It happened again last night.

I’m not going to go into the embarrassing details (such as why one of my socks went into toilet water), but I WILL let you folks know I fainted again. Yeah, that’s right: AGAIN.

I, Nick Elmer, am a fainter.

Ashamed? I was. I have been. Waking up on the floor of a YMCA after jogging a mile is never ideal for the ol’ self esteem. Yet I’m trying to make the best of it. We light-headed folks like to make light of our problems, you see.

The first time I dropped like a sack of potato shaped rubies was during high school at the aforementioned YMCA. I heard report afterwards that while standing over the water fountain I swayed a bit, commented “Oh, that’s not good”, then landed on my butt (but thankfully cushioned the blog with my skull).

It’s easy to see why I fainted THAT time: YMCA’s are yucky places. My body was most likely trying to protect itself from germs through accelerated hibernation. The human body is a wonderful mechanism in that way.

The second time was ironically shortly after letting my friends know I was a fainter. A game of Ultimate Frisbee in the school gym had become intense and I took a tackle to the gut. Being a good sport, I shook it off and walked to the wall. Being an even better sport, I showed the tackler there were no hard feelings between us by keeling over and drooling on new hardwood floor. Now, because I attended a public school I was given the best of treatment (cups of water) very quickly (after the third time I passed out).

This time it’s a little trickier to pin point why I fainted. Yet, I feel it was a higher power teaching me not to brag about my physical short comings to my friends. I rubbed my fainting in THEIR faces, so karma decided to rub MY face into the school’s gym floor. Lesson learned!

The third time I passed out was when I babysat some kids who went to a preschool I used to work at. We were running around, killing each other with make believe light sabers, and doing what children generally do. Then I banged my knee on a rock! Really hard! As you can imagine, knowing it was only a matter of time before I fell unconscious, I wanted to use the remaining minutes to assure the kids not to worry. I did this by unsteadily crawling up their drive way on all fours very slowly then resting my head on a bush. The kids were delighted at the silly noises I made as my brain slightly choked. I woke up to them happily chanted “Wake up, Nick!” It was then I knew I wasn’t dead because neither heaven nor hell would pay me 8 bucks an hour for that.

This time really shines a light as to what causes me to faint. After all, what is the common factor in all three of these stories? …Doing stuff! Doing stuff makes me faint! Ah ha! Problem solved. Now that I know the cause, I can prevent future fainting spells by avoiding any and all activity. This has been a boon for medical science.

And yeah, there were a bunch of other times I fainted but they aren’t very funny stories except for that one in particular that I’m thinking about right now.

REGARDLESS! That is my history of fainting. If you are a fainter, I suggest you follow these tips I had to learn the hard way:

1. Fainting? Sit down. No chairs? On the floor. Public place? Put out a can with some change in it and try to look as homeless as possible.
2. Don’t eat a lot of food before doing some physical activity. That diverts blood away from your brain. Blood is what tells your brain “Don’t faint right now!” so it’s good to keep those love birds together at all times.
3. Don’t become a pilot of The Blue Angels.
4. If you stand up quickly and feel yourself get dizzy, try to turn it into a sexy dance move to save face with those in your company.

If there are better tips around I’m certainly not CONSCIOUS of them!

People.

I don’t normally use this blog for things which might be considered “important”, “consequential”, or “something that I didn’t make up”. No, I’ll admit it. I’ve squandered this blog’s ability to reach the public and change the world. Until now.

Until right, got-dang, now.

I’m going to share something with you people that will change your life. Something that will make the your days seem brighter. Here it is my children, bask underneath the glory which is:

Caramel Bugles.

Awww yeeeeeah! Sweet and salty, just how I like ‘em!

…

Wait– no, I want to type a difference sentence than that one.

Awww yeeeeaah! Crunchy phallic shaped snacks, just how I like ‘em!

Eh, I guess that’ll do. But dang, I’ve been scarfing this boogers down by the bag. I started buying the during a road trip and that kinda sorta created extra reasons for me to stop at every rest stop on the way. Because rest stops have convenience stores. Convenience stores have snacks. Snacks that can be purchased for cash, credit, or a tall tale no one at the tavern has yet heard. Now you see my way to thinking, eh? Now you see why I had to stop?

Because I have to go to the bathroom a lot and peeing my pants wasn’t an option. It could have been a solution, but not an option.

Oops, I’m getting off topic here. Yeah duders! Caramel Bugles! You simply haven’t known joy until you get one of those extra caramel-y pieces and enjoyed that extra satisfying crunch. So, because I am always in the business of helping people get more out of their lives, I have decided to created a list of all known places this fabled snack can be purchased (that I’m aware of).

THE LIST:

1.The Wawa on 202 by the Delaware border.
2.That truck stop where that chick was wearing a snuggie as a robe.

(This list will never be updated.)

Went to the Live Rifftrax Christmas Special at the movie theater on Wednesday and daaaang. DANG. I was very welcoming to those laughs it gave me. I will raise those laughs as if they were my own. A college fund has already been started in their name.

For those not in the know (Come on, there’s plenty of room for you too. Get in the know!) RiffTrax is one of the spiritual successors to the classic TV show: Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and someone who isn’t Trace Beaulieu did a bang up job riffing on some terrible, terrible Christmas shorts (and one short about swimming and another about ham). The guys continue to get better and better at their writing and delivery. They still tend to repeat jokes from before, but not as much (“Get your shoes on honey, we’re at Grandma’s” has been used is every episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. EVERY ONE.).

I have no idea how well the guys are going with the sales of mp3′s off their site. But if it’s profitable for them I’d love for more live broadcast performances like the one I went to. I had also been to a previous live performance of their take on the quintessential Ed Wood film, Plan 9 From Outer Space.

They also seem to have learned a bit from the missteps of the Plan 9 show, which was also a great performance by-the-by. Less time was spent away from Nelson and crew. You know, the dang people we paid money to see! Live musical performances and fake commercials by Internet celebrities are fine and all (actually those commercials were hilarious) but I’d rather hear Kevin Murphy pretend the astronauts on screen are opera singers.

Let’s do this. Let’s keep support these guys. You like laughing’ doncha? You like FUN doncha? Then help them produce it!

Next Live show, you and me, we’re going. It’s a date.

What I learned today: I can still draw Pokemon from memory.

I refuse to grow out of certain things:

Cartoons? They’re the only thing on TV worth watching!

Eating cereal right out of the box? The stuff should be treated the same as a bag of potato chips!

Jumping down stairs? That’s how I plan on dying.

On that list as well is the band New Found Glory, or as the purists call them A New Found Glory, or as the fans call them NFG, or as they called themselves on stage Saturday night A New Found Glory.

My iTunes file directory is frowning at me right now.

Still, after all these years, I can’t stop liking the punk pop band that taught me how to hop around AND play power chords at the same time. Before New Found Glory came along, I thought the only song using the C, G, A, F chord progression was “Dammit” by Blink 182. But I was dead wrong. Then “Hit or Miss” brought me back to life.

Thus, the zombified, high school-er me became a fan of an actual band. There have been flirtations with the phenomenon. I had all of the BareNaked Ladies discography and I liked Surf Ninjas because of its subtle tributes to The Beach Boys, but never before had I bought tour shirts. Never before had I bought DVD documentaries.

NFG is a big deal to me.

And I got to see them live on Saturday with buddy and music writer, Joe Pelone. Doubts I had about myself still being able to enjoy something like a pop punk show evaporated quickly as I found myself remembering all the words to songs I hadn’t heard in years.

Not to say the show was perfect.

The dudes are older and slower. Jordan doesn’t sing as high as he used to but his voice breaks the same amount. They were opening for Dashboard Confessional, who I’m only in the mood to hear when I’m too depressed to listen to music. Plus it was a dang acoustic show. Punk rock acoustic show! They did some fun things with alerted versions of certain songs to fit the instruments, a piano ballad-y “My Friends Over You” stood out to me, but the rest was a little phoned in. If you’re going to phone something in, it needs electricity! That’s basic science, NFG!

New Found Glory will always be one of those bands that I like. No excuses. Even when they release an album as bad as Coming Home and even when their self titled album is being re-released for the 10th anniversary and makes me feel a jillion years old I will be a fan.

Wait.

Ten years? Seriously? I’m going to be spiking my ear hair before their next show at this rate.

P.S. – Is it bad form to do a music video for a song about domestic abuse in a MMA setting?

Yeah, might be bad form.