The Art in Breaking Glasses (part 1)

I have the amazing capacity to destroy glasses. Sunglasses, eye glasses, those cheap dollar store star glasses—they come to me to die. With sun glasses and cheap novelty glasses, it’s no big deal because they’re uber cheap. However, when it comes to prescription glasses my clumsiness is a problem—it’s probably been around a $300 problem, as a matter of fact.

In fact, turning perfectly strong lenses and frames into a crumpled mess of metal and glass shards is almost an expertise of mine. So, if figured, why not impart some of my wisdom unto the internets, right? Right.

My first two pairs were frameless and almost invisible, unless I was wearing them. When I was wearing they were obvious and awkward…

My dad said frame-less glasses look classy... but, as a 13 year old, classy wasn't what I was going for O-O

With both of these glasses they would go missing until I found them… under my foot and in a 90 degree angle. At least one of the lenses popped out, and, even though they were only on my floor, they looked like they had been mauled by a bear.

 

Really, though, the process of obliterating a good pair of glasses begins with losing them—the best destruction occurs when you’re not looking. Now, I’m not saying choose a place and stash ‘em there. No. If you just toss them somewhere you’ll know where they are, and a good, proper amount of destruction will never occur. Instead, just be careless with them. Leave ‘em on the table, in the car, in the bathroom. Soon enough, they’ll be long gone, and, search as you might, in all the obvious places, you’ll never find them. Great.

Well, that's supposed to be a tire rolling over a pair of glasses... but it kinda just looks like grey yarn casting a shadow

Now, comes the fun part. Leave your shoes on when you walk about the house, or, at least, some socks. The time will come when you will find them—where? Beneath your foot as you take a step, Beneath a box as you set it down, or even beneath your tire after you’ve set you’re your car in reverse. Fun times.

Having lost your glasses and, then, found them again just after you’ve crushed them beyond repair, feel free to admire your work– Well, as best as you can without your glasses.

 

 

 

Maybe This is Why “Rap Artist” Was Never My Career Goal…

For some reason, my teachers from elementary school to high school had a weird fascination with seeing students come up with “raps” about the subject material and performing it for the class. They said it was to help us learn the subject material, but, really, the only thing we learned to do was rhyme.

Moldy food may not have anything to do with ecosystems... but it rhymed. Good enough, right?

You’d have those two kids who could genially create a rap off the top of their heads, and they’d have five or six friends who knew how to use their pencils to make a beat.

Then, you’d have me and my group of confused friends. Even with 5 years of band behind me, finding a beat was like finding Waldo on a blank piece of paper—it’s just not there.

Anyway, now that I’m in college, I don’t have to experience that pain. However, recently, I found the most amazing example of turning classroom stuff into a rap—and it’s so much cooler than it sounds. Someone passed me this link in one of my econ classes, and it’s just so full of awesome. Seeing this combination of nerd-y knowledge and video and “rapping” puts a smile on my face every time I hear it. It’s on my ipod, on all my youtube playlists… I’ve probably posted about it on facebook at least five times. Yeah, I’m a little bit obsessed.

Here’s the link. Watch it. You’ll become ten times cooler, immune to disease, and win the lottery.*

*Yeah, none of these things will happen. Probably.

My Sewing Machine Might Be a Decepticon

Around my birthday, I decided to get an adult skill and try sewing. As it turns out, those sewing machines are full of lies.

The box reads “easy to use”, but it’s just a trap! You get the machine out and situated on the table, and, at this point, you’re still full of hope and wonder at all the things you’ll make. Then you look at the instruction packet—this is your biggest mistake.

This Barbie-sized instruction packet has images and words and arrows, but none of it makes sense! It’s all like “Put the string on the knob, loop it around Point A, bring it down to knob X, past the fires of Mount Doom, and get it into the tiny needle hole”.

And you’re left to ask “What the hell? What does that even mean?!”

After weeks of trying to work this machine, I began to wonder; maybe this isn’t supposed to be this difficult. Maybe, there’s something else going on here. Maybe… this machine is some kind of Transformer (you know, a robot in disguise).

Transformers are robots that can turn into machines, and my sewing machine is defiantly a machine– so it qualifies. However, for all the pain that thing has given me, my sewing machine would defiantly be an evil transformer. Clearly, my sewing machine is a Decepticon.

When I leave my room, this is what my sewing machine looks like

Which Decepticon is it? Starscream, probably.

For those of you who don’t believe me, I offer some evidence… that I created in Paint, but is loosely based off reality.

The evil ways of the sewing Decepticon are infinite...

And then there’s that foot pedal. It’s supposed to make the thing make stitches, but no. It’s deceptively design like a gas pedal so that any unsuspecting novice will look at it and think: “Oh, if I press it harder, it’ll go faster! I’ll be done so quickly!” No.

The gas pedal of lies...

You wanna see the biggest knot of string woven into a piece of knotted cloth? Press that pedal harder.

Because In Middle School, Everyone’s Soul Is a Black Abyss

Earlier last August, my brother entered middle school, and it was around this time that he decided that he was G—yeah, he’s gangsta’. Apparently, though, you don’t have be a thug to be gangsta’ anymore.

If my brother is anything to go by, the process of become a legit gangsta’ is something like this:

1. Buy some expensive clothes that are big enough to fit the bear at your local zoo.

2. Put the clothes on the bear—hope he doesn’t rip them—and let him wear them for a few days.

3. Take the clothes back (Oh, and if you wanna seem extra legit, let the bear hit you a couple of times and tell everyone you got in a fight).

4. Wear the clothes.

5. Abandon all concepts of grammar and utilize some gangsta’ colloquialisms (ex. Homie, legit, fo’ realz, hustla, crib, etc.)

6. Randomly punch something (like a wall or a human), just to let people know that you’re serious.

On some level though, I can understand this. Middle school is crap. It’s crap for everyone. There’s something about it that makes us try to fit an image and fail misarably.

I was a nerdy kid in middle school with a fierce obsession with Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer—but I would’ve jumped at the chance to be considered gangsta’. But as things were, I just did my best to be Buffy. Sure, I didn’t have tight clothes, but I did have black clothes. Same Thing, right?

I could have been a vampire slayer

Fo’ Realz.

I noticed too, that a similar phenomena occurred to many of the other girls:

I figure if my idol was Buffy, their makeup and skimpy outfits must mean they wanted to be JLo

So, I reasoned Josh’s strange behavior and wardrobe choices are likely because of this:

T-Pain: one of my brother's many idols.

Clearly, this is the only reasonable explanation.