Texting and Driving: Safer Than Taking A Nap Underwater

I was watching tv yesterday, and a commercial came on that started out with this girl talking about her sister and how she loved to laugh and was such a good person blah blah blah. Then she says "This is the text she was reading when she flipped her car." So at this point I am like "ok, this is an anti texting and driving commercial." Then it shows the word "Yeah". I almost lost it. The amount of time it takes to read the word yeah is like a fraction of a second. It takes less time to read that text than it takes to look at your mirrors or look at your mph gauge. Maybe she was just a really slow reader. I personally don't think it is good for a slow reader to be driving in the first place. How long would it take her to read street signs? She would have to come to a dead stop in the road every time she had to read one of them. That isn't safe. My point is the reason people are cracking down on texting and driving stems from the fact that people are too dumb to do it safely. I have been texting and driving since that combination was possible for me to do, and haven't even come close to an accident. This is because I do it safely. So I feel that since people are, apparently, so stupid maybe I should give some tips on texting and driving in a safe manner.

TIP #1

If you are driving in heavy traffic and your text ringer goes off you probably don't need to read the text that second. Wait until you get to a red light, or until the traffic gets so backed up that you have to come to a complete stop. This will ensure that you aren't staring down at your phone while there are a thousand cars on the road that have the potential to crash into you as you drift across lanes because you aren't looking at the road.

TIP #2

If you are driving in traffic that isn't exactly heavy and the cars are spread further out here is a time that you can probably pull of texting somewhat safely. But, only if you do it as I describe. Otherwise you might as well jerk your steering wheel and ram into the car next to you and get it over with right now. What you will first do is make sure that your phone is in a location where it can be grabbed easily. A pocket, on the floor, or somewhere in or around the backseat are not examples of grabbed easily. Make sure at least one of your hands is on the steering wheel. Now you are ready to read the text. Take a really good look at all of your surroundings. Where cars are, how much space you have in front of you, if there is a traffic light or stop sign coming up, if there are potential cars that could cut you off, you get the idea. Lift your phone to eye level so that you can see the road in your periphery as you read one or 2 words at a time. After you read the first word or couple of words make sure to look at the road again, and repeat that process until you have read the text. Remember that each time you look at the road again you need to assess everything that is going on so as to lower the possibility of doing something stupid. Also, pray for a red light, because reading a text like that is lengthy and kind of annoying. A red light gives you the opportunity to read the whole text without worrying about doing something stupid.

The next step is actually texting back. Prepare to look at your phone the same way as I have told you to prepare to read. Make sure you know what you are going to say. The less you have to think about what you are saying while you are texting the less distracted you will be. Try to keep the text as short as possible. Type, at the most, 2 letters at a time, make sure you are completely surveying the road each time you look.

TIP #3

If you have a smart phone there are a few ways that you can eliminate a lot of the risk. If you own an android there should be a speech to text button in your message screen. If you own an iPhone 4 or older there is an app called dragon dictation that is a speech to text converter. If you own an iPhone 4s I am jealous, and you have siri who can text for you. This will greatly reduce the amount of time that you spend per text, and eliminate the need to actually type the message out.

TIP #4

If you have a passenger you can almost completely reduce the risks of texting and driving. I greatly suggest that you hand your phone to your passenger and ask them to read your texts and text back for you. Unless you are on a road trip and they have been eating Cheetos. Because I have been there before. You don't want them touching your phone at all. Unless you enjoy having powdered cheese caked onto your phone. Which I do not prefer at all. I had to clean my phone for like 10 minutes to get all that crap off. Lucky for me it was my iphone and there is only 1 button, and I have a screen cover. I can't even imagine if there were a ton of buttons, and all that crap got under them and made the buttons stick. It is just a mess. On a side note. If you are gonna touch someone's phone. Be considerate, and make sure your hands are clean. I bet you are asking how you can accomplish this while on a road trip and you are eating Cheetos. Well I will tell you. You open the bag, and pour them into your mouth. Yay, no mess!

TIP #5

If you are having a full blown conversation in your texts. Just call the person. Texting is a way to relay a short message to someone without having to call them, and it allows the person receiving the message to read it at their leisure. It was never meant to replace communication the way that it has. Just call the person, or better yet go spend time with them. The only time that it is appropriate to have a full blown conversation over a text is when you are in a social setting, and you have to tell someone sitting across from you something that is inappropriate to tell to the entire group. For example, a girl is talking about her dads boat. "Yeah, it is sooo big." Your text message to your friend across from you: "That's what she said." Then they reply back with something that they don't want to say out loud to everyone. It works in many situations. Another example, I went to a friends house to watch a movie. There were 4 people there. Me, the girl I liked at the time, a guy, and his girlfriend. Well, the guy and his girlfriend started making out like crazy. So the girl I was into and I started texting each other because we didn't want to interrupt the loud kissing noises coming from the other couch. Another example, you are at dinner with your family, and your sister texts you and says that she is freaking out. So you ask why, and she replies that she is pregnant and doesn't want to tell your parents. Granted she could have said this to you at a different time, and that would have been better probably, but it's just an example. Anyway, my point is that if you are texting and having a whole conversation with someone while you are driving just call them. Even better, get a blue tooth so that you don't have to hold the phone to your ear.

Tip #6

If you are the kind of person who has trouble driving in the first place. Texting and driving is not for you. To be able to text and drive safely you actually have to be able to drive. So Asian women, I am sorry, but you will never be able to text and drive. And the reverse of that applies. If you are an okay driver, but it takes you forever to text something you probably shouldn't be texting and driving either. If you are terrible at both you are probably old.

This completes my tips of how to safely text and drive. If you have any questions, and you are an attractive female please message me on facebook. I will likely reply within 10 seconds because I am getting desperate. Just kidding, but seriously I am.

I Don't Think My Brain Works Properly

I have a very interesting thing on my mind tonight. Earlier I was eating tacos, because it's taco tuesday at Del Taco, and I had a strange urge to rip the bag my food came. After I finished ripping the bag in two places I looked up at my friend Jason and told him "I have no idea why I did that." So we began to talk about strange urges. I am sure that everyone gets them from time to time. Like when you are driving down the freeway, and for no reason at all you want to jerk the steering wheel. Or, you are in a very high hotel room with the window open, and you for no reason at all have the urge to sprint at the window and jump out. These urges aren't always suicidal by the way. I recall a time in my youth where I was sitting behind an old gentleman in a religious meeting. While sitting behind this older, mostly bald, man I began to stare at his wrinkled neck skin going up to the back of his skull. It was at this time that I felt the need to poke him in his wrinkled neck skin repeatedly for absolutely no reason. This meeting was an hour long by the way. It was likely the longest hour of my life.

I wish I could explain these strange urges. I have to think of children when I get them, because I am certain children have these urges but can't control them. For instance, a child is playing with a bunch of other children, and completely out of nowhere the child picks up a toy and chucks it at either one of the other children or an adult. Or a parent tells their child not to touch something fragile they had just purchased. The child, of course, grabs it and plays a short game of keep away with the parent and then chucks it onto the hardest part of the floor in their house. This has to be the same kind of occurrence right? That is what I think at least. The child just doesn't have the ability to filter out the stupid urges yet. Heck, I barely have the will power to resist them. So you can't really be too mad at a child for breaking stuff and hitting other children, because we have all been there. I know I have wanted to hit other people's children with a solid object before. So I can't really blame them for doing it. Thank goodness for my mind. I love how I have the ability to imagine myself doing things that I could never do in real life. On some level it allows me to live with the fact that I can't do some things. Like if there is a guy that is a total douche. I can imagine the perfect revenge, and imagining that allows me to live without actually doing something that I could regret. If anything our imaginations are an undo, or ctrl z (cmd z for mac), of sorts. We can think through a situation, and determine after going through it whether or not it is something we want to do before we actually act. I believe this ability is broken for people who constantly do stupid things. They can't think through a situation beforehand, and come to the conclusion, "You know, I don't think jumping down this 15 foot staircase is a good idea." I am amazed at the amount of people who's brains are broken. I am not upset about it. If it weren't for people like that there would be almost no need for YouTube. Everyone has their place in the world, and, for some people, it is lying face down on the concrete with a lot of broken bones.

Something else I have been thinking about lately is conversing. Until about 3 weeks ago I had never thought about where I was suppose to look when I am talking with people. It just happened naturally. Well, my mind screwed that up, and I don't know where the heck I am suppose to look any more. Now every time I talk to someone I end up trying to blur my vision in an attempt to look at both of their eyes. I must look like an idiot. I can't find anywhere to look that seems right. I will look at one of their eyes, in between their eyes, or, like I said before, try to blur my vision trying to look at both of their eyes. Nothing seems right, and that is taking all of my focus during the conversation. I don't know what the heck to do. It all started when I was at work. I was talking to a guy wearing sunglasses, and I couldn't see his eyes. So I was trying to guess where they were while I was talking to him. I ended up just landing on a spot that, I assume, was close to where his eyes actually were. I don't think I was right though, because soon after he took his sunglasses off. I am sure that it was because I was looking like an inch away from where his eyes actually were. So anyway, it was after that experience that I started thinking about where I am actually suppose to look during a conversation, and the autopilot in my brain that had been controlling my eyes during conversation was destroyed. Now I am left looking like an idiot every time I talk to someone.

Speaking of your brain not working properly. Don't you hate it when you are going to have an important conversation with someone, or you are suppose to give a somewhat improvised speech to a group of people, and you plan out pretty much everything you are gonna say then the second you start to speak everything you planned to say just gets erased from your mind? Isn't that the most ironic thing? The stuff you are trying so hard to remember just gets erased the moment you need it. It's like that with everything it seems. When you are trying to impress a love interest you do everything wrong because you are trying so hard. Or when you do something seemingly impossible on accident, then you try to do it again and fail miserably. It's so frustrating that our mind and bodies can instinctually do something that we would normally have to try a thousand times to do again. I kind of wonder if our minds come with everything preinstalled, but when we try to override things, we being our conscious mind, our subconscious mind returns an error that ultimately screws everything up. This essentially explains beginners luck. The beginner isn't trying, because they don't even know what to do. So their instincts, or their subconscious mind, completely takes over and does everything. Then once they understand what is going on their conscious mind starts to take over and screws everything up. Aren't our minds ridiculous? I am beginning to think maybe I should just stop trying to do things, and start doing them without any preparation. I wonder how successful a person could be doing something like that. My guess is that they would be pretty successful, but I guess for everything else there is YouTube.

Proof that there is a God.

I have always believed that there is a God. I would consider myself a religious person. I would even consider myself a Mormon. That is not what I am here to talk about today. My proof that there is a God stems from the conundrum of relationships.

I was thinking the other day, and I found myself thinking about how attraction is really the cause of relationship woes. If it weren't for attraction we wouldn't have trouble with relationships, because our relationships would be based off of things that make sense. Most guys would probably get with fat girls because they like steak and sweets. I gotta be honest. When I meet a girl that's a vegetarian I want to cry. What kind of a life is that? Unfortunately, if she is attractive I can somehow live with the fact that I hate her. How does that make any sense? Everyone does it. Attraction is the override for our brains. We have this specific list of qualities that our perfect mate needs to have, but if an attractive man/woman, that has none of those qualities, comes along our brain temporarily deletes that list and we live miserably for however long the relationship lasts. Some times people get lucky and the attractive person turns out to have some of the important qualities, but definitely not enough to merit being in that relationship. It's sad how many people get into these relationships, and they just stay in it because the force of attraction is so strong. I am probably exhibit A when it comes to this. I am, unfortunately, a very shallow person. It makes me angry, because there are girls that have all the qualities that I would look for, but because of the things that I am attracted to I could never be with them. I apologize for the honesty, but that's just how it is. I bring this up because it is quite a dilemma. Without attraction I think that a lot more people could be in better and more fulfilling relationships. Relationships that wouldn't be so focused on outward appearance, and our brains wouldn't essentially have a virus that completely screws us all over.

The only problem is that without attraction things would be way too easy. We would find someone suited to us almost perfectly in all the right ways. It would take away the excitement and the risk. The feeling of being alive that you get when you are head over heels for someone. You can like someone's personality sure, but I believe that it is attraction that tips the emotional scale and ultimately creates the full feeling of love. There are definitely bad things that can come from relationships based solely on attraction, but you can't really appreciate or learn how to find good without having been completely miserable first. I believe that without attraction, relationships would be only average. There would be no amazing story about the nerd marrying the cheerleader, or the girl finding her perfect prince charming. Why do you think romantic movies do so well, and why so many women read those horrid novels with the super gay front covers of guys that have no shirt on. It is because attraction is such a strong deep rooted part of us. This is one of the large reasons that I believe there is a God. People are so complex that it is downright offensive to think that we aren't part of something more than just this life. I am not saying that I am right. I obviously believe that I am right, but even if I am wrong. I would rather live my life believing what I believe instead of thinking there is nothing after this. How depressing is that? I believe that everything is too complex for it to be coincidence. People, relationships, compassion, sadness, happiness, love. Those things are all way too complex to be an accident caused by some big explosion billions of years ago. That is my proof.