Relationship Practice Month

Practice may be defined as working to master something. But ‘Relationship Practice Month’ isn’t about mastering relationships, it’s about entering a relationship at the optimal time and getting out (if necessary) at the optimal time. That’s the stated goal. It’s the best time to practice a relationship while inflicting the least amount of collateral damage.

You probably don’t know this because I made it up without telling anybody, but we are currently at the approximate halfway point of Relationship Practice Month. It’s not a month according to the Gregorian calendar, but it does depend on the Gregorian calendar. It runs from the Ides of January (January 13th) to the Day after Valentine’s Day (February 15th). I originally planned it to end on the Ides of February, but that turned out to be on the 13th and we all know Valentine’s Day is the perfect final gauntlet for RPM.

It’s the perfect time of year for this sort of thing for a few reasons, let’s make a list (men’s list):

1. It’s cold outside, and fatties have taken over your primary and secondary pick-up establishments. Your tertiary pick-up establishment is an empty, barren wasteland for reasons you don’t fully understand. And your quaternary and final option is just too fucking expensive. Church may be option (I’ve thought about it, but I’ve never tried it), but I think it would be tough because you don’t have the awesome power of alcohol and darkness to help you.
2. No Christmas/Kwanzaa/Jew-day presents to buy
3. No need to adjust your New Year’s plans
4. It’s a good opportunity to rest up for the Spring mating season
5. Less random sex happens during RPM than at any other time during the year. Probably.
6. It’s the most depressing period of the year. January 24th is the most depressing day of the year. I know this because it’s my birthday.
7. No girls in skimpy clothing
8. It’s always dark out
9. You achieve a side goal of building up jealousy in girls who are teetering on the edge of wanting your love in time for the Spring mating season. Being ‘taken’ at some point is beneficial for you, and it might as well be during RPM.

Look, you need a break from the game at least every once in awhile to re-tool while you plot your comeback with a vengeance. In fact, don’t call it a comeback. All things considered, it’s the optimal time to take a breather. Even for girls this works.

Time for the girls list:

1. The extra clothing doesn’t help you
2. It’s the most depressing period of the year. January 24th is the most depressing day of the year. I know this because it’s my birthday.
3. If there’s ever a time to give ‘that guy’ a shot, it’s during RPM

You may currently be thinking: “if I missed out on RPM, when is the next best time to stop gaming, I need a break from this shit”. Right after Valentine’s Day. Obviously.

‘Trading down’ is usually a crucial, unfortunate but necessary element of RPM. And it may be highly unlikely that the stars will align for you in time for RPM. However, if all of the necessary elements fall into place, this is the scientifically proven best time of the year for RPM.

Website of the Day: Fail Blog

I just came across this fail blog: http://failblog.wordpress.com/ and it’s pretty awesome. Thought I’d pass it on. It’s like the lol catz but with a higher variety of material.

The Art of Waxing

Waxing is a term I use to describe how I talk when it feels like I’m on stage, like I’m giving a performance. It’s when I have my audience (which could be a girl I’m flirting with, a hiring manager I’m interviewing with, a girl I’m flirting with, etc.) hanging on my every word because everything I say sounds so got-damn smooth that it should really be recorded. In other words, it should be put on wax (that’s vinyl to the new-schoolers out there). It’s almost like I’ve memorized my lines, and my audience is watching me put on a show.

The key to the whole thing is to know my audience so well that the topics and words I choose hit them absolutely perfectly in the moment. A lot of reading of emotions goes into the whole deal. A lot more of it is simple trial and error. It’s not necessarily a monologue, because I have to get some verbal back and forth to keep their attention through participation (like teachers do to schoolchildren), but I’m absolutely going to lead the conversation down the road to the fantasy I want to create. Basically, whenever I want to impress someone, to have them think highly of me for whatever-ever reason, all I need to do is a little bit of waxing and it’s like magic, I can do no wrong.

The neat thing about it is how so many of the same methods work with different audiences in different situations. Whether I’m running the moistie-iso or I’m trying to get FY08 R&D money from a boardroom full of VPs, waxing is waxing. There’s so many elements that go into a successful wax, and that’s what makes it an art in the truest sense. Balancing body language, tone, speed, pauses, confidence, the questions, and the answers is like improv drama.

I remember the first time I thought about this shit: I was a sophomore in college and I got into an across-the-table conversation with this cute Italian girl I fancied. I like Italian girls. I don’t remember what we were talking about or what time it was or who else was even there because none of that shit ever matters anyway, but it was at a house party and there was something like 10-15 people in the general area just sitting there listening to our conversation. It was like, everything I said was funny, clever, witty… something in that general vein. This goes on for 10 solid minutes (maybe more like 5), then I pull a George Costanza and excuse myself to get another beverage when I have everybody eating out of my hand.

I get the girl one-on-one maybe an hour later, get into a more normal conversation, and walked her home. I hooked up with her a few times after that before I fucked it up the way everybody fucks it up when they’re 19 years old (or at least the way I always did, by drinking too much), but more importantly, I learned about the power of waxing.

Suicide Breeds More Suicides

I remember from reading about social proof in this book (the concept that one way we figure out the truth is to find out what other people think is the truth, then believe that) that highly publicized suicides directly lead to more suicides in the society they were publicized in. And the more publicity the suicide gets, the higher the increase in subsequent suicides. This might not be such groundbreaking news to you. I mean, let’s say you’re on the edge of a cliff and you watch somebody else jump. If you were already thinking about jumping, your odds of jumping probably just went up. It’s human nature.

However, if I told you that motor vehicle fatalities increase almost 10% in the week after a highly publicized suicide and commercial plane crashes increase to 11 times normal levels, that may surprise you. It surprised me.

The stats are very specific when it comes to car accidents. Single suicides tend to cause an increase in accidents where only one person dies. Murder-suicides tend to cause an increase in accidents where multiple people die. Copycat suicides can be masked by traffic accidents, the same way a lot of teenage suicides are. And since these accidents are suicide attempts instead of regular accidents, we’d expect accidents after a big suicide story to be deadlier than accidents at other times. And it turns out plane crashes in these scenarios produce 3 times as many deaths, while fatal car accident victims die almost 4 times quicker in these scenarios.

Does this mean you should stay off the roads and out of the friendly skies after a widely publicized suicide or murder suicide? It sure seems like that wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Also, as another lesson in psychology will teach you, people will most readily believe and copy those who are similar to themselves. This also means that people who are most like the suicide victim are most likely to imitate them in copycat suicide attempts. You might want to check up on your 28 year old androgynous actor friends.

I brought this topic up because you might be wondering why you should care about Heath Ledger’s death. If it turns out to be a suicide, you might want to tread lightly for the 10 days after the suicide confirmation leaks, because that’s the time most of these copycat suicides happen. And even though the copycaters won’t have any reason to take you down with them, they might do it inadvertently anyway.

Testosterone and Men are on the Decline

In my daily, awesome perusal of the internet, I came across this study in the Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism (a very reputable journal, as far as I can tell from the journals it is cross-referenced with) concerning a Population-Level Decline in Serum Testosterone Levels of American Men. It was the largest, most comprehensive study of it’s kind measuring testosterone levels of men from different generations as they aged over a 17 year period (1987-2004). The results show a population-level decrease in testosterone (that means, for example, men who were born between 1916-1919 were measured to have lower testosterone than men born between 1940-1945 when aged the same number of years, look at this graph) that is consistent with “population-level decline in sperm counts and increasing incidence rates of certain reproductive disorders in men, especially in some Northern European countries.” Maybe Paula Cole was onto something.

The study does show what had already been known: that testosterone decreases linearly with age. However, it is surprising that we can see such a noticeable decrease in testosterone levels for no apparent genetic reason (further proof that relying on hundreds of thousands of years of evolution for mating dynamics is a huge mistake, stop talking about cavemen please, cavemen didn’t have mixed race girls).

Also, while this study was only done in the U.S., it’s large sample size (N=1709) and close matching with trends seen in other parts of the world (at least in developed nations) suggest that something is at work here. Feminism? Corporate culture? McDonalds? Acceptance of homosexuality? Yellow #5?!?!?

If you’re a good scientist, you may wonder why this study was done on older men. It’s because they were trying to measure how testosterone levels decrease with age. They just happened to stumble into this surprising result of decrease in testosterone over generations.

It’s very interesting to me how it is natural to assume that people aged faster back in the day, after all, people are living longer now than they ever have. However, older men maintained (in this study) higher testosterone levels than the next generation at the same age. Your dad had the right to call you ‘son’, son.

The good news is that girls are hotter than they’ve ever been, and the testosterone is being sucked out of society. Sounds like shooting fish in a barrel to me.

I am a scientist, but this is not my field. If you’re interested in a real editorial by someone who knows what they’re talking about, read this.

Quote of the Day

“The percentage who don’t understand, is higher than the percentage who do. Check yourself, what percentage is you?” – Jay-Z

Some people are still behind the times and actually care what popular opinion is, like most people actually know what the hell they’re doing. If you ever find yourself in such a predicament, remember: the American public elected this guy to two consecutive terms in office. And don’t get me started with that popular vote/electoral college bullshit either.

Abortions: At Lowest Rate Since 1974

This caught me off guard. Abortions are unambiguously decreasing in the United States. I read this ABC News story that talked about two different reasons why this was happening: more access to emergency contraception and fewer abortion clinics being open.

Yeah, maybe. Or maybe it’s because getting married is getting played out, and heroes like Shawn Kemp (12 or 13 illy’s) and Travis Henry (9 illy’s in 9 different states, talk about getting around) have paved the way for men and women alike to embrace the bastardization of America’s youth. And the baby mama’s are making more than their scrubs anyway, so girls can afford to be single mom’s now, unlike back in the 70s.

And after those kids get old enough to stay home alone, look out. Those cougars are on the prowl.

99% of Relationship Problems are the Man’s Fault

I am completely sick of hearing guys I know bitch about problems with their relationships. She’s flirting with other guys, she talks about her ex, she has psychological problems, I don’t trust her, our sex frequency/satisfaction/variety isn’t good, we have too many arguments, money troubles (this might be an exception to what I’m suggesting, I have to think about it), we never do what I want to do, she won’t let me (fill in the blank), she cheated on me … I mean, fuck. Look in the mirror when you say these things so you can realize how much of a bitch you sound like. To solve all of your relationship problems, there’s one magical thing you can do: Be a man.

If you don’t know how to be a man, you have to at least fool her by acting like a man. Watch a movie with an alpha-male role (Denzel Washington in American Gangster is a movie you should watch anyway) and try to act as much like that character as possible. Talk slowly and in as deep of a voice as you can muster, and don’t be afraid to appear to be on the threshold of a violent outburst. Put that woman in her place, she’s begging you to do it by causing outrageous drama that keeps you away from your important obligations.

Remember, her world revolves around you. She talks about you, thinks about you, and fantasizes about you. Ignoring her when she does something unacceptable (like if she flirts on the phone with her ex in your presence, this happened to a guy I know) will be quickly understood by the girl because women are such subtle, fragile, attention-hungry creatures (no woman hate intended). She should have to do something to earn your valuable attention. By ‘something’, I mean ‘a lot of things’.

But yeah, I’m not a girl-power advocate or anything, but I do agree that pretty much every relationship issue (from either the man’s or woman’s side) can be solved by the man being a man instead of being a needy desperate bitch. I know this isn’t exactly a scientific breakthrough or anything, but I’ve been hearing a lot of whining and bitching lately. And if you think can’t solve the relationship problems by being a man, then you’re wrong because you need to be a man and leave that bitch where you found her: in a high school parking lot right outside of Bethesda.

“She cheated on me, but we’re working through that.” I mean, buddy, if that’s your reaction then you shouldn’t wonder why she cheated on you. Bottom line: Be a man.

Word of the Day: Fasturbate

Defined as:

1) the act of masturbating when in a hurry

2) masturbation under time-restrictions

Thank you, urban dictionary, I needed a term for this. I’d like to propose a new word in the same vein: fasturbang. I mean, let’s be real, time is money.

Championship Weekend: NFL Gambling Guide

Note: All times are local times. Weather is taken into account since I think it’s the most under-handicapped game information out there.

Game 1: Sunday, 3:00 PM: San Diego Chargers at New England Patriots.

Weather: 18°F, 19 mph crosswind, Sunny

Weather Factor: Advantage Patriots

All you need to know about this game:

“The San Diego Chargers did not have their primary offensive weapons at practice, as running back LaDainian Tomlinson, quarterback Philip Rivers, and tight end Antonio Gates all did not participate due to injuries.

As the Chargers prepare to clash with the New England Patriots in Foxboro on Sunday’s AFC Championship, the status of their three stars is unknown.”

The Chargers are just coming off a big win in Indianapolis, they’re just happy to be here, Norv Turner is their head coach, and their 2 biggest offensive threats are injured. Phillip Rivers has a sprained MCL. How much do you believe in Billy Volek magic? Personally, I think his go-ahead drive against the Colts was the most improbable NFL playoff moment since the Music City Miracle.

Pick: PATRIOTS -14 over Chargers

Game 2: Sunday, 5:30 PM: New York Giants at Green Bay Packers

Weather: 3°F, 12 mph crosswind, Flurries

Weather Factor: No Advantage for either team without snow. Huge Packers Advantage with snow. Huge.

In one of the more improbable playoff runs I can remember, the Giants have won 9 road games in a row to get to the NFC Championship Game in Green Bay. It’s no coincidence this happened after they gave the Patriots all they could handle at Giants Stadium in the last game of the year. They have a deadly pass rush, which will play well against the Packers’ pass-first offense. I can see a close game, with the Packers winning by a field goal.

Pick 1: Giants +7 over PACKERS

However, if it snows, the Giants are fucked. Super fucked (Michael Vicked). In that case, it’s going to be something like 31-10 Packers.

Pick 2: PACKERS -7 over Giants (if it snows enough to accumulate and disrupt the game)

Side note: there are few things that are as exciting as wagering on a sporting event you are watching. Without a doubt, my greatest television watching moments have been when something happens, perhaps something that inconsequential to the outcome of the game, to pull my wager into the green. So why gamble? In the words of Mo Vaughn: “It’s not about the money.”