Texting the Wrong Person

Friends,

When I was young, a popular question to throw around in a social group setting was, "What's your most embarrassing story?" I've heard some real doozies, ranging from vocal failures to walking failures to bladder failures. (If you want to know mine, just ask-- but I'll warn you now, it literally involves an Asian massage parlor.)

But technology has evolved, and thus so has embarrassment. 'Communication' used to mean face-to-face talk, landline phones, or even written letters. Now we have Facebook, texting, and tweets (which could, I guess, be viewed as 140-character typed 'letters' to the whole world).

In short, there are so many new and exciting ways to make yourself feel like an idiot.

Text at your own risk
Side effects include blushing, apologies, isolation, tears, and unfulfilled pledges to never again use technology

As communication becomes more public, instantaneous, and permanent, mistakes become more costly. And perhaps no mistake is funnier (depending, of course, on whether or not you're part of the story) than the phone contact mix-up.

Here are a few categories of 'mistexts' and some possible solutions. When possible, I've included real stories, though in almost all cases I changed the names.


1. You're so vain, you probably think this text is about you. Oh wait, it is.

Yeah, pretty long title for a category of text. This is when you write a text about someone and accidentally send it to that person instead of the intended recipient. This is probably due to the fact that you typed the text before entering the recipient. Thus, the person's name is on your mind when you absently enter the (wrong) recipient.

Examples:
Joe -> Sally
"Dude, I have no idea how to break up with Sally... she's not going to take it well!"

Jane -> Bill
"When will Bill get the picture that I'm NOT INTERESTED in him?!"

Solution:
Always, always establish the recipient of the text before you type its content. Then, if there's anything remotely sensitive in the text, double-check the name before clicking Send.


2. Same name, different person

This texting faux pas exists because we live, just to take the good old U.S. of A. as an example, in a country of over 300 million people with only about 5,000 commonly used first names. [Fun fact: by a generalization of the pigeonhole principle, there must be at least one first name shared by over 60,000 people.]

Irrelevant counting arguments aside, we all know a bunch of Jo(h)ns and Sara(h)s. This makes it all too easy to text the wrong person.

Examples:
My ex-girlfriend's sister texting me [instead of some 'Jon'] excitedly that my ex just got engaged.

My (different) ex-girlfriend's mom calling me while trying to reach her daughter's new boyfriend [also named 'Jon'].

Yeah. Ouch.

Solution:
Use last names in your cell phone. It's so obvious.


3. Texts of Vice

I have no experience with either drunk texting or 'sexting'. But just imagine what happens when you combine alcohol or sex with error #1 or #2 above. That just cranks the awkwardness amp up to 11.

Examples:
Um, I'm pretty much going to let you use your imagination. But think of this-- even if you send this stuff to the right person, it's still probably going to be embarrassing someday. And unlike a regrettable memory, which fades with time, texts are basically around forever.

Solution:
Stop it.



Leave a comment
but don't text it

Have you been on either end of an awkward texting error?

Do you have any good texting tales?

What's your most embarrassing story?

Jon

Point/Counterpoint: traffic merging

Friends (soon-to-be enemies?),

There are obviously a lot of contentious situations and passionate opinions in the world of traffic. Today we talk about one that might top them all: the appropriateness of the 'late merge' (or as it's called on angry internet forums --I really found some-- the 'selfish merge').

You may not recognize the scenario from those phrases alone. I refer to the situation in which, on a highway, road work has caused a lane to close. For the sake of simplicity, picture two lanes being reduced to one lane. A sign reads "Right lane closed in 1.5 miles". Many drivers, motivated by some bizarre reflex to respond to things instantaneously, immediately get over to the left lane. Soon everyone has done this and the left lane is bumper-to-bumper while the right lane is wide open for 1.5 miles.

Some drivers, surely in the minority, see the wide open right lane and 'zoom up' to the merge point and try to 'butt in' to the line of standstill traffic. You might be mad just thinking about it. You may want to hurt that selfish, rude, inconsiderate driver. But here's the thing-- he's right. You're wrong.

The Biggest Misunderstanding in Driving
I think the biggest in pronunciation might be 'mischievous'

Dumb Person: Ugh!! I can't stand those worthless, pathetic, arrogant, ignorant, deplorable, abhorrent, loathsome, scum of the earth, ugly, poorly educated drivers who zoom up and try to merge in right at the merge point.

Me: I do that every single time. Without exception.

DP: Are you serious? Dude, that's low. I can't stand drivers like you.

Me: Drivers who merge at a merge point? Have you ever contemplated the phrase 'merge point'?

DP: No!! Don't even try to convince me! I will not budge on this! You're wrong and I hate you! Plus, don't act like a little word trickery changes the reality of the situation on the road.

Me: Ok, no more word trickery. But how about the fact that we are all supposed to use both lanes until the merge point?

DP: I'll believe that when I see a sign telling me.

Photo evidence:

DP: I've seen what you can do with Microsoft Paint. I'm not convinced that's an actual sign.

More photo evidence:

 



 

Me: These signs are used consistently at such road work sites all over Pennsylvania.

 

DP: Okay that looks vaguely familiar, but I almost never see them personally. When there's no such sign, how are people supposed to know that? It's not like announcements are made to the public to tell us.

 

Me: Well there was that one time that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that "PennDOT has issued an advisory urging motorists who approach restricted work zones to use all open lanes to the designated merge point." And I recall Jim Struzzi, spokesman for said Dept. of Transportation, stating that "failure to [use both lanes til the merge point] is already causing major challenges for motorists on I-79."

 

DP: They're wrong! What I'm doing would never make traffic worse.

 

Me: They're the department of transportation.

 

DP: More like wrongsportation.

 

Me: Good one. But the thing makes sense. Suppose there is a gridlock of traffic. If done properly at the merge point, let's suppose this would cause 2 miles of backed up traffic prior to the merge point. But if everyone hurries over to the one lane 1.5 miles early, then you have traffic backed up 3.5 miles before the road work. All you've done is back the process up earlier on the road. Why is this bad? Because there might be entrance ramps onto the interstate in those earliest 1.5 miles! This now creates another turn-taking point and backs the traffic up even more!

 

DP: Well this is all well and good theoretically. But I'm not talking about weighing the merits of reality against some imaginary best-case scenario in which everyone uses both lanes. I'm specifically talking about the real world, in which it's only you and a handful of other drivers zooming up. Stop doing it.

 

Me: I can't and I won't. Listen. There are signs posted saying to use both lanes. The local papers reported we should use both lanes. The Dept. of Transportation issued an advisory that we should use both lanes. Minnesota's same Dept. says that "research shows that [dangerous lane switching, serious crashes and road rage] decrease when motorists use both lanes."

 

DP: Are you seriously quoting new evidence during closing statements?

 

Me: Yes! When traffic signs, the paper, the DoT, and research all tell me to do something, I do it. I'm sorry you're not also doing it. If you and the other haters would join me, together we could reduce accidents, shorten traffic jams, and be happier.

 

DP: Don't confuse me with the facts. I have a closed mind.

 

 

Come with me if you want to live

Or at least get places faster

 

Are you ready to join me, zooming ahead in the open lane all the way to the merge point?

 

Where do you fall on this intense issue?

 

Has anyone just now seen the light of the late merge?

 

Jon

Guest post: Reality TV!

Friends,

Through some combination of work, laziness, not receiving enough comments on my last couple posts, and Netflix, I find myself again apologizing for a delay in my blogging. But my wonderful and talented girlfriend Ashley has come to the rescue with a guest post! I hope you enjoy! (But not so much that you actually watch any of the shows listed below.)


Ashley's Top Six Reality Shows
Note: these shows do not actually portray reality.

Here's something you're not ever going to see on Tangent Spaces without a guest post: Good recommendations for reality television! Because Jon watches mostly crap. [Editor's note: my favorite TV shows of all time include LOST, Arrested Development, Psych, Battlestar Galactica, Community, Freaks and Geeks, Heroes (season 1), How I Met Your Mother... you can decide for yourself if that's crap.]   Lucky for you, new friends, he's dating me. And here are some of the best reality television shows out there.

1. Breaking Amish 
This show combines everything I love. (Two things I love.) Religion, and reality TV. Five farm kids hit the mean streets of New York City (read: a comfortable hotel) to encounter their dreams. In the meantime, they encounter other things, like...light switches. Also see: skanky clothes, tattoos, and a whole lotta booze. Episode Five is particularly explosive when Rebecca is first blackmailed by, and then reveals, a dark secret! (Spoiler alert: She used to dress up "English" and go BOWLING. Gasp. Yawn.)

 

2. My Fair Wedding with David Tutera 

Um, hello. A fabulously-dressed gay man who swoops in and plans fantastical wedding celebrations with themes like "Glitter!" and "Swamp Wedding." Obviously, I am watching. This show really spins around two things: David's facial expressions, and the grade-A, crazy bride he's trying to help. Tell us, David, is a frog motif ever really appropriate at a wedding? No. Uh-uh. No. Just. Really. No. 

3. Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta

The accents, the sequins, the completely delusional belief that taffeta makes us look thinner! The show follows Lori Allen, owner of the massive, multi-floored boutique "Bridals by Lori," as she and her team ask the question, "So...is THIS your dress?!?" Then the girl gets all crazy and manic and tearful, and ends the episode whispering yes repeatedly. This show isn't really about the bride, though. It's about the crazy family. The sister who openly admits wanting a prettier dress than her sister bride. The mom and the mother-in-law shouting in the lobby. The Dad who thinks there's too much cleavage. The Dad who thinks there's too little cleavage...

4. Keeping up with the Kardashians

Ok, so this is hardly reality television. The day that the Kardashians live in the real world is the day that I wear a custom Vera Wang to my wedding. I mean, here's a group of ladies who make the Real Housewives of Orange County seem grounded, and sane. But this sometimes shocking and always flagrant obliviousness to reality--this is what MAKES the show. Nora Ephron (amazing now deceased romantic comedy writer/producer, think "When Harry met Sally" and "You've got Mail") once talked about how romantic comedies are intentionally a little shinier than real life-- the people are a little hotter, the clothes a little trendier, the places a little more fun--because that's what we want to see! That's escapism! And that's the "Keeping Up" world. So...do it, escape with me. As the sisters say, "Kardashians for Life!" 

5. Married to Jonas

I am not thirteen. I feel it necessary to preface these comments with that. But seriously, could Kevin Jonas have found a sweeter girl with whom to live life? Danielle Jonas is so fun, I might consider listening to her husband's music. And hey, let's be real--given that I already love Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, and One Direction, I would probably enjoy it. 

6. Duck Dynasty

This is the extremism of the Kardashians, in reverse. A group of hillbilly brothers wantonly flaunting their red necks with complete disregard for social conventions like proper English and baths. But they pray! At the end of every episode! It's so outrageously Christian, it might as well air on TBN. Yes, they are Christians, and thanks to the expensive duck calls they make, they are loaded, and if that's not enough for you--they are so seriously hillbilly you can't help but feel better about whatever whacked-out, back-water relatives you have. So the next time you walk up on your cousin Bubba roasting frog legs over a bonfire made of an old duck blind in the back yard, just know, it could be worse.


Other Mentions...

Hoarders

I agree. A dead cat is the best cat, and wow, so many dead cats!

Secretly Pregnant

Really? Not for long.

Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsay/Restaurant Impossible with Robert Irvine

Seriously, why have they never brought these shows together? What's better than one famous British chef stomping around your kitchen, shouting, and spitting out your food? Two! Obvs.

Intervention

I believe this show is a legitimate use of my prayer and devotions time.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

I know, I know. But really--it's ripped from the headlines! And Olivia Benson is my hero.

What about you? Do you watch any of these shows? 

 

Or, like Jon, are there any you avoid like the plague? (Who thinks Jon should suck it up and watch Kardashians with me after I have major surgery?) 

 

Which shows did I miss?

 

--Ashley [and Jon]

 

 

[I'm not gonna lie, these dudes look awesome.]

 

5 Hours of Energy, 30 Seconds of BS

Friends,

I'm so sorry about the delay in blogging. Through some combination of work-related busyness, my girlfriend's cancer potentially returning, and an incessant desire to watch Supernatural on Netflix, my Tangent(s) sort of got pushed to the back burner. I'll try to improve, O faithful reader.

Well, on to our topic. This ad, admittedly, is old news. This misleading, comically bad commercial has been around for months, and many other bloggers and Youtubers have already reamed it. But sometimes you don't blog to be original; you blog-- sometimes anyway-- to pour out your almost limitless wrath on a terrible sector of human existence. And if any human product can be called 'terrible', surely it is this 5-Hour Energy commercial.


Maybe the most awful commercial ever
Though I do hate those Everest Institute ones where the guy assumes you're a useless degenerate

This is the point at which I would ideally post an embedded video of the commercial in question. Here's the problem... it doesn't exist online. 5-Hour Energy has pulled the commercial from its YouTube channel and its website's 'Commercials' section. All the other blogs that rant about this now have videos that simply read "content removed by user." Well, hopefully this screenshot will jog your memory:

The very beginning of this 'amazing' commercial

There are so many parts of this commercial to criticize that, to keep them straight, I'll have to go through the script, verbatim, phrase by phrase:


1. "We asked over 3000 doctors to review 5-Hour Energy. And what they said is amazing."

Given what we're talking about (a review of 5-Hour Energy), it's hard to imagine that what was said will amaze me. Here are some doctor responses that would be 'amazing':

• "5-Hour Energy consistently provides the ability to bend space-time to one's will."
• "Most 5-Hour Energy users grew a third nipple."
• "Chuck Norris takes 5-Hour Energy."

With that in mind, come on lady, what's so amazing?!


2. "Over 73% who reviewed 5-Hour Energy said they would recommend a low-calorie energy supplement to their healthy patients who use energy supplements. 73 percent."

Wait, what? THAT'S the amazing news? I was hoping to become a three-nippled Hiro Nakamura. But wait, upon further thought, the inclusion of this statistic is pretty amazing:
These doctors aren't recommending 5-Hour Energy to anyone; they're merely agreeing that if a patient is already taking an energy supplement, they can go ahead and take a low-calorie version instead. With that kind of weak, generalized parameter, the shocking question is-- Why did the other 27% say no??!

But if you think those numbers are incriminating, just wait until you read the fine print!


3. Fine print #2 (the first one doesn't say anything relevant): explanation of the survey

5-Hour Energy sent out 500 internet surveys to doctors and approached 5,000 for a face-to-face survey. So, in fact, 5,500 doctors were approached. But 2,500 of the doctors approached in person flatly refused to take part in the survey. I wonder if those doctors would recomment 5-Hour Energy? This lowers the already meaningless percentage from 73% to 40%.

But wait! It gets worse.


4. Fine print #3: confessing that recommending 'a low-calorie energy supplement' isn't the same as recommending 5-Hour Energy

This fine print reads: "Of the 73% of primary care physicians who would recommend a low-calorie energy supplement... 56% would specifically recommend 5-Hour Energy."

Wow. So, of the 3,000 doctors who would give them the time of day, only
(73%)x(56%)= 41% would actually recommend the product-- to people who are already taking energy supplements! Not to mention that if we factor in the 2,500 doctors who completely shut them down, we arrive at a whopping 22%. 22 percent.


5. Summary

So 5-Hour Energy approached 5,500 doctors to review their ingredient list. 2,500 of the docs refused, saying "You are a bunch of business-savvy quacks who are looking to use manipulative marketing to turn my medical expertise into a quick buck. Get lost! I hate your phony product!!" (I assume.)

Of the 3,000 who would play ball, 41% said that if they had a patient who was already taking energy supplements, they would recommend 5-Hour Energy. 41 percent.

Hilariously enough, there were (if you recall that big 73% number) an additional 32% who stated that they would recomment 'a low-calorie energy supplement'-- apparently just not the one called '5-Hour Energy'.


Have you seen this commercial? Any other criticisms I've forgotten?

Oh, and I guess I should ask if anyone has actually taken 5-Hour Energy? Does it work?

Jon

The Windshield Wiper Enigma, Pt. 2

Friends,

Professional bloggers roll out topical series, with a new installment each day, week, or month to keep you coming back for more. Skilled amateur bloggers write related posts in sequence with maybe a little less frequency or regularity, but a continuity that keeps their readers entertained and intrigued. I wait a year and a half to write an unexpected, unannounced follow-up piece to an inarguably pointless post.

That's what you get at Tangent Space(s). Thanks for reading anyway.


Some background information
That I would even try to bring you up to speed on this is absurd

In the calendar year of 2011, I drove my friends' SUV while they were overseas. In the spring, I noted how laughably inadequate the three windshield wiper speeds were. I blogged about it, and if you don't clearly remember that ridiculous bit of writing, I recommend you read it now.

If you're like me and too lazy to click a link, I'll give a brief summary of my findings. The three wiper settings had periods of 6.9, 1.9, and 1.3 seconds. The problem was that the first setting was almost always too slow, the second often too fast, and the third ran the risk of breaking the sound barrier and thus shattering my windshield.

Last winter I bought a car. It's a 2009, and after my old '97 and even my friends' 2005, it has been like a breath of modern, windshield-wiping air. But was I right that it's in the interval between 2s and 7s that the most useful wiper settings are found?


The Grand Experiment
In which we discover if my passionate complaining has any grounding whatsoever in reality

I knew that, with this brand new 2009 world of wiping, I'd be writing this blog entry someday. I didn't want my previous post and its numbers to make me biased, so I took some time to familiarize myself with the usefulness of the settings before I timed the periods. [Pretty crafty science-y move there, am I right?!]

My new car has 6 wiper settings. Four are grouped together, then there are two more individual settings, as follows:

1-A
1-B
1-C
1-D
2
3

The settings increase in speed, so that 1-A is the slowest and 3 is the fastest. It's a very wide spectrum, as in I could listen to an audiobook of Don Quixote between the wipes of 1-A, and Setting 3 is being researched by the military for the development of high-speed rubber blade weaponry.

At any rate, I found that I almost always use Setting 1-D. For most rains, it is the best choice. I occasionally need to up it to Setting 2, and for light sprinkles I use the slower 1 settings. So, just how fast are these settings? Drumroll please (man, people will call out for a drumroll for anything...)

1-A:  9.4 seconds
1-B:  7.8
1-C:  5.9
1-D:  3.5
2:      1.6
3:      1.2

Aha! So, at least for my visual clarity preferences, somewhere around 3.5 seconds is the most useful, versatile windshield wiper period. No wonder I was so dissatisfied when my best options were 1.9 and 6.9 seconds! Come on, car companies.


What about you? Any updates in your windshield wiper experience in the last year and a half? Any thoughts? Comments? Ideas? Limericks?

Jon

My Top 5 Pixar Movies

Friends,

There are many types of movies, and I love most of them. Chick flicks, sci-fi, mysterious spy movies starring Matt Damon, baseball movies... I like almost every movie. One genre I've never really loved is documentaries (though I always appreciate a good mockumentary), mainly because they're slow-paced and about real stuff. But one pretty awesome documentary was The Pixar Story, mainly because it was about the inception of a brand-new movie genre-- CGI-animated features. [For the record, I actually meant the plain old usage of 'inception', not some crazy animation within an animation within an animation.]

Pixar has cranked out some amazing movies in its 17 year run at feature films. In fact, narrowing this list down to five was extremely difficult, and I had to leave off a movie that had me literally crying in the first 20 minutes.



Pixar-ception
If I made this a list within a list within a list, I wonder if you'd agree

5. Monsters, Inc. (2001)
I've always loved this movie. Maybe it's because I'm a man, and thus used to be a boy, and boys love monsters. Maybe it's because Billy Crystal's voice takes me back to a simpler time when I was 5-10 years old watching movies I was too young to understand. Maybe it's because of the uncanny resemblance my friend Hannah and I bear to Sully and Boo.


I'm the big one.

4. Finding Nemo (2003)
This, along with the next movie on this list, is one of those movies that, if you explained the plot without my actually watching it, I would roll my eyes and make fun of it. An overprotective fish loses his gimpy fish son and travels across an ocean, aided by a fish with no long-term memory, to find him. I'm rolling my eyes just reading that. But kudos to Pixar for adding in enough delightful sharks, sea turtles, and birds to make this a funny, touching, epic adventure.

3. Ratatouille (2007)
Once again, just a ludicrous premise: a rat who loves to cook finds a way to do it by hiding in an incompetent human chef's hat and controlling him via his hair. Typing that, I feel like I'm playing Beyond Balderdash and inventing a plot synopsis for something like Mmm, Tastes Like Cheese! or Who Let the Rat Out of the Hat? But this movie actually works really well, probably because of the relatability of how one's dreams can seem so far out of reach.

2. The Incredibles (2004)
Two words: super heroes. Sixty-one more words: like the awesome WB->CW classic Smallville, the appeal of this movie to me is the examination of what it might actually be like to be super. How would a family function if its parents were super heroes and its children were developing powers? And of course, there's plenty of action when awesomely lame (or lamely awesome?) villain Syndrome hits the scene.

1. Toy Story 1 & 3 (1995, 2010; I never saw the second one)
I wanted to put this somewhere else on the list because it's 'the obvious choice.' Isn't it funny how we want to do that? We want to say the best Weezer album is Maladroit or that Thanksgiving is our favorite holiday. There's something about being original or rogue that appeals to us so much that we would ignore the facts right in front of us. Woody. Buzz. That awesome race car. These characters are classics, and when the sequels are only made every 5 years, they don't get old.

Honorable mention: Up (2009) [Awesome movie. Just couldn't find room for it on the list.]

Dishonorable mention: WALL-E (2008) [Worst Pixar movie ever. The middle 40 minutes of the film almost put me to sleep several times. Maybe I'm too picky, but I like my movies to have words. Spoken words that form dialogue between characters. Most fans of the movie like to point out that the robot is really cute. Sure. That's somehow not enough.]

Your turn!
Given my obsession with your participation, I may need to develop comment-ception

Where have I gone horribly wrong?
What's your top Pixar movie(s)?

Jon

An Australian Tangent

Friends,

I have returned and the Tangent Space(s) hiatus (felt by all 3 of you readers) is finally over! As promised, I spent 6 weeks on a mission trip that took me to the wonderful city of Melbourne, Australia. For a serious look at some of the lessons I learned, check out this post from our team's blog. For a silly look at some cultural observations I made, you can stay right here.



The Blogger Down Under
It's like The Rescuers Down Under, but without the talking mice or golden eagle or murderous poacher

Something very simple dawned on me for the first time when I started talking to Australians: Hollywood is in America. 

You might be thinking, "Yeah I already knew that." [If you're mean, it might be, "Jon, you're an idiot." If you're me in 7th grade, somehow reading this by virtue of some time travel device, I bet it's "No crap, Sherlock." If you're a pre-teen or teenage girl (or, mysteriously, my 27-year-old girlfriend), the word 'obvs' or 'obvi' might come into play.]

Ok, so the location of Hollywood is nothing new to me. But I'd never before considered its implications for world travel. For instance, if you ask Australians about life in America, they have so many sources to pull from-- blockbuster movies, sitcoms, talk shows, trashy shows on E!, trashier shows on Bravo, etc. This entertaining tapestry may not provide the most accurate picture of American culture, but they have a picture nonetheless.

Conversely, if I ask you what life in Australia is like, what would you say? My guess [whether you're 7th-grade-me, a pre-teen girl, or my awesome girlfriend] is something like, "Um... they have pretty funny accents, right?" We just don't have any media exposure to Australian culture, real or fictional.

What do we have? Some pretty (hilariously) sad caricatures:

"It'll make you happier than a koala up a gum tree."

"Crikey!"

Throw in a Men At Work song and Claire from LOST and you have a pretty comprehensive list of Australian stuff in our media. So, to help inform you a tiny bit about actual Australian culture, I give you...

My Top 5 common Australian words and phrases

They'll make you happier than a koala up a gum tree.

5. 'a bit'

Meaning: a little, somewhat, sort of, kind of

Comments: Sure, you might hear this in America. But you hear it a ton over there. Like, you won't hear any of the above phrases that mean the same thing. It's a bit ridiculous.

4. 'cheers' (or, even better, 'cheers mate')

Meaning: thanks

Comments: If you hold a door for someone, they will almost surely say 'cheers' to you. It's a bit weird to hear the word without mugs of ale being knocked together, but I guess it would also be a bit weird for people to carry around mugs of ale everywhere they went.

3. 'no worries'

Meaning: you're welcome, my pleasure, no problem, I forgive you

Comments: You can hear this in America too, but in Aussieland it's more versatile-- it's the default response to both 'thank you' and 'I'm sorry'.

2. 'good on ya'

Meaning: good job, well done

Comments: As with 'well done' or 'way to go', this can also be used effectively for sarcastic purposes.

1. 'it's my shout' (or 'I'll shout')

Meaning: I'll pay for you this time

Comments: Not only is this just a cool and unfamiliar phrase, but it's obvs one that you always like to hear.

What's your favorite appearance of Australia in our pop culture?

Which of the above phrases do you want to start using?

I'm out of questions, but it would really make me happy and ready to return to blogging if you would leave a comment!

Jon

On international travel

Friends,

Whenever I'm going to have an especially long absence from this site, I like to let you know about it.  The warning might save you a few seconds of visiting a non-updated Tangent Space(s), and at any rate it makes me feel like you might miss my blogging, and that thusly this whole enterprise is a valuable use of my time.

My raging neediness aside, it's time for one of those warnings.  I will not be updating this site until, say, mid-August.  You're probably wondering what could possibly tear me away from my beloved blog for so long, and you're right to wonder that.  It would take a lot.

Well, I will be spending the next 6 weeks in Melbourne, Australia!

I (and the team going with me) will be keeping a blog specifically to give updates about our mission trip-- stories, photos, prayer requests, etc.  Feel free to check that regularly if you want to hear about my ministry experiences and lessons learned in the land down under.

I thought I would leave you with one final (mini-)tangent.  And the tangent that's been on my mind lately, of course, is international travel.



The Best and Worst of Going Overseas
For general air travel woes, here's an old post on the subject


The Worst

1. Jet lag
I'm not necessarily a seasoned world traveler, but this ain't my first rodeo (somehow I need you to puzzle out that rodeo = flight across the Pacific).  If you've never been jet lagged, basically it's as terrifying as you'd expect-- your internal clock just being totally wrong.  Like, 12 hours wrong.  There's nothing fun about that.

2. Missing your checked bags
Flying domestically with one or more layovers, your checked bags have an okay chance of arriving when you do at your final destination (by no means 100%, but okay).  Going international, well... you're not getting that luggage when you get there.  Just accept it.  I hope you can fit 2-3 days of survival items in your carry-on.  You're going to need it.

The Best

1. The beauty of other cultures
It's so easy to think of America as the world.  I mean, I know there are other countries out there, but in the back of my mind, they function like Alaska or Hawaii.  Just more distant extensions of what I know.  Going to those countries helps to shatter this false picture of our world.  The mystery, unfamiliarity, strangeness (and yet relatability) of other cultures are fascinating.

2. A better understanding of humankind
Once you're in another place, meeting people and learning about their lives, it's so much easier to understand what things are universal to people everywhere and what things are specific to specific cultures.  Sure, we might learn in a classroom that America is "individualistic" while Mexico is "collectivistic", but what does that look like?  In what ways does a Mexican family function differently from an American one?  What would still look the same?


This isn't goodbye, it's... yeah, it's goodbye
But just for a month or two

Have you traveled overseas?  What was your favorite thing about it?

Jon

Musings on the Speed of Light

Friends,
There's a really good chance that you're not as nerdy as I am.  I'm neither bemoaning the fact nor bragging (is nerdiness even braggable; is braggable even a word?).  I'm just stating a probabilistic [Exhibit A] fact.  Two nights ago I played a strategy game that featured cards called "King's Court", "Duchy", "Nobles", and "Steward" [Exhibit B].  Yesterday as I watched Moneyball, some of my favorite moments were the glimpses of the equations used to evaluate players' values [Exhibit C]. 

And now I'm blogging about thoughts I've picked up while reading Einstein and science fiction [Exhibit D].


The speed of light is finite, but faster than you
The former isn't obvious; the latter is routinely discarded in sci-fi

Since you're probably less nerdy than I [see Exhibits A-D above], you may not have ever thought about the speed of light.  No one would blame you for this, unless you studied physics.  But it's time to start thinking about it. 

Because I don't know enough about relativity to actually explain it to you, I'm just going to give you a few cool things to think about.  At least, I think they're cool.  And as we've determined, that might not mean anything.

1. The basis of every cool sci-fi thing: the speed of light is constant
Everything else I'll say hinges on this-- light travels at a fixed, finite speed.  This doesn't quite line up with our experience.  It travels so fast that we sort of assume it's instantaneously everywhere.  But no, when you turn on a flashlight, that light actually has to travel to the far end of the room. 

2. No events are truly simultaneous
To say that two things happen at exactly the same time, what do we mean?  We might imagine syncing up wristwatches or something, but the actual meaning of this must mean that an observer would 'see' (i.e. receive the light particles of) Event A and Event B without any passage of time in between.  But because light has a finite, constant speed-- it matters where the observer is standing!

Consider this example from baseball: a runner tags up from third on an attempted sacrifice fly to left field.  Now, suppose there are two observers: the centerfielder next to the left fielder, and the umpire next to third base.  When the ball hits the glove, the light has only a tiny distance to travel to reach the CF's eyes; but when the runner's foot leaves the bag, there is a much longer distance for the light to traverse.  So he sees the catch with virtually no delay, but a slight lag occurs before he sees the runner leave the bag.  Thus, if he sees the two events as truly 'simultaneous', then the umpire-- with the opposite vantage point-- would fairly call out the runner for leaving early!

[Two points: I realize there would be "virtually no delay" for all events in a baseball park, but over incredibly large distances, this sort of delay for light would be extremely relevant.  You might think there could still be simultaneity if you just plopped the observer at a place equidistant from the two events; but if you just altered the speed the observer is moving, the whole concept would fall apart again.]

3. Looking into the past
If you read the bracketed note above-- and I totally understand if you didn't-- you know that this only creates interesting scenarios if we have super long distances for light to travel across.  And nowhere on our planet do we have a distance long enough for this fact to really play out.  But if you've looked up lately, you might have noticed this thing we call "outer space".

Over the vast reaches of space, light's finite speed becomes incredibly interesting (to me).  The most interesting thing, maybe, is that when we look up at the night sky, we're looking into the past.

In our baseball example, the point was that the umpire might see the runner leaving third just after it happens, but (if the baseball field were enormous) he might not see the ball hit the left fielder's glove until a few seconds after it happens.  This is because the light takes a little time to travel the distance to where he's standing.

Well, space actually is enormous, so we don't have to imagine a pretend baseball game anymore.  We can consider actual facts!  The brightest star in our sky is Sirius.  Its distance from Earth is 8.6 lightyears.  What this means is that it takes light 8.6 years to travel from Sirius to us (or vice versa).  So, if something crazy happens to Sirius (e.g. it explodes), we will see the event eight and a half years later!  To put it another way, when you spot Sirius in the night sky, you are seeing Sirius from 8.6 years ago!  What's up, Past-Sirius?


That's all my brain can handle right now
Kudos to you if you made it this far through my nerdy ramblings

There are so many other cool (to me) consequences of relativity.  If objects were to travel at speeds close to the speed of light, so many crazy things would happen, including a slowing down of the passage of time for that object!  Maybe I can ramble about these things another time.  Now I need to go stare at a TV for a while.

What's your nerdiest pastime?

Any, um, cool physics thoughts?

Jon

The Ice Cream Cup Heresy

Friends,

My grandfather was an awesome man. (Come to think of it, both my grandfathers were cool guys; but at the moment I'm speaking of my mom's dad.)  He taught so many things to my mom that she's passed on to me.  Someday, when I'm in a more serious mood, maybe I'll share with you some of these great and wise life lessons.

But for now, we turn to one specific (and vitally important) piece of his legacy: the love of ice cream.

Grandpap had three passionate loves: God, people, and ice cream.  You might think that loving ice cream is common and thus trivial; I assure you, his was an uncanny zeal.  On a spectrum of bowl sizes, his ice cream bowl would be somewhere between a cereal bowl and one of those huge crystal punch bowls.  And probably closer to the punch bowl.

He not only enjoyed ice cream often and in large quantities, but he also employed a method that has been passed down to me and which I've maintained with fierce and joyful regularity.  That is, he would always put milk in his ice cream and enjoy it in a near-milkshake consistency.

And so, I don't just like ice cream.  It's not just a delicious treat or a dessert option.  It is something bordering on the sacrosanct [SAT word alert].  Thus, the cry I raise today is not a light one.


I scream, you scream...
"WAIT, WHAT IS THIS CRAP?"

I'm glad that people can enjoy ice cream in many forms-- milkshakes, sundaes, parfaits, cones, etc., all have their place in this world.  Even mass-produced items like Drumsticks are good; sure, they sacrifice a little quality, but they put ice cream in the hands of the masses, and for that I'm thankful.

But certain lines should never be crossed.  When ice cream becomes profaned to the point of not being good for the sake of distribution or cost-effectiveness, something inside me dies.  I'm speaking, of course, of the pre-packaged ice cream cup with wooden spoon.  I'm sorry to subject you to this, but for the sake of clarity, here are some pictures:

Mmm, enjoy all 3 ounces.

Now featuring our patented Splinter Spoon™

There are three main reasons this anathema needs to be removed from the planet:


1. The amount of ice cream

"You know what I could really go for?  Three bites of ice cream!" -no one, ever


2. The taste of the ice cream

Ice cream from these things is consistently the most boring and fake-tasting ice cream in the world.


3. The wooden "spoon"

The design is incredibly stupid (see below) and the taste of wood isn't as good with ice cream as you'd... um..



The completely flat design makes retrieving ice cream impossible.
The symmetric shape is merely perplexing.

Join the revolution!
To be clear, it's a pretend revolution against an unsavory ice cream option


What's your favorite flavor or type of ice cream?

Have you been traumatized by these phony ice cream cups?

Jon

Bob's Three Tangents

Friends,

As you know, there are two things I literally beg for on this site-- comments and ideas for future posts.  I incentivize comments by devoting an entire page to the people who comment most on the blog.  But my only reward for topic ideas is that when I blog about your idea, I'll give you credit for it.  And if "credit" on a not-famous blog doesn't motivate people, I don't know what does.

So here are three short and funny ideas my friend Bob has given me...



Bob's Top 3 Rants
If you know him, please don't use these to torture him.


1. People who eat only M&Ms out of public trail mix

This is, at its heart, a matter of being considerate of others and their feelings and needs.  The whole point of trail mix, I'm told, is the combining of sweet and salty (though I don't know why you'd mess around with trail mix when chocolate-covered pretzels exist).  If you go ahead and eat all the sweet out of the mix, you're leaving behind a salt-only mixture, also called "Chex mix".  If the person who put out the trail mix had wanted Chex mix... you see what I'm saying. 

To put it another way, this is like a less weird version of someone saying, "Let's share these chips & salsa," then someone drinking all the salsa.


2. The pseudo-courteous door-hold

You know what this is.  You're still, like, 30 feet away from the door in question.  Someone up ahead has decided to hold it for you for some reason.  But because you're so far away, they become impatient and try to scoot further into the building while still marginally holding the door.  When you finally arrive, they use nonverbals to make you feel guilty for taking your sweet time.  Hey man, I didn't ask you to hold that door.


3. The 1.5-person public restroom

Hopefully from the above blueprint, you can already understand why this sort of men's restroom is completely unacceptable.  Totally unnecessary risk, awkwardness, and confusion.  I'm not sure if there's an analog for this in the world of women's restrooms, because, ever since we were kids, girls' bathrooms have been uncharted lands of mystery, intrigue, and speculated luxury and cleanliness.


Join Bob on his tangent(s)
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that he's single, ladies

Have you experienced any of the above tragedies?

What rants would you like to have immortalized on this blog? (I need to rethink my understanding of immortality...)

Jon

A Bachelor's Guide to Home Decorating

Friends,

It has been so long.  I have only my busyness and laziness to blame.  But for the next 7 weeks, you can expect 7-14 blog entries.  If we were in a fantasy novel, this would be the beginning of the Silver Age of Tangentland.  Thankfully we aren't in a fantasy novel, and even more thankfully, it's only on semi-rare occasions that I make comments like that.

When it's time to break a blogging hiatus, the natural question for me to ask is, "What do I have to offer the world?"  I then take the thing that least answers that question, and give you my take on it in an attempt to be funny and subtly make fun of the many blogs that inevitably are devoted to that subject.  Hence I give you...



My top 3 tips for bachelor home decorating
If I haven't made this clear enough above, don't follow any of this


1. Less is More

Look, as a bachelor, you probably don't know how to decorate.  Chances are, if you put too many decorations up, you're going to seriously fail on one or two of them.  So I say find one or two things that work (or don't) and stick with that.  For instance, I have contributed two decorations to my apartment.  One in the living room and one in my bedroom.  (Pictures below.)  Some may call this style "sparse", "bare", "parsimonious" (some people use big words), or "meager", but... um.. what do they know?


2. Throwbacks to childhood = WIN

If you're reading this blog, you either grew up in the 90s, or you're my parent.  Either way, your basement is probably rife with awesome memorabilia from 1988-1995.  This was basically the Golden Age (had to return to our fantasy novel) of awesome characters, shows, cartoons, movies, and action figures.  So by rummaging through a few old cardboard boxes, you can find a **free** nostalgic decoration.  Here's what's on my bedroom dresser:

Alf, an alien from Melmac (left), and Donatello, a
bow-wielding mutant ninja turtle

3. You can make Bizarre work

The main failure in decorating, I would imagine, is wanting something to look really good when it in fact looks terrible.  You can completely eliminate the risk of this by decorating with things that aren't meant to look good in the first place.  How is this possible?  With a piece that is purely thought-provoking or that makes no sense at all.  Here's the wall above our living room TV:

A tiny sweatshirt featuring my birthname and a dinosaur. My grandma
gave it to me again last year, after a two-decade hiatus.

You can take this stuff to the bank
Note: the bank will be decorated better than my apartment.

What are your favorite decorations that you use?

Any fun tips for anyone out there who might not be as awesomely gifted as I?


Jon

The Haircut Dilemma

Friends,

I'm kidding when I say this, but still: there might be nothing worse than when someone you know gets a blatantly bad haircut (well, okay, getting one yourself is probably worse).  And not because you have to look at the hairdo...

The problem is that from the moment you lay eyes on that butchered 'do, you're in a real communication pickle.  Let me explain.


The Bad Haircut Dilemma
So you'll know what to do the next time you see me.

Your fate is sealed within 1 second of viewing the bad haircut.  Because within that first second, you have either nonverbally (or verbally) revealed that you notice the change, or you haven't.  If you haven't, then thank your lucky stars, you can escape from this thing unscathed.  Just continue to ignore the person's hair and go on with your life.

If, however, you've accidentally shown that you realize a haircut has occurred, there's no escape in sight.  You're then obligated to lie and say you like it.  There's just no alternative.  Consider the silent approach:

No, once you acknowledge the new hairstyle, you're obligated to say something about it.  Saying nothing to follow it up would be super awkward, as I hope was captured in my drawing of the armless people above.

But what if you really, really hate the new 'do?  I don't know what to tell you.  As far as I can tell, you're looking at a choice between lying and saying something terribly mean.  Just try to learn from your mistake and next time don't tip your hand.  Or just stop noticing the world around you.  But definitely don't make a noticeable response to a friend's strange new look. 

The hard part is that it's so natural to respond to a change in someone's appearance.  When something's different, your eyes tend to go straight there and your face tends to smile or freeze in an awkward surprised expression. 


Let's problem-solve
You know, brainstorming and spitballing and stuff

Is there some creative solution to this dilemma that I'm not thinking of?

Have you been trapped in the Bad Haircut Deathtrap before?

Jon

Don't text while driving or while making an important relational decision

Friends,

Before I start in on this topic, I have about a million disclaimers to make.  A few of them include the facts that:

- I love facebook
- I love my iPhone and its sundry features
- I check my email all the time (in fact, too many times)
- There's no actual recent example of texting (etc.) that is motivating this blog post, so no need to be paranoid or suspicious (unless you broke up with me in 8th grade via a note; you know who you are)
- I'm not writing this from some moral high ground.  I'm writing it from a cocoon of blogging, texting, and emailing from which I rarely emerge

So don't read this as an attack on technology or social media.  I'm not one of those oldfangled people griping about how smartphones and the internet have robbed us of face-to-face interactions with each other.  I'll never advocate a long-term abandonment of facebook in order to free up more time for, um... honestly, I'm not even sure what else there is in life. 

And yet, and yet...


The evils of written text
I was torn between "sundry" and "divers" in that last section, but I was worried you might think I meant "more than one diver"

There are just some things [apologies, confrontations, break-ups, rejections, and the like] that need to be communicated in person.  Or, if not that, over Skype.  In the absence of physical presence or video chatting, some form of telephone.  But don't write it down.  Don't ever write it down.

The problem is, written communication, in which you don't have to look a person in the eye, is just so much easier.  And that, of course, is why we do it.  In the face of something potentially scary or nerve-racking or unpleasant, we'd much rather communicate the words without actually saying them.

The problem with that problem is, people have dignity that demands personal, actual communication. When you need to make one of these communications, I think it's a pretty simple cost-benefit analysis:

the other person's need to be dignified as a human vs. my desire to be comfortable and/or save face

And honestly, I think it pretty much comes down to how selfish we are in that moment.

In sixth grade, it was easier to ask out girls in a note instead of in person or on the phone.  So we sometimes did it that way.  It must have been much, much easier for those girls to break up with us in a note, too.  Because they often did it that way.  In high school, when we were too old for notes but before texting had been invented, we sent our friends to tell people we were mad at them, or else did it over AIM.  In college, we left a note that said, "Dishes!" on the sink.

The only thing we didn't do was make meaningful noises with our mouths to the actual people involved.

And now, in the information age, we have many more weapons in our talk-dodging arsenal.  We've graduated from wide-ruled notebook paper and post-its to texts, emails, and Facebook messages.  But the dilemma is the same, and so is the solution.

Look the person in the eye.


Please comment (ironically in written text form)
But there's no dilemma, unless you're planning on breaking up with me via a blog comment

Do you struggle with this communication dilemma?

Have you been hurt by a text that should have been a meeting? 

Am I making all of this up?

Jon

I'll tell you how it's going

Friends,

I'm sorry about the delay.  Last week I bought a really nerdy card game, and the late night hours when I normally blog have been spent trying to acquire more victory points than my friends.

Anyway, I think most of my Tangents fit into one of three categories:

a list or analysis of things from pop culture
a philosophical idea or lesson learned from a personal story
a foaming-at-the-mouth diatribe against something that annoys me

Today's Tangent is from category 3, but no worries-- I got my rabies shot (thanks, NBC, for your awesome PSAs).


The problem with pleasantries
Beside the fact that they're not pleasant enough to warrant that name

Most conversations start with Hello, Hey, or Hi.  The h-word of choice is then immediately followed by a question, e.g.

How are you?
How's it going?
What's up?
What's going on?

The first two represent questions about quality of life, and the second two concern recent or interesting happenings.  I will address both types, but my main issue is with the former.

Questions about how a person is doing just seem like stupid ways to start a conversation.  Let's say I'm doing pretty terribly.  The following will transpire:

Person: Hey man! How's it going?
Me: (It's going suckily.  I've got 8 work things stressing me out, 3 relationships on the fritz, I'm having a bad hair day, new bills just arrived, I can't find my favorite t-shirt, my laptop crashed, I stepped in a puddle, and I have no plans this weekend.  And diarrhea.)  Good, thanks!  How are you?

There's no option in most conversational settings to reveal how crappy we might be feeling.  As I'm shaking hands with someone at a coffee shop, it just doesn't seem okay to reveal that I'd rather be at home on my couch and not have to move or think for the next 24 hours.  And yet, I'm asked how I'm doing.  "Pickle!!!"

The other type of opening questions aren't much better, mainly because no actual answer is expected.  To ask someone "What's up?" is just another way of saying, "Please say 'Not much' and then begin our actual conversation."  Were it an actual question, it would be difficult to address right at the outset of the conversation; I mean, a million things are going on, and filtering which ones are worth mentioning is too much mental strain for one moment.  That's why we have the actual conversation, to bring up and discuss those things that are up.


A problem with no solution
To be fair, there definitely might be a solution.  I just don't offer one here.

It seems to me that the only ways to break out of this pickle would be to stop asking these meaningless opening questions or to start answering them earnestly.  But neither one seems feasible.  They're so ingrained in me that I don't know if I could quit asking them.  And I hate to say it, but on those rare occasions in which someone answers honestly about hurt and pain and discouragement, I can't help but think, "Dude, quit being such a Debbie Downer.  We're in an Applebee's."

Other people try to circumvent the superficiality by asking, "How are you doing -- really?"  But unless you're on the phone or alone somewhere, this just seems too emotionally invasive, especially for the very first thing said in a conversation.


Your turn
No funny small text this time.

What's up?
How's it going?
What's going on?
How are you?

But seriously, comments appreciated.

Jon