Doomsday Prepping

Doomsday preppers range from the casual survival enthusiast preparing for a "zombie apocalypse" to the hardcore survival enthusiast preparing for the "impending economic downfall" or "Katrina-style looting following a natural disaster".

Food, water, and protection will be critical in any of these doomsday scenarios.

Many people overlook some other doomsday scenarios that, while slightly more personal in nature, are measures more difficult to prepare for.

Identify prep kits for each scenario.

Groundhog Day

Being caught in a Groundhog Day style "day stuck on repeat" is considered by many leading experts to be inevitable. It's a known fact that 80% of the world's selfish, abrasive TV reporters will be subjected to the trials of a Groundhog Day at least once in their careers. This fact alone makes TV Journalism one of the world's deadliest professions, ahead of Alaskan crab fishing but behind poison-tester.

Those outside of the world of journalism would do well to stay on alert, however.

In a Groundhog Day, having a carefully rehearsed plan with friends and loved ones is more important than ever. You'll need to agree on a phrase or demonstration that will let those close to you know that you are actually on the 10,000th repetition of a particular day and have not, in fact, slipped into a psychotic episode. 

In the past, jazz piano, speaking French and ice sculpture and worked well in this regard. Describing events in detail moments before they happen may work as well. If you are a French psychic who dabbles in ice sculpture and jazz piano, you may need to think of some other ways to let people know that you're stuck. You'll need an ally to take you through your Groudhog Doomsday as it is only through an exhausting voyage of self-discovery and selfless acts that you can break free from the loop.

You may also take comfort in knowing that acts of malice are guaranteed to keep you stuck. That way, you can punch everyone you know in the mouth at least once before you get to the dual task of sorting out their lives and learning how to speak Pashto with a regional accent.

Don't get too punch-happy. If you're hallucinating and not actually stuck in a Groundhog loop, expect to see some jail time.

Freaky Friday

Obviously in a body-switch mishap there will be at least one other person who's aware of your predicament. The two of your are intrinsically linked until, again through self-discovery, you can un-fuck each other's life and switch back. Expect to come out on the other side with a freshly broadened perspective. You must maintain good relations with your swap-mate as it is only with their help that you can fix things.

Avoid any temptation you may have to get into hijinks while you inhabit the other person's body. Remember that they will be at least as out of sorts as you are. If you quit their job, you'll find that they will likely quit your job in an even more embarassing fashion. Prudence here is key.

If you're in a gender-swap body swap your immediate inclination may be to get into some really fucked up shit. Remember that at some point, you will swap back and while your body may be back to normal, your shattered psyche will never recover.

Misc. Enchantments/Curses

This one is trickiest to prepare for as it can manifest itself in many ways. It may be as simple as having the ability to lie removed. Depending on your job and overall nature, this may or may not be problematic. On the far end of the spectrum, you may find that you've been transformed into God for a period of time. The challenge there is to avoid getting drunk on power.

Expect the curse to be slightly ironic. That way, though careful introspection, you can prepare yourself for the future. For example if you generally hate the idea of Santa Claus, prepare yourself to one day become Santa Claus. Maintain good relationships with department stores and malls as they are often looking for Santa Clauses to employ around the holidays. You may want to keep a duffle bag handy with elastic waisted pants and cold weather gear. Drill your family (including any ex-spouses) on what to do when you turn into Santa Claus. The separation anxiety will be tremendous, especially for young children. Securing a magical snow globe that enables instant teleportation ahead of time will be difficult, but helpful.

Home Aloneing

In any case, it's important to determine whether or not you've been "Home Alone'd". In a Home Aloneing situation, no actual enchantment has occurred even if it appears that way. If you wished to be "left alone" in some manner and subsequently wake up to empty streets, it may mean that you are the sole survivor of some kind of neutron bomb or other cataclysm. Don't expect anyone to come back. You may also have just missed some kind of critical announcement and are left at home as a result. If you determine that you have indeed been Home Alone'd, it's important to note that your actions will continue to have consequences. Don't expect for things to reset to their pre-enchantment state once you feel like you've learned a lesson. Know, too, that any burglars you encounter are very real and are willing to take a murder rap if it means getting revenge.

General Tips

If you work, go ahead and call in sick. If you have been transformed into an animal - a frog or a Beast, for example - you may not be able to work a phone and you're going to have to take the unexcused absence while you sort out your shit.

Think back carefully to the events leading to your transformation. Were you issued a warning of some kind, or some sort of dire conditional prediction? In this case, you'll need to spend every waking hour attempting to satisfy the conditions of the curse.

Is your condition manageable? If you're an ad executive and are struck by magical lightning that allows you to read women's thoughts, you might be able to use this to get ahead in your career. If the crushing pressure of the psychic tsunami you're now being subjected to become too great, note the first tip. Call in sick; take some time to get it together.

If you do not remember being cursed or enchanted and are not aware of any conditions on your transformation, you may have been "Kafka'd". In this situation, prepare yourself and your loved ones (if you're capable of communication) for living out your days in your new, metamorphosed state.

Summary

While it's true that magical or semi-magical scenarios are not given the same consideration in the doomsday prepping community, they are no less important. The goal seems to be spending all of your free time and energy worrying about (but also kind of fantasizing about) some kind of cataclysm. The studious prepper will be sure to include these so-call "fantastical" scenarios along with the more standard but also still fantastic scenarios. 

Update!

Cracked.com's Chris Bucholz has published a guide on switching bodies with your mortal enemy. I consider it to be a helpful addendum to the tips provided here.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/so-youve-swapped-bodies-with-your-mortal-enemy/

The Principal Doctor's Office

Busted.

I've been sent to the principal's office before. It didn't happen much, but when it did it was usually the result of some quantity of stupidity on my part and some willingness to snitch on some fucking snitch's part. You pretty much need equal measures of the two otherwise the snitch is just crying wolf -- or you're acting a fool in a vacuum, unobserved and unpunished.

Whether you know you're being sent down the river at some appointed hour or the announcements arrives out of the blue, carried on the winged feet of an office aide, it's always accompanied by that terrible sinking feeling. Or at least it was for me. I imagine there are a few dead-inside types who got an early start and for whom the principal's office was no more of a threat than jail.

That's not me though. I cried when I had to go -- and that was in high school. Cried like a tiny baby.

Wuss.

So you go and you're sentenced and then you live out a month of detention or a week of suspension plus two weeks' no Playstation or whatever delicious combo your parents and the administrators have cooked up for you.

The obvious cognate for adults is jail. You just replace a few key words with "judge", "sentencing hearing" and "stabbed in the kidney with a toothbrush".

Jail is serious business.

I find that a lot of the same feelings from school get dredged up when I'm facing a doctor visit and to me, that's a bit more interesting.

You still sort of feel like you're "in trouble". You've done something wrong and now you're being reported to an authority figure. If you've gotten sick, it's probably because your dumb ass was hanging out with sick people all day or licking doorknobs or whatever.

Pulled muscle? Horseplay.

Broken bone? Fuckin' around.

Chronic ailment? Should have gone sooner.

No matter why you're going there's always the nagging feeling that you have actively done something wrong. That, had you acted differently, you could have avoided this whole mess altogether.

Some people can live with this guilt forever. I can't. Every time that nagging cough or mysterious joint pain comes up I'm reminded that I've done something Wrong. Eventually, I am compelled to snitch. When you go to the doctor your are both the malefactor and the whistle-blower.

Then the dread hits. What if I have to do something shitty for two weeks? What if they stick me with some fucking prescription I have to remember to take? Inevitably this is the case.

You've done something wrong, you go to the doctor and you end up with an irritating punishment.

And so, like people would avoid the principal's office altogether if they could, many avoid the doctor. No one wants someone to confirm that yes, they have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome because it feels like they're saying "Yes, you should have shelled out for an ergonomic keyboard and a footrest." It's a holdover from the principal's office dynamic. If you did something at school and you got away with it, you would do your very best to keep that information out of the principal's hands.

That's why none of my principals knew about the Lufthansa job I pulled, or the gym bags full of money that resulted from it.

It's that same total unwillingness to snitch and/or self-report that keeps people out of doctor's offices, and also keeps them chronically sick.

Hooray!

Hangin' it Up

I should probably just quit, 'cause I'll never do any better than this:

If I were a fish historian, I'd start the Cod Past Pod Cast.The whole broadcast would be me high fiving myself.
— Holy Taco (@holytaco) January 22, 2013

Awesome Idea II

Babyweights (R)

Milo of Croton is said to have attained enormous strength by, as a child, lifting and and carrying a newborn calf.

This feat was repeated daily and as the calf grew, so too did his strength.

Newborn calves are generally lacking these days but there are plenty of newborn humans available, especially to expecting couples. 

Babyweights would consist of a set of ripstop nylon sacks. That's pretty much it. The sack would have handles placed on it in various configurations and possibly holes in it for arms, legs and a head.

Then, you place a baby of your choosing in the sack and work out with it. Fresh babies are rather light so single-limb isolation exercises done with high reps would be initially appropriate. 

As the baby ages (and grows heavier) you can start using some of the alternate handle placements on the bag and switch to compound movements -- things you would have been accomplishing with a barbell. Worn as a backpack, you could do lunges, squats and good mornings to hit the legs and back.

Babyweights would be sold in sets by age - 0-1, 1-3, 3-5 and so on. 

When the baby reaches the age of fifteen or so, you can switch to the Babyweight Sr., which would basically be a body bag with extra handles.

By the time your baby is in their twenties, you could potentially be looking at 200+ pounds of weight. This is excellent for heavy squats and building strength via low-rep work. 

Thanks, Milo of Croton!

Spiderface

There's never a great time to find a spider in your car.

There are, as I've learned, several terrible times to find a spider in your car. One of those times would be blowing down the rain-slick freeway in the pre-dawn hours of the American workday.

It was in trying to focus on the taillights down the road that I instead found my eyes snapping to something much closer; spider zip line.

A spider had installed itself, overnight apparently, on a single silken thread that stretched from rear-view mirror to the driver's side A-pillar.

I don't believe I have an irrational fear of spiders so even though there was a chance that the spider and single strand of silk had appeared from nothing in the split second that I had blinked my eyes just, I would characterize my level of anxiety as "low".

I then spent the next few minutes figuring out if it would be slamming on the gas or slamming on the brakes that would send this swinging, swaying spider directly into my face. I think I figured out that the answer was "gunning it" and so I determined not to participate in any street racing to avoid such a situation.

I also wondered if I would go to work with a spider bite and a grotesquely swollen ear (or wherever the spider would chance to land) or if at that point I would just turn around and go home. I had finally relaxed enough to start hearing what had been on the radio the whole time.

Rock You Like A Hurricane

Good ole' Scorpions. This song will never get any more overplayed than it is right now. 

And yet...

What if it was a message from the spider? The spider was telling me I was about to get rocked, like a hurricane. Or perhaps a spidercane. Maybe the spider was sending me coded messages about a swirling vortex of tiny spiders being driven across the land. Would this be fatal? To be caught in a spidercane? Could the media cover it at all? I imagine it would be very difficult to acknowledge the existence of such a thing and to subsequently report on it. I also thought that if the storm was violent enough then you'd have a mix of live spiders and dead spider bits. That doesn't seem important but it's these details that can really make or break the plausibility of a spider storm. 

I didn't like where this was headed.

My anxiety level moved upwards from "low" and I had starting marking notches on a device I've invented to measure dread.

Give it Away

At this point I knew the spider, still dangling precipitously in front of my face as we traveled at 70 mph, was taunting me. Or maybe not a taunt, maybe just a description of what was to come and what will be. Anthony Kiedis could have never meant for a spider to beam the sentiments in this song directly into a human mind. 

"What I got you gotta get it put it in you."

That's no good. The spider's confidence was soaring at this point, especially if it was planning on such an intimate invasion. I figured the worst case scenario would be a brain full of spiders, right? 'Cause then you'd be sitting there and you'd have a splitting headache and then spiders would be pouring forth from your eye sockets and bleeding ears. You'd die. The part where you die is why it's a worst case scenario 'cause spiders from the mouth or whatever would be physically and mentally scarring but you'd still, possibly, survive.

But I realized that there are worse things than dying. Nightmare flashes of spiders erupting from my urethra flitted about and landed on my brain like the foulest of butterflies. 

Although the sun was peeking over the horizon, this commute had grown darker than ever.

Anxiety and dread now "middling", along with new intense desire to be anywhere but in a car with a spider bent on sci-fi body horror male pregnancy.

Standing in the Sun

Wait a minute this song sucks. I'm not a big fan of Slash's newer efforts and this song is no exception. 

And yet...

Slash's optimism spoke to me via so many guitar licks. Maybe things would be okay. Maybe I'd make it to work after all and there would be no arachnid impregnation and no swirling masses of spiders sweeping across the land and devouring everything forever.

And the sun, indeed, did rise. The spider had withdrawn to the safety of the oh-shit handle and I pulled into a parking spot, unscathed. 

Resolved: To Kill a Spider

The spider released his deathgrip on the radio and on my brain. I imagine I'll see him again, in about nine hours or so. 

But if he gets in my face while I'm driving again I'm going to kill him.

Updated:

Shortly after writing this the spider and its web were gone. I assume it's taken up residence in the climate control ducts, waiting to be blasted out with its spider progeny en masse.

Flu Prevention Tips

Logical Fallacies and Real Talk

America is currently in the grips of an influenza epidemic. A pandemic. 

If you've been holding on to all your panic for the right time, go ahead and start panicking now.

The Centers for Disease Controls Centers (CDC[C]) have three tips (and several sub-tips) for fighting the flu.

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/preventing.htm

That's fine, but I'll be damned if the government is going to intrude into my life and dictate how often and to what extent I "take every-day preventative actions to prevent the spread of germs". The list reads like the kind of crap I'd expect from the current so-called "administration" (a.k.a. Sharia law):

• CDC recommends a yearly flu vaccine as the first and most important step in protecting against flu viruses.
• Wash your hands often with soap and water.
• If you get the flu, antiviral drugs can treat your illness.

Save the Needles for the Junkies

First of all, I'm not getting a flu vaccine. I've made it this far into adulthood without contracting autism and I'm sure as shit not going to start now. NaturalNews.com - my only source for facts, is the only site I know that's exposing the truth. According to them, the CDC admits that flu vaccines don't work. So that right there - they're contradicting their own advice. Natural News is also the only site reporting on the breaking news that New York has created a psychiatric police state. You know New York is just the first step.

Am I going to trust a government "for the people, by the people" or am I going to trust the people themselves?

That's a trick question -- I only trust me. And also renowned vaccinologist Jenny McCarthy.

Hand Washing? More Like Hand-Wringing.

As far as hand washing goes, it might work.

But not as the CDC describes it. Predictably, this is another example of a bloated, bureaucratic government agency being given too much money and not going far enough. The CDC says I should "hum Happy Birthday" so I know how long this is all supposed to take. Right off the bat, Happy Birthday is copyrighted. I'm not going to steal intellectual property from some hard-working song writer. Personally I choose to sing (with a clear voice, just like in church) the Pledge of Allegiance. Three times. And you better believe that when it comes to "One Nation, Under God" that I say everything after the comma.

Anyway if the CDC is telling people to wash under their nails and to not forget the backs of their hands then they may as well admit that they're basically lobbyists for the flu vaccine industry. They leave out the part where you should cut an onion in half (a Vidalia onion, made in the USA) and rub each half the full length of your arm from fingertips to shoulder. The Global Healing Center - a source for Natural Health and Organic Living - basically confirms that "centuries of grandmothers" are right about the healing properties of onions.

They even have a quote FROM A NEWSPAPER:

“In a sickroom you cannot have a better disinfectant than the onion. It has a wonderful capacity for absorbing germs. A dish of sliced onions placed in a sickroom will draw away the disease; they must be removed as soon as they lose their odor and become discolored, and be replaced by fresh ones.”

That's from the LA Times, in the early 1900's. So that's over a century ago that they knew that onions would soak human germs up out of the air and lock them deep within their vegetable cell walls. This is science. And if they knew it in the 1900's then we should still know it now.

Why isn't the CDC recommending we source our own cheap, American made onions? Is it because they want to take money out of the pockets of the long-suffering American onion farmer? Or is it because they want to take away our right to treat our diseases any damn way we see fit?

Besides, I've known for a long time that hand-sanitizer is just as good as hand-washing. And that's if you even need to wash your hands at all! Public restrooms, telephones and keyboards are not the hotbed* of bacteria that scientists would like to scare us into believing.

"Flu Treatment$"

Now let's talk about the leading antiviral treatment for the flu: Tamiflu. While the FDA specifically recommends it as part of a larger set of flu treatments, I think the real reason they recommend it is to line the pockets of Genentech - the makers of Tamiflu. Genentech is a member of the Roche group and according to opensecrets.org, the Roche group has thrown quite a bit of money into lobbying for the government.

opensecrets.org

In fact, the Pharmaceutical industry is consistently one of the largest lobbying groups year in and year out**. It stands to reason then, that the FDA is simply recommending more ways to keep the biggest lobby happy. The facts are right there. You know who else are top lobbying spenders? The US Chamber of Commerce and the AARP. And we all saw what happened there (death panels).

I'll stick to my onion broth, thanks.

Patriots Take Heed

I don't believe in flu shots - I had one once and I got the flu. I've never had one*** since then and I never get treated for the flu. Never taken a day off of work from the flu. I think my anecdotal evidence speaks much more loudly than the alleged "60% effectiveness" reported in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. To recap:

• Wash hands (if you want - this isn't a dictatorship [yet!]) with onion and immediately discard slices.
• Skip the vaccine; you can avoid contracting the flu through sheer force of will.
• Ditch the pills. The government's already in your pockets every April and in every paycheck. There's no need to let them in again during flu season.

Footnotes

*Yes, they are. 

**This is a real website with real numbers. The Pharmaceutical lobby really is big, but that doesn't mean something sinister is going on.

***This is not true. I've had better luck without flu shots than with, and you probably shouldn't rely on anecdotal evidence anyway - no matter how loudly the person is yelling or how hard they're forwarding you chain e-mails.

Awesome Idea I

I'm taking a break from eliminating terrible ideas to put out an awesome idea.

Basically it's something that you shake on your food to dissuade you from eating it, but it's definitely not Sensa. 

It's a pepper-mill full of kitty litter.

Like this:

http://suburbantragic.tumblr.com/post/32672375287/uh-oh

But instead of Cool Ranch Doritos (which would have the opposite effect) it would be full of kitty litter.

You're welcome.

Vehicular Manslaughter

Cars seem to hold a unique place in the collective heart of America.

They also seem to hold a unique place for American men in an organ lower than the heart. I'm obliquely saying that there's a strong correlation between car parts and dangly parts.

This troubles me.

When I go to the doctor, I don't feel strange when they write me a prescription for oral steroids or antibiotics or whatever. "I could've done that!" says no one, "if only I had their knowledge, experience, and equipment!"

Could I spay and neuter my own pets? No, probably not (yes maybe). Certainly not safely. And I don't sit there and waffle on whether or not I should hop in there and offer to hold something for the vet while they cut something else. I figure I should leave that up to the pros, as there's a good chance I'd screw it up. And I don't even feel bad about it. I don't get paid to handle dog bits.

Can I do my own taxes? Yes. Can someone else do them better and faster for a nominal fee? Absolutely yes, fuck, yes. When online taxes stop working for me maybe I'll hire a real live human one day. Or, fingers crossed, a real live human/tax robot cyborg.

You could go on like this forever. I leave the bitchin' guitar solos to the experts and stick to clumsy power chords -- without guilt. I can cook -- but I still go somewhere and pay someone to make steak because they are much better at it than I am.

So why is it that when I have any car problems at all, I feel like I have to sit on the sidelines nervously eyeing the spot I was standing when my genitals fell off?

Cars are something that you (mostly just dudes) "should" be able to handle on your own. You're supposed to know about them and you're supposed to perform all of the basic maintenance. On your own. Go buy a book! Get some wrenches and shit and before you know it you've swapped out your straight six for a V8 with a supercharger. Oil change, scheduled maintenance, tune up.

The fact that I could, technically, change my own oil if I possessed the equipment and time makes me feel like a dandy when I go to the oil change place. What a fool they must think me! I always picture the oil change techs smoking out back and laughing all the way to the bank.

"Fool!"

"What and indulgent fop this man must be to pay for such a basic a service as an oil change!"

"I heartily concur! I'll sail all the way to Corsica on a schooner paid for by his fancy powdered wig!"

And then I overhear them and I cry and it ruins all my mascara.

But it's even worse when my interaction extends beyond "I am four months past due on my oil change here is my money thankyou."

For instance when I go to the doctor I say "My knee hurts when I extend it" and he says "well it sounds like... it could be this? Patella, ligaments, ACL, joints?" No one feels bad 'cause he's the doctor and he's supposed to know this stuff and I'm not.

But then I go to the mechanic and say "Duhhhhhh my car makes this like, sound, when I'm on the freeway. But only sometimes? It's like a... like a rattle? Or a buzz?"

And they're just staring at you. Staring through you! They know if you're there, at the mechanic, that you have no way of knowing what's really wrong with your car. They hold all the cards. And if you're a dude, then they're also thinking "You are not a man."

Men should know of shakes and buzzes and rattles and we must be able to go the mechanic and say "Uh yeah I got a bad alternator, can you swap it out for me? I'd do it myself but I hurt my arm replacing the brake pads." Then the two of you exchange a knowing glance, the mechanic understands that he is with a peer and moreover someone who Knows His Shit and you go read Car & Driver in the waiting room. Or probably you brought a newspaper with you because you got up at 6:00 in the morning to buy one with your coffee. After that it'll be a full day of clearing brush from your acreage and picking up some quicklime to get rid of that troublesome oak stump.

But that's never the case! I'm convinced they see me in flip-flops and think, "I thought we won that war." Then they tack on a 20% Shame fee which I'll gladly pay because I've earned that shame.

What it comes down to is: Should I buy bulk leather and attempt to re-sole my own shoes?

Of course not.

So why cars?

I'm lazy and I hate doing research so I'm just going to assume it has something to do with the fact that TruckNutz exist and LoaferNutz do not.

Caffeine

I'm currently trying to cut way back on my caffeine.

The chief driver behind this is that I can only maintain arousal with a pounding headache and the general feeling that comes with an unfocused, fuzzy brain. Caffeine headaches are a great way to do this.

Mostly I'm just drinking too much damn coffee. Coffee for the sake of drinking coffee. Cup after cup. Anemic, black office coffee. Complex (burnt-tasting) Starbucks coffee. Middle of the road coffee from places that aren't Starbucks.

As I have in the past, I'm becoming reacquainted with the persistent pain associated with caffeine withdrawals. Waking up with a headache is fun. Keeping that headache throughout the day is great too.

There is a "walking ghost" period that people experience when exposed to fatal levels of radiation (around 1000 REM). You get exposed, you're fine for a few days and then POW! Organ failure. I find that the first day after missing a caffeine dose is similar. You're fine. You think you've beaten this whole "addicted to caffeine" thing and you probably weren't addicted anyway! And your dick friends who smoke and tell you to try quitting caffeine so you can understand why quitting smoking is hard were talking out of their asses! It's a fine feeling of smugness that lasts for like, one entire sleep/wake cycle. Then you wake up the next morning and shit gets real. And it stays real for days.

Then you start rationalizing your caffeine intake. Sure those extra strength Tylenol have caffeine in them but they don't count because it's medicinal. And that Coke barely has any caffeine in it at all compared to four cups of coffee so I'm not even sure if I should count it either! And one cup of coffee is not nearly as bad as one pot of coffee so it's probably fine right?

Congratulations! You're addicted.

Best 3D Printed Objects

Generally, I try to stick to 1000% original content except for all of the pictures I steal when I feel like a content-light post can use lengthening.

This time I'm just going to straight-up link to MAKE because they compiled a list of the best 3D printed items of 2012:

http://blog.makezine.com/2013/01/03/best-of-2012-3d-printed-objects/

and I think they made a lot of good choices.

Although honestly I think the list kind of begins and ends with Crania Anatomica, the 3D printed sculpture that kicks barrels of ass.

http://www.joshharker.com

Also of note are the assorted Strandbeests for sale via Shapeways:

http://www.shapeways.com/model/247116/animaris-geneticus-parvus-7.html?li=productBox-search

Although I guess these mini versions are not Theo Jensen's actual Strandbeests - which are huge - and are rather called Animaris Geneticus. There's also a wind-power attachment, also 3D printed, also for sale. Then they move on their own and it's all the more unsettling. I don't know if these were developed in 2012 or not but for the sake of mentioning cool shit I'll put them in here anyhow.

This fella's fully articulated and less than $100!

http://www.ponoko.com/design-your-own/products/articulated-crayfish-9265

I honestly only now found this but it's hard to beat an articulated 3D printed crustacean. And this is a pretty sharp-looking one. Is it from 2012? At this point I don't even really care.

I think it's also worth noting that 3D printing has progressed to the point where the wackiest fucking shoes imaginable are now a sobering reality:

http://www.continuumfashion.com/shoes.html

Continuum fashion started producing these in 2012 (probably) and while I can't comment on their practicality, durability or wear-ability I can say for sure that they are 3D printed items of note. From 2012. Continuum are not the only ones making 3D printed women's shoes so this is a great time to be alive for fashionistas and foot-fetishists alike.

Symbolically, the best 3D printed thing from 2012 was probably this pair of scissors:

www.shapeways.com

It's not 'cause they're a new paradigm in scissor production or technology. In fact I think it's very unlikely that they could do that thing where you cut a penny in half... which is not a great demonstration of scissoring but more of a way to sell crappy all-purpose shears.

At this point, please take some time to picture some other great demonstrations of scissoring you may have seen.

These scissors are important because they were printed to cut the ribbon at the new Shapeways factory in New York, which could technically usher in a new era of 3D printed goods being brought to the masses:

www.shapeways.com

Lots of other exciting 3D printed crap on that table too. Oh hey, here's a quote from Shapeways:

"We tested the scissors on paper, napkins, hair and cardboard so that we were satisfied we would not be embarrassed on the day with non-cutting scissors."

There you have it. Fully functional scissors that worked in a purely ceremonial scissor cuting ceremony.

The upshot of all of this is that 3D printing seems to be blowing up and there's a lot of innovative products out there. Personally I favor the ones that seem more like art and less like exercises in math and tiling forms with polygons. But there's rooms for polygons in the world too!

For me, I think a 3D printer would mostly gather dust. I'm not very good at measuring so printing up a replacement part for the dishwasher would be out of the question. I don't know enough about 3D design software so I'm fairly certain I wouldn't be creating anything on the scale of Crania Anatomica.

But who knows! At the rate things are going, the price of an in-home 3D printer should hit zero dollars in another 20 or so years. When that happens, there's no limit to the number of tops, dreidels and six-sided dice I'll be able to make.

1,000 Hits!

I missed it! It's like watching your odometer roll over from 99,999 to 100,000 miles.

Except, a lot of odometers are digital now so nothing rolls over at all.

Anyway this blog is... I've been posting since July of 2011 which makes it about a year and a half old.

During that year and a half there have been several massive instances of radio silence where no content was generated because nothing happened anywhere.

I'd like to thank the spambots at zombiestat.com, adsensewatchdog.com (and others!) and the legions (144 of 'em) of shady Russians from various film piracy websites, including domar.ru.

I think the spam sites send out hits so that people with blogs will say "Hey wtf is that?" and then go check them out. And then someone probably hits you over the head with a blackjack and steals your wallet.

I would also like to thank the 23 unique people who searched for "ikea wood wet split particle board".

Special consideration is given to the two people who visited using Windows NT 6.1 as an operating system. That shit is way old.

Finally, I feel like I couldn't have done it without the encouragement from the zeroes of comments I've received, or the ~$0.10 a month I rake in from mad AdSense revenue.

Here's to another 1,000 (and seven more dollars) in another 18 months!

On The Inevitability of Blue Toilet Tablets

I'm a man of simple pleasures. I'm fine with any old single malt scotch - and I'll even drink the regular ten year blended stuff. My goat cheese does not need to be imported from France and I'll even eat store-bought hummus.

In that spirit of simple joys I submit that there are few things more pleasant than walking into a bathroom and seeing blue water in the toilet.

Fancy fixtures are a nice plus.

Bathroom attendants are many minuses.

When you see blue water, you know that someone is keeping up with the cleanliness of the toilet bowl on a regular basis. It's a break from the ordinary water-colored water that you normally find. It makes you feel special, because someone is going out of their way to actively enhance your bathroom-using experience. But not in a weird way.

Unfortunately like so many before me I've often wondered, "This thing in front of me is perfect as it is. Can it be made better?"

Can I break into the toilet bowl tablet market with a rainbow variety of new colors?

I can't. And you can't either. And here's why:

Primary Colors

Blue is a primary color. You don't have to mix anything to get to it; it simply is. Even more important to the field of toilet bowl water color science is that nothing blue comes out of people's bodies. This is critical, as you'll soon see. Our other primary colors are yellow and red. Either of those would be fine if you wanted your guests to think:

• You never flush the toilet
• You're expelling blood

Obviously that's no good. Those don't create the impression of freshness, cleanliness or "wanting to stick around" ness.

Secondary Colors?

"Very well!" you concede, although you still aren't convinced. "Let's take leave of this grade school nonsense and graduate to real colors."

Okay, let's. I'll cross out the components of secondary colors that, as established above, won't work.

Green = Blue + Yellow
Purple = Blue + Red
Orange = Red + Yellow

Orange is out completely, and green and purple turn back to blue if you remove the unworkable colors.

Tints? Screens?

What about light red? Or a nice lavender? If you bought a tablet that was designed to produce a constant pale shade until it ran out, then *you* would know that lavender toilet water means "Clean!".

Your guests would just see what they assume would be a blue tablet - the standard - mixed with red and then used to the point that it was on its last legs. They would not be feeling good feelings.

What Now?

Nothing, now. Many toilet scientists have gone before me and the sum total of all of their efforts is "blue". There will never be another color of clean toilet water.

We can all sleep a bit easier now knowing that this vexing riddle has been solved.

Updated Band Names!

New names include:

• Living Eyeball Donor!

Old names continue to include asskickers like:

• Infinite Bodyslam
• Surgical Trike
• Thoracic Sturgeon

Find them all here!