12 Rules to Change Your Life and Make it Swell

1. There is no such list of rules anywhere. There is much too much diversity among human personalities, bodies and predicaments for one book to be able to help all of them. The whole self-help industry is a scam. Which doesn't mean that none of the self-help gurus are sincere. The sincere ones are fooling themselves as well as their followers.

Repeat Rule #1 11 more times if necessary.

2. Now that we've got that nonsense out of the way, there are 11 more slots in which I can say something interesting, edifying or otherwise useful (to some).

I wonder whether the world is divided up into Giorgio Moroder fans and Dario Argento fans? Moroder and Argento were both born in 1940 in Italy and they both compose music and produce musical recordings, although you might not know it from Argento's Wikipedia entry. Moroder has produced albums by the Bee Gees (disco version), Donna Summer, Blondie, David Bowie, Janet Jackson and many others, as well as composing and producing some movie soundtracks. "Stayin' Alive" and "I Feel Love," that's him. The soundtracks to Cat People, Scarface and DC Cab, that's him too.

Argento, on the other hand, may be more well known as a movie director than for his music. He made the soundtracks for some of the movies he directed and for some movies directed by others, notably, George A Romero's Dawn of the Dead.

Anyway, back when I used to hang with a bunch of film aficionados, it seemed we were divided into those who liked Moroder and those who liked Argento. And I can't remember anyone from that group except me who liked Moroder. Anyway, it just seems to me that it would be very difficult to really like them both.

3. There's a squirrel who lives outside my house who's as black as the blackest black-eyed cat you ever saw.

4. I had schwaerma for the first time yesterday. It was okay, I'll probably get it again. I first heard about schwaerma toward the end of the first Robert Downey Jr -- Scarlett Johannson Avengers movie. I wonder how many other people first heard about Schwaerma this way. (It is also spelled shawarma and other ways.)

5. I spend a significant amount of time, maybe too much time, worrying about whether the populations of cities are measured in ways which are similar enough around the world that people from one part of the world can get a good idea of the sizes of cities in other parts of the world without quite a lot of world travel and attention to population statistics. For example, the population of Detroit is around 700,000, or a little under 4 million , or a little more than 4 million, or almost 6 million, depending on how you define it. Which means that Detroit has less then half the population of Phoenix, or almost as many people as the entire state of Arizona, depending how you measure it. Forget other countries -- is Phoenix measuring even close to the same way Detroit does?

6. I finally figured out, a little while before I stopped hanging with New Atheists, that New Atheists define religions much more strictly than most of the adherents of those religions do. A New Atheist may well insist, "A Christian literally believes that an old man in the sky created the entire universe, and gave souls to humans but not to any other forms of life, and that there is no life anywhere in the universe except Earth, and that Jesus was born without his mother becoming pregnant or having sex, and that Jesus died and then rose from the dead, which was necessary to give humans a chance of not spending an eternity in Hell [...]" and they may go on in this vein for quite a while, adding more and more items to the list of things which Christians, they say, literally believe, when in fact many people who identify as Christian don't believe any of those things.

7. I keep reading the figure 750,000 for the number of copies Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules has sold. I think that figure might be out of date. Or maybe it only counts US sales. The damn thing is still selling, #52 just now on the Amazon bestsellers' list, and hasn't yet come out in paperback, I believe. Peterson has claimed sales of over 2 million (perhaps he was referring to worldwide sales), threatened to sue one reviewer for a negative review and to slap another one.

8. By the end of WWII over 40 countries were at war with Nazi Germany.

9. When Pulp Fiction was filmed, there were no Red Apple cigarettes and there was no restaurant named Jack Rabbit Slim's. Since then, several bars and taverns have opened which are called Jack Rabbit Slim's. I do not know whether Quentin Tarantino has sued or slapped any of the people who opened those establishments.

10. With few exceptions, mostly within the Soviet bloc, cars have only been exported in significant numbers from companies headquartered in the US, the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Korea, Japan and China.

11. Some of the earliest watches were made in Switzerland, and they say it had something to do with Calvinism. (Make as much much money as you can but be sure not to enjoy it? I don't know.)

12. More than 7% of the electricity generated in Germany is solar.

Modern Marketing

Interestingly enough, this is the main slogan from eHarmony's new advertising campaign. There are rumors that not everyone at eHarmony's advertising agency was on board with the new slogan. But apparently they all agreed that anything would be better than any more of the commercials featuring eHarmony's skeevy old CEO. It seems a study done by the advertising firm's (They asked not to be named, and who can blame them for that?) marketing division indicated that no-one, anywhere, ever, had been made to feel romantic, or horny, or pleasant in any way whatsoever, by seeing eHarmony's CEO. Orville Redenbacher he ain't!

A 2nd Cartoon About Religion

Just as with this cartoon, you're going to have to visualize it based on my description, because I still can't draw very well.

A group of atheists are gathered in front of a TV, watching a news report about members of ISIS destroying ancient sculptures. One of them says:

What a disgusting, horrifying display of barbarity and ignorance! Well, c'mon, guys: in the name of enlightenment and rationality, let's take this 14th-century Koran and make a YouTube video of ourselves covering it in garbage, urinating on it and then setting it on fire.

The Bible Doesn't Count Because Jesus Was An Illuminatus Sent By Aliens --

-- to implant the Freemasons with Da Vinci DNA so that today the Vatican and the Trilateral Commission can implant listening devices in kittens!

In cute innocent-looking little kittens!!!! Those fiends! Yaaarrrghhh!!!



This book can help us. Near the beginning is a drawing full of codes of knowledge essential for our resistance of the Da Vinci DNA. We just need to decode the information left in this drawing by brave people dedicated to saving humanity. Near the top is the phrase "TU STULTUS ES." I must find out what this means. It may be a signal from the good aliens who want to help us and protect us from the evil aliens -- and I think we all know what those guys are up to, *probe probe*, enough said? No thanks, ET!

I can't venture outside right now because the Trilateral Commission has installed a mind-reading station across the street disguised to looked like a telephone pole. I've only got enough Cheetos and Ding-Dongs to hold out for another few hours, so after that I guess I'm just going to have make a desperate all-out run to Wal-Mart, unless all of you act now!

Excelsior. Your bravery, well... Excuse me, I got a little choked up there for a minute. I'll see you on the other side, or I died trying to get there. (The other side of the Wal-Mart parking lot, where all the "paranoid" [yeah right] ex-evangelicals have parked their RV's. They'll know where we need to go next.)

Today's Shocking Republican Congressional News

This is shocking! Today both houses of Congress passed legislation changing the distribution of the 538 electoral votes used to elect the President. From now on the electoral votes will be divided among the states according to their geographical size instead of their population.

Furthermore, in an unusual move, Congressional Republicans have prevented the bill from going to the White House to await President Obama's signature or veto. Instead they are claiming that the bill is already law, and that it wouldn't be fair to involve the President in this, as it affects him and his political future so directly. Instead they are ordering Federal, state and local election officials to enact the changes. As of now, according to Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio), Alaska, and no longer California, is the state whose voters will control the largest number of electoral votes.

"I've received countless e-mails and letters from my constituents complaining about the unfairness of the old system," read an official press release from the Speaker's office. "They looked at maps projecting the November election, they saw much more red than blue, and they couldn't understand how so many liberal media outlets still could continue to maintain that Obama was leading in the polls. As of today, those good people can sleep soundly again, knowing that fairness has been restored to the American political process."

So far this reporter has been unable to receive any comments on the matter from Congressional Democrats or White house officials, nor has he received indications that other reporters have received such communications. Several times he has seen Democrats approaching live microphones or computer keyboards, only to be wrestled to the ground by SWAT personnel dressed all in black with their faces covered, with no badges or labels on their uniforms or anything else indicating what Federal or other organization they might be affiliated with.

from The Big Book of Bad Ideas

Have you got a plastic squeeze-bottle that you've recycled, filling it with something else after its original contents were gone? Take it with you everywhere you go one day and show it to everyone you meet -- and I do mean everyone: family, friends, co-workers, passersby. Tell everyone how great you think your squeeze-bottle is, but don't tell them what you do with it now; instead, say, "It's my friend!"

Do you have a friend with whom you'd like to be more than just friends, but you don't know how to take that next step? (I mean a human friend, of course, not that squeeze-bottle! Ha-ha-ha!) Here's what you do: in your next face-to-face conversation, interrupt every one of his or her sentences with a very loud and high-pitched screech. If you're not already good at screeching, practice at home first, with all of your windows open. If one brief screech, a second long or less, is enough to make your throat sore for half a day or more, you're on the right track! Cupid's on his way!

Does your boss have an office of his or her own with a receptionist? Get two pounds or more of greasy fried chicken. If you don't know of a restaurant that makes it greasy, fry it yourself, and don't drain it! With the chicken in a box or bag under your arm, barge past your boss' receptionist and into his or her office, dump all of the chicken onto his or her desk, shout every rude and insulting thing you can think of about your boss, and punctuate the shouts with the sort of screeches we discussed in the last paragraph, and when you can't think of anything else to shout, tickle your boss vigorously in the belly and sides and under his or her armpits. This will show him or her that you're a bold and original thinker with a lot of great ideas! Next bonus time will be a happy time for you, my friend!