Category: LEARNING DAY

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LEARNING DAY

Learning Day: The Bathroom Oscars 🌭

Kids these days… everyone’s got to get a trophy. Even bathrooms are winning awards. That’s right; there’s an Oscars for Toilets. I was at the Nashville Zoo recently and saw a prominently displayed plaque declaring their bathroom the 2019 Best Restroom Award Winner. Of course, I immediately went to bestrestroom.com to check out the other nominees to determine if this really was the Meryl Streep of bathrooms.

Here’s a very hotdog sentence for you: the bathroom had monkeys in it. It was, in fact, a very cool bathroom. Is having a special zoo exhibit only viewable if you have to piss a little weird? Yes. However, monkeys are cute, and I will never turn down a show while I wait for the bathroom. I do feel a little bit bad for the bathroom monkeys, mainly because they look like they’re aware they are the bathroom monkeys.

I feel like all of the other zoo animals make fun of them. It’s bad enough that their hair naturally grows in the shape of David Bowie’s Labyrinth mullet, but we’re also going to make them live in a bathroom? Give them some dignity, Nashville zoo.

The Nashville Zoo wasn’t the first to relegate an animal to a lifetime job as a bathroom attendant. They got the idea from the 2017 recipient of the Best Bathroom Award, OdySea Aquarium, who pulled the same move with sharks. Apparently, filling a bathroom with sharks is something either a bad James Bond villain or a good bathroom designer will suggest.

It may be controversial to say sharks deserve it, but they seem like creepy little guys. They can smell your leavings from four leagues away and they like it. But their enclosure seems more humane to me because it’s only a portion of the aquarium’s largest exhibit. It’s an interesting little window for the sharks to peek into every once in a while and see a bunch of humans standing in a line looking uncomfortable, unlike the monkeys who spend 100% of their public facing time in a bathroom.

Stuffing your bathroom full of wild animals is not the only way to get the bathroom award academy’s attention. They also seem to be interested in bathrooms decorated like a nightclub in the Lord Of The Rings universe. At least that appears to be the vibe of 2013 winner, The Varsity Theater in Minneapolis. Here’s a photo of it, taken by someone who takes pictures inside bathrooms:

I personally vote this bathroom Most Likely to Remind Me I Haven’t Been to an Olive Garden in a While. What I mean by that is it looks like someone who has never been to Italy describing Italy to you, which is exactly what the best bathroom awards were looking for that year. Its entry in the bathroom hall of fame describes it as “one part old fashioned powder room, one part lounge.” Which they say “allows concertgoers to take a break in an area from which one can still view and hear the stage. Bartenders even serve drinks over the back counter into the restroom area, offering a VIP experience to every guest.” Fucking gross, those VIPs probably think.

Even though several outlets covered The Varsity winning Best Bathroom, they didn’t include a lot of pictures. It’s sloppy journalism.

So until I have to pee in Minnesota, I can’t quite get the orientation of the place. But it seems from the description that the bathroom is far too much of a social experience. I get that sometimes women congregate in there, and that’s fine, but it seems weird to make it a social hub of your venue. Where are introverts supposed to hide in this place? Where can they learn they’re lactose intolerant now with dignity?

The more you look at the bathrooms in the hall of fame, the more it starts to sink in that there’s no specific design aesthetic the judges are looking for. Sure, if you put a David Bowie monkey in your bathroom, you will win. That’s a great general rule for life. All other past winners are seemingly chosen at random. Last year’s winner was the Tampa International Airport, which won for a very normal airport bathroom. Look at this ordinary ass line of urinals. This is the default setting of bathroom:

 

There’s not even a whiff of New Jersey mansion decorator style to liven this place up. You can tell the bathroom judges knew it was a real dud of a year, too, because the language they use to describe it in its restroom hall of fame entry is so flowery. “Boasting large graphics and a natural, deep blue stone, the undulating veining is reminiscent of waves crashing along the shore.” I’m pretty sure you can’t do undulating veining in a public bathroom. At least not with monkeys watching. Plenty of other entries got way slimmer descriptions. Wendell’s restaurant only got two sentences, but they hired Herman Melville to take us on a word journey through the Tampa International Airport’s men’s room.

Probably the most depressing section of the bathroom hall of fame is the area where you can pursue the bathrooms that were nominated but didn’t win. I’m sure 2010 was a controversial year in the competitive bathrooming world. Somehow vintage St. Louis ice cream parlor, The Fountain on Locust, narrowly beat out The Muse Hotel in New York, the most indulgent bathroom on this list. Look at how they defecate there:

I’ve never seen a bathroom and said, “This is trying too hard,” before, but The Muse bathroom is thirsty. There’s a common lounge area and then individual stalls with cool words painted on the door like glam, envy, rebel, vain, and my personal favorite, macHo. I know there’s a guy who waits for the macHo stall when the glam one is open.

This bathroom is begging people to fuck in it. There’s a large illuminated moose antler on one wall. There’s red neon lighting and gold mosaic tile. They were campaigning for this award, and the committee could sense it. In fact, they wanted to win so badly that they resubmitted for consideration in 2020 with better pictures and got snubbed again! The judges hate this tacky, desperate bathroom.

Another big controversial loss was the year Great American Bank BallPark in Cincinnati brought some actual innovation to the awards and got fully rejected. How can you innovate in bathrooms? They added a full nursing suite for new mothers with tons of amenities like comfortable gliders and a kitchenette with a refrigerator for storing and heating milk. They put a full dishwasher in their bathroom and still lost to what the town of Minturn, Colorado, says is a bathroom, but I don’t understand how it could work from its photo. I am afraid of it and angry at it, and I’ll pee right in front of monkeys.

Bathrooms should not be confusing. People need to understand bathrooms. We’ve made them very simple for that exact reason. The design team behind this calls it “functional art.” I call it an excuse for a lot of drunk people to just pee in the woods instead. I don’t want to pee in art, but the best bathroom judges are all about it; peeing as art, however, they hate.

The judges were not impressed with the “urinal gaming system” Coca-Cola Park in Allentown, Pennsylvania entered in 2016. The hands-free game was activated by motion sensors, and after finishing, the player got a unique code to report their score to a leaderboard via their smartphone and see the scores on real time displays throughout the stadium. They made a literal pissing contest and lost to another boring airport bathroom!

I have noticed one recurring theme at the bathroom awards. Aside from the gamification of peeing in a urinal, most of the entries are women’s restrooms. Not because men are disgusting but because monkeys attack when they see a penis, and none of you are brave enough to prove I’m lying. So for every beautiful bathroom winning this award, I have to wonder if there’s a men’s restroom that’s just a rusty metal trough and a pile of damp paper towels.

By the way, if you want to nominate a bathroom, you can submit an online form on bestrestroom.com. All you have to do is fill out some contact info, send a couple of pictures, and answer the question, “What makes this restroom special.” Caution, they don’t like it if you put “my daughter Courtney was conceived in here!” I heard that’s why Muse keeps losing.

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This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Neku104, the only bathroom monkey we need in our lives.

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LEARNING DAY

Learning Day: Spirit Babies

Yes Hello i just had my mind real opened up by a new book and im pretty excited to tell you all about it and maybe you can join me in a new way of seein and understandin the world:

Yup if your like me the title alone is probly given you that kinda cascadin -whoa- feelin about the possibilities and implications of: its not just AFTER you die its ghosts?!

But hold yr horses a bit there we’ll build up our foundation of understandin stone by stone with the help of our master and teacher: Walter Makichen. He’s there in the middle i know you think he aughta be the RV buddha lookin one on the left but i guess a man can be spiritual in North Face too.

I couldnt find out that much about him other than hes departed this north american plane now and he’s probly stayin just-right warm in the hereafter what with that senseable fleece, but before that he was considered a ‘’singing bowl master’’ and was kind enough to make us a musical accooterment for this article:

So push play and then find a appropriate place for reading this one, idea lee on a earth-grounded cushion away from any electricle wires or transmissions, and if theres something purple near by you thats fine as long as you balance it out with somethin orange. Lets take a coorajus breath in and a cumpassion breath out and here is our first mantra Chant:

‘’E, AH, OH, E”

(takin from Walter’s Birth Shaman Meditation)

I conceive we are ready to continue.

So in the beginning Walt was a pretty normal catholic kid except for how he could always actually SEE the angels and spirits that everybody else just had their simple faith in. Like one time his bird was sick and saint francis came and healed it:

Which after something like that I’d maybe even dare to ask: ok if I call you Saint Frank?

Walt’s actual journey to become a medium claire voyant was not complete: he next had to pass through three gates of trial:

TRIBULATION THE FIRST: GATE OF PAIN

In which Walt’s kidney made some extra gravel but it would just not come out of his pee-hole until

His report sorta indicates he still was on the Demerol but that is pure co inky dink.

TRIBULATION THE SECOND: GATE OF KINDNESS

In which he was nice instead of mean to a ‘crazy’ street person

What the hologram tells him is: ‘dont go do your dissertation defense, be a psychic instead – here hold on a minute Jesus is right here, he wants to talk to you too and Jesus was like: Yep, psychic.’

TRIBULATION THE THIRD: GATE OF CRIME SOLVING

In which the same day as the hologram one of Walt’s students called him and said she was raped two days ago and she thinks Walt could help her heal but he does more than that

Thats a nice bonus, like if your cairopracter also could tell you PowerBall secrets except probly a lot differnt than that I am still learnin about how to balance humer and human suffering.

Walter is never wrong. I read this whole book of his many spiritual ad ventures and he was never once surprised or confused or had to revise any previous ideas or believins. And every predicktion he makes comes true every time and any new occurrents is just as he spected and he also has perfect recall of all the conversations and timelines of what happened. Lets take a moment of kindly condescention and pity for us what have to acknowledge our own limitations and foolness sometimes. We will extend this intention to the world with our soul chant:

“OH, NAH, MAY, AH, SAH, NAH, CHA, OH, NAY, AH.”

(takin from Walts Calling A Spirit Baby meditation)

Ok but maybe your sayin: yeah, lots of people have a claire voyent’s, how did Walt learn of his special callin to commune and connect specificly with the spirits of the nearly borned? Is it maybe about how couples what are strugglin to conceive is a special kind of desperation and their for sucseptable to anyone offerin a narrative that gives a sense of meanin, claritin an hope? And maybe just incidentally allows that helper to oggment his own income and ego? And maybe also gives that helper a way of coping with a great pain of their own?

Oh child of doubt! Let me place a healin thumb right there in your forehead pretty hard actually and push this truth nugget into your minds heart: Walt manifested his specialty callin when he was on one of his health and personal retreats

Where he stayed in a cabin and chanted and walked around without seein another person for days so you know what happened next is real:

Yes there was kinda a vortex of ghost babies swirlin around his cabana and then

He learnt that was because there was just always so much couplin happening there all the time!

(I gotta confess i can resonate pretty hard with the innkeeper there. I was at the Maverik the other mornin it was just me and the new guy Felipe he was refillin the reesees and we had said how ya doin there a few times but this time he got kinda serious an asked me: what would i say if someone told me they could see the future? and i made the dumb joke about how i’d want to know who wun the big game and he just looked real disappointed in me and i fear whatever wondruss door he was invitin me to step through is closed forever to me now)

On to Walter’s Ghost Baby Casefile #1 in which Gail and Ron been tryin and tryin but just cant get pregnant and Walt sees theyre spirit baby who tells him:

So this to me is a powerful story but i didnt really get how Gail and Ron just bein open to whatever happens wasnt right. So I did a meditation of disearnment on this one so i’d learn this lesson really good and it came to pass that I seen a kinda a pink purple space and its kinda quiet and peaceful but then here comes this rumblin and all a sudden its just a TORRENT of whitish shapes rushin at us and at first we’re scared but then we realize thats just Rons seamen rushin in to fill up Gail and we feel peace again. But just as the sperms are about to wrangle into Gails egg a Spiritual Cowboy appears and puts up a Matrix hand with a wise smile and all the seamen just stop dead and fall down. An then maybe he looks at us and says “A heifer will calve when shes willin”’ or somethin and tips his hat but that might be me gettin too fancyful.

You maybe saw that Walt mentioned the Cowboy had a yellow and green oval and thats called a aura and Walt is just seein them all the time. So i was a lil sad and ashamed i never seen any but then i found out you can get a camera app that lets you be perceptive like Walter. LaRene didnt seem very grateful that I was using it to see her aura and explainin to her how she felt and Trayton didnt have one but now i insight when Rabbit is at his calmest:

So all this to say that I dont know how anybody could feel right about preceedin with a birth plan that doesnt include a spirit baby whisperer on the team. Just think about how lost and bewilded this couple woulda been without Walt:

They would never a known that it was there mother in laws’ selfish refusal to die that was keepin em from gettin pregnant! And yep it was just like Walt profitized:

Many spirit babies arent getting birthed for the first time, no way, for a lot of em this is like there 8th life or something and Walt gets to talk to em about who they used to be. Its all so neat to me that the past life story is never just: they were boring and normal, its always like a cool setting

and a interesting story

It honestly really reminds me of things that people make up for books…

…and movies

Which isnt that reinsuring to know that our world isnt actually a confusing place with no gayrontee of justice or resolution? Walter shows us that we’re actually livin in a universe where it all makes sense and everything that happens has a appealin and satisfyin narrative arc.

See, you would be pretty silly to ever be sad or depressed about grief or loss because: if your brother died? Thats ok! you will get another chance to say everything you never did, an apologize for when you thought it was a light-hearted prank to pee on him from up in the treehouse but to him that was a bullying trauma.

Through sexual intercourse with your wife is how you can do that, I mean.

And also thats very nice that the mother doesn’t have to learn anythin about who the child will be or what they are interested in: we already met Uncle Dave an we know he’s a PBR Extra man! And hell you probly dont even need to wait until hes born to begin healing, you can probly start tossing the remote into his mom’s crotch when she aint ready just like you used to do to him.

So maybe you caught what i illuded to up there that reincarnationed spirit babies are only one of the varieties available. The other important one is ANGELS, which it took me little while to realize thats different from normal spirits.

I practiced a soft wise smile when i read that one because i understand it from how if i wanna have the car windows down, I have to keep between 45 and 52 mph or else it hurts my ears.

Here’s more about how the angel ones work:

Lets do a nother birth shaman visualization where we ‘magine we’re Sarah or Bruce, goin through one a the most painful things you might go through as a couple and as your just lookin everywhere and anywhere for a little bit of sollus or understanding you find yoursself in this mans office:

And he looks ready to run the grill for like a family picnic in march when the sun is out and its fifty degrees but maybe the wind dont make it feel like that and you find that uncle energy kinda comfortin hear in youre time of need and then he looks up like maybe someones gonna toss him a beer but that someone is a angel and that beer is a ghost baby from the afterlife.

So isnt that a warm comfort that for some angels it helps to do like a politician-at-a-tornado type site visit and thats what all those miscarriages were and they really preciate your understandin.

If you are wonderin about whether Walt can also wisely understand and explain everything about complicated adoption and abortion situations, yes that is easy for him but you might can tell I am already a lil tuckered out from tryin to talk about miscarriage in a comedy article in a cumpassionate and respectful fashion, and maybe see why i am leavin those other ones as a exercise for the reader.

Oh yeah i was wonderin about that too, what about talkin with your ghost baby DURING conception? Thanks for bringin that up. Well Walt’s a little skittish about the “physical mechanics” of sex thats why instead of sex he always says “physical mechanics”. But he does talk about it and i’m glad he clarified because i was askin myself: is a spirit baby, like, right there in the camper with you? maybe kinda shoutin encouragements or compliments? Or maybe helpin in a more hands on way, like that old lady in Midsommar?

No its not that way its this way:

Anyway next time your gettin intimant on the couch in between episodes of Magnum or maybe in the backseat of a honda CRV because bob seger came on and it just made you both recollect what you felt like in the acid wash days remember what your really doin is makin a big spirit bowl to put babies in.

So: Here is a final faith-promoting vingrette from Walter, I recommend track 9 “No Boundaries” from the spa CD while your readin this one. Start with the following mantra, speak it aloud in your silent heart:

“MAH MA SAY MA MAH SAH MA MA KOO SAH”

(takin from Walts A Father Can Be A Patient Labor Partner Meditation)

So if any of you what have kids or might do in the future get a moment of frustration when they left the car window rolled down and the cats got in but they keep sayin that wasnt me I was at school when you drove it last, just remember that you and your child once maybe died together defending against the war of northern agression. On state rights. To enslave people. In the name of Jesus Christ Amen.

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This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Eric Spaulding, who gets busy so often he has an army of ghost babies ready to attack his spiritual enemies at all times.

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LEARNING DAY

Learning Day: How to Party 🌭

In this article, I will attempt to answer the age-old question of who would throw a better party: Regis Philbin & Kathie Lee Gifford… or Garfield. Both have released books on how to throw a party, something I wasn’t sure you could not know how to do. A party is just a bunch of people getting together, taking their shirts off, and beating each other up. It is impossible to fuck up. And yet from reading these books, I’ve learned that the definition of “party” is very fluid. Sometimes it means eating caviar pie, and sometimes it means gaslighting your friends to the point of insanity. Which of those things is more fun? Only my objective opinion as an expert party attendee will decide!

Entertaining With Regis & Kathie Lee is mainly a recipe book with a bit of advice, anecdotes, and photographs from their TV show scattered throughout. It’s for explaining the concept of parties to the poors. They thought the name Halloween was either a little too Pagan or not nearly Pagan enough, so their chapter on it is called “Harvest Moon Celebration.” And like wild birds, they seem to think that Halloween is largely about filling your house and food with leaves.

This is such a boring interpretation of Halloween I can only give it half a party hat. Regis and Kathie Lee only get Birthday. They don’t deserve the Happy. There’s nothing happy about letting a leaf touch your cookie, even pre-baking. A squirrel probably peed on that. Celebrating Halloween without a single drop of fake blood, or even half of a Dracula, is sad. It’s not a holiday about fashionable gourds. It’s about death and candy. You have to try pretty hard to make that lame.

You would think that Garfield would have this one in the bag. His book describes the basic concept of a party to children, right? Except while Regis and Kathie Lee ruin Halloween by trying to make it adorable, Garfield tries to make his party goers experience genuine terror.

“Have you ever read Edgar Allen Poe’s story ‘The Masque Of The Red Death?'” No, I have not, Garfield, but this party idea sounds pretty fucked up. I don’t know how many silent strangers Garfield would let into his home before calling the police, but apparently, it’s more than me. I don’t know if this counts as an idea for a party, so much as an idea for usurping someone else’s party, which is honestly kind of cool. I do like that they at least have costumes, but I don’t like the implication of lasting psychological damage— two and a half party hats for Garfield’s “Masque Of The Red Death” Party.

When it comes to Thanksgiving, Regis and Kathie Lee are once again obsessed with leaves. Leaves are their answer to everything. Seriously, This book makes me feel like if you asked Kathie Lee how to bring peace to North Korea, she would say, “Spray paint some leaves! Gather them in your cheeks and baskets from nearby graves!”

You may notice that filling a pretty basket with jars of jams was also Halloween party advice; I guess that’s just a blanket thing rich people do? Somewhere out there is a frustrated neighbor who was always complaining how Regis Philbin would not stop giving them jam. Talk show hosts have two party moves: leaves and jam. One party hat Regis And Kathie Lee. At least this advice is more appropriate for the season. But fucking get it together.

I’m sure Garfield’s Thanksgiving party tips will be way more normal than his Halloween ideas. Maybe he’ll even suggest some spray painted leaves!

So close, Garfield, so close. Garfield suggests you avoid the monotony of Thanksgiving by pretending to celebrate it in the year 2400. The party doesn’t need a second theme. It’s already got a theme, and that theme is Thanksgiving. Adding a subtheme to the theme of your party is like inviting someone to play a game of basketball and then saying hey guys, just to shake things up, let’s do it on roller skates and, in addition, across tiiiiime!! Garfield also suggests you purposely ruin food in the name of a party.

Why assume our tastes will be terrible in four hundred years? Spaghetti has been around since the 12th century, with no edits needed. The suggestion for Thanksgiving is to take the best thing about it and make it terrible. That’s a half a party hat suggestion if I’ve ever heard one. I thought about giving this a full party hat because the phrase wiener pudding made me laugh, but it’s probably a real British dessert. I’m not going to Google it to check. Curse your traps, Garfield.

While the two books have a lot of crossover holidays, I’d like to also rate them on the random additional holidays they decided to cover. Garfield, for instance, doesn’t have a section on how to throw a Kentucky Derby party. This is probably because children would be horrified at the idea of attending a party serving caviar pie. That’s a fancy pile of cream cheese, mayo, and fish eggs.

The Kentucky Derby is one thing I really trust Regis and Kathie Lee to advise me on. It’s a party for people with too much money, horse girls, and the gigantic center slice of the Venn diagram of those two groups of people. That is Regis & Kathie Lee’s target demo for sure! And yet, their Kentucky derby advice is still both basic and impractical.

Someone must tell these people that dunking a vegetable in tequila does not count as food. That’s a garnish at most. Also, wow, I should use horseshoes as part of my decorations for a Kentucky Derby party? Thank God I bought this book. I might have made the fatal faux pas of forgetting to buy horse stuff for this horses-running-in-a-circle-themed soiree. “Welcome! If you’re hungry, dip some fucking tomatoes in the salt near my dining room horseshoes!”

The Kentucky Derby chapter does include a pretty incredible section on Regis and Kathie Lee’s memories of the Kentucky Derby, where they both seem to struggle to say a single memorable thing about it. They both describe it in a way that makes me think maybe they sent celebrity impersonators in their place rather than endure Kentucky. Kathie Lee says, “It’s the only place I’ve ever been where everyone wore hats.” It’s how a child would describe a weiner pudding factory.

I love the insanity pile that is this Kentucky Derby chapter. I’m giving it three hats and a bonus fascinator because Kathie Lee would be delighted by that, and no one can stop me. I’ve gone mad with party power.

Garfield’s How To Party has a robust section of made up parties, including one where you invite your friends over to smash balloons between your bodies, which sounds way more like a fetish than a party. His idea for a “birthday funeral” was probably the most shocking thing in the book, and not just because of the surprisingly grim doodle that came with it.

Over the hill parties are pretty common for a forty or fiftieth birthday. Garfield suggests it for a thirtieth birthday and from the bottom of my heart, I have never meant this more: fuck you, Garfield. The typical over the hill party is some black decorations, maybe some tombstones, but Garfield’s “one foot in the grave” party once again takes things way too far.

When I first read this, I thought, why are all of Garfield’s party tips attempts to drive his friends away? Then I realized in a perverse way, it makes sense because Garfield doesn’t really have any friends. He’s always picking on Odie. He hates Nermal. At best he pities Jon. This is legitimately the kind of fucked up thing Garfield would do if he were ever to throw a party. You should never listen to Garfield’s party advice. Garfield is trying to ruin your friendships. I am going to give this entry a solid two hats for being wrong but in touch with its material character. As opposed to Kathy Lee Gifford who, as everyone knows, never remembers a hat.

That means Garfield wins by half a party hat! As someone with extensive experience attending parties, I understand what the true essence of a party is. It’s when a bunch of people gather together around a pentagram…wait, that’s a summoning. Shit. Have I never been to a party?

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This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: ND, who wrote the book on how to party and will be suing Garfield for IP infringement.

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LEARNING DAY

Learning Day: WikiHow: How to Live Like a Vulcan 🌭

One of the most dangerous parts of WikiHow is every part. It’s a trap by a primitive AI to cull the weak so only premium brains make it to the human battery farms. Especially heinous are the “lifestyle” articles where WikiHow advises their readers – unattended head wound patients, all – to abandon their entire lives to be a suburban Dothraki instead. I already wrote about How to Act Like Shinji Ikari, the worst anime boy. This is How to Live Like a Vulcan.

You know it’s gonna be a solid WikiHow when the introductory paragraph tells you it’s both impossible and unwise. You know it’s gonna be a great WikiHow when that same sentence ends with “let’s do it anyway.”

What a crazy place to start a WikiHow. This is how to live your entire life like a Vulcan and WikiHow felt the need to start with basic hygiene, that’s like telling you to wear deodor-

No, actually, this is called knowing your demographic. Fair play on this one, WikiHow.

Now that we’ve showered the Taki dust from our folds, how do we finish becoming better than the human race?

Get a bowlcut!

That kid looks reeeeaaaal smug for somebody about to get beat up by fifth graders.

The WikiHow only specifies that your haircut should be short and practical. Speaking as a man who did not know how to manage his glorious hair for many decades, the shortest and most practical haircut is a buzzcut. There’s nothing practical about a bowlcut, unless wordlessly signaling that you’re the weak link on this observatory field trip is considered practical.

Now that we are relatively clean and have the official haircut of playground victims, it’s time to conquer the world with our vast intellect.

That is instantly the most insufferable thing I’ve ever heard. I want you to step back and imagine an actual human being following this guide. I want you to picture going into work tomorrow and Doug from Accounts Receivable has a dork haircut with a notch in the back because he used a batter bowl. He smells more tolerable than usual, but when you tell him somebody left donuts in the breakroom he says “fascinating” and starts studying them like a sprinkleologist. How many times could Doug do that before you punched him square in the face? Is it more than one? Congratulations, you are a pending Doug.

The guide goes on like this, listing a number of objectively insane quirks you can adopt to guarantee you won’t pass your social worker’s next wellness check.

“Hey Shanice, I know HR’s busy this time of year and I’m sorry to bug you but Doug’s in the breakroom right now stabbing the donuts with pencils – he says it’s because ‘an illogical workplace does not contain chopsticks’ but I just don’t think the divorce is going well for him.”

There’s no consistency to this WikiHow, it alternates between telling you wacky shit like get a bowlcut and never touch food, and then suggests maybe you should shower more, go for a walk, and buy sensible shoes.

I’m not up on my Vulcan lore, but is “they all wear supportive shoes” really in there? That’s the most practical advice I’ve ever seen in a WikiHow, and that makes this the craziest god damn thing I’ve ever seen in a WikiHow. This is a guide on how to throw your entire life in the garbage so you can spend each breathing moment pretending like you’re secretly on a space show, and one of the steps is “wear comfortable shoes.” It’s like writing a guide on how to chase and eat hobos and telling the manhunters to always brush their teeth. It’s like writing a guide on how to secretly sniff bus seats after females have scentmarked them and tip #4 is “annual bus passes are a better deal than daily fares.” It’s like writing a guide on how to abandon society and live like an Ewok and one of the entries is just “ergonomic sandals are a must.” Wait, it actually is that last one.

Later, the WikiHow advises readers to stop and see a doctor before changing their whole diet to no-touch vegetables only.

Let’s try to put aside the wild expressions on their faces. The raw, idiot sexual tension there. Like it’s last call at a Buffalo Wild Wings. Like they matched on OkCupid because they both have “tim allen” in their interests. Like two juggalos just discovered they both like monster trucks.

The poor Filipino WikiHow artist who got paid 40 cents to make this ran “Vulcan man needs doctor” through Google translate and it came back “bulkan tao kuko doktor.”

All right, I did it – I found the most obscure way to make that joke. We can move on now.

This is the weirdest god damn guide. It is exhaustively complete, but half of the steps are “abandon humanity to live a pretend life” and the other half are “chew your food 25 times for proper digestion.”

Immediately after advising you to see a doctor about this whole Vulcan thing, it tells you to never trust that doctor because she’s a filthy human, especially if she says anything about your weight! The illogical asshole!

I’m not here to fat shame but this guide is apparently aimed at the kind of person who prepares for a doctor’s visit by WikiHow searching up a space philosophy where weight concerns are a product of hysteria.

At one point the WikiHow tries to use your desire to be Vulcan to stop you from using this WikiHow.

There’s something deeply strange going on here. The whole point of WikiHow is that multiple authors edit the page just like Wikipedia. It’s open source knowledge. The difference is that Wikipedia is a non-profit with a passionate crew of volunteer fact-checkers, and WikiHow is an exploitative freelance pit where feral writers tear each other to bits for pennies. And this time it’s like two of those authors are at war while writing the guide. One of them has a severe mental disability and is trying to justify a total retreat from society, and the other is deeply concerned about the first and trying to claw them back.

To explore this theory, they will need names. One author will be called Spolck. The other will be called Melissa.

Spolck will write insane wish fulfillment like “the only thing that beats a bully is Vulcan logic,” when literally the opposite is true.

And then Melissa will chime in with “maybe you have autism?”

Now that you’re looking for it, the whole guide suddenly makes sense. It’s Spolck saying “I am going to build a ¼ scale replica of the NCC-1701-C, fill it with Takis and Monster, then live in it until I die of malnutrition.” And it’s Melissa responding “I’m sorry this world has been so unkind to you, but maybe a walk would help. Bring a water bottle!” It’s like gambling a human life on a game of 20 Questions when one of the players is a Kansas City yoga instructor and the other is Gary Busey.

They really go to war in the “how to control emotions” section.

Holy shit, look how reasonable that is. That’s Melissa all the way. It’s a little inept, like all WikiHow efforts, but it’s well-intentioned and not terrible advice for an emotionally compromised person.

Classic Spolck. Wait until your mother is all cried out before explaining why virtual reality is finally high-def enough that you never have to take the headset off again. Melissa explains why people might cry at a sunset. Spolck explains why you should never laugh or you’re a fake Vulcan. Spolck explains that pure Vulcans choose solitude, because human connection is illogical. Melissa lays out a Taki trail that leads to a therapist.

The war sprawls into the Q&A section:

Depending on which “expert” you get, you either receive practical advice on how to kill your own soul, or somebody’s aunt desperately trying to play along so you’ll take your “star medication.”

Spolck it up:

That’s fine advice in theory, but in practice it excludes you from 90% of human interaction. It’s the kind of thing you think a good person does when you’ve never had a relationship with somebody you didn’t have to level up first.

A direct rebuttal from Melissa. “Not all teasing is bad, maybe the kids really liked your bowlcut and they’re trying to make you feel included!”

I’m starting to think, and this is crazy, but it’s possible that we’re watching Spolck write a WikiHow page about how fed up they are with humanity and Melissa is their mother, live editing it in the next room just trying to keep them in the world.

“Well hold on, sweetie, that’s not quite right. We don’t touch people reluctantly because their inferior brains demand it.”

“See, baby? It’s not a chore to mimic human affection, that’s not why Reagan slapped your hand away at the prom. You just gotta ask first!”

In trying to be both things – a way to abandon humanity so you can live in a pretend world you like better, and also a guide on how to use that pretend world to be a better human being – this WikiHow winds up being both exhaustive and kind of nothing. It’s long, contradictory, argumentative, rambling and unhelpful. Of course it’s one of the highest rated WikiHow pages I’ve ever seen.

And you know what? Those readers aren’t wrong. This guide won’t help you do anything, and if you think of it as a set of instructions it will actually undo things you’ve already learned. But purely as a piece of art, watching a frustrated neurodiverse kid write a guide about how to retreat from the world while their parent tries to trick them into rejoining society through edits on that same page is some Oscar bait shit.

I can almost prove this theory is true. Because it’s impossible, but there’s another, rival WikiHow page on How to Be a Vulcan. It’s fucking completely insane that somebody did this once, it can’t be chance that it happened again. And this other guide has no moral quandaries about Vulcanism. It’s full of much worse art and all of the same advice, but with the cautious well-meaning editor removed. Spolck got sick of the game and left to finally write the guide they wanted. Then they included a special anti-Melissa Warning.

God, what a tragedy.

The Academy is going to love it.

And if that’s not enough to win over the judges, there’s also a really solid character arc in this guy’s hairline.

…
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: John Dean, who has never touched food unless you count enemy ninjas as food, which he does.
Categories
LEARNING DAY

Learning Day: Isn’t That Something? Redux

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Categories
LEARNING DAY

Learning Day: 101 Things You Need To Do While You Are A Child 🌭

Mario Corelli is a very stupid man from a faraway land whose skills include getting her wet and finding things in the human body. A diverse and prolific author, he also wrote the 2020 classic 101 Things You Need To Do While You Are a Child – BEFORE YOU GROW UP, SEE WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO. NEVER REGRET IT!

Before we read it, I want to make something clear. Cursed media, like this absolutely forbidden book, often comes with an unexpected twist. A non-romance author will turn out to be a romance author in disguise. Or less surprising, a juggler will turn out to be a sex criminal. That’s not the case here. I want you to imagine the dumbest thing and then lower your expectations. The book is never anything more than that, and I’m not doing a bit. It is the laziest, stupidest book conceivable, and I have not prepared you for it.

Mario’s style of writing is to put something it would be impossible to not know into Google translate, and then briefly drown after forgetting how to swallow. But unlike his other books, in 101 Things To Do While You Are a Child, he elaborates a bit. Feed animals, yes, but not your own flesh and hedgehogs are lactose intolerant. I think you’re ready, children.

I’m not kidding when I say this is a strong start for Mario Corelli. He saved you from fatally breastfeeding a hedgehog and wrote three entire sentences on a subject. It clashes against the book’s premise since adults are allowed to FEED VARIOUS ANIMALS, but let’s not split hairs about that. If he stuck to things you can never do outside of childhood, the list would only be “REGROW HUMAN TEETH, FUCK A PRIEST.” I just want to say I’m proud of him for the extra little bit of writing he’s doing here.

He’s already given up by Thing #5. And he picked a really bad time to do it, because I have no goddamn idea what he means by RECOGNIZE 10 CLOUDS. Maybe he means to classify them? Announce which ones are shaped like giraffes? Go about your day and run into an old cloud friend ten times? Can I feed a cloud milk, Mario? Because I’m going to.

Oh good, he started writing paragraphs again to help explain what he means by CLIMB ON THE TREE. He means two things: we are now afraid of trees, and that’s terrific. And remember, this is the writer of 101 Things to Make Her Wet: How to Make Her Scream in Bed. So when he asks “Trembling in fear at the idea of trees– is there anything more wonderful?” he is including noisy, very sloppy, orgasms.

ROLL DOWN FROM A HIGH MOUNTAIN, but take the time to clear the mountain of rocks and debris, and use only a mountain resting on gentle materials. I guess these two insane sentences are Mario’s idea of legally protecting himself? It might also be his way of tricking the Amazon spam filter. As you might imagine, he’s not the first genius to think, “What if I self-published a book about nothing in a really big font with one sentence per page!” It’s possible Mario thought these little paragraphs would fool whatever sad AI trawls Amazon’s ebook collection for fraud. 

Unfortunately, Mario only wrote descriptions for the first eleven entries (except, of course, for RECOGNIZE 10 CLOUDS) and I don’t think it worked. His books, these precious masterpieces, are no longer available.

When you’re an author who has been blacklisted by the only bookseller left before you’ve learned how to write, I’d argue no one will ever be worse than you at it. This is like a jewel thief who failed because they swallowed a necklace and died as a baby. I recently bought a CD-ROM with seductive messages hidden subliminally in country music, and the people who sold it to me said, “Mario Corelli is not good enough for us.”

Fourteen entries ago Mario was warning us about the dangers of bottle-feeding hedgehogs. Now he assumes we’re ready to chase after bear tracks with no further details. And again, to whom is this wisdom or advice? This is the whim of a below-average toddler on their first nature hike. If you told a child, “Go outside twice,” you will have spoiled the entirety of 101 Things You Need To Do While You Are a Child.

What the fuck is this, Mario? This isn’t even approaching anything. This is one of two human speeds taking place during one of three Earth weather conditions. Your subject was “the entirety of your childhood” and you ran out of ideas after 14. If you trapped a duck in a fish bowl and let it starve under a pile of aquarium pebbles, it would lead a richer life than you, Mario.

The duck wasn’t real, Mario!

Oh my god. It’s been TWELVE ENTRIES, MARIO. I honestly thought “RUN IN THE RAIN” was the least amount of thought anyone had put into anything, but I was wrong! “RUN IN THE RAIN, [forty two random and unrelated words], RUN IN THE RAIN” is worse! I’m not kidding when I say “forty two random and unrelated words.” I went back and counted. Here are three:

This is how an undercover cop would entrap a third grader.

Credit where credit is due– FUCK THIS KITE is pretty good advice for kids.

It’s a little late for that, Mario. We gave our kite to the sky five entries ago. We all get that he’s not trying, but how is this level of stupid even possible? It’s embarrassing enough to find out you don’t know 101 things when you sit down to type 101 things, but Mario doesn’t know fourteen. And he’s fucking very literally forgotten two of them right in front of us. When Mario Corelli orders lunch he probably says, “I AM BREAKFAST, WHERE AM I? BREAKFAST IS FOOD, WHAT IS THIS PLACE.” Maybe? I still don’t think I have my head wrapped around him yet.

This might help explain Mario. He’s slow and childlike with just a hint of darkness. For instance, if you saw a child organizing a snail race, it would be sort of cute, but they would become your lead suspect if you found a crucified squirrel in a tree.

Oh no. What have you done, Mario?

BY FEAR AND BY KNIFE I HAVE TAMED NATURE. RIDING THE WIND IS BUT ONE OF MY NEW POWERS.

W-where are you leading us, Mario? Wait, that glimmer! It’s an amulet fragment! We’ve found one of the lost relics of Corelli! Legend says to proceed we must face The Deadly Challenge of Mario.

Yes! I never thought I’d get a chance to use this, but I drink my Potion of Snowball Fury! It weighs 38 pounds, you can only use it once, and it leaves you massively vulnerable to all future snowballs, but now I can throw it in the face of everyone who said I’d never get a chance to use it! Suck it! Dragging that thing around for eleven campaigns was worth it for this moment right here! Who’s laughing now, losers and haters!?

FUCK!

A lot of 101 Things To Do While You Are a Child is just different directions you can look outside. This is at least one detail away from qualifying as pond advice. This someone getting punched unconscious one third into reading a Hardy Boys title. It is something fish DNA does by default, and it is this human author’s tenth book. Well, four if you don’t count the six that were renamed versions of his first four. The point is, if you lost a retainer on a camping trip fifteen years ago and had nothing more to say about it, you’re more of a storyteller than Mario Corelli.

“I found a dime! This gives me an idea for a book! Well, one 101th of a book! I’m sure the rest will come to me during the writing process,” thinks Mario Corelli for the fifth time that day, which he thinks is the second time that day. “A dime! I must include this in my next book!” he shouts.

If being a writer doesn’t work out for Mario, he can always fall back on hoping there are jewels in the water.

That’s it? Just fucking PLANT A PLANT? Even for you, Mario, this is weak.

AND WATCH IT GROW doesn’t make it better, Mario! If you thought watching your plant grow wasn’t implied by PLANT A PLANT, why did you leave it out? This is like telling someone to eat and then also poop. If you went back 40,000 years PLANT A PLANT AND WATCH IT GROW wouldn’t be advice. At no point in the evolution of apes could you insert yourself and be anything other than the dumbest fuck in the cave. The neuroscientist who finds your head is going to be so famous.

Oh, holy shit, THEN EAT IT? That’s actually a good idea.

What? Did Mario try to imagine happy childhood memories and accidentally imagine just the word “happy?” I would joke that this is the kind of thing you’d expect from someone’s first attempt at thinking, but that might really be what happened here. This book might be a physical therapy assignment after a treasure hunter’s brain was scooped out by a boat motor. Sorry, this is getting dark. Let me flip through and see if I can find a fun one . . .

. . . no . . .

. . . not that one . . .

GET WET? Hmm… I know two of Mario’s books are manuals for moist fucking, and he would have mentioned treasure if this was about swimming, so this might be a sex one.

This is definitely a sex one.

This might not be a sex thing anymore, but whatever it was in Mario’s native language, I bet it was filthy.

May we forever honor these, the last words of SWAMPBOT 2000.

This shows real growth as a writer because earlier in the book, “eat snow, eat snow, lick cold metal” would have been eight separate entries.

“User mario_101, you have reached the end of your free translations. Please upgrade to the Pro Version to continue using Diplomax Master Translation Software.”

“User mario_101, the period of trial has ended. Fuck to us the pineapple coins for enjoy more the word switch by WORD_WIZERD.EXE.”

I’m so pissed off at this goddamn idiot. Did he think running twenty things through five different translation programs counted as 100 things? And wait, no, hold on. By my count, this second, slightly worse butterfly-catching tip is Thing #108 in a 101 Thing book. Did Mario, on top of everything else, count wrong?

Is this… a-are we reading a diary found on a corpse in an opium field?

Yes, Mario. We’ll make all the rowan corals. As many as you want. You don’t have to hold on anymore. You can just let go.

We’ll *sniff* fly it, Mario. We won’t forget.

Sure, pal. Another great idea. Now close your eyes. Close your eyes and go toward the plums.

…

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Johnny NoFun, who foolishly freed the duck from the pebbles, may he rest in plums.