Friday, August 12, 2011

A Pirate Moment

It seems, lately, that everyone has lost sight of what is really important. Pirates.

I have gathered some information for you, so I guess you probably ought to pour yourself a dram of rum, cut a lime to stave off the scurvey, and come back here when you are ready, we are going to have a pirate moment.



ARRRRRR! Okay now hit play and read some stories. Now you ought to read the tale of Blackbeard first, if you haven't ever - this is the best telling I was able to find on the internet, and you should read it while "Queen Anne's Revenge" is still playing. Maybe you'll notice that the song gets the jolly roger all wrong, Blackbeard never flew a skull and bones, if he had, he'd have had a lot more enemies, since he was into murdering quite a bit more than other pirates, and traditionally the skull and bones meant an offer of quarter or mercy at the cost of surrender, if a pirate ruined that contract, he'd have a lot of pirates after him in addition to the navies who he had offended. If merchant ships thought they couldn't safely surrender, it would make pirates' jobs a lot harder.

Other pirate websites are far worse, but wikipedia remains hasty. Here are some of my favorites:
Long Ben
Blackbeard
Black Bart
Calico Jack
Jack Ward
Wikipedia doesn't seem to have a decent list of pirate ships, and this one is unverified:
Some notable pirate ships...

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Music to my ears!

I recently discovered "Grooveshark". You can share Playlists! The art of mix making is back! Here are some I made for you to listen to! You might have to scroll down a bit, since Blogspot renders tables about ten miles down the page for some reason.























Plaid
Solace

Lunacy

Plaider
Glass




I am working on some more to come, so let me know if you like any of these, and share some of your own lists with me, too! There are other tools like this as well. A lot of people are using Spotify, which I don't like as much because it requires a client and a lot of bullshit, but it seems more organized. Rdio is another, but they want to display album art in large sizes, which can be unsafe at work. Grooveshark's major drawback is that they are on apple's bad side, and if you are an iPhone user, you can't get their app unless you jailbreak. I guess I'll be getting a droid soon...

Friday, July 8, 2011

Freezerality

Today I am going to talk to you about alternative lifestyles. Well, maybe just one alternative lifestyle. Try to be open minded.

It is called Freezerality, and it basically just means that you keep a bunch of weird shit in your freezer. I call it a lifestyle, because it will completely improve your entire summer. First of all, you don't need to keep 6 months worth of food in there. So make room for the stuff that counts. Here is a short list of things that you might not have thought of yet.

Granola - freezing makes it crispier, and it becomes a cold snack for hot days.

Corn chips - Also retain their crispiness longer in the freezer, and taste better cold. Who knew?

A change of clothes. Yeah, thats right. If the summer is getting really hot, try spraying them with a little water before you put them in there. Not too much, or it will be like wearing an ice pack and then like wearing wet clothes (a lot like wearing wet clothes). but just a little will turn your spare tee shirt into some portable shade.

Your top sheet. I tried this just once, when tired. I imagine if you read in bed for long it will warm up, and I wouldn't recommend the water trick here. Also, only do this with a clean sheet. You keep food in there.

The obvious:
a water glass, and maybe some shot glasses. Definitely two martini glasses. Ice cubes and popsicles. Vodka. Ice cream. Ice pack or two.

Okay stop looking at me like that.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

My phone has been keeping tabs...

So these are all the places I have been, in the area, over the past couple years. Kind of disturbing, but also kind of neat. Like a journal I didn't know I kept.

Special thanks to Ben for pointing this out to me!



If you have an iphone and want to see this for yourself, it is a free download, to any computer against which you sync your phone.


windows:

http://huseyint.com/iPhoneTrackerWin/

mac:

http://petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker/#0

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

The placebo effect



It has recently come to my attention that placebos work even when the subject is aware that it is a placebo they are taking. A person can be given a pill for something like anxiety, and know full well that it is a small piece of sugar wrapped in digestible plastic, and they will still feel anti-anxiety effects.

I have begun abusing this knowledge profusely, and have decided to start documenting my results.

Instead of vitamins in the morning, I have been ingesting the following:
placebo anabolic steroids (for strength)
placebo antianxiety pills (for calm)
placebo sensory enhancers (so that I can see further, hear more, taste in more detail, balance better, feel in more detail, etc)
placebo olfactory inhibitors (for rides on the T)
placebo tissue regeneration pills (so that my body will heal itself faster)
placebo dietary supplements (I am sure that my regular vitamins lack in some areas. now they don't)
placebo intelligence enhancers (they just make you very smart)
placebo antidepressants (for happiness)
placebo painkillers (so that I will not suffer pain)
placebo pheremone enhancers (they make women fall in love with me everywhere I go)
placebo pleasurenhancers (the contrapositive of painkillers)
placebo jetpack pills (for personal flight)


The effectiveness of the steroids is hard to judge. Since I don't know what real steroids do, and I doubt that that knowledge even resides in my subconcious, the placebo is for some imaginary version of steroids, which basically make it possible for me to grow stronger at any rate I can concieve of, without any negative side effects. I will be measuring this over the course of the next few months in terms of improvement in the physical activities that are already part of my life. The control will be improvement over the last year. Not really a huge sample size, or good basis, but then, I don't have any scientific responsibility here.

The antianxiety pills have produced an immediate calming effect. I feel level headed. I suppose that is because I want to. Probably the root of the placebo effect is that the placebo gives me an excuse to experience emotional states that I desire, but previously thought were inaccessible. Contemplating taking a nirvana pill.

Sensory Enhancers, are especially effective in terms of hearing. I can't really feel in much more detail, but they might be having an interaction with the placebo painkillers. Hmmm...

The olfactory inhibitors do not work. Shit still stinks.

Tissue regeneration pills, which are as hard to judge as the steroids, are meant to help me heal all of my messed up tendons and cuts, scrapes, and bruises. I pick up injuries on a pretty regular basis, and know how long most of them should take to heal, so I think this will be a similar judgement call to the steroids. Hopefully it will help all these tendon injuries I keep getting in my shoulders.

Dietary Supplements. Nobody knows what they do. There is no reason to think that they won't give me super powers. Any of the effects I attribute to other pills may come from these. Not that this experiment had any scientific integrity to begin with...

Intelligence enhancers. Wow. I mean, lets talk about possibilities. I am thinking about something so complicated right now that I can't even write it down. Yup, working.

The antidepressants are highly effective, it seems that wanting to be happy is the key to happiness. Instant win.

Painkillers are, according to studies, one of the easiest drugs to emulate with placebos. So it is interesting that they dont' seem to work at all on my shoulder and back pain. Could be an interaction from the sensory enhancers. I am going to have to work on that.

Pheremone enhancers seem effective. Women are constantly throwing themselves at me. And by that I mean that sometimes a lady will say "hi" and smile. I was kind of hoping for my life to start resembling an axe commercial, but maybe I just need to tweak the dosage.

Pleasure enhancers. Hmmm, I had better keep these particular results to myself. I reccomend them, however.

Now, so far the least effective have been the Jetpack pills. I have not yet been able to fly at all. They probably have to build up in your system for a while.

Now, I realize this seems like quite a lot of drugs for one man to be consuming, but be aware that these placebos are for forms of these drugs with no negative side effects, so I am not in danger of overdosing or anything. I also ruled out placebo telekinesis and placebo mind reading drugs, as they could lead to embarrasing situations and loss of "touch with reality" (oh good idea I had better take a placebo "in touch with reality pill")

It worked! The remainder of this experiment, however, is cancelled, due to the effectiveness of that last pill.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Creepy Nursery Rhyme



There Once was a girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.



And when she was good
She was very very good.
But when she was bad
She was horrid.







-Poem by H.W. Longfellow