by admin

The 3 R’s of waste – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Now you would think that here at “I’ll Do It On Monday!” that we wouldn’t care about the environment. And usually you would be right, however I found out that even we here at ‘Monday’ could reduce, reuse, and recycle. Let me give you some suggestions.

Reduce – Maybe fat slobs (like me) should reduce their intake of food so that we have less human waste and emissions. Reduce the number of infomercials on TV. Reduce illegal immigration. Reduce that plastic packaging that requires the Jaws-Of-Life to open. Let’s reduce the amount of money some stars in Hollywood “make” so they can actually spend that money on the movie itself, or pass the saving on-to us. OR reducing the concessions and ticket price of 3D, IMAX, and even regular 2D film-projected movies? Let’s reduce all the gas-prices by using all the avenues of energy we have, you know shale-oil, natural gas, nuclear (tiny nuclear reactors buried underground), oil piped from Alaska. Reduce grocery and fast food prices. When’s the last time you had a value meal from McDonalds for less than 5 US dollars? Reduce educational programming on Saturday Mornings and bring back our regular entertainment cartoons. Reduce the amount of teen sitcoms on the Disney Channel and bring back all the old Disney Movies and cartoons I used to love to watch. Reduce the releases of the Star Wars saga. There’s a lot of stuff we could reduce on this planet.

Reuse – I can think of a few things to reuse. You can reuse chewing gum. I go through chewing gum like water, so any time I can use the same piece over a couple of days means my dollar store gum lasts longer. We’re already reusing things like the toilet, our beds, and our clothes. I tend to reuse my computer on occasion. Could repurpose a few things like I mentioned in my cleaning article, old pizza boxes for target practice. Cardboard boxes for homes for the hobos. Reuse AOL CD’s as coasters. Actually I don’t even know if AOL still exists but that was a good use for their CD’s back in the day. You could reuse old CDs as Frisbees, just be sure not to take someone’s head off.

Recycle – The problem with recycling is I don’t know the difference between that and reusing. I guess recycling would be repurposing items rather than reusing them as intended. Yes I realize its reprocessing material that would be considered waste into base materials for new items. For the sake of this article though, recycling isn’t much different than reusing. I guess you could say I recycle my movies. I recycle my old video games sometimes. Basically I will watch or play and then re-watch and re-play. I watch movies in a cycle, older to newer, then back to older again. If you’re riding a bicycle more than once you’re recycling.

So I guess there you have it, environmentally conscious — After a fashion. Remember you can’t have environmental without being mental.

Until ‘Monday’

by admin

Cleaning is for wimps.

Today I’m going to teach you how to be dirty. Okay not personal hygiene but your home. Why? Because cleaning takes too darn long. Wouldn’t you rather focus your time on something worth while, like doing nothing? I know I would. So here are some tips on being efficient in not cleaning.

In a previous article I mentioned tying up a garbage bag and leaving it. So that’s one of the things you can do. You can leave it until it starts stinking, in which case that would be the later time to do it. If it doesn’t stink you don’t need to worry about it, as you can do it later.

I would say you probably don’t need to do any vacuuming at all. Chiefly because you can’t really see it. Make sure you have a dark carpet so that the only things that show up are light things (such as brightly colored candy or popcorn). Every once in a while should you choose you can pick it up and throw it away.

Dust adds a certain air of prestige, if-you-will, like a museum. Even if it only takes a few days to accumulate the dust it will make everything look as though it was ancient. Like Charlie Brown once said: “Don’t think of it as dust. Think of it as maybe the soil of some great past civilization. Maybe the soil of ancient Babylon. It staggers the imagination. He may be carrying soil that was trod upon by Solomon, or even Nebuchadnezzar.” So be proud if you have dust that collects on everything.

There’s only one thing I have to say about cleaning the toilet. Light a match. ‘Nuff said.

Here’s one tip that might actually help you to clean up even though it’s not meant to. When you have any loose pieces of paper, crumple them up and attempt to “Shoot a basket” into the garbage. While this does actually help clean up, if you’re really bad you’ll just have a bunch of crumpled up pieces of paper around the garbage. This is mostly meant to be fun but if you manage to throw away some paper, so be it. You can always take it out later. Way, way, later.

I have a suggestion about that clothes basket. After you wash and dry the clothes (and assuming you actually do that at all), instead of folding them and putting them away, why not leave them in the clothes basket. Get clean clothes from the basket, and toss the dirty ones on the floor. This saves you some time because when you fold clothes and put them away, you’re only taking them out to wear them again, so save yourself the trouble.

Sometimes you might want to have company over and would think it’s the perfect time to do some actual cleaning. I say it’s the perfect time to pretend you’re doing some cleaning. Why not stack stuff in corners and pile junk into closets and under beds. You don’t have to do a lot to make it look like you are at least paying a little attention to the mess. Plus if you’re a guy you can make the excuse that you’re a guy and cleaning house isn’t in your genes.

You know used pizza boxes can be made into targets with a little bit of marker magic and a dart gun. Then you can play target shooting from your couch. No need to throw them away as you can play this game over and over. (And you will play it over and over since you have nothing better to do other than watch TV which you’ve probably watched so much of that about now you’re making waste-paper basket shots.)

The dishes are easy to take care of. Give a set of dishes to every member of the family so that they don’t actually have to wash the dishes, you can just use them over and over again. At least until they get so gunked up with food that you can only use them for skeet shooting.

Well I hope I’ve given you some advice for putting off cleaning. Maybe later I’ll show you even more great tips on how not to clean.

Until ‘Monday’

by admin

Assertiveness never did anyone any good.

What is assertiveness? From Wikipedia – “Assertiveness is a particular mode of communication. Dorland’s Medical Dictionary defines assertiveness as: a form of behavior characterized by a confident declaration or affirmation of a statement without need of proof; this affirms the person’s rights or point of view without either aggressively threatening the rights of another (assuming a position of dominance) or submissively permitting another to ignore or deny one’s rights or point of view.”

Okay so to break that down it simply means not to let anyone walk all over you without being pushy about it. While it might be a topic for another day on being pushy and rude to assert yourself this article is about why anyone would need to be assertive and how not to assert yourself. So what happens when you’re properly assertive? You get what you want more or at least give it a better chance of happening. The idea is to let people know what you want and not apologize for it.

Here at ‘Monday’ we don’t really want to do that. We would like to be our sheepish selves, content to follow the flock wherever it goes even if it means in the jaws of a waiting wolf. Not that we want to be eaten (figuratively and literally) but rather we would rather not push it. Remember we’re easy-going to a fault here. If that means not ever getting what we want because we didn’t speak up, then so-be-it. The important thing is we didn’t ruffle any feathers or muss any hair.

Don’t be specific. When you talk assertively you want to be direct or specific in what you want or need. So in order to avoid being assertive you want to be vague and not very clear. Don’t own the conversation, don’t use the personalized ‘I’. ‘I’ statements show assertiveness because you’re telling the other person from your point of view. Don’t ask for feedback because this will clarify things and show them you’re expressing a desire, or feeling, or opinion. Don’t keep eye contact because that makes you more in control. Make sure your voice is soft so they don’t feel like you’re trying to assert your position. These are just a few tips, and there are more but maybe I’ll explore it in a later article.

So remember we don’t want to be assertive, our wants are your wants.

Until ‘Monday’