It’s that time of year again, everyone!  Put on your bathrobes, lavish your vitals in perfumes, and aggressively approach the man or woman you have been casually observing from afar.  As you hand them the Candyland board game you purchased in blind confusion, know that soon enough you will both be supping on licorice gumbo and gingerbread sweet rolls.  Prepare your hearts for romance!  It’s Valentine’s Day!

Every Valentine’s Day is a blank slate, a chance to screw up what you have been working on so hard the past year, or perhaps a chance to reflect back on the multitude of failures your Axe body spray has failed to correct.  Or maybe, if you’re like me, it’s a chance to raise your hand and say, “I don’t get it.”  Because I don’t get a lot of things, and expressing emotions towards women is pretty much the foundation to my pyramid of middling uncertainty.

But you must realize I once did understand Valentine’s day.  I always looked forward to the day when I would be at Shopko with my mom and I’d be allowed to choose which animated characters best fit my juvenile pangs of romance.  One year I got the Lion King series:

Thanks to Baby Simba, every young girl or boy could enjoy the rest of their day knowing I had blessed them with a terrible line that was neither a pun nor a statement at all relevant to our elementary lives.  But no, that’s a lie; I never gave a valentine to everyone.  I always excluded my friends or any girl that I deemed a threat to my innocence.  As a child, I found the best way to go through life was to not do anything and then hope for a Disney Channel style miracle that would unite us 8-year olds in a deep, everlasting love.  Truly, I will always consider my life a failure because I never had a relationship before age 10.  Cable television has failed me.

Which, without any idea for an appropriate transition, brings me back to today.  Valentine’s Day 2012 will be a day unlike any other February 14th, ever.  The weather will be unseasonably warm, crows will poop all over my car, and I will be dressing myself with conviction.  No seriously, this year I will be wearing black socks on Valentine’s Day instead of my more typical white ones; black to represent all my favorite colors combined into one.  Because that’s how awesome Valentine’s Day might be this year.

Maybe I’ll buy up all the chocolate candies in the seasonal aisles around town and stash them in the darkened corners of my room for the mice and silverfish to lord over.  If I still had those two beasts in my apartment I’d consider that; it’d be pointless to have a hoard of chocolate all to myself though.  No but seriously, I have way too many pent-up and unrealized plans that one or two might leak through my social filters this year.  Unfortunately it’s late and I haven’t been allowed time to explain them in this space.  Look out though.

Let’s discuss the subject of hot tea.

My first encounter with hot tea was sometime in the year 2010 when I witnessed the History Channel’s hour-long special “Modern Marvels: Tea” on television.  I also saw “Modern Marvels: Tuna” on that channel, so I’m guessing the term modern is, when defined in contemporary terms, any time within the last several million years.  But I trust the History Channel, because with an authoritative name like that, I know when I tune in there will be specials on King Henry VIII, apartheid, or the fertile crescent, not what’s on my dinner table.

And who am I to doubt the validity of a channel whose daytime programming consists of a healthy variety of shows featuring random flora and fauna from today’s natural world, Nazi Germany, the Rapture, and alien theory.  These are all history, especially in the fact that we have little or no documentation in support of the ideas proposed on the shows.  If we don’t know, it probably happened.  The shadow of doubt will not consume us.

So yeah, hot tea.

I first sampled the drink last fall when someone asked me if I wanted hot tea.  It was one of those social situations in which I thrive; everyone else was doing it, so I wanted to do it too.  This is why I get hooked on things like reading, smiling, and cats; I am vulnerable to peer pressure.

Before accepting this tea, I knew full well that my first sip might very well be the one that would send my life into a tailspin of beverage-consuming depression, a constant struggle between myself and the substance I would never be able to get enough of, punctuated by late nights spent spearing wild animals with my lance collection.  Or perhaps more likely, my first taste would be awful, and I would discreetly pour the rest of it into a nearby potted plant in an effort to achieve the social acceptability that comes with finishing what’s placed in front of you.  Either way I had nothing to gain; I accepted the tea and embraced my new reality.

Hot tea is pretty good.  I know they make flavors for it, but really, who can taste the difference?  It’s like Kool-Aid’s steamy love child.  Yeah, flavors, but it’s all just a hot mess. As long as it’s in a bag and the bag is in the water and you drink it and scald your tongue all is well with tea.  It’s a soothing stimulant, really.  And for how ridiculously particular tea plants are in their climate choice, it feels like I’m stealing mother earth’s most precious resource every time I sneak a sip.  Which, you know, is a terrible thing that I am proud of.

On a scale of light beer to liquid gold, I’d say hot tea comes in somewhere between pure filtered water and blue Kool-Aid.  It’s delicious, and I prefer to drink it alone or with friends.  Hot tea; the childhood friend I never had.

The year was 2008.  I was tanned, relatively stupid, and my writings were riddled with punctuation errors.  Not much has changed since then, except for all of those things, and to prove it I am posting this English project from my archives.  Behold, Joeseph C. Mapp in all his authoritatively fictional glory!

 

Marvelous Maps

Maps are incredible.  It’s almost ridiculous how many uses can be found from the basic concept of a map.  A map can be used as a directional tool, an informative document, or even as entertainment.  For example, an atlas shows travelers how to reach their destination, a colorful political map might show voters’ political choices, and a detailed wall map might be used as a living room poster in order to brighten the atmosphere.  While maps have many uses, people often take them for granted and forget their practical uses.  This short essay will focus on the creation and evolution of the directional map, because it is important that we understand why we need this kind of map, and how they apply to everyday life.

Long ago our ancestors didn’t have maps.  In these dark, map-less times primitive cavemen could only communicate directions to each other in a series of coordinated grunts and gestures, leaving no way to visually record the topography of the world around them.  As civilization advanced, people began using the sun and the stars as guides; these were more reliable than previous methods but they still didn’t provide the precision needed to reach destinations in a timely fashion.  People needed a reliable visual aid that could be copied and translated.  People needed maps.

The earliest known map was excavated in Egypt, and bore of the signature of Joseph C. Mapp.  Mapp is generally accepted by scholars as the father of modern cartography, as he is credited with having sketched the route from Mesopotamia to Alexandria in the days of ancient civilization.  This primitive map contained nothing but a rough line connecting the two areas, but Mapp included landmarks such as sand dunes, oasises, inland seas, and palm trees which would help travelers know they were on the right track.  Many other soon-to-be cartographers realized they were witnessing a landmark accomplishment in recorded history, and as they set out to make their own maps, they paid homage to Mapp’s original achievement by naming their sketches “maps”, a shortened version of Mapp’s name.

With the rise in trade and exploration throughout the ages, the demand for newer and better maps increased.  It wasn’t long before the entire known world had been mapped out by adventurous cartographers.  Seafaring ships soon began sailing literally off the map, and the Romans, Vikings, and Christopher Columbus (in that order) all discovered America while attempting to learn more about the earth.  Because the earth is covered by so much water, seafaring vessels soon became the simplest and most practical means of scouting new and uncharted territories.

Pirates were on the cutting edge of exploration during this time.  Pirates contributed immensely to the creation and reformation of maps; nearly every 16^th century map of the Caribbean includes drawings of where pirate ships were known to travel.  The irony of this is that pirates themselves created most of these maps, and cleverly left off their secret coves in order to avoid detection by the British.

The other great achievement in map-making that pirates are known for is the creation of the treasure map.  Passed secretly between pirates and other “sea dogs”, these maps included directions to untold riches.  Treasure maps contain a dotted trail leading to an “x”, which often marks the spot.  However, treasure maps are notorious for leading their followers through a series of pitfalls, sea monsters, whirlpools, and other such difficulties.  After all, treasure is only special because not just anyone can reach it.  Unfortunately most of these treasure maps were lost at sea, buried in chests on deserted beaches, or hidden in secret caves.

The last major accomplishment in map-making has come with the recent advent of satellite technology.  Peering down at the earth from space has allowed cartographers to create perfectly detailed maps of the entire earth.  These maps are so incredibly accurate that they are able to identify features of the earth within a meter or two of their actual size.  Amazing!  Without satellites, Greenland would continue to appear far too large on all of our maps, and we would be forced to incorrectly classify it as a continent.

Clearly we have come a long way since the crude scribblings of Mapp’s time, but the importance of the map has not diminished.  People and societies rise and fall, but maps have lived forever.  Maps and their utility are actually becoming more prominent in modern society, because inventions such as Global Positioning System (GPS) and online directions are being utilized by the ever growing number of lazy people in our world.  People who neglect to use maps often find themselves lost; there is no excuse for leaving home without a map in this day and age.  Fortunately there are quite a few people who still appreciate a good map, and make sure to refold maps carefully so as not to mess with the “accordion style” folding so many maps feature these days.

Things weren’t pretty those days.  Unchoreographed paragraphs of redundant boredom surely identified me as a saboteur of the English language.  Fortunately I redeemed myself in the visual portions of this project:

mapflyer

and then this powerpoint presentation which the instructor didn’t quite understand, but still loved:

maphistory

I would be honored if someone rips off my work here and uses it as their own for a project (I did get an A on it).  Just make sure to correct the grammar.  Seriously.

“A story of love, endurance, and the plight of dinosaurs in an age of loose morals.”

He was a lonely beta male caught by surprise at a vulnerable moment

She was hungry for fleshy lovin’

He had a 12 foot vertical; she was a clever girl.  It’s a love story hundreds of millions of years in the making!  Re-born from fossilized amber, their love has stood the test of time, but can it withstand this guy?

Featuring three-time Juremmy Award winning actor Rory McRoarson (Land Before Time, Godzilla vs. Mothra) as T-Rex

And featuring the new hit songs

“Have you checked the freezer yet, Albert?”

“TWO CARS TOO MANY”

and the stunning climax

“DINOSAUR NOISES”

It’s the musical that has critics raving!

“Thoroughly nauseating” – Rolling Stone

“This is why I stick to movies.” – Roger Ebert

“What the hell was that?” – Los Angeles Times

Get a bite of the action– coming Summer 2012!