How to Wrestle with Technology's Disturbing Philosophical Implications
I didn’t live in Phoenix when I wrote this. Now I do, and I have a greater understanding of what a society run by retirees would be like. Living forever might sound nice, but be aware, you will spend that eternity eating dinner at 4:30 PM.
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How to Soothe Hurt Feelings
This one’s based on a real conversation, one in which I was in the wrong. Working at a theme park, you get really familiar with hand sanitizer. I know a lot of people don’t like the stuff, but I suggest you spend a work day touching things that have been touched by thousands of strangers in just the last hour. You will learn to appreciate hand sanitizer.
While I was working there, stories began to surface that the alcohol in some sanitizers could be absorbed through the skin and affect the user as if they’d been drinking. I am skeptical, but the possibility did nothing to curb any of my coworkers’ use of the stuff.
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How to Explain How You Did It
For the record, the items MacraMayhem carries on his back are two giant knitting needles and a crochet hook. I considered having knitting needles come out of the backs of his wrists like Wolverine’s claws, but that would have been genuinely menacing, and for one of my villains, that is unacceptable.
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How to Share Your Knowledge
The Pepper’s Ghost illusion was originally used by charlatans to make people think they were looking at the dead, brought back as ghosts, which don’t exist. Now charlatans use the Pepper’s Ghost illusion to make people think they’re looking at the dead, brought back as 3D holographic projections, WHICH ALSO DON’T EXIST!
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How to Be Gracious in Defeat
When we were kids, my younger brother developed a diabolical strategy for winning at Monopoly. If I asked if he wanted to play, he’d say yes, but only if I would set up the board. I’d carefully count out $1500 per player in various denominations and organize the deeds so that the banker (me) would have an easier time later on.
When the game was ready, my brother would look at the board, say, “You know what? Naw. I don’t feel like it.” Then he’d go outside.
Yeah, technically we didn’t play the game, but I can tell you, as I sat there, putting all of the bills away, I didn’t feel like a winner.
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How to React When Someone Tells You What They Would Have Done
In my experience, most of the time, when someone says, “Well, if it’d been me, I woulda . . .” they should be saying, “Well, based on the limited information I have, sitting here, safely removed from any consequences, I like to think that in that situation I woulda . . .”
Ninety-nine percent of the time they’re just bragging about what a badass they imagine themselves to be.
One of the few exceptions to this that leaps to mind is a comic I knew a long time ago who was driving stoned, and rear-ended someone on the way to a gig. They guy he rear-ended was cool about it and just exchanged insurance information without calling the cops or mentioning the still-lit joint in the comedian’s ashtray.
Everyone who heard the story agreed that the guy had been very kind. The comedian who rear-ended him agreed, and said if it’d been him who got rear-ended he’d have immediately faked a whiplash injury and threatened to call the cops unless the guy forked over a huge amount of money as quickly as he could get to an ATM.
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How to Help Someone Prepare for a Job Interview
The Christmas-themed tie is the most useless gift I can think of. Even if you find the rare one that an adult would actually want to wear, and you give it to someone who dresses formally and would be of a mind to put on a Christmas-themed tie, if you give it to them for Christmas, they won’t have any rational opportunity to wear it for at least 11 months.
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