If They Could Only Meet My First Girlfriend...

...they would know how lousy my judgment actually is.

I signed up a while ago for the Good Judgment Project, a Penn/Berkeley forecasting tournament where you predict the likelihood of certain world events occurring in the future. They finally started accepting predictions a few months ago, and put up the initial leaderboard just last week. Take a gander at this!

#3! I must gloat before I fall out of the leaderboard in three minutes.

Economy Lagging? Call the Plumber!

Get back in your hole now...

I was horrified to hear the other day that Joe the Plumber (née Samuel J. Somethingorotherbacher) had filed papers to run for Congress. Now, to be clear, I have no problem with a plumber (or not) being in Congress. Nor do I necessarily have a problem prima facie with any candidate who does not have a formal education.

But I do request that any elected representative at least have a grasp of both basic and complex issues, instead of throwing terms like "fascists" and "socialism" around without really knowing what they mean. In the latter instance, I find "Joe" the "Plumber" especially guilty.

You see, Joe was concerned that Obama's tax plans were "one step closer to socialism." I imagine him saying that with that pensively furrowed brow above. He is, on the other hand, firmly in favor of preserving the American Dream, whatever the fuck that is, and even wrote an entire book about it.

I haven't read the book because I'd rather spend the 19 bucks on the co-pay for an exploratory colonoscopy, but I would be surprised if he really sat down to learn what the American Dream really was. And here it is: It was coined by James Truslow Adams, and defined (in part) as "that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement."

If that sounds familiar, it's because it's awfully close to the concept of "to each according to his contribution," the lynchpin of the transition to a socialist society.

But unfortunately, when people say "The American Dream" today, they don't mean a fuller and richer life for everyone. They mean a fuller and richer life for themselves, at the expense of everyone else.

The Apotheosis of Steve Jobs

First things first - I actually thought Steve Jobs' death was a joke or a mistake, as it once was before, and let's not forget Steve himself had a little fun with it at one of his keynotes:

Unfortunately, this time he won't be popping up a wry slide at the next keynote, so RIP, Steve.

With that said, I don't know when in the last ten years he achieved godhood, but he apparently did, by the way people are talking about him. Now don't get me wrong, I own a MacBook and bought several of the iPods and iPhone. I think he's one of the few people on this planet who just gets it; the rare combination of brilliance, creativity, and instinct. I've watched every single one of his speeches on Youtube and he's so consistently impressive and inspiring that I've modeled my public speaking career after him. He's not afraid to take risks and to gather his employees to scream that they totally fucked up MobileMe. I LOVE that shit. I admire him so much that if he had been peeing in the urinal next to me, I'd have held his dick for him.

But really, med student Paul Jurgens? "...He wanted to make a dent in the universe, and he did. This is the intersection of technology and humanity.” I know the dent in the universe thing was Steve's own line, but really? The universe? The guy sold you overpriced computers and phones that don't let you change the tone of e-mail notifications! He stopped all corporate charity programs and was by most accounts a temperamental douche, even shafting Woz out of $2,150 when they designed the Breakout board. (That's $9,000 in today's value)

So universe? I dunno. Somewhere in the Andromeda Galaxy Dr. Xzxqyxqy is feeling pretty unappreciated right now.

Scrubbing Bubbles One-Step Toilet Bowl Cleaner: Spraying Your Crap All Over the Bathroom

When I was in college, I took an honors freshman seminar on interpersonal communication or something like that (I can't remember the actual course title, but it was some kind of typical honors New Age-y bullshit name), and one of the only things I remember is watching a video with an example speech about how your toilet, when flushed, constantly spews microscopic bits of fecal matter all over your toothbrush and presumably in your face as well. I brushed my teeth in the water fountain for about week after that.

The truth, of course, is that the bathroom is nowhere near the dirtiest room in your house. Says Professor Charles Gerba: "If an alien came from space and studied the bacterial counts, he probably would conclude he should wash his hands in your toilet and crap in your sink." Duly noted.

Regardless, given enough time, every toilet gets suitably disgusting. It's easy to put off forking over like 15 bucks for that disposable toilet wand thing at the grocery store, but alas, we are only in college for so long. So I was excited to receive the Scrubbing Bubbles One-Step Toilet Bowl Cleaner through the Bzzagent program, because a) that site usually never sends me anything, and b) anything that keeps the toilet clean with a minimum of fuss and the least amount of toilet water on my arms has my undivided attention.

So basically, it's an upside-down aerosol can that you attach to the foot pedal, which has a thin rubber tube leading to a suction/clamp type contraption with a rotating spray head that you clip to the inner rim of your toilet bowl. It doesn't require any electricity, which is kind of cool, especially considering how much force the cleaning solution is shot out with. That, I found out the hard way.

I attached the mechanism to the bowl and pressed on the foot pedal with my hand while bent over the toilet. The solution proceeded to shoot OUT of the bowl and into my face. I love the feeling of Lysol in my eye. On the plus side, the advertising must be accurate, as I have indeed noticed that there has been no toilet scum growing on my face since then. I had to put a spacer in the clamp so that the contraption would sit lower in the bowl, but even at its lowest, it still shot solution on top of the seat and under the space in the cover. But I hate cleaning toilets so much I STILL didn't give up on the One-Step at this point.

I know what you're wondering right now, and I was wondering it too: since the spray head juts out into the toilet space by about an inch and a half, most healthy bran-powered logs will clear it with room to spare, but what happens when you eat Chipotle and carpetbomb that bowl? Does it have a magical shit-repelling force field or space age coating? The brochure didn't say. I had to find out for myself.

I didn't even get around to going to Chipotle; a sugar-free red velvet cupcake did the trick. And the answers are yes, you will shit all over it, and no, there is no magical shit-repelling coating.

So points for concept but perhaps not for execution. My toilet doesn't seem to be unusual in shape or size, but naturally, YMMV. For me, sadly, it's back to $15 toilet wands and then burning my arms afterwards.

EDIT: The BzzAgent program rejected this post in just 2 minutes! Their webcrawling ninja robots somehow determined that I was using too much profanity without even registering a hit on my visitor log. Incredible!


from BzzAgent Jono jono@bzzagent.com
reply-to jono@bzzagent.com
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date Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 11:32 PM
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While we appreciate the effort, we unfortunately could not accept your Campaign Activity submission. Please read the message below to learn more.


Campaign: Scrubbing Bubbles One Step Toilet Bowl Cleaner

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Wow - we love you blog post but we don't accept profanity. ;-) If you can clean up the language so it's acceptable for our client, we'll bee happy to accept the post!