SuperPlacebo by Placebionix

For years I’ve been imagining selling a product I’ve called SuperPlacebo, the world’s most potent and effective placebo. I bought some gel caps from Amazon and occasionally dose myself with a SuperPlacebo or two.

They work.

Sometimes amazingly well.

Today, for fun, I wrote draft marketing collateral for SuperPlacebo.

Want some? Contact me.

SuperPlacebo

No matter what problem you’re experiencing, a placebo from the SuperPlacebo family of placebos may be just what you need.SuperPlacebos are unmatched in their effectiveness, especially when customized and when coupled with appropriate conventional treatment.

Years of research

Years of research at Placebionix, the self-proclaimed world leader in the field, has produced the SuperPlacebo family. Placebionix uses a proprietary blend of hyperbole, amplification, and fabrication, which—according to customers—make SuperPlacebos the most effective placebos they have ever used.

Randomized double-blind placebo control studies (RDBPCS) have been the “Gold Standard” in intervention-based studies. In an RDBPCS, individuals are randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. Those in the treatment group get a treatment believed to improve the condition; those in the control group get a placebo—an inert substance or an intervention believed to be ineffective. In some cases, a third group is given neither treatment nor placebo but told to wait.

Placebo control studies are the standard because of the powerful “placebo effect,” which causes improvement even when there’s no mechanism for improvement.

The placebo effect is so powerful that even when patients are told that they are being given substances that do nothing, patients will show impressive signs of improvement.

Plecebionix delivers SuperPlacebos in capsules that are “certified empty.” They contain nothing but air. T

Ordinary placebos contain no active ingredients, but they do contain inactive ingredients. SuperPlacebos also contain neither active nor inactive ingredients. Placebionix scientists believe that the lack of both active and inactive ingredients could produce placebo effects that might be up to ten times those of ordinary no-active-ingredient placebos!

Customized SuperPlacebosAs effective as they are, SuperPlacebos can be customized to make them even more effective.

Placebionix scientists have determined[1] that bad-tasting placebos outperform good-tasting placebos; inexpensive placebos outperform low-priced placebos; placebos that are said to be extremely effective outperform placebos with no endorsement.

Customers can use these effects to create their own Customized SuperPlacebos, which may be even more effective than ordinary SuperPlacebos. ## Customizing your SuperplacebosHere’s how you can custom your SuperPlacebos.

• You can fill your SuperPlacebos with substances that taste bad to the person taking the placebo. By testing a variety of bad-tasting substances, you can maximize the placebo effect. * You can buy premium SuperPlacebo capsules: SuperPlacebo Silver, SuperPlacebo Gold, or SuperPlacebo Platinum capsules. Other than color, premium capsules are identical to regular SuperPlacebo capsules but can be more effective the more they cost.
• You can tell yourself, or have someone tell you that your SuperPlacebos will be extraordinarily effective.

[Note: If you feel you will benefit from premium SuperPlacebos and cannot afford them, let us know. As a public service, we will provide you with premium capsules at whatever price you say you can afford. Remember, of course, the less you pay, the less effective the capsules will be.]

People sometimes have adverse reactions to placebos, even though nothing in the placebo could have physically caused either a good or an adverse reaction. This effect, called the “nocebo effect,” is opposite to the placebo effect. Placebionix scientists have found that they can reverse the nocebo effect in some cases by inverting the capsule; in others by inverting the person taking the capsule. Others have changed the nocebo effect by putting something different in the capsule.

Plecebionix scientists are continuing to make regular placebo technology breakthroughs. We’ve found that SuperPlacebothe, along with meditation, yoga, or exercise, is much more effective than SuperPlacebos alone.

A recent study demonstrated that for some people, merely looking at SuperPlacebos can be even more effective than taking them.

Click here to subscribe to 70 Years Old. WTF! by Email

​

Christmas pun

Why do puns in my brain insist on being told? Like this one?

There’s a condition called Witzelsucht, which I learned of here that might be a clue.

But I don’t think I’ve got it.

I don’t have to tell jokes all the time. But I do have to repeat a good pun, at least once before it lets me rest.

Like the one that follows.

I’m tired of fighting.

My Christmas gift

This year for Christmas, Bobbi gave me a bunch of pairs of socks.

I thought that was pretty odd. And then I remembered.

She’d asked me several months before, “What could I give you for Christmas?”

I answered her, but she must have misheard me and thought I’d said: “I’d like more socks.”

OK, that’s out of my system.

The whole story is made up—except for actually getting the socks.

Now, back to our regular programming.

Click here to subscribe to 70 Years Old. WTF! by Email]

​

Keep the Fun in Funeral

Today Bobbi’s writing group got together in memory of one of their group who—to paraphrase Monty Python ——had died, passed on, was no more, ceased to be, expired and gone to meet her maker, was a stiff, bereft of life, resting in peace, pushing up the daisies, kicked the bucket, shuffled off this mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible.

Bobbi asked me to read the group the obituary my brother and I had written for my Dad.

“Do you have it?” She asked.

“Hey, I’ll Google it,” I said. I remembered I’d found an archive of the obit in an online archive of the local newpaper: the Panama City Bugle or Star or Beach Buggy.

So I queried Google, and Google found this memorial website—which I’d forgotten that I’d created.

Thanks to Bobbi for reminding me to look. And holy shit, thank you, Google, for finding it!

The link goes to a page containing series of articles themed on my Dad’s passing. It features the entire obit, pretty much as Mark and I wrote it, duplicated below for people who can’t be bothered clicking links.

168 Year Old Bastard Dies

Not part of the obit, here are the family in-jokes behind the headline.

First, Dad was a preemie. In those days, preemies died. Early, I mean. So they didn’t register his birth. Apparently, you could, in those days.

About six months after he was born, they figured that he wasn’t going to die anytime soon. So they registered his birth.

So Dad had two birthdays a year: the day he was born, and the day his birth was registered. We celebrated both. 84 years (per the birth registration date) times two birthdays a year means he died after his 168th birthday.

Get it?

Second, Dad’s mother was forced into a marriage in Hungary, left on her wedding night, and emigrated to the US. She married Dad’s father but had not divorced her Hungarian husband.


Hence the marriage was illegal.


Hence Dad was a bastard.


But a nice one.

Milton Arthur Wolf passed away at his new home in Panama City, Florida, on Friday, February 4th, when the muse really left him for good. Milton and his wife Judith had moved to Panama City from Baldwin, New York, where they had spent the past forty-seven years. The move and his passing appear unrelated. Milton had celebrated his 168th birthday when he died.
Milton Wolf was a graduate of the Pratt Institute. He founded three companies and recently received an honorary degree as Doctor of Scatology. He was also a founding member of the American Cacological Society and its first President.

He is survived by his wife, Judith, and by his three children: Michael Wolf (his favorite son) of Hopkinton, MA, Dr. Mark Wolf, MD (his best son) of Panama City, FL, and Zorina Worthman-Wolf (his flower child) of Palo Alto, CA (where else?) He is also survived by six grandchildren, a rumored great-grandchild, numerous friends and relatives, and everyone else who isn’t currently dead.

His ashes will be interred at Econfina, the Wolf family farm on February 12th, following a memorial boat ride and barbecue. The family requests that in lieu of flowers that contributions be sent in small unmarked bills to the surviving members of the family.

Milton Wolf was a wonderful man with a great sense of humor. He would have written something like this obituary himself if he had thought of it in time or hadn’t been dead when his kids thought of it. Instead, it was written by his two sons Michael Wolf, Founder, Publisher and Editor-In-Chief of The Wolf Report, and Mark Wolf, who is not Founder, Publisher, and Editor-In-Chief of The Wolf Report, but does hysterectomy much better than Michael does. Editorial assistance was provided by Judith Wolf. (Judith, don’t encourage them!!!)

Click here to subscribe to 70 Years Old. WTF! by Email

​

Experience is the best teacher...

I heard it this way first, from Daniel: “Experience is the best teacher.” Why? “You get the test first, and the lesson later.”

But the quotation is attributed to Vernon Law, a baseball player. Vern Law is arguably the baseball player with the second greatest impact on modern philosophy, the first being Yogi Berra.

Law’s version:

Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards.”

But no one compares to Yogi, even though he says:

“I really didn’t say everything I said.”

Here are some classics:

• “90 percent of baseball is mental; the other half is physical.”
• On why he no longer went to Rigazzi’s, a St. Louis restaurant: “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”
• “It ain’t over till it’s over.” In July 1973, Berra’s Mets trailed the Chicago Cubs by 9½ games in the National League East. The Mets rallied to clinch the division title in their second-to-last game of the regular season, and eventually reach the World Series.
• When giving directions to Joe Garagiola to his New Jersey home, which was accessible by two routes: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
• At Yogi Berra Day at Sportsman Park in St. Louis: “Thank you for making this day necessary.”
  “It’s déjà vu all over again.” Berra explained that this quote originated when he witnessed Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris repeatedly hitting back-to-back home runs in the Yankees’ seasons in the early 1960s.
• “You can observe a lot by watching.
• “Always go to other people’s funerals; otherwise they won’t go to yours.”
• “A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore”
• “If you can’t imitate him, don’t copy him.”

​

Learning to be funny

My just-about-four year old grandson, Michael, is learning to be funny, possibly a hereditary trait. Here is Michael telling us one of his first ever jokes:

Michael:  "Why is six afraid of seven?"

Bobbi and Me: "Why?"

Michael: "Because eight.. no, wait. Let me start over."

Us: "OK."

Michael: (Thinks for a moment, then starts) "Why is six afraid of seven?"

Us: "Why?"

Michael: (Now confident) "Because seven eight nine!"

Bobbi: (Groans. She always groans at my jokes. So why not his?)

Michael: "No, it's funny. Really. It's really funny." (Pauses a beat) "See, it's because numbers don't have teeth. So they can't eat other numbers!"

So that's why it's funny!