How to Survive the Heat Dome

How to Survive the “Heat Dome”

 

104 degrees Fahrenheit in NY City yesterday sounds hellish. Not that I wouldn’t find New York City hellish at any time of year, but at 104F, surrounded by hot concrete, the powerful stench of concentrated humanity and ozone rich smog, and with 200,000,000 gallons of raw sewage pouring into the Hudson River, fouling all of the local beaches, the Big Apple must rival Mumbai or Calcutta for epic urban misery right now.

I’ve dealt with a few heat waves in my day, I once worked in an auto service garage in Houston, TX, spent a summer on the Black Rock City Dept. of Public Works preparing for Burning Man, and spent a couple weeks evading authorities in Death Valley. I know how to cope with heat. So, I offer these tips.

1. Go to the produce aisle at your grocery store, pick out a fresh organic romaine lettuce, and pat yourself down with it, head to toe. If anyone asks you what you are doing, tell them that’s how your mom taught you to pick out lettuce. If anyone asks what’s wrong with it as you put it back on the shelf, tell them its all sweaty and smells like BO.
2. Identify corpses at the morgue. Show up at your local morgue, tell them your mother was just too broken up to give much information, but she asked you to go identify the body. Hopefully you won’t really see anyone you recognize, but they always keep it nice and cool in there, so take your time about it.
3. Put 5lb of dry ice in a canvas shopping bag and hang it around your neck. Now put on a parka and some mittens over it and go for a walk around town just to freak people out.
4. Read the account of Scott’s fatal antarctic expedition (The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley George Benet Cherry-Garrard). As you read the grisly account of this ill-fated mission, it will transport you to the most inhospitably cold place on earth. As members of the party freeze to death one by one, until, ultimately, they all succumb to the frigid temperatures, the relentless bitter wind and the vast featureless landscape, you’ll believe you are freezing to death yourself, as you die of heatstroke.

5. Go Bowling, They always keep bowling alleys air-conditioned. They have plenty of seating and they serve beer. What more do you want from life?

6. Have yourself cryogenically preserved until October. Since most people have realized that things are getting worse rather than better, the whole cryogenic suspended-animation industry has fallen on hard times. Who wants to go into deep freeze just to wake up in some cannibalistic, dystopian war zone of the future? So, lately they offer some short-term options, say 60 to 90 days. Let them put you on a shelf in a freezer, next to Timothy Leary’s head until Fall.

Hot Sex. That got your attention didn’t it, but what I mean is “hot weather sex”. During heat waves, no one wants to wear any more clothing that they absolutely have to. So, all of these naked people are bound to get you horny. Unfortunately, its too hot and sticky to have another hot sweaty body right next to yours. So try these suggestions.

1. Oral sex with an ice cube in your mouth. Those round, gumdrop shaped ice cubes are best for this. Be careful not to choke. Make sure you have enough ice for both of you. Start by kissing the back of your partners neck. If you’re one of the millions of people without a sexual partner, try..
2. A popsicle as a dildo. I’m sure this is quite messy, however you women have a safe, cheap solution to your high-temperature horniness. Just flag down the Good Humor man. Men on the other hand have no choice but to…
3. Fuck a Salad Bar. Just climb in under the sneeze guard, and stick it in something cold, wet and squishy. Be prepared to get arrested.

Try out all of these heat-beating tips, and before you know it, it’ll start snowing again.

SoHum Suffers From Shortage of Homeless People

SoHum Suffers From Shortage of Homeless People

The most recent Point In Time survey of Humboldt County found only 4% of the county’s total homeless population, in the So Hum area. That’s an area comprising about a third of the total acreage, and home to about one fifth of the total population of Humboldt Co. While SoHumers take credit for powering the economic engine of Humboldt County, they remain under-served by the homeless population.

 

The homeless people surveyed cited open hostility from merchants, lack of infrastructure and “greedy dope yuppies who would happily spend millions on yet another concert venue, but can’t find the resources for a shelter, campground, or even a public restroom” as reasons for the shortage of homeless people in SoHum. Others point out that SoHum’s clandestine economy attracts shiftless criminals, bent on gaming the system, who don’t care about anyone but themselves. Not many homeless people fit that profile.

 

While the survey suggests no mitigating measures to correct this imbalance, recent trends suggest that as marijuana prices continue to fall, SoHum may generate enough new homelessness, locally, to fill the gap. That’s the SoHum spirit of self-reliant resourcefulness that turned these logged over hills into forests littered with waterline, fertilizer bags and chicken wire.

Word Power, Zeugma

Word Power

Building Your Vocabulary One Word at a Time

Zeugma

zeug ma (‘zug ma)n, a literary device, a word used in both the literal and figurative sense in the same sentence. For instance, three weeks ago, I gave you the word “perionychium”, the tissue adjacent to, and at the root of all fingernails. Following the definition, I made the following statement. “Now you also have a word for it at your fingertips.” Literally, you have perionychia on all of your fingertips, hopefully. Now that the word perionychium is part of your vocabulary, you have it, figuratively, at your fingertips. So, in that sentence, “fingertips” is a zeugma.

Poem, We’re Goin’ Bowling

Introduction:

Even ultra-violent video games like Grand Theft Auto do not satisfy the visceral human need for violence as well as that all American family pastime, Bowling. The physical exertion of heaving a heavy object at a bunch of pear shaped white things in bow ties, and the crack of thunder when you hit them just right makes bowling the ideal diversion for the rabble. Bowling’s popularity continues to decline in favor of video games, but the rise in serial killings like Columbine or Virginia Tech indicate to me that video games lack sufficient physicality to subdue the masses.

We’re Goin’ Bowling

We’re goin’ bowling, that’s what we’re gonna do

Put on your polyester shirt and your bowling shoe

You get us a lane, and I’ll go get some beer

Call up all our friends and tell them that we’re here

Go and pick a ball and aim it at the pins

Give it a good heave, try not to hit your shins

If it makes it down the alley without going in the gutter

Then all of us will cheer, if not, then you’ll just mutter

Sub-audible curses at the warpage of the floor

Then go and take a seat and pour yourself one more

Can you think of a better way that we can have some fun

Without a suped-up racing car, some whiskey and a gun?

New College Courses HSU should Offer

New College Courses HSU Should Offer

Since Humboldt State University has dropped its nursing program, perhaps the only program HSU offers in which students can confidently expect to find good paying jobs after graduation, they really should offer these courses to better prepare the rest of HSU’s students for the challenges of the real world:

 

Espresso Machine Operation and Maintenance All liberal arts students should know at least the basics of how to use and maintain the tools of the trade.

 

Educational Economic Strategy Default or defer? How to handle your student loans. You got to know when to hold ’em, and know when to fold ’em. Know when to take the installment plan and know when to change your name and move to another state.

 

Consumer Choice Adviser Training Course analyzes the economic and ecological impacts of the difference between paper or plastic shopping bags, as well as advice on when to shut up about it, when you ask: “Paper or plastic?” a question you will ask many times in your career.

 

Techonomics Understanding why Mark Zuckerburg made 10 billion from Facebook, and Rupert Murdoch lost 500 million on myspace, even though no one pays a cent for either service, but more importantly, why you will mostly spend money online rather than make it.

 

Immediate Architecture Learn to construct a comfortable livable space from a refrigerator box or a few yards of plastic sheeting. This is architecture to serve your immediate needs. At least something in your college education should.

ROTCPTSD Sure, joining the military gave you the money for college, but PTSD sure makes it hard to study, doesn’t it? Taking this class about a dozen times just might help the world start to make sense again.

 

Cannabis Cultivation This class should be part of the core curriculum for all majors since, regardless of major, most HSU student eventually find jobs in this field.

 

Exotic Dance While the few remaining ballet troupes in the U.S. struggle to sell enough tickets to survive, thousands of exotic dance clubs in every state in the union offer well paying jobs to qualified exotic dancers.

 

Inter-generational Conflict Management This course will give you the tools you need to get along with your parents well enough that you can tolerate living under the same roof until they croak.

 

With the addition of these few courses, HSU could dramatically improve the chances of survival and prosperity in the real world, for their remaining students.

On The Money, Cultural Bankruptcy

On The Money

Financial Advice for the Working Class

Cultural Bankruptcy

We hear talk about financial bankruptcy all the time. Whether its people losing their homes in the

foreclosure epidemic, California’s debt crisis or the current wrangling over raising the national debt ceiling, everyone it seems lives on borrowed money these days, and no one looks to have any prospects of ever paying it off. Every year we work harder, make less, and get further in debt while a handful of people grow ever more obscenely rich.

Increasingly, we live in a world of robber barons and serfs. How ironic that the crowning achievement of the secular, democratic and scientific revolution, born of “The Enlightenment” in Renaissance times, is to deliver us into a new, global “Dark Age”. Frankly, our present situation makes the Medieval Dark Ages seem pretty bright to me.

The average American works way more than the average medieval peasant, just to get by. Medieval peasants also had more flexibility in their workday. With no time-card to punch, lots of holidays and little direct supervision, medieval peasants enjoyed significantly more freedom in their daily schedules than modern Americans.

Medieval peasants never submitted to drug testing, and often, more often than not, drank on the job. Compared to American workers, medieval peasants were unruly slackers. I think we could learn a thing or two from medieval peasants about how to improve our quality of life, and from my present perspective, I take a pretty dim view of this whole “enlightenment” thing.

This is what I mean by “cultural bankruptcy”. Our culture has failed catastrophically. It has failed socially, economically, environmentally, philosophically and spiritually. We all know this horse won’t carry us any further. We can stand here and flog the dead horse, or we can move on. When the life of a medieval peasant looks better than your real future, I say its time to move on.

I don’t mean to diminish the plight of medieval peasants. All of that drought, famine, plague and the Spanish Inquisition must have sucked., but the enlightenment gave us genocide, slavery, sweatshops, mechanized warfare, more genocide and nuclear weapons. Let’s not diminish our own plight, just because its veiled in happy advertizing, and we’re used to it. We deserve better, and our current culture just doesn’t deliver. Its time to cut our losses.

Original painting by Joe Coleman

Wouldn’t you trade global climate change and ecosystem collapse for a good old fashioned famine and drought? If your crops failed, at least there were still fish in the sea. As we harvest the last deep water Peruvian sea bass, while we BP the Fukushima out of the oceans, we face a bleaker future than any peasant could imagine. If you want to know who had it worse than medieval peasants, look to the inhabitants of Easter Island. Now think about a global Easter Island scenario. Yeah, compared to that, I’ll take a little famine and drought any day. Would you choose bubonic plague over cancer? Anthrax over AIDS? I’ll call that a toss up.

Not that we can just go back to the middle ages, or would even want to, just that the foundational principals of our modern culture, that seemed to hold so much promise 500 yrs ago, have crapped the bed on us. Our bold plan to take charge of our destiny through secular democratic government, scientific investigation and technological innovation and a free market, has only exacerbated, not solved the problems we faced as medieval peasants.

Lets look at what’s become of these “Great Ideas” of our culture, starting with…

…Democracy. I’m so sick of democracy, and this idea that we should all just get along. I don’t want to “get along” with everybody, and I’m sure not going along with your stupid idea about how we can all work together. If we weren’t all so damned eager to work together, even on the most insane ideas, we wouldn’t have nuclear weapons or foreign wars. Next to all the ugly, violent and murderously evil things we’ve done as a nation, and all the millions of people who’ve perished, in our efforts to “spread democracy” around the world, don’t the Crusades seem quaint and charming by comparison?

 

So, lets stop using this word “we” to talk about all 300,000,000 of us who live South of Canada and North of Mexico, like we’re all on the same team. We’re not all on the same team. Forget about compromise. Forget about unity. Define your faction, and work for your own best interest.

I know you really didn’t believe in democracy any more, anyway, so lets slaughter the next sacred cow, science and technology. While we ridicule Christian fundamentalists for “living in the Dark Ages” because they believe the creation myth in the bible, we all “know” the universe exploded out of nothingness in an event called “the big bang.” We all “know” that E=MC2, but none of us can really fathom what it means.

Odd, isn’t it, that ancient agriculturalists gave us the garden of Eden, and research that lead to the first atomic bomb gave us “the big bang.” What we see has way more to do with how we see than it does with what there is. About 98% of what there is remains completely incomprehensible to us, so it makes no sense to draw philosophical conclusions from the 2% we do comprehend. That 2% allows us to predict enough physical events to put a man on the moon and build powerful computers you can hold in your fingertips, but just because that little gadget in your hand impresses you, that doesn’t mean you, or any other human knows how the universe works., or has any business fucking with it.

Capitalism, that’s easy. When the banks got bailed, capitalism failed. If you didn’t know that capitalism was a scam before the economy collapsed, you do now.

Finally, lets assassinate Reason itself. They could have never convinced you to go along with this whole wretched system if you weren’t so reasonable. We dialogue, discuss, argue and debate everything in this culture, not that it does any good. Once you’ve agreed to solve a problem rationally, through open dialogue, you’ve lost. A decent rhetorician can make a convincing case for any position, including the ridiculous notion that endless hours heated vitriolic debate would be preferable to a quick decisive duel.

I really don’t think that medieval times were so great, quite the contrary. I just think that if the “Enlightenment” has made life worse rather than better, we should probably ditch it. With the collapse of the middle-class and the growing income disparity between rich and poor, we should face the fact “The Enlightenment” really didn’t solve anything. In the ’70s, in the song, “Working Class Hero” John Lennon sang “you’re still fucking peasants as far as I see.” Today, we should be so lucky.

Word Power, Isochronal

Word Power

Building Your Vocabulary One Word at a Time

Isochronal

i soch ron al (i ‘sack rone al) adj. Uniform in time, recurring at regular intervals, of equal duration.

For instance:

If you wear the same pair of gloves at the same time each day, you can call them your isochronal isotoners.

If you exercise at the same time every day, you might do isochronal isometrics.

If you lock yourself in a room alone at the same time every day, you can call that isochronal isolation.

At the end of every exhausting day, you can look forward to an isochronal gin and isotonic.

 

Poem, For the Birds

For the Birds

In pentameter iambic

In my sweater most Icelandic

Reading you my latest verse

Your response was very terse

Struggled I to choose these words

You said they were “for the birds”

I wondered why you thought that those

With feathers might just like my prose

So, I went out to the feeder

To see just how they liked my meter

After just one stanza read

Some poop came down upon my head

I came inside, took off my shoe

The birds have said my stuff’s for you

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Terrific New Product, and Site Sponsor:

MyPee

100% Natural, Safe and Effective

Poison Oak Killer

Do you have pesky poison oak in your yard? Tired of the burning, itchy rash you get from touching it? Afraid to pull it up, because you know you’ll end up covered in weeping blisters you can’t resist scratching?

 

Well never fear, MyPee is here! MyPee, a safe, all natural formula, composed entirely of human urine. Specifically, my urine. Do not be fooled by imitations! While the urine of other humans may also kill poison oak, only MyPee has been rigorously tested in numerous field trials. Only my special proprietary formula has proven poison oak killing properties, and only MyPee caries my unconditional guarantee. I guarantee that if you are not completely satisfied with the quality of my urine, I will send you a replacement bottle for half price.

MyPee Poison Oak Killer

In field test after field test, MyPee kills poison oak every time. Now I’m making this magic formula available to you, the faceless, itchy masses. Now anyone can rid their yard of pesky poison oak, and save themselves the suffering and embarrassment of uncomfortable, unpleasant and unsightly poison oak rash.

 

But is it safe? You bet it is! MyPee is 100% natural, and safe enough to drink…everyday! It really doesn’t taste that great, but over ice, with a good bit of gin, its not so bad, once you get used to it.

Mypee is Safe Enough to Drink...Everyday!

Besides killing poison oak, Mypee has dozens of other uses around the home. No, really, I’m sure I can think of a few…like…I don’t know…maybe: Killing poison ivy. We don’t have poison ivy in CA, but some of you folks back east could give it a try. Oh yeah, here you go. You can pour MyPee on copper to give it that blue-green ver-di-gris finish.

 

I’d say you could use MyPee to pass a urinalysis drug test, except that I take drugs, probably more than you. You can use MyPee to fail a drug test, should you ever wish to do so. If you would like them to find a specific drug in a urine sample, send me the drugs, and I’ll happily brew you a special batch.

 

Or how about this scenario. You’re lost in the desert. You have no water, and the sun is cooking you alive. You’re just about to drink your own precious urine, but you just remembered that you have a bottle of MyPee in your backpack! You can save your own urine for another day. MyPee just saved your life!

 

Served over ice, with gin and an olive, a MyPeetini could save your life after a hard day at the office. Substitute a cocktail onion for the olive and you have a MyPee Gibson. Want something more exotic, How about a MyPee Maitai, a MyPee Margarita, or a MyPee Daiquiri. Like I said, “dozens of other uses around the home.”

 

But don’t take my word for it. Check out these endorsements:

Hippie Chicks Endorse MyPee

Hippie Chicks, “John peed on all of the poison oak around our cabin, and all of the poison oak died. Now, if John would just leave us alone, everything would be great.

Old Farmers Endorse MyPee

Old Farmer, “I been pissin’ on poison oak since before you were born. Now get off of my land before I have to shoot you!”

Science Nerds Endorse MyPee

Science Nerds, “Well clearly the high nitrogen content in the urine burned the small plant. However, if you diluted the urine with enough water, blah blah blah blah blah…”

 

Aren’t you sick of people looking at you like you have leprosy? Haven’t you spent enough money on Calamine lotion for one lifetime? Wouldn’t you like people to remember your summer barbeques for something other than the itching? Well then, its time to get out your wallet, because MyPee can solve all of those problems for just $19.95 per 16oz bottle (plus $3.95 s+h). That’s enough to kill one small poison oak plant!

 

Yes, that’s right, during this special introductory offer, you can get 16oz of MyPee for the low, low price of 19.95 (plus$3.95s+h). Other specialty urine products sell for $50, $60 or even $100 an oz, but MyPee is such an amazing product, and has the ability to relieve so much suffering in the world, I feel it should be affordable to everyone.

 

Alas, even at this low price, many who suffer from poison oak cannot afford MyPee themselves. So, I set up a special program to help less fortunate poison oak sufferers, and ask you to participate. When you order MyPee, please donate to help these individuals. Just check the “Please Help” box on the order form, and give as much as you can possibly afford for the Piss-Poor Peasants With Poison Oak Foundation. That way everyone can enjoy blessed relief from the curse of poison oak in your yard.

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Please Call Now!!

Except that I have no phone.

On the Money, A Golden Opportunity

On The Money

Financial Advice for the Working Class

New Biotech Start-up goes Public

Golden Opportunity for Smart Investors

After years of hard work and countless man-hours of Research and Development, MyPee, my first patented biotech product hits store shelves in 15 test markets today. Ever since 1999, when I heeded the advice I read in Wired Magazine, and patented my own genome, I’ve dreamed of the day I would bring the first high-tech miracle of science, based on my own peculiar body chemistry to market. That day is today!

 

With the unveiling of my first patented biotech lawn care product, MyPee, I join the ranks of companies like Amgen and Monsanto in the biotech industry, revolutionizing the way we live through biotechnology. With the race to patent all life on Earth well underway, the biotech sector offers the greatest potential for growth anywhere in the current economy.

 

The History of MyPee

By patenting my own genome, I secured my rights to the 750 million years of R+D conducted by my ancestors, which has now culminated in the creation of me. However, there remained the problem of developing a commercial product from my genetic makeup. I discovered that most of the unique enzymes, antibodies, proteins, stem cells, etc. in the human body, suitable for commercial exploitation, only happen inside of the body. Thus, sampling, and studying these compounds usually involves some invasive medical procedure, like jabbing me with a needle and drawing blood. I don’t like needles. I can’t stand the idea of jabbing myself with a needle, and I’m sure not going to pay someone to do it for me. This obstacle put a major crimp in my biotech research for many years.

 

The MyPee Epiphany

One sunny afternoon, while investigating my amazing, and seemingly endless capacity to turn beer into urine, epiphany struck. I realized that for years now, I’ve kept my own yard clear of poison oak by peeing on young poison oak plants whenever they come up. Clearly, I had a marketable product on my hands (just a drop, which I wiped on my pant leg), and I was just pissing it away.

 

Now, with my own distinct individual formula, stamped with my genetic fingerprint, I have developed, and now produce a marketable biotech herbicide, for which, nature has provided me an adequate spigot. No needles necessary.

 

MyPee Uniquely Situated in the Biotech Industry

Companies like Amgen engineer human physiology for the purpose of creating new medicines. Companies like Monsanto engineer plants for agriculture. MyPee takes an outside-the-box approach by engineering human physiology to create an agricultural product. The repercussions of this bold move will be felt throughout the industry.

 

Biotechnology and Marketing

MyPee, the first all natural, biotech herbicide, specifically targeting poison oak (Rhus diversiloba), that’s safe enough to drink. Obviously the simple facts of the product speak for themselves. However, research shows that MyPee does not discriminate by species, rather, MyPee picks on very small plants, when liberally applied. In the future, I expect to market specialized MyPee formulas for killing dandelions, crab grass, hogweed and kudzu as well.

MyPee Poison Oak Killer

Turnaround

Most biotech products require millions of dollars upfront in research and development, that they must recoup before paying dividends. With MyPee, you get the benefit of 750 million years of research, for the price of a patent application. This leaves MyPee situated to turn a profit almost immediately. Our in-house ad and marketing department also keeps expenses low. We keep expenses so low at MyPee, that we expect to turn a profit from the sale of the very first bottle.

 

So, Why Does MyPee Seek Investors

MyPee seeks investors to expand production to meet the expected increase in demand following our initial marketing plan. With the purchase of a new refrigeration unit of sufficient size to hold a keg of beer, outfitted with an external tap mechanism, we can reduce the cost of producing MyPee significantly. By purchasing beer in returnable kegs, we will realize significant savings over individual 12oz bottles. Also the external tap mechanism will save energy costs, because I won’t have to open and close the refrigerator nearly so often.

 

The Bottom Line

We expect the total cost of this expansion to come in at around $3,000. That’s about 3% of the total current market value of the MyPee Company. So, MyPee will offer 100 shares of MyPee preferred stock at a base price of $30 each at an initial public offering later this month. Stockholders will own a proportional stake in the company, receive dividend checks in profitable quarters, and enjoy voting rights at shareholder meetings. Sometimes we have donuts at these meetings.

 

While any biotech firm on the cutting edge of science faces uncertainty and risks inherent in any new technology, MyPee’s prudent business plan and exceptional product make MyPee an attractive investment with strong potential for growth in the coming years. Don’t let this golden opportunity piss you by.

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