I don’t want anybody to feel left out, so I’m making a list of things you can choose to make you offended. There’s no priority here. Find the one that fits you best. After all, it must be a fun game, being offended, since everyone seems to be doing it.
1. Be offended at people who make their name all fluffy with a special font.
2. Be offended at those who spout quotes without caring for the true source.
3. Find offense in anyone who walks the same path as you.
4. Be offended that socks are still built with the intention of having the seams on the inside.
5. Take offense at anyone who has no idea.
6. Take offense at the ones who shared the idea you wish you said first.
7. Be offended at those who make little effort.
8. Be offended that Twinkies don’t have more filling.
9. Be offended that abdominal muscles are temporary.
10. Offense is easy when you’re in public. Be uncommon and take offense in private.
11. Be offended that time resists change no matter how often we mess with our clocks.
12. Be off ended at extra spaces in writing.
13. Take offense at cats only getting 9 lives when video gamers get infinity.
14. Take offense against movies with substandard music.
15. Find offense in pillows too big to stuff in your ears.
16. Find offense in everyone who gets a good night sleep and a next meal.
17. Be offended that the thought of being homeless just crossed your mind.
18. Be offended about persuasion and influence and manipulation.
19. Be offended when the numbers aren’t rounded off.
Angry comes easy. It’s calm confidence which requires effort.
Frustration is common and it’s frustration we find at the root of anger. An irate person doesn’t know how to voice their desires. They don’t have control of something so their frustration bubbles up as a red-flushed face, pinched brow, clenched fists, clenched teeth, clenched buttocks, and shouted words. The more meaningless the words, the more deep the frustration. A confident person has no need to curse. Vocabulary decay happens when a person has lack of control.
A few routine items can cause immediate frustration. Everyday things like a commute, a meal, or a relationship are often where the loss of control begins. People often don’t know how to talk about their concerns.
Rare is the driver who says, “Okay, so you needed this lane. I wish you would have occupied the immense space behind me instead of the limited inches in front.”
Usually it’s a bit more like, “Are you #*@^ing blind!” accompanied by a sustained horn.
Frustration. Lack of control.
Why do we get frustrated? How do we arrive there? Did we even really need to arrive there? Or were we already there? Are we all just numbskulls ready to burst at the slightest hindrance to our plans?
Because anger comes so easily, I wonder if we’re already there, ready to blow a gasket, pop a fuse, burn up a brain cell. To avoid the frustration, we need to be more adaptable. We need to make plans of action, including how to avoid anger and frustration, instead of only plans of maximum complacence.
So, next question: how do we be adaptable? Adaptable people learn to adjust quickly. They learn to pivot. Pivoting is not necessarily the skill of skipping the end goal due to obstacles. It is more like the skill of going around the obstacles to get at the end goal from a different angle.
Also, adaptability comes from practice. Adaptable people get better at it from shifting the angle of action every chance they get.
Instead of learning to honk the horn longer or to shout louder, the adaptable person learns some choice new words. Words like: “Gort. Klaatu Barada Nikto.” They learn new phrases, such as: “Bring in the logic probe!”
Instead of getting angry about people cutting them off in traffic, they learn to avoid the traffic altogether, like with a car fitted with maximum hydraulics so they can drive OVER the traffic jams. Or a car fitted with a drill so they can pass UNDER the traffic jams. Or they’ll just drive a motorcycle so they can go BETWEEN.
Instead of getting frustrated, the adaptable person gets creative.
It is a good sign that as I was perusing mountain bike trail names all over the western United States, I found more names I would place in the Best column than in the Worst column. As I’ve seen them though, the majority of the total were rather bland and inane.
You get a lot of “Connector” trails. Everywhere you look, there’s a trail named Connector, which is fine only when you realize those are mostly short jaunts from one crazy downhill to another.
It seems like it would be beneficial to everyone if there was a guide on how to name MTB trails. The first thing to remember is to avoid numbers. Mountain bike trails are not city streets. Unlike city streets, which are best laid out in a grid, such as is done in New York City or Salt Lake City. If you’re building a city, lay the streets out in a grid and number them so people have an easier time finding their way around…the city. Mountain bike trails on the other hand are almost never laid out in a grid, and they shouldn’t be. They are trails which often follow the contour of the mountain, aiming at the more enticing features of a mountainside, or just switching back and forth to make a climb easier. These trails are mostly wild (the good ones), not visited by machines, civil engineers, or city planners. These trails need dynamic, memorable names. Which would you remember more, a trail named Ripjaw, or a trail named Trail #657?
Yeah, it would be Ripjaw, right?
Ripjaw, by the way, is a character in the Ben 10 cartoon series. It’s not a trail name that I know about, but it should be.
The next thing to remember is less of a priority, more of a personal preference. It may have some merit, so take it into consideration. There are many names for trails which start or end with a real person’s name. The only time I feel this is trail-name worthy is when it’s a name like Sacajawea, Buzz Aldrin, or Haley Batten. When you get these trails named Mike’s Pass, Dave’s Turnaround, or Tyler’s Connector, it loses savor, and loses meaning. Nobody knows, or really deep down cares about Mike, Dave, or Tyler. Not that they aren’t super cool guys, but their names don’t make any trail memorable.
The last thing I think anyone naming a trail should remember is to name the sketchy trails with memorably sketchy names, and the ordinary trails with ordinary names. It’s honest marketing.
What’s an ordinary name? Look to the common ones first. There are quite a few which sound like the same person traveled around to all the new trails and suggested the same name over and over again. Not likely, but kind of funny, if you think about it. We still have some names which pop up everywhere. Ridgeline, Cougar, and Juniper show up far too often. Portal and Pipeline appear on every mountain. Even Rock Garden, Rock and Roll, and Punk Rock, are used in so many places, they sound less like something you want to ride and more like somewhere you’d easily forget to take pictures. Common, therefore boring.
So, how do you avoid common? Take a look at these names. The ABSOLUTE BEST mountain bike trail names, from the western U.S. are these:
Horsethief Canyon—California (The birthplace of mountian biking as we know it, California, should have some great names, and they do.)
Special Orange—California
Sinuous—California
Graveyard Truck—California
Spahn Ranch—California (Here’s one that could have been named Spohn Ranch after one of the most amazing skateboard icons, Aaron Spohn. Whoever named this trail decided to name it after the Electronic Music outfit. It happens to be more fitting when it’s not about skateboarding.)
Deathhair—Colorado (Though there is perhaps an unhealthy obsession in the mountain bike community with death, trail names like Dead Guy, Dead Man, and Deathwish, don’t catch the attention quite like “Deathhair”. Really, what is that? A trail name that makes you want to visit.)
Hula Girl—Hawaii (So fitting.)
Jeep Eater—Hawaii (Whoa, look out!)
$300 Haircut—Idaho (Now this might seem to violate the first rule, but take a second look. It’s not trail 300. Tell me you wouldn’t remember this name—I won’t believe it.)
5 O’clock Shadow—Idaho
Low Hanging Fruit—Idaho
Tighty Whitey—Idaho
Carcass #3.26—Montana (I thought this one was just another numbered trail, but as I investigated, I couldn’t find a Carcass #1 or Carcass #2, or even a Carcass #4. That’s a bit intriguing.)
Slag Slayer—Montana
Old Chevy Truck—Montana
Puke Hill—Utah (Understandably named because it takes you 475 feet up in one mile. That’s about 145 meters up within 1.6 kilometers.)
Petrified Whales—Utah
Bloviate—Washington State (I want more like this.)
Sasquatch—Washington State
Fiddlehead—Alaska
Pagh—Alaska
Voldin—Alaska
Zasade—Alaska (Are these Russian names?)
And then there’s Arizona, which somehow grew a fascination with beans:
Franks ’n’ Beans—Arizona
Rice ’n’ Beans—Arizona
Bean Butte—Arizona
Bean Boulder—Arizona
Bean Bluff—Arizona
And that concludes the list of all the good-attention-grabbing trail names.
Now for the ones that grossed me out, or otherwise repelled me.
Not that everybody has the same goals for their offspring, but here are a few tips on how to motivate them, from an “expert” father.
For instance, you may want to encourage your child to find work so they can learn life skills, pay their way, and get out of the house sometimes. One way to give any child the right amount of motivation is to promise them if they stay around the house then you’ll be giving a lecture on the origins of babies.
This worked amazingly well for me. My son was planning on hanging around all day to do a whole lot of nothing. When I offered the lecture, he went out and got a job the same day.
Of course I congratulated him. “Good job on getting a job! You’re the most talented 10 year old I know.”
It can be difficult to get the young’uns to do homework. Most of us don’t want to do work when we get home. Home is supposed to be our sanctuary. A peaceful home is one where everyone can do what they want. Since a lot of homework happens online anymore, the tendency is to find a game instead. One possible solution is to hire an online assassin. Then you watch as your child’s character is destroyed.
“So, uh, now that the game is over, and you’re dead, I guess you may as well finish that math assignment.”
Want your child to get out of bed on time? There’s an invention out there which rolls up the covers at the end of the bed. It’s automatic, so it can be set on a timer. At the appropriate hour, the covers all roll up like a window shade. If that isn’t motivation enough, you can set the child’s alarm clock to play YOUR favorite music. They’ll rush to turn it off, no doubt about it. Last, but not least, you can set an alarm and hide it somewhere in the house. Kids love to go on treasure hunts.
Teach your daughter politics by taking her to the grocery store. Show her the produce section, and say, “I can get 17 different types of apples at the grocery store, but there are only two choices for President?! That’s un-American!”
Do you wish your son didn’t watch so much television? Tell him you’re going to get him excited about archery. First you buy the arrows, then the bow, then the targ…no, you don’t need a target. You already have one. Drag that old TV set outside and set it up, ready to shoot.
Xenosthesia.com 