Lack of inspiration leads to a feature on toenail fungus

I was having trouble coming up with another topic to cover on my blog, so I ran a search on Google to see if I could find anything to inspire me. Funnily enough, when I searched the term “unhelpful actions” on Google, three of the first ten sites that popped up were titled “Five Simple and Helpful Actions to Eliminate Nail Fungus for Good.” I guess I never realized nail fungus was such a problem, or that it was so difficult to get rid of. Although, now that I think about it, the commercial I still cringe at when I think about it is the one where the little creature lifts up the toe nail and climbs underneath: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTEa2lQepik

This one is gross too, but I like the little song at the beginning: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQHve3o-6Wo “We will eeeeeeat yoooooooooooooouuuuu…”

Fridays that are not half days

Fridays should totally always be half days. All anyone does is think and talk about what they are going to do the coming weekend anyway. Why not actually be doing it? I am also all for the 10-hour four days a week work week. I work late/eat lunch at my desk most of the time anyway, might as well get a Friday off for it!

Made-up words

[THIS POST HAS BEEN SERIOUSLY EDITED BY MR. JASON CENSORSHIP LAU]

Now, before thou doth protest, please know that I’m all about made-up words. Gi-normous is a personal favorite, as is amaze-balls. In market research, we’ll say “a movie is streeting on this date” as a substitute for “a movie will be released on DVD/Blu-ray/Digital download/one million other ways of watch movies on this date” because the former is so much shorter than the latter.

However, there are two main problems with made-up words – they are not “spelled correctly” nor are they “commonly defined.” Because the made-up word is not real, it is not found in the dictionary, leaving lots of little red squiggly lines in my Word documents. And, you often have to explain what you mean by your made-up word until it becomes part of the common vernacular.

[MR. JASON CENSORSHIP LAU REMOVED ALL THE FUN AND HUMOR FROM THE REMAINDER OF THIS POST]

Cigarettes (courtesy of Katie Sweere)

While Katie suggested this topic to me awhile ago, I haven’t written about it until now because I was having difficulty figuring out which angle to take. That’s when I realized – there is nothing good about cigarettes, so any and every angle would do!

With all of their negative consequences, it’s absolutely astounding that companies are allowed to continue to produce cigarettes and that people continue to smoke them. Not only are cigarettes known to cause asthma, emphysema, lung cancer, and numerous other oral and respiratory diseases, they are also one of the most littered items on the planet. Nobody throws their cigarette butts away (which is arguably kind of a good thing since no one wants to start a trash can fire), they just drop them on the ground or throw them out of the car window. 

Several diseases have been eradicated from the world in the past, such as smallpox and polio. Let’s treat cigarettes and smoking and the diseases that result like smallpox and polio, and get rid of them too. It’ll even be a lot easier than the aforementioned diseases, since we know the suspect and how to eliminate it.

Opposite Day – The Embodiment of Helpful – Friends who tell you the truth, no matter what

This one’s kind of a given, but I still want to put it out there. Mostly to credit two of my best friends for loving me enough to lay the honesty on thick, combined with generous helpings of concern and compassion. You know who you are. And I love you too. J

“Traditional” school year – giving kids the summer off

Earlier this year, ESPN columnist LZ Granderson wrote an amazing opinion piece about the superiority of year-round school over the traditional school year. I wanted to raise awareness about this issue in order to be an agent of change, because as cheesy as it sounds, the children are our future. And I don’t want this country run by a bunch of dumbasses (or, even more than there are now).

Here’s a link to the full article:

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-05-10/opinion/granderson.yearround.school_1_year-round-school-math-and-science-international-student-assessment?_s=PM:OPINION

And here are some of the best (aka – most infuriating) excerpts:

“As a nation, either our kids are getting dumber or everyone else's are getting smarter. American 15-year-olds ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math in a study of students in 34 nations and non-national regions.”

“Each summer, our kids lose about a month of progress in math and low-income students lose as much as three months' worth of reading comprehension… More than a month of teaching time at the beginning of the school year is spent re-teaching the stuff our kids forgot over the break.”

“The reason for summer vacations in the first place was that [children were] needed in the fields to help the family during growing season. Today more people live in cities than they do in rural areas, and that farming structure has been obsolete for some time. If our kids aren't working on the farm all summer long, what are they doing? Watching TV? Playing video games? Getting into trouble?”

“Today, if you want to keep your child in a learning environment during the summer, you most likely have to pony up hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to enroll them in a program or two. Families who can't afford to do that depend on scholarships or programs funded by government grants or corporations. If you grew up poor like me, and no extra income was available for transportation to those programs, you simply stayed home and watched TV every day for hours. In retrospect, I would have been better served being in school.”

“What terrible thing would happen if we made the entire year part of the education process, with mini-breaks sprinkled throughout? It won't force kids to lose their childhood. But it would give our young more of a fighting chance. The world is getting smaller, the world is getting smarter and if you look around you'll see when it comes to education, we're no longer basking in the glow of superiority. We're wallowing in mediocrity. And our kids don't even know it.”

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PS - RIP Andy Rooney, you will be missed.

Opposite Day – The Embodiment of Helpful – Surcharge for Grocery Bags

I was at the grocery store on Monday evening, and although I brought my single reusable bag, I bought four bags’ worth of groceries. It was then the cashier told me I’d be charged for using the traditional plastic (5 cents) or paper (10 cents) bags supplied by the store. I selected paper, and the cashier added 30 cents to my bill.

This is awesome! Assuming it helps to reduce the amount of resources used to create these bags. And remind people (me) to bring their reusable bags to the store. I always put the bags in my trunk, but then after I buy groceries and use the bags, it takes awhile for the bags to get back in the trunk. Consistency is key! Save money and the planet!