A while ago, someone contacted me via e-mail and asked if I'd be willing to give an honest review of his product for a free sample of said product. I agreed, thinking it might be something fun to play with, and there was always the possibility I could make my review slightly amusing. I waited and waited, but nothing showed up. He never contacted me again. I figured he had decided against it after I told him I had a humor blog and I would be brutally honest in my review. I also told him there was a good chance I'd make jokes at his expense.
Well, De Filippi, he came-a through!
The other day, my "free gift" was sitting in my mailbox. After coming here all the way from the old country, postaprioritaria, the package was still in one piece. Yes, it came from Italy. Milano, to be exact.
So now I know exactly two things that are produced in Milano:
Weird little cookies*, and these things:
In case you're wondering, these strange-ass looking things are called pinhole glasses. If you think they look freaky just sitting there on the desk, you should see how weird they look when you put them on. I think the fact that they appear to be cut out of a black leather car seat probably has something to do with that.
The funny thing is, they kinda-sorta actually work. I've needed glasses for quite a while (I'm nearsighted) and these work by focusing and limiting the amount of extraneous light that gets to your eye. If you're interested, you can read about it here.
Unfortunately, they are almost useless unless you're looking at something very bright, because not much light gets in at all. If I look through them for more than a few minutes, my head feels like it's going to explode. There's an odd momentary distortion when your eye moves from hole to hole, but things are actually quite clear. I'm not sure if you'd ever get used to it, but the overall experience is probably pretty close to being knocked unconscious and waking up trapped inside of an air hockey table.
In the history section of the website, they mention Eskimos using a variation on these to prevent snow blindness, using slits instead of pinholes. I thought that was pretty cool, because one of the first comic book titles I ever collected as a kid was The Flash, and this cover immediately popped into my head:
Yeah. Captain Cold and theHeat Wave. Supervillains or a 1970's Funk Band? You decide. But The Flash on crutches? That's the best they could come up with? Looking back on it now, it had to be a low point for DC.
Anyway, if you choose to view this as a paid advertisement, consider this: I don't care. I got me a free pair of pinhole glasses, and you didn't.
Besides, they've done wonders for my piano playing.
Also, humor-blogs.com. Man, I'm getting tired of posting that link, but it's the only way to get added to the feed, and they send a bunch of traffic my way. Can I just stop for a while and count on you guys to vote whenever you feel generous? Thanks.
You've got the right one baby!
Uh huh.
* When I was a kid, I always thought they were called mulatto cookies.
Out of all the things that could ruin your appearance, think of the worst thing. Angry boils all over your body? Or that freaky pigmentation thing Michael Jackson has going on? Or maybe instead of leaving it up to mother nature, you'd like to take a more active role in ruining your appearance, like this person:
I only said "person" because I wasn't sure if it was a guy or a girl. Anyway, all of these things are wrong.
In today's issue of Sundays with Sylvia, we're going to address the thing that can ruin your appearance most.
The Abdomen: It's nothing at all like Cowbell.
Interestingly, your abdomen can make you look like a bag. Let's get rid of it. First, Sylvia recommends a pretty decent exercise for toning your core muscles. You'll look pretty funny doing it, but it *does* work. I've seen it or variations of it in many workouts:
Then, in typical Sylvia fashion, she takes the fast train to crazy town:
Breaking down fatty tissues by having someone yank on you for five minutes? Call me crazy, but I am pretty sure this would be more of a workout for the yank-er than the yank-ee.
And remember, always stay relaxed. Otherwise, all bets are off. And of course, then we have the turkish towels and the slapping. I like how she gives you the option of doing it yourself if your helper is unable or unwilling to assist, like if your helper suddenly decided you were batshit crazy and she wasn't going to stick around to slap you anymore.
Throughout the book, she goes off on the weirdest tangents. For instance, right in the middle of this abdomen workout, she starts talking about anemia. By the way, if anyone out there is anemic, she advocates eating lots of liver, and boiling radish greens and spinach and drinking the juice. And if you happen to anemic and also fat, you can do this workout:
I am guessing that Sylvia would not like emo/goth kids at all, and I am pretty sure Marilyn Manson would give her a coronary. Also, most anemic people are crabby assholes.
She goes on to share her vast medical knowledge about anemia and how to best get the circulation going in your spine:
In fact, Friday night I was slapping my wife's spine and got a little carried away and started using a flat hand by mistake. However, after I held her down and scrubbed her raw with the towel, she did grudgingly admit she felt alive, almost sensationally so. I think she's still a little pissed though, because she's had a headache and a cough for the last two days.
And lastly, don't forget to wear proper footwear when you workout. Ankle support is very important:
Next time, maybe we'll talk about how to make your boobs bigger, and fix those bow-legs of yours.
------------------------------------------ If you liked this post, vote for it on humor-blogs where you might find another funny blog to read.
I know some people say they love George Clooney, but I've long suspected that nobody loves George Clooney as much as George Clooney loves George Clooney. Finally, I have proof:
Here's a rare backstage shot from the 2006 Oscars:
On a different topic, I want to pimp one of my favorite artists. He has a new CD out, and I've been listening to it non-stop. Go here and press "LISTEN NOW" in the upper left-hand corner. Let me know what you think. Personally, I think he has one of the most unique voices I've heard in a very long time. (If you click "Listen" at the top menu of the widget, you can pick and choose the tunes.)
Another thing -- apparently, when your blog reaches a certain traffic level (a surprisingly modest amount, believe it or not) people start coming out of the woodwork to try to get you to endorse this or that for them. It could be a product (a legal alternative to weed? Do I look like Jeff Spicoli to you?) or even a website or a video. At any rate, this one guy e-mailed me, and told me that if I did an impartial review of his product, he'd give me a freebie to keep. I warned him that it wouldn't be pretty, but I guess he believes any publicity is good publicity. So be prepared for that one. I'll give you a hint: It's something you wear. And no, get your mind out of the gutter. It's nothing like that.
Lastly, I am getting my ass beat down over at humor-blogs.com because you guys are lazy. Don't make me send Sylvia over to your house to make you join up to vote. You thought she was a harsh mistress when she was alive....
It's the first installment of Sundays with Sylvia, and todays topic is one that is always on everyone's mind: Your enormous cans.
If you're sick and tired of pinning your own arms down when you sleep on your back, you might be interested to hear what Sylvia has to say this week.
If, however, you make your living like this:
You might want to skip this post.
It probably goes without saying that if Sylvia thinks massaging the breasts is dangerous, then using them to break boards and crush cans would almost assuredly get you on her shit list.
I'm not exactly sure how drinking a glass of buttermilk every 2 hours for three days straight would do anything except give you diarrhea, but there you go. I have no theories on this subject, so if there are any nutritionists out there who know the boob-reducing ingredient in buttermilk, please let me know.
Apparently, it never fails.
I didn't want the twitchy, nervous, thin people to feel left out this week, so here's a little tip for you regarding your bathing habits:
Listen to Sylvia. Don't kill yourself, skinny people.
----------------------------------------------- Also, there's something new happening over at humor-blogs.com -- you now have to register to vote, and you can vote on individual posts. I know that's a pain in the ass, but Sylvia would want you to at least check it out. Thanks.
First off, this made me laugh, even if it is just a typo:
NEW YORK (AP) - BonJovi will perform a free concert July 12 in Central Park. It's billed as a prelude to the July 15 All-Star baseball game, which will highlight the final season at Yankee Stadium. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Jovi will help ensure it goes out in a blaze of glory, hopefully a blaze in late October at the World Series.
I'm not sure what's funnier -- Mayor Bloomberg thinking that the guy's last name is Jovi, or that his first name is actually Bon.
In other news, I met someone new, and her name is Sylvia. Sylvia of Hollywood, that is. (Not to be confused with Sylvia of North Jersey.) My wife was cleaning out her grandmother's desk, and stumbled on this book:
To really appreciate this book, you have not only read it, but FEEL it. It has a fuzzy, velvety flocked cover, and it is awesome both inside and out.
Sylvia, as it turns out, was the 1930's equivalent of the 1980's equivalent of Jane Fonda. But in this case it's not all about the diet and exercise, although I think in some respects Sylvia was ahead of her time -- she also gets into some pretty hilarious body-shaping quackery that had me reading this book aloud to my wife at 2 am.
Not only does she give advice on how to reduce if you are fat, she also gives advice on how to get fatter if you are too thin. Want bigger boobs? Smaller ones? Sylvia can help. If you'd like a smaller nose, or a more pronounced chin, she can do that too. And why does she do this? Because Sylvia knows you wish your girlfriend was hot like her:
And by god, she will work your ass until you toe the line.
There is way too much good stuff in this book to do it justice in a single blog post, so from today until whenever I run out of Sylvia, I will be hosting
Sundays with Sylvia -- Because You Suck.
Every Sunday, I will offer up a Sylvia post. To give you a non-Sunday taste of her awesomeness, I now present you with her method for spot reduction:
And here is Photo 3, just because I care.
Apparently, squeezing fat cells right off you gives you ginormous man-hands, so you ladies should watch out for that.
Additionally, I have to take exception to the "never squeeze or massage the breasts" thing. I think she needs to qualify that statement because there is a right time for squeezing and massaging the breasts, although if you ask my wife she will no doubt tell you that I have no idea when that time actually is. Also, I think the mashed potato analogy was a stretch, unless squeezing handfuls of mashed potatoes was a big fad back then, like wearing an onion on your belt.
And while we're on the subject, I want to know where the squeezed off fat cells go. She's squeezing them off, right? They have to go somewhere. I'm thinking maybe they go into the towel, or maybe into the hand cream, but that sounds pretty gross so maybe they just dissolve into thin air.
I'm a little skeptical about this whole theory of hers. For some reason, I find it hard to believe that covering your fat with a hot towel and then beating the shit out of it is going to help you much on your long road to a better you. Tell you what -- all you fat babies out there (one of her terms) give it a shot and let me know how you make out. I'll listen for the slapping.
I'll be looking forward to spending my Sundays with Sylvia, and you should, too. Besides, prime-time TV is all reruns right now anyway so what else do you have to do?
-------------------------------- Also, every click here is a vote for original humor. (And keep in mind that, at least in my case, original doesn't always mean good.) Sylvia would want you to click. And you should always do what Sylvia says.
I had to have a little work done on the car the other day, and as a result I worked the first half of the morning from the waiting room at the Honda dealership. I love you, WiFi.
On my way back to work, I was sitting at a light and noticed the most awesome sign ever. I meant to go back after work and get a picture of it, but I forgot. Still, it was pretty funny and I need a short post for today. So using the magic of Photoshop, I recreated this sign for your amusement:
One of the benefits to being the oldest kid in the family is that you got to do everything first. You're the first one to be allowed to cross the street by yourself, you're the first one to be allowed to ride your bike to the drugstore, you're the first one allowed to stay out past dark, or take the car to the prom. One of the drawbacks, of course, is that all your "firsts" are tempered by the completely unfair notion that if you can do something, so can your younger brother, as long as he is accompanied by you. ("Watch your brother" and "Take your brother with you" become phrases you learn to hate hearing.)
Obviously this loophole pisses you off, since he is more than 2 years younger than you are, and if there were any justice in the universe, he would have to wait exactly two years and 21 days to do those same things regardless of whether you were alive or dead. Also, the phase "I thought I told you to watch your brother!" was probably used more often than it should have been, and was a testament to my short attention span and relative ambivalence about whether my brothers continued to exist on this plane.
One of the other dubious benefits, however, was being able to "watch your brothers" as they still had fun doing things that no longer interested you all that much. You realized that you were growing up, and that made you feel a little bit superior. [Warning: Santa Claus Spoiler Alert] Do you remember when you found out that Santa wasn't real, and after you got over your enormous sense of parental betrayal, you realized that you were now on the inside? You were the spy who came in from the cold, the double-agent, feeding information to both sides, playing the cool confidant, the intrepid informant, the master of misdirection. It was sometimes fun, sometimes a drag, but always interesting to watch as your younger brothers marveled over the reindeer hoof prints, the plate of cookie crumbs and the empty glass of milk, or the gnawed carrots and clumps of fur left behind by the Easter Bunny who, somewhere along the line, apparently contracted a really bad case of mange.
Since my mother was a stay-at-home mom, (or a "housewife" as they called them way back when) sometimes in the summer she would plan field trips just to keep us occupied. Mostly to maintain her own sanity, I think. When she'd had enough of our whining and fighting and complaining that there was nothing to do, she'd simply pack us all into the car and head out. One of the places she took us to was called The Catskill Game Farm.
If you grew up anywhere in New York, you probably have some great memories of this place. It was founded in 1933 by Roland Lindemann and closed for good in 2006. Back in the early seventies, it was still 50% regular zoo, 50% petting zoo, and 100% tourist trap, and as far as I know, that format never changed.
We went there quite a few times over the years, but only one of our trips really sticks out in my mind, mostly because it was an unmitigated disaster. We weren't bad kids, exactly, but let me just say that if leashes wouldn't have garnered my mother some dirty looks, they would not have been an especially bad idea.
At the time of this particular trip, I was probably about six years old, The Snitch was four and Houdini was two. As a six-year-old, I was mildly interested in seeing the lions and elephants, but it was the thought of seeing giant snakes and lizards that really floated my boat at the time. The Catskill Game Farm had a "Reptile House" which was sort of dark and cool inside, and had all sorts of creepy crawly things that my mother wanted no part of. She would go in with us, but was constantly looking over her shoulder as if she expected to be strangled by a boa constrictor that had escaped from its cage. In fact, I remember her seeing an empty cage that was probably being cleaned or something, and the next thing I know I was blinking in the bright sunlight, rubbing my arm and wondering how the hell I got outside. That's how fast we left the Reptile House. I think she really enjoyed watching us interact with the animals, and while I initially thought feeding and petting the animals would be a drag, it actually turned out to be kind of fun, mostly because of the story I'm about to tell you.
First, let me set the stage -- I have always had a sensitive nose, and a giant park full of animals in the heat and humidity of a mid-summer day in New York is not an olfactory experience you will soon forget. I know most of you are probably picturing a barn smell in your minds right now, but keep in mind that this place didn't just house mammals -- you had reptiles and birds to deal with too, and each of them had their own unique and potent reek. In other words, if you've never smelled fresh Ostrich shit baking in the sun, your imagination will be hard-pressed to do the stank of this place justice.
The first thing you do when you walk in is buy the crackers to hand feed the animals. My mother walked us over to the window and bought each of us a stack of crackers that I assume were made of processed grains and grass and things, because they were a greenish-brown color and smelled a little like rabbit food. She handed me my stack, handed The Snitch his, and tucked Houdini's into her purse. Thus armed, we ventured into the park, the three of us in tow behind my mother.
In addition to having animals in pens (the "zoo" part), they also had animals that just sort of wandered around (the "petting" part). What they failed to mention in the commercials was the "pooping" part. The animals that were just roaming around -- the deer, goats and antelope-looking things -- basically just let loose wherever they were standing, so it was inevitable that the first thing I did was step in a big pile of animal crap. I am not sure exactly what brand it was, I only know that it stunk. It was embedded deeply into the soles of my Converse All-Stars, and the smell of it made me want to puke. We sat down on a bench while my mother looked around for a stick to clean my shoe.
About 50 feet away, we could see a group of half-grown, domesticated deer surrounding some other little kid hapless enough to have flashed his crackers, and they were busy tearing him apart like a pack of hungry wolves. His arms were in the air, crackers in each fist, and he must have had some extras in his pockets because they were basically undressing him where he stood. He wasn't tall enough to prevent them from taking his crackers, and he had a panicked look on his face like he thought he was going to die. His mother was just laughing and taking pictures. I don't think my mother noticed that this was happening, but The Snitch and Houdini sure noticed, and they didn't look too sure about it.
After my shoe was sort of clean, my mother stood us in a row and gave us the ground rules -- one quarter of a cracker at a time, always place the cracker flat on your palm and let the animal take it so you don't get your fingers bitten, and crackers were expensive so we would only get one more batch each and that would be it. Houdini was pretty small yet, so she stayed with him, planning to dole out his small pieces of cracker as he requested them. She pointed her finger at me and said, "Johnny, you keep an eye on your brother." Then she added the words I hated to hear more than anything in my young life.
"And hold his hand so you don't get separated."
"But Mom!" I whined, "I hate ---"
"Don't you 'But Mom' me," she said. "You hold his hand or we're not going any farther."
I sighed, and grabbed one of his hands. Maybe a little harder than I needed to, but that wasn't my fault.
Suddenly, she noticed something. "Snitch, where are you crackers? How could you possibly lose them already? Did you leave them somewhere?"
"No," he replied.
"Did you give them to an animal?" she asked.
"No," he replied again.
"Well then, what happened to them?" she asked, exasperated.
"I ate them," he said, looking down at his feet.
My mother acted like he had swallowed a cup of Drano.
"You ATE them? YOU ATE THEM? she screamed, getting more agitated by the second. She grabbed him and told him to open his mouth. He did so, and she asked, "You ate ALL of them? What in God's name were you thinking?"
"I didn't know they were for the animals," he said. "I thought they were a snack."
She immediately tracked down someone on the staff, and frantically explained that her kid had just eaten a big stack of the animal crackers. He laughed and said it happens all the time, and not to worry about it. That seemed to calm her down. She walked us back to the cracker place, fished some more money out of her purse, and another stack appeared.
"Don't eat them, " she warned.
"I won't," he replied. "They didn't taste very good, anyway."
[As an aside, here's something you have to know about my brother The Snitch. He was a vacuum cleaner for food ever since he was born. To this day, I think the reason I eat so fast is because growing up, we all had to try to get our share before The Snitch got to it, otherwise there would be nothing left. That went for snacks, too. If you wanted peanut butter and jelly, or potato chips, or even a chocolate chip cookie, you would have to hide them, otherwise there'd be none left when you went to get one. My mother was constantly finding food stashed all over the place. One trick we used for a while, at least until he got wise to it, was to wrap whatever it was we wanted to hide in tin foil, and then tape a little piece of paper on it that said "Dog." My mother always used to save scraps for the dog, and most of the time they would end up in the fridge or freezer with a little tag on them so my father would know he wasn't supposed to eat it. My father would have (and had) eaten moldy meat and not realized it, so anything that was even remotely suspect got flagged with the dog tag. The hardest part was learning how to write "Dog" in my mother's handwriting, but luckily it was a short word so it didn't take long to master. So anyway, I just wanted to explain why he would decide crackers that didn't taste very good were something he should wolf down on the spot.]
With that, we walked toward our first batch of animals, a group of about 5 or 6 spotted fawns. They were small enough so we wouldn't get knocked over, but still -- we were instantly mobbed, and it was pretty fun getting poked and prodded and licked by a whole group of fawns at the same time. (I know that sounds dirty, but it isn't.) Nobody got bitten, although the baby deer were even trying to poke their heads into my mother's purse in the hopes of stealing more crackers.
The Snitch wanted to go see the elephants, so we headed over to the elephant pen. The elephants were in the process of getting hosed down because it was hotter than hell, and there was a river of smelly water running out from under the fence. It looked like they used something akin to a fire hose to douse them, because it seemed to be much more water than what you would get out of a normal faucet. The elephants were pretty impressive and while my mother, The Snitch and I were watching them move around in their slow, yet graceful way, my brother Houdini managed to find one of the water spigots attached to a fence post and turn it on. A blast of water hit him full-force in the chest. He was so surprised he fell right on his butt and started crying, even as the water continued to shoot out of the faucet at about 1600 psi. My mother quickly turned the faucet off, but by that time he was soaked from head to toe, sitting in filthy elephant runoff, and had flies buzzing around him. As you can imagine, my mother was very pleased.
[That was the other thing I forgot to mention. The incredible number of flies all over everything. When you have 1,000 acres of animals, that are, literally, full of shit, that's a lot of manure to deal with. When you figure the average-sized pile of deer crap holds about 300 flies (yes, I've done studies) you can imagine what the fly situation at this place was like. I don't doubt that they were hosing that place down with DDT at night, but it was still almost unbearable. ]
She stood him up, got him to stop crying, brushed the mud off him as best she could, and soldiered on. I don't remember much else about our visit -- I remember the crocodiles, and I remember seeing the ostriches and the ant-eaters, but I couldn't tell you what else was there. I remember eating lunch and constantly trying to keep the flies off my food, but as far as other animals go, my memory isn't the best. Typical zoo-type stuff.
Mostly, I remember the Llamas.
We went to the Llama pen and my mother still had the last of Houdini's crackers in her purse. For some reason, she always thought Llamas were fascinating, and so she wanted to feed one. She walked up to the pen and held out a cracker. The llama took one look at her, and something very bad happened. If you know about Llamas, you know they spit. But saying "llamas spit" is like saying "Katrina caused a little flooding." The Llama put his ears back and did this right in my mother's face:
She was so shocked she just stood there for a second, holding out her cracker, covered from head to waist in dripping green half-digested slime that used to be hay and crackers. She dry-heaved a few times, and I thought she was going to lose it, but she managed to hold herself together. And dear god, the stench. She wiped the slime away from her eyes and mouth, and then took a tissue from her purse and cleaned herself up as best she could, and it was right about then that The Snitch shot his breakfast crackers and his lunch all over the place.
She was done. Defeated. Beat down. We had been there for maybe a total of 4 hours, and we wanted to go home. We were shit-covered, slime-covered, muddy, sick and tired. We hoofed it back to the car and piled in. It was a very quiet and not particularly pleasant ride home.
I think the llama incident is the only reason I even remember that particular visit. We went back a few more times over the years, although those trips were less eventful, and I only have the vaguest memories of them.
We stayed pretty far away from the llama pen, though, so that could be why.
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It's time once again for one of my semi-regular features, since I'm still formulating my next "real" post. Google searchers have been letting me down lately but I've still managed to catch a few gems. For your reading pleasure, I now present:
Fantastic Google Searches That Somehow Led People To My Site:
my wife jokingly says I have a small penis -- I hate to break it to you Tiny Tim, but she's probably not joking. Women in general and wives in particular don't usually joke about that. I suppose it's always possible that your wife has a freakishly large vagina and an extremely limited sexual history. Otherwise, you probably have a little wiener.
I can do it for a minute girl - Unless you're talking about the Iron Cross, I would suggest that you do not include that small detail in your e-Harmony profile or Craigslist personal ad because contrary to what you may think -- 60 seconds of frantic, rabbit-like humping is not the way to set the bar high, my friend.
your ass is like school in the summer time -- I'm not sure if this is supposed to be an insult or a compliment. I had to make up a portion of a class in summer school once, and let me tell you, it sucked. And unless you count the smell of sweaty teenagers there was nothing ass-like about it. School during the summer was oppressive, dusty and half empty, and I've never seen an ass with that description. On the other hand, just thinking about going there made me want to kill myself and gouge my eyes out, and I HAVE seen asses like that, so I think maybe it's a wash.
pictures of hot girls in hot bathing sutes with such big boobs there bursting out of there swim sutes -- I am not exactly sure which terms in this sentence landed you on my blog, but I have advice for you anyway. Stop searching for online porn and try searching for online English classes. You will be much better served in the long run. Sure, you'll temporarily have fewer boobs in your life, but eventually you will gain the spelling skills necessary to surf porn like a true expert.
picture of the worlds biggest butt wearing all clothing -- Thank you, anonymous Google searcher, for another odd and disturbing image I didn't need rolling around in my head. Theoretically, how big would a butt actually have to be to wear all the clothing there is? I'm guessing pretty big. I won't even dispute your theory that it would probably have to be the biggest butt in the world. I'm just thinking out loud here, but even if you located the butt, I'm willing to bet you'd have a hard time convincing everyone else in the world to donate all their clothes to your cause.
how big the penis should be at age 13 for a black kid -- Using my amazing powers of deduction, I will go out on a limb here and say this was typed by an insecure 13 year old black male. Unfortunately, I'm neither 13 years old nor black, so I am somewhat unqualified to answer your question. I am fairly certain, however, that any answer I could give you would include the phrase "bigger than mine."
granny porn without tongs -- Good luck with your search, my friend. Right now, you're probably out there on the internet up to your ass in vast amounts of easily obtainable granny porn WITH tongs. I know it's not quite the same thing, but the newest version of Photoshop has a tong-removal filter. Don't ask me how I know.
are girls actually unintelligent? -- Oooooooh, I can't believe you typed that directly into the internet. In fact, I can't believe you even thought that. Even as we speak, there are tens of thousands of female IT experts tracking down your ip address and then driving directly to your house because you are clearly a man who is looking for a serious ass-whooping.
how to know if you husband is gay -- I think I can help you with this one. Just take this short quiz:
1. Does your husband like penises?(Yes)(No)
If the answer is Yes, then in my limited experience, your husband is most likely gay.
That's all I have from Google this week. Right now I'm working on a story about when my mother took The Snitch, Houdini and me to a disgusting place called The Catskill Game farm. It wasn't pretty, but it was pretty funny.
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Speaking of pretty funny, clicking here keeps me at the top. Most of the time.
I don't know why someone would want to interview me, but they asked and since I will use any excuse to procrastinate instead of writing my next blog entry, I said yes. Click here if you'd like to read my non-funny answers to non-funny questions.
If you're anything like me, (and you know you are) you have a pile of magazines in the bathroom reading bucket. Recently, my father has been giving me his copies of Scientific American and Popular Science when he's done with them. After about 6 months of this, I have received enough copies of each to come to the following conclusion:
I am too stupid to read Scientific American.
Here's an example -- Thursday night, I was getting ready for bed and had a Scientific American open on the bathroom counter. (Yes, I read magazines and books while I'm washing my face and brushing my teeth. I know. It's a sickness.) Suddenly, I realized I had been standing in front of the bathroom sink for about 30 minutes with the water running, reading (and trying to understand) an article on pseudotyped viral-vector gene therapy used in conjunction with synthetic oligonucleotides or some shit. Believe it or not, I managed to get the gist of it even though I had inconveniently left my PHD in microbiology in the other room. Unfortunately, that tiny glimmer of understanding still meant that I went to bed too late and overslept the next morning. Stupid oligonucleotides.
Yesterday, in another restroom-related visit, I realized that both my legs had gone numb because I was sitting there for 20 minutes reading an article on String Theory and Multi-verses for the 4th time, trying desperately to get my head around it. Apparently these multiple layered universes are like membranes, or Branes for short, and can exist at the tip of a spike in a Calabi-Yau Manifold. Let me just say that there was no rest in that room yesterday. My head hurt. I felt like I was back in my college physics class, except with my pants down.
I've decided that the Scientific American magazines must go.
They are not conducive to quick and efficient bathroom visits, unless of course you have a brain like Stephen Hawking, in which case reading Scientific American is probably like me reading the back of a Lucky Charms box.
Unfortunately, my brain is not Stephen Hawking-esque in the slightest, and therefore these magazines have simply taken one unpleasant task and added another unpleasant task to it. I see no benefit to that, and since one of these tasks is optional and one is not, logic dictates that the optional one must go. Therefore, Scientific American will no longer co-habitate with Performance Muscle Cars and the Victoria's Secret catalog in our bathroom reading bucket.
The Popular Science magazines can stay though. From what I've seen, they are more my speed.
For those of you who have never read either magazine, I took the liberty of scanning the illustration that accompanied an article in each in order to show you why I believe this to be true:
Scientific American
Popular Science
In other news, I'm hoping to finish wiring up my new bathroom tree-fan tomorrow.
Also, just in case it ever comes up in casual conversation, you heard it here first. Soldering with your pants down: Not for beginners.
------------------------------------- Hit this humor-blog link for me. I'll build you a tree fan if you do. Or a Calabi-Yau manifold. Whichever you prefer.
With my new DirecTV installation, I get free HBO and Showtime for 3 months. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I've been busily recording anything and everything that looks even remotely interesting. I've seen more bad B-movies in the last month than I have in the previous two years. As an aside, I'm also apparently addicted to the show Californication.
Anyway, somewhere along the line, I recorded a movie called "The Beach Girls" -- which has to be the most horrible piece of shit ever released direct to video. I attempted to watch it tonight, since I was in the mood for a light comedy, but I couldn't do it. It was seriously that bad.
I got about 10 minutes into it and had the following conversation with my wife:
"You know what amazes me most about this movie?" I asked her.
"What? That it's so horrible?"
"No, it's the fact that it actually came into being. Think about it -- Someone, somewhere, wrote a screenplay with this ridiculous dialogue in it. Then someone else read it and somehow thought it was good enough to option for a movie. Then someone with money read it and decided that it should definitely become a movie -- and so they financed it. And then....then....a bunch of someone else's auditioned for the various roles -- characters with names like 'Ginger' and 'Ducky' -- because they wanted to be in it, and finally, someone else directed it and as a result this piece of shit actually made it to film."
"And then someone else went out of his way to record it just because he thought it might have lots of naked boobies in it."
--------------------------------------- click it or ticket, as the cops 'round these parts are fond of saying. Sometimes if you show them your boobies, they let you go.
My friend Greg is going off to start his own business and become a famous guitar maker, and this afternoon he brought a couple of his newest babies up so we could snap a few pictures:
They are truly amazing when you see them in person. If anyone wants to place an order, or maybe just wants to rub up against these guitars in an obscene manner, I will only charge a 10% commission to make either of those things happen.
His e-mail address is gregfealey at netzero.net. Drop him a line if you have any questions about pricing or humbuckers or any other crazy guitar thing.
Now pardon me while I go into my shop and throw away all my woodworking tools. They are obviously wasted on me. Talented effer.
---------------------------------------------------- Also posted on humor-blogs.com. For no reason at all, since it's not funny in the slightest.
Today, we wandered around downtown Saratoga for a while because it was such a nice day out. Since it was a weekday, it was spectacularly uncrowded, and I loved it. We hit the coffee shop, the bookstore, the tattoo parlor, etc. When we done wasting time, we walked back to the car. The sidewalk we were walking on runs parallel to a tall iron fence that separates the street from Congress park.
When we were nearing the car, I heard some quacking, and when I looked toward the fence I saw a mallard duck walking on the grass. Through the bars, I spotted a kid and his mom walking on the path toward the duck. The kid was running ahead a little bit, his hand outstretched. He was holding a cracker or a piece of bread or something -- obviously trying to feed the duck. His mom wasn't exactly keen on the idea, and she was desperately calling him back. "Josh! Leave the ducks alone! They aren't hungry!"
I am a sucker for wildlife of any sort, and so before we got into the car I decided to quickly run up to the fence and see what I could see. I got to the fence just in time to realize that the ducks in question were actually pretty hungry after all.
It turns out there were two males and a female, and the lone female didn't seem to be having a very good time of it. Or maybe she was having a good time -- I confess to not knowing what sort of kinky stuff chick-ducks are into these days. One male was holding the female by the neck with his beak and humping the shit out of her while the other male looked on and quacked his encouragement. I'm not sure if he just liked to watch, or if he was waiting his turn, but I quickly turned back toward the car to let them have their privacy.
In retrospect though, given the fact that they were busily rough-humping a foot away from the sidewalk, I'm pretty sure they didn't care all that much about their privacy. Apparently, hot, juicy duck-love overrides all inhibitions.
At least I knew why mom wasn't too keen on letting junior attempt to shove crackers at them, and I applaud her-- because if there's one thing I hate, it's when complete strangers try to feed me crackers while I'm attempting to get busy. It really wrecks the mood.*
----------------------------------- If you vote for me by clicking here, you will save a duck (or three) untold measures of embarrassment.
*Unless they're those bright orange crackers with the peanut butter inside.
My wife is heavily into gardening -- Flowers, not vegetables. Every year around this time, she spends all her waking moments sticking various plants in various flower beds, and I spend all my waking moments trying to keep the various woodland creatures from eating them level with the ground.
In addition to the big things that I keep out with the electric fence and the motion-sensor sprinklers, there are other animals of smaller stature that also like nothing better than to chow down on a fresh salad every morning if given the chance.
Unfortunately, she keeps these creatures away by spraying the plants with a noxious concoction called "Deer Off" which consists mostly of rotten egg whites, hot pepper and garlic. While this is pretty effective at keeping the rabbits and porcupines from eating the plants, it also has the unfortunate side-effect of making our backyard smell like the dumpster behind an Italian restaurant.
None of that is the topic of this post, however. Instead, we will now talk about the art of copy writing as it pertains to selling perennials.
Yesterday, my wife came home with some lilies, and she showed me a picture of what they will look like when they bloom. Now, I can appreciate a pretty flower as much as the next guy, but I generally don't have much of an opinion other than to say "that's nice" or "cool colors."
Because I'm a freak who has some sort of deep-seated psychological need to read any words put in front of me, when she handed me the little picture card attached to the plant, I also read the description. When I did, I immediately started laughing.
What's so funny about day-lilies, you ask?
Well, to answer your question, I've scanned this fantastic copy writing masterpiece for your reading pleasure:
So my advice to you is this: If, for some inexplicable reason, your garden suddenly fills up with peasant girls and starts to look a little shabby around the edges, you should immediately drive to your local low-budget strip club and hire one of the early-shift women to come home with you and stand in the middle of them.
That should spruce things up nicely, because -- as every good copywriter knows -- nothing stands out in a crowd of peasant girls like a stripper with a black eye.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- Click here to keep Diesel up to his eyeballs in peasant girls and strippers.
Wow, this might be the longest I've ever gone without posting. In the last couple of weeks, I've attended two concerts, gotten sick, gotten better, watched a ton of movies and otherwise wasted time doing things other than writing. So hey, let me just say it's good to be back. Today's my first day of vacation, so hopefully that means more adventures and more blogging. So I'm here all week. Also, try the veal.
So back to these shows I attended -- The Gin Blossoms and Dream Theater. No, it wasn't a double bill, although just considering the possibilities of that makes the part of my brain that likes music want to curl up in a ball on the ground and beg for sweet, merciful death.
If you're familiar with both of these bands, you'll know they reside on very opposite ends of the musical spectrum. I was a big Gin Blossoms fan back in the day, and they sound just as good now as they did back in the 90's. I'm relatively new to Dream Theater, but my friend Rikk is their tour manager so I got to experience a show on Sunday. I'll have more to say about that experience later.
I'll talk about the band that the sane people go to see first. The Gin Blossoms show was in a little theater in Connecticut, just over the NY border. It's a crazy-rich neighborhood, and just about every other car in the parking lot was some sort of Mercedes Benz, Lexus or BMW.
Put it this way: David Duchovny and Tea Leoni were in the front row at this particular show and nobody cared. (I'm not sure if that was because the people in this town are used to celebrities in their midst, or if it was because it was David Duchovny and Tea Leoni.)
The show itself was really good, and the band played a lot of tunes off their newest CD "Major Lodge Victory" released in late 2006. If you were ever a GB fan, you need to check it out. It will bring back memories and make you want to put the top down on your 911, put your arm around your best girl and just burn a hundred bucks-worth of gas that used to cost about twenty. But you don't care, because you're rich and you do what you want.
Initially, the crowd was a little stiff, and I think it made the band a bit uncomfortable. After the first few songs, Robin Wilson practically begged everyone to just get out of their seats and come down near the stage, so a lot of people finally did. He then pointed out the security guards, said there were only two of them, but if everyone behaved they could probably stay there for the rest of the show. Behavior really wasn't a problem -- given the average age of the audience, the area in front of the stage was basically just a broken hip waiting to happen. I am not entirely sure, but I think this particular venue is treated as a "night out" by the locals, and they tend to go see whatever happens to be there. I have to admit, I liked the crowd better when they weren't all riled up and clackin' their dentures. Mostly because when they were sitting down, I could see the stage.
We had pretty good seats. Since the place is so small, there really aren't any bad seats, so this was my view for every song except for the big hits:
During the hit songs, however, my view changed to this:
That's because Giant Shiny-Headed Guy stood up for the entire length of any song he recognized or even thought he recognized. It was pretty fucking annoying, but not as bad as what was going on a few seats over. My wife had Fat Janis Joplin doing the bad-acid dance right in front of her, which was way more annoying for multiple reasons. Picture Mystery Science Theater 3000 with a silhouette of Miss Piggy instead of Tom Servo, and you'll have a good idea of what we were up against.
I think my wife was most annoyed by the constant flipping-hair move, while I (being a drummer) was more annoyed by the fact that she was doing this spastic dance in double-time. This made her look as if she were being stung by bees, which is hard to not watch. Eventually, my wife took a walk and said something to her boyfriend to the effect of "if she's going to dance like she's on fire and trying to put herself out, please tell her to do it in the aisle with the rest of the crazy dancing folk."
So she did, and life was good. I've realized that some people are really so oblivious to their surroundings that they don't even know they're messing up someone else's good time, and if you point it out to them, they are sometimes willing to stop doing whatever it is that they're doing. I've also realized that this is not always the case, and if you intend to pursue this course of action, you must choose your venue -- and your target -- wisely. Girl at concert in rich neighborhood = Good. Large, tattooed biker in strip club = bad.
[Warning: heart-warming anecdote] At one point, Robin Wilson saw a little girl in the audience who had brought her own tambourine to the show, so he brought her on stage to play a few songs with the band. She was probably 4 years old, and Fat Janis could have learned a few things about rhythm, because she never missed a beat. She kept better time than the drummer in the band. At the end of the show, Robin asked her if she would trade tambourines with him, and she said yes, so he autographed his and gave it to her. It was pretty cute, and she was thrilled.
At any rate, if they are coming to a town near you, I highly recommend you check them out. They are as tight as they ever were, and Robin Wilson's voice hasn't diminished in the slightest. They also looked like they were having a blast on stage, and I love that.
The Dream Theater show happened, as I said, because a friend of mine is their tour manager. Also, they haven't played Albany in 15 years, I have never seen them play, and my friend Yort is a fan of theirs from way back. It was the perfect storm of rock. Well, maybe not, but it was a free show and an excuse to hang out with a couple of friends for a bit.
This particular venue is in a weird place, so there was absolutely nowhere to park. We ended up parking about four long-ass blocks away, and I was fully convinced that we would either get mugged or the car would be gone when we got back to it after the show. Luckily, neither of those things happened. I think it's because there were so many freaky white boys at this show, the normal riff-raff were scared to come out of the woodwork.
We were clearly the least tattooed people there. A marathon run of Miami Ink would have exposed you to less tats than this crowd. Way less Hep C, too. We were also the most colorful (while fully clothed, at least), since I had on a green T-shirt and Yort was wearing a gray hoodie. I would say that fully 90% of the crowd was dressed in black. Black leather, black concert T-shirts, black jeans...black eyeliner, you name it. These were old-school metal heads mixed with screamo fans and a smattering of people who looked like they just finished shooting a Federal Marshall in the head and gnawing the handcuffs off their wrists so they could come to the show.
There was a lot of weird hair, too. I saw one guy with a completely shaved head, except for a long top-knot pig tail that he thrashed around like it was some sort of head-mounted buggy whip. I saw another (white) guy with dreads down to his ass. As you would expect, there were surprisingly few women there. That's not to say the number was zero, but it was close to it. The one I remember best looked like a female version of Ethan Suplee's character in The Butterfly Effect. I'm still trying to unremember that, btw.
Actually, the worst thing about this show was that there were three opening acts: Opeth,Between the Buried and Me, and Three.
Being old, we hadn't heard of any of the openers, so we didn't realize how odd the musical bill was until the music started. Already almost done playing when we got there, Three was actually pretty good, in a Rush-like kind of way. Sort of proggy, and actually talented. They finished their last two songs, and left the stage. The next band up was Opeth, and we had no idea what they were about. They took the stage and the aural assault began. To give you an idea of what they sound like, I provide this example from one of their previous recordings. Go listen and then come back here.
If your thought processes are anything like mine, you will think, "Oh, hey that's pretty cool. He has a pretty good voice...I like the harmonies...I like the .......AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN MY FUCKING EARS!!!! And then you will feel the odd sensation of your soul being pulled slowly from your body. I don't know how that guy does that for a whole show without coughing up chunks of his larynx.
We had a couple of backstage passes, and in direct opposition to our immediate instincts, we walked toward the stage. It turns out that was the right decision, because once we got past the wall of noise, it turned into something akin to the rumble of nearby demolition and you could actually talk if you screamed at the top of your lungs directly into each other's ears. My friend Yort asked me where I thought Rikk might be, and I said, "As far away from this music as humanly possible" and I was right. He was in the production area at the front of the arena, behind a very solid oak door, doing all the things that tour managers do.
We walked in and said our hellos and introductions to everyone in production, hung out a bit, and discussed the bands thus far. I have to say the funniest description of Opeth's music had to be "cookie monster rock."
Then we all took turns singing nursery rhymes and Christmas carols in the style of Opeth, because we determined that it doesn't really matter what you're singing as long as you sing it with the proper amount of heart-felt evil. The funny thing is, their lyrics are actually pretty good.
After a nondescript set by Between the Buried and Me, Dream Theater took the stage.
All I have to say about Dream Theater is this: Goddamn, those dudes can play. Hol-E-Crap. I never saw such complete mastery of a guitar and keyboard in my entire life. Jordan Rudess and John Petrucci are inhumanly talented, and they play like they are a single person. Mike Portnoy is certainly no slouch, either. The music is very technical, and some of it is truly amazing, but unfortunately I'm not a huge fan of James LaBrie's voice. That's the deal breaker for me. Even though he has a great range, and rarely misses a note, he has a little too much Ronnie James Dio-meets-Queensryche in his pipes for me.
All in all, it was an interesting and impressive show and I'm glad we went. It was good to catch up with an old friend and have some laughs. And as an added bonus, I got to hear me some cookie monster rock.
You can't beat that with a nail-studded, black-leather-covered stick -- unless you like that sort of thing, of course.
It doesn't seem like my mother has been gone for almost eight years. Of course, I've been saying something similar every year since she died, and I suspect I'll be saying it for a long time to come. I don't think it's something you ever stop saying when talking about loved ones that are gone from your life. Especially ones that have played such a large role in determining who you are, as my mother did with me.
I've written before about how much alike we were -- in our temperament, our outlook on life and our sense of humor -- and I think that's why she still feels so close to me even after being gone for so long. I constantly see things that amuse me, and I know that they would have made her laugh too. I was sitting here trying to figure out what to write about that would give you a few minutes of entertainment and also let me reminisce about some of the fun we had when I was growing up.
Over there on the right, you may or may not have read the story about my first suit. In getting you up to "Mom Speed," that'll prime the pump. If you want more, check out Mr. Smooth, Part I and II.
Anyway, I decided I'm going to tell you about a couple of the times my mother felt the long arm of the law -- or by rights should have.
She was pretty spunky for being just over five feet tall, and would voice her opinion regardless of who it pissed off. That's one trait we don't really share, and I think that's because I'm only 5' 6" and I like my teeth right where they are.
My Mother, The Civil Engineer
I grew up in a residential neighborhood -- one of those developments built back in the 70's where all the houses looked the same except for the color of the siding and shutters. Our house was about half-way down a fairly straight street, and as a result people tended to drive a little faster than they probably should have. There wasn't exactly a lot of traffic, but going on toward four or five o'clock, there were enough cars going by to make a game of kickball problematic, since yelling "CAR!" every five minutes and standing on the side of the street didn't really lend itself to riveting game play. Although I have to admit, yelling "WHAT DO YOU THINK THIS IS, A ROAD?" at the passing cars was very clever comedy indeed to a bunch of 6 year-olds.
Even as we mouthed off to the passing motorists, it was still embarrassing to us when my mother would do the same thing. Sitting on the front steps with her coffee, or raking leaves or planting flowers, she would always pause in whatever she was doing and yell "SLOW DOWN!" at the top of her lungs whenever someone would invariably go tooling by at what she deemed to be excessive speed. I was never sure exactly how she judged these speeds, however. It may have been dependent upon the color of the car and/or her mood at the time -- I don't know. But regardless, it was embarrassing when you were with your friends.
Eventually, my mother tired of the passing cars ignoring her. I believe she took it as a personal affront that they did not immediately slow down upon hearing her bellowed commands. I think she expected them to back up and apologize to her for not driving 10 mph under the posted speed limit signs and then promise it would never happen again.
When that didn't happen, she complained to the cops. When the cops told her that the speed limit was 30 mph and that none of the cars they clocked had been over the limit, she decided that clearly the speed limit should be lowered to 20 mph and any motorists exceeding this limit should be arrested immediately and have their cars impounded, because BY GOD she wasn't going to see her children or her neighbors' children run down like dogs. Unfortunately, the police didn't see it the same way, and my mother and the local law enforcement officer reluctantly agreed to disagree on that matter.
She wasn't happy with that answer, however. So what did she do about it, you ask? Well, she did the normal and sane thing, obviously.
She collected signatures and got a spot on the agenda of the next town meeting and then proposed that the town petition the Dept. of Transportation on her behalf to consider lowering the speed limit on our street to 20mph, and then ---
No, I'm kidding of course. That is not the way my mother operated.
What she did instead was this: She drove to the local building supply store and bought about 6 bags of cold patch, waited until the middle of the night, and proceeded to make her own personal speed bump directly in front of our house.
I'm not kidding. Under cover of darkness, my mother actually dumped bags of asphalt onto a public street, formed it into a long mound and tamped it down with a shovel. (I don't think my father was in total agreement with her methods or if he was even aware of her plan, but in any case he was smart enough to know that if he tried to stand in her way he'd get steamrolled.)
Needless to say, this project turned out about as well as you would expect. Lacking any formal training in speed bump construction techniques, the result wasn't so much a speed bump as it was multiple six-inch-high axle-busting speed mounds.
Someone must have complained, because it didn't take long for the new addition to our street to be addressed. The local police weren't amused, and neither was the local highway crew that had to come out and scrape up the mess. Luckily, they had gotten on that before it had hardened completely, otherwise it wouldn't have been that easy. Looking back on it now, I can't really remember much more about it, although the speed limit may have gone down a notch or two shortly thereafter. I don't think she did any hard time for it. I don't remember missing any dinners, at any rate.
My Mother, The Cat Burglar
This story begins with my mother's hate-hate relationship with our childhood cat, the aptly and rather unimaginatively named "Kitty." Kitty was a male cat, and as a male cat, he liked to roam the neighborhood and get into trouble. And by trouble I mean killing things he shouldn't have been killing, pooping in places he shouldn't have been pooping, and impregnating things he shouldn't have been impregnating.
Sometimes, he would kill things around our house and leave just the heads and livers on the front sidewalk for my mother to clean up. She loved that. Even more, she loved the phone calls she would regularly receive from our irate neighbors.
They would call to complain about the habits and appetites of our far-ranging pet, and since my mother worked from home, it was generally up to her to respond to complaints. Eating birds off feeders, digging in flower gardens, pissing on their kid's Big Wheel, you name it. Most of the time, this meant driving to wherever our cat was -- sometimes surprisingly far away places -- and trying to catch it and bring it home. In some cases, the cat would be locked in the garage of the homeowner, waiting for pick up. Most of the time the cat was agreeable to this personalized taxi service, since ultimately it knew where the food bowl was, but sometimes he wanted to stay put, in direct opposition to his best interests. He also got smart after a while, and ran when caught in the act. I think she would have been better off just removing the tags from his collar so people wouldn't actually know who owned him, but she never did. She would always mutter something about "that damned cat" then jump in her car and begin the retrieval process.
One day, my mother was driving home from the store, and when she was still a few miles from our house, she spotted our cat. He was digging in the flowerbed in front of someone's house, obviously covering up a recent dump. She slammed on her brakes and jumped out of the car.
"Here, Kitty Kitty!" she yelled. "Here, Kitty! Come on!" When the cat ignored her, she offered up the ever-popular "God dammit, COME OVER HERE!"
Our cat just sat there and stared at her, obviously content to stay right where it was.
My mother was not playing, and she decided it was time our cat realized this. She strode up the front lawn and grabbed Kitty under her arm. At this point our cat began hissing and scratching and trying to get away, but my mother was having none of it. With a few choice words, she tossed the cat into the back seat of the car and drove home.
When she finally got home, she tossed the cat in the garage, opened a can of cat food, dropped it in the bowl, then closed the garage door and went inside -- only to see our cat lying in a sunbeam on the living room floor, sleeping peacefully, blissfully unaware of his recent capture.
She didn't do any hard time for that escapade either, although it's probably a good thing the actual owners never found out who kidnapped their family pet. I'm sure they still talk about the time an unknown woman in a Chevy Chevette stopped briefly in their driveway, got out of her car, ran around to the passenger side and opened the door for their cat like she was Eartha Kitt's Chauffeur.
So there's two more stories for you. There are many more where those came from, but you'll have to stick around until next Mother's day to hear about the Lupines and the blowfish.
Happy Mother's Day, Mom. It's always fun to hang out for a bit.
Thanks for everything.
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Also, you guys can do me an oft-requested favor and click here. That will keep me in good standing with all those mommy bloggers and cat kidnappers over at humor-blogs.com.
PS - I forgot to mention that comment moderation is turned on for a bit -- I was getting spammed on a lot of old posts lately and am waiting for it to die down. I turned anonymous back on, however.
PPS - comment moderation sucks, so I turned it back off. Spammers, have at me.
Picture moving out to a nice home in the country, and then, 3 years after you've gotten used to the peace and quiet, you wake up one morning to discover that the pristine field in front of your house is now the site of PhishFest 2008 and covered in filthy hippies, and that's the way it's going to be from then on.
A while back I had a job in a cube farm. I am pretty sure that while I was there, I had fungus growing in my ears. This is because in order to avoid going completely bat-shit insane, I was forced to wear ear-buds and listen to my iPod all day.
There is a universal truth about working in IT. The absolute worst group of people you can sit next to is a group of help desk people. There are many reasons for this. Allow me to list a few of them:
(1) They are on the phone with customers for 8 hours every day. Their phones ring constantly, and every one of them has a different ring-tone assigned to their phone.
(2) Their noise levels do not increase in a linear fashion. To put it another way, 8 help desk people do not make twice the noise of 4. They make at least 3 times more. This ratio holds true regardless of the number of HD people you have. And they are completely immune to the noise.
(3) They have a tendency to have 200 IM messages on their screen at
ing there on the desk, you should see how weird they look when you put them on. I think the fact that they appear to be cut out of a black leather car seat probably has something to do with that.
