AtomJohnson Blog

*The following is from Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich’s column on June 1, 1997 and adapted into a song “Everybody’s Free (to wear sunscreen) by Baz Luhrmann on his album “Presents Something for Everybody”

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ‘97:

Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

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I loved living in San Francisco! It is a city of such energy and beauty. It is also a city where strange things happen and nobody blinks an eye. I picked my sister, Amy, up from the airport when she came to visit and immediately drove downtown to show her the financial district. We weren’t there 5 minutes before she urged me to switch lanes because there was a guy peeing while walking and was headed straight for my Honda.

So, you kind of leave San Francisco with the feeling that if you haven’t seen it all, you’ve certainly seen alot…

If you happened to be in San Francisco this past July, you might have had the chance to see them release 250,000 multi-colored bouncy balls down Filbert and Leavenworth street. It turns out Sony was filming a commercial for a new line of TVs and the sight of 250,000 bouncy balls against the blue skies and white streets of San Francisco seemed a good way to drive home just how bright these TVs are.

Whether or not you buy one of the TVs, the commercial is sure to bring a smile to your face. You can watch the final commercial here. You can watch some movies about its making here.

So, its Christmas Night and we’re watching War Of The Worlds. The entire movie is a bit unbelievable. However, I can’t stop thinking, ‘how in the world does nobody recognize Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning?’. These are freakin’ A-list actors! Didn’t Tom Cruise get nominated for an Oscar once or something? Everyone watches those awards. I mean, I know we’re getting attacked by aliens, but come on people….its Tom ‘Freakin’ Cruise!!!

Tonight I went with my folks to one of their many parties on the lake where they live. About three years ago, they moved from the land locked suburbs of Atlanta, to a house in the suburbs that is land locked on three sides, but has a really awesome lake on one side. This is the side that we like to look out at most.

As gorgeous as the lake is, it takes second prize to the people on the lake. I joke that they have joined a fraternity, but their social life really does put mine to shame. Over the past three years, I have had the privelidge of meeting many of the folks that they hang out with on a regular basis. Most are outrageously fun and have great senses of humor. I realized tonight that that does not go for ‘everyone’.

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It is that time of year again…no, not Christmas…

MSNBC just released their 2005 Year in Pictures. The Editor’s Choice photos are usually full of blood, tragedy and heartbreak. I tend towards the Reader’s Choice photos, which are full of flowers, puppy dogs, pretty clouds, and of course babies with giant headphones.

I’ve always loved a good sweat in the sauna. I think it all started at my local YMCA as a fat 8th grader trying to drop my pre-pubecscent manboobs. I used to go in there after a workout and sweat until I would see a penguin named Tinko riding furiously towards me on a four-headed donkey. Some say it was a halucination…

Two years ago at the Atlanta home show, I fell in love with a particular portable sauna. The moment I stepped into one of these goregeous boxes of wood and heat, it was like stepping out into the warm sunshine…only this time I had pants on.

Yesterday I made an appointment with the local Atlanta Sunlight Sauna dealer to try one out. She had the 5-6 person basswood sauna and the small 1 person sauna that they appropriately call, the Solo. I was a bit afraid of the Solo. It looks like a hybrid coffin/cryogenic chamber. The dealer insisted though that it was her favorite, so I gave it a whirl. I must say that this little Solo sauna packs quite a punch. 15 minutes into my sweat, I could almost hear Tinko in the distance…the pounding of hooves from that weird four-headed donkey. 20 minutes into it, Tinko was right there next to me, messing with the control dials on the sauna and singing just about every song from the Clay Aiken Christmas album. Suffice it to say that I was sold….that Clay Aiken sure can sing!

I just finished a cup of tea that promises the following:

‘A single cup of Tazo Calm has been known to have the same effect as sitting for 45 minutes in mountain meadow on a sunny day with your shoes off.’

I’ll be honest…I kind of feel like I’ve been sitting for 5 hours at my parent’s dining room table with wool socks and a sweatshirt on, sipping tea in order to stop the bone-chattering cold.

Is it possible that they packed the wrong tea in my teabag?

I don’t yet have a baby, but I know that babies create alot of two things….number one is noise….and number two is….well, number two.

Babies are pooping machines. Drop in some food, get out some poo.

It has always seemed to me a big waste that we wrap babies in puffy, disposable, non-biodegradable pants that are really just gift wrapping for a tiny piece of poo. Wouldn’t it seem more logical if we could just flush their cute little poopies down the toilet. Well, now you can.

If you have a baby, I encourage you to try gDiapers. If you’re concerned about clogging the comode…my first suggestion would be to stop going back for seconds. If you’re concerned about these diapers clogging the comode, read this.

Consider that conventional disposable diapers are the third largest contributors to landfills in the world and yet only five percent of the population uses them. And, a single disposable diaper can take up to 500 years to biodegrade in the landfill.