When I first heard that Microsoft’s new search engine was called Bing, I thought, I love Chandler Bing!  Bing It On!  Bing in the New Year!  Bing me up, Scotty!  And THEN when I heard it was advertised as a Decision Engine, I thought, well, could this BE any more perfect for my life?

So I put Bing to the test.  And when I say the test, I mean that there is only one test upon which a search engine can be graded, which is, of course, searching for yours truly, gongoozle.com.  Here are the comparative results of searching the well-known and oft-queried term “gongoozle”:

1) Our name-cousin Google shows respect at a saucy #3!

2) At Yahoo, we barely miss the bronze in the #4 spot!

3) And at Bing, the newest, most innovative virtual encyclo-dicto-portfolio-libro, gongoozle.com ranks in at (drumroll, please!)…UTTER FAILURE.  Gongoozle.com is shockingly and tragically absent from Bing’s results.

Well, Bing, you certainly are a Decision Engine - you have helped me firmly and resolutely make the decision that you suck.

In case you needed another reason to spend the last days of your life in Australia, the Aussie government has sent $14 million worth of cash handouts to thousands of dead people!

This, of course, happened in the US too, with about 10,000 checks written out to the deceased.  But what’s a few million bucks to the grave when the whole economy is going to hell anyway?  At least Australians have the sense to get a good laugh out of it:

“‘If anybody saw any of the dead out there spending up big at Harvey Norman or Coles or Woolworths, please let me know,’ ABC news quoted Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham as saying.”

When you start talking about shining a laser into your head to “synchronize” neurons for improved concentration, it might be a sign that you need a little vacation.  Most of the ideas in this article about improving concentration are decent and all, but I think the whole problem stems from having too many options.

Take, for example, Wheat Thins, my most recent purchase.  Are you aware that there are now 20 different varieties of Wheat Thins?  As I stood and stared at the vast array of yellow boxes in aisle 9, I thought to myself, why, Nabisco, why?

BUT THEN I STOPPED THINKING IMMEDIATELY.  And here’s why:  “People don’t understand that attention is a finite resource, like money,” [Winifred Gallagher, author of Rapt, and focus of the above-linked Times article] said. “Do you want to invest your cognitive cash on endless Twittering or Net surfing or couch potatoing?”

No, I most certainly do not!  Seriously, people, I can’t even believe you have wasted so much cognitive cash by reading this and potatoing at your desk!  And in a RECESSION?!?!  What are you THINKING??  QUICK – read my concise yet effective plan to reduce your brain runoff before it’s too late.

How to Save Cognitive Cash:

1) Wear the same thing everyday (preferably a nude colored leotard) so as to reduce strain on your and others’ occipital lobes.

2) Get a lobotomy and put your frontal lobe in a high-yield bond.

3) Speak in abbreviations and call people by their initials.  Better yet, stop talking altogether.

4) Limit cognitive strain by reducing input - plug your ears, wear an eye patch, and fake your own death so people will stop calling/texting/IMing you.

5) Remove decision-making from your life by carrying a coin and/or dice at all times to make decisions for you.

6) Stop eating Wheat Things and any other food that comes in more than one flavor.  This will save not only cognitive cash, but also real money!

Additional ideas welcome, as long as they don’t require too much brain wattage.

No long introduction here is needed because parisology’s definition alone is really quite excellent:

parisology (n) – the use of equivocal or ambiguous words (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics)

As a word that literally should mean “the study of Paris”, parisology is entertaining to bring up in a number of conversation topics – laissez-faire, l’amour, springtime, Paris Hilton, college majors, etc. – to amuse yourself when talking to random people and the dialogue is a running a bit dry.  The trick is to never actually define the word, thus appropriately demonstrating the meaning via parisology.  A conversation like the following might unfold:

Random Person: “What did you study in college?”

you: “Parisology.”

R.P.: “Oh…what is that…learning about the Eiffel Tower? Hahaha!”

you: “Well, put simply, it is an area of study in which data collected through research and non-empirical observations merge so as to contribute to furthering the development and knowledge base of the said field.”

R.P.: “Huh?”

you: “Well, really, more or less, what we see happening in the field is a trend toward a particular style of communication in the realm of linguistic and other non-gesticulatory forms whereupon you have, as they say, a non-tacit interaction between a particular subject and its relative counterpoint, the former which, according to staunch empirical evidence exhibited through a battery of highly structured observational studies and rigorous scientific tests, expresses himself or herself in a manner less unambiguously than the average specimen in terms of diurnal verbal practice.”

R.P.: “Wow.”

you: “I know.”

You wait 3-5 seconds of penetrating eye contact, then turn on your heel and talk away.  Another parisology mission completed.

Every once in a while, you just have to hand it to Buddhists.  Buddhism has racked up quite a hefty list of cool things, among them: enlightenment, nirvana, zen, karma, and the Dalai Lama.  And this particular bit of inspiring news is something that can definitely be added to the list – ceremoniously honoring those who donate their bodies to science.

The Tzu Chi University’s medical school in Taiwan has taken to the practice of honoring cadavers in a full Buddhist ceremony.  At Tzu Chi, medical students mourn with family members and make PowerPoint presentations to commemorate the donors (because we all know that Microsoft sponsors Buddhism).  Bodies are treated with utmost respect and are sutured up after being dissected.  Taiwanese have responded well to the effort and more than 23,500 people have willed their bodies to Tzu Chi.

Yes!  What a great decision.  It’s nice to know that religion and science can work together in such a beneficial way.  Keep it up, Buddhism.

Disclaimer: To be sure, I’m not advocating Buddhism as a religious practice nor saying that Buddhism is flawless.  This kind of generalization is both annoying and unhelpful, and the recent and purposely provocatively-titled Forbes.com article “Are Buddhists Violent?” talks about some misunderstandings about Buddhism and about its possible imperfections. (Though the irritating title could have just as easily read, “Are Christians Greedy?” or “Do Jews Get Tattoos?”)

1) Mentally and physically prepare yourself to the point that you can function without sleep, food, water, light, warmth, solid ground, oxygen, love, puppies, and your iPhone.

2) If possible, refer to an authority for guidance, preferably the President of the United States of America.

3) Practice your aim, or, in such cases that do not involve pirates and/or shooting, your argument.

3) Stay calm. With such preparation, you know you are going to win anyway.

5) Wait for the slightest sign of fatigue or weakness on the part of your opponent.

6) Snipe.

economic zugzwang

Here’s a Spicy Word that you can really sink your teeth into: zugzwang!

If you are a serious chess player, maybe you’re already familiar with the word, because according to chess.com/chessopedia (seriously), “the term is used for a position in which whoever has the move would obtain a worse result than if it were the opponent’s turn to play.”  In other words, “You’re screwed!  I win!”

Now maybe you’re wondering, when will I ever use this word if I don’t play chess, and even if I did, chances are I would be the one put in zugzwang?  Fret not, Dear Reader, because in a language where “sick” means “sweet”, “sweet” means “very nice”, and “very nice” is a catchphrase from a movie about a Kazakh journalist named Borat, anything goes.  And technically, zugzwang is not even an English word; it’s German.  Which brings up another great thing about the English language - we steal words from other languages and use them however we want!  (Though I do recommend saying zugzwang in a German accent – zook-tsvang! - for added effect.)

So I think a better definition of the word is this:

zugzwang (n.) - a situation in which a person is forced to make an undesirable or disadvantageous move

Suddenly, zugzwang has hundreds of other uses in everyday life.  Among them:

1) You finally convince the girl of your dreams to come over to your place.  When giving her the tour, she notices a pair of women’s underwear in your room.  Anything you say will make you look bad, but the underwear’s presence cannot be left unexplained.  Zugzwang!

2) You got into a slow-moving car accident when you turned just a bit too sharply into a driveway and now the side of your car is wedged against a pole and/or tree.  If you move forward you will dent the entire back end of your car, and if you move backward you will ruin the front.  Zugzwang!

3) You have decided to remove a large amount of body hair and so you have smeared yourself with hot wax.  Soon thereafter, you discover that ripping body hair out by its roots is causing you to bleed and cry in pain.  Unfortunately you still must remove the rest of the wax that is now hardening on your skin.  Zugzwang!

Your turn.  Click here or on the title and leave your favorite zugzwang!

11, apparently:

Although figuratively speaking, they would be standing IN the hole, then be airlifted out and paid bonuses, except for Andre, who would have to dig his way out with a spoon.  Decisions, decisions…