Learnology

Learn how to do something new everyday...

[learnology]

Starting the Vacation Early - Economic Airport Boozing

Got a short trip to Vegas or Atlantic City? Finally at the airport and want to  start you early vacation? Time to get DRUNK at the airport and/or plane!! WoOoOoOo!!! Hurry over to your nearest airport bar. 

You: "I'll have 2 margaritas please!"  Barkeep: "Great! That will be $24" You: "Oh...how about just a water then."

That sound about right? Why does getting the party started early always mean you have to also be a Russian Millionaire? Here is what to do...

       What you will need:

Someone who doesn't have individual hair sprays, lotions, shampoos, or other liquids to carry-on. *Cough* girls... *cough*

Ziplock bag

Grab your keys and go to your nearest specialty liquor store and buy these fabulous miniature liquor bottles. 

This entire top shelf collection cost me about the same as those 2 margaritas would have and has 3 times the alcohol content. Plus you can share with a friend, or make 8 new ones!

Place all your bottles in a nice ziplock bag just like the rest of your liquid carry-ons. This will allow easy scan through the X-ray. Plus taking these out one at a time at the machine probably will get you extra scrutiny, or a well deserved high-five. 

When you are on the plane and you order some booze, they give you these small bottles anyway but now you don't have to pay top price. You will be the envy of the entire plane or at least be drunk enough to pass out until arrival.

[learnology]

Solve Tumblr Auto-Position Your Pictures Without Photo Editor

On my first Tumblr post, I wanted to post a few pictures to go along with my fantastical writing so I took out my camera and snapped a few pictures and prepared to upload to the Tumblr Gods. To annoy me greatly, Lord Tumblr decided it would know the proper positioning of my photos and they dont even give you a rotate function! Time to Panic!What Tumblr does is it reads the photo's meta data on what the orientation of the camera and automatically positions the photo to what it believes is "correct". Obviously this is annoying and everyone's solution on Google is "Oh just readjust it in Photoshop or your photo editor." Photoshop always saves the day, but what if you don't have Photoshop or any other photo editor?

The first thing I tried was of course our trusty MS-Paint. What you quickly find is that even if you rotate and save, Tumblr sees through your ploy and counters "Nope, not that easy!" 

Things you will need:

Windows (sorry I don't have a Mac)

that is all.

The easiest solution is to just open the folder which the photo is placed.

Right click the photo that needs flipping and select "rotate clockwise" or "rotate counterclockwise".

That is all! No Photo editing software needed. No praying to the Photoshop gods. Simple and quick. Learnology: 1 Tumblr: 0. 

Now to finish the rest of my Twix...

[learnology]

Paper Water Balloon

Its the beginning of summer time and what better way to celebrate the heat by having your very own single water balloon fight. I say single because this paper water balloon only has the life span of about 5 minutes and probably wont be able to make more than one to throw before they all explode. You should then have about a 5 minute head start before they pin you down and spray you with the garden hose. 

What you will need:

Paper, thicker the stock the longer it will last.

Small funnel

Water

Dry friend or little sibling

If you have square sheets of paper please jump to below the picture. If you are using 8x11 sheets of paper, then fold diagonally and either rip or with a scissor, cut the excess tail off to make the shape of a square. Next fold the opposite diagonal to make an X in the paper and again horizontally in half. The paper should look like this. 

Next fold in the horizontal indents to create a pyramid. 

And then fold the flaps up toward the tip of the pyramid. Do both front and back.

Next with the flaps facing up, fold the middle corners to the center horizontal line to form a ruby shape. Also do for front and back.

Now with the wings pointing up on the ruby, fold that the tip down and then diagonally into the flap of the middle fold to hold it in place. Do this for the right side and the both of the back sides.

You should be left with a weird looking elongated X-wing, sorta. 

Find the side where there is a hole and with one monstrous breath, blow this contraption into a ball. 

Now you can be very excited that you made a paper ball and throw this around at your friends but it probably does not have the wet factor we were going for. What I like to use is my small funnel that I have for my flask so we don't get any excess water touching the water balloon which would shorten its life span. 

Next fill with water up to about 3/4 and quickly find a target to throw at. Depending on the thickness of your paper stock, you probably don't have much time left. With just one in the chamber, you should then quickly find somewhere safe to hide but at least you spilled first blood. Happy summer time fun!

**Optional**

To add extra shelf life to your water balloon, find the bottom of the balloon where the hole is opposite and color the section with as much crayon as possible. You are looking to coat the bottom with wax, which repels water. 

Your water bomb not only will last longer in your hand prior to throwing but will have a sweet two toned color any 2 year old can be proud of. 

[learnology]

Most Expensive Hot Dog & Ice Cream Sundae

In 2001, John Cusack walked into a dessert shop with Kate Beckinsale...

Jonathan: This is the ultimate blend to drink. How'd you find this place?Sara: I first came in because of the name: Serendipity. It's one of my favorite words. Jonathan: It is? Why? Sara: It's such a nice sounding word for what it means: a fortunate accident.

It was a fortunate accident that the this quaint New York dessert shop would be the setting of 2 Guinness World Records and they only ordered a chocolate shake... 

Golden Opulence Sundae $1000 - 48 hour in advance order

The sundae was originally constructed to celebrate Serendipity 3's Golden Anniversary in 2005 but is now ordered by a rare few about once a month. The sundae requires a full day to special order and fly in the Tahiti vanilla beans for its ice cream, Amedei Porcelana chocolate for its chocolate syrup, chocolate truffles and 23-carat edible gold leaf. It also garnishes candied fruits, gold covered almonds and marzipan cherries, depending on the season. 

You will need to bring one of the following to enjoy said Sundae:

$1000 cash + tax and tip

Winning lotto ticket

Friend that is a Trust Fund baby

Kenyon running shoes if attempting to Dine & Dash

"Haute Dog" $69 - No advance ordering needed

This might seem a bit anti-climactic following the Opulent Sundae but for $69 you can feel like you ate a part of history. (Until someone else makes a $70 hot dog.) First they start with an all beef hot dog that they would normally sell for $8.50 and they grill it with white truffle oil and they top it off with chucks of foie gras, heirloom tomato ketchup, Vidalia onions and truffle Dijon mustard. They place all this heart stopping goodness in a foot long pretzel bun that is toasted with white truffle butter.

You will need to bring the following to enjoy said hot dog:

A suckered friend that lost a bet and would pay for you to eat a hot dog.

[learnology]

Semi-Lethal Ninja Card Throwing

My buddies and I are avid poker players but often times through out the game, they would need to take multiple smoke breaks. I seen many videos of people throwing cards that could slide a banana in half or pop a balloon but I've always wanted to be able to slice their damn cigarettes in half so we could return to the game and I could then gamble my money back to them so they don't break my jaw for wasting all their cigarettes. Here is how to do it...

Supplies:

Deck of Cards. You can even just use one card if you have the patience to track it down after each throw.

Styrofoam square - Target practice

Unsuspecting potential lung cancer acquaintances. They probably wont be calling you friends after.

 Here is a bit of theory behind the card throw. You need to try and generate as much spin on the card as possible. The spinning card creates enough force and slicing potential as to penetrate the styrofoam  banana, or cigarette. Also with a fast spin, allows the card to travel in a straight line. Also, the power of the spin comes from the snapping or whipping of your wrist. 

Choose your own Grip:

Place your index finger on 1 corner of the card while your middle finger and your thumb pinches down in the middle of the card.

When you throw the card, you let your index finger guide where the card wants to go. Curl your wrist toward your body and then you extend and snap your wrist toward your desired/unsuspecting target. 

The second way to hold the card is to pinch your index and middle finger around 1 corner of the playing card. You then cradle the short end of the card in the middle of your palm. When you extend your two fingers forward, the card should swing freely forward. 

Now with the same wrist whipping action you curl your wrist toward your body and guide the direction of your card with your index finger.

**Helpful Trick** When I hold the card in this position, I like to hold the card back so that it bends into the palm of my hand.

This creates a bit of arch in the card but also acts as a small spring as it expels from my hand and into unsuspecting cigarettes, hopefully avoiding eyes. Please only try to dislodge cigarettes from friends who wear glasses or are douchey enough to wear sunglasses to a house poker game. Enjoy!

[learnology]

Peel the "Perfect" Orange Without a Knife

I've always loved eating oranges but what happens when you take them to-go and away from your trusty knife? Also peeling oranges the traditional way, piece by piece, always hurt the underside of my masculine man nails, which after two, always made me want to stop my glorious vitamin C intake. This problem arose recently because yesterday my mother decided to rob an orange truck and brought home bags and bags of oranges.

This was only about half of them, minus about a few dozen of oranges we decided to devour immediately upon return. With no knife in hand, I decided to take this opportunity to find the "perfect" orange peel. This is what you will need...

Supplies:

Orange

Soft man nails

firm grip 

I've done a bit of research and read people often like to roll the orange first to separate the skin from the actual orange. Although I agree with this tactic, it seems to have a bit of a flaw. If too much pressure is applied, it can often break the interior skin of the orange causing internal bleeding/leaking and make the insides super soft and hard to peel. 

But what was effective was a firm roll at the top of the orange was very helpful in loosening the skin for the most difficult and most nail-pained first peel. 

You can actually feel the skin separating from the top and that first peel will be much easier. I like to peel away the top portion while removing the middle vein. 

Find part of the orange where the slices can separate the sphere in equal halves and use your nails to score the skin for an easier break.

Now place your orange death grip with thumbs up around the orange. Use your thumbs apply pressure to the groove of the remaining skin, not the actual orange. 

Now for the fun part, rip the orange in half. **VERY IMPORTANT** Make sure you make a loud Hulk roar when ripping so every remaining orange knows who's boss. Your result should be 2 nicely separated orange halves. 

If you were not able to remove the vein originally, you can do so now and also remove that weird orange clump at the bottom of the orange. Now with the orange in halves, you can just fold the orange inside out to get the orange slices to pop somewhat easily out of its shell. 

May your orange eating be changed from this day forward.