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People who are proud of their school

People who are proud of their school’s team

First, an apology: I’m sorry that I went AWOL yesterday: I have another cold. Apparently, I’ve turned into the boy in a bubble and I get sick every time I’m within 100 feet of a sick person or bird poop or you name it. This sucks. And I’m still sick, but I’m going to man up and write a post today.

Moving right along: are these two different types of people? Yes.

Think of it this way: when you tell people where you went to school, do they say, “oh, [university] is having a great season”, or do they say, “what do you do for a living?” ‘Nuff said.

Let me make my point another way, real quick like:

The first result I get on a Google Images search for Harvard is:

Look at these pansy bitches becoming the leaders of the most powerful nation on earth. Losers.

And a search for “University of Alabama”, first result:

This elephant never forgets how to beat your ass, or if you want fries with that.

Now before you start to bring it, let me explain to you team-lovers why this is.

1) Good schools are bad at sports, with one exception: Duke basketball. Some schools might pop up out of nowhere from time to time and have a good season, but they never stay on top, again minus Duke. Damn outlier.

2) People who went to good schools cheat on their team on Saturdays. Nearly everyone I know who went to a good school who likes sports wore a different shirt on Saturday.

3) I am right.

So the point is this: don’t confuse team pride with school pride. School pride is for doctors, lawyers, senators, and judges. Team pride is for everyone, even if you didn’t go to a school.

Any comments, sukkas?

I just put this bookmarking and whatever thingy up. Please digg the post if you liked it. It’ll let more people like it. Click below and make me famous!

People who tell jokes from memory

Funny people

People who tell jokes are morons. If I hear another recited joke, especially if it’s one I’ve heard more than 3 times before, I am going to projectile vomit on the person telling the joke and then put the video on youTube.

Now, I’m not saying that the jokes themselves aren’t sometimes cute or entertaining. Comedians make a living re-telling jokes, but at least they wrote them in the first place, which is evident when you watch them perform: their personality is the joke and the words just convey this person’s [sometimes] brilliantly twisted view of the world. But people that read jokes in books or the Internet should be sent to whatever the modern equivalent of Australia’s leper colonies are. Yes, some of these jokes were funny back when How to Win Toddlers and Influence Morons was in its first publishing, but the people who tell them today make me want to go lava diving.

The funniest people that I know are funny because they give you a window into how they view the world, and it doesn’t involve rabbis, Moses, Jesus, black people, or hispanics. Ok, sometimes it does. But it’s not on purpose: there would be an actual rabbi in the story, not a hypothetical rabbi that runs around in his Israeli sports car that not only stops on a dime, but picks it up. Funny people often hear jokes they think are funny, and fail miserably trying to re-tell them, either because they can’t remember them, or they’re more aware of how awkward joke telling is, which appropriately ruins the atmosphere.

I love that we live in a special time where, if we’re unable to laugh with you, we feel comfortable living at you. So basically, if you’re a joke teller, know that we’re laughing at you later, when we’ve finished pretending to laugh at your joke and you’ve walked to the next group of people to re-tell the joke, having just felt validated by our feigned enthusiasm. The cycle will then repeat, and it’s even that much funnier, knowing that more and more people are going to go “ha ha, that’s great”, and then turn around to their friends, bug their eyes out, and make some sort of a “SAVE ME!!!” gesture.

I leave you with some actual examples of funny:

The Onion

Stuff White People Like

The Show with Ze Frank (no longer running)

The Fail Blog

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs (the gig is up here, too)

I am in the process of moving the blog to a new platform that is going to add all sorts of great abilities. Sort of like Mohinder has figured out (if you get the reference, you are as awesome as me, which is pretty awesome).

To stew on for today:

People who use Netflix

People who pay $40 a month to own 5 movies permanently

My wife has been trying to get me to cancel Netflix. I’m not going to do it out of principle and the possibility that we might get started with it again. Until then, I will continue to pay $38 a month to own 5 DVDs in red envelopes and get the occasional email.

People who like pop music

Music Snobs

In honor of the trendy Penguin shirt I’m wearing today, I figured it was time to attack this one.

I am a music lover. I love all types of music (except I would rather be covered by the sap of a million Christmas trees than listen to some pop country). I listen to music that people make fun of me for listening to, and I equally often listen to music by people who have a smaller market share than Ask Jeeves. I love going to shows to hear bands I will learn quickly to hate, just because of the 10% of the time that I hear brilliance. I guess music isn’t so unlike golf for me: you keep showing up for the good shots, even if the bad ones can give you a hernia.

But the problem with music people is that they’re bastards. Take the above-pictured people, for example. The average conversation would go something like this:

Girl at left: “So I was at [super independent coffee shop] the other day, eating a hemp scone and listening to some old bootlegged Pavement when this guy walks in and orders a fucking latte. THEN he points to the speaker and says, ‘This is catchy, who’s playing?’ It was Jump Little Children. Who the FUCK doesn’t know Jump?”

Dude: “Woah, wonder what’s on that guy’s iPod…John Mayer-a-thon, anyone?”

Girl in center: “Yeah, John Mayer and Genesis”

Girl at left: “ What the fuck are you talking about? The hipster national guard voted Genesis cool again last week. Were you buying music at Best Buy again when the vote went down?”

Girl in center: “whatever, bitch. I saw the Allman Brothers on your last.fm favorites yesterday.”

All: “OBAMA!”

- End Scene -

This is a pretty typical exchange between “real” music fans these days, and it makes me sad. Good music is all good. Sometimes it’s not what you’re used to hearing, but it can still be good. Give it – and the people who listen to it – a chance.

Before we part, a quick note on pop music. Pop becomes pop because a lot of people like it. It’s like one of those catchy new yogurt stores. It’s catchy, relevant, and tastes great for about a month until you want to puke when you think about it, but a new catchy yogurt store has opened up, so you’re good. It has its place.

Now I’m going to go throw on some Timberlake and change. My wife hates this shirt.

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.)

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.

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.

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?

Blood: People who use their cell phones as intended

Crip: People who use their cell phones like a CB radio made for a valley girl

The use of almost any object as originally intended eventually becomes uncool. Belts have been worn with the buckles facing sideways, hats have been worn every way possible, jeans have been backwards, and now holding a cell phone to the side of your head makes you a huge d-bag, apparently. So now we hold it out in front of our face using the speakerphone from 11 inches away…

I guess this new style of communication, something I’m referring to as the “conference call with the world”, isn’t entirely new. I’ve seen people doing it in varying degrees for over a year now and I think I have figured out the origins: Nextel. Yes, the only telephone service in the world where people willingly paid by the minute to walkie-talkie 5 word conversations, 4 or more of which are “yep”, “roger”, and “got it”.

Examples:

• BLEEP “Wood?”, BLEEP “got it”, BLEEP “yep?”, BLEEP “roger”
• BLEEP “Roger…”, BLEEP “yep?”, BLEEP “got it?”, BLEEP “yep.”

This made sense because these guys were usually looking at plans, driving forklifts, beating up their girlfriends, or something else that required both hands. The construction business isn’t usually a trendsetter, but somehow this thing stuck, and it stuck big.

I think the first sighting off the job was also somewhat utilitarian: the effort seemed to be to keep the phone away from both the new nail polish (come to think of it, they were probably just new nails: 3 inches long with gold gemstones glued on: classy) and the new hair which looked like it has just gotten a new coat of polyurethane. In this case, I took the side of the offender: those extensions would inevitably have to come out if the phone made contact with the hair, never to be separated again. It was, therefore, a reasonable behavior, given the circumstances.

Gradually, this post-beautification ritual became more of a normal sight, perhaps driven by the confidence-building moments where rappers would call stockbrokers to get their balances announced to fellow Bloomingdale’s shoppers in close proximity to the baby seal skin boot section. Once the rappers got going, the 13 year old white girls weren’t far behind.

But I do have to say that I’m not totally against this idea. I am against it from the standpoint that it makes people look like morons who eat their Blackberrys like moon pies (and the effect it has on driving habits), but the priceless moments where these puck callers have emergency “abort behavior” moments as embarrassing news comes over the phone is hysterical enough for me to endorse the whole thing. Moments like these make the mall that much more entertaining. If you catch a particularly good moment, the sight of the phone crashing into a user’s head or flying into opposing foot traffic makes it all worth while.

So today, I’m gluing my laptop to the outside of my carrying bag and driving to work with my windshield wipers on. You can never say you’re a trendsetter if you don’t try.

- CUT -

I: People who say they’re underpaid

II: People who choose to not spend their money on bluetooth headsets, shoes, purses, and ties they can’t afford.

Too soon?

I guess it’s just struck me as funny that I’m listening to someone with $1,000 of blinking and blinging accessories complain about how their boss doesn’t know what they “got”. I can work anywhere. I’m damn good at my job. That stupid mother-…

I have a lot of these priceless moments on elevators where taking a picture – or better yet a video – of what I’m seeing just might get me killed. Gas stations and fast food restaurants (where I’ve been spending way too much time lately) come in a close second and third for “what the hell did I just see?”, and are equally as difficult to document, so I guess you’re just going to have to trust me.

A few weeks ago, I was eating at Houston’s and I saw a gentleman walk in with no less than 5 cell phones / blackberries strapped to his belt “holster style”. Both ears were filled with bluetooth headsets (different brands – you’d think you want symmetry in this case) and he had some big ass headphones around his neck with the cord running down to one of the many boxes in his waist-mounted Best Buy kiosk. Truthfully, this was a small miracle I was witnessing: the belt itself ran just under the last shred of ass-curvature that might keep his jean shorts (yeah, keeping you guessing here) up on his body, yet in full stride and with no assistance, those pants stayed put. Rubber waistband? Suspenders? Shear will? A small zone of zero gravity? I may never know.

It’s just nice to know that the American way of spending what you don’t have is still rolling right along. Oh, hang on, my rear-right celly is blowin’ up. Must be Europe…

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