Keeping It Real.

My old buddy Matt has always had the brilliant talent of cutting through bs when talking to people. I appreciate this on so many levels but mainly because a) The truth can be hilarious and b) I feel like he's sort of the last of the Mohicans in terms of being honest about what's going on in his life.

These are weird times. If you're not trying to find yourself (I was under the sofa cushion all along!) you're trying to find your calling, or career path, or soulmate, or cause, or purpose, or anything that you can use to talk about with confidence when you run into people who want to know what you're doing. And it seems like everyone our age is constantly working on finely tuning the answers they give, so not only do they sound important, but you usually have no idea what they're talking about.  

-Do you ever hear from so-and-so?

-Oh, yeah, just saw her the other day.

-What's she up to?

-Um, I don't really know. I think she's either like making or buying all of the money that goes into Canada? I'm not sure. It has to do with money, and computers, and I think she said something about babies.

Anyway, whenever I hear from Matt I remember how great it is to know someone who refuses to sugarcoat things. This is from our conversation:

Me: So are you liking that new job?

Matt: No. I hate it. I go in, do 20-minutes of data entry and then surf the internet until I go home.

Me: And it's full time?

Matt: Yeah. It's a lot of internet time. Last week, after watching every available YouTube video on the topic, and I learned how to make cheese. If I wanted to, I could make cheese.  I know everything there is to know about making cheese.

Me: Wow. But maybe make a few test batches before serving your friends Internet cheese.

Matt: I don't need to. My cheese would be awesome. 

Well, That's Not Normal.

My cousin was telling us that the other day he saw a man walking down the side of the road carrying a giant pig's head. It turns out that man was our uncle.  

This is how Jonny described it:

"I was driving near Grandma's house, and some guy was walking down the road carrying a giant pig's head. Then I saw my mother walking about 10 feet behind the man with the pig's head. So I turned around."

The "pig" is in fact, a wild boar. And it has been mounted to a wall. And it has been named Harvey. And it was purchased for $20 at--I kid you not--at a taxidermist's yard sale.  (I'm sorry, but I seriously want to write a book called A Taxidermist's Yard Sale.) 

A buddy of mine made an excellent point upon hearing that taxidermists have yard sales by saying, "Sure, you have to get rid of the product. Taxidermists are kind of like car salesmen in that respect.  You can't stack 'em." 

It was such a valid argument that I almost thought it made everything OK. But then I decided, nope. It's still effing weird.  

Apparently my uncle wanted to buy a falcon too, but my aunt said she wouldn't help him carry it home, so he didn't. 

If you've never seen a wild boar head in person, it is INCREDIBLY scary. Honestly. I have a picture of Harvey but I don't actually want it on my blog so you'll just have to take my word for it.  However, this was my sister's face after seeing it for the first time, if that gives you any indication of how creepy it is. 

 

The Scariest First Day Of School Ever.

Wealthy people who are headed to jail now have the option to learn about what they should be expecting behind bars thanks to a growing field of experts known as prison consultants. Time Magazine reports that people such as Bernie Madoff and Plaxico Burress have hired these prison coaches to learn how to handle themselves while incarcerated. 

Note: Burress is going to jail after shooting himself in the leg with an unlicensed gun he put in his sweatpants. I know nothing about guns but I know TONS about sweatpants. Anyone who has ever tried to put their ipod in the waist of their sweatpants knows how big of a moron this guy is. 

Anyway, prison consultants charge $100/hr for phone consultations, $150/hr for webinars, or for $20,000 a person can sign up for a 100-hour course. I imagine the course is divided into these fundamental units of prison education:

-Shiv Making

-Economics. Namely, learning the USD conversion rate for a pack of cigarettes.

-Intro to Rec Yard Culture

-Art Appreciation

-History of Eye Aversion. A look at historical figures from Ancient Egypt to modern times who managed to always keep their heads down.

-Viticulture & Enology: How to make toilet wine.

It Makes For A Pretty Lame BBQ.

In the latest "I'm an idiot" news, this was my end of a phone conversation with a potential roommate the other day:

-Sorry, a what?

-No, I'm single.

-What's that? Oh, a grill. Uh, no. I don't have one of those either. 

My New Favorite Story.

I was handing Sabrina my coffee the other night so she could dip part of her cookie into it and she goes, "Get your filthy hands off of it! I want to hold it!" and then smiled like I should know what she was talking about.

"What are you talking about?"

"You know, like that lady from the gum story."

"What gum story?"

"THE gum story. The lady on the train. I've told you that story, right?"

"Um, no."

Bugging her eyes out as wide as she could, she smacked the sofa cushion and yelled, "I've never told you the story about the gum lady?!"

"No."

"Oh my gosh! I'm so excited! This is my favorite story to tell!"

OK, so I have to say that typing this story out will strip it of most of its dramatic integrity.  The best part was the way Bri told it.  But this will have to do.  For the part of the old lady, it's important to know that the voice Sabrina used was a cross between the Lord of The Rings "Precious" character and a frog.  Also, she swears that all of this is 100% true. As follows in Brina's words.

I was sitting on the train across from a girl in her early 20's and at a stop an old woman wearing layers and layers of clothes and a babushka on her head got on and sat down next to her. The girl took out a pack of Orbitz gum from her bag, grabbed a piece, and put the pack back in her bag when all of a sudden you hear, "Can I have some gum?!"  The girl looked up to see who was talking to her and again you hear, "Can I have some gum?!"  She turned to the old woman to see if it was her voice coming out of the babushka and said, "Sorry? Do you want a piece?" and the woman goes, "Yeah."

So the girl once again takes the pack of gum out of her bag, opens it up, reaches for a stick, and the woman starts to scream, "Get your filthy hands off of it! I want to hold it!"

By this point everyone on the train car was watching.  Slightly confused, the girl handed her the pack of gum and the old woman quickly started to touch every piece before finally grabbing all of the gum out of the pack and throwing the box on the ground. Hesitating for a second, the girl simply leaned over and picked up the empty pack from the floor.  

The old woman, now holding all of the gum, opened her own bag and reached around inside before pulling out a huge clear plastic bag.  A huge clear plastic bag FULL OF GUM! She dumped all of the new pieces into the bag and put it away. When the doors opened at the next stop, the old lady got off the train.

I have a theory that everyone in the world likes to be offered gum, so I think that's why I enjoyed this story so much.  But maybe it was just the funny voice Brina was using.

Karianne And Pat's Wedding.

My cousin Karianne is basically the sweetest person in the entire world and conveniently, she just married one of the sweetest guys.  Pics from their wedding last weekend.

The Second Amendment.

Thanks to a newfound obsession with protein shakes, my little sister has taken to challenging random beefy strangers to flex-offs.

When she starts to pull cars with rope, we're having an intervention to get her back on regular fruit smoothies. 

Watch Your Step.

Guests and servants leaving a room after seeing the Queen of England will no longer be required to walk backwards. The longstanding royal tradition of never showing your back to the Queen was lifted for safety reasons after Her Majesty redecorated most of Buckingham Palace using an M.C. Escher design motif.

Buck Melanoma. Moley Russell's Wart.

Not her wart. Not her wart! I'm...I'm the wart. She's my tumor. My...my growth. My...uh, my pimple. I'm Uncle Wart. Just old Buck "Wart" Russell. That's what they call me. Or Melanoma Head. They'll call me that. "Melanoma Head's coming." I'm...uncle! Maisy Russell's uncle!

Writer and director John Hughes passed away yesterday. When my family talks about "the classics" we're referring to films like Uncle Buck or The Great Outdoors or Ferris Bueller's Day Off. And while it's quite common for my father to forget my name when he's talking to me, he somehow remembers every single line from Christmas Vacation.

My sisters and I grew up watching John Hughes movies on repeat. We memorized entire screenplays just by rewinding funny scenes and playing them over and over. Quoting lines to each other was always a road trip game, or just a guaranteed way to make someone in our family laugh out loud. As we grew older, random quotes from his scripts became code. I've had entire conversations with my sisters using only lines from John Hughes films.

I was talking to Sabrina about it and she agreed that his writing truly shaped so much of what we find funny. And she made an excellent point by saying, "We thought our family was normal because of his movies."

Moving Too Fast.

I was on the phone with a customer service rep the other day and just before hanging up I said, "OK, thanks. Love you."

I do this more often than I'd like to admit.

I'm so used to slowly enunciating my commands into the phone for robot options, that when I actually speak to a human, I slip.
"CUS-TOM-ER SER-VICE."
"Yes, this is a real person you're talking to."
"Oh, sorry."

And it wouldn't be so awkward if I just hung up. "Love you!" Click. It might give them a chuckle. But I never just leave it. If I happen to say "love you" I immediately start to explain the error.

"Sorry, I didn't mean that. I don't love you. I don't even know you. But I mean, I'm sure the people who know you love you. I bet you're a really nice person. You have a very nice speaking voice. But that's not like a line or anything. Like, 'Hey, nice voice, why don't you call me next time? Press # for more options.' Right? And I don't even know what that means. It was supposed to be like a menu options joke. It didn't make sense. Anyway...umm...thanks again for your help, and uhh, have a nice day."

It wouldn't be so bad except there's a very strong possibility that for quality assurance purposes, my calls may be recorded.

I See A 6th-Grade Art Project.

The doctor draws two circles and says, "What do you see?"
The guy says, "Sex."
So the doctor draws trees. "What do you see?"
The guy says, "Sex."
The doctor draws a car, owl, "Sex, sex, sex."
The doctor says to him, "You are obsessed with sex."
The guy replies, "Well you're the one drawing all the dirty pictures."
-From What About Bob?

Noam Cohen wrote a really interesting article in the NYT about the ten inkblot plates from the famous Rorschach test being made public on Wikipedia. A doctor posted the ten plates on the website and included the common answers people use when asked to describe what they see, upsetting many experts who believe this destroys the purpose of the test. Some doctors fear that once people know the common answers, it will influence how they respond during testing.

I wasn't sure how I felt about this. The power of suggestion is strong, so I suppose if you had an idea ahead of time of what you should be looking for, it might skew the deeply-rooted mysteries of your subconscious, thus stunting your potential for overall growth and understanding. But it seems that most people just see bats, butterflies, or a face. I wouldn't exactly call that a cheat sheet. In fact, I think that's what's referred to in Jungian psychology as, "A-Doyeee."

Shout Out.

I have to hand it to the cotton candy vendors at sporting events for their vocal efforts. If there is one snack that you don't need to announce, it's cotton candy. When people see you walking around a stadium with 65 individually wrapped bags of cotton candy on your head, there's very little wiggle room for interpretation. It really takes a special type of person to carry around the most obvious thing in the world and still feel the need to yell about it.

Business Decisions Should Not Be Made At 2 A.M.

Professional golfer Phil Mickelson has reportedly put in an offer to buy 105 Waffle House establishments for 20.2 dollars in cash and later payments. Wait, I guess it's $20.2 million. Million?! Have Phil and his business associates ever been inside a Waffle House? They might want to check their math.

America has a long, proud history of serving the completely wasted. Members of The First Continental Congress were known to frequent Denny's restaurants late at night to discuss British economic sanctions and how crazy it is that you can't know what a strawberry tastes like to other people. While eating his fourth Moons Over My Hammy sandwich, Patrick Henry was famously quoted as saying, "Does my hand look weird to you?"

Waffle House became synonymous with drunk-feeding when it introduced the most disgusting list of preparation techniques for hash browns the world has ever seen:
Traditional
Scattered & Smothered
Scattered, Smothered & Covered
Scattered, Smothered, Covered & Chunked

"Now are these how the browns are served, or how they'll end up?"

One time at a Waffle House in Florida, our waitress was wearing a button that said "I'm #2."
It sort of gave us an idea ahead of time, what we should be expecting.

My hometown is famous for a grocery store and a menu item known as the Garbage Plate, so I'm not judging here. Building a successful business on a food item that includes the word GARBAGE in its name is the reason I truly do believe that anything is possible in America. But buying 105 Waffle Houses is like buying 105...I don't know. I actually can't think of a worse example of something to buy. It's just a really bad idea.

Um, Not For Anything...

But I totally invented this! I called it Urban Glide, and yes, I did envision long ski-like skates to be worn, but come on! Same basic idea! Ugh, Nordic Walking! Why didn't I think to use Nordic? Everything sounds more official with "Nordic" in front of it.

Honestly though, I've had this idea since college. Because Syracuse is so effing cold, I used to try to get from point A to point B as fast as possible. My eye froze shut once on a walk to class. I'm not kidding. But, as you might imagine, running everywhere was hard to play-off.
-Why were you sprinting around like an idiot on the quad today?
-What? That wasn't me.

I found that if I held on to the excess material hanging from my backpack straps, I could use those as pole-type devices, swinging my arms as I walked, and thus increasing my normal walking speed. I wasn't running, I was gliding. Add in a nice layer of ice and I could literally slide from class to class. In the spring I always thought to myself, OK, some sort of skate should be involved here. And then I did nothing about it.

And now, years later, someone has stolen my idea about swinging your arms as you walk, and has thought to use actual poles instead of backpack straps, but same basic principle really, except that the poles have technology, design, and a trade association on their side, and mine were straps of nylon connected to a book bag. Whatever. I thought of it first.

Sisters Don't Shake Hands, Sisters Gotta Hug.

I think my mom looks like Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

Please Return Your Seat To The Upright Position, And Stop Eating Your Poop.

Pet Airways, the first ever all-pet airline, made its first flight yesterday.

Here's how I imagine things went:

At check in:
Mr. BooBoo, has anyone asked you to carry anything in your bag for today's flight?
(panting)
Mr. BooBoo? Do you know what's in your bag, sir?
(panting)
Mr. BooBoo, I'm going to need you to come with me sir.

After takeoff:
Ladies and gentlemen this is your Captain speaking. Yes it is! Who's the Captain?! Huh?! I'm the Captain, yes I am! Who does the Captain love?! Who does the Captain love?! (cough) We'll be climbing up to our maximum altitude shortly. Sit back, feel free to pee on something, enjoy the flight.

During the flight:
Ma'am while the light is on I'm going to need you to sit in your seat. Siiiit. Sit. Siiiiit down. Sit down please. Sit. Good girl! Hey! Sit please!

And when they landed half of the bags had been torn or eaten.

I'm only basing these scenarios on the last few domestic flights I've taken.

i(don't care)phone.

My older sister has joined the masses. Soon she will be tapping at every surface she encounters waiting for a menu to appear, her attention span will shrink to milliseconds, and she will become one of those people who constantly say things like, "Oh, I can look that up for you!"
Sometimes people just throw a question out there to start conversation. They don't actually care about Guam's major export. Put your phone away.

Remember when you used your phone to call people? Remember when the world clock function seemed freaking amazing?
-Hey look what time it is in Jakarta!
-Do you know someone in Jakarta?
-No. But cool, right?

And a few years ago when my dad lost his cell he went into an impassioned speech about how there should be a place where you always left your phone so you could never lose it.
"There should be a holder on the wall where you have to keep your cell phone. So every day, it's there, right on the wall, waiting for you."
"You mean like the phone, dad?"

When cell phones were first going mainstream the only way we could convince my grandma to get one was by telling her that her car could break down at any moment. That was a big selling point for the first cell phones. Your car could break down! Then what?!
My grandma bought a new car before she bought a cell phone.

The cell phone used to just be a convenient way to get in touch with people. Now your phone can know more about you than anyone in your contact list. You're just a phone, little iphone. You're not allowed in my head. Plus, as something of a time-waster savant, I'm offended by all these high-tech downloads that help regular people kill time. Talk to yourself in the mirror, stop downloading restaurant apps.

Obviously, there's an app for anything. Apparently people even exercise off their iphones. 6-minute apps? Soon there will be iphones with elliptical arm handles or apps that call you at random times to yell, "RUN!" making you drop whatever you're doing and start running.
-Excuse me, I have to take this.
-Run!
-[sprinting out of a meeting] I'm sorry! I'm on a program!

Brina was telling me about the Moron App, which is a quiz that helps you figure out how big of a moron you are. Right. If there was ever a reason for me to NOT spend 99 cents on something, it's the moron app. I LIVE the moron app.

There's even an app that uses the GPS in your phone to allow other people to see where you are. This is also called, "THE WORST IDEA IN THE WORLD App." Who in their right mind would sign up for this? If you want people to know where you are, you tell them.

It must be written somewhere in the small print of an iphone contract that as soon as you buy an iphone, you must mention it in every conversation you have for the first month. I want to invent an app that counts how many times iphone users say "iphone." Sabrina might be world champion.

Live A Little.

A newly published study suggests that calorie restriction in diets can extend lives. Mice given 30% fewer calories lived up to 40% longer and rhesus monkeys on the diet were able to avoid certain diseases associated with aging.
The older, thinner mice and monkeys were also miserable.

Scientists hope to prove that calorie restriction in human diets will have similar effects in terms of delaying aging. Although, unlike the controlled experiments, humans can eat an effing cupcake whenever they want one, so researchers believe the study may be flawed. Also, most people agree that spending 99% of your extra 10% of life shouting things like, "I'm hungry, idiot!" just isn't worth it.

It's The Climb.

I like listening to Miley Cyrus sing about struggle.

Keep on keeping on Miley.

Here Lloyd, This Helps.

With the arrival of the summer heat, so enters the makeshift fan. Magazines, newspapers, pieces of scrap paper folded in half, or the ambitious frenetic waving of your own hand in front of your face--anything that can create a slight whisper of a breeze for your head. Which, when you think about it, is always where you're super hot, right? What's the one thing people are constantly saying during the summer? "Ugh, I need to cool down my face."
Exactly.

One of my favorite forms of people-watching involves large groups of people using whatever booklet they've been given as a fan. Graduations are great for this. So are theatres with weak air-conditioning. It's sort of an uncoordinated piece of performance art. Some genius thinks, "Hey, it's hot in here." and starts waving his program in front of his face. Others catch on, and agree. Eventually all you'll see is flapping programs. I love it.

Of course, wherever there's a makeshift fan, there's always the person who chimes in with, "You know, that's just going to make you hotter." These people weigh in like they've conducted numerous scientific tests, dropping phrases like "energy exertion" and "heat creation."
These are also the same people who 3-minutes later, start to fan themselves with their Playbill.

No one knows if it works, and honestly, no one really cares. When it's hot and there's no breeze outside, fanning yourself with whatever you happen to be holding is just the universal response to the heat. It's the pee-dance of the summer.