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leave it to the new york times - i was notified of an article which summarized the conclusions of a recent study - “the most scientifically rigorous investigation of whether prayer can heal illness.” oh yeah, it gets better.

not only did the 2 bypass surgery groups (one receiving prayers, the other not) experience similar rates of post-op complications (the measure of whether or not prayer was effective), but within the group of patients receiving prayer, those whom were told they were being prayed for experienced increased rates of complications - this was shown by some sweet bar graphs in the actual paper. the reasoning? “perhaps from expectations the prayers created.” moral of the story: don’t pray for me you’re stressing me out.

i feel sorry for the group that didn’t get prayed for at all - i don’t know how they decided which patients were to get prayers. maybe that was the “scientifically rigorous” part of the study - “by systematically varying the height and rotation of a common two-sided monetary unit, we were able to conclusively arrive at an unbias way for dividing up patients into the two groups”

and of course there are NO variables in a prayer study. the research didn’t even set up the proper control experiments - like what about having groups where people prayed that the patients DID get complications, or groups where people tried to undo the prayers. or pray for george mason to win the ncaa tournament in addition to praying to relieve complications of some random patient.

and what about the people who prayed? supposedly they were members from local parishes who didn’t even know the patients. what if family members were praying for the patients who were supposed to be in the non-praying group?

what if the people praying for the patients prayed wrong? like they messed up a name?

conclusions? “the role of awareness of prayer should be studied further.” well shit. translation: after countless discussions with pretty much NOT GOD, we have no idea what the crap is going on with this whole “prayer thing.” at least whenever someone starts complaining to me about their money going into basic science research, i can cite this bullshit. and for future reference, i don’t think using science to prove god exists really works - i mean, that’s like proving intelligent design with natural selection. finally, the researchers didn’t even put GOD down as the primary author. the bible belt is going to have something to say about that.

while i do not really have much of on intro for the following lists, they are the result of 10-15 years experience on the social scene. the reason for their posting today goes back to my observation of a ~45yr old skateboarding, which i thought was awesome, but not in an efficient way. i thought he must have just started skateboarding in his early twenties or so, right when it was the cool thing for kids to do - but for some reason, he never let it go…

TOP 5 THINGS THAT AREN’T REALLY COOL NOW, BUT WERE PRETTY AWESOME WHEN YOU WERE YOUNGER:

5. riding your bike with no hands. i see this just about everyday - yeah we get it, your momentum prevents the handlebars from turning, and unfortunately, you from faceplanting - oh, p.s. - everyone can do it so just chill out before you cause an accident.

4. velcro shoes - 1st grade = cool. 16th grade = RAINMAN (ok, rainman was alright, but you know what i mean). if you can’t tie your shoes by now…

3. working at mcdonalds and buying crappy “classic” cars to fix up - i group these because i feel they go hand in hand - most people worked at mc’ds to earn money to buy a tire from an old camaro so they could fix it up and have the sweetest ride at school. but if you’re still working at mcdonald’s in your twenties, and it’s not for a joke or something, save some of your self worth - go to taco bell.

2. nike “AIR” basketball shoes AND those lame addidas soccer shoes - EVERYONE wore this stuff and thought it was cool, and it was - i mean, these were the days of the tennis shoes revolution, in the era of michael jordan and the rising of gangs and expensive sports apparel. but i think we’ve all outgrown this stuff now. ONE EXCEPTION = rap music videos

1. flicking boogers at people - man, i remember these days, and the legend of nate johnson in 6th grade nailing joey meyer with a booger from across the room. but try doing that in a lecture hall in college, or at a job interview - ERROR

and, just for good measure, we might as well pay tribute to the goods that can really stand the test of time…

TOP 5 THINGS THAT WILL ALWAYS BE COOL:

5. saved by the bell - while saved by the bell “the college years” was a crappy attempt to prolong the series, it was still better than anything out today. saved by the bell started it all. 90210? crap! (except for the theme song which was pretty awesome). before melrose, 90210, friends, the OC - any other show which tells of the daily drama between three guys and three girls, there was saved by the bell. and ac slater will never be replaced. nor will his hair.

4. working at taco bell - whether you’re 4, 12, 26, or 78 years of age, taco bell is a sweet deal. especially if they keep the crunchwrap supreme going. plus they have that sour cream gun which goes unparalleled as the sweetest “utensil” in the food industry (have you seen the trajectory on those things?)

3. rice krispy treats. this may sound lame, but i could eat a whole pan of that stuff back in 7th grade. and now i can still take one down - with a few beers to boot.

2. reebok pumps - the concept of “pumping air” into a shoe was revolutionary in the era of “inferior” shoes that only had pre-set volumes of “air” in their soles. and the pure motion of reaching down, not to tie your shoe, but to squeeze the tongue of the shoe a few times, rise up, and give that look that you, my friend, are now READY TO ROCK.

1. farting

it occurred to me through my own personal conscience and comments of those around me that maybe i was being a bit too harsh on the “city worker” stereotype and exploiting the fine, hardworking employees of the campus. as such, to make up for it, i have created a small tribute to them. it’s the least i could do, and i’m thinking this won’t be the last time we cross paths with our landscaping friends (quicktime format)…

WORKER TRIBUTE/I’M SORRY

went to walmart yesterday and i almost pulled a gun from the sporting goods section and shot myself. i’m sure this kind of thing about walmart has been ranted about constantly, but this store is SO STRESSFUL for the average human. next time i go i feel i’m going to have to knock out four teeth, wear some awesome sweatpants with the t-shirt advertising the local tavern tucked in, and bring along 12 screaming kids with ice cream stains on their faces just to fit in.

the most ridiculous, annoying part is navigation. it’s like trying to navigate the boston marathon in an escalade: you’re not going anywhere, everyone’s screaming, and there’s a high probability that someone next to you just defecated their pants. why an escalade? because that’s how i roll.

also, i’d say about 90% of all items in the store are in use by customers at any given moment, which is disturbing - i mean what if want to buy that 4ft diameter beachball? not after junior just barfed on it from eating too much candy corn from aisle 3 while his attentive mom was at the checkout. which leads to another interesting point: the ratio of toddlers to adults is just a little too high - it’s suspicious, really. people can’t have that many kids on average - i think that “parents” are convinced that walmart doubles as a babysitter just drop your kids off at 9am, pick ‘em up at 5pm.

but walmart is pretty damn cheap. cheap towells, paper plates, toothpaste, and best of all, cheap nerf weapons. but when i have kids, we’re going to target.

during my summers while in highschool i worked for city, or to be more specific, the shit plant, in my hometown. this is the place where all the toilets flush to so the water can be purified enough to be discharged into the river, etc. it also deals with distribution of freshwater to homes. however, the sweetest part about working for the city is the experience of toiling side-by-side with some of the country labor force’s most conditioned, politically correct, and efficient employees.

as such i can spot a city worker miles away, and let’s just say the guys i observed right outside my window on campus (see below) were making me nostalgic for the cityworker lifestyle. i decided to chronologically capture their on-the-job efficiency…

i just read an article about how oregon’s correctional system has introduced video games to inmates, in hopes of teaching them to chill the f out while they “prepare for life outside jail.”

am i the only one that sees the irony with this? can you imagine some kid going on a crazy shooting spree at his school, blaming it on playing too much grand theft auto 3, going to jail, only to be exposed to more grand theft auto 3 in preparation for his release? AWESOME.

ok, that may be a bit of an extreme case. supposedly the games offered are from the 1980’s - ie. the really really good games that are few and far between these days - unless you’re in jail. no wonder crime is so high. oregon claims they have the least violent jails - well yeah, that’s because nobody there is a true criminal. they probably only robbed a taco bell or something just for the video games and the comraderie. now they’re living it up, having tecmo bowl tournaments with cell block E. something is not right here.

and of course they best part is how parents blame video games for the deterioration of society, and now oregon is throwing this conventional wisdom back in their faces. below, based on my experiences growing up with video games, i’ve illustrated an interesting, and disturbing trend:

i guess it makes somewhat sense - if you’re in jail, and you’re about to leave the big house and enter the real world, you really need to know how to take down some 8yr olds at street fighter 2 in the local arcade - i mean, if you want to fit in socially, and not look like you’d been in jail for a decade.

next thing you know, they’ll get internet - and i’d hate to play against a jailed serial killer over the internet in a first person shooter game. that would just SUCK.

so i guess i’m talking about two “underappreciated” items in a row, here - but i need the following to set up an award that i forgot to give out from the weekend.

let’s get one thing straight about the BIG GULP - it’s is freaking huge. there is NO reason that someone would require that much soda in a container designed to be consumed at one sitting. as such, i feel people drink BIG GULPS for the experience, the challenge, and shit, it sure is a good way to kill some time (and your bladder). downing a BIG GULP is like eating a sextuple cheeseburger, smoking a pack of cigarettes at once, pounding a bottle of aspirin, eating a pan of rice krispy treats (check), or watching the movie agent cody banks and its sequel back-to-back, and then shooting yourself.

and the name is awesome: BIG GULP. totally implying that you are indeed required to slam ALL of it by means of a calculated, efficient, and voluminous drinking maneuver - the “gulp.”

as such, i think i find the BIG GULP so fascinating in the same way i find eating contests so entertaining. essentially we are taking a mundane activity required for keeping our bodies functioning from day to day and making it so ridiculous and extreme that we could nearly die…in this case, taking the concept of a casual soft drink to the next level. sure, people carry around water all day to stay hydrated, but not coca-cola. and 7-11 asks “well why the hell not” - and they are so right.

so, everytime i see someone with a big gulp i cheer to myself. clearly, they do not need 64 ounces of root beer, just like that little japanese kid doesn’t need 53.5 hot dogs in 12min. but it’s fun to see them try. and, when you have a BIG GULP in your hands, you’ll have a story to tell, because you’re in for an epic journey.

which now leads me to the award for most-likely-to-share-a-64oz-BIG-
GULP-with-a-notorious-B.I.G.-look-a-like-taxi-driver-while-cabbing-back-
from-san-francisco(.com) - this goes to my boy litch, who did just that.

ok i’ve had just about enough of the ncaa basketball crap. foolish of me to expect a big ten team to score over 50pts in a game. as such, i’m reproducing my actual shitty bracket below (left), and the coin flip one (right) for comparison so i can turn my attention to more important things…

like PIRATES. i read that the us navy has apprehended some “somali pirates” - ironically, off the coast of somalia. this is very fascinating to me, since it seems that the art of being a pirate was lost with the turn of the 19th century or so. apparently these pirates were firing on us navy ships. while there are “conflicting reports” of how the “gunbattle” began, i’m hoping it was over some “booty” or a treasure map. this resurgence of pirate lifestyle leads me to make the following statement: WE NEED MORE PIRATES. we need more pirate movies, we need more pirate stories, we need pirate reality tv shows, pirate cereals. pirate themed parties, bars, everything.

now, there has been a slight pirate revival over the past few decades to ensure their longevity and solidify their enigmatic lifestyle (minus “the swiss family robinson” - those pirates were pansies.) we have the ride at disneyworld (awesome), the pirate themed legos (arguably the best subcategory of legos, or any toy for that matter), more recently johnny depp/in pirates of the carribean. and of course we have captain morgan rum, and i’m pretty sure cap’n crunch was a pirate at some point. this is NOT enough.

i want more. when i saw “pirates of the carribean” i wanted that movie to last like 6 hours, and i really don’t know why, but i am willing to make a few conjectures:

1. pirates drinking and partying
2. really bad tavern lighting
3. deserted islands
4. STEALING SHIPS - this has to be the most hardcore thing about a pirate. stealing something so HUGE and so SLOW, that wherever you go with it, there is NO WAY to cover up the fact that it was STOLEN. but like pirates care.

so, if you do not agree with me, ask yourself this:

when was the last time you rooted against a pirate?
when was the last time you saw a pirate get his ass kicked?
when was the last time you saw a pirate get tricked?
when was the last time you did not cheer when you saw someone dressed up like a pirate?

the pirate embodies all that is immoral - raping, pillaging, plundering - yet we still cheer them on. additionally, the pirate embodies so many random concepts and physical attributes that make absolutely no sense that it comes off as pure concocted fantasy - so we cannot take their bad deeds seriously. peg legs, gold, talking parrots, eyepatches, “arrrr.” why should any of these ridiculous items be associated with someone that sails around in a ship and steals stuff? is a pirate more likely to lose an eyeball than a blacksmith? is there a communicative advantage on the high seas to the phrase “arrrr!!”? i don’t know, but i don’t care.

but what’s too bad is that real life examples of pirates are rare. so when i read a story like this it makes me smile and wonder if there really are small islands full of pirates - lost in time, drinking and enjoying themselves, looking for treasure, watching sportscenter. if so, i’d like to take a year off and hang.

well it appears after some hot dude on dude Rd. 1 NCAA tourney action my coinflip bracket got destroyed worse than the Big Ten in a game of H-O-R-S-E with an autistic kid.

totaling points according to the aforementioned system, this experimental bracket predicted a whopping 20/32 games correctly, coming in at 277pts. this is contrasted to my actual bracket which is sitting at 23/32 correctly picked games, but 339pts (from upsets).

the crappily updated “coin flip bracket” is below (soon, i’ll put up my actual bracket that’s bringing home the bacon, baby) . maybe next time i’ll have a monkey flip the coin; even then if the bracket goes to shit, i could still get a study like that published in a widely read scientific journal.

since this is my blog, and i can talk about whatever i want, i’m going to give out two awards today, which i am calling the DOT COM award. mostly because the names of the awards are long and hyphenated, if that makes any sense (think about it):

1) the zoned-out-rocky-balboa(.com) award

today i was walking up the stairs from the burrito place on campus and i heard some aggressive stair-climbing behavior behind me; whomever this most likely athletic research scientist was ascending the concrete flight of about 25 steps - he was doing the every-other step thing. so right as this guy was going to pass me i decided to take every other step (just to make it awkward) and stay even with him - BUT, he took down the final two steps in one dramatic leap to beat me to the top in a photo finish. DAMN. he carried on as if nothing happened - one more triumph to himself, probably. (which should have been mine.) i’m sure he won’t even think or remember this event from his daily routine, so i thought i’d make all 4 of you aware of it. if you know or are this guy: congratulations, you’re really cool.

2) the hardcore-double-stuffed-oreo-eating(.com) award (awarded daily)

this trophy goes to a guy in my lab whom i saw dunking his OREO cookies in coca-cola this evening. crap, his teeth must be made out of stainless steel. i’m surprised he didn’t proceed to crush the coca-cola-logged OREO into a fine powder and SNORT it. for the illustration below, i’ve chosen to use chuck norris as a representive of hardcoreness. if you wish to contest this matter i refer you to chuck norris.


stay tuned tomorrow for point totals from the “coin flip bracket” (see below, march 15) after round 1.