Museum Obscurum

 I recently saw a news story about a place in Denmark called Museum Obscurum.  During the story they showed all kinds of creepy artifacts, including a werewolf-looking thing that was partially mummified.  They also had all kinds of preserved dead things floating around in big jars and a ton of different artifacts that are supposed to be haunted.  Apparently the Danish take this shit pretty seriously because the curator and a few random people on the street were all super excited about it and they kept proudly saying that people came from all over the world to see this collection of haunted and macabre items.  Ok.

I decided that I better check it out and find out what's going on over there.  Rather than getting on a plane and going directly to Nykobing Falster, Denmark, I opted for Plan B and just opened my computer's browser.  A lot of interesting info popped up and I began to diligently sift through it.

Although Museum Obscurum is the actual name of the museum in Denmark, the term can also be used to describe a type of creepy and sometimes haunted museum containing strange artifacts.  I never knew this.

After a little scrolling I had a surprise.  There is a Museum Obscurum right here in Omaha, Nebraska.  In fact, it's located less than a mile from my house.  The business name is Museum of the Shadows.  They also have a second location in Pensacola, Florida.  There is another, but unaffiliated, one in Oklahoma City and another in Allergan, Michigan that recently closed permanently.  When the one in Michigan closed I wonder what they did with all the stuff inside.  Maybe they auctioned it all off or maybe they just opened the front door and released it into the night.

From what I can see on the web sites, the one in Denmark looks like the best one.  I can't see paying several thousand dollars to fly to Denmark and see that one, but we may try out the one here in Omaha.  Admission is $25 per person, which isn't too bad I guess.

It seems like those Nordic countries really like their museums.  There are many different ones in the larger cities and some of them are pretty unique.  And then there's the penis museum in Reykjavik, Iceland.  That's right.  They have the world's largest collection of penises from all kinds of living creatures.  Elephants, mice, chickens, dogs, cats, and even a few from famous or infamous humans.  I wonder what one would have to do for his penis to be worthy of display in a museum? Mine has served me well but I don't think it belongs in a museum after I'm gone.  It's never been remarkable in any way and it certainly isn't famous.  Nevertheless, I'm happy with it.

The link to the Museum Obscurum in Denmark is https://museumlollandfalster.dk/en/museum-obscurum/

If you're ever planning a trip to Omaha then you can check out this link before your trip and see if you want to visit Museum of the Shadows.

https://www.museumofshadows.com/

There are probably many more Museum Obscurums throughout the world, but I just wasn't interested enough to keep looking for them all.

Active Listening

Are you familiar with the term "active listening?"  I wasn't either until a psychologist told me about it in the mid-1990's.  I hadn't really thought about it much in detail until I had to work with a guy in our office who obviously doesn't understand the concept.

You are actively listening to someone when you concentrate on the exact meaning  of what they're saying and you don't try to build your response to them before they finish speaking.  Active listening tells the other person that you value what they're saying and it's also common courtesy.  It's an incredibly useful skill, but for most people it doesn't come naturally.

When you're having a conversation with someone and they're not actively listening to you, they tend to interrupt you a lot before you finish your sentences.  By not listening to your entire sentence they miss the meaning of what you're trying to say.  It can be extremely frustrating if you're trying to convey some important information and they just seem to be missing the point entirely.  It makes sense that they don't understand you if they interrupt you before you've completely conveyed your point.  It's impossible for a person to listen to you for comprehension when they're speaking at the same time. 

So, when I first met this guy at work (we'll just call him Alex), it was because he contacted me to find out about a computer system that I manage.  He asked a question about the configuration and I started to answer.  I was about halfway through my first sentence when he started speaking again.  It was clear that he hadn't understood the concept I was trying to convey.  This was no surprise because there's no way he had heard any of the information contained in the second half of my sentence.  This went on for about 10 minutes before I was completely fed up with it.

I just stopped speaking altogether.  After another 5 minutes of Alex talking to himself and not understanding anything I had told him, he stopped for a couple of seconds and then asked if I was still on the call or if we had been disconnected.  I assured him that I was still there and then he asked why I wasn't talking.  So I told him.

"Alex, first let me say that if you interrupt me again I'm hanging up and you're on your own with this system.  I've answered your question at least 4 times already, but you started talking over me so clearly you didn't hear my answer.  If you would like me to answer your question again then I need a promise from you that you won't interrupt me again and that you will listen until I finish speaking.  The answer to your question is simple so it will take about 10 seconds for me to give it to you.  After I finish I will listen to you in the same manner and not interrupt you while you're speaking.  Will that work for you?"

Alex was a little confused at first, but he realized that the only way he was going to get his question answered was if he refrained from talking and just listened for 10 seconds so he reluctantly agreed.  It worked.  He understood what I said.  In another 10 seconds we had a game plan and we disconnected the call.  I immediately made the change he requested and sent him a message telling him it was complete.  End of story.  After that, every conversation I've had with Alex has been productive because he knows I will stop talking entirely or simply disconnect if he interrupts.

This approach does not work on drunk people.  It takes them longer to realize that you're just sitting there staring at them and not saying anything.  Then they decide that you're being an asshole and usually the result is some hurt feelings.  I'm still trying to figure out how to handle a drunk interrupter effectively so for now I just stop talking to them entirely and turn my attention to something else rather than replying to whatever they were talking about when they interrupted.

There is another type of someone not actively listening that is a little harder to spot.  Sometimes the other person doesn't interrupt, but after you're done speaking to them it's evident that they didn't understand a word you just said.  This means one of three things.

First, and most common, it's because the person starts building his response before you stop speaking so they miss half of what you're saying.

Second, the reason could be that you're explaining something in terms that they don't understand so they stop listening to you.  This is your fault.  Know your audience and use terms and concepts they can understand.

Third, the other person may just be dumb as a box of rocks and there's no chance that they will ever understand what you're saying no matter how you say it.  In this case I've been able to avoid calling someone stupid by suggesting that we bring a third person into the conversation to get their opinion on the subject.  Make sure that the third person is someone they trust and is more likely to understand what you're saying, like another member of their department.  This has been a good way for me to get through the conversation without saying anything that will hurt the other person's feelings or make them feel inadequate and still allow things to move forward.

I hope this post is useful to you in your various endeavors.  Learning how to practice active listening has been very valuable for me in both work and personal situations and I hope you will give it a try.  it just might make your life better.

"Contraception Begins at Erection" Law -- REALLY??

This morning as I was reading through the various newsfeeds I get every day I saw an interesting item.  The title of the article was:  "Mississippi lawmaker introduces 'Contraception Begins at Erection Act.' "  Of course I had to check it out, not realizing I was about to climb aboard the crazy train.

The bill, introduced by State Senator Bradford Blackmon, would make it unlawful for "a person to discharge genetic material without the intent to fertilize an embryo."  It would impose fines of $1,000 for the first offense, $5,000 for the second offense, and $10,000 for each subsequent offense.  I was stunned when I read this.

I immediately began to overthink it.  The bill, if it were to pass in Mississippi's legislature, would effectively ban male masturbation.  I don't think it would affect females because, to the best of my knowledge, females don't fire a stream of genetic material across the room when they masturbate.

Ok, let's talk about masturbation for a little bit.  We can talk about this today because the whole subject isn't taboo like it was when I was a teenager.  It's not uncommon today to see it discussed on television or on social media.  When I was a kid it was a shameful act and everyone denied that they ever did it.  Today it's recognized as a normal behavior that's just part of everyday life.  Incidentally, ladies, if a guy ever tells you he doesn't masturbate then there's a 99.99999% chance he's lying to you.  It's just something we do.  I think women are the same way, but since I'm a guy I can't say for sure.

So when does a boy begin to masturbate?  I did a less-than-exhaustive search of the web and the consensus is that they start at about 13 years old.  We'll use 13 years for the purpose of this discussion.  The next question was how many times a week?  Answers varied wildly, but the average seems to be about 10 times a week during the teen years.  Sounds reasonable so we'll use that number, too.

So, using these numbers we can calculate that by the time a guy reaches age 18 he will have masturbated about 2600 times.  So, if Sen. Bradford Blackmon of Mississippi can manage to get his bill all the way through the legislature and it actually becomes a law, the average boy living in Mississippi will owe the State of Mississippi a staggering $26 million in fines by his 18th birthday.

So, the next logical step on my quest for useless information was to determine what the financial impact would be for Mississippi if they were able to actually collect these fines.  I decided not to spend the next couple of days trying to determine how many males within my target age group live in Mississippi so I just asked ChatGPT.  It spit out a very long explanation of how it came to it's answer, but the bottom line was that 117,420 males in this age group live in Mississippi.  That would mean that in any 5 year span Mississippi would realize approximately $3,052,920,000,000 in revenue from masturbation fines.  That's over $3 trillion for those of you who can't deal with commas.

That's a lot of money.  The next question would be enforcement.  Not every teenage boy is going to go to the police station every week and swear out a masturbation confession for the week.  Mississippi would need to come up with some kind of monitoring and enforcement process.  With the very large amount of money we're talking about here the whole thing would certainly draw the attention of technology moguls such as Elon Musk.  My guess would be that Elon would have his engineers develop a device similar to the the ankle monitors you see on people arrested for drunk driving, but attached somewhere entirely different. 

Remember that these calculations are just for one small age group.  I can tell you with 100% certainty that guys don't stop masturbating when they turn 18 and this law would still apply to them for the rest of their lives.  I didn't calculate those numbers but I think the amount of revenue generated would be huge.

So what did I learn from this exercise?  I learned that stupidity has no boundaries and that I would go broke living in Mississippi, so I won't be moving there anytime soon if this law passes.