Have you ever noticed that you hold certain beliefs about yourself that are, to put it charitably, at odds with objective reality. I’ll give you an example that seems quite pervasive, height. My height has changed over the years. I don’t mean this in the literal sense. I stopped growing about 10 years ago and have been at least three different heights since then.
When I was growing up my mother would stand me up against a wall and, using her thumbs and a tape measure about half my actual length, determine my height. The process was not particularly scientific and resulted in statements like: “You’re somewhere between 5’8” and 6’4”.” Now, while I tried to stay level headed about these numbers (I thought taking the average and calling myself six foot even seemed fair, plus I have freakish jumping ability for a white man and, if I was really 6’4” I’d probably be in the NBA… let’s just say height isn’t my only misplaced belief), the truth is I allowed her optimism and questionable engineering skills to color my self-opinion. I’d go to a doctor and get measured with actual equipment designed for the task, he’d say I’m 5’10” and the following exchange would take place:
Me: I’m six foot
Doctor: No, you’re really not.
Me: I’m more than 5’10” though
Doctor: 5’10” and an eighth of an inch, if you want to get technical.
Me: AHA! You admit I’m taller than 5’10”
Doctor: Would you mind getting undressed again and laying down on the table over there, I think I might need to run some more tests on you.
Me: OK, how about we compromise and call it 5’11”?
Doctor: Hold on just a second I’m going to give you a prescription for some mood enhancers.
Me: My mood is fine.
Doctor: They’re for your girlfriend.
My doctor’s dry wit notwithstanding, I spent about 5 years at 5’11”. They were fun times. Eventually though, I had to give up the inch. It was painful, like a second circumcision, but I found that my own version of reality had, like congested pig, begun infecting those of others. Those of you without tape measure wielding mothers, I have found, often use friends and co-workers to ascertain their height. A conversation between two women standing 5’1” and 5’2” might go something like this:
Short girl: How tall are you?
Shorter girl: 5’3”, how tall are you?
Short girl: Well, I’m taller than you so like 5’4”, 5’5”.
These conversations are repeated over and over until everyone’s height is based on some myth created by a tape measure I won in third grade. I even shrunk my law school roommate. I dont know what any of this means, I don't know if a lie is any more or less offensive if the person telling it believes it to be true, but, between this and adult dating sites I think we're going to make the ruler obsolete soon.
Dec 21, 2009
Dec 16, 2009
WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE AND WHEREFORE
I know it's bad form to follow a post criticizing The Stupid, with one poor about poor grammar, but the two are closely related and really, since when has bad form ever stopped me? I was in my car the other day when I heard a Visa commercial that epitomized exactly what I'd been railing about with The Stupid. The commercial, in short, is about Romeo and Juliet, only in this case there's no Romeo.
Juliet calls out "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" and receives no response. Now, despite being one of literature's most romantic characters it would appear Juliet was a bit of a shrew, because when Romeo doesn't answer she repeats in a tone of voice clearly meant to imply that suicide or not he won't be getting a kiss goodnight, "Romeo? Wherefore art thou?" Apparently this is also taking part in a forest because now you can hear Juliet stomping through the Bush so maybe they've moved the play from Verona to the Australian Outback, I don't know, but after ignoring her the first two times, she's clearly lost patience with the man who'd she'd rather die than live without and growls, "Romeo!"
At this point the annoyingly saccharine announcer dude who's been doing these "Priceless" commercials since what feels like the Clinton Administration comes on and says something along the lines of; "Maglite flashlight $25. Always being able to find your Romeo? Priceless." Now ignoring the fact that anyone who pays for love with a credit card probably won't stay Governor of New York all that long, this commercial is still stupid. Do you know why? Of course you do, still, I'll tell you. It's because 'Wherefore' doesn't mean 'where?', it means 'why?' 'As in where is the reason for?' This is something you learn in ninth grade. It's not possible that the people who wrote this commercial didn't know what 'wherefore meant'. It's just not! They knew what it meant and they said, screw it, most people are stupid and think it means 'where'.
Visa commercial writer people, I hate you.
Still, they aren't the only ones. Microsoft, the home of nerds the world over is guilty of pandering too. You'd think a company that for decades has treated the term 'user friendly' the way David Hasselhoff treats O'Douls (Congratulations David you've finally made it into the blog, you should know, I was going to use Lindsey Lohan, but I decided you were the more pathetic fall-down drunk. You should be proud of this moment. Call your mom, just remember, you can't actually talk to her through your watch.).
Now, in their rush to compete with Apple, Microsoft is chasing after The Stupid, touting their user friendliness and, it would seem, dropping any and all pretense that their machine requires a modicum of intelligence. The print ad is for Microsoft 7 (apparently in pandering to The Stupid they also decided it was best to use as simple a name as possible, really? Vista was too big a word?), it's a billboard which reads: "I asked for less clicks, I got less clicks." Something sounds wrong right? I'll tell you what's wrong it's FEWER clicks. Look I can explain why this is wrong, or you can take my word for it. I sugesst you take my word before I devolve into a letcure about adjective noun agreement. Just know this, the good people at Microsoft, the people who invented the little green squigly line that pops up under less when I typed 'less clicks' in this friggin' post know it's fewer, they know and they said screw it, less sounds more populist.
Now I ask you, who's left to pander to us? Quick, someone get me my Visa card!
Juliet calls out "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" and receives no response. Now, despite being one of literature's most romantic characters it would appear Juliet was a bit of a shrew, because when Romeo doesn't answer she repeats in a tone of voice clearly meant to imply that suicide or not he won't be getting a kiss goodnight, "Romeo? Wherefore art thou?" Apparently this is also taking part in a forest because now you can hear Juliet stomping through the Bush so maybe they've moved the play from Verona to the Australian Outback, I don't know, but after ignoring her the first two times, she's clearly lost patience with the man who'd she'd rather die than live without and growls, "Romeo!"
At this point the annoyingly saccharine announcer dude who's been doing these "Priceless" commercials since what feels like the Clinton Administration comes on and says something along the lines of; "Maglite flashlight $25. Always being able to find your Romeo? Priceless." Now ignoring the fact that anyone who pays for love with a credit card probably won't stay Governor of New York all that long, this commercial is still stupid. Do you know why? Of course you do, still, I'll tell you. It's because 'Wherefore' doesn't mean 'where?', it means 'why?' 'As in where is the reason for?' This is something you learn in ninth grade. It's not possible that the people who wrote this commercial didn't know what 'wherefore meant'. It's just not! They knew what it meant and they said, screw it, most people are stupid and think it means 'where'.
Visa commercial writer people, I hate you.
Still, they aren't the only ones. Microsoft, the home of nerds the world over is guilty of pandering too. You'd think a company that for decades has treated the term 'user friendly' the way David Hasselhoff treats O'Douls (Congratulations David you've finally made it into the blog, you should know, I was going to use Lindsey Lohan, but I decided you were the more pathetic fall-down drunk. You should be proud of this moment. Call your mom, just remember, you can't actually talk to her through your watch.).
Now, in their rush to compete with Apple, Microsoft is chasing after The Stupid, touting their user friendliness and, it would seem, dropping any and all pretense that their machine requires a modicum of intelligence. The print ad is for Microsoft 7 (apparently in pandering to The Stupid they also decided it was best to use as simple a name as possible, really? Vista was too big a word?), it's a billboard which reads: "I asked for less clicks, I got less clicks." Something sounds wrong right? I'll tell you what's wrong it's FEWER clicks. Look I can explain why this is wrong, or you can take my word for it. I sugesst you take my word before I devolve into a letcure about adjective noun agreement. Just know this, the good people at Microsoft, the people who invented the little green squigly line that pops up under less when I typed 'less clicks' in this friggin' post know it's fewer, they know and they said screw it, less sounds more populist.
Now I ask you, who's left to pander to us? Quick, someone get me my Visa card!
Dec 11, 2009
ON STUPID
As the color sighted among you have most likely realized, we have a new look here at Two For Me. I think with the blog's shift in focus from, 'things that bother' me to a more general advice and observation topic base, a concomitant shift from the darker backgrounds of yesterblogs to today's lighter color, is fitting.
My question to you today is, how long should we fight stupid?
I know that as readers of this blog you are, statistically speaking, far less likely than your fellow non-readers to be stupid, or hold stupid beliefs (especially those readers who have called me 'a genius' or said something I wrote is the 'funniest thing I've ever read'). I'm sure that, like me, you are faced with an unending cavalcade of stupid. I'm also sure that The Stupid infuriate you, that they dig their way into your skin, gnawing at your external safeguards like a disease ridden tick, infecting you with first rage, then acceptance.
First though, I have to warn you; I'm not here to deliver good news. This is no Marathon, the war was fought and lost long ago. This isn't even Thermopylae. It isn't some battle in the midst of a larger war. Our massacre won't cause any to rise up their own army and fight back. The Stupid have won. We are, much like the delicate Cassowary, endangered. We are guests of The Stupid, our presence tolerated and accepted; necessitated only by the need for more Apple products (seriously, have you seen their new mouse?) and Malcolm Gladwell books.
Still, much like our flightless if gloriously plumed mascot, we are proud beings. We are cursed with knowledge and with that knowledge comes the corrective urge. 'It's whom, not who', 'fewer, not less', 'passers by, not passer bys', 'You're pants are on backwards'. We can't help it. We see an error and our nature urges us to correct it. We hear a co-worker state in simple and unequivocal terms that snakes aren't animals because they're reptiles and, no matter how much we try to just nod and move on, our eyelids develop a twitch. We don't want to correct, we need to.
The question then becomes, how hard to we fight to correct? Remember, these are not people looking to be corrected, they are not seeking proper understanding. They fight back, they have forced us to spell dialogue, dialog, and pronounce the silent 't' in 'often'. They have taken the notorious from notoriety and put the lie in laying. There are no objective truths, only their opinion. Allow me to illustrate by recounting for you a conversation I had earlier this week:
The Stupid: Snakes aren't animals, they're reptiles.
Me: Reptiles are animals too, you don't have to be a mammal to be an animal
The Stupid: Right, you just have to be warm blooded, snakes aren't warm blooded
Me: No, warm blooded has nothing to do with it. Dolphins are mammals too.
The Stupid: Right, like sharks!
Me: No! sharks aren't mammals.
The Stupid: Well then what are they? They're not reptiles.
Me: Reptiles ARE mammals! And they're fish!
The Stupid: Well snakes can't be animals.
Me: Why not?
The Stupid: Cuz I like animals and I don't like snakes
Me: (brain aneurysm, followed by): So if you did like snakes they would be animals?
The Stupid: Do you have any candy?
I reproduce this not to embarrass the stupid, because as has become clear to me The Stupid feel no shame. Truly right and truly wrong are not important factors in their self image. Thinking they are right, is all The Stupid need and in most cases, nothing you can say can change that thought. Take this guy for instance. He, as his t-shirt explains, has clearly decided that any attempt at improving himself would be messing with perfection. It's like the 300 pound woman wearing spandex and heels. She has reverse anorexia, where we see exatra chunky oatmeal trying to escape the confines a hot pink Ziploc bag, all she see's is lots of sexy. They all have it, and nothing we can do can ever break their mirror.
So, to offer one view I posit that we go as far as we can. We do the Cassowary proud and shake our fists, or in the Cassowary's case our funky red dangly things and fight until we can fight no more. We push until they ask for candy and then push some more and then, if we're lucky, maybe, just maybe, they'll exile us; take us out of the wild and put us in a zoo somewhere where can be alone together building iPods.
Dec 8, 2009
ON FRIENDS: PART II
Last we met I was explaining to you how the term 'Friend' was overly broad and promised you a more useful and satisfying system. Since it snowed and rained this weekend I couldn't find anything better to do and have thus prepared this for your life changing pleasure:
THE MEANING OF FRIENDSHIP
Much like your favorite swear word, these terms are flexible. You can use them as nouns, adverbs... actually thats pretty much it. Still, if you want, you can tell someone its a past partciple, odds are they won't know better.
- FRIENDLIES - Much like fellow combatants in different battalions, you and your Friendly are on the same side, part of a larger group but when you go on your standard mission, you leave them behind. They are those that are part of your larger 'crew' but through no fault of their own haven't made it to your inner circle. You may share similar interests with these people, even genuinely like them but, when all is said and done, it's just too much effort to assimilate them into your life. Instead, you have an ad hoc relationship, 'friends' whenever your're together but never chasing each other down on your own. Friendish.
-FIFL's - Short for friends in a former life. You know how you and Josh were tight in high school? You know how you were sure you'd be friends forever and how people always said you guys will always be friends? How you assumed your friendship would survive through college and work and girlfriends and wives? Well, it didn't. The problem is both of you are clearly whiny little girls (friends forever was kind of a tip off) and are unwilling to admit this fact to yourselves or each other. You still call each other friends even though you dont actually call each other. Well since neither of you are man enough to cut the cord, and are obviously offending the idea of friendship by continuing to stretch it like contortionist's groin, I give you FIFL.
- FRIENDISH - No, despite how it may sound these aren't a race of beings from Middle Earth. The Friendish are products of circumstance. You associate with them, consider yourself to be on the same side but you're only connected because of an outside agent. People on this list would co-workers people you're friends with in camp and anyone else with whom your friendship is part-time. A subset of this group is the 'friends in small doses' these are people you spend limited time with but whose company you generally enjoy... in small doses. I had a friend in camp who I thought was the funniest person on Earth, after me. We went to high school together, but we never associated until camp. After that summer I made a concerted effort to spend more time with said friend, whereupon I realized, he got annoying fast. I quickly downgraded him to 'Friendish' and have enjoyed his (limited) company since.
- FWOB - Society at large, obviously suffering from the agony of 'Friends' being overly employed, spontaneously gave us 'Friends with Benefits' While I appreciate Societies input I think the much larger group of 'Friends' was ignored, namely 'Friends Without Benefits'. FWOB's consist of men or women who are head over heels for Friend X whom, if they ever had the chance, would kill to turn into 'Friend XXX'. FWOB's, and you know who you are, have either decided that their best route to X is proximity and hope, or that they'll never be able to consumate their love, and are willing to accept whatever X is offering instead.
Have any more? Feel free to add in the comments section. Just don't expect to get credit for frenemies. Oh, and of course you're all Friends to me...
THE MEANING OF FRIENDSHIP
Much like your favorite swear word, these terms are flexible. You can use them as nouns, adverbs... actually thats pretty much it. Still, if you want, you can tell someone its a past partciple, odds are they won't know better.
- FRIENDLIES - Much like fellow combatants in different battalions, you and your Friendly are on the same side, part of a larger group but when you go on your standard mission, you leave them behind. They are those that are part of your larger 'crew' but through no fault of their own haven't made it to your inner circle. You may share similar interests with these people, even genuinely like them but, when all is said and done, it's just too much effort to assimilate them into your life. Instead, you have an ad hoc relationship, 'friends' whenever your're together but never chasing each other down on your own. Friendish.
-FIFL's - Short for friends in a former life. You know how you and Josh were tight in high school? You know how you were sure you'd be friends forever and how people always said you guys will always be friends? How you assumed your friendship would survive through college and work and girlfriends and wives? Well, it didn't. The problem is both of you are clearly whiny little girls (friends forever was kind of a tip off) and are unwilling to admit this fact to yourselves or each other. You still call each other friends even though you dont actually call each other. Well since neither of you are man enough to cut the cord, and are obviously offending the idea of friendship by continuing to stretch it like contortionist's groin, I give you FIFL.
- FRIENDISH - No, despite how it may sound these aren't a race of beings from Middle Earth. The Friendish are products of circumstance. You associate with them, consider yourself to be on the same side but you're only connected because of an outside agent. People on this list would co-workers people you're friends with in camp and anyone else with whom your friendship is part-time. A subset of this group is the 'friends in small doses' these are people you spend limited time with but whose company you generally enjoy... in small doses. I had a friend in camp who I thought was the funniest person on Earth, after me. We went to high school together, but we never associated until camp. After that summer I made a concerted effort to spend more time with said friend, whereupon I realized, he got annoying fast. I quickly downgraded him to 'Friendish' and have enjoyed his (limited) company since.
- FWOB - Society at large, obviously suffering from the agony of 'Friends' being overly employed, spontaneously gave us 'Friends with Benefits' While I appreciate Societies input I think the much larger group of 'Friends' was ignored, namely 'Friends Without Benefits'. FWOB's consist of men or women who are head over heels for Friend X whom, if they ever had the chance, would kill to turn into 'Friend XXX'. FWOB's, and you know who you are, have either decided that their best route to X is proximity and hope, or that they'll never be able to consumate their love, and are willing to accept whatever X is offering instead.
Have any more? Feel free to add in the comments section. Just don't expect to get credit for frenemies. Oh, and of course you're all Friends to me...
Dec 2, 2009
ON FRIENDS: PART I
So I've been thinking about friends lately. Not actual people mind you, but the idea of them. The jokers among you might say this is because I don't have any (bite me), but the truth is, I am having some trouble with the broadness of the word. Like the rice noodle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_noodles, the definition of important words should be narrow. For example, when I say 'tax' or 'nudity' or 'you're a douchebag' you know exactly what I mean (In the case of 'nudity' this is true even at the acronym level. I doubt there is a man over the age of 13 who couldn't tell you what BN stands for at the beginning of any cable movie let alone N or SSC. Oh just google it girls.). Now while 'Friend' is a similarly important word and should, likewise, be narrowly defined, it is instead given the Chow Fun noodle treatment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef_chow_fun, its definition broad and unwieldy. Sure we have 'aquaintance', 'this person I know', 'the person with whom I have an embarrassing sexual involvement' and many other terms we use when 'Friend' does not suffice, but what about when friends does suffice? What does the word mean when it can encompass the guy you met a month ago who lets you play with his Xbox360 (God, you people have dirty minds!) and the person with whom you share a deep and secret love for Battlestar Galactica (I mean if you like that kind of stuff... Not that I do, though if I did it would be totally justified given that "Rolling Stone" called it the best show on TV two years in a row. I'm just saying... if I was a fan.). The word is demeaning. It denigrates the value of individuals and lumps them all together like some kind of communist mixer. I'm surprised Fox News hasn't accused Barak Obama of creating "friends". (The word not the show, if he'd created the show I imagine he'd have been President a while back and would now be sitting on a beach somewhere retired. Also and this is probably a minor point, but am I supposed to know the difference between socialists and communists? I feel like I am.) For these reasons, and because I like naming things, I submit that we do away with the word's usage as currently employed, and instead create a hierarchy of friends, a new lexicon with easily identifiable prefixes and suffixes that identify just how close you really are with friend X.
Tomorrow: The hierarchy is revealed!
Tomorrow: The hierarchy is revealed!
Nov 27, 2009
REGULAR, DECAF OR EMPTY?
I feel like I owe you after spending much of October and November mocking you all for having to work on national holidays like Columbus Day, Veteran's Day, National Vinegar Day, Plan Your Epitaph Day and Notary Public Day http://www.classbrain.com/artholiday/publish/article_220.shtml to admit that I write this from my office, the day after Thanksgiving. So, as you sit at home, enjoying the digestive and excretory processes that complete the circle of last night's gustatory orgy, cherish this day you have off that I do not and ponder this:
How much do drinks cost in TV world and are all characters in it profligate spenders?
Have you ever noticed how when characters order a drink at a bar they spend much of the time talking, then, two or three minutes into the scene, the drink is delivered, but by this time, one character is ready to move on? No? Well let you me tell you what happens. Because I am not what you'd call a drinker, I still find the price of cocktails and other alcoholic beverages at bars shocking. I'm not saying they're overpriced I'm saying they're movie theater priced. The kind of pricing that leads you to regret having stopped reading newspapers and never bothering to re-locate the channel for CNN when your cable provider reaaranged everything that time, because now you're left wondering if unbeknowst to you the government has collapsed, food has become scarce and the time to start digging that bunker you decided to make for yourself after reading "The Road" is now in your rearview mirror. (I may also be unreasonably cheap, this has been suggested, though I did just tip a waiter last week, so I'm clearly not) Anyway, this character who for reasons beyond my understanding felt the need to order a drink even though he's leaving the bar in 180 seconds, stands up takes a sip from his drink, says something to the person he was conversing with, puts the drink back down slaps down a twenty on the bar and leaves. This happens at leats two or three times a night, more if you're flipping during commercials and I find it annoying every time. To me, that, not the Miss September playing a marine biologist, is the most unrealistic aspect of TV, it's like the writers aren't even trying. At least the casting directors have the decency to make Ashley, Amber or Tiffani wear glasses and a bun, like all those other marine biologists.
While we're on the topic I thought I'd also bring the coffee shop scene. My problem here isn't quite as prevalent as with the bar, but, in scenes in which a waiter or waitress is walking around with a carafe and filling up those huge ceramic cups every coffee shop on TV has, how is it that these people are OK settling for what is at most a third of a cup of coffee? I understand it'd be weird on TV if the waitress had to keep going back for more pots of coffee, but you need to pour for a good three count if you're going to get anywhere near a full cup and these guys dont even get to two!
Nov 24, 2009
COVER JUDGING
I didn't sleep much last night and my brain is lagging several steps behind my fingers, but you don't come here for filtered speech anyway. So, on with the show. I played this game called Mafia the other night, for those of you not familiar, its essentially Clue without clues. In the game, everyone is assigned a role, some are murderers some are detectives, some are peasants, and, depending on your part, you have to either fool your competitors and live to kill another day, or convince your teammates that someone is the killer and kill him back. Now I think its important to point out that these roles are not chosen, but rather assigned by the picking cards, they're essentially random. So, logically speaking, the odds of the killer being the same person every time are quite low. Accordingy, you'd think that the players would vary their guesses. It would seem however, mathematics wilts in the face of what is apparently my homicidal well... face. Time after time I found myself dead, the victim of some ineffable quality that makes people think I'd enjoy watching them die. 'I look guilty' they said, 'there wasn't a real crime!' I retorted, 'we should probably kill him, just in case' they concluded.
All of this is a long winded way of asking you, is it possible I'm supposed to be a serial killer? Did I miss my calling? Sure there are some obvious signs: the long list of people I want to watch die, my being paler than an agoraphobic albino and my watching the entire 2009 Best All Around Taxidermist Competition at the National Taxidermists Association Convention. (It was ESPN 85, the Ocho Cinco)http://www.taxidermy.net/ Still, I don't want to give up the whole law thing on a whim. Is it possible that there's something in my face, my demeanor that was meant to kill? I do respect the concept of destiny, and it'd be a shame if I ignored my designated fate. After all who am I to argue with that which is predestined? What defense would I have to not spending my life murdering and possibly eating the duodenum of my victims (I forsee them calling me the Acid Reflux Killer) when I approach the pearly gates? How could I explain a life devoted to helping others and encouraging harmony (were clearly speaking hypothetically at this point) when cannibalism is expected? I guess what it comes down to is this; Do you think serial killers get the Friday after Thanksgiving off?
All of this is a long winded way of asking you, is it possible I'm supposed to be a serial killer? Did I miss my calling? Sure there are some obvious signs: the long list of people I want to watch die, my being paler than an agoraphobic albino and my watching the entire 2009 Best All Around Taxidermist Competition at the National Taxidermists Association Convention. (It was ESPN 85, the Ocho Cinco)http://www.taxidermy.net/ Still, I don't want to give up the whole law thing on a whim. Is it possible that there's something in my face, my demeanor that was meant to kill? I do respect the concept of destiny, and it'd be a shame if I ignored my designated fate. After all who am I to argue with that which is predestined? What defense would I have to not spending my life murdering and possibly eating the duodenum of my victims (I forsee them calling me the Acid Reflux Killer) when I approach the pearly gates? How could I explain a life devoted to helping others and encouraging harmony (were clearly speaking hypothetically at this point) when cannibalism is expected? I guess what it comes down to is this; Do you think serial killers get the Friday after Thanksgiving off?
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