A Conversation With Todd

I haven't blogged in ages, but this was quite long to explain in 140 characters or less.

So basically, I posted this Youtube vide of a song that I heard on Pandora that I really liked:

I told my brother to check it out.  He did, and the following paraphrased conversation took place:

Me:         Did you check it out?

Todd:      Yes.  I have the Edward Sharpe CD if you want.

Me:         What are some other good songs by him I can check out?

Todd:       None.

Me:          I'll take 3.

The Accidental Troist

Recently, while I was on one of my allergy medicine benders, I was thinking about how much I hate pollen, particularly tree pollen. Tree pollen is the source of my itchy watery eyes and constant sneezing, and so I often run into these thoughts. A creepy new thought entered the usual train of thoughts that accompany these this last time. Perhaps it was because I didn't wait a full 24 hours to take another allergy pill, who knows?

The thought is this...we're being used as part of the trees' mating ritual. The trees and flowers rely on us moving beings to transfer their pollen to complete their reproduction process. We're basically walking around carrying the equivalent of tree sperm...in our eyes, nose and mouth! We're part of some sick floral menage a trois. No wonder my eyes are tearing all the time...they're tears of shame.

My Email Broke Up With Me Via Email

I sent an email through yahoo that was to an address that no longer existed. The "MAILER-DAEMON" at yahoo sent me the following message:

"I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses. This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out."

After reading that, I wasn't sure if my email was willing to deliver messages for me ever again. I wonder if this line would work to get out of other relationships. Er, um, yeahhh....listen honey, this is just a permanent error; I've given up, sorry it didn't work out.

How well would that fly?

Unpaid Internships (cont'd)

I don't mean to brag, but my comments about unpaid internships in the past apparently have been verified. In fact as this recent NY Times article demonstrates, they may very well be illegal, not to mention the fact that they favor the already well-to-do.

Read Here

A Couple of Stupidities

I left my family's seder to head back home to NYC at around 9:25pm last night. I was going for a 9:40pm train at the local train station keeping in mind to mind the gap. The ride normally takes about 5-6 minutes and so we had plenty of time to spare. My father turned on 1010 Wins or perhaps it was WCBS 880 (the two local AM news stations). A woman came on the radio and summarized the weather and mentioned we had a flash flood warning until 9:30pm. I looked at the clock and it said 9:29. I mentioned this to my father. 15 seconds later, a beep went off and the woman mentioned the news time was 9:30pm. My father and I breathed a sigh of relief. We survived the floods.

My mother, as she usually does, sent me home with a bunch of goodies after our meal. One such goody was a box of chocolate covered matzoh. I looked at the back label tonight to see what a serving size was. It stated that a serving size was one half a board. It gave an estimated servings per box of 7. Now this in itself is weird because I was wondering who would pack a box with 3.5 matzoh boards. I opened the box. Two boards.

So you want to be a curler...

How many of you have watched curling on the Olympics and said crap...I can do that. It's shuffleboard on ice. When I was younger, I kicked some senior citizen ass on the local community park and on my vacations to Florida when playing shuffleboard. Who knew I was halfway toward becoming an Olympian. I have some funky looking pajama pants and a track jacket that I could wear. I'm sure I could pick up a broom at the local Duane Reade.

So many of you are thinking, I'm in the same boat, let's be USA curling 2014 gold medal winners. Now we just need to practice. How hard could that be in NYC? We have everything, right??? Well apparently the only place one can go curling in the entire New York metropolitan area is in Ardsley, New York in Westchester County. The five boroughs of Manhattan, all of Long Island, do not have any curling facilities.

How the hell does one become a curler then?

Back to the drawing board for my Olympic sport. Suggestions welcome.

Line Items

On Tuesday I got to work and my drawer, containing my laptop was locked, no matter which way I turned the key. I apparently have issues with locks (go back to the beginning of the blog). 30 minutes later, my drawer pried open and repaired, my computer froze and had to be restarted. All in all, it took me 45 minutes to sign online.

4 hours of 24 in two days is a bit much. Having recorded them, I feel somewhat stressed to finish watching them before the next week. Can't they just start the show two weeks earlier or something?

My brother called me the other day, talked to me for 30 seconds, and then told me he was with people and had to go. I wonder if he thought I called him?

Why is it that despite the fact that gas and oil prices have gone down that airline prices remain sky high and new baggage fees are being added? Warren Buffet once said, when asked how to become a millionaire... Be a billionaire and then buy an airline.

I mailed a Netflix movie back on Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday. There is no mail on federal holidays. Netflix received the movie Tuesday. Perhaps there's just no delivery? Well either that, or I found some kind of magical mailbox.

Dumpty

'Twas a Saturday night
My delivery food just came
I selected pause
On my video game

I realized I should check the mail
A simple task,
Who knew I'd fail?

I ran out the door
Caught the first, second, third and fourth stair
And then slow motion
I was flying through the air

I landed with a thud on my right side
I got up yelled, "F#@! that hurt!"
No one checked if I was alright

I continued down, getting the letters
Ran back up upstairs, adrenalin now
I thought I felt better

I did some push-ups, crunches then applied some ice
Unfortunately it was freezing
It didn't feel nice

Then I noticed my hand was all red
The bricks must've scraped my finger
The skin was gone, all dead.

The following day a bruise the size of a fist
Was on my right thigh
It was disgusting, I was pissed

A few hours later I discovered another
A bruise on my back
Up to this present, I've been covered
In blue and black

I can't sleep on my right
I can only go left
At staying still like that
I'm not adept

Today a ray of sun
The bruises are lightening
Who knew going downstairs
Could be so frightening?

Airplane Juice

There's just something about airplanes. Airplanes seem to bring out the crazy in many people. My favorite example is the drink cart. The drink cart will come by, and the person next to you will be asked what they want to drink. "I'll have the tomato juice" they reply. Tomato juice...seriously??? It's just cold tomato soup. Half the time it's Campbells that makes it. There is no way that anybody drinks tomato soup at home. (My grandfather used to order this on planes, and I have never seen him drink this at any other point in his life.) Then the next person will ask for cranberry juice, another will be upset when they don't have cran-apple-pome-rine juice. I think I even heard someone ask for carrot juice.

I think this airplane adventurousness comes from the fact that you are just tuck with one glass when you order this drink. In the food store, when you pick out a bottle of this stuff it'll sit in your fridge like the "pink stuff" and "purple stuff" from those Sunny D commercials for months on end. Perhaps your significant other will yell at you for wasting money on something no one drinks. Perhaps ordering this on the plane is a way to stick it to the man and order this bizarre thing that no one really likes.

Alas, I must confess something. I tend to order Ginger Ale on planes. I never drink Ginger Ale at any other time. Why do I order it? I have convinced myself it will settle my stomach and prevent nausea on the flight. Maybe the guy with the carrot juice has convinced himself that he can see the sights from the plane better.

First Is the Worst, Second Is the Best, Last Sucks Too

Perhaps this happens at your office. There are cookies, candy or pieces of cake out by someone's desk for all to take for their munching enjoyment. Everyone looks over and sees the display and flashes a grin. They now have an excuse to eat unhealthy and have something better than their fat free soy chips. After all, it would be rude to not take any after that person specifically brought them in for all his/her coworkers to enjoy.

Buuuuuut not quite yet. Someone needs to open the container that they are in. Opening the container will cause a loud pop, crunch or other noise that will surely alert anyone in the vicinity that you are gorging on some fatty goodness. So they sit there for hours just awaiting someone to be the first. Ninja-like, when enough people seem to be away from their desks going to the bathroom or getting coffee, the first person strikes.

Now they are open, and it's a free-for-all. It's easy to walk by, grab one quickly and have no one notice. You can even do the infamous get up to have a conversation with someone that sits near the treats as an excuse to be by them and slyly swipe one (or dare I say two).

Throughout the day or days they continue to grow fewer in number. Finally there is one cookie left. One cookie! It is there for hours, nobody wanting to finish off the treat. Finally someone comes along and takes it...or did they? No, they took just half! They couldn't bear to be the one that finishes off the box. What would everyone think? So for another day this half cookie sits in the container, growing stale, and finally the person that brought them in just throws them out. Ooh look, someone brought in brownies today! The cookies become forgotten.