Yeah, so I’m…

About a year ago, a number of family members went to lunch one weekend afternoon. As usual, because we were too busy being loud and embarrassing to eat all our food, we took a lot of it home. We dropped my grandmother off at her place, and I carried her food inside for her. I went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator to put the food inside. As I opened the door, I was overcome by a wave of odor that had no equal. The only way I can explain it is by telling you that the refrigerator had not been plugged in for at least a decade, and it was never cleaned out. I didn’t catch much of a glimpse of its contents because I turned away in horror as I slammed the door, but there were multiple shades of green and brown in there, and I think something winked at me. I dropped the food on the counter and doubled over in a coughing fit. Feeling the urge to puke, my mother and younger sister were merely moving obstacles for me to dodge as I made my way for the door. I paced back and forth outside simultaneously trying to decide whether vomiting was the proper course of action, and whether I might’ve contracted the Ebola virus by inhaling those fumes. For the record, I did not puke, and obviously did not contract the virus, though I was convinced at that moment that each of those things had at least a 50% probability of happening.

I told you all of that to tell you this: This morning, as the elevator door was closing, I heard someone moving quickly toward the elevator so I lifted my foot into the door’s path to get it to open again. A woman entered the elevator without so much as a thank you and turned to face the door, standing directly in front of me. Suddenly I was enveloped in a wave of perfumey odor that all at once gave me the urge to cough and vomit, and it made my knees weaken. If I was Superman, this woman had not so much just bathed in kryptonite, but had been marinating in it for a solid 36 hours before immediately entering the elevator. I thought of the refrigerator door, and how the only difference between the two episodes is that I didn’t think the perfume was going to crusade against my immune system and destroy me from the inside out. I held my breath, and watched as the numbers on the display counted slowly down, and finally the doors opened on the ground floor. She exited, and I followed quickly and headed in a different direction before pausing to regain my breath. And then I vowed never to hold the elevator for anyone again.

As puppies will be, mine is curious about everything. When we walk, he wants to jump up on the people he sees, run ahead and see that leaf that just moved, and play with every dog whose path he crosses at all costs. Needing to control him better and break him of those habits, I just got the Gentle Leader. Advertised as a “highly effective way to stop your dog from pulling, lunging and jumping,” the Leader is every bit of that. I was skeptical at first, but it really does curtail all of those things, and now the only time there’s pulling at the leash is when bladder bursting is imminent.

There has been one side effect to the Leader that I didn’t count on: People we encounter think it’s a muzzle, and that my dog bites.

“Is that to keep him from biting?” and “Why do you have that muzzle on him?” are common questions. A woman freaked out and hid behind her man when we got on the elevator to take our morning walk, and her man told her “He’s not gonna bite you. That’s why he’s got that thing on his face.” Most of the time I correct people, but as I was convinced that that was the only thing stopping that woman from wetting herself, I let it go.

I don’t really get it. You see the leader here, and clearly it’s too far back on the face of the dog to keep it from opening its mouth. Still, people see something on a dog’s face and it’s automatically a muzzle. The only people who can identify it are dog people, and most of the time those who know what it is identify it by name.

So let’s review…

This is a muzzle:

This is not:

Know the difference.

I’ve always taken the opinion of women on the looks of other women with a grain of salt. Women are great in finding beauty in other women that men don’t see. That’s not to say that the beauty is or isn’t there, but that, obviously, men judge the beauty of women differently than other women, and I rate another guy’s opinion on the looks of a woman higher than another woman’s opinion of the same girl’s looks.

So when I saw this, NBC4’s list of 30 hottest women, according to women, I couldn’t wait to see what was on it, because I knew I was going to object.

Just scratching the objection surface: #29, #17, #16, #12, #9, #1

What say you?

Sunday:
All times approximate

9:00am - Begin tailgating. Start drinking.

Continue drinking

Continue drinking

11:30am - Enter stadium. Acquire beer.

Continue drinking

Continue drinking

2:15pm - Leave stadium. Head to bar.

2:30pm - Arrive at bar. Acquire beer.

Coninue drinking

4:30pm - Close tab. Go home.

4:45pm - Walk dog. Kinda.

5:15pm - Feed dog. Shower.

5:45pm - Sit down on couch.

6:15pm - Wake up. Order pizza.

6:30pm - Take dog to potty.

6:45pm - Begin eating pizza.

7:15pm - Full of pizza, sit down on bed.

8:00pm - Wake up. Eat another slice of pizza. Turn on TV.

10:00pm - Sit on bed again.

10:30pm - Wake up. Take dog to potty.

11:00pm - Go to sleep for good.

Monday:

6:00am - Slam snooze button.

6:07am - Again.

6:14am - Again.

6:21am - Again. Hear dog whine. Get up. Walk dog.

6:45am - Chug Mountain Dew. Hope week gets better.

“And if self-preservation is an instinct you possess, you’d better fucking do it and do it quick.” - Winston Wolf, Pulp Fiction

The fire alarm went off today, and my first instinct was to leave the building. As children it’s what we’re conditioned to do. Fire drills are conducted in school, and whenever the fire alarm went off I was happy, because it meant I didn’t have to sit in the classroom. Yeah, 999 times out of 1000 it’s a false alarm, but do you want to be stuck in the building the one time it’s really on fire?

Evidently this isn’t something that registers with everyone. As I left the building, people were entering it despite the clearly audible alarm. Someone was trying to talk on their cell phone while remaining in the building, plugging their opposite ear with their finger. People were still running on the treadmills. What the hell?

When I was working at I-66, Inc., I supported over ten buildings around the area. Whenever we’d hear that a fire alarm was going off, without fail a handful of people would call and ask if they should exit the building. Nevermind that it’s nearly if not completely impossible to sit at your desk and do work while the shrill sound of the fire alarm pulsates, it’s a fucking fire alarm. You leave first, and then ask questions.

In college the fire alarm used to go off all the time. Dorms were segregated by gender and there was no “coed visitation” freshman year, so people would sneak others up to their rooms at night and pull the fire alarms in the wee hours of the morning so everyone would have to leave, and their illicit cargo could mingle in with the rest of the evacuating people and escape without being noticed. We’d see women mixing in all the time and know what was going on immediately. Eventually we grew tired (both literally and figuratively) of getting up at 2 in the morning to leave the building because someone else got laid, so we’d wait in our rooms and only leave if and when we heard the sounds of the fire trucks, since being caught by the firemen in your room was a very bad thing. Well, one night, at about 1am, a few of us were in my room watching tv. My roommate had gone to another friend’s room to… bring some stuff back… The fire alarm goes off. Figuring it was just another booty call ending, we stayed in the room waiting to hear the fire trucks. Instead, we got the door to the room flying open and my roommate and friend at the door saying “it’s a real fire!”

It ended up being a fire inside a trash can, but they saw and smelled the smoke and figured it was probably a good idea to hightail it out of there. Lesson learned. Fire alarm? Exit the building. Leave first, because you might not get to ask questions later.

She and I became friends very quickly. We met because of Mutual Friend at a very random, impromptu gathering at my house, and somehow we became good friends.

I’m not sure how it happened.

She was the kind of friend that would take me to a Skins game for my birthday, despite the exorbitant ticket prices. I was the kind of friend that would take her to a Dave Matthews Band concert for her birthday, despite the fact that I wasn’t a fan by any means. She was the kind of friend that would receive my 1am “I’m on the road with a long way to go, so talk to me because I’m getting tired” phone call without objection. I was the kind of friend that would be ready in 15 minutes when she called at midnight saying “if we leave now, we can be at the beach by 3am,” even if we never actually went. We were the kind of friends that eventually fell out of touch.

I’m not sure how it happened.

Recently I was contacted, for the first time in a few years, by Mutual Friend. After a few catching-up emails, I asked how She is doing.

I’m not sure what’s going to happen.

The iPhone fingernail problem

“Considering ergonomics and user studies indicating men and women use their fingers and nails differently, why does Apple persist in this misogyny?”

Really? Misogyny? Wow. I mean, yeah. Apple hates women. They don’t create products specifically geared toward them or anything.

I suppose people whose fingers are too large to use the iPhone should claim discrimination.

Watson-Currie hasn’t been impressed by the reviews and thinks Apple should offer a stylus on principle. Why not just cut her fingernails? “It’s the machine’s job to accommodate its users, not the other way around,” she said.

Nevermind the fact that the machine doesn’t accomodate shit and that Apple does. If you’re 5′0 and want to drive an Expedition, I suppose the SUV should shrink to your size so you can see over the wheel. If you’re lactose intolerant, I suppose Wendy’s should make you a frosty with soy milk. Those sound ridiculous, don’t they? Being short or lactose intolerant aren’t even things you choose to do. Long nails? Your choice. You deal with it.

SATURDAY

- Craigslist buyers can be a ballsy bunch, arranging to meet you at a certain place at a certain time for exchange of goods, but if they change their minds they have no qualms with just not showing. But that’s what can happen when you rely upon strangers.

- When you’re in a crowded dance club, where there’s not much room to step to the left or right, let alone dance, it’s probably not a good idea for you and your girl to engage in full on salsa, dude.

- It’s probably also not a good idea for you to contort your face in a way that says to me “I’m trying way too hard, but if I look like so I’ll just appear smooth and effortless” because I’m only going to laugh at you.

- Gross can be best defined by a girl dancing barefoot on concrete floor in the basement of a club.

- When trying to hail a cab at 3am in Dupont, the smart people do it up Connecticut Avenue from the bars and clubs from which they emerge, no matter which side of the street they’re on, or they walk against the one ways perpendicular to Connecticut. You’re not going to catch a cab down the street from the bar, because all the smart people pick them up before they get to you.

- Taking the dog to pee at 3:15am evidently does not mean he’s going to wake up later in the morning. In actuality, he’s going to wake up at 7am as he usually does and whine to go outside, and you’re going to put on sunglasses because, even though it’s not bright outside, there’s still too much light for your hungover eyes.

SUNDAY

- You’re one smart motherfucker for buying that gigantic energy drink the day before and stowing it in the refrigerator.

- You’re going to second guess yourself no matter which of the accept or decline options you choose when you receive the friend request of a 5-years-ago blast from the past, so you might as well fulfill your curiosity.

Actually, that is a story for another post…

Not only do they have a new album coming out this year, Basement Jaxx remixed Adele’s Cold Shoulder. I’m not sure who the bike dude is in the youtube still shot, but it’s really all about the audio. You can freeload a longer version of the track here.

Thoughts had while dragging ass like a dog with worms… possibly updated throughout the day…

I’m considering changing the name of the Foxboro Hottubs to Green Day in my iTunes music folder. I mean, yeah they added 3 more guys to the group, but the major players are there, and they’re the ones that count, right?

I’m going to be one sad individual in a couple of weeks. With basketball season already having come to a close, and the Euro tournament ending soon, the only Sportscenter highlights we’re going to get during the week are going to be baseball. It’s too early in the season for me to be paying attention. Come to me in October.

Last night on The Daily Show when Steve Carell asked Jon Stewart if there was a tip jar, and Stewart said “This isn’t a Cold Stone Creamery,” it reminded me that a) I have no idea where the nearest Cold Stone is (mmmmm Cake n’ Shake), and b) it’s a lot of fun to put money in the tip jar when only one worker is there and there’s nobody else in the store, so they have to start singing a solo rendition of whatever the song is just for you.

Since the release of Smash I’ve been a fan of The Offspring. I don’t care how old they are now (Dexter is 42), I still support. The new album? Not bad. It’s not Green Day, American Idiot revitalization, but not bad.

The next person that starts to get off of the elevator at a floor that isn’t theirs because they aren’t paying attention? I’m just going to let them do it.

I wish I had a better view. It would make standing out on the balcony having a beer a lot more enjoyable.

How come things run through our minds, are on our minds, but never go around our minds?

[12:04pm] Why is it that the word fridge has a D in it, but refrigerator does not? And while we’re here, why is curious spelled with two Us, and curiosity with one?

[2:02pm] Does the noun “sandwich” exist because of the verb, or does the verb exist because of the noun?

[3:38pm]

me: i don’t think you understand the crucifying you would endure.
e: hhahaha
you’d have to find me first
me: like that would be difficult?
e: yeah dude
not living in dc ATM
(and not as in ass-to-mouth. freak.)
me: what the hell does ass to mouth have to do wi — oh.