The Secret Is That They Count On You To Be Stupid

Self-Help’s Slimy ‘Secret’

It’s the publishing phenomenon of the year so far, a small book with a parchment-brown cover engraved with the image of a red wax seal.

“The Secret,” its title proclaims matter-of-factly, as if the slim volume held the answer to life’s deepest mysteries. Which is precisely what it purports to do. Written by an Australian television producer, this latest contribution to the bursting shelves of New Age self-helpiana has come out of nowhere to sell more than 1.3 million copies in the United States alone.

Yet as bookstores nationwide have sold out of it again and again, controversy has begun to swirl around “the secret.” Working in a bookstore recently and discussing the book with customers lured by the promise of instant success, I finally delved into its message myself. And where the buyers I talked to hoped to find the path to a better life, I found a disturbing little book of blame.

–linkswipe via reddit

Previously in this blog:
The Secret: Suckers!
The Secret: Law Of (Mal-)Attraction
More On The Secret
The Secret

Lighting Nazis Must Die!!

Ban the Bulb? — “If all 4 billion incandescent sockets were filled with CFLs we’d have nearly 50,000 pounds of mercury spread around every single US household”

In a few weeks the US Congress is likely to vote to phase out the standard incandescent lightbulb within a decade. The frantic race to see who can best appease the global warming alarmists will claim another victim, the friendly glow of the direct descendant of Thomas Edison’s filament-based light bulb.

I didn’t even know this was seriously being considered here.

So help me God, if they do the fucking Wrong Thing…

Previous coverage in this blog:
Aha! Read This, You Lighting Nazi Bastards!
Eat Mercury And Die, Lighting Nazis!!!
Thank God! I Am Saved From The Lighting Nazis!!
Your Final Warning: Don’t. You. Fucking. Dare!
Don’t You Bastards DARE To Even TRY This Here!

Photo Album: Thanks For The Flying Pig!

Photos taken April 7, 2007.

Photo Album: East Village, New York City

Photos taken April 7, 2007.

Freak fence.

“Soul Food With A Twist”

Automat instructions. Duh.

Automat food.

Nandeska?

I really don’t know what the fuck this is. Mutant panda? Crazed penguin?

Close-up.

Punk chick statue.

Close-up. Eew.

How rare! And a brilliant combination too.

Photo Album: Leatherman

Photos taken April 7, 2007.

After a disappointing stroll through the East Village yesterday looking for some hot photos to take, I ran across this guy as I was leaving that area. Fuck, he looked like he stepped out of Warren Ellis’s daydreams!

I only got him from the back.

Talk about dressed to kill!

Close-up of gravity-defying hair!

Photo Album: America The Illiterate

Photos taken April 7, 2007.

Sticker exhortation.

Satan Island: Two parcels of books trashed.

Manhattan: Crichton’s Prey trashed. Maybe it belongs there, I don’t know. I haven’t read it.

Unbreak My Heart

Lessons of Heart Disease, Learned and Ignored

[...] The popular image of a heart attack is all wrong.

It’s the Hollywood heart attack, said Dr. Eric Peterson, a cardiologist and heart disease researcher at Duke University.

“That’s the man clutching his chest, grimacing in pain and going down,” Dr. Peterson said. “That’s what people imagine a heart attack is like. What they don’t imagine is that it’s not so much pain as pressure, a feeling of heaviness, shortness of breath.”

Most patients describe something like Mr. Orr’s symptoms — discomfort in the chest that may, or may not, radiate into the arms or neck, the back, the jaw, or the stomach. Many also have nausea or shortness of breath. Or they break out in a cold sweat, or have a feeling of anxiety or impending doom, or have blue lips or hands or feet, or feel a sudden exhaustion.

And:

Mr. Orr said he did not like to think of himself as someone who had to take a fistful of pills every day. Even the recommended daily aspirin seemed superfluous, he thought.

“I think I sort of pooh-poohed the notion that one tablet of aspirin each day would do anything,” Mr. Orr said.

And:

Now Mr. Orr plans to be serious about taking his medication and getting back to his diet and exercise program. He will call an ambulance if he ever has symptoms again. Still, he hates to think of himself as a patient. “I’m a little freaked out that I will have to take medication for the foreseeable eternity,” Mr. Orr said.

But the day after he got home from the hospital, he thought about what had happened.

“The gravity of the situation just sort of clicked,” Mr. Orr said. “I started to cry.”

Crybaby eejit.

Photo Album: Winter Garden WiFi

Photos taken April 8, 2007.

Where I sometimes go to score free WiFi…

World Financial Center Winter Garden

A stand for collectible dishes. Small, lightweight, folds.

The Biggest Piece Of Shit Known To Man defiling a good stand.

I usually have to put up with shit like her. She is a homeless sick bitch who practically lives there (along with 4 others). She talks out loud to herself, sometimes shouts. She should be locked up somewhere and given happy drugs. Preferably an accidental overdose on first attempt…

Photo Album: Wall Street Bull, Part Two

Photo taken April 7, 2007.

No money came out.

Previously in this blog:
Photo Album: Wall Street Bull

Photo Album: Nikola Tesla Bust

Photos taken April 7, 2007.

It’s on a church’s property. You think a grateful nation would erect a real statue? Ungrateful bastards!