Read This Before Tazing Yourself – Because Knowing is Half the Battle
I had this story “starred” in my Gmail mailbox from a while ago, and just read it again. The first time I read it, I laughed so hard, I nearly keeled over onto the floor in front of my desk.
For the record, I still think it’d be hella cool to taze myself.
“Last weekend, I saw something at Larry’s Pistol & Pawn Shop that sparked my interest. The occasion was our 15th anniversary, and I was looking for a little something extra for my wife, Julie. What I came across was a 100,000-volt, pocket/purse-sized taser. The effects of the taser were supposed to be short lived, with no long-term adverse affect on your assailant, allowing you adequate time to retreat to safety.
Way too cool. Long story short, I bought the device and brought it home. I loaded two AAA batteries in the darn thing, and pushed the button. Nothing!
I was disappointed. I learned, however, that if I pushed the button and pressed it against a metal surface at the same time, I’d get the blue arc of electricity darting back and forth between the prongs. Awesome! Unfortunately, I have yet to explain to Julie what that burn spot is on the face of her microwave.
So I was home alone with this new toy, thinking to myself, “It couldn’t be all that bad with only two AAA batteries, right?”
There I sat in my recliner, my cat Gracie looking on intently (the trusting little soul), while I was reading the directions and thinking that I really needed to try this thing out on a flesh and blood moving target. I must admit, I thought about zapping Gracie, even if only for a fraction of a second, but thought better of it. She is such a sweet cat. But, if I was going to give this thing to my wife to protect herself against a mugger, I did want some assurance that it would work as advertised. Am I wrong?
So there I sat, in a pair of shorts and a tank top with my reading glasses perched delicately on the bridge of my nose, directions in one hand, taser in the other.
The directions said that a one-second burst would shock and disorient your assailant; a two-second burst was supposed to cause muscle spasms and a major loss of bodily control; a three-second burst would purportedly make your assailant flop on the ground like a fish out of water. Any burst longer than three seconds would be wasting the batteries. All the while, I’m looking at this little device measuring about 5 inches long, less than 3/4 inch in circumference, loaded with two itsy, bitsy AAA batteries, and thinking to myself, “No possible way!”
What happened next is almost beyond description.
I’m sitting there alone, Gracie looking on with her head cocked to one side as if to say, “Don’t do it, you idiot,” reasoning that a one-second burst from such a tiny little thing couldn’t hurt all that badly. I decided to give myself a one-second burst just for hell of it. I touched the prongs to my naked thigh, pushed the button, and…
HOLY MOTHER OF GOD WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION WHAT THE HELL!
I’m pretty sure Jessie Ventura ran in through the side door, picked me up in the recliner, then body slammed us both on the carpet, over and over, and over again. I vaguely recall waking up on my side in the fetal position, with tears in my eyes, my body soaking wet, both nipples on fire, testicles nowhere to be found, my left arm tucked under my body in the oddest position, and tingling in my legs.
The cat was making meowing sounds I had never heard before, clinging to a picture frame hanging above the fireplace, obviously in an attempt to avoid getting slammed by my body flopping all over the living room.
Please note: If you ever feel compelled to “mug” yourself with a taser, take caution: There is no such thing as a one-second burst when you zap yourself! You will not let go of that thing until it is dislodged from your hand by your violent thrashing about on the floor. A three-second burst would be considered conservative.
SON OF A BITCH, THAT HURT LIKE HELL!
A minute or so later (I can’t be sure, as time was a relative thing at that point), I collected my wits (what little I had left), sat up, and surveyed the landscape. My bent reading glasses were on the mantel of the fireplace. The recliner was upside down and about eight feet from where it originally was. My triceps, right thigh and both nipples were still twitching.
My face felt like it had been shot up with Novocain, and my bottom lip weighed 88 lbs. I had no control over the drooling. Apparently, I had shit myself, but was too numb to know for sure, and my sense of smell was gone. I saw a faint smoke cloud above my head which, I believe to have come from my hair.
I’m still looking for my testicles, and I’m offering a significant reward for their safe return!
P. S. My wife loved the gift, and now regularly threatens me with it!”
Story over. So what lesson can we take home from this? Always have a spotter ready before you taze yourself. You’re welcome. 3 people have commented. What do you think?
Congratulations – You Have 952,127,998 Seconds to Live
What would you do if you knew exactly when you were going to die?
I often joke that if I did (and if it was soon), I would go rob a bank. Just to see if I could pull it off. Get in there, execute my plan, and then… Leave the money. A dead man needs no money. But a (soon to be) dead man invariably feels the need to be remembered after he’s gone. And what better way to accomplish that then to pull off the perfect heist, and not even take anything? That’s the kind of stuff people don’t soon forget.
You can point out all the things wrong with what I just said in a comment to this entry. 
A little while ago, I came across a web site that piqued my curiosity: The Death Clock. If only it were that simple – to be able to fill in a few personal details, and learn the scheduled time of my death!
The only time such a big number can seem so small.
As I’m sure you can imagine, I was quite shocked to learn that I wouldn’t make it past 55. To see the supposed year of your death and realize it’s only 30 years away is a little sobering. But 30 years – that’s still a while yet, isn’t it? Think of all you could do in 30 years, all you could accomplish! But then again, think of all you wouldn’t have the time to do in that relatively short amount of time.
Then I made a little discovery. This web site has a little drop-down list labelled, “Mode.” I realized that your selection from either Normal, Pessimistic, Sadistic or Optimistic has a huge bearing on how long it calculates you will live. So I told it I was an optimistic person. Boom. Just added 35 years to my life. Holy crap.
Although a web site can calculate how many caffeinated beverages will kill you, it can’t calculate when you’re going to die. But a site that initially seemed like nothing more than a gimmick suddenly seems like so much more. I’ve always believed in the mind’s power over the body. Why, then, did it take a stupid little form on a web site, and a pop-up telling me when I was going to die, to make me think about it so seriously?
I admit that I’m a cynic, and although I don’t necessarily consider myself a pessimist, I know I used to be far more positive about everything when I was younger. Maybe, sometimes, that was because I was naive. But maybe, sometimes, I had the right idea. In everything that happens in life, there’s a silver lining. Sometimes it’s harder to see, but it’s still there. You just have to look a little harder. Sometimes we get stressed, and sometimes it looks like the odds are stacked against us. But it could always be worse. And (rather unfortunately) there is always going to be someone in the world who has it worse.
Think about it. Count your blessings. Look for the small amount of good in every bad situation, and focus on that. With practice, it’ll become second nature, and I absolutely believe that you will live longer as a result.
Me? Well, I think of what I could do with those extra 35 years, and I want them.
So, a question for you, because I’m still curious. It doesn’t have to be morbid. Let’s just have some fun. If you knew you only had one more year to live, what would you do with your last year?
1 person has commented. What do you think?Freedom vs. Sanity vs. The High Five
I was eating a Jamaican patty filled with cheese, lettuce and mayonnaise the other day. It was delicious. As I sat there enjoying my ridiculously unhealthy lunch, I started to dwell on the cheese, in particular. It tasted like freedom.
Fine – it didn’t really taste like freedom; That just seemed to make more sense than claiming it tasted like sanity. How, exactly, does something taste like sanity, anyway?
I asked on Twitter which of the two people would choose, if they could choose only one – freedom or sanity? Here are some of the responses I received.
- @taxnerdatplay said, “Freedom. Hands down.”
- @LizChavez said, “Freedom!!”
- @DanielJUK, the clever chap that he is, pointed out, “Freedom! No one is really that sane!” I tend to agree.
- The @ianswr bot automatically took my question and posted a poll about it here, to which one anonymous person answered, “Hard choice! I’d go for freedom! Life is nothing without it!” Three others anonymously voted on freedom, while one interesting person chose sanity, instead.
- Interestingly, @TheCrisNz answered, “If I couldn’t have both, then I would choose neither.”
- And @rob_rix said, “Trick question, they’re the same.”
I see a pattern here. Most would argue that freedom is far more valuable. If you take away someone’s ability to live their life how they want to, their right to choose for themselves, you take away far more than a word, a concept, or an ideal. You take away a part of themselves. You effectively turn them into a robot. A soft, squishy robot.
@LizChavez asked me what my choice would be. So, because you asked, and for the sake of argument, I’ll go with sanity. What good is freedom if you don’t have the mental capacity to use and enjoy it? Does an insane person even care about freedom, and the issue surrounding it? Does an insane person even realize that he isn’t free? Is insanity not a form of bondage, in itself, anyway? With sanity, could you not use your mental faculties to work towards, even fight for, freedom? Of course, this assumes that without freedom, you’re even able to make the choice to do so.
*BRAIN EXPLODE*
Food for thought, to be sure. However, I stumbled upon a revelation tonight while walking down Bloor Street in Toronto with @diredhanan and @V3Da.
I held out my hand and gave high fives to 25 complete strangers in a row before finally being shot down by an angry looking dude talking on his cell phone, ending my streak. As my hand connected with each of these people, I felt a joy that I knew eclipsed that of having both my freedom and my sanity.
The high five – such a simple gesture, yet filled with such joy and excitement.
Even better: The look of happiness and relief on those people’s faces as they received their surprise high fives. They didn’t know what was coming. They saw a strange, happy white dude coming at them, and many weren’t sure what to expect. But the smiles that filled their faces afterwards told me one thing:
In a world where people expect the worst, and are taught to be naturally skeptical of those around them, the high five can build bridges like almost no other gesture. 25 for high five, 7 for freedom, 1 for sanity, and I’m changing my answer. The numbers speak for themselves (yes, my logic makes perfect sense).
Next time you’re out, walking down the street, with your friends, I don’t care… High five a stranger, smile and laugh. It’ll be fun – I promise.
5 people have commented. What do you think?Customer Retention – You’re Doing it Wrong
Once upon a time, in the happy land of Canada (a very large country with a very low population density), there existed an evil telecommunications company. We’ll call this company “Big Red.”
There was a distinct lack of solid competition in the varying markets of which Big Red was a part. Accordingly (take a deep breath before you read this), it saw fit to (pardon my French) screw its customers royally by charging exorbitant prices, and offering what would sometimes amount to (again, kindly pardon my French) “bubkis.”
I’ve been a customer of Big Red for quite some time now. Given my apparent disdain for this company, it may seem somewhat hypocritical to willingly give them business while holding such harsh opinions of them. But when there are so few other service providers offering what you need, what you crave, sometimes you’re forced to settle for what’s available.
Cell phone plans. TV packages. You want high-speed internet? Sure, we can hook you up, but you might want to start emptying your RRSP. What, residents of other countries (even other provinces in the same country) get speeds 15x faster for 1/4 the price? We don’t care. Look somewhere else, then. But you’ll be back. We know this, because you have no choice.
Crazy people eat phones. Big Red made me crazy.
You want voicemail with that cell plan? That’ll be $16,238.23, please. A data plan? Hold still, we’ll need your kidney. Hey, at least we said please. You can’t fault us for not being polite.
After enduring aeons of horrid customer service, constant over-charges, and policy changes without even being notified ahead of time, another provider finally offered a comparable service, built on reliable technology, for a better price. We’ll call them “Ding Dong.” Ah, the sweet smell of renewed competition. So I switched.
Even when faced with the imminent loss of a long-time customer, their best offer was to give me an upgraded plan for the same price for the next six months. But then charge me almost the same amount I would be saving, in extra modem rental fees.
Customer retention – you’re doing it wrong, Red.
My phone call to Big Red informing them of my cancellation of their service should have been as delicious as pie, and as satisfying as… Well, pie. But even then, I was patronized by the seemingly polite, yet condescending, service representative. She tested my patience as she asked me my reason for cancelling, and then told me repeatedly that I was mistaken in my accusations – that Big Red would never make a hidden policy change, and then over-charge their customers as a result to make a buck.
She even brought her personal life into the conversation, claiming that she didn’t get paid to sit there and tell me things that weren’t true. She tried to guilt me into backing down by telling me of her poor children at home. Did this somehow give her the right to defend a company that, even now, was treating me like an idiot? Did it make it ok for her to treat me the same way?
Customer retention – yeah, you know where I’m going with this, Red.
So why is it that in order to get an unlimited data plan in this country, I have to sign over my soul and that of my future first born child? Why is it that it doesn’t get much better if I switch over to another provider?
There isn’t enough threat to Big Red’s bottom line from other companies, so they don’t feel the need to acquiesce to their customers. You know, customers – the ones who buy their products, the reason they’re still in business.
It’s a little better in the United States. Although many would still complain about the service from such companies, they still have access to better plans, better options. And because there are more companies more than willing to snatch a customer out from under the nose of a competitor, they will work that much harder to please the people who pay their bills and retain their business.
Here’s hoping that Ding Dong has learned a few lessons from their own mistakes, and those of Big Red. It’s taken this long, but it looks like new players are finally entering the market here in the happy land of Canada (that magical place where lumberjack and beaver chop wood in peaceful unity). Here’s hoping that things get really nasty between them, so that we as consumers can reap some real benefit.
3 people have commented. What do you think?A Good Idea is Like a Juicy Steak…
Steak. Yum.
Or a delish pad thai, if you’re of the vegetarian persuasion. I have no idea where I was going with that analogy.
It’s been about nine years since I first had the idea to create a site to host other people’s blogs. I was in high school, playing around with PHP and MySQL databases for the first time. I loved the idea of having a blog (I’d created a few of them already).
I started building a brand new one for myself, database driven (which was a first for me). Halfway through, I thought, “How cool would it be if I offered others a place on my site to blog themselves?”
So I built it. And for a while, many of my friends at school had fun creating their own profiles on tristanx.com, and blogging to their hearts’ content. The end result was, of course, somewhat crude compared to what’s available to aspiring bloggers today. But the point is, I had the idea, and it was a good idea.
What did I do with it?
I let it fall through the cracks. I told myself, “It isn’t that good of an idea. It won’t take off.” Big mistake.
Today, I look back, and I kick myself for not running with what would probably have been a huge deal if I had continued to develop and market the idea. In fact, I probably would have been among the first to create such a thing. A pioneer in the industry, if you will.
Is this a regret? Yes; A major one. But I’m not one to go emo over spilled apple juice. There’s a point to all this, and that is: Never, ever, discount your ideas as trivial, stupid or not worth running with. If you think you’re onto something good, just start something from it. You have nothing to lose. Even if you fail in the end, you still have the experience you’ve gained from the endeavor, and hopefully, the motivation to try again.
So, really, have you even failed? Take it from me – Don’t let years pass, only to watch someone else take what could’ve been yours. Eat that juicy steak while it’s still in front of you. If you don’t, the steak ninjas will.
8 people have commented. What do you think?