1: Why do people freak out when I put my merchandise behind them on the conveyor without putting a divider down? When I was a child I delighted in watching people use the magic My Stuff/Your Stuff-Stick, loving how all agreed to it's order and rule. Nowadays, if there's a line, I'll cram my stuff as close to the next person's and I'll use the stick. But when it's just two of us, I leave a gap. Yet, when I did so today, the older gentleman in front of me nervously fumbled for a bar, though he could not find one. I just assume the cashier can perceive the border between our goods what with the foot and a half gap I left between them. And even in there is confusion, is it a big deal to say "I'm sorry, that's his"? I sense this is more about personal space and comfort zones than it is about practicality. It'd be interesting to conduct a study to see how close you can put your stuff to another person's before they show signs of agitation.
2: Do I, driving in the parking lot of Taco Bell, two chalupas in my hand, look like I want to buy a home theater system? I was about to park and enjoy some early springtime air, good mix CD tunes, and my aforementioned fast faux-Mexican food, when a couple of guys driving an SUV come to a jerking halt beside me. "HAAAAY!" says the one who looks vaguely like David Arquette with an expression of excitement that far outstrips anything socially acceptable. "Would you be interested in buying a home theater system? Our company got one free!"
This is an old, old scam, and I've been targeted with variations on two other occasions. The first time, I was 16 and on Main Street of my hometown when someone asked me if I wanted to buy these great speakers he had in his trunk. Like, $500 speakers, but I could have them for $200. See, his company was going to deliver them to someone's house but turns out, they were ordered by mistake! So like, free speakers, right?! I remember being very attracted to his offer and bemoaning my lack of cash. I'm thinking it's probably a good thing most 16 year olds don't roll around town with hundreds wadded up in their jeans pockets. (At least none of the 16 year olds I hung with did.)
The second time I was older (and a touch wiser). I was walking along campus when a couple of dudes in a cargo van asked me if I wanted a deal on some cheap speakers. Same deal: mistakenly ordered, already paid for, they can't go back to the warehouse with them. At least they had a commercial looking vehicle. The guys today, though they both had jumpsuits that looked like uniforms, were driving an X-Terra that, while not as creepy as a white windowless cargo van (I should know, I used to drive one), just does not look like a company delivery vehicle. When I declined their offer, they drove off, with the Arquettesque passenger never breaking his frantically ecstatic grimace.
3: Why is it that nine times out of ten, when I see Prius on the Highway, it is passing me? I assume one of the main reasons for buying a Prius is for it's fuel efficiency, is it not? Do the drivers realize that doing 70 is a fairly reliable way to get shit gas mileage, hybrid or not?
4: There's a listing on our classified system (same one I got the organ and the iMac through): "I have a 80% new bike to sell. Price is 29 dollars."
...what?
80%... new? How, I mean, I can't even begin to think of how one would measure this! What does that mean? Like, at what rate does newness decrease with use? Is it percentage newness per hour use? Per mile? Do accidents or dropping the bike or leaving out in the rain take points off? Is it a new bike, but the seller replaced the wheels and seat with used ones? How do you determine percentage then? By weight? WTF is 80% of a bike?! My head is going to explode trying to make sense of this! And the best part: for twenty nine dollars! Not thirty, not twenty five. An 80% new bike is worth twenty nine dollars. I'm having flashbacks to those nightmare math test questions.
(15pts) Geraldo is riding his 80% new bicycle (worth $29) from home, and is traveling northwest at an average rate of 15 k/hr. His sister, Monique, is riding her bike, which is 90% new, in the opposite direction, from school. If Geraldo and Monique's school is 7 kilometers away from their home, and they both start riding at the same time, at what rate must Monique ride her bike so that she meets Gerald halfway? How new will her bike be when they meet? How much will it be worth? Show your work:
Friday, March 14, 2008
Chat with Aunt: "All Aboard!"
Laurie: So my friend Criss has a new phrase that I need you to spread.
me: Shit in a Philly?
Laurie: It's--Awesome Train, as in "The awesome train is making express stops only on the way to Emoville."
The Awesome Train is totally green. It runs on coolness.
me: Hmm.. explain further so I know explicitly how to use it
Laurie: It's a train full of awesome. How much more explanation does one need?
Don’t get in the way of the awesome train cause youre gonna get fucking run over.
Like if someone is trying to rain on your parade.
me: Is the subject of the awesome ironic or truly a thing to appreciate
Laurie: the latter.
although, I suppose it could go either way.
me: Let me see if I've got it right.
I was going to be on the Price is Right, but instead I lost my arm because I was waving it out the window of The Awesome Train
Even though I was told explicitly not to do so.
Laurie: you may be overthinking it.
me: Hmm.
Laurie: Next time you cosy up to the Dark Mistress say, "I hope you're ready because the Awesome Train just pulled into the station for a two hour layover." or something like that.
me: How about; I was driving across a railroad crossing and my car stalled and I heard a whistle and I jumped out right before my car got hit by The Awesome Train.
But it was okay because the train was carrying Kittens and so I got one and that's kind of cool.
Laurie: See, you'd want to be hit by the Awesome Train. YOU are the Awesome Train.
See the train. Be the train.
me: Would they show TV on the Awesome Train?
Would they show reruns of MASH?
Laurie: Only themost awesome programs
sure
me: That show was pretty good, but it might be too dark for the Awesome Train.
How about this;
Laurie: Here's the official word on TV: it would be real world road rules challenge all the time
That comes from Criss
me: I just missed the Peace Train, so I'll have to take the Awesome Train instead. And now I need to get my tickets changed, but I think it's okay, because Awesome Train tickets are cheaper.
Laurie: You're getting there.
Less wordy.
me: Awesome Train impregnated my cat and gave me a delicious burrito?
Laurie: Criss says:
they are not for sale buddy
Criss says:
minnie drivier hands them out
Criss says:
in the lobby
me: Awesome Train earned me an online degree in Criminal Justice?
Laurie: You may not be ready for the awesome train.
~fin~
me: Shit in a Philly?
Laurie: It's--Awesome Train, as in "The awesome train is making express stops only on the way to Emoville."
The Awesome Train is totally green. It runs on coolness.
me: Hmm.. explain further so I know explicitly how to use it
Laurie: It's a train full of awesome. How much more explanation does one need?
Don’t get in the way of the awesome train cause youre gonna get fucking run over.
Like if someone is trying to rain on your parade.
me: Is the subject of the awesome ironic or truly a thing to appreciate
Laurie: the latter.
although, I suppose it could go either way.
me: Let me see if I've got it right.
I was going to be on the Price is Right, but instead I lost my arm because I was waving it out the window of The Awesome Train
Even though I was told explicitly not to do so.
Laurie: you may be overthinking it.
me: Hmm.
Laurie: Next time you cosy up to the Dark Mistress say, "I hope you're ready because the Awesome Train just pulled into the station for a two hour layover." or something like that.
me: How about; I was driving across a railroad crossing and my car stalled and I heard a whistle and I jumped out right before my car got hit by The Awesome Train.
But it was okay because the train was carrying Kittens and so I got one and that's kind of cool.
Laurie: See, you'd want to be hit by the Awesome Train. YOU are the Awesome Train.
See the train. Be the train.
me: Would they show TV on the Awesome Train?
Would they show reruns of MASH?
Laurie: Only themost awesome programs
sure
me: That show was pretty good, but it might be too dark for the Awesome Train.
How about this;
Laurie: Here's the official word on TV: it would be real world road rules challenge all the time
That comes from Criss
me: I just missed the Peace Train, so I'll have to take the Awesome Train instead. And now I need to get my tickets changed, but I think it's okay, because Awesome Train tickets are cheaper.
Laurie: You're getting there.
Less wordy.
me: Awesome Train impregnated my cat and gave me a delicious burrito?
Laurie: Criss says:
they are not for sale buddy
Criss says:
minnie drivier hands them out
Criss says:
in the lobby
me: Awesome Train earned me an online degree in Criminal Justice?
Laurie: You may not be ready for the awesome train.
~fin~
Thursday, March 13, 2008
What the Bread, Man?
As I walked through my yard to my car on Tuesday, something on the fence caught my eye. It was bread. More specifically, about a third or a half of a hot dog bun, either bitten or torn off and crumbled up. It was pressed on top of one of the chain link fence posts that separates my yard from my parking spots, and the back alley behind. I swatted it off the fence, not having time to throw it in my trash. I swatted it off because I now have a theory. A paranoid theory, perhaps, and one based on wild speculation. Really though, aren't those the most fun?
This is the fourth time I've found fragments of foodstuffs left around the exterior of my house. When I moved in, there was a half eaten cupcake on top of my mailbox. At the time I simply chalked this up to the weirdass menagerie of previous tenants. The same menagerie that left closets full of clothes, half eaten calzones to bake for months in garbage bag ovens warmed by the sun, and pins stuck through the miniblind strings so that when I drew them I was rewarded with a constellation of bloody spots across my palm.
The mailbox half cupcake was the only non bread item I've found. A few months later there was another baked good on my mailbox; this time a piece of hot dog bun. I promptly threw it away. Then, this winter while shoveling the sidewalk between my house and the neighbors', I found another piece of bun balanced on my windowsill. This was the one that made me wonder.
I mentioned it to Slim Jim, and he said “yeah, the neighborhood kids are always leaving treats around.” I live in a semi urban area. Post industrial, with row-homes galore. Most of my street is duplexes or row-homes build a hundred years ago or more from brick. The population here is a mix of Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, old White people, and White undergraduate college students. As you could imagine, there are some tensions. Pretty much between the college students and everyone else.
I used to live in the house next door back in my college days. I remember the thing back then was the neighborhood kids, mostly not yet high school age, would congregate on someone's porch hang out there for hours. The porch would almost always belong to a house full of college students, such as ourselves. I remember I would hear them on the porch and I'd feel uncomfortable. I had to go to class, or out to the store. What should I say? What did they want? I decided on “hey, what's up”, and kept walking, otherwise ignoring them.
One day I brought home a tray of leftover cookies from my work study job. Shortly thereafter, Johnny Blue Jeans, who lived there as well, came home from class and mentioned the kids were out there. He took the tray of cookies out and offered them, and they accepted. A little after that they stopped coming back. A month or two later there was an editorial in the school paper about student-community relations written by a young man whose house was also on our street. Neighborhood kids, he said, were always hanging out on their porch, and no about of pleading, yelling, or badgering would get them to leave.
So I have to wonder: has a new group of children seen my parking tag and taken to setting these gifts about my house in an attempt to rile me? Are the pieces left behind as markers of some sort, and if so, for what intent? Are they part of a test to see how often I'm home or how frequently I check the exterior of my house? Is there a drunk old man who buys a pack of hot dog rolls and eats them while wandering past my house? Is it one of my old college friends playing a sort of long term prank/participating in a sort of personal flux art performance, the very kind of thing I delight in doing to others?
I propose a Thursday toast: to mystery.
This is the fourth time I've found fragments of foodstuffs left around the exterior of my house. When I moved in, there was a half eaten cupcake on top of my mailbox. At the time I simply chalked this up to the weirdass menagerie of previous tenants. The same menagerie that left closets full of clothes, half eaten calzones to bake for months in garbage bag ovens warmed by the sun, and pins stuck through the miniblind strings so that when I drew them I was rewarded with a constellation of bloody spots across my palm.
The mailbox half cupcake was the only non bread item I've found. A few months later there was another baked good on my mailbox; this time a piece of hot dog bun. I promptly threw it away. Then, this winter while shoveling the sidewalk between my house and the neighbors', I found another piece of bun balanced on my windowsill. This was the one that made me wonder.
I mentioned it to Slim Jim, and he said “yeah, the neighborhood kids are always leaving treats around.” I live in a semi urban area. Post industrial, with row-homes galore. Most of my street is duplexes or row-homes build a hundred years ago or more from brick. The population here is a mix of Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, old White people, and White undergraduate college students. As you could imagine, there are some tensions. Pretty much between the college students and everyone else.
I used to live in the house next door back in my college days. I remember the thing back then was the neighborhood kids, mostly not yet high school age, would congregate on someone's porch hang out there for hours. The porch would almost always belong to a house full of college students, such as ourselves. I remember I would hear them on the porch and I'd feel uncomfortable. I had to go to class, or out to the store. What should I say? What did they want? I decided on “hey, what's up”, and kept walking, otherwise ignoring them.
One day I brought home a tray of leftover cookies from my work study job. Shortly thereafter, Johnny Blue Jeans, who lived there as well, came home from class and mentioned the kids were out there. He took the tray of cookies out and offered them, and they accepted. A little after that they stopped coming back. A month or two later there was an editorial in the school paper about student-community relations written by a young man whose house was also on our street. Neighborhood kids, he said, were always hanging out on their porch, and no about of pleading, yelling, or badgering would get them to leave.
So I have to wonder: has a new group of children seen my parking tag and taken to setting these gifts about my house in an attempt to rile me? Are the pieces left behind as markers of some sort, and if so, for what intent? Are they part of a test to see how often I'm home or how frequently I check the exterior of my house? Is there a drunk old man who buys a pack of hot dog rolls and eats them while wandering past my house? Is it one of my old college friends playing a sort of long term prank/participating in a sort of personal flux art performance, the very kind of thing I delight in doing to others?
I propose a Thursday toast: to mystery.
Monday, March 10, 2008
A New Toy! Joy!
The place where I work has a board for classifieds that I check regularly for both amusement (people trying to sell their apartment in overpriced piecemeal) and the occasional deal ($20 iMac, anyone?). Early this week I checked and saw an ad that read "Organ for Sale", which went on to list a working Hammond organ without a price. I did some quick research, quickly became enamored with the notion of owning one, and shot an email asking the price. She replied "It's yours if you want it." Let it not be said that I'm one to pass on some free organ.
The only problem is that, being an honest to god non-transistor, tonewheel organ, I found it was likely to weight between three and four hundred pounds. I emailed Slim Jim to ask if he were coming around this weekend, if he'd be able to bring the trailer for his car. Plans came together frantically on Friday night to pick it up on Saturday. Of course, Saturday, it was raining, hard. I bought a dolly and a couple tarps from the hardware store as D.M.H. waited at my place for Slim Jim. I was fretting over whether to move it or not, since I doubted that rain would be friendly to a complex electromechanical machine, moving a heavy awkward object would only be more difficult with tarps hanging from it, and to top it off, the Mistress wasn't feeling well. Sunday was out though, and when the sun broke through the clouds, we decided to go for it.
The woman giving it away was very nice and accommodating as we invaded her home with tarps, duct tape, and a dolly. We just had gotten the organ to the door when rain started coming down sideways. She invited us to take our time and tarp the organ up, and by the time we were finished it was only raining lightly. It took us an hour, maybe more to get from the house to being situated on the trailer. The sun finally broke again just as we finished tying it down, and I enjoyed a moment of satisfaction before the stress of making sure it stayed on the trailer during the drive home. Getting it in my house was much easier than getting it out of hers, and we were all happy to find out when we unwrapped it in my kitchen like an overgrown redneck Christmas gift that everything had remained dry. It turned right on (as right on as old organs turn) and played! Behold:
It came with a bunch of song books, but they're hard for me to use, as I don't know what note each key is (I can find middle C and extrapolate from there), and I don't know my treble clef well (Every Good Boy Does Fine!). Instead I've been trying to learn songs by ear. My first goal is a song from the Battlestar Galactica soundtrack called Roslin and Adama (NERD!). It is a beautiful, moving piece that I will inevitably suck every last ounce of subtlety and grace from. In the mean time, I can wait for the Dark Mistress to come over and then pretend I'm scoring a soap opera while she tries to have a conversation with me.
Yes, It was I who ate all the ice cream. (MINOR CHORD!) And you know what? It was damn good.
The only problem is that, being an honest to god non-transistor, tonewheel organ, I found it was likely to weight between three and four hundred pounds. I emailed Slim Jim to ask if he were coming around this weekend, if he'd be able to bring the trailer for his car. Plans came together frantically on Friday night to pick it up on Saturday. Of course, Saturday, it was raining, hard. I bought a dolly and a couple tarps from the hardware store as D.M.H. waited at my place for Slim Jim. I was fretting over whether to move it or not, since I doubted that rain would be friendly to a complex electromechanical machine, moving a heavy awkward object would only be more difficult with tarps hanging from it, and to top it off, the Mistress wasn't feeling well. Sunday was out though, and when the sun broke through the clouds, we decided to go for it.
The woman giving it away was very nice and accommodating as we invaded her home with tarps, duct tape, and a dolly. We just had gotten the organ to the door when rain started coming down sideways. She invited us to take our time and tarp the organ up, and by the time we were finished it was only raining lightly. It took us an hour, maybe more to get from the house to being situated on the trailer. The sun finally broke again just as we finished tying it down, and I enjoyed a moment of satisfaction before the stress of making sure it stayed on the trailer during the drive home. Getting it in my house was much easier than getting it out of hers, and we were all happy to find out when we unwrapped it in my kitchen like an overgrown redneck Christmas gift that everything had remained dry. It turned right on (as right on as old organs turn) and played! Behold:
It came with a bunch of song books, but they're hard for me to use, as I don't know what note each key is (I can find middle C and extrapolate from there), and I don't know my treble clef well (Every Good Boy Does Fine!). Instead I've been trying to learn songs by ear. My first goal is a song from the Battlestar Galactica soundtrack called Roslin and Adama (NERD!). It is a beautiful, moving piece that I will inevitably suck every last ounce of subtlety and grace from. In the mean time, I can wait for the Dark Mistress to come over and then pretend I'm scoring a soap opera while she tries to have a conversation with me.
Yes, It was I who ate all the ice cream. (MINOR CHORD!) And you know what? It was damn good.
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