31 December 2012

Awesome Lifehack!

Never be late to work again by using this one easy hack:

  • Leave for work in the pre-dawn hours of New Year's Eve.
Traffic will be almost non-existent and you can pretty much guarantee to cut your commute in half. Use the extra time you save in the morning to work on some side projects and wow your boss.

The drawback is that this can only be done once a year and you'll have to fit 2,000 hours of work into one day, so be sure to bring a well-constructed to-do list with you. If your job involves providing periodic updates - like issuing quarterly financial statements - be prepared for a healthy amount of educated guessing and outright fabrication. 

Also take time to schedule your calendar until next December 31st. You won't be able to attend any meetings so make sure you're booked solid.

21 December 2012

Nibiru Ascends!

I try to keep a log of minor accomplishments throughout the year so when I'm feelin' down I can say "Hey! I got out of bed three days in a row! Back in June. I'm doin' pretty good!"

With that in mind I'd like to make public another accomplishment:

  • 12/21/2012: End of world postponed.
You're welcome!

05 November 2012

We Can Vote!?

Non-felony convicted Americans will choose the leader of the free world tomorrow. 

This is the human who will represent us when aliens invade and demand to speak to our leader. 

If you are reading this but are not in the free world then don't worry. You can skip this post.

According to the rhetoric, we are trying to select the candidate for the most important job in the human race. As such, we would want to be well informed. 

Google


To aid in that effort, Google has created an election center where you (Americans and curious foreigners) can go see what's up. 


It's very flashy and they have a lot of interactive maps and infographics you can poach but mostly it's good if you want to see what state was traveled to the most - and by whom!

There's a ton of links to news articles and some YouTube crap I'm not going to bother with but that's not really different than just using Google Regular. Although they do have info on your local polling spots and who's going to be on the ballots. That's good to know because in spite of popular belief, you can't just go to the courthouse and scream your vote at the top of your lungs. 

Also considering how many other people are on the ballot, you'd find you quickly tire of voting in this manner. They put judges and stuff on there. What's that about?

OnTheIssues.org


This next site is a .org so you're guaranteed total neutrality:


But it's really ugly. I kept looking.

CNN


Here we go, CNN comes to the rescue:


You can click on a topic - we'll pick Guns - and then see what each candidate has said via direct quotes about it. There's also a pretty lengthy synopsis on each of their stances and whether there's any "buts" or "howevers" that need to be considered. Incidentally, both guys are way for guns. Totally. No one is taking any guns away or anything so don't go nuts for carbon fiber compound bows and hunting crossbows unless you're doing research for elaborate Walking Dead/Hunger Games fanfic.

Erotic fanfic.

Send me that fanfic when it's done - I'll proofread it for free.

Anyway I guess the lack of absolutes is fair, since they can't just say "vote for this guy 'cause we like him" and retain any semblance of impartiality. 

Fox News


Speaking of impartial, Fox News has something similar but it sucks. Not helpful. 

ISideWith.com*


You can go for isidewith.com. They have a quiz and everything and then at the end you can see who to vote for. 

Also helpful: You can see who 4chan is going to vote for and then, as in all matters related to 4chan, do the exact opposite.

The opposite of  the Libertarian candidate would be the anarcho-fascist candidate I guess... so that's a tricky one.

"I Side With" covers the tough issues, like whether or not you believe in evolution. 

Some insight into the algorithm* they use would be good, in the interest of transparency...

Especially since I just took the quiz and they told me to vote for the Green party! There may have been a "Come on, stop fucking around" button I missed that limits the results to Obama or Romney.

Or, as your uncle may call them, No-Bama and Willard. 

So in conclusion, I think ISideWith.com is going to be the best bet for what is an online quiz to help you decide who to vote for. There's very little reading involved.

In fact, of all the sites I listed I'd say there's the least amount of reading involved with that one. In that regard, I can't recommend it enough. 

By and large, the Internet as represented through big sites like reddit (and the aforementioned 4chan) seems to think it's going Libertarian this year. That can't possibly be right so I imagine they'll work their way down the list of candidates and vote for the first non-joke one.

Also, did you know that there's a Justice party and and Constitution party? That's a pretty good move. You might be able to not vote for a Republic in favor of a Democracy but can you really vote against Justice? 

I'm actually helping out with the "No Kicks in the Nuts" party in 2016 because if you don't vote for no kicks in the nuts, then you're voting for more kicks in the nuts. I'm pretty sure that election is going to be a blowout.

*Notes:

I hate typing stuff in camelcase but URLs can become unreadable if you don't. So, that sucks.
Also, ISideWith does allow you to drill down into specific statements candidates have made that figure into the maths they use. That's good if you like reading. Nerd

31 October 2012

f(x) = George Romero

George Romero is hailed as a luminary of horror. This being Halloween, it seems appropriate to write about him.

Night of the Living Dead is widely regarded as a masterpiece and was groundbreaking for its notable blah blah blah. Everyone agrees it's good. I knew it was good before I even saw it.

Then I saw it and I thought, "Hey, that was pretty good."

And I assumed George Romero was dead because I am... often mistaken.

But he's not! He's very much still alive (as of this writing) and still putting out movies.

And that's where the problems arise.

People should listen to George Romero because he wrote and directed Night of the Living Dead. But people shouldn't have kept giving him blank checks to create heavy-handed quasi social commentary in the form of zombie movies.

His movies got worse. Not even like, "I read the wikipedia synopsis of them and they sound like they got much worse."

It's a fact, with numbers and stuff.

Regardez:

The data from Rotten Tomatoes for the "...of the Dead" series:


I didn't include 1990's Night of the Living Dead (written by George Romero but directed by Tom Savini) because it's a remake. 

I did include other films he did not direct but wrote if they fall into the same Noun of the Adjective Dead series because I feel like George Romero owns that and is ultimately responsible for it.

"...Of the Living Dead" Rotten Tomato Scores Over Time with Trend-line
Edward Tufte would kill me for using line widths greater than 1pt but i felt like splurging. The trend-line, in black, is clearly heading down. Wayyyyyy down.

In fact if we plot the x-intercept for this graph we find that his movies should already be getting Rotten Tomato scores in the negative numbers. It would have hit zero somewhere in the 2010 timeframe.

What I'm losing sight of is perhaps the most important thing of all:


He can really rock a pair of gigantic old-man glasses.

To be fair he did kind of create the iconic modern zombie that has absolutely saturated pop culture... and that's perhaps reason enough to let him keep directing whatever he wants. No matter how poorly it scores.

23 October 2012

Terrible Idea IV


Martini Glass Coffee Mug

This wouldn't be a mug, as such, but a glazed ceramic martini glass.

Why is it Terrible?


It would possess a number of qualities that make for a terrible coffee vessel:

  • Lots of surface area
  • Doesn't hold much liquid
  • Super tippy
  • Difficult to hold without burning hand

Potential?

No. There's no potential to this idea. I'd hate to receive something like this, even as a gag gift. Too inelegant for a proper martini and too stupid to drink coffee out of. Let this concept be stricken from the minds of novelty glassware manufacturers in perpetuity.

18 October 2012

MC Rhymesomuch

There is a large segment of the population for whom rap is synonymous with a caricature of Run DMC.

To rap, you kind of do something like:

I'm MC Punchful and I'm here to say/ I'm gonna rock the rhymes in a punchful way!

You do a back and forth thing with your hands and kind mug your face like you're trying to look tough.

Now you're rapping, now!

I try to stay away from any kind of analysis regarding rap/hip-hop because I'm still convinced that it's impossible to do without coming across as:
  • pompous
  • a failed satirist
  • racist?
  • funny ten years ago
I already paved the way in another post discussing the efforts of 2 Chainz and Kanye, and I've addressed an earnest desire to recognize some of Eminem's choicer work. That was relegated to Purgatory but I think it's time to let it through the gates.

This is from "A Kiss" from Hell: The Sequel. The song is (the album, really) split between Eminem and Royce da 5'9". 

Okay I already feel like I'm in over my head.

No! I will remain resolute and continue. 

Here we go, "A Kiss". 

A one-night stand is all he wants with a female fan, yeah one like Stan/ And he's so about a one night stand, his bedroom has two lamps/ And only one nightstand(...)
There's no antecedent to the pronoun in the first line but he fixes that by describing "he" as "one like Stan". Stan's Eminem's alter ego - lot's of rappers have one so that's not too big a deal.

The rhyming here is solid but the part I really enjoy is the one night stand/one nightstand bit.

Night stand and nightstand are homonyms kind of except it's spread across two words. I'm more impressed with this kind of visual pun. You got a bedroom? Reading lamp? Stick it on a nightstand. So if you have two lamps and just the one nightstand your plan would then involve bedding women who were so perceptive that their train of thought would go: "Bedroom, huh? That's odd that there's two lamps in here but only the one nightstand. One nightstand? Wait, this is a one night stand!"

Pretty good.

One more song from the same album and then I'm going to go crawl back into obscurity. From Lighters:
I love it when I tell ‘em shove it/ cuz it wasn’t that, long ago when Marshall sat flustered lacked luster/ cuz he couldn’t cut mustard/ muster up nuthin’, brain fuzzy cuz he’s buzzin’ woke up from that buzzer/ now you wonder why he does how he does it, wasn’t cuz he had buzzards/ circlin’ ‘round his head waitin’ for him to drop dead was it?/ or was it ‘cuz them bitches wrote him off, little hussy ass scuzzes/ fuck it, guess it doesn’t matter now does it?/
The king of this verse is [z]; the queen is [s]. Every line has a "z" or "s" sound and they all kind of flow together to make this very dense sounding verse. It stands out from everything before and after it. It's delivered quickly but not obnoxiously fast. It's just... all of those alveolar fricatives (voiced and voiceless) hit the ear in a very unique way.

And he wrote it! And it's not apparent from how it's written how it will end up sounding. You have to say it out loud (to yourself, quietly) to really get it.

"Does it", "was it",  "...it cuz" etc. He's fully taken the way we turn these phrases into words; we mash them together in most informal speech - and brought them to fit right in with "scuzzes" and "buzzards" and "fuzzy". Very good. It's very clever, I think.

Conclusion

Peace! We outta here!

::drops mic::

16 October 2012

Skinny Cow

I've never really been sure how to write this post, which would be why it has sat empty, in my drafts, for nearly a year.

I've decided a direct approach is best.

Skinny, the cow from Skinny Cow, is hot.

Proof?


She's a stone cold fox, whether perched coyly on an ottoman or lounging poolside.


And she's not above sharing some saucy Polaroids, either.



She keeps that measuring tape strategically positioned though, right? Or... I dunno. Skinny seems to possess only the female form and - for better or for worse - no anatomy that would require any unpleasant compromises.

Actually the more I look at these pictures the more I can imagine the mind of Skinny's illustrator; their brainstorming checklist:


Coffee stains and everything!
How well did they do?

No resemblance!



More importantly (most importantly,) could I have done better?

Part of what kept me from writing this post was that I kept thinking I was going to redraw Skinny, but chestier. That now seems like it's territory better left undiscovered. I find solace in the fact that if I had a client ask me for a "sexy, fit cow-lady" I could do no better than Skinny.

Although if we're talking about non-human food mascot relations, I think you could do better than Skinny.

I'd go with 50's era Chicken of the Sea Mermaid.

Hell yes. And that sailor would too.

15 October 2012

New and Noteworthy

Dante's pal Virgil was born today. Thanks to him, Dante was able to escape from a series of allegory-heavy vignettes of sinners and then do whatever happens in the third book of the Divine Comedy that no one reads.

It's Heaven, right?

Happy Birthday too to Friedrich Nietzsche, writer of Also Sprach Zarathustra. Without him, we wouldn't have a title for the music from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Also today, Lee Iacocca was born! Iacocca is best known for creating wheeled fuel-bombs known as "Pintos" and sending them zipping around America's roadways. Also he designed the Ford Mustang so, that's something. That was before Mustangs sucked (Mopar all the way, baby!).

Lee Iacocca shares a birthday with Emeril Lagasse.

Boooooooo, Emeril Lagasse!

You do a disservice to other October 15th birthday celebrants.

October 15th is also the feast day of St. Hedwig of Silesia! This is not noteworthy in any specific way, and St. Hedwig is not the patron saint of anything. But I figured I'd give her a shout out as I imagine she doesn't come up much in conversation.

According to the New York Times, on this day in 1860,
"Eleven-year-old Grace Bedell of Westfield, N.Y., wrote a letter to presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln, suggesting he could improve his appearance by growing a beard."
Growing a beard is fine advice, regardless of whether or not you're President!

Happy Birthday y besos to all other October 15th Libras.

11 October 2012

The Houston Connection

Or, further proof that everything old is new again.

88 Lines about 44 Women came up in my running play list the other day. The playlist is generated based on BPM; I'm not sure that I would have picked that song otherwise.

It's pretty good though, it's got a very persistent beat. Good for running.

Anyway the song is a series of couplets - 44, specifically - about 44 different women. Wikipedia tells me it's by The Nails. It's possible the only thing of note they contributed to the musical landscape but I can't attest to that.

You get lines like:

"Zilla was an archetype/ the voodoo queen, the queen of rap."

or 


"Jean-Marie was complicated/ like some French film maker's plot."

Ho ho ho. The song is all very New Wave and clever and then I hear:


"Patty had a house in Houston/ shot cough syrup in her veins"

Houston!

Syrup!

Alright, so this song came out in 1984. That's the first reference to Houston and cough syrup that I'm now aware of. Before that, it was the entirety of Three Six Mafia's discography, but specifically 2001's "Sippin' on Some Syrup". 

What the hell were they talking about? Being in high school and also not living in Houston or having an encyclopedic knowledge of regional US drug culture I had no idea about the close ties that Houston-area rappers had to codeine (or similar) cough syrup (mixed with soda, I forgot that part). "Lean" - on account of it makes you super sleepy and you're leaning over. Tremendous! I then went through a brief period of downloading chopped and screwed remixes of songs from Napster. That would be - playing songs at have speed and chopping them up on turntables. It's sounds like what "about to fall asleep" feels like. I'm sure it's an excellent complement to being out of your mind and struggling to stay awake on prescription strength Oxycontin cough syrup.

In fact... I remember now that one of my earliest blogs (which was then known as a homepage (which furthermore was hosted on AOL or somewhere shitty)) had a rather lengthy rant regarding censorship of references to weed on the radio and MTV - but no problems with an entire song about what amounted to just another drug. I wanted to be the guy that said "Hey! You know that song? About syrup? Did you know it's called drank and it's about this cough syrup that these rapper guys drink? And it's Houston?" I was that guy in high. I still kind of am that guy, unfortunately. 

I think this post attests to that.

Continuing: Cough syrup! I had no idea that this was even a thing and then it turns out that there had been a whole subculture surrounding the abuse of cough syrup that I wasn't privy to. It was like a curtain had been opened. 

Then, eleven years after that song came out I hear an even older song that further cements the ties between Houston and cough syrup. The curtain is pulled back further! But also I realize that Three Six Mafia wasn't onto anything new in 2001 if The Nails beat them to it by fourteen years.

Wheels within wheels, man.


But Why?

Houston is awful. It's 100 degrees year round and the humidity tops 100% most days, based on my exaggerated impressions of a town I've been to once. 

I imagine the bay is slick with a rainbow sheen of oil and everyone there who doesn't work for a struggling energy company lives next to Paul Wall and Mike Jones and hangs out with Slim Thug and UGK at 59 South Lee. 

Why cough syrup? Why mix it with soda? Why does Houston make people want to escape reality in such a unique and candy-sweet fashion? 

I expect I'll never know.



09 October 2012

Pretenders to the Throne

Jägermeister is the undisputed king of metal booze. It's made from 56 herbs and spices, all of which are licorice.

Their current ad campaign features Kerry King of Slayer fame who, in spite of being kind of an ass, is quite metal. 

They also feature vignettes of tough men doing assorted metal things like tattooing or rodeo-clowning.

Wait I just found the full set of profiles:
  • Mike Lingerfelt: NASCAR Pit Crew Champion
  • Freddie Roach: Boxing Trainer
  • Keyshawn Johnson: All-Pro Wide Receiver
  • Kerry King: Guitarist [come on though, it's fuckin' Slayer]
  • Nathan Fletcher: Big Wave Surfer
  • Rob Smets: Rodeo Bullfighter [not a rodeo clown, in spite of his clown face paint]
  • Mister Cartoon: Artist (tattoos)
Are these all metal? I dunno, maybe..

The point is, Jägermeister (getting very tired of typing that umlaut) presents itself as the baddest-assed, most metal liquor available. Who hasn't seen a band on the Jägermeister side stage? Who hasn't stopped by the Jägermeister tent at a metal festival to try and get some free shit?

No one. No one has not done these things because Jägermeister ("Jäger", if you're fucking awesome) positions itself at the forefront of these things. 

But must it be Jägermeister forever? Evaluated objectively, it's kind of medicinal and great if you like sweet black licorice. If you take away the licorice all you have is an umlaut and a fraktur logo. Plus there's the mythical ghost-chamois that the inventor hallucinated or... whatever. And that's kind of metal. We can do better, though.

source

Let's explore an alternate universe; one where things evolved much the same as our own with the chief exception that a different Germanic booze positioned itself at the forefront of getting people drunk while listening to Slayer.

Candidates

Bärenjäger 

Why is it a potential candidate? Because it's got a man fighting a bear over a beehive on the label, that's why.


Barenjager

What happens next? Does the bear get punched with bear trap boxing gloves?

Does the man get his scalp clawed off and the bear eats his brains? Is honey involved?

At any rate, the very label tells a story worthy of any ambient black metal or progressive/stoner rock band. Plus it tastes good, very sweet. Easy to drink a lot of and good warm or cold. I personally think Bärenjäger deserves the top spot, but it will forever be the Pepsi to Jägermeister's Coke. Or possibly it's the RC Cola, it's hard to say.

STROH 80

"The Spirit of Austria"

source
Let's be clear; the 80 is not the proof, it's the percentage alcohol. So STROH 80 weighs in at 160 proof, or roughly twice that of your standard anything else. Exceptions are made for Bacardi 151, Everclear and Wild Turkey. And once upon a time, Jack. Until they made it weaker to appeal to a larger consumer base.

Anyway, I'll let the website tell you a little bit about them:
"Whether for cooking, baking or as warmth spending drink it is always the right season for the unmistakable STROH aroma."
So STROH corporate (a.k.a. The Man) wants you to bake with it. That means they're sort of selling giant bottles of something like vanilla extract. I'm more interested in it for its ability to make warmth spending drink.

STROH is not very metal looking and there's nothing metal about cooking or baking, but warmth spending drink is pretty metal and Austria is metal enough. So I'd say it's a strong contender - maybe more so if they strengthen their brand a bit. An umlaut would not be gramatically correct but that didn't stop Motley Crue from seeing success. I'm just saying, it can't hurt. If they played their cards right we'd all be familiar with the unmistakable STROH aroma.

Also-Rans

These guys are close but they'll never make it all the way.

Rumple Minze


I was going to count this out as being too fairy-tale-ish and then I found this picture:

Old?

So, points go to Rumple Minze. Still I think this proves that at one point they tried too hard; trying too hard to be metal is not metal. Note the bear and the armor-clad warrior maiden. Rumple Minze might be best drank ironically while listening to Re-Thrash or whatever 3 Inches of Blood is.

Bärwurz


I'm lumping these two together because they're pretty much the same. They're Bavarian "medicinal" liquers and they both taste like it. Imagine a less-sweet Jägermeister that's awful.

Bärwurz has a bear on the label but... it's not very metal.

source
It's not very metal at all. That bear doesn't look very mean; it's just kind of hanging out. Still though, we've seen that associating a bear with your brand is a step in the right direction so they get points for trying.

Blutwurz


Blutwurz. Let's say it in English:

BLOODROOT.

I would drink something called bloodroot, and then I'd listen to Kreator or some other old German thrash and go safety pin some band logos to my leather jacket. Then I'd keep drinking until I blacked out.

source
Hang on though. They put a bird on it? That's not... very metal at all. They put two birds on it. I objectively enjoy the label but they're not going to be sponsoring any second stages at any festivals any time soon. Blutwurz also needs some help before they can hope to usurp Jägermeister.

Lessons Learned

As with many things, it's important to get there first. We've seen that it's not about the number of umlauts, the taste or strength of the booze. And it's not enough to just be German! It's all about branding. Jäger as it, they're owning it and I don't think they have anything to worry about any time soon. 

They would do well to put a bear on their label though. Clearly it can only help.



02 October 2012

Not Just Old -- Internet Old

If I want to know what it was like to wait for the iPhone 5 launch (or Samsung Galaxy S III if you're a giant with giant hands) all I have to do is remember back real hard and then I remember what it was like.

'Cause it was like two weeks ago. And I can remember back that far so, that works well.

But I don't really remember the launch for the first iPhone. I wasn't following the blogs I'm following today and it's hard for me to place myself in the middle of the buzz that led up to what, at that point, was a largely unknown mystery magic-box.

To the internet!

Let's use, for example, engadget. They're a fairly respected gadget blog and they've been around for a while. I remember that before it was officially the iPhone it was whispers of an Apple phone. So I search for that in the 2006 neighborhood of engadget and find some choice tips:
  • January launch on "all" providers, both CDMA and GSM
  • Extremely small form factor
  • Two battery design (with single charger) -- one for playing music, the other for phone functions
  • Flash memory: 4GB for $249, 8GB for $449
  • "Slide-out keyboard"
  • Possibly touchscreen

Pretty sweet right? Personally I'm most excited about the slide-out keyboard. But what would the internet be without throngs of irritated, impossibly knowledgeable commenters? 

From the same post:


This guy's actually not that bad. What's fascinating to me is going back and trying to get into that mindset. Trying to guess whether or not the guesses were right.

Even more interesting is the fact that this comment is nearly seven years old. That's fuckin' forever on the internet. Remember chat roulette? It has come and gone in that time span. Rickrolling? Four more iPhones? All of that has come to pass. If you told me in 2006 that animated .gifs were to make a strong resurgence in 2012 I would have punched you squarely in the jaw. People have graduated high school, gone to college, and started shitty jobs in seven years. It's a long time.

But, without getting into a broader discussion on the nature of time (just kidding here I go!) seven years is the blink of an eye. On the scale of a human life, seven years is a fractional amount. On a geological timescale seven years wouldn't even register and when you start looking at things like the age of the universe - and how long it could take for the universe to collapse back into supermassive black holes and protons to die - seven years rounds down to zero. It's nothing.

I'm saying it's hard to think on longer time scales, which is why I have maximum respect for the folks of the Long Now Foundation. They're in the process of designing a clock that could run for 10,000 years. Jeff Bezos has a smaller one being built in Texas so they can work out the kinks. 

10,000 years! That's incredible. Whether it succeeds in 10,000 years is immaterial to me. The idea that there are people who are optimistic enough to think that any of this will still exist in 10,000 years is exciting. I can't plan more than a week at a time.

I'm stuck in "now".


The Long Now has a Long Bets section - an "Arena for Accountable Predictions". 

This is where I'm tying back everything from the beginning, by the way.

Anyway you can hop over to Long Bets and say 

"Oh I bet in 100 years that we'll all be wearing cargo shorts again." 

(fingers crossed)

Then your prediction gets vetted and up it goes and in 100 years someone will come back and say "Ha! How can you wear cargo shorts if no one has any legs, stupid human?" Then the hyper-evolved squid will blast off in a jet of ink and you'll feel foolish for making such a prediction. 

But I figured this was just a place for people to make outlandish bets for far-future events. And there is some of that. For the span 2008 - 2108:


Well okay, in 2108 I'll come back and see if that happened and then i'll rub this dude's face in it. 

Imagine my surprise then when I found a bet that had been settled.


Well... damn. That's actually pretty good. But someone could have placed that bet in 2008 right? 

NO!

It's from 2002. On the internet! Ten years! And my first clue (other than the listed dates) was this right here:



10 years ago! Just like that. And this isn't one of those long-dead message boards that floats to the top in a Google search or something. It's not a cached page. This is an active site - still. By the way, someone was determined to have lost that bet in 2010 (or 02010 as they list it, emphasizing the long time scale of these things) courtesy of Netflix. Netflix... who is still around! 

So not only did someone keep this site up for now twelve years, but the commenters and comment system are still intact and active. This is the same dedication that these "six years of aging" time-lapse people display. 

Incredible. 

And the way they're operating it's as if they actually intend for this framework to still be in place in 50 years or 100 years to settle bets that are still being placed. It's humbling and hopelessly optimistic and for the most part, seems very genuine. There's some big names in here too - Ted Danson, Ray Kurzweil (futurist), Michio Kaku (the physicist from the TV), Warren Buffett.

So while seven year old comments are interesting, they pale next to ten year old comments and are totally blown out of the water by a group of people actively imagining the next 10,000 years. 

Also!

Here's an article about a 600+ year long organ performance.

27 September 2012

Terrible Idea III

Lozenge Shaped Shampoo Bottle


Not lozenge-sized, mind you, although that would be a terrible idea as well.

Why is it Terrible?


Because it's round on both ends. You couldn't stand it up in the shower and the shampoo would be forever settling on one side of the bottle. Extra terrible points awarded if each end of the bottle was different (shampoo conditioner combo, for example). You couldn't use one without having the other one run to the back of the bottle.

Potential?


If you had a weebil-style bottle that was weighted on the bottom by product and could never be knocked over then that could be cool. But it wouldn't work when it was full; it would just topple. So it would be full-on weebil action for like... 10% of the bottle's lifespan and the rest would be in-shower frustration hour.

25 September 2012

Cooking For One (Cooking for fun!)

I do a pretty good job of cooking for two. I do it one to five times a week and I usually manage an average of only one hot dog or frozen pizza based meal every 15 days. I know like, two ways to cook a chicken breast and they're both great.

But sometimes I'm not cooking for two or even 2+. Sometimes I cook for one. Like right now! And there are a lot of important considerations when cooking for one. I'm going to exhaustively list all of them. 

The Rule of Knives (?)


You can't use a knife 'cause you'll be sitting in front of the computer watching music videos on YouTube (or similar). If you're going to cut it, it needs to happen at the prep stage and not at the eating stage. So the Rule of Knives is that you can't need a knife to eat it.

I guess if you're using a knife as a fork by spearing stuff with it you're okay but that also means you're probably cooking for one in Alaska after having killed a bear and are not reading this.

Can You Put It In Eggs?


You'd be surprised at how many things fit inside of a sufficient quantity of eggs. Call it a "scramble" so you feel better about yourself.

Here's a few things you can put in eggs:
  • Capers
  • Mustard
  • Pepperoni
  • Diced x where x is equal to some vegetable
  • Any cheese
  • Milk
  • Water
  • Sour Cream
  • -Cloves (Careful with this one; note the negative sign)
  • Any leftover meat; diced
  • Hot sauce
  • Leftover eggs (Recursive Property. Watch your exponents and be sure to check your answer!)
Don't put these things in eggs:
  • Uncooked Rice
  • Cloves
  • Metal filings
  • Moldy hot dog buns
  • Apple cider vinegar
  • Crisco
In all honesty, the set of things you can put in eggs is much larger than the set of things you cannot put in eggs. 

If you can eat it by itself, you can eat it in eggs.

Will It Fit On Bread?


If you were thinking "A Kentucky Brown fits on bread, douche!" then I assure you that you are the douche because you're ignoring (or willfully forgetting!) the Rule of Knives. Open faced sandwiches don't even really fit on bread - they're only sandwiches nominally - and they often require the use of a knife. So unless you're going to make a Kentucky Brown scramble by preparing the sandwich-meal and then dicing it up and putting it in a skillet with a dozen eggs you can fuck right off. 

I've lost my train of thought. 

If it fits on bread, it can be a meal for one. Did you grill some righteous steaks last night? Do you want to eat on the couch? Put that steak on some bread, friendo. Now you have a steak sandwich - no knives required. 

Other things that can be put on bread:
  • Hot dogs
  • Hamburgers
  • Brisket
  • All meats
  • Lunch meats
  • Eggs (but now you're just showing off)
  • Mushrooms
  • Cheese
  • Cheese
  • Cheese
As long as it's on bread, you can take it with you, sans knife and not have to fuck about with remembering which side of the plate the dessert spoon goes on. 

Protip: It goes on the top side!

Borne of Desperation


This is perhaps most importantly of all. If you really had your shit together you would have made a real meal or you'd go out and buy a six pack of High Life for dinner. Or like, pick up fast food.

So to truly be a meal made for one, someone listening to the contents must be cringing on the inside (or on the outside, if you're doing it right). 

Example: 


"OMG all I had for dinner last night was [tuned out]."

"That sounds great! I had a mustard and Velveeta omelette with diced onions and diced ham and diced american cheese slices and diced leftover mac n' cheese."

"::cringes::"

Takeaways (Leftovers! Ha!)


No knives. Eggs, bread and desperation. That's all you need. That's it. Now you're cooking with fire (for one).

Hey speaking of leftovers, that's obviously a dinner for one option but that demonstrates a certain amount of foresight that isn't really in the spirit of a real meal for one. 

Unless you're making a Lo Mein sandwich. 

20 September 2012

Haunted Dog House

Or Rather, Dog Haunted House.


If you're like me, you're frustrated at not being able to bring your dog with you into haunted houses every year. And even if you did, would your dog get it? Do they know that butchers with fake human parts hanging up are scary? Do they know that fake blood is supposed to be blood? Are they scared of clowns in any different way than they're scared of service people?

I think probably not.

I think the only thing a dog would respond to in a haunted house would be [STARTLING NOISE!] and [STRANGERS STRANGERS STRANGERS!]. Dogs aren't inherently afraid of the things we have learned to fear. But we can use that to our advantage!

With a little bit of ingenuity and like... ten dollars in materials, you can have a dog haunted house of your very own. Good haunted houses take you on a narrative adventure; each scene is designed so you see as much or as little as the designer intends and the scenes are linked together by spooky dark hallways where nothing ever actually happens.

Dogs don't understand narrative structures or spooky vignettes so I'll just leave it up to you as to how you combine the following dog-haunting experiences. You may try sprinkling them throughout the year.

The Box


Put a cardboard box over the top of your dog. Make sure it's dark.

Bang on the box until your dog starts barking. Your dog is now scared.

The Sack


Put your dog in a sack. If your dog is too big to fit in a sack you might need a tarp or a sheet. Find a vacuum small enough to fit in the sack with your dog.

Turn the vacuum on. Your dog is now scared. You can also poke at them while they're in the sack for extra spooky dog-pants-shitting terror.

Strangers


Cut eyes and a mouth out of a bag. Put the bag on your head. You are now a stranger.

Approach your dog menacingly. Your dog is now scared.

Abandoned Forever


Leave your dog at home while you go run errands. Make sure to speak loudly before you leave about your intentions of going away forever and never returning from the dry cleaners.

Your dog will think they have been abandoned and will now be scared, although the fear will be more of an existential anxiety. Don't forget to actually come home.

Strangers!


Go outside. Ring the doorbell. Ring it again. Dogs hate that shit but it might scare them also.

Switcheroo


Schedule a plumber over the phone loudly, within earshot of your dog. Make sure to repeat the time and day of the appointment so your dog can hear you. Later that evening, call the plumber back from your car and have them come one day earlier than you previously discussed.

Your dog will be shocked that this stranger, who is now in your house, is there a full day earlier than they're supposed to be. This will undoubtedly scare your dog - but part of them may marvel at the prompt service your plumber provides.

Drowning!


This is more of a Halloween in July type of event, and it requires access to a swimming pool. Get in the swimming pool. Make sure your dog can see you. Splash around, even a little.

If your dog won't shut the fuck up and stop barking for even a second, it is now terrified that you're drowning. If your dog doesn't care then make a mental note that you are not loved by your dog, and some Man's Best Friend he's turned out to be.

Pack It Up


Leave some suitcases laying around near your dog's favorite hangouts (try area dog-friendly bars, or the floor). Slowly fill them with clothes over the following days. Your dog will become increasingly worried that you might be leaving them for good this time - especially if you tell them that this time you're leaving them for good. Your dog will become scared - and also sad and will poop somewhere noticeable.

Re-Scheduled


Alter your schedule. Tell your dog that you're going to start taking night classes, but also you're going to be getting up one hour later three out of seven days a week. Change the days and occasionally come home early from night classes (you need to actually attend or your dog will think you're faking). All of this change will distress your dog, and probably they'll be scared.

The Triple Crown


This requires some exquisite timing, a good deal of money and a total commitment to dog-xiety.

Buy a new house, sell your old one and move.

Moving houses will combine aspects of Re-Scheduled, Pack It Up, Strangers!, Abandoned Forever and The Box. Rest assured that if you can complete The Triple Crown successfully you will have terrified your dog - possibly to the point of permanent mental scarring. Enjoy nursing them back to wellness for the remainder of their days.

Happy Haunting!


18 September 2012

Terrible Idea II

Retractable Corded Mouse

Purpose


You know those phone cords with a spool on 'em so they're constantly under tension and retract completely when you let go? One of those for a mouse.

Why It's Awful


Every time you took your hand off the mouse it would fly clattering across your desk and end up hanging from a USB port behind your tower. Expect it to knock your coffee over at least twice before you go back to wireless.

Redeeming Value?


People are really into cord management so... there's that. But really not even the most orderly of people wants their mouse dangling from a USB port every time they let go of it. Every. Single. Time. Adding a locking toggle to it would add usability but that's not the point here.

13 September 2012

On Gifting

Picking out a good present for someone is difficult.

It should be something that's relatable, useful and enjoyable. If you only hit on two of the three categories you've got a near-miss and if you only satisfy one category, it's going to look like you didn't put any effort into it. I think a Venn Diagram is in order. As always, I'll be shopping for your mom - a big fan of cats:


3D effects make for bad infographics.
A relatable gift is important, but it's not enough on its own. Your mom loves cats so a cat anything is both expected and dull. But it's your safety gift. At the very least she'll be nonplussed.

Enjoyable gifts are great but they may not make any sense. You like grain neutral spirits and, from what I've gathered, your mother is more of the wine cooler type.

Gifts that have a +2 useful modifier are great, but if all they are is "useful" then you've just given someone something boring. Go buy $50 worth of Bounty paper towels or something - you know they'll use it!

Moving on to the intersections of the circles; these can possibly yield some valid gifts. Probably not the butterfly knife but damn if they aren't awesome and useful. A cat lover loves cats (by definition) so your mom may like a new cat, but it's probably going to be the opposite of useful. Buying a new cat tower or a set of cat toilet seats or a potted catnip plant or whatever isn't going to be enjoyable. But it will be useful and it will be personally relatable. To your mom. Who loves cats and adult contemporary jazz.

The best gift you can give is the one that satisfies all three criteria; the one that lurks at the center of the Venn diagram. I spent too much time trying to figure out the best gift for your fictional mom so I just filled in it with question marks. I don't recommend buying your mom punctuation unless she's a huge fan of typography.

I've also included a Venn Diagram for purchasing gag gifts.

There's more art here, but you definitely have to touch on some of these to successfully execute a gag gift. Note that "Personal" does not figure into the equation. This is about you, not them.


ALL CAPS, ALL THE TIME.
On the surface, something like a Shake Weight might look good here.

But you would be wrong.

It's more sad than absurd, and it's probably not fun to buy. And it's just useful enough for someone to question whether you're suggesting they need to tone up. And it may turn out to be deeply personal.

Something like Kentucky Deluxe "Bourbon" would fit nicely in the center of this gag gift diagram. Why? Moving clockwise from the top: it's a cartoonish caricature of "whiskey" (absurd), liquor stores are a blast (fun to buy), it's undrinkable (useless), no one actually likes it (unrelatable), and it takes up space in a liquor cabinet (burdensome).

And nothing says "I wasn't thinking about you" like cheap whiskey. I call it a win. In fact, you may want to keep a caseof cheap whiskey on hand in case someone unexpectedly gag gifts you. That way, when they pull out a 20 lb. sledgehammer from their trunk adorned with a satin bow, you can turn right back around and gift them a bottle of Old Granddad with a silk ribbon tied around it.

No one's feelings get hurt, and everyone leaves feel encumbered.

Also, you set yourself up for the bonus situation of explaining to the police why you now have a sledgehammer, a case of whiskey and 100 yards of silk ribbon in your trunk.

11 September 2012

Patriot Day

Here:

http://www.serve.gov/sept11.asp

Go do something good. Give blood! Volunteer at a food bank.

Go get some perspective, man.

10 September 2012

Relative Pricing of Durable Goods

I had to buy a plunger. Once. Twice, maybe.

The only time I'm aware of having done it is in college. Something needed plunging and my rental house did not come with a plunger.

In almost all other circumstances you think,

"Oh no. No... I need a plunger."

And then there it is! It was under the sink, thank God. Or behind the toilet or it just appeared and you swear there wasn't one there before.

Now you don't need to draw attention to your host (via yelling from the bathroom) that you absolutely overwhelmed their low-flow toilet with your evacuative efforts. Or that you blew your nose and flushed a single tissue and now there's blue toilet water 2 centimeters away from running over the lid and down the stairs to the guests waiting below.

The guests who are wondering.

Wondering what it is that you're doing upstairs in the guest bathroom and why exactly it's taking so long. Are you okay?  Have you never seen so many Reader's Digests in one place before and you've lost track of time?

Are you "okay"? Which means that someone assumes you're expressing your internal organs into the toilet bowl and whoever draws the short straw has to go knock on the door and make sure you haven't died.

Now for the rest of the dinner party, even though everyone has probably forgotten the Pooping Incident you know that they're really struggling to make it through their meals without running through the entire four minute event in their heads. Over and over again. What could they have done differently? Could they have engaged in more small talk to distract themselves and each other from your absence? Would loudly singing hymns have masked the true nature of your excusing yourself?

Thank God you found that plunger.

But what if you had to buy one? Where would you start? How much would you expect to pay?

On the one hand, this is a very simple tool. Really just a rubber cup and a wooden handle.

On the other hand, this tool saves you the unpleasant task of reaching your arm into the toilet up to your shoulder and manually fixing the situation by hand. I know manually means by hand.

I repeated it for emphasis.

If you asked me how much money I would give you to not do what I've just described above, I think i would say "between $50 and $100, depending on the nature of the crime." And I wouldn't be lying. I saw this X-Files one time where Mulder and Scully were in a sewer with some kind of bullshit FBI monster and one of them fell in. Fell in! I was twelve-ish at the time and I thought "just fucking kill me".

So what I'm saying is that a plunger should cost a little and a lot of money. If you're feeling fancy you can get one of those accordion style plungers:


The advantage is that it won't flip inside out, like an umbrella in a windstorm in a toilet. The disadvantage is that the nature of the task may leave you wanting for a tool with less crevices.

Something simpler?



Bam. The fair market price for a plunger is $7.88. This one has a white handle and a black "shame hiding" cup so I think it's at the higher end of the basic plunger spectrum.

While I would gladly pay $30 - $300 for a plunger, I am happy that the market does not take advantage of my ignorance and fear of toiletastrophes (Toilet ass trophies? No.). The money I save by not overspending on plungers allows me to continue paying for expensive therapy to address my crippling fear of restroom-related social anxiety.

06 September 2012

Everything is Moneys

What do you do for fun?

Do you drive a motorcycle? Do you draw? Are you crafty? Play piano? You like knitting sweaters? Weird sex stuff?

That's great. Good for you. Everyone needs a hobby.

Let's travel back in time. Try to picture the world of 30 years ago. Forty years ago. Used to was, a man would get home from a long day at the quarry, slide down the tail of a brontosaurus and pedal himself home on a penny farthing bicycle. He's excited. Today is Friday and that means tomorrow is the Week-End. After several hours of reciting Bible verses and listening to dramedies on his gigantic wooden radio, he's got some leisure time. Time to himself. Time enough to pursue his interests!

He's received a mail-order build-your-own-airplane kit from the back of Popular Mechanics which, in this time period, is a relevant publication that does not suck. He's excited to build his aeroplane, as manned flight has only recently been proven possible by the Wright Brothers, and so he goes about his business with an anachronistic assortment of corded power tools and a whole mess of chisels and mallets.

For whom does he build the plane?

Is it for his wife, who spends her time practicing watercolor in the parlor?

Is it for his children, who do not speak unless spoken to? And also work in a coal mine factory?

Perhaps he does it for the rest of the world, fantastically connected via expensive international operator-assisted telephone calls by a snaking network of undersea cables.

No. He builds the plane for himself, because he enjoys it. It provides a diversion from the worries of his day: Cubans and Prussians and The Bomb and so forth. He builds the plane to forget about whiling the day away on a stone slide-rule and dictating memos to his secretary. Who, while a lady, is also a bird that takes notes.

After several moon-phases come and go he completes his kit plane. It's tremendous! It has all the hallmarks of a pet project from a purposefully vague era: goodness, effort, heart, passion and enjoyment. The man is satisfied; his family is satisfied. The neighbors, who secretly hate him, are not satisfied but tell him that they are.

And that's it. When the air isn't thick with dirigibles and Pan-Am jetliners, he takes his airplane out for a spin. He feels pride.

Now let's take off our time-travel derbys and do it again, today.

The man order the kit plane from the back of Popular Mechanics which sucks now. Also the kit plane order form is under an ad for penile enlargement and above an ad for a free-energy device.

The man bought the kit plane because he though it would be fun. But is fun is the end -- does it justify the means? Does fun justify the money spent on shipping and the time spent building?

A tiny doubt begins to gnaw at his brain.

He thinks that it would be a shame to keep this kit plane build to himself so he starts a blog. And the first thing he does after naming the blog and picking his color scheme is attaching AdSense to it.

'Cause hell, if you can make some money off that blog then why not?

And then he starts following people on Twitter like mad, hoping that they'll follow him back. He blasts build updates out to his followers or even more frequently, no one at all. He's just yelling at strangers.
His twitter cross posts to Facebook where he announces new blog posts because even though the plane is kind of fun, the idea of making money is even more fun.

He films weekly build summaries and posts them to the YouTube channel he just started. He wants eyes on those ads and the only way to get them there is to drive people to his blog.

He know about cultivating an online presence and building his personal brand. These are things he's sure he's read about, and they were important things.

He start an Instructable on building kit-planes and posts it with detailed information linked to his build blog. Which now includes podcasts, because those are things that people have.

The money starts to roll in. Ten dollars. Then ten more.

He joins kit-plane enthusiast sites to let them know what he's doing. He sends tips to blogs in an effort to get featured. His twitter timeline is filled with inane updates.

The build is complete. His kit-plane sits unused in his steel storage shed as he desperately tries to cultivate his tiny online empire. The checks won't be cut until his AdSense revenue hits $100 and he's not quite there yet.

He opens a cafepress shop with "I HEART KIT PLANES!" t-shirts, coffee mugs, Frisbees and panties. They are overpriced and do not bring him any revenue.

He grows to resent the kit-plane. To him it symbolizes failure and he can't stand to look at it. He covers it with a tarp to protect it from the elements but also to protect himself from it.

The kit plane has done nothing for him. He has not recouped the cost of the materials. He was not compensated for his time. He did not gain even fifteen minutes of fame for all of his efforts. He wasted his evenings trying to promote and sell something that no one wanted to buy. Not even a little. He's not proud of what he's done because he feels no joy.

He has sucked all of the fun out of it and created a second, shittier job for himself. Shittier than the shitty one he was trying to escape in the first place.

(Metaphors, dog.)

The kit-plane could have been a guitar. Or a new camera. Or a set of oil paint. The plane could have been anything. 

There's nothing inherently wrong with maintaining a journal of events - video, audio or otherwise. And if you choose to share that journal with others then that demonstrates a certain confidence in what you've chronicled. 

It's so easy to take something we love and see other people making money (fame) off of that very same pursuit. This guy's doing it too and he's on the front page! This asshole can barely sing and they're on TV.

So we fail to do the things we love for fun and instead try to monetize them. We find a hobby and right after we figure out how it works we try to figure out how to make money off of it.

It's bullshit, so stop. Learn how to love things that people will never see, that will never earn you a dime.


 

04 September 2012

The Merits of Good Design

I make it a habit to attend school every so often. In doing so, I learn things. Sometimes.

Lately I've been noticing a lot of overlap. Most of it can be summed up in cliches like "Content is King" or "Form Follows Function" or probably some other pleasantly alliterative phrases.

I find that it often works the opposite way in real life.

People like flash. Not Flash like Adobe's slowing dying online-gaming (and other things?) platform, and not flash like the stuff on the walls at tattoo parlors. Some people like that kind of flash but I mean more flashy things. They want to be wowed. People like to see zip and vim and punch and je ne c'est pas and they can't quite put their finger on it. But it needs to look good. That's what counts.

That's short-sighted. A multimediastravaganza speech given without any thought to what it's about is empty. It's a tech demo. Design without content is meaningless. It's just something to look at. Music without form is jazz (zing!). Except, I think you could tell the difference between jazz built on a solid conceptual foundation (soul) and jazz built on technical improvisational exercises.

Whether you're building a bitchin' powerpoint presentation or writing a report or building a shelf, getting wrapped up in the flash of the finished product before you even have a foundation is going to fuck you up. It would literally be like building a house without a foundation, in that it would lack a foundation. Metaphorically.

Everything should have a reason to exist. Everything should serve a purpose.

But with that in mind we start wading out into deeper waters. You start hearing "designed by engineers!" thrown around as an indictment of an ugly product. The implication is that someone who is so focused on the function of an item that the form - the way it looks - is ignored.

The speech is a recitation of facts and figures given without regard to the audience; the magazine layout is line after line of information. And ugly. These things lack "art". They're inelegant.

I think that form really should always follow function. It's just a question of defining the function better.

Let's build a toaster. It needs to toast bread.

My first draft of a toaster, based on that design prompt, is a sheet of metal that gets hot when you plug it in. You put the bread down on top of it and then when you think it's done you pull it off. It toasts bread well enough but it doesn't do much else other than burn your fingertips.

Change the design prompt. The toaster needs to toast bread safely. You need to use it without burning your fingers. People need to want it on their counters.

Now the "function" of the toaster has been expanded to include utility and aesthetics. The execution of that function is the difference between an OK toaster and an awesome toaster, but they can both represent good design.

You have to shoot for where the utility line and the aesthetic line intersect.

Unlabeled graphs are bad design, no matter how many colors you use.

It's the same shit from economics. It doesn't even matter which line is which; one is utility and one is beauty. As the perceived beauty of an object increases, it's utility tends to decrease. It's pure art.

If an object possess 100% utility then there may be some kind of inherent elegance in that - but it's probably not going to look very nice.

Good designers will push that orange line all the way out; the beauty and utility will intersect at 100% and you'll have another Eames Desk or Nike swoosh or something.

Everyone else needs to shoot for that middle ground there. Everything well-designed should be as flashy as it is useful - and no more. This is the genesis of elegance and "understated cool" and all of those other difficult to pin down things that people want so desperately but can't quite figure out. They're borne organically from the essence of a thing instead of tacked on at the end.

So says I.

30 August 2012

Terrible Idea I

Adaptive Spellcheck

Purpose


Spellchecking software that would start at zero, and adapt to your idosyncratic spelling as you use it. Eventually it would start correcting "a lot" to "alot" if you used it incorrectly enough. Autocorrect is innocuous enough that you probably wouldn't even notice these negative corrections as they happen

Why It's Awful


This is clearly awful, right? This is a thermostat that turns the heat up the hotter it gets in the house. A negative feedback loop.

Redeeming Value?


It would be nice to see how people's spelling evolves in a vaccuum. For example, I would eventually forget that the word "vaccuum" has two of every letter in it twice and start typing "vacuum". And no one would correct me! It's easier to live in a world where you're always right.

Easier still, is to live in a world where your always right.

28 August 2012

Wasp v. WASP

I received a series of texts from my wife the other day detailing the exquisit set of trials to which she had just subjected a wasp. It read like the boastings of a killer:

"I trapped a wasp. I've put him in the outside trash can.

If he's smart, he'll get out.

If not, then too bad for Mr. Wasp.

I broke one wing and told him that if he could fly out he would have freedom.

If not, he could end it all by figuring out how to sting himself."

I told her that if he lives, she had probably just created a wasp super-villain in the spirit of The Punisher.

In addition to the engorged sense of pride I felt at bearing witness to her cunning and theatric sense of punishment, I couldn't help but feel that there was a missed opportunity there.

Oh, to catch a wasp!

It's certainly not an easy task and not for the faint of heart or weak of spirit. But once caught - you've opened up a new world of possibilities. To carry around a wasp in a bell jar is to touch God.

So what could she have done besided subject him to a Saw-like survival puzzle?

In The Car


This is a bold move for the brave. You, the driver, reach into your cupholder and unscrew the top of your wasp jar. Panic grips the passengers! Who will be stung? Can the windows roll down or have the child locks already been engaged? Can the driver keep their cool and avoid putting the car in a ditch? No matter what, it will be a trip to brunch that will be remembered forever.

The Elevator


A wasp in an elevator! Who ever heard of such a thing? No one. And that's why their panic will be so tangible when you give that jar a shake and let the wasp out. Never will an elevator have moved so slowly as the elevator full of people and one increasingly confused wasp.

At the Office


You are, perhaps, a better person than any other who has had a wasp in a jar. You made it all the way to work without unleashing it! You'll taste the confusion in the air as a wasp menacingly patrols the 30th floor of a high-rise. How did it get there? Is there a nest? Are there more wasps waiting for the screams to begin?

Post-Graduate Wasp Play

The following are advanced-level wasp play. Do not attempt unless you've already mastered dancing on the razor's edge of wasp competition.

Duel in the Powder Room

Do you have access to a half-bath or powder room? Go there now and bring your wasp. Turn off the lights and release the wasp. You and the wasp are now engaged in a battle of wills. Who will break first? Will darkness engulf you both? The Olympic record was set in the first Modern Olympic Games by Tadeusz Henriczewski of the Liberated Palitnate of Wurzburg. It was 15 hours, 30 seconds. Tadeusz claimed he could have gone longer had he not been doing 2 oz. shots of mercury every two hours for increased vigor.

Wasp Goggles

Obviously this will require two wasps and two jars. Double check your vision plan, or purchase accidental death and dismemberment coverage before attempting.

Wasp Shakespeare

Will an infinite number of wasps buzzing angrily around an infinite number of typewriters eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare?

They will not.

Your task here is to attempt to describe the feeling of an infinite number of wasp stings for eternity. If you're writing it down, make sure to use college-ruled paper to get more bang for your buck.

Schrodinger's Wasp

Seal yourself inside a box with a wasp in a jar. Have an observer contemplate the quantum nature of your position. Until they open they box you have both been stung and not stung by the wasp. It is only until they open the box to observe you that they force you into one state. That state will be dead from starvation.

The Riddle of the Wasp

What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the noon and three legs at night?

This is a trick question. In your case it's three wasps in jars and they're all stinging you while you contemplate the solution.

Knights and Knaves (And Wasps)

You are on an island. All inhabitants are either Knights who always tell the truth; Knaves who always lie or Wasps in jars who will sting you. You come across three inhabitants and must determine, via yes or no questions, which is the Knight, the Knave and the Wasp.

Solution: The wasp will sting all three of you and the Knave will claim that it doesn't hurt.

Beer Pong But With Wasps Instead of Beer

Do like... play beer pong, right? But with wasps instead of beer? And then if you lose dude you have to drink.

Wasps.

You have to drink wasps if you lose.

Conclusiary

"Twas a brave woman who trapt the first wasp" is a quote I'm falsely attributing to Jonathon Swift. I think Nietzsche said "Wasps is dead, except for when your wife traps them and releases them in the trash can where they can die by their own stinger or live to discover the inherent glory found in the beauty of every new sunrise."

I think something they can both agree on is that wasps will sting you if caught inexpertly.

Something I can both agree on is that any further capturing of wasps around the house will fall to my wife, who will then subject that wasp to a fresh new Hell before they escape.

I will also continue capturing WASPs and putting them through the selfsame barrage of obstacles before they are permitted to taste freedom.