Some ideas I have that I want to give to you

These may or may not be helpful to have in your brain

I keep a notes app on my phone of… I guess you could call them epiphanies? Except an epiphany is kind of a solve to a problem. These don’t solve anything. Maybe insights. Moments of clarity. Anyways, many of them never fit into something bigger that could really be a cohesive newsletter. So I think I should just lay them out here on this newsletter. Like unwanted bowls, sweatpants, and rain soaked books that line the sidewalk of Park Slope. Sometimes there is a gem in there. I hope this is the same.

Rules for guessing things

When you ask someone to guess a number thats really crazy, the worst possible outcome is they are pretty close. It sucks the fun out of the room.

Person 1: Had such a crazy day. Guess how many coffee shops I had to go to before I could find the kind of cookie my boss likes?

Person 2: I dunno, like seven?

Person 1: No, it was six.

Womp. Womp. Joy is gone. No one is having a good time there. The big reveal was spoiled by an astute estimator.

The polite thing to do if you have a good idea of the correct answer is to let your friend have their moment. Under guess for gods sake. It’s like when a toddler calls you on a pretend phone and you have to pretend to answer. You gotta do these things to keep the world a happy place.

Okay another thing on guessing that I have an opinion on. Never ask for a hint. Now I’m not some MMA, Andrew Tate, “be a man” guy (I mean, I’m writing on substack, so that should be obvious), but even I gotta be real and say that asking for a hint is some soyboy beta behavior. When someone asks you to guess something you just guess. “hmmm gimme a hint!” Here’s your hint. Grow up!

Getting over Shazam Shame (Shazame?)

Shazam is maybe one of the best inventions we have. Truly a miracle that this came out long before AI. Feels like magic. It used to be so hard to hear a song and not know what it was and then you’d have to ask the person who worked at the restaurant what the song was and they would say they don’t know its just a playlist the owner made.

However, why is it so embarrassing to Shazam in public? I have tried to overcome this embarrassment by making a bit of it. Whenever I am in public and a super popular song is on, say Piano Man by Billy Joel or Bohemian Rhapsody or something, I take out my phone and hold it up and loudly go “Hey Siri, what song is this?” and then when inevitably someone near me tries to tell me the song I put my finger to my lips in a shushing motion then point to my phone in a sort of “let shazam take care of this one” way.

Making better games from health tracking apps

Okay, I feel like we aren’t creative enough with all the bio trackers we have. Like people wear watches that can tell them what time they fell asleep and woke up. We are using this technology to see if we had a good nights sleep? Brother, you will know if you slept well or not. There are much more fun uses for these.

Sort of like in high school when someone would get their hands on a breathalyzer and we used it to measure who could get the drunkest, we should be using fitness trackers for fun competitions.

One I thought of was “who can fall asleep first” and basically you lay down next to a friend you both have apple watches on and you see who can fall asleep faster. You can’t really fake it. The watch knows.

Another one would be who can have the lowest screen time in a week. This would be fun. Who can be most offline basically. Your phone now tells you how much screen time you have. See if you can live in the moment more than your friends.

Ageism is dumb

I’m not talking about ageism in the corporate sense. Like oh we wanna hire hungry 23 year olds who we can pay less or whatever. Im talking about it in the social sense like “omg they’re like 40, they should not be out at the club. Ma’am, where is your family?”

Ageism is just being mean to your future self. Like bro, you are going to be that age too. Do you really want to create a stigma around it and then walk right into it? Have some foresight.

Also, being young isn’t an accomplishment. Everyone who is old, already did it. They weren’t born old. You didn’t do something right to earn your youth.

Searching for humor in neon signs

Whenever you see a light up sign for an establishment and one or more of the letters are out don’t you always look at it for extra long just to see if it (hopefully) says something funny by accident? Is it just me? The dream is to encounter something like the picture above.

Karaoke is not for good singers

Being good at karaoke is a skill that is wholly different than being good at singing. Being really good at singing can in fact be a detriment to karaoke skill. In fact, it kind of make people uncomfortable if you get on the mic and sound like Celine Dion. Part of the fun of karaoke is the silliness and there is nothing silly about having a stunning vocal range.

Karaoke is less about singing ability and more about your ability to do impressions. Do the mannerisms, try to copy the persons voice, be the character. And maybe most importantly, pick the right song. Don’t go obscure. Everyone should know it. Everyone should understand the impersonation.

That is how you be good at karaoke.

Your baby pictures aren’t interesting but…

Your baby pictures are like your dreams. The only people who find them interesting are you and maybe your significant other if they are really into you. Otherwise it just feels like a “I used to be so cute” thing but like everyone was cute when they were a little kid?

The cool kind of flashback pictures are when a really old person posts a picture of when they used to be hot. Thats impressive because not everyone was hot when they were younger.

Young Robert DeNiro

Lottery tickets are a really good deal

Lottery tickets aren’t a chance to win money. They are a ticket to a movie that plays in your head about what you would do if you won. That movie’s duration is from whenever you buy the lottery ticket until you find out you didn’t win. Can be as much as 3 days.

So $2 for a ticket to a movie that plays in your mind in which you are the king of the world and never have to work and can pursue all your passions and make everyone around you have a better life etc. etc. AND that movie is half a week long? Lottery tickets are actually a really good deal.

Drums kind of suck

Drums are kind of the worst. Like of course they are great in a band. John Bonham, Travis Barker, Neil Peart. Awesome. But as a standalone? You play a song on guitar, solo, it sounds like the song. On drums… kind of just a ruckus. They also take up a ton of room. Not very mobile. Maybe thats for our own benefit. Wouldn’t want your bro pulling up to the park to play Wonderwall for the ladies on his drum set.

There is something kind of baby-like about drums. You’re just banging on something. Banging on it in a clever way, sure. But its gotta be like the original instrument. Very caveman like. First drum set must have been a bone and a rock.

The inverse wife-hotness perception correlation

Have you ever noticed the more a guy hypes up how much hotter than him his wife is, the less hot she is? Like those guys who are like “could you believe a schlub like me could land a bombshell like this?” the wife is never as hot as they act. You’re usually like “yeah, I believe it.” Yet often times the guy who thinks he and his wife are equal hotness is way off and his wife is much hotter than him. Just delusional.

I think this might be because people don’t like being put on a pedestal. People don’t want to be in relationships where they are worshipped. So really hot people aren’t going to go for people who act like they are very hot. You know what I mean? I think this is the best explanation I can think of for this phenomenon. But basically most people are overselling or underselling the hotness of their wives. Not that it matters. It only matters if you love them. But just found it interesting.

Italian-American Food is kids food for adults

Not talking about Italian food like you have in Italy. This is like red sauce joint kind of Italian food. If you boil it down its kind of like chicken tenders and mac and cheese rearranged in different ways. I mean don’t get me wrong, I love it. But everyone else has noticed this, right? Chicken parm is a big chicken tender over pasta. Fettuccini Alfredo is mac and cheese. Y’know? Kind of fun if you think about it.

Anyways, I have a lot more of these. Might have to do a part 2 at some point.