JB’s Blog

So I was thinking the other day…imagine that…and I realized something.  If a guy should ever screw up a name, he is in hot water and is done.  We can try the mumble, only speak to the person when making direct eye contact as our hopes to avoid the embrassment.  Girls have a nice tool at their disposal. 

How many girls do you know that say "Hey you" as their greeting?  At first this just went by and I thought nothing of it.  Then I realized, this is a great way for them to avoid calling a guy by his name.  Perhaps they too forget names and have devised a tool that is far superior to our mumble.

Today I met someone at Starbucks.  I ordered a grande java chip frappucino (sometimes will get mint mocha chip, but the chip is the essential element here).  With the grande you use the smaller straw, which seems intuitive.  However, while we are talking I notice nothing is coming up the straw anymore.  I slurp with a little more gusto, trying not to make a dumb face or make a lot of noise, but to no avail.  However, the top of the straw has sucked in a bit of my lip and sticks to it so I have to pull it off.  Slightly embarassed, I pull the straw off.  Low and behold there is a chip clogging the bottom of my straw.  I get that out and proceed.  Well two minutes later the same thing happens again.  Then a third time.  We’re laughing about it at this point, and I decide to get the jumbo sized straw that is usually only for the venti sized cups.  However the opening is larger and I can effectively slurp up all the drink, albeit from a foot away from the cup.

So the lesson, starbucks, cut down the size of your "chips" or make wider straws fit for the grande and tall cups.  I bid you a good day.

So this past Monday I got to go the NY Giants game.  For those that are unaware tickets for these games are extremely hard to come by.  What happened is this game was supposed ot be in New Orleans but instead had to be hosted here.  Therefore waitlist for season ticket people such as myself got the chance to get tickets (I’m about 35 years away from getting season tickets).  I got really close seats and it was fun…it had been ten years since my prior visit.

To get there without a car, you have to take a NJ Transit bus (they play in Jersey).  So I meet my friend…oh lets call him "D"…and we get tickets for the bus.  We then go outside and the line for the bus is about a half mile long (literally).  I joke around and say it’s almost worth getting a cab.  The guy behind me asks how many we are, and we respond two.  Five minutes later he comes back and says he negotiated a fare of $40 and found one other guy to split it.  So there we are, me, D, and two random New Yorkers who are about twenty years older all taking a cab to Giants Stadium.  This ends up being a good call as we have time to get there early. 

At the game several fights break out.  We help police by pointing out the guys to security guards, and all yelling "A-hole" over and over.  When they get kicked out we all chant…Nuh nuh nuh nuh…hey hey hey Goodbye.   Also when the first President Bush comes out to toss the coin, he gets booed…hey this is a liberal New York crowd, what does he expect.  Anyway the Giants won easy.

Then coming home we do wait for the bus.  It takes a half hour to finally get on one.  As usual with load and go service they are always off by one, and one guy has to stand the whole way back (25 mins).  He is balancing by holding the luggage racks on each side.  He sort of resembles a friend…let’s call him "A."  The guys in front of us are joking about how amazing his balance is and are joking when he is gonna fall.  It sort of resembles those deodorant commercials.  You know you could picture at first he holds the things and we all pass out.  Then he uses right guard or something, and we are all fine.  Anyway "A"-look-alike" shows incredible balance and makes it fine.  Maybe he’s a gymnast.

Well maybe some of you are like me.  You wake up but you’re not really up.  It’s a slow process.  You’re half asleep still and your shower takes 20 mins because you are daydreaming while in there.  For some of you, maybe you’re doing something else…but you better not be sharing that shower with anyone! 

Well this morning I discovered something that will wake you up quicker than anything.  My alarm went off at 9:01am (okay it’s my odd thing to set my alarm for bizarre times…you set it at 9:01 you can say i got up after 9).  I walk to the bathroom half asleep.  I gargle the Listerine (well know you all know I have minty fresh breath), shave (and that I am clean shaven), and the proceed to hop into the shower.  I turn the water on and start washing my face.  I then notice I’m not in the shower alone…DUH DUH DUH!!!

On the ground is a 4+ inch cockroach.  I simply look down and say "Oh F#@!"  I hurdle over it, clearing the bath ledge and land on the carpet dripping all over the place.  I throw on a pair of boxers and now am searching for the bug spray.  With a bug that size you don’t want to use a shoe because you will have to throw out that shoe afterwards.  I cannot find it and my roommate is still asleep.  All the while, the shower is running.  I notice this prevents the raoch from being able to leave the tub.  Finally my roommate gets up and we get him, and bury him at sea. 

The point is I have never been so awake so quickly.  So perhaps a roach in the shower is what the doctor calls for. 

So I came in late to my antitrust class last week…the day the professor was handing out the seating chart.  Guess where I am now sitting the whole semester.  The FRONT ROW!  Not even just the front row, the seat that is two feet from where the professor is standing.  No solitaire, hearts, and free cell for me. 

While sitting in this front row I also have to be careful to guard against me laughing or scowling when someone asks a question after time has run out since I am in plain view wit no obstructions.  Today both situations arose.  I’ve already covered the questions after class is over people, and so I’ll let that be.  The funny thing that happened today was a case of the magnetic cough.  This is a social phenomenon  that occurs in a room filled of people.  One persons coughs.  30 seconds go by, then another cough.  Then a chorus of coughs start happening from all over the room.  In your head you’re trying to picture a song that chorus of coughs could go to..such as:

COUGH COUGH get away, I’ve got to COUGH COUGH run away… etc. (Tainted Love)

So needless to say a smile breaks across my face, and you wonder if the professor thinks I’m looking at porn on my computer or something. 

So why not?  I’ve already talked about popcorn for a whole entry.  Therefore I think I should cover all of the major food groups.  Does anyone else in Manhattan notice how hard it is to find potato chips in food stores?  On Long Island, you’d go into a food store and there’d be a whole aisle filled with different types of chips.  Every brand and style of chip known to man.  Here, the foodstores limit their chip selection soemtimes to a single endcap.  So sometimes I cannot even find ridged potato chips, which everyone knows are much better for dipping.  Yep…everyone. 

What’s even worse is when there is only the healthy stuff like baked chips and sun chips.  If it’s healthy it’s not a snack.  I’m sorry but healthy snack doesn’t work for me.  Healthy and "tastes good" rarely correlate.  When I am watching a football game, I want wings, beer and good potato chips!  Doritos too (cool ranch preferably).  The point is, baked lays and sun chips are not fitting into the equation…if i wanted to have cardboard chips, I’d eat a box.

Also I want a normal size bag.  Sometimes they only have those small bags.  We all know that these bags are 50-60% air.  So these small bags have like ten chips in them and do not quite cut it.  The thing is the big bags take up too much space on these endcaps and so they are hard to find…except for the damn healthy stuff again.

Anyway as a sidenote, my favorite Canadian person has started a blog and I promised her I’d refer some folks over.  http://sotospeak.blogs.friendster.com/so_to_speak/  (or you can go to Maria in my friends list and get their from there)

So there have been technical issues that prevent me from being able to update my blog, and I am assured they will be fixed.  This is the first time in three days I have been able to access the update page. 

1) When a girl (or guy for you ladies) tells you they were too busy to call you back.  That works for a night or maybe even a day.  But two three days roll around…sorry but come up with a better excuse.  There’s not one minute available in a 24 hours span?  Shit you could even text message if you are anti-social.  So the lesson is be honest and say you totally forgot to call the person back and apologize, or admit you don’t want to speak anymore.  Otherwise it will be taken as you being shady.  (Again for my foreign readers, this is about New York life, so it may differ where you are)

2) People that get in an elevator on floor 2, a packed elevator mind you, and get off at floor 3.  Listen if you are quite fat, this is not going ot help matters.  And if you are healthy and in shape, take advantage of that and use the stairs.  I cannot believe how many people day in and day out do this.  Half the time they are not even carrying anything.  I guess their sole purpose to push everyone further back in the elevator and draw ridicule from their fellow riders.  I say next time someone does that in a packed elevator make them stay on.  You’ll be joinging me to floor 11…BUT we will stop at every floor along the way for shits and giggles.  Let’s see how they enjoy it.  Or maybe, we could put steaks or candy at the halfway points of staircases so they have incentives to use the stairs.  Just a thought.

So I went out for sushi last night with my cousin.  It was good, but I decided to dip some of my rolls into spicy mayo.  It didn’t seem that bad at first but about three minutes later my nose was running like crazy.  I mean it wouldn’t stop.  My cousin looks over and says it’s not that bad and gives me a look like I’m weak.  Approximately another three minute later he reaches for a napkin and starts blowing his nose.

This seems to always happen.  I first discovered this when we went to Cancun together last summer.  I’d wake up at 5:30am to go to the bathroom.  No sooner would I hit the sheets again, would he then get up and go to the bathroom.  This happened every night!  It was like he thought we were doing a relay and I was passing him the baton.  Proving not to be a fluke, the same happened when he stayed over my place for July 4th weekend. 

Throughout college and through today, people will constantly tell me I am a terrible listener.  This largely stems from the fact that  I am fidgety.  I might be tapping my leg the more someone is babbling on, or if there is a TV in close vicinity my eyes will be darting towards it.  Also if someone should be accident mention a song lyric in the context of their description I might suddenly start singing the song in the middle of their description. 

So you’d figure with all of this, no one would want to tell me their problems.  Yet you would be surprised that I sometimes wonder if I should have been a psychologist.  People love to tell me their problems…ironically the ones that complain about my listening habits the most!