How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966) is easily the best Christmas special in existence. As I have much to talk about, I will split it up amongst the next three days’ posts. In the mean time, if you haven’t watched the film in a while, you can watch it by clicking on the picture below:
Because of the Christmas season, I was thinking about gold, frankincense, and myrrh. As I thought about the word myrrh, I decided that it would be an excellent word to use in a game of hangman. As a result, I am going to provide a quick guide of how to win at hangman.
For those of you who are unaware, hangman is a game where one player thinks of a word, then writes out blanks corresponding to the letters of that word. The second player guesses one letter at a time that they think are in the chosen word. If the letter is part of the word, the first player fills in all corresponding blanks with that letter. If the letter is not part of the word, the first player draws a part of a stick figure, who is going to be hanged. If the first player manages to draw an entire stick figure before the second player guesses the word, the game is over.
As far as guessing letters, the best starting options are vowels. The most common are “a” and “e”. After that, the best options are usually “s”, “r”, “y”, “t”, and “m”. When trying to picture the larger word, avoid getting into a certain mindset. For example, if I know that the first letter is “c”, then I am inclined to think of words that start with a “c” sound. However, the word might be “Christmas”, which does not start with the traditional “c” sound. Also, guess common parts of words. If you know the third-to-last letter is “i”, guess “n” in hopes that the word ends in “-ing”.
While guessing is a refined art form that cannot merely be summarized in a short paragraph, deciding on the right word can make all the difference. When thinking of a good hangman word, it must be obscure, so it isn’t in the common vocabulary of your opponent. (Warning: Using technical terms or words they have never heard of makes you a jerk.) Also, avoiding commonly guessed letters can start you with half of the stickman already constructed. Although a slightly more in-depth strategy, a word with a few filled-in letters that makes the opponent think it’s something else can occasionally prove successful. “Myrrh” is a perfect example of a great word because chances are your opponent will guess all five vowels before selecting “y”, and if they manage to guess “r” they will be severely confused.
Some suggested words include: myrrh, zephyr, quorum, pizzaz
I once had a discussion with someone who adamantly believed that their hometown was not a city, but rather a village. Technically, yes, the official name of the city was of the form “The Village of Riverville”. However, it was definitely a city, and I will explain why.
Although South Korea is technically “The Republic of Korea,” it is still a country. It’s not a continent; it’s not a city; it’s not an animal, and it’s not a vegetable. Officially a republic, it is still a country. Similarly, a “village” is not a type of plant or variety of laundry detergent, but is under the categorization of a city. A golden retriever is still a dog. Yes, technically it is a specific breed, but that doesn’t make it any less of a dog.
Upon any research into the nomenclature of cities, you will find that there is a general order of town naming based on the size of the population. The general order is:
However, I would argue that besides being a specific part of the order, the word “city” is also an overarching category to describe all four words in the list.
Also, if you say you are from a village, I think of mud-stick houses or igloos. If you live in a modern house with indoor plumbing and electricity, in close proximity with lots of other houses, you live in a city.
If I am bored in a public place, one thing I enjoy doing is staring down unsuspecting people. The amount of people in the vicinity has to be fairly large, or else it becomes too creepy and the person might confront you. The best targets are usually middle-aged white men, especially insecure ones.
One time while sitting in an airport, a woman sat down directly across from me. I was currently bored with the book I was reading, and decided to stare directly at her and see if she would notice. She looked up from her phone once, and awkwardly adjusted her place in her seat, then pretended to be preoccupied with her text messages. Feeling bad for her, I continued reading and minded my own business.
Easily the best success I’ve had was in a theater lobby, waiting for the doors to open for a performance. I was sitting on a bench, while a 40-year-old man stood in the decently sized crowd, waiting for his wife to go through the absurdly long line for the women’s bathroom. I looked up once, and noticed that he was looking at me, and he quickly looked in a different direction, trying to cover up for his accidental staring. In return, I focused intently on him. I watched him turn around, pretend to check his phone, and look back at me. Upon realizing my stare, he became uneasy, making awkward, jerky movements. At one point he attempted to glare back at me, hoping that I would realize my stare and look away, but I persisted. I won the stare-down like a football player beats a cheerleader in an arm-wrestle. He became especially nervous until his wife returned; after which he ignored me.
I find it interesting how people create an awkward situation because they care about the opinions of a stranger, someone who they have never met, and probably will never meet.
When I’m in an airport a long ways from home, I figure that the chance of seeing someone I know is very low, so I walk backwards on the moving walkways. Once I was eating McDonald’s french fries while walking backwards on a long moving walkway – the looks I got were hilarious.
I don’t understand horse riding. How can some people be better than others? The whole point is that the horse is riding around and jumping over gates, not the rider. Yes, you would have to learn how to ride horses and direct them to take certain actions, but its not like hurdles where you have to train and perform at the peak of physical ability.
I feel like it’s similar to arena robot fighting. As long as you have the best robot, you could give it to some random kid, and by teaching them how to work it, they could win every competition.
I say we give the medals and awards to the horses, not the riders. The horse is doing all the work, while the rider just sits on top.
Well then, for NASCAR, why don’t we give the trophies to the cars? Surely the cars are doing all the work, all the driver has to do is sit down and push buttons and turn a wheel? I say we give medals to the pit-stop workers. The real engineering feet isn’t that we can build cars that make wide left turns, but that a car can be refilled and have its tires changed in under five seconds.
Have you ever wanted an advent calendar, but without chocolate or the joy of opening the little doors? Introducing the Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs advent calendar! Every day in December leading up to (but not including) Christmas, I will post some little treat linked on the advent calendar page. This will be in addition to normal posting, and a link to the advent calendar will be available at the top of the blog throughout the month of December.
Click on the image below to begin!
I often come up with great money-saving ideas, and being the gracious person I am, I will share one idea I had with you. Instead of buying soda or other drinks in a bottle/can, people should have automatic drink mixing machines in their homes that reconstitute a variety of drinks from their powdered or syrup state.
Powered drinks such as Kool-Aid or lemonade are already available in stores, but soda syrups are not. For those unaware, sodas provided in restaurants are just water mixed with a high concentration of the actual sugary flavored material. The way fast food restaurants are able to store so much soda in a relatively small soda-dispening machine is because they are able to keep a small amount of the actual drink, and simply mix it with water as needed.
Besides convenience, it also saves money. Imagine a household kitchen device, able to quickly and easily mix drinks. All you would have to do is add the desired solute to the machine, fill the main tank, and press the “on” button. In the long run, you would save money because you can create a large amount of the drink from only a small amount of the concentration.
I think I may have re-invented the coffee machine. Just without coffee.
High fives are an art form. As someone who tends to make a lot of high-quality jokes in public, I tend to receive more high fives than the average person. Through my experience, I have discovered why some high fives are better than others.
The two defining characteristics of a hive five are the amount of pain transferred and amount of noise produced. Optimally, the high five should be nearly painless, as well as make a great smacking sound, announcing to the world that a success has just been achieved.
I have provided a graph:
Hopefully your high fives are good enough that you will high five once again in celebration.
It is very important to have your business or website on the top of the list. No matter what list it is (except for a list of someone’s least favorite things), being on top is crucial.
I was on a trip once and got to my hotel rather late. Tired from the flight, I asked the person at the front desk for restaurant recommendations. He printed a sheet and I took it back to my room, choosing to have pizza for delivery. I sat down on the bed, and to my dismay, there were no pizza places that I had eaten at before. I read every option multiple times, not sure which number to call. My hunger mandated a quick decision, and I had no information on the quality of the pizza from just the names. I compromised with myself and called the very first number on the list. The pizza was good, although I’ve had better. The point of the story is not to assess the quality of that pizza, but rather analyze exactly why I chose the first name on the list without any outside information.
It was an excuse. If the pizza was good, I could say, “well that turned out better than expected.” On the other hand, if the pizza was mediocre (it is very very difficult to have bad pepperoni pizza, especially when it is delivered to you), I could say, “well, I just tried the first one on the list.” Similarly, when a waiter gives entrée recommendations, the default choice has already been made; it is up to you to accept it. If the “new shrimp salad with lemon sauce” turns out to be awful, you don’t feel so bad about your choice, since it was only partially made by you.
To be honest, I doubt there was much difference between the variety of pizzas I could have eaten that night. When you break it down, pepperoni pizza is pepperoni pizza, and slight variations from one version to the next aren’t really that big of a deal. Although if I was given a slice from each pizza, I could easily order them from best to worst and write a five-page paper explaining my choices. No matter which pizza place I chose, I would have no way to compare it to any other option. Therefore, selecting a pizza place was almost a meaningless decision, which makes being on the top of the list the utmost priority.
Sometimes I ask myself “What is America?” America is getting together with your family, watching football, and eating lots of food. It’s about having the best opportunities in the world but also stopping to appreciate what you have.
Happy Thanksgiving. I would write more but now it’s time to spend all day talking to people I don’t like. At least there’s free food.
Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs 