Monthly Archives: August 2014

Nap time

If I have enough time, I like to take a nap during the middle of the day. I almost never get the chance to do it, because society doesn’t work that way. It should. I hate the whole “working hard or hardly working” mentality. Can’t I be doing both? Why are we expected to bust our asses for so many hours every week? As more and more jobs get automated, wouldn’t it make sense to redefine full-time work?

But whatever, I’m talking about naps. They’re awesome. Nothing’s better than crashing on the couch at around three or four in the afternoon and waking up whenever. I listen to people talking about napping, I always get a little suspicious whenever someone tries to tell me about the effectiveness of a power nap. I’m sorry, but if you send me to sleep for only ten to fifteen minutes, we’re both going to have a pretty serious problem on our hands ten to fifteen minutes from now.

No, when I go in for a nap, I never set an alarm. It’s one of the only times in an adult life where you get to wake up as if you didn’t really have to. I wake up in the morning, it’s because I have to. You can’t just lie in bed all day, unless you’re sick, and that doesn’t count. But a good hour-long, two, two-and-a-half hour nap, that’s the best.

I like to, after I wake up, just kind of stay there on the couch for a while longer. Like I’ll be awake, but I won’t open my eyes for another five or ten minutes. And then once I face the waking world, I’ll just stretch out, check my phone. And then I’m up.

After a really good nap, I feel like my day has been completely rebooted. It’s like I’m somehow siphoning off some extra morning energy from an unknown afternoon source. It’s great. Everything I do after a nap is more productive, I’m happier, people are happier with me. Why can’t we make room for naps in modern society?

Does anybody else think that getting up, working, and then going to bed is kind of a dumb idea? Can’t we make some room for naps? I’d love to take a nap right now. But it’s already ten at night, and so I feel like if I take a nap now, that’ll be it, I might as well just go to bed. No, tomorrow. Tomorrow I’m definitely taking a nap. You hear that boss? I don’t care if you’re not supposed to sleep in the coat closet. I’m taking a nap.

7 life hacks you never read about on the Internet

I keep seeing them lately, articles on all of my favorite web sites, stuff like, “Check out these awesome life hacks!” and then you click through a bunch of pictures to find out tips and tricks that supposedly make everyday life a little easier. It that the goal, easier? I can’t tell. I’ve seen hundreds of them, and I always think to myself, wow, those are so cool, I’m definitely going to start implementing those in my life.

But I never do. In fact, I can’t think of one life hack that’s ever gone any further than my computer screen. But whatever, I’m not giving up on life hacks just yet. I think the problem is that we need better life hacks, not the same ten or fifteen life hacks that pop up on every single life hack list, a new one appearing on my news feed every week or so. It’s time for some new life hacks. Here are seven.

1. Jorts

Everybody knows about this one, right? You take a pair of old jeans and breathe a second life into them by using a pair of scissors to cut them into shorts. Jorts by themselves aren’t really much of a life hack. In fact, most people turn their noses up at jorts.

But they shouldn’t. The trick here is to use brand new jeans. If you take a pair of old pants, you’re just going to wind up with a pair of old jorts, which is why jorts often look a little trashy. But brand new fresh cut jorts are actually really cool. And that’s not it. When you buy your new pants, make sure you buy them extra long. Save the bottom parts for the winter. Now sew them back together. And then cut them back into jorts the next year. You can keep this cycle up for three or four years if you’re good at saving loose pieces of fabric for an entire season and then remembering where you put them next year. After several sew and cut cycles, you’ll eventually lose a few inches, and your pants are going to turn into jort capris, (jortpris?) which don’t sound cool now, but most fashion is cyclical, and so capris are going to have to be back in style any summer now, just watch.

2. Stop brushing your teeth

You’ll save a ton of money on toothpaste and toothbrushes. Because come on, you already have a toothbrush, right? Just save it. Just keep using it. Sure, you might have to brush a little harder as those bristles start to fray, but it’s worth it, trust me, those are some big long term savings you’re looking at.

What about talking to people? Won’t people get grossed out if by your poor dental hygiene? Easy, just stop talking to people. If you don’t talk to anybody, you never have to worry about making plans, or going on dates, or spending money when you leave the house. Those are even more savings. You’re going to have so much money, you could just buy new teeth if you really wanted to. But don’t, because then you have to start going out again, and it defeats the whole purpose.

3. Make your own seltzer

Buying seltzer is really expensive. The obvious solution is to buy a Soda Stream or some other home seltzer-making device. But that gets pricey too, all of that replacement carbon dioxide, buying the whole Soda Stream in the first place. I used to go to McDonald’s and lie to the cashiers, telling them I was only going to drink water, and then I’d take a bunch of empty two-liter bottles out of my backpack and fill them up with seltzer. That was the plan anyway. I got greedy and started stealing Coca-Cola, managers had to get involved, I’ve been told not to come back to several stores.

But the life hack is so simple. You just fill up a glass of water and, with a straw, you start blowing as hard as you can into the glass. It’s crazy because, we all used to make our own seltzer like this when we were three or four years old, but our stupid parents would always yell at us, “Stop blowing bubbles! Stop that right this second!” But now that I’m an adult, I can blow as many bubbles as I want. And it’s adding up to all the free seltzer I can drink.

4. Tired of the same boring egg salad?

I know I was. A couple of years ago, I saw some recipe on the Internet for some really good egg salad. And then I saw a cooking show that was similarly all about egg salad. So after a while, I just felt like the universe was throwing egg salad into my face. “The secret is paprika!” I’d hear it in my dreams. But how much egg salad can a person eat? After like two or three weeks of egg salad, I found myself in an egg salad rut. And worse, while the Internet had clearly gotten me into this mess, I couldn’t find any novel approaches to egg salad online. “The secret is cumin!” every web site was saying the same exact thing.

The life hack here is to stop eating egg salad altogether. Egg salad is disgusting. Yeah, go ahead and use a mushed-up avocado instead of mayonnaise, that’s even more disgusting. Just stop eating egg salad for a week and I guarantee, after a whole seven days of not having that filmy post-egg salad residue stuck to the roof of your mouth, you’ll never think about eating egg salad again.

5. Don’t buy replacement razors

This is kind of like my don’t-buy-toothpaste-or-toothbrushes life hack from the top of the page. Actually, it’s exactly like that. Stop buying razors. They’re so expensive. And for what, a tiny piece of sharp metal? Here’s what you do, just stop shaving. After a while, you’ll have a really sick beard. And then say something important comes along, like you have to get married or go on a job interview, just use the same razor that you had when you stopped buying razors. Everybody knows that a razor always has at least one or two more shaves in it, even if it hurts, you can make it happen, you can get clean-shaven if you really want to.

6. Pizza Time

Has anybody been in a situation where you and five of your friends decide to order pizza for lunch? “Should we get two pies?” someone might throw out, and somebody else is always going to say, “Two? Do we really need two?” and then another person is going to lie, saying something like, “Well, I’m not that hungry,” and so you’ll all stand around with your hands in your pockets, nobody assertive enough to make a decision, until finally the cheapest of the group picks up his phone and says, “One is fine. It’s fine. Really. One pizza for six guys is fine.”

Fine. But here’s the thing. That’s eight slices of pizza for six guys. Who’s going to get one of those extra two slices of pizza? I can see it my head already, everybody kind of taking their time, nobody wanting to really go for it, all while the remaining slices get cold, the cheese coagulating, leaving a hardened layer of grease on top of a crust that’s only getting soggier by the minute. Here’s what you do: as soon as you guys open that box, just take two slices. Right away, you put two slices on your plate. If anybody gives you any shit, just say, “What? I said we should have gotten two pies. Weren’t you the one who claimed he wasn’t that hungry? I’m really hungry. I’m eating two slices.” And then just eat them, don’t answer any more questions, and stop hanging out with this group of friends.

7. Business cards

I don’t know about any of you, but I used to get so annoyed every time I ran into an acquaintance on the street. Larry David coined the phrase “stop-and-chat” in reference to exactly that, having to stop walking just because you see someone that you know, engaging in a ridiculous conversation that nobody really feels like dealing with in the first place.

The life hack is a clever way to get out of those conversations with people that you really don’t feel like chatting up. Just get a bunch of business cards printed up. Have them say something like, “I have severe amnesia. I’m sorry, if I’m handing you this card, it’s because you recognize me, but I don’t remember who you are. My life is very difficult, again, I’m sorry.” Hand that to whoever stops and says hi to you, shrug, and then start walking away.

On the rare occasion that you run into a really annoying good Samaritan, you know, someone who feels bad for your situation, who insists on hanging out with you, maybe walking around town with you, hoping to jog some memories or at least make some new ones, you’ll have to get a little more creative. I keep a spare set of business cards in my other pocket specifically for this unlikely circumstance. Gladly accept this person’s invitation, but then just as you start walking away together, hold your stomach and make a really pained face. Then give them the emergency business card. It should say something like, “I have explosive diarrhea. I have to leave, right now. Goodbye.”

Originally published at Thought Catalog.

I love my computer

I love how my computer gets really hot. When I first open it up, it’s not hot at all. The brushed aluminum casing is maybe even a little cool to the touch. And I start typing and I’m thinking, man, if only this computer were really, really hot. Like, if there were only some way for the internal temperature of this machine to just shoot up, really fast, out of nowhere, man, I’d be so happy.

And then, it’s crazy, but every single time, my prayers are answered. It’s like there’s a little mind-reading troll that lives amongst the circuits and processors, and he’s like, did somebody say hotter? Zap! He uses his magic powers to make it really, really, really hot. Like so hot that it’s almost too hot. Almost, obviously I’m still typing, so it’s not too hot. But just below too hot, like a nice really hot cup of tea, or a bowl of French onion soup that takes half an hour to eat because it’s so hot, or one of those days at the beach where it feels like you can’t step on the sand because your feet are burning, but you have to, and you do, and it’s fine.

It’s like resting my wrists on two of those hand warmers that you use when you go skiing in the winter. How do they get those things to work? Here are two not-warm-at-all fabric pouches, and as soon as you open them up and expose them to air, there it is, warmth. Maybe they have something in common, my laptop and those warmies. Because my computer is definitely warm. If only there were some way for me to type on this computer while I’m skiing. It seems like such an obvious solution.

I also love it how my computer’s fan starts going into overdrive anytime I do anything more than just opening a simple Word document and typing. It’s like, I’m typing right now, and it’s fine, there’s nothing else going on, and so all I have to do is sit back and enjoy the wrist-heat. But if I click over to my web browser? The fans start spinning, the computer is telling me, whoa, easy Rob, one thing at a time buddy. Or if I start watching a two-minute YouTube clip? I can just hear my computer asking me, Rob, can’t you just watch that video on your cell phone? Is anybody else getting really hot in here? And just when I think the fan won’t be able to spin any harder, it does, it’s making like a really uncomfortable wheezing sound, eventually so loud that I can’t hear the sound coming out of my tinny little speakers, and so yeah, I’ll just watch it on my cell phone, that’s not too big of a deal.

I love it how if I leave my laptop open, long enough for the screen to go black, it never turns back on again. I mean, the computer is on, it’s just that the screen is black and I can’t get it to wake up. And I know it’s on, I’ll hit the volume button and hear the little “bwop” sound, like everything’s working.

Now I know, it’s not a problem anymore, I just have to close my computer the second that I step away from it. But man, getting to that point, it was a lot of trial and error. I’d go to the bathroom for a second and come back to a blind laptop. I brought it to the computer store and they were like, sorry brah, that computer is too old, we’re not going anywhere near it. So I had to go on the Internet on my phone and learn about something called PRAM, and there was a lot of hard rebooting and cursing and holding down specific keys and … well, I got it working again. Everything was deleted, but so what? That’s what you have the cloud for. And I only had to do that master reboot like three or four times before I figured out just what was making it tick in the first place. I think. Please don’t turn off on me again, computer.

I love this computer. It’s a giant middle finger to the whole computer industry. Everything in modern technology is all about being new, getting a new device every year or so. Not me, I’ve had this same machine since 2006. Did I mention how warm my wrists are? And as long as this thing holds up, I’ll never buy anything else. Never. I hope that this computer lasts me the rest of my life. I hope that my descendants all use this computer, that it keeps working for hundreds of years to come, that in the future, it’ll develop a near mystical reputation, a sort of divine machine that refuses to obey the laws of simple mechanics. This computer is the best. If you ever came up to me and said, “Rob, I’ll trade you this brand new computer for your really old, hot, temperamental machine,” I’d say, “No deal.” Seriously. Try it. Make me that offer. I’ll say no.

Celebrity run-in

I was downtown the other day when I saw a famous celebrity. I didn’t know that it was a famous celebrity at the time. I’m not one of those guys that looks at anybody else when he’s out of the house. I always have this fear that I’m going to make eye contact with a total lunatic, and he or she is going to start screaming something like, “What the hell are you looking at? What?” and then follow me around, because it’s not normal behavior to call someone out for accidental eye contact, I can only assume that the non-normal behavior would extend to following me home, yelling at me the whole time, threatening me.

No, that’s crazy. But yeah, a celebrity. I was on the corner waiting for the light to change, there were a bunch of other people waiting, and one guy says to this other guy, “Hey, aren’t you?” and then he said the celebrity’s name. At this point, I mean, I heard it, but I didn’t want to add to it, that’s how these things start, right? One person calls out a celebrity, and then I’m joining in on the fun, looking, trying to say hi. And then there are like five or six people, all trying to get some time in with the celebrity, everybody trying to make a memory here, an experience, “Did I ever tell you about that time I ran into a celebrity in the city?”

And then, well, I can’t speak from experience, seeing as how I’m not a celebrity. But if I were a celebrity, and all of the sudden I’m on some random city street, and I’m waiting for the light to change, but now I’ve got twelve or thirteen people all trying to say hi to me, telling me how much they loved that cameo appearance I made on Saturday Night Live six years ago, maybe asking for an autograph, I’d probably want to make a run for it, I’d want to excuse myself and then hail a cab and tell him to drive, anywhere, just get going.

And then maybe the crowd would be mostly cool, but you know there’d be like one or two really bitter people who’d feel as if they were cheated out of their serendipitous celebrity run-in. And they’d carry it with them forever. And then maybe years later there’d be an article about this celebrity on some web site, and this jerk would write a comment in the comments section, something like, “Well, I ran into this person one time, and let me tell you, talk about rude, this celebrity didn’t even know how to interact with a bunch of regular people.” And maybe it’s not true, maybe it is, all I’m saying is, it’s got to be tough, always at the mercy of the public.

So that’s why, when I heard this celebrity getting called out, I tried to play it cool. I respect the privacy of celebrities. That’s why I’m not naming who it was. I don’t want to play into the whole gossip thing. It’s not my place.

But yeah, it was, “Hey, aren’t you Keanu Reeves?”

OK, it was Keanu Reeves. And I know I said that I wouldn’t say anything, but I’m trying to paint the picture of this story, and I’m trying to imagine it without really knowing who it is. It’s not clear. And I’m not slandering or anything. Keanu was pretty cool.

“Yeah,” he said.

And the guy said, “That’s awesome. I love your movies.”

Keanu said, “Thanks.”

And that was it for a while, this light was taking forever, finally the crosswalk sign started blinking that red hand, but traffic was still flowing in the opposite direction, so we were looking at another ten or fifteen seconds of waiting. And I don’t know how Keanu or anybody else felt, but it was awkward for me, this conversation that was started, but never really got past the initial hello.

Keanu must have felt it too, because after five or six seconds, he said, “Yeah well, you’re a pretty cool guy. Usually when people see me on the street, it’s the cell phone cameras, it’s the pictures. And I get it, I really do. But it’s just refreshing to not have to deal with it when I don’t have to deal with it, you know?”

And the guy was like, “No, I don’t know.”

Keanu tried again, “You know, I’m just, thanks for being cool.”

And now we had the light, and everyone started walking. But this guy, something must have been really off, because he just snapped. He started yelling out, “What do you mean cool? I don’t care if you think I’m cool or not. You can’t tell me who’s cool.”

It started getting really aggressive, just like I had imagined it might get. Keanu looked around to see if there was some sort of a crowd forming, but no, it was just me, this guy, a bunch of other people not paying attention. Yeah, I guess I was a little, if not involved, I’d definitely stopped to see how it was all going to play out. And remember that whole thing I said earlier about me not looking and not caring and trying to be all cool? I guess that wasn’t entirely true. I was kind of looking. Hopefully it was subtle. I’ve actually always dreamed about celebrities stopping me on the street, complimenting me for being so cool. But that’s kind of like a reverse invasion of privacy, right?

“You’re telling me I can’t use my camera?” Now the guy had his cell phone out, and he pointed it at Keanu, just trying to get away, trying to hail a cab, but there weren’t any immediately available. “What’s wrong Keanu, you don’t want me taking this video?” And then finally a taxi pulled over and I could hear Keanu say to the driver, “Go, just drive, anywhere.”

And then the guy just put his phone back in his pocket and kept walking. What a psycho. I’m telling you, it’s got to be really tough to be a celebrity. And Keanu, if you’re reading this, if that guy ever posts that video and tries to make you look like the bad guy, I’m here to set the record straight, that you were being totally cool, that that guy was nuts. Get in touch with me, I’ll write a statement, whatever, maybe we could talk about it, maybe get like a cup of coffee or something, if you’re free, whatever, if you need it is all I’m saying, I’ll explain that you were totally in the right. Just let me know. For real, I’m cool like that, seriously, I’ve already imagined how crazy it must be to be celebrity, and in my imagination, I can totally relate, all right, you can let your guard down with me, for real, I’m one of the cool ones here.

If you go to a Star Trek convention, don’t dress up as Super Mario

One time I went to a Star Trek convention dressed as Super Mario. “I don’t get it,” my friends all said to me when I told them about my plan. And I was like, “What don’t you get? Star Trek exists in the twenty-fourth century, right? OK, well, that’s our future, right? Their ancestors are us, and so Super Mario and Nintendo all will have existed in their past, which is now. Doesn’t that make sense? Come on, it’s Super Mario, you don’t think he’s going to make it to three or four hundred years from now?”

And my friend Bill was like, “It’s not that I don’t think Super Mario isn’t going to be around, it’s just that, that’s way too much backstory for a Star Trek convention. Why can’t you just wear a Starfleet uniform like everyone else?”

“That’s so lame,” I told him, “I mean, no offense to any of you guys, I know the Starfleet uniforms are expensive and everything. You know what? I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry. But you know, my Super Mario costume wasn’t cheap either.”

But it was too late, I knew I was going to piss everyone off by calling their Starfleet costumes lame. But they were lame. And I kind of wanted to piss them off. Because come on, if you want to dress up for a convention, I can think of at least twenty actually interesting costumes from the broader Star Trek universe that don’t involve wearing a generic crewman’s outfit. You could be a Klingon, right, or you could be one of those old school Klingons from the original series. Or you could be Worf’s human stepbrother, or Wesley’s spiritual companion, the Traveler.

I’m just saying, they jumped on me for Mario, and now they weren’t holding back. “Listen Rob,” this was my friend Doug. He definitely had the nicest of the regular uniform costumes, like it had removable pips, a magnetic com-badge, he even had to pick it up at the dry cleaners because of the expensive fabric. “Your Mario costume was from Halloween. And it doesn’t look expensive at all.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Doug,” I said. Great, let’s have it out, let’s do this. I knew from Halloween that nobody thought my Super Mario costume was anything special. But not expensive? “Not expensive?” I said in Doug’s direction, but I was talking to the whole group now, “Do you know how expensive a pair of overalls is? I bought them online and they were expensive. And then this hat, this isn’t just a costume prop piece, OK, I bought this specially, and then I sent it to an embroiderer to have the M stitched up front. You see this fake moustache? It’s made out of walrus whiskers, all right, this fake moustache is going to outlive all of you.”

But nobody was budging. It was just me, a lone Super Mario surrounded by a whole group of Junior Lieutenants and Chief Petty Officers. “And yeah, Steve was a Vulcan, so that took at least a little bit more effort than just putting on a blue shirt and a black pair of pants, but not a lot. He didn’t really commit, he didn’t get the Vulcan haircut or anything.

And then my friend Larry spoke up, “Well, if Mario existed in Star Trek’s past, then Star Trek should’ve existed also. Right? How do you explain that?”

And everybody just went, “Oooooh.” And yeah, I didn’t have an answer. I said that it wasn’t fair, that of course Star Trek couldn’t exist as a popular TV show that predicted the course of events for the next three or four hundred years. But you can’t count that, it’s just not fair. There were a lot more words, but that basically summed up my whole argument, that it wasn’t fair. And then Jim, my brainiac friend, he started this big lecture about how Star Trek shaped the popular culture of the twentieth century, directly influencing our electronics, the design of the cell phones, all of those tired arguments you hear every time you read some article about Star Trek in the newspaper. And of course, everyone else just sat around in awe, another boring Star Trek speech.

Worse, we got to the convention, and OK, maybe people didn’t really get the whole Super Mario thing, I get it, it’s a bit of a stretch. And maybe I was a little lazy, just reusing the same costume from Halloween because I didn’t feel like ponying up for something else. But I could have done something, maybe made it like Mario was in Starfleet or something. But no, the worst was, amidst the hundreds and hundreds of regular Star Fleet officers, there was a group of fans who dressed up as Darth Vader and a bunch of storm troopers. And wherever they went, everyone was like, “Ohhhhh!” taking tons of cell phone pictures, having really cool mock fights. And after a while I just wanted to ditch my lame Mario costume, but it really was very expensive, I don’t know why I spent so much extra money. It’s not like it really added anything special to the look. And the walrus moustache? There’s no getting around that. That was just a really bad purchase. A really bad, questionable, impulse, late night Internet purchase.