Putting My Wife for Sale on Craigslist in Honor of Traditional Marriage

07. September 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

In honor of traditional marriage, I am putting my wife up for sale.

Let me explain: in the upcoming election, Minnesota voters will be deciding whether to prohibit same-sex couples from marrying. A ‘yes’ vote will permanently ban same-sex marriages, enshrining that position in the Minnesota Constitution. A ‘no’ vote would ensure marriage equality for gays and lesbians.

Many of the proponents of the amendment have argued that a ‘yes’ vote will help defend “traditional marriage.”

Well, I’ve done my homework, and I have to admit, they have been very convincing. I had no idea how many types of traditional marriage there were. I assume that since one type of traditional marriage is allowed, the others are too. That’s great news!

To be honest, when I learned about traditional marriage, I felt duped!

In my current marriage, all my wife does is work a full-time job, love our little infant (and me) unconditionally in a committed relationship, and act as my closest confidante and best friend. Clearly, THAT IS NOT TRADITIONAL ENOUGH. When I got married to my wife back in 2008 2010 (doh!), I hadn’t even considered my other marriage options!

As I now know, for most of history, wives were chattel, a form of property. This was even codified in the Ten Commandments in the Bible, a book the defenders of traditional marriage refer to often.

The tenth commandment makes this clear:

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house [his property] thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife [property], nor his manservant, nor his maidservant [slaves, equivalent to property], nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s. [property, biological property/donkey, all other property]

*[Annotations obviously mine.]

This couldn’t be clearer.  Your neighbor’s wife is clearly viewed as property, as they are lumped in with all their other stuff (their house, their slaves, their cat., etc.)

This wife-as-property idea wasn’t an exception, either. It was the rule! (More than that, a commandment!) The moral of that story is clear: You shouldn’t covet your neighbor’s wife because she is not your possession.

So now that I know my wife is my possession, I imagine putting her up for sale is no problem. So while I wait for offers to pour in (I imagine there will be a robust market for her), now I can to get to the fun part: Considering the other traditional marriages.

There are so many options. I mean, do I want to have one stable wife-relationship but with boatloads of concubines? Do I want to go all Henry the Eighth (minus the obesity and executions) and trade my old wife in every twenty-five minutes? Do I want to be a polygamist? (No, too much work.)

Obviously, the concubine option is alluring. Multiple partners without all the gravitas of the “until death do us part” nonsense. I can just see it now: a new partner every few months, no guilt, it will be like college all over again!

And this idea has such a history. I mean, it was practiced by the likes of Abraham and Solomon. Abraham—that guy was the patriarch of the big three monotheistic religions! Judaism, Christianity and Islam all look up to him! So if he did it, why can’t I?

And don’t get me started on Solomon. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines. And while that didn’t turn great for him (moral of the story: You should never have 1000 women simultaneously in your life), it was more a matter of degree, and not a problem with concubinage generally. (Also: Concubine is a funny word. It sounds like some sort of hat. Or a seashell. Concubinage sounds like a disease.)

So now that I’m considering acquiring concubines, I don’t know to start. Is there some sort of concubine store? I guess I could go down to an adult store like Sex World, but the last time I was there (in high school), I don’t recall see any women for sale.  Instead there were just a lot of DVDs and all sorts of battery-powered equipment and what appeared to be miniature jackhammers. It looked like a creepy hardware store.

Hmm. I just searched online, and didn’t find any concubines for sale. Is concubinary a hush-hush sort of thing? Given popular culture, it doesn’t seem like it. (Jersey Shore is about concubines, right?)

Anyway, maybe I need to establish an advertisement seeking a concubine, too. That’s what the “casual encounters” section is for on Craigslist, yes?

Wait, after re-reading through all this, now I’m confused. If traditional marriage varies so much—and clearly it has—then what’s the difference between a man marrying have a dozen women, or marrying one and sleeping with a bunch on the side, and a pair of men in a committed relationship getting married or a woman and another woman tying the knot.

In the end, the biblically sanctioned notions of traditional marriage seem a lot wackier—and more socially pernicious—than what I would call real traditional marriage: two people, irrespective of their gender, committing to each other for life.

That’s why I’m voting no on the Marriage Amendment in Minnesota (and similar bills elsewhere) and encourage you to do the same.

Oh, and one quick note to my wife: I love you, honey. Sorry for putting you on sale on Craigslist.

 

Attack Ad Against Dogs (Created by Cats)

18. July 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , , , , , ,

So earlier this week, I posted an attack ad against cats (created by dogs). Why? Well, I hate political ads, as they are absolutely fallacy-tacular, so I wanted to make fun of them.

Well, the anti-cat ad proved popular, so I’ve now produced the feline response.

Let me know what you think, and please share it if you like it.

You can now show your canine/feline support to @VoteDogs2012 and @VoteCats2012 on Twitter.

A Funny Letter to the Higgs-Boson

04. July 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A Funny Letter to the Higgs-Boson

Dear Higgs Boson:

As I’m sure you’re aware, you were recently discovered by the folks at the Large Hadron Collider. So, now that we’ve found you, my first question is a bit obvious: You’re a hermit, right? If so, do you live in some sort of particle shack?

Anyway, given your hermitage, I bet you’ve missed out on a lot of the news. First and foremost, the media somewhat inexplicably dubbed you “the god particle.” Scientists tried to correct them and say that you were important, but not that important. I mean, it’s not like that you’re flying around and bringing things into existence on a Genesis-like schedule. (You’re not, right?)

The journalists ran with it, so now the scientists just cringe when they hear it. I’m not a scientist, but I agree that the “god particle” is a really silly name. It’s not like there weren’t other options. I mean, if they wanted to stick with the religious metaphors, maybe the media could call you the Blessed Pope John Paul II particle or the Very Reverend Higgs-Boson.

Given that you’re a pop-culture phenomenon already (you have your own iPhone game), I think we should give you a rap name instead. Here are a few options I came up with:

H.I.G.

H-Boson and His Crew of 125.3 gigaelectron volts

BigHiggy

The Dawg Particle

Needless to say, the “god particle” name has to go. What if we discover some particle more befitting of the name—say, a bearded world-creating particle—when the LHC eventually revs up to full power? I know that’s not particularly likely, but I certainly wouldn’t want to be the one to inform the deity particle that its proper name is already taken. Two words: Particle wrath.

By the way, I’m sure the PR people at CERN are pretty darn careful about their spelling. After all, one wouldn’t want to refer to the Large Hardon Collider. That sounds like a terrible, terrible project. And painful. (Yes, that joke was off-color, but it had to be made. When such jokes present themselves like that, you have to take it. Just like free cake.)

Dirty jokes aside: Higgs, you probably missed all the hilarious drama about the whole LHC facility to begin with. Long story short: A couple of know-nothings sued in an attempt to prevent the Large Hadron Collider from commencing operation. They made a number of wild accusations, most notably that the LHC would create “strangelets” or “micro black holes” that would lead to the destruction of the planet.

The funny part is, in their legal brief they said the following about the particle collisions at the LHC: Various competing theories of physics predict various outcomes from these collisions, with no agreement amongst physicists as to what the outcome will be.

Almost immediately after this, they make a number of very, very specific claims about what could happen. Their argument is, in effect: Stop the LHC because we don’t know that it won’t cause these really bad things to happen.

Higgs, if this is the standard of proof necessary to stop a scientific experiment, we’re in trouble. After all, it’s not impossible that the LHC could produce other equally improbable (but good!) results: onions that don’t taste awful (I hate onions), porcupines that give pain-free hugs, or pop songs with meaningful, thoughtful lyrics. So I say, we must keep the Higgs going because it might produce these awesome, but wholly improbable, results.
Clearly, Higgs, one needs evidence to substantiate one’s claims, and fear alone is not evidence. While the plaintiffs had a very basic point—we don’t know what’ll happen!—it wasn’t the point they thought. While there are certainly competing theories about subatomic physics, that’s exactly the reason the LHC was built in the first place: to figure some of this stuff out.

Besides, we have a pretty good idea what we are doing. We’ve been smashing atoms for decades, and higher-energy collisions happen all the time in outer space. If they did create micro black holes or strangelets, you think we’d notice.

Not surprisingly, the silly lawsuit was thrown out post-haste. (My favorite part was that they filed their suit in Hawaii, though the LHC is located in France/Switzerland. That’s like suing Mexico to get the Canadians to stop playing hockey.)

Anyway, now that you’re discovered: Welcome! We look forward to getting to know all about you.

Take care,

Brett Ortler

 

 

A Zany Letter to the Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity Rover

07. June 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dear Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity Rover,

It’s been fun to follow your Twitter feed and Facebook posts, and I’m pretty stoked for your landing in August.

My favorite part of your mission is the ChemCam, as I’m rather interested in the geology/chemistry of the planet (I’m a rock geek). Oh, who am I kidding, I’m really just excited that you’ll be carrying a laser(!) and will be vaporizing rocks on another planet.

I can’t believe I just typed that. It’s incredibly awesome. It’s a pretty good thing that I’m not in charge of the rover. I’d probably just drive around blowing stuff up. It’d be like a Sylvester Stallone movie. By the time I was done there wouldn’t be much left of the planet.

If I may ask, does the person who is in charge of the ChemCam laser have a special title? If not, they deserve one immediately. After all, they have the coolest job imaginable. Not only do they get to work for NASA, they also get to vaporize things on another planet on behalf of NASA and all mankind.

Of course, there’s only one suitable nickname for the operator of a laser on Mars: Marvin. An important question: can the laser operator do a good Marvin the Martian impression? If so, when they fire the laser for the first time, they should do so while doing a Marvin the Martian impression. You should record this and post it online. This would be huge on Twitter, I’m sure.

If they don’t do a good Marvin impression, mine is passable. I’d be happy to record an MP3 for them to use, either for that or for their ring tone/entrance music to a room.

Speaking of music, maybe you can resolve a dispute for me. My father and I often chat about space missions, as we’re both fans of astronomy, and I mentioned the other day that the Opportunity Rover has driven over 21 miles on Mars. He immediately said, “Well that’s a long time to be alone, I bet it’s humming as it’s driving along.”

While we both agree that this is likely, we disagree what it’d be humming. He thinks it opts for the dramatic: Strauss’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra from 2001 or Gustav Holt’s oh-so-appropriate Mars: Bringer of War. Given that the Mer Rover is relatively small, the size of a golf cart, that seems a little dramatic. That’s sort of like blasting heavy metal as you tool around in a Geo Metro.

I bet the rover is humming along to something more playful, like the “Manama” song from the Muppets or the theme to Super Mario Brothers. Which do you think is more likely?

Finally, I wish you the best of luck with the landing. I know landing on a different planet is a pretty tricky business, and I know you’re trying out the new landing approach—the sky crane. (By the way, that sounds a lot like a professional wrestling move.)

I hope all goes well and look forward to your dispatches from the Red Planet.

Take Care,

Brett Ortler

 

Letter to President Obama #63 | Subject: Secrets, Codes, Cryptography, Math, The Vatican Secret Archives, Calvary, Cavalry

04. March 2010 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dear President Obama,

So as you may have noticed, I recently sent you the 62nd letter I’d written you.  (I know, I have a lot of free time.) Then in my next letter, I skipped right to letter #64. That occurred for one of two reasons—either I skipped a number, or letter #63 was a secret letter. Let’s pretend that I can actually count and assume that letter #63 was a secret letter.

If I were going to write a secret letter, there’s always the question of what form it should take. At first, I thought of writing my secret letter like one of those redacted CIA reports. You know, the ones with all the lines crossed out in black permanent marker? I wrote a love letter to my fiancee like that once, except with all the redactions and blacked-out phrases, I don’t think she realized it was a love letter, or that it was even from me. It probably didn’t help that I kept using code words to refer to all of the people, places, and things in the letter. In the end, the letter backfired, as my fiancee didn’t like the codeword I’d selected for her—Steamy Lobsterwoman.

Anyway, I bet Valentine’s Day is kind of hard to celebrate at the CIA, as they take their secrets pretty seriously. I suppose it’s worse at the National Security Agency, as I’m sure everyone there encodes their valentines to prevent anyone else from reading them. But this would be a disaster for the less cryptographically-inclined (me!); I mean, if I were working there and a cute redhead code-breaker passed me a note, I’d probably take one look at it and see all the juxtaposed letters and numbers and think her printer malfunctioned and she was giving me the paper to recycle. I’d totally miss that the substitution cipher she handed me actually was a steamy Elizabethan sonnet asking me out to dinner.

Anyway, everyone in the office would certainly know my business, as I’m pretty sure my codes wouldn’t hold up very long.  That’s because codes involve a lot of math. I gave up on math when I heard about imaginary numbers. I mean, it says right in the name that they aren’t real, and that didn’t seem very applicable to my future career—or any career, for that matter. So I tried answering all of those questions with imaginary answers, but my teacher didn’t think it was very funny when I answered the questions like this:

Find the complex number product for each of the following number pairs:

  1. -9 (24-2i)                              Answer: Unicorns
  2. 9 (-4 + 13i)                           Answer: Gnomes
  3. 8 (6-7i)                                  Answer: Hammers

I figured the first two answers would probably be the most likely to get me some points, as it seems logical that imaginary creatures should be the answer to questions about imaginary numbers. I wrote the third answer down because I was thinking about M.C. Hammer at the time and wondering what happened to him. (Did he open a hardware store?)

Finally, every time I hear about secret codes, I think of the Catholic Church and their Secret Archives (officially known as the Archivum Secretum Vaticanum). Now I don’t know about you, but a lot of the people I know have heard of the secret archives, so I don’t think the naming of that building was a great success. Nevertheless, it does sound like the coolest job in the world, and it’d be really cool to be the guy in charge of it. Not that I could read half of the stuff in there—even if they gave me the golden ticket and let me walk in, I don’t read Latin, and I certainly can’t read Latin when it is handwritten, so I don’t think I’d be uncovering too many secrets about the history of the Church.

Speaking of Christian history, why are the words “calvary” and “cavalry” so similar? They sound like code words, if you ask me. And I always say the wrong one when I want to say “call in the cavalry.” This makes for an odd combination. Since I realized it, I’ve kept saying it because I love the mental image of all these guys charging in to save the day with crosses on their shoulders. What if there was a crosswalk in their path? Would they have to slow down? Anyway, that comment isn’t meant to belittle the Crucifixion or Christian belief in any way, I just like the mental image, however macabre.

In any case, if you’ve got any cool code-related secrets to share (especially if they are related to aliens!), do tell.

Brett

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Letter to President Obama #64 | Subject: Dogs, The Death of Cookie Monster, Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk, Puppets, etc.

25. February 2010 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dear President Obama,

OK, so you’re the President, which means you’re probably the most powerful person on the planet. So theoretically speaking, if you wanted access to information about something—what’s really at Area 51, who shot JFK, when the Vikings will win the Super Bowl—you can probably find it out, or contact an expert who’ll tell you. Plus, you’ve got a dog, so you almost certainly know (or know someone) who knows a whole heck of a lot about dogs. Can you contact them for me? I have a few dog issues I’d like to resolve.

OK, I have a dachshund named Bullwinkle. He’s somewhat destructive. So a while ago, we gave him a Cookie Monster toy. (As a bonus, Cookie Monster was dressed up as a pirate.) Anyway, Bullwinkle proceeded to rip the stuffing out of it in about twenty seconds. Mr. President, it’s a good thing that the catchphrase Cotton, the Fabric of Our Lives isn’t anatomically correct, or my dog would qualify as a serious criminal and the evidence (fluff!) would be littered all over my floor.

Bullwinkle

Pretty soon, all that was left of everyone’s favorite treat-hawking monster was this empty, lifeless bag of blue felt, but he still loved it, as it was now essentially a puppet. Now I don’t know about you, Mr. President, but when it comes to puppeteering, I have certain rules. First off, let’s me just say that I always feel vaguely uncomfortable about playing with puppets. Like clowns, they’re creepy. So whenever I have a puppet on my hand, I find it necessary to affect the worst British accent imaginable. Because I can’t actually do a decent British accent (I’m an American, you’d think the accent would’ve hung on for a few hundred years), I just increase the volume two- or three-fold. This makes puppets slightly more tolerable, and deafening, but to be honest, it’s really just a sleight of hand. A clown hides his omnipresent smile by creating balloon animals to distract children, and puppeteers use silly voices.

Secondly, when I’m puppeteerring, I’m not exactly accustomed to being attacked. Sure, since puppets are really creepy, I suppose I had it coming, but I wasn’t expecting my dachshund to lunge off the couch and bite—with full force—into my hand/Cookie Monster. Needless to say, we no longer play with that toy.

A dachshund did this.

After we threw out Cookie Monster’s corpse (that’s a good death metal band name, by the way) all that’s left was this pair of hard, plastic eyeballs. I don’t know what this means about my dog, but those eyeballs are pretty much his favorite toy. Earlier today, my fiancée had lost her wallet, which is just another way of saying that the dog found it and dragged it under the bed so he could gnaw on it. He does it to mine too; I think he’s a miser.)

Anyway, she texted me and asked if I’d found it; I replied, “Yes, I found it under the bed next to the eyeballs.”

Then again, I suppose that’s not Bullwinkle’s weirdest toy.  A few years ago I attended a reading by Chuck Palahniuk, the guy who wrote Fight Club. His reading was a little crazy—he held a trivia contest during the reading about some of the arcane details of his own books—and when you answered the questions right, he gave you a rubber chicken. Well, at the end of his reading, he brought out this big box and said “Not all of you got a prize during trivia, so now severed hands and legs for everyone!” He then proceeded to throw out all these imitation severed arms and legs into the crowd. I caught one.

And let me tell you, it looked (and felt!) real. Or as real as I think an actual arm would feel, were it detached.  Getting it home was a little strange. On the walk back to my apartment, I saw a parked cop car up ahead. Given that I was carrying a rather realistic appendage, I tried to come up with a plan. I couldn’t decide whether to try to hide my third arm under my jacket (which would’ve looked like I was trying conceal a bazooka) or just to carry it in plain sight like I was holding a really big sub sandwich. I even thought about gnawing on it a bit to make it look a little more like a sandwich, but I figured that probably wouldn’t have gone very well if I stepped under a street light and he saw that it was, in fact, an arm.

In any case, I just shuffled by with my arms (and the arm) at my side, and the cop didn’t notice (which was slightly disconcerting), so the arm soon became the oddest piece of décor in my household. I never knew what to do with it. Mr. President, severed arms didn’t exactly fit any of the vibes I had going in my rooms. I mean, I guess I have some Stephen King lying around, but horror is not exactly the main focus of my library. Anyway, I tried to make accommodations for it, so I reviewed my options. The kitchen was obviously not a possibility. I did consider making the hand my soap holder in the bathroom, and for a while it held change on the dresser in my bedroom. We put that to an end after we knocked it onto the ground without realizing it while cleaning, and it got buried under dirty clothes. Then a day or two later, I picked up my favorite sweater only to reveal a severed arm. I don’t scare easily, but I fell down. For a moment, I felt like I was in an Edgar Allen Poe story, or that kid in the Robert Frost poem, so that ended its tenure in the bedroom.

Eventually, my dog solved the problem for me. The arm had taken up temporary residence in my study, and my dog, as always, was interested in what I was doing. He soon became bored, and then he discovered the arm, which led to his favorite new game, “bite the hand that feeds you.”

Sadly, the arm didn’t last much longer than Cookie Monster, and now my arm has become the standard chew toy once again. I’ve been incessantly searching the Internet for a Kevlar/Chain Mail dog toy, but alas, my searches have been in vain.

I hope you’re well, and take care.

Brett

P.S. So the bipartisan health care summit is coming up tomorrow, and in a gesture of goodwill, I wore a shirt with elephants on it to work today.

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Letter to President Obama #52 | Subject: Birthdays

19. January 2010 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Letter to President Obama #52 | Subject: Birthdays

Dear President Obama,

So it’s not quite my birthday yet, but the date is rapidly approaching, and, as always, it’s a strange time of year. First of all, there is the annual re-analysis of the birthday traditions; frankly, I don’t understand some of the traditions that accompany birthdays.

For instance, cake and ice cream seem counterproductive, though I suppose I understand the impulse. I mean, birthdays are landmarks, signposts along the way, if you will, and every time one encounters a sign post (while running, say), one has the option to give up. That is, when you see how far you’ve come, there is always the urge to cash in and simply make a grand exit from this corporeal realm. Most people recognize that this is a bad idea, and that the later parts of one’s life may be more important than the early goings.

Then again, I have to admit, the idea can be somewhat persuasive—and disturbing. For instance, if I’m 70 or 80 years old and I know my quality of life will soon be taking a ride on the Hindenburg (or as my version might be called, the Hindenbert), I’m pretty confident that I’ll go down in a blaze of Epicurean glory. Oh, there will be cheesecake in the morning, and McDonald’s breakfast sandwiches, and General Tsao and his artery-clogging army for lunch (how long did that guy live?), and then dinner, which will consist almost entirely of beer brewed by chaste Catholics (who knew they’d make the best drinks for a party?) and then perhaps an aperitif of illicit substances.

All of these, of course, would hasten my impending demise, but what’s the problem with that? Sure, one could argue that this wouldn’t be fair to my great-grandkid Tad (?) who wouldn’t have had the chance to meet me, but I’m pretty sure our interactions would have been less than memorable, especially if I were 85 and he were 4. Besides, I’ll have written goodbye letters to everyone by then, and I’m pretty sure I’ll address a few of them in advance. (Of course, the letter would read a bit like a choose-your-own-adventure book, except they’d have to fill in their name, and all of the appropriate pronouns and nouns.)

For instance:

Dear __________________:

I never got a chance to meet you, but that’s because I’m dead. Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt. (I think.) Plus, I had it coming. (Then again, so do you and everyone you know.) Anyway.

Remember: You can do anything you put your mind to. For instance, if you feel that you’re like ________ and that you drink too much and want to stop, you can do it, despite familial tendencies. Then, if you feel that your demise is imminently approaching, you can undo that same thing (teetotaling) and have a really fun last few week(s)/month(s). Consider this letter a memento mori, and I look forward to meeting you in the spiritual realm that corresponds most accurately with your religious beliefs.) If you’re an agnostic, I don’t know what to say.

An advantage of this approach is that my great-grandchildren will be able to tell their kids that their great-grandpa went out at 85 after a weeklong bender of booze and illicit substances.

Birthday Candles

Birthday candles seem like a bad idea too, as this tradition doesn’t take the asthmatic into consideration, nor does it consider folks like my grandmother, who had emphysema. She was on a portable oxygen supply—pure oxygen, which is highly flammable—and a mishap with the birthday cake could have led to some serious damage.

And then there’s the whole question of whether this is wise for the very old—first, their cakes include a lot of candles, and then we’re asking them to expend what may be their last breath on a flaming dessert item. As an aside, has one of the very old (112, say) blown out their birthday candles with a death rattle? (This would be a sad, albeit funny, headline.)

Birthday Cards

I also have a problem with birthday cards. Birthday cards come in two varieties—they try to be funny, or they try to be serious. They almost always fail. The serious ones almost always rhyme and are intended to be serious, but they inevitably end up sounding like Doctor Seuss tried to write romantic poetry, or as if written by Lord Byron’s less-than-talented brother (Lord Bryon?).

The amusing ones are almost worse. They’re a bit like saying here’s a bad pun that someone else thought of. That’s not much of a gift, if you ask me. I’d prefer to go for birthday cards with a bit of a harder edge. For instance, birthdays begin by counting up, which I think is great. That is, at first, birthdays progress toward something.  Each year is a landmark. You turn 1, and hooray you didn’t get cholera. Then you start school at age 5 or 6, then you turn 16 and you can drive. Then you’re 22, and hey, you didn’t die of alcohol poisoning (yet). But after a certain point, it becomes a countdown. I’ve always wondered, at what point is it OK to give a birthday card that says, “Congratulations! You’re Not Dead!” to someone who is really old?

Anyway, you see my point—we could make each card a memento mori—a reminder that one is eventually going to expire. That could be useful in its own right, as one could change their life accordingly. (It’d certainly help a lot more than Hallmark.)

Anyway, sorry if this letter is a little heavy; I majored in philosophy. Let me know what you think.

Take Care,

Brett