Guys, if you go home with a girl and she has a unicorn, do not be like “Hey, is that a real unicorn? Wow ... can we fuck on it?” For some reason, unicorn-owning chicks get really cranky when you do that.

Also, pro tip: if she owns a unicorn, she’s probably a virgin. Take it slow and be gentle.

For example, to reproduce the experience of being at the UK's Glastonbury Festival, set up a tent in your living room. Invite all your friends to set up their tents next to yours. Instruct some of your friends to come back late at night, shout loudly, and kick your tent repeatedly. Instruct others to have noisy sex or…

I have an aging Penguin paperback that reprints the 5BX plan. It also includes an "XBX plan for women". Women get 10 exercises (where men only get 5), and are expected to spend 12 minutes on it, instead of 11.

Go to the spider, thou sluggard. Consider its ways, and be wise. [Proverbs 6:6]

When I lived in Bangkok about ten years ago, particulate pollution in the air made black snot a regular feature of my life. Bangkok has been cleaned up a lot since then, but I'd bet that there are still other badly-polluted cities where black mucus is the rule.

You call it 'laziness'. I call it "conservation of energy".

If you do see an alpaca, it's probably time to stop drinking, or at least switch to beer.

Squarely in my neighborhood, so I have no excuse for not showing up. But if I do, then people will realize that I'm not really an alpaca. Do I dare risk unmasking myself?

"Oh my God! They're shooting at us!"
"It's OK. So long as they only use certain munitions fired from certain weapons at certain velocities at certain distances, we're perfectly safe. Didn't you read the brochure?"

Worth mentioning that if you've already forked over your $9.99 for Panic's Transmit, then you can get Prompt 2 as part of one of Apple's new bundles, and you only pay the difference between the price of the bundle ($16.99) and the $9.99 you already paid. Prompt 2 then comes in at $7 rather than $9.99.

Look for the…

I seriously question whether anyone taller than 4'6" can assume the brace position in a non-exit-row economy seat these days. I believe airlines make some concession to this fact by suggesting that taller passengers (i.e. anyone who isn't a midget) can rest their heads on the seat in front of them. I've tried this,…

I just say "Zero, please."

I started off by imagining the audience naked. Then I pictured my nervousness as sexual arousal. And then one thing just led to another and the next thing I knew I was face down in the parking lot with my hands cuffed behind my back and three big police officers kneeling on my head.

Boxer seems to get much less love than Mailbox (now owned by Dropbox), but the core ideas of the app seem to be very similar. One reason why I use Boxer (on iOS) rather than Mailbox is because it talks directly to IMAP servers, instead of requiring you to push all your mail through a third-party server, as Mailbox…

Definitely. As with any grammar checker, it's best viewed as giving suggestions rather than orders (spelign chekers r diffrnt, mosst ov th taim u shoold probbllly doo wott thay tel u). But I think I've already got my $5 worth from its help with the Difficult Letter that I'm currently struggling to write.

It's a nice little app, and I particularly appreciate its ability to handle Markdown. There are some rough edges though: the text display went squirrelly when I hit the bottom of the page and it had to scroll, and some of its rules seem a little simplistic. For example, when I typed "in residence", it encouraged me to…

"... except for stuff like first dates and job interviews".

Oh. Well, that would explain a few things.

Wikipedia has quite a good summary. Women are expected to make use of more polite forms (Japanese is full of status-related markers and honorifics), and to adopt a certain speech style. There are also specific words that are typically used by women but not by men.

Wikipedia has quite a good summary. Women are expected to make use of more polite forms (Japanese is full of…

On a similar note, some Western businessmen pick up much of their Japanese from hostesses in hostess bars, resulting in confusion and amusement when they try to speak. There are specific words, forms and speech styles in Japanese that are used only by women, so male foreigners who are only exposed to female speakers…

On a similar note, some Western businessmen pick up much of their Japanese from hostesses in hostess bars, resulting…

Deer ticks don't always bite immediately: they often take their time getting to where they want to bite. Showering or bathing after walking through long grass in high-risk areas may reduce your chance of being bitten. (A study found that runners were less likely to develop Lyme disease than hikers, possibly because…