Thanks for the perspective

March 19, 2008 7:56 PM

It all seems so clear now-- I had to share this comment of pure wonderment, I'm still smiling. If you've ever needed to really understand how far a distance is, behold the answer within.

blue_beetle: (at the same rate as that 3100 mile race (74 miles/day), you would run 80,000 miles in 3 years. To put that in perspective, if you live 1 mile from a 7-11, and ran there and back continuously, and each time you got there you bought two slurpees, you would have 80,000 slurpees.)

Why two slurpees?!

posted by Static Vagabond to MetaFilter-Related at 7:56 PM (61 comments total)

Because the joke doesn't work if you end up with a number of Slurpees different from the number of miles.
posted by kindall at 7:59 PM on March 19, 2008 [1 favorite]

One Slurpee is for your dead homies.
posted by ColdChef at 8:02 PM on March 19, 2008 [10 favorites]

I have been attempting the 7-11 exercise program you describe, and it has just made me bigger. Much bigger.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:06 PM on March 19, 2008 [6 favorites]

You're not supposed to drink the slurpees. They're for forearm strength.
posted by ODiV at 8:08 PM on March 19, 2008

Who EVER bought a Slurpee and didn't buy one for a friend at the same time?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 8:09 PM on March 19, 2008

I saw that earlier today and thought it was hilarious. Since 90% of the answer was serious and even involved MATH! I didn't even think of deleting it.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:17 PM on March 19, 2008

You have one right away and save the other one to drink on your run back. Obviously.
posted by ceribus peribus at 8:28 PM on March 19, 2008

Imagine the cooliehead you'd get, oy!
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:35 PM on March 19, 2008

My friends and I used to intentionally induce "coolieheads" in ascetic attempts to gain mastery over our autonomic nervous systems.
posted by Burhanistan at 8:39 PM on March 19, 2008 [1 favorite]

Imagine the cooliehead you'd get, oy!

Slurpee Brain Freeze!!!!!!!!!
posted by amyms at 8:41 PM on March 19, 2008 [1 favorite]

Truthfully, though, a Slurpee has nothing on an icy treat from the Snoopy Sno-Cone Machine.
posted by amyms at 8:47 PM on March 19, 2008

good news: cooliehead is the best new word I've heard today.
bad news: now I want a damn Slurpee.
posted by Space Kitty at 8:54 PM on March 19, 2008 [1 favorite]

I have been attempting the 7-11 exercise program you describe, and it has just made me bigger. Much bigger.

you've almost hit upon the major flaw in this program - by the time you gulp down your 10,000th slurpee, you'll be a mile wide and won't have to run back and forth and forth anymore - by the 20,000th slurpee, you'll be big enough that you can put your mouth in the general direction of the next nearest 7-11 and suck the slurpee machine through the window and into your gaping maw - by the 40,000th slurpee, you will be able to roll over and inhale the whole fucking slurpee factory way across the country - by the 60,000th slurpee your body will block out the sun and all other life on the planet will die, except for the guys at the slurpee factory you're keeping warm by shoving the rest of the slurpee factories in your armpit - by the 80,000th slurpee you will have frozen yourself solid and the heat death of the universe will then result

so no more than a slurpee at a time, piggy, mm'kay?
posted by pyramid termite at 9:01 PM on March 19, 2008 [3 favorites]

One slurpee to keep you hydrated on the run home, the other one to keep you hydrated on the way back to 7-11, obviously.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:04 PM on March 19, 2008

I know I am not alone in being disappointed by the lack of acrimony in this thread.

THOUSANDS OF COOLIES DIED TO BRING YOU THAT SLURPEE
posted by killdevil at 9:08 PM on March 19, 2008 [1 favorite]

Basic math, it's a 2 mile roundtrip. Only buying one would only allow for 40,000 slurpees which seems like a waste really. On the other hand, if you wanted to maximze your slurpee purchasing, move half a mile closer to the 7-11 and you get 160,000 slurpees for the same distance. (Note: for the purpose of the experiment, I assume you can only carry a maximum of 2 slurpees while running. Additional equipment may facilitate the purchase of additional slurpees per mile).
posted by blue_beetle at 9:10 PM on March 19, 2008

(it's my first callout: I feel so special. Not special enough for the original comment to be favored by anyone, but still special!)
posted by blue_beetle at 9:13 PM on March 19, 2008

When your frozen brains melt, I'll be there waiting.
posted by brain_drain at 9:20 PM on March 19, 2008 [2 favorites]

Slurpee Nutrition Facts
I can't seem to find a source for this. Couldn't find it on 7-11's site or slurpee.com.
posted by BeerFilter at 9:21 PM on March 19, 2008

Also, if anyone is still interested at this point, the Running Slurpee Diet Program would have the following effects:

@ 354cal per 24oz Coke Slurpee and an average of 120 cal burned per mile, assuming all your other calorie needs were met through your diet, you would consume 26196 cal/day and burn 8880 cal/day (running 74 miles a day). This translates to a 17316 net calorie gain, or approx 5 pounds per day. After running 80,000 miles you would have gained around 5000 pounds, this implies that your calorie output would probably continue to grow as you did, and you might begin to require more calories than the slurpees could provide. At that point I would recommend moving into the 7-11, and buying a slurpee every 10 to 15 feet.
posted by blue_beetle at 9:21 PM on March 19, 2008 [7 favorites]

Somewhere, there is a homie named "Cooliehead".
posted by Tube at 9:30 PM on March 19, 2008

Cause if you did it with one Slurpee you'd have one GIANT arm and tip over, duh!

Assuming the one-slurpee-per-hand rule applies.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 9:33 PM on March 19, 2008

I'm immune to brain freeze/cooliehead (cooliehead??). Which means I can eat ice cream really fast. I consider it a superpower.

Also, Wikipedia tells me the scientific name for brain freeze is sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia. I think that's what Ryu says when you do the hurricane kick in Street Fighter.
posted by danb at 9:33 PM on March 19, 2008 [10 favorites]

Here's another fun fact:

If you took all the veins and arteries out of a man, and stretched them end to end, that man would die.
posted by Meatbomb at 9:34 PM on March 19, 2008 [18 favorites]

Not if you pinched the ends.
posted by Burhanistan at 9:36 PM on March 19, 2008 [5 favorites]

Scandalous! I can't believe that racist slurs are being bandied about in this thread. And propagated by Jessamyn herself!

[NOT-COOLIER-THAN-THOU]
posted by ooga_booga at 11:53 PM on March 19, 2008

Y'know, I'm a little fed up of people piping up with "Eponysterical", but, seriously : Static Vagabond?. Come on.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 1:27 AM on March 20, 2008

I know a guy who tried to eat five gallons of ice cream on a bet, and had to stop when he gave himself hypothermia.
posted by OmieWise at 4:17 AM on March 20, 2008 [2 favorites]

"One Slurpee is for your dead homies."

This summer, Interscope Prezents: BB & CC droppin' their new joint:

80,000 DEAD HOMIEZ (AND A WHOLE LOTTA BRAIN FREEZE)

feat. hit tracks like:
Runnin'
187 at tha 7-11
Forrest Gump ain't Nuthin' but a Punk
Marathon F***in'
Stress Frakchaz
Slur P.
X-Cuntry (Pickin' up Hos on tha Run)

...and many more.

produced by Joseph Simmons
posted by Eideteker at 4:37 AM on March 20, 2008 [2 favorites]

What I want to know is how can brain freeze hurt SO MUCH and not cause any damage? So, maybe you only get cooliehead once in a while, no problem. But 80,000 times?! It'd stretch your veins and arteries all to heck, or something!

Also, how is it that the bus driver is playing Twisted Sister, and should I be concerned?

and where'd I leave that blue pen? The good one?
posted by dirtdirt at 5:38 AM on March 20, 2008

Well, let's say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area. Based on this morning's reading, it would be a Twinkie thirty-five feet long, weighing approximately six hundred pounds.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:20 AM on March 20, 2008 [6 favorites]

I knew you reminded me of someone, cortex.
posted by OmieWise at 6:33 AM on March 20, 2008

I totally wouldn't mind reminding people of Egon if I could get with the Ghostbuster's secretary that had a crush on him. I don't know what it is about her, but she just does it for me. I don't know if it is the voice or the no-nonsense attitude or what, but she really turns my crank. If I had to describe my type, it would be girls like the Ghostbuster's secretary.

Is this too close to "I'd hit it"? Is talking about her okay under the new sexism rules? My bad if not. It is just Egon always makes me think of her.
posted by ND¢ at 6:51 AM on March 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

Annie Potts was awesome in that movie, it cannot be denied.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:55 AM on March 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

Oh my God that was Annie Potts from Designing Women! I had no idea. Well I stand by my statement.
posted by ND¢ at 6:57 AM on March 20, 2008

I can no more disown Annie Potts from Designing Women than I can disown Janine Melnitz.
posted by ND¢ at 6:59 AM on March 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

Best remembered (by me, at least) for her role in Pretty In Pink... How I hated Jon Cryer for that!
posted by benzo8 at 7:04 AM on March 20, 2008

Dammit en dee cent, now the name change gets pushed back. You just had ta, dincha?
posted by waraw at 7:42 AM on March 20, 2008

More importantly, it's roughly 239000 miles to the moon. At 74 miles a day, it's going to take me almost 9 years to run there!

How the fuck am I supposed to carry that many Slurpees?
posted by quin at 8:19 AM on March 20, 2008

I have always loved Annie Potts. And she's aged super well so that makes me happy to see.
posted by miss lynnster at 8:57 AM on March 20, 2008

Selected results for "to put that in perspective" on Google:

To put that in perspective, the current lowest thin film module price is at $3.59 per watt!

To put that in perspective, the average elementary school in Wake costs around $20 million to build.

To put that in perspective, they each pocketed $660000 per hour or $11004 a minute.

To put that in perspective, today if you looked at the entire net worth of our country, it is only $57 trillion.

To put that in perspective, the USS Eisenhower aircraft carrier weighs in at 95,000 tons.

To put that in perspective, that's about the same amount that the Kyoto participants would be expected to achieve if they were meeting their targets.

To put that in perspective, that is equivalent to the population of the state of Montana for 12 consecutive years.

To put that in perspective, I was on the same show as Carmen Electra, and I was the only one to receive a shoulder massage during the interview.

To put that in perspective, you'd have to run 24 miles a day, every day, to take off 20 pounds in a month just through exercise.

To put that in perspective, the women's French Open final did a 1.9 on a Saturday morning.

To put that in perspective, the next-highest international group represented in this tournament is Sweden.

To put that in perspective, Sweden, that has a population of 9million, took in 9000 refugees in 2006.
posted by burnmp3s at 10:51 AM on March 20, 2008 [3 favorites]

brain_drain writes "When your frozen brains melt, I'll be there waiting."

I'm going to have to write you a ticket...
posted by Eponysterical Police at 11:40 AM on March 20, 2008 [2 favorites]

I knew you reminded me of someone, cortex.

Dan White?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 12:05 PM on March 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

So, actually, the Twinkie Defense got namechecked (by an angry and skeptical Scully toward a zenlike, rogueish Mulder) in the first part of the season seven two-parter about the Walk-ins and the missing kids and the resolution of the sideplot about his sister Samantha. Just watched that last night. Synchronicity.
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:31 PM on March 20, 2008

Let’s say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area. According to this morning’s PKE sample, the current level in the city would be a Twinkie thirty-five feet long weighing approximately six-hundred pounds.

The problem is that the Twinkie Defense is a lie! The length of an ordinary Twinkie is 9.9 cm. The mass of an ordinary Twinkie is 36.4 g. That means that the dimensions of Egon’s hypothetical Twinkie are inconsistent. A six-hundred pound Twinkie should only be about 6.4 feet long, while a 35-foot Twinkie should weigh about 50 tons. In general, an x-foot Twinkie should weigh about 2.34 x3 pounds.
posted by ND¢ at 12:43 PM on March 20, 2008 [2 favorites]

I have no idea what any of that means. I stole it from here.
posted by ND¢ at 12:44 PM on March 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

A coolie? What?
posted by booticon at 1:03 PM on March 20, 2008

A cooliehead. It is the headache you get from building the railroads too fast.
posted by ND¢ at 2:08 PM on March 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

shrimp slurpee, shrimp slushee, shrimp slushpuppy, shrimp frosty....
posted by proj08 at 2:48 PM on March 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

been spending most our lives living in a slurpee paradise... (sorry)
posted by proj08 at 2:52 PM on March 20, 2008

ND¢: "I totally wouldn't mind reminding people of Egon if I could get with the Ghostbuster's secretary that had a crush on him. I don't know what it is about her, but she just does it for me. I don't know if it is the voice or the no-nonsense attitude or what, but she really turns my crank. If I had to describe my type, it would be girls like the Ghostbuster's secretary."

Thank fuck someone else feels that way. I always thought it was just me.
posted by dg at 5:24 AM on March 21, 2008

No she was incredible. But the thing is, you wouldn't want to be transported to the Ghostbusters' universe even though it would give you a chance to be her boyfriend and hang out with Bill Murray and have one of those cool backpacks. If you were Egon you wouldn't want to get with her, you would have to just let her have a perpetual unfulfilled crush on you, because you could never live up to her expectations. So accepting her love would make her happy at first, but would ultimately be crueler than not doing so. But if you were anyone else then you could never be with her either, because you would always know that you were being judged next to Egon and that you would always fall short, so you could never truly make her happy. So Janine Melnitz is destined to exist forever as a lonely secretary to the Ghostbusters, always pining for the perfect man that she can never have, because (she believes) he can only have one true love, and that is busting ghosts. It is kind of like that song Brandy, "Brandy you're a fine girl, what a good wife you would be, but my life, my love and my lady is the sea." Although I have totally forgotten the sequel. Were they a couple in that? If so did she obviously resent him for not living up to her ridiculously unrealistic expectations of how great he was? That would have been interesting to see. Egon blathering on about psychokinetic energy while she just stares at him thinking about how fat he has gotten and how his breath smells like ham, and contemplating cheating on him with Rick Moranis. But I am glad that (I assume) that didn't happen. I like to think of her never having to lose Egon as an ideal, just growing old working as the Ghostbusters' secretary, loving him obviously but never saying so. Always leaving the firehouse a little late, hoping that he will come by her desk and finally ask her out for coffee, but being disappointed again and going home to a cup of soup and a romance novel and a cat. It is not much of a life together, but at least she has him for eight hours a day, and she has him on a limited basis as Egon the ideal, instead of completely as Egon the flawed human being, which, who is to say isn't better?
posted by ND¢ at 7:37 AM on March 21, 2008 [2 favorites]

Actually, Janine was pretty much flat-out macking on Louis Tully in the sequel. It was...a bad time for her. Egon was meanwhile mooning half-heartedly after Dana, early in the film.

I'm starting to think your Melmitz-Spangler dialectic is unsound, sir.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:46 AM on March 21, 2008

I should not have even mentioned the sequel. I do not recognize the sequel as canon. No further questions!
posted by ND¢ at 7:49 AM on March 21, 2008

I suppose you'd as soon disregard the cartoon supplements, as well? "Not canon", you cry, but consider the name of the show itself: The Real Ghostbusters. That's practically red-letter type, bucko.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:53 AM on March 21, 2008

Funny you should mention that, because when I began reminiscing about Janine Melnitz, I entered her name into Youtube to try and find some video to remind me of why I found her so appealing, but all that came up were the cartoons, and I watched about five seconds of those and had to close it, because the voice was all wrong. Annie Potts conveyed so much through her voice in that role. Whoever they got to voice the character for the cartoon was a hack. Janine Melnitz's voice conveyed a toughness, a world-weariness but a vulnerability and a naievete at the same time. She was a hard-ass, but a hard-ass that still wanted to believe in something. And that something was Egon. Now I am not saying all this was in her voice, but a great deal of it was, so that five seconds of youtube-assisted exploration of this cartoon told me that it had no light to shed on the character of Janine Melnitz. Of that I can assure you.
posted by ND¢ at 8:01 AM on March 21, 2008

Have you considered the possibility that Cartoon Janine had been through a vocally debilitating experience (blunt laryngeal trauma? throat cancer?) in the time between the film and that series, and was in fact the same old Janine doing her best to construct a new voice from the tattered remains of her old verbal equipment, through a combination of corrective surgery and sheer force of will? Every word, every vocalization a struggle, an expression of pure grit, no one more aware of the stranger that her own words had become than she herself.

Cartoon Janine Melmitz is a goddamned hero.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:08 AM on March 21, 2008

Or maybe she was Slimer in a mask! Baseless conjecture does nothing to enhance an understanding of the fundamental truths about the male/female dynamic and about the very nature of desire and fulfillment itself that Janine Melnitz embodies. This is why canon exists, to prevent the pure waters of genius from being muddied up by the idle scribblings of the masses. The canonical Melnitz/Egon relationship has something to tell us about ourselves, but you would have us too busy reading the tea leaves of sequels and cartoons to listen.
posted by ND¢ at 8:47 AM on March 21, 2008

You quit reading halfway through Children of Dune. Admit it.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:05 AM on March 21, 2008

There's no accounting for nerdlust, I suppose.
posted by Burhanistan at 9:17 AM on March 21, 2008

Funny you should mention that, because when I began reminiscing about Janine Melnitz, I entered her name into Youtube to try and find some video to remind me of why I found her so appealing...

Shhhh.
posted by miss lynnster at 9:05 AM on March 22, 2008