In other words, a person who has to use body spray should either shower or wash his clothes.
There is something subtle in the scent of clean skin, since in order to know what flavor of body wash a person uses, one would have to obtain a closeness that can only be described as “intimate.” I consider this a good thing, as there are very, very few individuals that I actually want to smell, not to mention share that level of intimacy. And maybe that’s why I never really understood perfumes, colognes, or body sprays. Sure, a little extra subtlety is fine so long as that scent is still only perceived at an intimate level. But the moment I smell someone’s body spray or perfume from across the room, the only thing I can think about is wondering what other disturbing scents are being masked.
In other words, a person who has to use body spray should either shower or wash his clothes.
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Someone somewhere long ago started this old wives’ tale and it stuck around well through my childhood. Mind you, this wasn’t gorging ourselves and then swimming laps. This was scarfing a burger and chips, then making a whirlpool in the neighbor’s four-footer.
The adults convinced us we were going to get cramps and drown unless we waited a full fifteen minutes for our food to digest. In hindsight, it seems pretty ridiculous. I don’t know who started the rumor, but there needs to be some kind of accountability here. I demand satisfaction for all those lost hours of Marco Polo! I think I measure comedies more objectively than any other genre of film; my standard of quality is based on how often the movie makes me laugh. If I laugh out loud more than a couple times, I generally consider that particular comedic film a success. Granted, despite trying to be objective, there are unavoidable subjective elements that arise while using this method—my current mood, my fellow audience members, etc. But this objective standard works for comedies far better than using a similar standard would for other genres. Could I judge a scary movie based on how many times I jump? Or a tear-jerker based on how many tears I jerk? I think not. That would result in giving the best scores to the most manipulative films of those genres.
But laughing out loud in a comedy? That requires much more finesse from the source material than a typical jump-scare. Whenever I hear someone say, “I’ll try,” I cannot help but hear it as a preemptive excuse for failure. So if it doesn’t happen, the person can say “Well, I said I would try.” Sure, there are occasional situations where the feat may exceed the person’s capabilities. And maybe in those instances, it would be better to say, “I will do my best.”
But when it’s about making a commitment that only requires following through? Truly, there is no “try.” Either do it or don’t. It is extremely annoying to hear someone hem around making a commitment just because he does not want to say “Thanks, but I won’t be able to make it.” Let your “yes” mean“yes” and your “no” mean “no.” Period. This is the kind of stuff I love; it fuels my inner-skeptic. There is empirical evidence indicating that wine snobs don’t know what they are talking about.* Hilarious.
Apparently, the only thing that helps people perceive one wine better than another is the price. In other words, if you tell people that the cheap wine is expensive and vice versa, they will actually enjoy the cheap wine more. Even more surprising, the “experts” were also fooled when performing blind tastes. There is even an instance of giving different scores to the same wine. Some practical applications we can take from this: 1) We should not put much value on the opinions of so-called wine experts. 2) If hosting a dinner party, casually imply that the vintage was very expensive. Your guests will enjoy it more. 3) Enjoy the wine that you enjoy. Don’t listen to friends who scoff at your $9.99 Kroger Merlot. Better still, try and trick yourself into thinking that the wine you bought actually cost $99.99. It’s funny how something completely unrelated to the taste can affect one’s experience. I also read about a study where people who blind tasted coffee always preferred the one with the nice presentation over the one served in a Styrofoam cup. The coffee itself was identical, of course. Human psychology is a curious thing indeed. *Source: http://www.freakonomics.com/2010/12/16/do-more-expensive-wines-taste-better-full-transcript/ I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, but when I want some candy, I REALLY want some candy. Here are my favorites...
Raisinets: The classic fallback and a “must have” for the rare times when I attend the cinema. The sweet and chewy treat goes great with salty, buttery popcorn. Nerds Rope: A sugary rush of awesomeness in one giant rope. Crunchy, chewy, and delicious. Peanut M&Ms: ...ok, I just realized as I’m writing this post that all my favorite sweets involve a combination of sweet/savory and crunchy/chewy. Might as well throw chocolate covered pretzels on this list, along with any other salty/chocolate combination. Great, now I’m making my mouth water... Challenging convention does not mean becoming a loose cannon and doing your own thing. It means questioning why things are the way they are, digging into why we do things the way we do them. What’s stopping us from doing things a better way?
I’ve always felt that one of the worst reasons for maintaining a rule, practice, or tradition is “because we’ve always done it that way.” I see this reason used most often in organized religion, corporate bureaucracies, and the government. And if that is the best reason for maintaining the status quo, the practice should probably be scrapped altogether. A great illustration of my point is the way our society looks at the Dow Jones Industrial Average. By nearly all measures, the DJIA is a terrible indicator of our country’s economic condition. * Yet why does the media report it on an hourly basis like it’s some sort of prophetic gospel? Simple—we’ve always done it that way. * Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/03/12/174139347/episode-443-dont-believe-the-hype I can think of several instances in my life where I received a truly unsolicited compliment. To be authentically unsolicited, I think it has to come from someone who has no stake in your happiness, usually a complete stranger. This necessitates that most of these compliments will be relatively superficial, as no stranger is going to have more knowledge of you than your appearance.
While I’ve gotten unsolicited compliments on my shoes and my jacket, the best one I ever received was several years ago in church on a Sunday morning. I was by myself and singing worship, completely unaware of those around me. At the end of the service, the man in front of me turned around, said “Thank you. I really enjoyed your singing,” and walked away. I know I’m not an amazing singer, but from the way he said it, I gathered that God had used my “joyful noise” to positively impact him. I have no idea who he was or if I ever saw him again, but I will always remember his completely unsolicited compliment. I’m so tired of hearing people use faulty logic to support an argument. Take the following statements...
“ ‘Hard’ drug users almost always started with marijuana.” “Nearly all mass shooters regularly played violent video games.” These statements may be accurate, but we need to be very careful about the conclusions we infer from them. The typical reaction to the first statement is to deduce that marijuana is the “gateway drug,” leading people to use harsher narcotics. Similarly, the reaction to the second statement may be to assume that violent video games encourage shooters to their ultimate decisions. The problem with these deductions is that they are based on faulty logic. Just because two factors share a relationship does not mean that one causes the other. Try this: “Most teenagers who wear black clothes are depressed.” Would we petition stores to ban black clothing because a teenager wearing it might become depressed? Of course not. We recognize that there is a high correlation between depressed teenagers and black clothing because the type of teenager who suffers from depression is the type of teenager who would wear black clothing. The same logic applies to the first two statements. The type of person to use “hard” drugs is the type of person who would have used marijuana first. And the type of person who would commit mass shootings is the type of person who would play violent video games. In order for the original statements to indicate causality, we need to answer the questions... “What percent of marijuana users go on to use ‘hard’ drugs?” “What percent of people who play violent video games go on to commit mass shootings?” And “Are these percentages statistically significant?” These follow up questions make it a lot more difficult to support a preconceived agenda. We all need to call out faulty logic when we hear it. My new pet peeve is when movies open with narration or (even worse) boxes of text that provide exposition. Epic movies and science fiction films are most guilty of this. To me, it seems like lazy story telling. Why can’t the characters and the setting provide all the exposition through context and dialogue? Do we really need to know upfront that it’s the year 2022?
Rather, I prefer a story to start out with something exciting to grab my attention. I can figure out the details as we go along, which any well-written screenplay could easily help accomplish. |