What's Wrong With This?

99% of sexy female costumes based upon anything under the sun are cool as hell. Why? Because sexy female costumes are, well, sexy. This one based upon a certain adolescent cartoon character just isn’t. It does kinda reminds me of Zombie Strippers, or what I imagine Zombie Strippers would look like.

I'm In the Black

To whoever actually bought something from amazon using my links, thank you. I made 88 cents. Keep up the good work by clicking on my amazon links and buying crap. Maybe one day it will be enough for amazon to write me a check.

How To Be Lucky: Just Relax and Smell the Roses

Richard Wiseman did an experiment where he asked self-described lucky and unlucky people to read a newspaper and count the photographs. He secretly put a half page ad into the middle with big letters (more than 2” high) saying “tell the experimenter you have seen this and win $50.”

Not surprisingly, the lucky people tended to see it while the unlucky people missed it.

According to Wiseman, “Unlucky people are generally more tense than lucky people, and this anxiety disrupts their ability to notice the unexpected.”

In other words, just relax. And I think I agree with this. Fortunate people seem to be flexible and seem to notice more. Meanwhile, habitually unlucky people tend to ignore notice minor things and stress out over not important issues. As I think about lucky and unlucky people in my life, I do agree that my lucky friends tend to worry much less than my unlucky friends.

Said simply, it wasn’t luck that helped me find the $20 bill on the ground, it was me noticing it on the ground.

Read this blog entry here

He also has a book: The Luck Factor: The Four Essential Principles on Amazon for about $10.

I Know I Don't Know You Know Me

I’ve come to the swift kick in the ass revelation that I need to stop worrying when complete strangers recognize me. Now days, not many things make me react in utter disbelief or pause to the point I don’t know what to say . . . except when someone says “you’re . . . .” or “is your last name . . . . ?” Seriously, how do all these people know who I am? Do I look like a celebrity?

I think I have decent memory so I can at least recognize people who I’ve met, but when people I’ve never met know my siblings or know where I went to school, it just makes me stop talking and start thinking “how does this person know?” That stops me from saying anything and destroys the entire interaction. I freeze up not knowing what to do. Worse is that this has been happening more and more over the past two years.

I think I just need to be comfortable with being a Z-list celebrity and not think anything of it when I walk into a bar and girls stare at me with a “I know that guy” look.

(The title is not supposed to make sense, I just thought it was a cool brain twister)

Rudolph is a Song about Social Proof

Ever notice that Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer is really just a song about social proof? Get the leader of the group to like you and all the minions will follow.

Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer
had a very shiny nose.
And if you ever saw him,
you would even say it glows.

All of the other reindeer
used to laugh and call him names.
They never let poor Rudolph
join in any reindeer games.

Then one foggy Christmas Eve
Santa came to say:
"Rudolph with your nose so bright, won't you guide my sleigh tonight?"

Then all the reindeer loved him
as they shouted out with glee,
Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer,
you'll go down in history!

Dirty Wall-E

If you haven't seen Wall-E you're really missing out.

I was at Toys R Us and I saw this awesome Wall-E toy. It's only two inches tall, but I had to have it. Problem was that Wall-E is supposed to be dirty, really dirty, like filthy dealing with trash for hundreds of years and never cleaned dirty. The toy though, just made him a little dirty.


Nothing a little brown, gray, and white spray paint can't fix:


Buy you're very own Wall-E here. If you want a dirty "Wall-E," you're going to have to dirty him youself.

Do Me A Favor and Make Me Some Money

Dear both my loyal readers,

Can you do me a big favor and click on my ads? Scroll to the bottom of this screen and click on those gray boxes until your mouse breaks. Then send me your broken mouse and I’ll send you back something equally as useless.

I promise to use all the money I make from ad-clicks for beer, lap dances, and bail. Also, if you buy something from one of my Amazon links, use my links; that should help me post up bail for one of ya’ll.

Thanks

Nobody From High School Recognizes Me: is that such a bad thing?

Christmas means many things: no parking at the mall, lights around random trees, that dude jingling a bell in front of half the stores in town, and most of all, punk ass classmates you vaguely remember who are in town visiting their family.

I used to get pissed when nobody remembered me. It’s not like I was the guy who didn’t do anything. Lots of people knew me so I knew it wasn’t a matter of not knowing me when I graduated. I then thought about it and realized that I grew since high school, I cut my hair, and I now dress differently. From what I’ve been told though, my face looks exactly the same . . . but Asian guys in Hawaii are about as plentiful as thongs on the beaches of Rio.

I also have a better than average memory of people in high school, so maybe I remember people better than other people remember others.

After much contemplating, I said “fuck it, let people not recognize me.” I just didn’t care. Later, I learned I could have fun with it. For one of my reunions I purposely did not wear a name tag so I could laugh as people racked their brains trying to remember me. (yeah I have a warped sense of humor).

I then realized that when someone doesn’t remember me, it allows me to start fresh. In their eyes, I’m like a person they just met instead of the nerd I was in high school. But from my perspective, I have decent idea of what the person is like, who they are, and what they’ve done. I have the knowledge-advantage of a stalker, but without being an actual stalker. Most of the time though, I just act like I don’t know anything about my old classmate because I’m afraid getting anywhere near stalker territory.

So don’t view the “hot girl” from high school not remember you as a bad thing. Think of it as a positive, a positive that she doesn't see you as the geek you used to be and that you probably look better and have matured. Then, take the opportunity to start fresh with her.

Arrrrr, Pirates

It’s no secret that BitTorrent makes a lot of information freely available to anyone with an internet connection and a little patience. It’s also no secret that a lot of pickup material is available for free off BitTorrent, material that normally costs hundreds of dollars.

What is not so known is that (so far as I know) no pickup guru has ever sued anyone for downloading his or her material for free.

I’ve also heard that the chances of getting sued from RIAA, MPAA, or anyone enforcing their copyright rights for illegally downloading or sharing files is less than winning the lottery. Yes, someone has a better chance at winning the lottery than getting caught sharing/downloading files. I’ve also tried to search for people who used BitTorrent (instead of another peer 2 peer network) and got sued, but I couldn’t find any.

With this said, if you’re going to be a pirate, don’t rely entirely on the odds. Rather, be a safer pirate and use Peer Guardian 2. Peer Guardian 2 is a program used with a torrent application. It blocks the IP addresses of RIAA, MPAA, the government, and about trazillion others who are pissed that their hard work is being spread across the internet without a dime of compensation passed to them.

Peer Guardian 2 is not perfect, but neither are pirates. Download it for free here.

And go buy the real thing, because I know a lot of starving artists.

Cajun's Advanced Body Language

A while ago, Cajun from Love Systems wrote a blog entry titled Advanced Body Language. He recommends: (1) move and speak slowly, (2) poeticize your presence, and (3) emphasize your sexuality. In other words, be more like a retard.

I’ve been trying it for the past few weeks and I think he’s right. For people suffering from “too high energy,” I think this is a big step in the right direction.

Read it here.

Shoot Like a ummmm errr . . . . you know

When I was 12, my dad's friend gave me a clear gun that shot gooey green ooze. I had to pull the red rod back, pull the trigger, and a teaspoon of green ooze shot out about 20 feet. I can't remember what it was called, but everyone in my family thought it was gross.

This modern day white ooze makes me laugh and gag at the same time. Get it on Amazon.

I <3 Juilianne Hough

I don’t watch Dancing With the Stars, I don’t like dancing, and I don’t really like stars; heck, I don’t normally go for blonde s either, but Juilianne Hough . . . oh my.


I wonder what she's looking at.

The Mostest Awesomest Flash Drive EvAr

Think Geek has the Hacked And Frayed Spy Flash Drive which is just a regular USB flash drive made to look like cut USB cord.

Pull it out, plug it into your laptop, and watch people scratch their heads wondering what you're doing.

The price of $29.99 for 2GB is a tad expensive, but where it lacks storage space, it makes up for in fun.

Buy it here.

Internet Friends: At What Point Am I A Facebook Slut?

Assuming you’re not famous, a no one should have more than 250 friends on Facebook. No longer does having lots of friends on Facebook actually mean someone has that many friends in real life.

People with 500 friends are inevitably the type who meets a friend of a friend of a friend one night and then adds him or her as friend on Facebook. Seriously people, if you saw your “new friend” out and about would you talk to him?

Not saying those people don’t actually know 500 people on Facebook, heck I probably know at least 1000, but I really have no desire to make them ALL my friends. Plus, when anyone has THAT many friends, it sure looks they spend a little too much time staring at a monitor.

Woolite Dark

Back in the day, I never washed clothes because I just wore brand new clothes all the time. Ok that never happened, but until that day comes I like to use Woolite Dark for my dark clothes.

I used to use the cheapest Costco laundry detergent I could find and it would faded my dark clothes like pouring in a cup of bleach with every load.

I eventually discovered the reason my black shirts turned grey was due to cheap detergent, not cheap clothes. So for keeping dark clothes looking new, I recommend Woolite Dark Laundry detergent. Clothes still fade slightly, but not nearly as much.

Woolite Dark: $9.99 for 66 loads at Costco.

As for washing white, just use the cheapest stuff around.

The Rain is Coming Down Like a Muthafaka!!

This is what my window looks like right now. Notice the swaying palm trees and the faint outline of the mountain.


This is what it looked like a few hours ago.

Here's a normal day.

Doppler says I'm getting wet.

Happy BIRTHday to the Female Condom

Fifteen years ago today, the FDA approved the female condom. Has anyone ever used one of these? Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in stores, opened one, seen one in use, or seen one littering a sewage-filled gutter drain.

Wikipedia to the rescue: apparently, the female condom is just a big version of the male variety . . . and more expensive. Great, I guess I’ll never use one of those.

Well, to make this post remotely useful, let me recommend buying male condoms online. First, condoms in the store are really expensive. Second, buying condoms in the store is a hassle. Third, condoms keep for like six years so mind as well buy them in bulk and save money. Fourth, let me repeat: six years, if you’re reading this and you don’t think you’ll get laid 50 times in six years, stop reading now and go to a bar and say hi to 40 girls. Just do it.

A good online shop is www.condomdepot.com. Last I check the code “best” gave me 10%, google for updated discounts. I recommend the Durex Extra Sensitive and the Crown Skinless. Order 50 of each and be safe.

Note: for the ultra cheap-asses, condoms are included in the Flex Plan so you can pay for them with pre-tax dollars. Happy fucking.

Originality Need Here

The Boston Red Sox unveiled their new road uniforms today.


Is it me, or do they look like the away uniforms of their AL East rival?

Cyron

When I first moved into my dorm freshman year, my roommate and I would get calls for a “Cyron.” I think we would get about two or three calls a day from girls (obviously black) asking “Kean eye speak to Sy-roooone?”

Sometimes we’d say “sorry you have the wrong number?” sometimes we’d say he ain’t here, but most of the time we’d just say “who?”

Invariably the girls would say “Cyron ain’t there? You know, a six-eight big black guy?”

I would respond, “Um, if a big black guy was standing in the room, I think I’d notice.”

Well, this went on for a few weeks.

My roommate was then watching the football game and lo and behold guess who was carrying the ball? “Cyroooon for the touchdown!!”

Football season ended and I soon forgot about the big black man who wasn’t standing in my room.

Around February, I was cleaning my bed and found a love letter to Cyron. It was loooong. I showed it to my roommate who refused to read it. Not knowing what to do with it, I just shoved it back under the bed for someone else to find.

A month later, I was studying in my room with the door open. A big black man with a can of ravioli in his hand walks up and asks, “hey do you have a fork?”

“Sorry man, I got chopsticks though” I say.

He looks in my room like he’s going to jack my stereo and says, “this used to be my room”

It then dawns on me, “are you Cyron?”

“Yup” he says while nodding his head.

I then ask “so what are you doing here?” By that I meant, what are you doing around the dorms if you don’t live here.

I honestly expected him to say, “I was visiting my friend who lives down the hall,” but instead he said. “I play football here.” He apparently thought I was asking him what he was doing at the university. That made me see how student-athletes see their role.

Out of nowhere he then said “I fucked a lot of bitches up in here. Lot of bitches.”

Spending Money and Getting Laid

A recent article in the current issue of Evolutionary Psychology attempted to connect higher male spending with better mating success.

The article titled “Male Financial Consumption is Associated with Higher Mating Intentions and Mating Success” sampled males ages 18-45 and found that the more money a guy spends, the more he gets laid (and the more women he wants to sleep with in the future).

The article discusses some other things and seems to conclude that spending is the modern version of peacock feathers and colors—it shows that a male is strong and fit. Problem is that today, many males are buying things on credit, so they aren’t actually “strong and fit.”

So what does this mean? Are women attracted to men who spend more money or men who display qualities of men who spend lots of money. I’m not sure.

The article did not find a similar connecting with women and spending.

I would like to point out that I think spending money doesn’t get a guy laid. The article just correlates the two. So maybe guys who have the personality of spending lots of money are the ones who try harder to get laid.

Another thing the article found was “Women who completed more years of education had fewer one time sexual partners.” I always thought that the more education a woman had, the more likely she is to have a one-night stand.

Ultimately, the article is mostly useless, but interesting.

Read it here.

What if the Super Bowl was Run BCS Style?

Since 1998, college football has determined its national champion by selecting the two best teams and pitting them against each other in a National Championship game. The problem with this process is what are the two best teams? What if there are three teams with undefeated records, how do we decided which two are the best?

Rather than discussing why the system is so screwed up, let’s see what would have happened if the NFL used this system?

Let’s say that instead of the top two teams, the NFL just selected the top AFC team to play against the top NFC team.

2007 – #1 Dallas v. #1 New England. Actual game: N.Y. defeated #1 New England.

2006 – #1 Chicago v. #1 San Diego. Actual game: Indianapolis defeated #1 Chicago.

2005 - #1 Seattle v. #1 Indianapolis. Actual game: Pittsburgh defeated #1 Seattle

2004 – #1 Philadelphia v. #1 Pittsburgh. Actual game: New England defeated #1 Philadelphia

2003 - #1 Philadelphia v. #1 New England. Actual game: #1 New England defeated Carolina

2002 - #1 Philadelphia v. #1 Oakland. Actual game: Tampa defeated #1 Oakland

2001 - #1 St Louis v. #1 Pittsburgh. Actual game: New England defeated #1 St Louis

2000 - #1 N.Y v. #1 Tennessee. Actual game: Baltimore defeated #1 N.Y.

1999 - #1 St Louis v. #1 Jacksonville. Actual game: #1 St Louis defeated Tennessee

1998 - #1 Minneapolis v. #1 Denver. Actual game: #1 Denver defeated Atlanta

(these #1 seeds are by record. Some teams rest their starters and tank their last few games when they know they’ve clinched a playoff birth. This may skew the numbers and the rankings)

What does this all mean? Well, since the BCS was enacted in 1998, a #1 seeded team (AFC or NFC) has reached the Super Bowl every year. Seven of those ten times, the #1 seed lost and three of those times the #1 won.

Let me repeat that fact about the #1 teams losing. Of the ten #1 teams that have made it to the Super Bowl, seven have lost. Additionally, seven of those loses have come in the past 8 years. Number one teams suck.

There has never been a #1 AFC v. #1 NFC Super Bowl game in the past 10 years.

In other words, if the NFL did enact a BCS style Super Bowl in 1998, the two teams playing in every single Super Bowl since then would have been different and at least 7 of those 10 games would have had different results.

Twilight

I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why Twilight is so damn popular.

Kristen Stewart is easy on the eyes, but why does this story have such a fanatical following?

Also, I really can’t see why Robert Pattinson is, in the words of the two girls sitting behind me, “OMG-super-hot.” I kinda do admire how he as a three-mile stare like the guy in Prison Break, but you girls know he’s not really a vampire, right?

I guess I can use this if I ever need to talk to a tween-ager girl.

I Watch Too Much TV? No, I Don't Read Enough Books

Watching too much TV is not the problem. The problem is not enough reading.

I looked back at the books I’ve read this year and nearly cried. I think my number is around five. Granted, one of them is the Omnivore’s Dilemma, which is a thick book, but five books in year is just pathetic.

I then thought, how much time do I spend watching TV? Well, I watch about 18 shows, and if we assume each show has 15 episodes, that’s about 225 hours a year (some shows are 30 minutes and some are 1 hour). Accounting for fast forwarding through commercials and the mindless surfing, I would estimate I watch at the very least 300 hours of TV a year.

How much time do I spend reading books? If I hit 30 hours this year, I would be very impressed (work doesn’t count).

Let’s think of this another way, I spend about $60 a month on my HD DVR with the HD stations. That’s about $720 a year on TV.

Including the six magazines I subscribe to, I spent about $150 on reading material. $150 v. $720? Sad.

So here’s what I want to do: for every TV show I watch, I want to read one book. To be massively generous, I’m going count shows and not episodes. So the entire fifth season of Lost (all 22 episodes) can be offset by one book.

Moreover, I’m going to count each magazine subscription as a book too. So 12 issues of Maxim will also count as one book.

According to this method, in 2008, I “read” eleven “books” (and I use that term loosely) and watched 18 TV shows. All I need is to read seven more books and I’m good.

I don’t think this is a lot to ask. For people who aren’t regular book readers, I think this is a reasonable goal.

For a list of book I recommend click here.

The Bandwagon Fan Test

The bandwagon test for College teams:

Step 1. Have you attended the school in question? If "yes," you are not a bandwagon fan. If "no," proceed to step 2

Step 2. Is the school in question the nearest Division 1 school to a place where you have lived? If "yes," you are not a bandwagon fan. If "no," proceed to step 3

Step 3. Do you or does a member of your immediate family derive a substantial portion of his or her income from the school in question? If "yes," you are not a bandwagon fan. If "no," proceed to step 4.

Step 4. Do you or does a member of your immediate family donate more than $500 a year or more than 40 hours a year to the school's athletic program (attending games does not count as hours nor does purchasing $500 of officially licensed products)? If "yes," you are not a bandwagon fan. If "no," you are a bandwagon fan.

I Really Like the Smell of Carbon Paper

Whenever I smell carbon paper, it reminds me of my mom’s office.

For those of you youngins, carbon paper is paper people used to put between sheets of paper so that when they press or type on the top sheet, it shows up on the second sheet. Before the days of laser printers and cheap copy machines, carbon paper was the defacto way to do things twice as fast or with half the work.

Well, when I was little, my mom’s office was swimming in carbon paper. I used to go to her office and the entire placed smelled like carbon paper. I would see people furiously working on multimillion dollar projects and I’d just be in awe, not even realizing how little stress I had in my life.

Slowly, as I grew older and as technology advanced, her office (and all offices) stopped using carbon paper.

Now, every once in a while I’ll see a sheet of carbon paper, smell it, and it will remind me of when I was little.

I think everyone has a weird scent that reminds them of their childhood, unfortunately some people haven’t found it.

Popcorn Hour Update

I finally got fed up with my Popcorn Hour A-110. Right now I’m giving it a solid “not recommended.”

First of all, when it did work, it was marvelous. It did everything it advertised.

Problem was that it only lasted a few months. These are a list of some of the problems I had:

(1) The network functions stopped working after two months. I could no longer stream files from my computer or access the internet from my A-110. My MAC address was all zeros, which I learned, is a really bad thing.

(2) I could no longer connect the A-110 to my computer and use it as an external hard drive. My computer wouldn’t recognize it for some reason. It used to work, but not anymore.

(3) My TV would often get a “no signal” from the A-110. I unplugged it and then plugged it back in and . . . . nothing. I had to unplug/plug it back in a few times for me to get a signal.

(4) My hard drive would become read-only at random times.

(5) The A-110 would randomly declare all files unreadable. I would need to restart the unit to make it play files it played just seconds ago.

So I opened a support case and the services guys really quickly responded and gave me a RMA number. I then disconnect my main board and mailed it back today. Hopefully they’ll fix it or give me a new one.

The A-110 is a great product, just not very reliable in my experience.

EDIT/UPDATE: so apparently, the electricity in my house is really dirty and full of power spikes. These spikes appeared to be the cause of my popcorn hour dying and now I've learned my lesson to ALWAYS use a surge protector. I've been using a surge protector with my fixed popcorn hour and everything seems fine. Less: always use surge protectors for expensive electronics.

How To Talk To Girls by Alec Greven

Alec Greven is only 9 years. Despite being on this planet for less than a decade, he knows more about “talking to girls” than a lot of men. So much, that we wrote a book: How To Talk To Girls.

What started as a handwritten $3 pamphlet turned into a nationwide book deal with HarperCollins Publishers.

In his book he suggests: (1) Comb your hair and don’t wear sweats (2) Control your hyperness (cut down on the sugar if you have to) and (3) Don’t act desperate.

The illustrations made me laugh so hard ice tea oozed out of my nose:
"98% of pretty girls ditch boys" HAhahahahaah!


Yet, the more pages I read, the more I realize he’s right. Take for example the above picture. He’s essentially saying wear something unique, but don’t go peacocking.

Here are also some pictures of him “in action.”


Buy the book on Amazon for $9.99. Just click: here.