A slight upgrade from the trough.

(OR, WHY ARE URINALS DESIGNED TO SPRAY PISS ALL OVER MEN? [or, How to Properly Piss in a Urinal])

Today, we will examine and contemplate modern urinal design. Perhaps not the first topic to come to mind as something you’d like to explore in depth, but, as I hope this article will show you, it is one worthy of investigation. This topic admittedly caters largely to men, although the occasional woman may find some amusement or insight in the discussion. Without further ado, I give you a diatribe on the virtues, or lack thereof, of modern urinal design.

BACKDROP

I should first go about explaining the situation for the handful of women readers who will successfully read this entire piece. I don’t know what a woman’s experience urinating into a toilet entails. Even if I were to urinate while sitting on one, I could not recreate this experience, as I do not have a vagina. Hell, I don’t even have a mangina. Just a penis. A perfectly sculpted, well-groomed, sizable and handsome penis. But enough about that. This piece is about things to piss into, not things to piss out of.

Using my rudimentary knowledge of physics, I deduce that when a woman pisses into a toilet, there is some amount of splashing. Gauging from first-hand knowledge of wiping procedures, I gather that some urine never quite manages to even exit the vaginal area. While these scientific inevitabilities present some difficulty, women have the benefit of having nothing but their bare ass and some amount of bare thigh/leg exposure susceptible to any splashback or lingering urine, not to mention the readily available paper with which to wipe away their troubles.

For men, the scenario is not so pleasant. First, our urination stations are often designed in a manner not unlike that of a hog or cattle feeding area. Men are regularly expected to nonchalantly mosey up to a trough beside their fellow primates, remove their piss producer from their clothing for all to see, and urinate in extremely close proximity to one another, often as wide-eyed and confused as a cattle with a prod up its arse. Best case scenario, we are given an 18” long by 24” high slab of wood with which to shield our innocent eyes from the shame and discomfort of unwanted man meat exposure.

Unlike our female primate counterparts, who are given a plentiful bowl of water in which to pee, we are expected to piss into the back or bowl of a dry porcelain or possibly metal receptacle. This receptacle has no lip, no guard of any sort facing the user. Walls are only present on the sides to reduce cleanup for service workers. Earlier, I mentioned that physics leads to the likelihood of splashing when urinating into a toilet full of impeccably clean water (http://www.wtsp.com/news/story.aspx?storyid=25442). For women, the presence of this water, at the very least, gives the illusion that whatever is splashing up on one’s ass is, at best, clean water, or, at worst, diluted piss water. And again, I don’t even know that this splashing reaches a woman’s body; I’ve never asked (please, let us know in the comments).

This brings us back to those water-free urinals men are savagely forced to use. You had better believe that splashing is still an issue. But there is no illusion here; no comforting water to cast doubt on the pisser. Oh no, we are left with the irrevocable knowledge that the liquid shooting back onto our pants, genitalia, shoes, bare legs and/or feet (should one be unfortunate enough to be wearing shorts or flip-flops) is, in fact, our own urine. Golden showers – mandatory. Is it so surprising that an entire industry has evolved around men fetishizing over peeing on others or being peed on themselves? We’ve only been peeing on ourselves multiple times a day OUR ENTIRE LIVES.

MODERN URINAL DESIGN

This brings us to the topic at hand. WHY THE FUCK HASN’T ANYONE IMPROVED UPON THIS PISSTASTIC DESIGN? Given that the vast majority of engineering students are male (nearly 80% [source: every study ever done on the subject available anywhere on the planet]), one would think that some bastard would have resolved this issue by now. I mean, when we live in an age where someone can make a gigantic leap in condiment design BY TURNING THE FUCKING BOTTLE UPSIDE DOWN, why hasn’t anyone tackled the public piss problem that is modern urinal design??

Part of the problem is that there is an assumption that men cannot control where they piss. Nothing could be further from the truth. Men piss with precision. I’ve seen enough women’s restrooms to know that it is the fairer sex who cannot aim. Whether this is because they refuse to build a nest and prefer to hover, spraying piss every which way, or just feel it isn’t something worth their time, is unknown to me. But we men can hit a target from a significant distance, such is the force and direction of the piss stream, which should, of course, not be crossed. So, how about a urinal with a much smaller opening? Even the urinal present in your typical porta-potty improves on most modern urinal design by taking this approach. Young boys whose aim may not be refined yet would present a problem, but they already have a urinal designated for them – the low-sitting one on the end. This urinal can stick with the current design.

MAKING DO IN A WORLD OF SUBPAR URINALS

In my years as a Male Who Pisses, I have developed some strategies that can help you compensate for the failure of modern urinal design until some praiseworthy engineer steps up to the plate and makes the next great urinal design improvement. What follows are my findings:

1. A River Runs Through It

Some paragraphs ago, I lamented how lucky the female is to have a bowl of clean water in which to piss. The effect the presence of water has on incoming piss cannot be understated. Any man who has gone camping or hiking (or any male who has ever stepped foot outside, really) can attest to the difference observed between pissing on a rock and pissing into a river. The river effect can be recreated with any flush urinal by flushing just before you urinate.

2. The Sidewinder

While modern urinal design presents no worthwhile lip to catch urine splashback from the intended usage position, one can somewhat combat this predicament by skirting the typical approach and pissing into the corner of the urinal wall from a 45 degree angle on either side of the urinal. This practice will cause the piss, which the reader will remember men can deliver with precision aiming, to hit the urinal in such a way that the lip on the side and the back of the urinal actually do their damn job for a change and catch most of the splashing urine that would otherwise shower one’s clothing.

(Note that this method is not ideal when the restroom’s designer has held the belief that you are barbaric neanderthals who do not need any wall divider between piss receptacles.)

3. The Hail Mary

When one finds oneself alone in a given restroom, one is presented with the rare chance to circumvent the piss problem through sheer distance-to-urinal trajectory. Piss splashback has a very limited radius, and if no one is around to stare at you pissing from four feet behind the urinal, your pants/legs will remain piss-free. Or maybe you just don’t give a fuck and do it in front of others, who am I to judge? I could hardly blame you for preferring strangers see your penis than getting urine on your clothes or person. And as previously mentioned, chances are they’re going to see your penis anyway. This method also has limited success when standing at the perimeter of a wall divider, should one be lucky enough to find oneself in a restroom with such a luxury.

4. There’s No Place Like Home

If you are a male who pisses, you have likely noticed that the issue at hand does not seem to be a problem at home. This is because toilet design trumps urinal design by a long shot. If all else fails, you could piss into a toilet. But We Men must look out for one another and there are multiple variables to consider. Some men will be entering the restroom with the intent to shit, and it is a faux pas to prevent them this courtesy while you piss into one of a few available toilets. Further, this toilet, whether auto flush or not, is unlikely to flush itself for you should you opt to piss in it. Now you have put the burden of getting rid of your waste on your fellow man – not cool, broheim. And while we know your aim is true, just to be safe, please lift the seat for the sake of the next kindred soul. (No need to put the seat down after, we know we’re right on that topic.)

5. The Pussy

One could pretend one has a vagina and sit on a toilet to pee. But who does that, I mean, really?

Well folks, there you have it. Over 1500 words about piss and urinals. I hope this discussion has given you pause to reflect on the things that really matter. I think we can all agree that world peace is pretty fucking far away when we can’t even get a damn urinal designed to keep us from pissing on ourselves. I bid you good day.

-Luke Toney

Now, I’m not talking “making it a pop-sensation,” I mean “it sounds like I am playing my guitar in front of you” and not “What do you mean my album sounds like a See-And-Say with low batteries?” Well, I went to the NAMM show in Anaheim to find the cheapest ways to sound like you know what you’re doing and found a couple stand-outs.

The Mikey Digital from Blue Microphones.
This is for iPhone peeps exclusively, but it rules enough where if you don’t have an iPhone, you might want to get one. This little fella will set you back less than a hundred bucks, and has the same condenser mic that the Snowball has, so you’re not getting ripped off.

There’s three gain settings, so you can adjust it when you’re doing an acoustic or electric jam sesh, or an auto-gain setting for your more dynamic sessions. The head tilts so you can face it towards you when you lay your phone down, which you’ll probably have to do if you’re actually playing an instrument. Which, speaking of instruments, the Mikey Digital also comes with a 1/8” plug and an adaptor for your ¼” cables, allowing a direct line for your guitars. There’s also a mini-USB adapter so you can keep your phone charged while using it as a portable DAW.

The biggest drawback that I’ve found is that it doesn’t come with any software itself, but since it works with everything from GarageBand to… uhh, stuff that sucks, that’s not a big deal. I recorded my neighbor’s surf-band jam session, and it sounded good enough to remind me that I was drunk as hell at my neighbor’s while his band was rocking out in the garage. Did I mention that my neighbor rules and has literally passed pints of beer over the fence to me? No. Well, now I did.

More info here: http://bluemic.com/mikey_digital/

The iRig Microphone
I suppose another downside to the Mikey is that it stays attached to your phone, which doesn’t offer the most flexibility in recording techniques. Well, say hello to the iRig Microphone, which seems to be a SM-57 on ‘roids. It plugs directly into your headphone port, but also has a spot to plug your headphones into and monitor your sound levels. And, like the Mikey Digital, has adjustable gain settings, albeit no automatic gain, so you DO need to check your settings before hitting record.

Now, since it’s an actual microphone-sized microphone, you can’t carry it tucked away in your pocket, but you can use the included clip to mount it to a mic stand and mess with angles and distances from your drums, amps or voice. Where Mikey doesn’t have software directly made for it, the iRig does, with the AmpliTube app being found for iPhone and Android for free (unless you want to unlock extra effects and amps and shit. Oh, and the Mikey w/ guitar adaptor works on this, too.). And, at $60 or less, the iRig Microphone is even easier on your wallet.

More info: http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/irigmic/

-Jonathan Yost

Beyond Wonderland

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Picture 1 of 33

The spent their student loans on venti Frappucinos.

-Jonathan Yost

A Criminal Risk
The Art of Dropping Names
5/10

I was disappointed that the white text wasn’t, you know, names that they were dropping. It was just the album title over and over. The weird fading gradient isn’t terrible, but it’s ultimately too ambiguous. Is it a teen pop-punk band or a radio-rock band from Missouri, I can’t tell.

Man The Change
Defeated
7/10

Well, I like the look, even if it’s a bit like a sniper’s nest for some disgruntled high-schooler who’s played too much Call Of Duty. It’s dirty and broken down, so “Disgruntled” is a solid name for it. Man The Change sounds revolutionary enough, so maybe the sniper-esque cover is dead on. Get it? I know. Guns aren’t funny.

Modern Baseball
Sports
8/10

The fuck? I like that Modern Baseball didn’t take the easy way out and use an awkward picture of Orel Herschiser or something. Instead, they have a baby in a diaper with a fish. Someone’s little sister is super-embarrassed, and as an older brother, I can appreciate that.

Jungle Rot
Terror Regime
10/10

It’s a metal-as-fuck tank going through fire. They win the game.

Tear Out the Heart
Violence
7/10

Shit looks like Castlevania fan art. I’m OK with that.

Malkovich
Great Expectations
9/10

It’s simple, but with the old photograph in the middle, I get the feeling that there’s going to be an actual story there. It’s kind of like a book cover (it doesn’t hurt that there is, you know, a novel called Great Expectations). I have some decent expectations of this one, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say GREAT expectations.

Road To Horizon
Chapters
6/10

Another act going with the book-theme, but between the name of the band to the super grainy look of the cover, I have a feeling I’m going to be yelled at by some scrawny kids with reverse mullets and shitty lip piercings. I bet there’s one “singer” and one dude who screams at me. No thanks, I’m too old for teenage angst.

The Tossers
The Emerald City
4/10

Really? What the fuck are you trying to go with here? Two different and vastly different fonts, a cloth-like texture surrounding a beat up image of a well-lit city in a frame made of a claddagh ring with a skull on top. No. Stop. I had to give this a listen to see what the hell the Tossers are up to and I found out they are a band who seems to think that “Flogging Molly” is a genre. Well, it’s not.

-Jonathan Yost

So, imagine my surprise when the ladies of ACDG tells me that the unwashed masses of Santa Cruz were not their main rivals, that slot was saved for the Sacred City Sacrificers (Terrible name, by the way. Who do you think you are, JESUS?!).

Well, anyways, the team representing… what happens in Sacramento besides dysfunction? Nothing? Bueller… Bueller…

No, seriously. Why the fuck is the state capitol there? Who’s brilliant idea was that? Everyone knows that it would be far more convenient for the state legislation to get their share of debauchery and page boys (bois?) in West Hollywood. Fucking Sacramento.

So Team Dysfunctional Government will be playing in their fierce rivalry against our hometown heroes on Saturday, March 16th at the Culver City Memorial Auditorium.

You can find more info >HERE< and you can buy your tickets >HERE<

-Jonathan

- Try to fly out of smaller, regional airports. I flew out of the LA-Ontario International Airport, which is not even in LA County, let alone the taint of LA that LAX is in. ONT is a wonderous airport, with no long line of tourists all trying to figure out how to traverse the horrendous maze that is the LAX Terminals. It took me all of 5 minutes to get my boarding pass, get through security, and get a bite to eat. The biggest downfall to this, however, is that at 7AM, not a damned thing was open except for a Schlotzkey’s Deli, slanging a $10 breakfast sandwich.

- Don’t wear punk, metal, rap or hip-hop shirts with anything that could be misconstrued as “I WANT TO BLOW UP THE ESTABLISHMENT,” which I am sure is a band or a band’s album name by now. I know it’s fucking stupid, but so are a majority of TSA agents. For all the high-tech equipment at their disposal, you still have 60 year-old white dudes stalking the lines waiting to utter the words “additional screening.” While at SFO, I got the joy of being selected, most definitely after the guy saw my GWAR shirt and thought that he could teach a lesson to some “punk kid” that he has all the power he could dream of. After being frisked and every square inch of my luggage swabbed and checked for “bad stuff,” I was free to go back on my way. Whether it’s your Wu Tang, US Bombs, The Coup or Dead Kennedy’s shirts, keep them in your bag or keep a plain long-sleeve shirt over it. Sure, you’re trying to rep a band, but with the amount of room for human error, I’m not trying to miss my flight because someone doesn’t know that This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb is a band.

- Check yourself before you wreck yourself. So, for all of the TSA’s pomp and circumstance, they’re insanely inconsistent. I went from ONT to Portland about a year ago and went through ONT’s processes without a hiccup. On my way back, however, they found a pocketknife in a small compartment of my backpack. Now, I use a pocketknife for some of my gigs, but know, I KNOW, not to bring them on a goddamned airplane. I could have saved myself a lot of fucking hassle by making sure that I fully emptied my backpack before using it to pack. Yes, the TSA recently announced that they are allowing certain pocket-knives and sporting equipment, which is great for Casey Jones, but honestly, just fly Southwest (If you can) and check that shit for free.

- Booze. You can bring some. Fuck, you can bring a lot, as long as you stick to that little rule about the size of your liquids. So, hit your local liquor store or shady-as-fuck bodega and get yourself a sampler pack. When you start to think “Fuck, $1.29 for this?,” remember, that shit’s 5 bucks on the plane, even more at the airport bar. So, kids, plan ahead and try to avoid the TSA shit-show. But, if you listened to my advice and still find yourself getting to second base with an overweight inspector, at least you’ll have enough cheap booze to make yourself forget.

-Jonathan Yost

System Specifications:
➢8-Core 64-bit x86 “Jaguar” CPU by AMD
➢Radeon GPU comprised of 18 “Compute Units” Capable of 1.84 TFLOPS
➢ 802.11n Wifi
➢USB 3.0
➢ Bluetooth 3.0
➢ HDMI
➢Optical Out
➢ Legacy AVI Out (PS1, PS2 AV Cable for SDTV)
➢ No information on Storage Capacity yet

Something of note here is that the main CPU architecture is based the same as a PC. This will allow virtually any game in the future that is developed for PC to be seamlessly Ported to the PS4 and vice versa. Another key note of interest is the 8GB of GDDR5 RAM. This amount of high quality RAM will make the PS4 highly competitive with any any mid to high level PC currently in production at launch.

The Features:
With the new PS4 Sony is trying to get every single gameplay feature that current gamers love under 1 console.
➢ PSVita can play PS4 games (via Remote Play) out of the box
➢ Will not require an Online Connection (but will Suck without)
➢ Will eventually stream entire back library of PS1, PS2, and PS3 games
➢ Can play used games, but publisher can block content online
➢ Will come with PS4 Eye, capable of recognizing up to 4 players
➢ Can cross game chat
➢ Will allow you to watch a friend play a game and seamlessly join in
➢ Will allow games to be played as they are downloading
➢ Can recharge your controller while system is off
➢ Light based motion controlls will be available out of the box
➢ Has a “share” button on the conttoller for uploading videos
➢ New touchpad on controller allows pinching and zooming
➢ Full integration with Facebook (gamers will have faces!)
➢ Available holiday 2013

Media Services Available thus far:
Facebook
Playstation Plus
Netflix
Hulu Plus
Vudu
Amazon Instant Video
Crackle
Crunchyroll
NHL
MLB.tv
Epix
CinemaNow

Games Announced:
Deep Down Destiny (Capcom)
Destiny (Bungie)
Diablo 3 (Blizzard)
DriveClub (Evolution Studios)
Final Fantasy (Square Enix)
Infamous: Second Son (Sucker Punch)
Killzone: Shadow Fall (Guerrilla Games)
Knack (Japan Studios)
Watch Dogs (Ubisoft)
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (CD Projekt Red)
The Witness (Thekla, Inc)

“Everything, Everywhere,” “the fastest most powerful network for gaming in the world,” “simple,” “Personalization,” “Immediacy,” “Integrated,”

These were just words that flew out of the main screen at the beginning of the presentation. Sony addressed them as such and then gave you the information you just read. Did they succeed? Personally I cant wait to see what team Bill Gates has up its sleeve. That and E3 should be amazing this year. It is a good year to be a gamer. That is for sure.

-JJ David

Sounds kinda 80’s
Twins seem like they’re happier
Goodbye teenage angst!

Masked Intruder
Self-Titled
Fat Wreck Chords/Red Scare Industries
10/10

Holy fucking shit
Best shit Fat’s put out in years
Teenage me is stoked

Fake Problems/You Blew It Split
Topshelf Records
8/10

These four songs kick ass
Insert 7” joke here
I want some nachos

Robert DeLong
Just Movement
Glassnote Records
9/10

Beep boop beeeeeep boop boop
Sounds like robot sex music
Hey! Robot boners!

The Gonads/Uprisers split
Skinflint Music/Black Hole Records
6/10

It’s like a punk GWAR
Without the fake blood and shit
Blood’s probably real

Nataly Dawn
How I Knew Her
Nonesuch Records
7/10

Yes, I know she’s cute
And she’s really good at tunes
But damn, is she cute

Iron Reagan
Worse Than Dead
A389 Records and Magic Bullet Records
7/10

Brutal circle pits
Early 80’s politics
Some things never change

-Jonathan Yost

Well, for $40 (+$2.39 service fee), you get fifteen 4-oz tasters, access to the trucks (which, if you live in the Inland Empire, know are hard to come by) and to gawk at some local bands.  They have a designated driver discount ($10) and a VIP level ($50) as well. The breweries listed to be in attendance include:

Aftershock Brewing (Temecula)
Alcatraz (Orange)
Ballast Point (San Diego)
Beer Beer, and More Beer (Riverside)
Black Market (Temecula)
Bootlegger’s Brewery (Fullerton)
Brew Rebellion (Yucaipa) (Won’t be pouring as they JUST got their license, but loads of friends are all about these guys!)
Brewligion (Murrietta)
Chino Valley Brewing (Ontario)
Claremont Ales (Claremont)
Coronado Brewing Co. (San Diego)
Craft Brewery (Lake Elsinore)
Cucamonga Brewing (Rancho Cucamonga)
Dale Bros (Upland)
Donkey Punch (Redlands)
Hanger 24 (Redlands)
Hopnotic Ales (Rancho Cucamonga)
I & I (Chino)
Inland Empire Brewing Co. (Riverside)
Ironfire Brewing (Temecula)
Karl Strauss (San Diego)

Kat Daddy (Moreno Valley)
Left Coast (San Clemente)
Lost Abbey (San Marcos)
Main Street (Corona)
Maui Brewing Company (Maui, Hawaii)
Noble Ale Works (Anaheim)
Oak Hills Brewing Co (Hesperia)
Off the Grid Brewing Company (Riverside)
Old Orange Brewing (Orange)
Packinghouse (Riverside)
Refuge Brewing (Temecula)
Ritual Brewing (Redlands)
Sons of Liberty Ale Works (Norco)
Stone (Escondido)
Taps (Corona)
Tap It Brewing (San Luis Obispo)
The Bruery (Placentia)
Wiens Brewing (Temecula)

And the food trucks are:

Baconmania
Cousin’s Maine Lobster
Garlicscapes
Grilled Cheese Truck
MeSoHungry
Slummin’ Gourmet
The Cupcake Place
Viking Truck
Waffles de Liege
WTF Pizza
Brewcakes

You can buy tickets here: http://iebrew.brownpapertickets.com/

-Jonathan Yost

So, what brings you to launching a new EP on Valentine’s Day? Is this a gift for someone?
We finished the ep and found that all the pressing of our merch and cds and all that other good stuff was going to be done middle of February. We were talking with our label on when the release date should happen, and while I was looking at the calender, I saw February 14th just fit perfectly. I mean, 99% of my music is about love and loss anyways, so it just seemed absolutely perfect. I guess this is just a gift to our amazing fans and friends…

Are you a particularly romantic fella?
Well, you could say so. I’m a hopeless romantic in a way. I’m a firm believer in true love. Destiny. Two souls meeting and never letting go type of deal. I don’t know, what can I say; I dig chick flicks. Ha ha ha.

“I Am Ghost,” “Requiem For The Dead;” would you say you have a fascination with death and mortality?
Yes, I can honestly say I do have an unhealthy fascination with death. It began when I lost my grandfather, then lost some other loved ones that were very, very close to me. I have been to a lot of funerals in my life, more so than most of my friends. I guess it just kinda fucked me up in some sort of way, but be quite honest.

Is that one of the reasons you chose “I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight” to cover? I mean, that’s a weird fucking song for any newer band to cover.
It’s actually a song I have always loved as a kid and even into adulthood, it has never grown out of style through all the 80′, 90′s and the 2000′s. Its still sounds fresh. It was the first song I slow danced too in 6th grade. It just held a special place in my heart. I’ve always wanted to cover that song…

I would think that it would be an awkward song to bang to, have you tried it?
No… not yet. Not…… yet.

You should try it. It’ll be great. You have a shit ton of tattoos, do you have a favorite?
I regret all of them. I wish i was never tattooed. I swear to God. I got most of my tattoos when I was really, really young. When you’re 18 or 19 you tend to just jump into things with no thought of the repercussions. I think if I had planned them out better I might not care. But, since most of my arms and neck are done up, i guess I just say “why stop now…” type deal.

Really? That’s a bummer. Have you thought about tattoo removal?
Ha ha, no. That’s never crossed my mind. It’s way too far gone for that.

How does this band differ from any of your previous bands?
The biggest thing is pressure. With my last band in I Am Ghost, there was an intense sense of pressure when we signed with Epitaph. Then, after signing, it became a cluster fuck of touring and trying to write good songs and trying to make a million people happy, even thought I wasn’t very happy most of my time in the band. With Requiem for the Dead, its just me and my good friends hanging out, writing music, and just putting it out. I have zero pressure from anyone. Even when we signed with Veda and Isis I never felt any pressure what so ever. Its very strange.

Was the pressure mostly from the label, then? Did they want you to put out bro-anthems or something?
No, Epitaph was amazing. It was mostly pressures with the touring aspect and how I as a person got along with my band. I was miserable touring, even though I should have been completely stoked. It was mostly me, not my band. It was my issues not being at home, missing family and friends and girlfriends. I am just not a touring kinda guy. Some people absolutely love it. Some hate it like me….

So, you’re like a tall, tattooed hobbit, just want to stay at home and shit?
Ha ha ha. Tall? Wow. No one’s ever called me tall before. You could say so, I guess. I definitely saw a lot of crazy things on tour.

-Jonathan Yost