Wednesday, July 29, 2009

I See A 6th-Grade Art Project.

The doctor draws two circles and says, "What do you see?"
The guy says, "Sex."
So the doctor draws trees. "What do you see?"
The guy says, "Sex."
The doctor draws a car, owl, "Sex, sex, sex."
The doctor says to him, "You are obsessed with sex."
The guy replies, "Well you're the one drawing all the dirty pictures."
-From What About Bob?

Noam Cohen wrote a really interesting article in the NYT about the ten inkblot plates from the famous Rorschach test being made public on Wikipedia. A doctor posted the ten plates on the website and included the common answers people use when asked to describe what they see, upsetting many experts who believe this destroys the purpose of the test. Some doctors fear that once people know the common answers, it will influence how they respond during testing.

I wasn't sure how I felt about this. The power of suggestion is strong, so I suppose if you had an idea ahead of time of what you should be looking for, it might skew the deeply-rooted mysteries of your subconscious, thus stunting your potential for overall growth and understanding. But it seems that most people just see bats, butterflies, or a face. I wouldn't exactly call that a cheat sheet. In fact, I think that's what's referred to in Jungian psychology as, "A-Doyeee."

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Shout Out.

I have to hand it to the cotton candy vendors at sporting events for their vocal efforts. If there is one snack that you don't need to announce, it's cotton candy. When people see you walking around a stadium with 65 individually wrapped bags of cotton candy on your head, there's very little wiggle room for interpretation. It really takes a special type of person to carry around the most obvious thing in the world and still feel the need to yell about it.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Business Decisions Should Not Be Made At 2 A.M.

Professional golfer Phil Mickelson has reportedly put in an offer to buy 105 Waffle House establishments for 20.2 dollars in cash and later payments. Wait, I guess it's $20.2 million. Million?! Have Phil and his business associates ever been inside a Waffle House? They might want to check their math.

America has a long, proud history of serving the completely wasted. Members of The First Continental Congress were known to frequent Denny's restaurants late at night to discuss British economic sanctions and how crazy it is that you can't know what a strawberry tastes like to other people. While eating his fourth Moons Over My Hammy sandwich, Patrick Henry was famously quoted as saying, "Does my hand look weird to you?"

Waffle House became synonymous with drunk-feeding when it introduced the most disgusting list of preparation techniques for hash browns the world has ever seen:
Traditional
Scattered & Smothered
Scattered, Smothered & Covered
Scattered, Smothered, Covered & Chunked

"Now are these how the browns are served, or how they'll end up?"

One time at a Waffle House in Florida, our waitress was wearing a button that said "I'm #2."
It sort of gave us an idea ahead of time, what we should be expecting.

My hometown is famous for a grocery store and a menu item known as the Garbage Plate, so I'm not judging here. Building a successful business on a food item that includes the word GARBAGE in its name is the reason I truly do believe that anything is possible in America. But buying 105 Waffle Houses is like buying 105...I don't know. I actually can't think of a worse example of something to buy. It's just a really bad idea.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Um, Not For Anything...

But I totally invented this! I called it Urban Glide, and yes, I did envision long ski-like skates to be worn, but come on! Same basic idea! Ugh, Nordic Walking! Why didn't I think to use Nordic? Everything sounds more official with "Nordic" in front of it.

Honestly though, I've had this idea since college. Because Syracuse is so effing cold, I used to try to get from point A to point B as fast as possible. My eye froze shut once on a walk to class. I'm not kidding. But, as you might imagine, running everywhere was hard to play-off.
-Why were you sprinting around like an idiot on the quad today?
-What? That wasn't me.

I found that if I held on to the excess material hanging from my backpack straps, I could use those as pole-type devices, swinging my arms as I walked, and thus increasing my normal walking speed. I wasn't running, I was gliding. Add in a nice layer of ice and I could literally slide from class to class. In the spring I always thought to myself, OK, some sort of skate should be involved here. And then I did nothing about it.

And now, years later, someone has stolen my idea about swinging your arms as you walk, and has thought to use actual poles instead of backpack straps, but same basic principle really, except that the poles have technology, design, and a trade association on their side, and mine were straps of nylon connected to a book bag. Whatever. I thought of it first.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Please Return Your Seat To The Upright Position, And Stop Eating Your Poop.

Pet Airways, the first ever all-pet airline, made its first flight yesterday.

Here's how I imagine things went:

At check in:
Mr. BooBoo, has anyone asked you to carry anything in your bag for today's flight?
(panting)
Mr. BooBoo? Do you know what's in your bag, sir?
(panting)
Mr. BooBoo, I'm going to need you to come with me sir.

After takeoff:
Ladies and gentlemen this is your Captain speaking. Yes it is! Who's the Captain?! Huh?! I'm the Captain, yes I am! Who does the Captain love?! Who does the Captain love?! (cough) We'll be climbing up to our maximum altitude shortly. Sit back, feel free to pee on something, enjoy the flight.

During the flight:
Ma'am while the light is on I'm going to need you to sit in your seat. Siiiit. Sit. Siiiiit down. Sit down please. Sit. Good girl! Hey! Sit please!

And when they landed half of the bags had been torn or eaten.

I'm only basing these scenarios on the last few domestic flights I've taken.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

i(don't care)phone.

My older sister has joined the masses. Soon she will be tapping at every surface she encounters waiting for a menu to appear, her attention span will shrink to milliseconds, and she will become one of those people who constantly say things like, "Oh, I can look that up for you!"
Sometimes people just throw a question out there to start conversation. They don't actually care about Guam's major export. Put your phone away.

Remember when you used your phone to call people? Remember when the world clock function seemed freaking amazing?
-Hey look what time it is in Jakarta!
-Do you know someone in Jakarta?
-No. But cool, right?

And a few years ago when my dad lost his cell he went into an impassioned speech about how there should be a place where you always left your phone so you could never lose it.
"There should be a holder on the wall where you have to keep your cell phone. So every day, it's there, right on the wall, waiting for you."
"You mean like the phone, dad?"

When cell phones were first going mainstream the only way we could convince my grandma to get one was by telling her that her car could break down at any moment. That was a big selling point for the first cell phones. Your car could break down! Then what?!
My grandma bought a new car before she bought a cell phone.

The cell phone used to just be a convenient way to get in touch with people. Now your phone can know more about you than anyone in your contact list. You're just a phone, little iphone. You're not allowed in my head. Plus, as something of a time-waster savant, I'm offended by all these high-tech downloads that help regular people kill time. Talk to yourself in the mirror, stop downloading restaurant apps.

Obviously, there's an app for anything. Apparently people even exercise off their iphones. 6-minute apps? Soon there will be iphones with elliptical arm handles or apps that call you at random times to yell, "RUN!" making you drop whatever you're doing and start running.
-Excuse me, I have to take this.
-Run!
-[sprinting out of a meeting] I'm sorry! I'm on a program!

Brina was telling me about the Moron App, which is a quiz that helps you figure out how big of a moron you are. Right. If there was ever a reason for me to NOT spend 99 cents on something, it's the moron app. I LIVE the moron app.

There's even an app that uses the GPS in your phone to allow other people to see where you are. This is also called, "THE WORST IDEA IN THE WORLD App." Who in their right mind would sign up for this? If you want people to know where you are, you tell them.

It must be written somewhere in the small print of an iphone contract that as soon as you buy an iphone, you must mention it in every conversation you have for the first month. I want to invent an app that counts how many times iphone users say "iphone." Sabrina might be world champion.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Live A Little.

A newly published study suggests that calorie restriction in diets can extend lives. Mice given 30% fewer calories lived up to 40% longer and rhesus monkeys on the diet were able to avoid certain diseases associated with aging.
The older, thinner mice and monkeys were also miserable.

Scientists hope to prove that calorie restriction in human diets will have similar effects in terms of delaying aging. Although, unlike the controlled experiments, humans can eat an effing cupcake whenever they want one, so researchers believe the study may be flawed. Also, most people agree that spending 99% of your extra 10% of life shouting things like, "I'm hungry, idiot!" just isn't worth it.

Monday, July 06, 2009

It's The Climb.

I like listening to Miley Cyrus sing about struggle.

Keep on keeping on Miley.