Cerebrate Good Times

I have a theory about how men and women communicate. As with all such topics, this is probably just something that might apply in general across a population, and may not necessarily be true for one individual man or woman (assuming there’s any truth her at all). But here goes. As we go throughout our days and weeks, we build up a reservoir of things that we would like to share with other people. This builds up like a balloon inflating, with the pressure increasing. For women there is no escape from the pressure except to share it with someone. If they are able to share more frequently, less has built up; if it’s been a while since they have talked with someone, there’s a lot more to deal with. Men, on the other hand, are leaky balloons. If time goes on and they don’t share something, it leaks out and is eventually replaced with other things. So there’s a constant influx of incoming and outgoing things as with women, but the balloon stays more or less the same size. The pressu...

Okay, I tried telling this to a few people, but nobody really cared. So I'm using my blog to talk about it. Caveat qui legit. First of all, the subject of the Flood has always fascinated me. Where did all the water come from? How many animals were on the ark, and how did eight people clean up after all of them? Well, I don't know about the poop scooping, but we might be a little closer to answering the first question. I had a geology teacher at BYU who was LDS and accepted the Flood as a historical event. But he didn't think that the whole Earth was covered at once. Personally, I've felt that it was all covered, but wondered at the mechanism. I think God is the master scientist and created the laws of the universe, and obeys those laws, even though we don't yet have a full understanding. (And if you think mankind understands everything about the natural world, try googling "grand unified theory." That's why I've never had a problem reconci...

Admit it, you know this is true.

We all tend to hold our personal beliefs close, and we defend them fiercely in the face of detractors. We know that, however ridiculous they might seem on the surface, they play an important part in making us who we are. These intensely personal views give us strength of character and form the basis by which we make our decisions. I am, of course, referring to cold remedies/prevention. Seriously, people really have deeply held beliefs about how to avoid or treat a cold, and they will preach their cure as devoutly as any missionary. My problem with these cures is that it's not possible for me to know how things would have gone without their echinacea and zinc cookies; it would take a large controlled study to evaluate their effectiveness. Over the years I have tried zinc lozenges, nasal rinses, vitamins, and herbal supplements. And I'm not saying they don't work. What I am saying is that I'm lazy, and I'm going to get better eventually regardless.

Every business has one place where the path through is narrow, and for some reason people tend to congregate there to talk, like a blood clot. It always seems to happen when you’re in a hurry and need to get through. If you dislodge the clot, it causes a stroke, by which I mean a bunch of nasty glares.

Most people have probably heard of a miner’s canary. It was a bird that died to warn miners of poisonous gas. I like to think there are common examples of this principle in our lives today. At my college job as a cashier, I paid close attention to that one kid who was a total slacker. I figured that he would be the first one to get fired, so as long as I was a better employee than he was, I figured I was safe. Driving is the same way. We all had that one friend in high school who thought he was in a police chase every time he got behind the wheel. As long as he hadn’t died, I figured my own driving was probably okay. And then there’s the guy we all know who eats two big macs for lunch every day. When he dies and is buried in his piano crate, I’ll give up the fast food. What other miner’s canaries are there?

They say you shouldn't eat raw eggs because there's a potential for salmonella poisoning. But think about how many people eat raw cookie dough by the pint. I'm sure someone started that guideline in order to avoid being sued, but have you ever known anyone who has gotten sick from raw eggs? I certainly don't. In fact, I'm pretty sure you stand a better chance of food poisoning from random produce items, given recent food recalls. On the advice of my attorney, I should state here that I'm not that I'm endorsing the consumption of raw eggs.

I have a feeling that however much we deny it, we all have secret prejudices. It might be gender or race, or it might just be short people or balding men with combovers. Consider your opinions of people, and see if there might be a pattern based on an identifiable characteristic. Whether you think women are bad drivers or people with southern accents are stupid, there's probably some unjustified opinion you have of someone. And I think identifying it is the first step toward eliminating it (or at least harnessing it for your own amusement).

What is it about the weather that makes it seem like a living being? We had had some relatively warm temperatures recently, including rain, that were finally getting rid of the ugly black "road snow," and some of us were starting to think ahead to spring. Then BAM! We get hit with more snow. Somehow it seems more cruel than if it had just been snowing constantly for the past few weeks.

Warning: This post contains quasi-political material, and may be considered inappropriate for those with the attention span of a 13-year-old. I have been worried for some time that our country is becoming more socialist (I’m not going to blame a particular party, though, because both sides have contributed to the problem). It’s pretty obvious that people are expecting more and more intervention from the government in their everyday lives (and yes, I did spend my $900 stimulus check). At this point we could depart for a tangential discussion of welfare-statism and the downfall of Rome , but I’d rather talk about human nature in general. People are lazy. I know this because I’m a person and, being lazy, I assume most other people are lazy too. Ha. But seriously, I believe the main reason people work hard is to get rich. All those backyard inventors have a dream that someday they’ll perfect the self-microwaving dinner and become an instant millionaire. Now, a socialist government ...

I’ve never been particularly athletic, but this summer I started running on a reasonably consistent basis. As the summer has worn on, I have developed a sneaking suspicion that cyclists and runners don’t get along. I imagine the cyclists are thinking “Out of the way, slow-poke! Get yourself some wheels and travel like a civilized person!” And, in response, the runners are thinking “I don’t need some stinking bike that costs as much as a car to get my exercise! Nice helmet, poindexter!” Am I imagining things again?

I have this fascination with obscure and insanely specific aspect of human nature. For example, in the morning it seems like the cars in the parking lot are all parked pretty well. Then, after everyone has come back from lunch, a lot of cars are having trouble staying in the lines. My theory is that people are always late coming back from lunch. But lots of people are late coming in the morning, too, so I don’t know if that makes any sense.

I am a big fan of the Olympics, and (yawn) I have been staying up late to watch them. Here are a few random thoughts which I will not attempt to link together in any coherent fashion: Gymnastics is really cool to watch, but there are a few problems. First, in some countries (read: China ) they take these kids from their homes at the age of 3 to train, and they see their families maybe once a year. No medal is worth that. Also, the scores are all based on deductions, so gymnasts probably have some crazy inferiority complexes. If they gave points for doing cool things instead of starting off perfect and deducting, it might ease a little of the pressure. Also, I'm insanely jealous of the guys who can compete on the rings, which is the hardest athletic demonstration I can imagine. There are far too many swimming events. Just drop the athletes into the ocean and give a medal to the last one still afloat. Now that’s good television. Bronze medals seem lame. The medals should be p...

There have been a few news articles recently about how running slows the aging process. The articles cite a study of runners conducted over a period of more than 20 years and talks about blah blah a healthier heart, yadda yadda lower death rate, and so on. They’ve reached the right conclusion, but for the wrong reason. Remember our old friend Einstein? Ever heard of a little thing called the Theory of Relativity? That theory states that time slows at greater speed. So, logically, the more time you spend running, the slower time will pass for you, and therefore the slower you will age. End of story. (Okay, so this is totally bogus. You have to be approaching the speed of light for this to work, and the earth, solar system, and galaxy are hurtling through the cosmos at great speed anyway. Not to mention the fact that we all spend much more time in cars than running, traveling at a much faster speed. But that still won’t stop someone in Hollywood from making an idiotic movie utilizing ...

You know how new parents stereotypically freak out over every little thing, and then by the time child #5 rolls around they’re like, “Eh. If it doesn’t kill him, it’s okay”? Well, it turns out doctors are the same way. Our pediatrician is fresh out of med school, and I imagine that it’s tempting to over-diagnose things early on in your practice. Every time we took our baby in, he though we needed to check him for jaundice (the lights in their exam rooms were yellowish), and as far as I know, the tests never showed anything. The last time we took him in was for a persistent cough, and the doctor was hard pressed to decide between asthma and pneumonia. Then there’s our family doctor. Every time I go in to him he tells me I just have a virus and will have to wait it out. I pretty much have to be missing limbs before he seems worried. I can’t blame him. He’s a little older, so by now he probably rarely sees challenges, and the run-of-the-mill stuff bores him. I’d be the same way. Has...

Every day I read a news headline that says “Oil Prices Rise…” and then just adds some random words at the end. Today’s headline is “Crude Oil Rises to Record on Speculation Israel May Attack Iran .” Another one I often see is something about the weakening dollar driving up prices or some terrorist attack in Nigeria . I know that when you analyze things it makes perfect sense economically, but the average person just sees some random world event driving prices up. One of these days I’m going to see something like “Butterfly Flaps Wings, Oil Reaches Record Price” or “Saudi King Has Cancer, Raises Price of Crude to Fund Treatment.” I guess the point is that this is one headline we no longer need, because it's obvious that prices are rising every day. It’s like saying “Turmoil Engulfs Middle East” or “Japan Is Weird.” It’s just not news anymore.

If you think women and men are really the same, please see the following excerpt from a recent chat with my friend Nathan . me : Well, we don't all have to have the same thing, do we? Personally, I prefer grilled California condor. nathan : I like their eggs. me : They make great omelets. nathan : Who doesn't enjoy a good condor omelet? me : Nobody, that's who. Condor isn't quite as tender as dodo, though. nathan : Have you ever had Mastodon before? That's good eatin'. me : True, if you can get someone to pick out the hairs. nathan : But if you can get some of that milk, you're set. me : True dat. This is a conversation that I can't imagine two women ever having, and it makes me proud to be a man. nathan : Yes. Grrr. Can you really see two women having this conversation? [Ladies, try to find a portion of an online chat that could just as easily be taking place between two men. I will post the winning entry as a rebuttal.]

There's something that's been bothering me lately. Many of us think that "the world is full of stupid people," as the song goes. We are convinced that the majority of those around us are morons. And yet, statistically speaking, there is probably an overlap, which means that some of us who think that way are in the stupid majority. I mean, if 60% of people think that 90% of the world is stupid, some of those 60% must be included. Ipso fact o. (I just threw that Latin in there to try to convince myself that I'm not part of the 90%.)

I guess it's time for another post harping on scientists. Once again I must say the I love science and those who every day work hard to make our lives better. But there's a little too much optimism sometimes about certain developments. Maybe it's mostly the fault of the media; in fact, that seems much more likely. Anyway, on the Popular Science website I ran across an article from 2001 that contained the statement, "[hydrogen] fuel cell cars won't be out until at least 2004." I just had to stop and laugh, since we've now all but abandoned the idea of hydrogen fuel cells. I'm sure things like that happen because as time goes on we find better options which keep such predictions from coming true. But at the same time it's tempting to become some sort of crazy conspiracy theorist going on about "the man" perpetuating the energy crisis.

To me, blogs seem almost like a new kind of life form. They are like different members of a species, going through similar stages of development, interacting occasionally with one another, and even reproducing in a way. Think about all the blogs you have read. They start with a post that says something to the effect of, “Here I am, world. I’m starting a blog .” Then there’s the inevitable post(s) about pet peeves and bad drivers. The sad thing is that some blogs die right there, with half a dozen posts, suffering from Sudden Blog Death Syndrome. Those that survive often develop further into a daily account of life, including pictures of special people and events, or whatever someone felt like pointing a camera at (“Look! It’s a brown dog!”). These are interspersed with book and movie reviews, and observations about the world at large. And the truly special ones get all metaphysical and blog about blogging...