A Series of Unfortunate Shredding (Number the one after the first)

Onychophagia, or nail biting is a common oral compulsive habit according to expert sources*. These expert sources are silent on the presumably much more rare habit of shredding one's nails, however.

Given the silence of the experts regarding this disorder, I feel it is my duty to step in and put forth a working theory. By this effort I hope to pave the way for preventative treatment and to spread awareness.

As we all know, awareness of a problem is always the greatest part of the battle... or at least 5% or so of the battle. The other 95% consisting of laying down your pipe, extricating yourself from your velvet armchair, and actually working towards a solution.

Since this warning is only to be seen on shredders, I am lead to believe the disorder primarily affects office workers with too much paperwork. It is my theory that doing too much paperwork and later being forced to shred said paperwork muddles the brain. Paperwork feels meaningless to begin with a large percentage of the time. How much more so when the end product of that paperwork is trash?

When meaning is removed from work, the mind and hand tend to wander. Repetitive meaningless work magnifies the effect approximately ten fold according to the numbers which I have just made up. Eventually some percentage of workers are bound to daydream about the shredder being a Stargate, doorway to Narnia, or other portal away from the land flowing with paper and tedium.

Bravo to the shredder company for predicting this problem and clearly labeling their shredders as not being usable as a Stargate. If only they had designed the shredder to produce confetti for celebratory flinging at the end of the work day, I would heartily recommend they be given a standing ovation.

A Series of Unfortunate Shredding (Number the First)

It is difficult for one who has not studied the White-Collared Cubicle Dweller to understand just how excited they can become upon acquiring a new piece of office machinery.

If the machinery is communal, the Cubicle Dweller will gather with the flock to admire and test the machinery until the capricious office psyche is bored with the contraption.

Should the device fall under the sole proprietorship of a single Cubicle Dweller, one should steer clear of the giddiness, experimentation, and warning labels that are likely to ensue.

The picture above is one of the warning labels resulting from a Cubicle Dweller obtaining a paper shredder. Almost every shredder in the world has some form of this warning label emblazoned upon it. Why? For the simple reason that the first thing a disillusioned cubicle dweller will do with a shredder is attempt to transform any tie in the vicinity into something resembling confetti.

Dress codes tend to grate on the average Cubicle Dweller's nerves, and what better outlet could they find for their frustration than a tie, the very symbol of purposeless attire? Give them the ideal method of expressing said feelings toward said article, a paper shredder, and no one should be surprised at the results.

Fortunately for the Committee of Head Injury Avoidance, manufacturers have come up with this sort of label to call for a thoughtful pause to consider that perhaps the tie should be unfastened from it's current host before being sent to it's well deserved fate.

Personally I think they went a little overboard by portraying a tie only and not the unfortunate gentleman attached to it, thus implying that ties simply shouldn't be shredded and flung into the air during the Boss's Lunch Break Parade. But I suppose that would probably have gotten the shredder a PG-13 rating for scary images, and they really wanted to keep it more of a family friendly shredder.

An Opportunity of Pure Iron Pyrite

Ahh, the holidays! With their dazzling decorative displays, exquisite edibles, and just a hint of harumphery in the air. They also happen to be a convenient excuse for my long absence from this venue. For surely naught but the holidays could keep me from writing for the amusement of my loyal readers (Some of you are loyal, aren't you?). Lack of inspiration is completely unknown to me. And if you believe that... have I got the opportunity for you!

The most observant, less charitable individuals might say avaricious, among you probably noticed something missing from my description of the holidays. That's right, presents! Specifically that most vital ingredient of the holiday season, the right presents. Take presents away from the holidays and what do you have really? Gathering with those unfortunates who share the same ancestry as you to celebrate your love of oddly prickly trees festooned with shiny baubles. At least that is the impression I got from several ads I received shortly after Christmas from various shops catering to those that didn't get what they wanted and needed to purchase it for themselves.

Luckily for all those who have ever silently suffered through yet another addition argyle addition to their wardrobe because it would be impolite to turn down the beneficence of a certain relation, I was inspired to action by those ads. It became clear to me right then and there that the outdated method of knowing the recipient well enough to choose a pleasing gift simply won't do. It's a terrible lot of work, and not even near 100% accurate. Clearly science needs to step in and assist with the only logical answer, the Giftometer!

The Giftometer is a theoretical device which would offer visual and possibly auditory cues as to the appropriateness of nearby items as gifts for a specific individual. Naturally it would first have to be calibrated for a particular individual, most likely via temporary attachment and draining of non-essential material for analysis. Traditionally science tends to favor bodily fluids or brainwaves, nothing anyone will miss, of course. Hopefully the device could be made highly portable, though the first generation apparatus will most likely be room sized, as per standard scientific operating procedure.

If you are puzzled why I would liken such an opportunity to iron pyrite, allow me to explain. Before I explain that, however, allow me to address the group that is confused about iron pyrite alone due to a lack of essential mineral knowledge. I would like to suggest a book on the subject of mineralogy for the perusal of those of you who fit into this category, however, when I searched for such a book on Amazon, the search engine helpfully crossed out "knowledge" and pointed me toward "Salted: A Manifesto on the World's Most Essential Mineral, with Recipes". One hopes that salt is not the essential ingredient in said recipes, but I digress.

Since it appears knowledge is not one of the commodities which Amazon provides, I will offer a much more limited insight into the fascinating world of mineralogy before moving on. Iron pyrite is commonly known as fool's gold and is often thought of as worthless, but in the right hands it is actually quite profitable. Those right hands can form it into $162 pyramids like this one:













The assisted gift selection industry is similar in obvious ways to iron pyrite, yet it's market is completely untapped. The only assistance services I know of are offered by your friends, and they may just be out to make you look bad and waste your money. I would like to take their place in this matter and waste utilize your money on funding my research*. Thus I will be adding new ways for you to hand over your cash contribute to my projects as I think of them. In return for your continued support, you will receive the privilege of being allowed to purchase Giftometer devices slightly sooner than everyone else**.

*Scientific breakthroughs are often achieved as a side effect of an unrelated endeavor, or sometimes through dreaming. Thus my research methods include plenty of time spent on seemingly random internet surfing, eating bagels, and sleeping.


**Everyone else is likely to get one of these devices approximately never. My calculator breaks when I try to calculate never + slightly sooner, but I'm sure that's just a bug and the true mathematical result would leave you very impressed with your chances.


***What are you reading this footnote for? There isn't even a *** marker anywhere in the text!

Important Safety Tip

Today, I'm going to do something must unusual and talk about a good warning sign. This particular sign came with a pressure relief device. Now, when you first hear that phrase, you might think of some piece of complicated machinery that controls excess pressure through means so arcane that it requires one of those artificial intelligences that are always going rogue in movies. Well, you'd be right about the device showing up in movies, at least.


Remember the climactic scene in all those movies where someone has pushed the Big Red Button that says "Doom everyone after a dramatically appropriate waiting period" next to it? When all the dials start going into the red zone, things start bursting and spewing steam, and there's an epic fight scene going on. You know the one. A "Pressure Relief Device" is actually just a piece of metal that is designed to rupture when a certain amount of pressure is applied. That's right, they are the things that burst and let the steam out to add intensity to that final battle scene in movies, or to keep bad chain reactions from happening and turning your multi-million dollar facility into a crater, in real life.

Now, I don't know how likely someone is to notice this warning sign in it's intended usage scenario, since lots of Bad Stuff™ is happening, and there are likely to be distractions. But at least the sign will be there trying to warn people that they shouldn't stand in front of the piece of metal that is about to turn into a cloud of metal fragments flying at the speed of ouch. That's a nice safety tip.

This sign can even be useful when applied to other dangerous objects, and I think that's the true indicator that you have a winner of a warning sign. Anything from bombs, to ill-behaved children in restaurants, to your weird new coworker, Grog, could benefit from having this sign pasted to them.

A Warning for Industrial Workers Everywhere

"Everybody loves to get information in cartoon form, right?" That seems to be the line of thinking that led to this being included in the instructions/warnings sheet for an industrial electric motor.

What sort of people are they expecting to work around their motors, exactly? After looking over a warning sheet made up entirely of cartoons like this one, except less amusing, it seems they expect them to be the strong but not too bright type.

"Motor no work right. Grog hulk out and smash motor with hammer until it work right! HRRRRRRR!" appears to be how they expect things to go without their intervention. Only a cute little motor with a face, enormous hands, and bony elbows will stop the metal-bending rampage. "Poor leetle motor. Grog pat it on head and hope it feel better tomorrow." That's a much better result. Thanks, warning page guys!

So, this is my warning to industrial workers everywhere: Manufacturers think you are like unto a cross between a cave man and the Incredible Hulk. Figure out a way to take advantage of that. Walk off with their stuff and refuse to give it up. They'll probably just let you keep it. Either because they figure you don't know any better, or because they don't want their desks smashed.

A secondary warning: If Grog starts making friends with your industrial electric motors, take away his comics.

Beware the One Winged Chicken Man

Products are covered in warning labels. They're important. They tell us not to do foolish things, or at least not to blame the manufacturer when we do foolish things and they don't turn out well.

Companies don't want to spend a lot on these warnings, and who can blame them? It shouldn't be necessary to warn you not to aim devices designed to burn things at yourself. Detailed written warnings are clearly out. If you need them, you probably can't read anyway. Thus companies turn to pictograms, and their fabled equivalent word count, to convey information.

The "Don't lift me, I'm heavy and will break your spine" warning pictogram is perhaps one of the oldest known to exist. It's use dates back to the Pharaohs, who had it inscribed on the enormous stones they liked to make piles of. This was to ensure that no foolish peasant would injure himself attempting to impress the womenfolk with his heroic strength. This pictogram has survived into the modern day and serves much the same purpose, though it is being applied to increasingly less weighty objects.

With the traditional pictogram being so overused that one wouldn't be surprised to find it on the wrapper of a KitKat, there are some who seek to design a new one that will make people take heed. The picture you see above is an example of what can go wrong when a misguided company and a brilliant artist come together to flaunt tradition.

The picture seems to indicate that merely touching the object will have results that, while clearly detrimental, leave their exact nature up to interpretation. Will I turn into a one-armed one-winged chicken man? Will my pants explode? These are not the questions you want to conjure in the mind of your customers. You may discourage your customers from even coming near the product.

If any warning label designers are reading this, please learn from this mistake. Stick with the traditional. It doesn't mean much, but at least nobody can sue you and they won't be afraid of your product. If you really want to be useful, though, maybe just put the weight of the object on the label. Believe it or not, some people can safely lift things that weigh over 35 pounds all by themselves.

Food for the Soul, By the Soul... Made of Souls?

Pardon the lateness of this missive, dear readers, but I have been sequestered in a bunker for the past few days, for fear of finding my soul furnished to those who would  think it fine dining.

You might think this an odd fear, and I would have thought so as well until I spotted the disturbing bit of advertising you see to the left whilst innocently perusing the oracle of weather, which some refer to as weather.com.

Bangkok may seem far away, but if the souls of entire cities are being captured in bowls of apocalyptic proportions, I reasoned that my own soul might be in no insignificant danger.

However, since I peered out today and found the landscape not to be blood red, I presume the danger has been averted by some enterprising and most likely under payed hero. If you spot this hero, please tip them. They bear more similarity to waiters than you might think.

Or perhaps it was just a hoax perpetrated by a company that thought capturing souls for consumption and apocalyptic skylines made for good advertising. More on the peculiar ways in which companies choose to communicate with us coming up in the next few days. Maybe. Unless I fail to write something again. I should really build up a buffer so this can be more regularly scheduled.