The year the Dump died:14-15
“You can’t go to any website these days without someone mentioning Ebola. It’s nearly impossible to find non-ebola related stories to dump. I am going to try and let you escape the fear-mongering for a bit while I share with you some links that are ebola-free. That said, let me say “what up” and “how are you?” before we get started. ”
1. I bet that if I searched gmail, I've probably dumped close to 200 times. The majority of these dumps were filled with negative stories. It is simply the nature of the internet or at least the internet that I frequent that is wont to inform "us" of all the bad things happening. Let me attempt to rectify this in the final dump by sharing this story from Vox about 26 good things happening on the planet right now. For every" ISIS is running wild, watch out for MERS, Oh no not this" story, there are reminders that it's not all bad. We have more leisure time than we did in the past, fewer people smoke, teens have fewer babies. People, I know it's easy to think "We're all fucked. The world is literally fucked" because whoa there's some terrible stuff happening, but spend 6 minutes examining these charts and be momentarily swayed that maybe it's not all bad. Update 2020: Despite these charts, I take it all back. Everything is going wrong.
2. I used to be very good at talking. I'm not an extrovert but put me in the right place with the right people and I could hold a conversation with anyone. Living in Qatar has really crippled my ability to do this. I'm like James Caan in Misery after Kathy Bates takes the sledgehammer to his ankles. Banter used to be my walking, now I am left wondering, would it just better if we sat in silence? Rule of thumb, it's probably not better to be in silence. Conversation is so much fun. It's what debate is made of! It's how knowledge is spread. Conversation opens the mind to new ideas and entertaining stories. Kids these days spend all their time reading text messages. Trolling people on the internet, flirting with girls through instagram comments. Take a look around you, we're all on our phones. When we do talk, men grunt and women use vocal fry. Slate's Simon Doonan has some suggestions on how to bring back the era of good conversation Update 2020: After all us emerge from our social distancing, we may need some refreshers on how to talk to people again. You will have spent hundreds of hours on Zoom and on Google Hangouts making work decisions and sharing cocktails without going outside that we may need help figuring out what to say and how to say it.
3. Speaking of bad posture, back in 2013, I decided I was going to have better posture. It was my new years resolution. In 2014 I decided I was going to smile more. Neither of those really took, but every so often I'll catch myself slouching and scowling so I do what Ricky Rubio recommended and I change my face and straighten my back. Here are some fun poses that will improve your posture and according to scientists, could help you relax, be successful, get over a break-up, and negotiate.
Posture Update 2020: I used to be very flexible which I think mitigated the impact of how bad my posture is/was. Then I turned 30 and I continued having bad posture but stopped being so flexible. I still sit in weird positions, I just live to regret it longer.
4. A classic TL;DR situation here, but I figured I'd at least put it on you to make that decision. This is a story about the leader of the Men's Rights group "A Voice for Men." I didn't know this group existed. Last year there was an article in Saudi Arabia that basically went, "Men are the real victims here because women can get whatever they want because they are too seductive and use whispering." This guy who Buzzfeed profiles seems to have similar thoughts as well as thoughts about judges who rule against men in custody hearings. Pick out your favorite anecdote in this story and shoot me an email about it. Some men are the worst. Life isn't hard for us. We don't need Men's Rights groups. Come on.
Men's Rights are real? Update 2020: In googling the man profiled here, I found that he now has a website called “A voice for men” and it’s main editor is a woman who in the 1970s was the biggest feminist around. She has since then decided that feminism is a lie. She didn’t like the purity tests that had become commonplace in the movement and decided to strike a partnership with Men’s Rights activists. You can find her story here.
5. Ignorance is bliss. They say that. I ironically used the phrase “The More You Know” the other day in regards to something that was totally not necessary or helpful to know. But what if the more that I know only makes me more and more frustrated with everything? My dad says this all the time in regards to politics. He is so well-informed and thus so distraught by what is happening and then the frustration compounds when no one else seems to share his frustration because no one else knows what is going on. Here is an example of something that seems so far outside of my control and something that makes me so sad and something I sort of wish I had no idea about. If prefer ignorance, that’s cool, don’t click the link. I understand where you’re coming from, I truly do. But I won’t let you avoid the headline: Tanzania is Evicting the Maasai so Dubai’s Royal Family Can Hunt Lions and Elephants. Ugh. The more you know, right? Is there a point/counter-point to this that I am missing. Please, someone, go ahead, explain to me how this isn’t as terrible as it sounds. Update 2020: I can’t find much about this story to update it in anyway. I suspect it happened. I suspect the Emiratis paid a lot of money to someone to make it go away. All I can find is a Quartz story from 2018 saying that more land had been taken from the Masai to benefit Tanzania’s tourism industry (no mention of Emiratis though).
6. Two days ago, I penned something I hope makes an appearance in Reedsburg's local paper. My diatribe extolled the virtues of American hamburgers (specifically American Hamburgers as found at Culver's and Reedsburg's Touchdown Tavern). It was then interesting to find a story in Business Week about Burger King, a retailer of American Hamburgers. Did you know that the CEO of Burger King is 33 and that his CFO only 28? I am rapidly approaching both of those ages and I show no signs of taking over a global fast-food chain. I knew nothing about the history of BK before reading this story and now I know slightly more in addition to knowing that Burger King is one of the few restaurants in America at present whose sales and stock prices are increasing. I'm not suggesting you should go get your last order of Satis-fries (low-fat fries) before they take them off the menu, but I am saying consider getting an order of chicken fries because those things are delicious.
Burger King is 33 Update 2020: As I sift through old Dumps, every once in a while I find that I was truly onto something. Since Schwartz took over Burger King, it merged with Tim Hortons and Popeyes under the Restaurant Brands International label thanks to money thrown together by Warren Buffet. The stock doubled from $50 per share to over $100 (before tumbling in recent days). Selfishly, I am not sure why we do not have any Popeyes in Qatar. We have many Tim Hortons. We have many Burger Kings. Why no Popeyes? The Burger King mentioned above is now 38 and is the Executive Chairmen of RBI. He holds no degree higher than his Bachelor’s of Science.
7. Living in Qatar, I’ve grown awfully familiar with 55 second elevator rides up to my 33rd floor apartment. At least twice a day (save for those days I don’t make it outside on account of the heat, or the sinus infections) I wait for one of four elevators to whisk me home, or send me away. Last year I read about the technology that would allow us to send elevators to previously unreachable heights (http://tinyurl.com/odr4oco) and now I am starting to read about buildings that are going to make the Sears Tower (Sears Tower For Life) look like a four-story walk up. One such building is called “Kingdom Tower” and it’s currently being constructed in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Originally slated to be a mile high, the Saudis had to settle for only 1km high which simply doesn’t roll off the tongue as nicely as “A mile high” but hey, beggars, choosers. For more details about said building, click here:
Kingdom Tower Facts Update 2020: This is not completed yet. Sources differ in when it’s supposed to be done, as construction halted in 2018. Wikipedia tells me 2024; an Egyptian news story from 2019 tells me 2020. I would bet closer to 2024. Also in my search to update this tale, I see that Dubai has decided to try its hand at completing another tall tower. Fun aside: Burj Khalifa— still the world’s tallest building— located in Dubai, is named after Khalifa who actually lives in Abu Dhabi. I won’t get too much into the politics of the emirates here but imagine if the midwest were one state, with many different counties ruled by powerful families. This would be like if the Chicago county had a big building named after Brett Favre. How did Dubai end up with a tower named after someone from their rival emirate? Money. Dubai ran out, and Abu Dhabi offered to pay as long as they got to name the building.
8. Are you pregnant, married, in a serious relationship, single but hookin' up? If so, then maybe you want to take a look at the hottest baby names for 2014. I know what you're thinking. How can they already know the hottest names for a year that hasn't even started yet, but this is the future we're living in, so just go with it. Eccentric Ancestor names are in! Boys names for Girls are so trendy! Literary heroes are finally en vogue. There are a lot of other suggestions in here, and if you're sick and tired of kids named Jacob (and lord knows I am) then let’s spice it up. Spices--also really in for 2014. Update 2020: Leen and I spent 9 months looking at names. I would read hundreds of names to her at a time. She would mostly ignore me and occasionally tune in if something caught her ear. This story from 2014 correctly predicts somethings such as Royal names taking off and Greek names being all the rage. It missed on a few too. It incorrectly predicted the end of the Aiden Zayden Jaden Caiden movement. They’re still fully immersed in the top 50s of lists. If you want to see what’s popular today, here’s what’s happening in 2020 baby name culture
