cell phones are like noses

I was talking about cell phones in a earlier post and it reminded me. I got an email from my friend saying, "I got yelled at in the grocery store for being on my cell phone. This lady yelled at me and told me I was showing off that I had a cell phone." Are you serious? That's crazy. Everybody has a cell phone. I saw a homeless man with a cell phone the other day. Cell phones are like noses, everybody has one. Saying you're showing off your phone by talking on it is like saying you're showing off your shoes by walking in them. Also, showing off implies that somebody is going to be jealous by you having something. Since everybody has a cell phone, I can't imagine somebody being jealous of your particular cell phone. They may think your Blackberry is cool, or wish that they had a Razr, but they're not jealous of your phone. They don't want to be your cell phone, and they don't want to be you because you have a cell phone.

Shrimp fried chitterlings

I'm at school preparing for panel (I'm going to write something explaining panel at a later date). That means late nights, energy drink that make you feel like you'll never sleep again and enough fast food/takeout to make your arteries look like the inside of a cement mixer. Needless to say, there are a whole plethora of takeout menus laying around. I picked up one the other day that perturbed me, made me laugh and grossed me out all at the same time. It was for a vietnamese restaurant called Saigon Basil. Sounds innocent enough--until you hear how they describe themselves. On the menu it says that they are a Vietnamese, Thai and B.B.Q restaurant. What? I understand that we are in a different world, and we're trying to learn about and understand other cultures, but some things just don't mix. Vietnamese, Ok. Thai, I can get with that. But then you throw in B.B.Q. and I don't know what the hell is going on. It's just weird. The menu includes classics like, BBQ pork spring rolls, chargrilled ribs with steamed rice, and my personal favorite, curry ribs with fried rice. Huh? Maybe I'm just not that cultured, but that doesn't sound very appetizing. It's like being at a 4th of July picnic in China or something. I bet the guy that works there is named Tyrone Chung or something. He's the Tiger Woods of fast food (citation, Matt Wyne circa 2007).
It reminds me of this time when I was in high school and a couple of my friends wanted to go to this restaurant in an old rundown shopping center. The only other thing around was a beauty school next door. Sidenote: this was like a vocational beauty school. It was the junior college of beauty schools where girls who can't get into an official beauty school go. Anyway, so we go to the restaurant and we're a little early. They're not open yet. As we get up to the door a vietnamese guy appeared out of nowhere and tells us that they won't be open for another 15 minutes. My friend looked at me contemplating if the man that came to the door was the owner of the restaurant. Once we got inside, he went to the man and asked him if he was the owner. He said yes. That's not funny until you realize that we were at a restaurant called JR's Country Buffet, and JR is Vietnamese. I was expecting a fat guy with a cul de sac haircut, plaid flannel shirt and overalls. Instead JR is Vietnamese. I guess the Country JR was talking about was Vietnam.

Merry Christmas...why?

I'm sitting here at school trying to do some work. This post is evidence that not much is getting done. Why? Because I"m having profound thoughts. Why is christmas merry, but thanksgiving is happy? Can Thanksgiving not be merry? Are birthdays not a merry occasion? In essence, both words mean the same thing. So why is it that Christmas is merry, but birthdays, Easter and Thanksgiving are happy?
My first thought is that it has something to do with syllables. Christmas has two, as does birthday and Easter, while Thanksgiving has three. With that logic, both birthdays and Easter should be merry.
Maybe it's letter configuration. Christmas ends with a consonant, as does Easter and Thanksgiving. So does birthday for that matter. But let us forgo what we learned in fifth grade (stay with me). Y is only a vowel in words that don't contain a vowel anywhere else in the syllable, i.e. words like syllable(syl·la·ble) and physics (phys·ics). Let's forget that and pretend for a moment that birthday ends in a vowel. That, then would make birthdays happy, but Thanksgiving and Easter merry.
Let us now consider how many letters are in each word. Christmas has 9, Thanksgiving 12, birthday 8 and Easter 6. Christmas is the only word that contains an odd number of letters. That, possibly, may be the link we are looking for. Maybe only odd lettered holidays can me merry. That means Hanukah, depending on how you spell it (Hanukkah, Chanukah or Hanukah) should be merry. Presidents Day (if you include the day), merry. Martin Luther King Day, merry.
But that brings me to another thought. What constitutes a holiday? If we assume that it's not having to attend work, as with Christmas, birthdays and other days in which missing work could get you fired, are not considered holidays. But what about Easter? Easter is on Sunday. Most people don't have to work on Sunday so technically you wouldn't have to work on that day, but would you if it were, let's say, on a Monday? I don't know. Since Jesus rose from the dead on that day I'm going to go ahead and assume that he would want us to have that day off of work.
And Christmas is Jesus' birthday, but what about your own birthday? Let's say you're one of those, I-celebrate-at-12-the-night-before birthday people. Let's assume that you plan on getting plastered and not going in to work. By my logic, that planned taking off makes your birthday a holiday. If you just get drunk and don't feel like coming to work, then your birthday is no longer a holiday, just an excused absence.
What about characters. Christmas has Santa Clause, Easter has a bunny, and Thanksgiving has a turkey. Your birthday has no mascot; therefore, your birthday is not merry.
Ok. I'm a little delirious from not sleeping, and I imagine I could keep going all day. I'm going to go ahead and assume that there is no rhyme nor reason that Christmas is merry and Thanksgiving is not. But, considering i just wrote all this, I'm going to try and make some sense out of it--a postulation if you will. Your birthday is only merry if you, without being fired, get off work and choose to recognize y as a vowel, and/or you have adopted some sort of mascot that would give you gifts (like the birthday aardvark). Thanksgiving is merry by virtue of being an actual holiday. Though Thanksgiving has a mascot, it does not deliver gifts. Thanksgiving can't be a holiday based upon the gift-giving-mascot clause, unless you count the pilgrims and Indians. Since none of us were alive then I'll go ahead and scratch that. Easter is only merry based upon its syllable structure and the gift-bearing mascot. We're going to forgo the absence of work because it's on Sunday. If, however, you believe that if Easter were on Monday you wouldn't get the day off (because Jesus would want you to), Easter is doubly merry.
This is stupid

I'M TRYING TO HANG-UP WITH YOU!!!!!!!

First, I'd like to say that this post is not meant to be about anyone who I am friends with, or talk to on a regular basis. I'm not talking about anybody, I'm just talking about what I'm talking about; however, if the shoe fits, wear it, and if you're offended, it may be time to take a look in the mirror. Anyway, it's just an observation that I made. Please don't call me asking why I said this or who I was talking about. I'll hang up on you.
That being said, I can't stand it when you're on the phone and the person you're talking to won't let you get off the phone. Everybody knows what it sounds like when a conversation is winding down. The pauses get a little longer and you begin every sentence with the word alright or well, as in, "Alright, well, I gotta go now." Alright is the official I'm-getting-off-the-phone-with-you word. The thing is, there are some people who didn't get on the phone-etiquette train and try to talk over you when you start saying alright. They don't get it. It's like, "can't you see I'm trying to hang up with you!!!!???? Didn't you hear me say well!!??" The thing is, you never say anything. Why? Because you feel bad. You're thinking, they must have something good to say-- a funny story or something really interesting to tell me. There must be some reason why they're not picking up on the signals--some reason why they're not letting me get off the phone. The thing is, 9 times out of 10 they don't. They have absolutely nothing to say. So you're sitting on the phone listening to each other breathe. What's even worse is they usually ask you a question like, "why aren't you talking." Probably because I don't have anything else to say. That's why I was trying to get off the phone with you. And these people only want to talk to you when you have something really important to do, like watch football or deliver a baby--never when you're actually free to talk.
Anyway, that just bothers me. It's like they think you'll never talk again. Words aren't going to go out of style before the next time I talk to you. If you wait until the next time we talk I may even have something to say, but for now, I'M TRYING TO HANG-UP WITH YOU!!!!! It's funny too because you shouldn't have to try to hang up with someone, you just do it. If I You say bye and they say bye. It should be pretty cut and dry. Simple. But everybody knows somebody who says bye and then proceeds to continue to talk for another 15 minutes. Oh, I forgot to tell you this, or Oh, did you see Britney Spears on t.v. No. You shouldn't be allowed to talk after you say bye. Bye is official. You should've thought about your Britney Spears story before you said bye. Now you'll just have to tell me about it another time. There should also be a rule about calling back directly after hanging up. At least a 15 minute rule, because some people do hang up after they say bye. Then they remember the Britney Spears story they didn't tell and call you right back...thirty seconds later. Short of you dying or getting your eye poked out, you shouldn't have to call somebody back right after hanging up with them. Usually, whatever it is you had to say can wait.

bathroom attendants promote bad hygiene

So I'm at the club. I'm having a good time and everything when I feel the urge to go to the bathroom. I hate going to the bathroom at clubs because most of them have a damn bathroom attendant. Why in the world is there a bathroom attendant? Do people think that makes their club more high class? It doesn't. Why do I need somebody attending the bathroom? I don't need anybody to open the door for me. More importantly, I'm almost 25 and I damn sure don't need any help aiming and shooting. I've also gotten pretty good at fastening my belt over the years. What are they there for? Is it safety? Do they think some poor drunk guy is going to slip in the Mountain Dew and bump their head while they're going to the bathroom? And then they turn the water on for you so you can wash your hands. I can do that myself. In fact, I do it every other time I go to the bathroom. I don't need help with that. Then they hand you a paper towel and try to spray you with some knockoff cologne that went out of style three years ago. If I wanted to smell like an old man I would've grabbed some of my dad's Stetson from the house. The worst part is that after all this, they expect you to tip them. That's absolutely ridiculous and promotes bad hygiene. Usually those bathroom attendant guys love to talk, so I'll act like I'm going until he gets into a conversation with a guy and I can walk out while he's talking. My other scheme is to act like I'm going until there are a lot of guys in the bathroom so I know the attendant will be occupied turning on water and spraying cologne and I can walk out the door unnoticed. That way I don't feel badly. Yeah, it's gross, I know, but what else am I supposed to do? I don't want to go and wash my hands because I know he's going to turn the water on for me. If he turns the water on for me then I feel obligated to tip him (why, I don't know), and he'll also ask me if I want some cologne (which for some reason I can't say no to), and then I have to give him even more tip. It's bad enough that you have to pay and tip the parking guy, the coat guy (another racket), the bartender guy, and pay a cover to the bouncer guy, but you have to tip the bathroom guy too? It cost's a lot of money to go out these days. Who goes to the bank saying, "I guess I'll get out 50 bucks for tonight. Oh wait, I can't forget about the bathroom attendant. I'll go ahead and get 55 out."? And that's only if you're planning on going to the bathroom once or twice. You can predict how many drinks you're gonna have, but it's hard to predict how many times you're going have to go to the bathroom. And what is the proper bathroom attendant tip? In a restaurant it's usually 20%, but that's 20% of a number. How do I give 20% of turning on the water, or a spray of cologne? Next time I'll just wait for the attendant to go to the bathroom and give the water a quarter turn on for him and rip off a quarter of a paper towel. That'll be his tip, and that's 25% so I'm being generous.

i-pod means I'm old

They say the older you get, the more you start to act like your parents. I've always been skeptical of that (because I'm nothing like my parents), but I said something the other day that made me believe it. I was driving down the street past my old high school with a friend. I think almost every kid that walked by had an i-pod on. The exact words that came out of my mouth were, "Look at all those kids with i-pods. They're so lucky they get to listen to something while they're walking home. We used to just listen to cars go by." Am I that old? That sounded like one of those walking-uphill-both-ways-in-the-snow stories my parents used to tell me when I was little. And where do they get the money for i-pods? I had to cut six yards just to get a Walkman and they were only forty bucks. The cheapest i-pod you can get is 100, I think. That's a lot of yards to cut. Maybe I'm just old, or maybe I'm just jealous, but I'm well on my way to telling my own uphill-both-ways stories.

how to be a player: don't have a cell phone

I was watching Boomerang today. You know the movie where Eddie Murphy is a player but falls in love with Robin Givens and then she plays him? Halle Berry is in it too--before she started being a bad driver and hitting people in her car. There is one particular part in the movie that made me laugh. Robin Givens was supposed to go on a date with Eddie Murphy's. She shows up late and her excuse was that she had some meetings that went over long and there wasn't a phone on the plane to call. I know you remember this part. It's the one where she apologizes for not calling by coming over with a trenchcoat on and Vicky's underneath. Nothing says I'm sorry like a pantyclad woman with an overcoat on, but I digress. Back to the point. I don't know when this movie was made, I believe 92. I know cell phones weren't huge then, but they were high-powered advertising executives. I'm sure she had, or should've had, a cellphone--at least a pager. That excuse definitely wouldn't have gone over in todays world. Cell phones screwed-up the I-couldn't-call excuse for players (even though some still try to use it).