There’s this weird thing where if a person feels a cough coming on, they put their fist in front of their mouth and cough on it. I don’t know who started it, but I know it has to stop.

You know what I mean, because everyone knows someone who does it. When they feel a cough coming on they make a fist and expel their germs all over it, entirely unaware that air can flow around an object or to the side because of it, which can get the people next to them sick. Yeah, simple physics applies to the air displaced by coughing, as well.

Then they proceed to get their freshly germ-covered sausage fingers all over utensils, door handles, and just about anything else that they can touch.

The reason why these people upset me is because I don’t want to get sick too. Slowing the spread of disease is a community effort, requiring the cooperation of everyone. If one person holds on to some health myth that results in the spread of a communicable disease, that could be all it takes to get the rest of the people around them sick, even if everyone else exercises the proper precautions. For example, it was believed that the measles was wiped out, but it resurfaced, thanks to the anti-vaxxers for stubbornly clinging to the false notion that vaccines cause autism. A few people decided to fail in their human duty to use their brains to the benefit of society, and the whole collective was punished for it. Thanks, pinheads.

It’s almost as though there’s some weird cult out there that believes in ritualistically forming a fist and placing it in front of their mouths when coughing as a means to make themselves better and gain the approval of some magic coughing leprechauns. Who knows? Maybe there is some weird fist-coughing cult. Notice how people do this as though conditioned to do so from childhood? There’s the evidence of a cult, right there.

And if there is such a cult, it probably holds to other tenets, as well. They probably invented this whole “small talk” thing, which conditions people into feeling as though they need acknowledgement of their existence from everyone that they see, including random strangers that they pass in hallways. Or it could be that that stems from being conceited. I don’t know. But if it is some weird cult, that would give me another group to beat up in my fantasies. Such as Emos.

Now that I went and posted this, some people from this cult are going to read it, and then get so angry about it, that they gather together in one of their assemblies to discuss what to do about it. Then they decide on some weird kind of sorcery that bears a striking resemblance to square dancing. It doesn’t have any effect on anything, but they convince themselves that it does, then they go on to play some shuffleboard, and they’ll go right on coughing on their fists, not aware of how ridiculous it makes them look.

Resist the marketing.

You may have noticed that the people who use body spray are slow-witted knuckle-draggers. This is not a coincidence, because these are the people that this garbage is marketed toward.

They think that they are so cute for spraying this stuff all over themselves, as the rest of us are left gasping for air and actually tasting cheap perfume on our tongues as we attempt to breathe through our mouths in places such as shopping malls, trying to find bread that isn’t ruined by the fragrance in grocery stores, and filling up our cars with caution at gas stations as their body sprays pose a greater ignition hazard than the gasoline itself. In some cases, you can literally smell them coming from hundreds of feet away.

As amazing and tragic as it may sound, they have no idea. The reason for this is due to a phenomenon known as olfactory fatigue.

Olfactory fatigue is what’s happening when you become so used to a smell that you lose the ability to notice it. When someone uses a new kind of body spray on themselves, usually they stop with a brief spray. But after about a week of wearing it, they’ll start to go heavy on it, thinking that the spray is somehow getting weaker.

To make matters worse for the rest of us, body spray manufacturers encourage douchebags everywhere to nearly bathe in the stuff. One brand even encourages users to spray it on their clothes. Some canisters even have a diagram showing a person spraying it all around them. Isn’t that a marketer’s dream come true? Consumers that grossly over-apply their products so they’ll head back out to the store to buy more of it.

Using body spray comes off as a cheap substitution for taking a shower. Stop telling the world that you take cheap shortcuts and instead practice proper hygiene. I know that some that use body spray will attempt to justify it by saying “But Raizen, I do shower.” Whether you shower or not, the perception that people who use body sprays don’t shower still exists. If you apply body sprays after showering, people will think you didn’t shower. Stop defeating your own endeavors.

And while you’re at it, throw out all your body sprays. You don’t need them, marketers convinced you that you do. Prove to them and everyone else that you can think for yourself by throwing out all your body spray, and don’t buy any more.

Further reading: When I got into writing this article, I did some research, and was surprised at just how dangerous body fragrances can be. For one thing, there’s the fact that fragrances used in body sprays have been linked to a decrease in virility and fertility, which I’m pretty sure is the exact opposite of what the people that use these things are going for.

Then there’s the fact that there are thousands of ingredients that give body fragrances their smell, some of which are carcinogenic and can cause organ damage. These ingredients don’t have to be individually listed on labels, either. They can simply be referred to as “parfum” or “fragrance”.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t find cancer sexy.

They can even be the cause of your inexplicable headaches, as explained by this article written from a more personal perspective. Then there’s the obvious problem with chemical sensitivity, which may be less of an allergy in the traditional sense and more of a survival mechanism that your body uses to inform you that something is not right with your environment.

When it comes right down to it, humans are not supposed to smell like aerosol and diluted industrial waste. If you want to smell like a field of flowers, go buy some flowers. What’s that? That’s expensive? Yeah, it is. But the things that are worth having sometimes are. But as for those cheap cans of body fragrance, just get rid of it.

Have you ever attempted to have a conversation with someone about an upcoming game, and they wanted to avoid spoilers? It’s not fun, because they insist that you dance around certain topics that they might find revealing.

But hold on, the game hasn’t even been released yet. How can there be any spoilers? As it turns out, they don’t mean something like the ending or some plot point, they mean that they want to avoid any information on the game that they possibly can, so that the game will be a total surprise for them when they play it.

So, what they’re saying is that they’re sure that they want to purchase a game, but they don’t know anything about it besides its title. How can that be good for the gaming industry? If you’ve enjoyed the last few games in the Pokemon series, it’s not a bad bet that you’d enjoy the next one. But what incentive would the game makers have to continually improve their product if they are sure that they have your purchase? If game makers think that they can make steady income by virtue of the name of the series itself, that’s all they’d need to get sales. And persons who buy their games without doing research (such as those who attempt to avoid spoilers) only prove this to them.

So, what is someone to do to avoid all information about a game leading up to its release? If it’s a high-profile game like Pokemon, they’re bound to accidentally run into news of the game just by using the internet.

And for what? Some special revelation that could only occur the first time a person plays the game, not knowing what they’re getting into?

Game companies produce trailers for their video games for a reason: to market their products. Of course, they’ll have already won over those who have already made up their minds. But another reason game companies release trailers is because they contain information that they want buyers to have access to. They might be just what it takes to prevent people from being disappointed in their product when it turns out different from their expectations.

A person may be attempting to avoid disappointment by avoiding the hype machine. However, there’s still a potential for disappointment by virtue of the fact that the person has their own expectations, even if they develop those expectations independently of the game maker’s influence. And a person can’t avoid having expectations about a game that they intend to purchase. The very fact that they pre-order or purchase a game is an indication that they have expectations. Or that they’re reckless consumers.

If a person wants to leave themselves out of the conversation, that’s their choice. But avoiding game trailers for fear of spoilers is silly. It’s not like you can’t trust an official source with story-sensitive information about your game. And speaking of, video games are not books or movies. No one plays them for the story, they play for the game mechanics. It’s one of the primary things that sets video games apart from other forms of entertainment media.

I knew that Aeris dies before even playing Final Fantasy VII because many people were talking about it. People were talking about it because it was considered a big deal at the time. Insisting that people don’t talk about it just because you haven’t gotten around to playing the game yet is pretty selfish. Especially when what is discussed is information that has already been disclosed through trailers, which usually contains minimal information about the game to begin with.

source: geneticliteracyproject.org

Some overly-nervous wuss-bags are afraid of genetically modified organisms, likely because there were too many words in it with more than two syllables, and because someone said it to them with a spooky, mysterious-sounding voice while waving their fingers around. So they shortened it to “GMOs” so that they’d be able to say it, then they pushed to have them banned.

When I say “GMOs”, I’m not talking about mixing broccoli with cauliflower to make some combined vegetable. What were you guys thinking with that? Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. What I’m referring to is food that has been genetically altered, while still retaining its identity as its specie.

Apples are great, but do you know what’s better? Apples that are even better than other apples at being apples. That’s just what genetic modification does. If there’s an apple that’s bigger, supplies more nutrients, and helps drive mosquitoes to extinction, that’s an apple that I want.

Those who are primarily pushing for banning GMOs are the usual suspects: vegetarians, scam dieters, fad theologians, and conspiracy theorists. One thing you notice about them pretty quick: in spite of their efforts, they usually try desparately to not be so fat or so skinny, but it’s obviously not going well for them.

One of the reasons why I outcompete anti-GMO wimps is because my food outcompetes their food. And my food probably outcompetes them, as well.

Anti-GMO wimps lead you to believe that if you eat GMOs, you’ll get sick. But here’s the thing: they never point to a study to prove it (that’s not discredited, in cases when they try). There’s a reason for that: GMOs do just the opposite.

In the year 2007, a team of British scientists genetically modified chickens to produce eggs that can treat skin cancer, arthritis, and multiple sclerosis.¹ Eggs that can treat cancer? Alright! It’s too bad that vegans aren’t going to have any.

While humans that are great at being humans are finding treatments for cancer and implementing them into our food, anti-GMO wimps are pulling an anti-vaxxer and trying to ruin things for the rest of us.

We’ve been genetically modifying our food since before we knew what DNA was. This occurs when we reject food sources with unfavorable attributes and instead grow or raise what’s appealing to us. Now that we know what DNA is, we can now be more intricate in making food that better serves us. Because when it comes to food, what humans primarily consider is how that food benefits humans.

And on that note, you can choose between the super apples that make all other apples look laughable in comparison, or you can choose the scrawny, undernourished apples that don’t look like they could last a minute in a cage fight with the other apple. Most people would choose the super apple, then immediately reap the rewards of a choice well-made. But there are a few people who would choose the scrawny apples, then later wonder where their lives went wrong.

But just because they have no idea what’s going on doesn’t mean that anti-GMO wimps aren’t going to attempt to make choices for everyone else. This is one of the reasons why I’d rather see lawmakers that know a few things about science. Otherwise, they might end up banning something that could make life better for everyone.

Citations:
1) http://www.sustainableamerica.org/blog/gmos-that-prevent-cancer/