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Wickensworth
"Pencils used to be manufactured without erasers, but they realized this was a huge mistake. But I guess that’s why pencils have erasers."

February 29, 2008

I used to think it was outrageous that two people saying something simultaneously should be grounds for a jinx. Whenever somebody jinxed me, I would be all, “What the hell, man? We said the same thing because we’re on the same page here. Why am I being punished with a fucking curse?”

I now realize that jinxing was invented because we need a game to break the tension inherent in this situation. Imagine saying “I’m thirsty!” in unison with your friend, except neither of you has the power to jinx. You would both just kind of stand there and awkwardly laugh due to how stupid your lives have suddenly become. There’s actually no graceful way out of this situation. Jinxing may sound childish, but it’s a choice between that or the two of you spontaneously making out.

Where I draw the line is the idea that now I somehow owe my friend a Coke, because I don’t. It’s like, “You’ve just pinched me and poked me—I’ve been publicly humiliated for absolutely no reason. Under no circumstances am I going to take you out for Cokes.” It’s such an insane ritual, too, because nobody in the history of jinxes has actually collected on their Coke. I probably owe about $3,000 worth of Cokes right now, and there’s no need for it. How in the hell did Coke even become involved with this bullshit?

Researching frivolous subjects on Wikipedia is a hobby of mine, so I consulted their (largely retarded) jinxing article. I didn’t find anything close to resembling an answer, but I did come across the following intriguing excerpt:

A variation experienced in Southern Massachusetts in the 1960s may not be strictly considered a “jinx,” but when two people say the same thing in unison (unplanned!), they must hook little fingers and say the following dialog: “What goes up the chimney?” “Smoke.” “May your wish and my wish never be broke!”

That’s probably the cutest thing I’ve ever read. I imagine two grown men hooking their pinkies together and excitedly breaking into this little exchange. To me this is way more positive than demanding a Coke from your friend and beating the shit out of him. It’s a chance to share a wish! The next time an acquaintance and I speak in unison, I’m going to begin reciting this routine, because it’s the perfect way to avoid any lingering awkwardness. Hopefully all my acquaintances are familiar with proper jinxing protocol from 1960s Southern Massachusetts, or else I’m going to look like a real asshole.

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February 25, 2008

One of my top dreams would be to travel across the United States and write a travelogue, which is a publishable written record of one’s travel observations. I would traipse around the US with a little bag like a modern day Felix the Cat and I would have very famous adventures. In a very special way, during the course of my journey I’d probably even discover my true spiritual identity. The problem is, if you’ve ever read a travelogue you’d notice most of them have some sort of distinguishing premise. You can’t just amble about willy-nilly—your travelogue needs a clever selling point or else nobody’s going to publish it. For many months I’ve been trying to think of an idea, but so far these are the best I’ve come up with:

  • Navigating America’s Highways Without Using MapQuest
  • 50 States, 50 Silly Hats
  • Visiting North America’s 5,629 Walgreens
  • Sled, White, & Blue: A Pilgrimage to the Finest Sledding Slopes in the United States
  • My Routine Flight to Hartord, Connecticut
  • Let’s Just See What Happens If I Travel Completely Naked
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February 22, 2008

Most of my college notebooks are filled with pages upon pages of incoherent text and doodles—markings which were not only irrelevant to the subject matter of my classes, but often irrelevant to anything that has occurred in the past 12,000 years of civilization. Today I’ll present to you a perfect example: my famous series of so-called “Postmodern Mazes.”

Postmodern Mazes are some of the most challenging mazes ever created. They are so difficult, in fact, that I’ve had to barricade them behind a jump. If you are under 18 years of age, do not attempt these mazes. If you have a heart condition, for the love of god do not attempt these mazes. If you are currently pregnant, please don’t even look at these mazes. Pregnant mothers exposed to Postmodern Mazes may give birth to an agent of darkness. Everyone else, continue along:

(Continued)

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February 20, 2008

The phrase “it’s my Friday” is thrown around a lot of times it shouldn’t be—which is any day that isn’t actually Friday. For example, oftentimes when a person has Friday off from work, on Thursday he’ll announce, “Today’s my Friday! Yayyy!” No, sir, it’s your Thursday. It’s everybody’s Thursday. The days of the week don’t slide around to satisfy your personal schedule. We would all like to stroll into work on a Tuesday morning sipping a gin and tonic and shouting, “It’s my Saturday night, motherfuckers!” But those of us who’re grounded by a little thing called the calendar know to keep our bottles of gin discreetly tucked away in our desks

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February 18, 2008

When I become elderly, I’m going to be one of the top elderly people around. That’s because I’ve carefully plotted out which hobbies and behaviors I’m going to adopt, what clothes I’m going to wear, and even what crazy unintelligible things I’m going to mutter. When most people become elderly, they don’t have any kind of game plan. They’ve spent decades preparing for retirement financially, but they’re incapable of assuming a proper elderly disposition. I’m going to avoid this trap by adhering to a very specific chronology:

Age 66: It’s time to start bird watching. If I so much as think I hear a tweet, I’m going to drop what I’m doing and find the corresponding bird, and then I’m going to stand around watching him until dark. I’ll even have a little notebook to keep track of the birds I’ve seen, a list which is going to become gradually more improbable as I descend into senility. I will claim to have spotted extremely rare birds, then birds which are extinct, then fictional species from my favorite movies, then some dinosaurs, and then finally varieties of birds which exist only in my imagination.

Age 70: On my 70th birthday, I’m going to take up bridge in a big way. It’s a complex game, but what the other elderly people around me won’t realize is that I’ll have been secretly reading up on bridge since I was like 40. I’m going to waltz over to the card table and me and my partner are going to absolutely demolish everyone while employing an insane amount of trash talk.

Age 78: You won’t believe how ornate my cane is going to be. It’ll be bejeweled, obviously, and shaped like a dragon’s head at the handle. But where my cane will really stand out will be its rosewood body, which is going to be carved with amazing battle scenes and secret messages and other cryptic flourishes. There’s also going to be a switchblade that flips out from the bottom which I’ll use to stab my detractors.

Age 82: Now it’s time to begin openly cheating at bridge. Actually, I’m going to begin cheating at everything, including board games, bocce ball, dominos, and even jigsaw puzzles. The best elderly people have elements of connivery in their personalties, because to the elderly, everything is a matter of life and death. Young people don’t understand that society’s unspoken rules don’t apply to elderly people, and neither do traffic ordinances or public intoxication laws.

Age 87: I will officially make the switch from giving out candy on Halloween to giving out handfuls of pennies. Some elderly people make the mistake of giving out pennies when they’re 84 or 85, but I think that’s a bit early. At 87, it’s impossible for others to question this sort of bizarre, erratic behavior.

Age 93: As my mobility becomes limited, I’m going to begin collecting postage stamps—massive shitloads of stamps, probably the biggest collection of all time. What’s ironic is that although the stamp is a symbol of communication, I’m going to have begun secluding myself in the attic of my house (which will be filled to the ceiling with garbage). The binoculars from my bird watching days are now going to be used to spy on my neighbors, who will have begun circulating mythical legends about my personal history—legends I’ve been secretly disseminating over the years. Gradually I will become a pariah, spoken of only in hushed tones, feared by children and adults alike—gradually I will become one of the greatest elderly people of all time.

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February 15, 2008

It pleases me when babies are compared to scientists, in the sense that they’re constantly performing little baby “experiments” with the world around them. For example, when a baby drops his rattle, the idea is that he’s merely testing how objects fall in conjunction with gravity. I enjoy this ridiculous image of a baby in a lab coat and a little baby clipboard—as if babies actually knew what the fuck they were doing and weren’t just randomly throwing shit around for their own maniacal amusement.

Babies aren’t scientists near as much as they are clowns—miniature clowns who delight in spitting up their food and falling face-first off their highchairs in a comedic fashion. Maybe babies learn indirectly from these juvenile antics, but I object to the notion that there’s any logic behind their behaviors. Try handing a baby an interesting object such as a battery, for example, and he won’t so much as glance at it. The only things he’ll try to do is either throw it across the room, preferably at your head, or he’ll attempt to swallow it and end up killing himself. This isn’t “science,” it’s just reckless tomfoolery. Their mindset is, what have we got to lose? It’s not like babies are culpable for anything. That’s probably the first and only thing a baby actually learns—that he basically has carte blanche to do whatever he wants in the supposed name of “science.” I can see right through that act, and it’s pathetic. Babies need to start growing up.

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February 12, 2008

In Wizard on Bicycle news, the Lego Wizard on my sidebar has learnt a very sneaky trick. Clicking on him will now take you to a random eKarjala post. (Keep in mind that 80% of all eKarjala posts are retarded). This brings the number of tricks my Lego Wizard can perform to a grand total of one (or two if you count the fact that he can grant wishes.)

On another topic, when you look at this photo I found of San Francisco, what does it remind you of?

Postcard Row

If you said “Full House,” you had a correct childhood. These houses are indeed featured in the introduction to that storied sitcom. In the foreground you can even see the park in which the Tanners had their little picnic, which they had the time to organize because none of them had any real jobs.

What might surprise you, and what recently inspired a 45 minute argument in my personal life, is that the Tanners were never purported to actually live in one of these houses. Consider this establishing shot of their actual house, shown at the very end of the credits:

Full House house

Note here the contradictory placement of the bay windows. Also note that their house is subsequently shown to have a flat roof facade, in contrast to the gabled roofs seen in the first photo. The fact is, those gabled roof residences constitute a San Francisco landmark known as “Postcard Row,” which is a series of 7 houses built in the iconic Painted Lady style. The Tanners didn’t live there and they didn’t know anybody who lived there and they weren’t welcome inside. The only connection the Tanners had with Postcard Row is they enjoyed having picnics nearby in an effort to trick you into thinking that’s where they lived. They should have called the show “Full of Shit House.”

The idea that the Tanners lived in Postcard Row is the most widely-circulated myth in our culture today. It’s not our fault, either, because the prominent shot of Postcard Row in the opening credits is followed by the shot of their actual residence, implying that they were one and the same. It’s sloppy editing and I’m sick of being silent about it. The question of where the Tanners actually lived is open for debate, but it certainly wasn’t Postcard Row. Probably the producers didn’t show footage of the Tanners’ actual neighborhood because they didn’t have the technology to edit out all the crack dealers.

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February 11, 2008

It’s said that the average adult needs 8 glasses of water a day. If you tied me to a chair for 24 hours and put 8 glasses of water in front of me, I’m maybe getting through 2 or 3 glasses before I become bored. Even if the only thing you fed me was saltine crackers, I simply couldn’t imbibe 8 glasses of water. The idea that the average adult needs so much water is the ravings of a fabulist.

Let’s not forget that “average adult” implies that some jackasses are actually going around drinking like 11 or 12 glasses per day. I’d just love to meet somebody who has the time to sit around drinking such an insane quantity of water. Maybe this figure is meant to include the water that’s in our food, but I wouldn’t intake 8 glasses worth of water on an all-watermelon diet. I’m not convinced I go through 8 glasses of water even when you include the water I use for showering. I don’t even think I own 8 different glasses.

When somebody tells me the average adult needs 8 glasses per water a day, I don’t have time to argue. I just respond with my own made up anecdote. I say, “The average adult writes like 20 poems per day.” Anybody can make up stupid facts. “The average adult eats a shitload of kitty litter every weekend.”

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February 5, 2008

The Q-tip package claims it’s dangerous to use Q-tips to clean your ears, but I think that’s crazy. Maybe it’s my rebellious nature, but I use them to clean my ears practically all the time. Sometimes I actually like to jam Q-tips all the way inside my ear canals and mop up cerebrospinal fluid. What do I care? I don’t need to be mothered by Unilever Corp. or by anyone else in the toiletry industry.

I’m not even sure what else you could do with a Q-tip other than scoop out nasty ear wax. I suppose I’ve occasionally used them to clean out my Nintendo cartridges, but that’s probably also violating some sort of Q-tip provision. “Please do not clean your NES cartridges with Q-tips. Doing so might result in a dangerous NES adventure. Please refrain from receiving any utility whatsoever from our product.”

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February 4, 2008

My idea to update everyday in January was a spectacular failure. Now that my promises have become less valuable than a gypsy’s, I will attempt to redress my tarnished reputation by updating more or less every weekday for an unspecified unit of time.

As a reward for lying to all of my visitors, I’ve been receiving a powerful influx of traffic. As best as I can gather, on Friday, January 25th, the version of my Internet ’96 article that’s hosted by MSU was posted by a karma-seeking reddit user, who amended a superfluous extension to the URL so as to represent a new submission. From there it appeared on such places as Fark, Gizmodo, and MetaFilter, and on Saturday the 26th it was made popular on Digg.com and received the most Diggs that day, which had evidently been the dullest 24 hours in internet history.

My MSU website is basically a dumpster baby, but because that version of the Internet ’96 article was still generating traffic, about a year ago I loaded it up with ads, including an incongruous mid-article in-text offender. The lesson here is that the best way to generate traffic is to stop creating new content and load up previously-circulated articles with unsightly advertisements. That’s what this web 2.0 bullshit is all about.

Here’s the specific traffic information for the abandoned MSU version of eKarjala:

Digg Traffic

Note the slight increase in traffic my article received from Thursday to Saturday. If you were to stack Saturday’s 183,394 unique visitors end-to-end (and I have), you could reach our Lord and back seven times—with enough people left over to form 4 different ice hockey teams, including a Zamboni driver.

A few of my other articles have been receiving some shrapnel traffic from StumbleUpon, so I’ve added a “recent comments” plugin to the sidebar, which will help draw attention to the latest person I’ve somehow insulted. Also, I’ve switched this site’s font to Verdana, since people kept calling me a “serif font fucker.” However, I’m still considering changing the font back to Times, because I get off on making my webpage look like garbage.

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