C'mon everybody, jingle bells!!!

love your toilet

the hot sauce saga that I did a few months ago is part of a book I'm theoretically writing, where the narrator does lots of little exercises designed to teach him something. Here's a recent chapter.



“Once you shit in an alley while it’s raining, every toilet feel(s) pretty damn sweet”
-Darrell

It’s all fucking Darrell’s fault. Asshole. This isn’t a lesson for me of how deprivation increases appreciation. It’s a lesson for him about how much awful shit the stupid white-boy will do just because he tells me to. He loves the idea that I’m doing this. I could see it in his eyes when he assigned it to me. He probably saw the rain start falling today and him and his homeless friends are having a good hard laugh about the spoiled white kid shitting in an alley. He’ll probably treat himself to a nice leisurely shit at the library or one of his other favorite bathrooms tonight. Asshole.

The second a hint of this idea was born in that bastard head of his, he latched onto it like an aging single mother. He was talking about the jobs of being homeless, as usual, “no freedom like a shopping cart man” and all the usual crap.

“Once you shit in an alley while it’s raining, every toilet feel pretty damn sweet.”
He said it and the smile blossomed. I watched it spread across his face, unaware of the disaster for me that was brewing under the surface. I told him I liked the quote. I laughed. I told him it was a great metaphor. I told him I was sure it was true. I looked back into his face and saw that fully formed mischievous-little-boy smile and knew I was fucked.

I choose my spot in the alley and the mental berating of myself and Darrell comes to a sudden end. I’m completely soaked. I have accepted the rain, no longer crumpling my shoulders up in pointless resistance to it. I carefully plan my next moves, struggling with the paradox of it all, simultaneously wanting to make this both as pleasant and as unpleasant as possible. An understanding of why this had to go down in the rain washes over me. I gently touch the toilet-paper in my pocket and it is, of course, soaked into a glob of mush. Useless. The rain has also washed away any possibility that this will be a clean dump. My prayers for a ghost-shit (a no-wiper) will go unanswered.

I position myself over a small pile of garbage and lower my pants. I instinctively start thinking about a happy-place, but I bring myself back to my grim reality. If this is worth doing, it’s worth doing right, though the merit of this whole thing seems minimal to me right now. I put my left hand on the brick wall for support, feeling it’s filthy, seemingly absorbing it like that guy in the Green Mile. I crouch down, sigh deeply, look around, and push.

I thought briefly about dropping all the sordid details of this lesson and ending this write-up here, but in the case that a reader may vicariously learn to appreciate their toilet and other tokens of modern convenience, the story goes on.

I pushed, and I pushed hard. The faster the shit was hitting the cement, the faster I could be out of here. I felt vaguely like I was purging my body of something, like I was hitting rock-bottom and leaving a stain there. I did the job, and even paused briefly to fully immerse myself in my surroundings before wiping. I looked around the filthy alley, garbage cans, puddles with oily rainbows, random filth lurking in every corner. I felt relieved. I felt pride, like I had overcame a meaningful obstacle and emerged as the victor. A hero home from battle, sitting on an invisible throne. I smiled. I looked up and saw someone in one of the windows, and the smile shattered. I took one wipe with the glob of mush in my pocket, like wiping with white-out, and pulled up my pants and walked away without looking back.

I spent the 5 blocks walking home from 17th and Stout wishing I chose a closer alley, extending the list of my present attire that would have to be thrown away, and hating Darrell and all of the stupid bullshit I was doing under his direction. I rode the elevator up with an attractive girl from the 4th floor and hated her for it. I took a long shower and felt like a prostitute for some reason. Violated. I hated the sight of my toilet.

A Challenge

I challenge you to get this muddy:

"Dear Family I propose a family adventure." -rob

I'll start by catching up. Here is random cut and paste portions from the emails...

As most of you know, I'm a huge fan of hut trips. When you get 10 of the right people in a house with nothing to do but entertain yourselves, you're likely to find yourselves entertaining yourselves extremely well. So who's in for a family hut trip? -rob

--------------------------------------

10th mountain huts are one option. They're filling up though, and don't have electricity, and are often a challenge to reach.

A few of you may be thinking something like, "what if there was a hut, but it has electricity and its easier to get to? And also you can rent snowmobiles there. And also, there's like, a map of the back country that tells you where to back-country ski and not die. And 5 or 6 decent bedrooms.

I' ve found a place like that too. The Vagabond Ranch. -rob

------------------------------------

I'm always in for a good adventure. Didn't we destroy the horse balls? I vividly remember kerry trying to jump over one of them and not getting very close, destroying it in the process. -jeremy

---------------------------------------------------------

They were completely destroyed. -dee

-------------------------------------------------------

Baggo dissapeard also. I thought Rob had it, Rob thought I had it, I don't know where it is anymore. Also Mom just found the long lost water balloon launcher. Perhaps a contest is in order for who gets to keep it. -jeremy

-----------------------

I have horseballs. -matt

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No...no..., I am pretty sure I am looking at a pair of horseballs right now. jake.

----------------------------------------------

As you can see, this email thread got a little off topic. Hell, we barely made it 3 emails.

Now, to business.

We have a strong vote for January. Any other votes? Jake?

Rob, how much time in advance do you think we need to book this?

name that show

"My name is Rory B Bellows, and I got a lot of coroberatin' evidence to prove it!"

This actually kept me up last night.

Bonus point if you know the actual name of the episode. NO googling

Goodwillie turned bad?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/uk-scotland-tayside-central-14279600

here is a description of ph.d's

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1Og6DQ/matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/

kinda cool.

Cousin News

I received the following email from Maggie today:

Super! This site is guide to the world of pleasure! (then some website, which is obviously going to either destroy my computer or guide me through the world of pleasure. Either way, I'm scared to click on it).

Pure Michigan

I just wanted to throw a tentative date out there for a canoe trip PURE Michigan style. August 13-14? What do we think?

How was that egg salad sandwich? Eggcellent, but there wasalad of mayo on it for my taste.

What a short guy wears in the summer: shorts.

Weiner's Wiener

It's been a slow June on the blog. Just 2 one-line posts from Kyle, both of which were quite unpleasant for me to think about. I'll class it up a little bit with a high-brow discussion of politics and research.

I'm fascinated by this story that's been everywhere lately about congressman Weiner putting photos of his penis on twitter. It's like a news story caricature. There have been an incredible number of stories lately about famous people, often politicians, getting caught doing some ridiculous sexual thing. They must understand that getting caught cock-tweeting, or trolling for gay sex in bathrooms, or sleeping with everyone, or whatever else is going to basically ruin their lives, and they just dive right in there anyway. I wonder whether it's more nature or nurture: is it that people who get into being a celebrity or politics have always had a deep need for social reinforcement and that's why they do this stuff, or is it more because being famous gives people power, and makes them think they can get away with anything? Which came first, the fame or the boner?

Another funny part of this story is that the guy's name is Weiner. I came across this article about how this is related to an interesting psychology finding, where people have strange attractions to things that are related to their names.

I don't really buy this explanation, but it brings to mind another interesting finding on rumors. My dissertation advisor wrote a paper about how, when something seems easy to think about, people judge it as more true, among other judgments. For example, people say that "woes unite foes" is more true than "problems unite enemies" and so on. If we didn't already have certainty that Weiner showed is Wiener, we'd be more likely to believe it because it's easy to think about, or "fluent".

In addition to rhyming, I think one could increase fluency of a rumor by having some sort of conceptual relationship between the actor and the deed. For example, maybe American Airlines is doing too much racial profiling against muslims. Or Philip Morris is doing too much air pollution.

Here's a few other fluent rumors for your reading enjoyment:
-Fidel Castro was castrated for infidelity
-Pittsburgh Steelers have been stealing from their players.
-Exxon executive caught with pornography (x-rated)
-Shell oceanic oil spill
-Many commercially available Sony goods are phony. Especially their phones.
-An ear was found in a Tyson Chicken product
-Food bought at SafeWay is unsafe for consumption.

We're actually thinking about writing a paper about this. If we get into it, I'll be looking for some more of these to choose from.

Another cool finding on rumors, also by my advisor, is that people often forget the valence of a message but remember the parts of it. So you take a random group of people and tell them "Shark fin does not prevent arthritis". Later on, you'll find that the people who you told this to are actually more likely to believe that shark fin does prevent arthritis, compared to a random group of people who you never told that first statement to. They remember hearing something about shark fins and arthritis and some guess that there was a positive relationship...

What dogs eat in the morning: barkfast.

Viagara and wine: a hard attack waiting to happen.

Suddently at a loss for words

I wanted to post something but everytime I sign on I just kind of forget everything. I am trying to find a job right now. There were two jobs that I worked on for about a year and then ultimately fell through at the last minute. It makes me so incredibly angry that I didn't get either of these positions. I immediately lost all job search motivation, but am starting to regain some drive. I have started running again and may attempt to do a marathon in northern wisconsin this fall. I have been trying to look for jobs, but it is kind of half-assedly. I am done with school so I have nothing but freetime, yet most of it is just kind of wasted away. I think my brain is melting.

my happy d-day

not a typo. d stands for death.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/05/christian-radio-network-guarantees-that-judgment-day-will-arrive-may-21/1

I encourage critique.

I'll start.

It rediculous that he, while refering to the bible, put quote marks around 'gay pride movement,' as though the bible uses those words.


then there is this:

"What if May 21 ends and nothing occurs?
The biblical evidence is too overwhelming and specific to be wrong."

-This may not be the most accurate use of the word "specific" that I've ever heard. Probably not the least accurate either.

camping list

here is the pile of stuff I created for this weekend's moab camping trip...


Food (bratwursts, ham, peanut butter)
Scotch
Beer
Water
Sleeping bag
headlamp
Snake bite kit
Climbing gear
Frisbees
Drums
Didgeridoos
20 hits of 'something'
Silly hat



I think that about sums it up. For a better visual of the pile; the peanut butter and the 'something' are in the silly hat.

kooky

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtshOIeK4Vk

This is a classic old techno song from the 90s. It is just so weird with the video that I had to post it. Hypnotic almost.

Thoughts

Professional athletes should wear glasses with little mirrors on the sides so that they can see behind them. I bet a guy like Chris Paul or Amare Stoudemire could eventually dominate people with a smooth behind the back glass pass.

As gay as twittering is, it’s pretty cool that I could twitter that to Amar’e and he’d probably read it. Assuming I’d be willing to sign up for a twitter account that is.

Next time I have a big house party, I'm going to get a light-bright and put it out where people can play with it. Because hey man, lightbrights are great.

You'd think there’d be more skate wounds in hockey. If someone came to me with an idea for a sport where huge men race around on a little box of ice at 30 mph with knives on their feet, I’d expect more slash wounds than a cook-off between rival Mexican street gangs.

When I buy a house, I'm going to make one of these in my yard. It will take a while to grow, but when it gets there, oooh baby.

If I could have any pet, I would get a Lama. It would carry my backpack and I would train it to spit at my enemies.

It probably won't be long before gatorade invents snortable electrolytes. They will need to keep in mind that flavors that are pleasing to the mouth are not necessarily pleasing to the nose.

My body should understand that blisters are not a good solution to have uncomfortable soccer shoes. No skin-bubble is going to make those shoes fit me any better, you've tried that, move on.

seesawsomebone

Rob's hot sauce face keeps staring at me when I check here, so I'm just going to post something. Here it is: a facebook conversation with Whippit


What do you want for your birthday? Stuff? Junk? Another jawbone?
o
I don't need more stuff, except maybe a gamecube(mine is broken) or something fun for outside. Feel free to get creative.
o
‎50 new jawbones it is.
o
Maybe I could find a way to hook them all together and make an ultra-jawbone, or jawsomebone, as I like to call it.
o
The jawsomebone stretches from butt to mouth and makes heavenly sounds. Or am I thinking of something else?
o
and it can only be played by thrusting motions.
o
like a sesaw?
o
surprisingly, yes.
o
Seesawsomebone. I'm not at all surprised.

Hot Sauce Experiment

(I can give more of an intro on this if people are curious, but the short version is that I've been working for years on a book that involves a lot of "behavioral learning experiments", which are behaviors designed to teach me something. In general, learning by doing seems to work better than learning by reading, so the idea is to come up with a series of behavioral experiments that will teach me certain lessons. Here's a rough version of a chapter that I wrote tonight).

What you are thinking about is the main predictor of happiness and enjoyment. You can be in the most beautiful place in the world, but if you’re in a shitty mood and focusing on the one piece of trash on the otherwise flawless landscape, to you it might as well be a junk-yard. On the other hand, you can be walking through a shit-field, but if you’re completely focused on the one little flower growing out of the shit, then to you it’s no different than being in a flower-field.

Controlling the mind is the key to happiness. When I feel unhappy my first reaction is to try to change the external world: I am unsatisfied with the TV so I get a new one, not realizing that I will soon be unhappy with this new TV. The world is difficult to change to fit with my desires, and even when I achieve this, my desires change and I again feel unsatisfied. It would be far more useful to be able to change my own internal states. I need to learn to accept things, not necessarily all things, because I do want to continue to fight and grow, but certainly most things. I need to learn to focus on the positives. Although this may be more difficult than buying a new TV, it will give me the power to appreciate and enjoy anything. And because happiness is one of my primary goals in life, I think I should spend more time practicing enjoyment.

To serve this goal, I occasionally read Buddhist teachings, which have a strong focus on this exact idea, but the knowledge that this is a superior plan rarely translates into behavior. I occasionally meditate, practicing focusing my mind on nothing or counting, but I’m not very good at it. So I developed an experiment where I would eat a huge dose of hot sauce and try to meditate my way around the pain. If I can control my mind away from the pain, I should be able to control it away from anything. And the main advantage is that when my concentration waivers, I will be hit hard by the pain, which will serve as a strong motivation to stay focused.

I’ve tried this one before. It’s pretty straightforward. I eat a large dose of the most painful hot sauce I own, and then I try to deal with the pain. I’ve had mixed results. Focusing single-mindedly on the pain seems to help for some reason.

I’m nervous as I write this. My palms are sweating, my heart is pounding, I have nerve gas (a name a just made up for the nervous farts that we all know and love), and I’m feeling nauseous. I try to interpret the nausea as a reason to delay this experiment, telling myself that a weak stomach is not the time for a massive habanero dosage, but that's not a good enough excuse. I’ve been lazy on getting these experiments going, and it’s about damn time to do a serious one. The anxiety is funny; I know that what I’m about to do is good for me and I know it will hurt. My body seems to be focused on the pain aspect of this, and it’s interesting to me that it can differentiate these two appraisals and be so focused on the one that affects it more.

I’m even clenching my teeth. Jesus. Fuck it. I’m going to clear off my bed to give myself a place to sit, open the window because this seems like it will be more pleasant if I’m cold, and do the job. I’ll consider typing something here during it, but it goes against the theory of immersion, so we’ll see.

Remember, this is good for me. Remember, focusing thoughts is the most important skill I can develop for my well-being, and that being punished for letting my attention waiver will be helpful in this pursuit. Here goes.



(actually I took my time preparing my dose, taking a picture, and practicing meditation before I sauced myself. The meditation went poorly because I was nervous for the saucing and out of practice, and I nearly convinced myself that I need more mediation practice before the sauce experiment would be maximally useful. While this may be true, it doesn’t make for as good of a story, and the story was already partly written. I’ve always loved the quote, “If someone wrote a story about your life, would anyone want to read it?” I am motivated by my desire for that answer to be yes, especially now that I’m writing the story.)

It is now 11:50 PM. Exactly 10 minutes have elapsed since the hot sauce consumption (about 2 teaspoons of “Endorphin Rush” hot sauce for those keeping score, but it should also be noted that I have little conception for the quantity of liquid in a teaspoon). I have changed my pants (see below) and am blasting Rodrigo y Gabriela which I have a sudden craving for. It took me a while to figure out how to turn my music on. My tongue is still feeling some significant burning, perhaps a 4, where 10 is the most pain I’ve ever felt and around 8.5 is where I was at the peak of sauciness.

The experiment didn’t go exactly as planned. It started off poorly. I ate the sauce-chip (sauce facing down, avoiding contact with the lips, substantial chewing) and was quickly wondering whether it was a big enough dose. My experiences with The Bomb seemed to hit much harder and taste much worse, and my one extremely severe Dave’s insanity sauce incident (I filled a ravioli with it for some reason) also hit a little harder at first I think. So I paced around debating whether to pour some Dave’s on my tongue, but the pain increased dramatically and I decided I had done enough.

I swished some water around in my mouth to spread the pain around (which I fully believed at the time but question now) grabbed my camera, and sat down on my bed to begin meditating.

While writing this, a bead of sweat from my forehead just splashed on my keyboard. My hands are shaking. I think I’ve earned an ice-cube. Mmmm soothing.

I believe I have experienced success before by focusing on my tongue. Centering the entirety of my attention on my tongue somehow overwhelmed the pain, or made it more abstract, or made it consistent enough for adaptation, or something. It somehow made the pain go away, so I tried this.

I couldn’t really do it though. The instant I centered my attention on the pain in my mouth it would increase dramatically and I’d feel dizzy and maybe say something like “jesus fuck” and coat my tongue with saliva.
I tried this maybe three times in about 10 seconds, took this picture, and then found myself on my feet, pacing around my room, pounding on my chest to distract myself from the pain in my mouth. This seemed no different than just quitting and filling my mouth with the ice cubes I had prepared, so I quickly outlawed it. I decided that focusing on something else would still fulfill my goal of learning mind control through this experiment so I paced around for about a minute focusing on my hands, holding them up in front of my face and staring at them and thinking really hard about them and the handy sensations they were giving me. I heard drunk undergrads outside my window and laughed at how different my friday night is from theirs. The laughter made my mouth hurt.

I sat back down on my bed and decided I should try again to focus my attention on my tongue and mouth and pain. In retrospect, thinking happier thoughts would probably have been more successful and a more useful skill to learn, but I had it in my head as I began this experiment that I’d be sitting on my bed thinking about my tongue, and I couldn’t trust my decisions to do anything else, fearing that they were some sort of sneaky-cop out.

I was again overwhelmed with pain. A new problem revealed itself. My mouth was watering profusely, but swallowing the saliva involved closing my mouth and changing the sensation on my tongue, which made it impossible to get used to the pain. I decided that I would just have to let myself drool. And drool I did. Drips were pouring out of my mouth, often leaving my mouth before the previous one had landed on my crossed legs a foot below my head. I finally had some success with the meditation though. I probably sat there for 5 minutes, drooling like a newborn baby all over my pants, uncomfortably dizzy, thinking about my mouth and feeling occasional transcendence from the pain. As this became easier, it also became boring, and I decided that it was time to start writing. It’s not 12:22 and I feel a kind of opiate high, hazy and content. When the body is in pain it releases endorphins, and in the case of a pain with a fairly pronounced ending like hot sauce, you can feel a pretty great high once they pain is gone but the endorphins remain.

I consider the experiment a success. I am reminded of the importance of being able to control my thoughts, and although my motivated practicing of this focus didn’t yield the success I hoped for, I did have some success and have an increased desire to continue to work on this fundamental skill.

I also learned a few other lessons that I have been thinking of running their own experiments for. First, I think I made an example of myself. I proved to myself that I’m willing to endure some substantial pain in the name of my own personal growth, and so next time I’m deciding between a difficult book and a Simpsons rerun, and I can remember that I chose pain over sweet soothing ice-cubes and was glad I did.

Related to that, I think I reinforced my will-power a bit. I know I’m capable of passing on those beautiful ice cubes and should therefore be able to have no trouble resisting checking the failblog every day to procrastinate my work.

I've been diggin this cover. I didn't know Adam knew how to shred up the banjo.

http://youtu.be/iAMh7EF51x0

keepin up with the flow

To keep up with the toilet humor I've been thinking of strange explinations for band names I hear on satalite radio.

For instance...

Five Finger Death punch.
Agressive fisting.

Cage the elephant.
To hold back a very large poop. (i was at the mall and had to cage the elephant.)

The White Stripes
cum shots

Rage against the machine.
what you to do a vending machine after it eats your money

Ra
The sound I make when I am caging an elephant



I'll add more when I remember or think of them.

I also had the band name "sadgasm" in my head today. Was that a k-snake invention or an actual band?

This blog could use a dose of non toilet related humor. Until then, I nominate the following word to refer to accidentaly pooing a little bit when you pass gas: Fartwurst.

Friday

It's just a video post, but I think it would be fun to see some comments about it. It's like a caricature of popular music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2LRROpph0

Prostitution

When a Professor has been successful in research and teaching they are eventually given tenure, which basically means they cannot be fired. The argument is that this frees them up to do more risky, controversial research that might not be best for their career, but that answers important questions. A professor that I work closely with was given tenure a few weeks ago, and she just called me into her office to get my help on a new project she is working on. Whether it's an example of the benefits of tenure or the downside or tenure, it's going to be interesting to work on.

She came across some data on the Mustang Ranch Brothel in Nevada, probably the most famous brothel in the country. We have data on how much money each girl made, every single day from 1994-1999, and we're right now trying to come up with some interesting effects we might be able to find in there. Here's a few of our ideas (and I'd love to hear yours if you have any):
-Is there an effect on prostitution from weather. Heat makes people more aggressive, sunshine makes them happier, do either of these effect prostitution?
-Any effects from the economy. Stock prices, unemployment, etc.
-Any effect from moon phase. (This has actually been shown to effect stock returns)
-How does it relate to gambling? Might it be a substitute, where higher brothel revenues are correlated with lower casino revenues? Or is it a complement, where there would be a positive correlation from people doing both together?
-Does it increase with religious holidays like Christmas? Or hallmark holidays like Mothers Day and Valentines Day?
-How does the posting of reviews on each girl affect revenues? Might it actually lower them from overly increasing expectations (or salience of previous customers)?

And so on. Let me know if you have any other interesting ideas, or even want to help with this project.

Quantum

I've been into quantum physics again lately. That stuff is wild.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc

Here's to Ruth...

RUUUUUUTH.


Seriously though, we should get the whole family together to celebrate what she has created.

let's compare these freestyles on "westwood"

Someone was having an off day. But who?

Kid Cudi
Eminem
Lil Wayne

Sidebar!

HighDea

There's a website called highDEAS, which is self-explanatory. Here's tonight's. It's a practical one.

Cheese is good. But sometimes cheese goes bad, and that's bad.

You gotta freeze that cheese. But when you freeze slices of cheese they get separation anxiety and when you try to defrost them and they go immediately from frozen to a lot more melted cheese than you were planning on eating right now.

Not shredded cheese though. That shit crumbles right off when it's frozen. It's the cheese to freeze.

jake's new name

First thought of the day:

Jake's blog name should be Jake 'n Bake.

that is all.

Hairy

I propose a contest in which the winner is he who discovers the best facial hair the internet has to offer. I'll start off the bidding with this dandy.

first found song of the year

Here is the music video for the first song I listened to twice in a row this year.

Its hipster-rific. Waaaaay more than I had expected. In fact, I would suggest not even watching the video. Just listen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DK77hz_sYE&feature=related