Cerebrate Good Times

I used to watch football a lot when I was in high school. (This is American football I'm talking about, of course.) I enjoyed the strategy and the brute force involved. I loved the Miami Dolphins and Dan Marino, who of course never won a Superbowl. (This was in line with my Utah Jazz fandom and the Stockton/Malone finals teams that could never get past Michael Jordan.) After my mission I never managed to get back into it. I went to BYU and occasionally watched their games, but it never became rabid fandom. These day I really dislike football. I hate what it does the the players' health, I hate the culture of violence and the enmity between rival teams, and I hate that we are so focused on it rather than dealing with more important things in our country (notwithstanding the protests during the national anthem, which I wholeheartedly support) . The whole idea of putting your team's flag in your yard or whatever is just weird to me. I mean, I like pasta, but I don't put ...

In a Todd -like move, I’ve been thinking lately about alternative energy sources, especially when it comes to powering a car. There are a lot of technologies out there which could make cars more efficient and eventually eliminate our dependence on oil. But none of these technological advances is yet ready for mass production, except for hybrid cars and, to a lesser extent, ethanol. So let’s brainstorm a bit and think of some other ways to get your car from point A to point B. We could go back to animal power, only instead of having a horse pull you along you could have a hamster running in a wheel, which would then generate electricity. Then your fuel cost is basically feeding the hamster. Of course, there are two downsides: first, the animal-rights people; and second, the hamster would probably have to run for six months straight in order to give you the power to drive out to your mailbox and back. (What? You don’t drive out to your mailbox and back?) What if we figured out a way ...

Last night I saw a musical at a high school. I must admit that my experience was somewhat colored by the fact that, generally speaking, I don’t like musicals. There are, of course, exceptions, but overall I think you’ll find that most musicals please women but not men. With a few minor changes, however, I think you could adapt most musicals to allow everyone to enjoy them. Here are a few suggestions: Remove half of the songs. Take the remaining songs and shorten them by half. In the case of the obligatory grand finale, reduce the length by two-thirds. All French accents should be replaced by a Western drawl. Replace each dance with a fistfight. Each act must contain an on-stage car or wagon chase. The chase must be set to the theme from Benny Hill. Whenever a character dies, he or she should be alive again in the next scene with the explanation “Just kidding!” More talking animals To provide motivation for the actors, the audience members should each be issued a piece of rotten fruit “...

I just had a great idea. You know how kids are famously picky when it comes to food? Well, I realized that they’re much more discriminating than the FDA apparently is, given the rash of food recalls we’ve experienced recently. So we should team up each adult inspector with a toddler, and watch the quality of food products increase. Genius!

Today I’m going to get a bit political. I usually avoid politics, except for solving the occasional worldwide problem. So if you find the topic boring, well, it’s not as if you’re paying for this. Apparently North and South Korea are again talking about the possibility of considering maybe trying to begin to reunite a little bit. This situation, however, involves several almost insurmountable problems. First and foremost, the dictator of North Korea is an idiotic narcissist who throws a significant part of his population in gulags and starves the rest, while maintaining a standing army of a million men. And what resources aren’t spent on the military are spent trying to make the rest of the world think they have nuclear weapons. Second, somebody would actually have to relinquish power in order to make two governments into one, and I don’t think rock/paper/scissors is going to be sufficient to make those decisions. Finally, it would basically mean that a country of 50 million woul...

Yesterday I spontaneously created a new movie ratings system to replace the old 1 through 4 star system (what exactly is a star worth to me?). Here are the ratings: Don’t ever see it; See it on TV later for free; Rent it; See it at the dollar theater; See a matinee; See it for full price. I think this is a much more practical system. You’re welcome.

Much of the violence in the world is done by those seeking to increase the amount of land they control. So what would happen if we just chose one world leader and put him or her in charge of the whole world? “Okay, the entire world is now your country. Will you stop trying to expand your borders now? How about you work on helping people get enough to eat instead?”

This morning in the shower I was thinking about health care. (Incidentally, I find the shower , and the bathroom in general, to be the best places to think. If anyone ever gets writer's block, they really should take a nice long shower.) People want a universal health care system, but that comes at a price. It add a socialist element to our economy, for one thing. The single guy who never goes to the doctor ends up paying some of the cost of his neighbor's children's braces. It's forcing economic equality on us all, and in a sense denying our right to keep our money for ourselves. People think it's "free," but they simply have the money taken away before they can decide how to spend it. In addition, with the government's finger in the pie even more than it is now, competition could potentially be stifled, which could result in fewer medical breakthroughs. No, the government paying for health care is not the answer. What we really need to do is stop sui...

Most people with any sort of morals have felt conflicted regarding lying in certain situations. The most obvious is when someone asks about their appearance. So today I present a guide to lying honestly. Now, this won't work with everyone. You must have some knowledge of the intelligence of the person you are dealing with, particularly in terms of vocabulary. The secret is to use words that they are unlikely to know, in order to achieve the desired result. Example 1 You have a bad cold and feel you need to call in sick. But it seems unjustified to call in if it's just a cold. You know, however, that you will not only be fairly unproductive, but you will also probably get others sick if you're at work. The solution is to call in and tell them that you have contracted a severe rhinovirus and that it should run its course in a couple of days, but you don't want to expose anobody else to it because it's highly contagious. Example 2 This example is especially for men fac...

Since I solved world hunger the other day, today I will tackle the problem of disease. First of all, I have a theory that germs (bacteria and viruses; prions seem to fit a different category) obey Darwinian rules similar to the rest of the world. That is, if you eliminate something, eventually something else will fill its niche in the environment. Think about the great advances in vaccination made in the last two centuries. We have practically eliminated polio and smallpox, and even less life-threatening illnesses such as the mumps and chicken pox. And what do we have to show for it? AIDS, Ebola, and countless flulike diseases from the Hanta Virus to West Nile. I believe that no matter how many diseases we effectively eliminate, more will take their place. Eventually we will either have to be vaccinated for hundreds of diseases, or we will have to stop vaccinating against those we assume we have eliminated, which opens the door for them to come back. This is not a comforting thought. I...