A string of random thoughts not worthy of their own posts.
Do you ever get visceral, split second feelings like you've ruined the rest of your entire life? If not, then you're playing it way too safe. Seriously, live a little.
I'm in no rush to have kids, at all. But, I still kind of can't wait until I do, because I'm starting to miss things like pretend sword fighting, throwing a ball around, and making stuff out of Play-Doh. It's why I taught my dog to play hide and seek (she's pretty damn good, too, just ask anyone who's seen it).
Is anyone else still pretty amazed at wireless internet? I wrote almost all of this entry on a bus I take to work. We might not have auto-drive cars or flying cars or time-machine cars, but WiFi on a bus is pretty amazing in my book. Though that doesn't preclude me from still getting sufficiently pissed off when the connection drops. (PS - what's the deal with all these future improvements to cars, anyway? Can't the future come up with something better than tweaks to a 19th century invention? It's the future. I have an idea for the next great future invention: an autonomous robot that puts on horseshoes.)
Guys do some crazy things. If you find yourself wondering why a guy did something otherwise unexplainable, you should preface that wonderment with the question "Was there a girl around?". If the answer is 'yes', it still might not make sense to you, but it made sense to the guy at the time.
The key to hyperbole is picking the right number. It might be cheap humor, but it can still be very effective if handled correctly. I personally use hyperbolic statements to get a laugh at least 475 times a day.
I'm also a huge fan of 'hypobole', which is a more logical, less confusing, and nonextant version of the actual word for a literary understatement (which is meiosis). For example, if this blog was hugely popular, I could advertise it as "Read by tens of people across the globe!" and it would be an example of hypobole instead of a lie.
The best inventions in the world are the things that don't actually have an inventor, like water, sunlight, and puppies. Not counting Apple's family of iPods, of course.
According to my psych minor (a semester of Intro to Psychology for Non-Majors, which is probably about the same), there's some debate about the relationship between internal emotions and the physical manifestations of those emotions. If you thought you were being attacked by a bear and pissed your pants even though it turned out to be a big pile of laundry, you might say that your body had that reaction because you were frightened (I personally wouldn't say anything to anyone). But there's some real evidence out there that things might work the other way around. Like that forcing a smile can make you happier. Or that an onset of physical arousal might precede, and have a part in causing, an aroused emotional state. My own yet-unpublished evidence for this has led to the suggestion of "the Jones-McAllister Boxing Glove Effect" (I just need to find someone named McAllister (or something similar) to sign on to this idea, because I think it lends credence to the theory—everyone knows the best 'effects' are named after old white guys, and it must be good if it took two of them to come up with it, right?). The simple theory is thus: putting on boxing gloves imbues one with an insatiable compulsion to punch things. The great thing about this theory is that you can test it out at home. You might not have punched anything in your life, but I can guarantee that mere seconds after sliding the gloves onto your hands you'll be itching to punch any person or thing around you. What can I say? It's science.
I'm in no rush to have kids, at all. But, I still kind of can't wait until I do, because I'm starting to miss things like pretend sword fighting, throwing a ball around, and making stuff out of Play-Doh. It's why I taught my dog to play hide and seek (she's pretty damn good, too, just ask anyone who's seen it).
Is anyone else still pretty amazed at wireless internet? I wrote almost all of this entry on a bus I take to work. We might not have auto-drive cars or flying cars or time-machine cars, but WiFi on a bus is pretty amazing in my book. Though that doesn't preclude me from still getting sufficiently pissed off when the connection drops. (PS - what's the deal with all these future improvements to cars, anyway? Can't the future come up with something better than tweaks to a 19th century invention? It's the future. I have an idea for the next great future invention: an autonomous robot that puts on horseshoes.)
Guys do some crazy things. If you find yourself wondering why a guy did something otherwise unexplainable, you should preface that wonderment with the question "Was there a girl around?". If the answer is 'yes', it still might not make sense to you, but it made sense to the guy at the time.
The key to hyperbole is picking the right number. It might be cheap humor, but it can still be very effective if handled correctly. I personally use hyperbolic statements to get a laugh at least 475 times a day.
I'm also a huge fan of 'hypobole', which is a more logical, less confusing, and nonextant version of the actual word for a literary understatement (which is meiosis). For example, if this blog was hugely popular, I could advertise it as "Read by tens of people across the globe!" and it would be an example of hypobole instead of a lie.
The best inventions in the world are the things that don't actually have an inventor, like water, sunlight, and puppies. Not counting Apple's family of iPods, of course.
According to my psych minor (a semester of Intro to Psychology for Non-Majors, which is probably about the same), there's some debate about the relationship between internal emotions and the physical manifestations of those emotions. If you thought you were being attacked by a bear and pissed your pants even though it turned out to be a big pile of laundry, you might say that your body had that reaction because you were frightened (I personally wouldn't say anything to anyone). But there's some real evidence out there that things might work the other way around. Like that forcing a smile can make you happier. Or that an onset of physical arousal might precede, and have a part in causing, an aroused emotional state. My own yet-unpublished evidence for this has led to the suggestion of "the Jones-McAllister Boxing Glove Effect" (I just need to find someone named McAllister (or something similar) to sign on to this idea, because I think it lends credence to the theory—everyone knows the best 'effects' are named after old white guys, and it must be good if it took two of them to come up with it, right?). The simple theory is thus: putting on boxing gloves imbues one with an insatiable compulsion to punch things. The great thing about this theory is that you can test it out at home. You might not have punched anything in your life, but I can guarantee that mere seconds after sliding the gloves onto your hands you'll be itching to punch any person or thing around you. What can I say? It's science.
posted by Peter at
2:12 PM
4 Comments
