Television: Mother, Teacher, Preacher...Secret Lover

   90% of all television is as bad, if not worse, as being addicted to heroin (Jersey Shore). What could possibly be a better way to forget about those bills piling up on your kitchen counter? Let’s all go bum around the front of an inane box and become mind numbing mechanical piles of lethargic goo. When people can’t figure out what to do with free time the television gets turned on and hours of productive time is lost forever. (None of my verbal spewing about television is in anyway related to “government/corporation conspiracy”. Conspiracies are stupid.)

I have a theory with boredom – Falling ill to the bitter boredomitus means you will strive to find something to do. In a typical situation, a person will turn on the TV as a way to combat boredomitus. So, if television is out of the picture then productivity is just that much closer. Most people have heard the saying, “The book is way better than the movie.” It’s because a book requires the brain to function far more than a movie could.

SOME television (roughly 10%) is okay to watch; especially the educational and slightly educational shows (Mythbusters), they can minimally stir brain functions (Beyond eating and breathing!). So, next time Boredomitus sets in, pick up a good book or start that next project you’ve always thought about. You are your only limitation in life.

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    All I’m doing is sitting here giving myself a break from the daily bullshit by watching some TV and you have to give me flack for it?  Hell no. I work all damned day slaving at that lame job you want me to keep because of idiotic reasons like: “it’s a steady paycheck” and “Timmy needs real clothes” and “We can’t go ANOTHER day without eating!”. Since when did kids have to eat everyday anyway? Soft, that’s what they are...soft. Anyways, leave me the hell alone and let me just chill for a minute until I have to start thinking again. There better be a sandwich in there when I come out.

Look, TV has a beginning, some stuff happens, and has a nice tidy end wherever I choose. Sometimes there is value in shutting off your brain for a minute and being simply entertained. If you are looking for something to help forget what life you have managed to scrape together up to this point, you will find it no matter what. There are a lot worse things you could do than watch TV...like tripping old people, testing just HOW flammable things are when they are labeled “flammable”, or eating stolen Thanksgiving dinners. *Flips on TV* Darrell Hammond-themed SNL marathon, cool. TV...good...yeah...Oh Sean Connery how you hate Trebek!

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I'll Have Three Sugars and an Asian Girl

   Sometimes a guy and girl get together because they think they like each other and will start touching and kissing in grownup ways - nine months later the two have spawned responsibility, even if it was by accident! Now that you understand where children come from I’m going to go out on a limb here and presume everyone who wants offspring would want them as healthy as possible. So, aside from following common sense where the girl isn’t supposed to drink or binge out on drugs, people should consider another factor in obtaining a healthy child. Mate with someone of another race.Don’t even consider reproducing with the same race.

“Why is this so, Mark?” Good question. At the earliest formation of the fetus, DNA crossovers begin. DNA essentially is picking favorable traits from the two parents. Simply put, the closer the two people are of the same race then their DNA will be less unique. The fetus won’t have as many options to pick from as it would with people of different gene pools. Think of it like having babies with your siblings, but less dramatic, the baby will have an increased chance of deformities – an eleventh finger, down syndrome, or maybe even three eyes... Ok, probably not three eyes.

If you go the route of making babies, please do it with someone of a different race so the gene pool can be far superior than keeping gene narrow minded.

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    Mating with a different race only?  A  lot of important couples would have never gotten together if they acted on that advice:: Marie and Pierre Curie, Romeo and Juliet, Clinton and Lewinsky. I don’t even want to imagine a world without those pairs.

While what you say may make some common sense, it doesn’t play out that way in the real world. The mixture of races has a host of consequences and does not act to “purify” the gene pool of humanity in the way you described.

For common genes to persist they must provide some advantage (like genes causing autoimmune diseases also providing resistance against infections).

Mixing gene variants can be extrapolated out to cause a greater total variation in the gene pool  (for example, people of African descent now develop multiple sclerosis from the introduction of European blood into their lineage). Keeping the races separate would keep us healthier genetically, as the genetic profile of the races has been developed over time to be in balance among the separate races. To use your own comparison: on a genetic level, what reproducing with your own race is to making babies with your siblings; reproducing with other races is to making babies with an eagle.

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You Can't Handle the Tip

   Eating out is fun, classy, and the perfect occasion for a few laughs with others. No better way to ruin a good social event than to get a deficient server. When I go out to eat I prepare mentally how much I am going to spend. This preparation does not always end up exact, but ballpark works for me. After being seated at a restaurant, the server strolls sluggishly to your table and hardly makes effort to acknowledge anyone while asking for drinks. Yeah, if you’re this type of server, I do notice you. Guess what? The way you act as a server DOES affect the tip I will give you. The tremendous amount of negativity some servers have with the lack of desire to be working pours off of me like I’m sitting front row at a Sea World show.

I’m not sure I fully understand why some people feel the need to gracefully give handouts regardless of how the meal went. I hear the argument, “Servers don’t make that much per hour, so it’s important to tip them.” Psh, in theory, if the whole economy was running on a tip-system based system it would ensure professionals will maintain their finest work, or just not get paid. Unfortunately, some people abuse the tip system just because they are cheap. So, if a server does a mediocre job then they will receive a solid amount. I am quick to give less with careless attitudes. However, I do tip openhandedly if the server comes over with a smile and decides for himself - “This is a good day.”

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    In general, I tip my waitresses and delivery drivers well, as they make next to nothing outside of what they can get in tips...but I don’t see the logic in a system where it’s proper to tip someone who brings you food or parks your car and not a person who can extend your life and help you get over illness. That’s a bit more important and deserves a little “bonus” in my opinion.

Paying a normal hourly working wage to jobs normally exempt from the minimum wage and then leaving it up to the customer on whether to tip for service exceeding expectations seems to make so much more sense. A tip-based economy would not only work in theory, but in practice as well if we can just expand the status quo for tipping to include every service provided, but the expectation of receiving a tip needs to be dropped unless the service goes above and beyond. I would love to tip my optometrist for getting my prescription right the first time (they can’t seem to do this for me for some reason) instead of leaving a small tip to a waitress who I don’t think deserves it because it’s expected and she gets paid two dollars an hour.

Overall, tipping is just another of the million social norms that makes me want to just sit inside and make my own food, or park my own car...I may be a touch anti-social, but at least I have reasons.

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Four and a Half Seconds Late? You're Fired

     

    It seems that everyone complains about there not being enough time in the day, in the week, in their lives. Never is there enough time to do anything. They work so hard to fill up every single minute of every single day that it's over before they actually realized what happened. They watch the clock counting every minute until they can leave their jobs, and yet continue thinking they don't have enough time to get everything accomplished. Even when they do get an opportunity to break the monotony, they schedule their vacation down to the hour, and stress over things like not getting to the tiki-bar on time. Take a step back, take a deep breath and relax for a second, spaz.

This may sound cliché, but every day that you are breathing and your heart is still beating is a gift, take a little bit out of your over-scheduled life to appreciate that fact. Don't treat every second like it is a life or death situation, because it is; if you don't take the opportunity to actually LIVE you life and squeeze every bit of pleasure out of it that it has to offer, it won't matter how many 60 hour work weeks you put in. If you think you have to constantly be on the grind in order to be happy and are just naturally a workaholic, then it would be of some value to try and break yourself of this delusion. There is so much more to living life successfully than fulfilling some preconceived stereotype of a “successful” person...take a minute to think about what's really important and enjoy life, none of us are getting out of it alive anyway.

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    Sheesh David, with this lax attitude nothing would ever get accomplished. Sure, complaining about “not enough time” and then counting the final minutes before getting off work is understandable about focusing too much on time, but what people need is more discipline. Forget trying to relax and take a break, people just need to achieve a job or career that a break would be to keep workers from too much enjoyment. I believe in two forms of stress, negative stress and positive stress. Negative stress would entail the feeling of trying to avoid becoming a lion’s dinner - modernisticly speaking, freaking out about bills and what not. Positive stress comes from enjoying a certain standard in life, doing whatever necessary to maintain that self-defined standard.

Talking about being cliché. . . Don’t work to live; live to work. For those who have made real orange juice before, by squeezing the bejesus out of the fruit for its last drop, life simply just isn't worthwhile if the citizens of Earth aren't squeezing every bit of themselves out to have that happier life. Even if that that means staying awake till 3am every night until a project is complete then so be it. Life isn't a box of chocolate; it’s a minefield, with a just a few treasures buried randomly in the mix of deadly mines. Go out there and get what you’ve always wanted in life and don’t take time to enjoy the roses.

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