Garote's More Serious Lists

Strange facts of nature:

1. Mosquitoes have killed more people than have all the world's wars combined.
2. Polar bears have black skin. They appear white because their hair is colorless and hollow, and so reflects the sunlight.
3. Some insects can live up to a year without their heads.
4. Rain contains vitamin B-12.
5. The temperature in eastern Siberia can get so cold that the moisture in a person's breath can freeze in the air and fall to the ground.
6. When North America was first settled, beavers there grew to the size of bears.
7. The digestive juices of crocodiles contain so much hydrochloric acid that they have dissolved swallowed iron spearheads and six-inch steel hooks.
8. Sharks have a sixth sense that enables them to detect bio-electrical fields radiated by other sea creatures and to navigate by sensing changes in the earth's magnetic field.
9. The eye of the giant squid is fifteen inches in diameter -- the size of a basketball
10. The human body consists of about 60 trillion cells. Each cell has about 10,000 times as many molecules as the Milky Way has stars.
11. The only part of the human body that has no blood supply is the cornea in the eye. It takes in oxygen directly from the air.
12. The Australian walking fish can not only survive without water, it can also climb trees to feed on insects.
13. If two flies were to mate and all their offspring were to survive for a single year, the resulting ball of maggots would be the size of the earth.

Things That Are A Waste Of Time

• Boiling water for ramen noodles. Seriously, it's just ramen! Put hot water from the tap into a bowl! There's no sense in wasting 25 additional minutes of your already ramen-shortened life by waiting for water to boil!! It's not that good to begin with. Make Ramen-Loaf™ instead: Hold the noodle block under hot water and sprinkle 1/4 of the packet onto it. Munchings and crunchings!

• Little trucks on big wheels. Don't get a teeny little Toyota and put big wheels on it! Quit wasting your time and just get a fucking big truck to begin with!

• Smoking cigarettes. They make your breath and hair stink, turn your teeth yellow, compromise your emotional sensibilities, and cause you to irritate many other people in enclosed spaces. And don't expect anyone with a sense of smell to perform oral sex on you. Ever. If your peers do it, then fuck them. Yes, they are all morons for it.

• Sport Utility Vehicles. A fat lot of good power-windows, air-conditioning, and leather seats will do you when your fifty-thousand-dollar "utility" vehicle develops some obscure computerized hiccough in the middle of the mountains somewhere. You'll shame yourself six ways west of Friday when you have to ask some local with a big beat-up ford to haul you to a service station, whereupon the mechanic will look under the hood of your car and bust out laughing and tell you to get a horse.

• Low-fat ice cream. Admit it. You like ice-cream. My favorte is a cookies-n'-creme + mint-chip milkshake. Accept the crime and do the time, because low-fat crap will only ruin your experience with chemical-burn. Maybe you can assuage your conscience with some pushups when the brainfreeze sets in. Even with non-dairy, vegan ice cream it's the same deal: Great with fat, sucks without.

• Stalking people. Whether it's a movie star, a bizarre hermit, or an attractive babe ... you're better off accepting the rejection. Either they want to be involved with you or they don't. Peeking in their windows and writing them snippy anonymous love letters only demeans you. (All bets are off if you're into being demeaned of course.)

Top Ten Reasons to Own a Laptop

• You are now completely immune to sudden power outages.
• Filling up a digital camera no longer ends your day.
• If your house catches fire, you can carry the whole system out under one arm.
• Angry at the internet? Throw it against the wall! Hah!
• Get a GPS dongle, and you suddenly rival the most expensve in-car navigation and entertainment systems.
• Want to pause your work? Shut the lid.
• One word: Wardriving.
• Games don't run for crap on it, so you'll get more work done.
• No one can accuse you of being 'chained to your desk'.
• You can join the other twits browsing Wired.com in Starbucks, precariously balancing an expensive drink on the corner of a wiggly table and passive-aggresively avoiding each others' contemptuous gaze as they widdle cards around in solitaire or rearrange the commas in their stilted LIT-5A book reports, crossing and uncrossing their legs over creaking, uncomfortable chairs and trying unsuccessfully to look relaxed. Seriously, I need a t-shirt just for wearing in Starbucks, that says "Your laptop does not impress me." I'll put it on and sit at the largest table with a glass of tap water, and read a fucking paperback book.

Snappy Little Self-Improvement Axioms I Made Up But Keep Forgetting To Tell Myself

1. "Health shapes mood shapes mind" You know, live well and you'll think well. Like Rick Moranis in Ghostbusters- 'Exercise, keep sharp, make good decisions.'
2. "Listen to that first small voice that knows what you should be doing." In other words, quit passive-aggresively deliberating over decisions when you already know the right thing to do.
3. "The car drives better with the hood shut" That is, quit constantly tinkering with your mind and it's performance will improve.
4. "New growth itches." The foremost axiom of personal change.
5. "Stop pandering to the lowest common denominator." The world is loaded with all sorts of people. You don't have to be friends with, or even explain yourself, to all of them.
6. "Choose your battles." This one isn't an original, I stole it from some Orson Scott Card novel. But it's advice I like. I think it primarily means 'Don't face your life on someone else's terms.'
7. "'Stuff' is bad. The less you own of it, the better."

Back to Garote's Main Page.