Are you there, God? It's me, Zach.

 Paging Dr. Rogaine, we have an emergency in the Zach ward.

So I was thinking about shaving my beard today. And I'd been thinking about it for weeks now. It's kinda annoying and getting to be a pain. But today I was gonna shave it for the wrong reason.

I guess somewhere deep in my brain there was some correlation between professionalism and a shaved (or at least kempt) facial hair. Truth be told, this is not completely unfounded. The picture below calls Joaquin Phoenix's situation a "crazy, homeless guy beard". Personally I don't feel like outward appearance (or more specifically facial hair) is any indication of self-respect, but I suppose I get why some people do.

I know I sort of look like a caveman lately. It's totally cool and I'm down with it, and luckily most of the work I do involves darkrooms, basements, bad lighting, or solitary computer work where I don't regularly have to explain why I look like a Cro-Magnon. I hate shaving because I ALWAYS cut myself, and I hate trimming my beard because it requires a firm commitment to keeping it up that I can't really make. So letting it grow out became an obvious and easy solution.

But I think I had a moment this afternoon where I thought for a second that being me wasn't good enough. And despite having felt that many times in the past it's really not a good thing to think at all. If someone's going to judge you based on something stupid like a big crazy beard then they're really not someone you want to be around anyway.

Here I am moving a bunch of rocks and looking for a Gigabit switch last week. I hate networking.

I'll shave it eventually. It is getting kinda annoying and random shit (food [every day], toothpaste [three or four times a week], feathers [once, that i know of, but only because someone told me, so probably more than once]) keeps getting stuck in it. It also has gotten bushy and tangly enough to officially support the weight of a thin stainless steel fork as of Tuesday. Or maybe I just got lucky and stuck it in a good spot on Tuesday. I've been trying for a few weeks now. For some reason that's a milestone to me. Now I'm waiting for it to grow long enough that I can tie a hair in a knot and support the weight of a 4oz lead teardrop sinker. I don't know if I'll make it that long but it would be pretty cool.

Anyway... maybe I'm just growing up but I guess it's important to embrace the elements of ourselves that we sometimes question or attempt to change. It's cool to not be perfect and it's okay to make mistakes as long as you learn from them. And if you're comfortable with yourself, other people will be comfortable with you too. I feel like I'm 90% there. I'm still pretty embarrassed that I can't tie my shoes, laugh out loud when people say "butt", and that I have to watch a youtube instructional video in slow motion when I need to tie a half-windsor. But eventually I guess I'll grow into this just like the beard grew into my face. And it'll probably get on my nerves before I appreciate it.

So as scratchy and fluffy and big and crazy as it is, it's on my face and I guess it's there to stay a little while longer. And I'm pretty okay with this. Beards are, indeed awesome. And I feel slightly more awesome today too. Hooray.

Dudes With Beards Eating Cupcakes

Dudes With Beards Eating Cupcakes

This is so weird.

John Candy

So I was walking home from work and this beat-up Chevy Cutlass pulled up to a house about 200 feet from where I was and backfired. It was alarming. But it was pretty awesome. Which made me remember Uncle Buck, who had a car that always backfired. And that got me thinking about how fucking awesome John Candy was in the late 80's. Dude was in Home Alone, The Rescuers Down Under AND Uncle Buck in a SINGLE YEAR.

Take a step back and think about what you did this last year. Here's what I did: Based on statistics I crapped around 1,200 times, I know I lost my wallet twice, I definitely fell down the stairs once, and can sure as hell remember cutting my face due to sneezing while shaving 4 times ([all in the fall; I have a drafty bathroom and my sneezes come without warning, don't judge).

In the same amount of time that I took a lot of dumps and involuntarily hurt myself, John Candy made movie history. He got to work with Macaulay Culkin TWICE when he was still awesome (I know it's not fair to expect child stars to never grow up, but seriously, someone should have stunted his growth or thrown him in some kind of cryo-chamber or something. They'd be up to Home Alone 38 by now and I'd own every single one)

He also got to work with Tia, the admittedly bitchy shitty daughter in Uncle Buck, but I had (and still kind of have?) a huge crush on her. (I just googled "Uncle Buck Tia" to find a picture of Tia, which led me to find her name, Jean Louisa Kelly, which I googled and then found this:

CELEBRITYBAREFEET.COM????  WHAT THE HELL?)

Anyway... it's a real shame he died so young (and also totally nuts that it happened 16 years ago... I remember watching Cool Runnings (on VHS) with my brother the day he died. It was snowing. We were sad). Thinking about all of the incredible movies he was in, it's scary to think of what else he would have done if he was still around.

But you know what? He made some incredible movies and as trite as it sounds, his legacy lives on forever. He was a part of some of the greatest movies ever made (Blues Brothers, Caddyshack, Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Little Shop of Horrors, Uncle Buck, Home Alone, Summer Rental [note to self: where the hell did you put your Blues Brothers DVD?]). He makes me smile whenever I watch one of his movies and that is pretty freaking cool... and something we can all kinda aspire to in a weird way (I know he had problems but still. His life's work was dedicated to making people laugh and that's both difficult and admirable).

John Candy, you are awesome. Job well done.

Spring Plaid

I am excited about the warmer weather because that means I get to wear my spring plaid shirts, which have a noticeably more subtle color palette and are fun in their own unique way. Just in the last few days there have been a lot more people out and about in the city wearing some awesome plaid shirts and it is a wonderful sight. It's kind of hard to have a bad day when you're wearing an awesome shirt that makes everyone smile. If you haven't tried it yet, I highly recommend it.

I am majorly on the hunt for more awesome short sleeve plaid button-ups, so if you see good ones, let me know. And if you're looking for some good ones, let me know and maybe we can trade our info and sources on awesome plaid.

Photovoltaic Cell Awesomeness

This is real. And it's going to revolutionize solar energy production. And it's also awesome looking.

Fork Splitting

So i was reading about English Muffins (more specifically fork splitting the English Muffin and the effect it has on the muffin as opposed to splitting it with a knife [there is a whole back-and-forth conversation here that was interesting for like 30 seconds but then got boring as all hell) and I was going to post a picture of a fork, but when I googled Fork I found this:

What the fuck.

Anyway, apparently splitting things with forks creates nooks and crannies. This is kind of awesome. So to see if I could create nooks and crannies on other things, I began to experiment (mind you everything I'm sharing has happened within the last 15 minutes and is unscientific at best). I tried to make nooks and crannies on a block of jalapeno white cheddar cheese. This did not work. Then I tried to make nooks and crannies on a cookie. This also did not work. Finally, I tried to make nooks and crannies on some wonder bread. And guess what happened? It didn't work.

The end result is that I've got a fucked up block of cheese, a bunch of cookie crumbs, some ratty looking white bread, and no nooks and crannies.

Such a typical Monday. Ugh.

Shaving babies

Babies and a good razor are kind of like spaghetti and meatballs. Both awesome on their own, but they are elevated to a whole new level of awesome when they join forces. 

If you've seen my face over the past 10 years, you know that I'm not a huge fan of shaving, but I never thought a picture of a baby shaving would make me laugh as much as this did. Definitely frame-worthy and definitely awesome.

 

(Thanks Steph)

P.S. Brian: Make sure Conor uses a safety blade. Or even better let him grow a beard out. Babies & Beards > Babies & Razors.

People getting punched in the face in slow motion. And a baby.

I never really thought about it until I watched this video, but I guess getting punched in the face kind of sucks. It also looks really weird in slow motion. Really weird, but really awesome. I think I could watch people getting hurt all day if it was as fun as this. I'd also let someone punch me in the face if i could watch it back in slow motion. I wonder what my beard would do.

Here's a video of a bunch of folks from a post-production studio in Texas getting punched in the face. In badass slow motion. Maybe everyone's seen this already but it's new to me and it's pretty freaking great.

People getting punched in the face in slow motion

Seeing people get punched in the face reminds me of this 5 second clip that I have been OBSESSED with for a pretty long time now. It has over 4 million views. 3,750,000, give or take a few thousand, are me. Sometimes I feel bad about liking this video but then I watch it again and start laughing and all of the guilt melts away. Any time you're having a bad day, just think about this lady and it kind of puts things in perspective.

Best Video Ever

On a COMPLETELY UNRELATED note, my friends Brian and Mary had a baby this morning. His name is Conor and I am pretty freaking excited for them. They're great, great people and are going to make the most incredible parents.

Photo of Conor, taken by his Dad.

Welcome to the world, Conor. You just made it a whole lot more awesome. :-)

Monastery Mustard

Despite my extreme aversion to and disgust for large quantities of homogenous edible things, this story on a group of Benedictine Sisters is pretty wonderful. These ladies had a recipe for mustard and decided that it was so good that they could turn it into a business and use the proceeds to help out their community. It goes to show you that a simple idea founded on generosity and a strong work ethic can lead to wonderful, cool and inspiring things.

I've been thinking a lot lately about my ability to make a difference in people's lives and my place in the world. And there have been a lot of stories like this coming out lately about ordinary people with big hearts who focus their energy on something they're good at, market themselves well, and either give back to or promote causes that are close to them. I don't think I'm all that good at anything but if these badass Sisters can run an awesome business and help people in need, it's only a matter of time before I figure out what to do. Plus, I guess you don't need to invent something crazy or become President to make other people's lives better. You can do it with something as simple as mustard. So I guess if you've ever wanted to make big changes in the world and didn't think you could, you should watch this. Because we all can, and it made me feel a lot better too.

Monastery Mustard

On a nerdy/weird/stupid note, I never knew that you used a blowtorch to shrink wrap the plastic seals on jarred products. I was so excited to see the nun with the blow torch. If I were on the Mustard assembly line, this would be my job. And I would love it. Fire rules.

Tetris Tiles

Tetris Tiles are amazing.

If my bathroom were covered in these, I'd want to crap all day.

This is the best color scheme. I just love these so much. Life is so fun and tiles should be too.

For more awesomeness, visit www.tetris-tiles.com.