rewrites argument so it now reads:*

"All cats fall into either the category of Fish or the category of Animal. All cats are animals. Thus, no cats are fish."

Rob: "There are catfish too, sir."
Professor: *says nothing, and replaces 'cat' with 'cow.'*
Rob: "There are also cowfish, sir."
Professor: *raises the chalk, stops, turns to the class* "Is there a wolf fish?"
Mitch: "I'm pretty sure there is, sir."
Professor: *long pause* "Is there a sheep fish?"
Rob: "No, sir. Sheep can't swim, remember?"

At which point the professor swore at us. It was totally worth it.

That was the best rebuttal for the example.