“Waterboarding: Not so bad!” -Niko Pueringer

Niko tonight asked to be waterboarded.

I’m sure by now you’ve heard all the hullaballoo about waterboarding and how it’s like the frat initiation technique that’s sweeping the nation, and also perhaps about how even the most hardest of CIA operatives only lasted for mere seconds when they subjected themselves to this technique.

Now odds are, knowing how politics and the world tends to work, it’s very likely the kind of thing that the media has latched onto and amped up (imagine! Torture that is effective in seconds and leaves no marks!) After all, I highly doubt the CIA manual on non-marking torture techniques contains a single chapter on “Waterboarding” and a glossary for terms like “inclined plane” and that’s it.

And obviously, any attempts to demonstrate it here are hindered by the fact that Niko knows us and knows we’re all just messin’ around in the loft and at any time he could quit and we could all go get Burger King double cheeseburgers for a buck no problemo.

But still, even knowing all this, we decided to give it a shot.

We went out into our hallway, filled a gallon jug with water, laid him down on an inclined plane, and, as best as we could tell based on the videos and descriptions readily available on the internet, tried it on him. I ran every iteration of the method I’ve seen, from plastic covering everything except a hole over his mouth, to the wet towel, to the wet towel in combination with the plastic.

Niko was a sly dog. He reported that the initial rush of water up his nostrils filled up his sinuses, but perhaps because he is a man accustomed to allergies or is a terrible swimmer, by simply forcing himself to relax and hold his breath, he could last as long as he could hold his breath. So in his experience, there wasn’t the instant five seconds later and you’re begging to tell the enemy everything experience that the Fox News reporter went through. Knowing what to expect and holding the breath was all it took to last until he couldn’t hold his breath anymore.

Now obviously granted he couldn’t hold out forever – he would give up eventually but simply because he needed to breathe – that’s not what we were testing. What we were wondering about was the sensation of drowning that people have reported. Niko reported everything that other sites have corroborated – he did indeed feel water in his mouth and throat, but did not experience the dread of drowning and death. Thus for him it wasn’t any different than, say, dunking his head in water or otherwise not being allowed to breathe.

So I dunno, maybe we were doing it wrong? Niko concluded that against well trained people who knew what to expect, this form of torture might not be very effective (in an oxygen deprived state and a calm demeanor, it wouldn’t be so hard to just allow yourself to pass out, he thinks), but against people who either don’t know what to expect, or non-trained folks, this technique could actually work well.

Either that, or Niko is a man who is unafraid of drowning.

Motherfuckin’ Video Games

By popular demand, a closer look at the image our projector starts up with:

How awesome dudes have a good time

Ol’ Disneyland started out with everyone having a good time:

We discovered the Single Rider lines at Indiana Jones and Splash Mountain basically allowed you to fast pass the people in the fast pass line! It’s truly the ultimate Disneyland Pro Tip because ostensibly, single riders get separated, and since everyone at Disneyland is there with grampa and three toddlers (all four would get scared if they were on a ride by themselves), nobody separates.

We got on Indiana Jones in about ten minutes, to the whiny chorus of children in the regular line asking their dads “How come those guys get to go ahead of us?” and a flummoxed parent unsure of themselves, and wondering that exact same thing. When we got to the front we rejoined the regular folks, so we were basically indistinguishable from someone who legitimately waited in line for an hour by the ride ops. We went the honorable route, but the dude was like “Oh you have five single riders? Ok all of you get on this jeep.”

The highlight of the day was at Splash Mountain (the only other ride to offer the single rider service). As we waited moments away from boarding, a log full of sorority chicks with Mickey ears pulled in. They were probably slightly buzzed, and one of them shouted “Turn baaaack! It’s not worrrth it!” thinking she was hot shit. I leaned over and said, very concerned, “But… I’ve been waiting two minutes. Is it worth it if I’ve only been waiting for two minutes?”

Her smug self-satisfied expression morphed into confusion, and then betrayal, and right when she was about to ask me how the hell did I manage to game the system so well, the log jolted forward and whiplashed her prehensile brain right into the back of her skull.

We told one older couple about our trickery, and they both looked like they were ready to jettison their kids just so they could get some sweet animatronic Indy action a little early. Disneyland should offer some kind of Disneysitter service, where for like three hundred bucks you could get a teenager in the Goofy suit to lead your crotchspawn all around the park (in character of course) while you and the ol’ lady can get back to the $2,500 a night Pirates of the Caribbean Suite and get your freak on.

Also I was thinking how sweet would it be to have an iPhone app (Disney branded obviously) that would cull a condensed form of the current state of the park foot and ride traffic data, and give you an optimized day planner for whatever rides you’re trying to hit that day.

So let’s say you want to hit Space Mountain and Indy, you pop it in and the app goes “Hey, look, Space Mountain’s clogged up as shit right now go do the teacups and on the way grab a fast pass at Indy because by the time you get out, the bulk of traffic will be watching the parade so you can hop right on Space Mountain and then go to Indy ten minutes after you get off.”

Heck, it doesn’t even need to do that – it could just be an “at a glance” ride times and color based density overlay on the GPS data for the park – think Google Maps traffic but for Disney theme parks around the world.

The trip optimizer would be cool though as a day planner kind of deal where you put in your priority rides, and it basically plans your day out for you as efficiently as possible and you could have the option of like sprinting to every ride or rolling around in a motorized wheelchair or what have you.

I was thinking about this because Logan showed me this article, which is about a guy who did a bunch of data gathering and wrote a program to spit out the most efficient route to do all the rides.

Obviously, they would price the app at a slight premium, but I’d bet a $10 app (on a day when you’re blowing fuckin’ $4 on a Mickey shaped ice cream bar anyway) that promised saving you 2 hours of waiting around in lines all day would be worth it to the tech savvier park goers, as well as the power vacationing parental types.

Also, this app would tell you to get on the Single Rider line and fuck your kids because guess what you just got on Splash Mountain in like thirty seconds.

Problem is since we blew through the park so fast, we got pretty bored. Niko especially:

Brandon was just staring into space, so shocked was he by the furry heaven that is Splash Mountain:

Heck by the time we got to Space Mountain again, we were all just about ready to leave. Carson was still loving it though:

Great YouTube Message

Got this one just now:

Subject: Question!!!

Hey, I was wondering, how do you take care of your hair? My hair is about the same length as yours, but I can’t keep it nearly as neat as what I see in your videos. Is there anything specific you do in your daily routine? Certain shampoos or something? This message is really awkward to write LOL

Hope to hear back from you soon

My response:

Vidal Sassoon shampoo is especially good at getting rid of the coating of dried perspiration, salts, oils, airborne pollutants and dirt that can weigh down hair and flatten it to the scalp which can make you look older. The conditioner is also good silicone technology permits conditioning benefits without weighing down the hair which can also make you look older.

Hope this helps!

-fw