Ah, to be young. The things we take for granted. Like living at home with your parents. The fridge is always stocked, laundry is free (and downstairs!), your mom will pick up the toiletries you need for you. Putting aside our teenage angst, and the I-can’t-wait-to-grow-up attitude, we really didn’t have it so bad.
(Heck, when I was in high school I'd put $10 of gas in my shitbox car and it would actually last the week! Touche.)
I don’t really mind being an adult now, it’s just I didn’t realize some of the good ways I had it before. Sometimes I’d gladly trade knowing I have to work 14 hours on a Friday for being 17 again, with a curfew. But so be it.
So now I find myself kind of rekindling my youth in unorthodox ways. How else do you explain my love—er, obsession—with sneakers. Sneakers are a big thing for me. I own A LOT of pairs of sneakers. I think it’s really because I never had the ‘cool’ kicks when I was a kid. They were just too expensive for my parents to buy me. They left my brother and I a budget of $40 to get a pair. That was tough at the sneaker store. I was lucky to find something decent at TJMaxx or Marshall’s. I’m not complaining, I wasn’t deprived, and I was only teased occasionally, rather than picked on (a rite of growing up, I feel), so it wasn’t an issue that made me bitter or anything. But I lived in a place where most of my friends were really spoiled. And so maybe I was a little envious of the material things they had. Hence, why I buy sneakers: I can afford them! If I want some Air Max 95’s or some Air Jordan III’s I can buy them for myself. It’s nice to have that freedom. The $100+ for sneakers luckily now takes me no time to earn; in high school it took like a week. So the cost is little but the satisfaction is great for me.
These creature comforts extend beyond my closet. And it’s always a little thing, something maybe you may take for granted. Honestly, good toilet paper! Can’t put a price on an honest mechanic, a good haircut and good toilet paper! My parents always used to buy that crap, frozen canned orange juice and that crap Scott tissue toilet paper. I convinced them half-gallons of Tropicana were the way to go, and I happily drank my yummy, non-watered-down juice from then on. But that toilet paper—to this day they still use that horrible, cheap toilet paper. I vow that poor excuse for a product will never enter my house again. Now that's a benefit of being an adult!
I recently started a new job, in a new office, a month ago. I'm comfortable here, but still settling in, feeling people out. And let’s just say I finally had to ‘christen’ the place last week. I was DYING the rest of the day. Good Lord I needed a Preparation-H baby wipe after that one! The mixture of sand and tissue paper they put in those stalls is just inhumane. The pain was physical but also emotional, drumming up all those horrible dumps as a kid finished in an unsatisfactory manner with that Scott tissue.
I hope my brothers out there feel my pain. I ask, Have any of my fellahs out there ever been in a work bathroom stall that was supplied appropriately? I doubt it. Now, this place steps it up like a law firm, with hand sanitizer, a plethora of hair products, mouthwash, colognes and deodorants, in case you need a little refresher. So how bout stepping it up on the main stuff!
I got a little stockpile in my desk drawer now; the ‘emergency’ drawer, if you will. From now on, if I’m heading to do some ‘extra work,’ I come prepared. I’m heading down the hall with the BlackBerry, the AMNY, and some good ol’ medicated baby wipes. Hallelujah! I'm an adult, goddammit! And I'm setting the rules now!
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Bag ladies: Hideous monsters or dazzling beauties? Next, on Mr. Sinister!
I love women. All women. Well, maybe not fat, ugly or annoying women. And especially no combination of the three. But I still love the ladies. Only, I'm perplexed by them.
I mean, all men concede we'll never understand women, but there are just some things you ladies do that are just more baffling than others. Take for instance your daily routines. Now, I'm not here to comment on what you do in the bathroom or why we are always left waiting for countless hours just to walk across the street to the diner. The one issue recently I've been trying to come to grips with is your everyday traveling accoutrements.
Lately, navigating a sidewalk, street corner and, especially, subway is like a running back's gauntlet drill. How can I move without getting hit by various objects? Ever notice what a woman has with her while heading to work? In my observation the women of New York City will carry a purse or pocketbook (whatever you women are calling those things these days!). Pretty normal, right? Ok, I get that one. Then there may be a gym bag of some sort, or one of those canvas ecofriendly bags from Origins or some shit. I get that, too. You ladies wanna look good and we appreciate it. But then there's always that 'extra' bag; that one teeny little Bloomingdale's bag that you have in your hand. What's that for?! What the heck do you have in there that wouldn't fit into your other two bags? I'm bewildered.
It's not that I really even need to know how much crap you girls are carrying. Frankly, why the hell would I care? But why the heck do you INSIST on keeping all those things on your shoulders and in your hands on a crowded subway. Surely one of those bags can hang out down by your feet for a few minutes instead of squishing me even more into the corner! Surely, I don't need to be hit in the elbow time and again by those enormous, ugly "CD" letters that hang off your expensive and tacky bag! Your 120-pound ass (hopefully) is taking up precious square footage real estate around town like a chick whose Friday nights consist of making Duncan Hines brownies and watching Gilmore Girls reruns.
Like I said, I love you ladies, you're all interesting and beautiful creatures. Just put the fucking bag down. You ain't Pretty Woman on Rodeo either!
I mean, all men concede we'll never understand women, but there are just some things you ladies do that are just more baffling than others. Take for instance your daily routines. Now, I'm not here to comment on what you do in the bathroom or why we are always left waiting for countless hours just to walk across the street to the diner. The one issue recently I've been trying to come to grips with is your everyday traveling accoutrements.
Lately, navigating a sidewalk, street corner and, especially, subway is like a running back's gauntlet drill. How can I move without getting hit by various objects? Ever notice what a woman has with her while heading to work? In my observation the women of New York City will carry a purse or pocketbook (whatever you women are calling those things these days!). Pretty normal, right? Ok, I get that one. Then there may be a gym bag of some sort, or one of those canvas ecofriendly bags from Origins or some shit. I get that, too. You ladies wanna look good and we appreciate it. But then there's always that 'extra' bag; that one teeny little Bloomingdale's bag that you have in your hand. What's that for?! What the heck do you have in there that wouldn't fit into your other two bags? I'm bewildered.
It's not that I really even need to know how much crap you girls are carrying. Frankly, why the hell would I care? But why the heck do you INSIST on keeping all those things on your shoulders and in your hands on a crowded subway. Surely one of those bags can hang out down by your feet for a few minutes instead of squishing me even more into the corner! Surely, I don't need to be hit in the elbow time and again by those enormous, ugly "CD" letters that hang off your expensive and tacky bag! Your 120-pound ass (hopefully) is taking up precious square footage real estate around town like a chick whose Friday nights consist of making Duncan Hines brownies and watching Gilmore Girls reruns.
Like I said, I love you ladies, you're all interesting and beautiful creatures. Just put the fucking bag down. You ain't Pretty Woman on Rodeo either!
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Ejector seat needed
I rarely, if ever, sit on the subway. Since today I was coming home at an off hour and there were seats available I decided to sit. I'm Rosa Parks for a new generation. (No, I'm really not.) After a few stops the benches were fairly filled up. But you know what, even if you are 5'2" and weight 112 pounds—if there are only FOUR INCHES OF ASS ROOM between me and the next person, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SQUEEZE YOUR ASS DOWN IN THAT SPACE!
Look, I'm going to resist the temptation to go on a rant here, but let's just say the person who did this was of a culture where they have 2 billion people living in a space the size of Milwaukee!
Look, I'm going to resist the temptation to go on a rant here, but let's just say the person who did this was of a culture where they have 2 billion people living in a space the size of Milwaukee!
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Random Thoughts: Vol. 3
1) Bono is Irish. Celine Dion is French Canadian. Robert Plant is British. Kieth Urban is Australian. Know what they all have in common? You can't tell where they're from when they're singing. Why is it that every singer, no matter their nationality, has no discernible accent? All singers, that is, except country singers! How is it that they talk in that horrible twang and it somehow translates to their singing voice? The only exception to this norm I can think of is friggin' Chumbawumba. (I ge' knowcked down bu' I ge' up agayhn...)
2) What do Nic Cage, Matthew McConaughey, David Spade, Jude Law, John Travolta and Jeremy Piven all have in common? They miraculously have heads of hair again. Speaking from a curious point of view, How the heck did they do that?!
3) Who started the ass slap? Gayest thing in sports ever. It's the Glee of sports. If Derek Jeter slaps Mark Teixiera's ass one minute and then starts talking about Glee the next, you can just put him right on the cover of Out magazine.
4) I've always wondered why pharmacists need MD's? Now, I truly don't mean to disrespect the pharmacists; I have several friends who are pharmacists. But it's the doctors who prescribe the medicines. It seems to me all the pharmacists do is reach on a shelf, pull out some pills, count them out, and put them in a little cylinder with your name on it. In what part of the equation did they need to know anything about medicine? All the warning labels and directions for administering the drugs are already on the labels. So what, exactly, do they do then? Have you ever tried to ask a pharmacist a question? They never know the answer. Most times they just read the labels themselves. Heck, they can't even tell me where the Tylenol is in the CVS!
5) I reserve the right to expand on this with more examples, but I was thinking about this the other day: Is there no harsher sounding word in the English language than Manslaughter? Speaking in legal jargon, I know the word Murder came about 1,000 years ago to speak of the most heinous crime a man can commit. But just take the words at their face value; doesn't manslaughter just sound so much worse? Think about it: the Slaughter of Man! I mean, that's awful. Way worse (sounding) than murder. I wonder how many other words are out there that just have much better connotation than how we're using them at the moment?
2) What do Nic Cage, Matthew McConaughey, David Spade, Jude Law, John Travolta and Jeremy Piven all have in common? They miraculously have heads of hair again. Speaking from a curious point of view, How the heck did they do that?!
3) Who started the ass slap? Gayest thing in sports ever. It's the Glee of sports. If Derek Jeter slaps Mark Teixiera's ass one minute and then starts talking about Glee the next, you can just put him right on the cover of Out magazine.
4) I've always wondered why pharmacists need MD's? Now, I truly don't mean to disrespect the pharmacists; I have several friends who are pharmacists. But it's the doctors who prescribe the medicines. It seems to me all the pharmacists do is reach on a shelf, pull out some pills, count them out, and put them in a little cylinder with your name on it. In what part of the equation did they need to know anything about medicine? All the warning labels and directions for administering the drugs are already on the labels. So what, exactly, do they do then? Have you ever tried to ask a pharmacist a question? They never know the answer. Most times they just read the labels themselves. Heck, they can't even tell me where the Tylenol is in the CVS!
5) I reserve the right to expand on this with more examples, but I was thinking about this the other day: Is there no harsher sounding word in the English language than Manslaughter? Speaking in legal jargon, I know the word Murder came about 1,000 years ago to speak of the most heinous crime a man can commit. But just take the words at their face value; doesn't manslaughter just sound so much worse? Think about it: the Slaughter of Man! I mean, that's awful. Way worse (sounding) than murder. I wonder how many other words are out there that just have much better connotation than how we're using them at the moment?
Thursday, March 11, 2010
You should definitely shoot the messenger
Ever have one of those mornings? Just one of those mornings when everything goes wrong? Maybe you ran out of milk for your cocoa puffs. Maybe the dog pissed on the carpet again. Maybe you accidentally broke that ugly vase your wife loves. One of those things by themselves wouldn’t bother you too much, or throw you too much off your morning routine, but when one disaster snowballs after another it just fucks up your day. You can’t recover. Maybe you’ve been up for 26 minutes but you know the rest of your day is just fucked.
So be it.
Maybe you got up, showered, shaved. But you cut yourself. It won’t stop bleeding and you get blood on three of your wife beaters. Fuck. Then, suddenly, last night’s dinner isn’t sitting so well. You are showered, dressed, got the tie all perfect, but guess what? You gotta take a shit. Fuck! (Nothing is worse than that. You feel dirty for the rest of the day, no matter how many times you baby wipe.) Now you’re in a rush so you run to the kitchen to grab a granola bar as you head out the door but you kick over the cat’s food bowl and water dish. It’s all over the damn place. Now you have to stop rushing and clean up the cat’s stuff. God dammit!! Fuck shit fuck!! Nothing goes right. I hate those mornings.
Your day doesn’t ever get any better from then on, does it? You are destined to hate every one and every thing that comes in your path. And is there anything worse when you’re already revved up than people? God I hate people. Stupid, annoying people. I hate how they don’t hold the elevator for you, or how they have absolutely no idea that you're walking behind them on the sidewalk desperately trying to walk around them. But worst of all, what might throw your or me or anybody over the edge, is the damn conversations; the small talk.
Why is everyone so BORING?!?!? You get on the elevator at work—and you probably see the same exact faces at the same exact time every day—and inevitably that older woman brings up the weather. Every day! It’s supposed to be 46 today. But it looks like rain this weekend. Gee, thanks lady, yea, I watched "Good Day New York" too. Or maybe the elevator is stopping at every floor. What does someone inevitably say? Must be a local. Aaaaaaaaaah! Then there’s always that 23-year-old, just-outta-college-this-is-her-first-job girl who talks to other 23-year-old just-outta-college girl and what does she say? I’m sooooo tired! Honestly, shut the fuck up. You left at 5:30 p.m. yesterday, immediately went out after work with your other annoying girlfriends, drank too many fruity drinks in a tall glass and stayed up too late. Of course you’re tired. Or, maybe it’s just the fact that it’s 8:30 in the morning! You're yawning already, you haven’t had coffee yet. You. Are. Not. Helping!
It never ends. You get to the office and the fat guy asks you if you saw the Knicks game last night. Of course not; you haven’t watched a Knicks game on TV since 2001. Then the boss’s secretary, who is usually a sweetheart, wants to talk about American Idol. Look, they all suck this year, just admit it. You still haven’t gotten to your desk yet when a colleague tells you some bad news which you know will keep you at work later than you had planned. And what does he say, after delivering this news? It is what it is.
Here’s what it is: I cannot stand people. I really should live on an island somewhere.
Hey, by the way, did you see "Lost" last night?
So be it.
Maybe you got up, showered, shaved. But you cut yourself. It won’t stop bleeding and you get blood on three of your wife beaters. Fuck. Then, suddenly, last night’s dinner isn’t sitting so well. You are showered, dressed, got the tie all perfect, but guess what? You gotta take a shit. Fuck! (Nothing is worse than that. You feel dirty for the rest of the day, no matter how many times you baby wipe.) Now you’re in a rush so you run to the kitchen to grab a granola bar as you head out the door but you kick over the cat’s food bowl and water dish. It’s all over the damn place. Now you have to stop rushing and clean up the cat’s stuff. God dammit!! Fuck shit fuck!! Nothing goes right. I hate those mornings.
Your day doesn’t ever get any better from then on, does it? You are destined to hate every one and every thing that comes in your path. And is there anything worse when you’re already revved up than people? God I hate people. Stupid, annoying people. I hate how they don’t hold the elevator for you, or how they have absolutely no idea that you're walking behind them on the sidewalk desperately trying to walk around them. But worst of all, what might throw your or me or anybody over the edge, is the damn conversations; the small talk.
Why is everyone so BORING?!?!? You get on the elevator at work—and you probably see the same exact faces at the same exact time every day—and inevitably that older woman brings up the weather. Every day! It’s supposed to be 46 today. But it looks like rain this weekend. Gee, thanks lady, yea, I watched "Good Day New York" too. Or maybe the elevator is stopping at every floor. What does someone inevitably say? Must be a local. Aaaaaaaaaah! Then there’s always that 23-year-old, just-outta-college-this-is-her-first-job girl who talks to other 23-year-old just-outta-college girl and what does she say? I’m sooooo tired! Honestly, shut the fuck up. You left at 5:30 p.m. yesterday, immediately went out after work with your other annoying girlfriends, drank too many fruity drinks in a tall glass and stayed up too late. Of course you’re tired. Or, maybe it’s just the fact that it’s 8:30 in the morning! You're yawning already, you haven’t had coffee yet. You. Are. Not. Helping!
It never ends. You get to the office and the fat guy asks you if you saw the Knicks game last night. Of course not; you haven’t watched a Knicks game on TV since 2001. Then the boss’s secretary, who is usually a sweetheart, wants to talk about American Idol. Look, they all suck this year, just admit it. You still haven’t gotten to your desk yet when a colleague tells you some bad news which you know will keep you at work later than you had planned. And what does he say, after delivering this news? It is what it is.
Here’s what it is: I cannot stand people. I really should live on an island somewhere.
Hey, by the way, did you see "Lost" last night?
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Next time they fall off, leave 'em off!
I thought I was going to be fairly unique with this kvetch. Then I realized even Joan Rivers is more current than me. So I proceeded to stab myself in the eyeball before I continued.
Anyhoo, I'm pretty much tired of seeing "thug niggas" walking around with their pants halfway down their asses. I realize I sound like a grandparent (hence the Joan Rivers comment), but honestly they are now proven right. My grandparents died over 10 years ago and they laughed at it then. Tupac died nearly 14 years ago! He is credited with starting the look, based on his jail attire. Inmates can't wear belts in jail, so they got the best size pants they could, and if they fell down, so be it. Tupac got into this habit and brought it into our lives when he got out. I guess that was part of his street cred. (Like getting shot four times wasn't enough?!)
Well if I were still wearing Skidz or Big John jeans I'd be ridiculed like Gary Coleman. Whatchu talkin' about HLS? Style grows, it moves on. GQ realizes this; in its latest issue they praise Andre Benjamin and Pharrell Williams for their looks, while Joan Rivers utterly mocked T-Pain for his outfit at the Grammys. Even Joan Rivers said enough is enough! She's 117 years old. And at least eight of her faces have been subjected to this crap-ass (pardon the pun) style, which I say we first started seeing around 1992.
Look, if the throwback jersey can go, if Lebron James and Jay-Z can dress fly and grown-up at the same time, so can everybody else.
If anybody's out there, reading this at their desks while dressed like Eminem, just try and picture my 5'9", 220lb. ass in Umbros. And you'll get what I'm bitching about!
Anyhoo, I'm pretty much tired of seeing "thug niggas" walking around with their pants halfway down their asses. I realize I sound like a grandparent (hence the Joan Rivers comment), but honestly they are now proven right. My grandparents died over 10 years ago and they laughed at it then. Tupac died nearly 14 years ago! He is credited with starting the look, based on his jail attire. Inmates can't wear belts in jail, so they got the best size pants they could, and if they fell down, so be it. Tupac got into this habit and brought it into our lives when he got out. I guess that was part of his street cred. (Like getting shot four times wasn't enough?!)
Well if I were still wearing Skidz or Big John jeans I'd be ridiculed like Gary Coleman. Whatchu talkin' about HLS? Style grows, it moves on. GQ realizes this; in its latest issue they praise Andre Benjamin and Pharrell Williams for their looks, while Joan Rivers utterly mocked T-Pain for his outfit at the Grammys. Even Joan Rivers said enough is enough! She's 117 years old. And at least eight of her faces have been subjected to this crap-ass (pardon the pun) style, which I say we first started seeing around 1992.
Look, if the throwback jersey can go, if Lebron James and Jay-Z can dress fly and grown-up at the same time, so can everybody else.
If anybody's out there, reading this at their desks while dressed like Eminem, just try and picture my 5'9", 220lb. ass in Umbros. And you'll get what I'm bitching about!
Time to take (trans)action!
I haven't posted in now what amounts to nearly a month. For that I apologize. For the record, the last two weeks I've spent in Houston (with my flight being cancelled twice because of Eastern weather) with my nieces and nephews jumping on me every chance they got. I needed rest from them waking me up at the buttcrack, and lacked the time to blog.
Our daily lives are based upon convenience now. Debit cards, drive-through ATMs, WiFi everywhere ... so why is the receipt holding us back? In this age of environmental consciousness, do we really need to even be printing receipts anymore? Isn't that counterintuitive? Isn't that what bar codes were invented for, or why we have advanced computer systems with inventory tracking metrics? Shoot, businesses know everything about consumers now. They know how much our average shopping ticket is, what particular items we like to buy on a regular basis, even how many kids we have. It's mind boggling. Yet we're still printing out a piece of paper telling us what we bought. Hmm.
I ran across the street from my apartment to Rite Aid the other day. I bought five items. My receipt was 14.25 inches long. Over a foot long! To list five friggin' items! I'm not going to even mention the things that were on there; but suffice it to say that piece of paper went directly into the garbage. What a waste. Forgive me, but if I really needed to return my mini hand sanitizer, couldn't the cashier have simply scanned the bar code and seen that I purchased my Purell on X date and Y time? Honestly, by the time she found the product on that laundry list of a receipt, NFL players will have stopped beating up their girls. And who wants that, ya know?
I recycle, I try to take reusable bags with me when I go shopping, I try not cook more than is needed so as to not waste food, and yet Blockbuster is fucking me up! I know most of you use NetFlix by now, but have you been in a Blockbuster recently? Checkout takes 30 seconds, but then I have to wait two minutes for three ridiculous receipts to print out. Waste, waste, waste. Annoying, annoying, annoying.
It's time to make printed receipts like a "Dancing with the Stars" cast--irrelevant.
Our daily lives are based upon convenience now. Debit cards, drive-through ATMs, WiFi everywhere ... so why is the receipt holding us back? In this age of environmental consciousness, do we really need to even be printing receipts anymore? Isn't that counterintuitive? Isn't that what bar codes were invented for, or why we have advanced computer systems with inventory tracking metrics? Shoot, businesses know everything about consumers now. They know how much our average shopping ticket is, what particular items we like to buy on a regular basis, even how many kids we have. It's mind boggling. Yet we're still printing out a piece of paper telling us what we bought. Hmm.
I ran across the street from my apartment to Rite Aid the other day. I bought five items. My receipt was 14.25 inches long. Over a foot long! To list five friggin' items! I'm not going to even mention the things that were on there; but suffice it to say that piece of paper went directly into the garbage. What a waste. Forgive me, but if I really needed to return my mini hand sanitizer, couldn't the cashier have simply scanned the bar code and seen that I purchased my Purell on X date and Y time? Honestly, by the time she found the product on that laundry list of a receipt, NFL players will have stopped beating up their girls. And who wants that, ya know?
I recycle, I try to take reusable bags with me when I go shopping, I try not cook more than is needed so as to not waste food, and yet Blockbuster is fucking me up! I know most of you use NetFlix by now, but have you been in a Blockbuster recently? Checkout takes 30 seconds, but then I have to wait two minutes for three ridiculous receipts to print out. Waste, waste, waste. Annoying, annoying, annoying.
It's time to make printed receipts like a "Dancing with the Stars" cast--irrelevant.
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