Awesome/Not Awesome (8-16-10)

Someday I hope to buy an old Wal-mart and turn it into either an ice rink or a laser tag arena.

With the laser tag idea, we could even keep all the shelves and items up! That’d be sweet.

AWESOME: PostSecret

I only recently came across PostSecret, which is exactly what it sounds like…. But it goes a bit deeper.

Described as “an ongoing community art project”, anyone can mail in their secrets (duh!) to the PS headquarters using one side of a postcard. Typically the secrets are one brief sentence long, but you never realize how much you can say with just one sentence until you’ve seen some of these.

The secrets you can see on the website vary from funny to disturbing, everyday to extraordinary, romantic to psychotic. And I am fucking addicted.

Universities, towns, just about any large collection of people can have their own postsecret kind of mural set up on a wall, where people can anonymously share the darkest parts of their lives. How can you not be fascinated by this?

It’s kind of the music video for Seether’s “Fine Again”, but totally more crushing and uplifting at the same time.

I know this is a short entry, but really there’s nothing else to say about it without getting incredibly specific- and these aren’t my secrets, they’re someone else’s. Take a look when you can get a chance. You won’t be disappointed.

NOT AWESOME: Dog Years

How come dogs get their own special interval, the dog year?

First of all, I would be okay with this if it was a measure of distance like the light year (i.e. how much ground a dog can cover in a full year).

But it’s actually, or so I’m told, about 1/7 a year. Is that human years? I don’t fucking know.

Basically, what they mean to say is dogs age 7 times faster than human, and we have an insanely stupid way to say this. It’s not “Spot is 3 years old”, it’s “Spot is 21 in dog years.”

And don’t tell me you’ve never heard someone say that, tons of fucking people say that. It’s dumb as hell!

Listen, there’s no such thing as a human year. A year is how long it takes the motherfucking Earth to go around the motherfucking Sun.

Nothing more, nothing less.

AND EVERY SINGLE THING ON THE EARTH AGES 1 “YEAR” FOR EVERY COMPLETE ORBIT IT REMAINS ALIVE.

So, dog years…. Are retarded! There’s nothing wrong with saying “Fuckface is getting old- he’s 14.” We all know dogs have a short lifespan compared to ours.

By the way, that’s 98 in dog years. And I know of many, many dogs that easily make it to 14. So, what we’re really saying is, dogs have a longer life expectancy than we have, EVEN THOUGH WE LIVE SIGNIFICANTLY LONGER.

This kinda makes sense if you look so deep into the numbers and ratios that you’re never going to find your way out again.

In other words, who the fuck cares?

You know what else is horseshit?

No other animals get that kind of publicity with age.

I have no idea how long a cat year is, or a rabbit year, or a snake year.

And giant turtle years are going to be longer than ours! But we’ll never figure out how to say that.

If you still don’t believe me, then let me spell it out for you further.

Robin Williams starred in a movie called Jack, about a boy named Phillip (no, he was actually named Jack) who aged 4 times faster than everyone else.

So when he’s 10 years old, he looks 40. To complicate things, Jack unfortunately has aged into the hairiest man on Earth. Bad luck.

Now, imagine that we are standing next to Jack’s deathbed, as he prepares for the great beyond at the ripe old age of 14.

THE SINGLE MOST INSULTING, MOST DEPRESSING, WORST THING HE COULD HEAR BEFORE HE DIES, WOULD BE:

“Well, Jack, I mean this is 56 or so in regular years. That’s not too shabby.”

SO IN CONCLUSION, if you would feel like an asshole for saying that to Jack as he lies dying, then on principle you should stop fucking using dog years for so-called man’s best friend.

Dog years. Are you fucking kidding me?

Not even close to awesome.