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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
(Secondhand SCIENCE comin’ at ya! This week, it’s all about immunoglobulins.
Or goblins. Or greeters. Something. Science is weird.)
I understand now why people worry about a “nanny state”.
For a long time, I didn’t get it. A nanny state would be where whomever’s in charge tells you what’s good for you, and tries to keep you safe and healthy. Like a nanny — hence the name.
(But not like the Nanny. If we ever elect Fran Drescher to tell us what to do, I’m moving to Canadia. Or preferably, Jupiter.)
Having someone looking out for us always seemed like a pretty good idea to me. Life is hard. A lot of us are pretty dumb. If a nanny state could tell me not to eat a whole pizza at once or drive with parking brake on or not to see that awful Vacation movie remake, would that be so bad? I might give up a bit of personal privacy to make better decisions. Or to have them made for me. Whichever.
Hell, maybe I’d even give up a lot of privacy, if it was worth it. We could elect people to floss us every morning, check our moles for weird growths and talk sternly to us about our browser histories — right before they wipe them clean for us, devirus our computers and dunk our keyboards in industrial sanitizer.
That all sounds pretty great, frankly. Or did, until this week. Because:
Last Sunday, we had our water heater replaced. Apparently when that happens, the new equipment needs an inspection. And to pass that inspection, the upper limit on water temperature can’t exceed a certain level. That’s so you don’t accidentally turn a faucet all the way to “hot” and accidentally scald yourself. A mini-nanny state, at work.
That’s all well and good — except we don’t know exactly when the inspector will show up, and the max temperature allowed by law is approximately thirty degrees below where we’d set the last heater’s max temp. So for a week, I’ve been taking the most disappointing showers since my wife stopped getting those Victoria’s Secret catalogs in the mail.
“By the time I’m rinsing Gee, Your Hair’s Getting Gray and Stringy off my scalp, I’m ready for more boosts of heat.”
It’s an insidious thing, too — because the showers start off as usual. I turn the water on warm-but-not-hot, to get used to the feel. And the under-amped new heater handles that just fine. But after a minute or two, I acclimate. And I want more heat, so I crank it up. And up. And up.
The first couple cranks are fine. That might get me to the hair-soaping stage. But that’s it. By the time I’m rinsing Gee, Your Hair’s Getting Gray and Stringy off my scalp, I’m ready for more boosts of heat. For years, I’ve had them. But this week, it’s like showering with Scotty from Star Trek, bellowing: “She cann’a give ya more, cap’n!”
And he won’t even check my moles. Useless.
So I finish my showers all lukewarm and grumpy. I like my usual temperature progression, from “warmish” to “steamy” to “McDonald’s lawsuit coffee hot” to “just shy of Mount Doom lava pool”. But this week, it’s all wrong. I top out at “cafeteria soup temperature”, and that’s all I’ve got. Stupid nanny state rules, anyway.
And all so I won’t scald myself. Which, let’s be honest — I would scald myself, because that’s the whole freaking point. It’ll be winter in New England soon. We’re pretty much numb for six months a pop here; you need a second-degree burn every now and then just to thaw the nerve endings.
But I’ll scald myself gradually, which is the responsible way to do it. I would understand the temperature rule, if it’s a household with children. Children are complete idiots, with precisely two speeds: “unconscious” and “goddamn lunatic”. They would totally crank a faucet to boiling and suck on it, because half of them don’t know the answer to: “yeah, yeah — but is stove hot today?”
I guess what I’m saying is, I wouldn’t mind a nanny state, with certain provisions — mostly for idiot children — but I also want this stupid inspection to happen so I can take a decent shower.
Also, I should probably look into a less emasculating shampoo, and someone really needs to come over and check these moles for weirdness. Now who do I have to elect to take care of that?
Permalink | No Comments(It’s sciencin’ time! Secondhand SCIENCEin’ time, that is.
This week, we’re chatting about something big. Really, really big. It’s not as big as space, but it is trying to listen to all of space, so that counts for something. Check out the Very Large Array, and try — just try — not to make a “girthy” joke. [Spoiler alert: I couldn’t. It’s hard!])
I’m not particularly interested in politics. Half an episode of The West Wing every four years, and I’m pretty well set.
But in the days before a big election — which these days, apparently means “fourteen freaking months before” — it’s hard to avoid the coverage. Snippy tweets. Unfortunate ad libs. Feuds to rival those between rappers who live on opposite coasts.
It’s exhausting. It’s like watching Big Brother, without the possibility that Carly Fiorina and Marco Rubio are going to sneak off for seven minutes of heaven in a cameraless closet.
That’s not a possibility, right? For the love of god, please tell me it’s not.
Anyway, nothing I’ve seen these yapjaws do lately has made me any more interested in whatever it is they’re saying. Not the debates. Not the talk show sit-downs. Not the stump speech pander-fests analyzed to death on the news networks. It’s all words. The same old words. And mostly, they all sound — and basically, look — alike.
“If I wanted to watch a bunch of mostly-old, mostly-white mostly-men bitch about each others’ opinions, I’d hang out in the locker room at the YMCA.”
The relative sameness of appearance doesn’t help, either. If I wanted to watch a bunch of mostly-old, mostly-white mostly-men bitch about each others’ opinions, I’d hang out in the locker room at the YMCA. Or a family reunion. It’s basically Team Clintonians vs. The Bushish Boys. Same as it nearly-ever was.
But I’ve been thinking about this problem. How can a candidate set him- or herself apart? How can they make themselves look different from the others? And how can they make the rest of us care any tiny little bit about them? I have a few ideas:
Dancing with the Shills
Every candidate wants TV time, so why not sign up for that dancing show people seem to like? The old people can do the Waltz or the Minuet or other dances from their 18th century childhoods, and then their campaign managers can talk to the camera about how their candidate broke his or her hip the least when they fell.
Special Highlight: Bernie Sanders rocking the Charleston. Bernie-3 skidoo!
Political Poetry Slam
Any suited-up jackhole can give the usual talking points in a campaign speech. Family values, safety nets, something-something taxes, blah blah. Why not spice things up by converting that fluff into angry poems, and reciting them in the basement of some neighborhood shithole bar? You might not reach many people at once, but your street cred would be through the roof. The crumbling, moldy coffeehouse roof.
Special Highlight: Mike Huckabee awkwardly and repeatedly rhyming “Roe vs. Wade” with “end of days”.
Enter the Octagenarian Octagon
I’m just saying: the UFC is very popular these days. Candidates want to reach the people. If a couple of the older ones dressed up in their best athletic trusses and hopped into the ring to wrassle each other, their poll numbers would shoot up faster than their pacemakered heartrates. And they could debate all they like at the weigh-ins. It’s win-win.
Special Highlight: Chris Christie decked out in a referee uniform to rival his softball togs. Ronda Rousey, he ain’t.
Candidate Can Cook
Everybody loves cooking shows. I can’t even make Kool-Aid and I watch, like, nine of the things myself. Any candidate who could boil water and put together any recipe that didn’t include caviar or duck pate would have a huge delicious leg up with millions of viewer-voters. And it’s not like it’s hard. If Guy Fieri can do it, a soggy sweatsock could handle the job.
Special Highlight: Lindsey Graham Cracker Pie Crust. “It’s plenty sweet, but it’s gonna crumble right in your hands.”
The American Stream
What do the kids watch these days? Debates? Round-the-clock news channels? Post-Stewart Daily Show bits? Hardly. All the hot shows are streamed on YouTube and Twitch and Insta-something-I-don’t-know-because-I’m-an-old. That’s where the action is. Some candidate ought to get into, I don’t know, Call of Duty streaming and spew their political stuff between the gibs.
Special Highlight: Lincoln Chafee apologizing personally to every 14-year-old CoD scrub he manages to kill.
Talladega Talkin’ Points
Let’s face it: NASCAR is king. I don’t personally get what all the turning left is about, but people sure as hell dig it. Surely one of these wordbags can drive a stick, and could get out there on the track and become a personal hero to millions of fans. They wouldn’t be any good, but they’d be out there and that’s all that matters. They could even put stickers for all of their SuperPAC donors on their cars. Whoo-ee.
Special Highlight: Donald Trump winning a race in his solid-gold toupeed Chevy, because he paid off all the other drivers to idle in low gear behind him.
Permalink | No Comments(What’s new in the land of science? Or Secondhand SCIENCE, anyway?
Why, it’s Yersinia pestis, of course. That may sound like a contestant on an episode of Armenian Idol, but no. Click on over and find out more.)
This evening, I spent approximately three months in a drug store, looking for a birthday card. Maybe longer. I may have had a birthday or two myself while I was in there. I don’t remember it being quite this hard.
“It’s my mom’s birthday next week, so it’s not like picking up any old ‘Bappy Hirthday’ knockoff for a work colleague or mailman or parole officer.”
To be fair, I need a somewhat specific card. It’s my mom’s birthday next week, so it’s not like picking up any old “Bappy Hirthday” knockoff for a work colleague or mailman or parole officer. It’s got to be a quality card — but it also has to be reasonably close to something I might actually say.
(Also, it was going to be at least a mild surprise. But considering my mother and a handful of Googlebots are the only ones reading this nonsense, I guess the cat’s out of the bag now. Ma, you’ve got a birthday coming up. I’m getting you a card. Try to look surprised.)
It’s the “something I might actually say” part where the whole enterprise goes to hell. I started my search in the “FOR MOM” section of the card aisle, where I was confronted with a solid wall of pastel flowers, line-drawn toddlers and scripty fonts normally only seen in the title lines of funeral announcements. One of the cards started with:
What Is a Mother?
Oh, I know what a mother is. Trying to find a stupid normal card — that’s a mother, apparently.
So I slid over to the birthday section of the “hip” cards. That was… different.
I thought the “FOR HER” cards might work. But no. The first one I picked up said:
HEY GURL — YOUR BIRTHDAY IS ON FLEEK! HOLLA!
I don’t know what most of those words mean. I suspect my mother doesn’t, either. Is it Norwegian? Does it involve a pinata? The card might have had a pinata. I don’t know.
Clearly, I was in over my head. I took one last stab in the generic birthday section. I picked up a card with a simple balloon on the front and the start of a poem:
It’s your birthday and another year
Has passed you by, but never fear;
I know you’ll keep the party classy…
I opened it. Inside:
Til the cake and booze make you gassy.
So basically, I’m giving my mother a fortune cookie for her birthday. Whatever the hell it says inside, it can’t be any worse than the shit Hallmark has left for me. Happy birthday, ma.
Permalink | No Comments(Let’s science again, like we did last summer. That sounds like Secondhand SCIENCE — and it is!
This week, we’re talking about the joule, and various confusing homophones thereof. Science up, compadres.)
It’s been a long time, and a lot of silly film footage, coming. I’m talking, like, miles of the stuff. Completely ridiculous. But it’s here, and it’s finally taking visitors:
The Magicland webseries.
Episode 1: Safety Jake is now available for repeated squee-filled viewing on the Magicland website. Or, if you prefer, right here:
Stay tuned for mo’ Magicland, mo’ Magicland, mo’ Magicland, coming soon from Magicland (duh) and the good folks at Drinkstorm Studios.
Permalink | No Comments(What’s the time? It’s time to get science!
That’s Secondhand SCIENCE, and this week’s topic, wild type. Go see, and get wiiiiiild.
Also! Come out on Saturday to see the Seven Deadly Sins play festival. I’ll be acting foolish in a play Jenn Dlugos and I wrote. It’s got zombies. And Twinkies. You’ll dig it.)
There’s a certain point at which you’re simply not helping.
For me, that point is, like, ninety percent of my life — which includes this coming Sunday.
For the first time in several years, a few friends and I will be able to get together for a football game. Back when this was a more regular “thing” among this group, we’d often tailgate before the game. So we decided to tailgate on Sunday — for “old times’ sake”.
“Tailgating in that weather just looks like a bunch of Jack Nicholsons from the end of The Shining sitting around frowning at each other.”
(A couple of us still go to games regularly. But we don’t tailgate any more. On non-special nostalgic occasions, it’s rarely worth the hassle.
Plus, this is New England, so half the games are played in four feet of snow and six-degree weather. Tailgating in that weather just looks like a bunch of Jack Nicholsons from the end of The Shining sitting around frowning at each other. Kinda creepy.)
There are four of us, and we’re organizing via email. The first three hours of which I missed — due to work meetings or sleeping or possibly both at once — and wherein it was established that:
One guy volunteered to bring a grill and all the plates and paper towels.
Another guy said he’d hit up his favorite butcher shop for several kinds of meats.
And the third guy offered to bring a cooler, beer and chips.
I got back to my email, ran down the list and said I’d be happy to chip in for… well, that’s just it. What the hell else is there? It was then I knew that I wasn’t going to be helping. Not really.
Oh, sure, I’ll still contribute. But it’s a very fine line I’m walking here. There are four of us guys, and none in prime tailgating shape — meaning we don’t want fancy, we’re not grilling gourmet and our livers can only take so much, cap’n. That limits the options.
Plus, I have to be careful here. Sure, I could play technicalities, but that doesn’t score any points. If I show up with six boxes of plastic silverware and say, “Hey, nobody called forks!“, it’s not going to go over well.
Anyway, who uses forks for a tailgate? Maybe to crack open a beer, if you forgot an opener. Otherwise, leave that shit at home. We eat meat with our hands, drink beer from the can and if there’s potato salad, we stare at it with mild disgust and derision.
Or we eat it with our hands, too. Which is not a rule I’d normally admit, but it’s quite possible I end up taking potato salad to this shindig. Cut me some slack, tatercakes.
I can bring more beer. I mean, I’m going to bring more beer, because nobody’s ever going to argue with that. But I’m not sure it’s “helping”, exactly. It’ll add some variety, but I suspect if we have more than a half-case in total, somebody’s coming home with leftovers. It’s a work day on Monday, after all. And some of those guys have kids to tuck in Sunday night.
(Also, there’s a place with fantastic margaritas on the way home. I’m just saying. Ole.)
That leaves my practical contribution in serious jeopardy. I’m not taking silverware. We don’t tailgate sweets. I’m trying not to take potato salad… but I’m not ruling it out, either. Hamburger buns? Wet naps? Chip clips, in case we can’t finish the Doritos?
None of these are “helping”. At this rate, they’ll make me sit with the grill until the coals die down. Maybe somewhere in the middle of the second half. It’ll be lonely out there in the parking lot, with everyone inside enjoying the game — but I’ll understand. I responded late. There’s nothing good left to bring. And I’m not helping.
Oh, well. At least I’ll have plenty of potato salad.
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