kylegilbert

To follow up on my previous post on illustrating, here’s a video that nearly made me pee my pants with laughter.

HT: ChrisWHill

It seems that our nation has this one figured out pretty well already, but just in case you’ve missed it, here are nine ways to ruin your kids:

1. Always expect the worst from your kids.  You’ll eventually find out you’re right.
2. Give them everything they want.  If you’re consistent with this, you’ll trick your children into thinking that the stuff of this world can buy their happiness.
3. Don’t discipline your kids.  I’m not just talking about spanking here; I’m talking about time out, grounding, and all other forms of discipline.
4. Be very cautious about praising your children.  You don’t want them to become proud or feel special about themselves.  Slowly erode their confidence.
5. Show your kids through your words and actions that they are an inconvenience to your life.  Dwell on the ways that your life would be different – even better – without them.
6. Use guilt and shame to motivate your children to do what you want them to do.
7. If you have more than one child, let the kids treat each other with rudeness and disrespect.
8. Place the responsibility of socializing your kids on either a) the school system, or b) television.  Don’t consider this a personal responsibility.
9. Place the responsibility of their spiritual development on either a) the church, or b) let them figure this out on their own.  If you’re going to wreck your kids, it’s critical that you not take responsibility here.

Just in case you missed the related posts:

• 6 Ways to Wreck Your Spiritual Life
• 9 Ways to Wreck Your Job

The last post was a little heavy, so I thought I’d write this one with a little less seriousness.

Looking for some great opportunities to wreck you job? Here’s a list of six things that will shake things up in the workplace:

1. Bring a machete to work, and keep it on your desk.
2. Get some bright pink sunglasses, and never take them off.
3. Always refer to yourself in third person, and insert “silly” before your name. (eg. “Can you meet about that proposal with silly Kyle today?”)
4. Unless you have a uniform, wear the same thing to work every day.
5. Remove all of the letter e’s from your emails and letters.
6. Always bring your pets with you to work.
7. Spend your lunch breaks under your desk.
8. Send out a daily photo of yourself to the rest of the staff. (Childhood photos should work fine.)
9. Pretend like you have an imaginary friend who lives in your desk drawer.

Maybe your spiritual life is going a little too well lately and you’re looking for a way to bring things down a notch or two.  Just follow these steps to see your spiritual life quickly erode into a mess:

1. Do what you feel like doing.  Avoid difficult things.  Do what comes naturally.
2. Consume vast amounts of media.  Watch and listen to whatever you want.
3. Harbor resentment, especially towards your family.  In your free time, think about the ways they’ve let you down.
4. Worry about your stuff.  Hoard it all.
5. Don’t read the Bible or pray.
6. Don’t trust God.  Live in fear and worry.  Live your life as though Jesus never lived, died, and rose again for you.

Any other steps to recommend?

While I was dying my hair a couple of nights ago, I leaned against the bathroom sink and accidentally set off my car alarm from the keys in my pocket.  Since that was at least the second time that I’ve made a fool of myself in such a way, I decided to take action to make sure that would never happen again.  For those who will find this useful, here are instructions on how to quickly, easily, and non-destructively disable your car fob panic button.  (I drive a 2001 Jeep Cherokee, but this should be basically the same for any kind of car.)

The first thing you'll need to do is open up the fob. A penny worked great for me.

Next, I carefully pulled on the rubber encasing the chip board.

Here's the key chain with the rubber button piece removed.

Next, I flipped the rubber button part back over and used a plastic fork to gently remove the circuit board from the rubber piece.

After that, I placed a small piece of tape over the back of the panic button. This will keep the button from making a connection to the circuit board when pressed.

Last, I reassembled the fob and tested it out. It worked great, and it only took a couple of minutes.