"Pat and John On..."

Beauties and the Beach - What you'll see this summer

2011-08-19T10:27:00.005-04:00

It’s summer time which means a lot of things to a lot of people. For some it means barbecues and outdoor fun, for others it means staying in to beat the heat, hating every drop of sweat that comes down from their head and for the lucky kids of school age it means a few months of freedom. Join us as we breakdown the the wonderful time know as summer, and the people who come out during this time.

BEACH BUMS

The beach is probably the number one destination to beat the heat every summer. That is unless you live in a landlocked state like John grew up in (Arizona). In that case you’re going somewhere on vacation, likely to a beach or a lake. Vacations are a topic for another blog...

Anyway, the beach is awesome, for a couple hours at least, but then it gets kind of played. Agree or disagree about the awesomeness of the beach, what IS undeniable is that the best thing about the beach (as is the case anywhere with more than ten people) is People Watching. Here’s who you’ll inevitably see on the sand...

Speedo Guy

“Is that a lime in between that dude’s thighs?” Nope, that’s Gustav’s f-ing package in a lime-green Speedo.

There should be an outright ban on Speedos on men. Why they’re sold is beyond me. Michael Phelps doesn’t even look good in a Speedo, therefore, you’re not looking good in a speedo. The worst offenders are Europeans. It’s definitely a cultural thing, which is weird because the Euros are so much better at dressing themselves than us US Americans. Ever go to a European city and just walk around? Everyone looks like they got they’re filming a J Crew commercial. But throw them on a beach and the suave style goes out the window. While the Eurpoeans do give you the pleasure of women showing their tots (which should be customary here, although my comment is exactly the reason it’s not), men are leaving nothing to the imagination. There’s nothing attractive about it. Especially because it’s normally overweight dudes that rock this look and their fat is hanging over the front lip of the Speedo. Not only is it barely keeping two balls in check, the Speedo now is being asked to hold the fat from flopping completely over the waist.

Pale Man

For pale people, summer must blow. Having to re-apply the SPF 80 every 8 minutes must be awful, but it’s awfully necessary, unless they want to look like a human Austrian flag after a day at the beach. Pales should just stay away from the beach all together. The glare alone to us Non-Pales is reason enough. But also, after applying their sun shielding kit: sun block on the nose (the only thing whiter than their skin) and a hat from the set of Gilligan’s Island, Powder’s cousin over here is even more ridiculous looking than Speedo Guy. Naturally as people watchers like ourselves do, we have to at the train wreck. Unfortunately our eyes just can’t handle that kind of white, because it’s not ever really represented in the color spectrum.

Afraid of the water and/or sea creatures guy

John has admitted many times that sea creatures are not his favorite thing in this world. Reason for that is, if I ran into a bear or some sort of lion, I know I’d be F’d. But at least I have my wits about me on land. In the sea, you’re in their territory. Helpless. They say to punch a shark on the nose if it comes at you. How? Have you tried moving fast like that in the water? Your hand coming at the shark is just making it easier for the shark to eat.

But the worst thing about sea creatures is they create an irrational fear of anything else in the water. Seaweed go past your leg? Might as well be a 12’ moray eel. A rock making a mysterious shadow? That’s definitely a sting ray ready to go Steve Irwin you. Someone say something that sounds like shark? Hope you like being pushed into the water, because I’m doing anything I can to save my own skin.

Side note: Sorry to Mrs. Irwin if she’s reading this. But not the daughter. She’s annoying. Too Soon? Oh and also, remember all those facebook hate groups that came out against sting rays following the croc hunter’s death? That was all the rage for a hot second.

The Tanner

Usually a chick, but as we’ve learned from the boys of Jersey shore, its not a gender exclusive activity. (Side note: They spent 2 summers at the Jersey shore and 1 in Miami, how many days did they go to the beach? 3 total? The truth is, people that love tanning stay far away from nature’s tanning bed).

The Tanner has a mission, get as dark as humanly possible. Unless, that is mom and dad gave you your tan... a line that was once uttered to my dad when he asked a waitress at Dave and Buster’s how she stayed so tan in the winter (smacks forehead).

Anyway, Tanners get to the beach early with the goal of having their skin run through at least 3 nationalities that day. They are the antithesis of “Pale Man” and sunscreen is their enemy.

olds) a chubby by untying the bikini strap when they’re on their stomach. God forbid there’s a line of white across that black back. Then again what do I care? I’ve got a free show at some squished side-boob.

Tanners leave the beach a color somewhere between lobster and brick, but they consider it mission accomplished because don’t worry, it’ll turn into a tan, just give it a few days.

The Reader

The ocean has mystified men since the dawn of time. So fast, so powerful, so blue, ‘god’s masterpiece.’ This guy doesn't know anything about that because from the second he throws the beach chair down and buries the umbrella on the ground he’s lost in the latest Agatha Christi novel and his head isn't peaking up until the sun sets. And don’t think for a second that he's stopping to can gaze at the sunset’s beauty. He's stopped because the light is low and its hurting his eyes. Time to go home.

Some of the beach readers have been brought up to speed with the 21st century and have traded in their kindling for a kindle, or iPad. While not having to haul all 800 pages of “The Book of Basketball” is nice, do you really want to bring your new expensive toy to a place covered with sand and water? And tell me you can read that iPad in the suns glare and I’ll tell you you’re a liar, sir.

Terrible athlete Trying to Play Sports

Beaches are great to play a various array of sports. Hell, beach volleyball is its own Olympic sport. Either way, playing football, catch with that Velcro ball and paddle thing, paddle-ball, etc is a beach must, especially John. The thing is, the beach appeals to everyone and sometimes the non-athlete in that person rears its ugly head. Throwing a football on the beach is amazing, except when the person throwing it back to you might as well just run and hand it back. Also classic: the father who gets frustrated at his son for being athletically deficient. Ah, lasting family memories... Just let your kid design a sand castle, he’s not interested in learning the proper follow-through technique on throwing a football.

Girls hating other girls

AKA the hot chick that’s wearing the thong. Or the girl that’s rocking a bathing suit that looks crazy good. Or the girl that’s slightly more tan. Or the girl that’s got a wiggle to her walk. Or the girl that kind of glanced your way. Or the girl that’s got the nicer sunglasses. Or the girl that’s drawing more attention to herself. Or the girl that’s impressing the boys with her volleyball skills. or basically any other girl on the beach. Bottom line is, your girlfriend hates all the chicks. Because as soon as the bathing suit is put on, the competition is ON like King Kong.

And men: we think we’re sly, but we’re not. Your girl knows that the reason you put on your sunglasses is so you could stare at other skanks walking by while you pretend to read. And if she doesn’t know that, then she’s dumb, and you should get a new GF who’s grounded in reality. You see a girl that’s a 10, with about that percentage of her body covered and it’s like you don’t even have a choice but look. Your girlfriend will throw out the, “wow is she really wearing that? ugh she’s so fake looking,” line. A real veteran boyfriend will beat the GF to the punch though by saying, oh man, check out that skank. Christ, what a slut. I’m so glad you don’t look like that.

Not Dressed for the beach guy

You have 2 options for footwear at the beach, sandals or nothing, and up top you’re rocking a bathing suit and a t shirt. Well this hombre plays by his own set of rules or he’s on vacation and didn’t pack a swimsuit, because here he comes to the beach in his cargo shorts and tennis shoes. I’ve even seen this guy rocking jeans before, JEANS. Is there a worse beach outerwear product than jeans? I wouldn’t know, because you’ll never see me at the beach with material covering my shins.

Why’s he dressed like he’s heading for a walk in the woods? He “doesnt like the feel of sand” and he’s “not a big swimming in the ocean guy”. I’ve got an idea for you, don’t come to the beach! If this guy decides to cut loose and go for a walk along the water just to “get his feet wet” you know he’s throwing his wallet and phone in his shoes and leaving them at his base camp, not a smooth move. The ‘wallet in the shoe’ move is so played that the last person to get away with it must have been doing it around the time when people were putting their car keys in their visors.

GRILL MASTER FLEX

He may be a little too into the grill scene and his apron that reads, “Grill Master: The Man, The Myth, The Legend” which he thinks is hilarious. This is the same fool who grills outside in the winter time. I mean he had to practice the craft at some point, right? The thing is Grill Guy doesn’t care how his food tastes. He just wants your complements and the praise from the group. “Oh man, Dave, thanks for grilling, this is awesome, bla bla.” People always ask him what he does to make it so good. “What’s in this, oh man it’s delicious!” And the grill guy plays it off like it’s no big thing. “Oh you know, just a little roasted pepper truffle oil, a dash of paprika, and some marinated shallots. And i let that sit overnight... bla bla bla.”

Of course grill guy loves being grill guy so much that he’ll leave out the one key ingredient so that when you cook it, it sucks. Whatever, i guess i can put up with the pompous attitude toward sticking meat on a hot surface. I’ll even overlook the “Grillmaster: the man, the myth, the legend apron he’s sporting. I want to eat.

IT’S TOO HOT GUY

Also know as “It’s too cold guy” in the winter. This guy uses the weather as his go to excuse for never wanting to do anything. There’s nothing he likes more than sitting on his couch and watching people doing activities he never will be doing on TV. Trying to get a pickup basketball game together and need a 8th guy? Don’t bother trying to lure this baby out of his well because you’ll never catch him out in that 78-degree scorcher.

What gets a song played?

2011-08-02T07:45:00.007-04:00

I was in a club the other day, not drunk enough to start dancing I paid close attention to the music videos that were playing and the music in general. I started noticing patterns in the songs, there were some that told people what to do, some that talked about the night and some that singled out people. Just about all of the songs started fitting into different categories in my head, these categories didn't make the songs hits, but they definitely helped get them played. Which lead me to think, what do you put in a song if you want it to get some airtime? Sounds like a job for Pat and John. Jobs not for Pat and John include: Indoor plumbing, car repair, and parenting (at least not that we know of).

Instructions

Some songs give us instructions. They tell us what to do, sometimes its a feeling like don’t worry, be happy or to take it easy but a lot of the time a song obtains hit status by simply telling us what to do when that song is on. Case in point, YMCA. Here is a very forgettable song by a gang of leather daddies and civil servants letting us know where to stay if we want to “hang out with all the boys”, but 40+ years after the village people first yelled, “YOUNG MEN” this song is a mainstay in the lexicon of our society. The reason? White guys can perform the steps. It’s simple, throw your hand out there and point at someone while moving side to side while they’re yelling all the young men business and then turn your body into a human sesame street (song is brought to you by the letter G) sponsor by throwing your hands up and creating a somewhat recognizable YMCA.

Also see: Put your hands in the air, the cha cha slide, the electric slide

Talk about tonight
It’s a night, why not make it a good night? The Black Eyed Peas were all over that with Gotta Feeling. Since that song hit the airways earlier this decade, everyone at any event has “got a feeling that tonight’s gonna be a good night” (la heim). While The BEP’s set their sites on a more manageable “good night”, Bill Medley aggressively said I’ve had the time of my life. Now, everything has lyrics with making the most of your night. Just look at the iTunes top 10 most downloaded songs.
1. Party Rock Anthem - LMFAO
3. Last Friday Night - Katy Perry
4. Tonight tonight - Hot Chelle Rae
8. Superbass - Nicki Minaj
9. Give me Everything - Pitbull

All these songs tell us about something that happened tonight, or last night, or something we should do tonight. Think about it...

Which leads us to the next point: Another way to get your song some time is just put the day of the week in it, Monday, Monday, Tuesday’s Gone, Friday, Saturday Nights Alright, Blue Sunday have all taken the calendar route to airplay. If you notice the pattern here, Wednesday and Thursday are still available for any budding Becca Blacks out there. Someone has had to have made a song regarding Thirsty Thursday right? If not, get on that. You’ve got a hit on your hand because you’ll corner the entire Thursday market. And if it’s got a hip hop beat, that ish is being played everywhere.

Event
"It’s your birthday, we gonna party like it’s your birthday" and “They say it’s your birthday” are some lyrics you’re going to hear pouring through the speakers telling you to “drink Bacardi” and “have a good time” at any birthday party. When June comes around you know you’ll be finding out that “School’s out for the summer, school’s out forever” and all you have to do is open your ears after Halloween to know “Santa Clause is coming to town”

Christmas music has taken writing a song about an event to a whole new level. There isn't any other holiday or even that even has a song written about it that isn't by Adam Sandler (Hanukkah song and Turkey Song). Someone decided that Christmas needs it’s own genre of music, Christmas music. There are probably 2, maybe 3 Christmas songs that could hold up as a “good song” against any other actual “good song” but since it talks about St. Nick or the snow falling, Grandma got run over by a reindeer gets as much airplay in November and December as any Arcade Fire song has gotten over the last five years.

Group of People
There are 3 certainties in life, Death, Taxes and ring-hungry single ladies will always inhabit the world. So Beyonce knew just what she was doing when she proclaimed “if you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it”. Not only is she always going to have people who claim that song is made for them, but what is the #1 group of people that dance at any event? You guessed it, our gay friends. But Single ladies aren't far behind. This formula of hitting a group of people is pretty fool proof. Whether you “feel like a woman,” or are a “single lady,” or a “man eater,” you’ve got something that says, yeah, I’m empowered. And if you like all 3 of those songs, you also could belong to another group: Lesbians, in which case see: “I kissed a girl and I liked it”

City
Creating a song about a city is like being a beat writer for the local little league. Someone from the neighboring town wont care about it, but the people in your geography will be bumping your work in their scrapbook/iTunes for years to come.
You cant leave Fenway after a sox game without hearing “awwwwww Boston you’re my home” or Yankee stadium without “New York, Newwwww yorkkkkkkkk”, although its not fool proof in that, I’m sure that in Iraq they don’t play Bombs over Bagdad at the end of every donkey fight.

Who has taken a trip to Miami after 1998 without hearing “welcome to Miami bienvenido a Miami” playing through their head? And even after we know that the Mommas and the Poppas singer John Phillips was boning his daughter we’re still California Dreaming when we think of the Golden State. In fact California alone has a litany of songs. The Flaming Lips made California maybe the most addicting chorus of all time using just the state’s name. It also was the theme song unfortunately to the OC.

Thanks to 2pac i know “California knows how to party.” Snoop Dogg taught me that LBC is the cool way to say Long Beach, and just about any west coast rapper has informed me through the art of rhyme that south central LA and Compton are probably places I don’t want to be dippin’ through any time soon.

Rappers love talking about their hometown. Who needs to look up a rapper on google to see where they’re from? You just need to listen to 1 out of 5 songs. Jay Z, we know he’s reppin BK, as did Biggie. Dr. Dre hails from Compton but sticks out for other hoods. Hell even Nelly was proud to be from St. Louis.

Bottom line, Just about every place has a song. And if it didn’t have a song, Johnny Cash took care of that.

Sports Related
The 2nd cousin of the “City based songs” are the “Sports Related” songs. It doesn't matter how crappy a song it is, if its about a sport or team it’s going to get played. Case in point, that awful “Play ball!” song that gets played 81 times a year (plus playoffs) at Fenway after the little boy with sickle cell yells play ball into the mike.

Some sports songs can actually hold up on their own, but they’re rare. For every We are the champions (REALLY played out, but a pretty epic song) there are 10 Centerfield’s.

Create a dance that goes with it
If you create a dance to go with your song right off the bat, you don't even need to try when you make the song. Case in point- The Macarana. Did anyone ever know the words to that song other than “ehhhhhhh Macarana, AYE”? (except when your Spanish teacher made you translate it for a homework assignment) The rest of the Spanish yabbering in that might as well have been fake words for all we cared because we’re focusing too hard on remembering that the hands go on your hips and THEN you do that little wiggle right before you doing a quarter turn jump and yell AYE.

Every 5 years someone comes out with some sort of move that goes with a song. Hava naglia anyone? The hokey pokey, twist, cotton eyed joe, c’mon ride it (the train), loco-motion, aforementioned YMCA. How many more dances can there be. Apparently not enough because Soulja Boy taught me how to Superman dat Ohhh. And what’s best is, he didn’t even think of a creative title for his dance. In the 2nd line he just tells us Soulja Boy is the name of the dance. That’s clever marketing.

And now? We’re all being taught how to Dougie.“Teach me how to Dougie” is repeated 12 times in the 3 min song, the song was made to teach you how to “Dougie” and the “Dougie” was made so you’d listen to that song, BRILLIANT. And what makes it even better, You can’t do it wrong, because hey as long as “you do you, I'm a do me,” it’s all good.

Sampling old song
Can’t come up with your own song that’ll get played? Just steal some old song, throw a filter over it to make it sound semi different and sandwich the chorus with 4 lines of rap that don't even have to go with the original song, it’ll get played, just ask Sean Kingston.

Make up your own word
Missing that hook to get your song the right amount of cashe? Make a word up. Where would Kid Rock be today without the word, Bawitdaba? And aside from being a Joker and speaking of the pompetous of love, Steve Miller is also adding words to Websters.

USA
Much like Christmas songs, if you throw USA in a song you’re at least getting played once a year during fireworks, throw a nice beat with it and the sky’s the limit. Look no further than the Vietnam protest song that is Born in the USA. If you asked 100 people what their favorite patriotic song was, at least 83 would come back with Bruce’s tale of going to “kill the yellow man,” why’s that? Because hearing that drum beat and yelling BORN IN THE USA is as good as it gets, who cares about the rest?

In general, most Americans are sheep, and our pro-America boner we all have instilled into us from kindergarten (pledging allegiance), feeds a deep-rooted need to have patriotic crap thrown our way. That’s why anytime we can whip out the U-S-A chant, we’re doing it. I mean, Born in the USA is hardly patriotic, hence the Boss didn’t want Reagan using it for his stump speeches on his campaign. But the be all and end all of patriotic songs, is the over-the-top “God Bless the USA,” by Lee Greenwood. Comedian David Cross has a great bit about this.

Basically he shits on Greenwood for making this song, but you know he would never really “Stand up next to you and defend her still today,” if actually called to serve.

Word that everyone can scream out
When everyone’s getting glossy eyed at a concert, ballgame or wedding all they want is something simple. Well there’s plenty of air play to cash in on if you give it to them. Until Glinter went all Jacko on some kids in the Philippines, getting to yell “HEY” 15 times for every Patriots touchdown was better than the six points themselves. And at a wedding who doesn't love yelling “Hey, Hey, Hey, Heyyyyyyyyy” right after you slowly raise yourself back up from the ground while getting progressively louder?

And now an addition from "Pat and John On..." correspondent Ian Palombo

"Only getting airtime because the artist is young, good-looking, and most likely underage".
These artists aren't good, nor would they ever be heard if the person singing they were 50 pounds overweight, and really brought it home during the french horn solo. Think about it, no one actually liked the god awful sound emitted from Rebecca Black or Selena Gomez's face, but you didn't mind watching their video when your creepy friend posted it on Facebook. The worst part is the parents.. They get to play cute by enabling their daughter's "Beiber Fever". Ya well, I'm on to you. Spending all night camped out to get tickets to Beiber's show, was the nicest thing you've done for your Sally since Dad scored tickets for the whole family to the opening of the new High School Musical movie. (Vanessa Hudgens, anyone?)

The Over Informed Age- Part Deux

2011-07-25T08:27:00.004-04:00

BLOG #2

PHONES

Phones started out as a glorified pager, but unlike beepers, had the ability to call (for about $4 per minute) right at the scene instead of having to respond to a “911” alert on your beeper, and run to a pay phone (remember those things?). But that’s all changed. They have gone from something you have in case of an emergency, to being so important that it’s actually an emergency if you don’t have it on you. They’ve replaced the wallet in terms of importance because you likely have as much financial information accessible on your phone as you do in your bi-fold.

That’s why going somewhere without your phone might as well be the same as going out with no clothes on. You’re stripped of technology. Even if you haven’t used your phone in several hours, the fact that you KNOW you don’t have that thing on you is going to drive you nuts. “But how am I going to look up what other movies Steve Buschemi has been in, whilst I walk to get lunch?” You’re not, and you’re lunch routine is ruined.

If we can compare phones to evolution (personally I believe God dropped smartphones from the heavens) the classic Nokia 3390--better known as ‘the brick’--is the equivalent of that first fish that grew legs and walked on land. The Zack Morris special was definitely the thing that we trace all modern phones to; the phone version of amoebas. But the 3390 was the first one to make cell phones accessible for everyone. And the amazing thing is, you can whack your simcard into that badboy right now, and it’s making a crystal clear call, til the battery craps out 20 minutes in. The phone was indestructible. I once fully submerged my 3390 in water after jumping straight into a pool. A 15-minute hair dryer session later and that thing was back in full use.

“The brick’s” greatest feature though was the ability to guide a growing line toward a small square (supposedly an apple). They called this game Snake. But I called it, “I have to beat Charlie’s score, if it’s the last thing I do.” Everyone had that friend. The friend that posted a mean score and when they said it, it might as well have been Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak or saying you rocked a 1600 on the SATs. But when you got your next phone (likely a Motorola Razr) and it didn’t have Snake, that friend had to boast about something else. Most likely some sort of arbitrary number on Guitar Hero.

Anyway, much like facebook took all of our existing social needs and threw them into a web page, smart phones have taken our duffel bag full of electronics and thrown them into 1 soap bar shaped device. Our Smart phones have officially replaced our needs for anything. Your brain included. I bet if your heart stopped beating, there’s an app for that.

Like the 3390--and pretty much Nokia in general--many devices we all know and love have now been relegated to collecting dust. Remember belt clips that dudes used to wear? They wore those because there was no room left in their pockets. It got so bad that Dockers even developed “technology pants” with like 5 internal front pockets to hold all your shit. Exhibitionists, skeeves, and pervs also enjoyed these pants because it made touching themselves less noticeable. But now, we just need normal pockets again and people with belt clips make life easier for me because if I see someone with a belt clip, I know they can generally be disregarded. I don’t want to be friends with someone who with a belt clip. Unless that person is Batman.

List of things you used to carry around:

iPods

Remember on The Office when Ryan says, “I wish my iPod touch could make calls?” Michael responds that he should get an iPhone, to which Ryan lashes back, “no, it’s different.” I still feel it is different. If you’re running an android phone, I hate playing music through that thing. The interface is awful, and after 10 years of using iPods, I’m just hooked on that as my music device. (apparently John hasn’t discovered the Amazon MP3 app and all of its cloud based glory).

Pat’s right.

But I realize that for most people, iPods are going the way of the dodo, much like how iPods sent CD’s packing. The only reason to really have an iPod anymore is for working out and unless you have the Apple Rice Chex--that is the Nano--you might as well just use your phone anyway.

Calendars

Unless you’re old school, or just old, the days of the “day-timer” are numbered. Not sure when you scheduled that “happy ending” massage? It’s right there on your smart phone and it’s been “pushed” to your calendar on your home computer and work computer. And the best part is, your phone will remind you, “hey it’s time to get a rub and tug” by sending a strong vibration down your inner thigh to get you ready.

Cameras

Remember when you had to have that casio for your graduation present? It was slim (read: 2 inches thick) has a 1 inch LED screen and 3 mega pixels, THREE. Well now your tiny smart phone is rocking an HD-capable lens on the back. I could make the argument that when I know I’m going be taking pictures ahead of time, I still rock my real digital camera. Because who wants 30 over-exposed or blurry pics from their cell phone for their vacation to the Bahamas?

But, what makes phone cameras awesome is that you have it on you all the time. Car burst into flames on the side of the road? Snap! You see Jake Gyllenhaal on the train? Snap! You see a funny sign outside McDonald’s that says “Have you tried our 100% Anus burger”? SNAP! Is someone begging not to be tazed bro? Snap AND Record! All these candid moments used to go unnoticed except to all those that saw it in person. And since everyone is a liar, I never believe anything they would say, so this gives proof.

But, as great as this sounds, the ability to turn everything into a Kodak moment has lead to me knowing what too many celebrity penises look like. It’s not just celebrities though. If my phone is left by itself for a minute, and people are drunk, I’ll go and check my pics gallery 2 weeks later and wonder who left that picture of their testicle on there. Everyone has that friend. (TP, I’m looking at you).

Leaving a camera in the hands of a horny dude who thinks everyone wants some of him is a problem, especially when this camera can automatically deliver said picture to any skank he scores a number from. Cameras on phones have turned into a safety-less loaded gun. We can only hope that in the near future our cameras will recognize the dong that’s about to be sent out and put mysteriously in some void, like a sexting Purgatory. Or at the very least the phone can auto-photo shop a few more inches, see: Farve, Brett).

Camcorders
You’re not going to be filming your family trip to Disney (does anyone actually go back and watch those by the way?) on your phone any time soon, but we’ve already seen how having a video camera at your disposal at all times has affected us. YouTube has become a multi-billion dollar company because of it. Is your dog barking in a way that makes it sound like he’s saying “I love you?” Congrats man. You’ve got 50,000,000 views in the palm of your hand.

Computers

What do you use your computer for 95% of the time? Browsing the internet? checking email? checking facebook? read our blog? youtube? twitter? games? read our blog? porn? reading our blog? Well my friend, put the laptop aside and bust out the smart phone, your sweaty lap will thank you for it... well that’s what the smartphone companies tell us. Phones are great, but they have their limitations. They’re constantly getting better, but they’re just not fast enough unless the website you’re looking up has a mobile web site or an app. (Read: John doesnt have 4G yet and/or a wifi connection). (read: correction -- John has a wi-fi connection, but i still rather use a computer for web browsing).

Home Phones

There used to be these things that people had attached to the wall in their kitchen, you’d call it and have to ask for the member of the family you wanted to talk to by name, which lead to 10 min of small talk with their parents followed by a oh you wanted to speak with Scotty? he’s not here, I don't know where he went.

Well now not only can you call him directly (not that he’ll answer, because no one wants to actually talk to you friends when you can text them), but could you bust out his exact GPS location. Does anyone under the age of 30 even have a house phone? Unless your “Comcast Triple Play” is saving you more money by having a phone line than not having it (not that you actually hook a phone up to the line) the answer to that is No.

Remembering People’s Numbers, or Anything Else Really.
Before I had a cell phone I could rattle off at least 20 people’s phone numbers. Now I don't even know my sister’s. Much like the rest of the tech world, all of our phone numbers, schedules, pictures, memories, mail, important documents and relationships are one high powered magnet away from being erased forever. If only that would work for certain parts of my brain--Read: it already does for John, who has probably the worst memory I’ve ever seen.

John: What? I write a blog with Pat?

GPS
We’ll discuss the greatness of GPS’s in a later blog, but TomTom better hold off on buying that 2nd house in Malibu because dedicated GPS’s wont be around much longer. Without getting too repetitive (see: this whole entry) why would we need to buy something that does one thing when we already have that same GPS shooting cancer rays into our balls sitting in our pocket?

Gaming Systems
Xbox, Playstation and Wii don't have to sweat too much on this one, but while gaming systems are great for intricate, realistic looking video games you can get just as much entertainment out of your phone. Phone games have evolved a long way from snake and solitaire. You can play scrabble against all of your friends, you can fling birds at pigs (if they’re already angry, how do you think they’ll be feeling after getting shot into a wooden pyramid), you can cut ropes and fend off zombies with plants, and all while you’re sitting on the can at work. Phones have proven that no matter how good graphics are, what’s most important is playability and fun. But the key with phone games is that they’re not deeply involved. I just want simple tasks. It’s all about something I can play for 8 minutes whilst I poop or 30 minutes while I take the train home, but just as easily put down.

Lists

Who needs paper? I could write my grocery list on a piece of paper, but will that paper suggest coupons to me based on what I'm buying? or magically sync my grocery list with my girlfriends? Nope. I could remind myself to write a blog about how awful curry smells by putting a post-it note on my desk, but does that post-it note follow me around and remind me every 10 min? does that post it note buzz or make loud noises when i forget to do it? No.

Watches/Alarm clocks

Those things on your wrist that used to tell you what time it was and those boxes next to your bed that made that god awful sound are long gone. (John still uses an old school alarm clock. I’m too cumbersome and just want to mash keys and hit snooze).

As it is, you check your phone every 3.5 seconds to see if anything new happened, you don’t need something on your wrist doubling up on that info, making “Fossil” a self fulfilling prophecy of a brand name. Your phone is charging next to your bed every night, why not have that wake you up? The only downside there is that it kills the “I didn't know today was daylight savings/ the power must have gone out in the middle of the night and re-set my clock to 12:00” excuses for being late in the morning. But it does add the “I forgot to charge my phone and it died in the middle of the night,” excuse.

Smart phones have also:

Ended All Debates

You’re at the bar with your buddies talking about how awful the last transformers movie was, when suddenly one of your buddies claims that some chick he knows was naked in Hot Tub Time Machine. Life might as well have just ended right there because you KNOW that’s not true. In the the past your friend would begin to realize he’s wrong but just end the debate with the, “we’ll agree to disagree” move, or “This is America, you can think what you like,” patriot cop out. Not anymore. Now you pull out that IMDB app and boom, you see she’s been in the same amount of movies as all of you combined, 0. The chick that was naked in HTTM was actually the chick from Mad Men and as you pull up Mr. Skin to check out the scene he’s talking about, you’re buddy is already changing the topic to how good he thought John Ham was in the last James Bond movie.

Let us know what every one's doing

The question what’d you do last night or how was your weekend have changed from actual questions to simple pleasantries thanks to smart phones. As your friend is listing out all of the stuff that he did that weekend, you zone out and answer a text because you already know exactly what he did. You saw him check in at McSully’s on Friday night on foursquare, saw that he drank 6 Budweisers, a Harp and 3 German beers you cant pronounce on Untappd, caught his twitpic of that late night crab rangoon and heard about his banging headache the next day via his, I’m never drinking again claim in his facebook status Saturday at 9:06 AM.

Smart phones have given us the ability to bring everyone we know with us everywhere and have simultaneously taken us away from where we are. We’ve decided that it’s more important to update the world on what we’re doing then it is to do what we’re doing.

But they’re not perfect

Battery

GPS, Camera, Movies, Internet all on a 5 inch screen have its obvious perks as we’ve discussed, but you know the second you start streaming the Office on your Netflix app, you’re not even gonna get to hear the first note of the theme song, because that is 2 min into the episode, and your battery will be long dead by then.

I’m sure 2 years from now our phone will run on upper thigh sweat and we wont have to worry about the battery crapping out every 2 hours, but for now technology has made our phones a major cock tease- Powerful enough to do whatever we want, but only lasting long enough to send 3 texts and check the clock 4 times.

Dead zones
Much like the battery, the phone is only as good as the connection you have. Besides playing a game against yourself or the “computer” you cant do much with your phone if you’re in a dead zone. It’s like having 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife, which isn't all that ironic, don't you think?

Video Chat Every time a phone from the future was shown in a movie or TV show there was a screen on top of it with the the person on the other line’s face. Video phones were straight where we were heading, we’ve been there for a little while now and how often do you use that? Once, twice a year? And those 2 times were to show your buddy how cool your phone was. We’ve realized that actually seeing the person on the other end of the line isn't all its cracked up to be. It really negates the point of the phone, you have to be fully clothed, not on the can, not playing video games while you’re talking and giving 100% attention to the person on the little screen in front of you. If we wanted to go through all of that hassle, we’d just meet up in person, and that is exactly what we’re trying to avoid.

The Over Informed Age

2011-07-18T09:19:00.000-04:00

“Pat and John on...” has been dark since 2009. Kind of like the the opposite of Sammy Sosa. But a lot has happened over the past two years. We’ve left the 00’s (or the oughts) and entered the 10’s (pretty soon the decade will hit puberty). Since we last wrote an article, we had the new trial of the century, the movie about facebook has already been made, and Tiger Woods played 18 holes a day, and he also played some golf too. The first iPad came out since we left, and the second iPad too. Oh and Lebron James went from being awesome and admired to being still awesome, but loathed. Oh and we now know that if 500 people buy a massage on groupon, we can get it for 1/2 price. But more than anything, in that time we’ve become more deeply entrenched in the “Over-Informed Age”. We now have the ability to know what everyone and everything is doing, where they're doing it and so much more, every second of the day, and we can’t get enough of it. Come to think of it, this is the first thing anyone has written --and hopefully read--that's longer than 140 characters since our last blog. Over the next few blog entries we’ll dive into the different aspects of the “Over-Informed Age”.

BLOG #1

Facebook

Back in freshman year of college someone told me about some website called the facebook where you put some info in about yourself and can officially become “friends” with your friends. It was a less creepy myspace since it only allowed college students (another slap in the face to your dumb ass friends who couldn't even get into Community College--but also, it showed you were officially better and smarter than your friends that were at vocational school. I'm looking at you, University of Phoenix). Since then, it’s dropped the “the” and facebook has taken over. It’s replaced photo albums, birthday cards, AIM, “e-vites”, being social, liking things, real life stalking, and for that matter, real life talking too. Walls used to be things you put up to separate rooms from one another. Now you post on them. Facebook has become our one stop shop to keep tabs on anyone and everyone, it has killed the need to ever have a high school reunion again because you already know what everyone is doing, who got knocked up and who doubled in size since you left school. Facebook is a daily high school reunion, and while you’re stalking your way around it’s pages you are sure to run into these people:

Real Friends

They make up a very very small percentage of your “friends” on facebook, but these 10 or 12 people are the real friends you would keep in touch regularly. If this were the 90s, these are the people whose phone numbers you'd memorize. They’re your core group. They’re the ones tagged with you in all of your pictures. You post on their walls and leave snide comments on their pictures, but facebook isn't the thing that's keeping the friendship alive, its just another way to playfully make fun of them. Like calling them fat, or commenting that Freddy Kruger wants his sweater back. Or, simply to reminisce on your good times.

Ex Girl/boyfriends

In the past I’m sure once you broke up with someone, unless you lived in the same town with them or were still in school with them, you never saw them again (Read: John thinks you can still be friends with exes and most relationship advice people would actually comment that it's a testament to the strong character of both people if you can remain friends... but that's neither here nor there. Plus, who else are you going to drunkenly hook up with if you don't stay in contact?). Anyway, you might run into the person 30 years down the road when you’re both married with kids and have an awkward, “you look great” conversation and go on your way, but that was before facebook. Now unless it ended with a restraining order (which probably includes a lifetime ban from being facebook friends) you’re gonna be there for every pound they gain and every guy(or girl) that’s pounding them. Even if you’re happily entrenched in a new relationship and don't care what the ex is doing, facebook will suck you in.

You’ll log on to see your newsfeed throwing you a little heart next to their name saying So and So is in a relationship with Whats-his-face. Like you’re not clicking on that? The thing might as well have said, if you want a bigger dick, click here, because that's probably the only other thing you'd click on as fast.

Anyway, within 4 seconds of seeing this person you’ve already sized them up. In fact, while the page was loading, you already determined based on the name alone you don't like that person.

"Ugh, his name is Gordon. C'mon. What kind of yuppie stuck up name is that?"

Then the page loads up. If they haven't made everything private, BAM! You go right for the pictures. Instantly you've concluded he’s a pussy. And if he can definitely beat you up, you insist you'd have rage on your side, so it'd be no contest. And if you look at that one picture of him, he’s got a semi-lazy left eye, in that ONE picture. Congrats Gordie on your new nickname: "TLC" because you've replaced Left Eye Lopes. And the best part is, even if it was a horrible break up, you're definitely using every new companion as a way to pump yourself up.

"She left me for that guy? He looks like Dwight Schrute (read: George Clooney)."

Oh and every person that ex dates, you can go ahead and scratch that name off the list of names you'd like to name your kids.

And you think you'll grow up, be adult about it, but you won't. Sure, when their birthday comes up, you'll give them the courtesy, “happy bday, hope alls well”. But you'll always take a look at that person's ish from time to time. Once you've been inside another human being, you've unknowingly signed off on the provision that you'll be keeping tabs on each other.

Acquaintances

Who the hell is this guy? John MacKendoo? Click through a few pictures, oh yeahhhhh he’s Mike’s boy who I met at his 4th of July party in ‘06, that kid was the man. Where as in the “olden days” John MacKendoo, or DOOOOOOODE as you were calling him after 13 Budweisers that night, would have fallen out of your life and memory with a banging headache the next day. You find out when he starts dating a new chick, and when he takes a trip with his boys to Bonaroo. You know when his grandfather dies (Sorry to hear about your loss) and when he gets a new pup (Awesome dog man, is that a Cocker-doodle?).

He’s not your friend, but I can guarantee you know more about him then your dad still knows about half of your groomsmen. Oh and the only time you might, MIGHT message this person is in a desperate reach at looking for a roommate. "Hey man, we mat back in '06, I know you live in Delaware. I'm moving there in September. You, or anyone you know looking for a roommate? Trying to avoid the Craigslist thing."

Random hot skanks that your friends are friends with

So you're sitting there looking at your friend's wall when suddenly you see on the left a 1 cm thumbnail of someone that's crazy hot. "HOLY SHIT. Who's that? And how does Dave know them?"

You have no idea who she is but your friend was tagged in a picture with her and lucky for you she doesn't understand how to change her facebook privacy settings so you’ve got 2,000 pictures to go through. By the 300th picture when you’re looking at her eating a family dinner with her grandparents you start to feel a little weird about the whole thing but you power through and BOOM “Cancun 2010” comes up. Nice, bound to be some bathing suit shots there... Fuck you lady's grandpa, thanks for making me feel awful about scanning your grand daughter's pics.

“Come See My Show,” guy

He went to high school with you or you met him at a party in college or you cant really remember how you know him, but you know one thing, he’s playing at The Boom Boom room next Thursday and its only a $5 cover if you RSVP on facebook. It’d be one thing if these event invites came through once in a while, but you can count on them every Wednesday like clockwork to promote the upcoming weekend’s event. Is there anything worse than reading "dude, you gotta come see my band--Soaring Windstar--this weekend. It's going to be sick."

You mutter to yourself, "wasn't your band name, Basket of Fire like 2 weeks ago?". Yeah, but that was before they added this sick new keyboard player and changed their sound from finger-rock, to German influenced Synth-rock.

It's gotta suck to be the one sending out these mass messages. You might as well be the guy on the street corner handing out pamphlets for $10 haircuts. At any rate, you’ll never go to his show unless you're dragged there or arrive by accident. Oh and the band knows that, and you know that, but you RSVP 'Maybe' anyway so you don't look like an asshole. After about, say, 100 invites, you finally hit un-friend.

The Comment/Like Fiend

They may be a friend, an acquaintance, your Aunt or your little sisters friend, but they like you, well maybe that’s a stretch, but they like everything you do on facebook. Sure they’re being nice saying “looks like a great time” on all of your photo albums, and they liked your last 15 status updates, but enough already we get it. I believe Confucius once said, “If you like everything, is it even liking at all?”

The Birthday Bandit

You haven't talked to this person in 364 days. You almost completely forgot about their existence, but every year when you’re birthday rolls around “Happy Bday” appears on your wall from them, will this lead to you catching up with them? Nope, they said their piece and they’ll see you (your wall) again in exactly 365 days.

Family/Boss

You like your Uncle a lot. Your aunt is a great lady. Your 12-year old cousin is real cute and you played a little wiffle ball with them at the last family get together. They’re great people and you like them. And you might even like your boss, but honestly, facebook opening its doors to everyone was just about the worst thing for young people everywhere.

Facebook has brought everyone to the same level. The people you hardly know, your best friends, your coworkers, and your family. They all get to see the picture of you gargoyling a keg at some party. They all get to see the video of your drunken excuse for dancing. Does your aunt really need to see that? I never got to see that from them. And you think they didn't have wild days?

Remember the days when you could post whatever you wanted about yourself?

"This ecstasy, is UNREAL."

"I fucking hate my job. This company blows."

"3 Days. That's the answer to "how long can you stand being around your parents?"

Those days are over my friend. Now that your parents/boss are friends with you, you can go ahead and chuck out being 100% honest about anything. In John's case, this means curtailing his atheist feelings and this blog from his mom. For Pat, it's un-tagging a few pictures... ok a lot of pictures. Oh and when a parent comments on something, forget about it. You might as well have just gone to a party with your mom. Oh and you were tagged in that album too.

The Bragger

You've got that friend who is clearly making more money than you at a much better job. Or they got into a more prestigious school and everyone has to know about it.

"Flying to Monte Carlo for work. The job has its perks :)"

You're going to need a new computer monitor because you've just punched it.

"Studying for my super extra hard exam that you'd never understand because you don't go to Harvard Law like I do."

That person can go ahead and get a PhD in ‘Go F yourself.’ No one wants to hear about how much you're killing at life and how much I'm barely getting by. In fact when the bragger says something bad, that's definitely reason for celebration.

The Uber Post-er

Even if they're your best friend in the world, seeing someone post at a rate of 30 posts a day is nauseating.

Dear Diary

This person uses facebook like its their digital therapist. If they’re having a bad day, the world needs to know, if their girlfriend broke up with them, the world needs to know, if they’re in love with their new boyfriend the world needs to know, via a quote from the notebook. This person has a lot going on and they want everyone to know about it. We’re all happy that you’re in love, sucks that you got dumped, happens to everyone, I’m real sorry to hear about your uncle. But isn't there anything you want to hold in and let fester inside until you inevitably implode in a rage of emotion to the unfortunate person that accidentally brushed shoulders with you in the street? What ever happened to some privacy in our lives? I don't know, probably because I was too busy stalking someone on facebook.

The Person that isn't on facebook

The above people are pretty bad, but this person is the WORST. They’re not on Facebook. And the reasons vary, but it normally falls into these categories:

- I don't need it / I already talk to the friends I care about most

Translation: I'm too stubborn and jaded to reconnect with old friends and I don't really want to help myself make more.

- I got caught cheating on it, so I deleted my account

Translation: Jeez, my life would be so much easier with my gf if she didn't know I was cheating so much.

- Personal Protest / I'm too cool for it

Translation: I'm not really that cool myself, oh, and that band you're listening to sucks.

- Crazy about their privacy

Translation: I've got something to hide. Possible pedophile.

Whatever the excuse is, it sucks. As much as facebook is an easy target to rip on and as pointless as 99% of it is, not being on facebook is like that person in 2000 who didn't have a cell phone. Can you imagine someone being like, "hey can you hold on? I need to run home and check my voicemail."

And how about if you want to invite a bunch of friends to something. Now, you need to invite 19 people on facebook, and then email the 20th jerk, which makes you wonder, why am I even friends with this person. I mean it’s not even facebook official.

Because of the shear fact that everyone else is in on it, it makes you the asshat for being out. So step down from your pedestal and join the rest of us in the “Over-informed Age” and stalk some people on facebook... or google plus.

(Ex) Smoking

2009-09-25T10:04:00.004-04:00

So here’s the situation. Someone smokes. Then, they stop smoking, and everyone comes over and says, “Congratulations, you stopped smoking?!?”
People gush over them and ask all these questions:“Is it as hard as you thought?”
“Are you chewing the gum?”
“Do you have big cravings?”
And my personal favorite, “Oh my god, you’re quitting cold turkey?”

People can never believe someone is quitting cold turkey. It’s always shock and awe. It’s as if this person has just finished fighting something truly difficult, like they just came back from Iraq or overcame AIDS, or overcame AIDS in Iraq.

Maybe I’m cold, but why are we congratulating them? I refuse to say “good job.” Why should I congratulate someone for quitting? How hard can it be to make a decision to spend less money, be healthier, and look better? What a tough choice that must have been. "Well I can continue to infinitely increase my chances of getting cancer, heart disease, and look and smell like crap--OR--I could be healthier."

How about we don’t congratulate them, instead, we thank the ex-smokers for not smelling like shit anymore and ask them only one question, “how could you be so dumb to start?”

Better yet, when someone says they stopped smoking, I turn the attention to me.
“I’ve been smoke-free for 24 years. Yeah I did it, cold turkey. Where's my medal?"

Smoking Breaks

I thought segregation ended in the 50's, but no it still goes on today. It’s no longer black and white, its smokers vs non-smokers (black vs. white lungs). It's one of the most overlooked slights in society today.

Smokers have a clear advantage over non-smokers in the workplace. If you’re a smoker, you get to go on a smoke break whenever you want cause you need to quench your craving. How is that fair? You crave a ciggy so you get to step outside and relax, not working, enjoying the fresh, well not so fresh air with your heater. You know what I have a craving for every 2 minutes during the work day? The craving to NOT be working. Can I step outside for 5 min at a time to stand there and stare at the wall or talk to my buddy? No, I'd just be slacking, or avoiding working, its just not accepted. But the min I'd pick up smoking? BOOM, you need a smoke break? Go take one.

And they think the "truth" adds will deter kids from smoking? If you really want to deter kids from becoming smokers AND make society healthier, take the smoking breaks away from the puffers and give them to us non-smokers. Let us go outside for a few min and stand against the wall talking to our non-smoking friends. Let us stand out there and eat caramels, cause in the words of the great Will Hunting, its just as ahhhrbitrary.

People with Smoking Stipulations

This is a pet peeve of mine. I hear this all the time from people, even from my own girlfriend, best friend, and once, with my step sister: “I hate smoking, except when I drink.”

What the hell is that? How can you hate something in one state of mind, but love it when inebriated? If anything, drinking only further enhances your feelings about stuff. If a dude is all about something, say a football team, or is heated about some douche hitting on his girlfriend, introducing drinking is only fanning the flame. So if you don't smoke, shouldn't you hate it more when you're enjoying some adult beverages?

There are certain things that are acceptable to like more when you’re drinking: singing, being obnoxious, eating pizza at 2:30 a.m., and dancing like a moron. Smoking a ‘cool stick’ is not one of them.

Moving Day

2009-08-26T12:47:00.003-04:00

Moving sucks. There’s no doubt about it. It’s one of those so-called “necessary evils” in life. If you want to upgrade to a bigger place, a nicer place, a better place, you’ll have to move and there’s no way around it. That is unless you have movers doing it for you, in which case you’re made of money, because moving not only puts dents in your walls, but also your wallet.

Expenses:
Let’s start with U-Haul, Ryder, Budget, etc. They’ve cornered the moving truck market. Sure the truck says “RENT ME FOR AS LITTLE AS $19.99.” Yeah, but even if you’re moving just 8 miles like I did, you’re not walkin’ out of the joint without spending at least four times that much. As it turned out, My B and I paid $93.00. How did that happen? I’ll never know. Just like the cable company, (a rant for another day), and food at a stadium/movie theater, you know you’re about to get ripped off, but what else are you going to do? Put a three-seater couch on your Civic? Also try walking out of there without the guy behind the desk offering about 30 things to you before handing you the keys.

So all you want is a truck and a dolly?
What about insurance?
Blankets?
Furniture dolly?
Boxes?
Towels?
Clothing boxes?
Movers?
Protective air cushions?
Bubble Wrap?
Packing peanuts?
Packing tape?
Masking tape?
Duct Tape?
Scotch tape?

The truck itself is insane. Is there a louder ride on the planet? I think the guys on the first Apollo rocket were like, “THIS ROCKET IS LOUD, BUT AT LEAST IT’S NOT A UHAUL!” Also be prepared for some wheel alignment issues. Holding the wheel straight means you’re turning right at a 30-degree angle. And the ride? Forget about it. It’s amazing more stuff doesn’t break because Dr. Dre in is ’64 Impala thinks you’re bouncing around. You ever see the vintage footage of the army testing the first Jeeps? It’s something like that.

Moving Attire:
The moving attire is a very overlooked part of moving, you've gotta be prepared for anything moving throws at you, which is why you wear:

- Old Shirt: a shirt that you never care about seeing again, not only is it going to smell like the Johnston Landfill by 8:45 a.m. because you’re moving on the hottest day of the year (the weather gods always wait on this day till the day you move) but also because that shirt becomes a dirt rag. You're using the bottom of that to dust the top of a shelf off, or wipe your dirty hands on, as a band aid for your cut finger, that shirt is getting abused, its a mercenary, your throwing it to the hounds, and its not coming back in one piece. The other thing about this shirt? It’s Free. You didn’t even win this shirt. You were given this shirt. It’s that shirt you got while you were walking on the street and some guy from “Earth Day Awareness” group or some other non-profit handed you it but you felt too bad tossing it out.

- Pants: Moving has to be why they invented cargo shorts; they're a UHAUL that fits on your waist. They've got more pockets than you know what to do with, or at least that’s what you thought until you used them on moving day. You're using every one of those pockets and wishing you had more. You've got 8 different keys to: cars, trucks, apartments, closets, locks, everything you can imagine. You've got your cell phone, wallet, ropes, tape measures, nails, screws, notes, directions, and half of your silverware, and that’s just in one cargo pocket. Bottom line is, you've got everything you can fit in those pockets, and you wish there was more room.

NOTE: Not wearing a belt on moving day with your cargo pants is like going to a party with a boner & sweatpants.

- Shoes: I've moved in sandals a few times, but you’re going to want to wear a good pair of sneakers. Nothing ruins a move like a bureau coming down on your big toe, that'll ruin a day or three and your friend will have to pick up the slack, making the favor of moving even more unbearable then it originally was

- Backwards Hat: This is not an essential, but this is the first accessory. Something’s got to hold back that sweat from dripping into your eyes and nothing says “I’m Moving” like a backwards hat. Now you could sport a backwards on a regular day, but what makes the moving-day edition different is the fact that it’s your worst hat. It’s the hat you use to do anything that will sustain large quantities of sweat. This normally means it’s an adjustable hat also. And on any other occasion, a backwards+adjustable hat looks ridiculous, but on moving day, or days where you mow the lawn, an adjustable backwards lid is passable and completely understood.

Effect on Friends

First off, asking a friend to move is something you hate doing, you know no one wants to help you move, but your real good friends are almost obligated. You know it, they know it, the people standing around overhearing the conversation know it. You tell them you just signed a lease on a new apartment to bring up the move innocently, and the wheels in their head start churning up excuses.... They're thinking, oh shit, a new apartment, that means a move, he's about to ask me to help, think of something quick, come on, come on, what could I possibly think up for that weekend...family reunion? Way too obvious of a lie. Dad's birthday? He's already had 3 birthdays this year. Shit! Sister's birthday? He'll see it's a lie on facebook. Dog's birthday? It died 3 years ago, that wont work. ahhhhh time's up. This is exactly why you ask your best friends because you know them too well to know when they’re making up an excuse to get out of helping you.

The best way to ask someone to move is to go with the old, “Can you help move a few things?” Now that's the biggest understatement of the century, can you help me move a few things? A few things? More like EVERYTHING I OWN. A few things is: boxes, beds, bookshelves, desks, lamps, rugs, plates, silverware, and not to mention the sleeper sofa from 1954 that their apartment's previous owners left behind, because no one has good enough friends to help them move that, well besides you. You’re signing them up for a day that World's Dirtiest Job's won’t even go near, Moving Day.

On Moving Day you wake up at 7 am to get a jump on it, go grab your truck and you're good to go. You've got the energy of 4 red bulls because you're moving and even though you don't actually want to move all your crap you’re kinda excited for your new spot. By moving day, your old spot is always a piece of trash that you don’t know how you ever lived in and your new place has a celestial glow around it. Your buddy comes over at 830, which if moving wasn’t enough, you make them give up their Saturday AND wake up early. Even though they say no problem a hundred times, you know they're just thinking of what evil things they can do to you on their next moving day.

So if you help a friend move, you’re owed big time. The only equal thing that makes up completely is your friend helping you move. Otherwise, nothing can make up for it totally. Treating your friend to lunch/dinner, taking care of their dog, etc, that’s all a nice attempt but you don’t get off the hook that easy. You’ve got that on him/her for as long as you’re friends. 40 years from now you could be like, “Hey Pat, can you help me hide this double homicide I just did? C’mon dude, you owe me, I helped you move that one time four decades ago.” And sure as the sun coming up, Pat would be there helping me dispose of a corpse. If he didn’t that would be terms for breaking off our friendship. Why do you think no one helped OJ Simpson with hiding those dead bodies? That crime scene was a mess. Obviously, he and his friends are too rich to help each other move, they had movers, and thus no one was obligated to help him that fateful night.

A Special Comment on My Time at Odysseys Unlimited

2009-03-27T13:02:00.005-04:00

Odysseys Unlimited: Where the only thing limited is the fun.

It’s not that I hated this company. That’s not the case at all. In fact when it comes to the people, I like most of them except for some people who shall remain nameless, cough cough CLAUD_A and R_TH. Can I just tell you all a story about that latter old bag? Nearly every day, for three consecutive weeks, I would sit at the front desk from 12-1 where I would fill in for the receptionist while she went to lunch. Of course many of OUI’s patrons would go out to lunch during that time and I would say ‘hi’ or ‘how’s it going’ or something to be courteous. Well this cousin of one of the Munsters would go out to lunch and for nearly three consecutive weeks, this socially deficient slug of a human--who ironically is in a customer service position--seemingly made it a point not to say “hi” to me when I would initiate a conversation. I don’t know why, I never said or did anything bad to this lady. I had hardly spoken to this lady whom I assume is the Hunchback of Notre Dame’s mom. Not only was there a lack of total common courtesy with this gas bag, but all-in-all, she was a very off-putting person. A prime example is when I would see her stare, rather judge, the other women at the office. Her eyes would start at shoes and go all the way up to one’s head and back down and back up once again. This process took about, say, 30 seconds. Think about how long that is. Count in your head 30 seconds. Now imagine talking to a 50-year old lady who looks like a life size chia-pet giving you a condescending up-down. At least that’s not awkward at all. Like I’ve said, some people are strange and quirky, but in a good way. Not this lady. She’s just fucking bizarre in the worst way possible.

Next item of business about Odysseys Unlimited Company. Wait, did I say company? I meant Elementary school, because that's what that place made me feel like I was in. I was not treated like an adult, and nor was anyone else, unless you were one of about a select group of five or so. While sitting at my desk, my soul felt like it was dying and my superiors acted as preying vultures waiting to eat my spoiled soul-innards.

Sometimes I felt like getting up and saying, "I do not need to be watched 24/7 believe it or not. I really don’t!"

I’m a full grown adult with a college degree--not to put myself on a pedestal or something because, let's face it, Quinnipiac ain't Harvard (despite the fact it thinks it is)-- but, I was being checked on an average of once every 10 minutes to see if I was working. I know this because my superiors had no business being where I was located. Maybe if the company weren't going bankrupt I'd have more stuff to do. Perhaps my managers should worry more about acquiring customers than seeing if I'm checking my email. One boss in particular whom I referred to as “Bomp Bomp,” because those were the first two sounds to the Jaws theme music, truly earned his nickname. Sometimes I think his title was “Professional Watcher.” Perhaps I'm being unfair. I mean when they weren't looking I was doing lines of cocaine at my desk while planning my next terrorist attack, so I guess they had the right to be suspicious. Maybe my bosses were circling around because they wanted me to put my head down with my thumb on my desk and play “heads up 7-up.” That would have at least made me feel the age I was treated. But that would have never happened because that would be fun, and fun was something that was not tolerated. Nor was talking...

That leads me to conversations:

School used to be the place where I met my friends. But now I don't go to school, I go to work. The point I'm getting to is, you spend eight hours, five days a week, 12 months a year at your office, with only two or three weeks off. The very idea that you should not talk or converse or god forbid, become friends with these people is utterly ridiculous. The good people at OUI believe that their office should be run and managed the same way as a school, only without the perk of recess, gym, or... um... lockers. On several occasions two of the ladies at the office were reprimanded for having conversations with each other. During the course of a day, these conversations probably totaled, say 10 minutes at the most, If that. That's supposing they talked to each other 5 times a day for two minutes per convo on average. It's not like they didn't do their work though, so I just don't see the big deal. I could understand if a company saw people talking all the time and that led to never getting work done, but that wasn't the case in this instance. A memo was then handed out to members of the office about talking.

What I gathered from this is that the company values silence over complete ineptitude. You can be proned to making mistakes, panicking, or be as dumb as a rock, but as long as you are as silent as one, you're a highly valued component to the office. But if you get your work done in a timely, efficient, and mistake-free manner, and have a few laughs to get yourself through the day, you are looked upon as a cancer. This is bad business in my opinion. Having an office of people that talk to each other and think of one another as friends more than simply, "that person I work with," would seem to offer better work atmosphere and make situations, such as dealing with errors, easier to confront one another with. I don't know call me crazy.

LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY

I'm fairly new to the work world, but I'm familiar with idea of "office politics," and never did I think things would be as petty and lame as they were here. In no example was this more evident than accountability. When someone made a mistake, it was never their fault, ever, even though all parties involved knew exactly what was going on. No one is able to simply say, "yeah, that was my fault, and here's how I'll fix it." Instead it's a game of finger pointing and 'he said, she said,' BS that never gets fully resolved. Maybe it's from having been involved in sports, but I always feel like I should burden the blame in an attempt to simply move forth from the problem. If I did something wrong, I made myself accountable and I explain to the boss where it must have gone wrong and adjust what it was that went wrong and move on. But no did that here. I feel like there are people that WANT to, but don't for fear that someone else is throwing them under the bus in the process.

In the same bane as lack of accountability is another ugly sore on the company:
Lack of Superior's Communication

Did I do something wrong "Bomp Bomp?" Well what's the big deal in telling me yourself? I'm not going to hate you for it. Just tell me. You're not that fucking busy. I know you want to put a giant wall between me, the peasant, and you, the king, but you can't put much of a wall up if I can see you in your office the whole day from 20 feet away. Instead his complaint would have to follow a chain of command, from A to B to C to finally Me somewhere around Q. It seems as though this is a waste of time and a sure fire way to have not just poor communication, but outright confusion. What if I have a question? Does that need to go from me to C to B to A again? Lame dude, lame. Of course I never received a verbal face-to-face meeting. No no no, that was too hard. And so were phone calls. I received all my info via E-Mail...

E-MAIL

What a faceless and shitty way to do business. Can we just talk a minute about how lame Email is? So lame. Every piece of communication given to me by my bosses was given to me via Email. Just tell me you want something done. I can see you from my cubicle typing up the Email you're about to send me. It would be faster if you used the telephone network established here. Another note about Email, not every single email needs to be copied to "all employees." I received probably over 2,000 Emails in 3 months. Maybe 12 of those involved me, probably less. And there's so much business happening behind closed doors at this office that even though you see an email is sent to X, Y, and Z, you know the boss is being BCC'd on that shit, but no one "knows" it, but at the same time, everyone knows it.
Other Quickie Complaints:
- You sent me an Email 5 minutes ago. Why would you come up to me and ask me if I got the email? Think about it: You sent me an email, and now you've walked all the way over to me to me to ask about it. Why not just cut the first part out of the equation and just tell me.

- When telling me something like, say, "John we're letting go of the temps to clear room for the economic downturn," it would be nice if I knew face-to-face instead of through an Email. If I had not asked about my future and been proactive in finding out my future with the company, I would have found out via email. This is the equivalent of being dumped on Facebook. Truth be told, as I was being let go, a huge company-wide Email regarding wage reductions and budget cuts was released. Wouldn't that be something better addressed in person too? Something like a company meeting? You're a manager for a reason. You are supposed to make tough decisions, that's why you make more money. So as such, grow a fucking pair and just let us know what's up.

- Speaking of meeting: Temps were not allowed to go to company meetings. What the hell is that about? Seriously. You think I'm going to sell off all your secrets to the highest bidder? Don't think too highly of yourselves OUI, honestly. You're a travel company, not the fucking CIA. I'm not leaking secrets to the Russians.

A Final complaint:

During my time there, I have come to find out I was cheated and taken advantage of in the form of hundreds if not thousand of dollars in taxes and health benefits. You see, I was paid as an independent contractor, meaning legally I was technically my own boss. I could have come and went as I pleased, but I did not. If i walked out at 5:29 instead of 5:30, my managers would have shit their pants. The whole thing breaks down like this: If I worked eight hours, using the company's materials, which I obviously was, I was entitled to the same exact rights and benefits as the person sitting next to me. That's not me saying that. That's the law.
On top of it all, being an independent contractor, I was charged taxes at the same rate as a corporate entity, because again, I was my own boss. Therefore, I was taxed nearly 20% on my tax return as opposed to more than half of that which I should have been. I was cheated and taken advantage of, and I saved the company hundreds, if not thousands in taxes and health benefits that I now am responsible for. Just one more slap in the fucking face. Some years ago, Microsoft was sued for millions of dollars for doing this to hundreds of employees. That's why companies use temp companies now. And the worst part is, I think the company knew this, which means not only are they as cheap as I thought they were, but they're heartless and cruel on top of it.

Flying on the Airplane

2009-01-16T16:04:00.009-05:00

So every stand up comic has a bit about airplanes and the airport, so why shouldn't we? Seinfeld asks us why we don't chew through the seat belt and mocks how they also tell us how to put on a seat belt in case we haven't been in a car since 1965.

George Carlin tells us about the jargon used to get on the plane. "Everybody get ON the plane. Fuck you I'm getting IN the plane. Let Evil Kenevil get ON the plane."

So in typical Pat and John style, here's the list of people you could be sitting next to on the plane.

Before we start on the people though, let's just say there's several main things that go into this moment. When you're sitting in your seat already and you see the row of people coming down the aisle of the plane, the key is not to make eye contact. Never make eye contact with any of the people listed below, because that's a "one way ticket" to getting sat next to and that 5-hour flight to California is now suddenly 10 hours. Also, before we get onto people, a brief list of things in the plane.

Pre-Flight instructions (seat belts: High-Tech Shit)

I don't know about you, but we've flown a lot. But no matter how many times I (John) always look at the Stuarts/stewardess. As crabby and shitty they can be, they're still trained to know what the F to do in a bad situation. Look at the plane that ditched in the Hudson the other day. I don't mind listening to the little "what to do in an emergency" show. What i don't want though (Southwest Airlines, I'm looking at you) is your phony little stand up performance. "In the occurrence we lose cabin pressure, please put your mask on first before assisting others. Then, pick your favorite child and help them first." HA HA. Very nice little one-liner there. I didn't know I was on the plane with Air Marshall Lisa Lamponelli here.

Beverage Service: Here comes the beverage cart asshole

Now there's nothing more key than getting that free drink. Drunk Guy gets the $5 nips, but the rest of us get the soda. My question is, why do they still serve tomato juice? Are enough people getting bloody mary's to warrant keeping cans of tomato drink (drank) on the plane?
Anyway, there's a few things you know are going to happen. Your cup you get, it's got cylindrical ice cubes. I think the airlines have a contract with Circular Ice Co. If you're on an international flight, you're getting one of those bad ass little 8 oz. soda cans. So key. Another thing you're getting is poor timing. Either they come by with the trash 2 minutes after handing your drink out, or they're not coming for 3 hours. Neither situation is good. Chug down your Diet Coke or have an empty cup (you've already eaten all the ice cubes) sitting in the seat-back pocket in front of you which is inconvenient too.

Now onto that F-ing beverage cart. Remember in Braveheart when they're trying to bust down them doors of the castle with that huge contraption? It's like 6 tree logs on wheels. Well that thing had nothing on the beverage cart. If they had a beverage cart back in the day, people wouldn't have even tried locking doors to the castle. They'd see that luggage cart and be like, "ugh just open the door, we don't stand a chance." And that's the stance you should take if you're on the aisle seat. If your elbow is over the armrest even 1/2 and inch, your funny bone's not gonna be laughing very long. Oh and unless you're interested in losing like 1/2 your foot, you best keep that thing in front of you til the coast is clear. The thing is, the flight attendants know this, and they don't care. The cart might as well be a monster truck and you're head, which is leaning in the aisle cause you fell asleep, is the junky car it's going to devour. Beware the Bevie Cart.

Snacks

To cut costs, it seems no airlines pony up for a meal anymore. No sir, the days of those wonderful little tasty meals are over. So now you're getting a "Snack Pack" if you're on Southwest, or a choice of 2 snacks on JetBlue. I don't know what United or American are doing these days, but for $200 more you can feel free to pay their airfare and find out. Anyway, what it boils down to is, you're getting chips and a pack of cookies. The HUGE peanut bag is still customary, but if they're not the honey-roasted peanuts, I don't even want to see them. Cashews are money though. Either way the best thing to do is buy some food in the terminal for 7 beans. And the best part is when you whip out that club sandwich or salad (Or Samauri Sam's Teryaki Chicken if you're ever in Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport Terminal 4) you're going to be the envy of all those sitting around you. It's like you've just brought out the leftover pizza during elementary schooldays.

In-flight entertainment

Now not every one's going to be joining the Mile-High club on their way to their destination, so fact is, you're going to need some shiz to do.
Some airlines do it right. If you're flying int'l with British Airways, they have a bevy of movie channels that have multiple movies on them for free and some top quality sitcom-only channels. Virgin airlines used to have Super Nintendo, don't know they still do now. JetBlue's got 39 channels of live DirecTV. That shit's epic. But if you're flying Southwest, welcome to the desert wasteland of entertainment. Although to be fair, you paid like 40 bucks to fly to Ft. Lauderdale so what were you expecting? So now it's up to you to entertain yourself. When you were little, that Game Boy was huge for this. Now we've stepped into the 21st century. It's all about the Tetris app you downloaded on your iPhone in the WiFi terminal along with the Pineapple Express and 3 podcasts (Savage Love Podcast, Jim Rome Podcast, and What You Should Know Podcast) you DL'd too. Or there's those things, books. HAHAHAHA, yeah, who reads those.

And now...Who you don't want to sit next to:

Chatty Cathy

You sit down in your seat and get ready to get some reading done or catch up on some sleep, but the chick sitting next to you in 24B has a different idea. They didn't bring any means of entertainment, except for you of course. They start off with the usual plane small talk, "i hope we take off on time" "oh your going on vacation how nice" "well I was born on a cold August day in 1945..." you get to a point where you just give up on sleep or reading and hope the plane goes down cause that's the only way this torture is going to end.

Fat Dude

The proverbial fat guy. Southwest Airlines made a big deal several years ago when they said the would begin charging two seats to big dudes and dudets. They did that because no one wants to sit next to this guy. As mean as it sounds, it's true. The fat's peeling over the armrest. If they need to get by you, it's a "huge" hassle. You know they're going to be sweaty too. In a way fat guy shares similar traits to B.O. Guy only worse, cause he's fat. Fat Guy is even more awkward because you know they know they're fat and it's uncomfortable for them too. Awful.

Sleeps on your shoulder guy

He's had a long week of work and he's gonna catch up on some sleep on the way to his meeting, unfortunately for you sitting in the aisle, he's got the middle seat, the no mans land of flying. If you have the window seat you might as well have a bed because that wall is perfect for sleeping on, and if you have the aisle seat you don't have any support but hey at least you can stretch your legs, but this middle seat guy is tired and that head is bobbin back and forth like the ball in Atari's pong, that is until it reaches its final destination; your shoulder. He subconsciously lands there and finds great comfort in it, creeped out not knowing what to do you shrug your shoulder, slow at first, until the first 50 don't work then your looking like your in seizure with the full body shrugs your giving off, of course you could always wake him up and say, um, excuse me, but that'd just be awkward.

Seat reclines into you guy

You're sitting in your seat minding your own business when all of a sudden your knees just got the hammer dropped on them and you have some dude's bald spot in your grill. So of course you kick his seat a little bit and when that doesn't do anything you have to join him in his skulduggery and lean your seat back into the person behind you, this causes a domino-like chain reaction. Every one's now on the lap of the person sitting behind them, sucks for the guy in 35 E, he's got the wall behind him and that seat is going no where.

Plane is a bar guy

he's getting his vacation started early, it may be 8am on a Wednesday but its 5:00 somewhere and that's where he's headed. He starts off with a bloody mary for 15 bucks and moves right into a honey I shrunk the handle sized vodka then tells the "broski" to throw him a few Heinekens for good measure. It's all about those nips and before you know it, he's been drunk and hungover on the same long ass flight.

Diarrhea guy

- This guy made the horrible error of getting the 2-day old Sbarro cheese pizza in the terminal, and now he's paying for it in the worst way. This guy's gotta go, early and often, and of course he's got the window seat in your row. He's climbing over you like your a hurdle and he's going for the gold, or the porcelain at least. Despite your best efforts, you can't get out of this guys way fast enough. At least there is a lot of space between seats so its easy for him to get by you, OH wait. So you pack up your tray table, laptop, book, bag of peanuts, and drink, stand up and let him walk by only to have to do it again when he comes back in 2 min, rinse and repeat.

Bin Hog

This guy decides to save some time and hassle by throwing his full-sized suitcase in the overhead bin. The thing that no one else knows in row 19 is that it's his bin and we're just livin' in it. With complete disregard for everyone else's little carry-on bags, he pops this bin's cherry by slamming the giant suitcase in there and he's forcing that thing in there like this was some sick luggage porn. After shoving that thing in there, Bin Hog guy tries to close the bin which obviously wont close over his gargantuan monstrosity. This guy, who's never been determined to do anything in his life will not let this go. He could just think, "oh I should probably check this, it's not working." Nope! Instead he gives it the old college try and slams the thing a little harder as if the overhead bin was asking for it: A little harder Bin Hog, A little Harder! That's when you, the witness to this whole fiasco, hears the glass souvenir beer mug you bought, break. Ironic of course because you carried that ish on the plane so you could keep an eye on it. Hopefully your friend likes his new shot glass and 10 shards of glass. Whomp. The thing is, statistically, you're going to get your bag 98% of the time, so why not travel light instead of lugging that thing all over the fuck terminal? It's just not worth saving 5 minutes.

B.O. guy

Who let that onto the plane? This guy makes the taxi driver on the way to the airport smell like fucking roses. Either this guy hasn't showered in 4 days and he's just coming back from 3 forgettable nights from the office company party weekend at the Las Vegas Hyatt, or he's French. Whatever his story is, you're stuck with one fact: This guy fucking wreaks. This guy smells so bad that even the pilot is like, "Damn, what the shit is that smell?" I mean, things could be worse. At least you aren't stuck in a tin box with the same re-cycled air for the next 6 hours, oh wait, that's exactly where you are. By the time you get off the plane even your aunt who you haven't seen in 8 years doesn't wanna get close to you. She's thinking that you've graduated college and now work in the municipal landfill.

The Plane is My Office Guy

He's got some work to do and he's in a suit, so in his mind that makes him clearly more important than you. Oh, that armrest you thought was for the two of you, it's part of his desk now. In fact he's starting to put up pictures of his family on the seat back in front of him and he's putting up his Dilbert calendar, too. With the ambiance now set for working, out comes the computer, the notebook, the folders, the books...he's got business stuff, stuff we'd never know about, to take care of for the next few hours and you're going to pay the price for it. Hopefully you brought your headphones because for the next few hours it's going to sound like the intro to "Murder She Wrote," up in here. I mean, that is unless you like flying to the soundtrack of slamming keys.

Barf Guy

I've never run into barf guy but he's gotta exist, i mean they put those barf bags on the plane for a reason. My biggest fear with this potential barf guy is that he wont get to that bag in time, and even if he does, that's a small target to hit, and not much of an area to fill up if he really goes at it. The last thing you need on your 6-hour flight across country is some over flow spewing on your pants, gross. As someone who is seriously phobic of barfing (John) I have nothing to add to this.

Nervous Nellie

This .guy/lady hates flying. This person is John's mom. If it were up to her she'd be with John Madden on his cruiser bus driving across country. Unfortunately, her boss needs her to be in San Antonio tomorrow for a big presentation so she's on her way, and what's worse for you, she's not taken Dramamine or anything to make her drowsy. White knuckles and veins piercing out of the neck as the plane speeds down the runway are all you can see. As a human being you feel like you need to help her out so you try to calm her down by telling her it'll be fine, you've flown a million times and something is more likely to happen to you on the drive to the airport then when your on the plane. But at the mention of the word crash or accident in your explanation of the safety of an airplane, she shits her pants. Once the plane is up in the air, the tension subsides, a little. But we're still on defcon 5 alert stage here. The first sign of turbulence and she's right back to sweatin' this thing. The worst part is, you, who's not scared of flying, is now suddenly picked up on the panic, and you are also way more jumpy than you'd ever care to be. Oh and if the fasten seat belt sign comes on once again at cruising altitude, it's Armageddon. You want to help, but at some point it's not worth your own sanity and you just gotta throw on your headphones and chill the F out.

Kids/Babies

You never want to be on a plane with kids. Ever. The worst part is, they triple your chance of annoyance. If they're in your row, they're not shutting up. If they're in front of you, your seat back in front of you will be shaking like it's a freaking earthquake. If they're sitting behind you, forget it. Those feet will be pounding and kicking your seat all, flight, long. There's no winning with kids, sorry.

Sick Guy

There's always sick people on the plane, that's just how laws of percentages work. If 200 peeps by on the plane, at least 1/4 of them are sick probably. What you're hoping for is that you don't have to sit next to one of these people. How bad is that feeling when you sit down and dude's got like 3 travel packs of tissues out because he expects he will be using all of it. The sneezing, the coughing, the gross noises: it all adds up to you being sick in like a week.

Happy Traveling from Pat and John!

FASHION is FIERCE

2008-12-04T23:02:00.022-05:00

Several weeks ago, we blogged about sports and therefore alienated our female, gay, metro, and fashion-inclined demographic. Well this week we thought we'd bring down the testosterone with a little blog about fashion. But since fashion is visual (sorry blind peeps, we exclude you from the demo again--next week's topic, braille and how the hell blind people can find those bumps on signs in the first place) we thought we'd take a gander at some of the (un)fashionable, predominantly female trends and items you may see at your local mall. In this case, the mall was the Cambridge Galleria.

Now let us explain a few things. We obviously don't know anything about fashion, but it is our belief that heads of several fashion companies get together in a form of collusion and simply come to a consensus about what's going to be the hot ticket this year. They will run through the eras and just start naming shit.
"Pirate shit!" says one man.
"Flannel," says another.
"Indian stuff," says yet another.

Then, when one thing is decided upon, the head of this clan meeting says, "okay, now make it so."

First the expensive companies get the new thing in. What's big in the upscale shops this winter/spring? From what we can tell, ruffles/pirate gear and stuff Pocahontas would wear. Then, after the really fashionable people wear this stuff for a year, it filters down to the bottom feeders who shop at Old Navy, Kohl's, and even later to Wal-Mart and Sears. By the time Sears gets these clothes, high-end stores would have moved onto something new, perhaps feathers or iron-armored suits. This is seemingly how the fashion industry works.

Now, onto the show.

What is this? Really. First off it's completely see-through, though us males wouldn't complain about that. The point is, what's up with the ruffles everywhere? You know this is the kind of thing you women will buy, then one week later it will be not stylish anymore.

So in this scene, we see Pat next to a dress where the fashion designer obviously said, "hey, why don't we just flatten out a disco ball?"

"Lance, you've done it again!"

I just can never see a time or a place where someone would wear this. You certainly wouldn't want to wear it at a club. What guy's going to dance with a porcupine? No guy, that's who.

These boots are flat out everywhere. It all started with the tasteless UGG boots. Now things are getting out of hand. Fashion people must have been looking at Zelda or old pictures of vikings or something like that.

UGGGGHHH. If you're going to wear whatever the hell these are, you might as well just get a tattoo on your leg instead. I look at this and I think, Wow, that person just doesn't have any sense in style. And you know these boots cost over 200 beans. Unbelievable. These boots are definitely not made for walkin'.

Yeah, I mean, whatever happened to just a brown/black belt. Some guru, and I use that term lightly, thought of a way to ruin belt buckles. I mean there's that Jeff Foxworthy joke that says: You know you're a redneck if, when asked to show your ID, you show your belt buckle.

Well in this case, you know you're an asshole if, you own one of these.

Is this a belt or a band you use for stretching? Either way its a good idea to wear one of these next Thanksgiving(although it'll be SO out of style by then), as your stomach expands, so will the belt.

Not that I understand how the pirate look is "in" but how in the world is the little house on the prairie look in? Flannel dresses? seriously? whats next? overalls and pollard wigs?

Is it really necessary to carry a suitcase around as a purse? What could you possibly need to bring around with you all the time that fills this up? I guess if you were going all out on the pirate look it'd be a good spot for your spare peg leg. Or it's a fashionable way to smuggle Mexicans across the border.

Here we have John "Smith" Radzinski showing off this year's hottest Pocahontas line. Bring out your inner native American with real leather purses and boots, sure to be full of tassels, and don't forget the latest rage in accessories, feather and bead leather necklaces.

This shirt is the bread winner of this years fashion statements. Its some leather Indian tassels short of being the perfect shirt. It combines the pirate look with the ruffles down the front all while encompassing the classic classy look of red and black flannel. Its the high seas meets back woods, class meets trash, Captain Morgan meets PBR, a combo for the ages.

This outfit is a big pair of glasses short of Elton John. It includes another "in" thing, fur. If you're after the "I just skinned part of a polar bear" and I'm wearing every shade of off-white possible look, then this ones for you.

This dress is what they drew up back in the 60's and 70's as "clothes of the future." Did you ever notice that anything that's from the future has some metallic silver in it? Its the perfect combo of ugly colors and awful looking design to be the "in" dress of the year!

This, um, thing, was inspired by a jar of green olives.

Another "in" thing for a while, the HUGE turtleneck. Okay, I admit, they look nice when on correctly, but I think someone originally making a turtleneck sweater was like, "SHIT, look how big I made the turtleneck! Oh, well, let's go with it." And it stuck. That, or there's a company that makes turtlenecks for giraffes and adapted them to fit humans too.

Are you wearing this dress wondering, "why do people always come up and hit me with a bat when I wear this?" It's because you look like a pinata in it. Only a pinata is way better because candy comes out of it.

YAAARRRGGG Mateeeeeee. Do you hear about that new Pirate movie? It's rated ARRRRRR. It also features this ensemble of ridiculousness.

You'll have the Saturday Night Fever wearing this little combo from Macy's. It features EVERY bright color ever along with white pants. The only reason it comes with white pants is because no other color could match this.

This looks like something that would be featured in the movie Beetlejuice or Tales from the Crypt. It's just ghastly.

Ruffles, you can't have just one.

If only this coat gave you the ability to run 80 MPH. Otherwise, I can't think of any other reason to wear this. Ever.

Joe Nameth called, he wants his sideline coat back.

Ah yes, the standard Hoochi dress. Could there be anything tighter than this? You might as well painted it on!

Whoever made this bag makes a lot of bags and realized hey I'm wasting all of this material that is leftover. So they fooled American women into thinking that this bag of scrap materials that have nothing to do with one another and make a completely ugly bag is "cute" and so fashionable.

Holy Crap. It's like Captain hook meets Dracula in this version of Captain Vampire. The thing is, we'll actually see people wearing this, even when it's not Halloween.

The 1700's England thinks this is modern. That or this is like the uniform for British Airways flight attendants.

grrr. They were carrying these jeans into the store and some type of animal came out of no where and tore them up. The guy carying it into the store was like, Fuck what a waste of jeans, I'll toss them in the dumpster, or maybe we could actually throw them in the ultra clearence sale and take 90% off. The girl carrying in the other box took a look at them and said, "Clearance rack? 90% off? Ruined? put them in the big display in the front, and how much were these going for? $40 bucks? Mark em up to $90"

This is a onsie for either a really large baby, Robin Williams from that movie Jack when he's full grown at age 3, or some weird new trend they're starting up in womens sleepware (booties sold seperately)

In conclusion, we don't know what fashion's all about, obviously. Pretty soon flat-tops, LA Gear, and neon colored things will be back in for our kids' generation. It's ugly, it's bad, but it'll be back. Don't ask us how it works.

The Thanksgiving Blog!

2008-11-27T01:48:00.002-05:00

What's not to like about Thanksgiving? Seriously. Well, let's preface that with, if you hate your family, Thanksgiving might be the worst day of the year for you. But for us with non-dysfunctional families, Thanksgiving is awesome. Of course the reason why Thanksgiving is awesome is because of the food, and that's primarily what we'll concentrate on today.

Turkey: Turkey is the Thanksgiving staple. Other than a turkey sandwich now and then do you ever even eat turkey during the rest of the year? But we all know deli meat turkey is decidedly NOT oven-roasted turkey. Turkey itself is nothing special really, it's somewhat moist unless Cousin Eddie from Vacation's Wife is cooking it, then you might need a little extra gravy. The skin is pretty much the only tasty part because that's where most of the seasoning ends up, unless you ordered "The Flavor Injector" from the makers of the Showtime Rotisserie BBQ. But simply put, turkey pretty much tastes exactly like chicken and perhaps is even a little less tasty. If you put a slice of turkey in front of someone on any day other than Thanksgiving, they'd say this is some good chicken. If you loaded a serving dish with slices of chicken and passed it around your family's table, they'd all be giving you kudos on what a great job you did with the turkey. The meat itself doesn't contain the real flavor you crave, no my friends that comes from the gravy. So it is our humble opinion that it is not turkey that makes the thanksgiving feast great, no sir. It is its wonderfully fattening brown friend, gravy.

Gravy: Gravy makes or breaks Thanksgiving. It's what you douse your otherwise flavorless turkey in, it's what you dip your bread in, you pour it on your mashed potatoes and you can even throw some on top of your apple pie if you get real adventuress. But, no matter what you use it for, if the gravy is sub par, that's the direction the day is heading. In other words, as the gravy goes, so goes your meal. For a good gravy it needs to be like Oprah, thick and dark, but not too thick or too dark. You don't want it running all over your plate just you just poured soup on your turkey, but you don't want to be scooping it out with a spoon either. The consistency is key. Some people like lumps in the gravy, but that just means you cooked it wrong.

Potatoes: Mash em, boil 'em, it doesn't matter. Potatoes in general are awesome. No wonder Ireland was crippled by the potato famine, you can have potatoes anytime, anyway and they're delicious with just about any sauce. BBQ, Ketchup, Salsa (chips), Sour Creme, Gravy, Ranch... how awesome.

Stuffing: I appreciate the efforts of the patrons who make their own home made stuffing, but the thought of stuffing should start and end at StoveTop. StoveTop stuffing is perfect. Its bursting with flavor, the chunks are the perfect size, you can make it in about 5 minutes and you can even snack on it while your waiting for the water to boil (its even better than croutons).

Cranberry sauce: Much like stuffing the "fake" cranberry sauce is so much better than the real stuff. I'll take that can with the white rapper any day over lumpy jelly with actual cranberries in it, ugh. There's nothing more satisfying than getting the cranberry "sauce" out from that can in one effort. The ridges in that are formed in that gelatin are just straight up classy. People try to class it up by putting it in a nice dish, but we all know what's going on. You can slice it, dice it, whatever, but your efforts of making it look cool are wasted so Accept it. And as mentioned before, no matter what you do, you're never topping the can taste.

Also something to think about: When the hell else do you ever eat Cranberry Sauce? The sales from cranberry sauce in a can must solely ride on the month of November.

Squash/Sweet potato: Squash is awesome. When prepared with some delicious brown sugar or even maple syrup infused, it's like having dessert on your T-Give (that's the cool way for saying Thanksgiving) plate. Sweet potato is kind of the same deal. It's orange, it's mashed, and it too is sweet and delicious.

Peas/Carrots: Forest Gump and Jen-nay goes together like peas and carrots, and peas and carrots go together good on your plate. They are essential vegetables on the table, especially when the carrots have some brown sugar on them (BTW, we're all about brown sugar, but not Brown Sugar the horrible movie). The vegetable that would make sense as a Thanksgiving dish that never makes it to the table, in our house at least is corn on the cob. Thanksgiving is supposed to pay homage to the meal between the pilgrims and Indians (before the pilgrims took all the Indian's land) and you know they were noshing on some corn on the cob back then, so why don't we have it today? Another thing we don't have at today's Thanksgiving tables? Semi-naked Indians. Though I think that's something we all can be thankful for.

Pies: As if you didn't eat enough turkey and "fixins" you wake up from your triptafan-induced coma just in time for pie. Pies are the pinnacle of deserts. You can throw anything into a pie and it'll be delicious, well except mince meat (doesn't it sound like some type of rat meat). Why waste a pie by filling it with meat? (Though shepherd's pie is exception to the rule, but that's not really a T-Give deal) You already had enough meat during dinner, its time for the sweets. Throw some apples, or pumpkin, or berries or ice cream in that pie crust and you got yourself a great capper to an awesome day of the 4 F's- Fun, Feasting, Family and Fuck I'm getting fat. Actually, that's five F's.

Thanksgiving Traditions:

Seating Arrangements - You might come from a smaller family where everyone can sit around one table and enjoy the meal together, but I (Pat) come from a big family where we not only have a secondary table, but we have the "kiddie table" in which we're annexed into another room, completely out of the way. The kiddie table is created in the beginning because there isn't room at the "Adults" table for all of the kids to fit, well its fine when your little, you don't wanna sit with the boring adults anyways. Eventually the one or two oldest cousins get promoted to the adult table when they reach a certain age and like a minor league manager, you're sad to see your guy go, but your happy for them and their big promotion, they finally made it to the big show. But when you finally get to the age where you saw your cousins get promoted and your sitting at your locker waiting for the call up, it never comes, you wait around a few years and your still stuck with the little kids, playing baby sitter now, you wait a few more years and before you know it your past your prime, you're downing beers telling the young ones how you coulda been something, you coulda been a real contributor, if you had just gotten your chance. You claim that the parents didn't know what they were doing, that it was indeed THEIR fault you didn't make it to the Big Tables. Well, perhaps you just got dished some cold hard truth my friend. Perhaps it was in fact YOU that was at fault. Where your cousins started talking about politics, economy, and work, you were still talking about video games, sports, and TV. You didn't step up your game to that level and you stayed in the farm system at AAA kiddie table. But don't fret, son. Work on a politics curve ball and start placing your office comments better and mix in some economy heat. Soon you'll be up in the majors.

Football - Between all of the food and naps we squeeze in some pig skin. The thing I never understood about Thanksgiving football is why do the Cowboys and Lions play every Thanksgiving? I understand the Cowboys, other than the Patiots, they are a true American sounding team name, but the Lions? Why not the Redskins? Why not have the Patriots take on the Redskins in a little old school Thanksgiving match up on a field at Plymoth Rock? Aside from that the Lions have been awful lately which brings up a lot of complaints about having to watch them get their turkeys stuffed every thanksgiving. Well as glass half full type of guys look at it like this, the game is over by the end of the first quarter or halftime at least, so its a perfect opportunity to squeeze in a nap.

But why the Lions and Cowboys?: According to one website, in 1934 the teams played on Thanksgiving, and they have played on ever T-Give day ever since. But, in 1934 there were only 11 teams, and none of them were the Patriots (who were the Boston Redskins) and none from the nation's capital and more surprisingly the Cowboys were not created until 1960, so why these two teams play I'll never know. If you want my (John's) guess: Cowboys are "America's Team" and Detroit is the home to three major American Automakers, Ford, GM, and Chrysler, and really, like the Lions and American cars in general, what's more American than something doing well right now?

Naps - Naps are as integral to turkey day as the turkey its self. This is in fact the one holiday where not only are naps acceptable, they're expected. They've become such a part of thanksgiving that you can't imagine anything different, but if you really take a step back and think about it, its an odd thing. When else would you head over to your aunts house, eat a ton of food and follow that up by walking over to the couch, unbuttoning the button on your pants and zonking out for a good hour, only to wake up to the smell of sweet pies? Well, never.

Attire - Some families are all about the nice apparel. That's well in good. But the most important thing is that you're comfortable and have something loose fitting. There's no way you're going to be able to survive the day in some tight slacks. No way, no how. Imagine this: think about how much food you pour on the plate. Now subtract the weight of the plate from this equation. You're putting in POUNDS of food. Serious heft is to be added to the waistline in one afternoon, because you know you're absolutely starving yourself for the feast. By the time the late afternoon comes and you have been smelling all that business cooking all day, it's like you haven't seen food in weeks. That's where the loose pants come in. The last thing you want to have is tightness and discomfort on the waistband. The key to this is having some of those fancy Dockers pants that have elastic on the inside so they give a little bit.

Finally from all of us at "Pat&John on..." well, okay, from Pat and John, have a Happy Thanksgiving and give thanks for health and happiness!

The Opposites

2008-11-24T16:41:00.006-05:00

As the blog has increased in popularity, we have begun to receive fan mail from some of our most devoted readers. Today’s blog will answer a question from one of those fans.

Billy Crapshire from Lake Shore, MI asks:

Geewilikers Pat and John, you guys sure do agree on lots of topics, is there anything you don’t agree on?Sincerely,Billy

Why yes little Billy, there are several things we disagree on. No one sees eye to on everything. In fact there are several social views we don’t see eye to eye on. But we’ll leave those for another day on a blog called, “how pat and john feel about killing babies.” For now we’ll stick with just random things we have completely and utterly opposing views on.

1. Pizza leftovers: cold vs. warm

Pat: People are always talking about the greatness of cold pizza, in fact they even named a show on ESPN about it, but its not all that its cracked up to be. I'll stick with my contention that any food intended to be served hot is better hot. If pizza was better cold then Domino's would bring that pie over in a freezer, not a high tech heat wave bag. Heating the pizza enhances the flavor, cold cheese is good, hot cheese is amazing, cold marinara sauce? eh its weird, warm marinara sauce is great on pizza, pasta and pretty much anything. Not to mention if you have toppings on that pizza, who wants to eat one cold, then warmed, then cold vegetables or meats? Doesn't sound too appetizing to me. I'll even contend that pizza re-heated can be better than the first time around. In fact, Pizza Hut's pizza is better the next day then it is when it comes fresh from the store (and yes that was a fact in my opinion). Re-Heating in the oven adds an extra crispiness factor that somehow you cant get the first time around. Cold pizza is decent at best, and when you're on the fly and you don't have time to throw it in the oven, or even nuke it for 30 seconds its a solid snack, but why settle for decent when you can enjoy as good if not better pizza then you were eating the night before?

John: Pizza is delicious when you get it at your local pizzeria or make it from frozen or whatever. There's something to be said about that fresh taste of hot pizza, but let's be honest, you're never recreating that same taste, or anything close to it again. After I've had all i can eat the first time through and throw what's left of the pie in the fridge, you can bet my pizza is not touching anything warm again, besides my mouth. The reasons are many for why pizza is better cold than warm: Firstly, you don't have to worry about burning your mouth on that sauce, which somehow maintains a surface temperature close to that of the sun. Secondly, all that unappealing grease that was standing on that business has now congealed and formed as one with the pizza. It's the classic, what you can't see, can't kill you deal. Thirdly, cold pizza, like bagel bites, can be had at ANY TIME. It's 9:00 ... it doesn't matter if it's a.m. or p.m., cold pizza's totally appropriate and delicious.

2. Mushrooms

Pat: Much like me, mushrooms are a fun-guy (bada ba) and although the thought of eating a fungus doesn't sound appealing, try eating one with no preconceived notions that its a weird thing to eat and you'll be very pleasantly surprised. Mushrooms don't even have a flavor really, they just soak up whatever they're in, and they're so versatile, toss them in a salad, cook em on a pizza, grill them up, pop them in your mouth and the walls start moving (or so I've heard/seen in Entourage) no matter what you do with them they're a good addition to any meal.

John: My reasons for hating mushrooms are simple. When you break it down scientifically, mushrooms are poisonous to the human body. What's the point? Okay, so you'd have to eat like 800 portabella mushrooms to get sick, but why should I eat something my body wasn't naturally supposed to digest in the first place? But, if the scientific reason doesn't satisfy you, I also hate mushrooms for being tasteless and slimy/flimsy.

3. Egg Salad

Pat: Whenever someone busted out that egg salad sandwich at school lunch, you know you were pissed you sat at that table. Is there a worse smell? Well probably the after effects of it, but that sandwich wreaks. They say that taste is linked to smell, so how could that taste anything remotely close to good? I used to like egg salad when I was younger, but then again I also used to like to eat paste, and you don't see me doing that anymore.

John: Egg salad is straight delicious. Hard-boiled eggs are fantastic. Mayonnaise is fantastic. Combining the two is simply incredible. Throw that biz on some toast or bread for a sandwich? So good. Who cares if your breath is rank for some time? Who are you kissing? Chances are, if you're having egg salad with your significant other, you've reached a point where the two of you can be honest with each other and say their breath stinks. So not only is egg salad awesome, but it's also a barometer for where you're at with your lady.

4.

Pat: Entourage is one of my favorite shows on television right now. The plots aren't deep and intricate, problems are resolved easily, E is a prick who I can't stand and its flashy, but its entertaining. Ari and Drama are some of the best characters on TV. And there is no way any guy isn't at least a little envious of Vince who makes bank off a few movies and gets to go jet setting around in nice cars to crazy parties, be in with the coolest people in show biz and do it all with his best friends, not bad for a kid from Queens.

John: There's nothing to like about this show, that is until it ends and Flight of the Conchords starts. It's a show about four idiotic 20-somethings who I connect with on no level. No thank you.
5.

Pat: Lost is the best show on TV and it has far too many haters. People complain that its unrealistic, they're on an island with smoke monsters and polar bears and time travel. Yeah its unrealistic, but so was Star Trek, I Dream of Genie, and Gilligan's Island (there's no way the professor could have set all of that stuff up with some coconuts and bamboo, McGyver isn't even that good) and those shows are classics, people love them. Lost doesn't claim to be based on fact, its a creative show. People also complain that nothing happens, these are the same people that complain about other shows blowing through story lines and resolving conflicts too quickly. Lost is a great show if you watch every episode, its not a show you can hop in the middle of the 2nd season and watch it when you catch it on TV. You'll be the one that's Lost, but when given the proper time, its the best show on TV.

John: Admittedly, I haven't watched this show since season 2. Apparently a lot has changed. However, after watching much of season 1, I was intrigued to continue. But watching season 2 turned me off so much. Nothing happened. nothing happened!! Oh look another episode, and oh look, we still don't know anything new. Perhaps the show has improved and I'm not giving it a fair shot, but now I'm just too stubborn and stuck in my ways to commit to this thing now.

6. Beer

Pat: Beer is great, not the first time, or the second time you have it, but it is great. Its an "acquired taste" and I know John will say why acquire the taste for something that tastes like shit? Well it doesn't taste like shit, pretty much the opposite, and no J-Rad the opposite of shit isn't piss. A nice cold beer is the most refreshing beverage you can have on a hot day. You don't like how Budweiser tastes? well that's fine try a Guiness. Think Corona is bitter? Throw a lime in it. Beer comes in many flavors but they all include the other part of beer that makes it great, alcohol. There is no other alcohol that tastes as good as beer. Try drinking a 12oz glass of Vodka or Jager and not throw up, I love beer. beery, beer, beer. Here it goes down, down into my belly...

John: Everyone loves beer right? I mean it's cold, it's refreshing, i mean what's not to love? Well everything actually. Beer is painfully bad in my book. Where should I start? It tastes and looks like urine. It's watery. It's bitter. And once that bad boy gets anywhere less than ice cold, it's quite undrinkable and makes me feel sick to my stomach. I can think of almost anything I'd rather drink than beer. Seriously. And the funny thing is, when I tell people I don't like beer, it's like I've just said, I don't like chocolate or ice cream or something. Yeah that's right nut-bag, I don't like this drink that tastes like shit. The other funny thing about not liking beer is that people always give me the same advice about learning to grow to like it. "I didn't like it at first either, you just have to keep drinking it, and it gets better." Well I've given it a fair chance, and it still sucks. The logic of doing something until you like it doesn't make much sense to me. Now this is purely hypothetical, but let's say I was someone who was into getting boned in the butt. Okay? with me? and I was like, hey, you should try it. you won't like it the first or second time, but eventually you will.First off, are you going to take my word on it? No, probably not. If you're not into it to start, it's probably not going to happen. Same with me and beer. I don't like the way it looks or smells so I probably won't like it. Now back to the anal sex...Secondly, if you did try it and then hated it, would you keep trying it until you liked it? No you wouldn't, so why is the case different with beer? It's not. I'm sorry people, I just don't like beer...or anal sex, but like Lost, i don't think I've given the latter a shot, but I have a feeling I won't be either hahaha.

7. Seafood

Pat: First off Seafood comes in many shapes, sizes and flavors. Most people lump it into one category, Seafood, but that's like saying everything else is either "Land Food" or "Air Food". Salmon tastes nothing like muscles, just as chicken tastes nothing like steak, but no matter what kind of water dwelling creature you're eating, its tasty.

John: Besides shrimp and clam chowder, there's nothing to like about sea creatures. They're fuckin weird. Fish taste fishy, lobster is expensive and unsubstantial, and oysters are slimy and chewy. And if there's bones, forget it. To me, it seems that if the only reason something is good is because there's something overpowering it, than that thing sucks to begin with. Lobster is only good because of the butter, clam chowder's only good because of everything else in it, tuna fish sandwiches are delicious because of the mayo and melted cheese, shrimp is good because of cocktail sauce, clam cakes are good because of the cakey business and the horseradish. That doesn't say much about seafood in my opinion. If I just put salt and pepper or some spices on chicken, steak, or turkey, it would still be good. If I just put salt on some salmon, it would be like, ugh, I wish this were chicken.

Conclusion:

I say Tomato, he says Tomato as well. The two of us agree on most things, but little Billy, everyone has different opinions now and then, like your parents. Your dad decided he liked the Guatemalan gardener Jose better than he liked your mom and that's why they're not living together anymore. But these differences are what make us special, make us unique, make us different. In the words of Lewis Black, "We're all little-fuck-snowflakes." At least there is one thing we can all agree on. PatandJohnOn is the best blog ever!

(Frozen) Food for Thought

2008-11-07T12:19:00.009-05:00

The Wide World of Frozen Foods

Whoever first thought of freezing foods should be up there with DaVinci, Franklin and Edison when it comes to inventors. What a great idea, you take good food, freeze it and re-heat it at a later time. You get to enjoy a meal that someone else cooked in no time without the mess. Like most good inventions, freezing food was probably a mistake. Some Eskimo probably just got done clubbin’ a seal and dragged that shit through the snow. A piece of that meat probably fell off and was frozen in the ground until Boolaf Palin (one of the first known Eskimos) found it like a week later. Of course being a Palin, he simply threw it out and went to the market to trade 150,000 sperm whale bones for some new coats. But the next Eskimo stumbled upon it, heated it up, and ate it. Thus freezing food technology was born.

Thousands of years later, the cooking-ly challenged or people without time couldn’t live without it. You might as well remove the word frozen because to these devout people it’s just food, it’s all they eat. In fact, for these people, they preface the word food as we know it, with the word “fresh.” Like, hey I’m not having my normal Hungry Man Dinner; I’m having this “fresh” chicken. Whether you eat frozen food all the time or just some of the time, we all know that each type of frozen food have their pros and cons, and some stay more true to form then others. However, one thing stands true: When it comes to frozen microwave-prepared food, you’re simply minutes away from a meal that, well, at the very least is hot on the outside and cold in the middle, unless it’s a hot pocket. More on that later.

Frozen Dinners
Frozen dinners are the worst of all frozen foods, besides hot pockets. They are a good idea in principal. Give people a "meal" in a nice plastic tray with separators for the representative food groups. You get your meat, your veggie, and a starch. Despite the good intentions, there are two major problems with frozen dinners. First off, they're tiny. Have you, or anyone you know, ever eaten a frozen dinner and said man I'm full, stuffed, satisfied? No. Because it’s never happened. No one can fill up on the half piece of chicken, 10 kernels of corn and teaspoon of mashed potatoes. Most frozen foods these days are Healthy Choice or weight watchers and are made that way to help you intake less calories. The problem is that you need to eat three of them just to reach the stage of “not starving.” Secondly, they always smell wayyyyyyyy better than they taste. At work for example, you can smell people heating up these frozen dinners and it’s like Emeril decided to join your company for a day and cook everyone lunch. Then you go check it out and see the person walking away with a piece of chicken with some sauce bubbling off of it screaming because that little plastic tray is always scolding hot.

On a side note: how un-key was it when the corn spilt over and got embedded in your brownie of your Kid Kusine?Side note on Kid Kuisines: We know these meals are cool and geared toward kids because cuisine is spelled with a K. Doing that automatically means something is hip for some reason. Same with prefacing a word with “Xtreme.” The other hip thing to do is to put up a picture of a dinosaur or something. And if the dinosaur is skateboarding forget about it. Every 9-year old is dropping that in the cart.

Frozen Pizza

Frozen pizza, in our humble opinion, is the king of frozen foods. It holds truest to form. It's not delivery, It's Digiorno, and it’s better than most delivery, and much more cost effective. Think about it. If you order a pizza, it’s at your house in 20-30 min and it costs about 15 dollars by the time you leave the tip. If you grab a Digiorno, it costs 5 bucks at the supermarket and you can have that bad boy heated and ready to eat in 15-20 min.
Side note: Is there any sense in pre-heating the oven? No. If you put it in while its pre heating the pizza starts cooking while the oven heats up, your killing 2 birds with one stone and it gets the pizza cooked faster. Pre-heating an oven is an old wives tale. In the words of George Carlin, what the fuck is pre-heating? There’s only two possible states an oven can be in: Heated and non-heated. Pre-heating is a utterly useless fucking term.

Anyway, you could have three Digiorno's for the price of one delivered pizza, without sacrificing much in the way of taste, AND if you don't finish your frozen pizza, you can treat it like regular pizza and throw that bad boy in the fridge to heat it up tomorrow. You can get two meals out of one frozen pizza. Though, it’s best not to think of it as re-heating a re-heated pizza. That just doesn’t sound appealing.

Frozen French Fries

Frozen French fries are at best, OK as a frozen food product. You can heat them with any technique you want but they still don't have that great fried taste to them. No matter what you do they taste bland and uninspired, that is until you douse them in BBQ sauce, or use the less exciting, Ketchup. The good thing about BBQ sauce or Ketchup is that no matter how bad something may taste, if you throw either condiment on that business, it’s going to taste like BBQ or Ketchup. Brilliant.

Frozen Breakfast Foods

Frozen waffles, pancakes, French toast sticks, they're all good, but they're only good if you do them up right. Frozen waffles have to be cooked in the toaster, obviously.

A frozen waffle is great and like a frozen pizza it’s much more time effective then making "real waffles". I bet 10 out of 10 Americans have had 50 times the amount of frozen waffles as regular waffles in their lives. Who has time to make those up? If you’re going to go through all the trouble of mixing the ingredients and putting it on the waffle iron you might as well make pancakes. Homemade pancakes are great. Then again, the brilliance of the waffle is that it’s a pancake, except for the fact that there’s dozens of little compartments for your syrup, a very key feature.
Speaking of pancakes, frozen pancakes are solid. They're probably the least popular of the frozen breakfast foods, but pop a few of those flapjacks in the microwave and douse them in syrup and you’re in for a treat.
Frozen French toast sticks are hit or miss, if you microwave them they're awful, if you cook them in the oven they're amazing. It's all about the crispy factor, no one wants to eat warm soggy bread, which is essentially what they become when you microwave them, but throw them in the oven and get them nice and crispy and you are living large. Really though, if you’re going to cook them in an oven, you might as well do them up right and make your own. How hard is it to mix eggs, cinnamon, milk and sugar, dip bread and cook it for 5 minutes? Therefore frozen French Toast is decidedly the most useless frozen breakfast.
Furthermore on the topic of frozen breakfast treats, Pillsbury was brilliant with the addition of two items to the market. The first were the cinnamon buns in a can and the second was Toaster Strudel. Both have plenty of things in common. One, they’re tasty delicious. Two, they never come with enough frosting. Despite that inherent flaw, toaster strudel owns the Pop Tart in the pre-made pastry department, and the c-buns are way better than anything you’d get from Entiments’s. When it comes to strudel, apple-cinnamon reigns supreme. Occasionally Raspberry or strawberry are good too. But now they’re getting fancy, with Egg/Cheese strudel and Boston creme strudel. Hey, Pillsbury, stick to what you do best. We don’t need you flooding the marketplace with these less than stellar varieties.

Frozen Hybrid foods (eg bagel bites)

We all know the slogan, “When pizza’s on a bagel, you can eat pizza anytime.” Pizza bites or bagel bites or pizza bagels, whatever you want to call it, it doesn't matter. When you combine pizza and bagels or English Muffins, you’re in for some crazy deliciousness. According to their ad department simply putting anything on a bagel means you can have it for breakfast too. It’s somewhat true, but what is undeniably true is that they're best Post-midnight. It’s Saturday night, and you could have been out all night, or done nothing at all. But once that hour strikes 12, you’re getting hit hard with a hunger attack. This is truly the best time for bagel bites. Pop those circular discs of yum-factor 10's in the oven for the recommended time and watch them work as they go Rambo on your hunger. Now, they say you COULD do these things in the microwave, but as we covered earlier with pizza, you really cannot do them in the M-Wave. What you’re getting for your laziness is punished with flimsy, rubbery, lukewarm in the middle and burning hot on the outside, bagel pizza. That’s no good.

Hot Pockets

This is the most overrated product you can possibly find in the frozen meals aisle. It tastes bad. It smells bad. And if you were John at age 12, they made you barf for an entire night, ruining them forever. Unless you’re using them as hand warmers, there’s no sense in EVER having one. Awful.

Frozen Meatballs

The pound-for-pound king of frozen foods. This is the one food that is decent in the microwave, but if you cook them in sauce on a stove top or in the oven? They’re miraculous. And there’s plenty of diversity here. You can put them with pasta, or make a mean meatball sandwich with them, or just eat them without anything, they’re that good.

Frozen pastas and ravioli

Short on time? Tired of boxed pasta or mac and cheese? This is the answer. What’s awesome about frozen ravioli is that it tastes so good, and only takes like 6 minutes after you get that water boiling. They’re way better than say, chef Boyardee, and most likely, way better than anything else you were going to make that night. Along with Ravioli, frozen lasagna is also delicious. Sure it’s not homemade, but nothing ever is when it’s a frozen meal. But you’ll definitely be satisfied with the warm goodness of lasagna.

Parties and Party "guys"

2008-11-05T14:26:00.005-05:00

Everyone’s been to a party and everyone knows a few of the following “guys.” In regards to the party though there are several things YOU must know.

Getting to and leaving a party at the right time is key. Sure the party starts at “10:00” but that’s really party lingo for 11 or later. When getting to a party it is important to get there at the right time. If you get there too early, it’s quiet, there aren't many or any people there. In this case, if you don't know the hosts all that well be prepared for some awkward small talk and fake a phone call to get yourself out of there.

On the other hand, getting there too late can be just as damaging. If you get there too late, everyone has hit the alcohol hard and as soon as you get in, they’re coming up to you yelling all this stuff, hugging you and trying to get you to dance. You’re way too sober for this party and you’re not going to catch up because everything has already been consumed.

Leaving the party can be just as important as arriving. Just as you can't be the first to arrive, you cannot be the last one to go, either. You must have some self-awareness and realize, “hey, these peeps want themselves some sleep, I’m going to crash here on the couch or I’m getting the F out.” You can’t make like the Cranberries and “Linger.”

Here are some of the "guys" you might see at a party:

Drink Trick Guy

He's here to do one thing and one thing only. Show off his drinking trick. He's the guy that can swallow a pitcher of bear in 2 seconds. He's the guy who can do cool spinny-tricks with bottles and such. He's the guy that's got one drink move, but no one gets tired of seeing it.

Make Out with everybody Guy OR Skank girl

This guy’s come to the party and you might as well call him Wayne Gretzky because he’s playing tonsil hockey with everyone he can get his lips onto. It doesn’t matter what the partner looks like, they’re getting a smack on the lips, because on this night, this guy/girl is getting their Mack on. Note: Make out guy will never talk to his victims ever again.

Waste Case Guy

When this guy's at the party, you know he's getting obliterated. He could have
gotten completely trashed last night. It doesn't matter. He's going to get tanked whether you like or not. While "waste case" guy is fun for a while, eventually he's the one barfing in the toilet at 3 a.m., then eventually passes out sitting up or laying down next to the toilet. The important distinction/trait about WC guy is he ALWAYS swears he's not going to drink like that again. But next Friday, you know you're getting a repeat performance.

Miserable ‘cause his ex is there guy
He's just your friend having a good time at a party until as if he stared into the eyes of Medusa he turns to stone: his Ex is at the party. His good times just ended because this dude is going to be miserable for the rest of the night and then only prescription is more drinks up in his system. Oh, he'll keep drinking and drinking, but not to have a good time and embarrass himself on the dance floor, no he's drowning his sorrows with his best friends Jack and Jose.

"I'm so drunk," but only had one peppermint schnapps girl/one beer guy

This is the person that will have a single beer at 10 p.m. and then at 11:00 he/she is all over the place. Everyone knows it's fake because no one else is drunk. That, and the fact that friends hoping to catch this guy faking it, switched his beer to O'Doul's.

Takes drinking games too seriously guy

If you weren’t aware that beer pong is an Olympic sport, this guy will let you know. He takes serious to a whole other level. Most people think everyone is the winner of drinking games because you wind up drunk and have fun doing it, not this guy. Are you struggling with your 6th flip of that cup? He's going high school football coach on you and screaming at you like you dropped an open touchdown. Or perhaps your card is called and you have to take five drinks but you take a few sips and call it even. After all you’re taking it easy tonight. Not so fast my friend. He's not letting that slide, he'll count out the sips for you if he needs to. Are your pong cups are looking a little light? He'll fill ‘em up for you. He's undefeated in pong (which he continuously refers to as, Beirut) on the night, and he'll let you know about it. In fact, he knows his all time record (63-8 over the past 4 years). He’s also bending his back and putting backspin on the ball to reduce drag, and if he misses the clinching shot, forget about. You’re getting hit with “this is bullshit,” or “if it wasn’t for (partner’s name) missing like 5 shots in a row, we’d a won that shit.”

Stoner Guy

Forget drinks. Stoner guy's coming equipped with everything he needs in his pocket and a zip-loc bag. While every one's dancing, playing beer pong, talking, and trashing the place, stoner guy just wants to watch Half Baked or Family Guy.

Buzzkill Guy
Buzzkill guy is the one that’s chilling at the party saying nothing, talking to no one and wants to leave. He’s got his arms crossed and he simply does not approve of the situation. He’s thinking about all the things he could be doing, none of which are being at this party.

Killjoy AKA Fight Guy AKA "What was that?" Guy

This guy is in the same family as buzzkill guy because inevitably his actions kill the mood. The main difference here is that he'll come around to where you're hanging out and he'll start ragging on one of your friends. At first it's funny. But then Killjoy guy takes it too far and it's clear that the guy getting ragged on is getting pissed. Killjoy guy sees this and decides to go for the kill, because his goal is to get into a fight. Only until he can see that there's no way he's starting a fight does he finally recede back to where he was before. By the end of his tirade though things are awkward and the good times are killed and we're all left wondering, "What was that about?"

Song ADD Guy

You walk into the room and think, “ah I love this song.” Five seconds later it’s changed. You look and Song ADD guy is manning the iPod. This guy totally sucks because not only does he switch the song but he ruins the moment. You've got some hot skank who you've been eying all party grinding with you to some Akon and BAM! One minute later he puts on Love Shack because he wants to get up and boogey. So now you’re pissed but hey, Love Shack is a catchy song so you get into that, until before the first chorus you’re now listing to him sing along to the Backstreet Men (boys). Songs do have a natural end Song ADD Guy, and rest assured; another song will pop up. We’ve set the play list for a reason so let it go buddy, let it go.

Gets REALLY loud Guy
People naturally get loud when they're drunk. We get that. But this guy gets REALLY loud, to the point where it's obnoxious. He's so loud that you would be able to hear him if you were at a Hard Rock Café.

Drunk Dial Guy

He's drunk and everyone in his phonebook needs to know about it. He calls his girlfriend, his best friend, the chick that's in his group for Marketing, he won't stop. He's saying whatever on his mind and he's sure to regret it the next day, but tonight he's drunk, he's dialing and no one is safe, "oh hey grandma, long time no talk…."

Drunken eating guy

It's 3:30 a.m. and he's about to pass out, but he's ordering that extra large Domino's with everything on it, even though it doesn’t matter what’s on it. It could just be some dough and it's gonna taste delicious. He already went through all the food in his fridge, including his roommate’s dinners for the next week and eaten up every last chip and cookie in the house. And while he waits for the Domino’s, he’s putting some bagel bites in the oven and perhaps some frozen fries too.

Human Wrecking Ball Guy

You have to watch out for this guy because he’s got years of suppressed anger boiling up inside him. His dad never liked him so after drinking 16 beers he’s taking out on the house he’s in. The wall’s getting a hole, the window’s getting smashed and he’s going to end up with blood somewhere on himself or the wall.

The world is my bathroom guy

This is the guy who’s so drunk that he’s going to go to the bathroom wherever his urine happens to land on. It could be his own bed, it could be on the couch, it may even be your closet. It doesn’t matter, because when you gotta go, you gotta go, and when you’ve drank an entire case by yourself, the flood gates are going to need to open sooner or later.

Option E guy

Just like option E on the SAT’s, this guy is ‘All of the Above.’ He’s able to chug his drink in a single gulp, makes out with everybody, he gets wasted, plays beer pong too seriously, then sees his ex which makes him miserable, smokes a little, changes the songs for 15 minutes, and is now a waste case. He then calls everyone he knows, he gets really loud and obnoxious, starts dissin’ your friend until it’s awkward, but makes everyone feel better by ordering a ton of food on his credit card at 2:00 a.m. However, before he gets the food he passes out in the bathroom, but not before he’s pissed all over the place and tore off the toilet seat for no reason. If you’ve had this night, congrats, you’re the stuff of legend.

Pat and John's guide to "what the hell is the sportscaster talking about?"

2008-10-29T00:55:00.008-04:00

If you're a person who seldom or never watches sports on TV, the following guide will help you understand the jargon you may hear during the course of a sporting event. If you're a hardcore sports fan, the following should sound familiar to you and will act less like a guide, but more as a refresher course on what a sportscaster ACTUALLY is saying.

Today's guide will focus on Player Terms.

A Player's player: Contrary to what you may think, this means the player is well-respected by his teammates, as opposed to its other definition: To be a player owned or possessed by another player.

The Player's player is normally only OK at best at the game, but makes up for crappy athleticism with good old fashion perseverance.

Examples
NBA: Derrek Fisher, PG LA Lakers
NFL: Kevin Faulk, RB New England Patriots
MLB: Jason Kendall, C Milwaukee Brewars

Professional hitter: Technically all non-pitching baseball players are "professional hitters," so what the hell is the difference between a professional hitter, and a hitter who just happens to be professional?

This term is applied to those guys who only hit singles (because they're often too slow to beat a throw to second base). Because collecting singles is their only real asset to a team, these guys normally suck at defense, too. Professional Hitters also don't show emotion and are a boring person to hear interviewed. This is not because they were born to hit, rather created by Dr. Silberman, lead scientist for CyberTech during the late 90's .

ex: John Olerud and BJ Surhoff, both formerly of the Baltimore Orioles

Crafty Lefty – A baseball term applied to left-handed pitchers ONLY. There is never, and nor will there ever be a crafty Righty (despite Paul Byrd's best attempts to be the first). In this phrase, "crafty" means two things: old, and they can't throw anything over 80 MPH.

Ex: Jamie Moyer (left), age 45, Philadelphia Phillies

Innings Eater- This is another term for a below average pitcher. They "eat" innings, where as a good pitcher is just a good pitcher. You don't hear Johan Santana described as an innings eater, you hear he's an ace, or he's filthly or he's a stud. Joe Blanton on the other hand, is an innings eater, and he's eating a lot more than innings if you looked at him.
Note: Blanton is the exception to the rule as a majority of Baseball's 'inning eaters' are Latin.
ex: Livan and Orlando Hernandez

Wiley Veteran: This term is glossed to people whose skills have diminished but somehow make up for it with experience and smarts. Has anything else besides the coyote and a veteran been described as wiley?
ex: Brett Favre

Grizzled Vet: The "wiley veteran's" long lost brother. The grizzled vet has been around forever and knows everything about the game. He also always seems to have some sort of beard working, or at least some scruff. This is his way of paying homage to the first Grizzle, Grizzly Adams.

Ex. Jake Taylor (catcher from the movie Major League)

Not afraid to get dirty: Contrary to most professional athletes who are afraid to get dirty because they don't want their mom (undoubtedly seen in the Campbell's soup commercials) to yell at them for getting grass stains on those white pants again, these guys go for it anyway. They dive, not just when necessary, but for anything. The ball might be 10 feet over their head, but they're gonna make the highlight reel or dye (their pants)* trying.
*Pun of the year award to Pat Henderson.

Quiet leader/leads by example: These guys "lead by example" for one reason. They have no personality. These players are good at one thing, playing. Social settings make them uncomfortable and they have only one M.O.: get their work in and get the hell out. They keep to themselves, they don't bother talking to anyone, and because of this they default into "leading by example" which they didn't sign up for, because they'd be uncomfortable with that, too.
Ex: Marvin Harrison (When he's not shooting at people)

Good clubhouse guy: A player who essentially is useless on the field, but because of his ability to make some of the players laugh or break up a fight, he gets paid the league minimum to stay on the squad.

Sean Casey, Kevin Millar

Paying the ultimate price/sacrifice: Can you really be considered giving the ultimate sacrifice if you're getting paid in excess of $500,000? Apparently you can. Funny, I always thought the ultimate sacrifice was giving your life. In sports things aren't as grave, so ultimate sacrifice refers to a players' ability to practice regularly, AKA doing their job. Also putting yourself in harm's way to dive after a ball is considered paying the price as well.
Not example: Allen Iverson

Plays the game right: This player sucks. There's no other way to say it. He practices like it's the championship, and you like to have him as a teammate, but you also don't. He sucks worse than you, he just has the "heart of a champion," "has the will to win," "puts his team ahead of him." Bottom line: If this loser had even a shred of athletic talent, he'd be awesome, but also wouldn't try so hard.
i.e. Rudy Ruettiger

Knows what to do with the ball: Sure, some players catch the ball and go the wrong way with it...

...But, not "knows what to do with the ball" guy though. He's smart enough to keep dribbling, or run toward the correct endzone. This is the guy who won't do something dumb to embarrass the team or himself in the process.

A flair for the dramatic: This player scares the shit out of you. He is your closer who walks the bases loaded in the bottom of the 9th in a 1 run game with 0 outs and strikes out the next 3 hitters. He's the basketball player who when you're down by 2 takes a fade-away 3 from the corner with 2 guys on him, he's the quarterback who throws deep into double coverage on 4th and 1 when the tight end is open 5 yards out. Most importantly he's lucky and succeeds, because if he failed in doing this, he wouldn't HAVE "a flair for the dramatic" he would HAVE to find a new job.

Seasoned Pro: This could mean that he's been touched up with herbs and spices, but it doesn't. Instead, he's just an old dude still playing ball.

A "Competitor": We know sportscaster guy, all athletes are competitors in some way. They are after all "competing for the ultimate prize." But a competitor borders on nuts. They will do anything to win. Bite an ear off, amputate a finger, etc.
ex: Ronnie Lott once amputated part of his finger after fracturing it during a game so he could keep playing.

"Lott, of course, had the tip of his left pinky finger amputated from an injury suffered during the 1985 season. Sacrifices are part of the game, but Lott doesn't have any regrets other than the fact that his finger "looks like E.T.'s head." Lott compares it to a woman who needs to have her breast removed after discovering she has breast cancer and says his sacrifice is not as great as hers or the U.S. soldiers fighting overseas. Lott has no idea where his amputated finger is now, nor does he care.
- Dan Patrick Show

Note for White players

Sometimes there's blatant stereotype put against the white folk who play sports. Thanks to the movie, "White Men Can't Jump" and also supported by the fact that white
people for the most part, can't jump, you may hear the following described about a white athlete.

Deceptively fast/underrated speed: Even if this guy was the fastest guy on the field, he's deceptively fast? Why? Because he's white. Obviously. There's no way he should be able to run that fast, but somehow he overcomes his skin color. span>

Infomercials: A How to and the Top 10.

2008-10-23T00:45:00.017-04:00

The Following are 14 rules that can be your unofficial guide to making a successful infomercial.

1. Use Black & White footage to show how bad any other product that does the same thing is

No matter how easy it is to use another product, this black and white footage is going to make even the simplest task look like rocket science. The best example of this is for the space saver Tupperware infomercial. I mean how hard is it really to put things into a container? Well the space saver people show a woman trying to do this and inevitably all the containers fall all over her as if the cabinet was making it rain Tupperware.

Note: It's very important in the black and white footage to throw up the giant red "x" superimposed over the shot, just in case you didn't know that this indeed was the wrong way.

2. Have a loud and overly energetic host

The viewer fell asleep because its 3am on a Thursday night? Well your host should WAKE THEM UP. The most important trait of a good Infomercial host is to be able to talk louder than any other human being. Billy Mays who is the host for dozens of infomercials does it right with his yelling approach, Oxi Clean gets embedded into your dreams. Matthew Lesko? Remember him? Are these question marks ringing a bell? He's the guy with the question mark suit. Is there a more irritatingly loud squeaky voice then his? If he was just talking to you about how his day is going then they answer would be a resounding NO, but because that loud, irritating, squeaky voice is telling you how you can get a free government loan to open up a shop specializing in chewing gum, well he might as well be Barry White because you could listen to that talk all night.

3. It's an added bonus if the host has an English/Australian accent

Just ask the people with the "tap light" and they'll tell you that the reason they sold so many of those dastardly things is because of the Australian guy hosting the infomercial. His ability to say "Top Law-ight" instead of Tap Light was so key. It keeps you watching because you want him to ask you, "You call that a light? This is a light!" But 15 minutes into it, you just wanted the light instead. “Holy shit, I can put that light in my closet? I can make a walkway out of dozens of them? I NEED THAT.”

So if Billy Mays isn’t around to host your shiz, you better lob a long distance call to some Australian Bloke.

4. Make sure you show the product being used for things you'd never use it for

This is the step where you want to wow your viewers. They already know a knife can cut a piece of chicken, but they didn't know that your knife CAN CUT THROUGH A CAR. It's one thing if your adhesive can hold a picture to a wall, but it’s another thing if your adhesive can be made into a chain to PULL A BOAT. By making your customers realize these aren't just towels, but rug cleaning, moisture soaking pieces of cloth made by the hands of god himself, they'll realize they have to buy them.

Plus, what if you lock your keys in your car and cant wait for AAA? You know your not going to be cutting that car door off with any ol regular knife, you need your Miracle Blade.

The Magic Bullet Shows Rules 3, 4, and 7 in action

5. Product better have a catchy name

In business and real estate it's all about location, location, location. In the world of infomercials it's all about the name of the product. There are two ways of going about this. You better mention what kind of product it is but throw a noun in front of it: i.e. The George Foreman Grill, Red Devil Grill, etc. The other way of naming a product is simply giving it some sort of exciting or thought-provoking word and tag-team it with a verb/noun; i.e. OxyClean, ShamWOW, The Magic Bullet.

The Aptly Named "Tiddy Bear"

6. If at all possible have a catchy slogan too

The RONCO Showtime Rotisserie BBQ, which is the best infomercial of all time (see below), still is the benchmark of infomercial slogans with the timeless slogan, "Set it, and forget it."

7. Have a lame/dumb sidekick who has "never used the product before" and is always amazed by the result

The dumb sidekick is essential for the infomercial. He/She is the average American in the infomercial's eye: dumb and a sucker for anything. They chime in with the commentary on the product, normally saying how easy a product is to use.
Lines that are commonly used are:
"And, so that's all I have to do?"
"Wow, that's just too easy."
"Why have all this stuff, when I only need one of these (name of product)"

They are also there to segue into you buying the product. The following is normally how that convo goes:
Dumb Sidekick: Okay, so X does all that and it's this easy to use?
Inventor: It sure does
DS: Okay, but I bet it costs a fortune.
I: nope actually it's only 3 easy payments of ___
DS: So wait, you're telling me I get the X for the price of just $___?
I: That's right
DS: No way, that can't be. Can I get it in a store?
I: Nope only through this 'exclusive' offer
DS: Well America you heard it here, you can only get this offer right now if you call the number on your screen…

8. Include real on-the-street/audience testimonials

It is important to show your viewers how your product has completely changed the lives of regular people just like them. Stuff like, "before I bought the Miracle blade, me and my sister were Siamese twins, thanks to its space age blade we took care of that!"

In this section you can also show how "Top Professionals" use your product. Professional car washer Miguel Rodriguez uses the ShamWow to dry all the cars that he services, "The cloth, it gets car dry mang, really dry mang"

*Note: if you can have someone that has a cowboy hat, or looks like they're a hick, or a "real American" as Sarah Palin would call them, you better take the opportunity and interview them.

9. You better tell us that you're selling us the product for 150% less than you'd get it in the store.

As the customer, we need to know how much this piece of crap is going to cost us in the store. Without mentioning how much this thing costs at a retail store, we would think that the product is only sold on TV, and that means it's not store-worthy. For some reason if this product is sold in a store, we think, "hey, it's sold in stores, it must be good." So giving us the outrageous “store price” or “retail price” will make us think it's a good product and when they pull the old switch-aroo for the "special offer" it damn well looks like we're stealing it.

10. Before giving us the final price, tell us how much it isn't going to cost and also give us a payment plan. By the way those payments better be "easy."

They already told you that you’re getting a better deal than in the stores, but they didn't tell you how much of a better deal. You're not paying $600 for this rotisserie grill, NO your not even paying $400, as a matter of fact you’re not going to pay $200, you my friend are only on the hook for 10 easy payments (what makes these payments so easy anyways?) of $19.99. That's right, you call and you’re getting the deal of a lifetime, but wait what's that? If we call right now we get what?......

11. Along with step 10, tell us what we get if we call NOW and how much everything that comes with the product would cost separately

As if the "easy payment" and a reduction in price from the store wasn't enough to buy this thing, we also get a ton more crap with this special offer. Not only do we get the "Lean, Mean, Grillin Machine" but if we call now they'll throw in the grill cleaner, tongs, recipe book, lifetime supply of meats and one of George Forman's kids. Then they'll let us know that if we bought each of these things separately it'd cost $500 and hours of labor/pain, but by calling now, we get all of this for 5 easy payments of $19.99, making us think, we're getting $500 worth of stuff for $30 bucks, how can I not buy this!?

12. Give us a timer on how much time we have left to buy the product

Of course, these deals are “limited time only,” or “limited supplies so order now.” In fact they are so limited that they will only play this same infomercial EVERY night for the next two years. But if you’re still on the fence, and the words ‘limited,’ ‘supply,’ and ‘time’ didn’t get you, this next tactic will. The timer. The timer normally comes up on the phone number shot: you know the blue background with two side-by-side clips showing everything you’ve already scene about the product. On the right hand side of the screen that giant yellow 10-minute clock starts winding down and now you don’t even want the product, you just want to beat that clock. This isn’t about necessity anymore, it’s not about, “I have to have this.” No sir, it’s about, “I have to beat that damn clock.”

13. Knock off a payment if we order it NOW with a credit card, and repeat steps 9 through 11

The final piece-de-resistance is knocking off a payment. If all the previous add-ons plus the timer didn’t pressure you into buying it, the removal of the payment is the no-holds-bared tried-and-true these-colors-don’t-bleed atomic bomb they drop on you at the end. For this step, it’s key to make sure you throw in a completely different voice over too. Make sure the audio frequency doesn’t match and there’s a total different static noise in the background because this is getting recorded after you realize you’re not selling shit for the first 3 months.

“…But wait! If you order now with your credit card, we’ll knock of ONE WHOLE PAYMENT! Now it’s only three easy payments of 19.95.”

Rules 11-13 perfectly played.

14. Finally, never allow for C.O.D.'s or Money Orders

Never allow for any Cash on Deliveries or Money Orders. At this point we the customer assume you’re not accepting either of those forms of payment, but for some reason you’ll accept the Diner’s Club Card? Oh well, these are the rules, we don’t make this stuff up.

Top 10 Infomercials of all-time:

1. Ronco – Showtime Rotisserie BBQ

Ron Popeil has made a living at this and you can see it all comes together in this one. He’s a seasoned pro and he pulls no stops in this one. A freaking studio audience chanting, “set it and forget it?” Does it get any better than this? No stone is left unturned (except for the one in the rotisserie BBQ). All the tricks are pulled.

√ Voiceover easy payment subtraction
√ Energetic host
√ Dumb Sidekick
√ Slogan
√ Useless stuff throw-ins: The slicer (because now the only tears we’ll have for cutting onions are tears of joy), the gloves, the “flavor injector,” recipe guide, the steam trays, etc, it’s all here. But seriously Popeil, you’re “including” the booklet of coupons as a bonus? And don’t tell me you just valued that thing at over $250?

2. Girls Gone Wild infomercials

Watching Spike TV or Comedy Central at 2:00 a.m.? Oh you’re getting hit with this one. It’s not a traditional ad, but it’s got what almost every one of these other products doesn’t have, nearly naked girls and lots of shots of them lifting their shirts and showing us their censor bars. Plus the steel drum in the beginning? How recognizable are those first four notes?

3. Free Money to Pay Your Bills w/ Matthew Lesko

Lesko is a master. He’s also a game changer by infusing two special things to his infomercial: a suit that’s almost as loud as him and constant shot changes. One second he’s telling us how we can get the gov’t to pay for our taxes somehow whilst on the steps of congress, the next shot he’s walking in front of Wall St. No matter what though, he’s always, I mean always moving.

4. Extenze "male enhancement" pills

With their testimonial slogan, “They’re giving away pills for free? It must be good!” and “If we didn’t sell so many pills, could we afford to do this?” they have officially just come out and said, “Okay America, you’re dumb and we know it.” Also you have to love the different ways they try to say it makes your dick bigger without actually saying it.
- Male Enhancement
- Improves the size of that certain part of the Male Body

5. Oxy Clean

- Billy Mays has basically convinced us to buy repackaged detergent that we put in addition to our normal detergent. I mean you add it to soap! This doesn’t even need to do anything, but shit, anything to make our “whites whiter.”

6. ShamWow

The salesman of this thing is just a straight asshole. But somehow he’s SO authoritative that he makes you feel bad for doubting it. Also he’s brought a modern head-microphone into the mix which says one of two things: 1. I am a backup dancer. 2. I work at Old Navy. Either way, that headpiece is definitely stolen from his other job

7. The D.R. Trimmer/Wood chipper

After watching the DR Trimmer infomercial, it’s easy to conclude that this machine is the sole reason for deforestation.

8. Magic Bullet Blender

The Magic Bullet is the gunshot that killed JFK. It’s also a blender that can serve drinks AND feed a family of four.

9. Juiceman Juicer

This guy’s been at this thing for so long. It is rumored that his eyebrows can make him fly and also give him the ability to see into the future.

10. Foreman Grill:

The Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grilling Machine? Really that was the best title we could get for this product? I’m amazed they could fit it onto the grill cover.

Honorable Mention:

The Eyebrow and beard trimmer:

This makes the list because the have the balls to call this thing an eyebrow trimmer, when really we all know that’s just code for pube trimmer.

Special to Pat and John On…

By Jerome Palmeri
Infomercial Connoisseur

My Top 5:

1. Even edging out the Showtime rotisserie the Red Devil Grill because they market it like it was the thing you could cook everything on. Like fuck your whole kitchen, the red devil is better than all of it and it was just a little tailgating grill.
And it also had the SUPER SKILLET, that was just a huge wok

2. Showtime Rotisserie

3. Pancake Puff Maker

4. Nuwave Oven

5. Foreman grill, or better yet one of the knock offs.

* Honorable mention

Any knife set infomercial. Those fucking knives! You could use them to cut through bricks, and don't forget the fucking chop n' scoop.
The way they talk about the knives I wonder like why we need scalpels in hospitals or even the jaws of life when these knives do it all and NEVER dull.
And what’s with the filleting knife and the garnishing knife? who the fuck ever needs those? As long as I got a big butcher's knife that can help me with my amateur diamond-cutting business, I'm happy.

Oh and don’t forget the eggwave, remember that shit? Because eggs are so hard to make.
In fact, those I think make the best infomercials. Shit that is made to seem like you need it and it can do everything, but you are like, this does nothing. Like the pancake puff thing? oh great! I can eat all my baked goods in ball form now. Thanks pancake puffer.

Finally, The "Advertising Lullaby" by the late, great George Carlin

Quality, value, style, service, selection, convenience
Economy, savings, performance, experience, hospitality
Low rates, friendly service, name brands, easy terms
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It's the Little Things...that piss us off.

2008-10-21T00:25:00.004-04:00

Just as is the case in life that little things can make us happy, little things can make us irritable, too. The following list comprises a small sample of those things we all suffer through on the day-to-day grind.

Technology Failures:

Internet crashes: There's never a good time to be left without the Internet. But for some reason the World Wide Web knows when you're actually trying to get something accomplished. Sure, the Internet was going great when you were checking Facebook and that hilarious video of that hamster on YouTube, but now that you actually need to get something important done, like say, emailing your boss. It is at this very moment that the Internet shits the bed. This is inevitably the internet's way of saying, "Hey dillweed, maybe you should have been doing this first instead of putting it off."

Paper jam: The same rules apply for the paper jam as do for the Internet. It only stops working when you're printing out your resume for the interview in 30 minutes. However, last night it was perfect when you printed a 16-page poster of your fantasy team logo, or the other day when you printed a self-portrait exquisitely created in Microsoft Paint.

"Losing" your keys: We all have 'lost' our keys about a billion times. Although, you know you haven't really lost them, but rather you've simply misplaced them somewhere. So, you begin frantically searching your place, and if there's someone else around, you're about to be greeted with a, "What are you looking for?" This is of course followed by, "My keys," which is followed by the other person saying, "Well, where was the last place you saw them?" What an annoying question, right? Annoying because now you're retracing your steps like an idiot. "Well, first I entered the door, then I took a dump, then I checked the fridge, then etc, etc." This isn't going to help because even if you retrace every step you're still going to fall into the classic “key-finding mode.”

Just like a dog trying to find a tennis ball you didn't actually throw, you're going to be looking everywhere and wind up looking dumb in the process. This is because you're always looking in the dumbest places. Chances are, they're probably not in the fridge, but you check that anyway. Chances are they're not in the medicine cabinet, but you're bound to look there, too. That's because when people search for their keys, anything with a door or a compartment is fair game. You open every drawer in the house looking for these damn things. And even though you haven't been in the attic in three years, you take a gander there also. In fact the only good thing about looking for your keys is that you're bound to find something else you were looking for 2 months ago. Eventually, the only thing this key searching yields is the finding of four things you weren’t looking for and of course, no keys. The kicker in this whole deal after you give up and grab your spare set only to discover that your “lost” keys were in your car all along.

Candy Bar Gets Stuck: Getting a 2-for-1 candy bar deal is amazing. But getting a 0-for-1 deal is absolutely infuriating. The little coils turn and turn but then hanging there like Sly Stallone in Cliffhanger are your Cool Ranch Doritos. Awful. Now you've got three options:

1. Buy another pack of Cool Ranch Doritos
2. Leave feeling rejected and ashamed
3. Violently shake that damn machine until it give you what you paid for.

Without fail, you know you're trying option 3. Despite the fact that hundreds of people are killed by toppled vending machines each year, you're determined to make sure those three quarters were not wasted. The process of shaking the vending machine always follows the same order. First you kick it. When that doesn't work, shove it. When that doesn't work you go to DEFCON 3: Operation Hulk. Just like a hungry version of the Hulk, no vending machine wants to see you when you're angry. You are wrapping your arms around that machine as if you haven't seen it in years and this machine is your lover. Except, there's no love in this exchange. It's straight rage as you violently try to do your best Superman impression and lift this thing back to Krypton. However, "despite all your rage, you're still just a rat in a cage." A rat without chips that is. On the plus side though, you've probably burned the calories you would have consumed with those chips. Unless you’re going option 1 at this point, you’re stuck at option 2, and don’t nobody like number 2.

Assholes at the Movies: As if paying $10.50 for any movie wasn't enough, but now you've got to contend with the mess of 8th grade punks thinking they're hot shit talking all the way through your movie. Look, I know Forgetting Sarah Marshall is not exactly a movie that is essential for silence, but have some courtesy huh? Oh, and babies in the movie? Awful. Of course the baby and the parents are at a movie in which there should in no way be a baby at, for example Gladiator. Other than the negligent parenthood of showing a 3-year old Russell Crowe stabbing people, who brings a baby to the movie anyway? Honestly. When you had that baby you signed a 3-year unwritten contract that explicitly says: For the next 3 years you will have no social life. Sorry to break the news.

DVD Skipping: So your last movie was ruined by loud patrons and crying babies. This time you’re taking this into your own hands and you’re going to settle down with that Netflix movie you got three weeks ago. Finally you’ll chew through Michael Clayton so that way you can return it for whatever’s next on your queue. Well after watching two hours of exposition, Clayton is finally starting to get somewhere, when suddenly at the film’s peak … … How frustrating right? Say what you will about VHS, but that shiz never skipped at least. What follows is the guide for how to un-scratch a DVD. Eject it. Breath on the disc. Wipe it with your sleeve. Go to the chapter guide and pick up where you left off (of course you’ve just seen brief glimpses of the next 3 chapters that follow). Rinse and repeat my friend.

The Slow Line at the Grocery Store: The grocery store is frustrating enough. Fighting through the aisles, getting through the displays, avoiding wasteful spending on stupid things you don’t need. But now comes the finality of all you’ve worked for, picking the right cashier line. No matter what you never pick the right one. A lot goes into consideration when taking your pick too. How much stuff do the people in front of you have, how fast does the cashier look, etc. But all that goes out the window when someone whips out that checkbook. That might as well be an airport security inspection. Regardless, it’s impossible to pick the right lane and you’re staying for 10 minutes longer.

Waking up with pimple on face: Is there anything worse than waking up with a pimple or an emerging pimple on your face? Sure there are, but it’s pretty awful. What an awful surprise that is. Waking up sucks. But waking up and you can feel that pimple sitting there? Horrible.

Paper Cuts: How can something so little hurt so big? Paper cuts are awful. You slide your hand across the desk to grab a piece of paper and all the sudden you're in a world of hurt. It stings, you suck on it and it burns, nothing you do helps. The worse thing about a paper cut is you can barely even see it, but you sure can feel it, and you feel it all day long. Every time you reach in your pocket, every time you extend your finger, you’re feeling it.

Bird crap you cant get off of windshield: there is a phrase: “the world is your oyster.” It means you have the freedom to do whatever you want. Well, to birds, the world is their toilet, and they have the freedom to GO wherever they want. With utter disregard to us ground folk, our air fairing "friends" just shoot down little bombs whenever they feel like it, leaving it to land on the ground, your head, or your car windshield, amongst other places. When you get out to your car and find some of these little presents awaiting you, you try to get them off with the windshield wipers and some washer fluid. That usually works unless you get a real caked on crap. No matter how much work you put into this one its not coming off. Even a little oxyclean ain’t getting that off. The worst part about this semi permanent spot is that it is all you look at while you’re driving. You can’t take your eyes off it. It’s there and you want it gone. Your tools are failing you and there is nothing you can do but continue to stare at it and hope you intimidate it off of the windshield.

Annoying song stuck in your head: You hear songs everywhere, everyday. You drive and listen to the radio, you walk and hear people humming, you watch TV, your phone rings, etc. Music is going in and out of our heads all day, that is until one song gets stuck. Certain songs just do that, it might be because they're catchy, or you love that song, or the annoying dude in the cubicle behind you has been singing it all day, however when it gets stuck in there, it’s virtually impossible to get out. Like a rough spell of diarrhea, you gotta just let it run its course and take care of itself before you can move on. The worst part about a song being stuck in your head is as soon as you finally forget about it, someone is going to come by singing it again.

Machine wont take wrinkly dollar bill: When you go to buy a soda or a candy bar from a vending machine you slide your dollar in there and wait for it to process. Sometimes your dollar shoots back to you, so you look at the diagram and make sure George is lined up right and try it again but it comes back again. So you use the side of the machine like an ironing board and flatten it out, slide it back in waiting to hear the clicking noise of the dollar getting accepted then bam its back out again. You can’t get the crinkles out, that bill is not getting accepted. The most frustrating thing about this is you have the money for what you want, but it wont let you buy it. If this were a personal transaction between customer and clerk you'd be eating your Snickers bar, but your dollar bill isn't good enough for this machine, and you’re not good enough for its Snickers.

Sunburn on the top of your feet: Sunburns in general suck, they burn, they sting, someone slaps it and it burns and stings but the sunburn on the top of your feet is the all time worst. Any type of clothing touching a sunburn is a painful experience, but when the sunburn is on your feet and you have to wear shoes and socks on it all day, rubbing back and forth every step you take, it brings the sun sting to a whole new level.

Burning your tongue: Is the hot chocolate cool enough to drink? Well there's only one way to find out…ahhhhhhhh that 2 centimeter square of taste buds won't be working for the next few days. The only way to avoid this really is to use your finger to gage the hotness, but then you look like a weird-o to whoever your with, so just wait for one of them to do the inevitable and burn their tongue first, wait a few minutes and give it a go yourself. You could blow on the drink, but that’s splattering all over the place. Or you could go inward cooling, that is, breathing in as you drink. But that’s no good either. Basically the best thing to do is use the digit, or simply wait until the next day when the hot chocolate reaches a tolerable temp.

Being behind the slow driver on a one lane road: Not that we are for driving really fast, but there is a comfortable pace, about 10-15 mph over the speed limit that is good to cruise in. You don't want to have everyone on your ass because you are going slow, but you don't want to be the asshole bobbing and weaving between cars like Barry Sanders in his prime. No one wants to be that “hero.”

Anyway, the highway is a place for everyone, to each their own lane. When someone wrongly crosses over to a lane that is out of their league they'll realize it soon enough when everyone starts passing them on the right. While there are options on the highway, the one lane road on the other hand is road rage waiting to happen. If you are on a one-lane road long enough you are inevitably going to be stuck behind someone out for a stroll in the park. This car is going the speed limit, or even 5 mph over but you want to go a little faster. It’s like trying to run on a treadmill that only has 1 speed, the slow walk. Whether you want to or not you’re going to be riding this car’s ass like an 8th grader at a school dance. You’re Zoro, and this shit-tard in the Oldsmobile is the horse. All you can do is cuss this car out in your head or to your co pilot, "you believe this asshole?" and hope that this car turns off soon, because your only other choice is the one lane road pass, a risky maneuver and let’s face it, that maneuver automatically says to everyone on the road, “hey, look, I’m an asshole.”

It's the Little Things

2008-10-10T00:48:00.012-04:00

It’s been said that it’s the little things that make life worth living. Has there ever been a truer statement? What makes you smile more than the great little unexpected moments that life throws at you? We’ve all been here before and the following is a list of a few of the little things that make us happiest.

Finding money in Your Pocket: It’s been months since you’ve put on that winter coat. You reach into the pockets and what do you find? 20 bucks! Is there anything better than this? Even though you lost the money you put in your pocket some time ago, it feels like you actually MADE money when you find it again. It’s such a great feeling that you think it would be awesome to simply put money in your pockets just so you find it later. But that would not be the same.

Turning to the right page in a book on the 1st try: This was something we have all done once. Okay, well if you’ve never done your work or ever read anything, you’ve never felt this feeling before. Otherwise, for the rest of us how good was this, especially in a textbook or something. In class your teacher would say, “turn to page 238,” and then BAM, page 238 there you are. You know for 8 seconds afterward you thought you were capable of seeing into the future or something superhuman. This feeling would come to a screeching halt when you would get cocky and try it again only to be letdown that you turned to page 209.

Two candy bars fall from vending machine: In general when you go to a vending machine, it’s because you’re starving and the only thing available is the 85¢ non-named brand beef jerky or the little sleeve of trail mix. Making the decision of what to get at a vending machine is always a tough one, it inevitably comes down to 2 choices and you waiver. Finally you make the call, confident and excited you press F-4 and watch the little corkscrew turn and the skittles fall down to the bottom, but wait, the corkscrew is still turning. What’s this? Two skittles? In the words of Boston, Oh, What a Feeling! You just hit the two for one special! In reality, you only saved 50 cents, but it feels like someone just handed you a million bucks.

The Perfect Pour: When you’re pouring soda or a likewise carbonated beverage into a cup you're bound to do two things, fill the cup only to find out that its really only half full (or half empty depending on your outlook on life) or fill too much and it over flows. But there are those times when you pour and the drink fizzes and it nears the top of the cup and it looks like it's about to over flow, then like magic, the fizz is over the top of the cup but it stays self contained and calms back into the cup. Congratulations friend you’ve just scored, “The Perfect Pour.”

The Perfect Gus Pump: Ideally, the perfect gas pump is a free one. But about 99.9% of the time, we all go for the .00 on the gas fill up. If you’re like us, you use the credit card to fill the tank and when you get your statement, it reads: 45.00 38.00 40.00, etc. good work friend, you’ve had a solid month.
Now when it comes to the ".00" most of the time it's accomplished in overtime, that is, when the pump handle drops and says, "no, that’s quite enough sir." That’s when you say, “I don’t care what these signs say about overfilling, I’m getting the price from $39.12 to 40.00.” Inevitably you press that handle around 15 times as you push that bad boy to the limit.

That's a forced .00, and while getting to that point is nice, getting there on one squeeze? That’s euphoric. If you get 42.00 flat by just releasing the handle perfectly on the dot, that is called a game-changer right there. You could have been dumped, fired, and lost your pants in a tragic pant-eating accident, but hitting that double-zero is just so sweet that for 5 minutes all is okay.

Avoiding all red lights on the way to somewhere: This never happens when you are running late. It’s almost like the road Gods* are rewarding you for not rushing and doing potentially dangerous things in order to get somewhere on time.
You never attempt to hit all the lights, it just sort of starts. You start out on your drive and realize that you are on a little streak, you hit 3, then 4 then 8 green lights in a row, you are unstoppable, and the road is yours.

*Major Road Gods:
Trafficthopoles- God of all traffic
Ceralightis – God of lights
Asphaultia – God of all gravel and roads
Curio – God of “rubber neckers” and the “curiosity factor”

Knocking something over and catching it before it hits: This little thing is so great because its combines the greatness of making a nice snag with the relief of avoiding something that is potentially disastrous.

Situation: You’re walking alongside the kitchen counter and your elbow knocks a glass, so naturally you throw your hand back there and you grab it. If you were consciously trying to catch it, chances are that glass would be in a million pieces on the floor, but there is something about the subconscious that makes you smooth as silk. Your subconscious takes over and ‘sniggity-snag’ you grab that cup like Randy Moss over 3 defenders. What makes this even better is if someone is watching. If a baseball fan is watching, you’re getting tagged with “damn, that’s totally going to make web gems tonight.”

Getting too much change back: Life isn’t cheap, that much is true. But sometimes things get a little cheaper when you unexpectedly are given a 5-spot and four more 1’s when you should have got five bucks back, instead you made back an extra four, unbeknownst to the teller. It's like a little golden ticket slipped its way into their hands. And, like Charlie Bucket, you come screaming out of the store thinking you’ve just won a huge prize. Amazing right? In a world where The Man is always trying to get you, there’s nothing better than when you get the best of The Man.

When the cashier forgets to scan something at the register: Okay, admit it, you’ve gotten away with a few “accidental” item-under-the-cart transfers. No room for that 24-pack in the carriage? Slide it underneath and if the cashier happens to forget to ask to see the cart, well that’s their purgative. Either way, you’ve got free drinking water for the next 7 days. That’s not stealing, that’s just employee negligence.

When you're thinking of a song, and then it's on the radio: We all have our favorite songs. You know, those songs that we’re always happy to hear come on the radio. But this occasion is even more special when you’re thinking about a song, say “Desperado,” and then you press ON and there it is… “DESPERAAAADOOOO.”
But it doesn't necissarily have to be your favorite song to be good. Sometimes you hear a song from a friend or heard one on the radio earlier, and all you can think of is four words of the song. What’s more, you have been singing those four words all day and humming out the rest of the melody. On top of that, because you don’t know the song, you are actually singing the WRONG lyrics, negating even the best Google search. But like a divine miracle, you turn on your car radio (because when else are you listening to the radio) and there it is, That Song! How HUGE is that? Now you’ll definitely remember enough to look up later, and you’ll realize the lyrics aren’t “…I’ve got all these up in my name,” they’re “I’ve got the visas in my name, if you come around here, I make ‘em all day.” Grand.

Getting the good seat: When you’re getting prepaid tickets and can pick a seat, this goes out the window*. But if you’re going to the movie theater and you get that epic seat in the middle just before the trailers start, that’s clutch. What about the Plane (well Southwest Airlines). Getting that aisle seat or more importantly, the seat in the emergency exit row, (Legroom galore) is definitely making your day.

*Unless you’ve paid for the seats behind the guy in the stovepipe hat.

Finding a random ball at the park: Want to know something true? Guys are like dogs in many ways. One such example is when we’re doing something at a park and we stumble upon a lost ball in the park. Jackpot! Like you’re not picking up that stray tennis ball? Pst, please. If you’re with others it’s a fight to see who gets it. And the guy who’s sitting there saying, “I’m too mature for that,” is inevitably the first one to ask if he can see it when you start bouncing that bad boy everywhere.

Putting clothes on straight from the dryer: You get back in the house from a cold day, or wake up on a cold morning and you need to change your clothes. Putting on clothes in general would be nice warmth in this occasion. Putting on clothes straight out of the dryer, you just made like all dogs and went to heaven. The best laundry garment are socks, though. Putting those toasty socks right up on your feet is absolutely terrific. Now that your toes are warm, your body now knows it’s okay to start getting the other extremities warmed up.

Winning a buck from $1 scratch-n-win: Occasionally when you get your gas, or pick up a few things at the convince store you tell the cashier to throw in a dollar scratch ticket. It’s a dollar, why not? You know you're not gonna win, but you buy it anyways. So you go back to your car and pull out the lucky penny and scratch off the silvery stuff and bam, you’ve won a dollar, but it’s not about winning that dollar, it’s the fact that you won! What a feeling! Inevitably, like a drug, you want to feel it again, so you buy another ticket instead of getting the dollar back, and lose, but really, what’d you expect? At that point you were playing with house money (even though you paid $1 already for the first ticket, so technically you’re playing with the original $1, but that’s just technicalities).

Unexpected leftovers: How many times a day do you open the fridge only to be met by the disappointment of nothing to eat. Well there is stuff to eat, the fridge is full, but there’s nothing you want to eat, that is, unless there are some leftovers in there. Leftovers that you know are there are always good, but when a roommate or family member stocks the fridge with leftovers, well then there is such a thing as a free lunch, and a damn tasty one at that. Now you’re only two-minutes away from delicious tastiness in your belly. And if one person in your home is a naysayer about leftovers, well my friend, you’re eating for two.

Hitting a tough shot into the garbage can: You lean back in your chair so you can get your arm and eyes in an angle to see the garbage/recycle bin 15-feet away around your cubicle. You know there’s a 1-in-10 shot you’re getting that empty Poland Spring bottle in there, but hey, you were going to get up and throw it out later anyway, so why not right? You arch your arm back, and the bottle goes end over end toward the bin. Suddenly there’s hope and as the bottle falls you realize it may actually go in, and your foresight is rewarded with the beautiful sound of the bottles clanking around as you’ve hit nothing but, er, box! You might as well be Michael Jordan at that point. If there was someone else around by the way, there’s only the same 1-in-10 chance they’re NOT trying the same shot which they’ll attempt until there’s nothing left to throw in the garbage. If they can’t do it in 8 tries, you feel like Superman. Correction: you ARE Superman.

Elevator button working immediately: I don’t know about you, but we think waiting sucks. We live in the fast-paced want it yesterday world where we are always moving and doing something, so waiting for an elevator is just impeding me from getting to the bottom floor, so I can sit on that sweet bench. But when you hit that button and the ‘ding!’ goes off right away, that’s like music to your ears. Who’s not waiting here? This guy.

Side Note: Like any button, tell me you’re actually pressing it once. There’s at least a double-press. If it’s not there within 15 seconds, it’s getting about 8 more presses, too. Same fast-button pressing applies to the crosswalk as well.

Someone calling and canceling when you didn’t want to do something anyway: So you were going to finally hang out with “Flakey Friend” (refer to previous blog about Flakey Friend for definition). Well, unbelievably, FF hasn’t cancelled, and now you’re bummed out, because now you’re getting prepped to see them. Worse yet, your other friends invited you somewhere better but your conscience has eaten you alive to hang with Flakey McFlakerston. This is suddenly when this douche calls you up, “Hey dude, I’m not feeling well…” or “I’m going to have to give you the rain check this week, sorry to do it for a 12th week in a row.” Your response: I understand, sorry it didn’t work out dude, I was so psyched.

Really, your response was something along the lines of: There is a god.

Thank goodness you have friends that are more willing to bail out on plans than you are, because right now, instead of getting a few pops and watching the game with your buddies, you would have been neck-deep in bullshit hanging out with that drain of a friend.

Waking up in the middle of the night thinking it’s time to get up, but really you have 4 more hours: Suddenly waking up in the middle of the night, what a rush, you automatically think you slept past your alarm and scramble for the clock, only to see that it’s only 3 a.m. and you have 4 more hours left to sleep. It’s not as good as getting a full night’s sleep, but it’s a little bit of “I’m sorry, false alarm” reward you get from your brain.

Prime time Parking Spot: Much like catching all of the lights, it never happens when you really need it, but once in a while you’ll take the risk and drive through that first row of parking spots and see that oasis in the parking lot desert, and save the extra 10 feet of walking. Even more key than this is if it’s a spot you can pull through so you don’t have to back out when you leave. Not only are you close, but now you’re pulling out of this lot like Batman, which is important, because who wants to have more time separating themselves from the movie theater to their TV?

The Car: A place to do everything but drive

2008-10-08T01:13:00.005-04:00

It is said that we spend almost six years of our lives driving a car. We are wasting six years driving to places to spend the rest of our years, well if you are like us, you aren’t wasting those 6 years at all, you’re milking this time for all its worth. Rather than look at car rides as a negative, look at them as a positive. This is a solid block of time when there is nothing you HAVE to do but a world of possibilities of what you can do at your fingertips, and none of the things you can think of involve solely driving.

Driving a car has always been a multi tasking sport. In fact, in case you didn’t know, like many things, the Ancient Egyptians were the first to multitask. While hauling huge bricks to the pyramids, Egyptian men found away to move these bricks while praying to the sun god Ra, while also permanently ruining their spine simultaneously. No small feat.

The modern days of in-car entertainment however started with the radio, two things which separate can be boring, but together are great. Have you ever sat in a room and just listened to music? No, it’s boring as hell, but listing to music as you do other things, is great. Driving is the same way, have you ever had a broken radio in your car and driven in silence? Well they say the seat belt is the most important safety feature in a car, but I’m going to have to go against that and say the radio is. You know how many times you would fall asleep out of sheer boredom without a radio to keep your mind occupied? Try every drive over twenty minutes. The radio is the most basic and safest thing to do while driving, but it is far from the only thing you can do. Why just drive when it can be accompanied by:

- Talking on the cell phone - talking on the phone while driving is the modern day listing to the radio while driving. Seemingly every month studies come out that say talking on the phone while driving causes these many accidents or talking on the phone while driving hinders your concentration by so much, but may we present the theory that talking on the phone is actually a safety harness? Much like the radio being in the car, talking on the phone keeps you active, alert, lively and most importantly awake. You can only listen to so much NPR or Delilahhhhhhhhhh before you are nodding off. Talking on the phone allows you to stay entertained and awake, and also lets you be productive while you’re driving. How many times a week do you think, ah I was supposed to call Mike back, oh I’ll call him when I get in the car? How about all the time. It’s so much easier to keep in touch with people when you’ve got a long car ride to take every day and you can bang out a few phone calls in. When your done getting those out of the way you inevitably call up “Long Drive Friend” (for more information on long drive friend please see the blog entry: Phones and Friends) For John, making a long hour and 15-minute commute to and from work would have been impossible everyday if not for the lifeline that was his dad. In fact, John’s relationship with his dad improved 10-fold. So not only is it a Driver Safety Feature, but it’s also a Relationship Bolster Valve.

- Texting- Where as we tried to make an argument that talking on the phone while driving is a safe thing to do, texting while driving is probably the most dangerous thing you can do while your driving. But just like people who smoke or those who ignore the “dry clean only” tag, we do it anyway. Everyone has done it, and everyone should stop. Talking on the phone is one thing, you can have a hands free device, or you can hold it with one and still drive just as easily with the other hand, but texting? If you have a phone with a full QWERTY keyboard you’re texting with 2 hands and driving with the knee. But despite the fact that we’re asking for an accident, it’s way better than actually calling the person you’re texting. In the time it would have taken to simply call up your flaky friend to cancel your “play date” (Approx. 5 seconds), it’s way better to text “I can’t make it, sorry dude, something came up” which takes about 7 minutes of looking up and down at the road and at the phone screen. If you don’t have a QWERTY keyboard you may think you are at an advantage because you only need one hand. Not so fast my friend. That predictive text can be a killer. Instead of “I Can’t make it, I’m sorry dude, something came up,” you’re typing something totally illegible like, “I cant male it? Go sorry dude, something band us.” That’s not good either because who rereads their text while in the car?

By the way, what’s worse than driving with your knee? Your eyes are clearly focused on the keys on your phone, you’re not even looking at the road other than a slight glance every now and then. But it’s all worth it right? Driving in these dangerous conditions is totally worth letting Betsy know that you thought last nights episode of the office was hilarious too, LOL. The worst part about texting while driving? We all know it’s not a good thing to do, and we’re writing this post about it, but its not going to stop us from doing it. In fact we wrote much of this post via text message in the car.

- Eating- Who has time to enjoy that subway sandwich IN subway? That foot-long turkey is getting housed the second you get back in your car. Shit, you don’t even park the car to unwrap it. That’s just delaying you from being late even more. In fact you’re spreading even more mayonnaise on that hoagie WHILE you drive. That little mayo packet comes in handy when accomplishing this feat. No knife necessary with the packet because now you’re spreading the mayo with the tip of the packet. So what if a little lettuce is the casualty of mayo sticking to it as you spread sandwich lube on that Italian herb and cheese roll. It’s all in the name of not wasting one more possible second, while evenly spreading that mayo also while not getting your hands dirtier than they are.

- Like eating a sub, changing clothes is another perfect time saver when you’re late. Stuck in traffic? Boom the shoes come off. Though to be honest, you weren’t driving with shoes on were you? No way. Anyway, you’re at a traffic signal, you’re sliding the pants off and grabbing the gym clothes and putting them on. Who needs the gym locker room and the discomfort of seeing all those naked old men strut their stuff when you can change in your car? If you’re lucky and get it done fast enough you may even be able to lean forward at the next light and stretch your hamstrings and arms. Now there’s nothing getting between you and the stationary bike.

- Watching a movie is a relatively new feature in cars. Some Fancy McRichPaws may have some gizmo that’s integrated into the dashboard or something like that. But you can get a ghetto hook up with your iPod or even your laptop with the help of a FM transmitter or a tape deck converter. Now your car has become the ultimate home theater. Where else are you going to get 6-speaker surround sound in a 6’x6’ area? Nowhere, that’s where. But if you’re going to do this, it’s best that you play a movie you know really well because that way you don’t need to actually see it. When Forrest Gump says, “…it was the most beautiful voice I’d ever heard in the whole wide world,” you know he’s getting on that bus and he’s meeting that skank Jenny just after being told, “you can’t sit here-aaaaaaa,” by that douche kid with the flattop haircut.

- For some who have inter web capabilities, the car has also become your fantasy baseball team’s official home away from home. If it’s after 7 p.m. and you’re in the car, you’re checking the stats. Of course the best thing about this is that phone Internet takes about 4 minutes to load ANY page so therefore by the time you’ve looked up four of your players, you’re already arriving at your destination.

- Because you’re doing oh so much on the road, one thing that’s bound to happen is that you’re going to miss that exit on the highway or that part of the road where the road changes street names. In a predicament like this it’s time for the ghetto-on-star. No one actually has the real On-Star. That’s because you’d have to own a GM make car for that, and then you’re using the On-Star to get your hog towed from the spot where you broke down. Anyway, ghetto GPS/On-Star is simple: it consists of calling your friend who is hopefully by a computer and having them google-Maps you back to where you need to be. Who hasn’t done this at one point or another? Yet another way how cell phones+car=lifesaver, only this is more of a headache lifesaver, but a lifesaver nonetheless because who likes being lost.

Dining Out

2008-10-06T08:31:00.009-04:00

Who doesn't love eating out? Maybe we should rephrase that. Who doesn't love going out to eat? It's (normally) good food, it's fun, you don't have to cook, and most importantly you don't have to clean. You feel like a king when you're there, too. You're being served food, and how key is that? Well that whole king business goes out the window they bring that check over. Anyway, without getting ahead of ourselves, there are several things that effect the dining out experience, and that of course is the people you go with. Each person has their own unique things they do at a restaurant. There are definitely no two alike people when it comes to going out to a restaurant, and the following is a list of the different guys or persons you may be going with or may in fact be yourself:

Dessert Guy: Ahhh, what a satisfying meal you've just had. Now it's time for the bill and everyone at the table is ready to go, except for Dessert Guy. Dessert Guy 'needs something sweet' to finish the meal. This is exactly how this conversation goes.

Waitress: "How was everything?"
Collectively: "Good"
W: "Can I get you anything else?"
You: "No can we just get the…"
Dessert Guy: "Actually can I get a slice of the Key Lime Pie?"
Everyone else: (what they're thinking) Seriously? Really? But, Why?

How un-key is that? Could there be anything more annoying than getting ready to leave and then suddenly being halted? It's like dining blue balls.

Never Has Cash Guy: When you're eating with another couple or a group of people this guy is bound to rear his ugly head. He never has cash on him, ever, which is fine when he's buying stuff for himself. His thought is, cash is old fashioned, who needs cash when you have a debit card and 3 credit cards? Well in some cases the ol' greenbacks still come in handy. If you're just out with him, or it's a double date then its not a big deal, one person can give the other cash or you can split the bill on the respective credit cards. But if your out with a group, there are bound to be 2 or 3 of these guys, and you cant split a credit card 6 ways, or at least you don't want to be the guy to ask, so the cash holders end up covering the credit card guys who hit them with the, "don't worry I'll get you later," line. You know that's never the case and even if they do get you back, they only get you back for 80% of the sum. Do they owe you 25 bucks? You know what you're getting back? $20, and then they're having you call it even. So until you can swipe a credit card between your ass cheeks and have it withdrawal money, you know never has cash guy is always getting the best of you.

Expensive taste guy: Everyone price watches when they go out to eat. It effects what you're going to eat especially when you're out with others. But prices mean nothing to expensive taste guy. He's going to get whatever the hell he feels like having. There might as well not be any prices on the menu because if he wants that Steak with the Au Gratin potatoes while everyone else is settling for the 7.99 sandwich, he damn well is going to get it. The best part about expensive taste guy is that he doesn't even care about others when it comes to the check either. This is evident in the case that there are four people and ETG wants to split the bill four ways. No, dude. I'm not paying extra money for your $18 dish. That's why I got the 7.99 sandwich with fries, I wanted a cheap deal. Expensive Taste Guy, awful. There's nothing wrong with getting what you want, you just need to pay for it.

Salad Guy: Salad is definitely a healthy alternative to some of the fatty foods at restaurants. But salad was designed for lunch or as an accompaniment to dinner, because everyone knows that those healthy foods completely void that cheeseburger. But, salad guy ignores the dinner rules and he goes for the Cobb Salad at dinner. Sure, salad has elements of dinner food: meat, cheese, and a multitude of other things, but it's salad, and salad don't belong at the dinner table as the sole meal. If salad guy is a girl then its fine, but is their anything more emasculating then hearing a guy say, "I'll just have a salad"?

Picky/Substitution Guy: Alright so you are on a date and you don't want stank breath the rest of the night so you may need to tell them to hold the onions, but this guy takes it to a whole new level.

PSG: "I'll have the Turkey club please, but could you hold the lettuce, tomatoes and bacon please?"
Waitress: "Ok so a Turkey club minus a BLT?"
PSG: "Actually can you hold the mayo too?"
Waitress: "No Problem" (She's thinking, want me to hold the turkey and bread as well? Then I'll be holing a TURKEY CLUB and you'll be holding an empty plate)

We realize the menu isn't specifically catered to your exact tastes so if you need to sub ranch for blue cheese with your wings or tell them to hold the tomatoes, cause you don't like tomatoes, that's fine. If you need to substitute everything on your sandwich except for the bread, and then you decide to change that to wheat, just order something else.

Condiment/Sauce Guy: Who doesn't love sauce? A good sauce can make even the worst of foods taste at least decent. But sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. Ever sit with someone who keeps pouring that sauce on there? It's a little off-putting. It's like, hey, dude, you want some more ketchup with your ketchup? We know the sauce is free, but it doesn't mean you have to take all of it.

Waitress Conversation Guy: This guy is just annoying, not only because he is talking to the waitress too much, but because he thinks he's the funniest guy EVER. Everyone has one of these guys in their family, it's usually the dad. The waitress comes over after you finish eating to ask how everything was, and he goes "Awful, we want a refund" which the waitress follows up with a polite laugh. Good One Guy! I bet she's neverrrrr heard that one before. He's also the guy who comes up with the amazing one-liner to the host after being asked "party of two?" He responds, "actually, no, party of 10." Verrrrry funny Robin Williams. Even the host knows you don't have 10 friends.

Big Tipping Guy: The problem with big tip guy is that he ALWAYS gives too much. He's either generous or he used to be a waiter and realizes that the $2.30 you make an hour doesn't get you anywhere without some good tips coming in. But, little does he know that in THIS country it's customary to tip 15% for average or decent service. Did you know in other countries they don't get tips at all and that's the custom there, so when in Rome… Also the waiter doesn't get taxed on tips, if you ask 15% tip guy, that's a sweet deal. If for whatever reason the waiter did something amazing or out of the ordinary that added to the service, then okay, 20%. Or, if the waiter is your friend or is someone you know, give 25%. But for big tip guy 20% is where it starts. This is just wrong. Sometimes all the waiter does is take your order while some other fool brings your food. And for that I give 20%? No, no, no, my friend, that's where you are mistaken.

Small Tipping Guy: This is the guy who thinks 15% is not the low end on the tipping scale; it's THE tip, and a generous one at that. The waitress could be running around like crazy, but still giving superb service and even pitching in with a fake laugh to their clever comments and this guy is still pulling out that tip calculator at the end of the meal and typing in 15%. Sure the waitress relies on these tips for her income, but it's not this guy's fault that she only makes $2.30 an hour. This guy is the worst when you're splitting a bill with him. You happened to find the waitress delightful and efficient, you want to leave her 25%, which is a little higher than your normal 20% but she worked for it. So he asks how much should we leave and you tell him and he's pissed, you kidding me? Really? You musta had a good month at work. Good service should be rewarded, stop being so cheap and give the few extra bucks.

Brand Loyalist Guy: Waitress: And can I get you anything to drink?

BLG: "I'll have a diet coke, with lemon, thanks"
Waitress: "Sorry sir, we have Pepsi products, is Diet Pepsi alright?"
BLG: "UGHHHHHHH I'll just take a WATER"

Is there reaaaaaally that big of a difference? If the waitress brought out the Diet Pepsi instead of the Diet Coke without telling you, you wouldn't even notice. They're both colas, they're brown, fizzy and sweet. I know you're a Coke Guy and you ONLY drink COKE but your out to eat, enjoy it, go crazy, try some Pepsi, or even get real wild and sip on some Sierra Mist. If they don't have your Heinz ketchup are you going to eat your burger without anything on it? I didn't think so.

Doesn't like his seat Guy: This guy is normally a parent and here's the situation: The host is walking you to your seat when suddenly the table and four chairs presented is deemed undesirable. "Doesn't Like His Seat Guy" interjects the host as they're putting your menus down on the table with, "excuse me, but is there something available in a booth," or "Is there a seat that's not so close to the A/C vent?" The response the host gives is something nice sounding like, "oh, yeah sure no problem, let me see." What the host is really saying is, "you know who's getting their food spat in?"

Eats too fast guy: So you're sitting there with what you thought was your friend, when suddenly you realize you're at lunch/dinner with Hot Dog Eating Champion, Kobayashi. Before you've taken your 10th bite, Joey Chestnut on the other side of you has finished his entire meal and is washing it down with a Diet Coke. Now you're left with the uncomfortable feeling of having to finish off your meal in a hurry because "Eats too fast guy" is sitting there waiting. Pacing yourself was something this guy never learned and now you're paying the price by not talking and eating faster than your usual pace. Whomp Whomp.

Annoying Eater Guy:
You're out to eat with your friend, or your girlfriend, a person whom you genuinely like, that is until they get that food in front of them and turn into a complete stranger. Annoying eaters come in many shapes and sizes, they may chew with their mouth open, eat their French fries with a fork, dip their burger in their apple sauce, make a smacking noise when they chew, slurp their soup loudly, suck at the bottom of their drink with the straw like their trying to drink up the glass at the bottom of the cup, or any of these other eating habits that we've mentioned today. You may even find it annoying if they cut their food with their hand gripped completely around the fork like a caveman.

Finally, they say you don't really know someone until you've lived with them, that's probably true, but you don't know someone at all until you've gone out to eat with them.

At The Ballgame

2008-10-03T09:03:00.003-04:00

Tell me you go to a baseball game and you actually watch the game. If you are sitting there right now saying, ‘yeah I actually do that,’ than you my friend are a liar. Sure, you go to the baseball game to see your favorite teams and players perform, or maybe you go to the game to see the stadium, whatever. But after the first pitch and excluding a few big moments during the course of the game, you are there to do one thing and one thing only: people-watch.

Baseball offers this opportunity better than any other sport. Basketball has constant movement, and so does ice hockey for that matter. But since ice hockey doesn’t matter to anyone, we’ll just say that basketball has too much movement and leave it at that. Anyway, Football is no good for people watching. You’d think that with all the time the players are huddling, this would be a grand time to really get some P-watching in, but the trouble with football is that there are so few football games, 8 home games, and the tickets are so pricey that you really want to maximize your football viewing dollar and experience. The atmosphere is also too aggressive at a football game. Referees make you want to punch someone, you’re constantly coaching from the stands, and the drunk dude who has passed out on your shoulder sitting next to you has you in the odd place of feeling like an asshole if you wake him up, but angry because you can’t just be an asshole. After all, by the fourth quarter, you and the drunken prick on your shoulder have been through a lot together. His inevitably shirtless self has perspired sweat all up on your arms, and you now share a bond: herpes.

So football is no good, and if you think there are other sports you should bother paying to go see, then you my friend are:

1. A Nascar hick
2. A golf snob
3. Lame for having paid to go see tennis in person

Thus, we are left with baseball as the only true people-watching sports venue. When people-watching, there are some things and people you always see.

· People that look like celebrities: There’s always a guy that looks like someone famous. And if you’re us, all they need to have is one barely similar feature to a celeb to get a joke tagged to him. Fat dude with curly hair? That’s the guy from Lost. Old guy with a trimmed white beard and glasses? Wolf Blitzer. Guy wearing overalls? Super Mario. Really old lady wearing Red Sox gear? That’s Ted Williams’ mom. Also, throwing in some sort of joke with that dude is extremely important. Is there a cop at the stadium with a buzz cut and aviators? You know he’s looking for John Connor.

· The douche bag trying to start the wave himself- He comes to the game as a normal fan, but after dropping $180 for 6 beers, he’s in the tank and he’s got one thing on his mind, the wave. First off, the wave in itself is not a bad idea, it looks cool when it’s going around the stadium and you can just be lazy about it and throw up an arm. The problem with the wave is that it’s always at the worst time of the game. If your team is up by 8 runs in the 4th inning then hey make like a hurricane and get the waves flowin, but in the bottom of the 8th in a 3-2 game with the bases loaded and 2 outs, sit down and watch, these are the only times that your at a baseball game that you actually take a break from people watching to watch anyways, so lay off the wave.

Back to “wave guy” he runs to the bottom of his section and starts screaming and waving his arms, like he’s doing some sort of rain dance to get everyone out of their seats, a few other drunks join in and all the sudden he thinks he’s got something going, that is until those 8 people sit down and the section next door does nothing, so wave guy figures he cant just stand there, he’s gotta run down the aisle waving his arms to get everyone going. What sucks is, eventually this tool will get the wave going because people will feel bad for him if they don’t. “Look at that dude, he’s trying to start the wave. Alright I’ll give him a pity arm lift.” Pretty soon 8 people become 20 which become a row and eventually a section of pity wavers. The section to the left simply thinks that the people in section 128 are doing the wave, so now they join in. Now drunk wave guy, who has lost his shirt because he’s holding it in his hand as some sort of rallying instrument, thinks he’s the shit.

People inappropriately dressed for a ball game

· No suits- I understand that you are coming straight from work to go to the game, but come on, is it so much to ask to throw a t shirt into your briefcase or your car in the morning, you don’t even need to change out of your work shirt, just throw a T over it, show a little effort, that’s all we can ask. This is a baseball stadium, not your board room at 10am, loosen up a little, in the words of David Putty “you gotta support the team”

· No sideways hats – Under the age of 30? You can wear your hat backwards. But other than that, there should be no other way to dawn your cap. First off, it’s not even comfortable. You ever try putting a fitted hat on sideways? It’s like saying, “hey I want to put tons of pressure on the temples of my head.” Putting your hat on different ways says a lot about you. Resting your hat on your head facing toward the front with the bill in the air says:

1. My hat is too tight, but I have to wear it ‘cause I’m supporting my team
2. I yearn for the days of my youth
3. I was taught how to wear my hats from Fred McGriff in the Tom Emansky baseball drills video.

Wearing your hat fully on your head facing forward says:

1. I’m just a normal cat. Don’t worry about me.
2. I’m here to support the team on my head
3. I’m bald and hiding it

Wearing you hat backwards means:

1. This hat doesn’t look good if it’s forward
2. I’m still young enough to wear my hat backwards.
3. I want to be more aerodynamic
4. This hat+my bushy goatee indicate I’m a rapist.

Wearing your hat sideways means:

1. I’m a douche
2. I’m a Chauncey
3. I’m probably both.

· The guy with the expired player tee- I realize that you thought John Jaha was going to be the second coming of Babe Ruth when he hit a home run at the first game you saw him play and you instantly ran into the pro shop and bought a T shirt with his name on the back, or even worse bought a full out jersey, but can’t you admit to your mistake and throw down another $20 for a player that’s at least still on the team. Going to a game with an expired player T is still better than going in a suit, and yes teams do have a lot of turnover each season in this day and age but you know that guy is just pissed that he dropped 20 bucks on the T shirt or 70 on the jersey and too bitter about it to put the Shea Hillenbrand jersey away.

· The loud guy: Every stadium’s got about 100 at that day’s game. A good heckler can completely entertain you for the afternoon and can be worth the price of admission himself. A bad one can make a game totally irritating. What is worse than being out in the bleacher and hearing a guy argue balls and strikes. Heckle Manny Ramirez for looking like the Predator. That’s something we all can enjoy. But calling balls and strikes from over 500 feet away? Shut up.

· Generic statement to the players guy- Yes we know you want Manny to hit it here, but you yelling that to him isn’t going to do anything. The pitcher is trying to throw those strikes, you coaching him from the right field box isn’t going to do anything. And no Terry Francona wasn’t waiting on you to tell him to pull the pitcher before he did it, so stop annoying the people around you and keep it to yourself.

Phones and Friends

2008-09-30T23:50:00.004-04:00

Where would we be without cell phones? You know that awful feeling when your battery dies and you're incommunicado for a few hours? Imagine having that feeling ALL THE TIME… yeah I couldn't either. Remember back to before we had cell phones? You had all of your friends phone numbers memorized and you can probably still remember them today. Remember calling their house and having to ask if they were home, which of course led to some small talk with their family. If they were out you had to wait till they got back home and then you had to rely on a family member to pass on the message to them, which was a dicey at best probability. If the friend’s mom took down the number, there was a 85% rate of return phone call; father 65%; Older sister 57%; Younger sister 34%; Older brother 23%; Younger brother 9%. Other than knowing that your friend will never call you back if the little bro picked up, the other thing that sucked about younger brother answering the phone was the horrible start to the convo that always ensued.

Brother: Hello?
You: Oh, hi Mrs. Johnson, is Brandon there?
Brother: it's Tyler.
You: sorry dude. (beat passes) is Brandon home?
It sucks because you know you've ruined this kid's day, and you know just what it was like to be confused for mom answering the phone at some point.

Back to the point, which is, we're lucky we are in our 20's so we didn't have to deal with the lack of a cell phone in our lives for too long. When you are younger you don't need a cell phone quite as much anyway because you'd see your friends all day at school and make plans with them to meet at the field to play football or come over to play some XBOX after school. But how did people carry out plans in the olden days?

If you wanted to meet up with someone on a Friday night, you had to tell them exactly the time and place? Bup that. What if the place you were going to sucked and you wanted to leave, or you were running late, or you wanted to give them a lame excuse and do something different? You couldn't. People must have just been waiting for each other, hoping that they showed when and where they said they would, all the time.

If you HAD to change something, you had to use—gulp—the pay phone. Remember that germ infested contraption? We 20-somethings are still old enough to have used those things. Does calling your parent in 8th grade to pick you up from the movies ring any bells? Remember dialing collect? You know you were way too cheap to throw in that quarter, so you billed your parents the $2.00 phone call instead. But you could dodge all this by beating the system. When that operator asked you to speak your name after the tone, you knew your name ceased to be (fill in name here) and suddenly it was, "Pick-us-up-at-5."

Anyway, not having a cell phone would make life inconvenient to say the least. But, it would pose an even bigger problem for two kinds of friends, Flakey Friend and Wasted Friend.

Your flaky friend is always sending you a text 20 min after you were supposed to meet up saying how their back is itchy so they can't make it tonight, but definitely next time! And you know that is bull but it's your flaky friend, so you half expect it anyways. Somehow this person is your friend, even though you never see them. Well, without cell phones Flaky Friend must have not existed. After all, Flaky Friend and you get by purely on this form of "I can't make it" communication. This is what's holding the friendship together with scotch tape.

When you and Flaky Friend do finally meet up, it's almost a letdown because that means you've lost an internal bet. Now you have to hang out with FF, and that's no good either. Some laughs are had, but the only reason why you're friends in the first place is because you're always planning to see each other. When you actually see each other it's awkward. Ironically, it's the cell phone that gets you out of having to spend a whole evening with FF, so you can go hang out with one of your other friends, Wasted Friend, Sort-of Gay Friend, Sports Friend, or Movie Friend. But if you cannot get in touch with those people, it crosses your mind to turn to Work/School Friend, but there's no way you can take that step with them.

Wasted Friend: When you go out to the bar scene or a party one of your friends is bound to get wasted by the end of the night and you usually get a drunken phone call or you call him 15 times and finally find out that he's lying in the back yard staring at the sky. You go grab him to leave, but what if he didn't have a cell phone? Have you ever tried to track someone down whose phone is dead? Pretty impossible. Well if it’s 3 a.m. on a Friday and the last time you saw them was at the party on Rocky Rd and they're no where to be seen there anymore, they're in trouble. Short of roaming the streets with a flood light and yelling their name, getting in touch with them isn't happening, and now Wasted Friend has turned into Drunken Missing Friend. In fact, not only would you not be able to find them that night in this pre-cell phone world, you wouldn't even have proof of life until they make it back to their land-line phone and called you at your house. Sure they could have used a pay phone, but what are the chances that the waste case is going to have a few quarters in their pocket, or remember the numbers 800-COLLECT. He's up the creek without a cell phone, and he'll be there for a while.

Here’s just a list of the other friends that are in your phone's memory:

Sort-of Gay Friend (SGF): This friend is pretty self-explanatory. This is the guy that's never afraid of touching anyone. You're at the party and he starts putting his hands all up on your shoulder, before anyone has drunk anything. He's the guy that's not afraid of giving his other friends a pseudo-backrub. He's also the guy that looks good all the time. You've never seen him wearing anything but button-down shirts, never a dingy football jersey. He's the guy who wears the polo shirt to the baseball game.

Sports/Movie Friend: These friends essentially specialize in one thing, movies or sports. Movie friend is the one you always see movies with. You never do anything else with that friend. What's more, they'll see anything. The great thing about Movie Friend is you really don’t even need to get along with this person at all or have anything in common with them. You call or text them to asking what time they want to see the movie and the next time you see them is at the theater, where you talk about how excited you are to see the movie and how you read good or bad reviews about it. When you tell MF that your friend (really, you’re true friend) saw the movie and said it was good, MF is still skeptical because Peter Travers’ review in Rolling Stone said it was below average.

After the movie, conversation only stays on one topic: the movie. Including a conversation that goes something like this:
You: That was awesome
MF: yeah it was solid
You: my favorite part was when the pencil went in the guy’s head.
MF: yeah I liked the part when the commissioner came back to life.
(on and on that goes until you can think of no more parts of the film so that MF thinks of the last thing).
In reality, a stranger would suffice, but you don’t want to go to the movies by yourself, and that’s why you have movie friend.

Sports Friend is the guy you only talk about sports to. In fact, there might as well not be any other thing in the world besides sports. This is the friend that when you ask if they're dating someone, they say, "No, I've struck out." It's probably because they spend all their time adjusting their fantasy team. One trait sports fan always has is that he loves the high five. This friend is perfect to go to a sports bar with, or even have over to watch the game, but the range of sports guy pretty much runs out there. He's like a lefty specialist in baseball, really good at doing what you keep them around for, but if you keep them around too long, it’s only going to turn bad.

Work/School Friend: Wherever you spend most of your time (Work or Classes) there's always people who are designated friends for these places ONLY. You may talk to them all day, all week even, but when you leave on Friday, there's no way you're seeing that person until Monday morning. That's not because they're a bad person, rather because they're stuck in the work/school friend zone. Work is what you talk about with them because it is your common bond. "Did you see the new memo?" "How did you do on that test?" "Who's the new guy?" These are the questions you concern yourself with daily to break the ice with work friend. "How was your weekend?" is also very popular, because you know there's no way Work Friend knows how your weekend was because there's zero chance they were there too. You may divulge into other topics of course, television, movies, sports, etc, but those are all talked about at lunch or in shorter, "Cliff Notes" versions at the person's desk or at the infamous water cooler.

Long Drive Friend: This the friend you turn to when you're making that 2-hour drive from point A to B. You call them because when they answer they don’t say things like, "why are you calling?" They say things like, “I haven’t talked to you since Tuesday.” You don’t need a reason to call this friend other than that you are bored. Its a symbiotic relationship, because they call you when they are bored, too. These aren’t the friends that you call just to tell them one thing quickly, you have to text them in that situation, because when you dial up Long Drive Friend, your signing up for at least 20 min of talk time. These conversations can cover anything and everything and they usually do, you don’t really even care what you’re talking about as long as you keep on talking because anything is better than just driving. The only problem that you run into with Long Drive Friend is when you reach your destination. The conversation hasn’t come to a good ending point, because it never really does, it just goes on and on, you need to find that spot to pinch it off. You can try making crackling noises with your mouth or a piece of paper and say your losing service, you can outright hang up and pretend you lost service or you can sit at your destination and keep talking but the best and easiest way to do it is just throw in the "dude i just got to ____ i gotta run" and they'll understand because they know what they are there for and they just put in another good days work on the other end of the line.

The Thank God for Caller ID Friend: Before cell phones and caller ID this friend was the most annoying person on the planet, always calling you to do stuff that you didn’t want to do but you did because you couldn’t come up with a quick enough excuse. Well caller ID put an end to this friend, you might as well enter their name in your phone as Voicemail because that’s exactly where their call is going. Thanks to the combination of caller id and voice mail you will always be prepared for this friend. You let it go to voice mail and listen to them asking if you wanted to go to the carnival with them this weekend, then you compose yourself with a good excuse and call them back a few hours later. You tell them that you didn’t even listen to the voice mail, you were away from your phone and saw the missed call and called them right away, when they then ask if you want to go to the carnival, your excused is locked and loaded.
“No, man, sorry. I’ve gotta shine shoes this weekend… I know, it sounds weird, but it’s got to be done.”

These are inevitably some of the people taking up space on your phone's memory, which is a good thing, because otherwise you’d have to remember their info yourself. You’ve got better things to use your memory for, like a Tyrannosaurus Rex measured up to 42 feet.