Everyone has seen those commercials where a group of hipsters demonstrate how incredibly free, exuberant and insanely hip their lives are. They're either playing Frisbee golf while wearing trendy sweaters and scarves or riding ultra-cool scooters while racing through traffic-free downtown streets, also wearing trendy sweaters and scarves. At the end you discover that the commercial was for a product that never even appeared prominently in the ad. Something like underwear or cola or hair care products. You are left scratching your head saying, "What was THAT all about?"
Of course corporations no longer sell products. They sell images and lifestyles. They tell you virtually nothing about the product itself and more about the type of life you will have if you buy it. Many times they tell you as little about the product they are selling as possible.
Could this be because they have nothing else to offer? Like a guy who drives a Hummer, perhaps they are trying to compensate for what they don't have. After all, they are probably thinking, it's just shampoo. With hundreds of options on shampoo, or virtually every product, most producing fairly similar results, why would someone choose one over the other?
Take light beer. Anyone who tells you that they have a preference over Bud Light, Miller Lite or Coors Light is kidding themselves. They all taste remarkably similar. The only way to separate themselves is by advertising and brand loyalty/recognition.
Even when Coors says that its beer tastes better because it "brewed cold and shipped cold" it has everything to do with its Rocky Mountain refreshment image and nothing to do with actual taste.
Or say you set 10 pairs of jeans out in front of someone – all similar in price and quality. What could make someone choose one over the other? Perhaps the image and branding the corporation has spent so much on to create. Toss in some brand familiarity and perhaps some trendy swing dancers in a commercial and suddenly one pair of jeans seems more desirable than the next.
The same could be said for virtually every product. Take away the global onslaught of ads, the theme stores and the athlete endorsements (actually athletes don't really endorse products as much as they appear in non-speaking roles, usually sweating profusely, extremely hungry or running up the stairs of an empty stadium) and Nike becomes any old company selling overpriced shoes made in overseas sweatshops.
But a Swoosh magically increases the value of footwear by 200 percent. After all, the Nike Swoosh tells you everything about what kind of athlete you can be or what kind of active, bold and aggressive lifestyle you can achieve. But nothing about shoes.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Monday, November 13, 2006
Flavor of the month: Turkey
Today's discussion centers on turkey. But I'm not talking about Thanksgiving or anything that involves real, actual turkey.
I'm talking about the kind of turkey that you put on a sandwich, turkey that can be folded twice without coming apart, that slimy, ovalish, stretchable conglomerate appropriately placed next to the hot dogs at the grocery store.
Just because the package says "Turkey" does that make it turkey?
It reminds me of those disgusting strawberry candies. The thing I remember about them is that they taste nothing like a strawberry despite them trying to somehow fool you with the cellophane made to look like a strawberry. Like strawberry Jolly Ranchers, what they actually taste like is a distinct synthetic candy flavor labeled Strawberry.
Same goes for grape gum. When someone pops in a piece of grape Bubble Yum, they're after that artificial taste we now associated with grapes. Instead of calling the flavor Grape, they should have made up an entirely made-up name, as it is an entirely made-up flavor. Something like Grandoliciousness.
Of course they have to call it Grape in order to better associate it with food, hiding the fact that you are actually chewing on artificially flavored edible rubber that allegedly tastes like fruit.
Which gets back to turkey. Do turkey cold cuts taste anything like real, actual turkey?
No. They taste like . . . turkey cold cuts, a unique flavor that we have associated with a bird initially made famous by Pilgrims. Real turkey is eaten once, maybe twice a year, not everyday between slices of white bread.
I've never thought much about comparing real turkey to turkey cold cuts. But if you compare the taste of a Thanksgiving turkey and compare it to your typical turkey lunch meat, the two taste nothing alike.
The distinction became more clear when I noticed a new product at the grocery store. In the midst of the bright yellow and blue cardboard and plastic packaging of various flavors of artificially-shaped ham and baloney, a rectangular cardboard box – left predominantly in its natural cardboard color – caught my eye. Naturally, the product is called Natural Choice Oven Roasted Deli Turkey by Hormel.
Beside the name on the front is the word NEW printed on a leaf as well as the words ALL NATURAL INGREDIENTS** and NO PRESERVATIVES.
On the back are bullet points, differentiating further how the product is better than your run-of-the-mill cold cut. They are:
- No Nitrate or Nitrite added
- Minimally Processed
- No Artificial Ingredients
- Gluten Free
- No MSG Added
Is this what it has come to? Has No Nitrite really become a selling point for food? How did we get to the point where all the sandwich meat is packed with Gluten, MSG and Artificial Ingredients . . . except for one? Makes you wonder what else is in all that other turkey.
And why must I now pay more for lunch meat that is Minimally Processed instead of Overly Processed?
Surprisingly, Hormel's Natural Choice actually tastes like real turkey. And instead of the rubbery ovals of "turkey" you find elsewhere, this turkey flakes and tears like you would expect turkey to do.
But the fact that I am amazed because there's a package proclaiming Turkey that contains actual turkey is somewhat of an eye-opener.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Why Thanksgiving is better than you think
Halloween didn't go quietly this year. Judging by the number of Trick-Or-Treaters we've had living in three states in the past five years – about 18 total – I was under the impression that the spooky pagan holiday was on the verge of collapse.
Those feelings changed after a horrifying 106 youngsters rung our doorbell demanding candy this year. Perhaps Connecticut's rich history of heretics, witches and headless horseman gives Halloween higher holiday status than in, say, New Mexico.
With Halloween out of the way and no candy left over to make it all worth it, we now look forward to Thanksgiving, which is by far the best holiday we have to choose from in America.
It goes without saying that the most glorious aspect of Thanksgiving is that it is centered on binge eating. It's the one day where stuffing your giant face is completely and utterly socially acceptable and encouraged, if not downright required or coerced.
But for me what makes Thanksgiving so great – after the eating of course – is that it has somehow survived a commercial takeover.
I mean, when Easter gets to the point where it engulfs four aisles at Target, you know the corporate hijacking of holidays has become quite grave.
Most holidays – Valentine's Day, birthdays, Mother's Day, Father's Day – are all centered on what you will buy for whom. Beyond getting the day off, the only remarkable thing about Labor Day and Memorial Day are the sales advertised at stores like J.C. Penney. And how serious is the problem when our national economy convulses this way or that way depending on how much people muster to plunk down on others at Christmas? With money they don't have, no less.
But back to Thanksgiving. The only spending you're doing for Thanksgiving is at the grocery store. And face it, you were going anyway. You're just picking up a few extra items . . . like a bird that weighs as much as my dog.
In addition to subduing corporate America, Thanksgiving has apparently avoided something else that has attached itself to holidays: Music. If there's one thing that we like about holidays, other than spending money like it's not ours (it's not), it is holiday music.
We stage entire school Christmas performances just so we can showcase our beloved carols through the mouths of innocent children. Fourth of July is rife with patriotic propaganda. Easter has a host of crucifiction/ resurection hymns. New Years has its song whose title I still am unsure how to pronounce.
But Thanksgiving has been left alone. And Dido's "Thank You" or Andrew Gold's "Thank You For Being a Friend" don't count, contrary to one web site which ranks alleged "Thanksgiving Songs". (A couple Thanksgiving songs I'd like to see: "Amaizing Thanks," "Gord of Gords" and "O Cornucopia, We Thank Thee")
The only popular song I could find that mentions Thanksgiving specifically was Adam Sandler's "The Thanksgiving Song." (Imagine if there were just one popular Christmas song and that one song was called "The Christmas Tune and it was written and performed by Jack Black.)
Instead for Christmas you've got Silent Night packaged a hundred different ways. And then you've got to buy and send Christmas cards and then you have to buy all your presents, which forces everyone to the store at once because everyone put it off as long as possible which causes snarling holiday traffic, which makes everyone tired, cranky and moody. By the time the day rolls around, everyone is grumpy, in debt and depressed, then forced into contact with extended family. It's no wonder an innocent group of carolers can send someone right over the edge.
Thanksgiving, conversely, is a holiday with no fluff and no fat. No gifts, no songs, no candy and no symbolic explosions choreographed to music. Just right.
Those feelings changed after a horrifying 106 youngsters rung our doorbell demanding candy this year. Perhaps Connecticut's rich history of heretics, witches and headless horseman gives Halloween higher holiday status than in, say, New Mexico.
With Halloween out of the way and no candy left over to make it all worth it, we now look forward to Thanksgiving, which is by far the best holiday we have to choose from in America.
It goes without saying that the most glorious aspect of Thanksgiving is that it is centered on binge eating. It's the one day where stuffing your giant face is completely and utterly socially acceptable and encouraged, if not downright required or coerced.
But for me what makes Thanksgiving so great – after the eating of course – is that it has somehow survived a commercial takeover.
I mean, when Easter gets to the point where it engulfs four aisles at Target, you know the corporate hijacking of holidays has become quite grave.
Most holidays – Valentine's Day, birthdays, Mother's Day, Father's Day – are all centered on what you will buy for whom. Beyond getting the day off, the only remarkable thing about Labor Day and Memorial Day are the sales advertised at stores like J.C. Penney. And how serious is the problem when our national economy convulses this way or that way depending on how much people muster to plunk down on others at Christmas? With money they don't have, no less.
But back to Thanksgiving. The only spending you're doing for Thanksgiving is at the grocery store. And face it, you were going anyway. You're just picking up a few extra items . . . like a bird that weighs as much as my dog.
In addition to subduing corporate America, Thanksgiving has apparently avoided something else that has attached itself to holidays: Music. If there's one thing that we like about holidays, other than spending money like it's not ours (it's not), it is holiday music.
We stage entire school Christmas performances just so we can showcase our beloved carols through the mouths of innocent children. Fourth of July is rife with patriotic propaganda. Easter has a host of crucifiction/ resurection hymns. New Years has its song whose title I still am unsure how to pronounce.
But Thanksgiving has been left alone. And Dido's "Thank You" or Andrew Gold's "Thank You For Being a Friend" don't count, contrary to one web site which ranks alleged "Thanksgiving Songs". (A couple Thanksgiving songs I'd like to see: "Amaizing Thanks," "Gord of Gords" and "O Cornucopia, We Thank Thee")
The only popular song I could find that mentions Thanksgiving specifically was Adam Sandler's "The Thanksgiving Song." (Imagine if there were just one popular Christmas song and that one song was called "The Christmas Tune and it was written and performed by Jack Black.)
Instead for Christmas you've got Silent Night packaged a hundred different ways. And then you've got to buy and send Christmas cards and then you have to buy all your presents, which forces everyone to the store at once because everyone put it off as long as possible which causes snarling holiday traffic, which makes everyone tired, cranky and moody. By the time the day rolls around, everyone is grumpy, in debt and depressed, then forced into contact with extended family. It's no wonder an innocent group of carolers can send someone right over the edge.
Thanksgiving, conversely, is a holiday with no fluff and no fat. No gifts, no songs, no candy and no symbolic explosions choreographed to music. Just right.
Monday, October 30, 2006
Red and blue at war
How did red and blue become such polarizing colors?
Since the 2004 election results were famously color-coded by state, red or blue can now serve as answers for questions like "What is your stance on abortion?" or "How do you feel about warrantless wire taps?"
Regardless of how slim the margin of victory was, each state became a Red State or a Blue State overnight. If you were a Democrat in Alabama or a Republican in Vermont, you suddenly didn't exist, as if there is no middle ground.
As many have realized now, the Red State/Blue State scheme has turned into a divisive mechanism, leading people to exaggerated beliefs and sweeping judgments that lump entire regions of our country into one political party.
In reality, our country is extremely purple, sometimes with two precincts within a district within a state at voting odds with one another.
Of course, this isn't the first polarizing war between Red and Blue. Coke and Pepsi have been trying to get people to choose one over the other for almost a century.
Is this a war that needs to be fought? Is this a war that can actually be won (War on Terror, anyone. . .)?
Can we just stop it already, lay down our arms and admit that Pepsi and Coke are both delicious, similar-tasting beverages, each with their own distinctive subtleties to which some people may or may not favor over the other if they so choose?
Like Miami Herald sports designer Kevin Scott says, Coke and Pepsi are always going to each have 48 percent of the cola market regardless, but they spend hundreds of millions a year in advertising, scrapping away at the remaining 4 percent. Wouldn't those hundreds of millions be better spent hooking a more impoverished country's youth on sweet, fattening drinks for life?
The truth is I'm tired of being told that Coke Is It or that it is Always Coca-Cola. I don't need Pepsi informing me that it just so happens to be America's Choice and that Nothing Else Is A Pepsi.
Don't tell me that I have to prefer one over the other and that if I like Coke I must not like Pepsi and if I dislike Coke that must mean that I love Pepsi.
You, paid-off researchers, stop your studies where you unsuspectingly direct me to drink from two cups, one marked Pepsi, the other marked Coke and when I say I prefer one over the other you rip off my blindfold and mockingly inform me that they were both Coke.
I have better things to do and so should you.
I guarantee the next time I walk into a restaurant this is what will happen:
I'll have a Coke.
We have Pepsi, is that OK?
Yes it is OK. You know why? Because they're both equally refreshing.
Here's how simple this Pepsi vs. Coke thing is for me, and for you too, I would imagine. If Pepsi was magically $1 cheaper per 12-pack than Coke, I would probably become a Pepsi drinker. And vice versa, of course.
Now, if you're the type to say that you find Pepsi horribly rancid but adore every sweet droplet of Coca-Cola, perhaps it's because you've been led to believe that it is not an option to think they're both pretty OK.
I guess the Pepsi vs. Coke war is a lot like the political landscape in our country. On the far right (Coke) and the far left (Pepsi), you have people saying the other side are nothing but vile deceptors who want to destroy America. No middle ground. No gray areas. No I-can-see-your-points. Just ideology to the death.
Meanwhile there are millions of people stuck in the middle realizing that in the end, they both pretty much taste the same.
p.s. It is my goal to have a new post every Monday so make sure to check back then.
Since the 2004 election results were famously color-coded by state, red or blue can now serve as answers for questions like "What is your stance on abortion?" or "How do you feel about warrantless wire taps?"
Regardless of how slim the margin of victory was, each state became a Red State or a Blue State overnight. If you were a Democrat in Alabama or a Republican in Vermont, you suddenly didn't exist, as if there is no middle ground.
As many have realized now, the Red State/Blue State scheme has turned into a divisive mechanism, leading people to exaggerated beliefs and sweeping judgments that lump entire regions of our country into one political party.
In reality, our country is extremely purple, sometimes with two precincts within a district within a state at voting odds with one another.
Of course, this isn't the first polarizing war between Red and Blue. Coke and Pepsi have been trying to get people to choose one over the other for almost a century.
Is this a war that needs to be fought? Is this a war that can actually be won (War on Terror, anyone. . .)?
Can we just stop it already, lay down our arms and admit that Pepsi and Coke are both delicious, similar-tasting beverages, each with their own distinctive subtleties to which some people may or may not favor over the other if they so choose?
Like Miami Herald sports designer Kevin Scott says, Coke and Pepsi are always going to each have 48 percent of the cola market regardless, but they spend hundreds of millions a year in advertising, scrapping away at the remaining 4 percent. Wouldn't those hundreds of millions be better spent hooking a more impoverished country's youth on sweet, fattening drinks for life?
The truth is I'm tired of being told that Coke Is It or that it is Always Coca-Cola. I don't need Pepsi informing me that it just so happens to be America's Choice and that Nothing Else Is A Pepsi.
Don't tell me that I have to prefer one over the other and that if I like Coke I must not like Pepsi and if I dislike Coke that must mean that I love Pepsi.
You, paid-off researchers, stop your studies where you unsuspectingly direct me to drink from two cups, one marked Pepsi, the other marked Coke and when I say I prefer one over the other you rip off my blindfold and mockingly inform me that they were both Coke.
I have better things to do and so should you.
I guarantee the next time I walk into a restaurant this is what will happen:
I'll have a Coke.
We have Pepsi, is that OK?
Yes it is OK. You know why? Because they're both equally refreshing.
Here's how simple this Pepsi vs. Coke thing is for me, and for you too, I would imagine. If Pepsi was magically $1 cheaper per 12-pack than Coke, I would probably become a Pepsi drinker. And vice versa, of course.
Now, if you're the type to say that you find Pepsi horribly rancid but adore every sweet droplet of Coca-Cola, perhaps it's because you've been led to believe that it is not an option to think they're both pretty OK.
I guess the Pepsi vs. Coke war is a lot like the political landscape in our country. On the far right (Coke) and the far left (Pepsi), you have people saying the other side are nothing but vile deceptors who want to destroy America. No middle ground. No gray areas. No I-can-see-your-points. Just ideology to the death.
Meanwhile there are millions of people stuck in the middle realizing that in the end, they both pretty much taste the same.
p.s. It is my goal to have a new post every Monday so make sure to check back then.
Monday, October 23, 2006
I put the gal in egalitarian
The way a job gets done around our house is usually decided by one thing: Whatever needed to get done the longest ago is what gets done first. But not always.
How we divide these tasks is a mystery to me. I might do laundry and fix breakfast one day and Erin might mow the lawn or wash the car the next. And then the next time those duties come up, we switch. Basically, carry your weight or there will be trouble. Luckily there’s never been too much trouble.
Whether a job is traditionally done by a man or a woman has never factored in. The only job Erin won’t do, for some reason, is order pizza over the phone.
What started as a straight egalitarian approach to marriage has evolved. One moment I was barbecuing – the only cooking deemed acceptable by the manliest of men – the next I am looking up recipes for stuffed flounder. One moment Erin is painting the bathroom, the next she is snaking a clogged bathtub drain.
This philosophy of ours reached a level of absurdity over the weekend. Not thinking anything out of the ordinary was taking place, Erin and I went about separate activities. But then it suddenly donned on me: I was in the kitchen finely chopping an onion for a homemade tartar sauce while Erin was busy working with plumbing fixtures and hanging cement board in a shower renovation project she had embarked upon.
For a moment I had to set the mincing knife aside, take off my apron, sit down and think. OK I wasn't really wearing an apron, but I tried to understand how I was in the kitchen preparing sauces and batters while my wife swung a hammer in a gutted bathroom.
How did it get to this point? We had somehow gone as far as embracing a complete male/female role reversal. Being married for 8 years, it's not something that has happened over night. But it got a major boost this summer, when we moved to Connecticut and bought a house.
Generally our house is in great condition for being built in 1927. It's not a fixer-upper, as some in the renovation community might say, but has a few areas here and there that could be improved upon if a person either had the money to pay to have it done or had the desire to do it themselves.
Erin falls into the latter category. Always one with a hankering for DIY, this was her chance to take on some projects. Her first big project was the guest bathroom. This involved in part, ripping out the old sink, counter and shower and then rebuilding everything from scratch, newer, bigger, better. I pledged my support from the start, embracing her new hobby.
But I was clear on one thing: If she was going to become a home improver, it was her deal, not mine. If she wanted to spend her weekends ripping up tile, grouting, painting, soldering and making countless trips to Lowe's, then she was certainly entitled. But just because it's normally men who improve homes, I shouldn't be forced to contribute. Sure I would jump in for the heavy lifting or be around for the occasional task that required two people. She is fine with this.
My shunning of home improvement came down to one issue: I don't enjoy it. I would much rather spend my free time hiking, reading, watching movies or writing. Being roped into episodes of "Flip That House" before embarking on a grueling plumbing project sounds like the kind of activity I would take up if I were sent to prison. I shutter just hearing Erin use DIY slang like "rip" for cutting wood with a power saw, or "demo" instead of the cumbersome "demolition" or "hit" to describe anything that can be done quickly (you can hit a wall with paint, a board with screws or a tub with caulk, among other things.)
While this provides reason for Erin's non-traditional behavior, when it comes to my actions I can only offer the excuse that it's not unheard of for men to be into serious cooking. I mean, look at all those male celebrity chefs (OK, this is not good for my case as a Google search for "Flamboyant chef" returned 397,000 hits).
Looking ahead, I see our non-traditional roles become more non-traditional. Because if Erin insists on rewiring outlets, unclogging drains and installing new sinks, the least I can do is serve her cold lemonade and whip up a decent meal for when she takes a break. And once she is done with her bathroom renovation, it will be my job to clean the new shower, mop the new floor and every once in a while throw down some Comet on the new sink
How we divide these tasks is a mystery to me. I might do laundry and fix breakfast one day and Erin might mow the lawn or wash the car the next. And then the next time those duties come up, we switch. Basically, carry your weight or there will be trouble. Luckily there’s never been too much trouble.
Whether a job is traditionally done by a man or a woman has never factored in. The only job Erin won’t do, for some reason, is order pizza over the phone.
What started as a straight egalitarian approach to marriage has evolved. One moment I was barbecuing – the only cooking deemed acceptable by the manliest of men – the next I am looking up recipes for stuffed flounder. One moment Erin is painting the bathroom, the next she is snaking a clogged bathtub drain.
This philosophy of ours reached a level of absurdity over the weekend. Not thinking anything out of the ordinary was taking place, Erin and I went about separate activities. But then it suddenly donned on me: I was in the kitchen finely chopping an onion for a homemade tartar sauce while Erin was busy working with plumbing fixtures and hanging cement board in a shower renovation project she had embarked upon.
For a moment I had to set the mincing knife aside, take off my apron, sit down and think. OK I wasn't really wearing an apron, but I tried to understand how I was in the kitchen preparing sauces and batters while my wife swung a hammer in a gutted bathroom.
How did it get to this point? We had somehow gone as far as embracing a complete male/female role reversal. Being married for 8 years, it's not something that has happened over night. But it got a major boost this summer, when we moved to Connecticut and bought a house.
Generally our house is in great condition for being built in 1927. It's not a fixer-upper, as some in the renovation community might say, but has a few areas here and there that could be improved upon if a person either had the money to pay to have it done or had the desire to do it themselves.
Erin falls into the latter category. Always one with a hankering for DIY, this was her chance to take on some projects. Her first big project was the guest bathroom. This involved in part, ripping out the old sink, counter and shower and then rebuilding everything from scratch, newer, bigger, better. I pledged my support from the start, embracing her new hobby.
But I was clear on one thing: If she was going to become a home improver, it was her deal, not mine. If she wanted to spend her weekends ripping up tile, grouting, painting, soldering and making countless trips to Lowe's, then she was certainly entitled. But just because it's normally men who improve homes, I shouldn't be forced to contribute. Sure I would jump in for the heavy lifting or be around for the occasional task that required two people. She is fine with this.
My shunning of home improvement came down to one issue: I don't enjoy it. I would much rather spend my free time hiking, reading, watching movies or writing. Being roped into episodes of "Flip That House" before embarking on a grueling plumbing project sounds like the kind of activity I would take up if I were sent to prison. I shutter just hearing Erin use DIY slang like "rip" for cutting wood with a power saw, or "demo" instead of the cumbersome "demolition" or "hit" to describe anything that can be done quickly (you can hit a wall with paint, a board with screws or a tub with caulk, among other things.)
While this provides reason for Erin's non-traditional behavior, when it comes to my actions I can only offer the excuse that it's not unheard of for men to be into serious cooking. I mean, look at all those male celebrity chefs (OK, this is not good for my case as a Google search for "Flamboyant chef" returned 397,000 hits).
Looking ahead, I see our non-traditional roles become more non-traditional. Because if Erin insists on rewiring outlets, unclogging drains and installing new sinks, the least I can do is serve her cold lemonade and whip up a decent meal for when she takes a break. And once she is done with her bathroom renovation, it will be my job to clean the new shower, mop the new floor and every once in a while throw down some Comet on the new sink
Friday, October 13, 2006
Thoughts on eye patches
I recently discovered why pirates and sailors are always shown wearing eye patches. You're probably thinking it has something to do with those bowed machetes pirates enjoy brandishing or perhaps just some hard living on the open seas. But you'd be wrong.
Turns out it has nothing to do with injured or defective eyes. Ah, maybe it's something with the eye patch helping them look through a telescope. Again, incorrect.
Here's the deal: Often times on a boat, a captain would have to go from the bright light of day above deck to the dank darkness below deck and quickly performing critical maneuvers. When going below deck, he removes the eye patch and has one eye that is instantly accustomed to darkness.
They may have been barbaric and slovenly, but when it comes to quickly acclimating one eye to darkness, pirates were a brilliant group of seamen.
This raised some further issues regarding eye patches.
Have eye patches ever been portrayed in a non-maritime-related movie for reasons other than a) an easy way to identify a villain; b) an easy way to identify a lunatic; or c) used as some sort of metaphor for shortsightedness?
The answer, simply, is no. This is certainly unfair as I'm sure there are some standout citizens out there who wear eye patches. However, when encountering someone with an eye patch in real life, the initial reaction is to think they are somewhat sinister.
I remember in high school there was one teacher who was known as "the crazy Vietnam vet" and then there was another teacher known as "the teacher with the eye patch." For most of my high school years, I assumed these two teachers were one and the same. In hindsight, I have to admit it makes such perfect sense. Now that I think of it, there was also a teacher with an artificial arm that had a hook on the end. He might've have been the crazy Vietnam vet. Or he might have been the teacher with the eye patch. Or maybe it's all the same guy, I'm not quite sure.
Thinking further, at what point does someone wearing an eye patch go from creepy to intriguing? What kind of position do you have to be in where an eye patch not only doesn’t hurt you but somehow elevates your status?
Certainly anyone in a creative field. You could play classical guitar, write sestinas or illustrate comic books, it wouldn't matter. But let's say you're a sculptor and you work with metal. You've got some talent and have established a bit of a following. You appear at art fairs around the country and do reasonably well. You're one of thousands of artists making work that is slightly different but somewhat indistinguishable from the next guy. In the end, we've all seen abstract curvature, kinetics and iridescent finishes.
Take that same artist, the same work and give him an eye patch. He goes from being gifted and determined to becoming a guru, a genius, a myth. He goes from being that promising sculptor from Minneapolis to being that distinguished, visionary sculptor with the eye patch with an inspired creative spirit.
On the opposite end, say you’re a middle manager wearing a short-sleeved dress shirt and a stained tie working for a struggling communications company looking to hire a low-level accounts supervisor. You've already interviewed four people for the job, none of them terribly impressive. You have one interview left and you're really hoping that this one comes through. When that guy walks through the door with an eye patch, you have to admit you're a little disappointed. The eye patch is simply a variable you hadn't prepared for.
Now say the job comes down to two people, all things are equal except one has an eye patch. Whether you like it or not, that eye patch comes into play. If you hire the guy with the eye patch, it's because you consciously decided that the eye patch was irrelevant to the job at hand. Either that or you hire him simply because you couldn't not hire him because of the eye patch.
Who knows, despite initial reactions, perhaps an eye patch tends to help instead of hurt.
I can, however, think of one occupation where an eye patch is bad every time: Ice cream man. If you are driving an ice cream truck through a neighborhood looking for children to buy popsicles and gum and you're wearing an eye patch, fully expect your sales to fall by at least 60 percent. They'll fall by 75 percent if you have an eye patch and a fake arm with a hook. If you have an eye patch, a hook and you're a crazy Vietnam veteran, you just might be teaching high school somewhere.
Turns out it has nothing to do with injured or defective eyes. Ah, maybe it's something with the eye patch helping them look through a telescope. Again, incorrect.
Here's the deal: Often times on a boat, a captain would have to go from the bright light of day above deck to the dank darkness below deck and quickly performing critical maneuvers. When going below deck, he removes the eye patch and has one eye that is instantly accustomed to darkness.
They may have been barbaric and slovenly, but when it comes to quickly acclimating one eye to darkness, pirates were a brilliant group of seamen.
This raised some further issues regarding eye patches.
Have eye patches ever been portrayed in a non-maritime-related movie for reasons other than a) an easy way to identify a villain; b) an easy way to identify a lunatic; or c) used as some sort of metaphor for shortsightedness?
The answer, simply, is no. This is certainly unfair as I'm sure there are some standout citizens out there who wear eye patches. However, when encountering someone with an eye patch in real life, the initial reaction is to think they are somewhat sinister.
I remember in high school there was one teacher who was known as "the crazy Vietnam vet" and then there was another teacher known as "the teacher with the eye patch." For most of my high school years, I assumed these two teachers were one and the same. In hindsight, I have to admit it makes such perfect sense. Now that I think of it, there was also a teacher with an artificial arm that had a hook on the end. He might've have been the crazy Vietnam vet. Or he might have been the teacher with the eye patch. Or maybe it's all the same guy, I'm not quite sure.
Thinking further, at what point does someone wearing an eye patch go from creepy to intriguing? What kind of position do you have to be in where an eye patch not only doesn’t hurt you but somehow elevates your status?
Certainly anyone in a creative field. You could play classical guitar, write sestinas or illustrate comic books, it wouldn't matter. But let's say you're a sculptor and you work with metal. You've got some talent and have established a bit of a following. You appear at art fairs around the country and do reasonably well. You're one of thousands of artists making work that is slightly different but somewhat indistinguishable from the next guy. In the end, we've all seen abstract curvature, kinetics and iridescent finishes.
Take that same artist, the same work and give him an eye patch. He goes from being gifted and determined to becoming a guru, a genius, a myth. He goes from being that promising sculptor from Minneapolis to being that distinguished, visionary sculptor with the eye patch with an inspired creative spirit.
On the opposite end, say you’re a middle manager wearing a short-sleeved dress shirt and a stained tie working for a struggling communications company looking to hire a low-level accounts supervisor. You've already interviewed four people for the job, none of them terribly impressive. You have one interview left and you're really hoping that this one comes through. When that guy walks through the door with an eye patch, you have to admit you're a little disappointed. The eye patch is simply a variable you hadn't prepared for.
Now say the job comes down to two people, all things are equal except one has an eye patch. Whether you like it or not, that eye patch comes into play. If you hire the guy with the eye patch, it's because you consciously decided that the eye patch was irrelevant to the job at hand. Either that or you hire him simply because you couldn't not hire him because of the eye patch.
Who knows, despite initial reactions, perhaps an eye patch tends to help instead of hurt.
I can, however, think of one occupation where an eye patch is bad every time: Ice cream man. If you are driving an ice cream truck through a neighborhood looking for children to buy popsicles and gum and you're wearing an eye patch, fully expect your sales to fall by at least 60 percent. They'll fall by 75 percent if you have an eye patch and a fake arm with a hook. If you have an eye patch, a hook and you're a crazy Vietnam veteran, you just might be teaching high school somewhere.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Tall for a woman
The other day I was doing some thinking about Erin's height. This came after I had described her to someone as being "tall for a woman." With the average height for women being 5 feet 3 ½ inches, she is tall for a woman standing at 5 feet 10 inches. However, I realized that the part about "for a woman" was key. Because, compared to men, she is not tall. If she were, say, 6-foot-3, she would be tall not only for a woman, but for a man as well. And she would probably wear 36x36 jeans, which is quite frightening.
This led me to another thought. Since men are taller on average than women – the national average for a man is 5-foot-9 – what if I figured out how tall Erin would be if she were a guy? And please, quell your instincts to associate my thoughts with some suppressed desire wishing Erin were not female.
Here's what I did: Using some basic ratios, I compared Erin's height to the height of the average American female, which Erin is roughly 7 inches taller than, then compared that height to the height of the average American man.
I have discovered that, when controlling for the height disparities innate to the human species in regard to gender, Erin would be a gangly 6-foot-4 ½ if she were not born with the misfortune of being female.
That is quite tall, I would say. And having three older brothers who range somewhere between 6-foot-3 and 6-foot-5, her being 6-foot-4 ½ wouldn't be abnormal in her lofty family.
What did I do with this information? I told her to immediately call her 6-foot-3 brother to stick it to him that he was the shortest sibling in the family.
(For the record, I would be a boring 5-foot-7 if I were a woman.)
This led me to another thought. Since men are taller on average than women – the national average for a man is 5-foot-9 – what if I figured out how tall Erin would be if she were a guy? And please, quell your instincts to associate my thoughts with some suppressed desire wishing Erin were not female.
Here's what I did: Using some basic ratios, I compared Erin's height to the height of the average American female, which Erin is roughly 7 inches taller than, then compared that height to the height of the average American man.
I have discovered that, when controlling for the height disparities innate to the human species in regard to gender, Erin would be a gangly 6-foot-4 ½ if she were not born with the misfortune of being female.
That is quite tall, I would say. And having three older brothers who range somewhere between 6-foot-3 and 6-foot-5, her being 6-foot-4 ½ wouldn't be abnormal in her lofty family.
What did I do with this information? I told her to immediately call her 6-foot-3 brother to stick it to him that he was the shortest sibling in the family.
(For the record, I would be a boring 5-foot-7 if I were a woman.)
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
I'm confused, aren't you?
So the media is leaked excerpts of the classified National Intelligence Estimate that states the Iraq war has done nothing to combat terrorism but has instead made the fight harder.
This, of course, is the exact opposite of what the Bush administration has been force-feeding us for the past three years. (If something is repeated over and over, does that make it true? Some would argue "yes.")
Our invasion and occupation of Iraq strengthening the terrorist cause. This is certainly unacceptable information. George Bush responds, saying media accounts of the leaked report would only "create confusion in the minds of the American people."
Confused. That's what happens in George Bush's world when Americans hear facts. They become confused.
Can Americans not think? Can Americans not handle a nuanced, complex situation? According to Bush, no, we cannot. He wants the Iraq war to be like those new allergy pills that dissolve peacefully with a sweet, citrus burst the moment they hit your tongue. Instead, leaked reports are giving us those big horse-pills that fall apart in your mouth, tasting like you had just licked the floor of a pharmacy. With no water.
Come to think of it, if all the information you receive had been delicately crafted in Bush's fantasy land and/or filtered through Fox News, then I guess you would be confused.
We've been told again and again how necessary this war is, it being the central front to the war on terror. Fight them there or fight them here, they say. It's that simple. Wait, our government's top spy and intelligence analysts say Iraq has made the war on terror worse? That's . . . confusing.
When you hear "mission accomplished" and "last throes" and then watch thousands more U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians killed, that becomes confusing. When Bush succeeds at linking Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda and then five years later says "Oh did I do that? My bad!" That becomes confusing.
Thanks. Do your best to confuse us and then blame us for being confused.
This, of course, is the exact opposite of what the Bush administration has been force-feeding us for the past three years. (If something is repeated over and over, does that make it true? Some would argue "yes.")
Our invasion and occupation of Iraq strengthening the terrorist cause. This is certainly unacceptable information. George Bush responds, saying media accounts of the leaked report would only "create confusion in the minds of the American people."
Confused. That's what happens in George Bush's world when Americans hear facts. They become confused.
Can Americans not think? Can Americans not handle a nuanced, complex situation? According to Bush, no, we cannot. He wants the Iraq war to be like those new allergy pills that dissolve peacefully with a sweet, citrus burst the moment they hit your tongue. Instead, leaked reports are giving us those big horse-pills that fall apart in your mouth, tasting like you had just licked the floor of a pharmacy. With no water.
Come to think of it, if all the information you receive had been delicately crafted in Bush's fantasy land and/or filtered through Fox News, then I guess you would be confused.
We've been told again and again how necessary this war is, it being the central front to the war on terror. Fight them there or fight them here, they say. It's that simple. Wait, our government's top spy and intelligence analysts say Iraq has made the war on terror worse? That's . . . confusing.
When you hear "mission accomplished" and "last throes" and then watch thousands more U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians killed, that becomes confusing. When Bush succeeds at linking Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda and then five years later says "Oh did I do that? My bad!" That becomes confusing.
Thanks. Do your best to confuse us and then blame us for being confused.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Endless shrimp
I once ate six corndogs for lunch. Why six? Because that's how many there were. If eight had come in the package I would've had eight. And I would've felt the same way after eating them, disgusting. Not only because of the volume of corndogs, but for the simple existence of the corn dog itself. Take an unhealthy conglomeration of low-grade scraps from the floor of the slaughterhouse, process it all together into a fatty, salty, unnaturally shaped log of meat, batter it, fry it and put it on a stick to make an unhealthy choice easier to stuff into your face. What pleasure.
I once went to a pizzeria and ordered a 16-inch pizza. Once I ate my way through two-thirds of the pie, I felt the rest would be too little to take home and decided to finish the job. After the eighth and final piece, I stared at the empty pedestal the pizza had been served on. Not even crust had survived my caloric binge. I expressed a desire to purge then waddled out of the restaurant.
These had been two instances that I had always recalled as times I ate way too much for no good reason. I ate, ate and kept eating because food remained. Like a dog left alone with a platter of honey barbecued chicken wings, I stopped not out of choice but because the food ran out. I have to admit though, from time to time it's fun to do, as embarrassingly gluttonous, slobbish and unhealthy as that may sound. It's exactly why the moment I saw a chain seafood restaurant's commercials for all-you-can-eat shrimp, I knew I would take part. I couldn't think of a better predicament to be in, imagining myself sitting before platter after platter of shrimp with an unending supply of cocktail sauce.
Upon settling into a booth, I spotted the so-called endless shrimp on the menu. I questioned the waitress how the process worked. To start, she explained, you choose two dishes from the list of fried shrimp, coconut shrimp, popcorn shrimp, shrimp scampi and shrimp pasta. Once you polish off those two you can order more shrimp, one dish at a time, for as long as you want.
"Hell yes," I said, pointing at the selection on the menu. I imagined the waitress coming out at some point and muttering the line from Seinfeld "The ocean called. It's running out of shrimp." That's how much shrimp I planned to put away.
Already nestled in the land where shrimp never end, I was jostled with unexpected questions from the waitress. Garden salad or Caesar? Baked potato, mashed potato or French fries? In what-the-hey fashion I shrugged my shoulders and offered my request. More for the money, I thought.
Further adding to the feast was a basket of garlic butter biscuits laid on our table. What I thought would aid me in my overeating endeavors – starving myself in preparation – turned out to be the first downfall. So hungry was I that I inhaled a Caesar salad and three biscuits without much thought. My hunger deluded me into thinking salad and biscuits would bounce off me like Jell-O and saltine crackers.
After giving ample time to let the salad and biscuits begin to take effect, the shrimp finally arrived, fried and scampi per my specifications. Twelve of each assortment, the shrimp weren't jumbo but were not tiny either. Like the salad and biscuits, I put away 24 shrimp and a scoop of mashed potatoes with little effort.
And then I waited. The waitress was suddenly nonexistent. And as I sat, my stomach began to send a clear message to my brain. "Things are filling up down here, Jack."
The waitress reappeared and I quickly put in an order for coconut shrimp. And waited again. If they were going to advertise this never-ending shrimp extravaganza, I thought, at least have some ready to go.
And then it became clear. These were definite steps of conspiracy inserted into the endless shrimp process to limit the number of shrimp a person can humanly consume.
The salad and biscuits? Obviously it costs less to plump someone up on salad and biscuits than with shrimp. And the one-at-a-time policy gave waiters an opportunity to drag their feet when taking and putting in your next order.
"Bah!" I thought.
Nonetheless I put in order after order. I stopped after 60 shrimp, my head on the table as I groaned "No more shrimp." I stopped when the word "scampi" began to make me want to throw up, when grease and butter on my hands looked to be permanent. Unfortunately I also stopped because the waitress had once again disappeared, saying in some way, "OK, Jumbo, you've had enough."
I once went to a pizzeria and ordered a 16-inch pizza. Once I ate my way through two-thirds of the pie, I felt the rest would be too little to take home and decided to finish the job. After the eighth and final piece, I stared at the empty pedestal the pizza had been served on. Not even crust had survived my caloric binge. I expressed a desire to purge then waddled out of the restaurant.
These had been two instances that I had always recalled as times I ate way too much for no good reason. I ate, ate and kept eating because food remained. Like a dog left alone with a platter of honey barbecued chicken wings, I stopped not out of choice but because the food ran out. I have to admit though, from time to time it's fun to do, as embarrassingly gluttonous, slobbish and unhealthy as that may sound. It's exactly why the moment I saw a chain seafood restaurant's commercials for all-you-can-eat shrimp, I knew I would take part. I couldn't think of a better predicament to be in, imagining myself sitting before platter after platter of shrimp with an unending supply of cocktail sauce.
Upon settling into a booth, I spotted the so-called endless shrimp on the menu. I questioned the waitress how the process worked. To start, she explained, you choose two dishes from the list of fried shrimp, coconut shrimp, popcorn shrimp, shrimp scampi and shrimp pasta. Once you polish off those two you can order more shrimp, one dish at a time, for as long as you want.
"Hell yes," I said, pointing at the selection on the menu. I imagined the waitress coming out at some point and muttering the line from Seinfeld "The ocean called. It's running out of shrimp." That's how much shrimp I planned to put away.
Already nestled in the land where shrimp never end, I was jostled with unexpected questions from the waitress. Garden salad or Caesar? Baked potato, mashed potato or French fries? In what-the-hey fashion I shrugged my shoulders and offered my request. More for the money, I thought.
Further adding to the feast was a basket of garlic butter biscuits laid on our table. What I thought would aid me in my overeating endeavors – starving myself in preparation – turned out to be the first downfall. So hungry was I that I inhaled a Caesar salad and three biscuits without much thought. My hunger deluded me into thinking salad and biscuits would bounce off me like Jell-O and saltine crackers.
After giving ample time to let the salad and biscuits begin to take effect, the shrimp finally arrived, fried and scampi per my specifications. Twelve of each assortment, the shrimp weren't jumbo but were not tiny either. Like the salad and biscuits, I put away 24 shrimp and a scoop of mashed potatoes with little effort.
And then I waited. The waitress was suddenly nonexistent. And as I sat, my stomach began to send a clear message to my brain. "Things are filling up down here, Jack."
The waitress reappeared and I quickly put in an order for coconut shrimp. And waited again. If they were going to advertise this never-ending shrimp extravaganza, I thought, at least have some ready to go.
And then it became clear. These were definite steps of conspiracy inserted into the endless shrimp process to limit the number of shrimp a person can humanly consume.
The salad and biscuits? Obviously it costs less to plump someone up on salad and biscuits than with shrimp. And the one-at-a-time policy gave waiters an opportunity to drag their feet when taking and putting in your next order.
"Bah!" I thought.
Nonetheless I put in order after order. I stopped after 60 shrimp, my head on the table as I groaned "No more shrimp." I stopped when the word "scampi" began to make me want to throw up, when grease and butter on my hands looked to be permanent. Unfortunately I also stopped because the waitress had once again disappeared, saying in some way, "OK, Jumbo, you've had enough."
Monday, September 11, 2006
Thoughts that result from spending 9 hours on the couch watching football and eating nachos
Sunday was the first time I had heard of Rams' safety OJ Atogwe. Upon hearing his name pronounced (OH-jay Uh-TOG-way), it occurred to me that his name is Pig Latin for Joe Watog. This got me thinking of the possibilities of piecing together an All-Pig Latin team. With a first and last name that translates directly, OJ Atogwe would be a first-teamer, no doubt. People with last names only -- John Elway comes to mind -- would be second-teamers.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
An advertisement for the Schick Quattro razor raises the question again, "How many blades will finally be enough on a razor?"
To Schick, the answer is a paltry four. But to Gillette, makers of the Fusion shaving system, the answer is a resounding five, as they own current bragging rights in this game to see who can put the most unnecessary blades on a razor.
The sad thing is that there are very talented scientists, as we speak, trying to figure out how to make it seem like you need six blades on a disposable razor for the closest shave possible. But how close can a shave possibly get? What is the ultimate goal of all these additional blades on the razor? That your shave is so close that you'll never have to shave again? That your whiskers fret at the sight of so many blades, rescind back into your face and apologize profusely?
(In related news, Burger Kings rolls out advertising for its Triple Whopper. How many beef patties will it take before even the biggest slob finally says "OK stop stacking patties on my hamburger.")
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
A beer ad touts that Miller Lite has half the carbs of Bud Light. Besides the concern over carbs being so 2003, if you are the type to obsess over carbs, perhaps beer shouldn't be your drink of choice.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
When people use the word workaholic, obviously they're using a derivative of the word alcoholic. Instead of being addicted to alcohol, they're addicted to work. Fair enough, but shouldn't it be called a workic? Even more annoying is the term chocoholic.
The only way these hybrid words would make sense is if you were addicted to drinking alcohol in the workplace or if you had a chemical dependency on alcoholic chocolate.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Samsung unveils multiple versions of an advertisement for its flashy high definition TV, each version featuring a former-white-quarterback-turned-NFL-analyst. So far Steve Young, Troy Aikman and Dan Marino have participated. I can envision them getting the much older former-white-quarterbacks-turned-NFL-analysts Joe Theismann, Phil Simms and Terry Bradshaw to pitch for their standard, non-state of the art TVs.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Speaking of white quarterbacks doing commercials, I saw Peyton Manning appear in five different ads (two for Gatorade, one for NFL apparel, one for Sprint and one for DirecTV).
What makes Peyton Manning the hottest NFL pitch man of the moment? To start he's a well-spoken, likable, goofy, nerdy white guy willing to poke fun at himself. Pretty much non-threatening and wholesome on anyone's scale. He's also the NFL's best quarterback, which doesn't hurt.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
An advertisement for the Schick Quattro razor raises the question again, "How many blades will finally be enough on a razor?"
To Schick, the answer is a paltry four. But to Gillette, makers of the Fusion shaving system, the answer is a resounding five, as they own current bragging rights in this game to see who can put the most unnecessary blades on a razor.
The sad thing is that there are very talented scientists, as we speak, trying to figure out how to make it seem like you need six blades on a disposable razor for the closest shave possible. But how close can a shave possibly get? What is the ultimate goal of all these additional blades on the razor? That your shave is so close that you'll never have to shave again? That your whiskers fret at the sight of so many blades, rescind back into your face and apologize profusely?
(In related news, Burger Kings rolls out advertising for its Triple Whopper. How many beef patties will it take before even the biggest slob finally says "OK stop stacking patties on my hamburger.")
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
A beer ad touts that Miller Lite has half the carbs of Bud Light. Besides the concern over carbs being so 2003, if you are the type to obsess over carbs, perhaps beer shouldn't be your drink of choice.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
When people use the word workaholic, obviously they're using a derivative of the word alcoholic. Instead of being addicted to alcohol, they're addicted to work. Fair enough, but shouldn't it be called a workic? Even more annoying is the term chocoholic.
The only way these hybrid words would make sense is if you were addicted to drinking alcohol in the workplace or if you had a chemical dependency on alcoholic chocolate.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Samsung unveils multiple versions of an advertisement for its flashy high definition TV, each version featuring a former-white-quarterback-turned-NFL-analyst. So far Steve Young, Troy Aikman and Dan Marino have participated. I can envision them getting the much older former-white-quarterbacks-turned-NFL-analysts Joe Theismann, Phil Simms and Terry Bradshaw to pitch for their standard, non-state of the art TVs.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Speaking of white quarterbacks doing commercials, I saw Peyton Manning appear in five different ads (two for Gatorade, one for NFL apparel, one for Sprint and one for DirecTV).
What makes Peyton Manning the hottest NFL pitch man of the moment? To start he's a well-spoken, likable, goofy, nerdy white guy willing to poke fun at himself. Pretty much non-threatening and wholesome on anyone's scale. He's also the NFL's best quarterback, which doesn't hurt.
Friday, September 08, 2006
Check out my latest short story An Original Performance Art Piece at Poor Mojo's Almanack.
Here's an excerpt:
Dave took some convincing but it wasn't anything a 10-pack of tacos, a quart of chocolate milk, a miniature ceramic burro and $75 cash couldn't do. He agreed to spread the word, but would go about it discreetly, seeking only musicians interested in the avante garde. The tactic nearly backfired when a quartet of low brass players thought the term "avante garde" was code for homosexuality. Dave was roughed up a bit before nimbly looking up the term in a pocket dictionary while his ribs were being stomped. Realizing the error, the low brass quartet apologized and treated Dave to an arrangement of the theme from Guys and Dolls.
Here's an excerpt:
Dave took some convincing but it wasn't anything a 10-pack of tacos, a quart of chocolate milk, a miniature ceramic burro and $75 cash couldn't do. He agreed to spread the word, but would go about it discreetly, seeking only musicians interested in the avante garde. The tactic nearly backfired when a quartet of low brass players thought the term "avante garde" was code for homosexuality. Dave was roughed up a bit before nimbly looking up the term in a pocket dictionary while his ribs were being stomped. Realizing the error, the low brass quartet apologized and treated Dave to an arrangement of the theme from Guys and Dolls.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Humiliation and destroyed relationships: A fantasy football draft story
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes 18 seconds
Fantasy football had always been a source of embarrassment and soiled relationships for me. While it usually takes an entire season to humiliate myself and destroy at least one acquaintance, this year I managed both before the season had even started.
My fantasy football draft was a disaster. But it wasn't who I did or did not draft – Tiki Barber, Anquan Boldin, Kurt Warner, blah, blah, blah – the players don't matter. It was the events surrounding the draft that made me want to find a necktie, a closet and cut my life short.
It was one of those drafts that take place online where you can draft live or have a robot pick your team using players you ranked at the last minute (computerized drafts are widely known to produce teams with four kickers, three defenses and a handful of players residing on injured reserve.) To start, the draft did not take place at a time likely be free of prior commitments and distractions . . . like "work" or "a career". It was held at 4:45 p.m. on a Thursday, which begs the question, "What productive citizen is free to devote an hour to something as superfluous as fantasy football at 4:45 on a Thursday?"
While technically "at work" during this time, what other choice did I have but to proceed with the draft and somehow draw as little attention to myself as possible?
My fundamental fear was that what I was engaging in would somehow become widespread knowledge. I imagined a large gathering of people – coworkers, interns, my boss, higher-ups, the bosses of my boss' boss – everybody all in one place. Somehow the fact that David Holub was drafting a fantasy football team online while on the company's clock would be broadcast in front of all.
But events that could possibly realize these grave fears were so remote that I didn't give them much thought. But from the start, there were forces working against me.
Being at work at 4:45 on a Thursday, I was forced to rank most of my players beforehand given the high likelihood that I wouldn't be able to devote my full attention to a live draft.
Upon arriving at work – 15 minutes until draft time – I immediately logged on to the draft site, the first successful logon for the day (the trusty web site had been in the crapper the entire day). Following that, I checked my e-mail and discovered a broomstick being firmly jammed into the spokes of my fantasy football draft plans.
A going away party had been scheduled at 4:30 that day. So skip it, you say. And I would have, if the going away honoree was anybody but my immediate supervisor, the kind soul who hired me and gave me a chance to do great things with my career.
And since the sendoff was for a manager, it attracted the types of higher-ups that wouldn't have shown for a going away party for, say, me.
Since I still had 15 minutes until the draft, I figured I would go to the party, hear some goodbye speeches and then silently slip out in the name of fantasy football. This worked perfectly. I hung around for a few minutes, made my presence known, did some glad-handing, slammed some cake into my face, then quietly backed out of the room and ran to relieve the robot from drafting my team.
Just when I thought I was in the clear, sheepishly drafting at my computer, I saw a coworker hustling from the room I had deserted five minutes earlier.
"There you are! Come on back!" she summonsed.
When I left the party, things seemed on the verge of winding down, the point where people engaged in mindless chitchat only to avoid having to go back to work. Apparently things had miraculously reorganized. And out of this reorganization came a worst-case scenario, something that would demand my presence, a public roll call, an event that would make those in attendance say "Where is Dave? What is he doing that would take him away from this special occasion?"
My departing boss had gifts for the members of her staff and had been handing them out publicly while saying something personal about each recipient.
"Awl Hell," I growled when discovering this fact.
My supervisor, my gift and the attention of many inquiring coworkers awaited my arrival. I tried to be vague explaining that I had just "stepped away." This didn't seem to suffice and I wound up broadcasting my whereabouts to all within earshot. Fortunately by that point, people were mingling and chatting and some had returned to their work. I graciously accepted my gift and attempted to genuinely apologize for my absence.
With the draft now common knowledge among many, I returned to my desk to see it through, dammit. But the problems didn't end there. Seemingly every time my turn would come to draft, my phone would ring or someone would stop by to discuss pesky work-related matter. But what could I expect at 4:45 on a Thursday?
By then the damage had been done. Everyone would see me from then on as the guy who selfishly skipped the going away party for his celebrated departing supervisor, someone who went out on a line to create his position and hire him, a person he should be indebted to and very well might never see again. All for something as meaningless, trivial and juvenile as fantasy football.
Or perhaps that was just how I felt.
Fantasy football had always been a source of embarrassment and soiled relationships for me. While it usually takes an entire season to humiliate myself and destroy at least one acquaintance, this year I managed both before the season had even started.
My fantasy football draft was a disaster. But it wasn't who I did or did not draft – Tiki Barber, Anquan Boldin, Kurt Warner, blah, blah, blah – the players don't matter. It was the events surrounding the draft that made me want to find a necktie, a closet and cut my life short.
It was one of those drafts that take place online where you can draft live or have a robot pick your team using players you ranked at the last minute (computerized drafts are widely known to produce teams with four kickers, three defenses and a handful of players residing on injured reserve.) To start, the draft did not take place at a time likely be free of prior commitments and distractions . . . like "work" or "a career". It was held at 4:45 p.m. on a Thursday, which begs the question, "What productive citizen is free to devote an hour to something as superfluous as fantasy football at 4:45 on a Thursday?"
While technically "at work" during this time, what other choice did I have but to proceed with the draft and somehow draw as little attention to myself as possible?
My fundamental fear was that what I was engaging in would somehow become widespread knowledge. I imagined a large gathering of people – coworkers, interns, my boss, higher-ups, the bosses of my boss' boss – everybody all in one place. Somehow the fact that David Holub was drafting a fantasy football team online while on the company's clock would be broadcast in front of all.
But events that could possibly realize these grave fears were so remote that I didn't give them much thought. But from the start, there were forces working against me.
Being at work at 4:45 on a Thursday, I was forced to rank most of my players beforehand given the high likelihood that I wouldn't be able to devote my full attention to a live draft.
Upon arriving at work – 15 minutes until draft time – I immediately logged on to the draft site, the first successful logon for the day (the trusty web site had been in the crapper the entire day). Following that, I checked my e-mail and discovered a broomstick being firmly jammed into the spokes of my fantasy football draft plans.
A going away party had been scheduled at 4:30 that day. So skip it, you say. And I would have, if the going away honoree was anybody but my immediate supervisor, the kind soul who hired me and gave me a chance to do great things with my career.
And since the sendoff was for a manager, it attracted the types of higher-ups that wouldn't have shown for a going away party for, say, me.
Since I still had 15 minutes until the draft, I figured I would go to the party, hear some goodbye speeches and then silently slip out in the name of fantasy football. This worked perfectly. I hung around for a few minutes, made my presence known, did some glad-handing, slammed some cake into my face, then quietly backed out of the room and ran to relieve the robot from drafting my team.
Just when I thought I was in the clear, sheepishly drafting at my computer, I saw a coworker hustling from the room I had deserted five minutes earlier.
"There you are! Come on back!" she summonsed.
When I left the party, things seemed on the verge of winding down, the point where people engaged in mindless chitchat only to avoid having to go back to work. Apparently things had miraculously reorganized. And out of this reorganization came a worst-case scenario, something that would demand my presence, a public roll call, an event that would make those in attendance say "Where is Dave? What is he doing that would take him away from this special occasion?"
My departing boss had gifts for the members of her staff and had been handing them out publicly while saying something personal about each recipient.
"Awl Hell," I growled when discovering this fact.
My supervisor, my gift and the attention of many inquiring coworkers awaited my arrival. I tried to be vague explaining that I had just "stepped away." This didn't seem to suffice and I wound up broadcasting my whereabouts to all within earshot. Fortunately by that point, people were mingling and chatting and some had returned to their work. I graciously accepted my gift and attempted to genuinely apologize for my absence.
With the draft now common knowledge among many, I returned to my desk to see it through, dammit. But the problems didn't end there. Seemingly every time my turn would come to draft, my phone would ring or someone would stop by to discuss pesky work-related matter. But what could I expect at 4:45 on a Thursday?
By then the damage had been done. Everyone would see me from then on as the guy who selfishly skipped the going away party for his celebrated departing supervisor, someone who went out on a line to create his position and hire him, a person he should be indebted to and very well might never see again. All for something as meaningless, trivial and juvenile as fantasy football.
Or perhaps that was just how I felt.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Wayne Brady for $90/hour
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes 28 seconds
We didn’t know why we had gone to the Mohegan Sun Casino until we were there. On our way to hit the obligatory buffet to stuff our fat faces with absurd quantities of mashed potatoes before some low-stakes slots, I noticed a poster advertising a performance that evening by Wayne Brady, the improv comedian made famous by his stint on TV’s Whose Line is it Anyway.
“What pleasurable happenstance,” I thought as I stared into Wayne Brady’s way-too-white teeth on the performance bill.
Like that hot dog cooker you bought on impulse at Target, the Wayne Brady show was our first impulse comedy show.
However, tickets were $45 apiece. I don’t know if it was because we were in a casino, where matters of money seemingly cease to exist, but $45 didn’t seem too steep.
Told the show was sold out, we learned that there was a special line to stand in for the chance to purchase tickets on a first-come-first-serve basis if they become available due to cancellations.
Since there is no scalping on the reservation, as we learned earlier, I supposed the special line was the only way people without tickets could change their circumstances.
After the buffet, where I successfully put away four desserts, we went to stand in the Schlubs Without Tickets line a recommended-yet-inconvenient 1 hour and 15 minutes before Wayne Brady and his teeth sparkled in front of a live audience. We were the second couple in line.
Here are some of the highlights we see during that time:
**A kid with the babyface of a 10-year-old who was 6-foot-3. I desperately want to ask him if he had some sort of anti-aging disorder and was really 28 or if, as expected, he is indeed a grotesquely tall 9-year-old.
**The Connecticut Sun of the WNBA play a playoff game that night at the Mohegan Sun Arena. We watch thousands of fans headed to the game walk past. At first we recognize many of these fans only if they wear Sun gear – jerseys, hats, sweatshirts, etc. However, the closer we look, the more we notice couples or groups of women headed to the arena. I note that there is not a lot of long hair on these women. Or femininity. I am reminded of a story about the marketing tactics of the WNBA that I had read years earlier. Recognizing that the sight of hundreds of lesbians shuffle past is quite unique, I wonder what the gay male equivalent of a WNBA game is.
**The couple in line ahead of us is handed a ticket for free by a woman who claims “I don’t really want this.”
**A section of the floor in front of us has the slightest raise in the carpet, so slight that you can’t even tell by looking closely. This doesn’t stop a number of people from tripping, looking back to see what had tripped them, only to see nothing but ordinary casino carpet. Sorry saps, I mutter.
The Wayne Brady show began very impressively. To start, his stooge/assistant/fellow performer solicited the audience for words you wouldn’t find in a gangsta rap song. People shouted words like “dude,” “marshmallow” and “serendipitous” which were written on large sheets of paper.
Wayne came out to a hip-hop beat and performed an improv rap incorporating the words. I was quite impressed.
Unfortunately that was the show’s peak.
The rest of the improv sketches were what you would expect. People shouted out movie styles or occupations which Wayne would then incorporate into a song or sketch.
However, seemingly every other sketch ended at Wayne’s insistence because it was not funny and/or failed to go anywhere. Wayne had his moments – some good impressions of a mime, an Italian gangster and the band Creed. But ultimately his performance came off as hopelessly average, lacking the comedic zip he has displayed on bigger stages, for bigger audiences.
To make matters worse, the show ended after an hour, forcing us to shrug our shoulders and walk out of the theater wondering if Wayne would run back on stage and make us feel like we didn’t just waste $45.
Erin contemplated how much money we had just paid per minute for the show. I tried a quick calculation in my head before settling on “Too much.”
Call it buyer’s remorse.
We didn’t know why we had gone to the Mohegan Sun Casino until we were there. On our way to hit the obligatory buffet to stuff our fat faces with absurd quantities of mashed potatoes before some low-stakes slots, I noticed a poster advertising a performance that evening by Wayne Brady, the improv comedian made famous by his stint on TV’s Whose Line is it Anyway.
“What pleasurable happenstance,” I thought as I stared into Wayne Brady’s way-too-white teeth on the performance bill.
Like that hot dog cooker you bought on impulse at Target, the Wayne Brady show was our first impulse comedy show.
However, tickets were $45 apiece. I don’t know if it was because we were in a casino, where matters of money seemingly cease to exist, but $45 didn’t seem too steep.
Told the show was sold out, we learned that there was a special line to stand in for the chance to purchase tickets on a first-come-first-serve basis if they become available due to cancellations.
Since there is no scalping on the reservation, as we learned earlier, I supposed the special line was the only way people without tickets could change their circumstances.
After the buffet, where I successfully put away four desserts, we went to stand in the Schlubs Without Tickets line a recommended-yet-inconvenient 1 hour and 15 minutes before Wayne Brady and his teeth sparkled in front of a live audience. We were the second couple in line.
Here are some of the highlights we see during that time:
**A kid with the babyface of a 10-year-old who was 6-foot-3. I desperately want to ask him if he had some sort of anti-aging disorder and was really 28 or if, as expected, he is indeed a grotesquely tall 9-year-old.
**The Connecticut Sun of the WNBA play a playoff game that night at the Mohegan Sun Arena. We watch thousands of fans headed to the game walk past. At first we recognize many of these fans only if they wear Sun gear – jerseys, hats, sweatshirts, etc. However, the closer we look, the more we notice couples or groups of women headed to the arena. I note that there is not a lot of long hair on these women. Or femininity. I am reminded of a story about the marketing tactics of the WNBA that I had read years earlier. Recognizing that the sight of hundreds of lesbians shuffle past is quite unique, I wonder what the gay male equivalent of a WNBA game is.
**The couple in line ahead of us is handed a ticket for free by a woman who claims “I don’t really want this.”
**A section of the floor in front of us has the slightest raise in the carpet, so slight that you can’t even tell by looking closely. This doesn’t stop a number of people from tripping, looking back to see what had tripped them, only to see nothing but ordinary casino carpet. Sorry saps, I mutter.
The Wayne Brady show began very impressively. To start, his stooge/assistant/fellow performer solicited the audience for words you wouldn’t find in a gangsta rap song. People shouted words like “dude,” “marshmallow” and “serendipitous” which were written on large sheets of paper.
Wayne came out to a hip-hop beat and performed an improv rap incorporating the words. I was quite impressed.
Unfortunately that was the show’s peak.
The rest of the improv sketches were what you would expect. People shouted out movie styles or occupations which Wayne would then incorporate into a song or sketch.
However, seemingly every other sketch ended at Wayne’s insistence because it was not funny and/or failed to go anywhere. Wayne had his moments – some good impressions of a mime, an Italian gangster and the band Creed. But ultimately his performance came off as hopelessly average, lacking the comedic zip he has displayed on bigger stages, for bigger audiences.
To make matters worse, the show ended after an hour, forcing us to shrug our shoulders and walk out of the theater wondering if Wayne would run back on stage and make us feel like we didn’t just waste $45.
Erin contemplated how much money we had just paid per minute for the show. I tried a quick calculation in my head before settling on “Too much.”
Call it buyer’s remorse.
Friday, August 25, 2006
Waking up to a marching band
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 1 second
Like the unwitting target of a cruel and coordinated practical joke, I was woken up everyday this week by a marching band practicing across the street from my bedroom window.
Brass, percussion, barking band teachers, it was all there each morning.
By getting off of work at 12:30 a.m. and not hitting the sack until close to 3, I am normally still sleeping the peaceful sleep of a child at 9 a.m., the time when the marching band fired up each day.
Given the unlikely chance of being woken up by a marching band for five days straight, I am left to ponder the possibilities of what might wake me up next week.
Taking into account such factors as weather patterns, neighborhood history, tides and seasonal angst, there is a high probability that I will awaken to either a clown playing banjo in the kitchen, a high-stakes chili cook-off and auction next door or a cage of chimpanzees in the next room working on typewriters.
Like the unwitting target of a cruel and coordinated practical joke, I was woken up everyday this week by a marching band practicing across the street from my bedroom window.
Brass, percussion, barking band teachers, it was all there each morning.
By getting off of work at 12:30 a.m. and not hitting the sack until close to 3, I am normally still sleeping the peaceful sleep of a child at 9 a.m., the time when the marching band fired up each day.
Given the unlikely chance of being woken up by a marching band for five days straight, I am left to ponder the possibilities of what might wake me up next week.
Taking into account such factors as weather patterns, neighborhood history, tides and seasonal angst, there is a high probability that I will awaken to either a clown playing banjo in the kitchen, a high-stakes chili cook-off and auction next door or a cage of chimpanzees in the next room working on typewriters.
Coerced naps
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes 57 seconds
I’ve had a history of losing consciousness for some time now. Over the past 13 years I’ve done my share of fainting, blacking out six times since 1993.
I’ve managed to pass out from:
· Taking medicine to which I later learned that I was a tad allergic.
· A who-knows-why high school motivational speech in the auditorium from a guy who survived some horrific accident. (Things were going along fine until we’re suddenly watching a graphic video showing the inside of his ripped-to-shreds leg. I stayed semiconscious but my vision looked like a TV set on a channel it does not receive.)
· Watching my future wife get stitches taken out of her arm
· Getting shots before heading off to college
While my fainting seems to be medical in nature, it is more complex than that, not anything specific. It’s not like I would be fine as long as I avoid, say, those live surgery shows on cable (who watches those?) or gruesome crime scene photos. There’s something deep in my brain that for certain images says “OK if you don’t stop looking at that, I’m going to make you stop looking. Crazy brain. Just the fleeting thought of a ligament tear or bone dislocation makes me close my eyes, plug my ears and squirm helplessly wile humming Van Halen’s Panama. (Yes, Panama.)
I only see these tendencies becoming worse as I now get anxious in almost any medical situation. This includes medical situations involving my dogs. The last time I took the dogs to the vet I sat in the waiting room taking deep breaths through my nose to ward off any light-headedness.
My latest bout of fainting happened a few weeks ago during a trip to Minneapolis. What prompted the episode set the bar even lower on what will cause me to lose consciousness.
As we walked from our hotel to the car, I remembered that I had forgotten something in the room. I returned to the room as Erin went to pull the car around to pick me up.
Rushing back into the room I remembered that the large, heavy door would slam raucously if left to close on its own. Being a courteous fellow, I left my hand in the door to catch it before it slammed. This turned out to be a costly decision. Instead of possibly disturbing fellow hotel guests, my finger took the brunt of the door’s vicious closing.
While it hurt like a mother, there was something more that my mind couldn’t handle. After kicking the bed in hopes to somehow transfer the pain from me to the mattress, I helplessly began to feel dizzy.
But not only was I alone in a hotel room with the lone key, I was also expected promptly by Erin in the parking lot. I had to keep it together long enough to make it to the car.
Riding the elevator down, I instinctively put my hands on my knees and forced my head below my waist. Why I did this, I don’t know. In my haziness, I thought it seemed sensible.
By the time I was in the parking lot, I might as well have been in Guatemala although I did manage to recognize our rented PT Cruiser. Stumbling as I stepped into the car, my head hit the back of the seat almost instantly.
With a swelling body temperature and on the brink of losing consciousness, I retained enough wherewithal to adjust the a/c to a satisfactory level and enough embarrassment not to tell Erin exactly why I was about to take an involuntarily siesta.
Fortunately for me I didn’t have to. In our frequent state of goofiness, I have on more than one occasion faked like I was passed out. This usually goes on for a few moments until I get the tradeoff that I want from Erin: fake fainting for fake sympathy.
Given this history, Erin – rightfully so – thought I was joshing. “OK, wake up Dave,” Erin sings in sarcastic panic. Ten seconds go by as I remain unresponsive, my eyes shut. 20 seconds. 30 seconds. For a full 3 minutes Erin thinks I am still joking, well beyond the point of OK-it’s-not-funny-anymore.
As a lone tear trickles down my face and strange sounds originate in the back of my throat, Erin begins to understand that I am in la-la land and not just taking the pass-out game to an award-winning level.
I come to after about five minutes, sweating generously, battling confusion and a state of nausea. The constant ringing of the seatbelt chime doesn’t help me figure out what is happening. I find the only way to keep from throwing up is to close my eyes, which eases me back to a state of unconsciousness. A minute later I dry-heave myself awake and Erin smartly pulls over and opens the car door. Only a portion of my stomach’s contents come up.
By then I was beginning to emerge back into the world I had left 11 minutes earlier. My first request was for a milkshake.
I’m not sure why I passed out after slamming my finger in the door. This raises the frightening question of what I will pass out over next time. Clipping my dog’s nails. Taking a ball to the funny bone during a game of ping pong. Tweaking my hammy during a friendly game of hoops. These all have the potential to send me to the ground.
But as long as nothing crazy happens, like swallowing my tongue or fainting behind the wheel, I actually don’t mind the process. Right before you go, your world clouds up and half of you knows what’s going on and the other half doesn’t. Once the lights go out it’s the deepest sleep you can imagine, like one big coerced nap.
I’ve had a history of losing consciousness for some time now. Over the past 13 years I’ve done my share of fainting, blacking out six times since 1993.
I’ve managed to pass out from:
· Taking medicine to which I later learned that I was a tad allergic.
· A who-knows-why high school motivational speech in the auditorium from a guy who survived some horrific accident. (Things were going along fine until we’re suddenly watching a graphic video showing the inside of his ripped-to-shreds leg. I stayed semiconscious but my vision looked like a TV set on a channel it does not receive.)
· Watching my future wife get stitches taken out of her arm
· Getting shots before heading off to college
While my fainting seems to be medical in nature, it is more complex than that, not anything specific. It’s not like I would be fine as long as I avoid, say, those live surgery shows on cable (who watches those?) or gruesome crime scene photos. There’s something deep in my brain that for certain images says “OK if you don’t stop looking at that, I’m going to make you stop looking. Crazy brain. Just the fleeting thought of a ligament tear or bone dislocation makes me close my eyes, plug my ears and squirm helplessly wile humming Van Halen’s Panama. (Yes, Panama.)
I only see these tendencies becoming worse as I now get anxious in almost any medical situation. This includes medical situations involving my dogs. The last time I took the dogs to the vet I sat in the waiting room taking deep breaths through my nose to ward off any light-headedness.
My latest bout of fainting happened a few weeks ago during a trip to Minneapolis. What prompted the episode set the bar even lower on what will cause me to lose consciousness.
As we walked from our hotel to the car, I remembered that I had forgotten something in the room. I returned to the room as Erin went to pull the car around to pick me up.
Rushing back into the room I remembered that the large, heavy door would slam raucously if left to close on its own. Being a courteous fellow, I left my hand in the door to catch it before it slammed. This turned out to be a costly decision. Instead of possibly disturbing fellow hotel guests, my finger took the brunt of the door’s vicious closing.
While it hurt like a mother, there was something more that my mind couldn’t handle. After kicking the bed in hopes to somehow transfer the pain from me to the mattress, I helplessly began to feel dizzy.
But not only was I alone in a hotel room with the lone key, I was also expected promptly by Erin in the parking lot. I had to keep it together long enough to make it to the car.
Riding the elevator down, I instinctively put my hands on my knees and forced my head below my waist. Why I did this, I don’t know. In my haziness, I thought it seemed sensible.
By the time I was in the parking lot, I might as well have been in Guatemala although I did manage to recognize our rented PT Cruiser. Stumbling as I stepped into the car, my head hit the back of the seat almost instantly.
With a swelling body temperature and on the brink of losing consciousness, I retained enough wherewithal to adjust the a/c to a satisfactory level and enough embarrassment not to tell Erin exactly why I was about to take an involuntarily siesta.
Fortunately for me I didn’t have to. In our frequent state of goofiness, I have on more than one occasion faked like I was passed out. This usually goes on for a few moments until I get the tradeoff that I want from Erin: fake fainting for fake sympathy.
Given this history, Erin – rightfully so – thought I was joshing. “OK, wake up Dave,” Erin sings in sarcastic panic. Ten seconds go by as I remain unresponsive, my eyes shut. 20 seconds. 30 seconds. For a full 3 minutes Erin thinks I am still joking, well beyond the point of OK-it’s-not-funny-anymore.
As a lone tear trickles down my face and strange sounds originate in the back of my throat, Erin begins to understand that I am in la-la land and not just taking the pass-out game to an award-winning level.
I come to after about five minutes, sweating generously, battling confusion and a state of nausea. The constant ringing of the seatbelt chime doesn’t help me figure out what is happening. I find the only way to keep from throwing up is to close my eyes, which eases me back to a state of unconsciousness. A minute later I dry-heave myself awake and Erin smartly pulls over and opens the car door. Only a portion of my stomach’s contents come up.
By then I was beginning to emerge back into the world I had left 11 minutes earlier. My first request was for a milkshake.
I’m not sure why I passed out after slamming my finger in the door. This raises the frightening question of what I will pass out over next time. Clipping my dog’s nails. Taking a ball to the funny bone during a game of ping pong. Tweaking my hammy during a friendly game of hoops. These all have the potential to send me to the ground.
But as long as nothing crazy happens, like swallowing my tongue or fainting behind the wheel, I actually don’t mind the process. Right before you go, your world clouds up and half of you knows what’s going on and the other half doesn’t. Once the lights go out it’s the deepest sleep you can imagine, like one big coerced nap.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Why Crocs are so ridiculous
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 20 seconds
Out at breakfast the other day, we sipped on our beverages as we kindly waited for our order.
I noticed a gentleman sitting at a table nearby wearing a long-sleeve button down shirt, no tie and khaki slacks. He was by himself but was in the midst of a lively business conversation. Not talking quietly, he used business jargon while speaking about such impressive matters involving The Presentation, Power Numbers and Selling Points. Not seeing his entire face, I assumed he was talking on one of those tiny phones people walk around with fastened to their ears that make you want to rip it off the side of their head and scream in their face.
But it was his choice of footwear that struck me as utterly ridiculous. I noticed that he chose to compliment his business casual attire with Crocs. Crocs on top of dark blue dress socks no less. Talking loudly into a cell phone about business nonsense was suddenly not one of his most unfavorable traits.
If you’re not familiar with Crocs, count yourself fortunate. Crocs are the brightly colored rubber, unisex gardening clogs that have somehow established themselves as hip and fashionable.
You might have noticed young children wearing them at the park, women wearing them to church or businessmen wearing them at your office complex.
I racked my brain trying to figure out how something so annoying and completely asinine could catch on. I have only one explanation.
Simply put, it was an experiment to see if it was possible to turn the lamest footwear imaginable into a wildly popular fad.
With the slogan being “Dumb on all levels,” they would base their concept on a shoe not known for its overall versatility or comfort, a shoe traditionally popular only among circles of middle-aged suburban housewives and other financially comfortable older women: gardening clogs.
“OK these are pretty stupid but I can see how someone might mistake these as so dumb they’re cool” one shoe developer remarked on an early prototype. “I think we can do worse.”
The team focused on color, starting with a shortlist of only the tackiest of shoe colors, hues designed to not match anything in your current wardrobe: Bright red, yellow, orange, baby blue.
As a final touch, they stripped away all signs of extravagance, focusing on a more simple, stripped down effect, made with nothing more than utilitarian plastic.
What you see (a cheap-looking, gaudy plastic gardening clog, not quite sandal, not quite shoe) is what you get. And they had the valor to price them anywhere from $30 to $50.
I have room in my heart for women and girls who choose Crocs. It doesn’t seem that crazy for them to wear these abominations out shopping, to the beach or to the park. Perfectly acceptable.
But for the guys who wear Crocs – especially with dark socks and business attire – I can’t force you to stop what you’re doing or intimidate you to change shoes. My only request is that you acknowledge that you wear women’s footwear. Just say it out loud to someone you don’t know, “I wear women’s footwear.”
And one more question for the guys: What would it take for you to not wear Crocs? Do they need to outfit each pair with wedge heels? Do they need to accessorize them with glitter or pink and yellow flowers? Or would you wear anything so long as somebody somewhere deemed it fashionable?
Questions for you, the reader:
1. Why do YOU think Crocs are so stupid?
2. What would it take for you to wear Crocs?
3. When was the last time you saw someone wearing Crocs that it made you want to pull all your hair out and stuff it down their throat until they had trouble taking oxygen?
Out at breakfast the other day, we sipped on our beverages as we kindly waited for our order.
I noticed a gentleman sitting at a table nearby wearing a long-sleeve button down shirt, no tie and khaki slacks. He was by himself but was in the midst of a lively business conversation. Not talking quietly, he used business jargon while speaking about such impressive matters involving The Presentation, Power Numbers and Selling Points. Not seeing his entire face, I assumed he was talking on one of those tiny phones people walk around with fastened to their ears that make you want to rip it off the side of their head and scream in their face.
But it was his choice of footwear that struck me as utterly ridiculous. I noticed that he chose to compliment his business casual attire with Crocs. Crocs on top of dark blue dress socks no less. Talking loudly into a cell phone about business nonsense was suddenly not one of his most unfavorable traits.
If you’re not familiar with Crocs, count yourself fortunate. Crocs are the brightly colored rubber, unisex gardening clogs that have somehow established themselves as hip and fashionable.
You might have noticed young children wearing them at the park, women wearing them to church or businessmen wearing them at your office complex.
I racked my brain trying to figure out how something so annoying and completely asinine could catch on. I have only one explanation.
Simply put, it was an experiment to see if it was possible to turn the lamest footwear imaginable into a wildly popular fad.
With the slogan being “Dumb on all levels,” they would base their concept on a shoe not known for its overall versatility or comfort, a shoe traditionally popular only among circles of middle-aged suburban housewives and other financially comfortable older women: gardening clogs.
“OK these are pretty stupid but I can see how someone might mistake these as so dumb they’re cool” one shoe developer remarked on an early prototype. “I think we can do worse.”
The team focused on color, starting with a shortlist of only the tackiest of shoe colors, hues designed to not match anything in your current wardrobe: Bright red, yellow, orange, baby blue.
As a final touch, they stripped away all signs of extravagance, focusing on a more simple, stripped down effect, made with nothing more than utilitarian plastic.
What you see (a cheap-looking, gaudy plastic gardening clog, not quite sandal, not quite shoe) is what you get. And they had the valor to price them anywhere from $30 to $50.
I have room in my heart for women and girls who choose Crocs. It doesn’t seem that crazy for them to wear these abominations out shopping, to the beach or to the park. Perfectly acceptable.
But for the guys who wear Crocs – especially with dark socks and business attire – I can’t force you to stop what you’re doing or intimidate you to change shoes. My only request is that you acknowledge that you wear women’s footwear. Just say it out loud to someone you don’t know, “I wear women’s footwear.”
And one more question for the guys: What would it take for you to not wear Crocs? Do they need to outfit each pair with wedge heels? Do they need to accessorize them with glitter or pink and yellow flowers? Or would you wear anything so long as somebody somewhere deemed it fashionable?
Questions for you, the reader:
1. Why do YOU think Crocs are so stupid?
2. What would it take for you to wear Crocs?
3. When was the last time you saw someone wearing Crocs that it made you want to pull all your hair out and stuff it down their throat until they had trouble taking oxygen?
Saturday, August 19, 2006
A fit of laughter
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 59 seconds
I saw Erin laugh so hard last night that I became frightened and mildly concerned for her safety.
The object of the prolonged hilarity will sound so stupid and distracting that I hesitate to mention this vital fact at all, as it certainly won’t sound funny.
We were watching a show that in part featured a gaggle of aging hippies, spiritualist and new-agers involved in a bout of individual experimentation expressed in the form of tribal dancing. This of course took place in a nicely lit dance studio to the beat of tribal congas. Their arms flailed and legs jimmied about. They danced as if they had been overcome by either the Spirit of the Goddess or perhaps some sort of hallucinogen. One middle-aged man bounced up and down with his eyes closed and an open-mouthed smile while making motions with his hands like a basketball referee calls traveling. These people were certainly possessed by something more than a conga drum, I thought.
The cameras were mostly trained on one person, the focus of the show. But there was another man, a gray and balding fellow in baby blue linen pants and no shoes. Never quite the focal point, he would shuffle in and about the screen performing a variety of free-form movements.
One of these jigs caught us both as quite humorous, Erin in particular.
Before I go further I have to explain something for those of you not familiar with Erin's laughing habits. Erin is generally a happy and content person (a student once asked her how she was able to smile all the time). We laugh at things consistently but the laughs are not always audible and seldom last longer than your standard ha-ha. This is to say that Erin is not a giggler and does not laugh at everything all the time.
Using our digital video recording device, we re-watched the footage of the dancing man. Once. Twice. We both laugh at equal intensities. Four times. Erin is laughing harder than me. Six times. It's clear things have gotten out of hand. Eight times. I am laughing at her laughing.
As we continue to watch the man dancing on a loop, Erin's laughter begins to sound like uncontrollable wailing, like that of a mother who had just buried her young fraternal twins. I begin to wonder if something evil has overtaken her body or is at least tickling her relentlessly. I get off the couch to look out the window but more just to make sure my eternal wellbeing is not hijacked.
I start to look away in horror, glancing back every now and then to notice her face is pained, almost pleading for something to make it all stop.
Just when I thought it was over, there would be silence before the sound of tribal congas started again and Erin would go back into an uncontrollable release.
I contemplated if I needed to take action. Should I call 911? The cops? Perform the Heimlich maneuver? I began to wonder if her wailing laughter might never stop, becoming a permanent part of our lives.
The experience reminded me of the phrase “A fit of laughter” so I decided to look the word “fit” up in the dictionary. It was defined as “A sudden, violent appearance of a disease.” It used as an example the phrase “A fit of malaria.” Perhaps Erin did take on a fit of malaria, presumably after being bitten by a very humorous mosquito.
Of course the laughing did finally stop after 12 viewings, possibly more. But it made me think about spells of uncontainable laughter.
It’s not so much that the object of your laughing is so funny – whether it is a home video, a friend’s anecdote or a new age dancer on TV. You think about it an hour later and say “OK it wasn’t THAT funny.” Rather, there must be something in our brains that simply triggers an emotional release, seizing the opportunity to dump some pent-up tension, much like when people find themselves literally sobbing unforgettably over spilled milk.
The new-agers on TV were taking part in tribal dancing as a form of self expression but mainly as a release of emotional and bodily tension, to free themselves of life’s stresses and anxieties. I guess Erin was doing the same.
I saw Erin laugh so hard last night that I became frightened and mildly concerned for her safety.
The object of the prolonged hilarity will sound so stupid and distracting that I hesitate to mention this vital fact at all, as it certainly won’t sound funny.
We were watching a show that in part featured a gaggle of aging hippies, spiritualist and new-agers involved in a bout of individual experimentation expressed in the form of tribal dancing. This of course took place in a nicely lit dance studio to the beat of tribal congas. Their arms flailed and legs jimmied about. They danced as if they had been overcome by either the Spirit of the Goddess or perhaps some sort of hallucinogen. One middle-aged man bounced up and down with his eyes closed and an open-mouthed smile while making motions with his hands like a basketball referee calls traveling. These people were certainly possessed by something more than a conga drum, I thought.
The cameras were mostly trained on one person, the focus of the show. But there was another man, a gray and balding fellow in baby blue linen pants and no shoes. Never quite the focal point, he would shuffle in and about the screen performing a variety of free-form movements.
One of these jigs caught us both as quite humorous, Erin in particular.
Before I go further I have to explain something for those of you not familiar with Erin's laughing habits. Erin is generally a happy and content person (a student once asked her how she was able to smile all the time). We laugh at things consistently but the laughs are not always audible and seldom last longer than your standard ha-ha. This is to say that Erin is not a giggler and does not laugh at everything all the time.
Using our digital video recording device, we re-watched the footage of the dancing man. Once. Twice. We both laugh at equal intensities. Four times. Erin is laughing harder than me. Six times. It's clear things have gotten out of hand. Eight times. I am laughing at her laughing.
As we continue to watch the man dancing on a loop, Erin's laughter begins to sound like uncontrollable wailing, like that of a mother who had just buried her young fraternal twins. I begin to wonder if something evil has overtaken her body or is at least tickling her relentlessly. I get off the couch to look out the window but more just to make sure my eternal wellbeing is not hijacked.
I start to look away in horror, glancing back every now and then to notice her face is pained, almost pleading for something to make it all stop.
Just when I thought it was over, there would be silence before the sound of tribal congas started again and Erin would go back into an uncontrollable release.
I contemplated if I needed to take action. Should I call 911? The cops? Perform the Heimlich maneuver? I began to wonder if her wailing laughter might never stop, becoming a permanent part of our lives.
The experience reminded me of the phrase “A fit of laughter” so I decided to look the word “fit” up in the dictionary. It was defined as “A sudden, violent appearance of a disease.” It used as an example the phrase “A fit of malaria.” Perhaps Erin did take on a fit of malaria, presumably after being bitten by a very humorous mosquito.
Of course the laughing did finally stop after 12 viewings, possibly more. But it made me think about spells of uncontainable laughter.
It’s not so much that the object of your laughing is so funny – whether it is a home video, a friend’s anecdote or a new age dancer on TV. You think about it an hour later and say “OK it wasn’t THAT funny.” Rather, there must be something in our brains that simply triggers an emotional release, seizing the opportunity to dump some pent-up tension, much like when people find themselves literally sobbing unforgettably over spilled milk.
The new-agers on TV were taking part in tribal dancing as a form of self expression but mainly as a release of emotional and bodily tension, to free themselves of life’s stresses and anxieties. I guess Erin was doing the same.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
S'mores: Our country's most overrated delight
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 6 seconds
In a moment of spontaneity last week, Erin suggested we make s'mores. We already had the chocolate bars and were heading to the grocery store anyway, where a bounty of graham crackers and marshmallows surely awaited.
Just the thought of s'mores makes my mouth yearn for the rich, creamy gooeyness of roasted marshmallows soulfully uniting with smooth milk chocolate sandwiched between two crisp graham crackers. And that's precisely the problem I have. S'mores sound so good, so perfect and so tempting. It’s exactly what makes them the most overrated food in the United States.
Once you go to the trouble of making s'mores you tell yourself that you will never do it again.
Here's why:
· For starters, you have to build a fire. What a pain. (Without firewood or an appropriate fire grate in our backyard, we actually ignited our gas grill and took it from there. What idiots we are).
· Usually made outdoors where tables are often nowhere to be found, you find yourself – likely in the dark – fumbling around with loose graham crackers, chocolate, wrappers and piping-hot marshmallows, all near an open flame. Not the safety I like to see in childrens' food.
· Once the s'more is assembled, what you thought would be a warm sensation turns out to consist of chilled graham crackers, cold chocolate and a marshmallow that despite being engulfed in flames three seconds prior is still hard and cool in the center.
· Upon your first bite, the marshmallow oozes out the side onto you hands and half of the graham cracker crumbles onto the ground. The other half crumbles onto your shirt.
· Even with your enthusiasm, you are only able to eat two s'mores because they are so sweet. This leaves you with an entire box of graham crackers, a giant bag of giant marshmallows and a bucket of candy bars – loads of food items that you bought specifically for this event and will never use again.
Despite these things, s'mores enjoy a delightful reputation. Talk about s'mores and people light up, reminiscing about camping trips and other s'mores' stereotypes. There are s'mores that come ready-made as cookies, Häagen-Dazs makes s'mores ice cream and Hershey's puts out a s'mores candy bar, just to name a few.
The marshmallow package even features a picture of a s'more because they know just the sight of s'mores will get people to buy a pillow-sized package of marshmallows they wouldn’t buy otherwise (the marshmallows were grouped in a wink-wink section that included graham crackers and chocolate bars, not uncommon in supermarkets across the country).
I think it's time everyone revisit and reevaluate their feelings on s'mores. For such an impractical treat, s'mores have been over-hyped and overexposed for too long.
In a moment of spontaneity last week, Erin suggested we make s'mores. We already had the chocolate bars and were heading to the grocery store anyway, where a bounty of graham crackers and marshmallows surely awaited.
Just the thought of s'mores makes my mouth yearn for the rich, creamy gooeyness of roasted marshmallows soulfully uniting with smooth milk chocolate sandwiched between two crisp graham crackers. And that's precisely the problem I have. S'mores sound so good, so perfect and so tempting. It’s exactly what makes them the most overrated food in the United States.
Once you go to the trouble of making s'mores you tell yourself that you will never do it again.
Here's why:
· For starters, you have to build a fire. What a pain. (Without firewood or an appropriate fire grate in our backyard, we actually ignited our gas grill and took it from there. What idiots we are).
· Usually made outdoors where tables are often nowhere to be found, you find yourself – likely in the dark – fumbling around with loose graham crackers, chocolate, wrappers and piping-hot marshmallows, all near an open flame. Not the safety I like to see in childrens' food.
· Once the s'more is assembled, what you thought would be a warm sensation turns out to consist of chilled graham crackers, cold chocolate and a marshmallow that despite being engulfed in flames three seconds prior is still hard and cool in the center.
· Upon your first bite, the marshmallow oozes out the side onto you hands and half of the graham cracker crumbles onto the ground. The other half crumbles onto your shirt.
· Even with your enthusiasm, you are only able to eat two s'mores because they are so sweet. This leaves you with an entire box of graham crackers, a giant bag of giant marshmallows and a bucket of candy bars – loads of food items that you bought specifically for this event and will never use again.
Despite these things, s'mores enjoy a delightful reputation. Talk about s'mores and people light up, reminiscing about camping trips and other s'mores' stereotypes. There are s'mores that come ready-made as cookies, Häagen-Dazs makes s'mores ice cream and Hershey's puts out a s'mores candy bar, just to name a few.
The marshmallow package even features a picture of a s'more because they know just the sight of s'mores will get people to buy a pillow-sized package of marshmallows they wouldn’t buy otherwise (the marshmallows were grouped in a wink-wink section that included graham crackers and chocolate bars, not uncommon in supermarkets across the country).
I think it's time everyone revisit and reevaluate their feelings on s'mores. For such an impractical treat, s'mores have been over-hyped and overexposed for too long.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Who doesn't love deviled eggs?
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 42 seconds
A barbecue over the weekend reminded of a food that immediately went to the top of my list of Most Underrated Foods: Deviled eggs.
Give me one example of a potluck or barbecue where the plate of deviled eggs wasn’t the first thing to go. While one person will take a spoonful of baked beans but skip the au gratin potatoes, the next person will take some au gratin and skip the baked beans. But they will both take a deviled egg.
People love these things. They shuffle through the line and if there are any deviled eggs left, people will take at least one but likely two or three without thinking.
We eat them in two bites, remark how we love deviled eggs and how we haven’t had them in a while and then somehow forget about them until our next potluck.
This left me scratching my head. Clearly everyone loves deviled eggs. Why aren’t deviled eggs everywhere? Why aren’t deviled eggs in the pre-made food section in the deli of your neighborhood grocer or listed anywhere on anyone’s list of favorite foods? Why aren’t deviled eggs included at all-you-can-eat buffets or featured on appetizer menus? Tell me you wouldn’t order that.
Why does it take a get-together meal for people to make deviled eggs? You might say it’s because they’re difficult and time-consuming to make. And you’d be wrong. Sure it takes 20 minutes of foresight to boil the eggs but once the eggs are boiled, it takes 10 minutes tops. Prove me wrong. Take three deviled eggs in your lunch today.
If they were sitting in front of me right now, I think I would eat at least eight deviled eggs. I bet you would too.
Up next: One of the most overrated foods in the United States
A barbecue over the weekend reminded of a food that immediately went to the top of my list of Most Underrated Foods: Deviled eggs.
Give me one example of a potluck or barbecue where the plate of deviled eggs wasn’t the first thing to go. While one person will take a spoonful of baked beans but skip the au gratin potatoes, the next person will take some au gratin and skip the baked beans. But they will both take a deviled egg.
People love these things. They shuffle through the line and if there are any deviled eggs left, people will take at least one but likely two or three without thinking.
We eat them in two bites, remark how we love deviled eggs and how we haven’t had them in a while and then somehow forget about them until our next potluck.
This left me scratching my head. Clearly everyone loves deviled eggs. Why aren’t deviled eggs everywhere? Why aren’t deviled eggs in the pre-made food section in the deli of your neighborhood grocer or listed anywhere on anyone’s list of favorite foods? Why aren’t deviled eggs included at all-you-can-eat buffets or featured on appetizer menus? Tell me you wouldn’t order that.
Why does it take a get-together meal for people to make deviled eggs? You might say it’s because they’re difficult and time-consuming to make. And you’d be wrong. Sure it takes 20 minutes of foresight to boil the eggs but once the eggs are boiled, it takes 10 minutes tops. Prove me wrong. Take three deviled eggs in your lunch today.
If they were sitting in front of me right now, I think I would eat at least eight deviled eggs. I bet you would too.
Up next: One of the most overrated foods in the United States
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
How did it get to this point?
This blog entry is a comment on the previous blog entry regarding a ridiculous catalogue for baby merchandise I received in the mail. So I might be useful to scroll down to read that first . . .but I don’t want to tell you what to do or anything.
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 35 seconds
On the surface it appears that modern parents are into their kids more than ever, placing their children’s happiness and safety on a very high level.
At first glance, this catalogue seems to be all about kids and all about helping parents in their desire to keep them happy and safe. But I would argue that this catalogue enables parents to do just the opposite.
Items like crib nets and bars over windows allow parents to believe that they’ve insulated their children from danger. With an easy purchase they can eliminate any perceived threat they can think of.
Instead of supervising their children, parents can more easily buy supervision. They can cover appliances in plastic or mesh, install gates and bars on the entrances and exit of each room and secure every cabinet with a lock. Parents can check one more thing off that they don’t have to worry about. The line between a parent’s peace of mind and the safety of the child is blurred. Who is the boxed-in outlet cover for, the child or the “responsible” parent? (I won’t even discuss parents who surely buy these products just to keep up with others. Imagine being the only parent who doesn’t have rubber bumpers on all your table edges!)
Products like fire ladders, helmets and special crib blankets aren’t as much about child safety as much as they are for parent anxiety. They create the appearance that their children are safe when, in fact, their children were safe all along. The question isn’t the number of children who have died in house fires. The question is the number of children that have not died in house fires because their parents bought some sort of fire-safety device. That comparison, I’m sure, would not be promoted by the manufacturers of these products.
In addition to satisfying their safety obsessions, the catalogue also supplies parents with the necessities to keep children constantly occupied.
Kids have become conditioned to the need to be busy and entertained continuously. That’s why 3-year-olds have their own TVs and DVD players and 5-year-olds are playing hand-held video games at the Olive Garden. Meanwhile, parents outfit the back seats of the car with cup holders, TV screens and coloring tables. And, as the catalogue showed, they turn their bathtubs into delightfully colorful playpens full of toys, games and other gadgets to make routine bathing fun, interesting and engaging.
Am I suggesting that some of these products are not useful or in some cases necessary? No. I think many people create an environment that they deem secure, comfortable and entertaining and too often stop there, thinking they have provided as much as any parent could.
Do I think all safety and caution should be set aside? No. But we’ve gone thousands of years without nets on our cribs and helmets for our babies. What has changed?
Do I think parents should refrain from buying a few items to make their lives a little easier? Not really. But when you are carrying around a padded, foldable toilet seat cushion for your kid, just take a minute and try to remember how it got to that point.
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 35 seconds
On the surface it appears that modern parents are into their kids more than ever, placing their children’s happiness and safety on a very high level.
At first glance, this catalogue seems to be all about kids and all about helping parents in their desire to keep them happy and safe. But I would argue that this catalogue enables parents to do just the opposite.
Items like crib nets and bars over windows allow parents to believe that they’ve insulated their children from danger. With an easy purchase they can eliminate any perceived threat they can think of.
Instead of supervising their children, parents can more easily buy supervision. They can cover appliances in plastic or mesh, install gates and bars on the entrances and exit of each room and secure every cabinet with a lock. Parents can check one more thing off that they don’t have to worry about. The line between a parent’s peace of mind and the safety of the child is blurred. Who is the boxed-in outlet cover for, the child or the “responsible” parent? (I won’t even discuss parents who surely buy these products just to keep up with others. Imagine being the only parent who doesn’t have rubber bumpers on all your table edges!)
Products like fire ladders, helmets and special crib blankets aren’t as much about child safety as much as they are for parent anxiety. They create the appearance that their children are safe when, in fact, their children were safe all along. The question isn’t the number of children who have died in house fires. The question is the number of children that have not died in house fires because their parents bought some sort of fire-safety device. That comparison, I’m sure, would not be promoted by the manufacturers of these products.
In addition to satisfying their safety obsessions, the catalogue also supplies parents with the necessities to keep children constantly occupied.
Kids have become conditioned to the need to be busy and entertained continuously. That’s why 3-year-olds have their own TVs and DVD players and 5-year-olds are playing hand-held video games at the Olive Garden. Meanwhile, parents outfit the back seats of the car with cup holders, TV screens and coloring tables. And, as the catalogue showed, they turn their bathtubs into delightfully colorful playpens full of toys, games and other gadgets to make routine bathing fun, interesting and engaging.
Am I suggesting that some of these products are not useful or in some cases necessary? No. I think many people create an environment that they deem secure, comfortable and entertaining and too often stop there, thinking they have provided as much as any parent could.
Do I think all safety and caution should be set aside? No. But we’ve gone thousands of years without nets on our cribs and helmets for our babies. What has changed?
Do I think parents should refrain from buying a few items to make their lives a little easier? Not really. But when you are carrying around a padded, foldable toilet seat cushion for your kid, just take a minute and try to remember how it got to that point.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
You have got to be kidding
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes, 42 seconds
Yesterday, I got a glimpse into a world of which I am not a part of. That world is the one of children and parenting and it came in the form of a catalogue I received innocently in the mail.
Recently moved in to a new house, we have discovered that the postal service will forward a lot of mail to a new address. Something it won’t forward, however, is catalogues. Those are stubbornly shipped to the same address relentlessly, regardless who lives at the residency (us) or who had the initial interest in, say, expensive mail-order fruit (the people who lived here before).
One of the catalogues that came with our house is called One Step Ahead: Thoughtfully Selected Products To Help With Baby . . . Every Step Of The Way.
Its cover features freaking adorable toddlers put into crap-your-pants cute Halloween costumes against their will. Although constrained in a scarecrow costume and pumpkin suit and sitting on a scratchy bail of hay, the two youngsters seem to be having a wonderful time. (I won’t even get into the other photo on the cover that features a kid in a penguin suit. What’s remarkable is the real penguin in the photo’s foreground, making it appear like the kid was dropped into the penguin house at the zoo. Now that would be a reason to smile.)
Also included on the cover is the National Parenting Center Seal of Approval to give the catalogue some official clout.
The first few pages were unremarkable – more Halloween costumes, strollers and stroller accessories, blocks, bookshelves and various devices to lug kids around in. (Let me say this. Until your kid is old enough to express an interest in Halloween – the ability to talk should be one requirement – putting them in a costume should be treated the same in society as dressing up your pets. That is to say, it should be mocked and ridiculed.)
Three-quarters through the catalogue, in the section titled Safety was when things got ridiculous. It was a picture of a baby crawling on a floor wearing a large bulbous, diaper-looking helmet. The level of sheer absurdity and parental nonsense that allowed this helmet to exist nearly made me strangle myself dead.
Judging by this catalogue, undoubtedly profitable and sent to thousands of households, there are many parents who, on the surface, seem to be obsessed and fanatical with their children’s safety and the perceived dangers they face.
The safety products sorted out into four main categories:
1. Coverings for household items to prevent kids from curiously jamming fingers, heads or limbs into or through dangerous objects.
Items included:
· Computer box cover
· TV button cover
· DVD player cover
· Power strip cover
· Stove shield
· Individual oven knob shields
· Bundled cords tube
· Loose cord tube
· A lock for the controls on the blinds
· Doorknob deactivating shield
· Toilet paper roll clamp
· spring-loaded outlet protector
Item that took it too far: If the spring-loaded outlet protector wasn’t enough, there is a plastic box that covers the entire outlet and the plugs going to the wall, leaving nothing to chance (Grown adults can’t even figure out how to plug or unplug anything!)
2. Barriers
Items included:
· steel white bars to place in a window (He’ll never play Superman again!)
· plastic to put over the banister rails
· mesh to put over the deck rails
· steel gates
· retractable gates
· foldable mesh gates
· fire place gates
· pressure-mount gates
· gates to match your oak woodwork
· gates to section off entire expansive living spaces
Item that took it too far: The shopping cart cover, a padded donut three feet in diameter that is harnessed around a sitting child. The disc creates a 360-degree area that is soft, empty, and germ-free where the kid cannot touch or put his fingers on or through anything dangerous or dirty. From the looks of it, he won’t be able to move at all, save for his arms and perhaps maybe some light neck stretching. Who knew that shopping carts were such dirty safety hazards?
3. Locks, locks and . . . locks
Items included:
· magnetic locks
· screw-less self-adhesive locks
· toilet locks
· a lock for cabinet knobs (looks and works like The Club on a car)
· A harness that keeps baby strapped into the shopping cart (doubles as a leash to keep baby tethered in the event baby is let out of shopping cart)
· security straps that lock corner cabinets
· oven door locks
· For that one cabinet that your kid can still open herself, there’s a wedge to put by the hinges so her curious hands won’t get crushed.
Item that took it too far: A device to keep that pesky dresser locked against the wall so it won’t fall on the unsupervised toddler who uses the open drawers as steps.
4. Products that scare their way into your home
Items included:
· Mesh feeder to place food in so your baby doesn’t choke on fresh produce, “invented by a dad whose baby nearly died choking on a biscuit,” the catalogue touts.
· Extra-wide sun canopy for your stroller. “Careful: most stroller canopies still leave some tender skin exposed! Don’t take chances,” it explains.
· The crib blanket that looks like a combination of a vest and a sleeping bag that “eliminates the danger of loose crib blankets, which can deprive baby of fresh air – a suspected cause of SIDS,” warns the catalogue. The stay-put blanket is endorsed by Fist Candle/SIDS Alliance and is flame retardant, according to the catalogue. (I think the only retardant thing here is the fact that people see this item as a necessity.)
· The memory foam “sleep positioner” that elevates a baby’s head to prevent plagiocephaly and acid reflux. (No Tums in the house?)
· A mesh bumper that lines a crib’s interior so no limbs can protrude from the death trap. There’s also the mesh tent to fit over the crib to thwart any escape attempts. I was under the assumption the point of crib was to keep the baby from rolling or crawling off to its doom while sleeping or being confined for other reasons. Thus the bars.
Item that took it too far: The aluminum and plastic fire ladder that is unrolled and lowered out the window in case of emergency. (The ladder is so lightweight and simple, even a 3-year-old can remember how to finagle this thing as flames and smoke consume his Pooh-themed room.)
For parents who not only deem safety No. 1 but also like to woefully coddle their children and shower them with frivolous creature comfort, the catalogue had plenty to offer. I implore parents who submit to these products to plainly admit that their lives and their households are fervently controlled by their kids.
Items included:
· A foldable, portable toilet “perfect for road trips!” Also the padded, foldable toilet seat cushion to place over hard, filthy, urine-stained toilet seats when your child must pee-pee away from their cushy home potty.
· As booster seats and high chairs at restaurants become woefully unacceptable, now there is a portable table chair that hooks onto any table. The chair is fully padded from top to bottom and “supports baby’s spine, head and neck.” There’s also the more simple Cooshie Booster that is billed as “soft, comfy and downright calming.”
· A tray to fasten into the car seat or stroller that provides a wide, flat surface, a cup holder and a tray for crayons.
· A stroller that offers toddlers the choice to either ride comfortably under the cover or stand up at the back while being pushed. Oh what choice!
· The lawn chair that straps to the back of luggage for the one time a stroller is inaccessible and walking is completely out of the question.
· According to the catalogue, car booster seats leave your child’s small legs dangling, causing poor circulation and numbness. For the frightened parent who likes to coddle their child as well, there’s the footrest that doubles as table that makes “your child’s booster feel like an easy chair.” If only it would make them shut up too?
· The alternative booster seat that the magazine titles “The Booster For Kids Who Hate Boosters. It’s roomier, it’s extra cushy” No further explanation needed.
Item that took it too far: The grotesque bath setup that includes a 56-piece magnetic number and letter set to place all over the tiled tub wall, a padded fish to cover that hard and ugly tub fixture, a plastic drain valve cover to protect against pinching and curious fingers, a basket that hangs across the tub for toys, a mesh net that suctions to the side of the tub wall for extra tub toys, a suctioning mirror with tray for still further toys, an organizer for the bathroom corner to house all the bathtub toys your kid forgot he had and a pitcher that shields baby’s eyes from suds while rinsing shampoo from baby’s hair (“Keep your eyes shut!” has grown ineffective).
I say people should just put their kids in giant padded hamster balls so that they do not risk touching anything or falling anywhere. And who knows, maybe they’ll make the balls sound proof.
Coming tomorrow: I get serious and try to figure out why this catalogue exists.
Yesterday, I got a glimpse into a world of which I am not a part of. That world is the one of children and parenting and it came in the form of a catalogue I received innocently in the mail.
Recently moved in to a new house, we have discovered that the postal service will forward a lot of mail to a new address. Something it won’t forward, however, is catalogues. Those are stubbornly shipped to the same address relentlessly, regardless who lives at the residency (us) or who had the initial interest in, say, expensive mail-order fruit (the people who lived here before).
One of the catalogues that came with our house is called One Step Ahead: Thoughtfully Selected Products To Help With Baby . . . Every Step Of The Way.
Its cover features freaking adorable toddlers put into crap-your-pants cute Halloween costumes against their will. Although constrained in a scarecrow costume and pumpkin suit and sitting on a scratchy bail of hay, the two youngsters seem to be having a wonderful time. (I won’t even get into the other photo on the cover that features a kid in a penguin suit. What’s remarkable is the real penguin in the photo’s foreground, making it appear like the kid was dropped into the penguin house at the zoo. Now that would be a reason to smile.)
Also included on the cover is the National Parenting Center Seal of Approval to give the catalogue some official clout.
The first few pages were unremarkable – more Halloween costumes, strollers and stroller accessories, blocks, bookshelves and various devices to lug kids around in. (Let me say this. Until your kid is old enough to express an interest in Halloween – the ability to talk should be one requirement – putting them in a costume should be treated the same in society as dressing up your pets. That is to say, it should be mocked and ridiculed.)
Three-quarters through the catalogue, in the section titled Safety was when things got ridiculous. It was a picture of a baby crawling on a floor wearing a large bulbous, diaper-looking helmet. The level of sheer absurdity and parental nonsense that allowed this helmet to exist nearly made me strangle myself dead.
Judging by this catalogue, undoubtedly profitable and sent to thousands of households, there are many parents who, on the surface, seem to be obsessed and fanatical with their children’s safety and the perceived dangers they face.
The safety products sorted out into four main categories:
1. Coverings for household items to prevent kids from curiously jamming fingers, heads or limbs into or through dangerous objects.
Items included:
· Computer box cover
· TV button cover
· DVD player cover
· Power strip cover
· Stove shield
· Individual oven knob shields
· Bundled cords tube
· Loose cord tube
· A lock for the controls on the blinds
· Doorknob deactivating shield
· Toilet paper roll clamp
· spring-loaded outlet protector
Item that took it too far: If the spring-loaded outlet protector wasn’t enough, there is a plastic box that covers the entire outlet and the plugs going to the wall, leaving nothing to chance (Grown adults can’t even figure out how to plug or unplug anything!)
2. Barriers
Items included:
· steel white bars to place in a window (He’ll never play Superman again!)
· plastic to put over the banister rails
· mesh to put over the deck rails
· steel gates
· retractable gates
· foldable mesh gates
· fire place gates
· pressure-mount gates
· gates to match your oak woodwork
· gates to section off entire expansive living spaces
Item that took it too far: The shopping cart cover, a padded donut three feet in diameter that is harnessed around a sitting child. The disc creates a 360-degree area that is soft, empty, and germ-free where the kid cannot touch or put his fingers on or through anything dangerous or dirty. From the looks of it, he won’t be able to move at all, save for his arms and perhaps maybe some light neck stretching. Who knew that shopping carts were such dirty safety hazards?
3. Locks, locks and . . . locks
Items included:
· magnetic locks
· screw-less self-adhesive locks
· toilet locks
· a lock for cabinet knobs (looks and works like The Club on a car)
· A harness that keeps baby strapped into the shopping cart (doubles as a leash to keep baby tethered in the event baby is let out of shopping cart)
· security straps that lock corner cabinets
· oven door locks
· For that one cabinet that your kid can still open herself, there’s a wedge to put by the hinges so her curious hands won’t get crushed.
Item that took it too far: A device to keep that pesky dresser locked against the wall so it won’t fall on the unsupervised toddler who uses the open drawers as steps.
4. Products that scare their way into your home
Items included:
· Mesh feeder to place food in so your baby doesn’t choke on fresh produce, “invented by a dad whose baby nearly died choking on a biscuit,” the catalogue touts.
· Extra-wide sun canopy for your stroller. “Careful: most stroller canopies still leave some tender skin exposed! Don’t take chances,” it explains.
· The crib blanket that looks like a combination of a vest and a sleeping bag that “eliminates the danger of loose crib blankets, which can deprive baby of fresh air – a suspected cause of SIDS,” warns the catalogue. The stay-put blanket is endorsed by Fist Candle/SIDS Alliance and is flame retardant, according to the catalogue. (I think the only retardant thing here is the fact that people see this item as a necessity.)
· The memory foam “sleep positioner” that elevates a baby’s head to prevent plagiocephaly and acid reflux. (No Tums in the house?)
· A mesh bumper that lines a crib’s interior so no limbs can protrude from the death trap. There’s also the mesh tent to fit over the crib to thwart any escape attempts. I was under the assumption the point of crib was to keep the baby from rolling or crawling off to its doom while sleeping or being confined for other reasons. Thus the bars.
Item that took it too far: The aluminum and plastic fire ladder that is unrolled and lowered out the window in case of emergency. (The ladder is so lightweight and simple, even a 3-year-old can remember how to finagle this thing as flames and smoke consume his Pooh-themed room.)
For parents who not only deem safety No. 1 but also like to woefully coddle their children and shower them with frivolous creature comfort, the catalogue had plenty to offer. I implore parents who submit to these products to plainly admit that their lives and their households are fervently controlled by their kids.
Items included:
· A foldable, portable toilet “perfect for road trips!” Also the padded, foldable toilet seat cushion to place over hard, filthy, urine-stained toilet seats when your child must pee-pee away from their cushy home potty.
· As booster seats and high chairs at restaurants become woefully unacceptable, now there is a portable table chair that hooks onto any table. The chair is fully padded from top to bottom and “supports baby’s spine, head and neck.” There’s also the more simple Cooshie Booster that is billed as “soft, comfy and downright calming.”
· A tray to fasten into the car seat or stroller that provides a wide, flat surface, a cup holder and a tray for crayons.
· A stroller that offers toddlers the choice to either ride comfortably under the cover or stand up at the back while being pushed. Oh what choice!
· The lawn chair that straps to the back of luggage for the one time a stroller is inaccessible and walking is completely out of the question.
· According to the catalogue, car booster seats leave your child’s small legs dangling, causing poor circulation and numbness. For the frightened parent who likes to coddle their child as well, there’s the footrest that doubles as table that makes “your child’s booster feel like an easy chair.” If only it would make them shut up too?
· The alternative booster seat that the magazine titles “The Booster For Kids Who Hate Boosters. It’s roomier, it’s extra cushy” No further explanation needed.
Item that took it too far: The grotesque bath setup that includes a 56-piece magnetic number and letter set to place all over the tiled tub wall, a padded fish to cover that hard and ugly tub fixture, a plastic drain valve cover to protect against pinching and curious fingers, a basket that hangs across the tub for toys, a mesh net that suctions to the side of the tub wall for extra tub toys, a suctioning mirror with tray for still further toys, an organizer for the bathroom corner to house all the bathtub toys your kid forgot he had and a pitcher that shields baby’s eyes from suds while rinsing shampoo from baby’s hair (“Keep your eyes shut!” has grown ineffective).
I say people should just put their kids in giant padded hamster balls so that they do not risk touching anything or falling anywhere. And who knows, maybe they’ll make the balls sound proof.
Coming tomorrow: I get serious and try to figure out why this catalogue exists.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
A Face That Will Make Me Happy
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 56 seconds
I've been fairly disappointed with my facial expressions lately.
People have always compared my neutral, most natural look to that of a disgruntled, out-of-work mailman.
"What's wrong with you?" a co-worker inquires.
But in the end I can only give them the disappointing answer of "Unfortunately, this is how I look."
Over the years I have learned to deal with this.
Lately, however, the pressing concern regarding my facial expressions has been the face I use to friendly greet passing strangers in the hall at work or similar situations that call for mildly cordial behavior.
The last thing I want to do when acknowledging people is try to appear casually pleasant but come off as the type of guy who would “accidentally” rub into unsuspecting strangers on public transportation. That’s why when I pass someone, I feel like an intense, open-mouth toothy grin is not only too much work but risks being taken as creepy.
I don’t want to overdo it so I end up underdoing it. My unexpressive “friendly” face comes off as a smirk at best, a snub at worst. Ultimately I settle for this goofy, weird concoction where I pull the corners of my mouth apart, undoubtedly making me look like a meek toddler who has just pee-peed himself. Talk about creepy.
Erin suggested I just say “Hi” to everyone I pass and a smirky smile wouldn’t be the focal point. This sounded like a great idea. The first person I passed that day at work I addressed with a firm yet cheerful hello. I was mildly impressed with the results but promptly forgot to do it for the second person. My quick abandonment of the “Hello” plan didn’t occur to me until I was working on my “friendly” face in the mirror when I got home.
I’ve also had some concerns over my face and how well it indicates amusement during a humorous story someone might be telling me.
Let’s say Erin tells me a story that is funny enough to be mildly amusing but not funny enough to mandate a full smile or slight guffaw. I don’t have the appropriate face for this situation. Even though I might be amused and am trying to form a half-smile at least, it feels as though my face does not respond. And any level of fraudulence in a smile is not only strictly out of the question, most of the time it is physiologically impossible.
I thought about setting up a system with Erin where I would verbally disclose my level of amusement on a scale of one to 10. In the middle of her story I would respond by nodding my head, saying “6, 6” or “uh-huh, 7.5.”
Maybe the answer lies in just making whatever face feels natural to me in any given situation. If the person on the receiving end of my expression doesn’t like it, too bad.
But for now, I’ll be spending some more time in the mirror, in search of a face that will make us all happy.
I've been fairly disappointed with my facial expressions lately.
People have always compared my neutral, most natural look to that of a disgruntled, out-of-work mailman.
"What's wrong with you?" a co-worker inquires.
But in the end I can only give them the disappointing answer of "Unfortunately, this is how I look."
Over the years I have learned to deal with this.
Lately, however, the pressing concern regarding my facial expressions has been the face I use to friendly greet passing strangers in the hall at work or similar situations that call for mildly cordial behavior.
The last thing I want to do when acknowledging people is try to appear casually pleasant but come off as the type of guy who would “accidentally” rub into unsuspecting strangers on public transportation. That’s why when I pass someone, I feel like an intense, open-mouth toothy grin is not only too much work but risks being taken as creepy.
I don’t want to overdo it so I end up underdoing it. My unexpressive “friendly” face comes off as a smirk at best, a snub at worst. Ultimately I settle for this goofy, weird concoction where I pull the corners of my mouth apart, undoubtedly making me look like a meek toddler who has just pee-peed himself. Talk about creepy.
Erin suggested I just say “Hi” to everyone I pass and a smirky smile wouldn’t be the focal point. This sounded like a great idea. The first person I passed that day at work I addressed with a firm yet cheerful hello. I was mildly impressed with the results but promptly forgot to do it for the second person. My quick abandonment of the “Hello” plan didn’t occur to me until I was working on my “friendly” face in the mirror when I got home.
I’ve also had some concerns over my face and how well it indicates amusement during a humorous story someone might be telling me.
Let’s say Erin tells me a story that is funny enough to be mildly amusing but not funny enough to mandate a full smile or slight guffaw. I don’t have the appropriate face for this situation. Even though I might be amused and am trying to form a half-smile at least, it feels as though my face does not respond. And any level of fraudulence in a smile is not only strictly out of the question, most of the time it is physiologically impossible.
I thought about setting up a system with Erin where I would verbally disclose my level of amusement on a scale of one to 10. In the middle of her story I would respond by nodding my head, saying “6, 6” or “uh-huh, 7.5.”
Maybe the answer lies in just making whatever face feels natural to me in any given situation. If the person on the receiving end of my expression doesn’t like it, too bad.
But for now, I’ll be spending some more time in the mirror, in search of a face that will make us all happy.
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Three thoughts
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes 47 seconds
I was wondering what the media’s obsession was with tacking on the words “full-blown” when discussing AIDS.
I questioned how AIDS got saddled with this modifier and if there is such a thing as partial AIDS or half-blown AIDS?
A Google search for “full-blown AIDS” returns 808,000 hits from sites such as the New York Times, the Advocate, BBC, NPR among countless others. What’s the deal? I thought.
Well, as I strolled through my Google search, I discovered this definition from scienceclarified.com:
Full-blown AIDS: The stage of HIV infection in which the immune system is so damaged that it can no longer fight off disease.
OK so perhaps full-blown AIDS is somewhat of an official term.
But given that, the words “full-blown” seem too informal and casual to be associated with a ravaging disease like AIDS.
Situations evolve into full-blown chaos and countries embark in full-blown civil war.
People are full-blown crack addicts and get full-blown drunk. I guess they also get full-blown AIDS.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think corn on the cob should be the official food of the American Dental Association.
It is the only thing in the world that will undoubtedly get me to floss my teeth.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I can understand dialing a wrong number every once in a while. Who hasn’t hit the 9 and the 6 at the same time and for some reason the phone chooses the 9 and not the intended 6?
But ever since we moved to Connecticut and changed our cell phone numbers, Erin has been walloped by a seemingly coordinated attack of wrong numbers.
Possibly the oddest situation to rise from the barrage of mistaken callers are some of the folks who go through and leave messages if Erin doesn’t answer. This despite Erin’s clear and level-headed greeting of Hi, this is Erin. Leave me a message.
Now, if the inaccurate dialer were, say, speeding behind the wheel of a car doing their best not to commit vehicular manslaughter while late for the dentist and all they could muster was a quick Heygivemeacall, that would be one thing.
But some messages are thought out and contain important information. They have gone something like this:
Hi, this is Erin. Leave me a message
“Hi Bob, this is Maxine. I just wanted you to know that my father died. I know that you were very close to him too so I wanted you to know. I wanted you to know that I still love you and that I’m going to Puerto Rico next week. I’ll try to get a hold of you . . .
Or there was this guy:
Hi, this is Erin. Leave me a message
Hey Veronica, it’s Greg. Hey I heard you bought a multi-million dollar house! Uh, I’d like to come by and see it some time. I’ve been thinking about you lately and still really care about you so, uh, give me a call. Bye.
It’s as if these people set aside an hour on a Sunday to sit down and make a pride-eating phone call to a former love while breaking years of silence only to be forced to curb their emotions, quickly compose themselves and ad-lib on the spot into a phone machine.
Someone else’s phone machine at that. If only they knew.
I was wondering what the media’s obsession was with tacking on the words “full-blown” when discussing AIDS.
I questioned how AIDS got saddled with this modifier and if there is such a thing as partial AIDS or half-blown AIDS?
A Google search for “full-blown AIDS” returns 808,000 hits from sites such as the New York Times, the Advocate, BBC, NPR among countless others. What’s the deal? I thought.
Well, as I strolled through my Google search, I discovered this definition from scienceclarified.com:
Full-blown AIDS: The stage of HIV infection in which the immune system is so damaged that it can no longer fight off disease.
OK so perhaps full-blown AIDS is somewhat of an official term.
But given that, the words “full-blown” seem too informal and casual to be associated with a ravaging disease like AIDS.
Situations evolve into full-blown chaos and countries embark in full-blown civil war.
People are full-blown crack addicts and get full-blown drunk. I guess they also get full-blown AIDS.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think corn on the cob should be the official food of the American Dental Association.
It is the only thing in the world that will undoubtedly get me to floss my teeth.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I can understand dialing a wrong number every once in a while. Who hasn’t hit the 9 and the 6 at the same time and for some reason the phone chooses the 9 and not the intended 6?
But ever since we moved to Connecticut and changed our cell phone numbers, Erin has been walloped by a seemingly coordinated attack of wrong numbers.
Possibly the oddest situation to rise from the barrage of mistaken callers are some of the folks who go through and leave messages if Erin doesn’t answer. This despite Erin’s clear and level-headed greeting of Hi, this is Erin. Leave me a message.
Now, if the inaccurate dialer were, say, speeding behind the wheel of a car doing their best not to commit vehicular manslaughter while late for the dentist and all they could muster was a quick Heygivemeacall, that would be one thing.
But some messages are thought out and contain important information. They have gone something like this:
Hi, this is Erin. Leave me a message
“Hi Bob, this is Maxine. I just wanted you to know that my father died. I know that you were very close to him too so I wanted you to know. I wanted you to know that I still love you and that I’m going to Puerto Rico next week. I’ll try to get a hold of you . . .
Or there was this guy:
Hi, this is Erin. Leave me a message
Hey Veronica, it’s Greg. Hey I heard you bought a multi-million dollar house! Uh, I’d like to come by and see it some time. I’ve been thinking about you lately and still really care about you so, uh, give me a call. Bye.
It’s as if these people set aside an hour on a Sunday to sit down and make a pride-eating phone call to a former love while breaking years of silence only to be forced to curb their emotions, quickly compose themselves and ad-lib on the spot into a phone machine.
Someone else’s phone machine at that. If only they knew.
Friday, August 04, 2006
All in the Family Feud
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 36 seconds
I was flipping through the channels when I came across the middle portion of an episode of the (all new) Family Feud.
I mention the flipping part just to emphasize that I do not make a habit of watching game shows. Not even the ones with smart people, like Jeopardy!, hosted by the ambassador of perceived intelligence, Alex Trebek.
(Over the years I’ve come to believe that most game shows offer little more than a distraction, an activity that requires an amount of brain activity comparable to that of a plastic elephant. They are the types of shows that you innocently come across in a bout of boredom. Thirty minutes later you say “What just happened” as you self-loathe from the wasted time and contemplate how you gained nothing from the occasion, experiencing the same feeling you had a week earlier when you ate yourself sick on Krackel and Mr. Goodbars.)
What happened during the Family Feud did nothing to change any feelings I had about game shows.
The category was “Countries Besides the United States that Americans Most Admire.”
The top six answers were on the board. Already guessed correctly when I joined the show were:
1. England
2. Italy
3. Canada
4. France
5. Australia
The first family continued to guess.
“Spain!”
[X]
“China!”
[X]
“Japan!”
[X]
Ooh, soohry, as Alex Trebek might say, his Canadian accent poking slightly through.
As the rules of the Feud demand, it was now the second family’s turn to Steal. The family collaborates on one answer and if that answer is on the board, they win the round. In classic Feud fashion, each family member shouts out what they perceive to be the best answer. It is then the family leader’s ultimate decision on a final answer that he submits to the host.
When the family began shouting answers that I presumed they had discussed during their preceding huddle, I became horrified.
“Name a country besides the United States that Americans most admire,” repeated host Richard Karn, also known as Tim Allen’s dopey, flannel-shirt wearing sidekick from TV’s Home Improvement.
“Africa!” shouted one family member.
Perhaps they mean South Africa? I guessed in bewilderment.
“Europe!” another member of the team yelled.
OK seriously. Please be joking. They were not.
With a tone of confidence, the family’s entrusted leader offered his final answer. He spoke firmly with conviction.
“Europe.”
Host Richard contained his desire to shriek in terror, glancing more than once to the judges to see if the answer would be accepted or if the show would politely and humanely clarify the question, giving the family a chance to pull its name out of the crapper.
Unfortunately, he had to go through the embarrassing motions.
“Show meeeee Europe!”
What was not clear were some of the other answers discussed in the family’s huddle.
Asia and Antarctica, for sure.
I suspect Space and The World were also kicked around. Because, after all, those places are so incredibly admirable.
I was flipping through the channels when I came across the middle portion of an episode of the (all new) Family Feud.
I mention the flipping part just to emphasize that I do not make a habit of watching game shows. Not even the ones with smart people, like Jeopardy!, hosted by the ambassador of perceived intelligence, Alex Trebek.
(Over the years I’ve come to believe that most game shows offer little more than a distraction, an activity that requires an amount of brain activity comparable to that of a plastic elephant. They are the types of shows that you innocently come across in a bout of boredom. Thirty minutes later you say “What just happened” as you self-loathe from the wasted time and contemplate how you gained nothing from the occasion, experiencing the same feeling you had a week earlier when you ate yourself sick on Krackel and Mr. Goodbars.)
What happened during the Family Feud did nothing to change any feelings I had about game shows.
The category was “Countries Besides the United States that Americans Most Admire.”
The top six answers were on the board. Already guessed correctly when I joined the show were:
1. England
2. Italy
3. Canada
4. France
5. Australia
The first family continued to guess.
“Spain!”
[X]
“China!”
[X]
“Japan!”
[X]
Ooh, soohry, as Alex Trebek might say, his Canadian accent poking slightly through.
As the rules of the Feud demand, it was now the second family’s turn to Steal. The family collaborates on one answer and if that answer is on the board, they win the round. In classic Feud fashion, each family member shouts out what they perceive to be the best answer. It is then the family leader’s ultimate decision on a final answer that he submits to the host.
When the family began shouting answers that I presumed they had discussed during their preceding huddle, I became horrified.
“Name a country besides the United States that Americans most admire,” repeated host Richard Karn, also known as Tim Allen’s dopey, flannel-shirt wearing sidekick from TV’s Home Improvement.
“Africa!” shouted one family member.
Perhaps they mean South Africa? I guessed in bewilderment.
“Europe!” another member of the team yelled.
OK seriously. Please be joking. They were not.
With a tone of confidence, the family’s entrusted leader offered his final answer. He spoke firmly with conviction.
“Europe.”
Host Richard contained his desire to shriek in terror, glancing more than once to the judges to see if the answer would be accepted or if the show would politely and humanely clarify the question, giving the family a chance to pull its name out of the crapper.
Unfortunately, he had to go through the embarrassing motions.
“Show meeeee Europe!”
What was not clear were some of the other answers discussed in the family’s huddle.
Asia and Antarctica, for sure.
I suspect Space and The World were also kicked around. Because, after all, those places are so incredibly admirable.
Monday, July 31, 2006
Seeking a celebrity
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 7 seconds
Looking out on a sea of lights under a blazing moon nearly full, his country’s greatest city silently calm from above, but racing nonetheless just before midnight. This was to be the enduring impression, the lasting memory The Guy would savor of his maiden trip to New York.
It was 10:45 p.m. and the last elevator to the top of the Empire State Building would leave in 45 minutes. It was an elevator he had intended to be on.
And he would have been, had he not heard from a gathering of gawkers that Samuel S. Schooner was about to make a brief appearance outside the grand-opening of the Clair de Lune New York, a way-cool night spot talked up as the merd nouveau.
Judging by the budding spectacle, Mr. Schooner would have to be quite the breath taker, The Guy supposes.
“I know him from that movie about the future where people’s thoughts are tried in court,” says one guy in a red jacket. “He’s the young appellate lawyer. The young one. You’ve seen the movie.”
The Guy sheepishly shakes his head.
“Aw you’ve seen it,” the man demands before returning to his Sam Schooner lookout, losing interest in the conversation.
The Guy eavesdrops two young fashionistas, likely on a break from their quest to hook up.
“He’s the one going out with that redhead from Saturday Night Live,” says one of duo. “The one with the glasses. She’s hilarious . . . really, really hilarious.”
The Guy stands with his hands in the pockets of a jacket he picked up on clearance. It only takes eye contact for people to spill their pent up excitement.
“You know he’s got that instructional dance video!” says a woman toting three kids.
“I didn’t know that,” The Guy says, choosing to indulge her.
“Yeah. He’s the one who choreographed all of NSYNC’s videos. My kids just love ’em.”
“The videos or the choreographer?” The Guy asks.
The woman thinks for a moment, harder than The Guy intends for her.
“Both, I guess,” she says. “Yeah, definitely both.
“They love Sam Schooner. What a great role model. He’s so fit . . . and handsome. Don’t you think?” she says as she grabs The Guy’s arm and playfully jostles it.
He looks at her round face and estimates her to be in her early 40s. He imagines her 15 years and 45 pounds earlier and hypothesizes that she was once something of a vixen.
As more of the curious linger, the crowd begins to swell like liquid backing up in a clogged funnel.
“What’s everyone waiting for?” asks a man dressed for casual Friday.
“Sam Schooner is supposed to be coming,” The Guy says.
“Oh I’ve heard of him,” Casual Friday replies, staking out a spot.
As he stands in the crowd, The Guy thinks of the Empire State Building. Everyone knows someone who’s been there, that is, if they haven’t been there themselves. They’ve at least seen the pictures from the top. Who wants to hear about it from another person?
But think about how many can say they’ve seen Sam Schooner. There’s probably less than 100 people in the world who have seen him, not including his maids and nannies and family.
As they wait, the crowd swells, the buzz grows. Everyone trades stories of celebrities they had seen. That guy from Lynyrd Skynyrd on a plane, Malcolm Jamal Warner at a restaurant, Hal Sparks shopping.
These are the types of stories people want to hear, The Guy confirms. A brush with fame, a close encounter with a superstar.
Samuel Schooner finally arrives. He and his entourage walk just 15 feet away, creating a feeling one part nervous, two parts excitement. Just the rush The Guy expected.
Once home, The Guy searches the Internet to see who Samuel S. Schooner is.
He looks to see who he gave his final New York night for.
Looking out on a sea of lights under a blazing moon nearly full, his country’s greatest city silently calm from above, but racing nonetheless just before midnight. This was to be the enduring impression, the lasting memory The Guy would savor of his maiden trip to New York.
It was 10:45 p.m. and the last elevator to the top of the Empire State Building would leave in 45 minutes. It was an elevator he had intended to be on.
And he would have been, had he not heard from a gathering of gawkers that Samuel S. Schooner was about to make a brief appearance outside the grand-opening of the Clair de Lune New York, a way-cool night spot talked up as the merd nouveau.
Judging by the budding spectacle, Mr. Schooner would have to be quite the breath taker, The Guy supposes.
“I know him from that movie about the future where people’s thoughts are tried in court,” says one guy in a red jacket. “He’s the young appellate lawyer. The young one. You’ve seen the movie.”
The Guy sheepishly shakes his head.
“Aw you’ve seen it,” the man demands before returning to his Sam Schooner lookout, losing interest in the conversation.
The Guy eavesdrops two young fashionistas, likely on a break from their quest to hook up.
“He’s the one going out with that redhead from Saturday Night Live,” says one of duo. “The one with the glasses. She’s hilarious . . . really, really hilarious.”
The Guy stands with his hands in the pockets of a jacket he picked up on clearance. It only takes eye contact for people to spill their pent up excitement.
“You know he’s got that instructional dance video!” says a woman toting three kids.
“I didn’t know that,” The Guy says, choosing to indulge her.
“Yeah. He’s the one who choreographed all of NSYNC’s videos. My kids just love ’em.”
“The videos or the choreographer?” The Guy asks.
The woman thinks for a moment, harder than The Guy intends for her.
“Both, I guess,” she says. “Yeah, definitely both.
“They love Sam Schooner. What a great role model. He’s so fit . . . and handsome. Don’t you think?” she says as she grabs The Guy’s arm and playfully jostles it.
He looks at her round face and estimates her to be in her early 40s. He imagines her 15 years and 45 pounds earlier and hypothesizes that she was once something of a vixen.
As more of the curious linger, the crowd begins to swell like liquid backing up in a clogged funnel.
“What’s everyone waiting for?” asks a man dressed for casual Friday.
“Sam Schooner is supposed to be coming,” The Guy says.
“Oh I’ve heard of him,” Casual Friday replies, staking out a spot.
As he stands in the crowd, The Guy thinks of the Empire State Building. Everyone knows someone who’s been there, that is, if they haven’t been there themselves. They’ve at least seen the pictures from the top. Who wants to hear about it from another person?
But think about how many can say they’ve seen Sam Schooner. There’s probably less than 100 people in the world who have seen him, not including his maids and nannies and family.
As they wait, the crowd swells, the buzz grows. Everyone trades stories of celebrities they had seen. That guy from Lynyrd Skynyrd on a plane, Malcolm Jamal Warner at a restaurant, Hal Sparks shopping.
These are the types of stories people want to hear, The Guy confirms. A brush with fame, a close encounter with a superstar.
Samuel Schooner finally arrives. He and his entourage walk just 15 feet away, creating a feeling one part nervous, two parts excitement. Just the rush The Guy expected.
Once home, The Guy searches the Internet to see who Samuel S. Schooner is.
He looks to see who he gave his final New York night for.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Too depressing to talk to
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 59 seconds
The self-serve e-ticket kiosks stood guard, protecting the airline's full-time customer service representatives from travelers.
The man stepped up to one of the machines as he fumbled paperwork. His index finger made circles on the screen, searching for something to make sense to him, for something to jump out and walk him through the daunting mechanical process that stood between him and a boarding pass.
He donned a red tank top, perfect if his goal was to highlight the wisps of hair that could have been glued to his shoulders during some sort of prank.
"I never know how these things work," he said, making sure someone could hear him.
Even though the sun was not expected to rise for another three hours, I was in a giving mood.
"Just slide your credit card into that slot and it will pull up all your information," I said, beating the airline's customer service representatives to the punch at no charge.
"Oh I don't have a credit card," he replied.
Guy doesn't have a credit card. No problem, I thought. It's probably a good idea. No credit card, no debt. Others should live as he lives. I don't, however, think the reason this guy didn’t have a credit card has anything to do with responsible spending habits. Perhaps it was his disheveled hair, his ready-for-a-trim mustache, the tank-top-with-jeans look or his inability to work the self-serve kiosk.From my vantage point, everything about this guy was depressing.
And that was before he tried to explain how he got the ticket without a credit card.
"The only reason I got this ticket was because of a family emergency," he said with a tone of voice that begged me to reply with interest. Not sympathy, just interest.
That's too bad, I thought, using the time as an excuse not to indulge the poor fellow in conversation.
"And I'm unemployed so I get to go," he added.
I'm sorry to hear that, I respond in my head although I just made a painful face and shook my head sympathetically.
At this point, the man had spoken three times to me and was an efficient 3-for-3 in depressing sentences.
I wondered what was next. What else was falling apart in this guy’s life? Had he just put his dog to sleep before coming to the airport? Did his family emergency involve him needing a liver? Did the government have him on false child pornography charges?
In my callousness, I did not request any additional information. After all, I had a gate to sit in front of for the next hour.
As I headed down the terminal, I thought about the man. I thought about how much he had going on in his life. I also thought of how easily it was for him to divulge information to strangers like me.
With my luck, the only thing I was sure of was that he would likely be seated next to me on the plane.
I was never so glad to be so tired.
The self-serve e-ticket kiosks stood guard, protecting the airline's full-time customer service representatives from travelers.
The man stepped up to one of the machines as he fumbled paperwork. His index finger made circles on the screen, searching for something to make sense to him, for something to jump out and walk him through the daunting mechanical process that stood between him and a boarding pass.
He donned a red tank top, perfect if his goal was to highlight the wisps of hair that could have been glued to his shoulders during some sort of prank.
"I never know how these things work," he said, making sure someone could hear him.
Even though the sun was not expected to rise for another three hours, I was in a giving mood.
"Just slide your credit card into that slot and it will pull up all your information," I said, beating the airline's customer service representatives to the punch at no charge.
"Oh I don't have a credit card," he replied.
Guy doesn't have a credit card. No problem, I thought. It's probably a good idea. No credit card, no debt. Others should live as he lives. I don't, however, think the reason this guy didn’t have a credit card has anything to do with responsible spending habits. Perhaps it was his disheveled hair, his ready-for-a-trim mustache, the tank-top-with-jeans look or his inability to work the self-serve kiosk.From my vantage point, everything about this guy was depressing.
And that was before he tried to explain how he got the ticket without a credit card.
"The only reason I got this ticket was because of a family emergency," he said with a tone of voice that begged me to reply with interest. Not sympathy, just interest.
That's too bad, I thought, using the time as an excuse not to indulge the poor fellow in conversation.
"And I'm unemployed so I get to go," he added.
I'm sorry to hear that, I respond in my head although I just made a painful face and shook my head sympathetically.
At this point, the man had spoken three times to me and was an efficient 3-for-3 in depressing sentences.
I wondered what was next. What else was falling apart in this guy’s life? Had he just put his dog to sleep before coming to the airport? Did his family emergency involve him needing a liver? Did the government have him on false child pornography charges?
In my callousness, I did not request any additional information. After all, I had a gate to sit in front of for the next hour.
As I headed down the terminal, I thought about the man. I thought about how much he had going on in his life. I also thought of how easily it was for him to divulge information to strangers like me.
With my luck, the only thing I was sure of was that he would likely be seated next to me on the plane.
I was never so glad to be so tired.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
The Mannequin Experiment: Fund Raising
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 55 seconds
We’ve all seen the exhausting movies or television shows: A family will lose something if they don’t raise money quickly to pay it off. This something is usually the house to a foreclosure, the family business to taxes or Dad to his gambling debts.
Well, something like that happened to me, only it wasn’t lapsed payments or taxes for which I needed the money. I had gotten myself involved in a series of experiments involving mannequins and performance-enhancing drugs. I needed cash for some anabolic steroids, a horse tranquilizer and a few amphetamines. But given the illicit nature of its use, the money had to be undetectable.
I needed to be creative. But most of all I needed to be discreet and inconspicuous.
Operation Stampout
During this operation, I jumped the neighborhood mailman, taking his uniform and his mail sack. I peeled off all the stamps, then delivered the entire sack of mail postage-due. I managed to collect $11 before the authorities seized the remaining mail and shut down the operation.
I managed to keep the uniform, but ultimately returned the mailman’s hair piece. We’re friends now.
Operation Paper Boy
With this plan I made my rounds of the neighborhood at 6:05 a.m. sharp to collect the day’s newspaper off each driveway. I then headed straight to one of a number of street corners to sell the papers at full price. This was by far the easiest and most profitable scheme, dropping a sum of $414 in the mannequin fund. I considered using this as full-time employment until I was accosted by a newspaper subscriber.
Apparently he had been watching me from the top of his flag pole for a couple of mornings. I was picking up his paper as usual. Taking advantage of my vulnerable position at the base, he repelled down the pole and performed a leg tackle that he later claimed to learn in the United States Marine Corps.
Operation No Parking
In my final attempt to raise funds, I decided to help the city, pad my pockets, and teach people a sound lesson at the same time. For three days, I patrolled the city streets looking for illegally parked cars and issued replica parking tickets. The only difference between my parking tickets and the city’s was the part that said who to make the check out to and where to mail it. Whereas the real parking tickets said to make checks payable to “County Clerk,” mine said to make checks payable to “Mannequin Steroid Fund” and to send it to my home address. An amazing 49 people went for it.
Sadly, it was busted up when I inadvertently ticketed the county clerk’s car. He paid the parking ticket, but later realized his error through a series of letters I sent him making fun of his checks (they featured Richard Simmons in various sports themes).
Sometimes you just need to let things go, but it’s not every day that you can hassle someone in a respectable government position over their Richard Simmons checks.
Did I ever complete the mannequin experiment? The short answer is no. The money I managed to raise I used to pay off gambling debts. I was glad I had the cash on hand because I was 24 hours from being put through a wood chipper.
We’ve all seen the exhausting movies or television shows: A family will lose something if they don’t raise money quickly to pay it off. This something is usually the house to a foreclosure, the family business to taxes or Dad to his gambling debts.
Well, something like that happened to me, only it wasn’t lapsed payments or taxes for which I needed the money. I had gotten myself involved in a series of experiments involving mannequins and performance-enhancing drugs. I needed cash for some anabolic steroids, a horse tranquilizer and a few amphetamines. But given the illicit nature of its use, the money had to be undetectable.
I needed to be creative. But most of all I needed to be discreet and inconspicuous.
Operation Stampout
During this operation, I jumped the neighborhood mailman, taking his uniform and his mail sack. I peeled off all the stamps, then delivered the entire sack of mail postage-due. I managed to collect $11 before the authorities seized the remaining mail and shut down the operation.
I managed to keep the uniform, but ultimately returned the mailman’s hair piece. We’re friends now.
Operation Paper Boy
With this plan I made my rounds of the neighborhood at 6:05 a.m. sharp to collect the day’s newspaper off each driveway. I then headed straight to one of a number of street corners to sell the papers at full price. This was by far the easiest and most profitable scheme, dropping a sum of $414 in the mannequin fund. I considered using this as full-time employment until I was accosted by a newspaper subscriber.
Apparently he had been watching me from the top of his flag pole for a couple of mornings. I was picking up his paper as usual. Taking advantage of my vulnerable position at the base, he repelled down the pole and performed a leg tackle that he later claimed to learn in the United States Marine Corps.
A brief scuffle ensued but ended when I forced the newspaper bag over his head as he was stuffing the entire comics page into my mouth. I spit out the page, worked the Jumble, then fled.
Operation No Parking
In my final attempt to raise funds, I decided to help the city, pad my pockets, and teach people a sound lesson at the same time. For three days, I patrolled the city streets looking for illegally parked cars and issued replica parking tickets. The only difference between my parking tickets and the city’s was the part that said who to make the check out to and where to mail it. Whereas the real parking tickets said to make checks payable to “County Clerk,” mine said to make checks payable to “Mannequin Steroid Fund” and to send it to my home address. An amazing 49 people went for it.
Sadly, it was busted up when I inadvertently ticketed the county clerk’s car. He paid the parking ticket, but later realized his error through a series of letters I sent him making fun of his checks (they featured Richard Simmons in various sports themes).
Sometimes you just need to let things go, but it’s not every day that you can hassle someone in a respectable government position over their Richard Simmons checks.
Did I ever complete the mannequin experiment? The short answer is no. The money I managed to raise I used to pay off gambling debts. I was glad I had the cash on hand because I was 24 hours from being put through a wood chipper.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
The day I crapped out Chewbaca
By Hellion
They never would have found out had Chewbaca’s head and Han Solo’s DL-44 blaster pistol not surfaced in my crap. But there they were – Han’s weaponry and what was left of Chewy – lodged haphazardly in my feces.
Never had my waste been brought to my attention. I crap and usually every week someone comes along and scoops it up and pleasantly discards of it. It was during this duty that what I had done was discovered.
I don’t know why I did it. I was probably just being young and stupid, as I was so often back then. It’s what got me my name, after all. But as I recall, there was a whole box of this stuff, a whole cast of characters. There was Andre the Giant, Kermit the Frog, E.T., one of the guys from Reservoir Dogs, Carmelo Anthony, Popeye, one or two Hot Wheels cars, Han Solo and, of course, Chewbaca. And as I remember, there were also two Pez dispensers – Batman and Robin – each with a package of candy.
It was the candy I was after. I don’t know how Han and Chewy got thrown into the mix but once I started I couldn’t stop. For fun I dragged nearly all the carnage out to the backyard through the dog door. The plastic and most of the cardboard from the boxes I buried, not so much as to hide the evidence, though. More out of instinct than anything.
How can I prevent this from happening next time? To start, when I destroy something – Star Wars figures or otherwise – I should take the time to thoroughly chew it beyond recognition. However, candy should never be left where a dog can get to it, much less in a box full of valuable collectibles.
Make it be known, I was after the candy. Han and Chewy were unfortunate collateral damage. But if candy is left out again, there’s no telling who might get in the way, although I can’t imagine crapping out Andre the Giant’s boots.
They never would have found out had Chewbaca’s head and Han Solo’s DL-44 blaster pistol not surfaced in my crap. But there they were – Han’s weaponry and what was left of Chewy – lodged haphazardly in my feces.
Never had my waste been brought to my attention. I crap and usually every week someone comes along and scoops it up and pleasantly discards of it. It was during this duty that what I had done was discovered.
I don’t know why I did it. I was probably just being young and stupid, as I was so often back then. It’s what got me my name, after all. But as I recall, there was a whole box of this stuff, a whole cast of characters. There was Andre the Giant, Kermit the Frog, E.T., one of the guys from Reservoir Dogs, Carmelo Anthony, Popeye, one or two Hot Wheels cars, Han Solo and, of course, Chewbaca. And as I remember, there were also two Pez dispensers – Batman and Robin – each with a package of candy.
It was the candy I was after. I don’t know how Han and Chewy got thrown into the mix but once I started I couldn’t stop. For fun I dragged nearly all the carnage out to the backyard through the dog door. The plastic and most of the cardboard from the boxes I buried, not so much as to hide the evidence, though. More out of instinct than anything.
How can I prevent this from happening next time? To start, when I destroy something – Star Wars figures or otherwise – I should take the time to thoroughly chew it beyond recognition. However, candy should never be left where a dog can get to it, much less in a box full of valuable collectibles.
Make it be known, I was after the candy. Han and Chewy were unfortunate collateral damage. But if candy is left out again, there’s no telling who might get in the way, although I can’t imagine crapping out Andre the Giant’s boots.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
