My friend (who happens to be a hot Japanese girl) told me of an unsettling experience she had when coming back from New York to Tokyo. She was clearing security when one of the TSA officers pulled her the to side to rifle through her belongings while asking her a few questions.

“So you are flying directly to Tokyo?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Do you live in Japan or here in New York?”

“I live in Japan.”

“So, how often do you come to New York?”

“A few times a year.”

“I see, and where do you usually stay when you are here?”

“Different hotels. It depends.”

“Well, you are very pretty. I’d like to see you next time you come to New York.”

My friend stood their speechless, until the brave defender of the homeland continued.

“Well, here’s my card. Be sure to call me next time you are in New York.”

Sheesh! It’s not just that it’s an embarrassingly lame pick-up attempt, it’s disgusting and appalling. While this TSA loser searches desperately for a woman who loves a man in uniform, Abdul Ammar Kaboom is walking past him with a bomb.

My back hurts.

I dead-lifted 110 kg for six reps this morning, and it seems that my body has decided that was too much. My mind considers this weight to be embarrassingly light, but my body has other ideas.

Now, I’m not one to chant the “no pain no gain” mantra, and it’s safe to say that you will never see me crushing a beer can on my forehead. However, as I sit here in my ergonomic chair waiting for my back to go into spasm, I have to conclude that if I didn’t injure myself slightly every once in a while, I would probably be doing something wrong.

It about limits. If you go beyond your limits, you injure yourself, but the only way to know what your limits are is to occasionally go beyond them. And, of course, once you go beyond your limits a few times, you discover that your limits aren’t where they used to be and the process begins anew.

This is true, not only in sports, but in business, relationships, new experiences, and just about everything that’s worth doing.

I have got to stop reading the news. Each mouse click is slowly undermining my faith in mankind.

A recent Gallup poll showed that 53% of all Americans believe that “God created man exactly how Bible describes it.” Interestingly, this is almost the same percentage of Americans that believe Saddam Husein had ties to Al Qaeda.

It would have been even more informative if Gallup has asked those 53% which version of Biblical creation they support since the Bible contains two contradictory versions. But no matter.

According to Gallup the rejection of evolution and acceptance of literal creationism was strongest among regular churchgoers, those lacking higher education and Republicans.

Long ago in my backpacking days, whenever I entered a new town the stray dogs would tell me how friendly the residents were. Not that they spoke to me directly, son-of-Sam style, but the meaning was just as clear.

If I entered a village and the dogs were well fed and ran up to me with their tails wagging, I knew I would be warmly received by the locals.

If, on the other hand, the strays were all skin and bone and snarled at me from a short distance away, the residents would undoubtedly be of similar disposition. I’d move my wallet to an inside pocket, zip my jacket up a little tighter and move on as soon as I could.

I’ve been reading a lot of evolutionary biology recently. It is intriguing to see how many of our rational behaviors are actually manifestations of deeply ingrained instinctual responses. The emotional responses we have to encroachment on what we perceive to be our territory being one of the primary ones.

I realized the other day that the dog that barks at me from behind a fence every time I walk by is barking at me for precisely the same reason that his master built the fence in the first place.

Both dog and master are telling all those who pass by “This is my territory.”