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The Daniel Plan is a fairly successful diet to help people become healthier.

Physically.

But one’s physical body is only one aspect of oneself. What about mental health or emotional health or spiritual health?

Could we get Daniel Plans for those?

The Biblical Daniel plan, as opposed to the American Daniel Plan, was to eat only vegetables and drink only water, forgoing meat and wine (which would include today’s soft drinks, I assume).

To look at it another way, the Daniel meal plan is about eating what you need and what is good for you, not what you want and what pleases your taste buds.

If you take that concept and apply it to other areas, what would it look like?

Mental health – avoiding television? Limiting your playlist?

Emotional health – limiting your internet? being more selective in the books you choose?

Spiritual health – studying the Bible more? reading fewer blogs?

The only problem with the non-physical Daniel plan is that there is no good way to track progress. Physically, you can measure things: weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. But the health aspects that are not physical are more subjective.

Go ahead and try a 10-day detox, not just of foods that are bad for you, but also of media that are bad for you. Chances are good that whatever pleases God will also be healthier for you – body, soul, mind, and spirit.

Selfie sticks elicit reactions from people. General concensus seems to be disapproval of selfie sticks, but some people might find them useful.

But that is the reaction to using the selfie stick to take pictures of oneself.

What if the selfie stick were being used for a different purpose?

I propose that the derision the selfie stick provokes is not due to the stick itself but at the selfish nature of a person who takes many photos of himself. And a selfie stick used for a different purpose would not be scoffed at.

Lighter Stick

For example, given the number of injuries reported in the news this summer due to fireworks mishaps, people should be encouraging the use of lighter sticks.

That would keep fingers and such out of harm’s way when lighting fireworks. Any explosions would damage an easily-replaceable selfie stick and the person’s hand would remain unharmed.

Spray Stick

Another example is wasp spray or bug killer or whatever. Yes, they have the cans that can spray a jet of fluid a good distance, but there are situations where those won’t work well. Or maybe you have a homebrew wasp or hornet repellent and you can’t get it to squirt that far.

Plus, the wasps would be so busy laughing at the sight of a selfie stick approaching them that they wouldn’t be able to form an attack.

Snake Stick

Sure, there are already commercially available pest-control harness or snake tongs, but this item is more to upgrade the perception of the selfie stick in the mind of the general public.

I mean, who is going to mock someone who is carrying a Cobra Stick?

Any other suggested uses for selfie sticks?

In case there are people out there who need help optimizing their trips to the grocery store, I have a few tips. Although, chances are good that if you’re reading this then you’re old enough to have been to the grocery store enough to have your own system.

• Park near a cart corral.
  This is in order to facilitate your exit. If you park near a cart corral, you won’t have to go very far to return your cart after loading the groceries into your vehicle. This is especially helpful if you have small children to buckle in car seats. If you have an ineffective conscience and can leave shopping carts scattered around the parking lot to annoy other customers, then this tip is even more important because you need the help to take care of your cart.
• Start at the deli counter.
  Unless, of course, you don’t have any deli items on your list. But if you do, go to the deli first. Grab a ticket and see how close they are to your number. If it’s close, stick around and get your stuff soon. If it’s not close, start your shopping and check back in from time to time so you don’t miss your turn. Last time, I was able to get all my other shopping done (not a big list) in the time it took for them to get through the other deli customers.

  You may be tempted to look at the deli line and tell yourself you’ll come back at the end of your shopping trip if the line’s short, so that the cold cuts can stay cold. But if you do that, the line will have grown significantly when you return, and then you’ll have to wait around uselessly. Either get your deli items or take a number at the beginning of the shopping trip.

• Load big or heavy items on the conveyor belt first.
  This is not what most people do, because they usually have the smaller, lighter items on top of the bigger, heavier items in the cart. And people naturally grab what’s first and work their way down when at the cashier. But this then causes problems when taking the bags from the bagger and putting them back in the cart. You end up putting the lighter, more fragile items in the cart first and then have to try to fit big things in later.

  An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So you won’t have to worry about anything when putting bags in the cart if you just grab the big items first. I grab big items (except for things under the cart), then I do smaller heavy items like cans and jars, then I do all the frozen items, then the refrigerated items, then the soft or fragile items. That way, the loaf of bread doesn’t end up squished by the bag of apples.

Any other tips?

Normally, making spaghetti involves breaking the noodles in half. If you don’t, it ends up looking like this:

Because the noodles are longer than the pot is wide.

But someone realized that there is no reason for all spaghetti noodles to be that long, since people usually break them for cooking or cut them for eating. So grocery stores are now selling these:

That’s right – pot-ready spaghetti.

It’s the same amount of spaghetti as usual, just twice as many noodles and half as long.

But that got be thinking – there must be another way to solve this problem. And there is!

It’s the spaghetti-ready pot.

Why do the noodles have to change? Why can’t the pot change?

I have considered setting my password to what.

Unfortunately, just about everyone requires a password that is longer than 4 characters, so I can’t do that.

But it would have been great. Anytime I would be asked “what is your password?” it wouldn’t be a question – it would also be the password hint.

Since I’m not using it as my password, and since it’s not very secure, it is available for any of you to use now.

On a related note, if I ever become the guy in charge of naming colors, perhaps working for a crayon or paint company, I’m going to name one of the colors What.

That way, whenever someone asks “What is your favorite color?” it won’t be a question – it will be a marketing opportunity.

I was reading an article that summarized various studies that concluded that people form group affinities via pain. Pain might not be the only way to bond groups, but shared pain results in identification with and loyalty to that group.

That explains the emotions of the military, especially during basic training or deployments – new shared experiences of pain. And it explains why initiations are popular for fraternities or teams – it increases commitment.

Around the time of reading the article, I was also going through a DVD series on parenting and the family. And one of the incidental points that I took from it was that families need to be together. To bond.

So I combined those two thoughts and came up with this: we need a family activity that causes pain.

You know, to increase bonding.

But that sounds kinda bad – intentionally causing physical pain to one’s family.

Maybe it could be some other sort of pain other than physical pain.

That sounds worse though. What kind of torture is that?

Then I realized I don’t need to invent any activity for that purpose. There already is one, and we’ve already used it.

It’s the road trip.

It’s perfect – everyone is involved and everyone is put through pain. If not pain, then at least discomfort or annoyance.

And the key is that the whole family participates. It can’t be the parents putting the kids through pain. Because then the kids bond with themselves against the parents. You want the kids identifying themselves as part of the whole family.

To use a sports analogy: the parents need to be the captains of the team, not the coaches. You lead, but as a part of the team.

Anyway, find some fulfilling activity for the whole family. And if you all experience pain through it, don’t complain – it is strengthening your family.

Many people have garbage disposals in their kitchen sinks.

We are not those people.

But if we were, I would opt for this product, which I just made up:

The In-sarlacc-erator

There would also need to be a line of In-sarlacc-erator-compatible sinks, the Great Sink of Carkoon.

Note: if you don’t get it, go ask a Star Wars fan.

I wonder if it’s easier to get a licensing agreement from Disney than from Lucasfilm.