Milk, Science, and Stupidity

Friends of mine know that I have a knack for psuedo-scientific pursuits. As a child, I thought myself an inventor. When I became an adult, this pursuit manifested itself as a no-holds-barred attempt at improving life, one bad idea at a time. This usually involved a lack of safety combined with a dedicated ignorance of warning labels.

In college, I applied caulking to my hair as a permanent solution to 'bed-head'. It worked for about a month, until  my hair grew and the caulking painfully continued to do its job. Several years later, a friend and I had the great idea of merging a 'potato cannon' and the rocket launcher from the Halo series. That project never went past research & development when the 'butane combustion canisters' (read: empty Coke cans filled with lighter fluid) set his hand on fire (Sorry, Matt. I'm sure you'll regain feeling in your hand one day).

With this in mind, I endeavored --for science!-- to see how long milk would last past its expiration date. I can assure you, my motivation included none of the following:

-laziness to buy new milk
-being a cheapskate and refusing to waste milk
-having a decent story to blog about

Here's the purely accurate chart I drew:

20% Friendly

The other day I went card shopping (yes, occasionally I have to be nice). After selecting the card that met the requisite balance of snarkiness, charm and humor, I noticed this on the back of the card:

"20% post-consumer friendly."

...20% post-consumer friendly? That seemed like a poor choice of words. I can appreciate a spin on a common phrase, but this was an improvement over '20% post-consumer product'? I think not. To demonstrate why, I decided to see what '20% ________ friendly' looked like in other applications.

Do you think they're all that friendly?

'20% Homework Friendly'

"This assignment only has pictures of stick figures and dinosaurs." "But I wrote the date and my name!"

'20%  Environmentally Friendly'

"Instead of 12mpg, you'll get a full 14.4 miles per gallon!"

'20%  Reality Friendly'

Transformers 3: "I've been slamming into this entirely metal robot for several minutes without a single bruise!"

'20% Gay Friendly'

'Michelle Bachmann, 2012 "I have gay friends."

Tales of Villany: An Introduction

I working on a new project. It's called Tales of Villainy.

Extremists fascinate me. How do people who exist outside of society see themselves? How do those who perform extreme acts understand their actions? When these people become villains, they make for the most entertaining stories. Joker, not Batman, created the most compelling comic book movie. American History X. Silence of the Lambs. The Princess and the Frog.

I'm eliminating the hero altogether to tell the story of the villain. Rest assured, I don't believe myself some newfangled sociologist with a deep understanding of humanity. These stories are goofy, awkward, and (hopefully) fun.

The first Tales of Villainy tells the story of Sound Check. He was once a middle school teacher and family man. However, he's had too much of the music industry. The Black Eyed Peas. Kesha. Pitbull. He's tired of hearing the heaps of lyrical garbage being produced, and he's going to stop it.

Over the next few days, expect the first few chapters of Sound Check's story to pop up here.

Angry Birds Origins

Angry Birds: The Story.

by Monte Zerbe

Travis and Monte were on a long road trip. Travis was getting tired driving, and asked Monte to tell him a story. Monte had just pulled out his HTC Evo, and loaded up the game ‘Angry Birds’.

“Tell you a story?” Monte asked. “Alright.”

…..

Once upon a time, there was the King Pig. He was King Pig because he wore a crown, and for no other reason than he wore a crown. King Pig had many pigs in his Pigdom, whom he gave two orders: steal the birds’ eggs, and build forts.

King pig turned to the Engineer pigs and gave them the order to build four hundred twenty three forts. The Engineer pigs were not very smart, and had no formal education. They were Engineer pigs because they wore hard hats, and for no other reason than they wore hard hats.

“You will make the forts out of cement, and wood, and glass alone.” ordered King Pig. Even though the Engineer pigs weren’t very smart, they wondered the wisdom of making a fort with these materials. King Pig didn’t want them to use nails, or glue, or metal.

“King pig,” the Engineer pigs asked, “Are you sure you want us to only use cement, and wood, and glass? That doesn’t seem very stable. Besides, glass ceilings are limiting to minorities.”

“I do not care, for I am King Pig. And I am King Pig because I wear the crown, and for no other reason than I wear the crown!” So the Engineer Pigs went to work building forts of cement, and wood, and glass.

In the meantime, the other pigs stole all of the birds’ eggs. Most of the eggs were regular ones, but occasionally the pigs found gold eggs. They hid those eggs where only the most adventurous, brave, and suicidal birds would find them.

When the birds realized what all of their eggs were stolen, they became very angry. The Angry Birds formed lobbyist groups, and political action committees. The Angry Birds went to the government wanting their eggs back.

But the government was no help. Due to a complex tax code that the Angry Birds had originally voted for, the pigs used loopholes to legally steal the Angry Birds’ eggs. So the Angry Birds formed a coalition  called the Many Angry Ballish Birds, or MABB.

With the help of facebook and twitter and slingshots, the newly organized Angry Birds organized themselves to take down the pigs. At first it was just the red birds, but as other birds saw their success, they too joined the Angry Birds. Soon the yellow birds joined, then the blue birds! Even the old codger big red birds came to help out.

The Angry Birds destroyed fort after fort. Glass shattered. Hard hats flew. Cement and wood crumbled down on pig after pig. Eventually the Angry Birds destroyed all four hundred twenty three forts. They surrounded King Pig, demanding justice.

Little red birds suggested they show mercy on the fallen king. The yellow birds wanted to cook King Pig. The white birds wanted to incarcerate him, but the blue birds were split on all three. Eventually all the Angry Birds concluded only one solution would work: a government with pork is bad, so the Pig King must forever be silenced.

Unfortunately for the Angry Birds, they didn’t understand that the king was only king because he wore the crown, and for no other reason than he wore the crown. While they ate bacon and ribs, the crown sat idly next to them…