Nipple rings hurt when they get ripped out August 19, 2006
Posted by Niels in : Personal , add a commentIt has come to my attention that this blog is number 63 out of 5,270,000 results in a Google search for “nipple ring”. I don’t know how that happened. This blog is not about nipple rings. That said, I feel I owe a story to those unfortunate readers who arrived here assuming otherwise.
I had a male friend in college with both nipples pierced. I was always squeamish about piercings. I imagine myself fast asleep, getting a nipple ring caught in the sheet, and then rolling over. Owww…
But my friend would just laugh and tug on his. They were in there pretty solid. Not going anywhere. Until one day, when he was playing volleyball, went up to block, and got one of them stuck in the net. He jumped with two nipple rings, but landed with one. I should emphasize that this is no urban legend, word-of-mouth, friend of a friend story. I saw the bloody stump. It was a week later, after my friend finally reemerged from his room after seven days of continuous drinking. But it was not pretty. (You know how snakes’ tongues are forked?…)
And that is why I will never get a piercing. That’s not the story that made me throw up from laughing, though. For that, you’ve gotta ask me in person.
Your thoughts?Laundry day August 18, 2006
Posted by Niels in : Personal , add a commentHaving to walk half a mile to the laundromat makes me appreciate the washer and dryer in my house in Berkeley. Here I have to schedule laundry day according to the weather. It’s like I’m living in frontier days. Then I come home and write in my blog.
Your thoughts?Rats! August 16, 2006
Posted by Niels in : How to, Personal , 2 commentsI found rat droppings on my floor this morning.  For most people, this would be very upsetting. But my apartment in Berkeley had rats for a little while, so I’m a seasoned pro.
It’s not easy to get rid of rats. Let’s consider the options:
- Snap traps. The classic trap, cheap and disposable. No one’s built a better mousetrap. But mice are little. Rats are big, and snap traps don’t always work. So you wake up in the morning to find a maimed rat dragging a bloody trap all over your nice clean floor. The traps themselves say to tie them down with a bit of wire. Not something I wanted to deal with.
- Glue traps. These are sick. Our landlord hired an exterminator, and this was what he brought. I went around after he left and threw them all away. Glue traps are just inhumane. With glue traps you wake up in the morning to find a rat covered in glue, ripping its hair out and half suffocated. You can close your eyes and throw it away live as the traps suggest, drop it in a bucket of water, or whack it with a shovel. Again, not for me.
- Poison. Yeah, the rats die. In your walls. And then they stink. And what if your neighbor’s cat eats the carcass?
- Live traps. Checking the trap four times a day and borrowing a car to chauffeur a rat each morning deep into the Berkeley hills wasn’t something I was willing to do.
After doing the research, I was just about ready to give up. There didn’t seem to be any good way to kill a rat. But then I discovered electronic rat traps. These are amazing! You put them on the ground, throw some rice inside, and flip a switch. When a rat wanders in, it gets hit with 12,000 volts of electricity. For a full minute. (Yeah, yeah, I know - It’s the volts what jolts, but it’s the mills what kills.)
Of course, you don’t see this. You just come down in the morning, see a little blinking LED, close your eyes and shake the trap into a paper bag which you throw in your trash can outside. Flip the switch and you’re ready to go again! There’s a few varieties, from the classic Rat Zapper 2000 to the Victor brand trap. The Rat Zapper can even be wirelessly networked. Electrical engineers - making the world a better place. Unless you’re a rat. Or a mouse. (Or, according to the Rat Zapper, a ground squirrel.)
I was zapping a rat or two a day for a little while. Electronic rat traps rock my world!
Some parting tips: Rats are incredibly smart and cautious. It’s crucial that you leave the trap off but baited for several days until the rats take the food every night. Then arm the trap and wait for morning. It also helps to put a damp paper towel outside the front entrance of the trap to get the rat’s feet wet.
Your thoughts?What’s the big idea? August 15, 2006
Posted by Niels in : Magazine , add a commentThe planning stage of the magazine continues. Craig and I are having no problem coming up with ideas for the editorial content of the magazine. That’s a really good sign. We’re aiming to have two years (12 issues) worth of content fleshed out by Thursday. If we’ve got that, the next step is putting a pilot issue together and formulating a business plan. It’s incredible how fast this is happening.
Once started, it cannot be stopped…
Your thoughts?Half-man, half-dog aberrations August 14, 2006
Posted by Niels in : Links , add a commentI just found this video of a dog that walks like a man. Faith the dog was born deformed, without functional front legs. She was adopted by some incredibly loving, patient people who taught her to walk on her hind legs. There’s video of her on the link I provided, and it really is an amazing sight.
Faith is presented as an inspirational example, which she is, but that wasn’t my initial reaction. My gut reaction was: creepy. I found the video really unsettling. There’s something intrinsically human about walking on two legs. We’re the only animals that naturally do it. Seeing a dog walking around on two legs blends its obvious dogness with a level of humanity that I’m not comfortable seeing in an animal.
It’s unnatural. But pretty darn cool.
Your thoughts?