There may be bigger Trekkie or Star Wars fans than me, but they are at conferences and cos-play. I have been disappointed in TPTB who made both woke. Read below and weep for those of us who have been shit on by the movies and TV shows that have been put out lately.
For those who do not follow science fiction, Star Wars and Star Trek have been on the decline since 2005, at the very least.
Things did not come to the forefront until George Lucas sold Star Wars to Disney in 2012 and Kathleen Kennedy took over as head of Lucasfilm. Kennedy loudly announced “The Force is Female” while Disney executives while Disney executives proudly proclaimed their “Not so secret gay agenda.”
Although Trump-supporter Manny Coto was the showrunner for the last season of Star Trek: Enterprise in 2005, the series as been on the decline ever since the Berman/Braga Era. This was after Gene Roddenberry, the coke-addicted alcoholic who abused the staff of Star Trek: The Next Generation through his attorney, Leonard Maizlish, was forced out in 1989.
Alex Kurtzman took over after the 2009 Star Trek film, and things went downhill from there. Star Trek: Discovery is one of the most widely-mocked shows in history, and Star Trek: Picard was an overall terrible production. Star Trek: New Worlds even had January 6 as a “major event.”
In his most recent fight, Muay Thai fighter Shayan Heydari suffered a broken nose, but this wasn’t your average broken nose … this guy got it displaced in horrific fashion.
Taking on opponent Por Tor Thor Petchrungruang in a Sunday bout, Heydari ended up getting smashed in the face by an uppercut that completely had Petchrungruang looking like he was playing a game of some good ol’ fashioned Mr. Potato Head.
Oh yeah, it was that vicious, ladies and gentlemen. Just take his nose, for example, which was dramatically displaced.
“Free nose job for Shayan Heydari,” commented one fan, per talkSPORT.
“My eyes started watering just watching this,” another individual said.
“Wish I didn’t see that…with that being said I had to watch it over and over,” wrote a third fan.
Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th (3/14) around the world. Pi (Greek letter “π”) is the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant — the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter — which is approximately 3.14159. Pi Day is an annual opportunity for math enthusiasts to recite the infinite digits of Pi, talk to their friends about math, and eat pie.
Pi has been calculated to over 50 trillion digits beyond its decimal point. As an irrational and transcendental number, it will continue infinitely without repetition or pattern. While only a handful of digits are needed for typical calculations, pi’s infinite nature makes it a fun challenge to memorize, and to computationally calculate more and more digits.
After graduating from high school, a group of us decided to play in an organized softball league. Our choice at that time was down to church league softball. While we played and did OK, which I’ll talk about later, the extracurricular activities were more interesting. It’s later on in the post.
Our team was part of of the same group who lost almost every game in church league basketball, mostly because we were a bunch of white guys thinking we could play. There were some people who resembled athletes on this team. My roommate George and I both played tennis for our colleges, but that didn’t qualify us as good softball players. We had a couple of players who were little league stars, but as a group we weren’t that good.
Before I get started, this is a good lead in to the story.
We didn’t have a fistfight, at least on our team, but it did happen, between two other teams, both of which we played. A lot of other growing up stuff did happen though.
We were in that stage of just being out of high school, but growing up late and were starting to experiment with life. We also weren’t the star players on the baseball team either.
I guess we started out serious. We had just enough people for a team, All Saints Episcopal (we would be anything but Saints). I don’t remember if we had a team name, but it wouldn’t have been the Yankees. Misfit’s would have been more accurate. If anyone bailed, we’d have to forfeit. It was close some days whether enough guys would show up, but we managed to play the season. Of the nine guys, I think we had 4 that who actually played organized baseball. They put up with the lack of skills by the rest of us.
We picked positions and somehow I got 3rd base, far too close to home and a position I’d never played before. I’m pretty sure I was the kid in right field in my one year foray in little league at 7 years old. After a few practices, we thought we were ready to play and tear up the league. I think we believed the same thing in the basketball failure a few years earlier when we won 1 game all season.
In the first game, damn near the first batter of the year, a hard grounder was hit right to me. I was as shocked as anyone when I fielded it. I turned and fired a throw to the first baseman about 5 feet above his head. Since this was over 40 years ago now, I can’t remember whether we won or not. I’m pretty sure we lost as we did a lot of that.
In a subsequent game, another batter hit a line shot and I stuck my glove up and actually caught it. I was as surprised as anyone on the field, but had the sense of awareness to look like I meant to do it.
What saved us in a lot of games was enough singles by us to get batters on, but count on our big sticks, Pat and Mark Greene, Chris Patterson and an occasional lucky hit by others to score enough runs to overcome the errors in the field. Occasionally, we’d actually pull off a great play like a throw from deep left to home to get the runner out. Since the catcher never played before, it was a crap shoot whether he’d catch it or not and that we got the out surprised everyone on the field. He was a Dad who was a good sport to put up with us. He had no idea what we did off the field and was as (in)capable as the rest of us on the field (barely).
We’d go on to be about a .500 team. Being a church league, we were fortunate to face groups of people without any little league players who were actually worse than us, or a forfeit.
In the last game of the season against St Margaret Mary, my parents finally came to see me play. They had Ryan Sanderson on the other side, who was a starter at the University of Florida. Ryan also starred at our high school and it would be like playing pick up basketball with Michael Jordan on the other team. Ever at bat went over the fence.
I hit my only homer of the season in that game, in front of my Dad. It was a perfect ending to my only year of somewhat organized softball. Our team went on to hit 16 homers in that game and lost. The other team hit over 20. I’m sure Ryan had at least 5, or how ever many times he got up to bat. Hitting one out in front of my parents overshadowed the loss. Plus, the following made us forget everything.
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
On the field, we’d try stupid stuff like our first foray’s into chewing tobacco thinking we would be like the big leagues. I remember putting a wad of Red Man into my mouth and heading out to third. By mid inning, I was spitting everything I could and dying for the inning to end so that I could get that shit out of my mouth without embarrassing myself in front of my friends. We routinely had macho contests to prove our masculinity and I couldn’t fail at this in public.
Here’s Robert Earl Keen on dipping snuff, funny song
Fortunately, it was a quick inning and I escaped embarrassment as well as losing my dinner.
After it became clear that we weren’t going to the world series, our other adventures in life crept in. We decided that it would be a good idea to get high before the games and see if we could play. Mark Imhoof who was a regular user provided the goods and the bong. He was the kid who got high in High School, had long hair and a van. He was a good player and the friend of someone else on the team, but he never went to our church. Come to think of it, most of the rest of us had stopped going to church by then also. Since I was high, I’m sure we didn’t play our best, but by then we didn’t really care as much. We came out of that van like Cheech and Chong, trailing smoke.
My roommate George and I lived in his parents house. It was my first home away from home. His parents were missionaries in Guatemala at the time. When the cat’s away, we were the mice. It was the place our friends from the team came to to do stuff they couldn’t do when they were in town and at their parents, meaning drinking and getting high. Many of us lost our virginity there, to the same girl on different nights in different rooms in the house.
AFTER THE GAME
Being a church league team, we celebrated after the game spiritually by going to wherever the pitchers of beer were the cheapest. I recall one dive called the Copper Top. We also went to the Steak Out where you got free Sangria with an order of a steak tough enough to wear as a desert boot. I’m sure they lost money on us given what we drank and we’d go out afterwards for more. We finally got kicked out and got banned from coming back.
There was always beat the clock at Big Daddy’s. If you know the game, the price goes up after a certain time, so you drink as fast as you can at first to keep the price down. We were in college working for minimum wage at the time ($2.00). The beginning price was a nickel a beer and it doubled every half hour. I was hammered by the first tick of the clock as were the rest of the team.
On the off chance that we played on Wednesday, it was also nickle beer night at Rosie O’Grady’s in downtown Orlando.
Nevertheless, a healthy activity sponsored by a religious organization turned into a night of us getting fucked up. I don’t think I had early classes, but I missed them if I did.
That of course led to…
LATE NIGHT GREASE TO SOAK UP THE ALCOHOL
We hit a number of places. Back then, the Grand Slam was $1.99, affordable and enough food to soak up some of the beer before bed.
The other place was Krystal’s. I think the burgers were a nickle there also. It became a dick measuring contest to see how many you could eat. I topped out at 11, but Marc Greene regularly at 25 and went over 30 on some nights. I was in awe of him being an eating machine.
In the end, we only lasted that one season. We were kind of done when we started getting high before the games.
I lost track of most of the players. George and I wound up being best men at each other’s weddings and today are still friends. He transferred out of state to another college and I moved on campus at mine. We never went back to that church again, except for my parents funerals.
Growing up comes in many flavors. This was just the start of my fucking up in life. I had many adventures to come that made this tame.
There is a sweet amount of satisfaction in doing this. You buy a cockroach or rat, it gets named for your ex and is feed to an animal at the zoo. You get confirmation and everyone is happy. Also, fuck your ex.
For the second year in a row, the wild and crazy staff at the San Antonio Zoo offers the brokenhearted a novel way to oh-so-satisfyingly get back at their exes on Valentine’s Day. Yes, their incredibly popular Cry Me a Cockroach Fundraiser is back!
For a small non-refundable donation of $5.00, $10.00, or $25.00, the zoo staff will “symbolically name a [cock]roach, rat, or veggie after your ex or not-so-special someone.” The San Antonio Zoo staff will then happily feed your selection of a bug, a rodent, or a vegetable to a deserving and hungry zoo animal.
Don’t worry, animal lovers and PETA, no additional rats are killed specifically for the brokenhearted’s vengeful pleasure. All the rats used in the fundraiser are pre-frozen, just like the usual rodents that are fed to the animals as part of their regular daily scheduled feedings. “They are delivered frozen from a mouse farm and stored at [the] Nutrition Center until thawed for feedings,” the zoo’s website states.
Additionally, participants of Cry Me a Cockroach receive “a digital Valentine’s Day Card” showing their support for the fundraiser, including the cockroach, rat, or veggie dedication to your ex. And just for, um, fun, this card could be sent to your ex or posted to your personal social media to let the world know you’ve been, um, thinking of your ex. Sharing is caring, amirite?
I played this game with the El Paso Zoo a couple of years ago. I named one for my college gf who turned into a traveling whore when she was a stewardess. The other was just deserving of one. She cheated on her husband although not with me. I had nothing to do with it other than watching her (from the sidelines) ruin someone else’s (and her own) life.
The people at the zoo were amazed at how much vitriol people had for the ones that did them wrong.
Over a hundred contestants, and dozens more eager onlookers, crowded the Main Hall Stage area of the Farm Show for the inaugural Pennsylvania’s Preferred Mullet Contest.
The event was held in the morning of Jan. 8, with over 60 contestants in the Under 18 category, and more than two dozen in both the Over 18 and Throw Back category – the latter being photos submitted electronically, and eligible from any time in the past.
Madison Shaw, main hall assistant manager with the Farm Show, hadn’t expected quite such a big turnout, but overall the contest “went much better than I expected,” she said.
The contestants seemed happy to participate and celebrate the hairstyle they’ve all committed to so eagerly. One after another they strode onto the stage, flipping their hair, flexing their muscles, and throwing up the rock-and-roll horns
There were mullets with long, straight hair and mullets with lots of curls; some had designs shaved into their sides, or styled the “business” side of things in the front or on top. Thin mustaches were popular among those old enough to grow them, as were the Pit Viper style sunglasses.
2023 marked Disney’s 100th anniversary of making movie magic.
It also marked a disastrous year at the box office.
Out of eight major theatrical releases from Disney this year, seven of them significantly underperformed with audiences not just in the U.S. but overseas as well.
A look back at the rough year for the House of Mouse:
Superhero slump
One of the most popular film franchises in the 21st century has been the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Ever since 2008’s “Iron Man,” Disney’s catalog of superheroes and the stars that play them drove tens of millions of Americans into theaters. That wasn’t the case with two out of the three Marvel flicks released in 2023.
The first was in February with “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” Despite an all-star cast including Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer and Bill Murray, the $200 million-priced film earned only $215 million domestically and $476 million worldwide, far short of the $600 million it needed to break even on its theatrical run, according to Variety. That’s less than the $519 million worldwide earnings from the first “Ant-Man” film in 2015 and the $623 million the second installment earned in 2018 (not adjusted for inflation).
“The Marvels,” however, opened to just $46 million and may not even reach $100 million domestically (its total gross so far is less than $90 million domestically and roughly $200 million worldwide), making it the lowest-grossing Marvel film in the entire franchise and putting it in box office disaster territory, given its reported $274 million budget.
I was a super hero fan and a Star Wars fan. Disney, courtesy of Kathleen Kennedy made them woke and terrible. Ultimately, the are all but unwatchable. It’s going to be a long time before I can see good movies again. Men, and white’s are not the villains every time. Captain America was a hero since WWII, even he is going woke in the new rendition.
I will probably see Ferrari though. I’d own one if I had some F/U money come my way.
May we celebrate together, but alone and separately. Talk to you tomorrow because I’m not talking today.
It’s my favorite holiday after just suffering through Christmas and New Years. I can be alone today. Somewhere out there (although probably quiet) my fellow souls finally have some joy. It’s doubtful others will hear about it as we don’t boast, and other times you can’t get a word in edge wise for all the yapping.
I know and so do others.
PS, I’m not an INFJ.
This next one is me. I’m always in the back, next to the door so I can leave if I need to escape or panic
There is a lot of good reading here, the best insults, the best stories of fooling around at work, the biggest racists, history, IQ and more to catch up on.
A beer short of a six pack A brick short of a load A couple of eggs shy of a dozen A couple of gallons short of a full tank A few ants short of a picnic A few beers short of a six-pack A few bricks short of a pile A few bricks short of a wall
It’s a long list, click on it for your friends, and enemies
….Facts are facts, no matter how much you try to deny them, or how much you blame others for what you did. Here they are. Democrats are the Jim Crow party, KKK and the party behind eugenics – the attack on blacks by abortion. They have been behind the slavery, racism, bias, and are everything they accuse others of being and doing.
There are a lot of inconvenient (for Democrats and liberals) truths in this. It names names, lists who they are and what they did, meme’s to steal for the upcoming election and blows out of the water anything other than who they really are, including Biden.
….I found what I thought was a private place and parked. I made my move quickly as I figured we were drunk and if I got any push back, I’d just go home. I wasn’t going to try that hard. Well, she was in on the plan and probably hadn’t gotten any since college so her shirt was unbuttoned in no time. I’d had a steady college girlfriend who had the same bra that unsnapped in the front. I had it undone faster than Fonzie from Happy Days, to which her surprised response was wow, you did that well. I said I’d done it before, so she knew she was going to have a ride that night. Let the rodeo begin.
…..As I suspected, ha is a single word equating to “I’ll let you go now” the on phone or best wishes. I also means I don’t want to text anymore and this lets you think something witty was said while giving you the finger. I got news for you, it wasn’t. I knew what you meant which is why I don’t want to continue and doubt whether you are mature.
While this wasn’t written in 2023, it still got a ton of clicks because people want to know what it’s like to be smart.
….Since I published this, the comments have been coming in and are now far better than the blog post. I encourage you to read about the lives and struggles of those who have high IQ. Their stories are quite revealing.-> It’s in the comments, hint, hint, hint.
People still care about Covid-19 as this was written in 2020
….According to Sasha Latypova, a Russian-American, former pharmaceutical industry research and development executive, and Katherine Watt, a para-legal researcher, and philosopher, it’s an inside job. Covid-19 is an act of bio-warfare perpetrated by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) on the U.S. and worldwide populations in two stages.
Three Dunkin’ workers accused of threatening customers with guns have been arrested, Texas police say. The El Paso Police Department said the incident happened in the Dunkin’ drive-thru at 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 9. A 41-year-old man and his girlfriend were ordering doughnuts, but the woman said an employee was acting “rude” and she asked to speak to the manager, police said in a Dec. 18 news release. The worker responded that he was the manager, using explicit language, according to police. When the couple drove toward the window, the employee came outside, followed by two co-workers. The three workers, ages 17, 19 and 20, brandished handguns toward the couple, police said. “One of the employees chambered a round in the pistol, pointed the gun at the 41-year-old customer, and verbally threatened him, saying, ‘Y’all gonna die tonight,’” officers said.
This is the first update in a while, but it was well worth it. If I missed one, please comment and I’ll include it.
If one of these offends you, take the complaints elsewhere, I’m the one that got dissed here.
A beer short of a six pack A brick short of a load A couple of eggs shy of a dozen A couple of gallons short of a full tank A few ants short of a picnic A few beers short of a six-pack A few bricks short of a pile A few bricks short of a wall A few cards short of a deck A few clowns short of a circus. A few feathers short of a whole duck A few fries short of a Happy Meal A few peas short of a casserole A few tomatoes short of a good thick sauce
A few soldier short of a squad A few trucks short of a convoy A fortune cookie short of a Chinese dinner A pepperoni short of a pizza A photographic memory but with the lens cover glued on A sandwich short of a picnic A train short of a full service? About as bright as a burnt out 20 watt light bulb. About as useful as a chocolate fireguard Ah say, that boy reminds me of Paul Revere’s ride; a little light in the belfry An experiment in Artificial Stupidity An intellect rivalled only by garden tools As much use as a hedgehog in a condom factory As much use as an ashtray on a motorcycle As quick as a tortoise on Prozac As smart as bait
As smart as Joe Biden As useful as a screen door on a submarine As useful as a wooden frying pan As useful as tits on a bull Body by God, Mind by Mattel. Bright as Alaska in December Couldn’t pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel
Could screw up a one car funeral Doesn’t have both oars in the water Doesn’t have all his corn flakes in one box Doesn’t have all his dogs on one leash Doesn’t have all the dots on his dice Donated his body to science before he was done using it Dumb as a corn cob. Dumb as a stump. Dumber than a bag of hammers. Dumber than a bag of rocks
Dumber than a lobotomized rock
Elevator don’t quiet make the top floor Fell out of the family tree Forgot to pay his brain bill Goes surfing in Nebraska Golf bag doesn’t have a full set of irons Got a full 6-pack, but lacks the plastic thingy to hold it all together Got into the gene pool when the lifeguard wasn’t watching Gross ignoramus — 144 times worse than a normal ignoramus Has an IQ of 2, but it takes 3 to grunt
This is the one —> Has delusions of adequacy.
Has two brains, one’s lost and the other is out looking for it Having an intelligence rivalled only by garden tools. He fell out of the Stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down He had a little too much chlorine in his gene pool. He is so dumb, he would look for a wishbone in a soft-boiled egg. He is so dumb, the only thing he ever read was an eye-chart. He played too much without a helmet He’s got a mind like a steel trap, rusted shut He’s got a leak in his think-tank He’s got a mind like a steel sieve He’s got his feet firmly planted 3 feet above the ground He’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer He’s so dense light bends around him He’s so dumb he couldn’t pour the water out of a boot if the instructions were on the heel His belt doesn’t go through all the loops His cheese has slipped off his cracker
His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork His porch light ain’t on I say, that boy is about as sharp as a sack of wet mice If brains were chocolate – he wouldn’t have enough to fill an M&M If brains were dynamite – he wouldn’t have enough to blow his nose If brains were dynamite, he wouldn’t have enough to blow his hat off If brains were gasoline, he couldn’t ride a moped around a fruit loop If brains were taxed, he’d get a rebate If he had a brain, he’d be dangerous If he had another brain, it would be lonely If he were any more stupid, he’d have to be watered twice a week If stupid were a talent, he would be considered gifted
If stupid could fly, you’d be a jet. If you gave him a penny for his thoughts, you’d get change back If you stand close enough to him you can hear the ocean Isn’t firing on all 6 cylinders Isn’t firing on all thrusters Its hard to believe that he beat out half a billion other sperm
If I wanted to kill myself I’d climb your ego and jump to your IQ Kangaroo loose in the top paddock Like a pair of children’s scissors, bright and colorful, but not too sharp Million dollar body and a 2 dollar engine. Mind is in neutral, body is in gear Mind like a rubber bear trap. Needing a few screws tightened Not firing with all spark plugs Not the brightest light in the harbor Not the brightest light on the Christmas tree Not the sharpest hook in the tackle box. Not the sharpest pencil in the box Off his rocker On/off switch is broken in the off position One Fruit Loop shy of a full bowl One neuron short of a synapse One taco short of a combination plate One turbine short of an airplane One-celled organisms out score him in IQ tests Prime candidate for natural deselection Proof that evolution CAN go in reverse Requires directions to lay sod Room temperature IQ Running about a quart low Running on empty Sets the lowest possible goals, and consistently fails to achieve them. Sharp as a bowling ball. She is so dumb, she couldn’t tell which way an elevator was going if she had two guesses. She is so dumb, when I asked her to pass the plate, she said: “Upper or lower?” She’s not tied too tight to the pier Some drink from the fountain of knowledge, he only gargled Strong like bear, smart like tractor. Takes him 1 1/2 hours to watch 60 minutes The elevator is stuck between floors. The lights are flashing, the gate is down, but the train isn’t coming The lights are on, but nobody is home. The wheel’s spinning, but the hamster’s dead Too dumb to pull his head in before he shuts the window Too many yards between the goal posts Two hub caps short of a Buick. Warning – Objects in mirror are dumber than they appear Was left on the tilt-a-whirl too long as a baby Would be out of her depth in a mud puddle. Your the flower of my life (you blooming idiot) You can’t call him an idiot, you’ll insult all the idiots in the world.
Your mouth is writing checks that your intellect cannot cash
Like some of my other stories, there is sex, cougars and booze in case you don’t want to read about it.
About the middle of my career, I worked for a disk drive reseller, CORE International. The owner claimed they were a manufacturer, but Control Data made the drives. He lied a lot. See the artificial reef and the Time Tunnel to find out more about CORE.
We went to all of the trade shows, and in the 80’s, Comdex (Computer Dealer Expo) was king. It was in Atlanta and Vegas, but for me it was time for me to escape South Florida and explore the industry. Since I was in charge of the marketing department, it included the trade shows for CORE.
I went prior to the show and set up the booth for a week of displaying our wares to the public, going to the parties and putting up with the wieners and asswipes I worked with.
I always arrived first to set up the booth, then brought out someone from engineering or tech support to set up all the computers. There were a lot of things that have to come together before the show starts.
When I say weenies, most of the engineers couldn’t get a date if it was paid for. For this Vegas trip though, Bob the tech was married to his high school sweetheart. He was well settled down in life while I was still chasing ass. He was a good mid west salt of the earth guy, pretty much the opposite of me when it came to the opposite sex.
It was a time of life that I was at the top of my dating game. Because it was still my party days, decisions on my moral choices were more relaxed than now.
BOOTH SET UP, BRIBERY AND THE MAFIA
During set up, you had to work with the show contractors who supplied mechanical, electrical and moving your booth in and out. If you know the history of Las Vegas, it was built and probably still is run by the mafia. That means you didn’t do anything without them or they would fuck up your booth at night to teach you a lesson. I’ve seen them drive a fork lift right through a crate that held a vendor’s booth worth thousands, destroying it “by accident”. This was after a vendor yelled at them for not getting their booth delivered on time.
You could always get better service with a little green under the table. You would say you were from the Franklin company ($100 bill exchanged hands) and got in line ahead of others when I needed service. Everything ran through the mafia though and that is how it got done.
Sometimes, you had to wait your turn for service. Big companies paid bigger bribes and my company was small potatoes. The CORE owner was cheap. That meant going through their hoops to order what they had left in stock, then waiting for the supplies and manpower to get your job done. It cost me days sometimes in set up time. If he’d had let me play by the mob’s rules, I could have saved thousands on travel, hotel and food, but that’s another story.
I got accused of leaving earlier each time by one of the software engineers who my art director nicknamed needle dick. Since he was a nerd, I didn’t respect much of what he said so I went when it was right. Needle dick couldn’t scare up any gash if his life depended on it. He got adopted by a cougar at work 20 years his senior (and she had lost what little SMV she had – look that up). She got nicknamed Canyon Cooter. This difference in age was compounded by him being smart, close to the autism scale and she was one of the dumbest females I’d ever met. It made for one the biggest mismatches you’d ever see. More about them later, but suffice it to say she was going to teach him how to get a date because in his late 20’s he couldn’t get one, but wound jumping his bones.
YOU BITCH
Back to the story. I was setting up with Bob and needed some extra electrical at the booth. I didn’t have money left to bribe them so I was about 5 deep waiting in line. I watched the forms administrator girl at the desk give everyone an attitude. They knew everyone had to go through them and sort of lorded it over the exhibitors as they were the only game in town. Plus, I’m sure they could have sent Guido or Carlo to fuck up our booth if we didn’t play nice. So, I waited in line.
I looked at her name badge and it said Mary. She was the one at the counter giving the guy in front of me a really hard time. At one point, he looked back at me it was so bad that I held my hands up and shrugged. I sort of thought it might be her time of the month, or she didn’t sleep well or hated her job. It pissed me off and I felt bad for the guy taking such a beating. He was a beta male who didn’t do anything as Mary snapped at him while I watched.
I was tired from days of set up by then and knew I was going to have to deal with another time delay and an attitude when I walked up for my turn to order. Age wise, I’m well practiced at the art of pick up and had an Alpha male game going when talking to girls. I’d learned to dish it out with the best of them.
For this reason, I decided I wasn’t going to take the shit she gave the guy before me. I walked up and my opening line to Mary was, “Are you this big of a bitch to everyone?” Needless to say, it caught her off guard. She changed her attitude and minded her manners. We chatted and I caught a sly smile from her as I went back to my booth. I brushed it off and thought little of it.
I tried to explain this alpha male/female transaction to one of my in-laws, who I’ve nicknamed flounder. He reminds me of Kent Dorfman from Animal House, fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life son.
Sometimes, girls like the man who takes control and put them in their place. Flounder never understood as he only had one girlfriend in life. Mary got it though.
This time of life found me dating a girlfriend back home so I wasn’t looking for ass, but Mary was hot-ish in her own way. I kind of liked that she was feisty unlike my girlfriend who was a milk toast and was a nag right before this trip. In my head, I’d kind of broken up with her and did shortly thereafter. That’s another story
We went back to working on set up and I told Bob I’d called her a bitch. It meant that it could be a while before we got any service, so we did what we could until the help arrived. The electricians came way early so we were both surprised. (Electricians meaning they got paid $100 an hour to bring you extension cords, lay them out and plug them in, a total racket but…Mafia). Mary bumped me to the top of the list for calling her a bitch.
The day rolled on, so we finished work and were ready to call it by going to dinner and crashing at the hotel. I wasn’t a big gambler and knew we had a lot to do tomorrow so we headed out past the contractor tables kind of thinking about tomorrow.
Because the owner of the company was the biggest tightwad I’d ever met in a millionaire, I had to share a hotel room with Bob. I’d get my own room only if there was an odd count of people and I’d take the single because I was trade show manager. I also didn’t want to share a room with any of the tech wieners ever.
As we passed by, Mary was still sitting there and I wasn’t looking my best. I’d been sweating while busting ass all day in jeans and a T-shirt. They had the doors to the convention hall open as they hauled in equipment all day long. It’s hot in Vegas so I was scruffy looking in the Han Solo sort of way. Mary on the other hand had to dress appropriately as that was her job, attitude and all.
While walking by, I threw out a trial balloon to attitudy-Judy and said, Bob and I are going to dinner, I’ll buy you one if you want to come. I guessed that I’d get a laugh and figured she heard it at every show she worked. So I was preparing for the brush off when she said why not……game on.
I was finally making it in life and could afford better clothes, so I cleaned up and put on my Don Johnson Miami Vice outfit (t-shirt and white jacket with nice slacks and loafers, just like on TV). Bob was in his causal married look and wasn’t sure what to expect now that I’d invited a stray to dinner. He also knew we were sharing a room and any copulation calisthenics would have been awkward.
THE TRANSFORMATION
When I called her a bitch, I was speaking to a hair up in the bun, glasses wearing school marm girl. I could tell though that she had a tight body and had potential. Needless to say, Mary had gone home and dolled up into a strapless dress that complimented her good looks. The dark hair came down and the glasses were gone and she went from librarian to a keeper. Even Bob was shocked at the transformation. She was both hot and hopefully hot to trot.
It’s hard to believe knowing the person that I am now was able to be that entertaining then, but I chatted her up over cocktails and a bottle of wine. Bob is enjoying an upgraded dinner and we both thought that would be it. It turned out that Mary was a very smart girl. We had an intellectually stimulating conversation both ways. I learned a lot about the machinations of how things got done as well as life in Vegas. She had a brain to go with the rest of the package. Maybe that is why she gave others a hard time.
I was the only one at CORE authorized to people out to dinner above the expense rate other than the el cheapo boss, but only if I was taking out important people or reporters. Bob didn’t say anything because he got a way more than the expense approved dinner, and I invited what was now a hottie to dinner. I’m sure I filed that expense report to the head accountant Tony (sounds Mafia also) that might have not been exactly accurate.
At the end of dinner, Bob excused himself to go to the bathroom before leaving and I figured what the hell. The odds were against anything else really happening between Mary and I, and I really didn’t care. We were on our way to being drunk and I’ll never see her again, plus I have to deal with sharing a room with Bob. I made the first base move anyway. The next thing I knew, Bob came out of the bathroom to see Mary and me tongue deep in the middle of the restaurant.
I now have the dilemma of the where to go logistics. I’m sure Bob’s wife didn’t want to hear about Mary and me slobbering on each other all night long and I’ve got the stingy accountants hanging over my head about spending money for extra rooms in Vegas.
I knew that once everyone came into town in a couple of days, that I’d be moving into the single room. I’d pre-arraigned to have the prerequisite odd count of people enabling me to have the single, but expense policies required us to save the penny pinching company owner money prior to that.
My judgement is now sufficiently impaired by alcohol and my hormones were raging by, so I said fuck it. Next thing I knew, I had Mary in tow and stood in line at the hotel lobby and charged a single room to the company credit card. President Hal and VP Robert A were going to shit when they saw my expense report already as I’m down a dinner way over the per diem by 3 or 4 times. I now add a room that I wasn’t supposed to be charged for 2 more days. Those two dicked around the employees so I wasn’t motivated to help them in any way. I was thinking with the little head by then, so the night progressed and we said goodbye to Bob.
I wonder what Mary was thinking. Her day started with a boring job of grilling show people about filling out the forms for electricity. She’s now out to dinner with a charming stranger and about to go back to a hotel room with someone she’s known for a couple of hours who called her a bitch.
In my head, I’m playing We’ve Got Tonight By Bob Seger. It was the part that goes:
I know it’s late I know you’re weary I know your plans don’t include me Still here we are Both of us lonely Longing for shelter from all that we see Why should we worry? No one will care girl Look at the stars so far away We’ve got tonight Who needs tomorrow? We’ve got tonight babe Why don’t you stay?
As I mentioned, I’d been around the dating block by now and knew how to game girls. I’d been pulling ass for a long time and it wasn’t like I was trying to lose my virginity. We checked into the hotel and had another heavy make out session when Mary excused herself to go to the bathroom.
The night is ticking away, I’m drunk and realize I have another long day tomorrow. I knew Mary had to show up at the contractors desk early. I decided right then that I wasn’t going to try hard because if was going to happen, fine…if not, also fine.
While she’s in the bathroom, I’m thinking of how I’m going to say goodbye and I had a nice time after getting told no, then catching some shut eye. I’d had about as much fun as I figured I was going to have and didn’t have a lot of patience to wait all night for nothing. I’d done enough of that growing up and rejection was going to be as good as success. The outcomes were equal to me.
Just about that time, Mary comes out of the bathroom wearing only a towel. As I started back to kissing her, it fell down and she said, we’ve got to get you out of these clothes.
One thing led to another and we did what grownups do in the prime of your life, for a long time, all over the hotel room. She enjoyed it immensely, which I found out later. I did my best John Holmes impression to make it worth her while. She said she visited the big O hall of fame multiple times. It was our first night so we hadn’t been together long enough for her to lie about it yet. I had put so much effort into it that night to make her happy that I’d passed out and she went home.
When I woke up the next morning, on the mirror I found a post it note to call for round 2 as she wanted more. Comdex hadn’t even started and my trip has already been eventful.
I glided by the contractor table the next morning and the attitude was much nicer. It turns out that all she needed was a good time and to get laid. It was on for us now.
I didn’t say anything to Bob. He’d seen me sucking face and I didn’t come home last night.
I enjoyed the week with Mary. She didn’t have to work during the show, unlike the 12 hour days on my feet. She was a good sport about showing up to see me at the end of the day. It was nice to share time together and got me the hell away from the CORE douchebags. One of the days when I was coming back from the show, I met her in the lobby and we immediately dumped the rest and headed up to my room. I’d walked back to the hotel with Bill Quinn, a serious stiff who knew I was his only key to after show entertainment. He was lost without me getting him or the others into the show parties. He kept asking what happened as he saw me meet and leave with a girl in the elevator. He wouldn’t see me again until the next morning. He told me he wanted details, but I gave up nothing.
TECH WEENIES TRYING TO ACT HIP
I refused to hang with most of the CORE people I had to work with as they were too lame to be around. Case in point, one of the nights there, I had to invite them to a computer magazine party, because the owner Hal was there. I picked the one that was the shortest to end my pain with them. I was going to the real party after that. I must have had that night off from Mary. Duty calls.
The DJ played the song Shout (Otis Day and The Nights for Animal House Fans). These losers called it the CORE song and went to the dance floor to look like fools. This included needle dick, canyon cooter and Sondra Arken (who got nicknamed Barkin as she was an ugly feminist with an ugly attitude who refused to shave her legs and pits). Also acting the fool were some people I’d come over to CORE with when General Micro Computer went chapter 11 like Trish Brainard, Holly H., Susan (Suzy Q, the JAP with the huge ta ta’s). They were such idiots that everyone from GMC except me got fired shortly after this for being incompetent. I pretended to go up with them as we left for the dance floor, but diverted to the men’s room to hide as I refused to be seen with them. I don’t think it was lost on them.
Here’s the deal. I was the president of my fraternity when Animal House came out. We’d already done everything in the movie other than kill a horse. We’d had a real toga party when listening to Shout. The CORE pussies were nursing a light beer. When I was in college, we were drinking grain alcohol punch dressed in sheets. There is a difference. They were embarrassing as they were trying to act hip, but at best pulled off a broken hip. There were a lot of losers in the computer industry and some of them worked with me.
I dumped them after that and went either to see Mary or to the real after party. They never knew.
THE GEEKS LOSE THEIR VIRGINITY
So I’m being very discrete about my encounter with Mary. Even when seen, no one knew what I was really doing. Bob the tech didn’t tell everyone there about the night prior to the show…….As opposed to this next part.
In the background, Canyon Cooter has made her move on needle dick who’s never seen a boob in his life, much less hold one. They now show up to the booth in matching outfits. She was getting divorced was old enough to be his mom. They dressed like sherbet Ice cream in their matching lime green and orange suits. When you fuck around at work, at least don’t advertise it by making a fool of yourselves. He never had a chance as she pretty much adopted him. They looked like a kid and his mom in a gag worthy moment. It was the only pussy he would ever had in life at and that statement is pretty sad. He wanted her to show him how to talk to a girl at work he couldn’t get a date with, and the next thing you know they are bumping uglies.
When you score your first touchdown, act like you’ve been there. He was a trained puppy on a leash from then on following her around. They were saying nothing was happening, but were so bad at hiding it we couldn’t avoid the obvious. It was as bad as having to hear about your parents having sex, freaking disgusting for all of us.
I on the other hand am having a grand time with a hot girl and giving her the ride of her life while telling no one. Here’s how I know. When I left Vegas after the show was over, she looked me up in Florida to try and find me for more (no internet back then so it was a big effort). It turns out that I am a namesake and she wound up calling my parents in another town, also in Florida. I thought it was a nice gesture and Mom had to know what was going on. She wasn’t born yesterday.
All good things come to an end and it was time to leave Vegas and go home. I have no need to go back to that town other than for computer shows so I knew it this was ever only going to be a week. I hate Vegas despite the time with Mary. I never promised anything to her other than when I was there. I never led her on. It was what it was. She had the next show rolling into town the following week (the Car Show). It just didn’t have a future written on it.
I recall our last moment together. She finished on top and I was staring at her right boob. I thought to myself, I need to remember this moment for when I was in a dry spell.
Life goes on. Needle dick wound up marrying canyon cooter. Ben Greene told us all that the bill would come due when she turned 80. He’s probably changing diapers now. I saw the disappointment on his father’s face at the wedding. He married his mother, a washed up flabby old lady. At least they didn’t reproduce. The world is better for it.
Bob left CORE and went to Novell, then the Networking leader. Hal sold the company to Sony after lying about the contract he had with IBM. Robert came out of the closet and was queer as a 3 dollar bill, but he was a prick to everyone anyway. I filed the expense report and I think I went over by so much that El Capo, Tony wouldn’t approve all of it. I made it all back on the next expense report. CORE went out of their way to screw over the employees. The per deim wasn’t enough for one meal, let alone 3 per day in Vegas. I never tried to come out ahead, but they wound up paying for everything on the next trip. We ended up even.
I still had to work with the other wieners who rarely got any girl action. Despite the stories that got told about my escapades, I would never admit it because I didn’t need to spike the ball. I never told them this story either, until now. Bob told them enough when we got back that I got the stink eye from the engineering and tech support departments. Most of them were still 0 for life in girls when I left.
Mary and I never spoke again. By the time I found out from Mom that she’d called, months had already passed. I hope she remembers it fondly. I guess I’m the one that got away. I would have picked her over my milk toast girlfriend. She was better in every way.
Life moved on, but times like this are burned into my memory bank. A version of this story would happen to me again at future computer shows, more than once and different countries.
I have fun memories of that week, it’s just that we lived on opposite sides of the country and what happened in Vegas like most times, stayed there.
This post has sex and booze in it, read it later in the post.
Since I graduated with both Accounting and Marketing degree’s, I tried to find a job in one of those fields. I finished college before they had the internet, so you couldn’t look up jobs on LinkedIn or on online. We did actual networking back then.
I had friends who got me interviews where they worked, and I accepted a job in the finance trainee program at Burdines Department Stores. Here is the building I worked at in downtown Miami. Count 4 floors up and that would be me.
The program was 4 six month shifts in different departments (where they needed a slave to hump some work it seemed).
I have no idea why or what I was doing in finance. I really majored in Animal House activities and going to the Beach instead of class. I knew debit was on the left, but even I wouldn’t have trusted me at the time with balancing a checkbook.
Anyway…..
My 2nd rotation in the Statistical department was working on the Departmental Operating Statement (DOS). It was a financial statement that reported on the profit and loss of every department in every store, so 256 departments x 26 stores x 18 expense categories. It was as dreary as that sentence sounds
While not a published financial statement, it was how the department managers in each store got rated. That is far too much responsibility for someone who drank and got high often enough to fail any drug test, at work.
The DOS was a manual masturbation exercise that had to balance to the expenses for the year and show the profitability (or loss) of each department and store. This will be key in the story that follows.
While working on this, we were automating it to an IBM System 34 (now the System P), again pre-PC days. It even had 8 inch floppy diskettes for storage.
Burdines was owned by Federated Department Stores, who also owned Bloomingdales, Filene’s, Foley’s, A & S, and a number of other stores. This part is important. Never once was the DOS turned in on time by Burdines to Federated. The other divisions were on time and it was a sore spot for the finance guys.
Statistical made sure the DOS balanced to the penny manually. It also meant it would never be on time. During this period, I found that I had an affinity for computers. I was one of the few that understood how they worked and mainly focused on that. When you can run something others are afraid of, and it is vital to getting the job done, it’s like playing cards with a stacked deck. I got that concept right away. The computer would crank out a report in about 30 minutes in those days which would have taken weeks to do manually.
We worked days and nights to get it finished. While the computer was calculating, we were writing programs (in RPG II). We also fucked off and messed with the other employees desk’s who were a pain (Art Goldstein, still in Expense Control). We were putting cigarette ashes under his desk pad, all kinds of shit in his desk and unrolling his calculator (no PC’s) and printing a lot of gibberish on it, then rolling the tape back up for him to find days later. He’d have to redo the tabulation as you had to attach a tape to your work. It cost him hours at work. No one said a thing the next day when he lost it. We just shrugged. Everyone knew it was us that worked late. We also ordered in pizza and beers and left drunk many nights. There was worse stuff we did with the pizza’s, but that’s another story.
I thought accountants were stiffs, but these guys could put a way scotch until they were pickled. It was like working with John Hamm, only at night.
Since these were the Madmen days when you could drink at work, we got beers and take out food from the Cuban restaurants since it was in downtown Miami. You could also fuck around at work without the #metoo bullshit that has ruined a lot of good office sex.
Needless to say, we got it finished, but not on time to Federated during my trainee rotation. I wasn’t a full employee yet, so I didn’t care. I had fun messing around and seeing how things worked. They balanced it as it was done at the same time manually, so it had to tie out. That little detail cost weeks of work to be that exact. I learned everything I could about the computer and started to see it as my ticket to life.
NOW, MY FIRST JOB
I was moved on to the Credit department for my 3rd rotation, where I thought I was going to die from boredom until they got my ass out of there early. I was questioning my career decision at this point. The most I learned there was about mopering (you’re going to have to ask a NY cop what this is).
Since I’d made the System 34 sing and dance, they promoted me back to Statistical (I called it sta-testicle) in charge of the DOS this time and told me I had to have it in on time (or pretty much be fired). I didn’t have an option to decline it having already done one round of this financial statement. Hell, it was a promotion and doing something I saw as a career was way better than wanting to shoot myself while I did pretty much jack shit in Credit.
This is where the fun begins.
I was now responsible for people and the ratings of thousands of people. All the other employees who worked on it from before had only done the manual version. I was the only one who could work the System 34. While it was a mystery to them on the computer, the sharp eyed finance people could make any financial statement balance with paper, pencil and calculator. These (mostly) girls would sit at their desk and crank out calculations all day, and only leave to go to break (this will be important later).
One of them, my 2nd in command, Carmen Gomez had huge boobs. I’d love to sit with her while we she figured out numbers as she’d plant those babies on my arms at the desk for minutes at a time. I couldn’t have cared less about balancing the numbers. That was her problem. This is the only time I’d sit still for more than 10 minutes. There is no way she didn’t know she was doing this and I was a walking hormone at 22. I didn’t move until she finished as they were the biggest tits I’d been near my whole life.
During my first stint on the DOS, I heard someone say as a joke that you could spread any expense overages like peanut butter over all the departments and no one would notice. It was like when I heard that you could kill a hangover with the hair of the dog. I tucked that nugget away and it would serve me well later.
Here’s where I skip the boring parts where I worked 6 days a week from 8 in the morning to sometimes 11 at night. The only part that matters is that I was alone at night this time.
What is important is that I’m in charge of the computer as I’m the only one who can make it work. I’m alone at night when the computer is crunching and I can see the reports first. They had stopped the manual version so there was no number detail that I had to balance to, just the final expense per category.
Besides drinking, here’s the other Madmen stuff. I now have finance trainee’s working for me doing what I did. In this case they were also girls. There was no hanky panky during the work day, but stay tuned, there will be.
My desk wasn’t in the computer room, so I’d have to run back and forth between the two (me not sitting still, except at Carmen’s desk). I’d pass by the controller’s office. I found out later he was worried about what I was doing because I was never at my desk hammering the calculator like the rest of the robots. His name was Bob Dillon and was about 5’6″, so we nicknamed him shorty. Even Carmen, who was a stiff would come to laugh at that one. His pants were never wrinkled, so we wondered if he took them off to sit down.
When the day workers went home, I put my magic to work. I understood real clear the part about getting it done on time. I also understood the peanut butter reference. I couldn’t balance this thing with scales from NASA, so I gave in quickly to spreading any leftover money to everyone. They each took a few dollars hit and wouldn’t know anyway so what did I care? Since we were fully automated now, they didn’t have a manual version to compare it with, so I was the only one who understood this little secret. They just knew that I was on time and delivered reports every morning.
SOME MORE MADMEN STUFF
As I mentioned, it was my turn to have trainee’s working on the statement. Burdines hired college students by the busload, mostly girls on the marketing side to buy and promote mostly high end merchandise. I got used to the assistant buyers lasting about 6 months and being recycled for new grads. It was like feeding time at the crocodile pit at the zoo when they brought the trainees in. I went out with a million of them, all with bad intentions. This was the Miami Vice time of life so being single in Miami was a time you could live like the Playboy Mansion, and we did. We’d have new stories every week and the girls were in on it too at this time. No one reported anyone to HR for hanky panky with the co-workers or playing grab ass in the hallways. The girls thought it was great and grabbed back. I got picked up one time by the fragrance girl who would spray you with cologne as you went down the escalator. This was before the Karen’s who ruin everything were born.
My trainee on the DOS though was Terri. A 6 foot girl with an attitude that said I could drink with any of you and still get to work. I was busy with the assistant buyers while she worked for me, so I kept it professional during the intense DOS time.
Remember, I had to have it on time and I knew it’s integrity wasn’t going to get in my way.
I missed a lot of life over those months, and a lot of beach time on Saturday. No one could question my commitment to getting it done, although my work ethics might have been somewhat iffy.
After busting ass over many months with many working parts, I sat alone those many nights running programs and printing thousands of pages of reports. They balanced every time because because I forced it. I was about getting it finished on time and not letting shorty know what was going on.
SHENANIGANS
Needless to say, I got it done. It was the first time Burdines was ever on time with the DOS to Federated headquarters. I knew that it was close enough to being mostly representative of what went on (and exact in some places like payroll because Carmen did that one) so I met my personal challenges and my goals at my review. I was a star in the minds of the big shots. Even shorty was happy, although he never knew the shortcuts I took.
On the day we finished, we decided to celebrate by going out to Joe’s Stone Crabs for dinner. The whole crew went (not Carmen, fortunately). The professional drinkers were on display and I was recently out of college in an Animal House fraternity, so I was more than 10 Heineken’s down by the end of dinner.
I told Terri that I was ready to go after a while and I think she wanted me to drive her home. My original intentions weren’t lascivious, but as we drove by Miami International Airport on 836, I decided to throw a trial balloon. I said how about a version of the submarine races? This involved watching planes taking off, with me taking off as much of her clothes as fast as I could.
As I said, she was a good sport. She acted like one of the guys, and no one hit on her during the DOS, so I figured she was ready for action (and many beers down herself). As for looks, I was the best she could hope for and I’d been pulling ass from assistant buyers well out of her league (and she knew it). I was on a recent breakup and ready for a rebound that was meaningless, but hopefully meaningful memory wise.
I also knew she was done in statistical and was moving to her next assignment, so what the hell. She didn’t work for me anymore.
I found what I thought was a private place and parked. I made my move quickly as I figured we were drunk and if I got any push back, I’d just go home. I wasn’t going to try that hard. Well, she was in on the plan and probably hadn’t gotten any since college so her shirt was unbuttoned in no time. I’d had a steady college girlfriend who had the same bra that unsnapped in the front. I had it undone faster than Fonzie from Happy Days, to which her surprised response was wow, you did that well. I said I’d done it before, so she knew she was going to have a ride that night. Let the rodeo begin.
One thing led to another and an hour later we were still going at it. She had a big boat of Mercury with a huge bench seat in the front, so there was plenty of room for her tallness. We were at it from every way you could in a car. The windows in the car were fogged by now.
I thought I’d found a nice sequestered place, but in my drunkenness, I’d parked under a window at the 94th Aero Squadron restaurant. That is the chain at airports that has big windows for watching planes take off and land. They got the show of the century. No one watched the planes that night. Here’s an actual picture of the view at that restaurant. We were right parked right below this.
When we were done, we went home to my apartment for another round. The next morning, I woke up with morning wood and her hand stroking my Johnson. We still had to work (on a Saturday) to clean up records and get it published. Both of us acted like it was just another day, but later I heard she spread the word that I was an animal that night, so it garnered interest from a number of young unsuspecting trainee’s that I wouldn’t otherwise have had a shot at. After we’d both moved on, I’d call her up for beers and sex with no commitment and were friends with benefits.
She even signed my going away card with a reference to watching the planes take off.
Needless to say, the DOS was done on time. I asked and received a transfer to Data Processing to start the PC program, which would start me on my real career in all things personal computing, cloud, networking, PR and AR.
I still got high at work with the internal auditors and did a great job, but moved on from Burdines with an education in how to prioritize things to get the job done, in many aspects of life.
Those were the good days before HR and woke busybodies ruined all the fun. I’d have been fired for any of that stuff today. It’s a damn good thing I retired.
In 1984, Dreamscape was released. Dennis Quaid was at his height of entertainment as far as I was concerned.
The story was him getting into other peoples dreams. It was entertaining, especially when you found out that if you died in your dream, you died in real life. It was like dying in the Matrix in a later series.
Scientists helped volunteers unlock their creative potential through “targeted dream incubation”
They created a device called Dormio that could help guide participants through targeted dream incubation
The study was built off of an earlier study by French sleep researchers
Short naps can help people’s brains come up with creative solutions to problems, especially when they are guided to dream about a particular topic, a newly published study has found.
Scientists from Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) published a paper Monday in the journal Scientific Reports that found that power naps can do wonders in unlocking people’s creative potential.
Researchers found that the creative mind is particularly fertile during the earliest stage of sleep, known as hypnagogia, in which a person is drifting between sleep and waking, according to MIT News.
The scientists said they determined that when people are prompted to dream about a particular topic during that sleep phase, they perform much more creatively when they are later asked to perform tasks surrounding that topic.
This “Inception”-like process of “hacking” dreams is called “targeted dream incubation.”
“When you are prompted to dream about a topic during sleep onset, you can have dream experiences that you can later use for these creative tasks,” Kathleen Esfahany, a neuroscientist at MIT and one of the lead authors of the study, said in a statement.
The new paper was built off of an earlier study from 2021 by French sleep researchers who found that participants who woke up from hypnagogic sleep were more likely to solve math problems. the Daily Beast reported.
In their study, Harvard and MIT researchers tried to determine whether the same transient sleep state could also work with more creative tasks such as storytelling.
The researchers created a device called Dormio that could be used for targeted dream incubation. It includes a glove connected to a smartphone or laptop app that measures three physiological markers of sleep — changes in muscle tone, heart rate and skin conductance.
As the participant enters hypnagogic sleep, the app prompts them with a specific dream topic. Just before they enter the next stage of sleep, the app will wake them up, ask them to report what they were dreaming about and record their response.
“One of the goals of our group is to give people more insights into how their brain works, and also what their cognitive state is and how they may be able to influence it,” said Pattie Maes, an MIT technology professor and co-author of the study.
During the experiment, the researchers split up 49 participants into four groups, with one group given a Dormio device and 45 minutes to nap and prompted to dream about a tree. Another group was also given Dormio and napped but was not prompted and only asked to observe their own thoughts. The other two groups remained awake.
After the two groups finished their naps, the scientists asked all 49 participants to write a creative story that included the word tree.
They found that the group with the most creative stories about trees was the one that was prompted by the app in their dream. Meanwhile, the group that took a nap but was not prompted had the second-best output.
The creativity of the stories was judged by people who read each one and were not told which group wrote the stories.
Hell, half the pressure is stuff we put on ourselves, but then so is half of the enjoyment of pulling it off.
(From the link above)
Men are in competition with each other. Men vie to express dominance, to establish their place in the pecking order.
If a man steps out of line, and assumes a place in the pecking order that is not agreed upon – this place being based upon established social agreements that no one can see, nor express in words – he is summarily dismissed.
If he still believes the territory, he has assumed, is rightfully his, he will endure all manner of insults and attacks, up to, and including, physical attacks
This begins for boys some time just after the toddler stage, and intensifies through the teen years, and early adulthood.
Men find this competition exhilarating, though it is also challenging, and often ends in shocking defeats.
WE MAKE UP GAMES TO COMPETE, EVEN WITH OURSELVES.
See the meme above. One of the unwritten rules for guys is you have to (at least try) to get all the shopping bags in one trip.
Next, we can’t just throw away a wad of paper if there is a hoop to make. Back up and see how far you can be before you miss. Add difficulty by changing hands or twice in a row. Hell, I toss ice cubes that fell on the floor behind my back into the sink. Putting them there would be too easy, or conversely not enough of a challenge.
I told my son this one. You have to open the garage door as far as possible when driving up. You need to know the range in case of (imagined) attack, or whatever. Never can you wait in the driveway while the door is opening.
You have to park in the spot first time. To add difficulty, back in. The ultimate challenge is parallel parking uphill on the wrong side of the street while driving stick shift with people in your car to judge you. It has to be done the first try. (I’ve done it).
The biggest effect on me is that Jeopardy is in re-runs, but I can live with that.
They’ll do the usual dance about pay and resolve it somehow, but in the meantime we won’t be subjected to the woke crap like what Disney has been putting out recently.
It amuses me that the Sound of Freedom is doing well, despite no support from the media or Hollywood. They don’t want decent or honest films going out.
We’ll also have a start up period where nothing is getting made as they have to start writing again and re-opening the movie sets. Then the woke crap will be back on the screens.
I don’t bother with that anymore and barely watch much, only what I can stomach.
Go outside and enjoy the day. Actually do things rather than sit in front of the screen. It’s a lost art. There was nothing on for kids when I was young. We entertained ourselves, played sports or made up stuff to do.
I was watching a video of girls talking about would they date an incel (involuntary celibate guy). They said get your head out of the computer if you want your dick wet. Otherwise they didn’t want anything to do with them.
Maybe the writers will stay on strike so everyone wins.
When Star Wars was first advertised (it wasn’t even A New Hope back in ’78), the ad went, never before has so much money been spent for so much fun. It was completely different than the disaster movies that was the genre.
We had hero’s, villains, a mystic power of an unknown force. There was emotional attachment to the characters, both love and true hate. When they introduced the interplay of the father/son reveal it was some of the best storytelling to date.
It was the unlikely hero rescuing the damsel. Good versus Evil. Believing in a higher power who could guide you through life.
I remember going to see The Empire Strikes Back eight times in the movie theaters, because that’s all you could do back then. Four years later, my stockbroker roommate got pre-release tickets to Return of the Jedi and it was to date the only movie I got to see prior to the public consumption.
There was interplay between characters, development of the hero’s course, the introduction of even more evil than we were used to (the emperor) and the ultimate risk of death to save your family.
The fan base was loyal and huge. We wanted to have the Force or a light saber.
The destruction of the franchise began after that.
THE PREQUELS
It was the back story and it could have been done a lot better. George Lucas should have overseen the story telling rather than trying to control so much. It still stuck to the theme, but the horrible acting by Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, Samuel Jackson and Jar-Jar Binks made it tough to take. Few could relate to the poorly written romantic scenes, with some being gag worthy.
Sill there was the original theme of bad versus good, the Force, the characters you could relate to and we already knew how the story would end, but this filled in the details. We wanted to see how Anakin became Darth Vader.
The men still protected the queen and you walked through their adventure, being able to put up with it as you already knew the Darth Vader story.
Action figures and Lego flew off the shelf with a loyal fan base and conventions to cosplay at. Fans flocked to the movies to see hero’s and villains. It was a good story, you could relate to the characters and the hero’s were men, who save the day.
DOWN THE TOILET WITH THE SKYWALKER TRILOGY AND THE DESTRUCTION OF STAR WARS BY KATHLEEN KENNEDY
That was the end of any good Star Wars film. Disney has ruined MARVEL, Star Wars, Indiana Jone and every other franchise they own. People are tired of woke.
The Force Awakens was just a remake of A New Hope, with a less believable and far less intimidating Kylo Ren as the new Darth Vader. It was misandry and woke before woke was de rigueur. Lucas wasn’t around to make sure that the story stayed on theme and it showed. It wasn’t fun or believable.
It went against the story and essence of what is Star Wars.
What really made these bad was the de-masculinization of the hero’s. Rey became Luke, and no one believes that the girls were really the hero’s. It was Kathleen Kennedy who introduced woke narratives into the story line, stop it. There was other woke mistakes like a black storm trooper. We already knew how they were clones of Jango Fett. Storm Troopers are pre-programmed. You don’t get a renegade wanting to be free. It’s not believable they way they wrote it.
So despite the lack of Force training that we know was needed (as told in Empire), Rey overcomes a Force master in Kylo Ren. In no real life believable fight does a girl ever beat a guy. We saw how much training Luke needed and what poor training did to Anakin. It was writing woke instead of a story.
The others tried to channel Luke back into the story, but it was to take away his hero status. It re-wrote what the force was. All that just to bring down the truth of who really saves the world, men willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good of others. Luke and Han were willing to do anything to rescue Leia, who needed saving. It’s good versus evil, the story that Hollywood hates, especially when good triumphs.
THE FORCE (IS NOT FEMALE)
Kennedy further went on to say that the force is female. It’s not, but then it’s not male either. It’s the force. The problem the celebtards had was that it was similar to religion, something else they hate….God.
Here is one of the top Star Wars sources on that issue.
TELLING A GOOD STORY, UNLIKE J.J. ABRAMS
To capture the audience, hero’s have to be believable to make a good story. You need to get them emotionally invested in their struggle and journey. You want to will them to victory or help them overcome bad guys.
The problem with the last trilogy, besides it being woke was that it was just a re-hash of the original trilogy, only swapping out girls for men. It was the same place, Tatooine, the same villians (Ren was the grandson of Vader) and the force, albeit not the one that Lucas told us about.
J. J. Adams had already ruined Star Trek by re-telling the Wrath Of Khan story just as poorly as this movie.
The last movie, the Rise Of Skywalker was so bad, it had to rehash the Emperor to try to put butts back in the seats. Real Star Wars fans have had enough, but Kennedy has killed the franchise.
Can it be saved? The Mandalorian was good, but they couldn’t let a good thing not go woke as they ruined Obi-wan with it being feminized. Asoka is about to tarnish the after stories even more.
To save it, Disney needs to sell Lucasfilm. Don’t let Kennedy touch any part of the franchise if they don’t. Make Luke the hero he always was. Stop the woke crap and get back to what made it both good and believable.
I get having to go after 5 beers, but having a girl testing your manhood is a lot of pressure. It would be like swimming in cold water. You lose an inch or two, no matter how big those 5 beers tell you it is.
Look, If a girl can pull this out of her coochie, I’ve got nothing that’s going to compete. If you look at the last sentence then yes, they are crazy.
So instead of guys have little dicks, how about you have a big vagjayjay?
In the annals of bizarre crime stories, even Cormac McCarthy couldn’t come up with one this bizarre. Some sort of sexy version (?) of “guess where I put my gun, honey” turned ugly when 48-year-old Jennifer McCarthy of New Mexico (no, not that Jenny McCarthy) pulled a firearm out of her vagina (where else?) and pointed it at her boyfriend’s head after a dispute over aliens (what else?) got a little too heated.
According to the Albuquerque Journal, McCarthy, reportedly stormed out during a fight over extraterrestrial life with her unnamed boyfriend and then returned with a plan for vengeance. The police report describes how she went to her bedroom, dressed up in lingerie, put the gun in a place no guns should go, then somehow performed an unspecified sex act with the gun insider her. Naturally, that was just a prelude to pulling the gun out, pointing it at her boyfriend, and asking the presumably rhetorical question “Who is crazy, you or me?”
He called this one. Once a businessman, always a businessman. The LIV golfers made a ton of money while working a lot less for the last couple of years. The PGA golfers lost out on hundreds of millions of dollars.
The PGA Tour announced Tuesday that it is merging with Saudi-backed LIV Golf in a shocking development intended to end the rivals’ public hostilities and extensive ongoing litigation.
The parties agreed to combine their commercial businesses and rights into a new entity, the name of which has not yet been released. LIV Golf Investments, the firm spearheading the LIV tour, is supported by the Saudi regime’s sovereign wealth fund.
Over the last year, LIV and the PGA have been entangled in multiple antitrust lawsuits, which will reportedly be quashed as part of the agreement. Golfers and fans who remain loyal to the PGA have attacked LIV as a so-called “sports-washing” vehicle for the Saudi regime to distract from its extensive record of human-rights abuses.
“After two years of disruption and distraction, this is a historic day for the game we all know and love,” PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said in a statement. “This transformational partnership recognizes the immeasurable strength of the PGA TOUR’s history, legacy and pro-competitive model and combines with it the DP World Tour and LIV – including the team golf concept – to create an organization that will benefit golf’s players, commercial and charitable partners and fans.”
First of all, it is a study from Harvard, the most overrated study hall in the country. Since it only talks about the girls, it’s only half of the story, so I’ll fill in the details.
There is no making girls happy. If they are, it won’t last long and the next crisis has already left the train station and is arriving soon. That means the husbands are taking the toll on this one. Men don’t have a chance unless you totally don’t give a shit when she’s mad (This guys is the key to marriage)
Here is an excerpt and a link below, but I discount everything Harvard says as their woke policies have bred mediocrity.
Married women ‘had lower risk of cardiovascular disease, less depression and loneliness, were happier and more optimistic, and had a greater sense of purpose and hope’
Marriage positively affects women’s mental and physical health, which can lead to long-term health benefits, according to a recent study published in the journal Global Epidemiology.
Led by a team of Harvard researchers, the study examined over 11,830 American female nurses who took different marital pathways and assessed how their lives turned out over a 25-year span.
It found that those who got married “had lower mortality, lower risks of cardiovascular diseases, greater psychological wellbeing and less psychological distress,” the study’s summary states.
Moreover, researchers found that those who got divorced or separated had “greater psychosocial distress, and possibly greater risks of mortality, cardiovascular diseases, and smoking.”
Ying Chen, a research associate with the Human Flourishing Program at the Harvard Institute for Quantitative Social Science, told The College Fix in an email this week that “Marriage remains an important source of social support for many people.”
“Our results are consistent with the existing literature suggesting that, on average, [marriage] contributes to better health and wellbeing,” Chen said.
I bet the husband’s cardiovascular health went down the toilet because there is no report on that from Harvard.
I’m guessing the men are now drinking a whole lot more.
Don’t forget the joke about why Jewish men die early, they want to.
I think they can’t see or there is some defect in the clones. Storm Troopers went from deadly, murderous villains doing the work of the evil Lord Vader, to the 3 stooges who couldn’t hit Han Solo or Luke in a hallway a few feet wide in the prison cell.
Mothers only offer advice on two occasions: when you want it and when you don’t..
A mother’s love is a better cure than chicken soup, but chicken soup is cheaper.
Your mother is the only person that knows more about you than you know about yourself.
Any time you are unable to solve a problem, ask your mother. She probably won’t know either, but she will fake it.
Maternal instinct is stronger than any force known except an IRS collection agent.
The more you try to stay on your mother’s good side the harder it will be to figure out which side this is.
The nicer a mother is, the greater the probability that her kids are rotten.
If you can’t remember whether or not you called your mother, you didn’t.
The motherly advice you ignore will always turn out to be the best advice she ever gave you.
If you forget, mom will remind you of all your mistakes so you don’t repeat them.
Anything you do can be criticized by your mother – even doing nothing.
Never criticize your mother’s cooking if you expect to get any more of it.
If you think you have any secrets from your mother, remember who has changed your diapers.
You can’t “out mother” your mother. Don’t even try.
Never lie to your mother. And if you do, never think you got away with it.
The harder you try to hide something from your mother, the more she resembles a webcam.
The older you are, the more you feel like a child around your mother.
All mother’s have a “How To” manual. That’s because they wrote the book.
Mother’s way is best. If you don’t believe it, ask her.
Everything is a good idea till you mother finds out and tells you why it isn’t.
One mother is company, two is a psychic reading, three is a hen party, four is a bridge club.
If you don’t have time to study the drivers’ manual, drive your mother somewhere and get a quick refresher course.
When you are broke, ask mom for a loan. She will help you remember what you wasted all your money on.
The more expensive the gift you give your mother, the longer she will “save” it before she uses it.
No matter how wrong you are, your mother will not hold it against you. She may remind you a number of times, but she will not hold it against you.
No matter how much you eat, you can never get so fat that mother will not offer you more food.
If a mother does not have an item, she will have the recipe or the directions.
The more times mother reminds you to take an umbrella, the greater the probability of rain.
Accomplishments are made possible by your mother – failures are your own fault.
Never forget who rocked you as a baby. That’s something else you will never be able to repay her for.
Mother can always tell you a better way to do something after you’ve already done it.
The longer it’s been since you cleaned house, the more likely it is that mother will visit.
No matter how small your mom is, she will always be bigger than you are.
The more you detest an item that belongs to your mother, the more likely it is that she will try to give it to you.
If you do it yourself, mom could have done it better. If mom does it, you should have done it yourself.
You never are as good as other people’s children. You are never as bad as mom imagines.
The only thing more accurate than a mother’s advice is her memory of the times you didn’t take it.
The funnier the joke is, the more likely mom will think it is dirty.
Never tell your mother you have nothing to do. She can always find something.
If the job of a mother is going smoothly, she thinks she isn’t doing it well.
There are always two sides to a story – the way it really happened and the way mother remembers it.
Mothers always “know.” We don’t know how – they just do.
Murphy’s mother told him so.
This article was written by Sheila Moss, from Humor Columnist.Com and copied with her permission. Copyright 2001 Sheila Moss
a child will never ask Mom to get something until she sits down. Corollary – a child will only ask for a glass of milk after you put the milk carton back in the refrigerator. Sent by Lexia Gibson
If your kid grows up to be like you its an insult, not to you, to the kid Sent by Mohammed Ram jackson
You can fool some people all of the time, and all the people some of the time, but you can’t fool Mum Sent by Meself
Small, teething children will chew on the most valuable thing within reach. The same goes for puppies and juvenile tigers, bears, or crocodiles. Sent by -?Anonymous!
I lost a year and a half of posts when I switched from blogger to WordPress. I’ll post some of the stuff mostly to get it on record.
December 28th, 2006 by jsimonds
“Stewardesses” is the longest word typed with only the left hand and “lollipop” with your right. (Bet you tried this out mentally, didn’t you?)
No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.
“Dreamt” is the only English word that ends in the letters “mt”. (Are you doubting this?)
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
The sentence: “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” uses every letter of the alphabet. (Now, you KNOW you’re going to try this out for accuracy, right?)
The words ‘racecar,’ ‘kayak’ and ‘level’ are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left (palindromes).(Yep, I knew you were going to “do” this one.)
There are only four words in the English language which end in “dous”: tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous. (You’re not doubting this, are you?)
There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: “abstemious” and “facetious.”(Yes, admit it, you are going to say . a e i o u)
TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.(All you typists are going to test this out)
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
A “jiffy” is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
A snail can sleep for three years.(I know some people that could do this too.)
Almonds are a member of the peach family.
An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.
Babies are born without kneecaps They don’t appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.
February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon
In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
If the population of China walked past you, 8 abreast, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.
Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.
Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite!
Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
The average person’s left hand does 56% of the typing.
The cruise liner, QE2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.(Good thing he did that)
The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.
There are more chickens than people in the world.
Winston Churchill was born in a ladies’ room during a dance.
Why would you want to ride in a Ferrari when you can command such a beast around the roads? It would be like having the most beautiful girl in the world and not sleep with her.
At least the company headquartered in Maranello announced they won’t pollute the sanctity of their driving machines with this feature.
They caved to e-fuels, but the essence of the prancing horse will stay intact.
Self-driving Ferraris are not for us, Ferrari chief executive Ferrari Benedetto Vigna said Monday. “Lifestyle business is immportant for us,” Vigna said. “It allows us to expand links with our community.”
Vigna also welcomed plans to exempt cars that run on e-fuels from the European Union’s planned 2035 phase-out of new combustion engine vehicles as they will give the luxury carmaker “greater freedom” on its power systems.
COMBUSTION ENGINE EXCEPTION
The European Union and Germany have reached a deal allowing new cars powered by combustion engines (ICE) to be sold beyond the 2035 deadline, or 2036 for so-called small volume manufacturers like Ferrari, if they run on carbon-neutral e-fuels.
“The good news for us as a company is that on top of electric cars, we’ll also be able to go on with our internal combustion engines ones,” Vigna told a Reuters Newsmaker event.
“This decision is very interesting for us because it allows ICEs to go beyond 2036,” he added.
Ferrari, which is renowned for its powerful petrol engines, is already producing plug-in hybrid cars and has promised its first full-electric vehicle for 2025.
However, Ferrari, which sold over 13,200 cars in 2022, has never provided a roadmap for going all electric.
Presenting its new business plan last year, Ferrari said fully electric and hybrid models would make up 80% of those in its range by 2030, while 20% would still be powered by internal combustion engines.
“This does not change,” Vigna said. “We don’t want to tell clients which car to use. We want to make three kinds of propulsion available for them – hybrid, electric and ICE – and they will chose.”
SPENDING UNCHANGED
Vigna reassured investors that the company’s investment plans would not be affected by combustion engines getting an extended life, as Ferrari had already “embedded” this scenario in its business plan.
“The figure I gave (last year) – 4.4 billion euros ($4.7 billion) for capex in the 2022-2026 period – it’s enough for us to go ahead with electrification and also with ICEs which are compatible with e-fuels,” he said.
Vigna said Ferrari’s upcoming electric model would be “a unique car” but would not be drawn on details, adding that “keeping secret is part of the recipe.”
He added it was wrong to assume that specific forms of propulsion would match specific models in the future. Fuels are a mean to provide the performance expected from a Ferrari car, he said.
He said that the price of e-fuels, or synthetic fuels, was likely to come down as they are developed in coming years.
“They’re a new technology, and like for all new technologies they have time to become cheaper,” he said. ($1 = 0.9279 euros)
It was a good TV show when I was a kid. My Mom dreaded that I watched such nonsense and that it would certainly ruin me. I didn’t get any smarter by watching the show. It provided me with clean entertainment as compared to the woke TV the kids get now.
There were some things that didn’t make sense.
The professor could charge batteries for their radio by stirring coconuts, but couldn’t fix the Minnow?
Finally, my answer. It was Ginger, My how things have changed…
Oh yes, I could say it with a straight face, depending on the other person. I just texted my friend George that there were a lot of balls to juggle, instead balls in the air.
I still call them wiener’s if there is a chance the other person will feel uncomfortable.
Hat tip to wirecutter on this one. It was too good to not share.
Delusions of Adequacy 