I fully admit that I had no idea what the wildlife in Southern California was going to entail when I first moved out here. You really could have told me that any organism I’d ever heard of was indigenous out here and I would have believed you. Armadillos, macaws, unicorns, whatever. I’d heard that there were coyotes out here, just up the Hollywood Hills north of LA proper, that would roam down the hills at night and feast off of the garbage of the “city.” (I use quotes around the word because LA is not a real city, just an enormous suburb with a downtown area built solely because they needed somewhere to film an urban landscape.) Most of my knowledge about coyotes came to me when I was a kid, absorbing the basics, pretty much what everyone already knows: that they chase birds around the desert, walk upright, retain only a cursory knowledge of explosives, and have extensive lines of credit with ACME Products, Inc. So wild animals like coyotes roaming around LA didn’t seem like too much of a stretch.
But the more time I live here, the more I see that Southern California has just about every ecosystem you could imagine, therefore they have about every type of animal you could imagine. When you only watch movies to learn about the world, as so many Americans do, I think you assume that Southern California is lined with beaches and palm trees. Truth is, the beaches run about 200 ft. from the water, and then you’re suddenly dealing with either desert, mountains or forestry. The really great thing about Southern California are these varied environments. They have everything except polar ice caps and rainforests. Skiing, sunbathing, and driving a car through a giant hole in a tree are all about 90 minutes from each other. It’s amazing.
When I first saw skunks in my backyard, I was at first surprised, but then quickly remembered that if I wandered too far from my house I could be attacked by a mountain lion, so a skunk shouldn’t come as any great shock. For those lucky enough to get up close and personal with a skunk without getting the business end of a chemical attack, you notice right away that skunks are a fun animal to watch. I don’t think they have a very high top speed, but I guess I wouldn’t either if I wielded such power. They have a sort of jolly fat-man gait. They lumber from side to side, almost a waddle. The white stripe (nature’s very own Surgeon General Warning) makes them even more likable, like a ’66 Mustang with that double-stripe down the middle.
Basically, it’s the sort of mammal you could have a beer with. If they didn’t instill such terror in the general populous, I think we could be pretty close friends. But there’s the rub: skunks know their power. They don’t have to run fast. They can take their time eating that cat food I left out there for the stray cat. They can filter through your entire garbage container, picking and choosing exactly what they want like a take-out menu. In fact, the noises they make when they’re outside sound leisurely, like a homeless person rummaging through the recyclables on the curb looking to make a few extra bucks.
I have never seen the skunk in our backyard run away from me. If I’m lucky, it walks away. When I take Daisy the Dalmatian out there to potty in the summer, I have to crack the door and speak loudly: “Beat it, skunks. Comin’ out. Comin’ out, skunks.” On more than one occasion, I’ve had to plant my foot on Daisy’s butt to get her back inside when I see them so she doesn’t get blasted.
Even the single mother skunk who keeps returning with her two little kid skunks is fairly brazen. Like a mother perusing a tabloid magazine at the check-out line while her kids are running all over the supermarket knocking stuff over. The baby skunks would be adorable if they didn’t also carry that same attitude: “My Mom says I don’t have to be afraid of you.”
So they’ve taken over back there. Insult turned to injury when one of them detonated under the house, potentially because of a skirmish with a feline. My wife and I heard a growling down there, clearly a cat, which was then followed by a hissing sound that neither of us recognized. Ten seconds later, that unrecognizable hissing turned into an unrecognizable growling. Still, clearly not the cat. “What is that? Another cat?” “Oh my God, I think it’s a-“
BOOM. Mushroom cloud. We live in one of those old 1920’s bungalows, like a tiny cottage, and they were all heated with those wide floor vents that have at least an inch between each grate. It didn’t take long for the sarin nerve gas to reach the olfactory glands. It was like a Mission Impossible killing.
Only the most unlucky people in the world and several curious dogs that have learned the hard way already know this, but the initial spray from a skunk doesn’t smell like it does when you drive by a roadkill one. That roadkill smell has been diluted by space and time. When one of them goes DefCon 4 under your 500 sq. st. house, it’s more like immersing your head into a vat of hydrochloric acid. It burns. Burns your eyes, your nose, your throat. You cough, you gasp, you feel like you’re going to hurl. I think it took us about three months and 100 scented candles to get the smell entirely out of the air. We never did find that poor cat that decided to start shit with that vengeful skunk, maybe he was dissolved into his original atomic structure.
When a female honeybee stings you, the price for your pain and inconvenience is their own life. There’s almost a poetic nature to the attack. The honeybee is like a buzzing, crawling, literal interpretation of Hammurabi’s Code. They have only one bullet in the chamber, and not the intelligence to use it wisely. Kind of sad.
The skunk is the polar opposite, which is why they’re nature’s cosmic joke. There are no ramifications for a skunk blasting you into a nauseous stupor. They can do it over and over, and they don’t give a Gaddamn what it smells like. It probably smells good to them, like when you appreciate your own potent fart.
Skunks are a bunch of smug sons of bitches, but you have to admire them.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
I Like Walking
This is going to sound like a Healthy Living! sidebar from the AARP magazine, but I honestly feel like we’d be a lot happier as people if we just walked everywhere.
Cars seemed like a good idea, but if you were to ask Karl Benz in 1896 whether he thought eventually killing 1.2 million people around the world every year was an awesome thing, he probably would say “Ja…no, zat is less zan awesome.” Actually, he would have said the rest of it in German and not a German accent. You understand.
I’ve already played the faux-Luddite in other posts. It’s older hat than the phrase “old hat,” so I won’t get into all of it again. But speaking as someone who lives on the left coast, specifically Southern California, there would be way worse things than not having cars.
In the old days, you must have actually had to interact with people on your way to wherever you were going. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to have your own bubble in some ways. Listen to your own music, make your own decisions and not be at the mercy of a stalled train or psychotic bus driver, etc.
But there’s also something to be said for being thrust into other people’s space. It’s not always a bad thing to see how other people are living, for better or worse. A shared smile across the subway car has probably led to just as many marriages as stabbings. I miss getting off the subway in NY and walking to work. There was something a little more human about it.
When we’re stuck in our cars for our commutes, we turn into other people. Those people are never our better selves, they’re always our worst. We turn impatient, bossy, and even violent. We get so comfortable behind the wheel, we eventually think of the car as an extension of our bodies. Many people, including myself, take needlessly rude and even dangerous chances with the shell of this 2-ton vehicle that you should never think of taking with your own body. If we start thinking of the car as an extension of ourselves, then by default, we’re just becoming machines.
If two people were walking toward an escalator, and both got there at exactly the same time, there would often be a few seconds wasted as they requested that the other person advance to the steps first. Now switch the situation to a common highway merge, two lanes of traffic into one, and you have an all-out race to muscle your car into the wedge first, even though this would guarantee you would arrive at your destination about .2 seconds before your “opponent” in the other lane. Yes, there are nice people driving, and this sometimes translates to courteous behavior on the highways. But that’s the exception, not the rule.
Worse than the rude behavior in cars is this strange notion some rude people have after they pull an asshole move in their car that if they don’t look at you, you don’t exist. If you cut someone in line at the store, you would have to weigh the risk of having to face that person down and eventually look them in the eye, potentially enduring them dressing you down for being the rude asshole that you are. In cars, people often behave like a child, “If I don’t look at them, they don’t exist.” Similarly, you would thank that person who insisted you get on the escalator first, but in a car, the very common accepted practice of waving thanks for letting you into a lane is substituted for averting your eyes from that kind-hearted vehicle operator and feigning “keeping your eyes on the road” after you accept their waving you along.
Along the lines of dehumanizing, mankind was definitely supposed to run, walk and swim. I’m not a fitness guru, or practitioner, for that matter, but walking should make everyone feel more human. Maybe it’s how vast LA is, maybe it’s living in NY for so long and having walking be an acquired taste, but everyone should do it. And if you roll your eyes at the idea of “taking a walk,” then you’re not doing it enough.
I used to work for a studio in the valley, and during my lunchbreaks, I would take a walk for 45 minutes, then I’d be hungry for my lunch when I got back. The studio’s campus was nestled in a very residential neighborhood, and it made for a genuinely nice, long walk.
On more than five occasions, my fellow employees who drove by and recognized me walking would pull up beside me, roll down their window and ask me “What’s wrong?” I mean genuine concern. They’d ask me if my car was in the shop. I’d say no. They’d look around and ask me where I was walking. I’d say nowhere. They’d ask again if I was okay. I’d say “yeah, I just like walking.” Most of the people would just shrug and drive away at that point, but one of them actually kicked open their passenger door, chuckling as if I was telling an elaborate joke, and say “Okay. No, seriously, get in. I’ll take you back.”
Cars seemed like a good idea, but if you were to ask Karl Benz in 1896 whether he thought eventually killing 1.2 million people around the world every year was an awesome thing, he probably would say “Ja…no, zat is less zan awesome.” Actually, he would have said the rest of it in German and not a German accent. You understand.
I’ve already played the faux-Luddite in other posts. It’s older hat than the phrase “old hat,” so I won’t get into all of it again. But speaking as someone who lives on the left coast, specifically Southern California, there would be way worse things than not having cars.
In the old days, you must have actually had to interact with people on your way to wherever you were going. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to have your own bubble in some ways. Listen to your own music, make your own decisions and not be at the mercy of a stalled train or psychotic bus driver, etc.
But there’s also something to be said for being thrust into other people’s space. It’s not always a bad thing to see how other people are living, for better or worse. A shared smile across the subway car has probably led to just as many marriages as stabbings. I miss getting off the subway in NY and walking to work. There was something a little more human about it.
When we’re stuck in our cars for our commutes, we turn into other people. Those people are never our better selves, they’re always our worst. We turn impatient, bossy, and even violent. We get so comfortable behind the wheel, we eventually think of the car as an extension of our bodies. Many people, including myself, take needlessly rude and even dangerous chances with the shell of this 2-ton vehicle that you should never think of taking with your own body. If we start thinking of the car as an extension of ourselves, then by default, we’re just becoming machines.
If two people were walking toward an escalator, and both got there at exactly the same time, there would often be a few seconds wasted as they requested that the other person advance to the steps first. Now switch the situation to a common highway merge, two lanes of traffic into one, and you have an all-out race to muscle your car into the wedge first, even though this would guarantee you would arrive at your destination about .2 seconds before your “opponent” in the other lane. Yes, there are nice people driving, and this sometimes translates to courteous behavior on the highways. But that’s the exception, not the rule.
Worse than the rude behavior in cars is this strange notion some rude people have after they pull an asshole move in their car that if they don’t look at you, you don’t exist. If you cut someone in line at the store, you would have to weigh the risk of having to face that person down and eventually look them in the eye, potentially enduring them dressing you down for being the rude asshole that you are. In cars, people often behave like a child, “If I don’t look at them, they don’t exist.” Similarly, you would thank that person who insisted you get on the escalator first, but in a car, the very common accepted practice of waving thanks for letting you into a lane is substituted for averting your eyes from that kind-hearted vehicle operator and feigning “keeping your eyes on the road” after you accept their waving you along.
Along the lines of dehumanizing, mankind was definitely supposed to run, walk and swim. I’m not a fitness guru, or practitioner, for that matter, but walking should make everyone feel more human. Maybe it’s how vast LA is, maybe it’s living in NY for so long and having walking be an acquired taste, but everyone should do it. And if you roll your eyes at the idea of “taking a walk,” then you’re not doing it enough.
I used to work for a studio in the valley, and during my lunchbreaks, I would take a walk for 45 minutes, then I’d be hungry for my lunch when I got back. The studio’s campus was nestled in a very residential neighborhood, and it made for a genuinely nice, long walk.
On more than five occasions, my fellow employees who drove by and recognized me walking would pull up beside me, roll down their window and ask me “What’s wrong?” I mean genuine concern. They’d ask me if my car was in the shop. I’d say no. They’d look around and ask me where I was walking. I’d say nowhere. They’d ask again if I was okay. I’d say “yeah, I just like walking.” Most of the people would just shrug and drive away at that point, but one of them actually kicked open their passenger door, chuckling as if I was telling an elaborate joke, and say “Okay. No, seriously, get in. I’ll take you back.”
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Countdown to Nothing
Do we really need calendars? Most of the time, I'm fine with knowing what day it is, whether I'm close to the weekend, if there's a vacation coming up, if I've missed Mother's Day by four weeks.
But I've gotta say, there is no calendar day more lame than New Year's Eve. There doesn't seem to be any reason for celebrating this day other than the fact that we're happy that the earth has made it around the sun again. For 4,500,000,000 years, the earth has managed to make it, I don't think it needs our help anymore. Since it's pretty old, I don't think the earth even remembers what its birthday is. So can we dispense with this holiday altogether?
If the Chinese calendar is the correct New Year, and ours is way off, that would be a huge embarrassment in the first place. But heaping on all the other traditions on New Year's make me hate it even more. Let's review them all:
1) The Resolution. This barely needs mentioning, because it's so retarded. But we're honestly supposed to think we're going to change our ways for the better because it's a new calendar year? What person thinks like that? Name a doctor that says "Hey, you really should stop smoking, your heart could give out and you'll probably get cancer. Oh yeah, and January 1st is coming up, so there's that."
2) The Pressure to Do Something. I think my fondest memories of New Year's Eve come when I was about 7-11 years old. Back then, it was either a middle finger to the convention of making kids go to sleep earlier than they wanted to, or fighting my inner clock's bedtime and challenging myself to stay up and watch Dick Clark. That's about everybody's peak, I think. Now, there's this strange pressure to do something that night, like everyone is 22. I'd rather be home most of the time, why does this change for an arbitrary 1o seconds? Which brings us to...
3) The Countdown. In the grand cosmic scheme, what do these ten seconds matter? I once wondered if all our math was wrong, and the Gods on the Astral Plane just looked down at us and thought we were completely stupid, or a failed creation. "Len, these morons think 2 + 2 equals 4, why did we let them crawl out of the mud again?" Well, since when do we take credit for the year's birthday? If you think about it, our countdown counts down to nothing. It's a moment that doesn't actually exist, because as soon as it arrives, it's already the New Year. Yeah, confetti drops, Ryan Seacrest gets to tell us how amazing it all is, and Carrie Underwood claps her hands like a seal, but what does that moment really represent? I already have a depressing annual mortality reminder scorched into my memory, it's called my birthday. Do I really need another landmark to remind me of all the shit that I didn't do in my life? Since we've been looking around with blank faces after having counting down to zero for so long, we've now got another tradition piled on...
4) The New Year's Kiss. I like kissing my wife. She's a good kisser. Hell, if she wasn't, I probably would have married someone else. You end up kissing that person a lot, so choose the right one. Just a little romantic advice there. Anyway, the Pressure to Do Something is often conflated with the Pressure to Be Next To Someone You'd Like to Kiss on New Year's Eve. If you think about it, this tradition was born out of drunk people in the 19-aughts wanting an excuse to hook up. "Heck, I got to zero...Ethel was standing there...so I tugged on her bloomers and we started necking!" But what about those people who go to a party with a bunch of friends, all of whom happen to have a significant other or prostitute, and when the ball drops, they pretend to know the words to Auld Lang Syne and knock back their swinging champagne glass like they're going to the chair. We've all been that person. We already have a holiday where we have to be reminded that we're all alone, it's called Valentine's Day.
So that's enough complaining. I promise my next post will not be a complaint, but something I like. It is the New Year, after all, and that's my resolution: one post a month will not be a complaint.
But I've gotta say, there is no calendar day more lame than New Year's Eve. There doesn't seem to be any reason for celebrating this day other than the fact that we're happy that the earth has made it around the sun again. For 4,500,000,000 years, the earth has managed to make it, I don't think it needs our help anymore. Since it's pretty old, I don't think the earth even remembers what its birthday is. So can we dispense with this holiday altogether?
If the Chinese calendar is the correct New Year, and ours is way off, that would be a huge embarrassment in the first place. But heaping on all the other traditions on New Year's make me hate it even more. Let's review them all:
1) The Resolution. This barely needs mentioning, because it's so retarded. But we're honestly supposed to think we're going to change our ways for the better because it's a new calendar year? What person thinks like that? Name a doctor that says "Hey, you really should stop smoking, your heart could give out and you'll probably get cancer. Oh yeah, and January 1st is coming up, so there's that."
2) The Pressure to Do Something. I think my fondest memories of New Year's Eve come when I was about 7-11 years old. Back then, it was either a middle finger to the convention of making kids go to sleep earlier than they wanted to, or fighting my inner clock's bedtime and challenging myself to stay up and watch Dick Clark. That's about everybody's peak, I think. Now, there's this strange pressure to do something that night, like everyone is 22. I'd rather be home most of the time, why does this change for an arbitrary 1o seconds? Which brings us to...
3) The Countdown. In the grand cosmic scheme, what do these ten seconds matter? I once wondered if all our math was wrong, and the Gods on the Astral Plane just looked down at us and thought we were completely stupid, or a failed creation. "Len, these morons think 2 + 2 equals 4, why did we let them crawl out of the mud again?" Well, since when do we take credit for the year's birthday? If you think about it, our countdown counts down to nothing. It's a moment that doesn't actually exist, because as soon as it arrives, it's already the New Year. Yeah, confetti drops, Ryan Seacrest gets to tell us how amazing it all is, and Carrie Underwood claps her hands like a seal, but what does that moment really represent? I already have a depressing annual mortality reminder scorched into my memory, it's called my birthday. Do I really need another landmark to remind me of all the shit that I didn't do in my life? Since we've been looking around with blank faces after having counting down to zero for so long, we've now got another tradition piled on...
4) The New Year's Kiss. I like kissing my wife. She's a good kisser. Hell, if she wasn't, I probably would have married someone else. You end up kissing that person a lot, so choose the right one. Just a little romantic advice there. Anyway, the Pressure to Do Something is often conflated with the Pressure to Be Next To Someone You'd Like to Kiss on New Year's Eve. If you think about it, this tradition was born out of drunk people in the 19-aughts wanting an excuse to hook up. "Heck, I got to zero...Ethel was standing there...so I tugged on her bloomers and we started necking!" But what about those people who go to a party with a bunch of friends, all of whom happen to have a significant other or prostitute, and when the ball drops, they pretend to know the words to Auld Lang Syne and knock back their swinging champagne glass like they're going to the chair. We've all been that person. We already have a holiday where we have to be reminded that we're all alone, it's called Valentine's Day.
So that's enough complaining. I promise my next post will not be a complaint, but something I like. It is the New Year, after all, and that's my resolution: one post a month will not be a complaint.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
9 to 6ers
Another kick in the balls to the American employee is the decade-long movement to keep my white ass in a non-ergonomic chair staring at a computer for an hour longer than I really should. I happen to work a job right now that has the hours of 8 to 5. When I took it, I first thought, "Hey, this is great. I don't mind getting up an hour earlier, because I'll get home an hour earlier."
But then it got me thinking...when the hell did this happen? Didn't corporate America and Dolly Parton both coin the phrase "9 to 5?" When did this magically turn into "9 to 6?"
Subtly. That's how. Think about it. We still call these people "9 to 5ers," even though nobody works those hours anymore. No one is outraged that we have to work until 6 o'clock. It's happened so gradually over the past ten or fifteen years that no one blinks an eye. In fact, leaving at 5 pm will often get you the "Half day?" snipe from the receptionist.
Since it used to be the most common dinnertime, staying at work until 7 pm must have once seemed ridiculous. Now it's just working an hour longer. That's barely overtime. I'm positive that people in the 50's and 60's took lunchbreaks, but your day was over at 5 pm. That's when the whistle blew.
But one by one, workers must have felt they were climbing the ladder faster if they showed their commitment to their company. That meant working longer hours, working weekends, taking business trips with that guy you hated whose breath smelled like rotten foot.
Now we have to apologize if we want to get home at a decent hour. To see our wives, our husbands, our dogs, our kids, or just to wind down. People in other countries must think we're insane. We've just passed Japan for the most weekly hours put in by the American worker. Forty percent of our population works over 50 hours a week. And yet, we have fewer vacation days than any other industrialized country, and less time for maternity leave. Hell, we're one of only two industrialized countries that doesn't have fully-paid maternity leave (Australia).
What does it all add up to? If you factor in a normal commute time for an average work-a-day stiff, which might be 30 minutes, you have a total of 10 hours a day devoted to work. And let's say you're lucky and get 8 hours of sleep. That leaves 6 waking hours that you have to yourself, right? Wrong. You need about an hour to eat breakfast and get ready for work. And you need no less than an hour to wind down after a day frying your brain under florescent lights and a computer monitor before making dinner. Without counting any potential exercise regiment, let's just call it 4 waking hours of time for yourself.
Four hours out of 24. 1/6 of your time. Are we happier doing this? Are Americans completely nuts? Even Max Weber would crap his pants over this.
So the next time your CEO nudges you and says you're looking a little tired, just turn around and tell them "You know, Ted, I'd be feeling a lot better if you didn't take all but 17% of my life."
But then it got me thinking...when the hell did this happen? Didn't corporate America and Dolly Parton both coin the phrase "9 to 5?" When did this magically turn into "9 to 6?"
Subtly. That's how. Think about it. We still call these people "9 to 5ers," even though nobody works those hours anymore. No one is outraged that we have to work until 6 o'clock. It's happened so gradually over the past ten or fifteen years that no one blinks an eye. In fact, leaving at 5 pm will often get you the "Half day?" snipe from the receptionist.
Since it used to be the most common dinnertime, staying at work until 7 pm must have once seemed ridiculous. Now it's just working an hour longer. That's barely overtime. I'm positive that people in the 50's and 60's took lunchbreaks, but your day was over at 5 pm. That's when the whistle blew.
But one by one, workers must have felt they were climbing the ladder faster if they showed their commitment to their company. That meant working longer hours, working weekends, taking business trips with that guy you hated whose breath smelled like rotten foot.
Now we have to apologize if we want to get home at a decent hour. To see our wives, our husbands, our dogs, our kids, or just to wind down. People in other countries must think we're insane. We've just passed Japan for the most weekly hours put in by the American worker. Forty percent of our population works over 50 hours a week. And yet, we have fewer vacation days than any other industrialized country, and less time for maternity leave. Hell, we're one of only two industrialized countries that doesn't have fully-paid maternity leave (Australia).
What does it all add up to? If you factor in a normal commute time for an average work-a-day stiff, which might be 30 minutes, you have a total of 10 hours a day devoted to work. And let's say you're lucky and get 8 hours of sleep. That leaves 6 waking hours that you have to yourself, right? Wrong. You need about an hour to eat breakfast and get ready for work. And you need no less than an hour to wind down after a day frying your brain under florescent lights and a computer monitor before making dinner. Without counting any potential exercise regiment, let's just call it 4 waking hours of time for yourself.
Four hours out of 24. 1/6 of your time. Are we happier doing this? Are Americans completely nuts? Even Max Weber would crap his pants over this.
So the next time your CEO nudges you and says you're looking a little tired, just turn around and tell them "You know, Ted, I'd be feeling a lot better if you didn't take all but 17% of my life."
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Meteorologists are frauds
Where do I sign up to be a weatherman? This has got to be the best job in the world. You show up and make shit up for the next five days, then someone gives you six figures.
If you're a woman, if you look hot and have any science degree whatsoever, you're in. If you're a woman and want to get on the Weather Channel, you don't need a science degree, you just have to look hot. You don't even need to know how to read.
If you're a guy, there are no qualifications. Usually, you're the guy at parties who jumps into a lively conversation holding a Shirley Temple and says "Hey guys! What's up!" and everyone quiets down and miserably drones "Hi Barry..." You don't need to be hot. You just need a wacky name like Billy Thunder or Cotton Artichoke.
Your day is easy. When you show up for work, close your office door and promptly throw darts at the following bold predictions for the week: Partly Sunny, Partly Cloudy, Chance of Rain, Chance of Wind, Small Craft Advisory, Falling Rocks, Possibly Humid, Maybe Dry Unless It's Not, and Weather Possible.
If you say it will be Partly Cloudy and it rains, you're covered! If it's sunny, bonus! No one will be mad at you! Hey, you can even give people a low and a high, and if it's somewhere in between, you're set! This is a great career. I'm going to set up my own Weatherman Stand, like a lemonade stand but with me and a Magic 8-Ball.
In a way, we're all meteorologists. If you walk outside and it's cold, it's definitely cold. If it's raining, it's definitely raining. Really. Try it for yourself, you'll be amazed at just how accurate you can get.
If you're a woman, if you look hot and have any science degree whatsoever, you're in. If you're a woman and want to get on the Weather Channel, you don't need a science degree, you just have to look hot. You don't even need to know how to read.
If you're a guy, there are no qualifications. Usually, you're the guy at parties who jumps into a lively conversation holding a Shirley Temple and says "Hey guys! What's up!" and everyone quiets down and miserably drones "Hi Barry..." You don't need to be hot. You just need a wacky name like Billy Thunder or Cotton Artichoke.
Your day is easy. When you show up for work, close your office door and promptly throw darts at the following bold predictions for the week: Partly Sunny, Partly Cloudy, Chance of Rain, Chance of Wind, Small Craft Advisory, Falling Rocks, Possibly Humid, Maybe Dry Unless It's Not, and Weather Possible.
If you say it will be Partly Cloudy and it rains, you're covered! If it's sunny, bonus! No one will be mad at you! Hey, you can even give people a low and a high, and if it's somewhere in between, you're set! This is a great career. I'm going to set up my own Weatherman Stand, like a lemonade stand but with me and a Magic 8-Ball.
In a way, we're all meteorologists. If you walk outside and it's cold, it's definitely cold. If it's raining, it's definitely raining. Really. Try it for yourself, you'll be amazed at just how accurate you can get.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Dogs enjoy pants
They do. Jeans, shorts, sweats, boxers, briefs, banana hammocks, anything you can think of.
Daisy the Dalmatian doesn't get excited about a lot of things (read: food), but one thing she'll never pass up is sniffing my groin and leg area when I don a new pair of pants. They can be dirty, they can be washed, they can be right from the store. It doesn't matter.
The look she gets is very specific: This guy already has skin on his legs, and now he's putting another skin over that skin. Is he retarded? I've gotta check this out.
At first, I thought it was cute. But after years of this, and out of curiosity reading that dogs have over 220 million scent-sensitive cells in their nose (humans have about 5 million), I'm starting to wonder strange things. Things like "What exactly is in my pants?"
I realize dogs are naturally curious about smells. But Daisy really isn't. She'll occasionally stop on a walk to smell where a dog has peed. Oh yeah, I've smelled this jerkwad before. This is the golden from Milan Street. But she doesn't stick her head out of the car window, and she doesn't smell my shirts or my feet. Clearly, there is something consistently in my pants besides the stuff that's attached to me that's supposed to be there.
Could it be poo? Like, a tiny cubic nanometer-sized poo? Is this mini-poo in my buttcrack, or did it fall out into my boxers? If so, what is it about my pants that just come out of the washer that Daisy smells anyway? Does a scalding-hot washing machine not remove all the poo from my boxers? Can I sue the appliance company for this?
And if Daisy is smelling my wife's pants, does that mean my beautiful, sweet wife is walking around all day with poo in her pants? Should this make me feel better or worse?
I guess these are things they don't ask themselves in Darfur. But hey, I'm American. I have the time.
Daisy the Dalmatian doesn't get excited about a lot of things (read: food), but one thing she'll never pass up is sniffing my groin and leg area when I don a new pair of pants. They can be dirty, they can be washed, they can be right from the store. It doesn't matter.
The look she gets is very specific: This guy already has skin on his legs, and now he's putting another skin over that skin. Is he retarded? I've gotta check this out.
At first, I thought it was cute. But after years of this, and out of curiosity reading that dogs have over 220 million scent-sensitive cells in their nose (humans have about 5 million), I'm starting to wonder strange things. Things like "What exactly is in my pants?"
I realize dogs are naturally curious about smells. But Daisy really isn't. She'll occasionally stop on a walk to smell where a dog has peed. Oh yeah, I've smelled this jerkwad before. This is the golden from Milan Street. But she doesn't stick her head out of the car window, and she doesn't smell my shirts or my feet. Clearly, there is something consistently in my pants besides the stuff that's attached to me that's supposed to be there.
Could it be poo? Like, a tiny cubic nanometer-sized poo? Is this mini-poo in my buttcrack, or did it fall out into my boxers? If so, what is it about my pants that just come out of the washer that Daisy smells anyway? Does a scalding-hot washing machine not remove all the poo from my boxers? Can I sue the appliance company for this?
And if Daisy is smelling my wife's pants, does that mean my beautiful, sweet wife is walking around all day with poo in her pants? Should this make me feel better or worse?
I guess these are things they don't ask themselves in Darfur. But hey, I'm American. I have the time.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Stuff you don't need
If there's one triumph in the 21st-century consumer landscape, it has to be advertisers still being able to convince us to buy stuff we never needed. I know this has been a staple of advertising since Snake Oil, but this latest Visa ad campaign has really got me impressed.
You've seen them. They entail an efficient assembly line of consumerism, and the one cog in the wheel? Some jackass holding up the line by using cash over their Visa debit card. Yes, cash is the one thing that can stop the amazing machine of Capitalism.
Some Native American tribes used wampum, or polished bits of clamshells, to trade for goods and services. I guess this is where the term "clams" comes from when we talk about money. I want your cow, your cow cost 5 clams...I only have a ten, you give me 5 clams back. (Brings into question how much change you got if you actually wanted to buy actual clams, but that's someone else's blog. Trust me, it probably really is someone else's blog.)
Anyone who thinks a debit card transaction is faster than cash, even the ones under $20, has never been behind someone over age 70 in line.
Other stuff we didn't think we needed? How about Blockbuster still trying to compete with Netflix? I love Alec Baldwin, but when I hear his voiceover on the ads pleading with me to try to keep Blockbuster in business, more fun times. The sell? With Netflix, you have to wait for your films in the mail. With Blockbuster, I have the option to wait for my films in the mail, OR march my lazy ass down to the local Blockbuster store and rent one there. If this sounds really similar to the service they offered for 20 years, it's because it is the service they offered for 20 years. I switched to Netflix because I AM TO LAZY TO GO TOO BLOCKBUSTER. Just sell all the stores, Blockbuster. Invest in that "credit chip" we can all surgically implant into our wrists so you can compete with Visa's revolutionary debit card.
Lastly, where did this magical spell come from that convinced us that we needed cameras in our phones? I have lost the argument that there was social life before cell phones. I understand, I cannot bitchslap cell phones. I have one. I use it. However, I do maintain that their most efficient use is this sort of call: "Where are you?" "Behind you. I'm looking at you. No, the other way. I'm waving right now. I'm under the tree. Are you blind? I'm tapping you on the shoulder now. Now I'm touching your face. Okay, goodbye."
When I someday have children, trying to explain what life was like before cell phones will be like bringing out a record player. Or a TRS-80. Or a non-hovering automobile. I'm not sure who convinced me that I needed to be contacted 24 hours a day wherever I am. And I'm not sure why people get so irate because they can't reach you or you didn't "pick up." What did we used to do when we were alone? Were we always this unhappy just enjoying our own company?
But all that being said, I could never apply for lifetime membership to the Luddite Club (if such a club would allow a machine-printed membership card), as I was once broken down on the side of the road, and my cell phone saved me from a male rapist.
Actually, that was embellished for no reason. Being broken down was dramatic enough an example, there was no rapist. Anyway, that day, I realized that you don't have to just be lost or a brain surgeon on call to consider the accessory one that you felt you needed. Are they overused? Yes. But I use them, they're handy.
But the phones on cameras? Seriously, how did the American consumer just gloss over this? The phone companies made a way to make us pay more for phones, and we just accepted it? What are the biggest triumphs of this technology, finding out that Michael Richards hates black people?
Be honest. When this technology came out, did you consider it any different than putting a toaster on an ant farm? Or a duck call on a tire iron? Or a spice rack on a vibrator?
Now they're everywhere, and I have people yelling at me because my phone "still" doesn't have a camera on it and they can't send me pictures. I don't know. I just think Alexander Graham Bell never thought his "Mr. Watson, come here, I need to see you" would be diluted to "Dude, check this out, this girl is so smashed. I'm so going to score with her." CLICK.
I miss Pong. Pong was pure.
You've seen them. They entail an efficient assembly line of consumerism, and the one cog in the wheel? Some jackass holding up the line by using cash over their Visa debit card. Yes, cash is the one thing that can stop the amazing machine of Capitalism.
Some Native American tribes used wampum, or polished bits of clamshells, to trade for goods and services. I guess this is where the term "clams" comes from when we talk about money. I want your cow, your cow cost 5 clams...I only have a ten, you give me 5 clams back. (Brings into question how much change you got if you actually wanted to buy actual clams, but that's someone else's blog. Trust me, it probably really is someone else's blog.)
Anyone who thinks a debit card transaction is faster than cash, even the ones under $20, has never been behind someone over age 70 in line.
Other stuff we didn't think we needed? How about Blockbuster still trying to compete with Netflix? I love Alec Baldwin, but when I hear his voiceover on the ads pleading with me to try to keep Blockbuster in business, more fun times. The sell? With Netflix, you have to wait for your films in the mail. With Blockbuster, I have the option to wait for my films in the mail, OR march my lazy ass down to the local Blockbuster store and rent one there. If this sounds really similar to the service they offered for 20 years, it's because it is the service they offered for 20 years. I switched to Netflix because I AM TO LAZY TO GO TOO BLOCKBUSTER. Just sell all the stores, Blockbuster. Invest in that "credit chip" we can all surgically implant into our wrists so you can compete with Visa's revolutionary debit card.
Lastly, where did this magical spell come from that convinced us that we needed cameras in our phones? I have lost the argument that there was social life before cell phones. I understand, I cannot bitchslap cell phones. I have one. I use it. However, I do maintain that their most efficient use is this sort of call: "Where are you?" "Behind you. I'm looking at you. No, the other way. I'm waving right now. I'm under the tree. Are you blind? I'm tapping you on the shoulder now. Now I'm touching your face. Okay, goodbye."
When I someday have children, trying to explain what life was like before cell phones will be like bringing out a record player. Or a TRS-80. Or a non-hovering automobile. I'm not sure who convinced me that I needed to be contacted 24 hours a day wherever I am. And I'm not sure why people get so irate because they can't reach you or you didn't "pick up." What did we used to do when we were alone? Were we always this unhappy just enjoying our own company?
But all that being said, I could never apply for lifetime membership to the Luddite Club (if such a club would allow a machine-printed membership card), as I was once broken down on the side of the road, and my cell phone saved me from a male rapist.
Actually, that was embellished for no reason. Being broken down was dramatic enough an example, there was no rapist. Anyway, that day, I realized that you don't have to just be lost or a brain surgeon on call to consider the accessory one that you felt you needed. Are they overused? Yes. But I use them, they're handy.
But the phones on cameras? Seriously, how did the American consumer just gloss over this? The phone companies made a way to make us pay more for phones, and we just accepted it? What are the biggest triumphs of this technology, finding out that Michael Richards hates black people?
Be honest. When this technology came out, did you consider it any different than putting a toaster on an ant farm? Or a duck call on a tire iron? Or a spice rack on a vibrator?
Now they're everywhere, and I have people yelling at me because my phone "still" doesn't have a camera on it and they can't send me pictures. I don't know. I just think Alexander Graham Bell never thought his "Mr. Watson, come here, I need to see you" would be diluted to "Dude, check this out, this girl is so smashed. I'm so going to score with her." CLICK.
I miss Pong. Pong was pure.
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