Walking the Box

Nonsense Review - Construction

2011-06-14T06:28:00.001-07:00

(For added fun I'm typing this on the subway on my way to being late for class. How exciting!)

Construction is everywhere. If you need to be somewhere, it is a universal construct that construction will be there first, waiting for you and waving it's orange flag of "nope not this way". I visted Florida and my grandfather joked about how there were two seasons: winter and construction. It's pretty much the same elsewhere, only without the added misery of being in Florida.

The state of alligators, old people, and humid weather. Come and visit!

Nobody minds necessary construction. You drive down the road and see a fresh building being erected and look over for a sign of what it is. A new restaurant, is it? Well maybe me and the boys can make this our regular hole after it's finished! Or so you tell yourself before never visiting it (along with everybody else who forewent it in favor of McDonald's)

I'm sick of all this fast food. Why doesn't anybody open any real restaurants around here?

That's the difference between the types of construction. There is constructive construction and then there is the government is wasting your tax dollars construction. Nobody minds the former, but it the latter that is constantly getting in the way.

You see the second type everywhere. They'll renovate the same road a few times a year, arbitrarily recement a sidewalk or raise a curb, send a small orphan child to spit polish all the traffic lights, etcetera. That's the people in charge picking high profile, low cost, cosmetic touch ups to make it look like work is being done. Its what you always hear old conspiracy theorists complaining about at city council meetings.

The city I grew up in is notorious for this. There was a dangerous alley where a girl was fatally assaulted. Awful. But the local council stepped in and built a fancy gate to the entrance of the alley and declared it a wash. After all, nobody gets hurt in parks.

Except for all those jerks that do.

There's also a sidewalk that I walk on every single day that has had a "sidewalk closed" sign on it for the past month, with no signs of construction workers touching it, or having any intention to touch it. There are no sinkholes or sandworms, and the ground isn't lava (THE FLOOR IS LAVA) so for some reason the ground is temporarily out of order.

Seems safe enough.

It's easy to see what they're doing though. They're responsible for keeping the local economy running. They're employing more people by setting up quick, routine jobs for local contractors, and trying to construct a safer area is better for jobs than just paying normal wage to the police and having them add an extra scene to their route. And the way government operates is on a lowest bidder priority, so it's hard to get set up for any larger cost jobs.

So construction isn't all that bad. It keeps people employed and you can always use it as an excuse to be late to places.

Rating: 2.5/5

Oh hey, my train's at the stop. Good timing, me.

Nonsense Review - Ice Cream Truckin'

2011-06-08T20:42:00.000-07:00

The hot summer days. The heat blazing down upon you, sweat dripping from your brow. You lie on your side, staring at the shapes the hot air swirls into the tapestry around you. You smack your lips together in their dry, chapped, unfortunate state. You need a nice refreshing Cherry Coke, or a trip to the pool. Because nothing beats the heat better than a trip to the pool.

But wait! Just as your mind is filled with bikini clad public pool honeys and whether or not it's worth risking the shattered beer bottle covered floor of the common swimming hole just to cool down and hit on some fellow dropouts, a familiar tune interrupts your thoughts. The jingle of the Ice Cream Man floats through the air, and the scalding heat is momentarily forgotten, as you leap and bound out of the house to throw your money at a white truck full of the most delicious cure for the summer.

Provided it isn't loaded with rocket launchers and demon clowns.

That is, if it isn't already faded off into the distance by the time you get outside. Many a kid knew the scorn of living on a street that simply "wasn't part of the route" and just happened to be a detour the ice cream truck would speed through sometimes to get to the high revenue areas. Or even worse, having an ice cream truck come down a sidestreet or back alley nearby, but not onto your own street, leaving you standing in the middle of the road clutching a wad of cash, screaming blood curdling cries into the air for your Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shaped ice cream, until a concerned parent calls the police to taser you back into your domicile.

Worth it.

The ice cream treats are always better from the truck (if you manage to catch it) than from the store. Try it. With your adult money, go to a store, open the cooler, and purchase a popsicle. I'll wait here.

Not so great, huh?

What the store bought popsicle is missing is the satisfaction of catching the truck, or simply just the experience of buying it from the truck itself. Maybe it's the music. It's got to be responsible at least for getting you to pay three times the amount you would per bar than it would cost for a whole box at your local grocer's. But the heightened price has to be responsible for why it tastes better then. You pay more so you trick yourself into thinking it's better ice cream, subconsciously.

Or maybe it's just all the time the driver spends lovingly rubbing LSD into the ice cream before doling it out to unsuspecting innocents.

Guys, I'm having a bad trip...

Most importantly, though, ice cream trucks are a hearkening back to childhood, and a delight to children everywhere. It's your parents giving you a dollar and sending you running toward a stranger, only for you to come running back crying to tell your parents "Spider-man costs more than a dollar!" and then them telling you to get the rocket pop, but come on, mom and dad, rocket pops are for jerks, even Mikey got a Spongebob. Even if you don't partake in the trucks in your adulthood, the jingle makes you heartsick for the good old days.

Unless you live in my neighborhood, where for some reason the ice cream truck comes by at about 10:30 at night.

Rating: 4/5, for nostalgia's sake. I eat the Great White bars.

Nonsense Review - Sickness: As a form of Beauty Treatment

2011-06-04T11:38:00.000-07:00

Under the weather. We've all been there. The things it does to you. The runny nose. The pale complexion. The shakes. The long nights vomiting. That oh so attractive glow.

Lookin' good.

What am I talking about? Take a look at yourself after you get sick. All that lost weight. Skin sticking tight, exemplifying your cheekbones. And the paleness of the skin, with small flushes of red tinge? Flawless. I mean, they sell skin whitening cream in Asia, so that's gotta mean you look great.

And you do. If you're a bit hefty, you've lost some weight. If you were thin to begin with, well, models are skeletal, and your ribs look like a washboard so you're downright gorgeous now. The constant upheaval of your stomach contents burns away the protective enamel on your teeth, and the tender, white insides are revealed to the world (although it's recommended that you chew gum constantly to counteract the smell - and who doesn't love people with fresh breath?). Your eyes are glazed over and look larger and more inviting, along with that natural redness that surrounds them in place of any unnecessary eyeliner. And you can truly shake it in the dance floor, what with how cold your fever is surely making you feel.

Short in short, there is nothing about being sick that doesn't make you desirable to everyone and everything that passes by.

But how effective is it, really? Being temporarily sick is just that: temporary. The weight loss is great, but it all comes back when you're healthy again. Your skin returns to its natural color, and the shakiness stops lending that extra 'oomph' to your moves when you're on the dance floor. Suddenly, being the picture of perfect health has become detrimental to your image. I find myself licking toilet seats, high fiving homeless people on the streets, taking up jobs as an elementary school janitor, just to get my sick fix.

I mean you. You'd do that. Certainly not me. I don't have a problem.

Not when I look this good.

It hurts to look this good

Sickness gets a 3/5: You look fabulous, but side effects may include anal leakage, temporary blindness, and death.

A Bold New Frontier

2011-04-14T20:25:00.000-07:00

It's been a long haul, blog, and you've been there with me for all of it. Most of it. Some of it....

Alright, so I update this blog just shy of once a year, but hey blog, we're aware of each others' existence, and that drunken night of awkward fumbling we go through every 11 months or so as I try to remember just what all your buttons and drop boxes do is great and memorable whenever it happens, and I'm glad that it happens with you.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm graduating soon. In like, three weeks. Provided I pass all my classes at least which... I mean passing is a D, so I GOT this, right? Totally.

But I'm going into the world with business cards that look like this.

Fantastic, I know. They show so much confidence. Or at the very least, they show the business aptitude of a 10 year old who just graduated from the Mountain Dew Academy of Awesome (arguably the most respectable of the colleges in the Stupendous League conference of schools).

But as I walk into the valley of the shadow of the death of my childhood, I do so with no fear. I'd say I'm not looking back, but I'm of course Moonwalking at full speed toward the future, or at least performing my best interpretation of the Moonwalk.

The only thing I want to do with my life is to be happy. And I always get weird looks from adults when I tell them this. And by adults I mean people older than me, that feel like I should know better than this because they feel they know better than this. And I'm not here to knock someone's approach at life. I want different things than them that's how it goes.

Life is what you make of it, and there are things that I love that aren't important to some people, and things that I don't need that are the world to other people. I don't need...things. That's not true, I do need things. But I need less things. I began a process of purging things I owned about a year ago, and it's slow going, but it's happening. Scanning old notes and pictures I drew to a digital file and storing it in multiple places before destroying the originals, giving away old toys and books, thinning my clothing, all that jazz. This goes along with how much I love traveling. With that mindset, it's weird to have things that tie you to a place. if I could fit all my life into two or three suitcases that'd be ideal, but I'm still at that awkward mix between owning things and getting rid of all of it. Every time I go through I find more things I needed to have that I just don't need anymore and it's exciting.

Maybe it's just me growing up and not wanting to hold onto things anymore. Maybe it's me changing my perspective on things? Maybe it's just nothing important and I'm simply bored.

As a result of these things though, I need less money to buy the less things I don't need. So I feel like whatever I do I'm going to be just as successful as everyone else is, because I'm measuring my success differently. My happiness is my important goal. Traveling is my goal. Making other people happy is what I live for. If I have the means to do these things, then that means I'm successful. Everyone wants fast cars, huge houses, expense accounts, other things that I don't understand the meanings of (although briefcases are cool, I'll hand that to the business world). They need more money to afford more things that make them happy.

I'm happy with a computer and a passport. And a pad of paper so I can write things and doodle when I'm running around. And the ability to buy lunch for my friends and rent a movie when they've had a bad day.

Are there things I'd like on top of that? I'd like to be in a movie. I'd like to build something elaborate with my bare hands. I want to do the Shikoku Henro. I want to climb something, get into shape, cook a delicious meal on the fifth anniversary with someone I love, own a hedgehog, go parasailing, swim in the deep ocean, shake hands with a blue whale, high five the president, write a book, dance in the rain.

There's nothing stopping me from doing these things though. Nothing but myself, and you can find time for these types of things no matter where you are in life. It's why I'm not worried.

They're going to happen.

Chasing Squirrels

2010-06-13T03:27:00.001-07:00

So I was chasing squirrels on the way home from work.

I walk home, and there are squirrels and rabbits and cats everywhere on the way. I live in a cul de sac near a temple, a church, and a school with a playground, so they've got a bit of an area to run around in, which gives me a bit of an area to chase them in. I know I'm an adult. I don't care. Chasing squirrels in the park is fun, even if it's just for a few steps, then you just stop and laugh at yourself.

I don't know why I chase the squirrels or why it's fun. I mean yeah, it's ridiculous. And early man was a hunter. But I'm not a hunter. What if I actually caught a squirrel? I mean, I'm always grabbing at them. What if one of them stops short, lags a step behind, falters where I don't? I lean out to mock grab it as I always do, and I nab it by the tail.

Then I've got a squirrel.

I don't know what to do with it. My landlord won't let us keep pets, and it's hard to keep a squirrel as a pet in the first place, they tend not to do well. I'm not really into eating squirrel in any way. The meat is too gamey, and I have difficulty imagining myself killing and preparing the thing on top of that. Do I just let it go? Is this a sort of land fishing? Hook and release, but with furry, legged, bitier fish?

I think the fact that I'm not good at catching squirrels is probably the most important factor in my chasing them.

METAL COMMUNISTS: The Robot and YOU

2010-01-17T16:50:00.000-08:00

I fear robots.

This is not an uncommon fear, but I don't fear them for the same reason as other people (being unstoppable bloodthirsty killing machines).

On its way to a loved one near you.

The reason that I'm afraid of robots is because of their inevitable upheaval of society, thanks to the wonders that their existence can bring about. In all honesty, the only reason that this hasn't happened is that anyone in the power to do so knows the chaos that would ensue as a result of introducing robots into every element that they are capable of overtaking.

We have robots in manufacturing divisions building our products, we have self check out booths at grocers and some chain department stores instead of cashiers, we have roombas to clean our houses so we don't need to do it or need to hire a maid, and phones capable of controlling everything from the temperature and lighting in the house to a replacement for your remote. Technology is making leaps and bounds in all directions and it's really only a matter of time before, say, it is capable of replacing everyone in the public sector.

There are plenty of things that we've developed that simply aren't in practice because it would put so many people out of jobs. Vertical farming , for example, would eradicate the need for the huge farms in the country, and with them the farmers. RFID tags could be implemented into all products (as is wanted for consumer reports and predicted by some people) which would eliminate the need for cashiers altogether as the store could just charge you altogether for everything on your person when you leave the store as it scans you at the security gate on the way out. And using those tags, robots could theoretically stock the shelves in addition to that, or taking it one step further could even retrieve items for a customer and bring it to the front order desk instead of you even needing to retrieve items yourself. Because obviously you'd be exhausted from driving there yourself in your Fully Autonomous Vehicle. For you kids keeping track at home, that is a self-driving car.

Hasselhoff's greatest dream is a reality.

These all sound like great advancements in technology, until you realize that each of these investments is a step toward the robotic communist agenda. It's only a matter of time until scientists and businessmen alike say "screw it" and toss robots into every aspect of the public sector.

You may be thinking "sure, when this happens I'll just get a job repairing the robots like in that new Willy Wonka movie!" That is until you realize that there is no reason we couldn't just make more robots that repair other robots. That is until you then realize that scientists are working on robots that can repair themselves. So there goes that option.

"Well," you say to yourself, "that sucks but I never wanted to work those jobs anyways. I'm more of an idea guy." But therein lies the deeper problem. Now that all of the physical labor jobs are gone, everyone is an idea guy. Because there are no other jobs. But that's not the only problem. Now that robots are doing everything from growing our crops to selling us our questionable dvds, what do we even need money for? It's not like there can be a shortage of products now that everything is autonomous, right? So everything will be free thanks to the glorious robot revolution!

Not quite. We'll still need money if for other, larger purchases such as real estate, but now how do we earn money? It's quite right that public sector work is all but taken over in the physical sector, but what about desk jobs? Oh, you mean calculating, that thing that robots and computers are designed to do? No reason that they can't do that. So the only thing left now is abstract ideas, higher thinking and mathematics, and simple inventing. But these aren't things that everyone can do, or at least not that everyone can do well. So how is it fair to have the entirety of the job market based on this?

It's not. But as I've already said, there needs to still be money involved in our day to day lives. The other aspect of this is that without incentive, technology would reach this point and then stagnate. New discoveries would be made primarily by people who were willing to do it pro-bono, and as many people as there are that enjoy knowledge for the pursuit of knowledge, funding is definitely a catalyst toward advancements. There would definitely still be things coming out without anyone needing to worry about funding, but there would be less moves toward stress testing new products, customer service representation, and various other public relations. After all, if anyone could just go out and replace something whenever they felt like it, why would the mass producing industries care how long it lasted?

But maybe it's not all bad. It would be horrible at first, but there are the benefits of proper needs being available to anyone and everyone. The end of hunger and homelessness, and possibly unemployment might be worth the horribly unstable period of time until the transfer to the new system is established.

And after all, robots are supposed to be smarter than us within the next 40 years, so they can probably take over for all the higher thinking inventing and such anyways.

Robo-utopia, here we come!

If that apocalypse thing doesn't happen instead, that is.

Milk and Cookies

2009-10-18T20:34:00.000-07:00

I absolutely cannot find any solid answer on the origin of milk and cookies. Or rather, the origin of dunking cookies in milk.

Some of the sources say that it was the result of a marketing campaign, some say it's just a tradition that cropped up, some say it was just obvious, others blame Santa Clause. At the very least the Santa Claus one is wrong.

The closest that I've been able to gather is that it most probably stems from the British custom of dunking biscuits (for those of you whom don't speak British, 'biscuit' in this context refers to a type of cookie. Yeah, I know, I don't like it either but whatcha gonna do. Crazy Brits) in their tea. From there it made it's way to America, but since we threw all of our tea into Boston Harbor, we decided to find an alternative. Water adds nothing to the cookie but sogginess, and really, we would just eat cookie dough if we wanted that (Not that we don't, but dunking it in water would add the unnecessary step of actually baking the cookie first). So the only options left at such a primitive age were alcohol and milk. Considering the only thing you should dunk in alcohol is a cherry, that left milk.

People realized it was delicious from there and started doing it. Then when mass produced cookies came along, companies like Nabisco started marketing the product in conjunction with the trend of dunking it in milk (Take the recent Oreo slogan into account 'Milk's favorite cookie') and it became a national sport from that point on.

Unfortunately this has proven to be a lot harder to track down any concrete evidence than I would have hoped. Which is too bad, because I wanted to publicly thank the person or company or whatnot that it originated from, as it led to the eventual creation of Cookie Crisp, which as of late has comprised 70% of my diet.

So cheers to you, initial cookie-in-milk dunker. May you have a special seat in the heavens.

No really, it looks great

2009-08-28T19:58:00.000-07:00

Second opinions are important.

You should always bring a friend along when buying a car. Preferably a friend that is less of a drunkard and more of an individual that is mechanically inclined, lest you make the same mistakes I do and drive off with a motorized tricycle and a welded-on sidecar.

You should also consult your wife before buying and/or selling a house. Or renting out a room. Or your children.

You really can't trust your instincts on a lot of things, or even if you can you should still bounce the idea off of another person, if for no other reason than if it sounds good in your head than it must sound even better out loud, and if you're just talking to yourself then you'll look crazy.

And then sometimes you are crazy and everyone else is there to tell you so.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't look as good with a beard as I thought I did.

Update

2009-08-04T03:55:00.000-07:00

There are a few people that inexplicably have been checking this site for updates.

Wow, to believe that the world hasn't crushed your spirits yet. I applaud you.

I feel I owe an explanation.

School and life got busy. These things tend to happen. Sorry about that. Plus I had a second blog that I've been taking care of.

Well, the second blog is ending soon, so I'll be concentrating on this one more. And there will be some changes.

The reviews are fun and all, but they're not as popular with people as I would have hoped. I'm not dropping them entirely, but they won't be for every update. I figure I'll start updating twice a week like it says I will on the sidebar there. One post will be whatever, and then the other one will be the random review. I'll try this out for a while and see how I like it and how it's received from all three of you that feel the need to check this site.

So starting next week whenever I'm supposed to update, I'll be updating again.

Bathrobe

2009-06-20T04:38:00.000-07:00

Ah, the bathrobe. An article of clothing adorned by everyone from playboys to mostly nude old men at least since the advent of the newspaper. It has served us well through the generations, and continues to do so to this day.

The bathrobe is a versatile article of clothing, and as such does not always need to be worn immediately after taking a bath. It can be worn after waking up, after a vigorous session of baking, or even as a normal article of clothing, though only if you are an escapee from a mental hospital, traveling the universe with a man named after a car, or both. Bathrobes are designed for comfort, and with all such products the more expensive ones tend to be quite a bit more comfortable. The cheaper end of the spectrum tend to wear like either starched paper for the thinner models, or like a coat made of cat scratching posts for the budget version of terrycloth.

The usage of a bathrobe, or smoking jacket (the only difference internet searches have brought up is that bathrobes are designed to be worn otherwise nude, but I'm sure one could do the same thing with a smoking jacket) is either to cover one's modesty, or simply as loungewear. Some bathrobes contain pockets, in case you feel that it is appropriate outdoors wear and decide to run your errands with nothing but a loosely tied robe to cover your shame.

Oh I'm just on my way to the store to pick up some donuts. Why yes, this is my bathrobe!

As it stands, the bathrobe is a functional, but essentially superfluous piece of the wardrobe. It's underrated in one's youth and seems to become almost essential the older someone gets for reasons unknown, but it never seems to serve any real purpose aside from opening the door to collect the mail without being outside in your skivvies. Allegedly they're also used at spas, but considering I'm too poor to have ever been to one of those, this may just be part of an elaborate fantasy constructed in my own head as I stretched awkwardly backwards in an attempt to give myself a backrub and dreamt of a day when things would be better than that, and some nubile young girl would instead be giving me a rubdown.

Picture removed for various violations.

On the other hand, the bathrobe does get some cool points for its appearance of the manliest of real sports, boxing. It's well known that boxers enter the ring punching and biting at random extremities whilst wearing a light robe that they throw off last second in a show of manliness and an attempt to shock you into thinking that they are larger than you had thought they were while they were hunched under the robe. This technique works equally well against children. Speaking of whom, the other cool factor involves this being the only article of clothing that let you pretend to be a Jedi a long time ago in a bedroom probably upstairs from the basement you live in now.

The bathrobe is a purely superfluous garment, but as with most things, superfluous tends to be equatable to luxury, and even the poorest of men realize that anything that allows you to sit around almost naked for most of the day is truly luxurious. It's difficult to look down on such a pimptastic product, but I'll be damned if I didn't try. The bathrobe gets a pantsless 7 /10.

One more for the road

Soft Drink Bottles

2009-06-13T10:16:00.000-07:00

The soft drink bottle is a most useful invention. Heralded as the god Contanus by the Babylonians, it has been in use since at least the 1800's. It saw its usage in World War II as an indispensable close quarters combat multi-functioning weapon. After the war it starred in several movies and then settled down with its wife and three kids to a quit house in the valley.

So I sort of phoned the history lesson in there, but I've used enough bottles to accurately review them, so let's get down to business.

Soft drink bottles come in an assortment of shapes and sizes. Some are economically flat, and some are ribbed for her pleasure, while others will be in gimmicky shapes or contoured to fit better in one's hand. For some unexplainable reason, most brands keep a consistent bottle opening width with the exception of the 1 liter bottle. Some 1 liter bottles are wide open enough to drop two or more hamsters straight into the opening, with little to no shoving involved. It would be a nice improvement for other bottles to utilize this size, as it would eliminate the suction problem for those not skilled in drinking from bottles.

Bottle anatomy. Because I know you've never seen one before.

This is a serious issue that is oft ignored. Some people have a bottle-drinking-from handicap. The majority of us know that one can simply tip and sip the contents of a bottle, but those select few will wrap their mouths around the opening and suck like an infant, extracting all the sweet nectar from inside the container. This causes the sides of the container to contract and create a suction effect with the individual's mouth, causing a need for it to be released afterward, with a slight chance of expelling some of the bottle's contents in various directions; occasionally they will fly into the person's eyes. Also, this makes disgusting noises and is loud, so people should really stop doing that.

Soft drinks bottles have numerous uses, which range from refreshment to entertainment toward biodome. They are capable of housing any number of things that can fit through the mouth; from soft drinks, to marbles, to pond water saturated with tadpoles. The uses go beyond merely holding things, though. With a small spiral plastic attachement and TWO bottles, one can make a scale representation of a twister that can be seen as the water drains through the contraption! Empty bottles may also be beaten rhythmically against things to create musical concertos that will leave your friends and relatives speechless in awe.

And finally, like any great invention, bottles can legitimately be used as a weapon. Beating someone with an empty bottle is somewhat pointless, but a full one may hold some heft to it, especially if the contents are aforementioned marbles or a carbonated beverage. If you still live in the 1960's, you could simply break your glass bottle over a table and use it as a stabbing implement. If you do not have access to old fashioned bottles, however, grip the bottle firmly in hand and strike your foe in or around the temple with the bottle cap. It's guaranteed that they'll be down for the count. Be sure to remember this the next time your friend that always brags about the knife they carry is left frozen in terror during your routine Thursday night being mugged.

With many (see: several) uses and designs, and widespread popularity, the soft drink bottle is one thing you don't want to be left without. Due to its potential to annoy, it'd seem like that would bump it up a few notches. Unfortunately, annoying things tend to be a double edged sword, and the potential to be used against you is a detractor to the overall score.

Walking the Box gives it an 8.....out of 10. Said in the voice of Adam Sessler.

Psychic Powers

2009-05-16T09:50:00.000-07:00

Ah, Psychic Powers. The daydream of every middle class American that becomes too restless at work. Your boss requests a file and then yells at you for not making the margins 1.2 despite his never telling you to do so. You mentally retort "What do you think I am, a mind reader?" Ten minutes later you're being ushered out of his office because you've drifted off in thought about the different ways that you could use your powers for personal benefit, starting with forcing him to give you a raise and ending smeared in blood and pancakes after waking up from a blackout that you'll never full be able to explain or comprehend.

Psychic ability has a rich history of being part of every civilization known to man ever. Really, look it up. The word itself is Greek in origin, but the idea of the psychic has been around since time immemorial (I really just wanted to use that phrase). Considering in some included aspects of psychic ability include astrology and determining if somebody is sick, this is probably less impressive than one would think.

Of course, when we think of "psychic powers" we think of things like the X-men. Nobody cares if you can make guesses while looking at the stars or if you can accurately predict that I'm going to die in a week because science hasn't progressed far enough to treat my bear wounds, but we sure as hell care about the ability to steal thoughts, move things with our thoughts, predict the future, and blow shit up with our minds.

Woman, I predict that if you don't get me my scotch that I will psychically bitch slap you so hard your bra will come off. None of that mental backtalk, either. We've had enough movies, comic books, and comic book movies to ensure us that there is a definitively awesome side about psychic powers, much like cinema showed us the way that an explosion can really brighten up any decor. Unfortunately, there are always gypsies and Sylvia Brown to remind us of the more boring aspects of the psychic world, like tarot cards, crystal balls, and reuniting families with their lost loved ones.

The hands on aspect of this review didn't go so well. I've spent many walks attempting to read people's thoughts or trying to psychically command them, as I'm sure anyone as crazy as I am has (Turn around if you can hear my voice. Okay don't. Reach for that donut if you can hear me. That's not the donut I meant, I meant the other one! No you don't even care! Augh!). Along the same lines, inducing head explosions was met with similar results. I did try to move some things telekinetically, starting small with a pencil. After grunting at it and twitching for about an hour with no response but some weird hallucinations about Tom Cruise, I gave up with nothing gained but disappointment and some indigestion.

You're right, Tom, you were the greatest samurai ever! And you're so handsome, too!

Psychic powers are something that are half awesome, half mundane, with more grounds in the mundane and no proof in the other half. As much as I'd like to believe in it, it just ain't happening. They get a 5/10 for not living up to their potential.

Although if anybody can start me on fire with their mind, feel free to do so and that score will rocket up a few points.

Balls

2009-05-12T05:07:00.001-07:00

Balls. As a child, everyone played with them. Some of us discovered them sooner than others, and some of us never had our own, having to rely on the neighbor kids or the generous workers at the local Y. Some are used for sports, some are used to ride on, and some are used for chucking at people and then getting caught by your parents and being forced to sit in the corner for 10 minutes. Ever since the first time a spleen rolled out of a mammoth incision and bounced along, manking had been fascinated with the rolling, bouncing device. There are depictions of circles in cave paintings, so we can't be quite positive what those indicate. Knowing cavemen, the circles could've been a ball or their children, we're not quite sure what cave spawn looked like back in those times (although we're led to believe they look similar to our own infants). The first mention of a ball in its modern English usage as a device to be played with can be found in Laȝamon's Brut (Chronicle of Britain) being used in 1205, but evidence such as the ball courts in the blood-thirsty Aztec ruins (the ruins themselves thirst for blood) indicate that the orbs had been around long before the greatest language in the world had a word for them. Balls today are used primarily in sporting events, even though some of the less boring ones (see: hockey, curling, spelling bees; not basketball) don't use them whatsoever. The variety of shapes, sizes, and materials used in sports alone demonstrate the flexibility and adaptability of the ball to any area that it can be fit into.

In-YOUR-end-o

Balls have also found uses in keeping children entertained (those huge rubber ones are awesome), machinery (what do you think ball bearings are? Squares?), medical therapy (balls are used in muscle memory, muscle relaxation, and coordination exercises),B.B. guns, juggling, pachinko, and probably other fields that I can't quite think of at the moment.

Now, as with paper, I've had plenty of opportunities to play with any balls that were made available to me. Recently, I actually purchased a three pack of balls, in a variety of colors (green, pink, and yellow are a variety). I attempted to juggle with them, but apparently this isn't something that you just can pick up in 5 minutes, so I decided that it wasn't worth my time. Much fun was to be had with the other activities involving the balls, though. It began with simply throwing it at the wall, a rather rudimentary procedure. Then I moved on to more advanced maneuvers, such as throwing it at things that were not the wall. This proved to be exhilarating. On a mad high of throwing the ball at things, I began throwing the balls at things with the intent of knocking them over, and in some cases, off of the furniture that they were resting on. Within minutes I found myself in the hallway whipping balls at the faces of people that I knew, indiscriminate of whether they wanted balls in their face or not.

No horses were harmed in this beating.

Balls are overall quite versatile, able to go from blissful childlike fun all the way up to maniacal bloodthirsty ball thwomping. I'm sure tons of you enjoy them for their sports or sports-like applications, but for me, nothing will beat the look of pleading "why?" in the eyes of my ball-destined victims.

Of course, that thrill only lasts for so long, and balls can deflate and aren't edible, no matter how hard you bite (apparently). In the case of sports it's not so much the ball itself as the sports that are being played that amount to the excitement, so the ball is just taking credit for a team effort.

That sort of bad sportsmanship nets the ball an 8/10 in my rulebook.
Rule number 1: There are no rules.
Rule number 2: Cooler Ranch Doritos are better than Nacho Cheesier.

Paper

2009-05-09T08:22:00.000-07:00

For those of you not in the "know", Wikipedia describes paper thusly:

Paper is thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets.

Paper was invented millions of years ago, by the Egyptians probably, or maybe the Chinese even. I'm not sure. What I do know is that they both had it at some point ages ago, and that the Egyptians called it papyrus which is Egyption for "really crappy paper." The primary utilization of it as a surface to doodle on and the occasional replacement for when you'd run out of two-ply hasn't really changed much in the current age. The Chinese were at least a bit more inventive and made small, useless paper animals and flimsy cups that I can't ever get to work right.

What good is a toy that you can't take into the bathtub, honestly?

Paper is an invention that single handedly spurred progress. People could finally write down their ideas on it (which at the time must have consisted of "find more whores and slaughter my enemies"), they could draw things on it instead of needing to find an empty spot of cave wall (this also allowed them to carry it around showing people their pretty pictures of the moose they killed that afternoon) and they could fold it into airplanes and spit wads of it at their teachers.

Over time this led to the invention of books (as stacks of paper would fall over comically and scatter in between classes) which in turn led to the printing press (because monks are slow at copying things and they charge exorbitant prices), as well as computers (because using the printing press was hard work and evolution guides us back toward a sedentary lifestyle) and eventually into digital paper which is essentially a flexible tv screen that you can write on, and that's pretty cool.

Paper itself has come a long way since the days of barely usable pressed wood chunks. We still make papyrus for some reason, and the much flimsier recycled and construction papers. The paper technology has advanced in useful directions as well. We have loose leaf binder paper which is designed specifically to give as many papercuts to grade-schoolers as humanly possible, and synthetic papers that are smooth and plasticy that have made their ways into numerous school textbooks. Wax papers and carbon transfer papers, and durable printer paper with glossy sides. We've even developed a paper that can be printed on using heat, which should encourage a trend of kids breathing heavily onto their tests to obscure their poor grades.

Paper has even progressed as far as making pre-printed images that we can apply adhesively to other things, such as jackets, walls, textbooks, little brothers, and trapper keepers.

That's right, stickers.

Has there been a greater invention?

In essence, paper is possibly the greatest discovery of mankind, so to rate it any less than a 10 would probably not do it justice.

I'm giving it a 9.8 though, because to the best of my knowledge you can't eat it, or at least you can't digest it, and everyone knows that the perfect technology would be edible as well as-

What's that?

Edible Paper?

Well shit. Alright, 10/10.

Bravo, paper, keep up the good work.