Pick-pocketing and put-pocketing!

    Many of you have received a note with my blog on it, 'twas a test! I was seeing if the pick/put pocket theories were sound, here are some of the techniques used.

Pressure Misdirection

This technique is used to draw the attention for one spot, the pocket, to a different spot, distracting the "mark" from the pocket. One way of doing this squeezing the shoulder or shaking one's hand. This is also used in crowded places, i.e., schools, malls, subway stations, etc.; the thief bumps into the mark, taking the contents of the pocket then graciously apologizes for the bump.

"Thieves at Work"
This one is ingenious in my book, the thief post a sign saying, "Thieves at work". This is where the magic happens, people reading the sign will pat the pocket with their wallet in it, assuring themselves that the wallet is still there. Pick-pockets see this, move in, and bingo! Your identity is stolen.

Sandwiching
This one is utilized on the sidewalks of cities. One pick-pocket stops suddenly in a narrow street causing the mark to bump into them. The second pick-pocket bumps into the mark and lifts their wallet. This takes more than one pick-pocket and is more useful in lesser crowed public places.

"Throwing out the baby..."
This one shouldn't even be considered a proper pick-pocketing. The thief has a baby doll wrapped in a blanket and it thrown at the mark (female), causing them to drop their belongings. The thief then runs off with the dropped purse, bag, etc.


Disclaimer...
I do not recommend this. Pick-pockets receive less jail time then a mugger, because no weapons are used. But, if you are caught you still get jail time. I prefer put-pocketing or pocket-planting, away to give people items, notes, etc. In the UK, ex-pick-pockets give back to the public by "Reverse pick-pocketing", giving people money, without their knowledge of the happenings. It is quite ingenious. Also note, I do not remove any items, unless it's a friend of mine, but I graciously return the item "borrowed".

Thoughts are merely Emotions, not Words

    Have you ever wondered, when you try thinking of a word and you can't seem to produce the right word to show what you are thinking or feeling? This is because we think in emotions (I touched upon this in the "Deaf Individuals" post). It hit me when I was talking to my friend about observations of this girl that I had psychoanalysed, and for some apparent reason, I could not think of a word to explain her emotions. I then noticed that I was thinking and feeling her emotion in my thoughts but I could not develop the emotion into words. I also found it was easier to portray the emotion I was thinking, into facial expressions (I don't mean emoticons i.e., ":)", ":P", ">:(", (they are very ineffective to show real emotion). Another issue is my vocabulary does not span across emotion like, angry, delighted, disdainful, etc; and checking a dictionary to come up with the word decent enough to portray my thoughts, let's face it, it is a hassle. Now the next time you can't think of a word to portray an emotion, make facial expressions or think of similes of the emotion, it may give your audience some clue into what you are thinking or feeling.

Language 101... More or less...

    Did you know that the only thing that isn't genetically passed from parent to child, is the accent? Provokes some thinking. I myself, have always had a problem of mocking, or impersonating accents (I even lost a job because of it, it's a long story). I can analyse accents and dialects, and am able to tell the origin of said accent.
    So, I got to thinking how the American accent came about. As many of you know, the American broke away from the "Crown" seeking independence. Of course, ethnic and vocal independence. I noticed that there were some similarities with the Irish accent, using the "r's." I'll give an example of our dialects, here is a sentence, "The general saw a dog." The American accent would pronounce it like this (phonetically), "Thee gehnerahl saw aee dohg." The English would pronounce it (somewhat) like this, "Thee gehnuhruhl sawr aee dawg." If you are unable to depict the phonetic spelling, watch British television, 'nough said. The English accent has other "side effects." When pronouncing "saw," they add an "r" sound at the end, making it sound like, "sawr." Any "ah" or "aw" sounds, they sometimes add the "r" sound. With some words they even altered the spelling to fit their accent, namely, "arse."
    So this made me think, because every language has a different "rendition" of the english language, the pronunciation must be different. In my studies of the Russian language, I noticed they didn't have the letter "j," pronunciation-wise. To spell out "Jones" in Russian, you have to spell it "d-zh-oh-n-s." In German "w" is "v" like "Voltwagon" is "Voltsvagon."
    So to wrap things up, what I'm getting at is that because the English, Germans, and Russians speak the English language differently, doesn't mean they think the same of us, speaking their language!

Prescription Drugs? Easy!

    This year, I had to write a four page essay explaining a problem and my solution for my english class, I picked "Prescription Drug Abuse in Teens." I learned an abundance of information, so here is this info for your learning pleasure.

There are many categories, these are the ones I learned about:

Depressants, Stimulants, Narcotics,

Baby Mozart = Man Mozart

    Now, we have all seen the commercials about "Baby Mozart," babies who learn at an exponential rate because of listening to classical music. It appears ridiculous. But alas, I had hope in this theory, so I did a little self test (no, I am not a baby), involving being able to focus whilst doing simple cognitive work.
    This was around the time I was doing summer school at 0530 'til 1200. One day, I would listen to my classical music compilation; the next day, simple lyrical music. I had then noticed that the lyrical music affected my focus, thereon affecting my test scores. Classical music, on the other hand, improved my focus and test scores. I'm not saying that the classical music on it's own helped my scores, I'm saying non-lyrical music helped my scores.
    Now, to segway into what I'm getting at. Have you ever wondered why, when you pay no attention around you that you can still hear your name in a crowd? Or when you walk down the street, that your eyes fix on all the faces? Well, that is the subconscious' job, to do minor focusing. The subconscious, pre-installed with facial recognition, with voice recognition, and with word recognition, allows us to do everyday stuff without fully paying attention. What does this have to do with lyrical music? When focusing on one thing (i.e., school, books, art), the subconscious still focuses on outside stuff. When you listen to lyrical music while focusing on this task, the word and/or voice recognition is listening to your music and reminding you, "Hey, the guitar solo is coming up," or "Hey, I really think Lance Bass sounds gay in this song." So, as you are focusing on this task, your subconscious is nagging at you to listen to the music. Now back to the classical music. When listening to the non-lyrical/classical music, my subconscious had nothing to hone onto, improving my focus and concentration. Therefore non-lyrical/classical is today's "Ritalin."

The High Post...

-----BE WARY-----

<This post contains actual events in which drugs were used. The drugs used were 100% legal, 100% harmful, and yes, my mom knows about the events and experiences that occurred.> 

------READERS ATTENTION IS ADVISED-----

Associations Part II: Emotional Memory

    When I started working out, I was given some tips by a friend, one of which intrigued me. He said, "Pick a selection of music that you will only listen to while working out." I asked him why, and he said, "I don't know why, but if you listen to the music while not working out, it will mess with your brain." I got to thinking, I have had that kind of experience before. I was going on this long bike trip and all I listened to was Iron Maiden, well a few days after the trip I was listening to Iron Maiden and I had sudden flush of the emotion I felt while biking and the urge to bike. It wore off when I listen to them three days in a row, but I surprised me that my brain had made the association between the music, my emotion while listening to the music, and the urge to bike. Have you ever heard a song that you hadn't heard in a while and you have the sudden remembrance of the location in which you originally heard the song and my emotion. I first had that experience when I listened to "Kiss from a Rose" by Seal, and I remembered being in Tennessee in my families old beat up minivan and it was on the radio. The rush of memory was overwhelming , but I loved the feeling!
    Here is another way the brain makes emotional associations (which I lightly touched upon in my last "Association" post), where a negative experience ties in emotionally with a surrounding. We've all had the arguments where they left an imprint in your psyche, where your brain takes a little snapshot of the emotion, the location, and the person arguing with. This is probably the worst ability the subconscious uses, because of the imprint it leaves on people and places.

Slipknot -- Musical Brilliance

    Ok, start throwing the stones now, I do listen to Slipknot. I'm not gothic, "emo," depressed, etc., I just know a ground breaking band when I hear it. Most bands these days are focused on self image and appearance, not the music they are creating, namely The Jonas Brothers, Justin Bieber, 'Nsync, Backstreet Boys, Etc. We have all seen their spooky music videos and the disturbing masks; well, they wear the masks to forget themselves and focus on the music. The ability to forget oneself and to focus on the musical aspects is brilliant. Think of bands that sound like Slipknot... Stone Sour doesn't count, thus there are no bands comparable.
      Now, you are probably saying, "Well, AC/DC was a great musical band and they didn't wear masks!" My answer is, AC/DC could care less about there self image, they were all about, sex, alcohol, and rock 'n roll. Now, think about Lady Gaga, you never see her dress in street clothes or normal everyday clothing, it's always some abstract dress or suit, she has been able to forget herself (Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta), and focusing on a new abstract identity, allowing her to focus on her music in a different way. This is very close to Slipknot's ideology, showing that music can be great if you forget yourself...

Deaf Individuls... A continuing study...

    Have you ever wondered what a deaf child thinks? If he or she has no language lesson, what goes on in his or her head? Well, think about this, as you are reading this do you hear your voice in your head with your accent or dialect? Helen Keller is probably one the best example of this. I have always had this very comedic thought: if Helen Keller learned how to communicate in her early teens, what were her thoughts before then? Fnkvjnckjfdnvdkfj? No. I happened read her autobiography and she talked about how she would think in emotions and memories, and it wasn't until her first language lesson when she obtained reason. Moving onward...
     Have you ever had an angry thought toward someone? You would possibly think, "I really hate John Doe!" Well a deaf person, with no language lessons, would recall the feeling of anger or rage, with the thought of John Doe. So your thoughts are just the brain recalling emotion and memories and piecing it together to create a final thought. So the next time you feel something toward someone, think of how it works in your head, you will better understand yourself as well as others.

Synthetic Liquid oxygen!

     The ability to produce a synthetic oxygen that is in a liquid form so you would inject straight oxygen into your blood stream. Think of the possibilities, no more asthma or oxygen deficiencies, free diving could be moved to the next level, and snorkeling could be safe for all ages. But to get actual oxygen to a liquid state would take immense cold, -218.350006 Degree Celsius to be exact. Therefore, scientists should develop a synthetic alternative. Let us think for a second, you would not need to breath when walking, running, swimming, sleeping. This will save your marriage from ending because it will stop the snoring and heavy breathing. 
     Now you may ask yourself, "wouldn't I become lightheaded, due to too much oxygen to the brain?" Yes, but there would be an adjust nozzle to restrict the amount of oxygen allowed into the bloodstream. Of course you have to stop using you lungs, which with practice, lung function would cease. 
     Side Effects? Maybe...

Imminent WWIII? Maybe...

I've had a theory of WWIII for some time now. It's kind of a conspiracy (sort of), well here it is:


     In the first "Great Depression" FDR use his "New Deal" as a way to improve the morale of the American people, but it was ineffective in bring the economy up, but it was in fact WWII that brought it up. What happened? Well you know the saying, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"? Well with what was happening in Europe, we had to help somehow, and we eventually did. Pearl Harbor was attacked, destroying many ships, and many more lives. We needed workers and fast. We finally had jobs. We rebuilt the Navy in record time surprising the Japanese, the news passed onto the Germans and they declared war on the US thus starting WWII. Now my theory is: to get out of our recession (soon to be depression) we must start a World War. This will create more jobs.
      Now, you might be asking yourself, "how did more jobs bring us out of the depression?" Well, the more jobs, the more tax payers inputting money into the economy bringing up the national debt. Nowadays the problem is outsourcing because it is cheaper... But that's a whole other topic.

Muscle ≠ Brain power (Developing theory)

     We know that football players are stereotypically "not the brightest bulbs" but I have reason to believe that it is not a stereotype. I noticed there was a correlation between the ability to build muscle and the brain capacity. You know the stereotypical "yes coach, no coach," and how they are portrayed in movies as knowledgeless drones. Well, I have encountered many a jock in the YMCA, where I work, with the airhead look on their face (I read faces like Dr. Seuss's books). I can't necessarily explain what I see in those intriguing faces but they obviously have the hamster on the wheel. Have you ever wondered why all the built athletes happen to be airheads? Coincidence? I think not! I'm not done yet. I have a friend who's sibling has down syndrome, and they would wrestle all the time (big redneck family), and his brother would always win. I have heard many other similar stories. There are many other types of disabilities that enhance one sense to make up for the other sense's absence. Think of blind people, they have exceptionally great hearing, deaf people have great vision, paraplegic have strong arms. The brain tries to even things out as much as possible, so if the left arm is missing, the right arm compensates for the left's absence by strengthening the right. It is the same between body and brain. Why are all nerds/geeks stereotypically scrawny? Why are all jock stereotypically buff? If you have anything to add to this developing theory, please comment, I could use the feedback.

Hypnotism? I think yes!

    Being the mentalist I am, I immediately thought to hypnotism. No not the "you are getting sleepy" stunt, but a complex system that involves practice, study, and concentration.The brain is like a computer: the conscious, outer brain- the firewall, and the inner subconscious (the lizard brain)- the hard drive. The only way for hypnotism to work is to get to the subconscious by hacking the the conscious part of the brain. One way to do that is by surprise. Surprise leaves a split second gap where the conscious brain tries to make sense of what happened, leaving the subconscious brain open for command. What do I mean by "command?" Well, when you are surprised the subconscious has no controller, so if you call out, "SLEEP" the subconscious in a sense say, "Ok!" You are then under the command of your victim, friend, audience member, etc. I receive a lot of questions in response to this theory, "Can you make me do stuff naughty?" No, I can't the subconscious has the same morals as your conscious brain. Unless you were a harlot, then yes... But I wouldn't do it anyways.
The Surprise...
    To surprise someone, you have to interrupt a normal everyday thing like a handshake, or lighting a cigarette. For a handshake you can do two things:
1. While shaking his/her hand jolt the arm as not to hurt but to shock and then call out the command ASAP.
2. When he/she reaches to shake your hand quickly lift his/her hand and speak softly and get their focus on his/her hand and slowly talk them down to a sleep mode.
There are also several different ones that sometimes take hours to do. The one I told you is for a quick hypnotism.

Monkey/infant see, monkey/infant do...

     A few days ago, I noticed these two infants, Zack- 24 months, and another toddler around the same age, and they were screaming at each other. One was screaming and the other would repeat the scream, same pitch and length. Zack would do that with every other kid that would scream in his general direction. Of course the older the toddler the less they would scream back. Then I noticed when a parent would do something the child would emulate it. One time, a parent took a noodle and slapped it on the water (which is a big no no), I then told the parent that slapping the noodle was not allowed. Sure enough, a few minutes later the son picked up the noodle and smacked it on the water. The parent was all severe, "That man said don't slap the noodle!!" Excuse me ma'am, under the law of "Monkey See- Monkey Do", you have yourself to blame. And it is true, toddlers are no better than monkeys: they rarely walk on two feet, they speak very little words (and I'm not talking about the chimps from Planet of the Apes), and they smell real bad, kind of like regurgitated Cheerios (with stomach acid) and defecation. So parents, be good examples to your kids, because monkey/infant see, monkey/infant do...

Associations... Plain and Simple...

     Have you ever wondered why after an arguement or incident, that the environment (that the mishap happened in) doesn't fell the same? Well, the human brain makes thousands upon thousands of associations everyday, that's how we remember names and faces. We see someone, we learn their name, the brain says,"Ok, this name with this face."
     In high school when I had to get off of Adderall, for the Navy, my focus and concentration went out the door. Then I (more or less) figured out about the association making in the brain, so I used that to my advantage. So I would meet someone and say there name was Chris, well they just happened to be Christian so I would think, "Chris- Christian, clean shaven, neat hair, A CHURCH GOER." So everytime I would run into him I would recall that information, "He looks innocent (like unto a Christian), well groomed... Chris!" Sometimes it's not that easy... Especially for girls, more specifically teen girls. Teens are easy to psychoanalyze. First off, relationships are life and death, so you can tell whether they are happy or HORRIBLY CRUSHED. Secondly, puberty... 'nough said. So in essence, all teen girls are pretty much the same.

Back to the topic at hand.

     Ok, so I taught my friend Parley, how to use the preinstalled Associationator!!! So, my name for instance, Lucas, you can think Luke, Luke Skywalker, "Luke, I am your father!" Yeah yeah, I've heard it. So if you would learn my name and say to me, "Luke, I am your father!" I may look annoyed, but I won't tell you to shut up. Right then and there, your brain has made an association with Star Wars and my name. So when you see my face, your brain will recall "Star Wars" not Luke or Lucas, because it is simpler information that the brain can handle.

     Now use this information to your advantage! I am giving to you because I have suffered from the worst case of forgetfullness and terrible memory called ADHD...

"What don't kill ya, 'll make you most strong..."

This is a line from Metallica's "Broken, Beat, & Scarred." Today I crashed "Bob", my new/old bike (I'll post pics later), well I wouldn't say crashed, more of a slide...
Ok this is what happened, I was biking through this outdoor shopping mall with intricate parking lot mazes. Anyway I pulled around a grassy island, because every parking lot has grassy islands, and the rear skidded and I slid about three feet... So got up, looked around, climbed back on and continued on, only problem was somehow my bar came out of line... Easy fix!!!
Well I got to Big-5 and suddenly the lyric "What don't kill ya, 'll make you most strong" came in my head, and I finally understood the meaning! If we don't die (a little harsh, but hey!), we can learn, adapt, and fix our problems so they don't happen again.

Lesson learned:
       Never take sharp turns on wet roadway, only wide turns. Also, slow down before you make a turn, especially a blind one, you never know who's coming!

Attractive People... Just a theory...

We've all dated one. The one you thought was for you. The most beautifulist one (yeah yeah not a word). But I have made some breakthrough observations about attractive women.
Attractive women may be perfect... on the outside, but they are commonly sexually, physically or emotionally abused. Attractive women are usually "preyed" upon by sexual addicts. I say preyed because when lions are looking for food, they think of their prey as an item not an actual thing. Men (not all of them) look at women as items. This causes them to be self conscious about their looks or what people think of them, thinking they are, "not good enough." Through all this abuse, they go into another relationship expecting the same from their last relationship but find it may be out of their "norm."
Now this is just an observation...

Long Reach Brake Calipers.... December?

Ok my custom bike is a 78' Schwinn Varsity and I wanted to put 700c rims on them well to turn a 27" frame to a 700c meant I needed Long Reach Brake Calipers... but they're out of stock!!!! So I stopped by the Silverdale Cyclery and they had 27" aluminium rims, THERE IS A GOD!!!! So all I need is new brake calipers and pads.

Eric... oh Eric...

Have you ever met a person where they are so stinkin' smart, they have no social skills? Meet Eric. 5' 7", 160 lbs, extremely smart but he doesn't think before he talks... I work at the Haselwood YMCA, as a life guard (Eric as well). We have these cool waterproof vacuums that clean up sand, dirt, rocks, vomit, Code Brown (fecal matter). Sami, my co-worker, and I were about to put the vacuum in the pool, and Eric whips out the crazy statistics like, "It's a 1 out of 1 THOUSANDTH probability that the vacuum shorts out... I'll warn the swimmers..." So he proceeds to tell the swimmers, who were elderly, that if they climb out of the pool, not to touch the poles or else they will ground themselves and get electrocuted. Sami and I were furious, the horror on the old peoples faces were terrible. I said to Eric, "Dude, you didn't have to say that!"
"Well, I was just warning them just in case." he replied.
Five people leave the pool, "Eric, look what you did."
"I was just saying!" he quickly replied.
Eric is the type of person that if something could go wrong, it will. Also if you tell Eric what to do or pass on a message telling him what to do, he automatically argues.
"Hey, Lauren said to be sure to roam, so you look like your guarding."
"Oh I was, I was just taking a break."
"For 15 minutes?!"
Every rotation around the pool is 15 minutes, so we don't fall asleep or become lethargic. Eric, did you mother ever teach you the word "OK"?
Love,
      Lucas Davis