Too Easy

They don't make posts any easier than this. So I will not even comment.

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Peek-A-Boo, I See You!

I drive to work everyday. My commute is about an hour and a quarter, sometimes more sometimes less. I happen to enjoy my drive each day. It gives me time to gear up and wind down with my music, radio, phone calls, whatever. I very much prefer driving to taking public transportation because I feel in control of my destiny when I drive. I don't have to rush for a train. I can make stops if I need to. I can go anywhere I want to and not just set destinations. Overall, driving to work is definitely a good thing.

One of the things I notice everybody seems to do when they drive to work is look over at the person in the car next to them while they drive. I've noticed this because I do it all the time, and 99% of the time, the person has either already been looking over at me, or is about to. I don't know the psychological reasons for this human behavior of curiosity while driving, but I felt it was worth sharing some aspects I find interesting.

I have noticed that there are certain given groups of people who have certain similar characteristics while driving on their way to work. It's an interesting thing, but you can often group people on the road into these classifications. And I'm not talking about racially motivated classifications like black guy driving too fast, old white lady driving too slow, hispanic guy driving barefoot with 3 friends in the front seat and nobody in the back, Asian woman driving poorly, white woman driving poorly, hispanic woman driving poorly. I'm talking about certain actions and mannerisms that people have as I make my "look over" that perhaps can tell us a little bit about that individual's personal life.

Allow me to share some examples:

The Fat Lady Putting on Makeup:
This is an interesting breed of hippo. This is a woman who is too lazy in her everyday activity to exercise, dress nicely, eat healthy or wake up 5 minutes earlier to put on makeup in the morning. This woman's time is clearly very important and therefore she must put on makeup on her drive to work. She figures that this is a totally safe way of managing her time properly and getting to work looking her best.

However, there are a number of inherent problems with this tactic:
First of all, the makeup never seems to look right when she puts it on while swerving in and out of traffic on the Cross Island, so that she ends up looking like Mimi Bobeck - and the only people attracted to the likes of Mimi Bobeck are cross-dressing, bi-sexuals with low self esteem and a shattered image of self worth.
Second, she takes twice as long to get to work, because instead of driving straight, she is often swaying in and out of lanes killing mileage and time.
Third and finally, she is still fat. All the makeup in the world will not change her daily habits of ingesting cheese burgers and french fries at lunch and turning to co-workers to say, "guess I'll have to eat a light dinner tonight to make up for this big lunch. I usually don't eat like this."

The fat woman is not only wasting her time with the makeup, she is presenting a danger factor by being on the road for a few reasons. First, she is obviously not paying attention to the road as she applies gallons of paint to the beefy folds in her face. Second, she is fat. And third, she is a woman. Not a good combination.

This look-over is usually a quick one of disgust and disapproval. The only reason for a second look-back is to hope to catch her eye so that she sees your look of disgust and gets embarrassed.

Hot Chick (or not) Who Thinks You're a Stalker:
Every guy knows what I'm talking about on this one. Even if you don't drive to work, you've encountered this woman somewhere in life. Often it will be an attractive female, though many times it will not. Therefore, we break it up into two categories.

Attractive Female Who Thinks You're a Stalker:
This glance over is usually followed by another quick look, and another, and another. Usually the woman will catch your eye as well (even if she is in the 1% of non-looker-overs, she will have noticed the ridiculous amount of head motioning coming from your vehicle and will look over because she thinks someone is having a seizure in your car - which is exactly the effect you were going for). She will catch your eye and immediately shift her head back straight ahead. Then she will look back and give a "you're a stalker, stop staring at me" look. Now the interesting part here is that she gives that look because she knows she hot and thinks she's cool by doing that. In truth she loves the attention. As she speeds away, if you look carefully you will see her smile ear to ear. Congratualtions, you just made that broad's day and didn't even get her name.

Not So Attractive Female Who Thinks You're A Stalker:
An interesting species. These ladies will give you the "you're a stalker look" on the first look-over. This is completely uncalled for (you could simply have been looking to change lanes on the first look-over, yet she assumes you are looking at her). It is her way of acknowledging that she will likely not even get the second, third or fourth look from you, and therefore she wants to feel "hot" before you throw your "look of disgust" her way (see Fat Woman Makeup scenario). Often this unattractive woman will break into her smile long before she is able to get out of close range sight and sometimes she will even do the second, third and fourth look-back at you, because she is so excited that someone even looked her way.

There are two ways to handle her. Either you can not make eye-contact again and drive off, leaving her realizing she is doomed to a life of mediocrity and plainness. Or you can make her day and give her a smile. The only problem with option 2 is that she may follow you home and in fact become the "stalker".

Hot Chick's Boyfriend:
Dangerous situation here. You look over and see a female driving. She is attractive so you give the second look as well. On the second or third look, you realize there are a second pair of eyes looking back at you and they are not quite as attractive. That's right, you failed to notice her boyfriend sitting a little bit reclined in the passenger seat. He has by the third look noticed your head jolting back and forth. This situation is dangerous if you don't react quickly, but a quick reaction can avoid any harm. Simply jolt your head the full way around to the opposite side and make it look as if you were checking both lanes over and over again as if you were going to change lanes.

The obvious question here is what if you are in the left most lane? Well, not to worry, you still look left as if to check traffic, even though there is no lane to the left of you. But, you may ask, how will this diffuse the situation? Ah, easy... Any dolt of of boyfriend who is letting his woman drive him around doesn't have enough brain cell capacity to calculate and process enough information into his head at that particular moment. Therefore, you will be free from his "I'll kill you" look very quickly with the "traffic-check-head-jolt motion." No worries - I got you taken care of.

Exception: Where an old man (probably rich, driving a BMW or Mercedes) is driving the car and has a significantly younger and attractive companion in the passenger seat, it is OK to continue the lookover. She will very much enjoy seeing an unwrinkled young face and will probably smile back. It is also OK in this situation to give the old man the "what're you going to do about it tough guy" look in between your third and fourth look-over at his date (she will think you are tough and strong and may even exit his vehicle into yours at high and dangerous speeds - this has never happened to me, but you never know).

Guy Who Looks Like A Hot Girl:
This category is uncomfortable for all parties involved and therefore needs very little discussion. To be short, it usually ends with the "look of disgust" given by both parties. Basically, this situation arises from a few possible characteristics. I will simply list them and not discuss them to avoid any further awkardness on this topic:
- Long Hair
- Girly Hands
- Hairless Arms
- Girly Wrist Watch
- Driving a Jetta

Person Eating Breakfast While Driving:
This is often a female because she is embarrassed to eat at work in front of people she knows. So she figures she'll eat on the road where nobody will be watching here. Little does she realize that you and every other person giving the look-over will catch her nauseously inhaling an egg sandwich on her way to work.

This is a precious look-over. It is rare that this species will look back at you because she is so concentrated on her food and steering wheel that the risk of looking over to see who is peeking is too great. However, on the rare occassion that she does "look back," there are great things that can happen. She will be mortified, obviously, but even better yet - because she is so embarrassed that you caught her eating, and because she is limited in the amount of things she can concentrate on at once, she will likely slam into the car in front of her. If she's lucky, she will not have removed her seatbelt yet to wipe ketchup off her skirt and therefore will not smash through the front windshield and into the rear window of the car she just hit. That's if she's lucky. If you're lucky - she will.

Random Others:

Nosepicker - this person feels so privacy-protected in his or her car that he/she is oblivious to the fact that his/her, and every other car around him/her, has windows. Or, and this applies to many people - they just don't care. They figure the chance of someone they know seeing them is so little that it is worth the risk of leveraging out the pesky little bugger before they can hit the safe confines of home.

Cell Phone User: This person is aware of the law, and usually has a hands-free device in his vehicle. BUT, this person's time is so valuable - more valuable in fact than your life or the lives of his children in the back seat, that he does not take the 12 seconds to plug it in. Rather he speaks on the phone while constantly looking in his rearview and sideview mirrors for cops. It is in these cases where a person can set a record for looks of disgust. It is also in these cases where many people would hope he took the time to buckle his kids in, but not to buckle himself.

That concludes today's conversation. Feel free to add to the list, especially if you are reading this on your blackberry while driving 65 mph on the highway.

My New Friend

I hope you enjoyed yesterday's look back at some old posts. I actually did not like that post when I wrote it and considered removing it. However, once I read through it and began clicking on some of the old posts, it reminded me of how funny and cynical I used to be when I was in law school and pretty much hated everyone around me (bar 3 or 4 friends). Now that I am working, and actually am happy at work, perhaps my cynicism has faded slightly along with the disappearance of hate and frustration. However, not to worry - a new and intriguing friend has entered my life and I have a feeling this could be a winner. Readers, I want you to meet Stress. That's right - growing family, long work hours, no time off. This could possibly be a very good thing for blog purposes. With the amount of time Stress and I hang out, coupled with his intriguing and somewhat eccentric and neurotic personality, some good stories could be ahead.

Stress is an interesting friend. I know him from work. We actually share an office. We work on many of the same projects and will often have conversations regarding our careers and clients. What makes Stress a little weird is that he has no family. He views me as his only friend and therefore will often come stay at my house on weekends. My family doesn't like him much because he has a little bit of an attitude problem, curses a lot and is often distant. But being that they are extremely understanding, they know he has nowhere else to go and allow him to keep popping in out of pity.

Truth is, I don't mind Stress that much. I think without Stress work would be pretty boring. Plus, he doesn't really bother me much when I need time to myself. For example, he does not follow me to go play ball on Monday nights, nor does he shadow me when I am trying to spend time with my kids on Friday nights. So I guess to some extent he is understanding that I need to have SOME free time. And the bottomline is, if I didn't have him with me at work, I'd probably just be talking to myself (and wouldn't that be weird).

Now from what I understand a lot of people have friends like Stress. For most people though, they are usually stuck with some S.O.B. office mate who is miserable at a dead end job with a nagging family and no time to themselves. That's not what Stress is like to me. I guess if I had to give a defined explanation for what Stress is like to me I'd say he is constantly reminding me of the "importance, significance, or emphasis placed on something" or he will put me in "a state of extreme difficulty, pressure, or strain." He does not make me miserable. Many people's office mates will drive them insane and even to suicide. Stress simply gives me that extra kick in the butt - even when it's not necessarily needed.

So, in light of this new and wonderful friend, Stress, I believe that good times and stories could be ahead... stay tuned.

I Have Nothing To Say To You...

So there's this guy I know who has been blogging for quite some time now.

Side Point - I hate the term "blogging." It makes it sound like there is some close-knit fraternity of people who blog, and they all do gay things like get together and have blogging parties and posting conventions. Whatever. Truth is, there probably are people like that out there. I am not one of them. The only gay thing about me is that I have a man-crush on Derek Jeter - but he doesn't love me back, so that's not really so gay.

Anyway, there's this guy I know who has been blogging for quite some time now.

Side point - Is it really necessary in a written form of communication to repeat the last thing you were saying before going off-topic? A lot of people do this. They will make a point, interrupt this point with some off-topic, though sometimes interesting piece of information, and then they will repeat the sentence before the disruption. When you are talking this is sometimes necessary to keep order of the conversation at hand. But when writing, the reader can always refer back a couple of lines and get the needed information. Whatever.

Anyway, back to the point - see above if you forgot the point.
So this guy has been asking friends for topics to blog about lately because, well... frankly because nothing has pissed him off enough recently to incite a post. And as I'm sure people have figured out a happy person has nothing to complain about.

Now I myself, don't usually run out of topics as you can clearly see from all the mature, emotional and well thought-out posts that I have shared with you over the last year. There are usually a number of places where I will draw ideas from.

- Personal Experiences - This is probably the best one. Usually there are not much funnier and entertaining things than those things that we experience ourselves. Something bothers us, amuses us, affects us - we can turn it into a creative piece. Lately, I've been working, just working. Nothing interesting has happened to me in weeks. But there have been road incidents that have laid way for some interesting rants.

-News - Often a news story will catch our eye and immediately spark thought and criticism. This is often a great way to look like you care about what is going on in the world and at the same time poke fun at unfortunate souls and bash Arabs. Terry Schiavo was probably the greatest thing that ever happened to me as a blogger. The whole saga surrounding her and her family was just priceless. That coupled with her medical condition was almost too perfect.

- Natural Disasters - It is a lucky day when we get one of these to write about. Hurricane Katrina, the only openly racist weather outburst in the history of the world (besides the Red Sea opening for the Jews and closing on the Egyptians - but come on, the Jews deserved that one after all the crap they'd taken as slaves). This storm literally wiped out just ---- people. White people were safe and gone. ---- people were drowning in the streets. Another classic moment.

- Random Thoughts - Often while watching TV or listening to the radio a random thought will occur to me as a reaction to something I have heard or seen. Sometimes I will be able to formulate this idea into a post with some entertainment value. Other times I will just waste a good 3 minutes thinking about the idea before dismissing it as idiotic. Either way, this is the source that probably gives way to the most topics of all, but not always the best topics.

So I relayed this information to my buddy and told him to try and draw his inspiration from one of these sources.

Anyway - as for me? Clearly, I could not come up with a meaningful topic today, so instead I threw a bunch of BS and old post links at you. Enjoy!

I have a couple of topics that I do intend to get to, but groups like Hamas and individuals like Ron Artest require a lot more time and thought than a stupid post like this one does.

He's a Family Guy and Some Other Random Sports Stuff

Antonio Davis. Tony. Ant. Tone. Tonio. I've heard his teammates make up more nicknames for him in the past week than excuses for sucking as a basketball team. And they've made a ton of excuses for sucking.

Interesting situation here. The guy gets 5 games for going into the stands to "protect his wife." Now, from the looks of his wife, she doesn't need much protection. She's, ah... feisty to say the least. That said, if you are standing on the court and you see a family member in trouble, if you have any semblance of a sack of manhood you're over the table into the stands, no questions asked. That's why I disagree with the suspension. That said, I still think it is worth noting that Antonio had a "here she goes again" look on his face the whole time. That man needs to say something to his woman. Whatever. Unimportant. You got me, I can't think of anything to write about, so I figured I'd go sports today...

Kobe had 81 points. Eighty-one points. An eight followed by a one. 81!!!! That is ridiculous. That's four great games for some players. That's two-and-a-half good games for Iverson. That's a good game for the Knicks for Christ sake! I just am not sure people truly understand how many points that is. This guy scored 26 in the first half - THAT'S amazing. He scored more than that in both the third and fourth quarters alone - THAT'S ridiculous. He had 55 total points in the second half. Under 20 guys in the history of the league have scored 55 points in a game! This guy did it in a half.

Seattle vs. Pittsburgh. Have two teams ever made it more clear that they deserve to be playing for the Superbowl than these two did on Sunday? I don't think so.
Now, I'm far from an expert on any geographic regions west of the Hudson, but is Seattle really THAT freakin out there that we have no idea who these guys are?

Johnnies. Red Storm beat Louisville and Pittsburgh this past week. Sign of good things to come under Coach Norm Roberts. Now just stay away from the 40 year old hookers boys.

Barry Bonds. Barry decided rather than risk injury he will stay off the World Baseball Classic USA team. Perhaps someone saw the NHL player get suspended from the Olympics because international steroid testing is not a complete and utter joke. Or maybe his knee really still hurts. Oh wait, if his knee was really hurting he probably wouldn't have signed up in the first place. The NHL player's steroid issue just surfaced last week. Even if this is NOT the reason - who handles this guy? Can you pick worse timing to conjure up doubt? Morons.

I'll be back with some real stuff shortly...

F. The E.U.

Suicide bombing in Israel this morning in a pedestrian mall.

The European Union's response? Typical - European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana urged Israelis and Palestinians not to let the attack derail the Palestinian elections.

Solana said the attack occurred at a moment of great importance “for the future of Palestine, because of elections.” He appealed “to everybody to forget terrorist acts and to give political life a chance. Elections are the only way civilized countries can express themselves.”

Are these people for real? They're still trying to find bodies and figure out how many people are dead or injured and the E.U. wants us to forget about it already. Nazi F#$%ing Bastards.

F. the elections and F. the Palestinians and F. the Jew-hating Europeans.

Tel Aviv Bombing

The Sports Guy vs. Isiah Thomas

I love this guy. He's smart, funny and has a big set of matzoh balls. I might be developing a man crush, kinda like the one I've developed for Derek Jeter and Tiki Barber.

Sports Guy vs. Isiah Thomas

In Isiah's defense. He has done one thing well in his tenure as Knicks GM. He sure as hell knows how to draft. He got Trevor Ariza (a good player, but a great late-round pick), Nate Robinson (immediate help to team taken late in first round early second round - don't remember which), David Lee (I think was the last pick of the second round, also immediate help), Channing Frye (everybody blasted this pick and Isiah, to his credit, said he would have taken him with the #1 overall pick... anyone here of Andrew Bogut since he played at Utah? Didn't think so. Frye is up there with Chris Paul for Rookie of the Year right now, though Paul will win that award hands down). I believe Isiah drafted Jermaine Oneal as well as another winner over at Indiana.

The problem is he sucks at everything else. He cannot put together a cohesive team. He is a fool when it comes to the salary cap. He makes terrible trades at terrible times. He's been here for three seasons now and he's still using the previous GM as his excuse. Enough is enough. The roster has been overhauled for the most part and he's holding a good 6 or 7 terrible contracts (maybe more) and many of them were trades that he made himself.

Anyway, the point here is, I think I can do a better job and I am sending my resume into the New York Knicks organization in application for the General Manager position should it become available. If anyone has a connection feel free to call and put in a good word. OR - if anyone has a few hundred million dollars to invest, I will be happy to head a group interested in purchasing the Knicks. Let me know...

Two Quick Things:

A couple of random things that I experienced this morning that somewhat bothered me:

Dancing with the Stars: I never heard of this show until this morning. Apparently this is some sort of competition where celebrities team up with professional dancers and compete for points. Whatever, I wasn't really paying attention when my wife was explaining it to me. I was too busy watching Jerry Rice prancing around like a faygele on national TV. That's right, THE Jerry Rice. Tiger Balm endorser, future Hall of Famer, record holder, multiple Super Bowl winner - Jerry Rice - on a stage, in a tux, looking like a nancy.

IMPORTANT: I DID NOT WATCH THE SHOW. I saw the highlights of Rice dancing on Sportcenter. That's right, Sportcenter. Here's a guy, who despite my loyalty to the New York Giants, and despite the "nothing can be finer than to beat the 49ers" mantra, was every boy's hero growing up. This guy was (and still is to some extent) unbelievable. He could do anything he wanted on a football field. To have to watch him force a smile while skipping-to-his-lou with some freakish looking professional dance-partner completely ruins the Hall of Fame images I remember of this man from my youth. Why'd you do that Jerry? Why?!? You can't possibly need the money or attention. I cannot think of a logical explanation for these actions.

And by the way, the only time any kind of dancing was ever worthy of being on Sportcenter, was when that Russian chick got dropped on her head by her figure skating partner. I believe it made the Top Ten Plays of the Week... well maybe not, but it should have.

Urinal Propriety: Onto a slightly different topic. There is no reason that I can think of (and if you can think of one, let me know), that I should have to walk into the bathroom at work this morning and see a man standing at the urinal with his pants around his ankles. Seriously, that's what happened. He had his pants around his ankles to pee at the urinal. I actually waited at the sink a while to see the guy turn around when he was done so I could make sure he did not have down syndrome so I could properly make fun of him.

Does there need to be a training course on how to use a urinal? Do we need a manual? Some things should not need to be taught. Obviously there is proper spacing etiquette which every male instinctually knows. You do not stand directly next to another man while urinating unless there are no empty urinals or stalls. If you are forced to, make sure your eyes are straight ahead. Chance are the big black guy next to you IS much bigger, and you do not want him to know you were checking.

But the process of pulling your junk through your zipper without having to lower your pants should not be that difficult. Now to be fair, there is one other factor I noticed. This was a very heavy man. I'm not even close to overweight, nor have I ever been. In fact, there were times in my life before the trainer in college introduced me to free-weights that you could have knocked me down with a strong fart. So perhaps I am missing a key piece of information here.

I know people like to joke with fat guys about not being able to see their johnson. Maybe it's true. Maybe this guy has absolute no chance of retrieving his member through his zipper. Perhaps it is impossible for him to bypass (that's a funny word to use in a conversation about fat people - just noting) the blubber and folds in his mid-section to get to his member. Maybe, just maybe, he NEEDS to pull down his pants completely just to find his unit before he pisses himself trying to get Mister Winky out of his zipper.

Well, if that's the case, I can definitely understand and respect the pants around the ankle thing, but here is what I still don't get - WHY THE F. CAN'T YOU GO INTO A STALL SO I DON'T HAVE TO SEE YOUR BIG FAT ASS AND THIGHS?!?

We Love You Derek!!!!!!

Ok, a quick little story. Try to follow.

I walked into a partner's office today to ask a quick question on a file I've been working on. He and another partner were looking at the computer screen which is showing a picture of Derek Jeter with two attractive young ladies. First problem was that it took me longer than usual to notice the attractiveness of the young ladies, thanks to Jeter being in the picture. My first reaction was - "Cool, that's Derek Jeter" (as if I couldn't log onto any sports or baseball site and see 100 pictures of Derek Jeter).

Anyway, the story goes as follows. The partner has family friends who just went to Mexico for winter break with their two daughters (ages 18 and 23, yes that becomes slightly relevant). While in Mexico, the two girls went to a club and ran into Derek Jeter. They obviously asked to take a picture with him and he obliged. The report back was that he is "the nicest guy."

The funny part is that he invited the two girls back to his condo........Maybe not such a nice guy afterall. The 23 year old, ok... but the 18 year old? (who by the way said yes and got dragged home by the older (and wiser?) girl.
Come on Derek... draw a line somewhere. This guy is probably the modern-day Wilt Chamberlain, and it's not his athletic prowess I'm talking about, yet he manages to keep it relatively quiet. In other words - no babies or STD's.......yet.

So my question is this: Is it a little gay that I immediately became jealous of the two girls for being invited back to Derek Jeter's place as opposed to immediately being jealous of Derek Jeter for being able to invite any hot girl he wants back to his place? Just curious.

Just Some Ramblings...

• Marcus Vick has absolutely no brain. A potential future millionaire cannot possibly be dumber than this. I mean this is dumber than Paris Hilton. At least Paris Hilton is already rich. Vick was a sure-thing first round pick. All the talent in the world. He will still get drafted - but he cost himself millions in guaranteed money and a boatload of caveats in his contract. His next move will probably be to hire Drew Rosenhaus and get draft advice from Maurice Claurett. Retard.
  http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=2285819

• The Giants suck. I, along with tens of thousands showed up hours early for that game, unfortunately they did not show up at all. Out-coached, out-played, out-willed, call it whatever you want - disappointing is what it was.

• Ariel Sharon had another stroke and is in critical condition. How is anyone surprised at this? Look at the man for one second and you should be surprised that he is alive. All of a sudden nature takes it course and pours illness on a overweight, unhealthy heap of cholesterol and people are shocked? If I was the Israeli government, the second this guy won the election, I'd have a complete backup plan in place for when he dropped dead.

• Postage went up again. Is it because more and more people continue to use email and other forms of communication over snail mail and therefore they need more revenue generated to help pay mailmen and other expenses? Why not just fire a bunch of mailmen? Are they afraid that if there is a mass lay-off of mailmen that all hell will break loose? I don't necessarily blame them. I guess I'll pay the extra two cents then. Especially since my mailman looks like a three way cross between Jerry Garcia, Santa Claus and Stephen King. He's got the hippie look, the flowing white beard and big fat tummy, and is whacked out of his freakin mind and scares the crap out of all the neighbors.

• Back orders on gifts are really annoying. I ordered a gift for my little brother for Hanukah which was almost two weeks ago now. In fact, I ordered the gift almost three weeks ago so that it would arrive on Hanukah. I called last week and this morning to find out why I look like an ass for not getting my little brother a gift even though he went out of his way to get gifts for my two kids. It turns out the item I ordered was on back order. That means they didn't have enough of them in stock, but decided to allow people to order it anyway figuring that people who order things late December don't really need it till late January anyway. Chances are they are not buying the item for someone as a holiday gift, so let's just let things get backed up and they will get them 18-20 days later. Sorry for any inconvenience. F.U.

• I have this staple remover at work. It's not like the usual staple remover that you're all used to with the two fangs, you squeeze together and unhitch the back and then lift out the staple from the front. No, no, no... this is a monster staple remover. This thing simply gets stuck under the staple from the top, then u press down quickly and the helpless staple is ripped cleanly from the document. It's not just the efficiency of this simple office supply that is amazing, it's the feeling of power. It requires not too much effort, but just enough to make you feel like if you and your staple remover were left in the forest for days at a time without water or food - you might just be able to make do and survive. It's a special feeling really.