How to Embrace Change

I’ve blathered before about how my nephews’ Christmas lists are the stuff of science fiction. VR headsets, hoverboards, 3D printers, that kinda thing. This year is different, I don’t know if it’s because they’re older or it’s just how things progress, but this year they seem to be asking for videogames for consoles they already own and new copies of things they already own and have broken, which is pretty much what I was asking for at their age.

Had an interesting discussion with one of their parents about how many of the things they want are primarily sold digitally, so most of the things that get wrapped up and put under the tree are clothing, which I think we can all agree, were always the least satisfying things to unwrap.

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How to Give Somebody the Respect They Deserve

I stand by my position on Steve Jobs. He didn’t invent anything but his own public image, but he had tremendous taste and high standards, and we have all benefited from them.

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How to Discuss the Differences Between Men and Women

And before you try to tell me that no man would ever be attracted to a young woman dressed like an old man, I will suggest that you do an image search for “Diane Keaton Annie Hall.”

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How to Discuss a Decision With Which You Do Not Agree

The moment when I was told that the Death card didn’t mean death I knew I would never believe in Tarot cards. If it doesn’t mean death, then what’s the point of it being the death card? If it means renewal, make it the renewal card.

You know what kind of card deck I like? Uno. I like Uno decks because Draw Four means that you have to draw four cards. You never draw the Draw Four card and get told, “Oh, but it doesn’t mean draw four cards. In this situation it means that you trade three cards.”

If I’m getting my fortune read and I draw Death, followed by the ten of swords, I expect to be killed by ten swords. Anything else will make me feel ripped off.

Of course, I suspect that the Death card does mean death. The fortune tellers just won’t admit it. If you tell your customer that they’re going to die there’s a very real chance that they won’t pay you. When a fortune teller draws the Death card they just tell you it means renewal so that you’ll feel good. Then they insist on you settling your tab in cash, before you leave.

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How to Improve Yourself

I did have the Star Trek red alert klaxon as my ringtone, and I did get rid of it because it was too startling, but not because it only startled me. In the one day I used it I panicked my coworkers and several people on a downtown Seattle bus with it. I don’t know if it sounded too much like a real alarm of some sort, or if several generations have been conditioned to associate that sound with impending attack by Klingons, but either way, people found it nerve-wracking.

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How to Deal with a Disinterested Audience

If anybody reading this knows anyone who works on The Good Place, I’d happily sign over the rights for this idea of an exhibition of tarps, podiums, and velvet ropes for use as an art installation by the character Kamilah Al-Jamil.

If you aren’t watching The Good Place, you should. You MUST begin with the first episode, though. You can’t just jump in in the middle. The show starts out very good and slowly becomes great. There have been things in this season that were so funny that Missy and I stopped and reran them like we were analyzing the Zapruder Film.

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How to React to A Verbal Warning

In high school I worked in the kitchen of a Pizza Hut. A coworker got fired for throwing a knife at me. Now, in fairness, it was a butter knife. I didn’t demand that he was fired, but I did complain that my coworker had thrown a knife at me, and the manager took it seriously enough to fire him. I can’t say I blame her.

What I did blame her for is that she called a three-person meeting for her, me, and the knife thrower, wherein she told him that he was being fired, specifically because I had complained about the knife throwing.

It was one of the less pleasant meetings I’ve attended.

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How to Talk to Someone Who's Lucky

For the record, I definitely believe in luck, but I believe it can only be seen in retrospect.

Say you and I flip a coin, and the person who wins the flip gets the coin. There’s no way to predict who will win. It could just as easily be you or me, but it will only be one of us. We flip the coin and I win. I didn’t do anything too cause this result. A random event fell in my favor and I profited because of it. We need a word to describe this sort of situation, and that word is “lucky.” The word for my opponent’s situation, where a random event didn’t fall in his favor and he lost out, is “unlucky.”

Luck definitely exists, but by definition it is not something you can count on in advance, nor is it something you can manufacture for yourself. People often claim that they make their own luck, but using cleverness or hard work to create favorable conditions is not luck, it’s effort paying off. These people aren’t making luck. They’re making me crazy by mischaracterizing what luck is.

Things like this have bothered me since I was a little kid.

No, I was not popular. Why do you ask?

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How to Face a Medical Problem

Having my tonsils out as a middle-aged man was not fun. It turns out the older you are, the more tonsil removal hurts. The doctors explained it as having something to do with life being unfair.

Anyway, I used to get strep throat twice a year, every year. I haven’t had it once since having my tonsils out. So it was worth the pain.

Of course, I was told that while recovering, I could eat all the ice cream I want. There are two problems with that. One was that it hurt to swallow, so you don’t want to eat anything, even ice cream. The second is that as an adult I can already have all the ice cream I want. I could go to Baskin Robbins for dinner if I want.

Suddenly, I want to do exactly that.

Note from Missy: I’ll get my shoes on, fellow adult.

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How to Make a "Clip Show"

This strip is from 2011. That means I accused the Simpsons writers of having been out of ideas for five seasons, SEVEN SEASONS AGO!

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