Age is nothing if not a number

I was reading a post by this Grenade that got me thinking about younger women and older men. Hugh Hefner’s recent runaway bride aside, men seem to be blessed with the ability to wrangle in women younger than the kids that they had with their first wives. Why is this? The obvious answer would be women aren’t as shallow as men and are capable of being attracted by things not measured by Victoria’s Secret. To be fair to men, gravity definitely plays a role in this ideological rift. Large forms mounted horizontally are not meant to be held up forever. Unfortunately ladies, a temple can turn to ruins faster than a Harrison Ford flick.

But I don’t think men are that shallow across the board to explain why we can switch to a newer model more regularly than Steve Jobs. I think the fundamental reason we get younger women is because younger women allow it. Nobody’s holding a gun to their head saying “Make-out with you father’s golf buddy or else!” Maybe part of this is the fact that men can remain fertile much later into their lives. I kind of get how a younger woman would be intrigued by an older, wiser, financially stable man who also can still knock her up after his second knee replacement. If ovaries are as rare and valuable as a T206 Honus Wagner baseball card then sperm is like the bubble gum that came in every pack.

Really, the whole point of this post wasn’t to find an answer to why this phenomenon exists, but to express my conjecture on what I believe are the optimal ages for a man and woman in an intimate relationship when the fellow is twice the lady’s age.

I believer 54 and 27 are the ideal numbers based on a modified version of baseball sabermetrics I used.

Here’s why:

1. Any number over 60 for a guy is out because then you’re talking about a 3+ decade minimum age gap. Also, I’m not even 30 yet and it feels like I’ve been alive a long time. And they lived thru the Truman presidency, which was a decade before even JFK.

2. Obviously any age in the 30′s are out for guys, because that would make it illegal, creepy, or both.

3. The 40′s are a doable decade for guys but, other than college professors in that age range, most women half their age will be in college during that time frame and are probably going to put off settling down with an older guy until after they’ve explored the droves of young men teeming all around them.

So we’ve narrowed it down to the 50′s for guys. I choose 54 and 27 because at that point you’ve got a woman out of college who has turned the corner into her late 20′s but at the same time a guy who is still in his early 50′s. The women presumably has had a real world job for a few years and is financially independent and making decisions more on wants than needs. The man probably hasn’t had a heart attack yet and, because he’s a dude, probably still passes for someone in their late 40′s. If you’re 27 and he looks 48, that’s 6 years taken off the age gap right there. Subtract the years of virility the man has left ( let’s say 14 on average ) and now his age is down to 34. A 7 year age difference is negligible. It provides that perfect amount of time gap that allows a man to catch up in maturity to a woman.

I hope this was helpful to all my male chauvinist readers and to Hugh Hefner, if you’re reading old friend.

Things I thought of while getting a haircut

Thoughts:

1. If we can have a truly international Little League World Series, why can’t we do this at the Major League Level?

2. If they have Frozen Yogurt places where you pay by weight, why can’t there be barbershops/hair salons where you pay by the weight of what they cut off? A trim shouldn’t slim your wallet that much.

3. There’s something cathartic about getting the closest parking space to your apartment, especially when your roommate is usually parked in it.

4. It’s sad that you can judge the productivity of your day by the proximity of your parking spot to your apartment ( the closer you are parked the less you did ).

5. If your idea of good chocolate is Hershey’s, then my idea of a good lay is a blowup doll.

6. Going to 3 different groceries stores before settling on a beer choice does not make you a beer snob. Ok, yes it does but I’m not buying anything with the world “summer” or “wheat” in the title. And fruit beers are for special occasions, like when you’re already too drunk to taste the raspberry in them.

7. Screw online dating, online blogging is where all the eligible singles are.

8. The only reason I would ever run a 5K is because some other blogger is and I secretly want to shadow them the whole race and then blow by them at the end of the race. So keep posting your times so I know who I can actually keep up with.

9. I know Ames isn’t going to win the “Bachelorette”,  but sometimes you just have to cherish the time you have with someone even though you know it’s fleeting.

The Concept of Containers

Have you ever really thought about all the people you’ve made out with in your life and analyzed what each met to you at that moment in time in your life?

Me neither. Moving on to more pertinent topics, like containers. Containers are insert superlative here. They really are. How Fleetwood Mac never wrote a song about them is inexplicable. They hold solids and liquids, and possibly both at the same time. And the beauty of recreational container use is the fact that you can put as little or as much (as you can fit) into them.

But I’m not here to talk about recreational container use. I’m here to talk about commercial container use. I define a commercial container as anything that has been packaged by the producer before being given to the consumer. So this would include the Lincoln Log bucket, the Manolo Blahnik shoe box (I like to relate to sassy SATC aficionados in my posts), or a jar of pickles.

Specifically, food containers are what I want to grumble about. A shoe box can be as small or large as it wants as long as two shoes are inside. But with food containers, the number one principal of consumerism is that we want the best bang for our buck. I don’t want to order a medium iced tea and then have you fill it up 3 ounces short of the top. Mason don’t play that. But Mason also doesn’t want to look like the penny pincher who complains and then gets the iced tea topped of with teenage saliva.

What’s really at the heart of this complaint is the very berry oatmeal I’ve been getting from Caribou Coffee. I pretty much eat oatmeal everyday for breakfast, with the exception of my Saturday egg & cheese sandwich and the occasional bagel and lox. I make a pretty decent oatmeal with cinnamon, blueberries, raisins, dates (sometimes), and a little skim milk. But my oatmeal doesn’t hold a candle (or iPhone with candle app) to the very berry oatmeal. It’s the slivered almonds and especially the strawberry compote that puts it way over the top. How over the top? Think Lady Gaga playing a burning piano with tigers eating sushi off her naked body. Now use your VCR’s tracking feature to adjust it back to a really good oatmeal. There. That over the top.

The Caribou oatmeal is so good I’ve been eschewing making oatmeal and just getting it on the way to work for the last week or so. And for $2.29, plus tax, it’s really not that economically malfeasant. The problem lies in the human element involved in the oatmeal preparation. Some of the baristas know what Mason likes and fill the container up to the top with copious amounts of compote. Then there’s the ones who are consistently an inch below the top of the container with the oatmeal and don’t understand the concept of the compote to oatmeal ratio.

One day I’m going to snap and complain about it in person, with some snarky comment like, “Guess that’s why you guys get owned by Starbucks and Dunkin’”, followed by me snapping several wooden coffee stirrers over my knee, a la Bo Jackson, and then storming off. Until then I will continue my Venti venting here (someone really needs to admit me to Alliterations Anonymous).

See the oatmeal fill level is the same problem you get with any prepared to order single serving item that involves any sort of mixing / blending. The same thing happens at Smoothie King or when I get a protein shake at the gym. The guy eyeballs the ingredients and then, once it is all mixed together and poured, hopes the end result approaches optimal fill zone. But if it doesn’t we, the consumer, are SOL because they’re not going to take the time to whip up a 2oz. portion of smoothie with tiny 20z. portion strawberries and tiny 20z. portion ice cubes.

So why don’t we stand up for the rightful portions we paid for? We wouldn’t pay $4 for a gallon of gas and be okay with getting 9/10 gallon. We wouldn’t buy a 10 pair pack of socks and smile politely when we pull out only 19 socks. Food is the only consumer product we continually allow ourselves to be sold short on. It’s been happening for at least as long as they’ve made potato chips. They are the godfather of all food container criminals, with their duffle sized bags filled with more air than my grandma’s oxygen tank. But no one ever laid it to Lays and now the lawlessness seems to have gotten too out of hand to wrangle back. For all of you looking for a solution in this post, I’m sorry to tell you I don’t have one. It’s a grim reality we face. The only thing I can say about this pickle is man do they pack pickles properly and I’ll probably be putting a pickle in my piehole promptly to praise pickle producers.

In which we drink beer

Our family vacations have officially devolved into glorified brewery hopping / binge drinking.

Exhibit A:

Parts of 4 different kinds of beer at Founders Fest 2011 in Grand Rapids. And of course TV’s Zack Morris showed up in Grand Rapids to slap some bass and shave some heads;

You’ll have to trust me that’s him in the grey shirt. Even though we went to 5 different breweries in 3 days ( 2 new, 3 of our favs from last year ), we did find some time to hit up a Great Lake ( no idea which one );

Wish I could show you the musical fountain they had here at dusk ( 2nd largest in the World next to Vegas evidently ) but my camera ain’t so hot at night pictures

And then the moustache appeared

And said unto Kellie, “We need more beer”

And it was obliged. This is actually a bar. Good call on the leather sofa OddSide Ales ( The Pineapple IPA was pretty good too )

Who sits in chairs when you have a couch? I guess the couch was taken to be fair. But I would’ve shared.

And the day ended with Tom slurping down some butter sauce with seafood and pasta in it.

There was actually another two days of Grand Rapids exploration after this including a cool Outoor Sculpture Garden

Also saw the only 100% official Frank Lloyd Wright house in Grand Rapids

Sorry this post is all pictures and no pith. Sometimes it’s nice to just eat and drink and talk about how nice the Michigan folk are for not rubbing in the Jim Tressel debacle too much.

WHERE SHOULD I TRAVEL TO NEXT?

So I was in Georgetown today, wearing my pink crab capri pants and Ray-bans and twill Fedora, walking by Georgetown Cupcake and heading straight towards Sprinkles Cupcakes. One. I think Sprinkles cupcakes are better. Two. They are bigger. Three. The ladies of Georgetown Cupcake ( DC Cupcake if you watch the TLC show ) call their parents “Mommy” and “Daddy”.

Now, people have always thought it was weird I called my parents “Tom” and “Kellie”. You know, by their names. Do you call your brother “Brother”? I don’t think so. But to call your parents by such infantile titles? It makes me want to vom cream cheese frosting. I also don’t get why people don’t like this:

Yes, this is a full post. Tom & Kellie would approve

NOT me in my Pink Crab Pants

Kellie Approving at THE Columbus Zoo

Bumming It

Look, I’m not going to pretend that I know what it’s like to be homeless. The closest I’ve ever come is getting too intoxicated to remember where I live and dredging through a creek on my circuitous way home. Not knowing when or what ( the McDonald’s Dollar Menu is a gift and a curse ) your next meal will be has to be demoralizing. Not to mention the myriad of catch-22′s standing in the way of gainful employment ( i.e. needing a suit to go to a job interview in order to get a job to make money, but needing money in order to buy a suit ). There’s rarely a quick fix to individual homelessness, and the issue as a whole will probably never be eradicated.

But enough of the problems. Like I said, I’m not a homeless person, nor a professional life coach. However, these are a few of the things I’d do if I were homeless and it seemed like it was going to last for awhile ( There are some people I’ve been walking by to and from work for over a year now ):

1. Keep it Sunny – Why the heck do you want to stay in Buffalo or Detroit in the Winter if you’re homeless? What is keeping you there? Ostensibly, if you had family or friends ties there they would be helping you out and not letting you live on the streets. So with no reason to stay, get out of Dodge ( unless Dodge is in Florida or California ).

2. Hobo on the Run – Kind of going along with Keeping it Sunny, I’d keep it moving. You have no job, no bills to pay, no commitments. Why not take a vacation around the country? I don’t know about you, but usually when I step in dog crap I don’t stay standing in it enjoying the fumes. I step out of it as quickly as possible and find greener grass to wipe my feet clean. If things aren’t developing in Missouri for you, why not pay Nebraska a visit? Another benefit to this philosophy is more anonymity ( you’re not known by name as “Humphrey the Hobo” at the local precinct, but rather just “that guy” ). Once people identify you as homeless, there’s a stigma attached to it no matter how often you shower. By nomading the homelessness, you’re buying yourself at least 2 to 3 days at each new town before people realize you’re not wearing the same shirt everyday for irony.

3. You live outdoors / That’s your in – I don’t know about you, but to me there’s not really a difference between what a homeless person looks like and what someone who works at a Camping/Outdoor store looks like. In many cases the homeless person will be less unkempt ( because no matter how hard you try to make it happen, dreadlocks will never be in for white people dude ). Really, the only difference is the Outdoor store person paid $75 for their high performance, distressed, earth tones t-shirt while the homeless person’s white t-shirt turned beige through a natural staining process ( Tide-To-Go is a bourgeoisie luxury y’all ). I’d be applying to these stores first and foremost. Casual work attire, lax facial hair regulations, employee discounts on tents and long lasting energy bars. What’s not to like? At least take the hourly wage and save up until you can afford to buy that suit for a real job. Also, any organic food co-op would be my second choice for a starter job. They won’t be able to tell if the strong odor is from you or the wheatgrass shots they’re making at the juice bar in the back.

4. Abuse the Library System – Libraries are a great resource and a decades old staple of homeless people. But staying in Buffalo reading Jane Eyre and Stephanie Meyer books all day is violating my Hobo On The Run mantra. Library cards are still one of the easiest things to obtain. And I don’t think different states or counties exactly cross check other library databases for overdue books out of their jurisdiction. So stockpile those library cards my friend and grab a couple new releases in Albuquerque and Denver. Remember, it’s not stealing, it’s JUST overdue.

My biggest regret in writing this post is realizing homeless people are going to have a hard time finding my blog ( especially since people who actually own computers don’t even read it ). Oh well. Be generous y’all and give a dollar now and then ( or buy a “Street Sense” newspaper if you’re in the DC area ).

WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU WERE HOMELESS?

Selling Yourself

I’ll tell you what; It is hard work blogging more than once in a week. I feel like a chain smoker on a chain gang trying to keep up. I haven’t blogged this frequently since the unemployment days.

Speaking of unemployment, they say the best thing to do at a job interview is “sell yourself”. The problem with selling yourself is that everyone is subjective, whether for better or worse. Some people think they’re the bee’s knees, shoulders, head, and toes. Other people would omit themselves from a list of the top billion people on the planet. Therefore, as a guy, there’s only one way to objectively evaluate myself: By seeing how I’d be sold at a sperm bank.

EYE SIGHT – Although stylish, his plastic frame eyeglasses hardly mask the fact that he is virtually blind without corrective lenses. His prescription is continually spirally downward, with new lenses needed every 2 years or so.

HAIR – He recently tweezed his first gray out of the left side of his head above his ear, but overall the density and coverage area of his head follicles are good and his widow’s peak is an endearing recessive trait.

METABOLISM – Currently not fat, has the tendency to gain weight rapidly when working at all you can eat buffets. Will never have a six-pack but, on the plus side, lacks the Wilford Brimley disease ( The Diabetes ). Also wishes he had Wilford Brimley’s moustache (** see BRAIN FUNCTION )

JOINTS – Doesn’t smoke them anymore. But seriously, pretty solid except for occasional horror movie sounding knee creakage from Tennis playing days (** see ATHLETICISM ).

BRAIN FUNCTION – Performs generally well on standardized tests but shows a propensity to operate well below maximum capacity. Possibly motivated by a fear of it crashing like his old laptop computer. However, can recall minute details from superfluous conversations.

ATHLETICISM – Pick your synonym of choice for average

BLOOD TYPE – No idea. Passed out and started convulsing the only time he ever tried to give blood

So I’m not sure what the going rate for sperm is these days, but I’d at least like to think (subjectively) that it’s somewhere between the American Dollar and British Pound. As long as it’s not one of those currencies where a million something equals a dime. And to my female readers(-s), anyone who says women aren’t valued like men in society, just look at the going rate for eggs compared to sperm. This is why I’ve always been a proponent of mass vasectomies to decrease supply and increase demand.

WHAT ARE YOUR EGGS/SPERM WORTH?

A Women’s Words

I don’t blog that often anymore, mostly because I’ve developed a crippling fear that my next post won’t be as good as my last one. I can tell you one thing, most bloggers do not share this concern/quality assurance method. And yet I still read their blogs every day and call them lazy when they take the weekends off. Somehow I have delved deeper and deeper into the sordid world of what I call “For Females By Females” blogging. It’s women writing about their problems ( mostly working out / body issues, relationships, and job/money issues ) followed by the same comment by 33 different women on how it’s ok to have said problem and/or to have reacted to said problem with unmitigated bitchiness. I get how it’s therapeutic but, dang, if a complete stranger can’t give you honest feedback then who can? However, they’re only strangers until you meet up with them on a “blog date”. Then they become your friend, but at this point they’ve basically served as a “Yes man”/enabler. So how does one go about changing the dynamic of a blogging friendship once they realize reading about someone’s bitchiness isn’t as pleasurable as experiencing it? Furthermore, how many blogging friendships turn into best friendships?

And yes, it’s bizarre that I read these random blogs of women from different states that I don’t know or care about. I think I’m just addicted to the whole “Manhater’s Club” aspect of it all. The two most used phrases have to be “I guess that’s why I’m single” and “But I won’t change”. Maybe I’m just jealous that men will never have support group blogging like this, because there’s no way ever I would comment on a man’s blog by saying “Me too, I often cry after being rejected by women” or “It’s ok you’re gaining weight, I’m sure it’s muscle not fat”.

Lastly, I realize there’s no way I’m not coming off as a chauvinistic jerk in this post. But I don’t expect a deluge of responses to it anyway because A.) I didn’t post a picture of the Greek Yogurt I ate today B.) I’m not giving away tupperware/chocolate and C.) I didn’t end with a question.

That should just about burn every bridge. Still love ya ladies and if you’ve read this far without calling me a pig, know that I’m genuinely trying to understand you. It’s just taking awhile. Hopefully there’s a Groupon for that.

Hypocrite Alert!

Trailgating

My new spring obsession is clothless and colourless. It’s also easy on the wallet and BMI. All you need is a Metro card and a magnet or compass to seek out frantic people trying to get to work as fast as possible. They lack aplomb, to put it semantically.

Usually it starts with the Metro doors opening and the exodus spilling out towards the escalator. Like a cooked pierogi, inevitably a player will rise to the top.  Their gate markedly increases as they squeeze or weave by people too close for stranger comfort. They have to get through the gates and out of the station as fast as possible, probably to get a better spot in line at Starbucks or to get into the office before their wife calls to tell them they dropped one of their four kids off at the wrong school (“What can I do honey, I’m already at the office?”). Whatever their reasons, they’ve unsuspectedly become the next participant in Trailgating.

Having passed me, usually whilst brushing up against me or knocking my dangling lunch bag out of their way, I now activate my speedwalking legs and obnoxiousness. I stalk my prey, not letting them get more than 50 feet or so in front of me. Once we’re above ground the chase begins.

At this point they’re as obvious as a fish out of water or Donald Trump at anything. Eschewing crosswalks and traffic patterns they walk as fast as possible, somehow thinking in their heads that by not full out running they are being inconspicuous. Wrong!

By this point I have hopefully narrowed the gap to 20 feet, taking advantage of the fact that they don’t expect someone to be following them at a matching crazy legs pace. As with any hunt, sometimes I lose them as they forge through an intersection in the nick of time, and always after the red stop hand has gone from flashing to solid. Next time foil!

The ones that don’t get away? I am on their heels now. We’re doing a streetwalking samba, two people walking stride for stride at the same breakneck pace as nobody around them notices or cares. This is about personal gratitude, not recognition.

Now, the kicker. What makes it all worth while. They pass a subtle head turn or glance in your direction. Why is this person walking frenetically next to me? What is wrong with them? Hopefully that triggers the thought in them, “Why am I walking this frenetically?”. It never does. They counter with a dirty look instead. That’s Trailgating, and I’m hooked.

Razor hand if you think they’re holding back

Recently, the world has been blessed with the introduction of the new SchickHydro, a five blade razor that has a “hydrating gel reservoir.” I think the Schick ad men have taken one too many trips to Hoover Dam to come up with that schmaltz. Schick always gets outdone by Gillette though. Not only does Gillette get guys like Derek Jeter, Roger Federer, and previously Tiger Woods to endorse their products, they always one up Schick right after they release their new opus. Schick came out with the Quattro, Gillette countered with the Mach 5. Now, on June 6th Gillette will be introducing the new future of shaving. That’s right, on 6/6. I wonder how many blades it’ll have. At least the future of shaving is ever evolving. As for ice cream’s future, it seems like we’ve been stuck with Dippin’ Dots for like the last decade and a half.

Here’s my thing. Is forging a disposable razor such a complex process that we’re forced to advance blade capacity one blade at a time? We really can’t just jump to 8 blades now? Everyone knows that Apple holds back on their technology, so you should never buy the first incarnation of any of their products (this coming from the guy who has a two pound, dead iPod paperweight from 2002 sitting on a shelf somewhere in his childhood bedroom). But at least a part of me believes there are some legitimate logistical problems that Apple deals with in putting computer technology in razor thin devices. All Gillette and Schick have to do is put razors in razor thin devices.

Semi-Automatic

I’ve been wanting to write a new post for awhile, but haven’t been able to think of anything good to wax poetic ( i hate that phrase, along with per usual (what’s wrong with “as usual”)) on. I still don’t have anything, but I’m going to talk about something I’ve been thinking about blogging on for awhile but didn’t think it was good enough to blog about. Needless to say you’re in for a median quality post.

So I really can’t stand bathrooms that are only semi-automatic. For example, the bathroom at work has automatic toilets and automatic faucets with automatic soap dispensers. But the paper towel dispenser is manual self-serve. I’m 3/4 through a completely robotic bathroom experience and now I have to tug on towels to dry my hands? Even worse is when you see someone using the automatic paper towel dispenser, so you go over to the sink and just place your hands in the sink and wait. Five seconds later you realize nothing is happening and that the sink has two knobs, one for hot water and one for cold.

Don’t get me wrong, I like conventional sinks with the hot/cold knobs. It allows one to optimize hand washing conditions to the temperature of their choosing. In fact, if it were up to me we’d go back to a completely manual bathroom system where an attendant is there with a fresh towel to dry your hands for you. Although, with the amount of water I consume daily it would cost me a pretty penny in tips to use public facilities. No, my point is don’t dip your toes in. Either go full on digital or don’t. It’s analogous to watching a 4×3 show on a 16×9 channel with those annoying wings on either end of the screen to fill in the gaps. If you didn’t shoot it in 16×9, don’t show it on 16×9 television. I don’t like being made to look a fool by devices incapable of independent thought. I also don’t like finicky automatic soap dispensers that redispense every time during your hand scrubbing motions when you accidentally pass underneath it’s part of sink jurisdiction.

Lastly, it should be illegal to have both hand driers and paper towel dispensers in the same restroom. It just wreaks of American overconsumption. I prefer paper towels. They’re quick and effective and someone drying their hands with them couldn’t be filmed with a time-lapse camera. However, I get the decreased carbon footprint hand driers enable. But having paper towels next to hand driers negates any environmental friendliness. I’m either going to ignore the hand drier and go straight for the towels or, if someone is hogging the towels, start with the hand drier and finish drying the crevices between my fingers with a paper towel. Don’t give me a choice and I’ll be no worse off. The same goes for internet browsers, brands of ketchup, bottled water, and aspirins to name a few. Selective socialism isn’t a bad thing. We could streamline Ketchup production and bring costs down to levels so low people will be able to afford dipping every fry in ketchup instead of every other. Where I need choices is with pop, ice cream, beer, deodorant, and dandruff shampoos.

You Lunchin’ Son

It’s easy to quantify how important someone’s job is by how much money they make. However, there isn’t always a correlation between salary and job security. Just ask any NFL player or, for a real real-life example, any employee at an American auto-plant. Instead, I determine a person’s job security by the size of their lunch. There are three general Lunch classes.*

1. The “Lunch Break”

Generally speaking, the lunch break lasts between 15-30 minutes. In many cases one doesn’t even have to clock out as the break is either automatically deducted from their daily hours or is so short it is rendered negligible. Needless to say, people that have lunch breaks have little to no job security. Many times they inhale their brown bagged lunch in the back/breakroom while keeping their ears perked for any sort of verbal cue from the front that they are desperately needed. If a lunch break employee does venture out to grab lunch in the little time they are allotted, they do so with cellphone on and at an inexplicably loud ring level. There is no silent or vibrate for a lunch break employee, except of course when they are at work in which case an errant ring could cost them their job. The lunch break employee is also often characterized by lack of health insurance, zero paid vacation time, and a stringent boss who loathes overtime.

2. The “Lunch Hour”

The lunch hour employee has a much more routine day. 95% of the time they take their lunch at the same time every day. If they’re working 9-5, for example, they might take their lunch at 12:30 every day so there is exactly three and a half hours of work before and after lunch. This is a vast contrast between the lunch break employee who eats when it can be as harmlessly as possible squeezed in during a relatively low ebb of time. The lunch hour employee may have to clock in and out for their lunch, but the hour isn’t hard time. Ten minutes over one day isn’t going to raise any eyebrows, as long as they finish what needs to be done that day before they go home. A lunch hour employee may or may not pack their lunch a lot. If they do pack, they are afforded the time to go outside and eat their lunch at a table while enjoying the Sun’s rays. If they go out to eat, not only can they choose any fast food restaurant under the sun but they even have the luxury of going to any sitdown chain restaurant that has a day of the week in its name. Lunch hour employees can even coordinate their lunch to go eat with fellow co-workers, one’s they may or may not be romantically involved with.

3. The “At Lunch”

The at lunch employee has a lunch much akin to a highly crafted micro-brew. In fact, they may or may not enjoy a few cold micro-brews, on tap of course, during their lunch. These beers may or may not be part of a lunch that includes a high profile client and business expenses to be filed later at the office where their door is shut a far greater percentage of the time than it is open. However, the at lunch employee is not limited to working lunches. On any given day they may go home instead, even if home is a 30 minute one way drive from the office, to watching soap operas and have an afternoon siesta. Essentially, the at lunch employee tailors their lunch to each day’s specific needs. The importance of the at lunch employee having a good lunch is no less important than a professional athlete recovering properly from an injury. You don’t want to rush it, because if you do they might not be the same when they come back. The at lunch employee has presumably worked their way up from the lunch break and lunch hour ranks. They may have even, at some point in time, gotten their children summer lunch hour jobs at their company. However, the at lunch employee isn’t exclusively an older breed. There are a decent number or young, upstart at lunch employees who spend more on their ties than lunch hour employees do on their entire outfit (or than the entire cost of a lunch break employees uniform).

Hopefully this clarifies things a bit for you, so the next time you call for somebody at work and get one of the following responses you’ll know how secure their job is:

“They’re on their lunch break. I’ll go interrupt it and get them immediately for you.”

“They’re on their lunch hour. They should be back at roughly *enter time they went to lunch plus one hour here* o’clock. Can I take a message?”

“They’re at lunch. I’m not sure if they’re coming back into the office today.”

* All preceding examples are purely hypothetical and purely based on speculation not facts or research. No conclusions are intended to be drawn.

Seat of Indecision

Nearly 4 months into riding the Metro 5 days a week, and I still haven’t hammered out a definitive code of conduct for seating. Here is my main dilemma:

You enter a crowded metro and find an empty seat next to someone and sit down. At the next station there is a mass exodus of passengers and suddenly you and the person sitting next to you are the only people left in that section of the car. So what do you do? One option is to move to an open row ( what do you call two seats next to each other? does it qualify as a row, or aisle? you know what I mean though, you find an open two seats so you have that barrier personal space). The pro of this is both you and the stranger instantly get more breathing room, which is always appreciated in underground lair-like situations. The con (for me. some people are heartless) is that you’re summarily killing any chance of ever becoming an acquaintance or friend of that person by saying , with your actions of moving, that you can’t stand sitting next to them any longer than you physically have to. The only recourse against pulling the getting up and moving move without hurting their feelings (assuming they’re overanalyzing this like you are) is to explain to them you have no qualms against sitting next to them, but rather you’re being considerate by moving so you can both have more space. However, by pulling this move you’ve just entered into an unsolicited conversation with a stranger on the Metro (and in my case this would be after 11p.m.). It’s a difficult Catch-22 between not wanting to offend someone and actually having to interact with an unknown variable of a person. The second option is to do nothing and just keep sitting next to the person. This shows deference to that person, but if incidental eye contact is made it could also degenerate quickly into an uncomfortable train ride. Additionally, there is just something inherently awkward about sitting in close enough proximity to a stranger that your adjacent arms start creating warmth or heat.

So, you’ve made up your mind to skip the conversation about why you’re changing seats (and you’re definitely changing seats after thinking about glances of unintentional contact with strangers) and just bolt to another open seat. However, you still want to save as much face as possible in case a life threatening emergency occurs on board and that person you were sitting next to is your only chance of survival. There are two methods I know of moving without looking rude, but both have to be executed properly to come off as being genuine and not an act, otherwise your rudeness multiplies with duplicity to create loathsomeness. One, you can get up to check the map, acting like you have no idea what station to get off at. Once you’ve spent the requisite amount of time figuring this out, you are allowed to sit down in a seat closer to the map so you can quizzically look at it every couple of minutes to reaffirm your location and where you’re departing. Two, you can wait until the train arrives at a station and start to get off, only to realize this is not your station. This move requires at least one of your legs exiting the car and touching the platform. If you really want to sell it you can completely exit the train and then come back on. At this point you are selling discombobulation, so anyone will understand you just picking an open seat at random and sitting down. You could also just completely leave the car you’re on and move to another car if you completely want to eschew common courtesy and just want to get the heck away from the person you were sitting next to.

So those are the two methods I’ve come up with for changing seats without having an “It’s not you, it’ me” sitdown with the person you’re sitting next to about why you’re changing seats, and while saving them from the insult of you implicating you want nothing to do with them. **NOTE: IF YOU’RE ON A REALLY LONG METRO TRIP, AND FORESEE YOURSELF BEING IN THE PRECARIOUS POSITION OF HAVING TO SIT NEXT TO SOMEONE MORE THAN ONCE, I WOULD RECOMMEND PULLING THE GOT OFF AT THE WRONG STOP MOVE BEFORE THE GO CHECK THE MAP MOVE. IF YOU FLIP THE ORDER AND DO MAP BEFORE WRONG STOP, NOBODY’S GOING TO BELIEVE YOU’RE THAT DUMB THAT YOU’VE BEEN CHECKING THE MAP CONSTANTLY AND YOU STILL COULDN’T FIGURE OUT WHERE TO GET OFF.

Hope this helps and remember to wear gloves before opting to stand up on the Metro and hold onto the railings, because you have no idea who has touched that before you or who he/she has sat next to in their lifetime.

Unguard! Tow-che!

In light of recent events ( getting home from work at midnight only to drive around my apartment complex for the better part of an hour trying to find a parking spot that wasn’t reserved or handicapped so I wouldn’t get towed and thus deciding to park in the mall parking lot ( which is literally encompassed by my apartment complex ) only to get towed (even though I put signs on both the front and back of my car pleading my case that there were no parking spots and nowhere else to park (talk about heartless punks those mall owners. do they not realize the special circumstances (*recent snow emergency) or that fact that the majority of their business comes from our mammoth apartment complex (the massive apartment complex that has a musical chairs like number or parking spots)))) I’ve decided to pose the question of which would be more gratifying: Giving a parking ticket to a tow truck or towing a meter maid’s car?

Ok, so this is really not even a honest question. Clearly the answer is giving a parking ticket to a tow truck. There is a presumptuousness with tow truck drivers that is unforgivable. First, they circle areas like ravenous vultures or sewer rats waiting for an animal carcass or pizza crust from the Ninja Turtles. Second, they charge you an inexplicable amount of money (usually several times more than a parking ticket). Third, they mock you by taking your vehicle and then leaving it up to you to find a way to get to the place where they’ve towed your vehicle (usually some Branch Davidian-like compound). At least parking tickets leave you your vehicle and allow the fine to be paid at your convenience. For $125 they could at least include an Enterprise Rent-a-car pickup service to take you to you vehicle (seriously, what is the overhead for a towing business after the trucks are paid for? Gas, the answer is gas. That is it). Fourth, they hire a young lady to answer their phones and she feigns being complicit to their ponzi scheme so you can’t really yell at her. Fifth, they siphon all the gas out of your car while you’re not looking so you’re sitting on E in their Waco, Texas location with no fuel and your only option is to pay $6.66 /gal at their on-site gas station. Sixth, they go to your parent’s house in Ohio and kick your 12 year old family dog in the stomach.

I’m probably not as irate as it reads here. I’ve rationalized that I’m essentially working Pro Bono today for the Dominion (a subtle synonym for SUPREMACY or SUPERIORITY) Towing Company. On the upside, they’ve motivated me to start blogging again.

Whoa, this is serious

I haven’t posted in like 3 months, but what better day than the celebration of a guy who could’ve used a GPS to start posting again. This post won’t be India/America discovery epic, just to warn you. It’s more like a Dennis Quaid movie when he gingerly dips his feet back into the dating game after his wife’s death.

So I’m calling myself out for being a horrible recommendation taker. Are you like this too? I love to recommend books, movies, tv shows, and ESPECIALLY music to my friends, in hopes that they’ll dig them as much as I do. However, if you recommend something to me, chances are I’ll nod curtly and never actually explore your suggestion. I think it’s probably an ego thing where subconsciously since I didn’t discover it (little Columbus Day tie-in/discovery theme-eh-EH!) I don’t feel like it could possibly be that great. After all, if it were I would’ve heard about it ages ago. I’m the Native Americans of alternative music.

But I’ve realized this flaw in myself now, and I’m looking to rectify it. This is a limited time offer though. Basically it’s going to work like this:

1. You respond to this post by recommending to me any movie, book, cd, tv show that you think I might like. If you’re giving me a tv show, try suggesting a particularly episode that best represents the show because, frankly, if I’m not impress by the first episode I watch chances are I’m not going to watch a whole season.

2. I will weed out all the recommendations that I’ve already seen, heard, or read.

3. From there I will pick one book to read, one cd to listen to, and one tv/movie to watch over the course of the next month or so. After completion of each I will blog about the experience and may or may not lash out at the person whose recommendation I took. So recommend carefully and make sure to sell it so I choose yours. Thanks, from the soon to be less close-minded me.

Check This Out..Oh wait, that register isn’t open

One thing I will never understand is why stores decide to build 15 cash registers/check-out vestibules, with numerical signs that light up when they’re open, yet only use 1 or 2 of them even when 10 people are waiting in line. Total befuddlement on my part; more befuddling even than how the grocery store (which will remain unnamed) I went to the other day was completely out of Skim Milk (didn’t even have any of the uber expensive organic left). I mean, I think I understand the thinking behind building so many registers. The owners envision the Grand Opening and the flowing of customers into their doors and each register being staffed with a bright-eyed, bubbly personality cashier waiting to exchange witty banter with elated consumers who’ve never experienced such selection or customer service in their lives. And then the first month of being in business passes, one of the letters on the neon sign out front burns out, some small child hurls onto the blue carpet, half the employees grow complacent when they realize they’ll never get a raise, and, generally speaking, the store’s philosophy shifts from pleasing customers to increasing their bottom line. This goal leads to opening fewer and fewer registers at one time, while expanding and making the waiting line partition ropes more and more intricate (Although I enjoy spending the 30 seconds it takes to maneuver through them at a movie theatre during matinee hours because even though I’d be perfectly within my rights to forego the ropes and walk up to the box office, I like the look on the bored teenager’s acned face as he waits anxiously/bored (can you be anxious and bored at the same time?) for me to arrive in front of him so he can charge me an Absurd Amount of Money – $3 (remember, it’s matinee prices) to go see a movie that I know, against my better judgement and critical reviews, won’t be anywhere near the cinematic achievement of Rudy (Yes, I’m talking about you Year One)). I don’t mind waiting in line. All I’m saying is don’t have 10 check-outs if they’re NEVER open. Don’t build an expectation that you never plan on meeting. **WARNING: EXTREMELY OBSCURE, 1990s COLUMBUS, OHIO REFERENCE COMING UP**. It all eerily reminds me of AmeriFlora ’92. It was to be the World’s finest, international horticulture festival/display/accomplishment. People were going to travel from far (Iowa) and wide (Michigan) to partake in a cornucopia of colorful floral concoctions and general heavily pollenated pleasure. Some people did come; they just didn’t bring anyone else with them, or come back. EVER. I remember going there and digging for dinosaur bones (which, I think, were just little holographic chips with dinosaur images on them) and also listening to a summer concert. It all seemed so Neo-Baroque-Paleolithic. How that combo didn’t pan out, only historians will be able to tell us (I”m sure some historian is working on a definitive biography of AmeriFlora ’92; right after he finishes the rise and fall of POG). Moral of this post is it’s better to show your true colors, as mundane as they may be, from the start than to create a facade of fantastic. Crows will never be Peacocks.

Gator Ridiculous

I know this commercial is a few months old, but I still haven’t wrapped my head around it

Kevin Garnett Gatorade Commercial

It is absolutely asinine when you realize it’s not for cancer research or unemployment but, rather, an advertisement peddling a lower calorie (aka watered down) version of Gatorade. I wish I could just say it was a stupid commercial. But then it sticks with you. It creeps into your psyche. Why did this rotund, journeyman swimmer get handed a  pink-slip, and why is he using swimming as a coping mechanism? Who the heck is he for that matter? Rather than doing a follow-up commercial answering these quandaries, Gatorade leaves us baffled and wanting more, just like every M. Night Shyamalan film ever. But, alas, Gatorade did do a piece on this other Kevin, it’s just hard to find and never aired on television. Here is the REST of the story.

2nd Video Down

His name is Kevin Crowe (on a side note, does anyone else get perturbed by the fact that nobody with the last name Crow/Crowe can ever name their son James/Jim again. Thanks Segregation, you b*stard). After watching the video bio of Crowe, I actually like the guy, but I’m still left with three questions: Why is this guy a much better swimmer than me?, Why, if he is such a better swimmer than me, is he still quite a bit overweight?, And Where can I find a lap pool that I can have completely to myself instead of having to share lanes with geriatrics and pre-pubescents?

However, it doesn’t change the way I fell about

THIS GUY

Garnett, still a tool

A Cacophony of Coffee Critiques

Somebody needs to explain to me the whole Iced Coffee craze. First of all, why did it take until the 2000′s to realize you could drink coffee cold? After all, chocolate milk has coexisted with hot chocolate for centuries. Secondly, what is the benefit of drinking iced coffee as opposed to refrigerated coffee? Again this goes back to hot chocolate and chocolate milk. Chocolate milk is a separate entity from hot chocolate, and you don’t see many people drinking iced hot chocolates. Presumably, this is because the ice cubes would water down the richness of the chocolate. Well, isn’t this the same case with iced coffee? I believe iced coffee is just a conspiracy by coffee brewers, giving them a sly way to sell old coffee. They know that everyone hates lukewarm or room temperature coffee, so they come up with the brilliant idea to take the steamed out coffee and take it to an even lower level of temperature. By throwing some ice in with it (or even blending it with ice) and coating it with a diabetic layer of whipped cream and chocolate sauce they can mask any freshness issues and charge the customer top dollar for not just a coffee, but a Premium, Decadent Iced Coffee Concoction. It’s along the same lines as vintage clothing stores who’ve decided old worn, stained, and ripped classic rock t-shirts can sell for more than their clean, 100% cotton, contemporary counterparts. I’m not knocking the opportunists, just questioning the frozen bean enthusiasts who imbibe so much of this caramel, chocolatey crap. I think much of the feelings in this post have come from watching Jon Stewart battle with Joe Scarborough over Scarborough’s heavily caffeinated show “Morning Joe” with is “Brewed” by Starbucks. I guess I don’t like the increasing role coffee is starting to take in today’s society. This is just another of the subtle moves Starbucks is taking to slowly gain control of both balance sheets and global treaties. The first was discontinuing the brewing of decaf coffee after certain hours. They were sending a memo to the World that they’ll decide what kind of coffee you can drink and when you can consume it. This is why I stay away from coffee. Besides being as addicting as nicotine, it has embroiled itself in too many controversies, from fair trade agreements to lawsuits over its temperature being too hot. I ask WTF is wrong with tea and why don’t we drink more of it? I think the statue of limitations on not drinking it based on principle from the Boston Tea Party has ended. It’s just as tasty and much less threatening than it’s autocratic cousin.

Star Trek

So Star Trek was good, but the storyline and all the nostalgia played second fiddle to two casting oddities. First, Winona Ryder (spelling?) as Spock’s mother? Whaaaaa? She’s in her mid thirties maybe. So why cast her knowing that you’re going to have to put on hours upon hours of makeup, day after day, wasting unnecessary production money when you could’ve just cast a competent actress who is already in her 50s. She must be a huge Trekkie and she must’ve begged for the role; that’s the only semi-logical explanation. Second, and ever more abhorrent, is Tyler Perry as the high ranking admiral who puts Kirk on academic probation, almost preventing him from boarding the U.S.S. Enterprise. If you’ve ever watched commercials during an NBA game on TNT, or are even remotely friends with a black female, you are aware of who Tyler Perry is. He’s the man behind those Madea movies and those awful, heavily laugh tracked sitcoms on TBS. I’m not versed enough with his body of work, but the best analogy I can draw is he is essentially an older, sappier version of Nick Cannon (“Daddy, Nick Cannon is hiiilaarious!”…then the father replies, “So is Tyler Perry sweetheart.”). Race aside, I just don’t find him funny, nor do I understand casting him in Star Trek. And I will debate til the end of star dates that Robin Williams dressed in drag is infinitely more funny than this Tyler Perry character. The only thing Tyler Perry does well is self promote (which explains why every one of his works has the prefix “Tyler Perry’s” before it. I’m surprised the Star Trek credits didn’t read “Tyler Perry’s Admiral Richard Barnett played by Tyler Perry as Tyler Perry the Actor, not the writer/producer Tyler Perry whose movies and tv shows are VERY FUNNY). Other than Tyler and Winona, the movie was viewed without incident by Mason Miller.

Musical Input Needed

I think I listen to pretty solid, slightly off the beaten path alternative music. But it interests me what other people, who may or may not share my musical tastes, think of my favorite songs. So I’m going to try something and do a poll. Y’all can listen to the four songs I’ve listed, which I feel are the 4 best songs that have come out and I’ve heard this calendar year, and select which song is your favorite. I’m hoping Andy W. will at least listen to all four and provide feedback and then, because he’s a leader (I believe he was Senior Class President in High School), others will follow suit. Feel free to express your opinions with comments as well, but I’m not expecting much. We’ll see how it goes and take it from there.

\”Stillness Is the Move\” – Dirty Projectors

\”Paper Lace\” – Swan Lake

\”I\’m Confused\” – Handsome Furs

\”My Girls\” – Animal Collective