Congratualations...

So this guy supposedly won some dream job which involves collecting $100,000 to sun himself on an island and drink piña coladas. But I'm thinking this sounds suspiciously like a horror movie setup. So perhaps the island is infested with radiation mutated zombies. Or maybe it is quickly sinking, and those "Snorkeling skills" will come in awfully handy. I mean the interview involved a spa, and that is never a good sign.

Another Major Victory in the War On Spas!

We can only speculate on how spas fit into this exactly, but seeing as that infamous word is right there in the title, I don't think that connection can be denied. And with all the recent setbacks, I am ready to jump on any victory we can find. Keep this up and we will win this war, one drug-dealing, violently bigoted, aromatherapist at a time.

PS:
I don't think this is the last we will hear from "Saratoga Springs" either. With a name like that, the place is a resort town waiting to open. That or a golf course. Either way, it is trouble.

Silken Petals

My aunt requested that I put up a picture of the card she made, and let you decide for yourselves rather than just call her crazed. So fine here it is.



You happy now, Auntie?

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

Take heed, oh ye who see this in your mini-feed. And give ear, all ye who accidently stumbled across this on Google. Oh, and the few people who actually want to read the post, should probably read it too. For this is another Cold Hard Facts SPA SCARE!

Before we begin with the news, I would like to thank all those who offered to take me to a spa for my birthday. And I would especially like to thank my crazy aunt, who went one step farther, and sent me a card purporting to contain a gift certificate for a wax and facial. Of course if any of you were serious, I would have had to kill you. But since you weren't, yes it was quite funny.

But, now is the time to be serious and not funny, for I have unearthed a vast conspiracy. Yes, men take a gander at this article, and watch the smiles vanish from your faces. I have reflected on this story, and I can come to only one shocking conclusion. There is a vast conspiracy of mean and nasty women wishing to get us face down in a tub full of beer and laugh at us. Lies you say? Perhaps, but take a gander of the newspaper that article is in. That's right, the Women's Section. They could have been plotting this for months and I would never have known. But thanks to a tip-off, I know now, and perhaps there is still time.

Arm yourselves men. Arm yourselves, and trust no one. Wife, sister, mother-in-law, they could all be in this together. Even your own mother may try to lure you in, as this young man found out too late! Prepare yourselves men. Prepare yourselves or you will share his fate. And if its too late, if you were already sucked in, if you are forced to bathe in beer, at least buy a keg and do it in your own shower. You might lose, but at least then the spas won't have won. Plus you'll save about a thousand bucks.

And if there are any good women left. If there are women who have not yet succumbed to the curse, then you too are at risk. I speak of the Tupperware parties. Or should I say Spapperware parties. It's the most insidious plot since oral surgeons started offering eyebrow buffing and make-up tips. I can hear the spa executives chuckling to themselves. They know ladies will buy anything at a Tupperware party.* They know all your weaknesses, but you still have to hold out as long as possible. Society depends on you. And absolutely refuse to host such parties. Sure you might earn a few dollars. Sure you might get beautiful skin. But is beautiful skin really worth the cost of your soul? Oh it is? Then I guess we're doomed.



*Even Tupperware seems extra exciting to women at parties. "Wow it stores food. I'll take 30!" Top behavioral experts are still trying to figure out why.

Femininity, Decontruction, and Coconuts: An Explosive Concoction

So let us continue where we left off in the textbook, and from there we will proceed to the class. For once in my life I actually took notes, and I intend to use them, so expect the world. (Yes I might have made a note or two in Diff Eq, but they hardly count.)

We proceed from the basic understanding of pop culture to a didactic analysis of the effects of the feminine revolution on the genre of Mass Culture. Perhaps Didactic is not the right word. Well I don't care, and neither does the author of the cunning pun, Femininity as Mas(s)querade*: A Feminist Approach to Mass Culture. Ha I'll bet you didn't even realize Faminism was popular culture, but didn't Betty Friedan make the Top 40 just last year? Oh, well it must be a masculine conspiracy!
Well, let us proceed back to the footnotes.

•Feminism stands as the vanguard, the first defense against the homogenization of society. It and it alone fight the good fight against the corrosive evil of supermarket tabloids.
•Even Marxism has learned that if it wishes too survive, we need feminism.
•But Marxism doesn't truely belive in Feminism.
•Hmm we already mentioned the importance of Feminism and Marxism, but something is missing.
•Ah yes a gay guy, because naturally gays represent the omnipresent womanly love inherent but DEEPLY hidden in the breathtakingly flawless philosophy of Trotskyism.
•Trosky! Now there's a pop culture icon. When's his CD coming out?

Um the rest of that chapter doesn't really mention Pop Culture at all, but if the Gay-Feminocommmunist Cabal of Evangelical Nightmare really exists, the rest of the chapter is probably its Satanic Scripture.

The next chapter seems to me to be boring and devoid of meaning, but I will point out that the last owner of the book must have been enthralled with it's prose; he highlighted every word.

Chapter Six: Deconstructionism.
•Pop Culture was created by some vast supreme power to permanently disenfranchise the proletariat.
Incidentally the best proof of G-d's existence can be found in the rants of Atheist Communists. They say the world is being run by an all-pervasive Bourgeois Conspiracy, with the goal of the utter destruction of the working class. Religious people call that omnipotent and omniscient force G-d. It's just a matter of perspective.
•Pop Culture is being shaped by this mysterious force.
•The working class only think they are watching a video of half-naked women, but really they are being softened to prevent the, otherwise inevitable, Communist Uprising, may it happen in our days.
•Pop Culture is constantly being manipulated, with yesterday's sex objects being forced aside to make way for today's sex objects.
•All the problems in the world come from the immoral influence of pop culture.
•Things are always in there balance. Every day there is a constant clash between the forces of justice and the evil influence of depraved Pop Culture.
•Hmm. Maybe conservative Christians and liberal Communists really do have common beliefs.
•Um, maybe we're being too extreme (You think!) We should probably backpedal just to be safe.
•Yeah let's muddle the issues a bit. If it's too clear, we won't be able to get tenure.

OK Last chapter.
•Pop Culture is he People's Culture. It symbolizes Liberty and Freedom.
•Or maybe not. Maybe it symbolizes continued oppression.
•At it's roots are the struggles and desires of the working class. But they have been twisted and transformed into junk.
•This isn't a very original chapter, is it?



So there you have it. Pop Culture through the eyes of non-science academics. Academics who need to go outside more. To Hawaii, say. Perhaps Aloha Springs. Just stting there relaxing. Under the shade of a coconut tree... Oh right, sorry. Join us tomorrow when we tell you how to study Pop Culture**.






*Ha Ha. Get it? Mass as in Mass Culture. But if you exclude the 's', you end up with masquerade? Ah those Cwazy Sociologists.
**Hint. It come out the back of a male ox. Oh and it's brown.

Cultura

Imagine a coconut. Now imagine a second coconut. Now imagine a lady is beating you over the head with said coconuts. Well at the Aloha Springs Resort, you don't have to imagine because.... Whoah! Looks like I got a little carried away there. Because, today's post is not about getting hit on the head with coconuts, at least not physical coconuts. No today's post is about 1) pop-culture and 2) why Britney Spears deserves to get beaten with a coconut.

Actually the class hasn't started yet per se, but I did do the reading. The reading as 4 chapters in a book called, what else, Pop Culture. Four chapters of pompous, academic, ranting. Four chapters, spanning 41 pages. Luckily most of what they said was garbage, and the rest can be summarized in bullet point form.

• eC15 means Early 15th Century
• Likewise lC19 means late 19th Century
• By now, you can probably guess what mC17 means.
• If you want your readers to know what the hell you are talking about, it would be best to write "Early 15th Century." It takes only a little longer to type, and it is much clearer.
• At the very least define your acronyms, rather than forcing your readers to do guesswork.
• That goes double for l. and fw.
• Culture is a very old word stemming from a root meaning agriculture. It's facts like this that are useful in Trivial Pursuit.
• Eight bullet points, and we haven't even touched Pop Culture.
• Eventually in the eighteenth century, culture came to mean nourishment for the mind. Thus Opera can be considered Culture, as can Calculus, but the author, being "Liberal Artsy", does not mention Calculus.
But what does this have to do with Britney Spears and Coconuts? Well we have many more bullet points to cover.
• The word mass indicates plebeian or low base, mob, ignorant. It also indicates a fundamental property of matter, but we don't really care here.
• So here's the nub of our argument. If we prefix culture with mass, we vulgarize it. So instead of Opera, we get, well, Britney.
• Presumably Pop Culture is the same sort of thing.

You following? Good cause there are 3 more chapters to go. Interesting how much time you can spend on the blindingly obvious.

• Culture, as in the Shakespeare and the calculus, is appreciated by only a small number of people. Actually again the author only cares about art, music, and literature, but I'll give F.R Lewis the benefit of the doubt.
• Not only can only a few people appreciate the beauty of Shakespeare, but those precious few people can something or other. "For such capacity does not belong merely to an isolated aesthetic realm it implies responsiveness to theory as well as to art, to science [finally] and to philosophy in so far as these may affect the human situation and the nature of life." In other-words, understanding culture involves responding to external stimuli. It involves not being brain dead.
• Only those select few individuals make any meaningful contribution to society, and everyone else could die of Plague for all the author cares.
• The Author is of course of this minority.
• notElon disagrees with this author. I mean without the rest of the world, who would clean up all those bodies?
• Besides that, even if most people aren't intellectuals, they sill can contribute to Society in some way, assuming they are not brain dead.
• "It seems, then, not unnecessary, to restate the obvious."
• notElon has noticed.
• America does not possess this high culture, but is more "Democratic."
• I mean just look at that Mark Twain. So low-brow.
• And don't get me started on Dave Barry.
• Those darn Americans are even making the British less stuck-up.
• Even France won't hold out for long.
• Then Culture will be dead, and the world will be doomed. Doomed. Doomed to mediocrity.
• If it means getting rid of the Author, no loss.

Half way there. Gee, this is fun.

• "For about a century Western Culture has really been two cultures: the traditional kind — Let us call it "High Culture" —that is chronicled in the textbooks, and a mass culture for the market.
• Only for the last ONE HUNDRED YEARS? G-d where has this guy been?
• There were always two sets of academics those that sit around in monasteries having obscure discussions ie the Monks and those that popularize their knowledge ie the Minstrels.
• Lets see if we can get "The Monks and The Minstrels" into an academic journal.
• Many of those guy you enshrine as Pure Culture —Shakespeare for instance— were also popular entertainers, and they are actually the far more interesting category.
Oh sorry I got carried away for a second. Back to this guy's bullet points.
• "A work of High Culture is occasionally popular, though this is exceedingly rare.
• Gee, I wonder why.
• Soviet Russia is the King of Mass Culture, i.e propaganda and statues of Lenin.
• Everything in Soviet Russia is BIASED and appeals to the lowest common denominator.
• And the masses love it. They eat Pravda up. They sing the most tasteless base odes to Stalin with real fervor.
• What is wrong with these stupid Russians? Can't they see this is all garbage?
• Gresham's Law can be applied to culture, because I said so.
• Gresham's Law states that bad currency drives the good out of circulation, as people are more eager to spend that which depreciates faster and they will hoard their more currency as they come across it.
• Gresham's "Law" of Culture: "Bad stuff drives out the good, since it is more easily understood and enjoyed.

Technically there is yet more material, but that is probably enough to stew on for now. Does Gresham's Law of Culture explain Britney Spears? Does it explain Coconuts? It is it not too late to go back to the Feudal System? Tune in when we replace the batteries, and once again shine the light of Cold Hard Facts upon the daemons of Popular Culture.

Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't. Well now, come to think of it...

Everybody hates going to the dentist, what with the drill and the root canals and the painful shots. Plus the fact that someone has to stick both hands and an assorted array of tools into your mouth. Nothing could be more painful, except maybe dipping your left hand in hot, boiling, wax. Well now thanks to the ingenious Spa industry and ingenuous dental patients, you can have a root canal, while simultaneously having hot wax applied to your hand. Ahh relaxing. Oh G-d. Ow Ow Ow. Relaaaaxing.

But apparently not only do dentists get to perform more of the torture they love so much, it is also good for business, and supposedly makes patients happy. According to one, possibly a masochist, ""It's wonderful. I would recommend it to anyone because it's so relaxing."

Relaxing, huh? Well maybe I was wrong about these spas. Maybe eyebrow waxes and chemical baths are "relaxing", at least to some people. But why have the spa in the dentist? Wouldn't a better medical facility, a better host for the a spa, be one where the only clientele are women? Specifically hormonally crazed women, who are going through a stressful time, and are worried that they are no longer in the shape they once were. There could be a fortune in a career like that. Ah. It appears someone has beaten me to the punch*. Darn! Ah well. Maybe next time.



*With apologies to every woman but the ones who started the stereotype. Actually on second thought, with apologies to them too. Don't kill me.

Sorry About That

We apologize for three spa related posts in a row. We hope no feelings were injured. Hopefully non-spa related posting can resume tomorrow when I return to the right state of my mind.

The Horror!!! The Horror

Well it had to happen sometime. The spa epidemic has successfully jumped the species barrier to dog, cat, budgie, and possibly even goldfish. That's right. Spas are no longer for humans only. Now a new service, which appears to have been spawned in an unholy union of spa and bookmobile, will pamper your pets with a "luxurious hydrosurge therapeutic bath". Worse the "Spamobile" was started by the head of K-Mart, and rumor has it that its Blue-Light Specials are irresistible. In an attempt to find out why pets are being seduced by such a fiendish beast, we took to the streets. The results are not pleasant.

So Rex, what attracted you to this abomination. Was it the service or the Hydrosurge™?

GRRrrr

Snowball as a cat, shouldn't you know better to be seduced by such a travesty?

MeeOOW.

Goldie, surely a smart, sensible fish like you would know better than this! Goldie? Goldie? Hello? Is there any life in this tank? Well FINE! Don't answer!

Apparently the whole plague can be laid at the feet of certain individuals: Stupid Pet Owners. I mean COME ON People! Why in heck do you think your cat even wants that manicure? Do you honestly think your dog needs that $500 aromatherapy? Do you have nothing better to do with your money than blow it on a STINKIN' GOLDFISH! You people make me sick!

Oh No! When will it end?

Just when I thought there might be a hint of good news on the spa front, I saw this. Yes the horrible spa industry has come out with a new form of torture, one worthy of the, now infamous, Guantanamo Bay Resort, Permanent make-up. Yes ladies, the Spa Cabal knows how obsessed you are with applying lipstick, rouge, and mascara, and, in its own sick, demented, way, it want to help. For a fee, the "Spa Renew," in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin will "delicately tattoo" blush to "to their facial area where they [women or possibly even men too!] normally wear make-up." And for extra, they will even permanently dye your lips a more vibrant shade of red. They will even anesthetize you, so you feel almost no pain. Afterwards you can have a "chemical peel", which they promise will be loads of fun.

Girls, I beg you, for your own good, do not buy their outrageous lies. I don't care how difficult it is to apply lipstick. I don't care how appealing chemical peels sound. You must stand firm. We will not not sit idly by, while people inject us with strange poisons and call it relaxing. We will not allow these bastards to drown our sorrows in soothing goo. We will stand firm. We will... Hey wait! Where are you going? Get away from those telephones. I'm serious here!

We Salute You!

The Cold Hard Facts salutes the brave makers of the documentary Severance. While I have not actually seen this, I am told it is a real-life, behind-the-scenes look at a typical spa. Kudos to you producers. Perhaps once people realize that spas are actually inhabited by depraved serial killers, they will think twice about visiting one, and the Tides of War will finally turn. Information is our strongest weapon. Spread the word.

Losing the war on Spas

Last month, we reported on the unfortunate growing epidemic of paying to bathe in strange liquids. Now we return to the deadly spa, as we look at incoming reports of even more horrific torture selling for ever more exorbitant prices. The outrage has gotten so bad it calls for an emergency blog post, and marks the inauguration of a new label.


First on our hit list is the thumb massage. Apparently geared towards people addicted to cell phone texting, who can't pay for a full spa treatment, this new service consists of "Thumb Massages," and application of "Light emitting diodes" and Polarized current" to the thumb, ear and, mouth. Normally I am a big fan of LEDs, but using them to rip off stupid women is just sick.

If the thumb massages are not enough to make you cower, just listen to this next spa treatment: Flesh Eating Fish. Yes, that's right. In this treatment a woman sticks her feet into water containing actual fish which are actually encouraged to eat the dead skin offf her toes, so that she looks marginally better in sandals. After that she can pay an additional fee to shave off her eyebrows and replace them with prosthetics. Crazy aain't it. But here's the worst part. Women aren't the only people interested in these treatments. Men too are letting fish eat their flesh. Men also are going for the prosthetic eyebrows. And here's the worst bit, now there are even men who will actually pay to have hot wax poured in an area I won't mention, but suffice to say the procedure sounds incredibly painful. I had hooped that at least men would have more sense than that, but I was wrong. This spa epidemic is too far out of control.

But that's not the worst bit. No the item that made me create this emergency blog post come from the Holy Land A spa is now charging 300 shkalim for the privilege of allowing real live snakes to crawl up and down all over your naked body. Apparently this is supposed to be relaxing. RELAXING? What in the world is less relaxing than having a live snake crawl all over you. I'll tell you what! The thought that I wasted 300 shekalim to have that snake crawl all over me.

The spas have pushed the forces of reason back far enough. We can no longer afford to retreat against this imminent threat. It's time we take a stand. We must fight back, and yes die if we have to. It is the only way we can save society. We must fight back for the sake of the Cold Hard Facts.

Wash away the troubles with crude oil.

Spas, they take the most disgusting things, mud, cocoa butter, prune juice, and sell baths in them for outrageous prices. But now one company is topping all the others.

Yes that's the Cold Hard Facts, you can take a cool, refreshing shower in crude oil, and you come out smelling like a fresh, clean, gas station. Even better, not only are you showering in crude oil, but you're showering in crude oil that someone else already showered in. Better still the stuff is very, heavy, crude oil, so it has the consistency of hot tar. Ahhhhhhhhhh, so relaxing.

Seriously though, why crude oil. I mean, why not use something way more soothing, like say rotting, fish guts. And we're chemists; we can make things even nastier more energizing and desirable. How about a nice warm, sensual, massage in fragrant Cyclohexene? Or maybe the right mixture of tension-relieving Thiols would do the trick? I heard they exfoliate the skin for a slimmer, firmer, healthier new look. Or relieve the tension with a warm soak in soothing Alinine. Or why not cleanse, buff and hydrate yourself in a sauna filled with the delightful aroma of Hydrogen Telluride The only problem is that these chemicals might be deadly carcinogens, but then again they just might be the cure for rheumatoid arthritis, or at least we can say they might be.

Actually we may well be able to generate a market for this kind of thing. I can see it now, NotElon Chemical Spa and Resort, "So relaxing, we'll have tocarry you out on a stretcher". So who’s with me?