This Charming Man

Follow me on Twitter @Ch8rming

[ch8rming]

The worst part about all the blizzard talk is getting the Informer song stuck in your head. (It's from Snow and his 12 Inches of Snow CD.)

[ch8rming]

RIP Sydney

I had a dream where I was in a strange clubhouse and I just woke up (in the dream). I didn't want to get up so I climbed into a different bed and wrapped the covers around me. It was one blanket but it was impossibly large. I kept wrapping and folding it around me until I had like a dozen layers. I felt so at peace. That's when I woke up. Even though I had two layers of blankets, I was shivering. I had literally shivered myself awake. I couldn't get enough covers in real life to stay warm. It's not even cold where I live. Our cat died today. He lived a long and good life. He looked as if he might have been dead when I left for work. I checked, and he was still breathing. I wish I could have stayed home and provided him comfort during his last moments. But I was late for work and I couldn't stay longer. He was a great cat and I miss him. I'm not sure I believe in an afterlife anymore. I hope he experienced the warmth of my dream and not the deep inner coldness of my reality.

[awesomeshityoucanbuy]

DJ Cat Scratch Turntable

You might not know it, but cats are natural DJs. Now you can let Mr. Fluffums practice his wicked DJ skills while also keeping his nails sharp with these cat scratch posts shaped like turntables that will actually spin when your cat puts his claws into it.

$39.99

Check It Out

Awesome Sh*t You Can Buy

[ch8rming]

Superman: It's hard to hide your superhero identity.

Batman: It helps when your real identity is awesome.

Aquaman: Or if nobody talks to you otherwise.

[ch8rming]

Dear Santa, Make this shit go away. I'm sure you understand. I'm sorry for sending you a message about it.

[ch8rming]

TMI

I don't remember my parents announcing when they had to take a dump. But seriously, with my kids, that is sometimes the only way they will leave me alone to take one.

[ch8rming]

Santa App

Wouldn't it be cool if we could create a Santa app using modern technology? Kids everywhere could enter their Christmas lists online, like Amazon lists. You could sort the lists by multiple factors, not just price but also niceness and naughtiness. Obviously you could give presents to your family, but also more deserving kids who wouldn't otherwise get them. Maybe you could see the degrees of separation between you, in case you wanted to gift someone outside your network but not too far outside it. We could drop the flying reindeer bs and thank the ups guy instead. Is this already a thing? I haven't checked Amazon yet.

[ch8rming]

My Twitter Bot

When I joined Twitter in 2009, it had a few Star Wars bots floating around. If you tweeted certain words, a Darth Vader account might interrupt you with “I find your lack of faith disturbing,” or an Admiral Ackbar account might warn you “It’s a trap!” I thought this concept was fun and decided to build a Homer Simpson bot. I setup a Homer Simpson account (one of many!) and wrote a program behind it. Every five minutes, it would search Twitter for mention of the word “donut” and reply with a simple “Mmmm … donuts …” This happened about 30-50 times an hour, when I was running the bot. People really liked the Homer bot. It fit the overall playfulness of Twitter at that time. It caught people off-guard, but in a pleasant way. They would tell their friends about it. I have no idea why, but the account gained about 20-30 followers a day. Unfortunately, not everyone liked Homer bot. One group of people in particular spoke often of donuts, but would block and report Homer as spam. That took the account offline until the Twitter police could investigate. It was pretty stressful and took the fun out of it for me. Based on that experience, I modified Homer bot to keep a “do not reply” list. Once Homer replied to someone, the program added them to the list. The bot would respond to an account only once, for a cheap laugh, and never again, so it wouldn’t get annoying. The best part about having a Twitter bot is interacting with people directly. You REALLY catch them off-guard. They can see it’s a bot account and start replying to it, never expecting a response. But I also had access to the account on my phone. I could respond there too. This was helpful after I added the “do not reply” list. If people were disappointed they couldn’t trigger the bot again, I could easily respond on my phone. But the real fun was responding to people in an unscripted way. For example, someone once told me I spelled “doughnuts” incorrectly. I quickly responded with “There is no ugh in donuts!” and we all laughed and laughed.

[ch8rming]

[skunkbear]

Think about the centuries of medical advances that made this surgery possible. Think about the amazing machinery of our bodies — the bones that can knit together, the heart that can pump blood through foreign veins. Doctors say Will’s nerves will connect with his new arms, though it could take years.

Think about all of the people involved, too. The 35 person medical team — all their years of training and that long day of surgery. The anonymous arm donor and his parents. Will Lautzenheiser himself, a film professor at Boston University, who has found resilience through humor. And Will’s supportive loved ones, including his partner, Angel Gonzalez, seen hugging Will in that last photo.

Though the weekend is over, this puts me in a very Thanksgiving mood — a lot to be thankful for here. AND, on top of everything else, I’m thankful that there’s a way for all of us to share this story.

Images: Courtesy of Brigham and Women’s Hospital (where the surgery took place) and Will Lautzenheiser.hugs

[ch8rming]

Random Names

My 6 year-old son likes to manage sport teams on various XBox and iPad games. He asked me to help him come up with names for his players. I quickly found a random name generator online. We had fun using it together. I didn't think too much of it, but I knew he was busy making new players. So you can imagine my son's surprise, when he showed off his latest career-mode hockey player, and my wife and I couldn't stop laughing at Gayelord Johnny. I felt bad for him. He had no idea why we were laughing. I blame the random name generator for leading him astray. Such a ridiculous suggestion.

[ch8rming]

[ch8rming]

Unsafe Drivers and Stereotypes

There are intersections near my house that don't get much traffic except during rush hour and school drop off/pick up. The side streets have stop signs at these intersections, but the main arterial road does not. The problem is that certain drivers will turn onto the main arterial road and completely ignore their stop signs. I'm not talking about right turns only. They will also turn left, cutting off multiple lanes of traffic in both directions, all of them with the right-of-way. This is a school zone and many cars have small kids. I've slammed the brakes a few times to avoid accidents in these situations, where I had the right of way. It can be scary. Especially with my own kids to protect. My wife refuses to drive the kids to school because of this. I'm not kidding. I have even rolled down my windows and chased these drivers, yelling at them to stop at the stop signs. The problem is they just don't give a fuck. They only care about getting to their destination. They know the rest of us will stop to avoid them. It happens day after day after day. Which brings me to the second issue. These drivers all fall into a similar category of age, race, and gender. I'm not saying what category. It's probably not who you think. And of course it shouldn't matter. I'm trying not to transfer my anger with these unsafe drivers to the broader group. Even though these unsafe drivers all look the same, it does not mean everyone that looks like that is an unsafe driver. I get it. If I didn't have exposure to this demographic in work and social settings, it would be much easier to build resentment towards them. I hope my children don't develop stereotypes based on these interactions. I'm trying to watch what I say around them. The best thing that could happen is for people not to drive like reckless, selfish assholes. Sadly, the second best thing might be a more diverse group of selfish assholes, so I wouldn't be confronted with a constantly reaffirming stereotype. Sorry for the rant. I should just complain to the cops. They must know already.

[ch8rming]

I love to eat this cock. It's so hot. I've nearly sucked it dry.

[ch8rming]

[itsokaytobesmart]

I Can’t Carrion Without You

As a scientist, I know I’m not supposed to anthropomorphize animals and project human emotions onto them, but I couldn’t help it when I watched this video. A mating pair of European honey buzzards were tracked during their annual migration from The Netherlands to Central Africa, a journey that took them across the Strait of Gibraltar (which they prefer to open water because of updrafts over land) and the scorching Sahara desert. Sadly the female loses her way before they arrive at their destination, and the two are separated. The male eventually returns home, and… well, I’ll let you see what happens. It’s a “love” story told in GPS data :)

Guys, we need to talk about how amazing bird migrations are for a minute. I smell an upcoming video!

(from University of Amsterdam and 422 South Productions)

[ch8rming]

Sorry, I couldn't remember how to respond to replies on my phone. That's a good suggestion, but sadly not an option. I think South African Siri would pass all my requests off to "the help" anyway. If it were up to me, I'd prefer Irish Siri or Jamaican Siri. They would be fun to listen to. I'd talk to them in cartoonish Irish and Jamaican accents. Sounds like fun.