Hello, Again!

This is KFell country....NH!

Bad Parents Congratulating Each Other

That's from the "confessional" at ScaryMommy.com (a 'no follow' link).

I read a homeschooling article there and was surprised to see the site had 500,000 Facebook likes.

In the confessional, bad mothers confess and readers can either like, support (Hug), or "co-confess", (Me Too).

In other words, there is no option for saying to an expectant mother who is smoking pot, "Shame on You!" or "You're an A$$hole!".

Obviously if there was such an option, the confessional would be deserted - or at least less populated.

If you look through the confessions you'll find many mothers who hate their kids, who lie to their husbands, who are unfaithful, deceitful, lazy, and you name the vice and they are guilty.

Of note, many are pot smokers (or worse) and all but worship their "drug dealers".

I wonder how the woman who started the website really feels about condoning such horrible parenting and married behavior???

Today there is no shaming because Morons and jerks just find other Morons and jerks to associate/insulate themselves with. For example,....the entire city of Cambridge, Massachusetts!

This also highlights a problem with Facebook where one can only "Like" a post, website, or comment.

I mean a binary (up or down, yes or no) system is problematic enough for intelligent dialogue....but a unitary system??? That's ridiculous.

And this is also the source of Facebook's current problems. "Likes" are too easy to manipulate. So Facebook users have liked too many things and thus Facebook has no idea what items to feature in news feeds.

At least YouTube has a down arrow that can offset any manipulated 'ups'...

Years ago, as a test/jumpstart I bought 500 likes for this website from fiverr.com, i.e. for $5. It was apparently all fake accounts that were ultimately shutdown. It did nothing for traffic at all.

For my new website, I've taken the opposite approach - no promotion at all. I only have 88 likes but they are all real, all organic. I will continue to grow it this way, slowly, in search of my 1,000 true fans.

When To Say "When"

One thing that you see in London that you'd NEVER see in the States is all these people drinking GLASSES of beer out on the sidewalks (outside the pubs).

You'd never see it because our liability lawyers would require plastic, unbreakable cups.

In the UK glass is okay because the drinks cost so much and the people are so poor....that they wouldn't dare drop a beer!

I see glasses out on the street once in a while.

I know I myself use to walk out of bars in Philly with half-drunk beers under my coat, concealed under my shirt, stuck in my trousers on my lower back, etc.

I saw this particular glass near a pub the other day and figured my blog readers would LOVE To see it.

Obviously the dude (broad?) didn't want to stop drinking even though it was clearly time.

What a polite bloke, though...confining the chunks to his glass!

I remember once I was at a bar on 38th and Chestnut in Philly....

I accidentally knocked over a plastic cup at a crowded bar and smelled something very foul.

My buddy told me that he had puked in that cup!

He was one of those rare, messed-up dudes who could puke....and yet still be able to continue drinking.

When I puked, I was done for the night - and probably for the next night.

And whatever it was that I drank, if it was a little exotic....I might not ever drink it again.

I drank a lot back in the day, back in my deformative years in Philly.

My puke incidents were probably less that 8 in my entire drinking career.

See also - Jerry Seinfeld's Non-Vomit Streak.

Ba$$ Ackwards Backpacks

I had never seen this Moronic behavior before moving to London....but it's apparently rampant nowadays.

If you want to remove all doubt and advertise that you are an idiot, this is surefire approach.

Who ever thought it was possible to make the frontwards-facing fanny pack look acceptable???

Wicked Funny (for Bostonians anyway)

Would You Sell Him Life Insurance?

Shriveling Down to Nothing - My Downward Weight Spiral

I still feel strong - always have. That statue above looks like me coming home from a bar late at night with a "new acquaintance"....back when I was 22 or so.

Anabolic steroids have nothing on 14 Yuengling Lagers plus hormonal adrenaline...

However...

In 7.5 months of London-living....I've now lost 17 lbs.

Early this morning I weighed in a new all-time(?) low - 159 pounds!

This summer, after my Sicily trip, I gave up carbs and sugar which took me to new weight depths.

But then I experimented with Tim Ferriss' "cheat day". That's one day (Saturday) where I could eat whatever I wanted, and however much of it I wanted.

But that didn't stop me from losing weight.

Then I went back to eating sugar. First a little here and there, and more recently almost back to my usual 1.5 candy bars per night.

Still no weight gain. In fact, I kept losing a little!

Even after adding bread a few times per week....nothing.

Then I stopped working out (down to 2 days per week) AND I stopped my morning protein shakes because the price, ON AMAZON, is $55 per cannister - it's only $22 at supermarkets in NY!

I'm in a downward weight spiral and nothing seems to be able to stop it.

Interesting...

I'm starting to look and feel "runty" and I don't necessarily like that.

Anyone else ever have this problem?

My Son - 9 year old Piano Prodigy!

You know they laughed at me online when I referred to him as a "prodigy" in the past...

But he's certainly narrowed the gap because him and actual prodigies, don't ya think?

If you are lazy, just watch from the 4 minute mark on.

NOTE - he's only been playing the piano for 2.5 years!

Viral Teenage Pooping Advice

In less than a week it's got 3 million views!

Not for nuthin...

How about washing hands???

I can't for the life of me get my 8 year old daughter to wash her hands - not even after taking a dump.

And guys....they never wash their hands after going to the loo, no matter what number they deposited.

As much as I'd like to scream at my daughter...

I recall that as a youth I used to get yelled at by my mother for not washing up.

Then I got wise. I simply ran the sink hard for a few seconds so she could hear it outside the bathroom door!

Nuts!

I'm just curious how this and other *rodent launching* videos have been up on YouTube for 6-7 years...

Recall I put a clip of me drowning a rat on YouTube and within a minute YouTube (automatically) pulled it - and gave me one of the three strikes that led to a complete cancellation of my beloved YouTube channel!

PETA people are livid, of course.  They keep voting the clips thumbs down and asking in the comments, "Does anyone know if the squirrels lived???"

I'm sure they lived.  Those rodents are tough as nails.  They can fall from atop oak trees and hit the ground running.

How To Fix Your Posture

Okay. For years I've been trying to DIY heal my back. Recall I was in a freak car accident back in 1999 and underwent that controversial stupid thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS) surgery.

I would say that after finally ignoring the doctors' orders to "not stretch" and "not lift weights" I have probably fought my back back to 85% healthy.

However, my posture still stinks and I also have a new problem that may be related to the misalignment of my joints - extreme varicose veins. I'd post a pic but it may gross y'all out. Maybe next time.

Anyways, the fact that there's NOTHING that can be done for varicose veins other than compression socks and elevating one's feet (which simply deprives ALL bloodflow to the legs) has really depressed me.

Ever the stubborn optimist, I have Googled my brains out and the only possible causes I've come up with are:

1) Extremely stiff hips

2) Shallow breathing - which taxes the venal system

3) Genetic predisposition

And the only possible remedies would then be, well, to look at how to improve my deep nasal breathing and maybe how to stretch my hips and legs more.

Then I came across an assertion online that the Egoscue Method could improve varicose veins. See this blog post.

Recall the Egoscue Method was trumpeted by Tim Ferriss in his 4-Hour Body. The key exercise for it is the supine progressive groin stretch:



I tried it a little a few years back - though without the "tower". I just simulated it using chairs, end tables, etc.

I searched for Egoscue on Amazon and lo and behold, the guy had just published a new book on Kindle in June - Pain Free: A Revolutionary Method for Stopping Chronic Pain.

It wasn't even a month old and already had several hundred 5-star ratings. (Pete Egoscue asserts a 95% success rate.)

Of course I bought the book and read it somewhere in Italy this summer.

I CANNOT recommend it highly enough. It's simple, profound, and frightening all at once. Reading it you will grasp the supreme importance of making sure your shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles are vertically and horizontally stacked properly. If they aren't....the resulting muscular imbalance will only lead to severe health problems. I mean my father was a great athlete his entire life. But now he's 71 and can barely walk around. THAT is what I am acutely afraid of.

Last month I found an Egoscue-certified posture coach here in London and hired him ($1,700 thus far!) for both me and my wife.

So far so good - except for the fact that the guy told me I had the most uneven shoulders he's ever seen IN HIS LIFE.

I'll certainly be posting updates.

(BTW, the only other thing that I heard that MAY help varicose veins is "ice baths" - which I'm going to try too.)

Do also check out my review of The 4-Hour Body.

Ice Bucket Morons

I've actually heard Morons say there were against it on account of "wasting water".

AND one of my, I'm embarrassed to say, eFF-book friends actually collected the water in a kiddie pool and promised to "dump it on his lawn."

1) Watering the lawn is considered by the same fools to be a "waste" of water!

2) 80% of all water usage is in agriculture. So a bucket is quantitatively beyond irrelevant. (So are low-flush toilets and whatnot too.)

I did really enjoy those *fails* so it takes some of the pain (of bearing the F-book posts ) away.

But every cause/company on Earth is going to study the success of the ice bucket challenge and try to replicate it with another stupid stunt.

BTW, if you want to get out of it you can:

1) Ignore challenges like I did.

2) Tell people you are against the charity on account of *embryonic stem cell research*.

It almost goes without saying that it's not really a tough *challenge* either.

Re-Opening My Therapeutic Outlet?

Boy am I a Moron.

I walked away from this blog, my baby.

This site brought me so much enjoyment, edification, and non-financial remuneration...

Facebook is really stressing me out. It's just not a place for me. There are just too many fools to bear and it's not appropriate to smack them down.

Well it can be done, but then you have to bear a whole lot more fools trying to save the original fool.

And of course it's in the very nature of Facebook to attract the most...ahem....Marginalizable people. From the get-go it was blogging for dummies, for people who couldn't figure out how to use Blogger.com....for people whose powers of articulation extend to a single sentence, an cordless cellphone photo, or to merely pushing the Like button.

Here's just ONE of the latest F-book episodes that is driving me back into my own arms:

Okay. So a friend of mine posts this on Facebook. It's a link of 15 people in Ireland clearing the shelves of some local store of Israeli-made products as part of a stupid presumed anti-Israel, pro-Palestine protest. Fine. No big deal.

BUT then one of her family members chimes in which you can see. I fudged out the names but if you saw them you'd see they are both Jewish.

The Moron, her BIL, is clearly way out of line here so I try to very diplomatically call him on it.

I was him expecting to say something like, "Yeah, I guess I don't really know that they are Catholic..."

But instead, his CLARIFICATION, was even further afield.

Do I need to explain this more? Are you a Facebook-type of person?

Sure.

The profound irony here is that his Jewish guy is trying to call out "Christian bigotry" when all he did was reveal his own bigotry against Christians!

(His next response was a Wikipedia link that asserted 80+% of Ireland was nominally Catholic so he was on solid ground.)

But I don't imagine he would appreciate someone handpicking an action by 15 Jews doing something and extrapolating blame to the entire spectrum of Jews. No he certainly wouldn't.

Another blood-boiling Facebook incident happened yesterday.

Without getting into details, let's just say I was all but lynched in a Christian Homeschooling forum, of all places.

Why? My cardinal sin?

I half-jokingly said:

It is truly amazing how all grandparents today (90% of them anyway) want to do is feed kids and plop them in front of a TV...even from afar!

Seriously. A bunch *moms* went nutso on me for that.

I mean if I'm not safe in THAT group....

I'm just going to have to retreat to my own castle/sanitorium.

Rec for Color TV Addicts

We don't have a functioning color cable TV here in London...

But somehow I caught a glimpse of this show and we have been watching it online - as you can too.

Apparently it's "all the rage" here in the UK.

And I concur that it's been decent so far - at least in the handful of episodes I've seen.

Here it is - Line of Duty.

BTW, one needs a TV license to even own a television here. And it is cheaper for a black and white TV!!!! ($250 for color, but only about $80 for your antiquated B&W Zenith).

Amsterdam - The Sodom of Post-Christian Europe?

Last week we traveled to Amsterdam.

Read my post - Amsterdam Trip!

I did not take that pic above.

On one of our last days there, walking through Leidseplein Square I noticed some nasty dude walk up to what I assumed was a phone booth or something, he looked around, snuggled right up to it and what from I could tell....TOOK A PISS.

It didn't look like the pic above that I gleaned from the web - it looked much less like a urinal so I was shocked. My wife wanted to "throw up".

But what could be more disgusting than watching guys IN THE MIDDLE OF A CROWDED SQUARE, furiously shaking their last drops out!

No where to wash the hands either. (Actually most guys never do it anyway.)

I guess they figure these guys, Amsterdam stoner neanderthals, are going to just piss on the street anyway so they may as well attempt to pre-empt or manage it.

Most people get real close too. Think about how nasty that is, getting so close to all that splattered piss!

BTW, the streets in the morning were littered with trash. They actually have to HOSE them down each day - or at least after the weekends.

One thing we've learned here in Europe....is not to step in the morning puke that's all over the sidewalks!

My kids are young so every once in a while I had to *keep them moving* so they didn't see the *female insertion pleasure devices* in the store windows or the postcards that prominently featured pierced nether regions.

It wasn't that bad really but I do stand by my title.

One thing that I did find offensive - deliberately offensive at that - as a "let's talk about s*x" exhibit at the science museum.

It was sort of cordoned off, but the inside of it was fully visible to the hundreds of 7 and 8 year olds visiting.

Well done Holland!

It just isn't necessary. But they do it anyway, pervs to make a statement, to normalize their own deviations, and to corrupt kids.

The Ghost of Neville Chamberlain

Here's the article.

So we were at church this week in London...

And they offered up a prayer for Ukraine - after the people overthrew the Russian-sympathizing president, PM or whatever he is/was.

And it was embellished by an additional prayer for the actions of the US and Russia.

My wife and I looked at each other and blurted out...."WHAT ABOUT THE BRITS!?!?!?!"

So it's just a *given* that they can't be expected to do anything, amongst their own people?

It's just a given that Ukraine is an American problem?

Apparently.

(I'm not saying whether or not America should get involved over there. Clearly we are involved in more places that we ought to be already. Part of me says "stay out", let the people fight and die for their freedom. That's how we got it. And that's probably the only way to ever achieve a sustainable peace.)

Disney Needs the Money!

Did you know lawyers from Disney did this?

Click the link above.

Read the very feisty comments.

Ayn Rand is spinning in her grave!

Dozen Feb Funnies

Meet Nerdgasm!

He said it's only $15,000 worth of stuff. That's hard to believe.

(I came across this while searching for HD webcam reviews.)

Write A Review!

A few years ago I wrote a blog post about my new lemonade stand policy - that henceforth I would stop at every lemonade stand I drove by....if for no reason other than to encourage young entrepreneurs. See - Encouraging Children.

(Although this past summer I once stopped, prepared to buy, at one and these "rich kids" were asking for $3 for a Dixie cup of powder-mix lemonade! I told them the price was too high and drove away - an economic lesson nonetheless.)

Last week I was standing outside a small Italian deli/eatery here in London trying to figure out whether or not to take a chance on eating there. Quite frankly, some of the food here in London really sucks. "Overpriced" is bad enough, but when it sucks too you really get indigestion.

Google Reviews were scant on this little Italian place.

I took my family in and was amazed at how good the meatballs and bolognese sauce were.

Of course it was pricey and the portions were small...

But I went home and wrote a glowing 5-star review for the place on Google.

And a couple months ago I did the same thing for my mechanic. I actually asked him what site he wanted the review on.

First of all, you should support these places that are good....because otherwise they will be gone. So a positive review, in the year 2014 AD, can really help.

Secondly, if you offer to write one, you may even wangle a free dessert or otherwise ingratiate yourself at the establishment.

Reviews are VERY IMPORTANT. You can have the best product/service in the world but if you suck at marketing you may be doomed.

A lot of people are good a making meatballs or whatever BUT they don't know $hit about how important reviews and marketing are.

Hating On Planet Earth

Little bit of profanity in here, sorry.









I love how 40% of what gets thrown in eco-pagan recycling bins ends up in landfills anyway.

And I love how when people come to my house, try to dispose of an item, ask me where my "recycling is" and I have the privilege of declaring that "we don't recycle."

Before they can even digest that HERESY, I follow up with a declaration of how much I hate the environment.

Marginalizing Drudge?

It seems to me his little website has become over-sensationalized....just like the Big Media organs he was (methinks) to counter-balance.

I mean he spends far too much time promoting "storms" and the latest Division III college football player to come out of the closet...

Drudge seems to only care about clicks and eyeballs now.

But maybe his DrudgeReport was always this bad and I didn't notice - for some reason or other.

Regardless, I find myself giving him less clicks on account of shallow content.

Doctors Causing Mass Violence?

Doc - the drug isn't working? Okay. We'll just up the dose...

Dumb Lazy, Rotten Kids....Googling

Ha!

The poor kid must be....Chinese.

If not, I'll bet he is short and has straight black hair nonetheless.

Recall that I did "make" my kids do those Kumon math books.

See - From Counting to Algebra - A Simply Recipe.

But John went through them quickly (1.5 years?) - at least through Grade 6. And Chrissy started out with them, but I had her do some different stuff too.

What I discovered, when I found the above search results, was that Kumon has apparently expanded beyond Grade 6. Hence the irate dumb kid.

And there's more Kumon whining - here - albeit from people that don't know squat about math.

Here's what I discovered my OWN TWO kids secretly Googling on their mother's iPad yesterday afternoon:

Stressful Morning?

I just saw an ad for Clinique that proclaimed:

33% of people think the time from 7:30am-8:30am is the "most stressful time of the day".

Hmmmmm....

Yeah, there's nothing worse than getting to the first tee at 7:30 am and seeing you'll be playing behind a couple of broad foursomes!

I guess that's what they are talking about.

Usually they are broad broads....who certainly haven't take the time that morning to fix themselves up with Clinique and whatnot either.

Oxygen For Mouth-Breathing Morons

Remember this guy - Dean Karnazes? Remember I read his book? See - Running Insanity.

He's freakin' totally ripped, obviously. Guy would run 50, 60, 100 miles straight!

His feet would blister so bad....they'd just shoot super-glue in-between his toes! For real.

Anyways when I run I try to think of his abs/bod. I have always hated distance running, going all the way back to childhood. It was just brutally painful. So I tried a Tony Robbins mind-over-matter thing while I jogged - you know, positive thoughts. If I kept going my abs would approximate his...

It didn't work for more than a minute or so.

But yesterday I joined a health club here in London and jumped on the treadmill. I hadn't run at all since at least Christmas or so - and probably not since Thanksgiving before that.

Nonetheless I got on the treadmill and promptly ran my personal longest (best) - a little over 5 miles!

Don't laugh. I could beat any of your a$$es in a dead sprint, or once around the track. But I always pooped out at about 1/4 of a mile.

So how'd I do it?

No, there wasn't some amazingly hot broad running on the machine next to me that I was trying to impress or anything. On the contrary, such a scenario would probably make me trip, over something.

The way this 39.5 year old set a personal best distance, despite running on ZERO ACLs, despite my botched, ill-advised back surgery, and despite being theoretically pretty out of shape....is that I finally figured out how to breathe, diaphramatically, through my nose.

It turns out I have "flimsy nostrils" - which I discovered on this website with this test:

Starting from the tip of your nose, the first thing you must do is to find out if you have flimsy nostrils. If you have a very narrow nose, or if your nostril openings are very narrow and slit-like, then you may be prone to having flimsy nostrils. Try this experiment: Take both index fingers and press them just besides your nostrils on your cheek. While firmly pressing on your cheeks, lift the cheek skin upwards and sideways, pointing towards the outer corners of your eyes. Take a deep breath in. Can you breathe much better through your nose?

I swear that when I manually lifted up the skin around my face....my nostrils flared open and I felt a gush of oxygen, instantly, like I've never felt before. Apparently, it's like throughout my entire life someone has been pinching my nose shut and depriving me of vast amounts of oxygen.

I would encourage y'all to read up on the benefits of "nasal breathing". Its advocates spare no exaggeration when touting it. According to them....it can bring about world peace and whatnot.

And I can attest that the effects of all this fresh, nasal oxygen were not only physical but mental too. I became far more relaxed with my flaring nostrils, immediately.

Now I've been (half-heartedly) trying to change my breathing, make it more nasal, for some time now. A few of you might even remember. Of course it's hard to break some of these deeply ingrained habits. I think it was just over the summer when I figured out how breathe a little better while running. I was quite happy to start doing 3+ miles here and there.

But yesterday I not only ran over 5 miles, but I wasn't even the slightest bit winded. I could have kept going if I wasn't worried about how my knees would react to this sudden "rudeness". (Indeed they did bitch and moan at me today!)

It's just like in golf...many hackers know what they are doing wrong, BUT they have no idea how to correct it.

Telling myself to breathe more through my nose wasn't doing anything....not with my flimsly nostrils shutting down my airways. Again, I had to manually open them in order to feel exactly how much air they could take in.

And I do disagree with the nostril opening suggestions on that website. I think that if one breathes diaphragmatically and probably does some sort of facial exercises they can open up their nostrils organically.

Can you say "Smile Therapy"???

Marginalizing Mirages

Bad day again today, eh?

Has it got anyone's attention yet?

I'm not sure since I don't read the *noise* or watch the *noise* (CNBC)....and also since I'm displaced from the Wall Street town I (used to?) live in on Long Island.

Whatever the level of anxiety/discontent I'm sure people are unhappier today than they were back in October when the market was at this very same level. Yeah, that's how irrational humanoids are!

Of course there's a long way yet still to fall. This market could, COULD, go down faster than a Jersey girl on prom night.

When it gets ugly Big Government/incumbents will start "buying bonds/stocks" again with renewed vigor. At least they will SAY they are going to do so. And you will certainly get a nice tradeable/meteoric bounce - for a moment at least.

I knew, I JUST KNEW I should have sold my house into the local "bidding wars" last month...

Husband Hacking

I thought it was interesting, well-done, and funny.

And I'll bet a few of my old college jabronis will think I like it only because....I allegedly had a thing for Jewish broads back when I was in Philly (UPenn) some 20 years ago.

Updates from Boston's Dour Big Brother, London!

Yeah that was my now 9.20 year old son there in the orange. It was his "big break" or initial break anyway.

I'm not too keen on the acting thing - Hollywood is a sewer after all - but I'm into anything that animates my son. He fancies himself pretty funny and might just dabble as a midget stand-up comedian.

You can read about my London adventure thus far:

Living In London - Week 1

Moving abruptly as we did does present some "clean slate" opportunities.

I'm going to try to get a lot of work done and finally get some substantive ($$$) infoproducts on the market. That is my chief priority not that I am temporarily liberated from teaching my math students (the ones that won't do Skype that is).

I also just joined a gym not 30 yards from my house. It will be about $130 per month which is basically what these things cost in cities. I will get my money's worth however, being so close. I'll be there first thing weekday mornings.

Normally I can exercise sufficiently without equipment (though I did ship a 45 lb kettlebell over) with yoga, running, etc. BUT living in a city, without a car, in a small (1,500 sq ft) apartment.....well, the walls start to close in on you. So a gym is at least a sanctuary from that. I hadn't been a member of a gym (not counting YMCA's) since I was a single apartment-dweller in Philly some 13 years ago.

So being away from NY pizza, walking everywhere (no car), and hitting a gym regularly should do my body well.

I'm also looking at joining a chess club here in London....and a Toastmasters club (public speaking).

And every day I think more and more about trying my hand a stand-up comedy.

The video shoot above was all done by wannabe, "up-and-coming" stand up comedians. And while I was jabbering with them all outside of the studio I was reminded yet again....how much FUNNIER I AM than them.

I recently read a book - I'm Dying Up Here: Heartbreak and High Times in Stand-Up Comedy's Golden Era - which was pretty good, and inspiring.

All I really need is a one 5-minute set. You see, these comics just say the same material OVER and OVER again.

You just have to go up once...

Dumpy Dow!

Down 300+ points yesterday, eh?

I submit that EVERYONE is "longer" the stock market than they could possibly imagine.

I mean we've had 5 years of unmitigated upticks...

Every business, every household, every bank, every municipality, every pension fund, etc. is going to get blindsided.

It never ceases to amaze me how the mere theoretical value of unrealized market gains can be so comforting to so many.

I guess the analogy would be some nerd cruising through "school" with straight A's foolishly believing that they will be set for life.

I recently had a cab driver tell me that the stock market healthy.

And it reminded me of that day some 14 years ago I was in a cab in Philly at 6am....and the driver was telling me to buy QCOM!