This Just In!

We’re not quite sure why this is news. The only reasonable conclusion to
come to is that this headline was supposed to read “after she died.”
Because that would be news.

This Just In!

Shit! My horoscope was right!

They Say That Statistics Never Lie . . .

. . . but they don’t say that statistics are always particularly smart:

What’s most interesting to us is that teen pregnancy after age twenty-five drops significantly, but apparently not all the way to zero. Apparently there’s at least one forty-year-old teenager out there who missed out on that filmstrip in junior-high health class.

Dumb, Illustrated

This Post Brought to You by Indignation, Irony, and Hypocrisy

Among the many benefits of being a citizen of the United States of America in the twenty-first century are that:

• we are the beneficiaries—assuming we’ve taken advantage of it—of twelve years’ worth of free schooling¹ in an educational system that, while perhaps not the best in the world, is certainly better than the alternative.²

• we have unparalleled access—thanks to a nationwide network of public libraries, bookstores, and an internet filled almost entirely with deftly phrased, mature, and well-researched philosophical discussions, to thousands of years’ and millions of pages’ worth of the human race’s most compelling, challenging, enlightening, and thought-provoking political and philosophical thought.

• we are spiritual descendants of a distinguished intellectual tradition that began with luminaries such as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin, and thrived for centuries until it was unceremoniously murdered by Philo T. Farnsworth.

So with all that in mind, it wouldn’t be odd to expect Americans to engage in well-spoken, well-educated, thoughtful political discourse, would it?

(Crickets chirping)

 

Suck it, Jefferson. You knew it would come to this.

On my drive home from work the other day I spotted a bumper sticker that read “If you voted for Obamtard, thanks a lot, ASSHAT.”

My second reaction³ to this was disgust and dismay that this is how real live grown-up Americans—educated adults, most of us, with literally hundreds of thousands of hours’ worth of opportunities to practice shaping and polishing our thoughts to convince and inspire—are choosing to express their political views these days. It’s like we’re going out of our way to prove that putting power in the hands of the common people was a tragic, hilarious mistake, that the best we can do to express a difference in political opinion is to resort to name-calling and using language better suited for a bathroom stall.⁴

My first reaction to the bumper sticker was “what a dickhead.”⁵

NOTES

1. Or more than twelve years, if you flunk a couple of times. Hey, why not? Free school! And by “free” we of course mean “paid for by everybody, so not actually free, but sort of like free if you’ve had just the right amount to drink.”
2. That alternative being, for the sake of our argument, “not going to school and being a big fat idiot.”
3. Yes, second, not first. Keep reading; I promise it’ll all make sense. Or at least, it’ll make as much sense as any of the bullshit you typically find here.
4. “Asshat” is, I admit, not true bathroom-stall language—it’s far from being in the same league as f-----, c--ks-----, w--r-, --t--a--, or s--d---h-e--er. On the other hand, it’s a stupid, tired, overused term, and you’re a total f----- if you use it. Knowledgeable sources have described the term as “the douchebag’s ‘douchebag.’ ”
5. For what it’s worth—not that it’s necessarily any of your business—we didn’t vote for President Obama, and given the chance to do it over, we’d not vote for him again.

And Now, One Reason to Dislike Hockey Players. Or At Least the Crazy Ones.

To be fair, we have never heard of this happening anywhere else on Earth, so we choose to view this as less of an indictment of hockey players in general and more of an exhibit that even people that seem perfectly normal on the outside can, on occasion, do something absolutely batshit crazy.


For more information on this especially bizarre story, follow this link to the article on Deadspin.com, which includes gem of understatement:
 

As it turns out, Rogue Squadron has won every game this year in which one of their players didn’t poop inside an opponent’s equipment.

The Horse: A Beginner's Tutorial

The Horse, Exhibit A: One (1) factory-standard horse.

To the outsider,¹ caring for creatures whose primary goals are to eat and poop can be a perplexing and mystifying experience. Horse people, like most any other group of folks absorbed by a way of life, hobby, or obsession that they’ve grown to love—or were born to love—have developed a vocabulary that can be confusing to the uninitiated, and that (probably inadvertently) makes entry into the world of horse ownership daunting and maybe even a little scary.²

The Horse, Exhibit B: Food goes in here
(at front, below dual air intakes).

We are fortunate enough to have been allowed to gingerly dip a toe into the murky waters of the fascinating world of the horse—the Latin name for which is horsus horsiis— and have gradually learned how some of its more basic terminology translates into proper English. If the following list is too much to follow, take a break partway through to catch your breath, collect yourself, and/or scribble down some notes:

• mare = girl horse
• stallion = boy horse
• gelding = very sad boy horse
• tractor = not a horse
• cow = see tractor
• brown = brown
• chestnut = brown
• sorrel = brownish
• dun = brownish
• dark bay = sort of like brownish
• bay = shitty director (see: Transformers, or better yet, don’t)
• grey = white (seriously!)
• pinto = horse, or bean
• draft = horse
• pony = horse
• quarterhorse = horse
• half-Arabian, half-quarterhorse = one (1) horse, 5/8 of normal size
• horse = crap factory
• manure = crap (literal)
• tack = crap (figurative): saddles, bridles, stirrups, horse blankets, and so forth 
• horse blanket = sort of like a blanket, but for a horse
• tack room = a place to put all your crap (figurative)  
• pile = a place to put all your crap (literal)

The Horse, Exhibit C: Thermal Exhaust Port.

Horse people—that is, horse owners, not Houyhnhnms—have spent somewhere between ten and a bazillion years cataloging different breeds of horse, in the very same way that dog owners obsess over the infinitesimal differences between a teacup poodle and a Saint Bernard. Over time, this has generated a dazzling array of breeds with names that are often region-specific, descriptive, or suspiciously foreign-sounding.

Left: a dog. Right: The exact same dog.

Established breeds of horse include but are not limited to: Abtenauer, Aegidienberger, Albanian, American Paint Horse, American Quarter Horse, Andravida, Appaloosa, AraAppaloosa, Arappaloosa, Araloosa, Arabian, Ardennes, Asturcón, Augeron, Australian Stock Horse, Auvergne, Azerbaijan, Azteca, Baise, Baluchi, Ban'ei, Barb, Bardigiano, Belgian Warmblood, Blazer, Boulonnais, Breton, Brumby, Burguete, Calabrese, Camargue, Campolina, Canadian, Canadian Pacer, Caspian, Castillonnais, Catria, Choctaw Horse, Cleveland Bay, Clydesdale, Colorado Ranger, Coldblood trotter, Comtois, Cuban Criollo, Curly Horse, Danube Delta, Dutch harness, Dutch Warmblood, East Bulgarian, Estonian Draft, Estonian, Falabella, Finnhorse, Fjord, Florida Cracker Horse, Fouta, Frederiksborg, Freiberger, French Trotter, Friesian, Furioso-North Star, Gelderland, Giara Horse, Gidran, Groningen Horse, Gypsy Vanner, Haflinger, Hanoverian, Heck, Heihe, Hirzai, Hispano-Bretón, Holsteiner, Icelandic, Indian Half-Bred, Iomud, Irish Draught, Italian Heavy Draft, Italian Trotter, Jaca Navarra, Jutland, Kabarda, Kaimanawa horses, Karabair, Kathiawari, Kazakh Horse, Kiger Mustang, Kinsky, Kisber Felver, Kladruber, Knabstrupper, Konik, Kustanair, Latvian, Lipizzaner, Lokai, Losino, Lusitano, Malopolski, Mallorquín, Mangalarga, Maremmano, Marismeño, Marwari, Mecklenburger, Menorquín, Mérens, Messara, Monchina, Mongolian Horse, Monterufolino, Morab, Morgan, Moyle, Murakoz, Muräkozi, Murgese, Mustang, Nangchen, Nez Perce Horse, Nivernais, Nokota, Nonius, Norman Cob, Novokirghiz, Oldenburg, Oldenburger, Orlov trotter, Pampa, Paso Fino, Pentro, Percheron, Persano, Peruvian Paso, Pintabian, Pleven, Qatgani, Quarab, Racking, Retuerta, Rhinelander, Riwoche, Russian Don, Russian Trotter, Salerno, Samolaco, San Fratello, Sarcidano, Schleswig, Sella Italiano, Selle Français, Shagya Arabian, Shire, Silesian, Sorraia, Sokolsky, Soviet Heavy Draft, Spanish Mustang, Spanish-Norman, Spotted Saddle, Standardbred, Suffolk Punch, Svensk Kallblodstravare, Swedish Ardennes, Swiss Warmblood, Taishuh, Tawleed, Tersk, Thoroughbred, Tiger Horse, Tolfetano, Tori, Trait Du Nord, Trakehner, Unmol Horse, Uzunyayla, Vlaamperd, Waler, Walkaloosa, Warlander, Westphalian, Wielkopolski, Xilingol, Yakutian, Yili, Yonaguni, Zweibrücker, and Žemaitukas. This is far from a comprehensive list, but you presumably get the idea.

Horse owners thus have at their disposal a wide array of specific terminology that can be used to present themselves as a member of this select fraternity—a sort of verbal secret handshake to suggest that they’re in the know and that they belong.

Of course, a thoughtful, informed answer isn’t your only option:

Your horse-owning neighbor, who you’re meeting for the very first time: Oooh, your wife has a horse? What kind?

You: [after a pause lasting roughly eighty-three seconds] . . . brown?

Even if you almost immediately change your answer to the correct one,³ rest assured that you’ve given an embarrassing, albeit accurate, impression about your horse-related stupidity.

If it’s any consolation, though, when it comes to stupidity, you’re still well ahead of many members of the animal kingdom.

The Horse, Exhibit D: The brain at work.⁴

 

NOTES
1. Or “city folk,” as they may not be called anywhere outside of movies and television.
2. It’s less scary if the horses aren’t panicked and running, and are paying attention to where your feet are. Or so we’ve been told.
3. “Brown and fat.” Also acceptable: “Arabian.”
4. Please note that we do not claim that this photo is funny in any way; we use it merely to illustrate that horses are not necessarily all that bright, at least compared to animals that don’t get their heads stuck in things. And if you happen to find it funny, well, there’s nothing we can do to stop you, but you’re probably a bad person.

Are You Stupid? A Conclusive Test

If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re stupid, don’t worry—you probably are. But if you refuse to be convinced without tangible proof, then today is your day! The following two-step test can prove, beyond a doubt, that you’re stupid.

Sadly, it cannot prove conclusively that you’re not stupid, but consider the source of the test—how on Earth would we know how to test for actual intelligence? What do we look like, Norman Einstein?¹

We asked around, and have learned that no, we do not look like Norman Einstein. So without further ado, here’s the test:


The Test

Question 1

You are a new homeowner, and in the process of replacing burned-out lightbulbs, you discover that nearly all of the outdoor recessed light sockets are filled with large wasps’ nests. To get the wasps’ nest out of these sockets, do you:

(a) shut off the electricity to any and all sockets to be accessed
(b) shut off the what to the what?

Following step 1 (above), do you:

(a) remove the wasps’ nests using any one of dozens or even hundreds of common and easily accessible household items that conduct electricity poorly or not at all—including but not limited to dowels, pool cues, plunger handles, broomsticks, remote control devices, chopsticks, matches, bamboo knitting needles, wooden salad spoons, or basically anything that isn’t a big fat metal screwdriver.
(b) use a big fat metal screwdriver and start stabbing wildly overhead into an electrical socket while standing on a wobbly dining-room chair placed on an uneven surface. In the wind.

If you answered (a) to either or both of these questions, congratulations! It’s possible you’re not stupid, but further testing is necessary.

If you chose any other answers, congratulations! You are stupid.² But don’t lose heart, dummy—even in these trying financial times, when banks are tight with their money and very picky about to whom they lend it, stupid people very much like you can and still do qualify to be homeowners. In other good news, you’re welcome to join us at our place; we have plenty of work to be done and many different kinds of screwdrivers.

Stay tuned to this space for tips on how to re-wire a GFCI outlet, and after that for tips on how to process a fire-insurance claim.

NOTE
1. Special thanks to Joe Theismann, who may or may not have ever said “The word ‘genius’ isn't applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.”
2. This is all true, although we feel obligated to point out to our worried readers that that we did not, in fact, stab a screwdriver into a live electrical socket and electrocute ourselves to death, or even just a little. We’re stupid, not uncoordinated.

It's Over Now. So Please, If You Would, Be Quiet.

One of these guys absolutely and definitively will—or did—ruin (or save) the
United States of America. But for some reason the lunatics on the other side decided to
reward him (or punish him) for it—whichever one makes them seem more like lunatics.

Yes, the Presidential election is over, and yes, you now get—or are stuck with—four exciting or devastating years of the President who will either save or destroy everything good left in this country, depending on which half of the population you’re willing to casually dismiss as stupid, hateful, and/or evil in order to make the world seem just the way you’ve already decided it is.

But now that it’s all settled, we have a novel suggestion:

Why don’t we all just keep quiet for a while? 

The following people could use a break:

1. folks who are aware that your candidate is full of shit.
2. folks who are aware that both candidates are full of shit.
3. folks who are aware that their own candidate is full of shit.

So seethe or rejoice all you want, but for the sake of decency and whatever remains of our tattered national sanity and our ability to interact like thoughtful grown-ups,¹ please do it quietly.

And please, above all, keep your opinions off the internet for a while. It’s already the world’s angriest, stupidest, most irrational place; adding political opinions absolutely does not improve matters. Ideally, we’d like to see folks voluntarily keep their political opinions off the internet forever, but we know that’s asking a lot, so we’ll accept a measly four years of silence if we can get it.

Thanks for your time. We look forward to hearing from you never again.


NOTE
1. If you think we still have the ability to interact like thoughtful grown-ups, you haven’t spent much time on the internet. Trust us, you’re better off keeping it that way.

Being Right: Not Always the Same as Being Smart

 
When my wife is asked what it’s like being nine years younger than her husband,¹ she likes to say that

 “People think he’s robbing the cradle, but actually I’m robbing the grave.”

It’s a good line and she delivers it well, with a happy, sunny bounce to her voice that rarely fails to get a laugh. It’s the kind of thing that one doesn’t expect to hear from a genuine graverobber, who in our experience tend to be generally unpleasant people.

Not the most practical way to find a date . . .
but, hey, times are tough all around.

While our age gap rarely comes up as an actual problem worth discussing, it often becomes the basis of good-natured teasing, such as when I injure an old-mannish part of me (a hip, for example) playing hockey, getting slowly out of bed, or chasing kids off our lawn; or when she struggles to identify artifacts such as LP records, typewriters, and rotary phones,² or wants to know what life was like before automobiles.

Your humble author, ca. 1895.

The age gap does seem to be a bit harder on me, though, not just because I’m more elderly and thus an easier, slower target, but also because, frankly, I’m not too bright.


Some years ago—I won’t say exactly how many—Some Gal turned twenty-five. She was in a funk for much longer than I had learned to expect her to be down about anything,³ so finally I asked what was eating her. Clearly (in hindsight) upset about having rushed through the first five years of her twenties, she answered with a slump in her shoulders and voice:

“I’m halfway to thirty.”

My immediate response—the mathematical part of my brain obviously moving much faster than the part that doles out common sense—was:

“What are you talking about? You’re halfway to fifty.”

I suspect that by the time I live this down, she’ll be halfway to ninety. Maybe older than that, since I’m dimwitted enough to have put it in writing so it’ll be harder to forget.



NOTE
1. In case you’re struggling to keep up, my wife’s husband is me. While we tend to use the first-person plural here at Bowling in the Dark, referring to our wife’s husband as “us” would be be confusing at best, and at worst might inadvertently generate discussion about polygamy and the constitutional definition of marriage, and I/we/Gaia are particularly interested in not having that discussion here.
2. I’m making a lot of this up because she’s probably not going to read this.
3. Probably twenty or thirty minutes. She’s pretty upbeat.

The Sound of One Hand Clapping

There’s a chance that the author of the article shown below—or the editor that wrote or approved its headline—is a deep thinker making a sly reference to a famous Zen kōan:

Two hands clap and there is a sound. What is the sound of one hand?

—Hakuin Ekaku

This kōan, after all, was referred to in a 1990 episode of The Simpsons, which in this part of the world¹ may be the only sure way for your average centuries-old philosophical tradition to get any sort of publicity.

Lisa: No, Bart, it’s a 3,000-year-old riddle with no answer.
It’s supposed to clear your mind of conscious thought.
Bart: No answer? Lisa, listen up! [Pat pat pat]

So, sure, we’re willing to admit the possibility that the author is slyly opening our narrowed Western minds to broader and livelier veins of thought. Our sources, however, suggest he’s just a bit of a dope:

NOTE
1. Excluding Boulder County.

Irony, Illustrated?

Whether this genuinely qualifies as situational irony is a decision we’ll leave up to today’s honorary guest judge, Alanis Morrissette. No matter what she concludes, though, we thoroughly enjoy knowing that this particular member of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars—ostensibly an organization for bright, highly-educated people—couldn’t figure out how to apply a windshield decal so it’d be readable.

Maybe that’s not irony, but it sure ain’t smart, either.

“Well, that’s at least as ironic as a plane crash.
Those are ironic, right?”

Smoking: It's Not Just for Kids Anymore!

In the event that you find yourself in a discussion with the kindly, ever-optimistic Pollyanna kind of person who chooses to believe that tobacco-company executives or marketers have souls, please feel free to use the following as Definitive and Devastating Counterargument Number 1:

 





We’re willing to forgive Fred and Barney for their ignorance of the dangers of smoking because, well, they lived more than two million years ago. Social attitudes were very different back then, and of course scientific research into the effects of cigarette smoke was severely limited by the ineffectiveness of woodpecker-powered x-ray machines.

Disclaimer: No wisecracking prehistoric birdlife was harmed
in the creation of this illustration.

It’s hard to believe, however, that barely fifty years ago the American public was willing to watch their kids’ beloved cartoon friends shill for cigarette companies with, as far as we can tell, nary a word of protest. Apparently, 1,200 years’ worth of lung cancer isn’t necessarily a compelling argument for a connection between smoking and death.¹

A common argument is that at the time, the American public simply wasn’t aware that smoking was deadly, or even just sorta dangerous. Also common is the belief, backed by a veritable mountain range of evidence, that tobacco companies knew about the dangers of smoking and fought tooth and nail to keep the public from learning about it, a cynical act of callous deception on an almost unimaginable scale.²


With that in mind, we have to wonder what elements of 2012 Americans’ daily life will turn out to be horrifically bad for their health, revealed far too late to spare them from gruesome and painful side effects?

Meat is bad for your cholesterol.

Yep. It’ll cause skin cancer. Bank on it.

It won’t be the radiation bombarding your brain from an inch away that kills you,
but rather your toxic levels of pompous self-importance.

This one’s probably a longshot,
but don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Puppies: nature’s perfect killers.

Don’t even pretend you’re surprised.

NOTES
1. Cigarette smoking, according to Wikipedia, “have been attested in Central America around the 9th century in the form of reeds and smoking tubes.”
2. We haven’t actually seen these mountains of evidence for ourselves, but we can seek them out using a secret map in our possession, drawn by the Marlboro Man just days before he shit out both his lungs and died.

How to Fail at Marketing, Lesson 4

 

It’s a pretty smart idea these days to position one’s company as being environmentally friendly, and one easy (and cost-effective) way of accomplishing this is to offer online “paperless” billing.

Now, we’re not going to say that mailing a paper confirmation to a customer who’s just signed up for paperless billing is, in itself, a bad idea. In fact, for security reasons it’s probably good practice.

Sending three copies of the exact same letter, on the other hand—especially when that letter, again, is the company’s way of patting itself on the back for saving paper—deserves to be pointed at and mocked, at least a little bit.

HA ha!

Irony, Illustrated

 

It’s a gutsy philosophy to live by,
but if you’re willing to regret just one single hing, now might be the time.