This is My Fake News Story for 2016

Suppliers face country-wide pallet shortage as Pinterest users increase demand.

The Nazareth Pallet Company has released a report recently that states the U.S. will face a serious shortfall in pallet production by the end of 2017. A spokesman for the company, who asked to remain anonymous on the grounds that he “does not want people knocking down his door for pallets,” has said the shortage stems from several factors, but points to one major cause overall.

When asked what that cause was, he offered only one word, “Pinterest.”

Pinterest, a popular social media site that allows users to “pin” articles and images they come across on the internet, has spawned an insatiable appetite in the United States for pallets. Debbie Spatz, a mother of 3 that lives in Pocatello, ID, is an avid Pinterest user, and has amassed over 200 pallets, which she keeps in her garage. Debbie, who has yet to complete any of the projects she has “pinned” on the popular site, says that she “just doesn’t know when she’ll need [the pallets], and so likes to keep them on hand,” that way she can use them when needed. She has plans to make a coffee table, two side tables, 2 night stands, a headboard, a miniature windmill, 4 dog houses (she has no dogs), and a topogan out of the pallets.

A follow up with the source from NPC had this to say about Debbie and others that use the popular internet site; “It’s just insane. There are whole companies that make furniture you can build yourself all over the place, and that furniture is also made out of cheap, crappy wood. Why go through all the effort to steal - or for God's Sake BUY - pallets? They’re mostly used for shipping cheap crap to cheap stores. Can’t they just get furniture from Ikea?”

Ikea is a Swedish company that makes furniture that customers must build themselves, often after a customer's significant other has insisted that they need it. Ikea furniture is also made from cheap wood, much like pallets.

As of this writing, NPC and other suppliers of pallets fully expect to need to increase production by 300% over the next year to meet the demand that has been created by people who use Pinterest, a feat that they feel may be beyond their capacity. The source at NPC did state, however, that if they could get the pallets back that people have taken but have not done anything with, they would have a surplus of nearly 150%, though he does not see that happening.

“They are just nuts. They just go out, collect pallets, and then sit on them forever. I don’t get it.”

***Jason doesn't write for anyone but himself, his wife, his 2 sons, and their cat. He also uses Pinterest, and sometimes thinks about building that 'really cool' mini-windmill he saw on there once***

A Few Internet Sites Didn't Like This, So I'm Sharing It With You.

6 Hobbies Dads of Young Boys Can Legitimately Have

            When men become fathers, many of their favorite past-times get forced out of their lives into oblivion. Despite the boundless joys one experiences as a parent (read: mind numbing drudgery punctuated by moments of blind rage/unfathomable exhaustion) there exists a real void where productive and entertaining hobbies used to exist. Gone are the days of quietly whittling a bird house/functioning mini windmill out of the abundant raw wood you painstakingly collected on multiple day long hikes in the woods. No, with those little rugrats taking up a great deal of your valuable man time, you need some more realistic options.

1.    Wine Tasting

Us men no longer have the time to head out to the bars at a fresh 1 pm and get turnt. 1) We are now responsible for one or more (I routinely lose count) young and impressionable children. Our hobbies have to accommodate for that. Wine tasting is an upscale and responsible alternative and still completely acceptable in the middle of the day if you are either wearing a sweater vest or it’s sunny outside. 2) We should also consider hobbies that we can share with our significant others, ‘cause we’re in this together! Wine is the great harbinger of amiable relationships, and if your significant other doesn’t like wine, you can have their portion and they’ll appreciate your willingness to include them in your hobby.

2.      Hide and Seek

At first, it may seem as though Hide and Seek would be more of a family pastime, but for the right man, it can be a fulfilling solo creative hobby. Imagine the lessons you could teach your children – especially after an hour long tantrum about the way their pineapple slices are arranged on their plate - if they were unable to find you for days. You would get to truly tap into the ingenuity that was your best friend in college while playing How To Pass This Test Without Studying, and your kids will get a fantastic life lesson regarding attachment disorder and how to avoid it in the future.

3.      Reading

Remember when you and your significant other had nothing but epic amounts of passion filled physical release? That was great. These days, with sweet little cherubim rightfully drawing the bulk of your attention, you’ll need to find a hobby that helps abate thoughts that don’t include bath time strategies and grilled cheese recipes (hint: crust is not an ingredient). Staring at words on a page/screen that happen to be right next to some tasteful pictures of people just like you enjoying the art of making more cherubim is a fantastic way to pass time that would otherwise be spent bugging your sweetly sleeping significant other. If you also happen to be tired, there is plenty of reading material that forgoes the hassle of letters and words and allows you to just enjoy the purity of image.

4.      Racquetball

Racquetball is an enjoyable sport that burns a ridiculous amount of calories, keeping you in shape.

5.      Open an etsy shop

While it’s not something that most would have spring to mind if asked about manly hobbies, an etsy shop could give you hours of productive fun. Etsy is a great place to not only let the world finally see your lacquered PBR can belt buckles, but you could also earn anywhere between -$12.60 and $0 for only like 47 hours of laborious, detail oriented work. It’s also another great entry on this list that you could share with your kids, cause if it takes off, someone is going to have to help you finish those PBRs, and kids are great at drinking and eating things they “haven’t liked since they were babies and now I’m a big kid and I don’t like it.”

6.      Invent a time machine

You’re probably expecting me to say something about going back and stopping yourself from having children. Don’t be ridiculous! You’re going to use that time machine to throttle yourself into the future so that you can scare the holy-living-crap out of your grandchildren in the middle of the night as you enjoy your latest hobby, late-night-god-awful-payback. You’ll also enjoy the opportunity to really mess with your now grown children as you completely rearrange the furniture in their house and throw absolutely every single piece of everything they own onto the floor moments after they have finished cleaning and left the house to go to the store. It’ll be a blast.

I ran out of time

I'm sure at some point life will allow me to catch you (I have to keep my fan base of tens satiated). Until then, here's a post I wrote for another site that they ultimately rejected. Fools.

6 Hobbies Dads of Young Boys Can Legitimately Have

            When men become fathers, many of their favorite past-times get forced out of their lives into oblivion. Despite the boundless joys one experiences as a parent (read: mind numbing drudgery punctuated by moments of blind rage/unfathomable exhaustion) there exists a real void where productive and entertaining hobbies used to exist. Gone are the days of quietly whittling a bird house/functioning mini windmill out of the abundant raw wood you painstakingly collected on multiple day long hikes in the woods. No, with those little rugrats taking up a great deal of your valuable man time, you need some more realistic options.

1.      Wine Tasting

Us men no longer have the time to head out to the bars at a fresh 1 pm and get turnt. 1) We are now responsible for one or more (I routinely lose count) young and impressionable children. Our hobbies have to accommodate for that. Wine tasting is an upscale and responsible alternative and still completely acceptable in the middle of the day if you are either wearing a sweater vest or it’s sunny outside. 2) We should also consider hobbies that we can share with our significant others, ‘cause we’re in this together! Wine is the great harbinger of amiable relationships, and if your significant other doesn’t like wine, you can have their portion and they’ll appreciate your willingness to include them in your hobby.

2.      Hide and Seek

At first, it may seem as though Hide and Seek would be more of a family pastime, but for the right man, it can be a fulfilling solo creative hobby. Imagine the lessons you could teach your children – especially after an hour long tantrum about the way their pineapple slices are arranged on their plate - if they were unable to find you for days. You would get to truly tap into the ingenuity that was your best friend in college while playing How To Pass This Test Without Studying, and your kids will get a fantastic life lesson regarding attachment disorder and how to avoid it in the future.

3.      Reading

Remember when you and your significant other had nothing but epic amounts of passion filled physical release? That was great. These days, with sweet little cherubim rightfully drawing the bulk of your attention, you’ll need to find a hobby that helps abate thoughts that don’t include bath time strategies and grilled cheese recipes (hint: crust is not an ingredient). Staring at words on a page/screen that happen to be right next to some tasteful pictures of people just like you enjoying the art of making more cherubim is a fantastic way to pass time that would otherwise be spent bugging your sweetly sleeping significant other. If you also happen to be tired, there is plenty of reading material that forgoes the hassle of letters and words and allows you to just enjoy the purity of image.

4.      Racquetball

Racquetball is an enjoyable sport that burns a ridiculous amount of calories, keeping you in shape.

5.      Open an etsy shop

While it’s not something that most would have spring to mind if asked about manly hobbies, an etsy shop could give you hours of productive fun. Etsy is a great place to not only let the world finally see your lacquered PBR can belt buckles, but you could also earn anywhere between -$12.60 and $0 for only like 47 hours of laborious, detail oriented work. It’s also another great entry on this list that you could share with your kids, cause if it takes off, someone is going to have to help you finish those PBRs, and kids are great at drinking and eating things they “haven’t liked since they were babies and now I’m a big kid and I don’t like it.”

6.      Invent a time machine

You’re probably expecting me to say something about going back and stopping yourself from having children. Don’t be ridiculous! You’re going to use that time machine to throttle yourself into the future so that you can scare the holy-living-crap out of your grandchildren in the middle of the night as you enjoy your latest hobby, late-night-god-awful-payback. You’ll also enjoy the opportunity to really mess with your now grown children as you completely rearrange the furniture in their house and throw absolutely every single piece of everything they own onto the floor moments after they have finished cleaning and left the house to go to the store. It’ll be a blast.

My Lungs Have Roots and Other Observations Made While Zenning Out

If you've been following me (thanks, you) then you know that last week, I essentially gave up on day 1 of my 6 month adventure in a big way. Let's all agree to forgive me for that. Great, thanks. I am now approaching this all just a bit differently - much like the old adage about drinking water through a fire-hose, I should have known going into this 'project' that attempting to add not one, but 6 new positive habits, all on the same day, was a fool's errand. Yeah, I said fool's errand, cause I can shake-a-speare. I took a step back, and decided to gradually (kind-of) add these habits one at a time, one week at a time, like proper little habits that have good manners and don't piss all over the floor.

This week, I went with an "easy" one; writing in a journal for at least 5 minutes per day. My first problem was, in the grander scheme of things, rather sad. I hated calling it a journal, or even internally saying to myself "I should get some journaling done." It turns out my sensitive modern self was having some very 1960's era chauvinist mental hang-ups. 'Journaling' just felt too much like writing in a diary, which we all know is something 16 year old girls do to let out their frustration that all guys named Taylor are so hot, but they always like the popular girls. I have always, sometimes embarrassingly, been connected to my emotions, yet somehow, the act of putting some of my thoughts - which in the beginning were not even that intimate - on paper made me feel like a giant wuss. It angers me that I could be such an ape; I'm not some closed off patriarch who says nothing for fear of displaying anything as weak as compassion, or, heaven forbid, any emotion other than stoic. If you're wondering, stoic is an emotion if, and only if, your emotional range runs from John Wayne to Clint Eastwood.

I moved past my hang up in a couple ways; I stopped detailing the frustrations of my day in my journal, which served to put some distance between me and all those sensitive nancy-pants in the world. And two...well I just kinda pounded down my ridiculous misplaced chauvinism until it quietly went back to its whiskey corner. The result was immense; I wrote about things that plague my mind, but I never take time to flesh out and breathe life into. At one point, after actually putting thought into what I was writing and exploring - gasp - my inner world, I realized how much I used the internet throughout the day to stave off any moment of stillness and quiet. Got 4 minutes before that next meeting? Get on Facebook! Can that spreadsheet wait? Of course! Read this article about sex positions that ducks use and how mimicking them can increase your level of midi-chlorians!

Once I wrote it out, and gave that thought the space it needed to run free, I was able to frame it in a way that I felt I could act on it. The next day at work I was able to avoid the mindless clicking of the internet and occasionally enjoy the few moments where I had nothing to do. Outside of my regimented meditation in the middle of the day, this was the best part of my work day and increased the amount of focus I experienced. On the downside, I never found if the duck sex positions increased my Jedi powers.

The other benefit came from a daily list of 5 things I was grateful for that day. Once I moved past being a giant nerd jerk, I was able to actually thank the universe, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, for things both simple and grand. A hug from a kiddo at the end of the day held equal weight with having a roof over my head and food in my belly. Despite my reluctance to admit it, that 45 seconds of gratitude at the end of my day that was manifested physically has served to reinforce a quickly strengthening positive outlook. Rest your eyes if you plan on being around me any time soon, cause they'll be rolling all over the place since I won't be able to stop telling you about how happy I am with Mother Earth and how I can feel my spirit centering. It turns out having a diary is exactly what I needed to remind me that my brain is capable of more than single-snorting at gifs of cats falling off of tables. 

And Taylor is so hot.

Week One: Your Strength is Weak

I'm usually really good at commitment. Following through on promises to myself is something I excel at; eating the last piece of pizza, watching 'only one more' episode of whatever happens to be assailing my senses, and actually brushing each 1/4 section of my mouth for the full 30 seconds. I'm not afraid of, nor do I shy away from, commitment. I'm the best friend of the lead in a Rom Com in the flesh; married with kids and totally excited by green smoothies and "sleeping in" until 0730. So, when I found my list of 8 (really 7, since I'm already married to my best friend) I kinda thought it'd be pretty easy, though slightly time consuming. I've never been more dead wronger in the history of wronginess. Despite the fact that I now suspect that the Internets' obsession with lists that can be consumed  in a mere 30 seconds is not a reflection of our short attention spans, but is in fact a government driven effort to program us all to convince us that substance is overrated.

*Insert meme of Admiral Ackbar yelling "It's a trap," here*

Just kidding - I'm not going to use meme's cause it takes a lot of effort and I don't need the rest of the world to speak for me.

Needless to say, displaying my epic failure in this, the first week of my 6 month project, would best be done in a list.

1. Meditate (or pray) morning, mid-day, and night.

Before this silly little experiment started, I meditated fairly regularly. Not the "ooooohhhhmmmm-you-must-first-see-yourself-in-the-glass-before-you-can-understand-the-universe," kind of meditation, but at the very least I would close my eyes, focus on my breathing and feeling my body and, to some extent, quiet my mind. I often did this at lunch, while at work, in my office, just for 10 minutes away from the hectic IT-MUST-ALL-BE-DONE-NOOOOOOOOW!!!! mentality of, well, everywhere. I also did it at night - a gentle voice talking over some gentle rain would gently talk me down into a gentle sleep. So far, so good.

When it was time to start adding it to my morning routine, my first thought was "that's cake...10 minutes. I can poop, shower, and shave in 10 minutes." It turns out that yes, I can do those 3 things in 10 minutes (it's usually 3 s's, you figure it out), but adding meditation to the list - something where I would close my eyes within an hour of just getting up - became much more difficult than I expected. I was so terrified of falling back asleep and not getting up until noon, that I found myself walking around with my eyes forced wide open, like some paranoid comic relief in a horror movie on the look-out for zombies/aliens/clowns/killer puppies.

In short, on average I'm 2 for 3 for the whole week, with only a slight increase in making sure that I hit my noon-ish 10 minute calm session.

2. Read or listen to 1 (ok, 1/2) book per week.

One issue here - the people these lists are based off of are mostly already rich. I'm sure I should use some kind of euphemism for rich, but screw it, they're rich. That means they are part of the leisure class, meaning, they have more time for leisure, ie reading. I bet Warren Buffet reads 9000 books a week because his work day consists of one phone call in which he loudly insists that he "said fusia, not purple, you degenerate," and then he goes back to his Kanye West biography (he's a big fan). I base this information off nothing more than the fact that I'm really good at assuming things. Here's the kicker - I finished a whole book, end to end, in one week the week before I started my challenge. Now that I'm in the middle of putting my money where my mouth is (which was one book every two weeks, cause I'm a wimp) I'm a little behind. I tend to read a few books at a time, taking a month or so to wade my way through 3 books, that usually fall in the following categories; novel, non-fiction, classic. Before this adventure began, I was reading; "The Child Garden," by Geoff Ryman (some pretty twisted/really good sci fi (insert pause for eye role), "The New Confessions of an Economic Hitman," (there really is a global conspiracy!), and "Moby Dick," which I'm pretty sure is a love story about techno-music or something. Now that I'm on a mission to read, at the very least, I have been focusing on one book (Confessions of an Economic Hitman) and I can say honestly that I feel guilty about leaving my other books just sitting there, calling out to be read. But isn't that the whole point of this? I increase my level of guilt which releases dopamine in my brain which increases my level of overall happiness, right? I might be missing something.

3. Write in your journal 5 minutes a day.

I did this....4 out of 7 days. Let's just say I get the value of pouring my heart out on the page, but everyday seems a bit...emo. Most of this writing consisted of a laundry list of what I did that day, which makes me feel like I'm missing the point. I also added a list of 5 things I'm grateful for that day (Lists!).

4. Marry your best friend,

Again, done and done.

5. Make a bucket list and actively knock things off of it.

I have finally started writing a bucket list, but once again I find myself just trying to find 4 minutes in my day to even think of things I would want to put on this list. Thus far there are a lot of things that tend towards activities that could release some aggression, which is odd, because all this meditating is making me a zen master...or that's the idea. The list includes; See Mount Rushmore, Take a Kung-Fu Lesson, Add Boxing to Cardio Regimen.

6. Fast from all food and caloric beverages for 24 hours.

All the LOLZ.

7. Do something everyday that terrifies you,

I didn't go nuts - not yet (no Spiderman fantasies fulfilled yet). I did, however, talk to people more. Given that my job requires a lot of verbal communication with strangers, you'd think it would come naturally for me to talk to people in the office. No. I despise small talk, and generally go with a cordial, but curt "mornin'." I did, step out of my box, and while I didn't engage in and small talk, I did actually hold conversations with several people in the office through out the week, maybe not everyday, but it happened fairly regularly. Daredevil level it was not, but definitely out of my comfort zone. Baby steps.

8.Stop consuming the news.

But Trump is tragically hilarious. I didn't really read any of the really depressing stuff (North Korea invades baby town, enslaves inhabitants/Kanye West refuses to release any music ever again), but to stop completely seems likes a disregard of my civic duty to be at least nominally informed. Again, baby steps.

Back On The Wagon - Kind Of

So....It's been months since we last got to dance together to the blog-trot (yes, that's the best I could come up with). There are lots of reasons this is so; [insert vague/lame excuses here about work and family]. I'm going to go ahead and pretend that we don't all know that my blog had limited readership and I didn't have video games to play. That being said, I came across an article today that made me want to jump back on here to, you know, lay out my thoughts online cause that's super original and it's going to make me rich. Or rather, a series of articles.

They usually read like this "12(or 8 or 15 or 365) Things That Super Successful (or Happy or Content or Rich) People Do Everyday (or Week or Month or Minute)!!!!" If the point of this barrage of "meditate-or-die" articles is to make me feel like I'm not doing it right, well, mission accomplished. I'm not unhappy - actually, generally I am the opposite (that would be happy, for those keeping score). I do, however, consistently feel like I'm "going through the motions;" there's this pervasive feeling that I could add more quality, somewhere....somehow. So, after habitually clicking on these articles at least once or twice a day, reading half of the list and going "Nonsense!" I changed tactics today and read the whole list - the winner was 8 items long. It was nothing new, at least, not relative to the other "This List That Takes 2 Minutes to Read Will Make You Instantly 1000% Happier," lists.

After reading it I came to a decision. No, came to several decisions. Much of it was spurred by the fact that I wanted to give this forum some direction, instead of a "I'm going to put all my useless thoughts into the ether and hope for the best," direction. I have decided to put them in list form so they are easily digestible and reading them will improve your blogginess by 1000%:

1. I'm going to do this shit, for 6 months, and document it on my blog! Cause, like, NO ONE has ever done that in the history of the Internet. (Yes, I'll get to the actual list of 8).

2. I'm going to write on my blog again! And this time, I'm going to use cuss words instead of blocking the sh!t out cause f*ck it I'm an adult (but I have kids so I've mostly already backed away from that one)

3. To document this journey, I will commit to one entry per week, which will surely ensure that my readership will plummet from around 15 to 1 or 2, allowing me to pinpoint my die-hard fans and slowly brainwash them into doing errands for me.


Boom! My list was only 3 things long, so, you know, that makes it better and faster and stronger. So what is it I'm doing for 6 months? Here's the low down (twice as many lists = double the increase in happiness!):

1. Pray or meditate morning, mid-day, and night.  There is no escaping this sh#t - every list on the internet now encourages us to meditate (though pray is one that I don't see that often). I'm pretty sure I remember seeing a list called "9 of the coolest objects in space" and #9 was "you should meditate more to increase your happiness." I've been doing some guided meditations already at lunch time to relax a little at work, and at night to help me fall asleep, but once my project is under way I will be going all Zen Nazi on myself (Zenazi?) and engaging in meditation 3 times a day EVERY DAY. I will record my ascent into Nirvana so that you too can maximize your calm - EXTREME CALM!

2. Read/Listen to 1 book per week. Already I'm feeling like this is a huge mistake - I read every day, but ONE WHOLE BOOK per week...yikes. I'm adjusting this and pulling out the parent card. With two little ones in the house and a full-time job I'm shooting for 1 book every 2 weeks. That's still like, 14000 books a year I think.

3. Write in your journal 5 minutes a day. If we weren't already in touch with our tears, we're about to be. I am not afraid to admit that I've got a nightstand journal or two, but I've mostly kept them around to detail brilliant military strategies in the event of a hostile alien take over. It looks like I'll be spending a lot more time reminding myself why I cry everytime the wind graces my face with Mother Earths' fingers.

4. Marry your best friend. Guess what? Part of the reason I chose this list is because I got to check some stuff off of it already - this one is done and done.

5.  Make a bucket list and actively knock items off. My guess is, this will take an entire post, maybe even two. Not the "knocking items off" part, but the actual writing of the list. Plus, now everyone will finally know about my desire to be the Captain of the Starship Enterprise.

6. Fast from all food and caloric beverages 24 hours once per week. There is a good chance that I will do this once and then immediately take it off this list, so let's pretend like this one was written in invisible ink and can only be decoded if I actually do it for the whole 6 months. Cool? Cool.

7. Do something everyday that terrifies you. If anyone actually decided to read this, my guess is this will be everyone's favorite. EVERYDAY? It's going to have to include things like "eating that last bite of cake even though I'm terrified of being overly full."

8. Stop consuming the news or reading the newspaper. I get this - it's depressing and it's definitely rigged to feed on people's fears, but ignoring it completely will be difficult. I don't intend to cut off news completely, but I will be abstaining from articles with fantastical misleading titles "North Korea Launches Nuclear Missile at Western U.S." As well articles that blow things way out of proportion.

Let's say I'll start this May 1...it gives me some warm up time and an opportunity to say good bye to my sanity (in the name of eternal everlasting happiness and contentment). Also I can finally write my bucket list. I'm pretty sure it will include at least one entry regarding Cinnabon.