The Life Experience ~ Summer '08

[bloodyrosemccoy]

American Business Women's Day
Autumnal Equinox
Fall Begins Northern Hemisphere
Spring Begins Southern Hemisphere
Dear Diary Day
Elephant Appreciation Day
Family Day - A Day To Eat Dinner With Your Children
Hobbit Day
Long Count Day
Mabon (Wiccan)
Anniversary - Emancipation Proclamation
Anniversary - Ice Cream Cone Birthday
Independence Day (Mali)

 

What I Learned This Summer:

 

• I am so short my feet don’t touch the ground even when I’m standing up.
• “A quillow is a quilt with an attached pocket into which the whole blanket can be folded, thus making a pillow.” – Wikipedia. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
• It really, really sucks to be a penguin.
• Magnesium burns oxygen in water like a normal fire burns oxygen in air. Magnesium burns water.
• If one of the keys on your keyboard pops off and you lose half of the little plastic scissor-lift underneath it, the computer companies will try to charge you $150 to send in your whole damn computer for repair.
• If you are clever and buy a replacement keyboard on ebay instead, that little plastic ditzel will still run you $25.
• The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 was a council in the Catholic Church that worked out some interesting doctrines, including the one saying that the Eucharist is sacred and that Jews were pariahs who had to pay taxes to even exist—which wound up being in a more miserable state than people who didn’t need to pay taxes for the privilege of being alive. These two items turned out to be related as accusations of Jews’ plotting to desecrate the Magic Jesus Cracker became handy ways for the upper-echelon Catholics to convince unruly mobs to kill all the Jews.
• People still think the Eucharist is made of Jesus and magic.
• One of Superman’s early powers was apparently the ability to PUNCH LASERS. And no, I don’t mean that he punched the gun that makes the laser—I mean he punched the actual LASER. And he didn’t just hit that thing once, oh no: he beat the shit out of it. Had that laser begging for its momma. I can think of a number of times this would have come in handy in later stories, but after the first time he did it I haven’t seen him use this tremendous power again. Which is a damn shame.
• The guy who does that “In the criminal justice system” voiceover for all the Law’n’Order shows actually has a name, and it is a great one: Steven Zirnkilton.
• I already knew about His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, but I didn’t realize he was such a badass that people routinely reserved places in theaters and in restaurants.
• Octopuses don’t have eight arms or eight legs—they have six arms and two legs!
• The scars the Slab of Slob Movie!Joker has on his face have a name: it’s called the Glasgow Smile.
• Much as dirt is a product of worms, the fine sand on beautiful tropical beaches is a result of parrot fish’s ability to bite through rock. Eww.
• People seem to believe that your job is detached from your morals. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve refused to pursue a job recommendation due to moral reasons and been told, “Well, so what if you’re opposed to it? It’s a job.” And people wonder how war crimes happen.
• Riffing on a performance a la MST3k is probably as old as performance art itself, so it comes as no surprise that its movie history stretches back to the beginning of cinema: silent film theatergoers often had to put up with smart alecks in the audience supplying their own version of the dialogue. And one such smart aleck was young film and vaudeville buff Mel Blanc.
• Community college is pants.
• APPARENTLY Effexor shows up as PCP on a drug test. I think I’d heard this before, but I had forgotten until I FAILED MY DRUG TEST.
• [This one is really gross. Don’t read it. I’m serious.] Apparently breast implants can CALCIFY INTO ROCKLIKE LUMPS WHAT THE HOLY GODDAMN HELL. So you can actually fracture a boob. Oh my god how disgusting is that?
• I am actually allergic to smokers!
• Office jobs really are as soulless as everyone says.
• Kimonos have a very simple and cool design when you’re sewing them, even if you’re not actually sewing a real kimono.
• Not even my family is entirely non-confrontational.
• California drivers really are worse than Utah drivers.
• Sea cucumbers are actually very soft and cuddly when they are not barfing their guts all over you.

Comments

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

The separation of self from authority is really a fascinating one. People will very often do what they're told by someone who seems to be in charge, even if it's against their moral judgment - see the electric shock experiment.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

That would be the Milgram experiment.

See also the Stanford prison experiment for further evidence of how easy it is to get normal people to be absolutely horrible to others.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

It's just so insidious. I found myself starting to wonder what the hell I was doing applying my ideals to real life, since clearly that's just silly. There's group/mob mentality combined with the tendency to go along with authority working pretty hard. You always assume the other person knows what they are talking about.

Of course, the experiments themselves might skew it for me: apparently "For SCIENCE!" is the code phrase that opens my Secret Access Panel. I'll do anything For SCIENCE! So asking me to do something as part of an experiment may not work.