13 Nov 97 
 
=yawn= 
 
I had an odd experience after my workout this morning -- after a half hour  
on a treadmill, I got off and the floor felt like it was moving.   
Everywhere I walked it felt like I was gliding over the ground.  Reminded  
me how I used to go on the Dahlonega at Six Flags before the Mindbender;  
after the rickety wooden roller coaster, the steel one felt so smooth.... 
 
I was going to write a review about _starship Troopers_, and indeed I  
could tell you what happens in the entire movie without giving a thing  
away.  I will boil down my review to a single sentence: The 50s comic book  
themes and dialogue are followed with such consistency and purity (with a  
beautiful excess of gore and well-wrought aliens) I couldn't help loving  
it.  Go see it at a dollar theater.  One little bitch (me): if Dizzy is so  
tough, why are my muscles larger than hers? 
 
What I really wanted to write about was legal activities that are  
hazardous to your health. 
In no particular order: 
 
=Drinking 
=Smoking 
=Drinking a fifth of gin in one hour 
=Smoking 300 cigarettes in one night 
=Eating red meat with dairy (not kosher, but legal) 
=Cleaning a gun 
=Cleaning a gun, while it's loaded 
=Keeping a gun in your house 
=Having breasts 
=Driving a car 
=Driving a car, as a new driver, after dark 
=Riding in a car with an inexperienced driver 
=Playing with matches 
=Having unprotected sex (depending on state and marital status) 
=Having "protected" sex 
=Going hunting with near-sighted friends ("I swear I thought he was a  
	fluorescent doe!") 
=Drinking antifreeze 
=Stopping eating 
=Stopping drinking (any and all fluids) 
=Refusing medical treatment 
=Football 
=Boxing 
=Skydiving 
=Climbing mountains 
=Proclaiming your bigoted views on a street corner -- in Harlem, or  
	Brooklyn, or the Bronx, or anywhere, depending on the views ("I hate  
	stupid people!") 
=Laying out in the sun all day with no sunscreen 
=Climbing up on your roof 
 
	Not all of these activities are idiotic, under the right  
conditions and given a certain risk-level one is comfortable to entertain.   
I always find it reassuring that there are many legal ("unintentional")  
ways for people to harm/kill themselves that I can promote. 
 
	So eat that extra cheese pizza in huge bites, I haven't brushed up  
on the Heimlich maneuver or CPR lately.  Don't worry, I won't save you.   
 
	I'm sick of all the do-gooders trying to saving idiots against  
their best efforts; I'm willing to let them die the deaths they chose.  In  
a legal way, of course. 
 
	Of course, because of idiots, insurance premiums are higher for  
the rest of us.  That's a price I'm willing to pay. 
 
	Now I've heard of the Darwin award, in which spectacularly stupid  
people take themselves out of the fertile population (through death or  
sterility) -- but most of the winners I've heard about were doing acts  
that were stupid and illegal, acts for which they'd have done prison time  
if they hadn't taken care of their own punishment. 
 
	I'm not promoting such things.  I'm promoting stupid, fatal legal  
behavior. 
 
	Go for it.