Category Archives: Modern Life

May 07 2012
25 Comments
Humorous, Modern Life, Two minute read

Dating Tactics We Learned from Animals: The Spider

Two spiders are hanging in the corner of my ceiling right now. Yesterday, Tim was the only one. I have named the new spider Laptop, after my sister.

Tim and Laptop rarely move, yet the cobwebs never stop growing. Until I wake up one day and realize I’m dangling from the ceiling and that an army of spiders is about to turn my insides into goo and digest them, I will leave them to their spider ways and think about how their lifestyle is related to human dating.

Spiders are repulsively patient. To my knowledge, Tim only moved once in the past two months. A tiny bug had flown into his carefully yet poorly located trap and Tim was eagerly cocooning it in thread, rubbing his limbs together greedily and saying “oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy!” Except for that five minute movement-bender, he usually sits in the corner and does nothing except for think spider thoughts, which are too vile to record here.

Though I can’t say it’s a boring and meaningless life, I will say it’s not the life that I’ve chosen for myself. There are some, however, who follow the spider’s way when attempting to snare a potential mate, friend with benefits (e.g. baked goods), or mother.

The spider-mimicking-human, or SMH for short, expends only a minimal amount of effort when attempting to trap prey. Just like a real spider, the SMH is often truly interested in the prey, but he or she is simply unwilling to leave their wifi-outfitted cobweb corner. Instead, the SMH prefers to wait until the prey comes of its own accord.

For this reason, the spider method only works if the prey has sufficient reason, motivation, or desire to visit the SMH’s web more than once, sometimes as a result of mutual friends, free food, or cuddly pets. After the prey has visited a few times, and the SMH has “a special feeling,” it’s time to pounce. Without warning, the SMH completely wraps him in SMH silk, making his escape impossible.

The SMH then drags the prey to her room, where she will make him listen to songs that she likes on YouTube and discuss past relationships before she injects him with venom that turns his insides into goo and devours them noisily without using a utensil.

The spider method of dating is not pretty and usually ends in disappointment for both sides. On the one hand, the prey is eaten, and on the other, the SMH has a hollow corpse that must be eliminated. For these reasons, the spider method is not a recommended way to date someone.

It’s better to get their number and then do things together. Virtual relationships through gchat are also acceptable alternatives.

Join us next time on Dating Tactics We Learned from Animals for our discussion of cardinals and blue jays!

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Apr 02 2012
40 Comments
Humorous, Modern Life

How to Tell Your Partner About the Black Hole You Just Created

a photo I just took in my laboratory

Telling your partner you accidentally set the earth on an irreversible path to destruction is not a comfortable subject. However, if you care for them, then you understand that he or she deserves to know they have roughly three minutes before being swallowed up into an abyss of infinitely dense spacetime.

The ideal way to address the subject is in a romantic environment, while walking on the beach at sunset, gazing into each others’ eyes after a fancy meal, or watching the lights twinkle on in one of the world’s great cities.

Unfortunately, it’s unlikely you’ll be in any of those situations. In reality, you’re lucky if your loved one is even close enough to your laboratory so you can run up and tell them the news in person.

But, if you have the good fortune to be addressing them in person, the first thing you should do is look deeply into their eyes and reaffirm how much you care about them. At the same time, remember the black hole is expanding as you speak. Be brief.

Once you make your feelings clear, lead into the subject gently by saying, “You know that secret particle accelerator I’ve been working on? Well, it turns out that just seconds ago I created a very small black hole. It’s not dangerous now, but–this is the scary part–in three minutes it’s going to engulf the entire earth and swallow all of us into oblivion. There’s a way to reverse it, but the internet’s being weird so I can’t look it up. I’m telling you this because I really care about you. On the bright side, we won’t have to get the transmission fixed. Let’s just spend these last few minutes together.”

Keep in mind that the most difficult part of telling them will not be the black hole itself, but the fact this hole will suck up the entire earth and end both of your lives. Also, make sure they know this is not a joke.

They may or may not have a chance to respond, but if they do, it will likely be garbled nonsense because of the mental shock. They may laugh, say I love you back, or feel a vague sense of gratitude and admiration that you had the guts to tell them in the first place.

You should be grateful for their confusion, because it will allow you to spend your last moments together in relative peace, regardless of what your relational status was beforehand. It will be like the time your puppy was adorable and sleepy after she got spayed. The most important part is that you enjoy your last few moments together.

Should you have to send a text message instead of telling them in person, use the bad news sandwich method, putting the unpleasant revelation of the black hole between two happy bits of news. Here’s an example: I love you and I’m so sorry but I just created a black hole in my laboratory and the earth is going to be destroyed. :(. No need to worry about making dinner tonight. Love you always.

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Mar 26 2012
43 Comments
Fiction, Humorous, Modern Life, Social Media, Two minute read

YouCave: An Unsocial Media Website

Leave. Me. Alone. -YouCave

Do you struggle with finding enough alone time? Do you secretly resent your friends for all those hours you wasted hanging out with them playing Settlers of Catan?

Have you ever fled to a beach resort, excited for uninterrupted internet usage in the lobby? Were you then dismayed to find your friends’ intrusion continued through the devilish devices of social media? Are you frustrated with how your computer has been transformed from a haven of solitude into a communal nightmare, where even your self-diagnosis for back pain at WebMD can be shared?

Your FaceFriends have the potential to know everything you’re doing online, and soon full disclosure will become mandatory, forced upon us by advertisers and facebook overlords. We will be too busy sharing our favorite brand of toothpaste to realize our white shirts have turned to yellow from body oil because we have sat in our own filth for months. This is the future we face.

Welcome to YouCave, an unsocial media website. Think of YouCave as the ultimate form of online solitude, the antidote to social media.  No YouCave profile can ever be connected. The friend requests that are made will be responded to with an automatic “Leave. Me. Alone.” accompanied by a picture of this cat. This response is simultaneously tweeted, facebooked, instagramed, and foursquared to all of the unfortunate user’s applications to keep them from making the same mistake again. They will learn to love the quiet.

You can post whatever you want to your YouCave wall, e.g. Yahoo News Articles, kitty pictures, memes, etc. because no one will ever see it, not even you. After posting something to your wall, it automatically begins sinking into the depths of the YouCave Lake. Through the use of expensive animation, you can even watch as your newly posted information slowly descends into the inky blackness, disappearing forever.

Each user is only allowed to upload one picture. All other uploaded pictures will instantly sink into the depth. This picture will sit in the middle of the screen, surrounded by dark colors and a texture that connotes a cave like environment. In addition, all YouCavers have the choice of turning on sound effects, such as the cavern water drip and an occasional furtive scurry. After being welcomed into the cave environment, most of our users simply stare at the screen, breathing in the solitude like a sweet elixir. At least, this is what I do. I have no idea about anyone else because YouCavers do not share information.

If you’re tired of your life becoming one giant show for the comment and criticism of others, join YouCave and get back the life you deserve, one of complete isolation and darkness. Enjoy.

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Mar 15 2012
762 Comments
Humorous, Modern Life, Social Media, Three minute read

This One’s for All the Bloggers Out There

So this is what a hangover is. I don’t remember this picture being taken. Why am I putting this on the internet?

I was eating a PB&J out of tinfoil during class and thinking about blogging, as I often do. I had recently read a friend’s blog that he just started a few months ago and doesn’t update very often. Its future doesn’t look good—a few more months it will likely become another blog corpse silently occupying net space.  As I read his first tentative posts, I was reminded of my own blogging beginnings that stretch back to my senior year of high school.

It was a secret blog, called The Drevet (now deleted), and I posted a mere two times. The first one was the obligatory and awkward, “Hello world,” in which it seemed I was preparing to face all of humanity and be utterly rejected. It was the kind of introduction that set the bar so low even I couldn’t reach it. After only two months I stopped thinking about The Drevet and life moved on.

As I continued to reminisce and munch on my sandwich, I stumbled across another phase of beginnings: college. At this point, I suddenly realized the striking similarity between getting drunk for the first time and blogging for the first time.

When I first overindulged, not a moment before I turned twenty one (wink), I was fascinated with the very experience of it. “Wow,” I thought, “so this is what being drunk is like.”  It didn’t matter what came next in the evening because we were already having an awesome time through the act of inebriation itself, which was to us was inherently interesting.

In the beginning, I was also captivated by the phenomenon of blogging. The fact I could publish whatever I wanted for strangers to read and maybe enjoy was both thrilling and terrifying. And just as newbies feel awkward around alcohol, like they’re doing something taboo and exciting, I would get nervous in front of the computer screen, staring at the blank blog post box and wondering what I would say to the world. What if someone actually read it?

As a baby lush, I felt the constant need to discuss my level of sloshedness with my fellow drinkers, “I’m not drunk guys,” “Do I seem drunk?”  “I’m drunk drunk drunk drunk drunk,” etc. To everyone else this kind of blathering indicated it was time to change conversation partners. The more experienced drinkers had already found out that being drunk is not interesting or special, but to me the topic was endlessly engrossing for everyone and worth repeating dozens of time in the same night.

Similarly, in the first blog posts, I was self conscious about the fact I was blogging and tended to talk about the act itself, how it was hard to think of something to write or that I didn’t think anyone was reading it (no one was), and the end result was that I wouldn’t say anything at all and my predictions would come true. And just like a group of okay friends that get drunk at home hoping for something exciting to happen and then end up going to bed early, I wasted the potential of blogging by using it in a sarcastic and apathetic manner, only to defeat myself in the end.

Through many unfortunate nights and some unfortunate blogposts, I learned the real magic comes with a critical combination of both substance and medium: blogging and content, or alcohol and activities. But like most things, this is the kind of lesson that one must learn through their own experience, though we hope for our own sakes that newcomers learn it before anyone heads to the bathroom to vomit.

And my metaphorical vomiting days aren’t over yet. I will always be learning both how to drink better and how to blog better.

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Mar 09 2012
46 Comments
Best blog posts, Humorous, Modern Life, Three minute read

Why People Love Tasting Gross Food

Who would think this could taste bad?

It’s happened to everyone at some point. You’re at the new Thai restaurant when the adventurer of the group tries to shows off and orders Thai black glutinous rice for dessert. To everyone else this is clearly a terrible mistake. The dish is presented to the table and looks unfortunately like a dark puddle of goo.

Silence. Stares are exchanged around the table between each other and the bowl of black slime. The daredevil laughs it off and goes in for a bite, strings of goo stretching from the spoon. Still chuckling confidently, she puts the spoon in her mouth. Suddenly, her face goes completely blank. Her stomach drops and cuddles with her bowels. Her face crumples in horror at the substance she’s ingested. Just like everyone thought and as the name itself suggests, the Thai black glutinous rice is disgusting. With everyone watching, the sad victim swallows bravely, gasps for air, and then says, “This. is. foul. Do you guys want a bite?” Everyone says yes.

Why do the others want to taste this obviously disgusting dessert? Haven’t they learned from their friend’s experience? This same phenomenon also occurs in cases of particularly nasty stenches or weird things you can do to your body to make it hurt.

In my capacity as a rational being, I understand that one should not want to eat unpleasant food, smell something that will makes one salivate yet also wish for death, or inflict harm upon one’s body, and yet I go for the bait each time.

The thing is, even though I know something tastes bad, I will never know how bad it is unless I experience it myself. Is it sawdust wafer cookie bad or partially raw meatloaf bad? Is it stale pop tart bad or putrefying chicken bad? How disgusting is it? Will I want to vomit or just laugh it off? Will a drink of water be enough or will I claw at my tongue with my fingernails? Will my eyes water and my nose run? Will I perspire from the hands? The armpits? To what extent will my gag reflex be activated? To what ring of hell will I descend? I have to know!

And I’m not the only one. I know others out there seek to understand just how repulsive life can be. That’s why these bizarre cultural things exist.

How will you fully understand everything a hamburger can be if you don’t eat a fancy $20 dollar one from a restaurant, and a sixty cent one that is inexplicably slimy from Peaches Cafeteria in West Virginia? Can you truly appreciate the sweetest of perfumes without stumbling upon a pile of gym laundry that has remained damp for 6 months in the corner of a male locker room? What does a feather pillow mean to you if you haven’t been afraid your entire nose is going to crust up and fall off because of the severity of an oozing sunburn?

Yes, these things are disgusting, but they are a part of life, and I embrace them. In some way or another, we all do. These dances with repulsion build solidarity where we experience everything life can be. I believe they even add to life’s beauty.

On that note, do you want a bite of this gas station hot dog?

P.S. My apologies to anyone who likes Thai black glutinous rice.

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