Friendly insults.

The process of choosing a blog topic is very intricate and complex. It involves such steps as random thoughts going through my head, and me deciding to write about them. The random thought for today's post came while I was talking to one of my friends from BYU (where I did my undergrad work). After a brief exchange of pleasantries, some small talk about the local weather, and an involved discussion on world peace, I realized that we didn't actually do any of these, and mostly we just traded what I would call friendly insults. Basically from greeting to farewell, we shared friendly insults, with little bits of news from our lives scattered sparingly between. And this of course, strengthened our bond of friendship at least 232 fold. So, for those who want to make their friendships stronger, I thought I'd share some of the secrets from the art of friendly insulting.


Friendly insults are usually similar to real insults, but changed slightly to add that friendly feel. Take the word "jerk" for instance. It is curt and harsh, and can inspire feelings of hatred and malice. But, add the suffix weed to it, and it becomes "jerkweed". There's an insult that inspires feelings of brotherly love, peace, and harmony. There's quite a few modified insults out there. Another personal favorite is taking the angry "Sucker" insult, and changing it to the happy-go-lucky "Suckahfish" friendly insult.



Consider the difference between these two very real examples. When the insult jerk was used, everyone felt angry or hurt. However, when jerkweed was used, there was laughter in the air, friendships were strengthened, and steps towards world peace were made.

Now that you've got some of the classics down, let's move on to the slightly more advanced friendly insults. These are the ones you make yourself, using some key words. The most important of these is "face". Face, by definition, is a term of endearment (note: It's somewhat possible that definition was made up by a friend). So by adding face to the end of nearly any insult, you immediately lighten it up and change it to a friendly insult. See how nice it sounds when you change lame to lame-o-face? The o isn't usually needed when you add face, it just makes this one flow better. Hopefully this has been educational for you. There are many more rules, but hey, let's just start with the basics. Now you're equipped to strengthen any friendship.

A weakness

All my life I've been taught you should make your weaknesses your strengths. No one ever told me how to do that though. I guess it's supposed to be one of those things you learn as you go through life. I'll let you in on a secret I discovered though. There are two ways to make weaknesses strengths. You could actually work on overcoming them and all that stuff, OR you can find a way to make your weaknesses look like strengths. That's the goal of this post. I've found recently I have a new weakness. I can't make what I do sound exciting, so either I need to think of a new way to describe my work/research, or I need to convince everyone out there that science, when described in a monotone, unexcited voice, with long drawn out details, is really cool!!! Please use a tone of voice for that last sentence that merits the three exclamation marks. You can use your really excited voice, your awestruck voice mixed with wonder and amazement, or you can use your cool voice, with undertones of rocking out.

Monotone science explanations are now cool. They're the new black (I don't know enough about fashion to actually know if that means something).

So let's look at the different parts of how I explain what I do. First off, I use a monotone voice. 'Mono' means one, and 'tone' is some how related to pitch or something like that. But what people don't realize is that there's a third thing to look at with this word. It has the word 'mon' in it, which is a cool Jamaican way of saying man. So what using a monotone voice means is that I only use a cool manly pitch when describing my work. That's good. It's kind of like listening to Arnold talk as the Terminator. Cool and manly.

There's no need for a caption here, but, since I'm one to belabor the point, let me again point out, science rocks. The more details the better, and if it's told in a sweet melodious monotone voice, even better!

And as for science itself, Webster's online dictionary uses these words, among others, to define science (note that the order of the words may have been rearranged to enhance readability): "Science: Something obtained through a physical sport." So that means talking science is normal, like talking sports. In fact, it's manly for guys, and cool for girls, just like talking sports, otherwise Webster wouldn't have put those words somewhere in the definition.

And let's not forget the old saying, "the devil is in the details". So going into the long drawn out details is like letting your rebellious nature come out. And everyone likes a rebel. So, as you can see, my descriptions of my work really are pretty awesome. Check that off for another weakness turned into a strength.

Foraging, the new manly

So, back in the old days, it was manly to be a hunter, and not so manly to forage around and gather berries and such. I mean, think about it. What could be more manly than taking a sharpened stick and tracking down viscous wild boar? Certainly not frolicking through the forest with a basket looking for raspberries while humming sweet little melodies to yourself. But now with today's modern grocery stores, things have changed. It is now more manly to forage than to hunt. How do I know that? Well, because I forage at stores, therefore, it obviously must be more manly.

Gathering and foraging in the old days was not very manly. The fuchsia border is supposed to help you understand that. Fuchsia is not a manly color. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

People who hunt in stores know exactly what they want. They have items in mind and they track them down. Us foragers are much more care free. We have no idea what we want, nor where it will be found, we just wander aimlessly, picking things here and there as they catch our eye. Usually large sale tags catch our eyes, but sometimes the random things like cherry flavored carrots just nag at your curiosity until you slip them into your cart. Some may claim that we just don't have a plan, but that's not true. Our plan is just so good, that it doesn't need to be thought about before hand. It just kind of happens.

A picture of today's modern forager. Tough, manly, and cool. There's nothing sissy or weak about this.

So here's the moral to the story: It's now manly to be a forager, however, it is still not manly to hum sweet little melodies to yourself.

Also, I've been forgetting to do this mention this, but my roommate started up a roommate blog where we each put a quote on it, and people vote through the week on which one they think we should put on our fridge. So far, in the two weeks it's been going, I've won once. Yeah, I know. That's good. Sadly things aren't looking so hot for week three, but I'll still be one for three...that's not bad. Feel free to check it out: http://fridgeforthought.blogspot.com/. I'm not allowed to tell people which quote is mine, but if you're really my friend, you should know, and should vote for it.

A visit from the sister...!!!

So my sister came and visited me two weeks ago. It made me realize a couple of things, mainly that I don't know how to punctuate to show horror. For trailing off and sarcasm, I often use "...", for confusion I use "!?!??!", surprise "!!!", and such. What do you use for that horror tone of voice, accompanied by creepy music? I hope ...??? did it, because that's what I'm going for in the title.

Here's a picture of my sister and me. If you are thinking the letters on my side seem so much cooler than the letters on my sister's side, that's probably just the letters reflecting my much higher level of coolness. If you think the letters on my sister's side seem cooler, that means the hours and weeks I just spent playing with word art were wasted on you.

So the week with my sister here was pretty good. She's been in Japan of the last year and a half, thus the picture of us eating sushi (before that, she wasn't a seafood fan, like most in my family). Despite her long time in Japan, I was still able to finish my meal before her using chopsticks. She will claim it's because she was full and couldn't eat anymore, but that's like the slow kid who quit the race and said he felt like he had run far enough. Incidentally that kid would then go on to drop out of school. He would quit jobs on and off for the next 15 years until people would stop hiring him. Then he would join the foreign legion but quit that shortly after joining. They wouldn't take his desertion very well though, and eventually they would find him and put him into a prison camp for the rest of his life, where he would die hungry and alone. Just an interesting little story I heard once.

I should have realized a younger sister's visit could be as dangerous as a nuclear explosion. Despite the fact that I've always done those good older brother things (You know, protecting her from bullies, helping her with homework, picking her up when she fell), I fear she may have spread rumors while she was up here, and for all I know is now spreading rumors to the rest of my family. I think she gets this from my older brother, who loves to spread all sorts of rumors. It took me a while to realize why my mom seemed very concerned for me when I first moved to Michigan. It turns out my brother was having a blast spreading rumors to her that I was depressed...

So yeah, sister came, we did fun things, and I of course was a good older brother, meaning I'm sure I was very encouraging of everything she did, and I showed great restraint and didn't tease her in the slightest. Yup, I showed great restraint...only letting a few things here and there possibly slip out...but very small, modest teasings...nothing too big. Well, for the most part.

I'm not dead

Well...blogging hasn't been happening much lately, but don't worry, I'm not dead. At least I don't think I am. I don't have any of the symptoms (lack of breathing, no pulse, cold skin, inability to move, etc.) Each week that I haven't posted, I have at least started entries. One I didn't finish, then the other I didn't like so I spared you...not to mention I didn't finish it either. Things have been busy, though not too stressful...I think. Sometimes it's hard to tell busy and stressful apart. They're like friends that hang out around each other too long so they start acting like each other and almost seem the same.

Well, this was a convenient find. I was getting ready to go through the grueling task of editing a picture of a tombstone to say what I wanted. I was unhappy about the time it was going to take, and grumbling quite angrily to myself, when I stumbled on this site that puts the text in for you. It's a blogging miracle!

This blog post is going to be short. The main idea is to get something up so that rumors don't spread about me being either dead, or having fled the country for some criminal act. Don't worry though, I'll make up for it with a teaser for the next blog post.

Doesn't this raise the anticipation for the next blog post? Is it going to be funny, or serious...or scary (given the title, scary is probably a good guess)? Are you so excited, you won't be able to eat nor sleep until it comes? In case that's true, I'll try and get it up this week...so hang in there.