The Berserker Defense

This is why the Vikings are my favorite football team.

Some players allegedly rented a boat on a lake in Minnesota, took some booze and women with them, then, somewhat surprisingly, experienced drunkennesss and sexual activity. The crew of the boat was so upset they weren't getting any that they turned back two hours early and notified authorities.

Here's what was reported to the authorities:

"The crew members told Hennepin County sheriff's deputies they had to step over and around players and naked women engaged in sex acts...There was lap dancing with a fair amount of cash floating around the floor with the dancers, leading quickly into sexual acts in a nature so explicit imagination wasn't necessary," Doyle said.

And here are some of the responses from the satisfied players:

"They're killing my name," Smoot said as he walked to his car in the parking lot.

Dude, your name is Smoot.

"That's crazy. Sex? Come on," said Moore, the team's leading rusher with 187 yards.

Yeah, sex is pretty crazy man. Who the heck does that anyhow?

Maybe they aren't Vikings after all, but Berserkers. The two are often confused by the uneducated. If they are indeed berserkers, there is a reason for this crazy behavior:

Theories to explain berserker behavior

One explanation behind beserker rage, suggested by botanists, is that in Scandinavia, one of the main spices in alcoholic beverages was the plant bog myrtle (Myrica gale syn: Gale palustris). The drawback is that it increases the hangover headache afterwards. Drinking alcoholic beverages spiced with bog myrtle the night before going to battle, might have resulted in unusually aggressive behavior.

Those who believe in the existence of spirit possession favor a theory that the berserk rage was brought on by possession by an animal spirit of either a bear or a wolf. According to this theory, berserkers were those who had cultivated an ability to allow the spirit of a bear or wolf to take over their body during a fight. This is seen as a somewhat peculiar application of animal totemism.

Proponents of the drug theory favor ergotism or the use of the fly agaric mushroom. Drunken rage would do as well. It is also possible that berserkers worked themselves into their frenzy through purely psychological processes, i.e., frenzied rituals and dances. According to Saxo Grammaticus they also drank bear or wolf blood.

A UK television programme in 2004 tested the possible use of fly agaric and alcohol by training a healthy volunteer in the use of Viking weapons, then evaluating his performance under the influence of fly agaric or alcohol compared to no influence. It was obvious that use of fly agaric or alcohol severely reduced his fighting ability, and the tentative conclusion drawn was that berserk state was achieved psychologically; otherwise berserkers would have been too easy to kill. On the other hand, the Zulu impi are said to have made use of snuff containing cannabis and/or mushroom-derived psychoactives to enhance their performance in battle.

You've gotta love British scientific methods.

Going berserk – berserksgangr or berserkergang – could also happen in a middle of daily work. It began with shivering, chattering of the teeth, and a chill in the body. The face swelled and changed its color. Next came great rage, howling, and indiscriminate brawling. When the rage quelled, the berserker was exhausted and dull of mind for up to several days. According to sagas, many enemies of berserkers exploited this stage to get rid of them.

I have experienced this.

U.S. professor Jesse L. Byock claims (in Scientific American, 1995) that berserker rage could have been a symptom of Paget's disease. Uncontrolled skull bone growth could have caused painful pressure in the head. He mentions the unattractive and large head of Egill Skallagrímsson in Egilssaga. Other possibilities are mild epilepsy, rabies, and hysteria.

Hmmm...Thick skulls and insanity?

Today the word "berserker" applies to anyone who fights with reckless abandon and disregard to even his own life, i.e., "goes berserk".

Yes, I am that geeky.

DUI Basics

No, not driving under the influence - it's for dialing under the influence.

Friday night I witnessed the greatest DUI extravaganza since my second year in college when my neurotic roommate spent an evening with a bottle of cheap wine and her old phone book calling every man she'd ever dated and asking why they didn't love her and what exactly was wrong with her. Yes, it was one train wreck I couldn't turn away from.

So Friday night I headed up to Santa Barbara for a much-needed "Girl's night out". Cringe if you must but it is something we single 30-somethings do every now and then to remind ourselves that we are way better off than most of our friends.

I met D early for some sushi and gossip. The plan was to have a few (read: seven) rolls, some saki, and head downtown to meet four other friends around 9:00. We arrived at 9:15 and quickly found S and P sipping water in a dark corner. S and P didn't want to shell out the $9 a drink at the hoity toity bar they'd chosen. You know these types of girls - they want to appear as though they have money and not a care in the world so they can attract a wealthy and confident man when in reality they can't loosen up enough to spend $9 on a cocktail rather than a new tube of lip gloss. It irritated me a bit because I'd rather go somewhere casual and get a $5 drink and relax. Of course, men don't go to these bars to meet women because men don't want to be stuck spending $9 on a drink for a girl they are not guaranteed to get laid by. In the end, the girls end up irritated albeit well-hydrated and the men go to a seedy establishment with $5 drinks and the more likely prospect of a roll in the hay with a less attractive but less demanding woman. And so goes Friday night in Santa Barbara.

At the hoity toity place, D and I ordered a drink each. In the meantime, S, D and P began telling me about T, who I had never met but would be joining us shortly. Turns out, no one had anything good to say about T. When I posed the question of why they had invited her they all looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe I am - I just don't see the point in sitting around a bar, drinking water, waiting for someone I have nothing good to say about. Turns out T, who seemed quite nice to me, was stuck outside waiting in line while we were inside talking trash about her and how she was so inconsiderate being late and all. Girls are funny that way.

After D and I finished our drinks we wanted to head to a karaoke bar uptown. The rest of the girls, now numbering four (T had brought a friend), scoffed at actually being seen in a karaoke bar and insisted on heading over to Joe's for "another drink". Off we hobbled in our expensive-but-unnoticed shoes.

Joe's was packed. I mean wall-to-wall people. It was loud, hot, and crowded. We headed for the bar and were completely unable to attract the attention of anyone who cared to bring our respective round of waters. It was then that I had one of those moments where you see how ridiculous your situation is - standing in a sea of drunken college students with several miserable 10-years-past-college friends trying to get the attention of an overworked bartender so he can overcharge you for a watered down vodka-cranberry. After that epiphany I grabbed D and told her we needed to head out - girl's night was over.

We escaped Joe's to find a row of taxicabs out front. The lead cab was a minivan with fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror. D did not want to take the minivan because she thought it was embarassing. Really folks, how does the cab you take embarass you? We hopped into the 1987 minivan - you know, the box-on-wheels kind, to find the inside was totally pimped out. It looked like a limo inside. We praised our cab driver, Edgar, on the plush interior, questioned him about how many people had fornicated en route, and eventually arrived at our destination in good spirits. Of course, D started screeching when Edgar pulled over because she did not want to be seen exiting a cab in front of a karaoke bar. Again, makes no sense to me. Rather, it shows we are responsible, right? So there we were on the curb, exiting our pimped our Astrovan, complete with....WTF? Spinners!!! Yes, our cab driver had put spinners on his taxi. I don't understand spinners and I especially don't understand them on an old minivan taxi. D was shocked and embarassed as I laughed at the absurdity of spinners on a cab. Come to think of it, that green velvet sofa in the back of my truck would have been a nice tip for good old Edgar.

We hung out at the karaoke bar for a couple of hours, mingling and laughing at the crooners. I attempted to flirt with a younger guy but he was spending way too much time fondling a cue ball and I determined he was either tripping on acid or autistic. Too bad because he was pretty hot. Anyhow, at some point in that time span, unbeknownst to me, D crossed the line from healthy buzz to ridiculous drunk. I found her outside smoking a cigarette with the gay bartender discussing, and displaying, her boob job. Thank god a cab was in the neighborhood and we were able to escape.

So we made it back to D's car and I was fine to drive so I asked for her keys. She went in her purse, got them out, stuck them in her mouth, then kept searching for the keys. I pointed out that they were in her mouth and she suddenly sucked on them seductively then handed them to me. It was disturbing. Then she pointed to the left and said "We need to go to Jack In The Box for onion rings". Jack was actually to the right, but that's splitting hairs when you're dealing with a key sucker now, isn't it?

I got her in the car and that's when it started...the drunk dialing extravaganza of 2005. She called at least five people, leaving long, hiccuping, belly-laughing messages. One message even made the web over at MB's blog. Yes, I am the voice of reason in that message. The blathering woman is D.

The drunk dialing continued through the night - lasting until about 2 am, or whenever the onion rings were gone. Each of the calls was pretty much the same "Heeeeeey so-and-so, this is D and I'm drunk. I just sucked my keys and don't know why. What are you doing? Okay, talk to you later, Bye." The thing is, in between about every third syllable you need to insert a guffaw or a hiccup, or both. The best part was when she got ahold of another drunk and they had a conversation for an hour. I just watched an laughed - because we know we've all been there.

As for me, I crashed on D's sofa for a few hours and headed home. On the way home I pondered the evolution of the drunk dial with the advent of cell phones. I am certain drunk dialing is on the rise. In fact, the cell phone companies ought to make new peak hours from 1:30 am to 3:30 am to capitalize on all the drunk dialers out there. Better yet, someone ought to make a website for messages left by drunk dialers. Now that would be a good blog.

Chile Verde

About a month ago I called in one of those big friendship defining favors: I asked MM to pick me up at the Los Angeles airport after my trip to Toronto. My original ride home had flaked and I either needed a shuttle or a ride so I called MM and he said he'd pick me up. Excellent.

As happens with these types of friend favors, they are locked away and stored until the friend needs an equally burdensome favor. MM called in his favor this weekend: he needed me and my truck to pick up a sofa his cousing was gettting rid of and bring it to his storage unit. The sofa was in San Fernando, about an hour's drive from my house, 40 mile from MM's. I thought to myself, "it had better be a pretty damned good sofa to drive 80 miles just to store it".

So we met Saturday afternoon and headed to the barrio of San Fernando. When driving down his cousin's street we even saw one of those cholos who wears knee-high socks with thigh-length plaid shorts and a low sitting Raiders cap. It was the land of Monte Carlos, mariachi and, yep, you guessed it, velour furniture.

We arrived at his cousins to find the sofa outside, a little wet, and covered in debris. To top it off, it was a dark green, velvety/veloury beast of a sofa. It probably came with a free velvet Madonna wall hanging and matching rosary when originally purchased. Still, we were there and we were taking it to storage for MM. I dubbed it the giant chile verde, it was loaded, and we headed out.

After a stop for some BBQ we made it to the storage unit. While I worried about how many dead bosies were hidden in the facility, MM pulled out an old scrap of paper with some numbers on it and I punched the code into the security gate of the storage facility. It didn't work. We tried every variation of the code to no avail. MM considered jumping the gate, only to notice the security code was needed to exit as well. MM called his sister, who shares the unit, to try to get the code. Of course, she didn't answer. Eventually, we left and decided I would leave the sofa in my truck until he got the code. So I've had this giant, green, velour monstrosity in the back of my truck all weekend. In fact, it's sitting in front of my office as I type this. As you can see, it looks like what you'd imagine your lawyer to be driving around in on a Tuesday morning:

We're taking it to the storage unit after work tonight. If the code doesn't work I'm just going to go park in the local barrio and let someone steal it.

At least I know where my next airport pick up is coming from.

S.O.L.

I have been accused of a lot of things in my life but a lack of character has never been one of them. I attribute my character to an unusual childhood.

You see, back when I was a kid I was diagnosed with a then-rare disorder called celiac that basically meant eating anything with gluten (wheat, oats, barley, rye) in it would destroy my immune system. I know, I know, as my old senior chief in the Navy would've said, "My heart pumps piss for ya babe, now get on with it..."

Of course, back in the '70's nothing was labeled and almost everything you eat has gluten in it so I was always sick and malnourished. This led to me being a scrawny little runt with a big, bloated Ethiopian-poster-child style belly. Add to that my abnormally long and protruding belly button, the flatulence that comes along with bloating due to malnutrition, and being the kid who could only eat carrot sticks and all beef hot dogs and you can imagine the daily razzing I endured. In fact, it was a sport in the nieghborhood - here's a photo of a photo of me being laughed at by all the kids in the trailer park circa 1976:

I'm the small one with the head hung in shame. See the belly? Protruding navel? Scrawny, pale arms? My siblings are the barefooted kids in highwaters laughing hardest. Note that all the kids are looking at me and laughing. That's because they just made fun of me. Even more disturbing? Some adult condoned this and took a picture. Today this would be child abuse. Back then it was character building and entertainment.

Fortunately I outgrew the problem at age 12, my giant belly deflated, and I was able to resume normal eating habits. I even had my belly button cosmetically enhanced during surgery already scheduled for that year. Oh yeah, the doctors decided I would make a nice lab rat back then and twice performed unnecessary exploratory surgeries on me to see what was going on in there. My innards are even in the New England Journal of Medicine. No, I didn't retain any rights. I always knew how bad a procedure was going to be by the size of the stuffed animal I got the morning of the hospital visit. The worst? The barium enema and large instestine scan at age 8. I knew it was going to be bad when I got one of those stuffed dogs that takes batteries and walks and barks. Then I saw that big tube with a camera on the end and knew it could only go a couple of places - none of them appealing.

All that excitement as a kid left me terrified of all things medical and ever since I've had extreme anxiety around any sort of doctor. I pass out in doctors' offices all the time. Two years ago I even passed out at the optometrist's office. No kidding. Needless to say, I don't visit the doctor unless I know there's something wrong and feel I am be on the brink of death (drove myself to doctor with burst appendix a few years ago - was sure it was food poisoning and would go away on its own - my final words to the anesthesiologist were "is this really necessary?").

So the past few months I've been having some health problems and consciously overlooking them. The human body is incredibly resilient and most ailments will subside on their own. But, even I know when something's not getting better and the symptoms I've been having seemed only to be getting worse lately. The kicker was during my Alaska trip when I ate a couple of handfuls of barley from the bin at the brewery...The next day I was doubled over in pain in Seattle airport, nearly passed out, barely able to make my connection. That's when it dawned on me that my symptoms were similar to the good old days of my childhood.

I immediately went online to research my old disease. Sure enough, they've done tons of reasearch in the last 20 years and there were lots of websites full of information. One thing I discovered was that the disease is actually a genetic autoimmune disorder that never goes away - it just goes into remission and then comes back when you're in your 30's or 40's. Here I thought I'd banked all that illness credit as a kid and would sail through my adulthood living longer than I wanted with no major problems.

After gathering a wealth of information, speaking with someone who organizes a support group for folks with the problem (sounds fun...), and learning about how to test for it, I made an appointment, had some blood drawn (passing out as usual), and had my doctor order the battery of tests associated with it last week.

So my doctor called Tuesday with preliminary results and informed me I have serious vitamin deficiencies that have thrown my red blood cell count all out of whack and that I should not be up and about and that I will be the lucky recipient of my own daily course of vitamin injections that I will have to administer myself. Figuring I knew more than her, I challenged her prescription only to be told that my system has just plain stopped absorbing certain nutrients on its own and the only way to get them is by shooting up every day.

Needless to say, I am not too pleased about the shots. I have since avoided picking up the prescription and going in for instruction on needle use and disposal and now the doctor has been calling every day. I'm pretty sure she'll be getting a court order for me soon.

In addition to the daily poke, I will likely be ordered to start the terrible gluten-free diet as soon as the other lab work is back in a couple of weeks. Tragically, this means NO MORE BEER. So now I get to give myself a shot a day, not drink beer, and eat carrot sticks and rice cakes for the rest of my life.

Alas, there is hope because there are others out there like me. I even found this link to a dating service specifically for folks like me. I did a search and there was one man in San Antonio, Texas in my age group. Imagine all the poo bags this dating pool will have. Actually, I had to laugh at the irony that would occur if I had to get a poo bag. You have to admit it would be funny. I asked about it and my doctor advised poo bags don't work for the small intestine so I guess I'm s*** outta luck on that one.

Really, it's not all that bad and I just wanted to show you all that nice picture of everyone making fun of me as a kid. I'm done wanking and I promise not to turn into this girl who has decided her life is over because of the disorder.

The Great Alaskan Glacier Experience - Part 2

As I was saying before being so rudely interrupted by the inadequacies of a free blog photo service...

After getting back from our glacier hike, we decided to settle in to the tent for the night, find some candles, crack a bottle of wine, and make what may very well be the best meal ever cooked on Mendenhall glacier:
A couple of hours, one bottle of wine, a bottle of champagne and a heated conversation about George Bush and Islamic folk invading the U.S. later, we passed out. (Note: Discussing world politics while sitting on a glacier drunk is fairly pointless and dangerous, especially if ice axes are present.) I fell asleep to the sound of a nearby waterfall interrupted by a passing storm, comforted by the fact that I was sleeping on a large ice cube. After a nice breakfast and some cocoa in the morning, we headed back out onto the glacier for some more exploring and ice climbing:

Yep, that's me. See boys, you finally get some pictures of infamous Glib Gal in all her harnessed glory. Actually, as this shot was taken I was advising the Outdoorspro that if he didn't hurry and take the picture I would surely soon fall to my death and drag him with me because he was on belay duty. He just laughed and told me to lick the ice so my tongue would freeze to it and I wouldn't fall. Well, not really, but that would've been a good thing to say.

What you can't see from this photo is that about an hour earlier, while traipsing around the glacier in our crampons, I decided to slide down a slope in an attempt to become one with the glacier. The problem with falling on a glacier is that there's nothing to grab onto because you're on ice and you just pick up speed as you descend. Thankfully, there was a ledge to stop me before heading into a deep crevass from which I surely would not have returned. Of course, I chose this moment to have my first ever panic attack and had to be coaxed across the glacier back to safer territory. I've never been scared like that in my life and suddenly I was realizing the heights, slopes and dangers that hadn't phased me until after the fall. I even had nightmares about being swallowed by the glacier for the next two nights. It's moments like those that remind me how little I am in the grander scheme of things.

We caught the last chopper out that night, went home and relaxed then spent the next day salmon fishing in inclement weather(to no avail - which I'm secretly happy about because I was not looking forward to cleaning fish...). When the weather got too powerful on the docks and even the Outdoorspro was tired of the weather, we headed to the Alaskan Brewing Company for their free tasting. Yes, you read that right, FREE BEER!!! And they were quite generous with it. I highly recommend their beer tasting tour if ever you are in Juneau - nice staff, warm tasting room, and FREE BEER!!! Some of it is even good.

Hit the bar scene that night and headed home on the earliest flight out Sunday morning. A big thanks to Outdoorspro for being such a great host, putting up with me, and hooking me up with free helicopter rides and some great adventures.