your ex-lover is dead

VODKA POST: some nights i want to kneel down, firmly plant my right foot into the ground, and push down hard with all my might in hopes that i may rocket into the night sky, see the ground below me slowly begin to lose detail, then slightly start curving around the edges into a large ball, let the clouds overtake me, let the silence surround me, and finally, see the blue sphere that is earth float in front of me. and with the stars around me like an audience and the sun to my left as the spotlight, i could simply will time to stop. then id reach down with my monstrous hands and use my nimble fingers to grab everyone who is in the wrong place... everyone who is with the wrong person... everyone whos not getting what they deserve... or not deserving what they get... and rearrange the world as easy as if they were lego pieces. and i would set everything right. i wish i could be the master of the maligned. i wish my thoughts wouldnt so often consist of suicide and debating the differences between curiosity and consideration. i wish i could remember a dream. i wish i could do what one does to obtain one. but a bullet couldnt put me to sleep tonight. is it a bad thing to let the stories go by? is it a shameful deed to concede to the greater character in us, in the story, in the scene? is there fault in being cryptic and enigmatic to the point of licking the line between genius and delirium? i find no harm in expressing the unexpressable through a series of failed typed thoughts and quotes. hell, im doing it now. everything life is about revolves around love and the occasional lack thereof; so in essence, does it become larger and bigger than love? does a fish ever think about water? how often do you think about gravity, other than those moments your heart hits the ground? when did "less is more" turn to nothing? in other news, this morning i mistook the palmolive bottle for the syrup bottle and completely ruined my eggo waffles.

Looking Back To The Future

Eulogies tend to be the most painfully honest and cathartic monologue people submit themselves to in their lives. They look at their dead friend or family member, take a deep breath, and then let it all out; the stories, the mistakes, the laughs, the adventures, and how they really, truly felt about that person in retrospect. And it always comes down to them wishing they had one chance - just one last chance - to tell that person the truth of it all.

But they can't now. The person they love is now dead, unable to appreciate the kind words the rest of us held back our entire lives but have now gathered to admit outloud in droves. And so a few poignant mementos and inaudible well-wishes serve as a comforting compromise for the living. The peace of mind is a one-sided affair.

Why do we wait until there's no consequence to finally tell someone the truth? For all of our misgivings and faults and moments of reservations of opinions deep down when someone is alive, isn't waiting until it's easy the most cowardly act of all?

So I'm thinking about starting a series for my blog called "Eulogies". Each entry is going to be about a certain friend or family member or loved one (past or present), and in each one I'm going to spill my guts and write a eulogy for them as if they had died. The good, the bad, the agonizing truths I don't want to admit to myself... all of it. I'll close my eyes, lean back, and imagine myself standing over their coffin or urn during the service, turning to their crowd of loved ones all donned in black, breathe, and then write what surfaces to my fingers.

I might even need to use the entry itself one day.

People deserve to be let in on the axioms of your relationship before their story ends. Because if you can't be brave at least once when they were alive, what good is your courage when they're dead and gone?

-HKR

How Much Money You Need To Realistically Recreate The Scrooge McDuck ‘Gold Coin Swim’

After executing smart mortgage derivatives and diversifying high yield stocks, cash should start flowing freely, leaving the smart investor with even more questions, like “how do I protect my municipal bonds?” and, “should I invest in a C-Share or blend fund?” and, “how much money do I need to create giant floes of gold in a private vault and dive into it like Scrooge McDuck?”

In most money circles (insider tip: “money circles” is a term used by only the most elite investors), wealth is measured exclusively by how closely one can recreate this famed animation. It has come to represent success in America and anything less than doing the backstroke amongst a sea of Earth’s rarest metal should be considered an abject failure. A main problem of this measure, however, is that there is no agreed-upon Scrooge McDuck quantity of gold. In order to give the young investor a goal to shoot for, and to clear up this age-old question once and for all, the following is a precise judgment of exactly how money you need to be successful.

Looking at some of the best pictorial evidence of the McDuck vault, it is evident that this large pile of gold on the left appears to be five feet tall. This is deduced under the assumption that the average duck 14 inches tall, which is then used comparatively to quantify the pile (5 ft = 4.3 duck heights). With a little calculus and graph-work, the rough integral can pinpointed to y=-x2-1x+5.  This equation puts every “x” and every “y” value at exactly one inch, as seen below.

When the area under the curve is calculated (from x=-3 to x=5), it yields roughly 46 square inches. The assumption will be made here that one cubic inch is roughly one ounce of gold. To convert that into a dome shape the value is simply cubed, which becomes 97,366 ounces. Given that 1 ounce of gold is roughly $5.00, it can extrapolated that each large pile of gold in the vault is worth $486,830.

However, Scrooge McDuck was first drawn in 1947, therefore inflation must be adjusted for which totals a whopping 5.2 billion dollars per pile. In the picture, there are two smaller piles which roughly equal the larger doubling the total to 10.4 billion. However, the shadows in the corner suggest that the room is a least three times as large as it is. Therefore, Scrooge was privy to a cool 31.2 billion dollars.

This means that only the six richest people in the world could afford to pull off the Scrooge swim.

Swimming in gold truly is a marker for success, but for the world’s big wigs, there are goals beyond even this. Another famous picture of Scrooge McDuck skiing down a mountain of money is even more alluring still.

Calculating his velocity (roughly 5 m/s2) suggests that this mountain (of which we cannot see the summit) has a slope of 35 degrees, putting a rough estimate of the entire hill at 73.5 billion. Is it possible that McDuck pushed together his wealth to make this monstrosity? In theory, yes, but the eye line of McDuck (fixed at 8 degrees above the horizon relative to the slope) suggests that there are at least two other such mounds, putting his total wealth at over 210 billion, and well beyond the meager 70 billion of richest man in the world Carlos Slim Helu. It’s also heartening to see cash in this picture, as a diverse portfolio is always a successful one.

If you follow the rules of global trends, equity markets, and grizzled anthropomorphic birds, you will be well on your way to a swan dive (or "duck dive"?) into nearly limitless gold.

Mathiest.

Life is chock-full of lies, but the biggest lie is math. That's particualrly clear in the discipline of probablility, a field of study that's completely and wholly fake. When push comes to shove - when you truly get down to the core essence of existence - there is only one mathematical possibility: Everything is 50-50. Either something will happen, or something will not.

When you flip a coin, what are the odds of it coming up heads? 50-50. Either it will be heads, or it will not. When you roll a six-sided die, what are the odds that you'll get a three? 50-50. You'll either get, a three or you won't. That's reality. Don't fall into the childish "it's one-in-six" logical trap. That is precisely what all your adolecent authority figures want you to believe. That's how they enslave you. That's how they stole your conviction, and that's why you will never be happy. Either you will roll a three, or you will not; there are no other alternatives. The future has no memory. Certain things can be impossible, and certain things can be guaranteed-but there is no sliding scale forf maybe. Maybe something will happen, or maybe it won't. That's all there is. What are the chances that your sister will die from ovarion cancer next summer? 50-50 (either she'll die from ovarion cancer or she won't). What are the chances that your sister will become America's most respected underwater welding specialist? 50-50. It will happen, or it won't. There are two possibilities, and both are plausible and unknown. The odds are 2:1. These facts are irrefutable.

Quasi-intellectuals like to claim that math is spiritual. They are lying. Math is not religion. Math is the antireligion, because it splinters the gravity of life's only imperative equation: Either something is true, or it isn't. Do or do not; there is no try.

Aaaaaye.

In every episode of Happy Days, Arthur Fonzarelli was surrounded by adoring teenage girls. The Fonz would snap his fingers and they would rush to his embrace. This phenomenon was central to all Happy Days-related discourse. We as viewers were constantly regaled with stories of his remarkable exploits at the popular makeout locale Inspiration Point; these tales often involved twin sisters. This was just an accepted part of life. Richie Cunningham would periodically wander up to the Fonz’s spartan apartment over the garage, and - inevitably - Fonzie would be with a buxom (and strangely mute) high school junior.

This forces us to pose an ethical question: Are we to assume The Fonz was having sex with all of these girls? I mean, this was the 1950s, and Milwaukee is a conservative Midwestern city. It’s hard to believe that such a staid community would be supersaturated with so many sexually aggressive teenage girls. Moreover, we are supposed to perceive the Fonz as a “good guy,” correct? Oh, he’s a bit rogue (what with all the bull riding and shark jumping and whatnot), but he’s certainly not the type of guy who would sexually corrupt dozens - perhaps hundreds! - of virginal high school females, many of whom would have undoubtedly been under the legal age of consent in the state of Wisconsin (currently eighteen years of age). That scenario is unthinkable. We cannot exist in a society where someone like Fonzie would be lionized for being an insatiable sexaholic, a statutory rapist, and a potential child molester. This is not the behavior of a “good guy.” And since Fonzie never seemed to have any long-term rapport with any of these girls, it’s unlikely that he ever experienced a loving, mutually satisfying, logically advancing relationship (the lone exception being Pinky Tuscadero, who did not seem to reside in the immediate Milwaukee area).

That being the case, there is only one conclusion to draw:

For the entire 255-episode duration of Happy Days, the Fonz was a virgin.

I know it's uncouth for a man to have negative feelings about his parents, especially his mother. We all know the rule: How he he treats his mother is how he will treat you. And if that were true, I wouldn't speak to a woman ever again.

Let me put this as tactfully as possible: I hate my mother. I hate my father too, but he already had his own little angsty post. Being completely honest here, if they both died in a plane crash, I'd only be upset that I didn't feel sad. If that makes sense. I would simply end up wishing I felt bad. Because then it would mean things weren't as fucked up as they were. But they are, and barring some miraculous Character Transplant, it always will be.

The thing is, as soon as I say something dramatic as, "I hate my parents," I get the eye roll. As if I'm some 15 year old who just got ordered to pause my video game and take out the trash. The truth is this: There's 7 billion of us alive right now. There's been billion more men and women in the past. And are you honestly suggesting that every single one of them were tailor-made to be great parents? If you are, then you're retarded, and you can close this blog and go back to licking your window now.

The answer is, of course, no, not everyone can be a good parent. 

A loaded-God complex

I like girls with wonderfully long hair. At least to her shoulder blades. But it's not a deal-breaker. And I dont care about the color. I like girls whose perfume smells marvelous. Scent is big thing. When I pass someone whose perfume smells like the same my first girlfriend, I still get taken back to thirteen years ago. And if it's something new, I'll always remember it. The perfume a girl wears gets ingrained into our minds, ladies. And we never forget.

I don't care if they're 5'2" or 5'11". I like girls who are trim or fit to some degree. They dont have to be skinny, per se, just not unhealthy. Chest size has never matters, per se, just a bonus. I guess nothing extreme, like GGG or something. To be honest, a woman's chest is far down the list of things I pay attention to, long after smile, eyes, hair, laugh, opinion, grammar, and a bunch of other things. Girls who can sing make me happy. Girls who admit they can't sing make me comfortable.

I adore eyes. I mean, I adore eyes. To the point where, if I dont like a girl's eyes and what I see in them, it ain't gonna happen. There's no specific shape or color or anything. But there needs to be that deep sparkle that hints at something stirring inside, looking back. I like girls who are shy but intelligently audacious.

And I'm an absolute sucker for the too-big-sweater look where the sleeves go past her hands and the collar slides over and shows her shoulder.

Oh, and apparently she has to be 100% completely unattainable, too.

-HKR

Game, set, match.

Why Kobe's 81 Is More Impressive Than Wilt's 100.

81 may not be 100, but context matters.

Wilt's night was brilliant, absolutely brilliant. He was dominant from the get-go, nailing 36 of 63 field goals overall, and knocking in a remarkable 28 of 32 freebies from the line. Chamberlain, a 51 percent free throw shooter on his career, made 61 percent of his free throws that season, alongside averages of 50.4 points per game and 25.7 rebounds per contest.

No doubt, the man was an absolute marvel. The complete package: massive mounts of skill, height, touch, smarts, and creativity. For all Wilt's accolades and achievements, both individual, team-orientated (and, um, personal); he might somehow still be underrated.

But what Kobe did was more impressive.

First, the context of the era: there were, way, way, way more possessions in an NBA game back in 1962. This was a running league, much more than any NBA-style track meet you may have seen in any of the last 30 years. Not only did Wilt's Philadelphia Warriors score 125.4 points per game, they gave up 122.7. A team featuring Wilt Chamberlain (50.6 on field goals) shoots 43.9 percent from the floor, and scored 125.4 points per game.

Think about that.

That's a pretty crummy shooting percentage for a team scoring 125 a game. Hence, there were a lot of shots to take, a lot of rebounds to grab, and a lot more chances to put shots up.

Now, when Kobe went for 81 points, there were 99 possessions in the game against the Raptors. And that's even a lot for this era: the league leader that year was the Phoenix Suns (95.1 a game), Denver leads the NBA with 97.5 a game this season, and the Lakers averaged 90.6 possessions per game in 2005-06. But it wasn't anywhere near the amount 4,126 spectators saw back on March 2nd, 1962.

The possession count in Wilt's game was in the 150-range. That mark takes on greater significance when you realize that the last six minutes of the contest, saw a foul-fest on both sides that saw both the Knicks try to foul the Warriors seconds into their possessions, and the Warriors try to get Wilt a shot with 20 seconds on the shot clock.

I read Gary M. Pomerantz' "Wilt, 1962". It details the ways in which a bemused Warrior squad tried to help Wilt pad his stats in blowout win: namely, they fouled the heck out of the Knicks in the game's final quarter in order to get the ball back in Wilt's hands.

Kobe's night was just as good. The Lakers were down 14 at the half, and were down by as many as 18 in the third quarter. Kobe scored 55 points in that second half, which went a long way toward the 18-point win Los Angeles enjoyed. Chris Mihm didn't have to intentionally foul anyone to get the ball back in Kobe's hands, either.

Want to blame the 3-point line? Yeah, Kobe used his skill to take advantage of the game that was presented to him. Not unlike the way a 7-2 Wilt Chamberlain used his skill and height to score a record-setting amount of points against a lottery team featuring a 6-10, 220-pound rookie center. Not unlike the way his team -- well ahead, at the time -- used intentional fouls to get the ball back in Wilt's hands, in order to let the Hall of Famer pile on the points.

Wilt had more chances to score, by hook and by crook; and while we don't bemoan the Warriors for having a bit of fun, the facts remain: the Warriors spent about 30 minutes trying to win a game, and the final 18 trying to get Wilt to a hundred.

The Lakers spent nearly 30 minutes behind the Raptors, then spent the next 16 allowing their future Hall of Famer to spur a massive comeback, and then spent the last two minutes of the win with jaws agape, watching as Kobe threw in another three-pointer and few more free throws.

It doesn't mean one player was any better than the other. It just means that -- considering the context of the times, the circumstances behind the two particular games, and the production that followed -- Kobe Bryant's 81-point explosion was better Wilt's night, in spite of the actual difference in output.

(Also read: Better scoring night: Kobe's 81 or Wilt's 100?)

We all know someone...

Patterns

How To Argue With Progress

1. Use "I" language. The word "you" will, most assuredly, cause someone to become defensive. The minute we hear "You did this" or "You did that," we feel we are being judged and our automatic human reaction is to defend our position. The moment we become defensive, communication stops.

2. No "zinging." Many of us think a little, friendly "zing" or sarcastic remark is harmless. Not so. In fact, one of the number-one indicators of underlying conflict or negativity within a work environment or relationship is increased sarcasm. There is nothing harmless about it.

3. Don't "chase rabbits." Not sticking to the topic at hand, or chasing rabbits, creates a negative emotional reaction in others. When we don't stick to the point, the person trying to listen is first confused, then impatient and finally resentful.

4. Don't interrupt. It's not only rude, but it often creates the opposite of what we want to achieve. When we interrupt, we generally think we will end or reduce the length of the conversation, but the opposite is true.

5. Restate what you heard. We should make this tip a habit in all our conversations. If we have restated the other person's message correctly, their reaction will most often be, "She DID understand me!" Then you can move on to the next issue.

6. Ask questions that will clarify, not judge. A question should never begin with the word "why." That puts people on the defensive -- and we know that defensiveness stops conversation rather than continues it.

7. Stay in the today, not the yesterday. Often, when we talk about the yesterdays, we tend to throw up the past, or blame. Blaming is a judgment and automatically causes the other person to become defensive.

Good luck.

Moving Through

“Nothing in life has any real meaning except the meaning you give it.”  - Tony Robbins

Many people wave off Tony Robbins because they think of him as the cheesy, overly-excited, big-toothed guy they see doing infomercials on late night TV. This is a mistake because Robbins has a knack for simplifying complex ideas down into easy-to-use concepts that go beyond anything I’d have thought possible before he came onto the scene.

In this case, what he’s referring to is the fact that almost everything that happens to you has no intrinsic meaning. Is a funeral a time for celebration because the person who passed has gone on to a better place or a time to be deeply sad? Is the emotion in your stomach before you give a speech fear or your body getting you ready to perform? If you walk up to someone of the opposite sex and she brushes you off, is it because there’s something wrong with the situation, something wrong with you, or something wrong with her?

Once you recognize how arbitrary many of the things that happen to you are, you can stop merely reacting to events and start asking a better question, “Which of the possible interpretations of this event best serves me?”

MEATLOAF!

Why I Don't Believe In God

So this is where I probably lose some people.

Before I start this, I feel the need to lay down the groundwork for a disclaimer, since religion and/or spirituality is such a personal and sensitive thing. My opinion on God and religion is not intended to sway or convince. I don't believe in telling people what they believe is morally wrong unless they're using said belief as fuel to do bad things (i.e. "God told me to drown my babies in a bathtub"). Outside of those crazy people, what you believe in is, to me, a personal choice; a compass, if you will, that you find works for you and your life. Some people believe in a guy in robes, others believe in a pulsing orb, while still others believe in a cow or a hybrid creature or even nothing at all; just pure energy. It's all really the same means to an end, which is