Well, that was months ago. Vision got gradually worse as we got back to the states. I can see things much better than before and can drive without glasses, but things far away have definitely gotten blurry. Watching our giant TV eight feet away is fine, but the words on the screen can be hard to make out. Worse, however, all the straining and squinting has changed my appearance. A friend stared at me a while, speechless. “Ah,” I thought. “She must be entranced by my big, beautiful eyes in all their naked glory. I better remind her that I’m married.”

“Yeah,” I said, “so Jameelah (you know, my wife) and I got Lasik in Vietnam. Cool, huh?”

“Oh,” she said, relieved. “I thought something was different. You have this kind of dazed look, kind of like you’re high.”

A couple of other people also said similar things: “You look high,” “You look really, really tired,” “You look like crap”— and that’s just my dad.

Anyway, today, I went to the optometrist, a jovial man who did not reprimand me for getting “much cheap” Lasik in Vietnam. “All the equipments are pretty much the same everywhere,” he said. I asked him if I should get more Lasik. He peered into my eyeballs. “Yup,” he said, “they definitely shaved away some layers of your corneas. Unfortunately, so much so that more Lasik might be risky. You could get 20/20 vision with a second round. Or, it could fail, and your corneas will be so weak that if someone punches you in the eye, it could rupture your corneas and you would need a transplant to see again.”

I left his office after placing an order for glasses. That’s right, I am back to glasses. “You don’t need to wear them all the time,” said the optometrist, “just when you drive, or watch a movie, or when it’s cloudy or rainy, or when you wake up.”

“But don’t worry,” he added. “In a few years, you’ll be old, and then you’ll be far-sighted, aha haha.”

My new glasses will arrive next week. They will be significantly lighter than my old ones, and you know what, I kind of miss wearing glasses. You know, glasses … people with them are perceived to be smarter, studies show. Glasses are cool. I’ll probably wear them all the time, because they’re so … cool. So if you see me this week, try to gaze into these sexy peepers one last time before they’re gone. And if you say I look high, or that I was foolish to get Lasik in a developing country, I will punch you in the neck. If I can see you.

Read more Jagged Noodles at:  www.jaggednoodles.com.

These shows are extremely addictive, which is why there are dozens of them, some with several variations: CSI, NCIS, Law and Order, Numb3rs, Bones, Criminal Minds, etc. They are well-written and well-acted, with interesting stories and good pacing. Besides those factors, though, there are two elements of these shows that make them compelling. First is the fact that we are all wired to be problem-solvers. We like puzzles. Each show is a jig-saw puzzle, and we get to go along on the ride as the professionals find the pieces and put everything together. Secondly, we are attracted to the sense of justice that the shows impart. At the end of each episode, usually the killer is caught, his motives are explained, and there is some sort of justice delivered.

I spent a lot of 2011 watching these shows. On New Year’s Eve, I caught a glimpse of an episode of Criminal Minds where children’s bodies were discovered, and at the end, they realized the killer was a kid who just enjoyed going around killing other kids. It made me sick. It made me even sicker to realize that I had not gotten sick earlier. This is horrible stuff and yet it was just another hour of entertainment and everyone could just get back to having dinner or whatever.

It is alarming there are so many of these shows out there. If TV is a necessary form of escapism, then what exactly are we escaping into? We escape the real world, where horrible things happen and we read about them, to TV world, where similarly awful things happen and we get to see the gory details. In “Bones,” for example, the bodies are displayed in all their mutilated, decomposing glory. They spend a lot of time on these fake cadavers. The results are so gruesome that in the past, I had to look away. Now, they barely bother me.

That’s the thing, these shows desensitize us to violence and murders, even as they make us feel reassured that there is justice at the end. I’m not saying they cause people to be more violent. I haven’t been inclined to go around killing people in creative ways that the shows depict. Apologists for crime procedurals might even say they have a role in providing an outlet, a vicarious sort of catharsis. But I’m sure watching this much violence and depravity day after day doesn’t really help things.

At the least, it doesn’t help me. So for 2012, I’m going to try not to watch any more of these shows. Escapism, healthy escapism, should nourish the mind and soul, or at the very least, be neutral. It should not force us to see, in brutal details, the ugliness of the world that we’re trying to escape from.

Of course, this is not to say that I am against the depiction of violence and murders. These last few months, I’ve discovered some great and very violent shows. “The Walking Dead” portrays a post-apocalyptic world where a disease has wiped out most of mankind. Survivors have to make tough choices as they face zombies, including killing each other to stay alive. “The Game of Thrones” depicts a medieval-like fantasy land where warring clans do not hesitate to behead one another. And “Battlestar Galactica,” a sci-fi also set in a post-apocalyptic world where intelligent robots look and behave like humans even as they try to destroy us. Lots of violence everywhere. But at the least, the characters change and grow, and there are moments of humanity and lessons that we can learn in these characters’ choices and actions.

Not that we actually learn anything from shows in general. However, I think good shows deeply explore the worst and the best in humans and in humanity, not just the worst.

Read more Jagged Noodles at: www.jaggednoodles.com

Boss: If you give your boss something too expensive, you’ll seem like a suck-up. If it’s something cheap, it’ll be disrespectful. If you give anything at all, and no one else does, that’s just as bad as if you didn’t, and everyone else did. The solution is to bake some cookies with macadamia nuts.

Boyfriend/brothers/uncles/guys in general: Anything from one of the four categories is good: electronic gadgets, pocket tools, DVD collection of his favorite show, video games.

Girlfriend: Think of a happy memory from your courtship. Identify a symbol from that memory and figure out a way to crystalize that into an object. “Look, babe, remember when I rollerbladed down Alki, and I tripped and fell and crashed into you and made you spill your Sprite, and that’s how we met? Well, here’s a bottle of Sprite, and a cup of sand from Alki. Merry Christmas.”

Wife/husband: Give the gift of relieve by making a deal to buy each other nothing and do something stress-free as a couple instead. Or, agree to buy a joint gift that could be enjoyed by both, such as a Leatherman Micra pocket tool.

Older Sisters/aunts/grandmothers: Scented candles or lotions that smell like a combination of fruit and spices, like “vanilla-apple” or “pear-tarragon.”

Grandfathers: A thick book on some obscure topic, such as “Salt: A World History.”

Parents: Usually tools are good for Dads. It makes them feel manly, even if they never use it. Moms usually don’t care what you give them. They’ll love it regardless. However, I find that the best gifts for them are expensive stuff such as electronic gadgets or a massage chair — stuff that they would never buy for themselves.

Small children: Holiday-themed socks.

Older kids: Kids have come to associate Christmas with presents. This is no way to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Make them focus on the true meaning of Christmas, by getting something from the World Vision catalog, such as a chicken to help a poor family in a third-world country.
In-laws: Plants.

 May you have a wonderful, warm holiday filled with all the things that make life worth living, such as the Leatherman Micra pocket tool.

Visit Huy at his Jagged Noodles blog at www.jaggednoodles.com.

My friends, we have reached a point of what I will now call “social siloism,” mainly because it makes me sound very smart. Basically, despite being more connected than ever through technology, or perhaps in spite of it, as individual units we are now very isolated from our friends and neighbors. We have become a collection of silos, instead of a genuinely connected community.

I really miss the college days, when it was perfectly acceptable, even encouraged, to drop by unannounced. Our rooms usually looked like crap with dirty laundry and trash everywhere. We also looked like crap in flip-flops and sweat pants. And everyone was happy, discussing how to solve global problems or the ontology of Jell-O or whatever. Spontaneously we would go out for ice cream or fries, recruiting whoever we encountered, and more often than not, they would drop their books and come along, and we’d be an army of scroungy, disheveled, cheap, and very happy people.

Now, out in the real world, no one drops by to visit unannounced any more. Only in TV shows do friends drop by without warning. The protocol is to send a Facebook message or e-mail several days, preferably weeks, in advance to ask if it’s OK to schedule a visit. In fact, when people drop by unannounced, we are offended. “How DARE they visit me!” we think, scrambling to gather up all our stuff from the couch and throw it rapidly into the bedroom.

The reality is that everyone’s place looks like crap. That’s the natural state of most people’s dwellings. Dishes are piling up, bathroom sinks and mirrors are full of toothpaste spots and random strands of hair, and there is usually some sort of weird smell, either from the garbage or compost that should have been taken out earlier, or some pot of food on the stove that has gone sour. Really, the only time any of us clean is when we have people over, or when we’ve reached our personal threshold of squalor where even we are disgusted with ourselves.

But we believe other people’s places are spotless, and we perpetuate this misconception by rarely visiting anyone, and by giving people enough notice to tidy up. We have become obsessed with people’s image and less on the people themselves, turning social visits into a series of rituals that includes giving notice, apologizing for the state of our dwelling, complimenting the host on their wall art, sending thank-you notes, etc. When we do visit people, it is stressful, as we now have to make sure to look presentable, and the choice of wine to bring must be appropriate. Once I accidentally bought what I thought was a classy wine for $17, only to be horrified to find out that it had a twist-off cap! We might as well have asked the host to drink a bottle of sulfuric acid.

We can live for years in an apartment without knowing our neighbors’ names. Most of us naturally drive to the store instead of borrowing a cup of sugar from our next-door neighbors. And our friends rarely drop by. All of this will have consequences on communities, which are formed to protect their members and to conserve scarce resources. A collection of silos is not a community!

I propose we bring back community, college-style. Let’s make a pact. We can agree that everyone’s place generally looks like crap. We can visit each other at any time without notice. On the flip side, the host can kick people out at any time. We do not stress out about stupid stuff like the tidiness of the place. We can be blunt without placing judgment: “Dude, your kitchen smells like my gym socks,” “Really? I’ll get the air freshener. Want a beer?”

Let’s bring back the no-stress environment that once existed, when we only cared about spending time with our friends, not how their apartment or house looks. We must cut the crap by not focusing on the crap. How else are we going to solve global problems?

For JN’s tips for Black Friday shopping, go to jaggednoodles.com and search “how to shove an old lady.” 

Like being scared? Why would anyone like that? Has society reached a point where we must manufacture fear in order to entertain ourselves? I say, if you’re not scared about what’s out there, then you’re not paying attention:

Office mugs: One in five of them contain fecal bacteria and/or E. Coli. That’s right, fecal bacteria! Apparently, about 60 percent of men and 40 percent of women don’t wash their hands after using the toilet. Luckily, most of the germs are probably scalded to death by hot coffee. Still, fecal bacteria!

Desks and keyboards: Computer keyboards have over 60 times more bacteria than most toilets, while desks contain 400 times more bacteria than toilets. Your desk has 21,000 germs per square inch. A toilet, about 49.
Multivitamins: Some studies say they’re good for your health. Others say they may shorten your lifespan. If you don’t take them, you may lack nutrients you need. But if you take them, you might get cancer. However, chances are very low that they’ll harm you. But they could kill you.

Ball-point pens: On average, 100 people choke to death on them each year.

Brain cells: We lose on average 85,000 brain cells a day, while regenerating only 50 or so.

Red coloring: If you see “cochineal extract” or “carmine” as an ingredient on a bottle of your favorite juice, then you’re drinking powdered insect shells. What kind of a scary, sick world do we live in where we use insects to color fruit juices?

Michele Bachmann: Sure, she’s running behind right now, but politics is so unpredictable. She may just vault ahead of “The Black Walnut” Herman Cain and assume the presidency, and the ground will open, unleashing the Four Horsemen and ushering in an age of darkness and despair.

Literally: So many idiots are using it incorrectly that it might lead to a changing of its definition, because English is a living language, meaning it changes all the time! Eeek! If this happens, it will literally make my head explode.
Greece: If it fails to address its fiscal problems, it could destabilize the Euro, setting off another global economic crisis, worsening the current economic conditions, leading to a complete collapse of everything, increasing the likelihood of famines, wars, and pestilences. And terrible hummus, falafel, and dolmades.

Dust mites: Your bed mattress has 100,000 to ten million tiny insects that live on the dead skin cells you shed every day. Females lay about 80 eggs in their lifetime. In other words, while you’re feeling all comfy and snuggly, millions of six-legged bugs are feeding, going to the bathroom, mating, and hatching out of eggs and entering your lungs. You’re probably inhaling hundreds of them right now!

That’s just the short list. Other things that should keep you up at night are: global warming, our failing education system, sponges, obesity, unemployment, North Korea, solipsism, the expanding universe, the unraveling of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity thanks to the discover of neutrinos that could travel faster than the speed of light, Google+ not catching on, bunnies, bird flu, plastic bottles, Saturday Night Live continuing to run for years despite being painfully unfunny, salmonella, and paper cuts.

So skip paying the $25 and just stay home and surf the internet if you need an adrenaline rush. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to work on my dust mite costume.

Look, an easy-to-remember website:  www.Jaggednoodles.com.

Today, I read an article in the Huffington Post, arguably the second finest news source online after the IE, about psychopaths and how to recognize them. This is very important information to know. The world is full of psychos, and if we can’t recognize them, then whom are we going to invite to Tea Party rallies?

Psychopaths are kind of like werewolves. Sure, they look like the rest of us, but eventually, when it’s too late, they’ll reveal their true selves and do all sorts of bad things, like fight against HPV vaccines and global warming and stuff. Now, you could go to Huffingtonpost.com and read the article. Or, more conveniently, I’ve summarized the main points below. Use this as a guide to identify the psychos in your life. And also, use it as a self-diagnostic tool.

First, psychos have no sense of empathy. Yesterday, for example, I was telling someone about my dishwasher. It broke, and for the last several months, we have been washing dishes by hands like animals. I told a colleague this, and I thought he would empathize with my chapped hands, which have been bent into claws by repeated lathering and rinsing, the hands of a peasant spent in endless toil. But he just mentioned something about poverty and war blah blah, completely ignoring my problem — clear sign of a psycho.

Second, psychos do not have normal displays of human emotions. They have no affect, or weird ones. Try this simple test. Tell them a story about how your neighbor got a new puppy, and last week, the puppy got really sick. A normal person might say “aw, that’s terrible” or “I hope the puppy gets better soon” or “Oh, God, why, why do you punish an innocent puppy, why?!” Any other response indicates an abnormal reaction, typical of the average psychopath.

Third, in general psychos hate puppies, bunnies, woodland creatures, and other adorable animals. I always carry a small Care Bear doll around just to test for potential psychopaths. If they are overly violent to the bear, I try to avoid them. One guy tried to strangle Funshine Bear; we are no longer BFF’s.

Fifth, psychos have an unsettling disregard for others’ needs. They don’t care if you’re tired, or have plans, or that your favorite tv show is on. They’ll still make you take out the garbage and complain about how you never empty your pant pockets when you throw your clothing in the hamper, even though you ask them to only talk to you during commercial breaks.

Sixth, they have no sense of humor.

Seventh, psychos have terrible grammar and oftentimes use “literally” wrong. They’ll say stupid stuff like, “I have, like, literally a billion emails in my inbox.” It makes you want to stab them (which, by the way, is a normal human response to people who use “literally” wrong and does not make you a psycho). Some of them have asymmetrical hair, wear skinny jeans and wacky scarves, have poor hygiene, drink Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, and ride fixed-gear bikes. However, I might be thinking of hipsters.

In all seriousness, the prevalence of psychopaths in our society has reached pandemic level. Unfortunately, like the flu virus, they quickly mutate and adapt, rising through the ranks, eventually using their power to stonewall negotiations on the debt ceiling, shaft teachers, reduce much-needed social services, and produce horrible movies starring Sarah Jessica Parker. We, the non-psychopaths, must not only learn to recognize these people, but also stop them before they literally screw the world.

 Look, an easy-to-remember website: www.Jaggednoodles.com.