4/30/2014: I’m convinced there isn’t a restaurant in existence which doesn’t play a track [or all of them] from Guitar Hero/Rock Band. We now have a “chicken and the egg” scenario where I’m not fully certain if games were derived from these restaurants or if the restaurants adopted the songs preceded by Harmonix and crew. One thing’s for sure: we reached critical mass on the 5-button music party craze and it’s in steady decline. I turned in my 6 virtual guitars (and 1 keytar) for Rocksmith, so good riddance!
4/29/2014: “A ninja that rushes into battle without thought is a dead ninja.” But the same Shinobi game later contradicts, “hesitation at impossibility thwarts success”…. moments before Jiro’s thirty-foot scarf avoids the afterburners of a fighter jet he does battle upon. I give up. I just can’t play this since the awkward camera angles and distracting foreground do no favors in revealing which cheap deaths will be experienced regardless of speed. I beat it on Easy. Memorization through blunt repetition is the only way.
4/28/2014: With two mass shootings at Fort Hood within 5 years of each other, a further investigation may be warranted. Shooting spree me once, shame on you; shooting spree me twice…. Or is the power of suggestion at work? I mean, up until this sentence you weren’t thinking of pink elephants riding unicycles. All this reporting might just purport the prophecy. Am I to blame? Is the media to blame? If so, how do you prevent the manifestation of our fears? Is this the singular thing that vanishes when ignored?
4/27/2014: Carbon Offsetting is the act of buying forests instead of lowering company emissions. In essence, paying the piper upfront acquires energy-thrift advertisements in lieu of streamlining actual gas clouds. This sorta remind me of how sinners used to purchase “credits” applicable to the next weekend of debauchery (instead of tithing like decent folk). Morality’s a commodity with such a modern convenience! Should offer a new “going green” service: pay Mike to not leave his car running idle in the driveway!
4/26/2014: If you’re having difficulty memorizing phone numbers or something similar, it’s worth understanding that we tend to have superior position memories and that only around 8 “bits” of information is stored for the short term. Try visualizing the 10 key placement of a phone pad and focusing on the motions of dialing the number. If this doesn’t work, you could also fuse the numeric chunks together. 3-7-5-6-8-9-0 becomes “375”, “68”, “90”. Speaking them aloud for both methods should also assist.
4/25/2014: Multiplying by 11 is almost as easy as multiplying by 10. With the 10’s tables, you just move the decimal one place to the right. With 11, you simply add the digits together starting from left to right. For example, multiplying 11 X 132 would be 1452. The first digit of 132 is “1”, the hundreds and tens digits added together is “4”, the tens and ones digits added is “5”, and the last digit is “2”. 11 X 39,648 would be “436,128” though it obviously gets trickier when your pairings are greater than 10.
4/24/2014: How many numbers are between 10 and 20? “9” is the correct answer. Count ’em on your fingers if you must. If you said “10” initially you’re likely subtracting, or forgetting that 10 and 20 are technically excluded in that specific phrasing. If we were including them, however, the answer would really be “11”. So if you want a quicker way to solve this question for the future, subtract the original numbers and then plus or minus by one. Ex: the total numbers between 35 and 69 would either be “33” or “35”.
4/23/2014: Love is a shield and hate is a sword. You might vanquish your foes, striking mighty fear throughout the pages of history, but aggression begets aggression and shelter is scarce behind a sword. The bloodthirsty Mongol empire dissolved after a century. The infamous Romans succumbed within 500 years. The United States is about 240 now and dumps an incredible amount of GDP into its bloated military whom leaves thousands of troops scattered about the globe. Will we last using this model?
4/22/2014: The premise behind MGS: Peacewalker is that governments are incapable of unflinchingly annihilating mankind themselves, thus the best nuclear deterrent is an AI programmed to push the doomsday button. No longer, supposedly, will humans doubt the swift and immediate response should someone send a stray ICBM…. I happen to respectfully disagree. There are plenty of megalomaniacs -some who have power- that would be all too happy to throw civilization back to the dark ages if not outright wiping the slate clean. Never disregard the will of a sore loser, or their resolve.
4/21/2014: Great Sequoias are massive trees that grow over 300 feet high, 50 feet in diameter, and live for over 3500 years old. That’s big enough to be a car tunnel and twice as old as Catholicism. Interestingly, uncontrolled forest fires are necessary to their life cycle in that flames burn away competing vegetation and send heated updrafts to dry the tiny pinecones into releasing seed. Great Sequoia bark can be as thick as 3 feet and has a lightweight and soft, airy quality to it. Kind of like a stack of cardboard.
4/20/2014: It’s the kind of thing you’d expect to hear leaked from a blurred-face whistleblower instead of psychological research, but cereal box placement is a precise science. Children’s boxes are within arm’s reach of toddlers and have mascot eyes pointed towards your knees. Adult boxes are typically higher and look straight at you. Eye contact from my food would personally weird me out, but this calculated maneuver results in 16% more trust from consumers and sways children’s cravings apparently.
4/19/2014: NPR states that “grit” is being taught in some schools -as in the continuous efforts of a child are rewarded despite unmet goals. The idea is sound: hardships abound, so success at life is occasionally achieved through belligerence. Chutzpah, moxie, and stick-withedness aside, is it an immediate plus if the assignment gets turned in? Wouldn’t one have to fail something to demonstrate grit in the first place? Such an intangible concept is insurmountably more difficult to score than actual results.
4/18/2014: Texas reserves companies’ “at-will” ability to fire. Is this justified? I’d be more comfortable with a warning system in place to balance the wanton, impulsive firings of those based on hairdo or maybe penmanship. I mean, who’s to say that the [ridiculous] stated reason isn’t masking a racial, gender, or otherwise illegal decision? This does combat a citizen’s prerogative to quit without notice but is that the standard by which we conduct business? This sows the seeds of dishonesty and mistrust.
4/17/2014: NPR hobos. Spare change for membership, guv’nah? They had JUST done a story on the monetary tactics some businesses endorse through a monthly deduction (an invisible loss) days before creating the “sustaining membership” plan. “We’ll take money from your account until you tell us to stop.” Yeah, I bet. My gripe is with the mountains of bucks made from seasonal drives in addition to taxes. They’re just unabashedly begging through guilt. And this new “pet membership” option….
4/16/2014: Some pesticides sprayed over food crops were in fact created and banned during the World Wars for being dangerous and inhumane nerve agents. That’s right: use against humans would be considered a war crime. But since the research and development into chemical weapons couldn’t go to waste, diluted versions were designed and implemented for farming. The controversy is with how much we ingest. It seems that DDT and the bee population scare aren’t the only concerns in this field.
4/15/2014: It’s commonly stated that the confederate flag represents the south’s “heritage”. While the familiar crossed stars are but one of many flags used during the Confederacy’s four year existence, all people involved were indeed part of the United States prior to the rebellious sentiment heralded by modern hatemongers. The US predates the Confederacy so the only time this battle flag is flown is when rednecks are looking to express bold statements about…. what else if not sneering disdain for blacks?
4/14/2014: Paper coasters are less resilient than ceramic tile, which makes me wonder why waitresses are insistent on placing all condensating glasses on them. Most are personalized with the restaurant’s name, as well, meaning the deteriorating discs will have to be specially ordered. In addition to cup clinging, the things absorb all sorts of disgusting table leavings, a clear reason for throwing them away. To think, people buy brand new tables with intentional dents while others are falsely protected by these.
4/13/2014: My day became brighter when a 10 year old bit the pavement at a crowded intersection, both skateboard and cell phone flying beyond his stubby grasp. He then proceeds to complain loudly at his subservient friend whom -not moments before- was cleaning the wheels of their collective boards before scrambling to recover the articles his clumsy friend dropped. Neither had helmets, but only one looked like a spoiled yuppie whose coffee got too much creamer while his favorite stock investment crashed.
4/11/2014: The issue of gun control has been likened to melee weapon mockery even prior to the 21 stabbings by a recent teenager dual-wielding knives. “If a hammer can kill a person, let’s lock up the hammers”, retorts some stuffed shirt likely unrelated to any victim. Guns are a bit simpler to wield than knives and because they have less buttons than an iPad, I don’t want a world where there are twice as many firearms as a piece of electronics which has been described as “so easy” a baby could use it.
4/10/2014: Messages spoken softest are often the most worthwhile. It’s the giant flashing signs or public and private obtrusiveness that I wish to avoid. Weirdly, the stuff we should pay least attention to wrests mine, a constant struggle of attrition in re-focusing on what matters or what’s beneficial. Everything is just too loud. Even if legitimacy arrived via bullhorns and mobile sandwich boards the panicked desperation would be off-putting, a double-damning scenario of second-guessing the most obvious.
4/09/2014: Whereas the truth in advertising was abundantly straightforward, logic proved obsequious at the business’s clever name: “Tooth Acres”. I had a good chuckle at the time, but the guerilla warfare of soreness quells joy even months trailing the assumedly routine cavity filling. If I end up needing a root canal, a company proffering pleasure instead of pain will be first on my list. Yelp might not hurt the search either.
4/08/2014: Following my plunge into the world of 80’s Robotech, my appreciation began to falter at a slightly inconsistent story. Upon research, I realized the mine field into which I’d stumbled: one of livid netizens slamming the show as a Frankensteined beast of 3 separate animes. I adopted that viewpoint also until recognizing that Robotech, unnecessarily revised or not, was instrumental to bringing anime to the west. Without it and the help of several others, we might’ve been wholly deprived of anime altogether.
4/07/2014: If you can locate all of the darts, it was not a real Nerf war.
4/06/2014: True vintage clothing will never have “vintage” printed on them, and the pre-labeled “collector’s item” is merchant-speak for “unsellable garbage, please purchase prior to disintegration as I’ve made poor decisions in acquisitioning it”. Both categories of products will be unearthed by alien archaeologists who’ll convert our pre-humanicide American Eagle shops and mall kiosks into historically inaccurate museums. But if it makes you feel cool, then whatevs. Bo’blok and Snaref would be disappoint.
4/05/2014: This 9/10 cent gallon thing at gas stations is shit. How would I split a penny, you dickholes? It doesn’t LOOK cheaper at all, just more digits tacked onto an already high amount. Retail’s 99 cent tactic never worked on me either since it generates extra numerals and syllables. You want to win me over? Factor tax into the actual sale price so I know what I’ll be spending at the register. That’d be a great service since rates fluctuate and are never outright declared beyond the foot-long receipt they hand you.
4/04/2014: When I listen to Black Metal, my imagination conjures a stout Viking tearing swaths through a sea of demonic forces, rain beating the rocky precipice. Teeth grit in rage, eyes stinging sweat and blood; he chants an ancient war cry to keep spirits aloft, sinew tearing from each exertion, double-bladed battle axe cleaving the hissing reptilian faces before booting them into the churning ocean below. And moments before Hell overwhelms the warrior, he takes his own life just to deny them the satisfaction.
4/03/2014: The tweakers, the wired, the mellow, the slutty, the despondent, the hollow, tired, drunk, aggressive, sluggish, stupid, and desperate. When the drug’s preferred symptoms become the personality, what more defines a being beyond familiarity others establish with a vice’s characteristics? The binary feelings generated by pre- and post-cravings consume the aesthetic one once possessed. So often the only visible nature is the drug’s nature, in hand or without. The effect becomes the cause.
4/02/2014: Rising Stars what now? I thought we’d previously discovered each and every voice belting from America’s recessed couch cushions, diner ash trays, and gutter runoff trickling through individual Yarn Barn alleyways. Between the Voice, Got Talent (grammatically and entertainment-ly bereft), X Factor, and American Idol, I’m just about plumb-tuckered from country-sangin’ guitar/vocals. Didn’t previous searches cast a big enough net? So what’s the new schtick? A big-ass television? How meta.
4/01/2014: Most often idolized by 90 some-odd sports movies from the ’90s, the subjugated underdog is oft a fan favorite in real life. Why exactly? We generally agree that hard work, skill, perseverance and similar jazz are the fundamentals for victory (hell, we teach children that) but when a team or person is TOO good, maybe even cocky, that’s when they’re ripe for ill-wishes. Plus fierce competition brings out the bloodlust in us all of course, metaphorically speaking save for Mayan Basketball.