You Know What People Don't Say Enough

about GI-related problems, or when someone acts like a jerk? "Encountering turdulence."

I'm going to do my part to fix that, and I hope you will, too.

Listen, I Never Went to Tracker School or Anything

BUT I have reason to believe that an animal may have slept on my clean laundry:

And also that today while I was at work, there may have been a fight between a certain pet and my sleep mask:

Don't ask me how I know these things, okay? It's just something I sense.

Secrets of Free Cone Day

Because I'm an out-of-the-closet ice cream fan and overall disgusting hog, I got a lot of emails from people asking if I was going to Ben & Jerry's annual free cone day. So I'd like to break it down for you using something I like to call math. An ice cream cone the rest of the year costs like, what, $5, max? Seriously.

Step one: Divide the amount you make annually by (the number of hours you work each week times the number of weeks per year you go to work). That's your hourly wage.

Step two: Multiply the number of hours you'd spend finding, getting to, and standing in line at a free cone locations by the number you found in step one. Is that number more than the $5 paying for you cone would cost? If so, you just lost money on the deal. Especially if you then factor in the square root of standing in line with a bunch of tourist families and wacky college students.

This is actually some advice I took from consumer advocate Ron Burley, who says to stop fighting a retail dispute if the value of the time you've spent arguing your side threatens to become greater than the amount you stand to gain. It's also the argument I use when I want to justify not doing my own laundry.

By that token, btw, community college is a bit more expensive than it seems, because you have to go there in person during business hours to have someone sign a piece of paper saying you can take a class... then return in person during business hours to be allowed into a room where you use a public internet connection to sign up yourself up for said class... thanks, school!

You Heard It Here First: The Wolverine Test

There's a small chance that I might do an anonymous dating advice column for a friend's new site. I will certainly keep you posted, but in the meantime, in case it happens, I want to share one thing. It's possibly the most genius piece of dating insight ever and I want to put it here first so that—in case things sour with this new website after they steal my idea—the Nobel Prize people know that they should in fact send the award to me.

Women subconsciously judge men's suitability by how they perform on The Wolverine Test. Imagine walking down the street with your partner and your baby when you are confronted by an angry wolverine. On a hardwired, evolutionary, subprimal level, women want a guy who will react protectively in the event of a wolverine vs. family unit battle: A guy who will reflexively stand between the baby and the wolverine, or be a quick thinker who yells out instructions for how to escape, or maybe even lunge at the animal.
No woman wants a guy who runs away, or who looks to her with an ironic just-kidding-only-I'm-not “Whaddo we do now?” face, or who pushes her in front of the wolverine to distract it. So when you show signs of wussitude early on—by texting her instead of calling, by sharing your poetry, by not making a move on her even though you're on a freaking date, or by asking for her permission on stuff she could not care less about she does not even know you man up and get a hold of yourself buddy—she is getting the feeling that you are not going to be much help in the event of a wolverine. A few of those and next thing you know, she's just not that into you.
In summation: Sending text messages is the same as feeding your baby to a wolverine. Pass it on.

(Wikipedia says this picture is public domain so a) it's obviously true and b) I can use it, right?)

Almost. Over.

Only 4 more classes and a final in stupid stupid chemistry. For most of the programs I'll be applying for, I have to take the following classes.
* Stupid, stupid chemistry
* Anatomy & Physiology (2 semesters)
* Microbiology
* Psych/Developmental Psych
* Nutrition
* Stats

I decided to take chemistry first because, not in spite of, my utter disinterest in it. (Well, that and because it's a prerequisite for the other required science courses.) But mostly I wanted to weed myself out and quit as soon as possible if it turned out I wasn't really gonna do this. So this was my warm-up semester—stupid chemistry two nights a week. Certainly if anything would make me quit, it's that.

I chose my "school" because it's the only place in the city I could find that offers evening classes after 7 pm—most others are 5:30 or 6 or still require a mid-day lecture that I could never make. But even they don't offer A&P in the late nights, which means that in the fall I'll be spending 7 hours on either Saturday or Sunday learning. Oh yeah, and I hate this stuff, so I refuse to spend $1000 a credit for it at a good school.

I'd certainly far rather do online classes, but you need a lab component for the science courses and online labs seem sketchy at best. But this summer I'm doing the psychology courses online, and in the winter or next summer I'll do nutrition. Maybe even stats, depending on how self-reliant I'm feeling.

If you are wondering about online classes, here's a discovery I made a few months into my research. University of Phoenix is the one you see advertised, but it's a for-profit (note: somebody please fact-check that) org and classes are $500 a credit—so like $1500 or 2 grand a class. Boo! But there are a couple of what I guess you call "learning networks" that show you all the online classes you can take in a certain family of two-year schools. It compiles all the distance education options into one catalog and it's super-cheap, like $120 a credit. So if you ever need or want to take a class in something, the range of options is pretty super:
SUNY classes
Kansas classes
Since these exist, I have to assume that others do in other areas. If you know of another, let me know and I'll add it.

I think that's all the boring educational exposition I have for today, so I'll leave you with this factoid: I have a weird rash. I hope I'm not dying, but if I do, look at the bright side: No more chemistry!

Spring Break!

Sorry for the lack of posts, but I've been on Spring Break. Woo hoo! Tomorrow it's back to this magic, with a test on Wednesday. Love it! I've also been hating my job for the last week, which strengthens my theory that I must always be working on an exit strategy or my commitmentphobia to work takes over.

Idea for Saving Money

So I have a hard time with financial goals, mainly because I'm a loser, but I think I came up with a solution. All I have to do is sue myself for overspending (on charges of gross negligence or somesuch), and I'll lose, and the judge will mandate that I have to follow a budget or else I go to jail or have my wages garnished or something else that will really whip me into shape. I mean sure it might be a burden on our government's resources but c'mon, it'd work! So let me know if you know any lawyers who'd want to take on this groundbreaking case.

PS I'm actually such a loser than when I first wrote "saving money," I actually typed "saving Monday," because the former is so foreign to me that my fingers can barely tap it out.