Dylan Bolin

Delete your Internet history each time before you visit the site (temporary sites and cookies).

If you’ve ever visited an airline or travel site, it was probably to get a price on a particular trip. You get the price and go about your business. Maybe you decide to sleep on it before you pull the trigger.

The next day you return to the site, and, wait a second (3 seconds metric), the price is $50 more since yesterday. What happened?

The website decided to employ a little psychology.

You see, the website knew that you had returned (like walking back into a store at the mall), and it assumed that you were back to make a purchase. Then, it used the sales technique known as “catching a flying knife.”

In the stock market, “catching a falling knife” is the attempt to time a stock hitting bottom in terms of price. It’s so risky and rare that it’s like “catching a falling knife.” In sales, the salesman tries to get you to “catch a flying knife” using price and time.

If you see the price rising and hesitate making the purchase, you risk paying more. And the time of a sale also has a habit of “running out.” Creating manufactured scarcity is designed to force your hand, hopefully into making the purchase. 

But how did the website know it was you? Because when you visited the first time, it gave you “cookie.” While this may sound like a reward to you for visiting the site, in this case, it’s actually a reward for them.

Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with Internet cookies. They’re nothing more than little computer name tags that allow the site you’re visiting to treat you like a welcomed guest, which is nice.

But they do say to a travel website:  “Psst. This person was here yesterday.” Or a week ago, or a month ago. And the sales persons use that information to their advantage.

Hey, if you’re willing to pay $1500 dollars, maybe you’re also willing to pay $1595.

So deleting your Internet “cache” is like slipping the website a Cyber-Roofie.

With Internet Explorer, find “Tools” and then “Internet Options,” and you can delete from there.

I know that there are many other browsers out there, and if you have one of those, chances are you know this stuff already.

And if you own a Mac, you apparently don’t have to worry about “cookies” because, based on what I hear from friends who own a Mac, it’s too busy doing perfect and magical things like spitting out money covered in actual unicorn glitter so all the presidents look like David Bowie, and printing documents with “full release.” Honestly.

So to the rest of you…

Happy booking!

-Dylan

As mentioned in an earlier post, I’m something of a word nerd, which is why I was a little confused when I came across a colonial recipe for Thanksgiving turkey in a coffee table book.  It said:

“Behead the foul ‘ere you pluck a feather…”

Now, I had heard the term “behead” before, but, for some reason, reading it, it struck me as strange.  I couldn’t put my finger on why for the longest time, and then I saw a commercial for the BeDazzler, the item that will make a plain old denim jacket look like a fishing lure for just $19.95.

Surely the prefix “be-” couldn’t be correct for both, could it?  It’s commonly accepted that to behead something means to remove its head, yet in the case of the BeDazzler it means to add…dazzle.  So I looked it up and, sure enough, the prefix “be-” means: 

“1.  Completely; thoroughly; excessively.  Used as an intensive:  Bemuse”

By this definition, to behead a turkey would mean a) to make sure the turkey has plenty of heads, or b) to kill it via several sharp head butts, which, let’s face it, would be a hilarious way to kill a turkey.

But if “behead” does mean “to remove the head,” what happens to someone who is “beloved?”  Do you remove their love?  Are all those Valentine’s Day cards really meant as aggressive threats?

So I say we “dehead” our turkeys, and by all means DeDazzle your denim jacket; for God’s sake, you look like a Lumberjack Disco Ball.

-Dylan

I’m a word nerd.  You might say I’m “a Werd.”  Then again, if you said that, people would probably assume that you were saying “word,” and just be confused.

That’s how I know that the New Oxford American Dictionary has recently unveiled their 2009 Word of the Year.  Oxford Dictionary doesn’t reveal the process by which it’s chosen.  The highly-secretive, Mason-esque event occurs behind closed doors, and the results are only known when white smoke is released and two people at a sidewalk cafe request a different table.

Maybe you know the winning word, but if you don’t, let’s play a little game:  I’ll list the word and a definition with 4 of the other nominees and you see if you can guess.  Ready?

“Unfriend”-to remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.  I prefer “Unface.”  It implies some real conflict and and the chance of violence.

“Tramp Stamp”– a tattoo on the lower back, usually on a woman.  And trust me, ladies, it only gets sexier when you’re 40.

“Choice Mom”– a person who chooses to be a single mother.  Or chooses to get a Tramp Stamp at 40. 

“Death Panel”-a theoretical body that determines which patients deserve to live, when care is rationed.  I love this idea!  Please see:  “To the Sponsors of the Heath Reform Bill”

“Intexticated”-distracted because texting on a cellphone while driving a vehicle.  Okay, now they’re just making up Sniglets.

And the winner is:                Unfriend

They’ve already begun updating our culture.  Instead of “‘Til Death do us part,” wedding officiants are instructed to say:  “‘Til Life unfriends you.”  In the literary classic Lord of the Flies, Piggy is now “unfriended” by the boulder.  And Ken Burns has been ordered to alter the voice over in his highly-acclaimed P.B.S. series, The Civil War  to include the new word.  From now on, the Civil War is referred to as:  “A Nation Unfriended.”

Sadly, spell check has yet to catch up to this newest trend.

So welcome to the lexicon, “unfriend,” and may we be “unfriends” forever!

-Dylan

I can be a word nerd sometimes.  I think it stems from when I was a chubby, lonely kid.  I didn’t have many human friends so I spent most of my time reading books…and spinning in circles until I was dizzy; it was a really cheap high.

Besides, we live in a world now where reading has become a waste of time and, on the job, the source of lost productivity.

Nevertheless, every once in a while it’s still fun to talk about the etymology (which is either the study of bugs or words) of some of our popular words and phrases.  Today, it’s ”blockbuster.”

These days, the term “blockbuster” is used to describe nearly anything big, but it’s origins are fairly specific.  As you might expect, it was first used to describe a popular film.  But why?

Back in the day, theaters weren’t 24-screen google-plexes like we have today.  And they weren’t built in the middle of corn fields and always 40 minutes away no matter where you lived, dined or drank.  They occupied neighborhoods; they were Downtown.

As the throngs of movie-goers stood in line at the box office, often the line would wrap around the block.  And that’s where we got the word.

Today, you will invariably hear someone refer to a “blockbuster deal” or a “blockbuster contract.”  Well, unless people are waiting to see it, in a line that extends around the building, it’s really just a “lucrative deal” or an “outrageous contract.”  If we don’t care to see it, there will be no busted blocks.

-Dylan

Recently, my wife and her friend took a vacation to New Orleans.  When she returned, she brought back two bricks of Community Coffee.

Now, folks, I’m something of a coffee aficionado, by which I mean I drink a lot of it.  I’m not a coffee snob; I’ll just as happily guzzle a cup of $.99 gas station coffee as I will a cup of Kopi Luwak. 

What’s that you say?  You’ve never heard of Kopi Luwak?  That’s probably because you can’t afford it.  A pound of Kopi Luwak costs between $100 and $600 American.  Why so much?  Because the coffee berry, along with insects, small mammals, small reptiles, the eggs of nesting birds and other fruit, also happens to be the normal diet of the Asian Palm Civet, a cat-sized mammal, similar to a streamlined raccoon, native to South-east Asia and southern China.

 

The Asian Palm Civet eats the coffee berries, but the bean inside (the one we grind up) is not digested.  Kopi Luwak beans are harvested from the feces of the Asian Palm Civet.  It is believed that the enzymes from the civet’s stomach break down the proteins that give coffee its bitter taste.  The beans are then only lightly roasted as not to disturb the “complex flavors” that result. 

Needless to say, Asian Palm Civet poop is fairly rare which makes it valuable, ergo the premium price.  It’s probably also very expensive because of what went into the early Research and Development phase.  How much animal poop did they have to pick through before they found a nugget that didn’t taste like…well…poop when they combined it with hot water?  I highly doubt that they got it right the first time. 

Anyway, the claim to fame of Community Coffee is its infusion of chicory.  I will confess that when my wife told me this, I had no idea what chicory was, but it sounded hearty and robust.  At the very least, it was representative of New Orleans which automatically made the drinker world-wise and cosmopolitan.

In an attempt to flagrantly display my savior faire, at a recent family gathering, I subtly let slip to my mother-in-law that we were in possession of this amazing coffee.  What made it so amazing?  Why the chicory, of course.

“Doesn’t chicory grow by the side of the road?” she said.

“Well…um.  Does it?” I replied.

“I think it does.”

“Huh.  Well, whaddya know.”

So, later, I looked it up and, sure enough, chicory grows as a wild plant along the road side in Europe, the United States and Australia.  It’s also known as “blue sailors,” succory and coffeeweed.  So why would a coffee company add such a pedestrian plant to their product?  Well, I looked that up, too.

Turns out it came from a coffee shortage during the Civil War.  New Orleansians managed to extend their coffee supply by adding the ground and roasted root of the endive plant (chicory).

If only they had gone straight to the animal feces, today Community Coffee would be rolling in it; both poop and money.  The good news is that it’s never too late.  Surely there’s an animal out there whose digestive tract is perfect for the next great coffee.  I’m going to start with my dog.  Crappuccinos all around!

-Dylan

Hiya, friends.  I came across a little brain teaser that I’d like to share with you.  Via this Blog, I will attempt to read your mind.  Ready?

As you scroll down at a leisurely pace, answer the following questions as quickly as you can:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5+1?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2+4?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3+3?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1+5?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4+2?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, say “6″ as many times as you can in 15 seconds.  Then scroll down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, think of a vegetable.  Hold the image of this vegetable in your mind, and slowly scroll down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keep scrolling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is it a carrot?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ta Da!  If it was, thank you all very much for being amazed.  If not, you did it wrong.

 -Dylan

 

You know, rarely, in polite conversation, is it ever discussed where it goes when we go, but in this Blog, we’re going to go there.  Because today, I’d like to celebrate what I, for one, consider to be a much-maligned municipal service, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District or M.M.S.D.  I say much-maligned because it’s a service that we so often take for granted. 

Think about it:  When it comes to feeding ourselves we take responsibility for everything; we take responsibility for shopping, we take responsibility for preparing the food, we take responsibility for eating it, but when our bodies are done with it, that’s when we turn the responsibility over to someone else and expect that it will all be taken care of.  Now, if that someone were just some guy that came to your house every morning with a bucket, let’s call him the Pooperboy, you would thank him profusely and likely tip him handsomely, but because our human waste has no human face, we hate the idea of spending so much as a dime on it’s removal. 

As it is, we assume that when we flush the commode, a magical wizard turns our leavings into flowers and kittens and moonbeams.  Now, we all know that that isn’t true, but very few people stop to consider what does happen.

To do this, I’d like to track the journey of an adorable little guy called Terry the Turd-dle who gets flushed down the toilet of a typical suburban home.  If, like me, you watch a lot of discovery channel, you’ll know that turd-dles often participate in long, inspirational journeys which makes Terry perfect for this example.  So, (flush) down you go, Terry. 

Terry is now paddling down the household wastewater pipe, but, before long, Terry will enter a much bigger pipe.  Because this is the suburbs, it is likely called the sanitary sewer which is separate from the stormwater sewer.  If Terry had been flushed from a home in the city of Milwaukee, he would enter a combined sewer.  From here, it’s on to the water reclamation site. 

In the first stage, Terry and the wastewater around him enters preliminary treatment where screens and grates remove large objects.  If Terry squeezes through, he goes on to primary treatment where, if he’s heavy, he’s a sinker and if he’s light he’s floater, either way, his journey would end here.  But let’s say that Terry, determined little stinker that he is, makes it all the way to secondary treatment.  Here, Terry is attacked by tiny little microscopic “bugs” like bacteria, protozoa and Ryan Seacrest.  These bugs break down a majority of the organic material that remains, and this, I’m afraid, marks the end of Terry the Turd-dle.  But there’s good news. 

After the microscopic bugs eat Terry, they are cooked and dried into pellets and become a fertilizer called Milorganite, which makes your lawn lush and green and perfect for feeding to your next turd-dle.  Sunrise, Sunset.  The water that carried Terry is then disinfected before being discharged back into our Lake Michigan. 

The best of this water is then combined with barley, hops and yeast, and sold for $4.50 a cup at Summerfest.

It’s a tried and true process, but the trick is capturing all of the water and transporting it to either the Jones Island or Oak Creek facilities.  What many people don’t know is that just one inch of rain on M.M.S.D.’s service area equals 7.1 billion gallons of run-off.  Combine this with the wastewater from homes and businesses, and the M.M.S.D. becomes the classic I Love Lucy episode where Lucy and Ethel are working on the chocolate assembly line, and, when the conveyor belt starts moving too fast, end up having to stuff much of the chocolate in their mouths.  Replace the chocolate with sewage and you’ve got a fairly gross, but appropriate image of what the District has to deal with.  What to do? 

Well, you could build a series of strategically-placed tunnels, deep underground and capable of storing over 500 million gallons of this water until the water reclamation sites could get to it.  You could even call it the Deep Tunnel.  And, for entertainment purposes, you could also drop a hapless, part-time radio smart ass into one of them just to see what would happen. 

Well, folks, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that that’s how I found myself at 28th and Hampton, in Milwaukee, waiting at the top of a 320-foot hole in the ground, filling my pants with the future contents of one such tunnel.

 

I, along with M.M.S.D. Public Information Manager Bill Graffin and Geologist and Engineer Don Olson waited for a crane to hoist the ornament-shaped, heavy, metal cage that would serve as our transportation down into what seemed to me, anyway, to be a bottomless pit.

 

To put 320 feet into perspective, the next time you’re downtown, count up 32 sets of windows on the U.S. Bank building.  Now you may think:  What’s the big deal?  People take an elevator up 32 stories every day.  Yes, but the difference between taking an elevator up and an ornament-shaped, heavy, metal cage down is 1) the lack of pleasant elevator music, and 2) the Visitor Safety and Health Orientation Waiver that you need to sign.  Number One on the list was, and I quote:  “Air in the tunnel will be monitored at all times by the designated competent person.”  I know that they’re simply saying that someone is monitoring the air, but the phrase “designated competent person” implies that the “designated competent person” is somehow surrounded by several “nameless incompetent persons.”  This was certainly not the case, so maybe, in the future, they could change the wording on their waivers.   

Another rule dictated that I had to wear a hard hat, safety glasses, a reflective vest and steel-toed rubber boots; the mandatory uniform of the “sandhog.”  “Sandhog” is a slang term used for urban miners; the roughneck guys that excavate underground.  As the old saying goes:  “If it’s deeper than a grave, the sandhogs dug it.”  The sandhogs began in 1872 with the building of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, and even participated in World War II when they dug the tunnel in Hogan’s Heroes that ended at the stump outside of Colonel Klink’s barracks.  You can always tell a sandhog by his handsome, rugged face, chiseled physic and his ability to intimidate doughy, part-time reporter guys into writing glowing reviews of the sandhogs in their Blogs.

When the cage arrived, I was surprised to see how small it was.  It could accommodate 2 people comfortably, 3 people uncomfortably and 4 people if you didn’t mind a “Walk of Shame” the next morning.  Maybe that’s what all the protection was about.

After a 30-second descent, we were standing in the Deep Tunnel.  It was a lot like a subway tube if you’ve ever seen one of those. 

Don the geologist was trying to convey interesting information, like the fact that the rock this deep was roughly 425 million years old and was formed back when the area that we know as Wisconsin was actually at the bottom of the ocean and near the Earth’s equator, but it was falling on deaf ears. 

For me, the excited 12-year-old in my brain had already taken over, and I was asking hard-hitting, journalistic questions like:  “Is the tunnel haunted because you disturbed an ancient Indian burial ground?  And Where are all the dinosaur skeletons? And “How does Batman get the Batmobile down here?”  As it turns out, for all of the science behind its creation and the benefits it offers us surface dwellers, the Deep Tunnel is really just a long, deep, dark, dirty hole…and I mean that in the best possible way.

To date, the Deep Tunnel Project has kept over 76 billion gallons of waste water from polluting Lake Michigan, it’s one of the best wastewater programs in the country, but only the overflows make the news, and in this is the M.M.S.D. conundrum.  They could build Deep Tunnels until the overflows numbered virtually zero, but that means higher taxes, and that’s a pretty tough sell.  Whether we consider it a right or a convenience, clean water costs money.

But believe it or not, there are things that we can do personally to dramatically reduce the wastewater that M.M.S.D. has to deal with.  On average, with washing, drinking and flushing, each of us uses about 65 gallons of water a day.  Just two things you can do to conserve water are:  Take shorter showers and turn off the water when you’re brushing your teeth or shaving.  Or, like the sandhogs, you can eliminate showering and shaving altogether.  And if any of the hogs read that, I might be returning to Phase Three of the Deep Tunnel very soon, and this time, my stay will be considerably longer.

-Dylan

If you’re on Facebook (which I am), no doubt you’ve been tagged to share 25 Random Things about yourself.  This chain tag is so prolific that Time Magazine has actually covered it.  It has all the charm of a chain letter except that a) you know exactly who sent it to you, b) there’s no promise of good fortune if you complete it and c) there’s no veiled curse if you don’t. 

What most people don’t know is that Facebook sells access to your profile and information to advertising firms who use the information to better target their marketing.  But the fact is that most people don’t care; they’re just happy that someone is interested in them. 

Because I have a website of my own, I decided to publish those 25 Random Things here instead of giving the website hits to Facebook.  I also won’t tag anybody else.

1.  For the better part of my character-building childhood, I had long hair and was mistaken for a girl.

2.  We had a blue Chevy truck/van without a middle seat, so my parents would sit me in a wooden chair and belt it to the chassis.  Don’t believe me?

3.  We were pretty poor so most of my clothes were hand-me-down.  Case in point:

4.  However, for my first day of sophomore year in High School (1985), I wore black parachute pants, a black and blue striped button-down and a thin leather tie.  Sorry, no photos exist of those heady days.

5.  Also as a boy, I was attacked by a (herd?/flock?/pride?) of pigs.

6.  Again as a boy, I thought that bears lived in the septic tank so, when I had to go #2, I was quick about it.  Lifting the lid alerted them to my presence, while I went they were organizing to come up through the pipes and when I flushed, it sent them back down from whence they came.

7.  I had a subscription to Ranger Rick Magazine.  While other kids had pages from Tiger Beat on their walls, I had pictures of actual tigers.

8.  I did stand up for the first time in fifth grade.  It was supposed to be a puppet act, but I was so terrified that the puppet (a snake named “Clyde”) glommed onto the microphone while I told one joke.  Exhibit A:

9.  I learned to read at a very young age and subsequently wanted to be a writer.  My first gig was re-writing the Story of Star Wars album verbatim on an old typewriter.

10.  I have an extra tendon in my left arm.

11.  I ran away from home several times and when I was 17, it finally stuck.

12.  As a child, I was allergic to cow’s milk, so I had to drink goat’s milk.

13.  According to my grandmother, we were descended from the same line as Anne Boleyn.  Not Anne herself of course as her failure to produce a male heir to Henry VII famously cost her her head.

14.  I saw my first professional baseball game at Wrigley Field in 1979.  The Cubs played the (then) Montreal Expos.  I got one of those mini, souvenir bats and hit marbles with it because I thought the sound was just like that of a real bat hitting a baseball.   

15.  Like a dog, I’ve always been kind of scared of vacuum cleaners.

16.  I’ve never come in first place for anything.  Ever.

17.  The first album that I bought for myself was a 45 of Styx Too Much Time on My Hands.

18.  I skipped kindergarten so I’ve always been the youngest person in my class.

19.  I’m a sushi fiend.

20.  I was once Employee of the Month at Wendy’s on east Capitol Drive.  Had my name on the sign and everything.

21.  I was once an A.B.O. Certified Optician.  While I’m sure my certification has lapsed, I still know what I’m doing.

22.  I have owned some fairly exotic pets including several snakes, anoles and a tarantula.  I ended up leaving the tarantula with my grandmother and, when it died, not wanting to hurt my feelings, she told me (God as my witness, this is true) that she gave it to a nice farm family.  A Tarantula frolicking in a rolling pasture!  Awesome!

23.  The first play I was in was Stone Soup.  The reviews were stellar.

24.  I actually ordered Sea Monkeys off the back of a comic book.  Guess what?  They’re not monkeys at all but rather Brine Shrimp.  They also don’t wear bikinis.

25.  In middle school, I built a “tornado machine.”  To be fair, it was technically a ”hurricane machine,” but it was still pretty cool.

So there you go.  25 Random Things.  Coincidentally, there’s absolutely nothing else interesting about me.

-Dylan

As I was making breakfast this morning and cracking the eggs into the pan, I got to thinking.  Whenever I buy eggs, I like to buy the Extra Large eggs.  Maybe it’s because I’m a big guy and everything else I buy is Extra Large, too.  But then I started to wonder:  “How do we get Extra Large eggs?”

I mean, they aren’t from Extra Large chickens.  There’s not a breed of three-foot chickens out there to provide us with their Extra Large, delicious, unfertilized young.  God help us if there were.  So that means that all different sizes of eggs come from the same orifice of the same bird that we call “chicken,” right?  So how do eggs come to be different sizes?  Does it remain in the chicken for just a little longer?  When the chicken lays an Extra Large egg, did the chicken just try harder?

Well, it’s questions like these to which you had no idea you need the answers, and that’s what I’m here for.

It turns out that there are different breeds of chickens, and some are predisposed to squeeze out larger eggs.  Other factors include the age of the chicken, the size of the chicken and the surroundings in which the chicken was raised.  For instance, your upper middle-class, private school chickens will generally lay larger eggs, but lobby their elected officials for egg tax relief so they get to keep more.  Most of the egg burden is placed directly on the feathered backs of the lower-class, public school chickens who are trying to keep enough eggs just to raise a family.  It doesn’t help that we keep harvesting their family for omelets.

And speaking of omelets, I would like to provide another quick public service.  One night, my wife and I cooked up some chicken breasts for dinner and had some left over.  The next morning, I thought it would be a fine idea to put them in an omelet.  So there I was, mixing the meat from a chicken in with a potential chicken.  I don’t recommend this.

It didn’t necessarily taste bad, but it did taste very, very wrong.

-Dylan

“Three sheets to the wind” is a phrase that is commonly used to describe drunkenness.  Like most phrases and idioms of today, it has a nautical origin.  Sailors have their own language.  It’s as if, when they were babies, their parents carried them around, pointed at things and said words that had nothing at all to do with the things that they were pointing at.

If I told you that a boat contained several “sheets,” you would probably assume that I was referring to the sails.  After all, if you looked around your house for something with which to make a sail, you’d likely use a bed sheet.  That makes perfect sense…and would immediately identify you to any Old Salt as a “Landlubber.”  In nautical terms, the sheets are the ropes or chains that afix the sails to the deck.  Also, it’s important to know that the original version of “three sheets to the wind” was “three sheets in the wind.”

If one sheet (rope) came unfastened, the sail would flutter.  If two sheets came unfastened it was worse, and “three sheets in the wind” would make the ship bob and roll like a drunken sailor, which is how the phrase came to be.

And speaking of:  The other night, in a fit of alcoholic inspiration/desperation, I concocted the worst drink ever to sully the gullet of a man on this planet:  Windsor Canadian Whiskey and Pink Lemonade.  I call it the ”Frilly Canuck.”  I will say, however, that, as far as drinks go, it’s a very consistant beverage…by which I mean it tastes exactly the same going down as it does coming up.

-Dylan