Category Archives: Random Rants

Everyday items like money to days of the week to common situations.

January 24, 2016 · 4:39 pm

Breakthrough Conversation

I went to the bar after work the other day with the sole purpose of killing time to avoid the commute home during rush hour. I walked in and saw one of my coworkers. I’ve known him for a few years but he works in a different department and we’ve only talked about work stuff, weather, movies, and local sports teams. That was probably the first time that I had even seen him out of work. It’s better to drink with somebody than to drink alone, so I pulled up a stool next to him and sat down. We started talking about work stuff, but the conversation eventually turned into a real one.

We talked about our lives. Where we grew up, where we went to school, where we lived before moving to the city. We talked about our childhoods, our families, and what we thought about the world. It was a breakthrough conversation, the kind of talk where a stranger becomes a friend. It’s always cool to get to know someone better. It’s weird, it’s almost like humans need social interaction or something.

Critically Rated at 16/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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January 21, 2016 · 3:02 pm

Walking Stick

I went on a nine-mile hike with some friends the other day. The trail was relatively easy for the most part, but there were a few difficult parts and it rained the night before so there was a lot of mud. The situation called for a walking stick and nature was happy to provide me with one. I found one on the side of the trail. A walking stick is what it sounds like. It’s a stick for walking. Canes are for old people and the disabled. Walking sticks are for hikers and wizards.

Walking sticks can be used in a variety of ways. They make steep hills easier to climb or descend. They can clear the trail of bushes, debris, spider webs, and tree branches that are blocking the way. They offer a balancing point for crossing small streams or large puddles. They have traction in slippery conditions. And you can use them to fend off attacking animals or disgruntled hikers.

Some people buy walking sticks. That’s good if you go hiking a lot and want other people to know how awesomely outdoorsy you are. I prefer finding a walking stick somewhere along the trail and leaving it on the trailhead for future hikers to enjoy. It seems more neighborly. Walking through nature is fun. It’s better with a giant stick.

Critically Rated at 13/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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January 19, 2016 · 8:34 pm

Calendar

A calendar is an organizing system to keep track of days. It’s sort of like a roadmap for time. It helps to keep track of days, weeks, months, and years. It allows you to plan things better. Call me old-fashioned, but I have a calendar on the wall. I don’t use the organizer app on my phone. I physically write out my schedule on the wall with a real pen. The goal is to have something written down on each day. If your calendar is full, your life is full. That’s a good philosophy and it’s worked for me so far.

I have the traditional wall calendar that only displays one month at a time. It begins with January and goes all the way to December with a different picture for each month. It’s pretty exciting to flip the page and see the new picture. And if you think that’s exciting, you’ll really love off-the-wall calendars. Those are calendars that go by individual days instead of months. So you’ll get excited three hundred and sixty-five times each year as opposed to only twelve times. Some off-the-wall calendars take advantage of this, specifically the Word of the Day Calendar (which improves your vocabulary drastically/significantly/immensely one day at a time) and the Far Side Off-The-Wall Calendar (which delivers absurd humor daily). Off-the-wall calendars can improve your life if you let them into it.

I don’t have anything else to say about calendars. I think I’ll end the post right around here. Maybe I’ll say one more thing to pad it out. Maybe I won’t. I haven’t decided yet. I think I should. I mean, this paragraph isn’t even about calendars right now. I should have stopped typing already. But I keep on going for some reason. And you keep on reading. Sucker.

Critically Rated at 13/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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January 13, 2016 · 5:30 pm

New Phone

I’ve been using the same iPhone 4 since late October of 2010. I’ve had that phone with me every single day of my life for more five years straight. I woke up today and decided to change that. I had the day off so I went downtown to the Apple Store, I walked in, went up to the first employee I saw available, and told him I wanted a Space Gray 64GB iPhone 6s. Flash-forward forty-five minutes and I was walking out the door with a brand new iPhone complete with an Otterbox case for protection. I’ve spent the last few hours syncing it up to my computer and transferring music, photos, movies, and apps while simultaneously doing laundry. It’s a very exciting and productive time to be me right now. It’s 2016. New year, new phone. I’m pretty stoke that I haven’t dropped it yet.

Critically Rated at 15/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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January 10, 2016 · 3:41 pm

Copasetic

Copacetic is a great word. I think people should use it more. It has a great sound. Say it. Say copacetic. Say it slowly. Co-pa-set-ic. See how nicely it rolls out your mouth? Isn’t that fun? I could say copacetic all day. Not only does it sound good, it has a positive definition. If something is copacetic, it means that it’s completely satisfactory. For instance, copacetic is a copacetic word. It means that everything is good, that you’re perfectly content with it. You want things to be copasetic. Life is a lot harder to deal with when things are going uncopacetically. My spellcheck says that uncopacetically isn’t a real word, but I don’t care. I’m going to make it one. I’m sure it will catch on if I say it enough.

Critically Rated at 15/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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January 9, 2016 · 8:21 pm

Fake Cracked Screen iPhone Case

I think that I’m going to invest in a fake cracked screen iPhone case. It would be a case to protect your iPhone. The front of the case would make your screen appear like it is cracked. That would help to deter thieves. Thieves don’t like cracked iPhones. There’s little resale value to them. I Googled “fake cracked iPhone case” and only saw a few products that are similar. There’s one fake cracked case that makes the back of the phone look shattered. That’s not good enough. I want the screen to look cracked. There are also a couple of fake cracked screen stickers, but stickers don’t do much to protect your phone. So can somebody please make me a fake cracked screen iPhone case? I know that I’ll never get around to it. It’s up to you to make it happen.

Critically Rated at 14/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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January 8, 2016 · 5:56 pm

Half-Day

It was slow at work today so I asked to go home early. I don’t like working when there’s nothing to do. My manager had too many people scheduled and was more than happy to cut me from the floor. I clocked out by 1:00 pm instead of 5:30 pm like I was supposed to. I was stoked. I celebrated by getting a burrito. It tasted like freedom. I love half-days. There’s nothing quite like them. Remember how much fun half-days were in high school? You had to sludge through a few classes for a few hours and then it was time for shenanigans. College was all half-days and my liver still hates me for going to a party school.

Half-days are like Fridays. You have to work a little but then you get to play. Unplanned half-days are even better. It’s like the universe wants you to be happy. You can’t take them for granted. You have to do something special to celebrate. You don’t have to get a burrito like I did, but you gotta do something. Half-days don’t happen all the time. Take advantage when they do.

Critically Rated at 14/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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January 7, 2016 · 1:57 pm

Lotto Fever

 The Powerball jackpot is currently at a record $700,000,000. Let that sink in. Seven hundred million dollars. Even Bill Gates thinks that’s a nice chunk of change. A jackpot that high causes a national pandemic. They call it lotto fever and it’s quite contagious. Even people who don’t normally play the lotto are buying tickets or pooling money with friends or coworkers. How can you not? A couple of bucks could yield you millions more in return. It probably won’t, but somebody’s got to win. And you can’t win if you don’t play. Believe me, I’ve tried. So you might as well buy a ticket. I already bought ten dollars worth of tickets and I’ll probably buy more. Tickets are the only remedy for lotto fever. Critically Rated at 14/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young 

  

 

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January 4, 2016 · 7:17 pm

Dog Sitting 

 Dog sitting is when you take care of someone else’s dog for an extended period of time. You feed it, you give it water, you take it for walks, you pick up its shit when it shits. I’m writing about dog sitting because I’m currently dog sitting for my sister while she’s out of town. She has a Boston Terrier. He’s a few years old but still thinks he’s a puppy. He won’t stop playing. He likes to play fetch. He used to be pretty good at it but he’s getting older and has a cataract forming on one eye so his coordination isn’t quite there anymore. He still plays fetch like a canine with OCD. His favorite thing to fetch is an orange rubber ball and I can’t watch TV without having to throw it for him. The ball gets all slimy from his saliva and then it picks up loose hair so it doesn’t take long for me to be touching a moist hairball every thirty seconds. Every now and then the ball will get stuck under a cabinet or couch and he will start to whine and cry until I find it and get it out for him. If I try to eat or use my iPad he will start to whine and cry until I play with him again. This simple blog post took twice as long to write as it normally does because I have to stop what I’m doing every few words to appease the little brat. He’s lucky that he’s a cute motherfucker.

 Critically Rated at 13/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young 

  

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January 1, 2016 · 10:12 pm

Happy New Year!

It’s 2016 now. 2015 is over and done with. It’s a new year, a fresh start, and you should take advantage of it. Do things you’ve thought about doing. Go places you’ve thought about going. Talk to people you thought about talking to. Eat things you’ve thought about eating. Drink things you’ve thought about drinking. Watch stuff on Netflix that you thought about watching. Trying things you’ve thought about trying (that sounds similar to doing things you’ve thought about doing, but there’s a difference. Just ask Yoda). Shit or get off the pot. We could all get wiped out by an asteroid or you could get hit by a bus at any second, so get rid of any lingering regrets while you have time to do it. Life is precious but not guaranteed. I’m not trying to be a bitter Betty, I’m trying to motivate you à la Shia LaBeouf. I mean it when I say “Happy New Year!”… I want your new year to be happy.

Critically Rated at 16/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

  

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December 24, 2015 · 9:25 pm

Christmas Eve 2015

Christmas Eve is the night before Christmas. It’s when Christmas fever is burning most fervently, right before the holiday completely crushes your spirit. Christmas Eve is kind of weird. It’s a precursor holiday. It’s holiday to honor another holiday. I suppose it’s really not that bad. There used to be twelve days of Christmas. Now we are down to two. It’s when slackers do their last minute shopping. It’s when TBS starts to play the 24-hour A Christmas Story marathon.

I was walking towards the metro station earlier tonight in downtown San Francisco and it was eerily quiet. There was hardly anybody on the sidewalks or on the streets. I glanced at my phone for the time and it was only 7:30 pm. Still early, but all the people were gone. It made me smile. I knew that almost everybody was somewhere they wanted to be. With their families. With their friends. Maybe at the bar. Maybe chilling with at home with Netflix. Christmas Eve may not be an official holiday but it certainly feels like one. Merry Christmas, I love you all. Thanks for reading the bullshit I feel compelled to write.

Critically Rated at 15/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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December 18, 2015 · 5:15 pm

Bluetooth Speakers

In the age of iPhones and iPads it’s important to have some Bluetooth speakers in your arsenal. That way you can enjoy listening to music or watching Netflix anywhere. The whole world becomes your living room. I remember having portable speakers for my Discman back in the day. They were horrible. They were big and bulky, required a couple of AA batteries that would drain out in less than three hours, and you had to plug them into the headphone jack. Flash forward a decade and we now have Bluetooth speakers, which are small and sleek, with a built-in rechargeable battery, and connect wirelessly. I got a Bluetooth speaker as a gift a year or so ago. It couldn’t have cost more than twenty bucks, but it’s awesome. It sounds great. I bring it to the beach, to the park, and on camping trips. It’s a portable party that fits in my pocket. And it has a suction cup so I can stick it to my forehead and literally not miss a beat. Plus it makes me look cool. I included a picture below if you don’t believe me.

Critically Rated at 14/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

Photo on 12-18-15 at 4.49 PM

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December 10, 2015 · 8:07 pm

Being Inside When It’s Shitty Outside

It’s raining outside my window right now. Not just raining, it’s hailing, the wind is howling, there’s thunder, a bit of lightening. El Niño is going off. But it’s nothing to me. I’m sitting comfortably in my room. I got a blanket wrapped around me, a beer by my side. The power is working, the lights are on, and Netflix is in full force. Life is good. Being inside when it’s shitty outside is a privilege that some people don’t have, so I try to take full advantage of it. Being warm is nice. Being dry is nice. I guess paying rent is worth it sometimes.

Critically Rated at 14/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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December 9, 2015 · 3:44 pm

Real Life Christmas Shopping

I decided to do some Christmas shopping today and I decided I would do it the old fashioned way. I went downtown and walked into actual shops. I went into a Target Express, I went into Old Navy, and I even went to the mall and walked around all the levels and explored random stores. It was real life Christmas shopping, just like I remember doing before the rise of Amazon and other online retailers. And it was a terrible experience. It wasn’t even crowded but there were a lot of angry shoppers and a lack of knowledgeable customer service representatives. I walked around the whole mall and only bought a handful of things. I thought getting up off my ass and physically going to a store would make the shopping experience more pleasant, more real, and more worthwhile. I was wrong. It was a complete waste of time. Sorry, Amazon. I’ll never doubt you again.

Critically Rated at 5/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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December 6, 2015 · 6:52 pm

Taking Selfies with Someone Else’s Phone

It’s slow season at work so I get into a lot of mischief during my shifts now. One of my newest games is covertly taking selfies with someone else’s phone when they leave it unattended. You don’t need to know their passcode to access the camera so you can take a few random pictures or record a video without them knowing about it. I will take selfies and group shots of me and all of my accomplices, or record a quick video, and sneakily replace their phone without them knowing. Then you sit back and wait for them to discover it. Sometimes it happens right away, sometimes you have to wait a few minutes or hours, and sometimes it takes days. It’s always a funny reaction. There are a few rules to the game. Pick your targets well. Some people don’t like it when you use their stuff without asking. I wouldn’t recommend taking any crotch shots or capturing anything illegal. It should just be funny faces or middle fingers, nothing that will cause any distress. If you take selfies with someone else’s phone, expect to have someone taking selfies with your phone as payback. It’s all part of the game, so make sure you really want to play before you click the shutter button.

Critically Rated at 12/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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November 30, 2015 · 1:57 pm

Finding a Tennis Ball

I found a tennis ball over the summer while I was hanging out in the park. It had ZOE written on it in black marker. I don’t know who Zoe is, but she’s not getting her ball back. She should have put her phone number or email address on it if she was afraid of losing it. Finders keepers. I should explain that I might have been a dog in a past life because I get overly excited whenever I come across a tennis ball on the ground. I will stop to pick it up and I will bring it with me to wherever I’m going. I will toss it up in the air and catch it as I go along. I’ll bounce it. I’ll throw it against a wall. I might even pass it to a friend as long as he passes it back. I’ll throw it from behind my back and then chase it into the street when my throw inevitably goes awry. It’s all about the little things in life. Finding a tennis ball is one of them.

Critically Rated at 14/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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November 29, 2015 · 3:14 pm

Driving Next to a Bad Driver

I went on a mini road trip over the weekend to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family. I got a ride with my sister and her fiancé. We hit some light traffic on the freeway, and that’s when my sister pointed out a blue sedan that was driving erratically. He would speed up rapidly on the car in front of him, then slam on his brakes to avoid ramming into them, and then he would repeat the process. It was like he had one foot on the gas, the other on the brake, and he was trying to do a stair-climbing exercise. He would also take up his whole lane, slowly swerving from line to line and only adjusting when he started hitting the little bumpy divider thingies. He was a menace to all the cars around him. We couldn’t tell if he was drunk or just a bad driver, but we were stuck in his vicinity for the next four or five miles thanks to the slight traffic jam. We didn’t want to be near him so we would switch lanes and try to avoid him but he always managed to pop up out of nowhere. Driving next to a bad driver is a nerve-racking experience. You start to think about all the Final Destination-type ways that you can die. Most of the time you survive. Maybe one time you won’t be so lucky.

Critically Rated at 4/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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