jeff yen

I stumbled upon this site, apparently written by Mil Millington, a British author/journalist/etc. Very well written, actually, and full of enough dry humour to wring the last bit of moisture from the dusty veins of our gubernatorial first lady. What? She looks like a mummy. It’s quite long, and I’ve read it all, to the eternal lament of my eyes (bright blue text on a dark blue background is not, possibly, the color palette I would have gone with). There’s a novel out by the author which draws on his experiences, and I think I just might see if the local Barnes & Noble has it in stock.

On a separate note, I’ve given blood a few times now. The last time I went, I decided to visit the donation center instead of trying to hunt down a Bloodmobile while mutants in leather jackets brandishing spears and machine guns chase me around in armored dune buggies. This hasn’t happened yet, but a man can dream.

Anyway, so I show up at the donation center, do my paperwork, wait my turn, and eventually get ushered to my Couch of Glory. I swear, the donation couches are so comfortable, the experience of laying down in one more than makes up for getting the very life drained out of you.

As I’m laying there, waiting to get stabbed for the benefit of a stranger (which, in retrospect, seems uncomfortably close in many respects to a brutal mugging), my eyes are roaming over the ceiling. As luck would have it, the workers at the donation center have taped sheets of paper with interesting facts on them to the ceiling directly over the couches. I assume this has the amusing effect of provoking the following monologue several times a day:

“Hey, I never knew that 60% of Americans are eligibAAAAAGGGGHHHHH JESUS CHRIST, IS THAT A FUCKING HARPOON??!”

While I’m reading these facts, easily distracted sucker that I am, the beaming nurse sticks what seems like a ludicrously oversized needle into me. Glancing down at the silver tube sticking out of my arm, it appears, for a tense moment, that the woman has mistakenly punctured me with her ball point pen. I’m on the verge of opening my mouth to point out this regrettable state of affairs when she fiddles with some kind of apparatus, and suddenly the entire right side of my body collapses like a flan with three kids, two mortgages, and no job.

Nothing in the preceding paragraph, I would like to note, happened. The needle was pretty big, though.

However! I did learn an interesting fact from those papers. Every time you donate blood, your body burns 650 Calories replenishing it. This got me thinking about a few things.

1) A new book, “Donate Yourself Thin,” which could potentially net me millions, solve any future blood shortages, and remedy the plague of obesity that is sweeping the world.

• Problem: I imagine receiving a transfusion from an Atkins diet convert would be the rough equivalent of getting set up with a bacon I.V.
• Problem: Vampires could become dangerously obese, thus necessitating the casting of Eddie Murphy in his “Nutty Professor” fat suit in the title role of the next Blade movie. The animated talking bat, voiced by Rob Schneider, will win over the hearts of America… then eat them.
• Benefit: Every convert will be too anemic, lethargic, or dead to sue me for misrepresenting the potential risks. Hey, it worked for Phen-Fen, Atkins….

2) 24-Hour Fitness’ new deluxe membership benefits package:

• 1 low-calorie recipe book
• 1 handy calorie calculator
• 1 workout towel
• 1 box of Energy Bars? made out of Food? by your friends at No Really, It’s Edible, Inc.
• 1 Drain-U-Dry? leech-and-baggie kit

3) The practice of “small cutting” recast as a kind of eating disorder. Hemorexia? Possibly not, though that would make a kickass name for a dinosaur, or a band. Hemolimia?

4) I’m stopping here, to go to sleep.