By day I work for a company that has just reached its tenth year of existence. Everybody knows the traditional first-year anniversary gift is paper, the third-year anniversary gift is bananas, and the fiftieth-year anniversary is gold. But I was until recently unaware that the tenth-year anniversary is tin or aluminum. As a ten-year aluminum gift, my company has given me an aluminum water bottle. This is awesome, because I’ve been wanting one for kind of a while now, but the only ones I could find are like twenty or thirty dollars. Well, now I don’t have to look and I don’t have to spend any money.

I tried it out this last weekend by taking it to rehearsal. Ohmygod it’s the best. Seriously. The feeling of environmental friendliness is so inviting, and the health benefits make me even more powerful and ninja-like than ever before.

If you don’t believe me, at least listen and then try to prove me wrong. Most available water bottles (including the one I had before this new one from my workplace) are made of plastics that, after putting the bottle through a dishwasher (which I did) or even washing with hot water (which I also did) put bisphenol-A and polycarbonate #7 in the water inside. Bisphenol-A is a compound that mimics estrogen, which hinders my ability to appear manly, and polycarbonate #7, as everyone knows, tastes like crap. Any master chemist named Ben will tell you that’s true.

Visit H2NO.org to make yourself a smarter and morally superior person.

Needless to say, I am relieved and excited to have this new aluminum water bottle. But I don’t really deserve it. I haven’t even been at this company for one year. I’m two weeks shy of a year. I plan on being here after those two weeks, and then I will have officially been at the same job for one year. The jobs I’ve had in my life outnumber the jobs I’ve had for a whole year by about seven to one…put another way, I cannot count the number of jobs I’ve had in my life using all my fingers and toes, but I can count the number of jobs I’ve had for a whole year using my thumbs and one index finger. Nevertheless, I will accept the gift of the aluminum water bottle with a grateful heart and a thirsty tongue. They say the best things come to those that wait, and that statement is only true about 2% of the time…but when it’s true, it’s true (sorry Hunt’s Ketchup, I cannot lie).

Seriously, check out H2NO.org.

On a completely unrelated note, George Carlin passed away (in case you didn’t know). I’m saddened and affected by this loss, but to tell the truth I can’t really say much. I haven’t seen the majority of his work (he was quite prolific), and I am (alas) part of the generation that only knows George Carlin through Kevin Smith movies. And let’s face it – no disrespect to Kevin Smith, but George Carlin’s presence did more for Kevin Smith movies than Kevin Smith movies did for George Carlin.

And so, the best I can do is to tip my hat and post a YouTube clip of one of his better routines…Thanks for this one, George.

And so, with the past behind us, I wanted to put one more clip up for everyone to check out so as to keep an eye ever toward the future. Unfortunately, the bitch-troll record company has disabled embedding, so you have to actually navigate TO YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuK2A1ZqoWs

This is a music video of “Handlebars” by Flobots. I really love the song; it’s like an epic poem, but sung with modern hip-hop rhythms. It’s epic in that it takes us from an innocent child to a savvy businessman/politician as an adult to eventually a power-hungry dictator and his ultimate demise, with a repeat of the first words and a memory of (and thus near-return to) childhood innocence. It’s a massive story in a three-minute song with a tragic lull that stays with you for hours. But the song is even better with the music video and all its stylized art direction. There are haunting images that you really have to watch for because they go so fast you might miss them (like a large bird attacking a smaller bird and leaving a blood stain in the sky). Go watch it…if you want to. It’s really more important that you watch the George Carlin clip, so if you have to choose between the two, choose that one. But if you have time for both, this is a really good song.

And then go visit H2NO.org.

Filed by Bil at 10:59 pm under Pop Culture, The Arts, The Science, Environmentality