My wife drove me into work the other day, and noticing there were two people in the car, she slid into the high occupancy lane of the toll road.
As she did so, she commented, “You’re HOV-positive.”
There are a lot of applications available for the iPhone, and thanks to the magic that makes orientation detection possible, some clever person produced an application that visually shows a level, bubble and all.
Today I was witness to a young child asking to borrow an iPhone, and with much curiosity he opened this particular application.
Unfamiliar with a level, it’s function, or operation, he innocently asked, “What one was supposed to do?”
“You’re supposed to put the bubble between the two marks,” came the adult explanation.
The kid tilted the iPhone back and forth, watching the bubble slide to and fro, and leveled it holding the bubble between the two lines for a moment.
At that moment he blurted out excitedly, “Look, I’m winning!”
Unfortunately, his excitement caused the bubble to shoot to one end, just as I had time to click a picture of the event.
I recently visited a family that we’re particularly fond of. I’ve known many of their children since they were but mere infants. It had been a while, perhaps too long, and the infants were now in early grade school.
One little girl, about six, ran up to me, having remembered me lifting her up and flying her around at a much younger age.
“Pick me up!” she exlaimed, hoping to relive old memories. But, I couldn’t help myself. I love ambiguity.
And, in my best lounge lizard voice complied to her request with an awful proposition, “Hey, wanna go back to my place?”
“Yeah!!!” she started jumping up and down.
I looked at her mom, “Wow, ya know, that’s my fastest time yet.” Her mom just shook her head and burried her face in her hand.
Last night I was watched a very impressive and emotionally compelling seance.
It included objects moving on their own, volunteers themselves channeling spirits not a specific medium, where they’d revealing knowledge they couldn’t have, such as the contents of a sealed envelope. No stooges or actors were used in conducting the actual seance. They were very much freaked out by the experience.
Of course, it wasn’t real; it was an elaborate television special conducted by a famous magician who excels in deception, using magic and psychology, as an experiment to see if a modern day audience would be suckered by such showmanship. Disappointly, they were. And, in the end, the magician even showed the participants how he pulled it off and manipulated them, hoping they’d question their beliefs about the supernatural that made them fall for it. It’s clear that he, like many other magicians, do not have a belief in the supernatural and get very cheesed off when tricks of the trade are passed off as genuine, especially for the sake of defrauding.
It was amazing how easily smart people get suckered. For example, they were all told to look at a set of photographs and let one come to them, but not to reveal it. However, outside the context of the seance, it was no different than when, say, David Copperfield would have you put your finger on the television anywhere and tell you to follow his instructions, revealing your position at the end; this was just more sophisticated. Later on he’d make them reveal that name using a makeshift Ouija board (he also explained how that worked). Sneaky, if not genius, to apparently take himself out of the loop.
Of course, the Ouija board is more psychological trickery, especially since the dead spirit being called on happened to move the glass happened to be an actress sitting outside in a van. None the less, the glass moved, as it had to, with no stooge touching it, leaving them to invent a plausable explaination for the context they were in.
It started with the directions “Everyone ask, ‘Are you here spirit? If you’re here, move the glass to Y, for yes.”
At that point I paused the show, turned to the person next to me and stated, “If you’re not here spirit, move the glass to N, for no.” It was the spooky equivalent of “Everyone who’s not here, raise your hand.”
So, I go out to eat this evening and as soon as I walk in the door, the Korean waitress announces to all in the place that I’m from Hell.
Yes, hell.
Not only that, but I’m the devil.
I’m trying to figure out what she’s talking about, and she explains that she had just been telling another customer, who’s also a photographer, about me, and then I just walked in.
Confused for a moment, I figure out her context — she’s starts grabbing her ear and saying it was on fire, all the while pointing at me and professing to all, “You the devil! You from Hell.”
Obviously, the customers weren’t feeling all that comfortable with the revelation.
“Oh, were my ears burning?” She nods.
“You mean ’speak of the devil’?” I inquire.
“Yes! Yes! You the devil. You from hell!”
Well, damn.
So, I go to the polls to vote today, show my id, and the woman wants to know what kind of ballot I want.
“Paper or plastic?”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m sorry. Paper or electronic. I keep doing that.”
“Let’s do paper, it’s better for the environment.”
So, I’m standing in Wendy’s waiting in line. At the cashier in front on me is a mom who has her attention divided between trying to pay and watching her daughter back at the table.
All of the sudden she startles me with a yell, “No Ma’am! I do not want to drink from a straw that’s been up your nose.”
While the mental image was amusing unto itself, I can only guess what other recent activities had escaped her attention in the past.
Was reading on WebMD about the Brain Eating Amoeba:
And it happens fast: Victims usually die seven to 10 days after infection, although symptoms may not appear for up to 14 days.
Initial symptoms include headache, fever, nausea, vomiting, and stiff neck.
I’m trying to picture how a corpse has a fever or complains of a headache.
This weekend, my sister and niece came to visit for the weekend. That meant going to a lot of playgrounds, getting wet in fountains, building things with blocks, and the big treat: going out for steak dinner. I invited my friend Marcus to join us.
During the ride home, I asked Marcus and my sister if either of them had heard any more news about the FAA being accused of hiding controllers’ mistakes by blaming them on pilots. Neither of them had heard anything about it, so I quickly conveyed the details and described by the Washington Post.
Figuring my niece was half-paying attention, I decided to drift the conversation more toward the way of life-lessons. “You know, it’s okay to make mistakes. You just have to take responsibility for them, and offer to help fix them. You’re more likely to be forgiven, than if you hide it — cause that will get you into more trouble.”
My sister chimed in about that being true, helping to reinforce the proper behavior at home.
Marcus added to that, “The people that fly the airplanes should simply follow the golden rule: do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.” I nodded, and he continued, “Don’t lie… Don’t steal…” His inflection indicated he was starting to struggle for some more values to list.
My niece picked up on that, interrupting with “Don’t commit adultery!”
The car went silent. Absolutely silent.
Marcus looked at me, I looked at him, my sister went brilliant red. Did she even know what that word meant?
“I’m not exactly sure how that applies to pilots, but we can run with that,” Marcus recovered quite gracefully.
Unfortunately, I didn’t help. The next words out of my mouth were “Giggity-giggity.” The kid was right.
The other night I had the most sublime hot dog. I don’t mean it was good, I mean it turned straight to gas.
The place was the MCI Center, and I got to see the Wizards play the… oh, who am I kidding. I was trying to make out the cheerleaders from four stories up while eating 6 oz of cotton candy from a plastic $5 bucket. Which, I might add, I refused to throw out since I paid so bloody much for it.
“So, Walt, we’re thinking of having you over for Christmas. Have you ever had lamb before?”
“Yeah…”
“Oh. What’d you think?”
“I didn’t care for it that much,” And as I noticed the old lady listening in, I quickly added, “but the Bar-B-Que kittens were delicious.”
This prompted the look I was after. And she instantly engaged Mike in conversation to check the veracity of our conversation. At least enough to ascertain that we were good friends.
As the conversation took a turn to prior places lived, it turns out Mike and the old lady had both been to Germany. And, much to the confusion of those around them, started speaking in German. And they did quite well, I must say.
Too well. Cutting me out of the conversation, along with every other eavesdropper in earshot.
I informed Mike that this was America, and that we spoke English here; then I asked to see his legal status. Normally, I don’t engage in this kind of bold maneuver with an armed officer of the law, but by now the overpriced confections instilled a bravery that only spun sugar can do.
Naturally I backed down as he has more ways to kill me in his little finger than a pissed off villain in a James Bond movie.
At this point the train arrived, and I sat down next to the nice little old lady. And her friend. And some other chick who thought it might be the wiser move to ignore me.
“So,” asked the little old lady, “how do you know each other?”
“Him?” I glanced to Mike. “He’s my parole officer.”
Mike over heard enough to flash his handcuffs at me. The little old lady looked mildly uncomfortable and changed the topic.
“Where were you seated?” she inquired.
I explained we were in the 400’s. She then wanted to compare ticket prices (like that mattered now). And then we compared how many times we’ve been to a game at the MCI Center.
There’s a lot of promotional stuff going on at these events, whether it’s Chipotle throwing burritos into the crowd or t-shirts being dropped from parachutes to lucky winners below.
“So,” she continued, “have you ever caught anything at a game?”
“A cold.”
While I got a polite chuckle for quick delivery, she had enough and said, “get your friend; I want to talk with him.”
I yelled over to Mike, who was standing by the door. “She wants to talk with you, apparently I said something again.”
The chick to my left had vacated at the prior stop, so I slid into her old spot, and Mike took mine in front of the old lady.
And immediately, she switched into German again. Clearly, she wanted to practice.
I leaned over and said, “excuse me, you’re talking in code again.”
Mike turned to me and said, quite loudly, “I’m sorry. She said you had a nice ass.”
Without missing a beat, I addressed the old lady, “It’s true. You may be wondering why I’m covering my lap with a bucket.”
Mike, it turns out, wasn’t the only person to bust out laughing, seems a lot of people were riding our conversation, not just the train.
Bad Behavior has blocked 391 access attempts in the last 7 days.