You are not a vampire.

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Occasionally, you may see someone who thinks that he’s a vampire. Either that, or it’s some fantasy he engages in that he sometimes acts out.

In some cases, it’s pretty obvious that the reason someone engages in fantasies like this is because they wish that they’re someone or something else because they are failing at what they actually are. Like how a person with a bad job pictures themselves as some kind of genius even though they aren’t actually doing anything to improve their situation, or doing that well at the job that they already have.

One question I have is, why would anyone want to be a vampire? They fancy themselves some master race even though:

  • They can’t cross running water – this makes vampires easy to outrun
  • Daylight kills them – significantly limits their activities
  • They can’t come into contact with certain religious symbols – which are very easy to find, by the way
  • Garlic kills them – this is something that is used to flavor pizza, pasta sauces, and other foods that many people like
  • And recently, they sparkle – makes them easy to identify

Yeah, vampires are lame.

Vampires are often pictured as having superpowers, which don’t do nearly enough to compensate for the fact that vampires can’t do many of the things that most of us like, such as synthesizing sunlight into vitamin D. Also, the fact that sunlight kills them means that this self-proclaiming “master race” can’t participate in this thing called “agriculture”.

However, it’s hard to find the self-proclaiming vampire that expresses interest in just about any means of production. This is no surprise, because vampires personify what’s wrong with today’s entitlement culture: they consume other people’s work, but they contribute little to nothing to society. Vampires are the fantasy equivalent of those guys with Escalades who live on social security and food stamps/access cards/EBT cards.

Also, space travel is out of the question for vampires, because they can’t travel beyond the earth’s umbra. Travel for vampires is also limited because there are places on earth where the sun doesn’t set for months.

There may be some recent attempts to reinvent vampires, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s something that someone pretends to be when someone wants to forget about their job as a Walmart clerk. But if a person is in a position like that, why not fantasize about being an architect, or an electronics technician? Then they can do something to make it happen. Because when it comes down to it, a person can’t become a vampire, no matter how much they want to be one. However, a person can become an architect or an electronics technician if a person is willing to learn and do the required work.

But if a person just wants to fantasize, why not fantasize about doing or being something that’s not lame? For example:

  • A space marine
  • A cyborg
  • An extra-dimensional dragon
  • A rock star or some other musician
  • A combination of the four, because why not? If you’re going to daydream, go for gusto.

If someone is going to choose to mold their fantasies to some template, why choose a template that’s lame or tired? There’s nothing really interesting about vampires. People who think that they are vampires are not vampires, and they shouldn’t want to be one.

Are you Obamacare meltdown compliant?

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Public, I’m going to tell you what you already know: You didn’t choose Obamacare, people that you made the mistake of voting in charge chose it for you. While we can’t vote them out of office until the next election day, what we can do is make sure that we’re Obamacare meltdown compliant.

What does it mean to be Obamacare meltdown compliant?

As you may be aware, when you do your federal income taxes for next year, there will be a fee for those who decided that they didn’t want to touch Obamacare with a stick. This fee will apply to the enormous majority of people, as most people did not sign up for Obamacare. This fee will be something to watch out for.

This fee would come out to far less than the overall cost of participating in Obamacare, but a person should still be ready for it. That fee would be either $95 or 1% of your income, whichever is greater.

For those of us who are making $9500 or less this year, you face the challenge of somehow making $95 appear. How you do it the federal government doesn’t consider their problem. They consider it your responsibility to somehow come up with $95 on top of the razor thin margins you’ve been living off of.

For those of us who have made more than $9500 this year, the fee will be 1% of your income. Which may not sound like much, unless you are able to do simple math. If you are making $20,000 this year, think about how often you’ve had an extra $200 in your pocket that wasn’t already earmarked for paying the rent, paying bills, or buying something to eat. Unless it’s the time you got your income tax refund, it hasn’t happened. Which, because of Obamacare, may have a significant chunk taken out of it. And for 2015 income taxes, it will be much higher.

By now, you’re probably figuring out what I mean by “Obamacare meltdown”. It will be the time when poor people will come to the conclusion that Barack Obama isn’t really their friend. Many of us realized what was coming. And now, you do too.

Of course, there are likely a lot of people out there that aren’t fond of the idea of paying. I’m not sure how fond the federal government would be of coming after you if you don’t pay, but if you don’t, be ready for a battle.

What else can you do about it? Election day is coming up. To make it easy, those who are responsible for Obamacare are almost invariably democrats. Even if you aren’t fond of republicans, you likely realize that they’ll work to reverse the damage caused by about six years of democrats having their way with our government, our industry, and our money.

Are you Obamacare meltdown compliant?

A look at some of the worst advice the internet has to offer: how to tell your crush you like him/her

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wikihow crush

It’s probably no surprise that the internet is teeming with bad advice, and some of it you find on WikiHow.

Let’s look at their article, How to Tell Your Crush You Like Him Without Words. (EDIT 23 Jan 2015: The page has since been rewritten, so the advice is no longer as hilariously bad as it was before. The analysis in this post is of the old version of the article. If anyone has access to the old version of the article, a link in the comments section would be appreciated.)

My first problem with this article is in the title: the author insists on not using words. What’s wrong with using words? It becomes apparent shortly that this article is intended for some seriously shy girls. If that’s a problem, WikiHow probably has a few articles on overcoming shyness.

If one were to attempt a psychoanalysis based only on the contents of this article, one may guess that it’s author has an unusual and unrealistic expectation of people’s ability to read minds. If such a person has anger issues or allows little things to upset them, that person probably does have some relationship problems.

Let’s break these tips down one at a time:

1. From afar (about ten feet) look into his eyes (do not stare). When he catches your gaze give him a dazzling smile he won’t forget and wave or wink.

The items on this list are highly situational. The advice here is to stand from afar, about ten feet. Ten feet isn’t very far, but the author of this list seems to think so. Once the distance requirement is met, then “give a dazzling smile.” The author also reminds us to wave or wink, so apparently this expert on crushes thinks it’s a serious omission not to do so.

Notice how it says “about” ten feet. WikiHow is giving a little bit of leeway here, so there’s no need to break out the tape measure in an attempt to set up the moment you’d otherwise probably be waiting a while for.

2. Do you know where he sits in class? If so, leave a note on his desk saying “Something is waiting for you on the school steps at 3 o’clock sharp”. Leave a little gift and note at 3 o’clock sharp on the school steps saying, “Hi so-and-so. Thought you might like this : ). From your friend, so-and-so.”

If I sat down at my typical spot and found something like this, I’d probably find it seriously creepy. One may even consider it a threat. There’s too much room in this tip for something to go wrong. What if your crush decided to sit somewhere else? Or what if Chuck from the football team decided to sit in his favorite spot?

Also, the title of WikiHow’s list insists on not using words, and writing notes does qualify as using words.

3. Grab a group of friends (including your crush) and invite them to play basketball, soccer, etc. When playing, make sure you’re on your crush’s team and pass the ball to him a lot. After the game go up and give him a high five and smile. If you’re feeling daring and need to say something say, “Great job! You’re an awesome —– (fill in the blank with the sport you played) player.”

This tip makes the assumption that your crush is interested in sports. What if he, like myself, is one of the many men out there that don’t care about sports? This tip does little more than support the notion that the ideal boyfriend is a jock, while nerds would be avoided. This is a notion that is turned on it’s face once one advances beyond high school, and the nerds generally have much better careers.

4. Pass by him and then turn your head around to look at him. If he’s doing the same thing, that’s a good sign.

There’s actually such a thing as a female creep, just as there is such a thing as female stalkers. If he’s looking back at you, it might be a good sign. Or it might be a bad sign.

Looking through this article’s art, I noticed that the female is almost always the only one blushing, and in the one where the guy might be, his face doesn’t turn pink. Notice how when girls blush or have a crush, it’s considered cute, but if it’s a guy, he’s often seen as a pervert? Feminists like to complain that women are “objectified” and portrayed as being obsessed with love in media, but men seem afraid to complain that women are usually the ones that can get away with expressing their sexuality. Much of the male gender is in a pretty submissive state these days, resigned to the notion that when something in a relationship goes bad, they’re seen as the bad guys.

5. If he likes you back he will ask you out, but just be patient.

This tip doesn’t belong on the list. The idea is to tell your crush you like him, and somehow do so without words. Waiting for him to decide to initiate the relationship (and possible suffering in silence in the meantime) is not a step in this process.

6. Don’t kiss him, have him kiss you first!

As with the previous tip, the problem with this one is that it insists on waiting for the male to take initiative. Kissing him would communicate pretty well that you like him without using words, so to accomplish the objective, it would be more effective to not take the list’s advice.

7. Never force a guy to like you, just let time do that and be nice. Try to talk and if he does not want to talk then so what? Try next week and then he’ll finally ask you out.

This list asserts pretty confidently that if a guy doesn’t want to go out with you, then he’ll do it if you ask him again next week. It actually doesn’t work that way. But, again, this list breaks it’s own rule by saying “try to talk,” which, yes, does qualify as “using words.”

8. If he asks to borrow a pencil, give him one with a message on it.

First, giving someone a pencil with a message on it counts as using words. Second, this depends on the object of affection asking for a pencil, which if he does, he’s probably not very dependable. If such a thing were to happen, the exchange would probably go something like this:

Boy: Hi, I forgot my pencil. May I borrow one of yours?
Girl: Oh, yeah. Just a minute. (proceeds to etch something on the pencil)
Boy: Um, will this take very long?
Girl: No, wait just a minute. (scribbles furiously)
Boy: The pencil looked okay. It didn’t look like it needed anything done with it.
Girl: I’m almost done! (scribbles faster)
Boy: Look, I’ll just borrow a pencil from some other girl.

This situation could probably be averted by having a pencil with a message already on it, but then you’d probably end up hanging onto it until the theoretical moment occurs that he asks for a pencil (and doesn’t ask someone else). Another way to avert this situation is with the following tip:

Ask him out.

A date is a small amount of time spent with someone to attempt to determine their character as a potential suitor. A person goes on a date to determine whether they would prefer to be in a relationship with them, and it is sometimes a recreational activity between a couple already in a relationship. If a person takes the advice in the WikiHow article mentioned above, a date isn’t likely to happen, and an infatuation from afar is likely to continue for a long time, with the person continuing to have a crush based on assumptions that they’ve made about that person.

My non-struggle with introversion

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I could probably be considered introverted. After a long day, I’d usually rather chill at home than spend time with a group of friends chatting it up.

I think introversion is something that has long been misunderstood, and recent studies appear to have confirmed this. Right now, from what science can tell about introversion, is that it has to do with certain levels of a chemical in the brain. Whether it’s dopamine or serotonin, I’m not sure. However, people tend to feel lonely and depressed when levels of this chemical are low enough. Production of sufficient levels of this chemical are usually triggered by social interaction.

Introverts, however, receive adequate levels of this chemical, and can be in danger of the stress involved with unusually high levels of this chemical.

For a long time, extroverted individuals have assumed that introverts are either unhappy or that there is something wrong with them. Often, they’d take it upon themselves to attempt to “cure” an introverted individual by dragging them into social situations that they aren’t comfortable with. I think that many of us are familiar with the tendency of people to react to someone who thinks or acts differently by saying something like, “What? Our way of thinking or acting isn’t good enough for them? Why can’t they be just the same as the rest of us?”

Because of this kind of thing, when studies about the true nature of introversion have been conducted and their results were published, one could imagine that introverts would react by jumping up in the air and saying “Woohoo! Perhaps finally people will respect our desire for peace and quiet!”

However, most people don’t read scientific journals and dense research papers. In fact, unless there is an indication that the paper in question would support an assumption that a person already had, that person isn’t likely to bother reading it. From what I can tell, most people don’t like cognitive dissonance, and that’s usually triggered when someone finds out that they were wrong about something. How many people out there continue to believe that hot sauce causes ulcers? While we live in an age where so many people fancy themselves intellectuals, most don’t seem as interested in self-improvement or education as they are in burying their faces in their cell phones.

It’s been assumed that introverted people are somehow miserable. It’s easy to see how a person can come to think so when they see one in a rowdy bar or a crowded rock concert and they just want to get out of there. But the reality is, different things make introverted people happy. They’d prefer to go home after a long day’s work and turn on the radio, while the idea of a social situation where participants continually dare one another into increasingly unwise behavior with alcohol involved would probably make them sick.

Introverted people have fewer friendships, but those friendships are typically of much higher quality. This is something that I think I can identify with. When it comes to friendships, quality is better than quantity. It’s better to make the right friends than make a lot of them. Besides, it’s been an idea that friendship carries with it a notion of obligation. Sometimes, a friend may try to dictate how a person spends their time. An extroverted person may jump at every opportunity to go along with a crowd of people, but because introverted people quickly get tired of social gatherings, they’d be very unlikely to do so.

I think it’s a positive thing that a distinction is being made between introversion and shyness. Shyness can be described as a social phobia, while introversion can be more aptly described as a preference for a certain level of social interaction.

One thing that I think people need to get about introversion is that introverts aren’t unhappy, and that attempts to “rescue” them by placing them into scenarios that they don’t want to be in may actually cause more harm than good. One thing I sometimes hear is “lighten up”, as though not going to concerts or parties somehow means that I’m avoiding having a good time. Not everybody enjoys the same activities. In spite of this, some try to make themselves social superheroes that take it upon themselves to try to solve other people’s problems, even if, in some cases, they don’t actually understand the matter very well.

Here’s a few things I do enjoy:

  • Going on long walks, either alone or with one other person,
  • Arriving in the dorm after the day’s classes,
  • Studying (I have the textbooks, and I’d prefer to have better grades).

And on those last couple points, yes, I’m a college student. That being the case, I think it’s very important how I budget my time, especially considering that not everyone succeeds in my choice of major. My main purpose in college is not to make friends, but if I do, it would be a nice bonus. However, it would probably be fewer friends than most, and perhaps there’s some people I’d prefer not to keep company with. There seems to be this notion that being picky about one’s friends is somehow a bad thing. Such a person is typically seen as “judgmental”, a term that seems to be perceived in a negative light, as though exercising proper judgment is somehow a bad thing. I think most people can understand the negative consequences of picking the wrong friends, and because of this, people can benefit from taking measures to prevent this from happening.

Another thing about introversion is that introverts are sometimes thought of as rude. Whether a person is rude depends on the individual, and I think that an extroverted person has the same capacity for impoliteness. I think that a lot of small-talk doesn’t really accomplish much, and that people mostly only really engage in it due to a notion that they somehow have to.

I remember hearing someone say that 99.9% of people like answering questions about themselves, and that 1 in 10,000 don’t. Assuming those are the only two possibilities, that person’s math is off by a power of 10, but I think what he was trying to imply was that very few people are truly introverted. As I see it, if people require constant social interaction to keep a chemical in their brain at a certain level, then extroversion can be loosely classified as a dependency or an addiction. If that’s the case, then introversion can be seen as a kind of freedom.

Freedom to study, freedom to meditate, freedom to go on hikes, freedom to think about ways to improve one’s self, without having the burden of bringing a certain chemical in one’s brain up to a certain level. Friendships would then become deeper and more meaningful. Intimacy would be more gratifying and fulfilling, with a much stronger connection that is desperately sought-after by those who climb on and off the sexual merry-go-round. More time can be put into personal pursuits, which can result in a purposeful career.

No, I’m not the kind of guy who desperately clings to whatever friends he can get. My friends are chosen with care. People typically have a very hard time maintaining strong, deep, meaningful personal relationships with a large number of people. Many perceive social life as being a contest to achieve just that. With this mentality, people often take on more than they can deal with. This mentality also enables them to view as “losers” those who decide not to participate in such a game.

I also think more people need to understand that introversion doesn’t mean hating people. It may seem that way to some people because introverted people are pickier about who they spend their time with. There are plenty of insecure people out there, and one way that they indicate themselves is by getting upset when other people don’t want to hang out with them. Not only does someone not have to hang out with them, they also don’t have to provide a reason for deciding not to do so.

Do I struggle with introversion? I think I struggle more with people who don’t respect that I don’t want to do the same things that they do. People seem to love going along with the crowd. But what the crowd does might not be for me.

You probably don’t need to avoid gluten.

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If you prefer to eat gluten free, go ahead and tell me why.

Unless you have celiac disease, you likely don’t have a reason that is medically sound.

There’s a huge dietary fad in which people are making a point of avoiding anything that has gluten in it. This is due to the idea that gluten must be, in some way, unhealthy, even if those who think so aren’t really sure why.

But here’s the thing: unless you have celiac disease, you probably don’t have any reason to avoid gluten at all.

To accommodate those who have celiac disease, companies have labeled their foods as “gluten free.” After that, along came the masses, making the assumption that those avoiding gluten know some dietary secret that make them so healthy. And with the food industry making piles of cash off these impressionable people, would you really expect them to clarify matters?

Since then, “gluten free” labels have appeared on various products, including products that wouldn’t have typically had gluten to begin with. There are burger patties marketed as “gluten free”:

sol_2D00_burgerSource: Peta.org

 

You were probably already thinking of pointing out that that’s a veggie burger, and the source of the image was Peta.org, so it’s already as though the product was precision-engineered to prey on the impressionable. But there’s more: there’s also a gluten free dairy creamer:

SK_HazelCreamer_PT_496x1130

Source: Silk.com

It’s not just lactose free and gluten free, it’s also non-GMO verified. This is one product that’s especially suited to those paranoid about their food.

If you have celiac disease, avoid gluten. But if you’re like so many people who buy into fad diets, stop being so impressionable. Marketers have been making big bucks off of you, because you really don’t know what’s going on.

Wanted: Honest Feminists

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I recently attended a meeting about women’s services on campus, which was made interesting by the fact that there was only one female student in attendance. As the meeting went on, my BS detector went off the charts. The speaker, apparently, was what is called today a “feminist.”

What is a feminist? An advocate of women’s rights. Sounds like a noble cause, right? If that’s what it was about, then feminism today would be taken much more seriously.

But it’s not. And the reason for this is because many feminists today are actually a liability to the cause.

Above, I mentioned what’s called a “BS detector.” I think most of us knows what that means, but for those of us who don’t, to have a BS detector means to have an ability, either through intuition or conscious thought, to sense that there’s something fallacious.

For instance, you’ve probably heard the statistic that women make seven-tenths of what a man makes for doing the same job.  It has an element of truthiness to it, considering that women have historically been treated unfairly. In many cases, the statistic is accepted by the hearer without further inquiry. It’s even been stated by president Barack Obama during a State of the Union address.

There’s a problem, though. The statistic is false.

If one were to look into the matter, the ratio would actually be closer to 9:10. The truer statistic does indicate that that there’s still a problem, but it’s nowhere near as dramatic as the 7:10 figure that we’ve been hearing.

When you hear that “women make seven-tenths for doing the same job as men”, your BS detector should go off. Perhaps you’ve picked up on some weasel words. Which job, specifically, do women do that nets them seven-tenths of a man’s pay? When was this study conducted? By whom? Did the study control for factors such as maternity leave and that women’s less career-oriented nature would lend them an inclination to settle for a lower salary?

By Tkjd2007 at Wikimedia.org, public domain

By Tkjd2007 at Wikimedia.org, public domain

Perhaps your BS detector did go off, but you ignored it. As children, we are good at detecting things such as hypocrisy, but as we grow up, we train ourselves to ignore our BS detectors. While this is done with the intention of being more civil, it also enables certain people to walk all over us.

During the meeting, the speaker did mention the statistic. A brief glance around the room revealed that just about everyone present knew just what was going on. Did anyone call her on it? It would seem like no one wanted to. There was a guy next to me who raised his hand, but he was ignored.

Generally, men don’t want to fight back against the tide of radical feminism, because it would be so easy to paint such a person as the bad guy. Because of this, the speaker, even though she was surrounded by college-aged men, could say just about anything she wanted with impunity. The group mechanics were certainly awkward.

It seems to me that feminism still struggles to be taken seriously. Why? What’s so bad about the cause of making women of equal value to men?

Fast fact
Women have been of equal value to men all along. Throughout human history.

So, what’s the problem? They haven’t been treated that way. Would it be bad to advocate that they be treated fairly? Certainly not. So then, what major obstacles stand in the way of feminists being taken seriously?

The one I’m focusing on today is that feminism has honesty problems.

A lack of honesty is an issue, even if the cause is a good one. When a person tells a lie to advance a cause, that person takes the risk that that the hearer won’t look too much into it. While dishonest people have long had their way, the risk is even greater in the information age, when a person has instant access to research for verification.

One day, I came home from work and found that my roommates were talking to a door-to-door salesman, and they were sold to his alternative electrical energy supply company. The only thing preventing them from sealing the deal was that the electric bill was in my name, so they needed my approval. After talking with the salesman, I went inside to perform a web search to see what others were saying about his company. The company’s reputation was very bad, with even former employees coming out and pointing out that the company has nearly no organic growth. Armed with this new information, I went and shut the door on the salesman’s face. Problem solved, with the help of the internet.

Another point I want to focus on is that feminists generally just don’t like men, and that’s another obstacle to them being taken seriously. Feminists generally see the male-female relationship as being adversarial in nature, and because of this, it’s unusual to see them in a healthy relationship. Those who fetch coffee for those pushing a feminist agenda often end up developing the same grim outlook. As a result, relationships suffer where there otherwise wouldn’t have been a problem.

The key to a healthy relationship is compromise. Men and women get together understanding that there are differences beyond that women have breasts and a vulva, while men have something else. Men and women have brains that are 97% similar. That remaining 3% makes a big difference. For men and women to get along, they need to be accepting of one-another’s differences, otherwise, there could be problems.

Feminists have a tendency to teach women to accept no compromise. This results in some very difficult relationships. This is made even worse in an age when there are men who try to be more like women and women try to be more like men. Because so many people are trying to be something they’re not, relationships suffer.

The antidote for this is to understand one’s identity, and understand that characteristics such as one’s gender gives someone something to offer society, and knowing that personal success can be achieved by offering what you have to offer, instead of wishing that you could offer the exact same thing as someone with different attributes.

There are differences between men and women, and these enable both genders to offer things to a relationship that the other cannot. Even if the wife were the money-maker and the husband was a stay at home dad, the presence of primary sexual characteristics will still indicate mutually exclusive capacities. Because of this, there is no man that can do all the exact same things a woman can do, and there are no women that can do all the exact same things a man can do. If they could, gender distinctions wouldn’t exist.

Some would say that it’s not fair that women are generally physically weaker than men, and some would say that it’s not fair that the continuity of their genes requires the assistance of a woman. Just because something is different from what you would have personally preferred doesn’t mean that life is unfair. Besides, life is unfair. It has been for a long time.

The school I go to is a trade school, which means that the majors are highly technical in nature. Among them are architectural, HVAC, and electronic engineering majors. A vast majority of the students are male. Why would that be?

Perhaps it’s due to the popular perception that these are male jobs. Those who are particularly blunt seem to like to say that women haven’t built our buildings or paved our roads. I wouldn’t mind seeing women line up to shut them up. But it seems like that’s mostly not happening.

Perhaps it’s because there are so many men going to schools like this that make women feel uncomfortable with attending. Women that attend would be so far outnumbered that they’d feel out of place. There may also be a sexual element. Men like sex, and some get grabby about it. Those who act this way give the rest of my gender a bad rep.

But perhaps the biggest determining factor when women decide against trade schools is that they just don’t want to be architects or automotive repair women for a living. It’s not as though women don’t see such jobs as rewarding and fulfilling, because they do. However, these jobs tend to be physically demanding, and that’s where women usually being physically weaker comes in. It can make them less effective at the job that they do, which from a results-oriented standpoint, could be used to justify paying them less to do the same job.

If someone would have to try much harder to be just as effective, it would seem more practical to find a job that’s more suited to their abilities. Having said that, if someone really wants to do something, that extra bit of effort can result in a fulfilling career. And if women were to pave roads and build buildings, there would be a number of chauvinists with less to say.

If a feminist is a person who sees women as having equal value with men, then I’m a feminist. However, feminism seems instead to be some far-left movement that teaches women to resent men. That there are so many dishonest feminists also seriously hurts their movement, in ways that they don’t realize.

Because of this, there is a demand for honest feminists.

My experience with a pen hack

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It seems like if you have a favorite pen, people are more likely to want to borrow it. And it’s times like that that you may feel inclined to ask, “How is it that you’re in college, and don’t have a pen on you?”

My favorite pen is a G2 gel pen with a Montblanc ink cartridge. It wasn’t my idea, I had heard about it from CrazyRussianHacker. It’s one of the hacks from this video:

And the result is a pen that’s writes really well, but is relatively inexpensive. I say relatively, because even though it takes an easy-to-find G2 pen, the ink cartridge may probably set someone back about $7 or so.

But it writes great. Gel ink often does write well, but can sometimes skip, often at the beginning of a stroke. And when you want your notes to look fine, you sometimes might feel like going over your notes again to make them more readable. The Montblanc rollerball refills usually don’t have this problem.

There is a trade-off, though. Montblanc rollerball ink is a very thin liquid that can bleed through pages, which can make it difficult to take notes on the other side of a sheet of paper. Still, the ink writes well on contact with the paper, allowing one to write for a while with little fatigue.

If you give it a try, you could end up becoming a bit of a pen snob. Personally, I don’t really want to go back to those cheap grey BIC pens that don’t write that well, and are a bit tiring to write with because you often have to press them against the paper kind of hard to get them to write a nice, solid stroke.

But maybe other people are noticing that my pen writes really well, because they seem to want to borrow it. Which isn’t a bad thing, but with a situation like that, there’s a possibility that you might not get it back, such as when it’s borrowed by a number of people who want to use a sign-in sheet. In such cases, your expensive ink cartridge could end up with a new home.

Out of curiosity, I checked Montblanc’s page to see how much one can spend on one of their rollerball pens. You can too, but I suggest you be sitting down for this. Here’s a link.

If one of those pens can set a person back hundreds of dollars, then those ink cartridges seem much more like a bargain. Even if it’s just one of the cartridges, you feel like taking measures to discourage pen theft. One such tip I’ve heard came from one of those sites that make lists, and this makes me feel a little hesitant to share it because sites that share lists are notorious for stealing from other websites, and I’d rather credit the person who originally came up with the tip.

But I think the most effective tip for discouraging pen theft is to keep your pens safe, and have some decoys for someone to take. This means that those cheap BIC pens can still serve a purpose. If someone wants to borrow a pen, let them borrow the BIC. Wouldn’t it look awkward if they specifically requested your G2 with the Montblanc cartridge? “I thought you were desperate, not picky.”

If it’s a nice pen you want, you can either buy it, or buy the cartridge and put it into a pen it fits into. But if you’re going to mooch other people’s pens, don’t be disappointed when you get the BIC.

BugCo. BugBox: Cricket convenience, or killer death evil bad? An objective review.

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I have some pet toads. I like feeding them, but I’ve been travelling a considerable distance for store-bought crickets. I did a search for closer pet supply stores, and found one with an interesting product: BugCo.’s BugBox.

It’s a neat little thing. It was actually stored among the merchandise, but it was a small box of 25-30 crickets with a bit of “wafoo” in the box, which is apparently a proprietary cricket feed that keeps them sustained while in their packaging, and pre-gutloaded, making them ready for consumption by reptiles. Yes, the crickets were live.

I decided to give the product a try. The box of 25-30 only set me back $2.99 plus tax, which was okay considering that I was paying 10 cents a cricket at the other place, and those ones were plainly starved. When I would place the loose crickets in the keeper, they’d go for the Fluker’s feed as though they hadn’t eaten for days. On the other hand, the crickets in the BugBox seemed content. I had placed some of the Fluker’s High Calcium Cricket Diet and Fluker’s Cricket Quencher that I had on hand into the BugBox (I didn’t know what “wafoo” was, so I wanted to be sure they were well-fed). The crickets in the BugBox didn’t seem nearly as hungry.

The BugBox has a perforated pattern on the side designated as a “Pencil Punch Out” and next to it were the simple instructions to “Place in Vivarium”, which suggests to me that once the opening was made, the crickets would dispense themselves. I decided to give it a try.

It didn’t take a couple toads long to find out what was going on, and they went right up to the opening of the box. One of them (named Big Buf) would eat the crickets just as they came out of the container. Another one (named Herbert) was hiding somewhere in the vivarium, so with Big Buf eating them as they were coming out, there was little chance that Herbert would get any. So I opened a side of the box and shaked some crickets out. As crickets often do when dispensed in such a manner, some of them looked for hiding spots, so they’d probably come out again at a later point, effectively dispensing themselves at a time of their choice.

I actually expected to find some dead crickets in the BugBox when I opened it to check after the live ones were out. I had found an exoskeleton, which was apparently the result of shedding, which is something that crickets do. Aside from that, I didn’t see any sign of crickets having died in the packaging.

I decided to try to find out just what “wafoo” was, but after a Google search, I didn’t find an explanation. I’d like to know what it is, considering that what goes into the feeder crickets I take home in turn goes into my toads. If I were to know about it’s nutritional content, that would be okay.

What I found was that not everyone had the same experience with the BugBox that I did. Some complained that crickets were starving and/or eating each other. This was odd, was there wafoo in the box, or not? Some complained that some of the crickets died in the box. Personally, I think this may be a sign of carelessness on the part of the retailer rather than a fault with the product itself, which some reviewers apparently could have likened to some sort of buggy-Auschwitz. Sometimes, in spite of efforts to ensure otherwise, feeder crickets do die. This is true whether they come in the BugBox or are purchased in bulk. Yes, crickets can die in the BugBox, and it’s much more likely to occur when sitting on a store shelf for a while.

As far as the dichotomy mentioned in the title is concerned, the BugBox is certainly a cricket convenience. I’d think that pet supply clerks would prefer it, considering how time-consuming and poorly-rewarding it would be to spend a significant amount of time counting crickets into small plastic bags with bits of egg carton. I know that if I had a degree in English, Psychology or Philosophy, I’d want to do something different for a living. With the BugBox, the clerk can spend more time with the kittens and puppies, and I can pick up some crickets without worrying about whether the shipment of fresh crickets actually didn’t come in, or the clerk is just making an excuse because she doesn’t want to count them again.

That is, when the BugBox is in stock.

Score: 8/10

I wouldn’t mind giving the BugBox a score of 9/10, but there is something that bothers me about it just a little. I still don’t know what exactly wafoo is, or what it’s nutritional value may be. Other than that, it’s an excellent product, but I’d be a little concerned about buying it from pet supply stores that aren’t so negligent.

Pros:

  • Seriously convenient
  • Crickets are already fed
  • A bargain at $3 for 25-30 crickets, though the price may vary
  • In-box design gives crickets plenty of room without standing on each other, and there’s a plastic window to view them.

Cons:

  • Wafoo is still a mystery substance
  • Careless retailers may result in dead crickets, though to be fair, it does still happen.

#YesMenToo

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I would like to say first that it’s not my intention of taking on the #YesAllWomen hashtag. Women do deal with some serious challenges. It’s not my intent to take a shot at that. However, there are certain things that men must deal with, and I would like to bring some attention to that.

Recently, there was a mass-murder in Santa Barbara, California. The perpetrator targeted women specifically, apparently upset that he didn’t have sex. He certainly had a warped view of things. For one thing, he apparently had an unrealistic perspective of the male-female relationship, coupled with a sense of entitlement.

He also spent hours a day playing World of Warcraft, so he was complaining about not getting something he wanted, while apparently doing little to actually obtain it. This kind of sense of entitlement isn’t anything that’s new, though it’s unusual in that it’s taken to this extreme. I could go on about how this indicates the kind of wrong thinking that’s apparently gaining momentum in America. However, that’s a different topic.

There are certain things that men do have to deal with.

For one thing, there is the perpetuation of the idea that sex is something that men must always be preoccupied with. Men feed into this notion too, and the popular idea is that if a man doesn’t have a stronger libido, then he must be less of a man somehow. You’ve probably heard that men think about sex once every thirty seconds. This is statistically inaccurate, but you’ll find it hard to find the man who admits that he doesn’t obsess over sex that much. If men were that preoccupied with sex, how would most of us function in society?

As I see it, sexual desire is a universal human trait, and can be healthy, depending on how it’s expressed. However, the notion that men must obsess over sex every waking moment of our lives doesn’t do men any favors. I do have aspirations, and I prefer to be remembered for what I strive for and differences that I make than how much I think about sex.

It’s assumed that when men gather together, we talk primarily about women and our sexual exploits, and there is an assumption that, if left to our own devices, we’d spend hours a day looking at pornography on the internet. This doesn’t paint of picture of our gender as being productive and intellectually engaged, but neither does the notion that men are constantly sexually-obsessed.

I would also like to point out that, often, men are judged by physical appearance instead of what else we have to offer. The popular notion is that men focus on function over form, and while this is generally true, it’s because of this that this is frequently overlooked.

Sometimes, men with certain physical characteristics are favored for female attraction over those without them. This girl I knew in high school (that I was interested in) had a poster of Brendan Fraser in her bedroom. He would be the guy known for playing the role of Tarzan and George of the Jungle, among other things. Women would generally prefer to have a poster like that in their bedrooms (though their spouses might object to it). As a skinny teenager with acne, there was little more I could do than accept the fact that I was in competition with other members of the male gender for the sexual attention of women, even as the media instilled in young women unrealistic expectations of male characteristics.

Some women prefer certain characteristics in men, and many of these are physical characteristics. What could I do to get the attention of women other than attempt to live up to their expectations?

It’s expected of men to be in competition with other men, and women seem more attracted to men who butt heads with other men. How far would a man get complaining that we still live in an age where men compete with other men? After all, women are usually more drawn to men that they feel can protect them, and a man that just complains is probably complaining about a game that he’s losing.

Sometimes a person looks for certain characteristics in a potential suitor. Sometimes a person prefers some characteristics over others, some of them physical. This is often called an indication of a person’s tastes.

Do I mean to say that women are unfair to men? Sometimes, they are. People sometimes have a double-standard toward other people. For example, there is a problem with domestic violence against men. Little about it is done, because men are typically viewed as being on the administering end of the domestic violence problem, and when someone behaves violently against men, it’s expected of him to be macho and “take it.”

Some men have a conviction against committing acts of violence against women, and when such a man is the recipient of spousal abuse, there is little he could do about it. And because he’s a man, he can expect little sympathy from either women or men.

The American legal system has an overwhelming bias favoring women in domestic disputes. This is also the case when it comes to sexual crimes; it’s typically assumed that the man is at fault. This problem is magnified by the fact that, when it comes to sexual crimes, people are prone to assuming the worst in other people, and thus a mere allegation is sufficient to heavily damage some people’s lives. Because of this, some people attempt to get revenge on other people by accusing them of committing a sexual crime. And when the person issuing the allegation is a woman, a man who is on the receiving end of it is in for the battle of his life.

There are other challenges that men face, but these are a few of the big ones. Many view it as being “the way things are”, and because of this, many cope with life facing these conditions. There are certain things that men have to deal with, and deal with them, we do.

Why I care about Benghazi, and you should too

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The American left likes to imagine that Joe and Jane Q. Public does not actually care about the attack at Benghazi on September 11, 2012. However, I do, and so should you. And I’ll tell you why.

Because, quite simply, how they handled the attack says something about the Democratic party’s life culture.

Obviously, the Democrat’s life culture is not that great to begin with. They are typically opposed to traditional values that strengthen families, which in turn strengthen societies. What’s more, they are also predisposed to a failure to acknowledge an unborn child as a human life, thereby indirectly denying that the child can partake in the outstanding human potential. But now, if the allegations are correct, they’re willing to throw 4 freshly-killed Americans, including an ambassador, under the bus for better PR in an election year.

Would those be the kind of people you want running your schools, managing your health care, regulating any business you plan on beginning, writing the laws to be enforced by abusive law officers, and telling you how to live your life?

Obviously, the answer should be a loud, resounding “NO.”

The fact is, Americans overwhelmingly vote Republican when it is obvious to them that there is instability on a global scale. This is because Republicans are generally viewed as more hawkish, stronger in terms of military strength. People will vote for someone like that if they view such qualities as beneficial for their security. What’s more, Republicans are known for possessing a strong sense of justice. Obviously, it’s easier to justify “policing the world” if it means that evil-doers don’t get what they want.

This being the case, it would seem like a more practical choice for the Democratic party to portray the Benghazi attack as an isolated incident, not an indication of dangerous world conditions. While this would be expected on their part, they took it further by suggesting that the incident was an escalation of a protest that turned violent due to a YouTube video deemed offensive to Muslims, and responded by having the video producer put in jail. This in spite of the evidence that the attack on Benghazi was a pre-planned attack!

This adds another frightening aspect to the Benghazi matter: the Democratic party would be willing to throw an American citizen that was exercising his protected free speech under the bus along with those four fresh corpses! If the Democratic party was willing to sacrifice four Americans abroad including a diplomat for their own image, what chance would an ordinary citizen stand? And yet, they’ve already done that!

Let’s get real here: the world is a dangerous place. Ideally, the people who are in charge should be striving to protect citizens, not to keep them ignorant of what’s going on in the world, and certainly not sacrificing them to maintain that ignorance.

How are Democrats handling this? By calling it a conspiracy theory. They don’t want you or anyone else to look into it! What’s apparent is that their value of American life plummets when those lives jeopardize their political careers.

If the Benghazi matter wasn’t so potentially damaging to the Democratic image, Democrats themselves wouldn’t be so afraid that it will be thoroughly investigated. But they are. Because of this, I’m even more interested in what an investigation will find.

Until now, what the Benghazi incident has revealed about Democratic values has been very interesting, and I suspect that there will be more to come.