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there are two types of people in the world – sometimes updated weekdaily

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Tiger [in the] Woods

People who are good at golf

People who say “GIT IN THE HOLE!” at a golf tournament, especially on a par 5 tee

OK, once more in honor of the golf tournament this weekend, this is one of those topics that needs to be covered. I am sick of people yelling “get in the hole” every time a professional golfer makes contact, and sometimes during their practice swings. The ball is not going to get in the hole. Especially off of a tee box on a par 4, and especially, especially on a par 5. If you say “get in the hole” on a tee shot on a par 5, you should be shot where you stand.

When fans act like idiots, Tiger’s knee hurts

I can imagine that professional golfers fall into 2 camps when these people open their mouthes. Camp 1, who thinks that they’re being paid a lot of money to entertain these Crisco-for-brains fans and they’ll be happy that someone’s cheering for them, and camp 2, who complains every time these people talk or when a leaf moves or when an ant farts or when their shoelace slips . . . oh wait: camp 2 is just Woody Austin.

When these people are not watching professional golfers, they are weekend golfers who still say completely ridiculous things, my favorite of which is “Nice shot”, “You killed that one”, and “awesome”, as a good golfer’s shot goes curving into a lake or the middle of the woods. For many bad golfers, simply making the club touch the ball seems to be the goal, but for other people it also has something to do with where the ball goes afterwards. So please, keep your damn mouth shut at least until the ball starts coming back toward earth. A shot might be awesome in its first 18 feet of flight, but a lot can happen afterwards, and it makes pros and decent amateurs alike want to kill you with your own 3-year-old glove, if it didn’t have so many holes in it and if the leather wouldn’t crumble like a potato chip when bent.

Truthfully, I’d rather just go un-complimented during a round of golf. Compliments don’t seem to happen in other places: guys don’t feel comfortable complimenting each other in most sports. If some dude can throw a football, nobody is going to say “wow, nice arm.” In manspeak, that roughly translates to “take your shirt off and I’ll go change into my jean shorts”. So why this reverence for the golfer?

This is a petition to the world: please stop saying, “get in the hole” at golf tournaments. Please stop celebrating contact. Do you cheer every time a basketball player shoots the ball, or when he makes it? Do you yell “TOUCHDOWN!!!” every time there’s a kickoff at a football game? No. I encourage you to exercise the same judgment when watching golf, please.

Taking "Denim" Out Of Our Vocabulary

People who wear jeans

People who wear denim in forms other than a full-legged pant

The facts of the case are these:

• Denim is a durable, long-lasting material
• Denim was invented for people whose pants would rip when working in fields and around fences/etc.
• Denim became fashionable

And herein lies the core issue with America: when your mom tells you “honey, you can do anything you want to do in life”, that is a true statement in this country. In most other countries in the world, this is said to little children just to make them feel better. In those countries, it’s like an insect colony: the leaders have a look at you and give you a few tests when you’re about 6. They say “doctor”, “architect”, “janitor”, and you’re sent on your way to dedicate the following years of your life to a pre-arranged job and likely a pre-arranged spouse as well. Life is simple and controlled.

In this country, however, anyone can do anything, even against the collective better judgement of humanity. One of the chief ways this manifests itself is in clothing, and perhaps the most durable (pun intended) case of clothing crime is creating denim clothing other than the full-legged pant:

The Jean Short:

The Denim Shirt:

The Mom Jean:

Now you might say, “Evan, the mom jean is technically a full-legged pant”, and you would be mostly correct. But that is just fulfilling criteria in the downward direction. Yes, the legs are full-length, but a “full legged pant” has more conditions than that, notably the upward direction. Since the mom jean is a 3/4-length body suit, technically, it is not a pant.

You might also be saying “Evan, you are ripping jokes off of SNL”, and you would also be right. But SNL sucks right now, so we we’re having to support them by paying homage to the classics.

If we just take the word “denim” out of our language, we can simply use “jeans” to refer to these pants. There is no reason to give the material a name, suggesting that it can be used in other ways.

Yesterday, I went to the Tour Championship, a golf tournament here in Atlanta. Typically, a golf event draws society’s finest: ladies with their cute sun dresses, gentlemen wearing criminal amounts of seersucker, and children who know more about their nanny than their mommy; but that wasn’t the case. It hit me why: Atlanta is like Israel, a dot of one way of thinking, dressing, and acting surrounded by vast lands of people who want to kick your ass for thinking, dressing, and acting the way you do. I saw jean shorts galore, found out where all of those Tommy Hilfiger shirts went, and noticed the self-defense system known as putting gel in hair that is less than 1” in length. I also got a number of “what the hell are you looking at?” looks, which I relished in no uncertain way.

Maybe we need a little less freedom and dreaming in this country. Or maybe we just need to have a similar test at age 6, but the result doesn’t have to be as restricting as “doctor”, “lawyer”, etc.: maybe we just tell children who is and is not allowed to pursue their dreams. Those deemed unfit to pursue dreams will just have to toil away, while the good, creative children will be encouraged to do the thinking for everyone. Yeah, that should work just fine.

Don’t forget that there is a space for write-ins on the presidential ballot. I can make this happen, people. (And I’ll get the price on the vending machines lowered, too.)

The Bigger, The More Gooder

People who dream of someday owning an unnecessarily large truck

People who have been outside of their state

I have spent most of my time so far in life in Florida, Tennessee, and Georgia. Now, before you jump to any conclusions because of that list, I did not go to the University of Florida, Georgia, or Tennessee, so I do not own any team flags that I mount to my car windows on Saturdays. Despite this, I have been exposed to the southern phenomenon (and I guess it’s not just a southern one) of either owning or dreaming to own a ridiculously large truck.

There is something about trucks that never satisfies owners. When you get a Ford F150, you want an F250. When you get a Ram, you want a supercharged Ram. When you get an H3, you wonder why you don’t have any friends.

The appetite for larger and larger trucks, or truck lust, is something that consumes southerners who would rather spend their hard-earned cash on a lift kit than take their wife to Europe. Perhaps the funniest part is that the wives have somehow been brainwashed: “We wur gunna go to It-lee, but Frank got his truck lifted so he can see down them city girls’ shirts in their convertibles. He’s such a maaaan. Ooh baby, I love you!”

But I do have to be fair: big trucks are good for the economy. Big trucks open the door for macho dudes to purchase the equivalent of “man jewelry”. While fancy men are at Neiman Marcus shopping for their newest bracelet with a skull superimposed on a cross, the macho dudes are accessorizing not themselves, but their trucks. You’ve got tires, wheels, chrome galore, review mirrors, sideview mirrors, antennas, CB radios, bedliners, trailer hitches, trailer hitch accessories, trailer hitch accessory accessories, and more. And the great part about it is that the guys still feel like men while they’re accessorizing.

For me, I prefer a faster car that has little practical value. I like to get places fast, accelerate unnecessarily, take turns at high speed even though it makes no real sense, and generally behave in a way that truck people say “look at that lil city boy, let’s kick his ass.” Whatever, it helps me to get to Neiman Marcus faster.

"I Just Cured Cancer", "I Love Cured Ham!"

People who hear what you say

People who hear what the voices say

I have had at least 4 conversations in the last week that went something like this:

“I think that we should do X, but we should do Y first”

“Why do you not like X?”

“I do like X, but I think Y makes more sense right now”

“I just can’t talk to you if you don’t like X”

“I do like X!!!”

“Well that is the first time that you said you thought X was a good idea. Thank you!”

This is the work equivalent of the game “telephone” that kids play on the playground about 2 years before they start doing hard drugs (I heard a 12 year old in the mall talking about getting high). You know, the game where one kid says, “Mrs. Johnson has a fanny head”, the message is passed around a circle of people whispering into each others’ ears, and ends up being something like “Principal Swanson saw me naked”.

Anyhow, if you watch people who are non-listeners or otherwise possessed by words from the other side, you can actually see it happen:

The person you’re talking to goes through three stages, which I would liken to a blindfolded track & field event.

Ready: The person you’re talking to is listening. They look relaxed and attentive. You are communicating.

Set: The person has heard all that they’re going to hear, which is usually about the first 8 words of what you said, even though you talked for 40 seconds. This stage is commonly signaled by an open mouth (they are on the blocks), a lot of head movement, and a lot of single-syllable sounds coming out of the listener: “But…”, “Well…”, “Uh….”, “Yes…” – the equivalent of false starts on the track.

Go: You have wrapped up your point, knowing pretty well that what you’re about to hear relates only to the first 8 words of your points and a refrigerator-poetry rearrangement of your following words. The listener explodes into the rebuttal of a point someone in some other room speaking some other language made 4 countries away in 1967. The blindfolded race equivalent of the sprinter on the inside lane running into the infield and catching a javelin in the shoulder.

Even if you leave the office, it’s no different. My family has the collective attention span of a goldfish on meth and Thanksgiving looks like band practice at the school for the deaf & blind. My friends are better, but those conversations are more like “Yeah, I think Obama’s economic policy leaves me wonderi– hey did you see that ass?”, so there’s really not that much to get out of those in the first place.

I’m going to do my best today to listen to what people are saying. I’m not sure what the hell they’re talking about or how it applies to me, and I know that everything will be fine once they hear what I have to say, but I’ll let their noiseboxes run out of air before I bring the gospel to them. You have to kick one back to the little guy every now and then.

The Early Bird Gets the Lead

Tigris: Morning people

Euphrates: People who hate morning people

Let me start this by saying that I am definitively not a morning person, but there is a small part of me that is envious of (yet a bigger part that wants to sometimes strangle) morning people. To be able to hop up out of bed 3 minutes before the alarm goes off is something that seems perfectly normal to many people, but superhuman and incredibly obnoxious to me. The concept of standing and humming in the shower: impossible. I am like swamp thing in there, moaning like a dinosaur, bracing myself against the wall. On particularly tired mornings, I may even sit or lay down in the shower. Picture the guy in the mental institution in his straight jacket, rocking back and forth (although, make him terribly attractive and not otherwise mentally disturbed). That’s my morning ritual.

Next, I move to the battle of will I call breakfast. I am not a morning person, therefore I am not a breakfast person. Those things seem to go hand-in-hand, and that’s not something I’m too pumped about, really. People really should eat breakfast. I have a friend who is a skeptic: “People tell you that you have to eat breakfast just so they can sell you breakfast bars.” He’s kind of a dick, in general. Anyhow, I do think that breakfast helps, but I am usually not able to make it happen. The bonus of not eating breakfast is that I also get reprimanded at by my wife, so not only am I not doing myself a favor but I get to also get in trouble for it. Life always gives you a bonus round, I’ve found.

Maybe that’s where the disgust for morning people really begins (no, I do not have disgust for my wife, this is just an example). Morning people tend to look down at non morning people, using phrases like, “you know, Evan: you really should…”. I SHOULD WHAT? You TELL me what I should do. Normally I’ll listen to this sage advice about not hitting snooze (are you kidding me?), eating an immediate breakfast, or whatever useless tips lead to a love for the morning, but it’s all complete BS. If you’re cursed enough to be a morning person, just live with it. Don’t bring it on the rest of us.

I really enjoy not being a morning person. I think that a part of me wishes I could turn it on from time to time, but more or less, I like knowing that breakfast is a meal you eat at Waffle House after a concert. I like that I don’t go to sleep at 9:30. I like that I don’t part my hair in a perfect line and have a cleanly-shaven face every morning (morning people can be easily identified by their perfect parts and complete lack of neck hair).

But I do have to say that non-morning people can be douchebags, too. If I hear the phrase, “I haven’t had my coffee yet” one more time, I might just explode. Please quit saying that: you’re like a walking Cathy comic, and Cathy is only funny / relevant to the woman who lives in her parents house and has 300 cats and a trail of empty Ben ‘n Jerry’s cartons between the bed and couch. In fact, all morning-related office cliches need to just retire about now. Non morning people definitely over sell it. They roam around the office like the undead, not looking at each other when they walk by, talking about how short the weekend was and how tired they are because of their awesome nighttime activities. Stop. You might be emo / depressing during your night and weekend minutes, but you need to sack up and be a functioning person once you hit the office door.

So maybe what I’m revealing here is that non morning people might not hate morning people, maybe they just hate everyone (and everything) until they come around later in the day. I know this isn’t very funny, but give me a break. It’s Monday morning. I haven’t had my coffee yet.

Going to the Zoo at 2 AM

Smothered: People who go to Waffle House at 2 A.M.

Covered : People who go to Waffle House at 2 A.M. for the spectacle

In honor of recent nighttime activities (woah there, cowboy), I feel the need to address this topic, and there’s no better day than a Friday since it’s either fresh in your minds or will be happening tonight. Of course, I’m talking about the 2 AM visit to Waffle House.

If you’re not an Atlantan or a southerner, this might not hit home with you, but I’m sure there’s some place that you can eat breakfast at 2 AM (or a 1/4” thick steak, if you so choose) in your neck of the woods. If there isn’t an establishment like this near you, find 6 people with 9 teeth and great personalities and teach them how to cook an omelette. Instant financial success.

Waffle House at 2 AM is proof that God exists. What other explanation could there possibly be for the shear joy of this collection of people, specifically created for our enjoyment? Now, don’t confuse this for being condescending. I am not going that direction here: I think that these are some of the nicest and most interesting people I have ever met, but it is truly an amazing sight to see the carnies, gangstas, frat boys, and goths (I thought they closed the Hot Topic stores in the mall?) all in one place, enjoying food and each other, likely under the influence of no less than 2 substances of choice. It is a picture of God’s harmony (minus the substance abuse part).

On my most recent visit, a friend of mine and I chose the WaHo on Northside, which is built into a Days Inn. Naturally, this heightens the experience, sort of like a bar that’s built inside a pool: the complementary forces of these two establishments create a whole greater than its parts. Anyhow, we walk in and I immediately recognize the hostess/watiress/chef (everyone here can do everything) from the Pharr Rd. location. We point at each other with that “I know you from somewhere else” look and figure it out after a few seconds. Now, in most situations, the people that work at Waffle House have seen too many people to remember any one of them, but Shayna and I have a unique experience together that created a lasting bond (again, woah cowboy), which I share with you now:

About a year ago, another friend of mine and I were at the Pharr Rd location and we were about to give our orders when the gin started doing the talking: I asked Shayna for the phone number of that location. She gave it to me and I immediately pulled out my phone and dialed while she started taking my friend’s order. The cook standing by the phone answered and I asked (behind a cupped hand over my mouth), “Can I please speak to Shayna?”

“Shayna. Phone call for you.” says the cook.

“Hang on guys.” She walks over to the phone. “Hello?”

“um yeah, I’d like to go ahead and place my order,” I say. “I’ll take the Texas Cheesesteak Pla–”

“Excuse me . . . Sir,” she interrupts, “are you coming in to pick this up?”

“No, I’m already here.”

Then it hits her like a man wearing a tank-top. She looks over and sees my dumb ass grin and the phone on the side of my head. I say “you ready?” into the phone, and she hangs up in humored-disgust.

This is one of my favorite Waffle House experiences, and one that has earned me very fast service and food that looks almost as orderly on my plate as it does in the pictures on the menu.

The Northside visit that night didn’t disappoint, either. While most of the action was away from our table, it was priceless. We watched an insanely tall black man wearing shirt reminiscent of the pattern on Fruit Stripe Gum walk the parking lot security guy though each of the 600 features of his BMW 328i convertible. Just watching this praying mantis of a man get in and out of this car was enough, but the level to which the security guy was impressed with the visor lights and the size of the trunk was equally entertaining. There could have been a murder right behind him, but he wasn’t going to take his attention off of the rain-sensing windshield wipers. Funny enough, my friend and I actually thought this guy was in trouble when we first noticed this going on. He was emptying his trunk out onto the curb while the security guy held up a flashlight. The search for contraband continued until we realized the contraband was just vehicle features.

So thank you to those who enrich my life with your presence here on earth and your presence in Waffle House. I’m not sure what compels you to go there at those hours (do you think there’s a carnie blog about the ridiculous kids in their polo shirts calling the waitresses?), but thank you and please keep doing it. See you next week.

P.S. No. You don’t take pictures of this. You’ll just frack up the whole chi of the situation. Moments like these were meant to enjoy in person, and to those who photograph Waffle House, shame on you. If you need photographic evidence to convince other people of what you saw or encourage them to go, they’re not worth your time and should not be your friend. Dump the baggage.

When You Eat, I Can't

Dre: People who always eat in a way other people find revolting

Eminem: People who occasionally eat in a way other people find revolting

Do you have any friends who bring out the best in your gag reflex when they eat? You know, I’m talking about the people who chew with their mouthes open, get a meat ‘n 3 and blend it all together, or worse yet, the people who become food cannons when they talk to you? Some people are just disgusting when they sit down for a meal, and that’s what makes the rest of us genetically superior, right?

We are more refined. We don’t sip on our straw after a fresh mouthful of mashed potatoes, at best case leaving a globule of starch on the end of the straw and worst case starting a spud titration in our beverage. We chew enough times to avoid a choking hazard, have a sip of our drinks; maybe have a short talk with food perched on the end of our forks before continuing. Sneaking food into our mouthes during long vowels in the midst of conversation is not abiding by the rules, so we’re not going to do it. When someone asks us a question while we’re eating, we put up a “1 second” finger and bug our eyes out, feigning embarrassment, but again not breaking simple etiquette.

There are also those people who talk with their mouthes full, but do so behind the magic finger curtain (people who “cover” their mouthes so you can’t see the cud while they’re explaining something to you). They think they’re following the rules, but with any imagination and 20/20 vision, you can imagine what’s going on behind those fingers and often see some mouth confetti falling out under the hand of deception. Please stop this terrible practice. Often enough, people don’t give a damn what you have to say in the first place, and they’re certainly not hearing you when you use your food blast shield.

But is it really true the rest of us abide by this high standard all of the time? What about those meals where you’re home alone or just grabbing a snack at the mall? I know that’s when I break down:

I’ve recently taken to the European phenomenon of eating my fries with mayonnaise. To most red-blooded and red-condimented Americans, this is already a class 1 offense, but in my most private fry-eating moments, particularly with high surface area papas fritas like those available at Chick-Fil-A, I have begun doing direct package-to-fry condiment distribution. As if sopping up mayo in the grid of a waffle fry wasn’t disgusting enough, people have to watch me squeeze my pillow of flavor onto this fry like it’s toothpaste, and yes, I can feel the eyes. It’s particularly bad when I don’t get a clean tear on the corner and an entire side of the packet is open like a nasty wound. Then it gets really messy. I do want to tell these people that I’m not normally like this, but by that time the fry is in the mouth, and the ritual has begun on another. I can’t help myself, and I can’t stop.

So I guess the moral of the story is that while I am clearly more refined than most others (just look at the evidence, people), I can slum it from time to time. Much like how I am intimately familiar with black struggles in America because I occasionally spin some hip hop, I can relate to our bad habited brethren because I do let my hair down. It’s not something I’m always proud of, but I do my best to stay in touch with all reaches of humanity.

What is your “out of body” habit?

p.s. – I can’t say that my goal in this wasn’t to make you puke. Now you know how I feel.

Protection from Rocks, Branches, and the Occasional T-Rex

Mac: People who put grille guards on their SUVs

PC: People who do not believe a dinosaur is going to attack their car

I know that Jurassic Park was an inspiration to us all in so many ways. The years we spent watching glasses of water ripple as overweight people strode by our desks in the office was a serious source of entertainment, and I even took up tree climbing for a short while, just to see what was up there. Unfortunately, not all habits we get from movies that touch our soul the way Jurassic Park did are good ones. Yes, I’m speaking of the phenomenon of protecting one’s grille, headlights, and taillights with steel, sending a message to all raptors in the area: you might fuck up my paint, but you’re not going to mess with my lighting or air intake.

Grille guards (and associated accessories) first started showing up after the movie. Before Michael Crichton’s books started being recreated by Hollywood, there was no supplemental protection on SUVs around America. This reality is represented in the chart below:

As you can see, in 1992, there was some awareness of the movie, but no awareness of grille guards, according to a poll of me. In 1993, the movie exploded onto the scene, and there were some early adopters of grille guards, probably people who also owned motorcycles. In the following year, grille guards surpassed the movie in awareness and have retained more awareness as time has gone on, carrying 5x the awareness of the movie into the new millennium. At one point in there, I was seeing these guards on regular cars, which was just ridiculous. If your car doesn’t have 4-wheel drive, you’re never going to see a dinosaur, that’s just obvious. But now, in 2008, it is less common to see these accessories in place, and it concerns me that if those beasts do ever get off of the island, our lighting is at serious risk.

Looking at these car protection buyers over time shows an interesting pattern. Much of their buying habits revolve around movies:

I can’t help but wonder what we have coming up next: with the summer blockbuster “Death Race” fresh in our minds, will history repeat itself?

Bad Parking Should Be A Felony

Left: People who park within the boundary of a parking space

Right: People with little disregard for fellow man, co worker, or their own property

Do you ever feel like buying an old Ford F150 just so you can smash into another car that parked so awfully it affects more than 5 other cars? Yeah, me neither, but I guess some people do.

While walking into the mall to feed my Apple lust the other day, I saw no less than 10 cars that would qualify for a bat to the windshield. Of course the one here is not exactly an Aston Martin, but one thing I’ve noticed is that bad parking is not partial to race, creed, or religion. Bad parking can be a Porsche, a Pinto, young, old, a man, a woman, and even those people who you can’t tell if they’re a man or a woman. Bad parking does not discriminate, but I have a dream that my four (unborn) little children will one day live in a nation where people are harshly judged by the quality of their parking. I want to bring the locks and stockades back and put the bad parkers in there. Maybe even give them a scarlet P. Until we make an example of these people, the problem will continue.

The thing that I find most confusing about this whole parking issue is that it’s not just a disservice to other people, it’s also a statement to “please do whatever you want to my car. I don’t give a damn about it.” These cars are keyed, dented, tires deflated (not slashed, that’s just bad style), etc.; so do these people really wonder “why?” when they get back or do they just shrug and say, “Is that all you got?” Maybe we need to up the ante. I’m thinking that a service that could pick a car up, turn it upside down, and put it back on the ground with minimal damage might be a great business idea if you can figure out how to do this cheaply – like “We’ll charge you $25 to flip a car over, just for your own satisfaction.”

I can hear the phone calls between spouses now: “Dammit, Margie! This is the third time this month. Maybe you AREN’T responsible enough to drive that nice Altima I got you. Maybe we should go back to the Ford Focus since you don’t SEEM TO GIVE A DAMN!”

Now that’s a conversation I’d like to overhear from an adjoining office in the next 6 months.

Angel Investors, please use the contact form to buy shares in the car flipping business and get this thing started.

Solomon and Salsa

Solids: People who eat the last chip

Stripes: People who break the last chip in half

I have to admit: I am a chip breaker. I will keep breaking that last chip in half until I get to the molecular level, and I’m not sorry about this. The way I see it, as long as I keep breaking the chip, I’m giving the waiter enough time to come by and offer one of the many questions in life people never say no to: “More chips?” This question has good company with “More money?”, “More sex?”, and “Less Barbara Walters?”. In fact, questions like these are so obvious, I’m not even sure why they’re even asked.

On the other hand, nobody likes the guy who takes the last chip. I use “guy” here purposefully: people hate the guy who obnoxiously takes the last chip, but they just feel sorry for the girl who does, unless she’s hot. Some might call this sexist, but we all know who those people are.

Taking the last chip says a lot about someone (or maybe it just says one of many things, including):

• “I threw a winning touchdown pass in a varsity football game and won regionals, bitch.”
• “I am accomplished in my career: I manage no less than five people who hate their lives as a direct result of my personality.”
• “I am a suburban mom and will eat all of these chips just to piss my husband off until my next glass of Chardonnay gets to the table. Oooh, that waiter is cute.”

I think it’s relatively accurate to say if you’ve found someone who is a last chip eater, you’ve found an asshole. Many of the world’s problems are directly caused by last chip eaters. You can probably even identify the type just thinking about it:

Gengis Khan – last chip
Mohandas Ghandi – chip breaker
Dick Cheney – last chip
Barack Obama – chip breaker
Hilary Clinton – last chip
Jon Stewart – chip breaker
Bill Maher – last chip
Tiger Woods – chip breaker
Phil Mickelson – last chip
John Daly – just drinks the cheese dip
Jesus – fed 50 people with one fish, what do you think?

Among friends, the dynamic can be a little different. Last chip eating can happen, but it doesn’t happen without a call-out. Sometimes there’s an offer: “do you want the last chip?” No, you fat ass. You don’t mean that. Just eat it. I think that situations like these can be life-enriching, but don’t try to take this practice out of your circle of friends: you’ll just look like a jerk.

I grew up with a last chip eater in the house. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.

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  why you are here...

  You are here because you are awesome and you celebrate awesomeness.
  
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