the reason why when you point your key fob to your head like chigurh in no country for old men it increases the range to lock your car is because of the water in your head

 them signals bounce of the water and such.

for some reason I wanted to believe that it had to do with the fact that the skull is round. right? because you have water like everywhere in your body. if I drank a bunch of water and then pointed it at my stomach would that also work? I just thought the skull made a good orb of transpondence.

I'mma try this out right now.

Results:

stomach- works well!

butt- doesn't work

where I imagine the bladder is: works!

pointing at the inside of the my elbow and doing the 'ice in my veins sheeeeesh' pose: does not work

head (control): didn't work

interesting findings to say the least.

I forgot August has 31 days in it

 yesterday I was like 'welp, if I know one thing it's that today is the last day of August and that tomorrow is September.'

And, well, you can only imagine my surprise when I opened up my little calendar box at the corner of my laptop and saw that for this year only they've added an extra day to August.

I didn't know it was a secret leap year. Why didn't anyone tell me?

Was this some kind of prank? Oh, you guys got me good. Sneaking in a secret leap year to see if I'd notice. How delightful.

********************

A lot of people think being delusional and detached from reality is a really harmful and destructive thing. But as I've just demonstrated, it doesn't have to be. You can believe in vast conspiracies and still just have fun with it. I hope this has been helpful and don't think of this as some sort of starting point or first inkling of anything. This isn't like some clue you discover in a video game as you're wandering around the wreckage of the early levels. It's not.

**********************

A lot of people think you can't use video game plot and framing devices in your own day to day experience but as I've just demonstrated, you can and it's actually really helpful. If there's a new hire at your work, give them tasks to complete and set up lighting to highlight the objects and places they need to go to and retrieve. And then reward them with some sort of token at the end of each mission to increase their buy-in and feelings of competence. Also if you're in an argument with someone, use your hands, facial expressions, and sound effects to sort of create the appearance of a weak point in their logic or general presentation. And then attack that ruthlessly

*************************

A lot of people think you can't keep nesting commentary on top of commentary and call that a creative work especially when it's devoid of any real substance and at its core is about forgetting how many days a month has. And I think that's incorrect because even if something is hollow at its core that doesn't stop you from adding layers and layers of commentary on top of it. It creates the appearance of a core and an essence. Some people think that this is basically what consciousness is and that your experience of being alive is nothing but an endless wave of suggestions and illusions that seems to point at some sort of greater truth or cohesive system or answer but really it's like it's like it's like it's like

***************************

A lot of people think. Ya know? Everybody's thinking. Probably. And surely in the same way that all our individual thoughts and emotions add up to something in the end, so too does our collective thinking make us more than a colony of ants.

***************************

A lot of people think it's important that the achievements of mankind mean more than the works of ants and I would disagree. I think ants and their teamwork is great. I've written about this before. In July of 2024 I saw ants working together to carry like a cheesy poof or something and I thought it was really awesome and hoped to be a part of a team like that one day. And the thing I'd say about the end of the summer that was one of my favorite parts of working at camp is when me and the other counselors sat around a big piece of paper in the lodge at night and scribbled on the paper and did impressions of the kids and made jokes that were only funny to us and that was so so so so fun. And moments like that where the sauce really congeals are times that make me glad to be alive. 

And also I hit a 5x5 160lbs back squat with DEEP range of motion today and it was sick.

completing all the 2016 moonboard v4 benchmarks

 as of this writing there are 78 v4 benchmarks for the 2016 moonboard set. I have completed 55 of them. these climbs are handpicked by the brilliant overlords of the moonboard corporation as the best climbs of the grade. It is my quest for the month of September to complete the remaining 23 climbs on the list. This includes some infamous climbs such as "I am not a setter" and "Gravity's Rainbow" and "No Foot" and "Hon's Way to Hell." I will be documenting my progress here periodically. 

In other news I'm doing really good. Coaching is going to start up again this week and I'm excited for that. I've been making a lot of art and that's felt really good. My running has been going great. I predict that in this year I'm going to make more art than I've made in a long time and the goal is to do something with it. I'm not sure what yet. I think I'll try a lot of different things and see if anything sticks. I bought a bunch of magnet strips about a year ago and they are like tiny little canvases so I've been doing a lot with those. It's fun to make stuff. 

one time I had this public speaking professor and unsurprisingly for a public speaking professor he liked to talk a lot but one thing I'll maybe never forget or remember sporadically at least is he told this story about how one time he had to give a speech at something or other and there were a bunch of people speaking before him and they all went on and on and each gave these long drawn out speeches and when it was his turn to talk he gave a very short and concise speech and it was a big hit.

And I think in that case, and in most cases maybe, rather than say 'be yourself', do the more complicated thing of 'pay attention to what's going on, see what is needed, assess what you are capable of doing to meet that need, and do that.'

And it's like if you can really listen to and understand what's going then it's not hard to be successful. right? I don't know.

bug concert tonight

 big bug concert tonight

oh yeah

those boys are laying it down

you have to pay attention to stuff like this

right now there's a bird screaming in regular intervals outside my window. I can't hear it and I don't think it's a baby. I don't know enough about birds to know what kind it could be. It definitely sounds distressed though. 

scree scree scree!

it stopped.

I hope it's okay. It reminds me of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones' song The Impression that I Get

Never had to knock on wood

But I know someone who has

which makes me wonder if I could 

It makes me wonder if I

never had to knock on wood

and I'm glad I haven't yet

because I'm sure it isn't good

that's the impression that I get

JUST LIKE HIGH SPEED RAIL SYSTEMS SKA MUSIC IS SOMETHING WE AREN'T USING THAT COULD ABSOLUTELY HELP SAVE US!

 my living room window overlooks a hillside with a road snaking through it just past a complex of buildings and perched on the hillside is a car whose windshield is perfectly positioned to reflect the sunlight directly into my eyes from the chair I'm slouched in to write this on my laptop. And I stare at this focused beam of light and there's a kind of vibration and shake to it around the halo of this shining bolt. As if it's heating up the air around my window and causing that shimmer effect you see on the road in the summer. And now you're wondering if I feel any kind of way about it and all I can tell you is this

My dad told me this story yesterday about barbed wire and a barbed wire factory. Because we were talking about using a fishing net to spray paint a design on to a truck roof. And I said that's ridiculous. It wouldn't look good to use a fishing net. And he said if you were by the ocean it would. And I said well then would people out west use horseshoes? And would people in Canada use flannel? 

And he said there's a museum of barbed wire and that all sorts of different barbed wire manufacturers used to invent different knots and ties and barbs and such. And he said one time there was a town by a river and upriver of the town was a barbed wire factory. And that was fine and good until the dam upriver of the barbed wire factory which was upriver of the town broke. 

And ordinarily it's very disastrous when a dam breaks and a raging torrent of water descends upon a town. But things take on biblical proportions when the flood first engulfs the barbed wire factory before slamming into the town. A wave of crushing water infused with the power of sharp pointed wire.

And that's why you build the barbed wire factory down river of the town. 

sometimes I like to indulge in flights of fancy on my drive back home from wegman's

 tonight I imagined 'what if I was a hero?'

And what that looked like was I was following an SUV down Ridge St towards the County Office Building and there's a crosswalk by the McDonald's that someone was using and the SUV slowed to a stop in front of the person who was crossing the street BUT I imagined

'what if they hit that person and just kept on driving??'

That's when I went into hero mode. I did not stop and attend to the person who was hit. There's no time for that. The villain is making their escape. I'm the only witness. The person who got hit isn't going anywhere. Other people can attend to them. I have to track this person down.

I lay on my horn. The call of justice you could call it. I'm following this vehicle to the ends of the earth with my horn blaring. WAHHHHHHHH WAHHHHHHH! I'm riding their bumper. I'm flashing my high beams. WAHHHHHHH! WAHHHHHH! No one mows down an innocent pedestrian and gets away with it while I'm around. I'm running red lights. I'm making tight turns. They can't shake me. 

Finally, they pull over. I pull over. I get out of my car. I slam the door. I run up. I pound on their window. I haven't called 911 yet. There's no time.

"HEY! HEY!" I shout.

They know what they did. They say nothing.

"YOU HIT THAT PERSON! YOU CAN'T DO THAT!"

They know what they did. They say nothing.

"I'M CALLING THE POLICE! STAY HERE!"

They know what they did. They say nothing.

And that's how it would happen. 

Ways I could make it cooler would be that I would have some sort of spider car that could shoot car web at other cars and hang them up by a streetlight for the authorities to find.

The other way it could make it cooler is the person who gets hit they do a sick back flip out of the hit and are seemingly okay so I pull up and say, 'get in! let's get em!' and they get in the car with me and we chase em down and then we punch and kick their car a bunch and there's nothing they can do about it because we have the moral high ground.

latin roots

I got in a word argument with my mom today because we were looking at the New York Times spelling bee words from yesterday and one of the words was 'arable' and for whatever reason I was very confident that it was related somehow to the word 'arid' and I believe my exact quote was something like

"look up 'arid' and tell me what it means and see if I'm right" said in a very demanding tone.

And I'll say right now that I was technically wrong but I did uncover this! Stay with me now.

Arable means used or suitable for growing crops and comes from the Latin word 'arare' meaning to plow.

Arid means too dry or barren to support vegetation and comes from the Latin word 'arere' meaning be dry or parched.

So, listen, 'arare' and 'arere' and they are related to ways to describe how suitable land is. That's not nothing. You can't tell me that's not nothing. Changing an 'a' to an 'e'. I think I've stumbled onto something much deeper here. 

Probably, probably some linguists in the comments can back me up on this that if we go back to the Proto-Indo-European roots we might find a point of connection. 

OH MY GOD I JUST LOOKED IT UP I WAS RIGHT!!

I'll give you the links and everything.

Look at the etymology part for arere: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/arere

I'll tell you where it goes you don't even have to look it goes to this: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/aratrum#Latin

Just like I said. Just like I said the Proto-Indo-European word for plough. Same root. They're the same word. I was right. 

This is what my education was FOR. What do you think about that, Mom?!

one thing I think about twelve things

 in this game I'm going to name twelve things and then tell you the one thing I think about all twelve of those things at once

-oranges

-lactose intolerance

-malfeasance

-nations run by doctors

-the whole ocean

-bobcats

-philogyny

-maitre d'

-suspended disbelief

-balloons

-church

-pokemon

And the one thing that I think about all of these things is:

'you can't tell em twice what you already told em thrice'

Well, I hope you had fun here today. I know I did. Remember to check back in again to hear the story of how I had a friend who had a cousin who didn't catch their tongue animal in the womb before they were born and then it ran around the hospital and they tried to catch it but they never found it so now the hospital is haunted by the tongue and it sneaks into people's mouths when they are asleep and when they woke up they say all sorts of stuff they would never normally say like, "I wish I owned a great big plantation." And in their mind they don't want that but the tongue is making them say it.

today I'm gonna explain what I think blood is and where it comes from

 Look kids, I'm an amateur scientist. Just like all the great innovators of history I'm just a guy with some crazy ideas and a lot of confidence. And I'm not gonna tell you that I have all the answers at any given moment. But, there's no telling which answer I don't have. 

Anyway let's get into it. So if you're dehydrated your blood volume goes down. I'm pretty sure I heard that once. Don't drink water, you have less blood. This would imply that blood is water. Now, here's something else that's even more gonna make you go crazy, I heard tell somewheres else that sweat is filtered blood. And sweat is salty water. So it's like we got water coming in and water going out and at some point it's blood and then it's not. And then only draculas can drink blood and we regular nathans aren't allowed. 

If you're anything like me all these different contradictory facts are tying your noggin up in knots and making you ferociously angry. But don't worry. I have the answers that will make everything make sense.

bones?

I think it's bones. I think the water gets to the bones and makes em wet. And then you got little guys working in the bones factory and they say, "hey boss says we gotta make this water into blood by 5!" And they get to it man. I think bones have the technology.

Call it a gunch but I think the blood is coming out of the bones. That's why you need milk. Gunch is gut hunch by the way. Milk makes the bones strong so they can pump out more blood. 

Maybe you're saying to yourself, Andy if that's true then why do skeletons in media not leak blood wherever they go. To which I'd say, in the real world the sun doesn't actually wear sunglasses. Maybe all the artists of the world are too afraid of how cool and accurate that would look if animated skeletons were oozing blood. I think that would look great and would help teach the kids. 

Anyway thank you for learning with me and stay tuned for next time when I'll explain how your tongue is actually a little animal that you catch in your mouth while you're in the womb and one time I knew this kid who had a cousin who didn't catch their tongue in time and then they were born and the tongue escaped and was running around the hospital. And that kid's name was Eh-Oh.

she was a captain and the sea made her blood boil

 Her ship was rusty. It was an iron ship with wooden nails holding planks of iron together. They all laughed and sneered and said, "by the great Poseidon, that vessel'll never float or our names aren't collectively Bob Seager." She boarded her boat for the first time to shove off and with her back turned to the jeering crowd she said in a low voice, "all your words are stupid and bad."

To the amazement of all who were present, her ship did float. It floated too well, in fact. A craft whose construction defied all sense floated so well that it hovered several inches above the water, not touching it at all. "Curse this wretched sea," she sneered. And to be a walking, sailing oddity and to tire of oddities and to wonder when the oddities will cease is to sail the great blue ocean and hope to find the spot where it dries up.

Water water everywhere, come again another day. If you don't, I don't care. I'll pull down your underwear.

 He sat down at his chair. His chair at his desk. His desk at its place in the study. The study in the upstairs of the house. The house on the plot of land. The plot of land on the street. The street in the town. The town in the county. The county on the desk. The desk in repose. The pose on the model. The model on the stage. The stage at the convention. The convention in the arena. The arena in the parking lot. The parking lot placed perilously atop a precipitous perch. The perch above the ocean. The ocean in the bucket. The bucket in the shed. The shed in the alley. The alley incomplete. The pleated pants in the closet. The closet in a blade of grass. The blade of grass for the bug. The bug in the rug. The rug on the floor. The floor of the house that Jack built. The house on the hill. The hill in the sky. The sky belonging entirely to itself. The self in the mind. The mind in the body. The body in the circus. The circus in the circus. The circus in the heart. The heart in the man. The man in the mirror. The mirror in the vestibule. The vestibule in the trailer. The trailer in the ditch. The ditch in the gully. The gully in the valley. The valley in the bog. The bog in the state park. The state park in Alaska. Alaska in the night. The night in aurora borealis.

Aurora Borealis.

At this time of year? At this time of day? In this part of the country? Localized entirely within your kitchen?

yes 

 It was a sunny afternoon. Far too sunny and far too afternoon. Every moment kept bleeding into the next and it was impossible to stand still and find a single reference point a single reference point a single reference point and be located in space and time like a crow like crows on the roofs of buildings watching and ca-cawing and cataloging the goings-ons of the down belows

below

below

below

below

Matthew Values is circling and encircling an agreed upon area to find its weight and worth in his steps is a silent appraisal that estimates the breadth and depth of terms. Movement is tracking the movement the tracking is movement. Circle and a square. Bridge the divide. The gap between what it is and what it is not. An irrational infinity apart.

He felt a sort of only coffee way that an empty pit in his stomach couldn't ------- but it --------- and even then he knew what he didn't. It would have to be decided and added up in the end. Sum totaled. The sun totaled. The sun toad was under the road. The son told the sun toad under the road that some mode would erode the old. It was like trying to hold water in a bucket but the bucket was spaghetti and the water was spaghetti and it was like holding spaghetti that was very very very difficult to hold.

in an ancient land

 In an ancient land, long ago, far away, but maybe also--right here, when men barked like dogs because dogs hadn't been invented yet to do man's barking for him. There was a great commotion all about the large house that everyone lived in together. Everyone was barking like mad. For on this day a baby had been born who would hold the key to everything. The key to mankind's destiny. The one who would give shape to the stars and plot and chart the circumference of nearly everything. The birth heard round the house.

This baby was an incredible powerful and strong child. If the people had possessed speech they would've first dubbed him 'The Strangler'. An ignominious epithet to be sure but one that could not be more fitting. The baby loved to crush anything crushable in his magnificent grip. Eventually though, the grasping would give way to seizing. Because this wee lad was on his way to seizing more than had ever been soze. 

What other ominous signs were present on the day of his birth? Well, the moon was full. But it was cloudy so you couldn't really tell. And the owls screeched, 'Holy mother of maple leafs! This next one coming up is a real doozy of a whelp.' But the people of the land could not heed the owls cries. For the owls had decided it was much too fun messing with them. And that if they ever got hold of speech, they would use it for nought but ill. And it would not satisfy the humans to merely speak of catching small rodents and vomiting pellets. No, the humans would surely invent awful institutions that made living nearly intolerable and would completely lose the plot. Better for their own sake to leave them to barks and growls and the sweet sonic stylings of the didgeridoo.

But deep within the consciousness of the newly born babe, there was a seed that already knew of the talk of the owls. And it knew of the other tricks and and secrets of the animals. And the seed said, "It will all be mine. I just gotta have it. Gimme me gimme me gimme me you rats one and all."

------------------------------------------------------------------------   

That was a scrap of something. I want to create more stuff this year.

did you know that 'wrought' is the old past tense of 'work'? like instead of saying 'worked' you'd say wrought.

From sun up to sun down I have wrought this day and now I take my slumber.

 you ever think if you remembered everything that you forgot to say that it would make a difference?

one time I carved a mushroom out of a piece of cedar wood and right now in the evening 6:20 PM light it looks red in a particular way I've never seen before

and that's a true story

I feel lucky to be me

why do olives make oil but every other fruit makes juice?

dream learning

 last night I did that thing where a Youtube video was playing that I fell asleep too and I was fully asleep and dreaming but I could also hear the video in my dream and was listening to it. And when I woke up I played the video again and could remember parts of it from my dream. 

but in the dream I was just in a classroom that was also watching the video.

I've unlocked sleep learning.

If you don't know why this is important then you have already never seen the episode of Dexter's Laboratory where he needs to learn French in one night so he puts on a 'Learn French' instructional tape and listens to it while he sleeps but the tape player malfunctions and so all night he only hears the phrase 'omelette du fromage'  and when he wakes up all he can say is 'omelette du fromage'. 

I can't emphasize enough how pivotal this episode was to my childhood. It affected me in ways that are still being felt to this day.

I have a phone again

morsh