Blog Archives
Eat the Whole Bag, Realistic Advice For a World On Fire
Eat the whole bag, because let’s be honest, that bag of chips is all you can afford for dinner. Guess you shouldn’t have bought that Starbucks as you rushed between jobs.
Finally, the inspirational book of life advice we all really need to survive the dumpster fire our world has become!
Because if you’ve survived high school without getting shot to death by a classmate, and survived college without drinking yourself to death or getting shot to death by a classmate, then you deserve to eat the whole damn bag of chips.
Chances are you’re going to grad school now because that’s what you were conditioned to do. And since you have zero financial literacy and don’t realize you’ll be graduating with tens of thousands of dollars in student debt that will financial and emotionally cripple you for the rest of your life—if you manage to survive grad school without getting shot to death by a classmate or random stranger at Walmart. So go ahead, live a little; eat the whole damn bag of chips.
Go ahead and eat that whole damn bag of chips, because you’re going to spend the rest of your life working six jobs and still earn less than your parents. And through it all you’ll blame yourself, having been raised under the false assumption that if you had just worked harder everything would be ok.
It won’t.
So go ahead and eat the whole damn bag….
After all, the planet is going to literally cook us all alive next week so that the ten people who control 99% of the world’s resources can buy another 100,000 square foot house they’ll never visit.
The updated edition also includes the essays:
“Coffee Will Kill You Instantly…. And Other Things We’ll Tell You the Exact Opposite of Next Week”
“Red Wine Will Cure Your Coffee Cancer…. And Other Things We’ll Tell You the Exact Opposite of Next Week”
“Avocado Toast Is Why You’re Poor”
“10 Things Millennials Have Ruined Because Wages Are Half of What They Were 40 Years Ago”
“Suck It Up, A Cure-All Guide to Mental Health”
“Your Insurance Only Covers WebMD; You Have Cancer”
…and a new poem from Lewis Black called “You’re All Fucked! / Love, Baby Boomers”
The original cover this post is based on is for “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish”, a collection of inspirational essays from Penguin Books. Based on those who contributed to the book, I have no doubt that these essays are full of actual positive advice from social, political, and cultural icons who have dedicated their lives to fighting for the very things I’ve mocked with my fake inspirational advice book and the essay titles included. For anyone who didn’t find this funny, I’m sorry; I was being foolish, and I was very hungry at the time.
However, I fully support eating the whole bag of chips.
Here’s the publisher’s blurb for “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish”:
“Graduation day is a pivotal moment. After a lifetime of learning, and at least three years of studying, we’re thrown headfirst into the unknown world of adulthood.
That day – and the months afterwards – are full of possibilities. They can feel thrilling and rudderless, dreamy yet terrifying but it’s the perfect time to reflect on the past and look at what’s still to come.
In this collection of carefully curated speeches, Barack Obama, Gloria Steinem and Tim Minchin and many more share their advice for graduating students who have gone on to shape the world we live in. This little collection is perfect for anyone seeking inspiration, no matter which life stage they’re at.”
And just so we’re being completely honest with each other, I just ate an entire bag of chips while writing this.
Double Spacing and the Legacy of Roy Hobbs
Mar 26
Posted by mattS
It seems to be a rather divisive topic too. Check out the original article and let me know what you think. Most of the comments were people asserting that they were, in fact, still alive, which I take to mean they are still double spacing after a period and take great offense to the author’s presumption all double spacers have died out with Roy Hobbs.
Personally, the double space as a habit pops up more so when I’m typing on a keyboard. Sadly, most of my writing these days is done on my phone simply as a matter of convenience. I write in very, very short bursts when I can, since like most of you, I’m usually doing twelve other things. When I end a sentence therefore and hit the space bar twice on my phone, it will insert a period and single space before auto-capitalizing for next sentence. The old double space isn’t an problem for then, but if I’m typing on a keyboard, I’m constantly going back to delete unnecessary spaces.
And they are unnecessary. There’s an entire Wikipedia entry devoted the history, evolution and misconceptions of the double space. Its a riveting story; Amazon already bought the rights to it, so extra spacing should be exclusive to Prime members soon. You can debate it all you like, but despite your Facebook comments, civilized society has established the rules of the new world order of typesetting already. Quite a while ago, actually. According to the Complete Manual on Typography from 2003, “The typewriter tradition of separating sentences with two word spaces after a period has no place in typesetting” and the single space is “standard typographic practice”.
The Elements of Typographic Style from around the same time also advocates a single space between sentences. They also said, “your typing as well as your typesetting will benefit from unlearning this quaint [double spacing] Victorian habit”.
In the cutthroat world of typography that may be about as close to a mic drop as it gets.
So for anyone clinging to their double spaces, now you’ll have to adjust your monocle and yell, “Take that, Reginald!” every time you maniacally double space.
Despite the typographic mic drop and the fact that the Daily Mash article was a joke, (and that Roy Hobbs is not real) the debate over redundant spacing rages on and certainly isn’t limited to one grammatical/typographic quirk. Several people saw fit to drag the Oxford comma into it, although there’s no word on what Roy Hobbs had to say on that matter
For a limited time you can support a cause dear to Roy’s heart by purchasing your very own official Roy Hobbs’ commemorative “Make America Double Spaced Again.” hat.
Share this post
Like this:
Posted in Comments, Culture, Writing
Leave a comment
Tags: Amazon, daily mash, double space, facebok, Facebook, hugh howey, make america, make america double spaced again, mic drop, prime, roy hobbs, satire, single space, typesetting, typewriter, typography, Wikipedia, zazzle