How to Live Happily, by Life Explained.

Since today is Saint Valentine's Day it seems appropriate to talk a little about how to have a successful marriage. Keep in mind that success is a somewhat user definable word, some consider the lack of failure to be success. Moreover marriage, for the sake of this lesson can include a wide variety of lengthy relationships, including having a job, owning a pet, or watching a television series.

Essentially, this post is going to teach you how to successfully not fail at almost everything that could possibly happen.

1. Lower your expectations. The less you expect the more likely you are to be happy. Generally speaking, there are billions of people in the world, and only so much of the good stuff that makes life great. If you have enough to be slightly above miserable, you are successful. Good Job, sport, pat yourself on the back.

2. Learn to cook. Basically, the world is divided into two types of people, those who can cook and those who will clean the kitchen if somebody else cooks. In the grand scheme of things cooking is much less distasteful than doing dishes, so make sure you get to be the one to make the mess. This also makes it much easier to ignore the disaster that strikes every time you try to bread chicken, "my God, how did you get flour on the ceiling?"  "Cooking is an act of passion, and must be entered into with abandon, now mop the ceiling." Score one for the chef!

Order your "I'm with Me" shirt today.

3. As a side note to rule 2, make sure you have enough cash, or credit, that when it comes time to order takeout you fall firmly in the "I'll buy, you fly," category. There are few things that are more miserable than coming home on Friday, after a week that lasted almost a month, popping open a beer, sitting around in your best sweats, the greasy, paint splattered ones that say, "I'm with stupid" and have an arrow pointing at your head, and having to drive over to Geppetto's to pick up a couple of pies. Way to game the system, you are a winner.

4. Don't be a jerk. If someone offends you ignore them. There are better ways to waste your time than letting the world step all over what could probably be a mediocre day, with very few real problems. Let's hear if for you, you are the man.

5. When you get an email, always take at least ten minutes before pressing delete without reading it. If you delete it right away people will think you don't have anything to do, and might have the time to do something. Doing things can provide so many opportunities for failure. Failure is not going to make you happy. Sprinkles for everyone, sprinkles are for winners.

6. Count to ten, I don't know why, but that is advice on a lot of lists about living a healthy life. Better yet, count to fifteen, is ten is good fifteen must be great. And we think you are great.

Follow these simple rules and you will have a happy marriage, job, and life, your pets will be happy, and television will be so much better. We know you can do it. For those who don't like to read, here it is in video format.

Choosing Is Hard, Let Us Do It For You.

Life is a long trip down a difficult path, and there are a lot of choices to be made.  Each decision has consequences.  Most times, though, those are hidden, and it is only after the path has been chosen does the payment come due.  It is really an awful way to live.  

Meeting the what seems to be the perfect person, dating, proposing, or being proposed to, brings joy, there is no time things have looked brighter, or happier.  Turns out your spouse seems to have the disposition of the antichrist, and the personal hygiene of a skunk, but the contract has been signed, anointed by God, and approved by the state.  Being married to a person you can't stand makes a person angry, and less concerned about cleanliness. Dang, that was a bad choice.  

A dream job appears, chasing it consumes a person.  A resume filled with lies, and false achievements, dreamy accomplishments, and fictional duties and responsibilities, who wouldn't hire that person?  But, all of those skills are needed for this position, it is demanding and beyond the scope of the applicant, turning the boss into a hateful, loathsome caricature of a human.  Incomplete responsibilities, unmet expectations and a slothful performance can have that effect on a person.  But, leaving the last job burned too many bridges, and this is life for a while, bad idea.

Walking blindly through life is frightening.  Knowing that mistakes are going to be made is probably not much reassurance.  We here at Life Explained are here to help.

Welcome to the Life Explained University.  Where, for the small fee of $25.00 a month (17 Celsius), we will teach you to make decisions based on The Scientific Principle of Absolute Certainty.   Please, examine the chart below about making the decision to buy a dog.

Should I buy a dog?

Of course this is a very simple option, much easier than deciding whether you should run for President, for example.  We can help you make that choice.  I think we all know who needs our help with that choice, don't we?  Give us a call, of course it will be a little more than the $25.00 fee, but, it is a tough choice, one that requires a lot of circles, boxes, and lines.

You see, presidential hopefuls come to us for help deciding if they should run, if they have any brains at all, which is not a requirement for public office.  You could use our help, too.  In fact, looking at your Facebook page, you should enroll, quickly.  Before it is too late.

Hey, you can't argue with fate.

I am a rational, reasonable adult, far from perfect, but mature, and free from the most major defects, for the most part.  Sure, there is a very rational fear of spiders, but that is just self preservation, and if you set up a Google Alert for spider news, like I have, you would see why.  And, nobody can really be all that comfortable flying, for one thing you are packed in that metal can so tightly that you need to synchronize your breathing with the passenger next to you, (fortunately, I hardly breath on planes) and you are squeezed into toddler seats (I don't even like to be that close to my family) and then they fling that sucker through the air in defiance of all laws of nature, science and reason.

And then some smug, arrogant condescending, disembodied voice has the nerve to say, "please put away all reading material, and shut off any electronic devices, please don't even think about using anything that might give you any brief pleasure in the last few precious moments of life, or distract you for even a few seconds from facing the certain death that waits all of you when we finally get this giant mess of aluminum and tangled wire off the ground..."  Oops, sorry about that, most times they don't sound that smug, at all.  Wait, where was I?  Oh yeah.

I like to think of myself as a sane, normal adult.  And recently it seems that maybe I am spending too much time with technology, and not enough time with reality.  It seems like I am constantly checking the status of my village in Clash of Clans (doing quite well, thank you), or Dark Ages (a little behind the eight ball here, need some more lumber mills to really make some time), constantly chasing more elixir or conquests.  Always trying to score big points using middle school vocabulary in "Words With People Who Always Win,"  Maybe that time should be spent with people, maybe I should use those words in conversation.

"Hey, 'Words With Friends' friend, how about I buy you a cup of coffee, and we just talk?"  That seems reasonable, right?

Maybe, it is time to put aside the iPhone, the iPad, cable TV, computers, blue tooth, Blu-Ray, Xbox,

all of the technological meth amphetamines of life, and start looking at the world through eyes long addicted to terminals, flat screens and the retina displays.  What wonders wait just beyond the steel cage of the technology?  Why must we always heed the siren's call to our devices?

It might be time to put all of these toys aside, grow up a bit, and meet life's challenges head on.

Maybe not, though. Last week I left my phone at home, and the withdrawal symptoms were so severe they required hospitalization, thank the gods for health insurance.  And I have that free video "rental" from Red Box that expires today, shame to let that go to waste, it is like a license to print money.  My wife and I have been happily married for a long time, no pointing in tempting fate through conversation.  What will she think if she finds out how dull I really am, and leaves me for somebody fascinating?  Where will that leave our children.

Maybe personal electronics are the next step in evolution.  Crawl out of the ocean, leave the cave, climb down out of the trees, put on a shirt, some pants and a pair of shoes, and start a virtual empire on your iPhone.  It kind of makes sense in a cosmic way, if you think about it.  Maybe we are supposed to learn to use these tools, like we harnessed fire, and incorporated the wheel into our lives.   Who am I to argue with destiny?

Well, I'm glad we got that out in the open, it is certainly a big relief.

Superman Grounded by Gay Rights Debate

This just in.

No longer content with causing vitriol and stalemate in congress, the debate over same sex marriage is now grounding Superman himself.

Chris Sprouse, the illustrator slated to work with author Orson Scott Card on an upcoming issue of DC Comics' "Adventures of Superman," has dropped out of the project because of controversy over Card's views on gay marriage. Card has said in the past that homosexuality is "deviant behavior" and that same-sex marriage could lead to the end of civilization. In a statement, Sprouse said, "The media surrounding this story reached the point where it took away from the actual work, and that's something I wasn't comfortable with." The project will be put on hold.

When will the madness end?