Umm... That'll Just Make Me Dizzy

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Although I complained yesterday about all of the media coverage of Lindsay Lohan, I must confess that I do feel a little bit of sympathy for all of these people in the media lately with substance abuse problems. I don’t have sympathy for them with regards to all of the dumb things they do, but I do think they’re getting a lot of confusing advice that probably doesn’t make things much easier.

I always thought it was pretty baffling to see people do the same dumb things over and over, but I guess that’s part of the definition of a habit or an addiction. I think I know now why they do it, though, and why rehab isn’t working. Apparently, they’re getting advice like this (in this case, from defense attorney & certified drug/alcohol counselor Barry Gerald Sands, as quoted by CNN):

"Whatever you have done in the past, do a 360-degree turn and go the other way."

Really, the only thing I can add to that is that if you find you’re heading in the wrong direction (in life or on the road), four left turns will get you headed where you need to go.

Even smokers are getting mixed messages. Yesterday in the bathroom on the plane, I noticed the usual “Smoking is Not Permitted in the Lavatory” sign (why do we have about 800 different names for bathrooms and only one for kitchens?), and right below that was a little ashtray. To the right was a sign saying that tampering with the smoke detector is a federal offense carrying a fine of up to $400. If I was trying to get people not to smoke on an airplane, I think I’d be a little more emphatic about it and make the fine a bit bigger, but next time you have to wait a long time for someone to get out of there, you’ll know it’s probably a smoker taking a few minutes to weigh all of his or her options.

Some people that do dumb things probably wish they could blame it on substance abuse; I personally believe that’s why some people drink in the first place. I’m pretty sure the future Prime Minister of Belgium wasn’t drunk when he (accidentally?) sang the French national anthem when asked to sing the Belgian one on live TV. Hopefully he was just joking – I’m not sure how you recover from that one otherwise.

Nine Years, 364 Days, 11 Hours

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

I'm back after a bit of an absence. Of course, I never really went anywhere, but I guess there have been enough things going on to keep me from writing anything. I’m not sure that I could tell you exactly what those things have been, which is probably telling in-and-of-itself, but I can tell you that I have not been overly distracted by Michael Vick, the crooked NBA ref, or Lindsay Lohan (do we really need a panel of “analysts” on CNN discussing this?). My only legitimate excuses have been Harry Potter and work, I suppose, but it’s not like I’m working (investment) banker’s hours or anything. I did travel again this week (I’m writing this on the flight home), and this time it wasn’t just for lasertag. This past weekend I did also have to reinstall everything on our computer after putting in a new hard drive, but since we have more computers than people in our house, that’s no excuse.

I probably could have stayed on my trip for another day, but tomorrow is our 10th anniversary, so I’d rather be with my wife than at a Holiday Inn Express eating reheated cinnamon rolls and bad oatmeal (sorry, I mean continental breakfast). Being married 10 years is nothing to write home about, I suppose, when you consider that my wife’s paternal grandparents both passed away late last year after well over 70 years of marriage, but I like to think that I have at least learned a few things in the last decade. For one, I now organize my closet by color. For another, I’ve become increasingly skeptical of dating services like e-Harmony that claim to match people up based on compatibility. I married someone who is unlike myself in many ways, and from what I’ve seen of my own marriage and that of others, it’s typically better that way.

(As an aside, the thought of being married to someone too much like myself scares me to death – literally. Early in our marriage, I fooled my wife’s family into thinking I’m intelligent by guessing a correct answer on some obscure question during a game of Trivial Pursuit, and I’ve been riding that ever since, sort of like Jon Heder cashing in on Napoleon Dynamite. Most of them remain largely unaware – until now – that I'm actually quite an airhead sometimes and am lucky to still have all of my limbs. Fortunately, I married someone much more grounded, so I'm hitting this 10-year mark in one piece and without having burned anything down - at least as far as I know – thanks to this marital safety net.)

Since we already took a trip a few months ago that we counted as our anniversary trip, our celebration this week will be a bit more mellow – probably will go with my idea of dinner and a movie (you have to give me credit for my creativity – I think you can see why I work in finance and my wife works in events). Actually, dinner and a movie sounded a little more mundane before we had our son, but now we’ve only been to a few movies since he’s been born, which means that we go on trips to see our family more often than we frequent the cinema.

All that probably means is that we’re a little more calculated in picking our movies. We already saw Harry Potter (do you think if we just donated our money directly to J.K. Rowling it would be tax deductible in some way?), so that’s out. I could probably go for the Transformers movie since I was semi-obsessed with those as a kid when they first came out, despite the fact that toys with that many moving parts are bound to break pretty quickly, and just about every one did. I mean, they look tough in the movie, but the only toys less fragile (and yet portrayed as equally tough) were G.I. Joe’s, whose thumbs snapped off all the time, making them unable to hold a gun and therefore pretty defenseless. I have heard the movie is decent, so I assume none of the Transformers limbs just randomly snap off when they are trying to turn into a truck or whatever.

Another option is the Rat movie that I can’t spell, which apparently is very good. I guess that means that Pixar has never made a bad movie, which I appreciate since as a father I’ll probably have to watch all of their movies about 50 times each over the course of the next 20 years. I’m not sure if there’s any equivalent to Pixar in any other field – everyone else messes up at least every once in a while. Toys, monsters, cars, rodents… they could probably make a movie about pencils and make it decent.

Unfortunately, we’re a week early for the Bourne Ultimatum. Unlike Harry Potter, I can’t claim to be a real fan, I suppose, since I haven’t read the books, although I have been working on the first book for about two years now (that’s actually not that bad, since I’ve been reading a book on the Civil War for about 8 years). I’m watching the first movie again as I type this, and I think I’ve figured out why I’m at least a real fan of the movies. It’s the same reason my friend and I watched that NBA Superstars movie about a million times in high school, and the Bourne movies also present basically the same problem. We’d get fired up watching these NBA music videos & then end up pulling ridiculous moves & making fools of ourselves, and I’m pretty sure if anyone ever tries to mug me, basically the same thing will happen.

(We never did try any Kareem moves, though, because his video was ridiculous. I think it’s the main reason people don’t uniformly agree that he was the best center of all time – he was on track before this came out. I can't find it on YouTube, but it should suffice to tell you that it involved a made-up "Skyhookin" song and a cartoon Kareem flying around in a little plane. Now the Larry Bird video... that's a classic.)

Not All Men Are Created Equal

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

A few days ago, I went to the gym at work to run (since it has been too hot to do so outside), but when I got there, the three treadmills were occupied by a jogger, a walker, and a guy trying to run at top speed while holding onto the sides for dear life. Since it was only a balmy 103 degrees, I thought I’d chance a quick jaunt under the Arizona sun, which turned out to be a mistake. I survived, of course, but on days like that, doing anything remotely resembling exercise is a bit of a challenge.

Later that day, I took a quick peek at CNN for the latest on important world events like the Paris Hilton incarceration and instead found a story about a guy with no lower legs who is a world-class sprinter. This guy is running the 400 on prosthetic limbs at times that could qualify him for the Olympics, and he’s pretty determined to make that happen apparently. As crazy as that sounds, it’s not even the crazy part of the story. The Olympic authorities are apparently trying to figure out whether the little curvy limbs he runs on give him an unfair advantage. Now, if he has wheels surgically attached or something, I’d say that would be worth examining, but let’s remember – this guy has no legs. Isn’t just about any advantage those things might give him negated to some degree by the fact that he’s running without feet? It makes my heat excuse sound pretty weak, at any rate.

Of course, CNN (or any news vehicle, for that matter) doesn't let you get too comfortable with this sort of elevated portrait of humanity. Before I could fully digest how amazing that story was, I found myself reading about a guy who died three years ago when a bomb attached to his neck exploded. He had claimed that someone had attached the bomb to force him to rob a bank, and it went off before the police could remove it. Now it seems that he was involved in the whole plot. I don't want to make light of something that is certainly tragic regardless of the circumstances, but couldn't these people have come up with about a thousand better ideas for robbing a bank than this one? And why does someone who is a good enough salesman to talk someone else into wearing a bomb around his neck need to rob a bank anyway?

At least some of the dumb things people do don't involve potentially injuring themselves or others. The one story this week that might trump the amputee sprinter story is the guy who headed to England for a friend's wedding only to realize that he had the date wrong and was there a year early. At least I can empathize with this guy, because I have literally done things just as stupid in the last week. Fortunately in my case, no one told Reuters (apparently, this guy's friends just couldn't resist calling in that one).

It's Like Deja Vu All Over Again

Thursday, July 05, 2007

One of the funny things about having a one-year-old son is that if you laugh at something once, he'll do it about 800 times. Today he was lying on his stomach on the kitchen floor trying to get something under a shelf, and he realized that he could push off with his arms and slide backwards. We thought this was pretty hilarious, so he did it about three more times and will probably travel around the kitchen like that for two more weeks.

Well, apparently Geico is run by a bunch of one-year-olds, because today I think I saw three or four commercials featuring fake cavemen, and that makes about 800 of those in the past month or so. Now they're talking about making a TV show out of the whole concept, which I'm assuming will work out about as well as that talking baby that went primetime for about three episodes a few years ago. I admit the caveman thing was funny the first few times, but I imagine that the marketing people at Geico are all on a very long, comfortable vacation now that their advertising strategy is set for the next 300 years between the cavemen and the English lizard.

I guess the one difference between Geico and my son is that my son wasn't trying to be funny the first time. Actually, my son is probably a lot more like Phillips & Associates, a law firm here in Arizona that runs ads about as often as Geico but with people less refined than cavemen. There are actually a lot of different TV spots, but they all go something like this:

Actual Client: "When I stabbed my neighbor in the back 13 times for looking at me funny, I didn't know where to turn. Then I remembered Phillips & Associates from TV, and I'm glad I called. They represented me aggressively. Thanks Phillips & Associates."
Some Lawyer: "If you are caught doing something we all know is wrong and stupid, you need an aggressive, experienced trial attorney on your side. Call Phillips & Associates, and we'll help you get away with your criminal activity of choice."

OK, so I exaggerate a bit, but if you live in the Phoenix area, you know I'm not exaggerating that much. They must either be doing really well with these ads or have realized that they're pretty unintentionally funny or both, because these guys are the only ones I know of that can keep up with Geico in terms of total saturation. I find these to be funnier than the Geico ads, to be honest, and I'd suggest they make these into a TV show, except that they already have. I also like that they have to let you know that you're hearing from an "actual client," as if there was any doubt. No one can act that well.

In reality, I'm sure the idea is to repeat something often enough that you'll never forget it, and I suppose it works to a degree. Next time I cause a car accident through criminal stupidity, I'm sure I'm sure I'll remember the Neanderthals and the advice of the "actual" criminals and will know just what to do. It's so easy a caveman could do it - thanks Phillips & Associates.

Moving Without Moving

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

I'm a little uncomfortable going into this July 4th because apparently I no longer live in the Unites States. On July 1st, we were handed a new zip code by our friends at the US Postal Service (I'm not blaming them - we live in a growing area, and my mom is a USPS employee, so I'm empathetic). When I first heard about this, I figured the big impact would be having to change our address on about a million things just for one digit, but then on Monday I tried to purchase something online and was told that I needed to enter a valid US address. So apparently, we now live in the Twilight Zone.

This could actually end up saving me a lot of money. I can't buy anything, and I can't even really pay a lot of my bills, although I guess I could resort to going to a physical store and sending checks [which we just bought but now have the wrong address] to my gas company. Maybe I am now also exempt from paying taxes and can just make up my own laws (the first of which will be to outlaw any further discussion of Paris Hilton).

Of course, fairly soon I'm sure we'll be annexed back into the United States, maybe even in time for fireworks tomorrow night. I guess I understand a little bit now of how the British loyalists felt back in 1776 when the Founding Fathers handed them new zip codes, (today is their holiday, right - 4th of July Eve?). I only have to change one digit on my zip code, but they had to change nationalities, accents, the faces on their money... must have been an administrative nightmare for those people.

Hot Hot Hot!!!

Monday, July 02, 2007

I don’t go out to eat much at work, partly because I like to work out instead but partly because I’m cheap. Three times in the last month, however, I’ve found myself at the same Thai restaurant enjoying a plate of spicy noodles (creatively called “Spicy Noodles”). The skeptic might claim that I go there for the paintings of half-naked Thai women inexplicably placed under the glass table tops, but I maintain that I go there despite that and am able to easily cover the questionable portions of said pictures with the containers of mystery toppings. No, being a fan of all foods spicy, I really do go there for the Spicy Noodles.

Since I do tend to pick the spicier options on any menu, I have come to recognize a major deficiency in our systems of measurement. We have standardized scales for weight, volume, earthquakes, Karate belts, and temperature (we’re pushing the upper limits of that scale here this week), but we have no agreed-upon system for measuring spiciness. This Thai place uses a 1-5 scale (our server’s eyes got really big after I requested a “4” today, so I guess there’s an accompanying facial expression scale), but another local Thai place uses a 1-10 scale. Having been to the “1-10” place first, you’d think I could just divide by 2 to get to the equivalent spiciness at the “1-5” place, but in reality a 4 at the former is more like a 3 at the latter. It’s completely arbitrary and potentially hazardous. Some places try to simplify it with pictures of little chili peppers, but that helps even less. You’ll also find that it can vary with each visit to a particular restaurant depending on who’s cooking and how often they accidentally dump too many red pepper flakes into your food and have no way to get it back out.

At first I thought the challenge in having a scale is that everyone has a different tolerance for spiciness, but that’s the case with temperature as well, so that can’t be the holdup. I guess the challenge is that you need some way to measure it. I have a few ideas, but someone much brighter than I am could probably figure out something better.

On my way out today, I popped a mint into my mouth and nearly burned a hole in my tongue (apparently a “4” removes any protection your mouth might have against other spicy foods), so maybe the scale could be built around something like that (little pictures of mints instead). Or maybe for a restaurant to call anything on their menu “spicy,” they should have to bring in an expert who rates the spiciness and then drops back in undercover from time to time to make sure they’re not cheating. Certainly this would be expensive, but it would create a whole new category of ridiculous jobs (please sign me up), and if you’ve ever ordered a two-chili-pepper item and gotten something tasting like oatmeal (or ordered a 2-out-of-10 and ended up sprinting to a bathroom because you drank 35 glasses of water), you would agree that the cost is worth it.