blame nature.
stonesl
stonesl1
KID: [After hugging] Mommy, you’re all wet.
WIFE: It’s sweat. I was exercising.
ME: Did you know that sweat is essentially diluted urine?
stonesl1
by Douglas W. Milliken
The plan had been to spend Friday night at Paulie’s and hang out Saturday then go to Saturday practice together in the afternoon but then that morning Coach called—while we faked not being hungover in the buttery morning-bright kitchen, dopey and grinning while Paulie’s mom attacked us mercilessly with motherfucking pancakes—and said there’d be no practice today. He didn’t explain why. Later we’d learn just how fucked Coach was and how much we were each involved in that fucking, but for now, all we knew was that we had a day off. A pack of dogs set free.
We decided after breakfast to break into Paulie’s brother’s room and eat whatever stash Paulie’s brother’d been saving. Just piled what was there and cut it three ways and gobbled it all down and it was gone. This was Kelly’s first time, but he seemed up for anything. Not like a kid who never gets to hang out, but now is hanging out, so is willing to do anything to impress his new friends. More like the opportunity had just never arisen before. Kelly scooped up all the little reds and yellows and greens and discovered their place inside his body like he’d worked out this puzzle before. He was a natural talent at this game. We wandered out into the winter orchard behind Paulie’s house where a few fat brown apples still clung pointlessly to the trees like the saggy little tits of old maids and spinsters and the sun was so low on the horizon—this time of year it just can’t get high—and then it melted and then it smeared. A glowing yellow wax-stain between the frying-pan clouds and the spikes of distant pines, and our breath hung around us in stupid glowing clouds. The winter apples felt like leather sacks full of sauce. They tasted of booze and sauce. Paulie picked one and threw it against running Kelly’s retreating back where it exploded against his Ray Allen hoodie like a star in slow motion being born, Kelly’s arms flew up like he’d been shot, he’s going down, and I ate another apple off the limb. Teeth tearing the old lady skin. Jacked juice on my chin. Then we marched like soldiers into the wood-lot pine and birch. [Read more…]
stonesl
A researcher at Upland Downs University in England is using evolutionary psychology to give stock traders and hedge fund managers an edge. The researcher, Richard Thadwicke, a lecturer in psychology at the school, performed a series of studies showing that stock traders perform significantly better in the hours immediately following orgasm.
The study followed a group of twenty-four male day traders. Half were asked to masturbate at randomly determined intervals during the course of the day; the remainder were required to avoid sexual release until after the closing bell.
The result? The men in the release group were more likely during the two-hour window after orgasm to buy stocks that later appreciated in value, and also avoided making as many neutral or losing trades in that period. Their performance in these time slots was significantly better than their performance before and after, and also better than the control group’s.
“The reason is obvious when you think about it,” says Thadwicke. “We are driven in our daily life far more than we ever acknowledge or understand by a small set of core urges—and these are urges that were set long ago in the evolutionary process, when we were in the jungle, so reproduction, food, survival.”
Thadwicke says these urges often lead people astray in the modern, concrete jungle. For example, it is well-documented in the finance literature that people pay too much for popular stocks that are already overvalued. In “All that Glitters: The Effect of Attention and News on the Buying Behavior of Individual and Institutional Investors,” Brad M. Barber of the University of California, Davis, and Terrance Odean of the University of California, Berkeley, found that investors tend to buy stocks that are in the news a lot; in other words, popular stocks. “An overvalued stock is like an attractive mate,” says Thadwicke. [Read more…]
stonesl
at a bookstore recently—remember those?—The Stoneslide was reminded of an important restaurant maxim. A customer two people ahead was complaining with vigor and petulance about an inconsequential matter. She was laying into the clerk, too, not only the store, despite this being out of the clerk’s control. The clerk was a pro, though, letting the woman’s illegitimate vitriol drip off her like the midnight spray in a dive bar on New Year’s Eve. As I watched the clerk take it like a champ, I recalled the ageless piece of wisdom that the only thing worse than a customer speaking is a customer complaining.
stonesl
1. April 2007
ME: Go ahead. Coo coo coo coo. [Lips making raspberry sound.]
WIFE: Everyone, she just smiled. I’m telling you, she smiled at her daddy. It was amazing. Maybe she’ll do it again.
ME: Coo cooo. Daddy makes a silly face. Silly faces. You like silly faces, don’t you?
BABY: Waaahhhh. [Whining.]
WIFE: She really just smiled. I’m telling you.
BABY: Waaahhhh! [Full, lung-emptying wail.]
ME: She must want something.
WIFE: I’m telling you, she smiled. She can smile.
[MOVIE ENDS]
2. August 2008
WIFE: What was that you said a second ago, honey?
TODDLER: I wan cracka.
WIFE: No, you told me a little story. Honey, what was your little story?
TODDLER: I wan cracka.
WIFE: It was so funny, sweetie. [Read more…]
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