Basic Instructions

  • Basic Instructions
  • Store
  • Archive
  • Contact
  • Search
basic200921.gif

How to Explain Why You Like Something

September 21, 2020 by Scott Meyer

Wolverine is haunted by things in his past he can’t remember. I never thought about that before. How does that work?

“I’m haunted by horrible things I can’t remember.”

“How do you know they happened, or that they were horrible?”

“That’s just the thing. I don’t!”

As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).

September 21, 2020 /Scott Meyer
basic200918.gif

How to Live on the Edge

September 18, 2020 by Scott Meyer

I was all set to write a paragraph about how I should try to start a TV career setting myself up as someone who explores the extreme edge of quiet, mellow, grown-up activities, sort of like the Bear Grylls of safety and complacency. Then I realized James May has beat me to it.

I offer the following videos as evidence.

James May reassembling a toy train.

James May making a sandwich.

James May replacing his car’s tire valve stem caps.

As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).

September 18, 2020 /Scott Meyer
basic200916.gif

How to Watch Mistakes Compound

September 16, 2020 by Scott Meyer

The movie theater I go to (or at least the one I used to go to, back when going to a movie was an option) has pumpers of butter flavored oil out in the lobby where anyone can get as much of it as they want, and do whatever they chose with it. That is a freedom that cannot last. Someone, somewhere, is going to do something that will ruin it for everyone. I don’t know what kind of accident, tragedy, or act of public depravity will occur, but I do suspect that whatever it is it will smell delicious.

As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).

September 16, 2020 /Scott Meyer
basic200914.gif

How to Develop a Successful Product

September 14, 2020 by Scott Meyer

This is only tangentially related, but since Halloween is coming up, I thought I’d share a video of the best costume I’ve ever seen.

As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).

September 14, 2020 /Scott Meyer
basic200911.gif

How to Evaluate Another Person's Artistic Expression

September 11, 2020 by Scott Meyer

Memory is a strange thing.

For years . . . YEARS, I would quote a specific Kids in the Hall sketch where Bruce McCulloch called the rest of the guys “a bunch of human load-holders.” I loved it because it was nonsense, meant absolutely nothing, but was so clearly a terrible insult.

I am now convinced that I imagined it somehow. I believe I’ve watched every episode of the Kids in the Hall, and their one movie, Brain Candy, and if McCulloch or anybody else ever said “human load-holder,” I can’t find it. The closest thing I can find is a sketch where he calls someone a “human loser.”

That said, my second favorite Kids in the Hall insult, when Kevin MacDonald called the rest of them “Crap-burgers,” definitely happened.

Note from Missy: Rick’s “guitar solo” just makes me want to go play one of the Borderlands games. Though Rick is definitely no Mister Torgue Flexington.

As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).

September 11, 2020 /Scott Meyer
basic200909.gif

How to Enjoy Something for What It Is

September 09, 2020 by Scott Meyer

People look down their noses at me for being a morning person, and give me grief for liking my steak well done, but I get my revenge when coffee time comes. I take my coffee black. As such I get to judge my friends for trying to MacGyver together a crude latte using a cup of coffee and several little tubs of half and half.

They’re weak, I tell you! As weak as the “coffee” they’re drinking!

As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).

September 09, 2020 /Scott Meyer
basic200907.gif

How to Give Advice

September 07, 2020 by Scott Meyer

I love the PBS Documentary series NOVA. Missy doesn’t enjoy it. So, for the last few years I’ve mostly watched it on my tablet with headphones in bed. Doing so has conditioned me to subconsciously know it’s sleepy time when NOVA is on. I’ve reached the point where I’m lucky to withstand ten minutes of an episode before I pass out. At this point, someone could probably subdue me with nothing but an audio recording of Zachary Quinto talking about the planet Saturn.

As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).

September 07, 2020 /Scott Meyer
basic200904.gif

How to look Out for Your Own Interests

September 04, 2020 by Scott Meyer

There was a time when dentists would get a young adult in their chair, look into their mouth, and if they found the patient was going to need anything more serious than a few fillings the dentist would make them an offer.

“We can drill these cavities out and fill them. It’ll cost money and it’ll hurt. And when you come back in another six months I’ll probably find more. Or you can pay me the same amount you would for the fillings, and I’ll just pull all of your teeth, set you up with a full set of dentures, and you’ll never have to worry about cavities again.”

My mother told me about this. She made dentures for a living. I’m not sure now if she told me this to scare me, to make me feel grateful for modern medicine, or if it’s just that she and her denture making colleagues considered those to be “the good old days.”

As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).

September 04, 2020 /Scott Meyer
basic200902.gif

How to See Someone Else's Point of View

September 02, 2020 by Scott Meyer

R. Lee Ermey was not originally cast as the drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket. He was originally brought in as a consultant to help the actor they had cast to play that role. That actor didn’t pan out, Ermey replaced him, and a fine career as a character actor followed.

There’s a story, one that I hope is true, that Stanley Kubrick wasn’t sure that a first time actor would be able to maintain his character and the false reality of a scene while surrounded by all of the distractions that come with filming a major motion picture. To see if he could hack it, Kubrick filmed R. Lee Ermey improvising insults in character and shouting them into the camera as several crew members threw tennis balls at his head.

I would pay good money to watch that footage.

Inside joke from Missy: “We just want to see if you can continue acting after being struck by a falling Spider-man.”

As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).

September 02, 2020 /Scott Meyer
basic200831.gif

How to Respond When Someone States and Opinion with Which You Vehemently Disagree

August 31, 2020 by Scott Meyer

I am going to have to be maddeningly non-specific for a bit here, for obvious reasons.

I had a job, in which I did work at a place, and other people did work at this place as well.

One of these coworkers had strong political and religious convictions, which is fine. Less fine was the fact that he was incapable of not expressing them, constantly, to any coworker who got anywhere near him. There was no wiggle room, no room for disagreement. He believed that he knew what was right and who was worth voting for and anyone who disagreed needed to be argued out of that position, informed why their opinions were wrong, and educated about which talk-radio shows they should listen to.

I told him many times to stop, not just for my sanity but because I knew for a fact that he was permanently damaging his own career, but he would not stop. We reached a point where if I even made eye contact with him he’d smile like he thought he was a naughty boy, say, “Hey, you know that subject we can’t discuss at work?” Then he would talk about it at length over my protests.

Finally, I made up the card below, which I laminated and carried with me at work. (The other side of it was filled with important phone numbers and other information I needed on a daily basis.) The next time he brought up the forbidden subject, which was very early in the very next shift I had with him, I pulled it out and read it aloud.

Brad Card Sm.jpg

By the time I finished, coworkers had come over from two rooms away to say that the card went for them as well.

Afterward, he asked me, “You didn’t really make up that card just because of me, did you?”

I said, “Yes, I did.”

He went quiet for a moment, then said, “You know, that was a chance for you to let me off the hook there.”

I said, “I know.”

To this day, I have no idea why he would think I might have any urge to let him off the hook. I made the hook, specifically for him.

As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).

August 31, 2020 /Scott Meyer
  • Newer
  • Older

Privacy Policy

Copyright 2003-2024, Scott Meyer. Site powered by Squarespace