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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
(Need some science in your life? Of course you do!
This week, the science fix over at Secondhand SCIENCE is all about electric bacteria.
No, it’s not a disease you catch from watching too many ’80s breakdancing movies. I promise. Check it out.)
I’m a tad OCD. Just a tad. I take even numbers of steps, eat French fries in pairs and dutifully eat every scrap of food on my plate. Don’t always want it. Didn’t always put it there. But by god, I eat it. Because I’m broken.
But just a tad broken.
This is why I didn’t realize what hell I was unleashing a few weeks ago when I decided to get my wife a FitBit as an anniversary present.
It may seem that one thing has nothing to do with the other. And that’s probably true. For unbroken people.
My first mistake was trying to anticipate my wife’s wishes. We’ve been married for eighteen years; you’d think I’d recognize the futility of that exercise by now. But no. I’m stubborn.
Anyway, it seemed like a good idea at the time. She’s taken up jogging in recent months, and I thought a step/fitness tracker might make a good accessory. Only I didn’t know whether she’d want a wrist-strappy kind of doodad, or a pocket-clippy kind of doodad. So I bought both, wrapped them in Christmas paper — because who buys anniversary-themed wrapping paper and can remember where the shit it’s buried in the storage closet? — and gave them both to my wife on our anniversary.
“Our ‘official’ choices were something like bismuth or ponchos made from the hides of African yaks.”
(Which technically constituted my second mistake, because it violated the tenets of the anniversary gift code.
Hey, I stuck with the list as long as I could — year one is paper, year two is china, year three is, like, lace tea cozies. We’re in year fricking eighteen now. All the good shit has been bought already. Our “official” choices were something like bismuth or ponchos made from the hides of African yaks. I went with FitBits. Emily Post can suck it.)
My wife picked the wristy tracker, which left the clippy one hanging out, sitting in the box. Just a backup. In case of emergency. No immediate plans for use.
So I took it.
And that was my worst mistake. Because I’m a tad broken, and I like nice even numbers and clean finished plates — and now there’s an evil little device in my pocket telling me I’ve only walked seven flights of stairs today, and I need twenty-two hundred more steps to reach ten thousand.
(Warm, comforting, right 10,000.
Not icky, jagged, wrong 7,809.
God. I can’t even look at that. I need a shower.)
Needless to say, I’ve walked literally everywhere since our anniversary.
I’ve walked to work. I’ve walked for lunch. I’ve walked to rehearsals. I’ve walked to class. You name it, and put it within reach of my Reebok sneaks, and I’ve walked there.
Because I had to.
My only solace is this: I may be crazy, and effectively enslaved by an inch-long strip of plastic that periodically eggs me on with messages like “ATTABOY CHARLIE” or “HOPTOIT CHARLIE” or “HEYFATASSWHYARENTYOUWALKINGTOVERMONTRIGHTNOW CHARLIE” (the last of which may have been a fatigue-induced hallucination).
But at least I’m not the craziest person with a FitBit in my pants. That title appears to belong to writer David Sedaris, who wrote a New Yorker piece a few weeks ago about his own FitBit experience. And how he walks sixty thousand steps a day.
That’s serious shit right there. I know people who haven’t taken that many steps since Y2K. The man is out of his head. And probably out of shoes. I’d like to think, with just a smidge of smugness, that at least David Sedaris is more OCD than me.
Like to, but can’t.
The truth is, he’s a better writer. Which has allowed him to write for a living, take up residence in England and spend nine hours a day of his wealth of leisure time walking around his neighborhood.
(And picking up trash, apparently, because community responsibility, fuck yeah.)
Given the same opportunity, would I do any differently? With nine hours to kill and a FitBit plugged into my brain via the pocket of my jeans, would I do aught but walk? Can I really be sure, without strolling a marathon a day — technically only twenty-five and a half, but who’s counting? — in his shoes?
The evidence is grim. For my own sake, I think I’ll just keep writing nonsense, munching fries two-by-two and shooting for 10k a day, whether I feel like stepping them or not. On the bright side, at least I’m getting exercise. Which means I’m looking fabulous in my yak poncho. So there’s that.
Permalink | 1 Comment(Snap it up, science fans. This week’s Secondhand SCIENCE super-informational snippet is about micelles, which are very important biochemical doohickeys.
So obviously, the words are mostly about Tom Cruise, Waterworld and Frosted Mini-Wheats. Because science, duh.)
I have one goal in life.
That may not sound like much. But for a lot of years, I didn’t have any particular goal in mind. So it’s basically a one hundred percent increase. Maybe if I live until eighty, I’ll have two goals.
Or one and a half. There’s no need to rush things.
Anyway, my goal. It’s simply to be present.
Okay, so now it really doesn’t sound like much. Shaddup, I’m new at this.
Of course, I don’t mean “present” in the sense of physically present, like showing up at roll call for first-period math class. Trust me, that is not a goal. A thing I wake up in a cold sweat from, maybe. But not a goal.
Rather, I mean “present” in the same way as the people who sit pretzel-style in pajamas and listen to sitar jams and eat hemp burgers and massage their chakras with shaman-blessed healing crystals. Only I’m not into any of that other stuff.
(Except the sitar jams, if there’s a nice breakbeat to back them up.
Though frankly, I prefer the oud.)
Let’s put it this way: all those things surrounding the simple idea of being present (or mindful, if you’re a buzzword bingo fan) — all the aura lotions and energy sweatpants and tantric needlepoint retreats — require some semblance of belief. And I don’t have any. Fresh out. Gave it up — for something other than Lent, obviously, since that would also require belief, and like I just said, I’ve got none.
Who knows. Maybe I’ll grow some one day, to go with that second goal.
In the meantime, all I want is to be more aware. To pay attention to whatever it is I’m doing, notice the thoughts and sensations I’m having and to fully experience the unique and bewildering umwelt that only I have access to.
Not for any grander reason. Not to commune with daffodils or to moon the astral plane or to have sex like Sting for four and a half months at a time. Just because it seems better than the alternative. That’s my goal, and it’s utterly and entirely simple.
“I’ll spare you the philosophy and the struggle and the practice techniques you could get out of any dime-store fourth-grade self-help book or neo-hippie patchouli dealer.”
Also, I’m freaking terrible at it.
I’ll spare you the philosophy and the struggle and the practice techniques you could get out of any dime-store fourth-grade self-help book or neo-hippie patchouli dealer. Instead, I’ll just give you an example of how terrible I am at paying attention, and then I’ll go back to walking into closed doors and forgetting where I left my pants.
Yesterday, I was at work — the hardest place to be “present”, outside a Middle Eastern prison cell or possibly Cleveland — and I got some bit of fluff underneath my contact lens. It stung like hell, so I popped it out and stumbled to the office bathroom to rinse it off and jam it back onto my eyeball.
Somehow, it doesn’t sound so bad when you’ve been doing it for thirty years. You good-eye people have no idea.
Anyway, I reached the sink — and I should explain here that our company has a semi-automatic mens’ room. Which is to say, the urinal flushes itself, though the toilet doesn’t. The lights come on automatically, but the paper towel dispenser is manual. And the water in the sink is motion-activated, while the hand soap requires a quick push-push on a plunger to squirt it out.
Those last bits are important. Because one gets in the habit, in this half-facilitated facility, of doing things a certain way. Like using the sink. Every time I use the bathroom, I wash up — and it’s push-push-squirt the soap into one palm, wave the other hand under the faucet, water on, rub-rub-rub and grab a towel. It’s a routine. I’ve got the muscle memory burned in. You might even say I do it… mindlessly.
And that’s what I did yesterday. Single goal be damned, I charged into the bathroom without thinking, contact lens in hand, and push-push-squirt-ed soap all over it. I didn’t even realize it until I was rub-rub-rub-ing under the water, and realized there was something between my fingers. Something small and plastic, and kind of important.
That’s how a ten-second trip to the bathroom for an eye adjustment became a twenty-minute ordeal of wiggling a hand under the faucet to keep the water on, furiously bathing the lens in water, sticking it in my eye — and realizing, nope, not quite all the soap is gone yet. And then clawing it out in considerable pain, resisting the instinct to push-push-lather, rinsing some more, and repeat.
It could have been avoided, with just a sliver of presence. But the brain took a nap, habit took over and Softsoap poured in, ruining my day. And my goal. And possibly my cornea.
I’m starting to wonder whether my “simple” goal isn’t maybe too difficult to handle. If I can’t be fully present, maybe I can at least have the goal to avoid a permanent eye patch.
Either that, or I need to start burning aloe incense and find a nice healing-crystal monocle. And I’m afraid I don’t have the dreads for that.
Permalink | No Comments(This week’s Secondhand SCIENCE silliness concerns the polymerase chain reaction — or, as you laboratorial-type folks know it: PCR.
Hop on over and see what polymerase — and combovers and psychedelic drugs — can do for you.)
I’ve got family in town right now, so this will be short — though I’m hoping to find time later in the week to talk about personal-space-invading spiders, or possibly two of my toes. Because those are topics that normal people think about, and write about in public on websites.
No, you shut up.
Anyway, for now I’ll just leave a reminder that sketch group Always on Deck and I will be performing a trio of shows in the next week-and-a-half or so, starting manana noche at ImprovBoston. Here’s all the deets:
Thursday, June 26, 9pm: Always on Deck in SketchHaus at ImprovBoston
Thursday July 3, 8pm: Always on Deck in Awkward Compliment Presents… at Somerville Theatre
Sunday, July 6, 9pm: Always on Deck in Test Drive at Magnet Theater, NYC
And here’s a clip of the most recent Current Eventuals show from a couple of weeks ago:
Our upcoming gigs feature mostly the same people, but mostly different material, so come have a looksee. The World Cup can watch itself for one night, amirite?
Permalink | 1 Comment
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{Hi|Howdy|Hello}, You’re a {Moron|Chowderhead|Boob}!
(You can’t slow down science. And that includes Secondhand SCIENCE. This week, the topic is double-slit experiments.
No, seriously. It’s a physics thing. I didn’t make a single sex joke in the whole piece.
I know. I can’t believe it, either. Go see.)
Spammers are such a bunch of weenies.
I think of people who barf spam into the world in the same way as a greasy old guy with a combover hitting on every young chick who walks into a bar. I mean, sure — there’s a shot at a big payoff.
A minimal shot. Infinitesimal. Like, a girl would have to walk in, be struck blind, down a party ball full of peppermint schnapps and swallow the keys to her house before she’s going home with this hosebag. But technically, yes, there’s a piddly-assed tiny chance.
Fine. That makes it “possible”. But it doesn’t make it right.
The problem is, these things take so little effort. Some sleazeball can leer, “how you doin’?” to a dozen skeeved-out women, without even breaking a sweat.
Although let’s face it. He’s probably sweating. Only for… other reasons. Ew.
At the same time, some other sleazeball can push a button and send fourteen million sweaty email ads for peener stretchers or Albanian sex pills or naughty iguana chat lines, with no exertion whatsoever. He doesn’t even need to stop to towel off his mouse.
Though he might, anyway. Because, ew.
Both forms of assholishness work on the same principle: if you throw enough darts, eventually you’ll hit something. And since the analogy sadly doesn’t include the possibility of all those “missing” darts getting shoved their ass, there’s little downside. And so we get spammed.
(And some people get hit on. Not me. But people. I’ve heard stories.
Combover stories.)
Because it’s so simple, spamming is (obviously) wildly popular. It’s the ultimate low-risk, low-reward, nearly-no-effort, don’t-even-bother-putting-down-the-joint kind of work. And it’s idiotproof. You’d have to be practically brain-dead to cock it up.
“Sex sells, I guess. And if all else fails, there’s always knockoff Prada.”
Which makes it so much fun when they cock it up — bless their greasy shrunken little idiot hearts. And the cock-up I got today might be my very favorite.
I get spam comments on my sites all the time. These work like spam emails, more or less, only they’re not particularly designed to get people to click the links in them. Rather, it’s part of a Goldbergian plot to get links (to porn sites, mostly) onto blogs (which aren’t porn sites… mostly), which will then entice Google to index those (mostly porn sites) higher in searches (which are, obviously, for porn sites, mostly) than the other (mostly porn) sites who don’t do this sort of insane tangential marketing.
(Also, handbags come up a lot. I don’t know why purses are, like, number two with a bullet, right up there with the wang pills and “loose lady bus drivers waiting for you!” ads, but there it is.
Sex sells, I guess. And if all else fails, there’s always knockoff Prada.)
Anyway, this shady sham shit is years old, and apparently Google has figured out the game and wipes these jerkholes out of search results already. Of course, that hasn’t stopped the spammers. Because it’s so easy.
But to try and get around the Big Goog’s algorithms — and to fool spam filters that blogs put up to weed them out — the “spammenters” do rely on a couple of tricks. The big one being: sound conversational. Surround those website links with something that seems genuine, and has reasonable words in most of the right places to plausibly be a real message typed by a person, rather than some subhuman smudge of genetic filth programming a spambot in a dark alley.
Also, don’t say exactly the same thing in every message. Mix up a word here and there, so the filters don’t get too wise to a certain phrasing and ban you. These are the things spammers think about, and eventually they build little templates for themselves, to make things even easier. All they have to do is plug these snippets of chatter into some script, and it will chop up the phrases, parse some options and blat semi-coherent spam onto millions of servers.
How do I know?
Because some godforsaken idiot couldn’t even do that, and left a comment with the template.
(I sincerely hope that spammer is out there somewhere, wearing a very well-padded helmet.
Also, I hope a bus runs him over. But until it does, I think his clearly-soft skull deserves a little protection. It’s not well.)
Here’s a sample of what this thing looks like:
{I have|I’ve} been {surfing|browsing} online more than {three|3|2|4} hours today,
yet I never found any interesting article like yours.
I’ve gotten spam comments crafted out of this stupid template — thousands of them. In the right (sweaty, combovered) hands, it looks like a sentence. One option out of each set of brackets gets printed, and it becomes more-or-less English. Usually followed by a link to growyourjunktilitdragsontheground.com. Or worse.
But this failwipe couldn’t manage that. He just spewed the entire set of hundreds of sentences — a whole spammers’ playbook, in one heaving hurl — into my comment section. Gems like:
I’m {bored to tears|bored to death|bored} at work
so I decided to {check out|browse} your {site|website|blog} on my iphone during lunch break.
(Hey, screw you, man. You know three kinds of “bored”, but an iPhone is the only device in the world? Shove a turtleneck in it, spammo.)
Also:
{I’m|I am} not sure where {you are|you’re} getting your {info|information}, but {good|great} topic.
(At a certain point, it’s impossible not to read these as choices on a T-1000 Terminator screen. Spamma la vista, baby.)
And for the geography fans:
Greetings from {Idaho|Carolina|Ohio|Colorado|Florida|Los angeles|California}!
(This seems about right. Any time Ohio and Florida show up in a list together, you know it’s a shitshow.)
I haven’t been this entertained by spam since a certain Viking-filled Monty Python sketch. It ain’t Shakespeare — but it’s better than Canadian Viagra ads.
Permalink | No CommentsCategories: Bits About Blogging, Making Fun of Jerks, Marketing Weenies
Tags: blogging, combover, comedy, comments, fun, funny, Google, humor, idiot, spam, spammer, stupid, template