How to Give Your Opinion
Some things are so terrible that they must exist.
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
How to Encourage a Friend to get a Prostate Exam
A doctor did once tell me that if nothing else kills a man, eventually prostate cancer will. I understand what he was trying to say, but logically that’s true of anything that can kill you. If nothing else kills you, something finally will. Even if you live for eons, virtually immortal, eventually the one thing that can kill you will happen. It may be by accident, a deliberate act of an enemy, or self-inflicted after countless centuries of boredom and ennui. One way or the other, the one thing that can kill you will kill you. It’s destiny.
Just a cheery thought to liven up your day.
The idea of punishing a doctor by making him give you prostate exams reminded me of this clip from an old Magnum PI. I only ever saw this episode once, when I was a child, but I remembered it perfectly. This is what my brain retains instead of people’s names.
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
How to Share a Great Discovery
This comic is based directly on something my father did.
Shortly after I got engaged to Missy, Dad noted that she had an Irish sounding last name. His wife was of Irish decent. Dad smiled and asked, “Do you find that Irish women are really argumentative?”
His wife started yelling at him, “Don’t you start that again. We Irish women are not argumentative!” She went on quite a while. Dad just smiled the entire time.
They were married for many years. Notice I didn’t say “happily married,” just “married.”
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
How to Tell the Difference Between a Metaphor, a Simile, and an Analogy
I wrote this comic in an attempt to teach myself the difference between a simile, a metaphor, and an analogy. It worked, as long as I read it again to remind myself on a regular basis. So, really, it didn’t work.
In one of my books I wrote, “I have no use for similes or metaphors. Similes are a smokescreen. Metaphors are like camouflage paint, designed to make one thing look like something else.”
It made my editor laugh out loud. I suspect she’s the only one.
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
How to Succeed on Your Own Terms
My understanding is that the Myers-Briggs personality test has been thoroughly discredited. Even though the test may not work as originally intended, I think administering it still has merit as a way to measure either gullibility, or the subject’s willingness to go along with something they think is pointless in hopes of not rocking the boat. Either way, that’s valuable information to highly paid business consultants, the very people who often still use the test.
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
How to Handle Being "Thrown Under the Bus"
People still say “I didn’t come here to make friends” on reality shows. Heck, on Ink Master someone says it almost every week. They have a right to be a jerk, but at least they could be original about it.
That’s my main problem with reality TV. One of the chief reasons the genre took off was that writers, actors, and set designers cost money. Even a modest hour-long TV show costs something like a million dollars per episode too produce. Ideally, reality TV doesn’t need writers, actors, or set designers. Pointing a camera at people doing something interesting is cheap.
But in time reality got boring, so they started trying to “improve” on reality, which required the “real people” to think up interesting situations then “sell” those situations on camera; activities that are usually called “writing,” and “acting.” And a lot of the shows feature people renovating and decorating houses, AKA “designing the set.”
So now, when you watch a reality show, you usually get formulaic, unimaginative fiction, performed by amateurs.
If you think I’m being overly harsh, go watch HGTV. Odds are, you’ll see two people overacting to a “problem” they solve five seconds after the commercial break, then proudly unveiling their innovative kitchen design, featuring subway tiles and white shaker cabinets.
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
How to Turn to Your Friends for Advice
I’ve always suspected that if a woman went back to a guy’s place and found a round bed with mirrors on the ceiling, she would consider it an instant deal breaker.
Conversely, I think if a man when back to a woman’s place and found a round bed and ceiling mirrors, he’d be cool with it. To be fair, most guys could find a bare concrete floor and a stolen park bench as the only furniture and they’d be cool with it.
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
How to Talk Through a Troubling Experience
Sadly, I find that all too often in life Plan B is just “Plan A, but harder.”
The story I tell in the comic about the Englishman spanking his 14 year old in public is true. I saw it in the grocery department at Target.
Think about that for a second, I saw a family of British tourists in the grocery department at Target, and that wasn’t the weird part. I never saw that in Seattle, and I haven’t seen it yet in Phoenix. But in Orlando, you get used to seeing international tourists in places you wouldn’t expect. If you’ve never seen a huge group of Brazilian teenagers wearing identical t-shirts swarming through the outlet mall, it’s an experience you don’t ever forget.
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
How to Survive the Dreaded Post-Holiday Phone Call
My father and I express how much we care for each other by sparing each other the discomfort of ever talking about our feelings.
What do we talk about instead? Anything. Literally, anything we can think of that isn’t our feelings.
The last time we spoke, we spent ten minutes talking about the innovative experimental sail Jacques Cousteau attached to one of his ship in the ’80s.
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).