Does Go the F**k To Sleep harm kids?

Sometimes, I think that there really are no truly stupid people in the world of journalism. Some people seem so mad, so moronic that you wonder if they spend their waking moments smearing peanut butter all over themselves and then shouting at traffic. I think that they might be putting on a facade, a farce to draw people in and gather clicks. There are a few people (and thankfully only a few) who believe that articles in The Onion are real, so why not believe that the people taking those journalists seriously are also being fooled?

Karen Spears-Zacharias, you are testing my belief to the breaking point.

In a recent opinion piece on CNN, she argues that the book 'Go the F**k to sleep' isn't funny. Which on its own is a valid opinion to have: after all, I think things like Hagar the Horrible and Wayans Brothers movies aren't funny either. But she didn't stop there. She kept on a train of thought that metaphorically ran right through the houses of the people you don't like: you want to laugh, but you just can't bring yourself to doing it.

The whole article reads like a cavalcade of stupid falling down a set of stairs. The logic has more leaps than Mario Brothers. Part of the painful realization is that she just doesn't get it.
"Nobody is suggesting that there's a connection between Adam Mansbach's book and child abuse or child neglect. Still, there's no denying the reason "Go the F*** to Sleep" should be kept out of reach of children is because of its violent language and because of the way it demeans children."

She is correct in saying that nobody conflated possession of a lighthearted humorous book about an uncooperative child with acts of immense cruelty deserving of some of the harshest penalties our society allows. But that's a notion so obvious that you don't even need to bring it up. The first clause of the second sentence is also painfully obvious. Yes, this is a book meant for adults. Of course we're not going to show it to our children. But we want to keep it out of the reach of children because they like to chew, rip and drool on things.

There is a truly unnecessary tangent that follows in which Karen plays the race card: If these same "demeaning" ideas were applied to minorities, wouldn't we all be up in arms? Children aren't a special minority class, seeing as 100% of the adult population had been a child for roughly eighteen years. And children - especially the younger ones at whom the book is centered around - are in absolute terms, quite dense. It isn't demeaning to treat a child like you know more than he or she does; you do.

In spite of all of my introspective qualities, as a child I was dumb. And I did not want to sleep. In fact, I would not sleep until all eighteen of my stuffed animals were in my crib with me. And if even one was missing, you could not try and mislead me by saying that the missing animal was in the pile somewhere: I knew. I was difficult, because I thought I knew better than my parents. Telling 4 year old me to go the F**k to sleep would have been one of the nicer options.

Topping it all off the article ends on an attempt to suck the joy out of life itself.
"The violent language of "Go the F*** to Sleep" is not the least bit funny, when one considers how many neglected children fall asleep each night praying for a parent who'd care enough to hold them, nurture them and read to them."
It is at this point that I realize that this woman is not an imbecile. She is a genius. How else do you explain the ability to find just the right way to spin this book into a feeling of incredible guilt? She probably fills piñatas with notes explaining that animal abuse is no laughing matter. Don't buy Nike shoes after she's been in the store.

So no, I don't think that the book Go the F**k to Sleep is harmful to kids any more than something like being human and having emotions like frustration is. We all get frustrated. We should just make sure we're not yelling at traffic.

HARO, PR and taking things with a grain of salt

I work for a firm that, among other things, does PR. And those things that we claim aren't PR are really just stepchildren of PR. We are public relations, and we have multiple horns to toot.

This brings us to a website called Help A Reporter Out (HARO). HARO is a site where journalists post the things they need help with. Almost always, it's a call out for someone to come forth who's had some specific thing happen to them, or people who are experts at some category. For example, right now one of the big things journos are looking for is businesses that have been given bad deals by Groupon-like sites. Not exactly something that you can look up in the phonebook, but ask for it online and the replies come flooding in.

Here's the catch: PR-folk are tasked with getting their clients out there. Exposure is everything. It's easy to claim to be an 'expert' once you've been published more than a couple places, and perceived expertise is a claim that pays huge dividends. Getting an expert to weigh in on a topic basically writes the bulk of the argument.

And now the perfect storm begins brewing. I'm a journalist writing a piece about some social trend, let's say an addiction to the popular app Angry Birds. I can get a couple reports from people about their experiences, but I need that key ingredient: an expert who says that there is a serious problem with this addiction to Angry Birds. I submit a query out into the world, where the PR-people come upon it.

The PR folk have just the perfect hypothetical client who needs exposure: a psychologist with a book deal, working on book 2. The psychologist can say one of two things:
1. there is actually something newsworthy or significant about the Angry birds addiction
2. There really is no such thing, except for a few outliers.

If exposure is all that matters, you HAVE to say answer one. A journalist working under tight constraints who NEEDS to get a source isn't going to re-write an article just because one expert says it isn't so. Besides, other unscrupulous PR folk will get THEIR clients to say whatever it is that needs to be said. At this point, it's easy to get the psychologist to get on the record saying that Angry Birds is a 'secret addiction' that may affect hundreds of thousands. Statements like "the majority of cases go unreported" can get thrown out there... a statement which is not technically false, but is fundamentally untestable without going through a whole lot of trouble.

A story is born. A client gets more publicity. A reading public swallows the article and the experts opinion.

I'm new to the PR world. Everyone whom I've been exposed to has been a decent person, and they don't use misrepresentation just to get publicity. But if people are going to read newspapers, magazines and other websites, I think they need to know that a good number of articles have HARO behind them. I just thank god I don't work in politics.

I like puns, ok?

The website for ugly cakes is called Cake Wrecks. But some buildings are so ugly you want to claw your own eyes out. The website for those buildings is called Edifice Wrecks.

more improbable chronicles

I work for a princess. Yes, really. Actual princess who gives me tasks to do, via email. Actual princess whom I have met.

We had us a little miscommunication between the princess and my boss. Emails were sent, calls were exchanged, royalty was peeved. The situation was rectified, though she spent a good amount of time mad at us.

We later asked for her to send us some shipping supplies, so that I might continue to ship out the things I'm tasked with shipping. She obliged, in a rather passive-aggressive manner.

So I can truly say that a princess sent me a ridiculously large amount of packing peanuts. Easily 36 cubic feet's worth (or for our metric readers, one assload).

Why Burn Notice will get you killed

The new season of Burn Notice is upon us. I don't have a television, so I'll watch it for free from some Chinese streaming site as soon as is possible.

It's a show that I enjoy, but I also always have to keep things in check. Throughout episodes, the main character Michael Westen offers helpful advice on common problems like 'how to defeat a knife-wielding thug' or 'how to break open a wall safe'.

It's advice like this that falls into the category of knowledge I refer to as 'the things you think you know, but you actually don't.' Advice on how to evade capture while driving isn't something you know until you've been trained and guided through how to do it. A bootlegger's turn isn't something you can just wing.

So when you're at the bank, only to have armed, masked robbers enter, the first words out of your mouth should not be "Hang on everybody, I got this". Because if nothing else the next words you'll be thinking are Dang, where can I get C4 at a time like this?


Burn Notice airs Thursdays at 9pm (8pm Central) on the USA Network.

I need to know some unusual things

One weird quirk about my job is that I don't get a company computer: I have to use my own computer while I'm at work. This means I'm signed in to the corporate google account for the workday. Sometimes I forget to sign out at the end of the day.

So when I use the computer at home for my personal use, the things I search for go in the corporate account's search history. And I search for some pretty weird things. Not in a pornographic sense, just in a comedic sense. I run ideas I have through google to see if someone else has come up with them.

So if anyone from corporate is curious to know why I've searched for "where to buy heroin in Los Angeles", that's why. Because that search is apparently how one person found my website and I'm trying to figure out how high in the google rankings Klaused comes for that idea. Not that I want to necessarily be the #1 site among heroin users, but winning is generally a nice thing.

A traffic fantasy

Driving down to an open mic today I got stuck in the 6 o'clock rush hour on the 405. It was intense driving down to Hermosa beach, not because the traffic was at all bad, but because I was forcing myself to drive in a very very exacting way.

I read somewhere that you can undo a traffic jam by driving at just the right speed where you don't have to hit the brakes. Tapping the brakes causes people to slow down and the cycle of speed up-brake-speed up-brake repeats over and over. So there I was, the traffic whisperer. The lone man who could win this traffic jam.

Overhead, the eye in the sky traffic reporter would notice me. He'd announce: "Folks, I can't believe what I'm seeing, but someone is driving conscientiously on the 405. This is truly amazing" And he'd cut over to the color commentator who'd say "In all my fifty years I've never seen driving like this. This is truly one for the ages folks."

All the listeners in their cars would lean forward, trying to hear more. Children not quite old enough to know *what* traffic was could tell that something special was about to happen. The traffic reporter would continue "Folks, I can't believe what I'm seeing here: the traffic jam is going away! This is incredible? How does he do that!?"

The color commentator would pipe in: "George, nowhere in the Drivers handbook does it say that you have to drive like a Californian." Someone would flip through the handbook, amazed that such an obvious loophole existed the entire time.

"All you folks listening at home, this is a day to remember. What a show he's putting on today. He's almost made it. Can he make it all the way? I can't bear to watch this folks, he's so -HE MADE IT! HE MADE IT! Ladies, gentlemen and children, someone has ACTUALLY DEFEATED a traffic jam. He's won. He's won!

Cars all around me would explode into cheering. Someone would throw confetti and a marching band would walk on to the Rosecrans off-ramp. I'd be hoisted on shoulders of an adoring public. Some guy with a fedora and a Speedball camera with the ridiculous flash would take my photo. Someone at the Los Angeles Times would yell 'stop the presses!' into a room full of whirring and whizzing machines.

Words would appear, and Morgan Freeman would read them. "Nick Klaus' incredible driving lead Southern Cal to its first victory over traffic. In the thirty years since, nobody else has ever been carried off the freeway'

A guy can dream, right?

I cannot be a foodie

I got into a bit of a disagreement with a TV chef on twitter. It was about pie, so at least it was about something important. I have pretty strong opinions on pie, and I don't think they're too extreme or radical that they deserve to be mocked.

Here's the gist of the disagreement. During this cook's show on apple pie he proposes a number of changes that I think betray the innate pie-ness of apple pie. The first alteration is to use a mix of 4 apples. I'm actually okay with this one but only because there are some pretty bad apples out there. I can't stand the really mushy red apples, and they kind of disintegrate when you make pie from them. A mix of apples works.

The next modification is to add something called applejack. It's an apple flavored brandy thing. I was hesitant, but when the tv chef pointed out that civil war era pies had this, I could see where he was coming from. Not something I'd automatically assume went into apple pie, but there's precedent for including it.

The modification that made me more than a little upset is something called Grains of Paradise. It's a Moroccan spice that has eight different kinds of flavor depth and all that jazz. It's also something you have to buy either online or in specialty stores. I don't want to have to wait 5 to 7 business days just so I can make pie. This isn't one of those ingredients that was traditionally in apple pie. It's just gratuitous. It's like truffle oil or duck fat; it's an ingredient added mostly to make food expensive.

I just want to eat a pie that's pretty darn good. That's all. I don't want to feel like I'm a food noob because my spinach isn't locally-sourced, because I can't pronounce açai, or because I don't own a Dutch oven. If it matters to you that much to have all of these things, go for it. Let me have recipes that make food good without adding pretentiousness to it.

Am I the only one who feels this way?

Do not play in dumpsters

On the dumpster in front of my apartment, there's a sign warning you to not play in or around the dumpster. Do we really need a sign telling us this? Is this information we could not have figured out on our own. Do you know what's a more effective deterrent? Dumpster smell.

The part where it says that you shouldn't play around it is unnecessary, too. It's not like they put them in places where you're supposed to be playing.
I'm sorry, Timmy but we can't go play T-ball today
Awww, Why not?
Some jerk left a dumpster on home plate.

ALL RIGHT! Everyone out of the pool! Who threw a dumpster in?

I am not as classy as my phone thinks I am

For some reason, my phone's one main feature - texting - isn't working properly. The dictionary has unlearned most of the English language, so predictive texting has become a really really bad guesser. If I cycle through the possible combinations, I get letters with accents that I think only exist in Hungarian before I get to the ones I need. Apparently, my phone thinks I need to go through all the European languages before giving me plain old English ones.

I wish there was like a sesame street program I could show my phone. So that way when my phone is like "today, I learned the word 'with'" things would be less embarrassing.

Still, only a couple more weeks before I can get a phone made in the last... year.

Low expectations

They finally fixed the light in my kitchen. Still on the list is three other things, not counting the gate out front which does not lock and has not locked for at least 3 months, I am told.

But my reaction to learning that I had a working kitchen light was along the lines of "yay! I have a light in my kitchen! And it works!" As though I was somehow special for having this.

My expectations are so low that when the landlord texted me, saying that the water would be off for a while today because of something involving plumbing, I was thinking to myself, "oh, today's a no water day. I can work with that"

San Francisco's ban on circumcision, or: trying to make intelligent dick jokes.

The city of San Francisco has a ballot initiative to ban circumcision. The Jewish community's response has been a resounding "MOHEL NO!" This is a very sensitive subject. Some people are really touchy about it and obviously, we should handle it with care. When you get down to it though, I think the debate has come to a head too soon. I'm going to do all I can to make sure the discussion won't get too messy.

I've got a pretty firm grasp on the issue, so I'll get right to the good stuff. The thrust of the argument by the people in favor of the ban is that circumcision is denying your child future pleasure. I think that line of reasoning is a little hard to swallow. You're already allowed to raise your kid to feel guilty about sex. A lot of the country thinks this is a virtuous thing to do.

I know my position and I won't take it sitting down. This is just government reaching around into other people's business. The members involved are trying to make it a government issue, and in recent weeks we've seen just how good people in the government are at handling their own penises. It's not enough to make me trust them with other people's.

You're not allowed to be an abusive parent, but you are allowed to be a bad one. And in terms of things that will rob your child of a satisfying life, circumcision hangs pretty low.

Nick vs Stove, round 3

This did not happen tonight, but there was another chapter of the neverending saga, the epic quest which is Nick vs Stove.

So I go to cook the potato hotdish that I'd been hoping to make this entire time. Gas on 175, hope for the best. The good news is that I got no smoke alarms. The bad news is that there was no fire either. While the ancients might have noted that there ain't no smoke without fire, where there's no fire there's gas. About fifteen minutes' worth. I discover this when I check inside the stove to discover that not only is the hotdish room temperature, it is also reeking of that rotten egg smell.

I very calmly and maturely go completely bananas, afraid that any spark whatsoever might cause the whole shebang to blow sky high. I call the gas company, hoping that they'll fix the problem. They'll send a guy right over they say. Also, stay away from the stove....
....
....
I live in a studio apartment. I can't get more than 15 feet from the stove at any time. I probably could have gone out in the hall, but I don't get wireless reception in there.

So the master of the gas stove arrives. Yes, he has a mullet. If I was an attractive female, I would have been totally convinced that an adult movie was about to begin. But I digress. The gas master relights the pilot light and leaves.

Satisfied that my stove will not explode, I turn the oven up to 350 and start the cooking.

Five minutes later, the smoke alarm goes off.

Now I'm scared

The elevator in the building where I work has a little plaque on the inside. It's designed to make you less worried, but it has the opposite effect. The plaque reads, more or less "In the event that the elevator becomes stuck, do not be alarmed. There is little chance of the air running out or the elevator plummeting to the bottom"

That's not helping. I know they legally can't put that there is no chance, but now I worry about the horrors of running out of air. This sign makes me more worried, not less. There's also a remote chance of elevator snakes, but they haven't made a sign for that either. But in the case of elevator snakes, you shouldn't be alarmed either...



... because snakes can smell fear.

What SPF 55 really means

I did it. After months of putting it off, I finally bought myself sunscreen. I did it because I really need to wear sunscreen daily: I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who can get sunburn indoors.
So I got the highest SPF that was also non-oily: At this particular target, it was SPF 55. If I were in charge of the world, I'd put a little card with every bottle of sunscreen that was above SPF 50 that reassured you that it was okay to never have a tan ever. Something like 'pale and pasty is the new look!' or 'you never know when you'd need your blindingly white chest to signal to rescue aircraft where you are'.
To be fair, there are also good reasons to wear sunscreen. I had a spot removed from my back once because they thought it might have been a melanoma. A scary thing like that happening to a guy who doesn't work outside much at all... this is why I'm not an outdoorsy person. The spot wasn't cancer, but they never told me what it was. It could have been a mole, it could have been spilled brown sauce.

My love-hate relationship with Consumerist

The consumer advocate website Consumerist is a site that stirs up mixed emotions with me. I love that they dole out information about how to deal with telemarketers, how to get through the tangled web that is calling customer service, and how to get results for your complaints.

I hate that sometimes, this leads to people who the rest of us would call clients and customers from hell. People who demand to have it their way, even when there's nothing anyone can do about it.

But this takes the cake. The customer in question is upset because her dress arrived early, so she missed out on a potential moment of family bonding.

The moral of the story is to never go above and beyond the call of duty.

Bad combination

I used to be bad at shaving. I'd always leave my skin raw, and then I'd get a flaky razor burn mustache. Then google taught me how to shave properly.

That's when I learned I just had really crappy skin for shaving. Or for being skin in general. Combination skin is oily AND dry. At the same time! It's like sweet and sour sauce, only this combination makes things less appetizing.¹
The problem is you can't put the lotion for dryness on the oily bits, and you can't put the astringent on the dry parts. So, after years of careful research, I've drawn up the lines on which is which. Honestly, it makes my face look like political gerrymandering. I also have one random wrinkle, or as I call it "The 11th district of California"

----------------
1. Its really all that keeps me from being eaten by cannibals.

Nick vs Stove, round 2

(Best when read in an old-timey radio announcers voice)
Last time, our brave and dashing hero was faced with quite a sticky predicament. It appeared that there was some sort of homemade napalm stuck to the bottom of the oven. It was causing all kinds of smoke and ruckus and fire alarms. So our intrepid hero scraped and scraped and scraped some more. Let me tell you folks, it was haaaaard business.

Our hero then broke out salt. Yes, salt; that spice favored by the ancients stops your oven from smoking by casting out the demons that live inside it. But our hero did not stop there, No-siree-bob. Yes he also blasted the unwholesome substance with the foulest and harshest chemicals known to man. And he let it sit overnight as acids and bases and other forms of science attacked the bottom of the stove. It was a sight to behold, truly a wonder of modern technology and progress.

So tonight, how will our hero fare? Will the twin dueling fists of salt and science be a match for the stove? Or will the oven overpower with its evil and cunning ways. Our hero checks the oven, staring deep into it like an athlete staring down a worthy opponent. And the gas is on! He checks, and rechecks! it looks like all is well. But wait. Whats that noise? Is it?! it is. The smoke alarm of shame has gone off again, and our hero has once again fallen to the stove. This is truly a calamity folks.

Tune in next week when our hero calls upon an old and trusted ally: Maintenance man!

How DO you get through AT&Ts Customer service lines?

The firm I work for has a problem. The bill for the phone is wrong. It's too high. And so we have to call AT&T and let them know we have a problem. As the monkey on the bottom of the tree, that job falls to me. And so every day I call the lovely folks at AT&T and ask them to fix the problem.

At this point, half of the phone bill is probably calls to AT&T. If it weren't for the fact that I can do simple tasks while on the phone, nothing would get done by me. But that isn't the worst bit.

The worst bit is hold music. I've heard some pretty cool stuff on the hold line, things like "the best of dentists offices" and "NOW that's what I call panflute!" It's jarringly bland, but the music frequently gets interrupted by the voice telling me to stay on the line. This voice must assume I have codependency issues. Anytime I can sort of pick up the faintest semblance of 'groove' in the music, the voice interrupts. I have been on hold long enough to actually time the sequence:

10 seconds of music
10 seconds telling me to stay on the line, they'll be with me
4 seconds of silence that makes you think that maybe this time they'll pick up the phone, but of course they won't.
Repeat until hopelessness and a sense of the absurdity of it all sets in.

We're trying to get ahold of someone called Wendy. From what I can piece together based on my experiences with AT&T and their promises that Wendy will indeed call back, I'm pretty sure that Wendy is a witch that lives in Quebec. You can only reach her by sending requests on parchment, and then attaching that request to a highly trained pigeon. The pigeon will fly for days at a time, over wild terrains and vast scenic landscapes. The pigeon will have to brave fierce winds and birds of prey and laser traps to get Wendy. Usually, the pigeon get there and when it does, Wendy reads the request and calls you back. Sometimes she then eats the pigeon if she's feeling peckish.

One of these days I will actually get a call from Wendy. At that point the entire office will stop. People not even affiliated with the company will rush to the door to see this. Cars driving on the streets five stories below will look up. One car will crash into the back of another, but neither driver will care, because someone will have actually gotten ahold of Wendy. Wendy, the witch with the power to rectify accounting errors on the part of AT&T.

That's what it feels like.

Cooking in a new apartment

When you've just moved into a new apartment, there's always one thing you should do first. Check to see that everything works. I learned this the hard way.

I decided to ceremonially prepare dinner my first night of living at the new place with my favorite recipe. I turned on the oven, and set about making dinner.
Smoke starts filling the apartment. Billowing from the stove. I turn the above the stove vent on, but to no avail. Why? Because there actually isn't a vent in the vent hood. Or a fan. There's a filter, but it's not hooked up to anything. It's a bit like discovering that your entire life is the part of some massive experiment where you're recorded 24/7 and the set designer forgot to make some of the parts of the set functional. Okay, it's a reeeaalllllly small bit like that.

Three smoke alarms later, I eventually get the situation under control. The culprit? A massive amount of... goop on the oven. A deep maroon and sticky puddle that might have been an attempt at making napalm. I could have used oven cleaner on it, but I don't have oven cleaner. I could have used salt, but I don't have that either. My pantry only contains 2 things, neither of which can make a meal, even if you combine them. I could have either made the spill spicier, or smell like Chinese takeaway.

So far this previous tenant is shaping up to be quite the character. It's like having a ghost in the apartment. They're gone but their spirit remains, and it exists solely to bother me.

More quick hits

I wonder if Gil Scott Heron's funeral will be televised

They say cell phones cause cancer. I just worry that feeling that your phone is vibrating, when it isn't, is a sign of something worse.

Things left behind in my apartment by the previous tenant:
-a drawer full of old newspapers.
-2 popsicles.
-a half-empty bottle of sprite. Under the bathroom sink.

Quick Hits

If larger people wear a shirt that says "I beat anorexia" it's funny. When I do it, it takes on a disturbing irony.

Can someone tell me the point at which American Apparel ads became softcore porn?

I switched over to listening to the local NPR station instead of the oldies station. Mostly because the NPR station has less ads that get stuck in my head. trust me, when you've heard the Keyes of Van Nuys jungle the 50th time, the urge to punch out your radio gets pretty high.

Groupon's IPO offering details

Groupon is going IPO, so says The New York Times. If they can find 75,000 people to buy the stock, the deal is on!

DIY auto repair is a trap, I'm sure part 2

So my car was broken. I did a little googling and found out that parts to fix the car were pretty cheap. Then I did a little more googling, and found out I could solve the problem with a $30 hose, and six screws. At that point, I got offended. I'd be less offended if they hacked my twitter account and sent photos of my genitals to my grandparents.

But I digress. I was driving to the bank today, and while exiting a parking ramp, I hopped a curb. Apparently, I was driving with enough gusto that I tripped the 'OH CRAP' warning light. But all was well. I got the car under control and..

Hey! The warning light went out. I fixed it! For free.

DIY auto repair is a trap, I'm sure

So the check engine light came on in my car. I checked the engine, and it was still there. The dealership had its own opinion on what was going on in my car.
Apparently, I need the following: one catalytic converter and one secondary air pump. The combined total for this? $2,000. $900 of that is the air pump.

This doesn't make sense. I can get a new-to-me air pump for about $200. (I'm not worried about used parts. I have a 10 year old car. Everything on it is used. And honestly, I don't love the car enough to give it the very best. At this point, it's earned "good enough") And I can see the pump from under the car. It's not even hard to get to. The DIY guide online doesn't make it sound too difficult, either.

But there has to be a catch. There has to be. Either this dealership is Satan, or the job is a lot harder than I think it is. Only one way to find out.