Public Outcry: October

Halloween marks the last day of October, which means it’s time for this month’s edition of Public Outcry. Here are some google searches that have led information-thirsting individuals to our humble guide. The following are subjects the public demanded to know more about:

• How [do I] become politically aware?

If you find yourself suddenly wanting to become politically aware, chances are you’re in college and desperately trying to reinvent your image. Nonetheless, a politically aware you is probably marginally better than regular you, but why settle for a new identity that is only marginally better? You’ll blow everybody on campus away with any of these significantly more awesome identities:

• A Juggalo that’s majoring in interior design

• A pro-choice mime

• A film geek that only talks about movies with Martin Lawrence in them

• A founder of an underground society thats prejudice towards people who wear surfer necklaces

• A huge douchebag

Above: a mime shows his firm stance on the abortion issue.

• The everyday life of a marine iguana

Marine iguanas differ from regular iguanas in two ways: one, they forage for food in the sea and two, they have crippling low self esteem. The self esteem issue arouse as a result of Charles Darwin. When Darwin was visiting the Galapagos to research The Origin of Species, he used his free time to endlessly taunt the lizards; he used a high pitched voice to imitate them as he ran up and down the beaches with his pants hiked up at an uncomfortable level.

As such, a marine iguana’s daily schedule looks something like this.

6:00 AM: Wake up
8:00 AM: Cry
10:00 AM: Cry
12:00 PM: Eat
2:00 PM: Cry
4:00 PM: Eat
6:00 PM: Cry
8:00 PM: Sunbathe
10:00 PM: Eat
12:00 AM: Fall asleep crying

Because of the similarities in their behavior, rich pregnant bitches in LA are often confused for marine iguanas.

• What happens if I put a soda can in the microwave?

Are you kidding me? I have no problem answering questions about the Galapagos, but you have the audacity to ask me something you can do from the comfort of your own home? Quit being a pussy. Fucking A.

Safety First: Halloweening

Halloween is one of the only holidays still around where the public eye can personally witness how stupid their kids truly are. Recent research shows that, when a kid's stupidity is measured on a 1-10 scale on non-Halloween days, they usually rank in at cuntaroonie. Halloween activities make matters worse, where masks, candy and the macabre often act as multipliers towards the kids culminated retardocity. This is why kids everywhere have been debriefed safety tips over and over again, in hopes to get it into their very thick skulls. There is no need for the Survival Guide to Everyday Life to repeat such a useless venture, so instead, we cut out the middle man and offer advice to the reason your kids need to learn to look both ways: The drunk driver.

Don't hit shiny things - Parents already take artistic liberties with their kid's costumes. Pretty princesses have bike-reflectors sewn into their dresses, and ninjas become covered with neon glow sticks as a last ditch effort to make sure their kids do not get hit. But Goddammit, do they have to be that bright? I mean, I like this street because it's dark and shit, but it's Halloween, there's stupid shiny shit everywhere. It use to be just in yards, but its in the street now? They could be shinier, and these cans are shiny, so you should just chuck this at them or something. It'll help but... fuck, man.

Start early - Like a normal Wednesday, make sure you start drinking pre-lunch. The trick here is to stop drinking and forget about any sort of family issues by 3pm and be somewhat capable of driving by when you leave at 6. But it is hard to forget why she left you. I mean, fuck man, you're just doing what you can do, and it's not like the chem mines were your idea. No fucking way they weren't. Someday, you'll show them, you'll show all of them about that shit and stuff.

Remember: this is the only day that you will not be dubbed a local hero for running over the Wolfman.

Honk/yell often - Kids are loud. Too loud. You can hardly hear yourself think over all of their laughing and screaming. I mean, some people really don't need this yelling shit right now. However, when you yourself yell, it is a calming experience that can help clear your mind of some of it's cobwebs and offer some clarity in your life. Also, by uncontrollably honking your horn and yelling obscenities to the 7-year-old passerbys, they know your presence, and you can concentrate on just how much you hate yourself and your stupid car and this stupid life.

Get home - You are your safest to yourself and everyone when you are at home, so it doesn't take a rocket psychologist to realize that the faster you drive home, the safer everyone around you will be. Seriously, why the crap is everyone blurry this year? Last year was Pokemon, this year is fucking blurry things. Kids are dumb. If you had a kid, he wouldn't be dumb. He'd be just like you. Fucking awesome. You'd party together and do it with bitches all the time. Shit.

House Calls: Whiskey Pits

For today, I originally wanted to do a beginner’s guide to the Wiccan subculture. However, during the research process I made an inadvertent medical discovery.

My associate Leon Firestone and I started our probing research into the Wiccan way of life in the typical quantitative fashion. We bought three-dozen scented candles, a poster with satanic messages, five Tupperware containers (which we then filled with ram’s blood) and a handle of Jack Daniel’s whisky. Leon set up what he believed to be a scene for Wiccan practices and began to role-play as three elderly witches while taking notes. During this time, I drank heavily. Leon, concerned about the excessive amount of alcohol I was consuming, inquired what was the purpose of the whiskey. I told him it was “for science” and proceeded to get blackout drunk.

The next morning, I awoke to two starting discoveries. First off, I was wearing lipstick, something I distinctly remember making an effort not to do. Secondly, I noticed I had two swollen lumps located in each armpit. Each lump was sore to the touch and hurt with excessive arm rotation.

I had just discovered the first textbook case of “Whiskey Pits.”

Initially, I was immediately concerned I had contracted the bubonic plague, which had the distinguishing feature of large bumps appearing on the victims body. My concern passed when I realized dying of a disease that hasn’t been around for hundreds of years was a pretty rock star way to die. Concerned passed even further when I spent some time on WebMD and it was clear that I was not suffering from the black plague.

Although I knew what I wasn’t suffering from, I had no idea what I was suffering from. My further searches of “Whiskey + Armpit” on WebMD brought me no new information.

However, I did learn about the true nature of the ailment referred to as “Whiskey Dick.” Originally, I thought it was a condition that caused 80-proof alcohol to spray from one’s member. I remember putting such an ailment on my Christmas list as a child, wishing tirelessly that Saint Nick would curse me with such a wonderful pox. Thanks to WebMD, I am grateful he did not.

But I digress. Through extensive testing, I have collected the following information on the new phenomenon known as Whiskey Pits.

• Whiskey Pits can be contracted from extensive whiskey consumption. Curious of my findings, I tried other kinds of alcohol. To my knowledge, Tequila Arms and Jager Tits do not exist.

• The scientific reasoning behind Whisky Pits is as follows: alcohol makes your body dehydrated. Under extreme dehydration, your body forms giant fluid lumps in your armpits that serve the same purpose as a camel’s hump.

• Whiskey Pits is nonfatal, even if left untreated. At it’s worst it’s negligible and completely dismissible. Like a learning disability.

• There are only two cures for Whiskey Pits: extra hydration or more whiskey. The latter works for two reasons: more whiskey will no longer make you cognizant of your ailment and if you drink enough additional whiskey, it will cause your arm polyps to burst, thus solving your problem.

How do I plagiarize effectively?

"According to the Virtual Writing Center, 'According to Webster's New World Dictionary, to plagiarize is to 'take the ideas, writings, etc. from another and pass them off as one's own.' When you do this, you are committing a form of academic dishonesty. In actuality, plagiarism is a type of stealing. The person whose ideas or sentences you are passing off as your own has worked hard to write down his or her ideas. If you just copy another's work, you are not really working at all, you are not learning anything, you are not processing the information in any way. In fact, you are just copying.'

This brings up a valuable point. How can one plagiarize well enough to where it is not actually plagiarism?

Did you know... that Plagiarism means "Hot Pocket" in Latin? And that Hot Pocket means "The Homestead Act" in Mandarin?

The virtual writing center goes on to say that 'You can do this by summarizing or paraphrasing the material.' I call bullshit on this. If you are that afraid of getting caught that you rewrite something in your own words, then you are not a true student. Depending on how long the paper you are writing is suppose to be, either take away words or choose bigger words in order to stretch out sentences. For example take this phrase I wrote in the 1930's (You can tell it is quote because of the indents):

I fantasize that my offspring will some day inhabit a country where they are not judged by their skin color but by how they act.

Let's say someone wanted to use it, but make it their own so they would not be caught with plagiarism, but also, they are kinda lazy. They can add, subtract, or use bigger words as we see here:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

As you can see, you can slightly change what I said years and years ago, and mangle it into the "I have a dream" speech that I got no credit for writing. Plagiarism is a major tool in this way, for it helps you stand on the shoulders of giants. Giants that were too before their time and too white to make a difference.

Also, just put quotation marks around everything, just in case. This works 90% of the time, unless your paper is steeped in innuendos and wordplay like the following example:

According to the Christian Science Monitor, "a local man was murdered from the sexual assault by a pack of feral dogs that were roving the forest" and it looks like he doesn't like it "ruff."

What the hell does this statement even mean? Why does the author cite that the CSM said the word "ruff" outside of the main quote? This is because the author thinks that he is being clever and quoted ""ruff"" to wink at his adoring audience. Not only is it not funny to put quotes around things that can be construed as innuendo, but it messes with the citation and the reader. Keep this in mind when dealing with pack of feral dogs on man sexual assault." (Boone, 1963)

Writing Workshop: Creative Writing Exercises

In the creative writing scene, one may have heard things like “it’s important to write every day” or “Mr. Jones is retarded.” If I may be so bold to go against the grain, I would like to clarify something: repetition will not make you a better writer.

Also, I am not legally retarded. I used to bag groceries at a super market, oftentimes while staring at nothing while my tongue hanging out because I was tripping balls, so I understand where the confusion could come from.

But I digress. For your writing pleasure, I have created some creative writing exercises to help better your writing. Remember: repetition is a tool of futility! Each exercise need only be performed once!

Bus Station Personality Immersion Experience
Spend the evening at a bus station. Wait for someone vulnerable who lacks the company of others and mug them. After rifling through their wallet or purse and pocketing cash and major credit cards, take a look at a picture ID of theirs. What do you think about this person? What do you think their hobbies are? Do they seem popular? Write about how you imagined their sixteenth birthday went. If the person doesn’t have a picture ID, mug someone else.

Intra-Personal Mosaic Activity
Write about yourself in the fifth person. Hint: the fifth person is from the point of view of your fictitious, homosexual Siamese twin. After you finish writing, cut out all the words and paste them in such a way it looks like a portrait of yourself.

Peer Editing
Take an emerging piece of writing to a friend and have them critique it. Afterwards, write about how much you hate your friend and how he doesn’t understand your genius.

How can I sleep on the ground comfortably?

I should take the time right now to tell you that sleeping on the ground and comfort are mutually exclusive. Let it be carpet or tile or rug or coal, you will never have a sense of refreshment when waking up on the floor. In fact, scientists have found that sleeping on the floor takes away 8 hours of your life away each time you sleep there. Today, we'll be exposing some common techniques that can lessen the amount of hours robbed from your life.

The Arm Drag - Only 7 hours from life expectancy - Position yourself where you arm is acting as a pillow. The science is that, by making your arm go to sleep, you can make the rest of your body go to sleep easier. Also, it feels really cool when you wake up.

The Lazy Rock - Only 4 hours from life expectancy - Assign a security object to help you through the night. This is like having a comfort animal that people use to stop them from losing their shit mentally. In my experience, the shinier the object is, the better. This is why I suggest an opened butterfly knife.

Anchors Away! - Only 6 hours from life expectancy - Before you go to the floor, start smoking. If at all possible, leave the cigarette in your mouth while you sleep. If you do not believe that one cigarette will last all eight hours of sleep, light as many as you need and leave them in your mouth.

Did you know... that this man can sleep in any condition thrown at him?

The Crazier Leggier - Instant death - Before going to bed, look into a mirror and say "Pat Boone" three times fast. Though this is the opposite of lengthening your life expectancy, I just wanted to throw it out there to make sure you didn't do it out of curiosity or due to a dare.

Fleshbag Switcheroo - Only 3 hours from life expectancy. This is the mind over matter approach to sleeping on the floor. Using the same mechanics as a sensory deprivation chamber, put something over your head so it feels like you are sleeping anywhere else but on the floor. I suggest a small plastic bag.

Old Wive's Tales: Bullshit or Bulltruth?

As the vice president of the regional chapter of my quilting bee, I deal with old wives's tales on a regular basis. Henceforth, I feel it is my duty to separate the truth from the lies.

The tale: If a robin flies through an open window, a death will shortly follow

The verdict: Not true.
Robins are peaceful creatures and rarely harm humans. The exception to this rule would be if you built some sort of berserker, sentient killing machine that was activated every time a robin flew through an open window. At that point though, you’re asking for trouble.

The tale: A woman cannot conceive if she stands up after sex.

The verdict: True.
The ability to stand renders all forms of birth control obsolete. However, if the woman is unable to stand due to a physical handicap you should invest in contraceptives while actively searching for a new partner with working legs.

Pictured above, we see the universal symbol for "wrap your shit."

The tale: Giving up your seat on a bus to a whiter person will bestow a great fortune upon yourself.

The verdict: This is both true and common knowledge; this gesture is one of mankind’s oldest good luck charms. People that do not adhere to this particular old wives’ tale take pride in stripping others of their good luck. These people often refer to themselves as the “Good Fortune Jihad.”

Here we see a high ranking officer in the Good Fortune Jihad, satisfied after denying someone good luck.

The tale: Sneezing on a Tuesday means you will kiss a stranger.

The verdict: Not true. In order to test this tale, my associate Leon Firestone stood in a red-light district under the influence of sneezing powder between the hours of 6 pm and 6 am while I observed from a distance. No stranger made any attempts to kiss him, although a man in a silk suit and a large hat was kind enough to point him in the direction of the nearest free clinic. However our field research allowed us to come up with a new, more accurate wives’ tale on the subject of sneezing on a Tuesday.

The tale: Sneezing on a Tuesday will make a pimp give you an address for a free clinic.

The verdict: True. Inspired by our findings, we set out to find the meanings of sneezes on other days of the week. Employing sneezing powder once again, Leon Firestone and I have come to the following conclusions:

• Monday means someone at the bank will tell you to get a tissue.

• Wednesday means you will cause a SARS scare.

• Thursday means your nasal passages will begin to bleed from constant sneezing.

• Friday means a loved one will become concerned about your addiction to sneezing powder.

• Saturday means you are no longer allowed around your niece.

• Sunday means a robin will fly through a window, causing your berserk, sentient killing machine to go on a rampage.

This day in internet matchmaking & dating services history

1999: User and 40-something cat enthusiast RosaRose23 messages user RockAttack about his music tastes in hopes to make a connection. This message remains unanswered.

2000: User MargetteTangerine becomes the 1,035,579,093,231,352,404,647,743th woman to show her breasts on the internet. Comments on said breasts were mixed.

2001: AdultFriendFinder debuts onto the web as a place where kids and teenagers can go to find mentors in their fields of interest.

2002: Baffling scientists, eHarmony discovers that the 5th dimension is actually "family goals."

2005: Tired of being ignored, user leonfireSTONEHARD looks towards match.com to find someone to connect to, and also bone.

2004: 14 year old male Link420 leaves a comment on an attractive girl's page. This does not lead to an epic handjob-a-thon he imagined while he was in the shower later that night.

2006: Teenage OkCupid user Pencopli realizes the downfall of providing cleavage-heavy pictures, as she wades through one of the 347 messages she received by older men and women. She then removes the picture, and states that she's only on the site for the "addictive tests and questions."

2007: User leonfireSTONEHARD, defeated, signs up for a profile at BiSpace to find someone to connect to, and also bone.

How do I come across as the smartest person in my book club?

Book clubs, although typically a front for middle aged people to get their foot in the door to a world of white collar crime or to wife swap, have been to known to be of literary merit in some extremely rare cases. If you’re actually in a legitimate book club, you may not be testing the sweet nectar of your buddy’s spouse, but at least you’re becoming educated. However, the sad truth is being intelligent is not a very good alternative to sex unless you are the most intelligent.

The following will make you sound vastly more intelligent than your fellow book enthusiasts:

Intelligence is directly proportional to your ability to recognize feminist imagery in a novel. By starting discussions on feminist themes, you immediately establish yourself as the book patriarch of the group. For example, if the book being discussed this month is Hemmingway’s Old Man and the Sea, you should make it clear to everyone that the old man represents a vagina. The sea is also representative of a vagina. Hemmingway also probably meant for the boat to be some kind of vagina schooner, too.

If the first thing that comes to your mind after seeing the above picture isn't "the pain of childbirth," then you're not the smartest person in your book club.

Make sure everyone knows the book being discussed touched you in a way no one else can experience. No one knows your life like you do, so feel free to take some liberties when relating a book to your life. If you’re reading Fahrenheit 451, recount the tragic events of your childhood through misty eyes as you tell in disturbing detail about how your family died when they were sprayed by a fire hose that shot kerosene.

Did you know... that firemen used to put out fires?

Talk about how you understand the author on a very surreal level. This kind of conversation will definitely give people the impression that you, without a shadow of a doubt, the smartest one at the book club. So smart in the fact, that everyone will be compelled to turn the book club into one of those fancy wife swappin’ book clubs. To convince people of this, pour a forty out for the author being discussed while yelling about how he was your homie.

D.I.Y Time: How do I make a tissue box ukulele?

Music is expensive nowadays. Albums are overpriced, opera ticket prices have skyrocketed, and stores do not allow you to return instruments after you smash them apart on stage to appease your fan(s.) So how do you appease your die-hard fans, while also saving as much money as humanly possible? By making your own tissue box ukulele that would only be fit for a rock god, of course.

1. Obtaining the materials - Kleenex boxes produce the best sound acoustically, but the designs on the box leave something to be desired for your upcoming rock and roll lifestyle. What I would suggest is possibly finding one made out of gold. You will also need the cardboard tube from a roll of paper towels. People often ask if it depends on what kind of paper towel company put it out, and I have found that Brawny is hands down the best. This is mostly due to the sexiness and devil may care attitude of the Brawny guy that makes him so irresistible. If Brawny is not available, buy the most expensive roll you can find. Also, you need string. Very nice, platinum string.

Did you know... that like becoming a vampire, tissue box mastery involves losing several qualities of your human appearance?

2. Construction - Find some old jewelry. Melt down the metals in it and use that to paste the paper towel tube to the tissue box. Then, string the guitar from the end of the towel tube to the other end of the tissue box. Make sure the string are the proper gauges you need to produce a solid sound.


3. Mastery - The tissue box ukulele is a whimsical instrument that has only been mastered by a few people. One of the trailblazers, Jerry Lewis, started at an early age. His father was one of the first masters of the tissue box ukulele, and Jerry tried to mimic his father's greatness. However, he could not handle it. In one of his very common 3 hour ukulele concerts, he was stricken with muscular dystrophy. Now, he is cared for by his thousands of illegitimate children across the nation. Many scholars say that this is largely due to the lack of a bad-ass looking tissue box. I would agree.


4. Obtain Muscular Dystrophy - It's not that I do not think you are capable of playing the instrument really well, but Muscular Dystrophy is an inevitability thanks to the curse Jerry Lewis has casted on the tissue box musicians. Since his fall, all of the greatest players have fallen ill. Year after year, Mr. Lewis will announce that he will lift this devastating curse if enough money is raised for his illegitimate children. No matter the amount raised, he will never lift the curse. This is widely regarded as a dick move.

Three Things You Probably Didn't Know About Space Mountain

Disney World’s Space Mountain is a hotspot for family fun as well as a hotspot for shrouded mystery.

1.) Space Mountain is the world’s second largest Rube Goldberg machine. The largest, much to many people’s surprise, is the Washington Monument.

Did you know... the Washington Monument extends several miles underground and the subterranean caverns located underneath the monument were the inspiration for the computer game The Incredible Machine?

2.) Every star in Space Mountain represents someone who has died of AIDs. Tourists and HIV enthusiasts alike can buy their AIDs stars at any Disney store location.

3.) During the great space race, Walt Disney demanded that the Disney Corporation beat both the US and the Soviets into space. The construction crew put to the task of building the rocket felt overwhelmed as to how they were expected to launch anything into space using only roller coaster tracks. In a desperate effort to keep their jobs and save themselves from a tyrannical scolding at the hands of Disney, they constructed Space Mountain in a way that would make Walt Disney believe he actually went into space. The ruse worked, and Walt died under the impression that he spent a brief part of his life orbiting the earth.

Walt Disney died a cartoonist, an entrepreneur, a demolitions expert, part-time samurai, and a professor in linguistics. He did not, however, die an astronaut.

House Calls: Internet Deprivation

Causes: Thank God you took off work to go on that family vacation. You were in such a haste to leave, you left all of your technological gadgetry behind, leaving your SideBerries and iZunes and the like to collect dust on the end table. This wasn't your original intention, but your spouse stated that you spend too much time "jacked in" to the "information super-highway" and it was really "pissing them off." You begrudgingly left all of that behind. Besides, are you really going to be RSSpoon fed your entire life? This vacation is your stand in reclaiming your life, by actually living outside the business world!

Then you realize you really need some internet porn.

Synopsis: Internet deprivation is much more than just missing internet porn. This can also be a result of missing out on everyday internet occurrences like forums, electronic mail, RSS news feeds, internet fads, hot young singles wanting to talk to you, or being surprised that one of your ex-school mates is married with another person from the same high school... AND THEY HAVE NINE KIDS?!

Symptoms: You should be able to recognize the disease from this timeline:

15 minutes without internet: Anxiousness and a constant worry that you just missed something cool.

30 minutes without internet: You see something, and wonder "what would 'Link420' say about that?"

1 hour without internet: Heart burn

2 hours without internet: You lose your appetite because your Parmesan chicken is not Food 2.0.

4 hours without internet: You start video blogging, using your cat as a camera.

8 hours without internet: Ability to speak is lost, and can only respond to other people with a thumbs up or thumbs down.

16 hours without internet: Death.

24 hours without internet: Your death is posted on your myspace, facebook, okurt, friendster, okcupid, and AdultFriendFinder profiles.

Did you know... that before the internet, people died in the coolest ways ever?

Treatments: There is an obvious treatment, which would be to get to the nearest cyber cafe or internet ready computer and start suckling on the precious internet teat. If there are no said possible connections around and symptoms are starting to get serious, then you can try for an artificial dose of internet. There are still several ways you can "log on" to the internet wherever you are.

• Find a cat and watch it play around with its surroundings. Think of different things it could be saying, taking into account the brain capacity and limited English of a cat and how that would effect the construction of its sentences.

• Go to a playground and call an 8 year old a cuntaroonie. Argue with his friends, too.

• Cut off peoples sentences with things you think they are going to say, based off of previous sentences.

• Go through your DVD collection, watch everything, then find one line of dialog you'd think would be awesome if played on A-B repeat. Also, find something to stare at while listening.

• Go to a real pornography boutique.

• Spot a fat kid walking down the street. What song should he be singing and dancing to? Does his dance rely heavily on arm pumps?

• Show everyone you know a picture you have in your wallet. Have them talk about how "true" it is.

Haunted History: Oakbrook Mall

Located west of Chicago, near Route 83, Oakbrook mall is home to a plethora of expensive clothing stores, a Pottery Barn, and a Sharper Image to name a few highlights. In fact, Oakbrook is such a hotspot for fashion in the West suburbs, it is often referred to as “the Mecca of metro” on the streets.

During the day, Oakbrook Mall is an aesthetically pleasing shopping center populated primarily by upper middle people. By night however, Oakbrook Mall is an aesthetically pleasing shopping center populated primarily by upper middle-class ghosts.

Did you know... that the compass rose in the Northwestern part of the mall is the most haunted compass rose in the USA?

The following legends have accumulated over the years:

Parking Lot Pretty Boys
On August 15th, 1999, a pair of well-dressed males died in a car crash right outside the Northern-parking center. Since the incident, local authorities have been called in to investigate reports of two men wandering the lot after midnight. Sources state that the two figures were dressed in charred, although slimming button-downs. Authorities have not been able to confirm or deny such presences but have noted a distinct, ghostly smell of hair gel in the suspected area. Legend has it, the two men’s souls will be put to rest if they are given a pair of jeans that retailed for roughly half of what they would have paid.


Kid That Died In The Pottery Barn But Really Didn’t
Urban legend has it that a negligent mother, in an attempt to better juggle wicker products and large scented candles, placed her son in a large ceramics container in a Pottery Barn so she could better carry her items. The kid ended up being fine because bad things don’t happen to white children, but some say if you listen carefully you can still hear him whining.

Did you know... if this was the baby in the incident, things would have turned out differently?

The Mac Sales Rep That Died On His Shift Or Something
Ancient Hebrew texts suggest that an unnamed Mac store employee suffered a heart attack while helping a costumer. No one ran to his aid because the new iMac came out that week and everyone was staring at the eye candy. Clearly upset with his demise, The Mac Guy roams the Apple store during normal business hours whispering false information about external hard drives to any human foolish enough to listen.