News Ticker Updated - Everyone Confused

Okay. I like technological advancements. I admit it. I know I probably just blew the minds of several people here. Now, facetiousness aside, the one thing that drives me crazy about a technological advancement is when a company decides to upgrade their tech and clearly have NO idea how to use it properly.

Let me explain. The local NBC affiliate here in Houston has updated their news ticker (been that way for about a month, so I gave it plenty of time) and they obviously don’t have a clue how to write headlines on this thing. Used to be that the news ticker was a blue bar at the bottom of their screen, and the news would scroll right-to-left. The headlines could be literally as long as you wanted, and they would just scroll on. No problem. The only annoying thing about this ticker was the “Weather” update would scroll up in front of the news, so if they had just the right amount of stories, every time a certain story scrolled around, the Weather would pop up and prevent you from seeing it. Why not just have the weather scroll at the end of the news and sports ticker??

With the current news ticker, the annoyance is much worse. I’ll spare you the technical details, but let’s just say the space is much smaller than the width of the screen, and on this narrow black bar, a full line of text scrolls UP onto the bar and stays there for about 5 seconds, then a new headline scrolls up. The problem is, some genius at the station has insisted whichever intern is in charge of typing this must get the entire news blurb summed up in ONE line of text. Now, it can be difficult to sum up even the most banal of complete thoughts in 140 characters, do we really want the most important news stories of our world today summed up in half a tweet?

This is NOT the way the software has to run – I know this because, in the first few days of using this new ticker, they had a handful of headlines that didn’t fit on one screen, so when it scrolled to the next line, it was the second half of the news blurb. This was great, because it was COHERENT. However that wasn’t good enough for an exec at the station, who, like most executives in TV, decided they would ruin it with their brilliant ideas of the “correct” way to do it. So now what we are left with is uninformative “pop” news blurbs that are barely more intelligible than a caveman grunt.

It’s a lot like having an awesome new unlimited data plan on your smartphone, but the plan only allows you to download the first page of websites. Or having a great assault rifle with a 1000 round magazine, but by default the rifle ejects the cartridge after three rounds.

This probably doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, but I’m not exaggerating when I say that some of the stories are almost IMPOSSIBLE to decipher, and when it’s early enough in the morning that planning a route for your coffee cup to travel to your mouth is a complex calculation, the last thing you want to do is try to figure out what someone means in 4-5 words of text. Take these real examples:

“STOCKS IN JAPAN NUCLEAR PLUMMET.”

Okay, this was the first one that made me pause, concerned that someone had lost their mind. It’s not that hard to decipher, but it’s also not that hard to write it more coherently. Why not “Japan stocks plummet following disaster?” Or better yet, Line 1: “Japan stock market in freefall…” Line 2: “…following nuclear disaster.” This is SO much easier to read, and actually doesn’t make you sound like you’re just listing random things. Seriously, “Stocks in Japan” makes sense, but then, “Nuclear plummet?” Really? What is a nuclear plummet? Is that even a thing? Does nuclear DESCRIBE the plummet? So, are the stocks falling from the sky and hitting the ground hard enough that they literally split atoms?

Here’s another:

“OBAMA DISAPPOINTED, TALKS BREAK DOWN”

So, the talks broke down because he was disappointed? Because that’s the order in which you wrote it. Or, did it happen the other way around? Is Obama disappointed BECAUSE of the breakdown? And regardless, which talks do you mean? Budget talks? Libyan dispute? NFL Players Union negotiations? Did we invade someone else overnight? Or did something happen while we were sleeping to cause us to have to salute a new flag? Help us out.

“FINAL CARRELL OFFICE ‘SUPERSIZED’ EW”

Okay. First, Steve Carrell’s final episode being a two-parter isn’t exactly news. A lot of people knew that already. Which begs the question, is that what you mean by this headline? Does “EW” mean Entertainment Weekly? If so, why haven’t you put sources on every OTHER headline you run? This makes us wonder, is “EW” your source, or an editorial comment intended to signify that it’s somehow nasty that the episode has been ‘supersized?’ Or are you saying the entire episode is a “SUPERSIZED EW?” Or, could you be telling us that some guy named Final Carrell is expanding his office? And again, you’re disgusted by that? Please just tell us what the Hell you’re talking about.

One last one:

“DEL TORO, STEWART DAUGHTER EXPECTING.”

First of all, which Del Toro are we talking about? Benicio? Guillermo?

On top of that, misplaced commas are a, thing that annoy the crap out of me and worse is not using enough commas so that a reader is left to interpret a meaning from your rambling dumbass. (Like there, for example.) Does this headline mean that Del Toro and the daughter of someone named Stewart are expecting a baby? If so, which Stewart? There are lots. Jimmy Stewart? Martha Stewart? French Stewart? Is it really necessary to specify “Stewart daughter?” Can’t you just say, “Del Toro, wife, expecting daughter?” Because I’m pretty sure that anyone who actually CARES about this news story at this hour of the morning knows who his wife is, and anyone who doesn’t care, cares little enough not to need to know that she’s related to some randomly famous Stewart.

Or (as I have since found out) does this mean that the vaguely-named Del Toro and an equally-vaguely-named Stewart (Martha? Kim? Kristen? Again, French?) are expecting a daughter? If so, who the Hell writes “Daughter expecting” to signify that someone is expecting a daughter?! Is YODA writing the news for you people now?? Oh, more breaking news, “BEGUN, THE CLONE WAR HAS.”

I guess I’ll drop it for now, but please, PLEASE reconsider the way you’re writing these stories. Otherwise, we’ll see the following blurb one morning soon on our news tickers:

“KPRC NEWS DIRECTOR SUCKS, IMMINENT REPLACEMENT.”

Just don’t forget that comma. I hope by now they understand it would completely change the meaning of their story.

Charlie Sheen Manifesto Preview

Jimmy Fallon had a bit last week with Charlie Sheen selling records, one named “Things I’ve Said,” with insane stuff he’s said in the past week, and another named “Things I’m About to Say,” filled with bizarre, ridiculous-sounding things that he hasn’t really said but, wow, he definitely could have.

So, in that theme, I have just returned from a trip on a recently-procured time machine, and I now give to you, Things Charlie Sheen Hasn’t Said (Yet) But is About to in the Next Few Days. (He's releasing his "manifesto" on his webcast this evening, so take this as a likely preview.)

Sheenisms:

“I’ve got, like, a self-esteem problem in reverse, y’see?”

“I’m like a monkey with no spleen on the fifth spaceship to Cleveland.”

“My TV screen usually smells like Gunnar Nelson. Or wait, no, I’ve got that wrong. It smells like a gun or Nelson Mandela. No, I’m wrong again….”

“People like to act all concerned for me, but the truth is, they use phony concern to avoid looking like concerned phonies! See what I’m saying? They just want to distract everyone from their not-me-ness.”

“Is what they said on Laugh-In true? If Cybill Shepherd married Ish Kabibble, would she really call herself Cybill Kabibble? Or, would she, like, keep her maiden name? Lotta celebs do it, just sayin’. I’m a progressive guy, but I wouldn’t take somebody’s Kabibble-y old last name.”

“I just found out my ‘Goddesses’ are more like Greek ruins…. You know, fake as stone in some places, worn down from overuse in others? S. T. D’winning!”

“The air tastes like a burning tire in here. And not because I’m making humus!”

“I’m like that Indonesian Civet cat, I crap $10,000 coffee beans and my bathroom smells like a Starbucks. Winning!”

"I just signed a deal to play an African American Ninja. They'll fix my race in post. The show is called Afro Sheen. Why is that so damned funny to people?"

“I secured the rights to do a remake of Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves from Cher. I call it Warlocks, Trolls, and Fools. Here it is, a world premiere!”

“I was born from a dragon in Himalayan snow.

I used to have a hit CBS show.

Papa doesn’t say what he means

But I practice what I preach

Bottle what I’ve got and call it Doctor Sheen's!

Oh, Warlocks, Trolls, and Fools

I yell it at the people all around!

I call them Warlocks, Trolls, and Fools,

They judge and call me insane.

They’re jealous of my 10,000 year old brain!”

Okay, that's the end of my sneak preview of insanity's future. Oddly, being that close to his thought process, I now feel the overpowering need to take a shower. And enter any form of rehab available to me.

Next time.

The Worst Possible Innovation in Bathroom Technology

I ask my female readers to excuse me for a moment while I rant about something. I hope you enjoy it, but you may not have the same frame of reference as the guy readers.

Now, can someone please explain to me the logic in urinals which have a floor drain? We’re essentially talking about a big porcelain wall with a hole in the floor that you pee into. Who could have possibly thought this was a good idea? I mean, I understand that a lot of guys end up doing it on the floor anyway and completely missing, even if the “bowl” is 3 feet off the ground and right in front of you, but putting the drain on the floor actually gives people an excuse for missing.

When faced with one of these insults to humanity, you’re basically left with two choices: 1. Aim at the wall, in which case your pants end up looking like you were just splashed by an inconsiderate taxi, or 2. Aim at the floor, in which case your shoes end up looking like you just ran gleefully through a puddle of lemonade. For whatever reason. Maybe you’re an alien from a planet where it rains lemonade. Maybe someone made a pool of cornstarch and lemonade and you wanted to see if you could run across without sinking.

I’m off topic. But while I'm off topic, let me ask this: why on Earth do they call the little deodorant things "urinal cakes?" Did you have to take one of my favorite things and combine it with the bottom of a urinal? You couldn't call it "Urinal Deodorizer" or even "Urinal Crystals?" No, now, every time I enjoy delicious cake I involuntarily picture it sitting awkwardly on top of a dome-shaped drain cover.

Anyway, my point is, the only ways to avoid the problems listed above are just as objectionable as the problems themselves. First, you could just aim at the floor anyway. This seems to be the solution most people take, but it shows no consideration to the person who comes in after you – you’re not thinking about the fact that now their job is doubly difficult because not only are they faced with having to worry about which article of clothing is becoming urine soaked, but they also have to exhibit enormous leg strain to keep their feet from sliding sideways out from underneath them. That’s no fun.

The other option is to try to avoid the backsplash by standing across the room and aiming from a distance. If that’s not an indecent exposure charge waiting to happen, I don’t know what is. I know you’re in a public restroom, but no one wants to see that. We’re not in a western, we’re not having one of… those contests. Just… not okay.

So, you might wonder, what other marvels of technology have the floor-urinal people come up with? Well, their track record is outstanding:

1.    Air-blown hand dryers: what’s worse than being completely useless? Actually pretending to be useful. Once they realized that people actually weren't getting dry by having a one-lunged kitten sneeze on their hands for 10 seconds, they got the bright idea to include face-drying instructions. Because nothing makes a visit to a gas station restroom more appealing than getting shot in the face by a lukewarm wind tunnel.

2.    Faucets that point up and out. Their logic: your hands are sure to get clean if you’re trying to block your face from being sprayed by a firehose.

3.    Those LED screens at a fast food restaurant drive-through: it’s a miracle that someone came up with the idea to make drive-through visits easier by including an order screen with two-thirds of the lights burned out. “Why yes, I did order a Q…t.. ..u.d.. .i.. c..e.., a chi..e. .u…t, and a large d..t ..k. And my total is, apparently, 13 cents? Thanks, inventors!”

4.    Airbags for rear-facing car seats. Because nothing makes a baby more safe in an accident than being propelled backwards into the front seat by tiny explosives.

It should be noted that two of the previous innovations never made it out of the patent phase. The others, I think we should start an online petition to do away with them. And to do that, I recommend not using the system developed by the floor urinal people – an online punch card system which actually encourages you to poke holes in your computer's monitor to cast your vote.

Geographic Misnomers, Nazi-mocking Pets, and Temporal Dynamics

I would like to take the next few lines to contemplate some of the great mysteries of the universe.

Mystery 1: Why is the Texas Panhandle called that? Texas looks nothing like a pan. That would be like calling the big bend in the Mississippi River between Iowa and Illinois the “Iowa Hershey Bar.” I guess they figure “panhandle” sounds better than “Square Nub” or “Tiny Top Hat.” In fact, none of the states with a panhandle actually look like pans. Oklahoma is the closest, looking a bit like an overturned Jiffy Pop tin, but even that state looks more like a flipped-over baseball cap, waiting for Missouri to pick a number out of it. The panhandle state I find most baffling, though, is Florida. Do we really need all of these clever names for geographic locations? Can’t we just say “North Texas” instead of panhandle, or “Southwest Arkansas” instead of “ArkLaTex” or “Western Florida” instead of panhandle? Do we really want to draw any more attention to Florida’s shape? Is it in our best interest as a country to have people thinking, “Hmm… Florida doesn’t look like a pan. I guess it looks more like a… OH MY GOD! THAT’S DISGUSTING!”

Mystery 2: How, exactly, did the Nazi’s have nothing better to do with their time than try to hunt down a dog and its owner because of an obscure trick they heard that it might have done once or twice in the past? And this was only a few months before they invaded the Soviet Union, so, I’m thinking there were probably more constructive uses of their time. Seriously, I’m not making this story up. Look here: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iygblpWORCla_T-iETmWHayJkfFQ?docId=1101acd28dae47b594fce0e29fde0ed2

Seriously, this is one of the best things I’ve read in a long time. In a classic case of “eff the man,” the owner of the dog (Tor Borg) got out of it simply by denying it while facing a Nazi Tribunal. I mean, can we talk for a second about the colossal cajones required for such an action? The owner literally said, “My wife called him Hitler once, but it wasn’t a big thing, and the dog doesn’t do the salute anymore.” And in a classic case of “Nazis are crazy bastards“ they embarked on a “fact-finding” campaign… against the dog…. They even had a pharmaceutical company offering to destroy Borg’s wholesale business by cutting off their supply ties with him, but prosecution ultimately had to be abandoned because they couldn’t get any of the witnesses to testify to it. Did I mention they were in the midst of planning their invasion of the Soviet Union? And this is what they were concerned with?

In a related story, the Axis lost the Battle of Berlin because too many SS officers were scanning the German precursor of DARPAnet trying to find more pictures of this cat:

Mystery 3: Assuming the following is true: 1. All matter is made up of atomic particles; 2. All particles are made up of subatomic particles, which are in turn made up of quantum particles; and 3. According to Feynman’s “Sum Over Histories,” all quantum particles occupy ALL possible places AND all possible time periods between two points, meaning that quanta exist in all places in both the past and future simultaneously; is it not possible, given the model of 11-dimensional space, that our physical bodies (made up of quantum particles) are merely projections into the 3 dimensions we currently see, and the 4^th that we perceive (time) and that in fact, we exist in both the past and future, in a state which is both alive and dead simultaneously, and at times able to momentarily perceive the 7 remaining dimensions in which time is less linear, and more cyclical (like 3-dimensional space) thus making reincarnation, precognition, genetic memory, and afterlife scientifically viable theories?

I’m glad we had this talk. I know I feel better.

More commercials and products which... bother me.

Dear DSW (Department Shoe Warehouse): Congratulations, you have achieved the seemingly-impossible in your commercials. You have actually made me want to punch shoes in the face. Namely, shoes that show up and sing Christmas songs to you, insulting your choice of gifts. Now, as of this writing, I have yet to have any shoes do this to me, so it’s unclear as to whether this reflex will apply to ANY talking shoe, or only the boorish and rude ones. I will let you know, but until then, all shoes would do well to watch what they say around me.

Dear “Erectile Dysfunction” medication companies: please stop using side-effects disclaimers as thinly-veiled attempts at bragging. Be honest. You know the whole “if it lasts for more than 4 hours” thing wouldn’t have been mentioned unless it actually happened at some point, probably to one of you who came up with the list of side effects. Be honest, drug company, you know if this happens to you, the first call you make will NOT be to your doctor. It’s going to be to one of your old college buddies, to say, “Dude, guess what I’m looking at right now.” You know, the same guys who team up in the Flomaxx commercials. Even worse, if you’re Brett Favre, you’ll just snap a picture and send it to all of the power dancers on your contact list. Please, drug companies… just stop. We don’t want to hear about your four hour escapades, we don't want to hear about your hearing or vision problems, and we still don’t want to see your creepy side-by-side bathtubs on the beach… or in a forest… or skiing down the side of K2. Okay, well, maybe I wouldn’t mind seeing THAT.

Dear Texas Bay Area Credit Union: I do not employ your services, however, I implore you… please make that lady in your commercial stop dancing. Or whatever it is that she’s doing. I mean, I get that she’s supposed to be acting “excited” that she just won $10,000. I have never won that much money, but it would likely make me leap up, scream, and run from the room. Or, as Cousin Eddie from National Lampoon's would say, piss my pants and forget who I am for a half-hour or so. But not that. Whenever I win something, it has never made me want to stand in one place, turn slowly from side to side, and pump my fists up and down like I’m doing some bizarre cross between the Mashed Potato and the Twist. Or, for my readers younger than 30, like a cross between the Soulja Boy and the Running Man. Or, for readers younger than 15, a cross between Tinky Winky and Barney.

Finally, Dear “waterless hand sanitizer” industry: please come up with a better nozzle. As it stands right now, a small amount of your product remains in the nozzle, and over time will dry into a semi-solid GermX booger. The existence of such a thing is not the only problem – and don’t get me wrong, that’s DEFINITELY a problem by itself. However, the bigger issue comes in when I press the nozzle down, and because of the partially blocked opening, the liquid actually shoots OVER my hand, like a gout of water from a fire hydrant, dousing things on my desk instead of landing on my hand where it belongs. Let me give you a brief mini-focus group on your target audience. We want to clean our hands. We do not want to clean our desktops, our hair, or our left eyeball. Would it be too much to ask you to give us a nozzle that points straight down, instead of straight out like a garden hose just waiting to spray the overly-exuberant dogs on the front lawn? I mean really? Because I’m getting just slightly tired of simply wanting to disinfect my hands after using a child’s keyboard, and ending up looking like I just had a hook-and-ladder truck clean a spilled chalupa off the front of my shirt.

Until next time!

Something Columbus can do with the horse he rode in on....

This week is a bit of a departure for me. There will be some humor, sure, but I wanted to address something serious, in my own way. I would just like to say that I'm glad I work for an employer who does not observe Columbus Day. I think it's pretty offensive that there are still places that "celebrate" this as a holiday, honoring a person who basically discovered a slab of rock which was already discovered hundreds of years earlier, and ignoring the rest of the story.

Why don't we celebrate Bjarni Herjolfsson Day? Arguably, that would be more accurate, and certainly borne of less questionable morality. One reason for this biased history I've read is that the previous discoveries were not widely known at that time, so Columbus's was the first that was widely publicized. Ah, okay, I think I understand now. We're saying that widespread ignorance is a good excuse for perpetuating ignorance, right? So, if you don't know something, it's okay to educate others on false histories. That makes sense, right? So, if there were large groups of people who didn't know that Gutenberg invented movable type, it would be okay to call it a discovery ascribed to, say, the New York Times. (Interestingly enough, that's the type of story you might read in the New York Times. Ooh! Journalism burn!)

Now, before I continue, don't get me wrong: I can already anticipate people rising up and crying out, "How dare you call me ignorant, I just didn't know that information!" Well, that's not what I'm saying - there are still people out there who don't actually know the extent of the negative deeds committed by Columbus. Those aren't the ones I'm calling "ignorant," because they just haven't heard the true story yet. The ones who are truly ignorant are those who know the real story and simply stick their heads in the sand and ignore it. To see evidence and pretend it doesn't exist, or to hear facts and simply ignore them is the definition of ignorance. (That would be what we English-speaking peoples call a "root word.") Specifically, that ignorance is perpetrated by government leaders and historians who would see textbooks and history books written (and government holidays celebrated) in support of a history written largely with blinders worn.

To those people who haven't heard the story, I hope you'll hear it now and share it with others when you hear of the supposedly "great" exploits of the Columbus about whose deeds we are taught a saccharine and falsely heroic account. Accounts of the early days of his voyage are largely accurate - sailing from Spain after the end of the Ottoman-Neapolitan War and Granada conquest. His initial visit to the island of Hispaniola was a peaceful encounter with the Arawak tribe.

This is where things go downhill, and accounts begin to diverge from one another. In Columbus's subsequent returns, gifts were exchanged, which is another primary reason Columbus is celebrated in place of our old Viking friend Bjarni - he established two-way commerce. (Fun fact, Bjarni was also the name of the first-known form of children's entertainment. He was a purple "Viking Dinosaur," with a long blond beard, an iron-horned skullcap, and a trademark song of "I kill you, you kill me, but not if I kill you first, you see." Not to be confused with loveable gumshoe Bjarni Mjiller.)

I digress. I would again argue that this is not necessarily the best reason to celebrate someone - because they opened up the opportunity for wealthy European merchants and trading companies to become even more wealthy, and in exchange giving precious little. I think the more important exchange involved commodities which aren't typically traded on the free market. Native Americans received things like Smallpox and the concept of slavery, while Europeans received things like land that didn't belong to them (by murdering most of the inhabitants), a claim on many Natives' eternal souls (after, y'know, murdering them) and treaties which the Euros and resulting Americans had no intention of honoring (because they got in the way of all that murdering.)

The amazing part is, even in some accounts which acknowledge the atrocities committed by the first waves of explorers, somehow Columbus escapes scrutiny! Are we so brainwashed as a society that we're willing to practically deify a person and fool ourselves even further into believing he had nothing to do with the actions of a vast majority of his crew? Really? That would be like saying Hernán Cortéz was really a saint, it was his followers who wiped out the Aztecs beyond his control - Cortéz just stood on the beach saying, "Really, we should try talking about this first!" What a nice guy. Let's have Hernán Cortéz Day.

I think it would be better to have Dan Cortese Day.

No, Columbus was just as much a part of the raping, dismembering, murdering, and enslaving of the Native American people as the rest of his fellow explorers. Capture and enslave the strongest of the men, working them in silver mines (after he finally accepted there wasn’t much gold to be found.) Rape the female tribe members, then string them up with the rest who are too young, old, or sick to work in the mines. Hanged and burned, or enslaved. That was the legacy of Columbus, not just that of his followers and fellow explorers.

One last thing before I step off my soapbox. As a man with some Cherokee ancestors, am I the only one who sees a sort of ultimate and final ignominy in the fact that the grand “Admiral of the Sea” had NO clue where he had landed, and because of that, an entire race of people have been mis-named? He thought he landed in the Indies, so he figured, let’s call them all Indians, overlooking the fact that they, y’know, already had names. Never mind the fact he wasn’t in the Indies, and even after they figured that part out, they continued to call them Indians! That would be like someone sailing from Mongolia in the 1400’s, landing in Alaska and, assuming they had landed on an island of Russia, calling all of the Inuit people “East Russians.” And then somehow convincing people to call them that FOREVER, even after realizing their mistake. Or more appropriately, like Leif Erikson landing in Newfoundland (which he did) and calling the Mi’kmaq people “West Icelanders” (which he certainly did not, because he wasn’t ignorant and stubborn like Columbus.)

Now, were ALL Native Americans peaceful? Not necessarily. Many, like the Mohawk and Chiricahua didn’t necessarily need a reason for war. But just because some tribes were at war with each other doesn’t mean all tribes should be painted with the same brush, or that any of them should be considered savages. The tribes were capable of taking care of their own disputes, and any who warred without cause always ran the risk of encountering a tribe who’s fight or flight response slanted more toward defending their families and fighting back rather than running and saving themselves. The Native tribes certainly didn't need the sort of "help" the frontiersmen ended up offering.

It’s little surprise the settlers to follow thought it was okay to squat on the Native’s lands, to poach their food supplies for nothing but skins, to murder and label as savages those that had the nerve to defend themselves, their families, their land, and their livelihoods, and to strong-arm the proudest into accepting treaties the settlers had no intention of honoring. No wonder they had so little respect for the Native peoples of North America. The man who started it all didn’t even have enough respect to get their names right.

Here endeth the lesson.

Fever Dreams for the Fashion Conscious

So, everyone's heard the whole, "No white after labor day" rule. That's one of those things that nobody really pays attention to anymore, and it seems like it's "out" as a rule. But that doesn't stop people from needlessly telling others they're in violation of a now-defunct social order. Either they're deliberately being difficult or maybe they just didn't get the memo. Neverthelessi, it seems like half the population has heard that this is no longer a "rule" and are willing to argue the fact that they can wear whatever the Hell color they choose whenever they want, and the other half believe that THOSE people are just making excuses to cover their fashion faux-pas.

 

Whichever side you fall on, I thought now would be a good time to share some other obscure, little-known rules about clothing selection that you may or may not know. You'll thank me later!

 

Don't wear white to a wedding unless you're the bride. Everyone should know this one, you don't want to show-up the bride.

 

Don't wear green on Arbor Day. Trees are people too, insomuch as they aren't. You wouldn't want to hurt their feelings by overshadowing their greeness with your emerald-hued Lacoste polo.

 

Don't wear corduroy on the second Wednesday before Flag Day. Fun fact - did you know Betsy Ross didn't actually finish designing the flag until the Wednesday before George Washington needed it for a major textiles convention? Also, Betsy Ross was a dressmaker who would only craft things from gingham and worsted wool, because she had a visceral hatred for all things corduroy? Many speculate this is because she originally tried several times (and failed miserably) to sew a flag with a denim starfield over green and brown wide-wale cordury. In honor of that personality quirk, we have this rule. Keep the swish-swish in your closet on this day.

 

Don't wear clothing with patterns on March 14. Mathematicians love to celebrate "Pi Day," (3-14) but it is considered highly insulting to the number itself to wear anything which "repeats." (On an unrelated list, you are also advised not to eat chili on this day, for essentially the same reason.)

 

It's a well-established fact that 87% of all humans love unprovable statistics. Because of that, many UN Nations which celebrate "Statistics Day" encourage their citizens not to wear a red loincloth while throwing their mother-in-law's meatloaf at a family of rabbits. (**Statistics Day is not celebrated in North America. Crazy foreigners.)

 

When visiting Spain, do not wear tennis shoes to La Tomatina. This is less a fashion rule and more just a common sense thing. Unless you like permanently orange shoes.

 

While vertical stripes are slimming, you are encouraged NOT to wear them to sporting events. Though you won't be on the field, it will stimulate a response which would make Pavlov weep with pride. Inexplicably, people will feel compelled to yell obscenities at you every time they hear a whistle blow.

 

It is recommended by many that you do not wear your sunglasses at night, especially while operating heavy machinery. Because it's night. You could kill someone, fool.

 

Early Spring is known as the official beginning of sea turtle mating season. As such, for your own safety, and the self-respect of the turtles, it is strongly recommended for this 2-3 month period that you don't wear turtlenecks in coastal towns. I'd prefer not to say more than that.

 

Finally, during the summer months, it is vital that you not wear any type of shirt which exposes your midriff. This is especially important if you have good abs. Most people don't realize this, but new legislation has been passed in our country which requires anyone who sees this outfit/ab combo to yell, "We've got a situation over here!" at which point anyone within earshot must huddle around you and begin pumping their fist skyward and shouting "Beat that beat!"

 

Trust me, it's a cult-like behavior to witness, and I can only imagine what it would be like to experience it. It could fundamentally change your life for the worse and permanently skew your view of reality. Obviously, no one has to follow any of these "rules" laid out here, but don't say i didn't warn you.... Do yourselves a favor and don't open yourselves up to that kind of mental torment.