People who are slick and suave in online situations (See: Dateline NBC)

One thing that all of this tweeting and facebook-ing and IM-ing and chatting and other ing’s has taught me is that people who are huge, huge, indescribably huge tools in real life are often total surfer motorcycle bar-fight ninja astronaut BADASSES online.

I used to work with a guy who was like this.  In real life, he looks like he’s only minutes away from saying, “Well, it’s been nice working with you, but I have to return to the Shire next month,” but online, he is one of the coolest people you’ve ever talked to.  I came to discover this because he added me to IM the day he started, and was chatting with me for a while before I met him.  When I met him, I had no clue who he was and literally didn’t make the connection between this person and the person I talked to on IM for a few weeks.  Sad, but true.  But if you think about it, do big tools talk about the same topics in their super badass second identities?  I figured not, which made me feel better because I really was sort of talking to two people.  They just happened to inhabit the same extremely strange body.

I got married young, so I never experienced online dating, but I’ve heard that this phenomenon is very typical in around match.com and the like.  Girl posts profile.  Girl meets boy.  Boy seems pretty cool.  Girl goes on a date with boy.  Boy is a complete freak.

I think this happens because in real life, you can’t copy and paste your verbal communication from a Men’s Health article written by the girl next door.  In the middle of your dinner, you can’t Google, “something funny to say after a girl compliments your glasses,” and then come back to the conversation 3 minutes later saying, “Sorry, the phone rang and I had to take it.  Damn guys at the Pentagon won’t leave me alone ever since I stole that fighter jet after performing open heart surgery on myself and Condoleezza Rice at the same time.”  These are, however, tools at your disposal when you’re chatting up some 7th grader online and earning your spot on Dateline NBC.

I don’t know if I really have any advice on this one other than to shave that 2″ long stray hair growing out of your left check and start talking to more people in real life.  Potentially seeing a mental health therapist if you’re one of those people who plays online games where people love “the real you” (who, is probably a person with a fox head, DD breasts, a lizard tail, and some sort of a weapon I’ve never heard of) isn’t a bad idea, either.

People who eat the caramel variety of sundae

There are times that I look at people and classify them in odd ways (if you can imagine that).  For example, sometimes I’ll look at a person and say, “Hey, I bet he’s a tater tots person or she’s a french fries girl.”  To my credit, I’m right 97% of the time (although I have no data to support that).

So here’s the rub: I find myself classifying people as “caramel sundae” people only when there’s something a little “off” about that person.  You know what I mean.  The kind of person who eats a caramel sundae just because it’s the type of sundae that other people don’t eat.  The nonconformists who have incidentally become conformists of a different kind, because there are so many of them.  They’re the long-haired dudes, the computer programmers into naked raves, the mixed-media artists who glue a pack of frozen turkey bacon to a canvas and call it a political statement and who have 7 fans / family members who acknowledge the brilliance of their work years after they die from snorting Pixie Stix.

The classic sundae is, of course, hot fudge.  If you’re a hot fudge sundae eater, you are a gathered person with good taste who doesn’t pair the bright orange cummerbund with your tuxedo, but who realizes it’s better to be sharp and blend in than to get cute with it and have people point at you from across the room.  The caramel sundae eater, in essence, is a caramel person because they do not want to be a hot fudge person, which is just ridiculous and puerile, like a suburban teenager buying clothes from Hot Topic just to piss her parents off, when she’d rather just get J Crew in the first place.

I have tasted both, and here is what I have concluded:

• Hot fudge is the vastly superior flavor, and is immensely classy
• Caramel’s first bite has a lot of promise, but by bite 5, you want to throw it at someone.  It’s like a sugar lick
• If you eat a caramel sundae slowly, it will start to harden back into the horse hoof from whence it was made
• Hot fudge retains its structure as it cools, and can even be put in the freezer overnight for later enjoyment
• If you leave a spoon in a caramel sundae and store it in the freezer overnight, that spoon will become Excalibur, extricable only by a natural-born king

Now I have to clarify: I do like caramel.  I’ll pop Rolos like you wouldn’t believe.  But when it comes to what goes on my soft serve, Caramel has to know its role and disappear back into the purses and pockets of retirees.

Regular old folks who are comfortable with sporks

Have you ever really thought about how deep and wide the class struggle really is? You can see the differences everywhere: your clothing, your shoes, your home, your pets (we all know you have a dingy-ass dog that you traded for a bicycle tire or something), and yes, even your utensils.

Escargot tongs: let them know that you’re so rich, you’ll eat stuff that would make them want to puke.

I honestly have no idea what this is for, and I don’t want it in my house.

If you’re not born into wealth, you might never crack a nut or a crab claw.  You might never put ice into a glass with something other than your hand. You’ll probably never understand the concept of a napkin made of a material finer than any of your suits, or why a plate that measures 18″ across is used to serve half of a cherry tomato with a blade of grass as a side.

If you are born into wealth, you’ll probably never eat off a plate with ridges that keep your food separated, especially if that plate was what your food was just cooked in.  You probably don’t realize that cups can have tops or that your fork can come in a handy plastic bag with a one-ply napkin and some salt & pepper.  It doesn’t make perfect sense to you to unplug the crock pot and put it in the middle of the dinner table, if you even know what a crock pot is.

There are several well-known sayings that aim to unite the classes; messages usually including: everyone is born, everyone dies, and everyone eats.  But some are born with a silver spoon, some die and are buried inside silver caskets, and some eat off of silver escargot tongs.

Everyone does, however, put their pants on one leg at a time.  It’s just that my legs are tanner than yours from laying out on the bow of my yacht.

People who write a blog for 6 months and quit when they don’t get rich and/or recognized at the grocery store

So, what kind words you all have had for me.  Here I am, dragged into a Mexican prison on April 4, 2009, tortured, fed Comet (it does make you vomit), made to bag cocaine in a corrupt government operation in Juarez, and when I get home, what do I see?

Hey TATTOPITW, why did you quit on us?

Hey TATTOPITW, where did you go, you big loser?

Hey you big douche bag, did you run out of creativity with your stupid little blog that I can’t live without?

I hate you, TATTOPITW, and I hope you’re in a Mexican prison being fed Comet.

Well, aside from that last guy, who was strangely correct, you’re all jerks, but I read the bible 8 times in that small prison cell and I forgive all of you.

I want to get back to writing to get past those horrible memories, suppress those flashbacks of chickens trying to peck my eyes out and watching reruns of Perfect Strangers - you have no idea what you’d be willing to do after letting Balki Bartokomous penetrate your inner thoughts.

The face I wake up to, screaming.

So, while I wish I came back to a supporting fan base, I can accept your frustration and just ask that we all move on.  I might not be able to write with the speed and frequency I once was (I had one of my hands sawed off and that damn chicken did manage to scar my right eye), but I’m back in the States where Balki is unwelcome and my safety is assured.

I missed you all.  Thanks for the warm welcome.

People who walk other animals

If you live in a reasonably large city, you’re bound to see some ridiculous things happen, especially if you step foot into a city park.  Truthfully, I had this idea sent to me by someone a few months ago, but for lack of personal experience, I shrugged the suggestion off, all the while hoping that I might one day witness the sacred “cat walk.”

The only three letters in the engligh language that can describe this are W, T, and F

Now, we’ve all seen movies where some rich dude takes a tiger for a walk, or some poor girl living in a huge, cluttered New York apartment takes her ferret out for a walk (how do poor female artists in movies always have huge Manhattan lofts?), but I haven’t actually come across this in real life until recently.  And it was a real blessing to my eyes.

So I guess the idea here is that there is only one animal that is appropriate for walking, and that’s a dog.  And I mean a real dog.  If your dog’s legs are less than 4″ long or 1″ thick, you don’t have a dog, you have a genetic Pollock that had to be classified into the dog family for lack of biologists creating a “food for real animals” category.

Don’t mistake this for two types of behaviors.  This really is two types of people.  The type of person (normal) who would walk their dog for exercise / female attention, vs. the type of person who is so out of touch with reality that they think walking a parakeet is any less crazy than dressing up like a ballerina and whirling a baton around Piedmont Park.

People who say “pail”

So the example here is illustrative (did I just say the example is an example?).  It extends to many things:

• “soda” vs. “pop”
• “cart” vs. “buggy”
• “dinner” vs. “supper”
• “line” vs. “queue”
• “bitches” vs. “hos”
• “Setting money on fire” vs. “US Automaker Bailout”

In each case, there is the normal way of saying something and the stupid way of saying the same thing.  This might be over-generalizing, but I’m pretty sure that people who use the words “pail,” “pop,” “buggy,” and “supper” were either raised by a family whose collective grins revealed 5.2 teeth, or they were born in Minnesota.  Deciding which of these things is worse is something I’ll leave up to you.

Just a taste of my condescending attitude to get your day started…

People who have been educated into fear

So I’m going to let you all in on a little secret today.  I’m a huge dork.  Big nerd.  Yes, me.

Last night, I went to see a great show (Cut Copy) at a Masquerade, a venue here in Atlanta that is far less gay than it sounds.  It’s actually an old factory/warehouse where many people undoubtedly lost their limbs in the very threatening looking mess of gears and rope that apparently used to do something.  The building is old, very cool looking, but old.

So when a group like Cut Copy gets a crowd of a few hundred people jumping up and down in unison, the building - which is old, by the way - feels the stress, which was communicated back to me last night by the floor in front of the stage flexing no less than 4-5 inches underfoot.

The average person may say, “Wow, that’s really weird.”  To someone like me who took engineering classes in college, it says, “We are about to die.”

Here’s a look into my head, in the middle of a very good show:

Because my mouse drawing isn’t too good, that is me, mentally back in engineering class trying to solve for how much weight you can put on a beam before it breaks and we all die.

I found that a couple of beers could wash the engineering classes away, so I pursued that avenue.  Seemed to me that if someone nearby had known that I was having my own private Statics class in my head in the middle of this concert, they would have slapped me, and rightfully so.

I can imagine that lots of people go through this all the time: airplane engineers know all the things that can bring a plane down, train engineers know that we’re riding on 2 inches of faith, drug scientists know that if one molecule goes wrong in the batch of Advil, 100,000 people will probably die, trampoline engineers know that they’re probably going to kill a few children with their miscalculations - but consider it all worth it for those times when a cheerleader hops on for a try.

So where in your life do you know enough to be scared shitless?

People who dress to express disdain for the job they have

Ever heard the one about how you should dress for the job you want, not the one you have?  I don’t believe it happens this way.  I think there are those people who dress for the jobs they want, and the rest of the people dress to express total apathy.  If there is a range of footware that goes from leather lace-ups to flip-flops in your office, you know what I’m talking about.

There’s a reason that people ask you if you’re a glass half-full or a glass half-empty kind of person.  Nobody says, “I’m a glass at 50%.”  You either look up or you look down, and the way that people dress at work is a key expression of this.

If I work really hard, I can become Vice President some day!

If I work really hard, maybe they’ll let me plug in the yellow cables!  Fuck, I hate this job.  If that bitch who’s sleeping her way to VP calls me about her Blackberry not working in the subway one more time, I’ll kill her.

People who have a shred of consideration for their fellow worker

So this is one of those things I’ve been meaning to bring up for a while and it just refreshed its relevance the other day when I was trying to print out a quick 1-pager.  I walked over to the printer, and here was this girl printing out 5 copies of a presentation that itself was probably 50 slides long.

“It might be a while,” she says. “Big print job.”

“What is that for?” I ask, pulling up my calendar on my phone, ready to change my status to Tentative for whatever meeting is going to subject me to a 50-slide presentation where I’m told that one thing went up and another thing went down.

“It’s a budget meeting.  Tomorrow, with Bill.  I think you’re in it, right?”

Tentative set.  “I’m not sure. I might have a conflict.”

Sorry dude, I’m printing War & Peace real quick. It’ll be a minute.

I’ve come up with a few names for this behavior, just now:

• Hewlett-Packing - “Dave is Hewlett-Packing again today.  You might want to use the Bizhub if you need your print this year.”
• Canon Blasting - “Is that you Canon blasting the multifunction?  I’m just trying to make a copy, bro, and  you’ve got that thing busier than the free condom bowl at the Tri-Delt house.”
• Mi-nolta gonna get your print today
• Being an asshole

I do realize it says a lot about how nerdy I am that I can come up with such pun-tastic explosions of hilarity on the spot…about office printers.  I’m okay with that.

People who are bold clappers

I just got out of a conference today that was about as fun as when the school bully would stab your soccer ball.  The conference was held at the Georgia Aquarium, so here you are thinking you’re going to be able to watch whales swim around while you eat free food and learn about something new, when you walk in the room and see the truth of the situation.  By, “at the aquarium,” they meant, “in a conference room in the parking garage of the aquarium.”  Soccer ball stabbed.

So, here we are in a typical meeting room with those vinyl chairs that make you sound like you’re farting every time you move, no whales, no fish, nothing.  Fortunately, the topic was somewhat interesting, but the speaker went on talking past that point where it doesn’t matter how interesting things are, you have no attention left to give. If a neon orange monkey flew in the room and killed the lecturer, I literally might not have noticed.

Finally, the speaker wraps things up and then comes that magical moment when people ask themselves, “Was that good enough to clap for? I’ll wait and see what everyone else does.”  Then, the pioneer (bold) clapper, whoever they are, gets the round of applause going.  The middle (safe) clappers join in, sensing the time where the clap is running out of gas, and then quit.  Then, the wrap-up (bold) clappers finish it off like those last few kernels of popcorn in the microwave.

I bet the girl in red is a first-clapper.  Most people hate first-clappers.

Now, that’s a standard case, and more or less the way it went today.  But my favorites are when the bold clappers get slapped down.  You know, those times when one person gives about 2 and a half claps and then realizes they are alone.  That’s priceless, as it’s humiliating for both the clapper and the speaker.  Sadly, that did not happen today.

Bold clappers come in a critical third variety (beyond beginning clappers and popcorn clappers): the loud/distinct clapper.  These are the people who cup their hands like they’re trying to crush an ostrich egg or the ones who are capable of making small nuclear explosions in their palms.  The loud clap is not a talent, it is just an ability encoded in the DNA of assholes.  I petition you now: please stop clapping like an idiot.  The beginning/ending clappers have their place in this world: they fill a necessary role.  You bring nothing to the table, just like your father told you when you were 7.

People who say “Jeeeesus!”

Have you ever met anyone in the world who doesn’t say “Jesus” at least 10 times a week?  I haven’t, and neither have you.  Don’t you love questions you don’t have to answer?

Everyone says, “Jesus.”  Everyone.  The meanings might be different, but you can’t avoid the guy.

Jesus.

Jeeeeeeeesus!

So good.  We’re all in agreement that everyone says, “Jesus.”  But here’s the catch.  Two people say the same word, and both think that the other person is making a huge mistake.  One is saying, “You’re an idiot for believing something like that.”  The other is thinking, “You’re going to hell.”  It’s a lose-lose relationship for those two.

People who think that getting blood drawn might actually kill them

So here’s a shot aimed squarely at myself.  I had to go to the doctor this morning to have some blood drawn.  This appointment has been on the books since about 10 days ago, meaning that I had 9 days to imagine just how bad it was going to be when the nurse started fishing around in the crook of my elbow for an un-findable vein, eventually moving the needle around so much that it would cut my arm in half and send a blood shower across the room.

The events that transpired this morning were a little less exciting than I had originally imagined.

In case you were wondering who I’m expecting to see in the exam room when I’m sitting in a hospital…

I am a complete chicken when it comes to doctors and hospitals.  I build it up in my mind that everything is going to hurt super bad, that little needles are going to tear my flesh open, that when I stick my tongue out and say, “Ahh,” the doctor is going to say something along the lines of, “MY GOD!  Dr. Linda Sashimi (only women and Asians get into medical school any more), get in here!  We have a case of Multiple Parkinscoliosisitis of the tongue.  We must operate now!  The procedure is going to involve tearing your arms and legs off with no anesthesia, dipping you in gasoline, and lighting you on fire as you listen to When a Man Loves A Woman.”

I am one of those people that avoids talking to the doctor about my problems because I’m worried about what the answers might be.  Sort of like those people who don’t open their bills, only it concerns my mortality.

If there are any doctors reading, I have a numbness in my left thigh.  What is it?  Only tell me if it’s not serious.  Otherwise, I’d honestly just rather have it kill me.

People who couldn’t find their way down a hill if they were strapped to a skateboard

Do you know anyone with a terrible sense of direction?  I live with one. My wife, who I love dearly, could take a wrong turn on a chairlift.  I bought her a talking GPS for her car, and I often imagine it saying, “Shit, woman.  Where the hell are you going now?”

Come on, everyone!  This way to the bottom!

I was born, as you might expect, with an excellent sense of direction (as I was born with many gifts, you see).  Now before you go into this nonsense about how all men think they have a good sense of direction, let me stop you.  It’s true.  Your jealousy will get you nowhere.

I’ve put together the following 3-question test to help you determine if you are a good or bad navigator:

1. Do you get off the elevator and turn the wrong direction to go to a place you’ve been before?  Score 3 points if there are elevators on both sides of the hallway.  Score 1,000 points if the elevators only let out on one side.
2. Can you point to your mailbox from any room inside your home?  Yes?  Go check if you’re right.  No? Score 5 points.  Point in a direction more than 90-degrees off? Score 1,000 points.
3. Have you ever actually driven or walked in a complete circle, recognizing a landmark you saw earlier?  Score 1,000,000 points.

How did you do?

People who think that one errant keypress can break your computer and/or cause your house to explode

How many people believe that this headline is true?  It is.  Run.  No, just kidding.  Don’t run.  It’s too late - I already own your bank account.

I think that computers are great.  I think they help you in almost every way.  Want to see the best price on that toaster?  Done.  Want to take thousands of photographs and find the one you need in a near instant?  Also done.  Want to take Aretha’s hat and put it on your head?  Computers to the rescue.  Oh yeah, and I own your bank account.  Not kidding.

But there seems to be an evil side to computers, too.  Not the evil side where little Asian kids dream up viruses that are going to delete everything on your computer when you open that greeting card from yourFriendSlutPharmacy@yahoo.com, but the evil side where the computer itself just scares people.

Maybe it’s not just computers, but technology in general.  How about when you buy your parents that new coffee pot with the automatic timer and built-in grinder.  They already have the coffee pot that you plug into the wall and it makes coffee, and it took them 6 years to master that one.  Now they’re staring at this new contraption with these bells and whistles, and all they can say is, “It looks like it just has more stuff that can break.”

That’s the cop out.  People shroud their fear in cynicism.  I was eating dinner with a couple that we’re friendly with - the guy is a geek like me and the girl is very funny and very not geeky.  The guy and I start geeking out on how WordPress is cooler now, and the girl just starts making fun of us, making beepy-boop sounds like a 60’s Hollywood computer.  But this girl is a traitor to herself: she just started a blog, and she’s trying to figure out how to doctor it up and get it moving, too.  Well, she’s getting no help from me.

In another episode, my dad has this fancy remote that is said to make controlling his TV, stereo, DVD, etc. easier.  It is not.  This remote looks like you could start a car 3,000 miles away with it, and that’s exactly what must happen when you push its buttons because we’ve confirmed it doesn’t do anything to the television.

What my parents think happens to a mobile phone when they’re not looking.

This remote requires that everything electronic in the room be in a certain state (on/off/armed). If the stereo is on and the TV is off, it’ll just turn the TV on and the stereo off.  You have to re-set it all if it doesn’t work, which is something you can’t do: owning this remote has replaced touching these dark metal boxes of electronics/explosives directly. They had a guest that fussed their equipment up, and the local geek squad guy charged them $300 to set it all up again.  He probably just came in and pressed the power button.  Easiest $300 in history.

I had planned to take more time/space to really dive more deeply into how disgusted I am with tech guys, geek squad, those other rapists, but I think I’ve run out of reader stamina.  Just know that I hate these robbers because I should have thought of it first.  That’s my $300.  But there’s way more money in your bank account.  Not kidding.

People who have all-too-common ringtones

I’ve been accused, lately, of taking sides, so here’s one where we all lose.  I hope you’re pleased.

About a week ago, I was sitting in a restaurant.  The name of the restaurant isn’t important; what is important is that people must eat something immediately following the purchase of a new cell phone, without fail.  How do I know this?  Because restaurants are the official headquarters of the “find your new ringtone” process.  And with all of that hustle-bustle going on, the new phone buyer is forced to complete their sonic expedition at maximum volume, alerting everyone in the restaurant and neighboring businesses if the phone was purchased at AT&T or T-Mobile with two of the most distinct and annoying series of notes ever put together by man.

Usually, the next ringtone in line tells you if the phone is an iPhone, a Nokia, a Samsung, a Motorola (God forbid), etc.  The Nokia sets always sound like a broken Atari, the Samsungs have various ridiculousness, including cats meowing out jingle bells, giggling Chinese schoolgirls, or the strangely intense music that makes the owner of the handset sound like she’s in Mission Impossible every time Blockbuster calls to remind her that The Birdcage is due.

So this is where the crossroads happens.  Usually at about the same time the bruschetta hits the table, the tone tester has settled down on one of two options: something that will give you instant-onset TMJ, or “Old Phone”.  In my case that day, it was TMJ.  More precisely, it was a T-Pain riff that I was able to successfully get out of my head just 9 short days later.

But on the other side of the coin, “Old Phone” is just as much of a tragedy.  Do you remember those movies in the 90s where a phone would ring and about 20 people would pull their cell phone out and say, “Hello?” at the same time?  Then one person would raise their handset, coiled wire going down to the briefcase-sized carrying case, and say, “It’s mine!”

“Old Phone”, or the ringtone where your mobile sounds like that flesh-tone phone in your grandmother’s house (the one where you have to hold the cord in just the right place to hear and not get that scratching noise), is on the other 50% of humanity’s cell phones, and on 98% of iPhones.

Guys normally have the phone in their pocket, often with the vibrate function on, so it’s easy to tell if it’s theirs or not, but girls with their purses are a whole different story.  If churches wanted to double their tithes, they should play “Old Phone” over the speakers just as the baskets are beginning their round, opening 85% of the purses.  Then, that penetrating stare from the preacher when the girl is caught with her purse open would really be effective.

So the moral of the story is this: there is no happy ending here.  We are all doomed to listen to techno renditions of Canon in D or Old Phone for the rest of our lives.  There is no winner.  There are only losers.  And you’re one of them.

I have “Old Phone”.  What do you have?  $0.01 to the first person to have the singing cats.

Yes, I know this one isn’t funny.  It’s Monday.

People who have not been programmed by the media to think that every flight has a 97% chance of ending in your death, a very hurty, nasty death where you will probably catch on fire and drown at the same time because of light turbulence or someone leaving their cell phone on

So if you’re not living under a rock, you’ve heard about the plane crash in New York.  You’ve also seen the spot-on reporting, reminding us all that the goose population has risen 400%, that the climate change is increasing turbulence, and that the majority of pilots prefer to fly just a little bit drunk.  It helps take the edge off.

While we’ve had our eyes on Afghanistan, Canada has been raising and training geese in camps, virtually guaranteeing that double-engine bird strikes will happen on more flights originating near the Canadian border.

My wife is afraid of flying.  Not really flying itself - the part in the middle.  She’s just afraid of the “beginning to fly”, or takeoff, and the “almost no longer flying”, the landing.  Statistically, these are the times when most accidents happen, but also statistically, you’re more likely to be attacked by a rabid unicorn than experience any sort of life-threatening issue on an airplane.  So really, the fear is justified.

One of the things that always strikes me as funny is that my wife also hates it when the plane turns or banks somewhat sharply after takeoff.  Inevitably, she looks over at me with perfectly round, bugged eyes and says, “Why are they turning?  Why do they have to do that!?”  I can’t resist: I almost always reply, “because we’re not going to Cuba today.”

This is not something she finds funny until much later in the day.

So listen: I can understand the fear of flying.  The media gets a hold of this stuff and goes haywire.  In their computer simulation of the “crash” yesterday, a “crash” pilots would probably describe as a “flight anomaly”, NBC this morning showed a model of the plane approaching the Hudson, nosediving, when in fact there is no way that the plane approached the water at that angle.  If that were the case, there would be a wing wedged into the 65th floor of the Empire State building.

It bothers me that the media is sensationalizes this stuff to the point of making people abandon the safest mode of travel in existence.  Who wouldn’t look at a plane approaching water at a 45-degree angle and think, “If I was on that flight, I would be sitting in my own doo-doo.”  But those weren’t the facts of the case.

The irony of this all is that a big news post went out just the day before this incident, saying that we’ve gone two years without a fatality from a major airliner accident.  We still haven’t, but there’s no doubt in my mind that yesterday has grounded more than a few people.

So a positive message today, folks.  Go get help with your fear of flying.  It’ll help you in other places, too.

People who like a pizza-like meal that has barbeque chicken, pineapple, and/or gyro meat on it

Last night, I joined a handful of fellow Atlanta bloggers at a pizza joint.  It was an interesting experience.  Most of the people were pretty nice, some of the people were pretty normal, and at least one person was pretty cool.  Some of the time.

But aside from that, I learned an interesting lesson: you can learn a lot about a person by the type of pizza they order.

What happens when a Whole Foods yoga treehugger gets a hold of a pizza.  New rule: if you can no longer see the cheese, it is not a pizza.  Unless it’s a meat lovers and the cheese is being covered by our tasty animal friends.

I blame California Pizza Kitchen for this nonsense:  Thai pizza.  Gyro pizza.  BBQ chicken pizza (which is actually okay).  White pizza (WTF!?!).  Broccoli on pizza.  None of these are good situations.

I’m a believer that pizza comes with cheese (if you’re on a diet), pepperoni (if you’re know what stairs are), and maybe some sausage, mushroom, or garlic can be thrown on if you’re on a date that’s going badly.  This experimentation is uncalled for.  If I want a gyro, I’ll eat a gyro.  If I want a salad, I’ll order a salad.  But when I’m hungry for pizza, I don’t want a gyro salad pizza.

I only bring this up because I worry about the implications.  I think we’re on a slippery slope here: pizza is a gateway food and we’re seeing this experimentation take hold in tacos, too.  We have fried chicken tacos, asian tacos, desert tacos, and more.  Will our children be eating buffalo chicken Golden Grahams? This is a future I don’t want to see.

~ Other stuff ~

This group has a pretty fun activity of passing a napkin around where you write the answer to a single question.  The question last night was, “What is your biggest pet peeve?”  When I found out this was the question, I was about half a PSI from total skull explosion.  Seriously?  Someone asking me what my biggest pet peeve is?  Um, can I answer infinity times?

The average American sports fan.

With the college football national championship behind us and another Utah scandal brewing (a 13-0 ratio of wins to losses edging out their 12-1 ratio of wives to husbands), it’s time to take a look at the American sports fan - a rare mix of zeal, obesity, and outfits that make Richard Simmons look like Clint Eastwood.

One of these people is a sports fan, and the other is preparing to kill a gazelle and complete his rite of passage.  Can you tell who is who?  Hint: one looks like he’s already eaten a gazelle for breakfast, so it’s probably not him.

Nothing will change the course of history less than a football game.  So what is wrong with us that we make such idiots of ourselves in the name of sports?  I think I have it figured out:

Americans like people who can have sex with anyone they want, and we do whatever is possible to become a part of that institution. It applies in the opposite direction, too.  Why do you think we make fun of the theater dorks in college, and now we hang on every word of Sean Penn’s astute political advice?  Why do we stuff that kid that plays trumpet in a locker, only to go to his jazz concerts and get his autograph 20 years later? Why do we listen to sports analyses like “110%”, “leave it on the field”, “and “they just outplayed them” and think that these are glimpses into the genius of the athelete’s mind?  ”They outplayed them?”  Are you kidding me?  Someone let cancer know we’re about to outplay it.  All it takes is heart, right?

So really, this all just boils down to living vicariously through something we really only have a relationship with through clothing, vehicle accessories, and of course, food.  Someone sent me this picture last week:

If you experience an erection lasting more than four hours, eat this doughnut.  That should fix it.  Forever.

It’s an orange and blue doughnut, which I’m sure would have the same effect on you as washing your hair with CLR for a year.  And while this doughnut says, “I’m willing to get cancer to support my team,” sports fans really don’t have to go that far.  There are tons of other pastries that won’t take a 12 years off your life, but are still a light and fluffy symbol that this party is hosted by someone who might not be able to point to Europe on a map, but can tell you the third-string quarterback’s home town.  And can’t point to that on a map, either.

Tennessee cake - $45.  
Career-limiting facial hair - $0.
Wedding in a log cabin - $400.  
Drunk wedding photographer taking pictures at a 12-degree angle - $250.
Toasting to your future with plastic solo cups - $8.   
A blank stare on your wife’s face for the next 50 years - priceless. 

And how about this: isn’t it odd how much sports inspire people to put dumb crap on their heads?

“Has anyone seen my baseball?”

“Grrrrr!  I’m a moron!”

Do I like sports?  Yes.  Am I going to make myself look like a complete idiot?  Um . . . do you get more sex?

People who are still sticking to their diet and/or exercise on January 9th

I owe many, many people credit for this idea (through their actions, not conscious recommendations), but just one person lit the fuse a few days ago.  In fact, I’m meeting this person for lunch today, so we had to plan accordingly.  I would usually embellish this part, saying that we have to go to a restaurant that serves raw chicken meat and slices of american cheese with a nice glass of fiber-max colon blaster, but we’re actually going to a normal restaurant where, doubtlessly, a somewhat awkward and uncomfortable order will be placed.  Or, it would be awkward, but the waiters probably get special training at the end of December for this sort of thing.

I’ll have one ham and cheese sandwich, hold the bread, cut the cheese into 1/4″ cubes, and trim the edges off the ham, wrapped in a whole-wheat pita pocket dipped in water.  No, wait, Oprah said soy paper.  And a side salad with a 1/64th teaspoon of no-fat ranch dressing, seeds removed from the tomatoes, and croutons made from compressed prunes.  And a 64 oz. diet coke.  Oh, and can I go ahead and pre-order the key lime pie now?

I’ve been long confused (and once drawn in) by diets that are dreamed up by people whose brains produce the same output as the south end of a northbound elephant.  I tried the no-carb thing for about 32 minutes last year.  It didn’t work out for me.

But there are so many people who give these zero-something diets a shot each January.  Zero carbs, zero fat, or zero protein.  Considering that there are three nutritional things that your body needs to survive, and these just happen to be the three, it strikes me as a little strange that we try this stuff out, but we do. I honestly have never met a single person who stuck to one of these zero-diets and didn’t end up in the doctor’s office with fragile bones, sleepless nights, or a major toilet issue.  I’m not prepared, personally, to trade food for any of those three things.

But I suppose I should wish you all good luck.  Good luck with your zero diets.  Good luck with your Tae-Bo, volume 23.  Good luck with your office-chair kegel exercises and your 7-minute abs.  Good luck with Tony Little, Susan Powder, Richard Simmons, Chuck Norris, or whoever becomes the next celebrity home fitness guru with absurd hair.  You’re going to need it.

People who use the speakerphone feature in appropriate situations

People who use the speakerphone feature in inappropriate situations

I’ve been meaning to talk about this for a long time.  This is one of those things that you see so many times in a given day, it’s hard to know exactly which way to approach the topic.  But I found myself particularly inspired on Saturday while sitting in the airport in Denver.  More specifically, I was in the Denver airport men’s room, catching up on the Robb Report’s monthly publication of things I’ll be buying the next time Vanderbilt wins a bowl game (on their current pace of a bowl game win once every 53 years).

While I was in the “rest room” (who goes in there to rest?), I hear this guy next to me crack open his cell phone.  Peck, peck, peck . . . he dials the number.  I’m hoping this guy is checking voicemail because it sounds like a bovine diet testing facility in here, but no, he proceeds with a bona-fide phone call.  Only 30 seconds pass before misjudgment becomes epic misjudgment when he says, “Hold on one second,” into the phone.

Now, when you’re on the phone in a bathroom, “hold on one second,” only means one of two things.  You’re either getting ready to unleash unbridled fury or you’re done and you have to flush.  In both cases, you’re trying to save face by muting the phone so the caller is none the wiser.  On Saturday, however, this caller/deucer put convention aside and raised the stakes by flipping the conversation over to speakerphone.  Yes, he put his phone on speakerphone right in this middle of this auditorium of poots, fweets, pops, and flawalawalapffffs.

The conversation went on for about another 3 or 5 minutes, and the person on the other end of the call didn’t ever make mention of what they were hearing, but there was no doubt in my mind that they heard it all.  I can’t emphasize enough the quality and volume of this methane orchestra.  While I felt badly for the recipient of this audial rape, I quietly relished the unique ridiculousness of the situation.

There are several other speakerphone-related infractions that should result in a lifetime sentence of having to sponge bathe Michael Moore.  Personally, the worst is someone in the cubicle farm using speakerphone to dial a number . . . who has to look up the number and/or dial slowly.  People who hit speakerphone and make us all listen to the dial and key tones at a volume that will wake up my dead grandmother should be shot with rubber bands until they bruise to death.