“I wish I had the nerve not to tip.”

– Paul Lynde

My monthly gym membership with private coaching amounts to the total cost of twenty-five dollars a month. The only day I’m not there is Sunday. When the bill comes I pay with two twenties and tell my coach to keep the change. I’m sure it’s not “fiscally prudent,” but I feel that I get way more than what I’m actually billed for.

Recently I’ve had to hire people to help post reviews for my Fiverr business. Amazon is cracking down and until I get my second laptop in I need some help. Online I found a place that charges five cents per copy and paste review. Rather than using this service I called on friends and readers to help out. In exchange for about fifteen seconds worth work, I paid them a dollar.

If there’s something I like or appreciate, I’ll overpay. When it come to tipping and paying bills I’d rather err on the side of generosity.

P.S. I did a guest feature for the new edition of How To Survive Living Abroad. Feel free to check it out.

“I have Social Disease. I have to go out every night. If I stay home one night I start spreading rumors to my dogs.”

– Andy Warhol

There’s been a recent trend that I’ve noticed where guys harp on night clubs, and America in general, as being a terrible place to meet women. The other night I was asked what I thought about the whole “clubs suck” argument. I agree, somewhat.

If my memory serves correct, I’ve been going to bars and clubs since I was fifteen. A lot of my friends were older than me and there were plenty of venues throughout Iowa that didn’t check IDs. Despite my bowl cut, braces, and dorky aesthetic; I was still allowed in. Throughout high school I thought this was awesome and was more than happy to except my dual status as both the nerdiest guy in school and the biggest partier. It was quite the achievement.

By the time I got to college I’d, somewhat, outgrown going out and partying. I was more content with Minecraft and browsing the Internet than going out on a Friday night. It wasn’t until the second semester of my freshman year that I really started going out again. During that time I started to notice two major changes. The first was that girls had all started getting smart phones. Up until 2011 or so, there weren’t too many Droids or iPhones in Iowa. Everyone had iTouches and Blackberries, but neither caused much social change. The second thing I noticed was how fat everyone was getting.

Smart phones, in my opinion, have really wrecked most social events. A few weekends ago I went to a concert, instead of actually watching the stage, at least half the audience was glued to their phones. I actually overheard a guy say that the opening act was boring and then pull out his phone to play some game. A professional entertainer, trained in gaining attention from huge amounts of people, couldn’t compete with a generic Samsung phone.

When it comes to bars and clubs, I’ve noticed a lot of them seem to be emptier now than they were even a year or two ago. While draconian drinking laws and outrageous prices are to blame, I think the real culprit is technology. A dude with 500 state of the art video game, a treasure trove of free porn, and Facebook account has no incentive to leave his house. All the luxury he could want is just a click away. Likewise, girls can stay in and still get copious attention off their social media accounts. Even when they do go out, a lot of the girls I run into are in the club specifically to take pictures for their Instagram accounts.

My second beef is with the current obesity epidemic. While I knock guys who’d rather sit at home with their porn and video games, there’s actually not much incentive for them to go out anyway. Last weekend I was at a place where 99% of the patrons were college kids from coastal regions. About 50% of them were overweight. I have pretty lenient standards on how people should look, but I think its ridiculous for any twenty-some year old to have a giant gut.

In a nutshell I do think clubs are a rip off. However, I don’t think they’re as horrible as people like to portray them to be. Even a lousy night out is better than the best night of sitting home to watch Netflix or play Xbox.

I’m not super good looking and I’d consider myself to be on the mildly awkward side, but I still have a lot of cool stories just from the sheer amount of times that I’ve gone out.

Unlike staying home to play games or watch television, you’re getting a real experience when you go out. It’s cheesy and coated in neon lights, but it’s still something that’s actually happened.

“[The short story] is a particularly nice length to write, since it can be finished before the author gets tired of it.”

– Leslie Charteris

The hardest part about writing is the actual act of sitting down and staying put. It’s too easy to get distracted. Sometimes I’ll even find myself doing silly things like cleaning my keyboard, just to procrastinate from having to write. If you can sit down and possess the endurance to hammer out a couple hundred words, writing’s a cinch. On Fiverr I have a gig where I write a 400 word article and deliver it within 24 hours, it sounds more impressive than it actually is. According to Yahoo Answers, always a reliable source, the average person can type about 70 words a minute. By my math I get four dollars for roughly six minutes of work. If I had the clientele, I could pull $40 an hour excluding set up time.

My word count says that I’ve typed 160 words in this post so far. I started four minutes ago and took a two minute break to visit Yahoo Answers and refill my coffee mug. At this point I’m literally typing out whatever pops into my mind. If you’re one of those people who claim that they “don’t know what to write,” you should just start typing out your thoughts. Someone will probably think they’re interesting.

When I was a kid I remember reading about some “extreme” artist who defecated in a jar, stuck a cross in the feces and called it art. People lauded him for being “profound.” Even elitist snobs are morons. They’ll fawn over a pile sh*t.

“Why is six afraid of seven?”

– Old math joke

I recently picked up a cool little math trick called “Casting Out 9’s.” It’s a useful method for checking answers that I’d never heard of before. How it works is as follows:

“When any number is divided by 9, the remainder will equal the sum of the number’s digits, or the sum of the number’s digits after “casting out” 9’s.”

For example, dividing 16 by 9 would leave you with the answer of 1 with a remainder of 7. The digit sum of 16 is 1+6 or 7, the exact same as the remainder after dividing by 9.

Any number whose digit sum is greater than 9, gets its digit sum divided by 9. Leaving the results equal to the remainder. 38 divided by 9 equals 4 with a remainder of 2. The digit sum of 38 is 3+8, or 11. 11 divided by 9 equals 1 with a remainder of 2, the same as the original equations remainder.

As far as math related tricks go, I thought that the process of “Casting Out 9’s” was pretty cool.

“I’m old school like gemstars and switchblades.”

– ASAP Rocky, Trilla

Having a perpetual interest in Russia, I decided to learn a bit of the language. Rather than spending a small fortune on an expensive language program, I decided to try and start learning Russian as cheaply as possible. I ended up sending ten cents at a garage sale, where I bought Look and Learn Russian. To call my edition worn would be an understatement. The cover is tattered and hanging on by a mere thread and the back of the book has a vague mildew on it. I’ll probably contract Black Lung halfway through.

Despite my health concerns, I still like Look and Learn Russian. It’s lack of modern flash actually enhances it. There’s no “Five minute guide to understanding the Russian alphabet.” In fact, most of the book is nothing more than basic sketches with Russian phrases written next to them. It’s your job to figure out what each picture says. After page 22, there’s no English whatsoever, just pencil drawings and Russian words.

I made myself a little index card with the Russian alphabet, I use it to decipher each image. It’s fun. A throwback to the days when military men sat around smoking Camel cigarettes while spying on the Kremlin. Even without looking at the publication date, Look and Learn Russian feels like the product of the early sixties.

This bare bones nature keeps me far more invested than any Pimsleur program ever has.