The 5 Hour Energy LiveBlog

Don't get me wrong - I'm as accomplished a coffee drinker as anyone. But for the last several months, I've been trying to wean myself off of the stuff, the idea being that the less I consume, the greater the impact it will have when I do drink it.

Today I had my first 5 Hour Energy. I chose Pomegranate. What could go wrong?

4:06 p.m. Examining the bottle of 5 Hour Energy. Trying to decide if I really want to do this. Claims to be like coffee, but quicker. Comes with a warning label. Coffee doesn't come with a warning label, except when it's hot.

4:07 p.m. Reading about Niacin flush, a "natural warming sensation" that occurs when your body processes necessary minerals of which it was previously deficient. That's the 5 Hour Energy way of trying to convince you that the way you're about to feel is healthy.

4:08 p.m. What could go wrong? I love pomegranates.

4:09 p.m. Oh, gross.

4:13 p.m. Head upstairs feeling normal. Time to get to work and pound out some projects.

4:16 p.m. Notice a delightful jump in my typing WPM. That's if you count "pnusctuality" as a word. Unclear if this is due to 5 Hour Energy.

4:19 p.m. Niacin flush.

4:21 p.m. Toilet flush.

4:36 p.m. Working on a parent letter. You know how sometimes when you say a word too many times, it starts to sound funny? Every word is that word right now.

4:45 p.m. I literally cannot stop thinking about bridges - how they're made, who designs them. How do we really know they're safe? I can't focus on this letter right now. All I can think about is bridges.

4:47 p.m. Reading about bridges on Wikipedia.

4:50 p.m. Force myself to focus on the parent letter. Just spelled the word "contact" with a semicolon. And an umlaut.

4:57 p.m. Looking for Rick Keller's phone number. He's a structural engineer and I've got a lot of questions about bridges.

5:00 p.m. Saved from a very awkward conversation by the fact that I don't actually have his phone number.

5:10 p.m. Go downstairs to help with dinner. Hold the baby. Bounce the baby. I am not intentionally bouncing the baby.

5:15 p.m. I am literally yelling at a pot of green beans for what I suspect to be blatant malfeasance.

5:28 p.m. Drink a glass of water as an attempt to flush the 5 Hour Energy from my system.

5:29 p.m. I feel like I drank that glass of water awfully fast.

5:30 p.m. My shirt is soaking wet and there are ice cubes on the floor. Can't figure out why.

5:45 p.m. Eating dinner. Trying to hold it together.

6:00 p.m. Offer to clean up after dinner. Ask Lindsay to "time me." She declines.

6:02 p.m. Done. Wish she would have timed me.

6:05 p.m. Back to work. So excited AND so scared.

6:12 p.m. Just realized I'm not wearing a shirt. Not sure how long this has been.

6:44 p.m. Drooling. Thanks 5 Hour Energy.

7:00 p.m. 25 emails in 2 minutes. All to the same guy.

7:16 p.m. Less concerned about bridges than I am about asteroids all of a sudden.

7:40 p.m. Watching the 5 Hour Energy commercials online. That guy seems so happy at the office, but trust me, he's using every ounce of his willpower not to go outside, strangle a bunny, and eat it raw.

7:55 p.m. Well, this is the third time I've gone to the bathroom "just to be sure." And for what it's worth, I'm 0-for-3.

8:02 p.m. I'm Batman.

8:17 p.m. Parent letter finished nearly four hours after it started. Thanks 5 Hour Energy.

8:34 p.m. I wrote down "Great idea for sitcom." Post 5 Hour Energy, I have no idea what it was.

8:39 p.m. When did I take my pants off? I may have eaten dinner in my underwear.

8:45 p.m. What is the stuff made of? Chihuahua concentrate?

9:00 p.m. Is five hours over yet?

9:14 p.m. Struck by inexplicable urge to blog again.

9:16 p.m. Really just excited by all of the labels I get to use again.

What the Dog Saw

Today I finished my seventh book of 2010, Malcolm Gladwell's What the Dog Saw. This was one of those books that required a two-month wait at the library. Uber-bestseller Gladwell has the remarkable ability to make uninteresting things seem positively intriguing, and writes at the kind of pace that causes you not to realize that you've been reading about the history of ketchup for forty minutes straight.

This is what makes Gladwell so unique. I wouldn't expect that you could pay me enough money to read about the Ronco guy, but there I was, riveted as I followed the life arc of the same guy who peddled the Veg-O-Matic, the Showtime Rotisserie grill, and the Ronco Flavor Injector.

For example, did you know that Ron Popeil's mom once paid a hitman to kill his dad? Furthermore, did you know that's the reason they divorced?* And did you know that a year later, they got back together again?

* If you knew the first part, I suppose you could have guessed at the second.

Still, there's something a bit dissatisfying about this latest bestseller. Dog is a compilation of Gladwell's favorite articles that he's written for the New Yorker for more than a decade. It's not such a bad gig to make a few million dollars again, merely by reposting the stuff that made you a million dollars to begin with. And while it might be detestable for us to think about, it's not so detestable that I wouldn't consider doing it myself.

I've already worked on several drafts for what my book would look like, and thanks to blogger's ubiquitous labels tool, it's easier than ever for bloggers to compile articles into ready-to-print book forms:

• I Am an Idiot: The Aaron Helman Story
• The Men Who Inspired Me: The Nudge Toward Mediocrity
• Kind of Gross: Things that Are Kind of Gross
• Stories Where I'm Not Wearing Pants
• Reasons I Will Always Be Single: An Underdog Story
• Ferret in a Sweater: The Coffee Table Book for Aficionados

Can't the Washer Just Do It for Me?

If I had any idea how to apply for a patent, I'd do this myself. But I don't, so my great ideas are merely a call for you to invent it, give me one, and make the world a better place.

Washing machines should automatically default to the cold/cold setting after every single load.

Think about it.

No one ever gets too upset about accidentally washing their whites in cold water, but no one's thrilled when they pull a stack of color-bled doll clothes out of a washing machine that's a little bit warmer than it was supposed to be. We've all done it at least once - washed something improperly and turned it into the kind of garment only a rodent would wear.*

* Strictly so I could use this:

Here's what I want to do. I will turn the dial to hot for the whites, and the washing machine will turn it back to cold again when the load is finished.

I would guess that most families, at least in this country, don't go through enough white clothes* to justify doing more than one load of whites anyway. There's very little reason for a washer to remain on the hot setting for consecutive loads.

* I know what you're thinking: Klan members. But you're wrong. Klan members don't wash their clothes. Ever.

So my great idea is a washing machine that defaults to its safest setting. It just makes sense.

And no, this post is does not owe it's birth to anything stupid that I've done.*

* At least not recently.