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...