Amanda on the Coin Flip: Just Use Your Brain

This adorable baby knows how ridiculous it is to live life by the coin.

When I first started dating Dave, I thought the coin flip was a quirky thing he did to pick his order at restaurants in a way that would make the server laugh. I soon learned it was more than that. The moment I fully realized how important the coin flip was to him was when I walked into his apartment to hear him chanting, “flip the coin! Flip the coin!” to our friend who was deciding where to go to grad school. Any decision that leaves Dave even marginally unsure of what to do, he will immediately try to solve with the coin. And he will follow the coin’s decision blindly.

The coin flip is only useful in the way that any exercise that makes something definitive is useful. Let me explain. Let’s say you are twelve and your mom asks you if you want macaroni and cheese for dinner or if you’d like to order pizza. You say you don’t really care. But when you see your mom pull out the pot to boil water, one of two things will happen: either that pizza starts sounding really good and you rush to grab the phone before your mom puts the pasta in that pot and your shot at pizza is blown, or you become content with the prospect of macaroni and cheese for dinner and you wait calmly until she calls you to the table. The mom is the decision maker for indecisive twelve year olds. The coin flip is the decision maker for indecisive grown-ups. After the coin hits the surface, there’s a good chance you will know what you were actually hoping for.

The coin flip brings out your gut feelings when you didn’t know you had any. And I’m all for following your gut.

So if the coin helps you come to a decision, that’s great. But if you realize you aren’t happy with the decision the coin made, go against it. Do not let a little metal thing with some dead president’s face on it dictate what you will do with your life. Put it in its place and use it for some gumballs or an arcade game instead.

Dave might argue that it’s silly to waste all your brainpower making unimportant decisions. Fine. I will cede that you can thoughtlessly use the coin for some mundane things, if it’s helpful to you. Here I have included a brief list of example predicaments and divided them into those which can be safely decided by the coin and those which you should employ logic for.

OK to use the coin	Not OK to use the coin
What movie should I see?	Where should I invest my life savings?
What should I make for lunch?	C-section or natural birth?
What clothes should I wear today?	Should I wear clothes today?

There is, however, a perk to dating someone who believes so unwaveringly in the power of the coin and fears horrible repercussions should he disobey it. Things that I want to do that I have 0% chance of getting Dave to do with me suddenly become things that I have a 50% chance shot at if I involve the coin. In this way, I have gotten Dave to do a number of things including:
• Watch Rent.
• Eat at a vegetarian restaurant that plays strange music that scares the bajeezus out of him.
• Go to poetry readings.

I have also been given a free pass on ordering a super girly drink at the bar because I had Dave flip a coin on what I should order.

Thus, while I don’t believe in the power of the coin, I sometimes embrace Dave’s belief in it. But as for me, my decision maker is a spongy mass of cells and tissue. It’s called my brain.



Clara's New Laugh by Mitch Bennett is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Dave on the Coin Flip: The Coin Never Lies

    If you have ever found yourself in a situation in which you have the choice of two possible outcomes, then you know there are only two ways of handling it. One: you can analyze the situation, hypothesize the short and long term effects of each decision and make a list of pros and cons to each outcome. Or you can do the smart thing and flip a coin.


There is a reason why the coin flip has been used to settle disputes for centuries and that is because the coin never lies. The beauty of the coin is that it shows no favoritism towards either side, it can be used to settle virtually any problem at any time, and you will always be able to find one on hand. Now, before I go any further it is important to explain that the coin can only actually settle a real dispute. The coin is never used to see if you should exit your eight story hotel room through the door or the window, or whether or not to wrestle an alligator, because there is no real conflict between the two options and the answer you want is perfectly clear to you (in other words, you want to wrestle the alligator). Therefore, the coin should only be used to choose one of two realistic options.

I regrettably learned the power of the coin the hard way while in college. One morning at 3 am, my roommate, his girlfriend, Amanda and I were debating whether we should go to the diner or get some sleep before our early classes. We flipped a coin, which suggested that we sleep. Though until then I have been a strict follower of the coin, I was upset with the outcome so much that I decided to give an emotional monologue about how we “cannot live our lives by the coin” and how the coin was “the worst idea we ever had.”

I was a fool and I recant that entire speech.

The four of us ended up going against the coin and had perhaps the worst diner experience we had ever had in our lives. I will eat almost anything, and I especially will eat anything that I ordered and am paying for, but my French onion soup, usually my favorite dish at that diner, tasted like how my four-year-old moccasins smelled after walking a mile in a rainstorm. The other dishes had similar problems: the fries were cold, the omelet half cooked. In fact, everyone had a problem with the food except for my roommate. As we sort of ate, but mostly just looked at our food, we patiently waited for our server to come so that we could ask for the check. We had not seen him since we got our food forty-five minutes ago.

Eventually, when he came with the check, my roommate asked for a box for the other half of his chicken wrap. After the server disappeared for almost an additional hour, we decided to leave, wrap in hand. Ultimately, the four of us returned two hours later, tired and dissatisfied, and we only had ourselves to blame for rejecting the coin. While this may not seem like it was a total disaster, I’m just grateful we chose this situation to not listen to the coin rather than a serious one with serious consequences. I have never gone against the coin since, and have heard too many disaster stories to even consider.

What I have learned in life is that there are basically two people in this world: those who listen to the coin and those who are doomed to live a life of misfortune and regret. It is not important to use the coin for every decision you have, but it is extremely important that you never go against the coin. Below I have made a brief list of those who listened to the coin, and those who openly rejected its wisdom.

Followed coin blindly	Went against coin
John D. Rockefeller	The Owner of Hostess
Thomas Jefferson	George W. Bush
Every lottery winner	Every Jets fan

Many believe that the coin flip is fate. Maybe it is fate, or maybe a butterfly flaps its wings in China and makes your quarter lands on tails. Fate or not, the importance of the coin should not be taken lightly. The coin defies logic and reason to no explanation, and while I cannot guarantee that always listening to the coin will bring you fame, power, and success, I can guarantee that it will steer you away from disaster, misfortune, and chaos. I can think of no better way to end then to leave you with my new favorite poem:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
I flipped a coin to make my choice
And that made all the difference.
                     -Robert Frost, had he flipped a coin



Call ! by Rob is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Amanda on Competitive Bearding: A Manly Miss America

I got conned into watching Whisker Wars after losing a bet to Dave. He insisted that I would like it. I watched the first episode with bitter reluctance, and then pretended I was still bitterly reluctant while watching the second, third, and fourth episodes, partly because I didn’t want Dave to know he was right, and partly because I wanted to be able to hold it over his head as something that I did even though I didn’t want to, which could maybe win me a back rub or two.

Competitive bearding is, at its core, a form of pageantry. Hairy, manly, beer-drenched pageantry but pageantry nonetheless. Yes, the intricate patterns of curls in these beards are often made with beer cans instead of curlers. But if you take a cupcake and ice it with Jack Daniels steak sauce, it is still a cupcake.

But this contrast is what makes the show sort of awesome. Bearded manly men walking around drinking beer does not make good television. Bearded manly men walking around drinking beer and taking turns hair-spraying and primping each other makes good television.

My gut revulsion to the show came from one of its stars: Jack Passion. Passion, who says things such as “I’m going to beat everyone and then spit on them,” turns bearding into a cast for his bruised ego. Does that mean that the entire culture is like this? No. In fact, James Moody, the hilarious “spiritual advisor” to the Austin Facial Hair Club, emphasizes the importance of the ying and yang of beards: in order to be a respectable beardsman, your “inner beard,” or attitude and sportsmanship, must be just as impressive as your outer beard.

And even if I totally hated the show, I might still watch it because of this guy:

Aarne Bielefeldt is the founding member of the Terminal Length Beard Club whose philosophy is to just “Let it Grow.” When Aarne suffered a string of losses and switched categories from Full Beard Natural to Freestyle, I came close to swearing off Whisker Wars for good. But even with his switch to the showier category, Aarne maintains his down-to-earth attitude, still wears outfits sewn by his wife, and still dons his adorable old man grin. My favorite moment of the series is when Aarne produces a collection of sepia photographs that he has taken of beards that inspire him, including one of his fellow competitor holding his daughter who, head-to-toe, is only a bit longer than his beard. Aarne says that he collects these pictures because they resonate with him emotionally. And who am I to discredit the value of something as heartfelt and innocent as that?

Dave on Competitive Bearding: The Importance of Being Bearded

One thing that has caused a number of arguments between my rival and I is the amount of appreciation competitive beard growers should receive, which is why we chose this as our first topic. I can sum up my views on competitive beard growing in just a couple of syllables: awesome.

The sport of bearding is focused around a number of international circuit events that lead up to the World Beard and Mustache Championships. Here, a number of competitors are judged in a variety of beard categories such as Imperial Partial, Musketeer, Styled Mustache, and Freestyle. The main event, and hands down the most impressive (as well as my personal favorite), is the main event, the Full Beard Natural. Here competitors grow their beards to outrageous lengths and are judged extensively on length, mass, density, shape, color, and overall impression.

If right now you are saying to yourself, “this is ridiculous,” then you try growing and grooming a facial garden worthy of international competition. While I will openly admit that bearding is not an actual sport (solely because it is not on ESPN, which is my only qualification of something being a sport) I do think competitive beard growers deserve the same amount of admiration and attention as any other public figure and much more than any of the Kardashians.

Some people would criticize the time, effort, and dedication that goes into growing and grooming a beard, however, these same people probably wouldn’t criticize someone for spending that much time and care on their petunias. Competitive beards are like the petunias of the face, except that you can’t sneak popcorn into a movie theater with your petunias.

Competitive beard growing makes perfect sense since everything is a competition to men. That is just the nature of male thinking. World-class beardsman, Jack Passion, best represents the spirit of competitive beard growing. Although his comments like, “ I am a teapot, all it takes is someone to tip me over, pour me out, and their going to get f****** burned,” make him a hated competitor, I think he is nothing but entertaining. Jack Passion's obnoxious confidence and holier-than-thou attitude is all forgiven by me since he has the best beard in the world.

I should say that I might be slightly biased because I think everyone should grow out their mos, at least just a little. Why go out of your way every single morning to shave when you know it will grow back in just a few hours? Imagine how awesome it would be to have No Shave November all year round. I do not think it is a coincidence that you could easily think of a witty anti-shave name for each month: No Shave November, Don’t Shave December, Just Grow January, Face Forest February, Massive Mo March, etc. In fact, there are a number of reasons why you should grow a beard. Here are just a few:

1. Facial hair is a celebration of manhood.
2. You will have a built-in bib.
3. A beard acts as a man purse without the embarrassment of carrying a man purse.
4. Pancakes literally taste better with a beard.

Competitive beard growers take an ordinary process and make it extraordinary. If you still think competitive beard growing is a joke, check out the World Beard and Moustache Championships and maybe you will think otherwise.

Amanda's Opening Statement

Last night, upon finding his pillow much fluffier than usual, Dave turned to me and said, “Amanda, I am generally confused.” I knew he really meant “I am genuinely confused,” but I think there’s more truth in the first statement. He is generally confused. And so Blog You in the Schnoz was born out of necessity: the necessity to prove to Dave that he is wrong a lot more often than he thinks he is.

The man has a deadly combination of two traits: an overactive imagination and serious conviction. Thus, his thought process is usually as follows: imagine an idea, begin to believe in the idea despite its legitimacy, and then argue it until he is so convinced and the other person is so tired of arguing that he leaves every argument thinking he’s right.

Ladies and gentleman, it is time to prove Dave wrong for once and for all. This pattern of him walking away from every argument believing he is right is starting to get dangerous. His ideas began slowly and innocently. Things like “Lady Madonna” is the best Beatles song. That ketchup doesn’t go with everything salty and savory (which it absolutely does).

But I fear the progression of his condition. He has been toying with the idea of inventing “toilet pants.” And the other day I couldn’t even convince him that populating New Jersey with tumbleweeds was a bad idea. I had to distract him with ice cream.

It’s best just to nip this in the bud, and to do so in a public way. Dave, please prepare to be blogged in the schnoz.

Dave's Opening Statement

I am co-creating Blog You in the Schnoz as a place where I can voice my opinions on various topics, which usually cause an argument between me and my co-creator/girlfriend/rival, Amanda. Here I will take these topics and combine deductive reasoning, strong rationalization, and theological examinations to come up with a well-educated statement of opinion as well as a intellectual body of defense. In short, I will use this blog to prove that during disputes with Amanda, I am right about 90% of the time, and the other 10% I will pretend that I am to the point where Amanda will just surrender out of frustration.

Another reason I am making this blog is to prove to Amanda that the world will often agree with my opinion over hers. Also it is a place to not only organize my thoughts but to compare and more often contrast our thoughts and opinions.

It is important that I note here, in my opening statement, what I define as winning a dispute. To me, winning a dispute is not about who is right or who is wrong, its about who can make a better argument and convince as many people as they can that they are right. In many ways I think it is much more impressive to win an argument with what is probably the wrong response or unfavorable opinion, which If you know me, I usually always have.

Since I expect Amanda to attack my intellect and share a number of embarrassing stories and events, I have purposely used as many big words in this opening statement as I could. In conclusion, a warning to my rival, watch your back or you will be blogged in the schnoz. -->