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I Pity the Food

Today I had one of those thoughts that makes me wonder if I’m slightly crazy, or if others have similar things knocking around in their heads.

I bit into the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I had made myself for lunch. I was legitimately surprised that it was a PB&J.

For the past few weeks, I have been bringing peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwiches to work. For some reason today I decided to switch things up — making a very conscious choice to not have the fluff.

But somewhere between the kitchen and my chair at work, I forgot about that decision. I hope someone else in the world was surprised by their sandwich today.

I was also taken aback this week by the fine folks at Post cereals. According to a coupon in the paper I can tell you they make such things as Honeycomb, Cocoa Pebbles, Fruity Pebbles and Alpha-Bits.

I have no problems with any of their products, but apparently they have an issue with an adult eating their cereal. Check out the coupon:

Apparently you can only get a discount buy purchasing two “Kids Cereals.” All the grocery stores I go to only have an aisle for cereal. They don’t feel the need to segregate morning foods, and Post, you shouldn’t either. This may call for an email. Stay tuned for updates.

One last food-related item for today.

Last weekend I was at a Christmas party that featured some cookie decoration. While I made some tasty treats, there was a clear masterpiece in my group:

I tried to make another cookie holding a gun, but it didn’t turn out too well. Maybe next year I’ll get my decorating skills up to par.

December 9, 2009 Christmas food Uncategorized
Aight? Aight.

I spent a lot of my early working years in a retail environment, which included greeting thousands and thousands of people.

Those interactions usually include a standard “Hi, how are you?” Some customers ignored the sentiment and continued to help themselves. Others fully engaged the greeting and responded with a more enthusiastic “Super, how are you?”

Today I was on the other side of an interesting wrinkle in that interchange. I was at Michael’s in Reston, Va., and approached an open register. The girl behind the counter said “Hi, how’s it going?” Having been on that side enough, and rocking somewhat normal manners, I responded with a “I’m great, how are you?”

Her response: “I’m aight.” Now I recognize that many of the Michael’s clientelle are probably a bit older — if I had to guess, I’d say the cashier is 20. She is probably used to very boring greetings and maybe saw in a younger face a chance to drop a slightly hipper response.

I’m not sure it would have worked if she were helping my mom.

December 4, 2009 Uncategorized
Great Googily Moogily

Quick–name three of the greatest actors of our generation.

According to a trailer for the new movie “Brothers” that list includes Jake Gyllenhaal, Tobey Maguire and Natalie Portman. I think the brains behind this marketing campaign figured out how crazy their claim seems, since I haven’t seen that version of the trailer in about a week.

It is, of course, a pretty subjective list to create. We all have actors we like and loathe, and often they appear on both sides of that divide depending on whom you ask.

Let’s take this group, for example. It’s pretty popular to rag on Gyllenhaal, possibly because of the double-L and double-A thing in his name. But he has been in some solid films: “Jarhead,” “Proof,” “Brokeback Mountain” and “Donnie Darko.” For the sake of full disclosure, I haven’t seen the last two but list them based on their reputation. Let’s also not forget he was nominated for an Oscar for his “Brokeback” performance.

Maguire was Spiderman, so that’s clearly a plus on his resume. However I got stuck there. I couldn’t think of a single other movie he was in until I looked on IMDB (not counting Spiderman sequels of course). Looking down the list, I’ve only seen two of his other films: “Pleasantville” and “Empire Records.” Certainly those are OK films, but nothing to schedule your day around. I dare say Gyllenhaal has had a more impressive career.

That brings us to Portman. I won’t even build the suspense or put on any airs here–I adore her. There are some great movies you probably know, like “Garden State,” “V for Vendetta” and “Closer” (for which she garnered her own Oscar nomination). There are also some lesser known roles that you should certainly see: “Free Zone,” “My Blueberry Nights” and “Anywhere But Here.”

Should any of them be called “one of the greatest actors of our generation”? I’ll take the easy way out. The problem with the question is defining “our generation.” I can’t be sure of this, but I don’t think they have the technology to target that trailer at individual viewers. You could have a room full of people from a number of defined generations (Gen X, Gen Y, Millenials, GeneratioNext).

So until they more clearly define the question, I’ll reserve my judgment.

December 3, 2009 movies Uncategorized
Limptastic

I have learned a lot in the last week about living life at half speed.

Actually it’s been slightly more than a week. I would have written this yesterday, but one of the things I learned is that going to the grocery store takes forever when you’re limping around. I also found that a shopping cart is kind of like a walker on steroids.

If you have ever gone someplace with me that involved walking you probably know that I typically stroll quite quickly. So it is less than ideal to have a stress fracture in my foot that means I have to wear a stylish flat-soled shoe.

In addition to the natural avoidance of pain, I’m also being slowed down by the shoe’s construction. Though today I worked on a sort of combo limp-run, which entails running on the left (uninjured) foot and limping on the right. The result is a slightly faster walking speed without putting the bum foot in jeopardy.

So we’re making progress.

Last weekend I found myself in a rare scenario these days. I was wearing a Susquehanna University sweatshirt and was in a place where I bet at least 75 percent of the people around me knew what that was. Of course being at a Taco Bell in central PA is almost cheating in that regard. But it was still a happy time.

December 2, 2009 injury running Susquehanna Taco Bell Uncategorized
You’re Welcome for My Business!

From years of retail experience I can tell you that people don’t say things like “thank you” as often as they should.

Maybe there is a sense of self-entitlement, a feeling that someone working in a store is supposed to help them and thus there’s no need for common courtesy.

So it can as a surprise yesterday when I heard both “thank you” and “you’re welcome” and became curiously annoyed. It probably had to do with the fact that both phrases came from the same person.

I was getting my car inspected, and passed the time sitting inside the gas station reading a magazine. A few customers came in while I was there. I could hear everything they said since they were only 10 feet away, but a display of snacks blocked my view of the counter.

A woman entered the building and asked for $10 worth of gas on pump No. 2. She then asked (rhetorically, in an annoyed tone) “Why is gas so expensive?!” First of all, given recent years, gas isn’t that expensive as to elicit that kind of rant. Plus this station happens to usually have some of the most moderately priced gas in the area.

After she finished the transaction, she walked to the door about four feet away. That’s when she yelled out “Thank you and you’re welcome!” I don’t think I’ve heard those phrases slammed together before. Sure, I get the “thank you.” Maybe there’s a pause where the merchant says something like “no, thank you!” Then you get the “you’re welcome” response.

But putting them both together comes off as a little pretentious, like you’re doing the guy behind the counter a huge favor by stopping in for $10 of gas (and complaining about the price).

That, however, wasn’t even the most “um, what?” moment of the day. Last night I went to the Capitals game and sat next to a 10-year-old kid and a guy who is probably his 20-something brother. At first I thought he was the kid’s dad, but he just didn’t look old enough.

During the first intermission, the guy started talking about this time he got really drunk and all of his friends thought it was so funny we has in that state. He detailed all of the things he drank, and how things didn’t get interesting until he starting mixing beer and liquor.

I thought maybe he was going for some sort of cautionary-tale style of teaching his brother about the dangers of alcohol. Then he started talking about this time in high school — when he “got sooo shitfaced it was ridiculous.” The kid was squirming in his seat, playing with the foam finger he had just picked up at a concession stand. The guy did follow that up with a short statement about being careful who you’re partying with.

With the Caps down by a goal with less than 20 seconds remaining the kid left the seats. Maybe his brother should give a lesson on how to stick around for important moments of sporting events.

November 21, 2009 hockey Uncategorized
Taking the Long Way

Nick Hornby’s “A Long Way Down” is the most entertaining book I’ve ever read about suicide.

It is one of those books I picked up off a bookstore shelf a year ago, didn’t buy, and looked at it every single time I went to a bookstore after that. The premise of four people deciding independently to jump off the same building on the same night, only to obviously run into one another is an intriguing start to a story.

Having each of those four people serve as narrators in a sort of rotating fashion is not only an interesting way to tell the story, but also pretty impressive. These are four really different people, and effectively finding a voice for each to be able to move the story is an accomplishment.

I probably dog-eared more pages in this book than any other this year. That means I was either really into it, or had near rage blackouts because it infuriated me so much. Fortunately, Hornby is a pretty solid writer so it was more in the “enjoyed” category.

I have written before about modern society’s need for everyone to be great, for kids to be special and for everyone to think they deserve everything. One of the characters, JJ, just broke up with his girlfriend on the heels of having his band fall apart: “The trouble with my generation is that we all think we’re fucking geniuses. Making something isn’t good enough for us, and neither is selling something, or teaching something, or even just doing something; we have to be something. It’s our inalienable right, as citizens of the twenty-first century.”

When I was “just” selling shoes, I heard a lot of “why aren’t you” kind of talk. But the reality was, despite certain frustrations specific to that company, it really wasn’t such a bad deal. It was something I was great at, got me a discount on things I used, put me in touch with new people every day with a chance to help them and often allowed me to wake up without an alarm. Plus it was the closest I will ever work to a Taco Bell.

Just a few pages later, a teenage girl named Jess is taking care of the narrating duties. This is one of those writing challenges I find fascinating — how an older male puts himself believably in the shoes of a teenage girl. She’s talking about the group of four potential jumpers, and the propensity for people to label individuals in certain sized groups according to popular culture. In this case, who in the group would be which member of The Beatles. Years ago you could have heard your friends posit on which “Friends” cast member each would be, or which “Sex & The City” gal best matched you. But being fictional characters, there’s always a flaw to this approach and Jess quickly realizes it’s not going to work out. “Thinking about it, maybe we were more like another group with four people in it,” she said.

Of course one of the great things about writers with multiple books is being able to draw parallels between them. Last year I read Hornby’s “How to be Good,” featuring the amazing character DJ GoodNews. And who should make a cameo appearance on page 181? The one and only DJ GoodNews. I practically shouted his name in excitement.

For some reason I found the inner thoughts of Jess to be the most insightful. She alienates all of her friends, her sister ran away from home and her parents sort of wrote her off as a lost cause. She talks about the benefit of having large chain stores instead of more personal, mom-and-pop kinds of places: “I like to know that there are big places without windows where no one gives a shit. I’m happiest…where no one gives a shit, and no one knows who you are. My mum and dad are always going on about how soulless those places are, and I’m like, Der. That’s the point.”

I also like her frequent use of the word “der.” When I moved to Jacksonville a few years ago, I went to a place where I knew absolutely nobody. Some people would find this absolutely frightening and would never try it. I know some of my friends said they couldn’t do it. But I will say there was a certain interesting dynamic knowing you could go to a store, the beach, a restaurant or just walk down the street and be 100 percent positive you would not run into someone you know. That also helps when you’re hungry and don’t feel like showering or even putting on clean clothes before going to the grocery store.

Jess also talks about how her dad always said she could do anything or be anything (despite what JJ may have said about that notion). But in the end, there are certain characteristics that always bring us back to who we really are. No matter how much you try to remove the barriers, at some point we just can’t get out of our own ways. She says: “Telling me I can do anything is like pulling the plug out of the bath and then telling the water it can go anywhere it wants. Try it, and see what happens.”

I’m always a sucker for a good rant about people who aren’t into reading and look down upon those who do. And through JJ, Hornby delivers: “Why does reading freak people out so much? Sure, I could be pretty antisocial when we were on the road, but if I was playing a Game Boy hour after hour, no one would be on my case. In my social circle, blowing up fucking space monsters is socially acceptable in a way that ‘American Pastoral’ isn’t.” Amen.

Doing the daily crossword in the Washington Post always makes me wonder how on Earth I know certain random pieces of information. It’s like being with a group of people who have no expectation that you would know one of their other friends, or have heard of their obscure college. They always ask, “how did you know…” The explanation is always longer than it should be and would usually be better if accompanied by graphs and charts.

Hornby delivers one of these for me on page 196 with the line “Or that Australian girl who used to be on ‘Neighbours.'” I am not from Australia, or from England where this story takes place. I have never seen “Neighbours.” But I know he’s talking about Delta Goodrem. How I know this would take a solid 5,000 words to explain, and perhaps someday I’ll do that. But I will share a bit about Delta.

For anyone who has been in search of “the next step” in life, be it between jobs or just out of school, you know there is advice coming to you from every direction. You have heard it for years — talk to this person, take this class, get an internship, don’t do be like him, market yourself, break up with that guy, blah blah blah. Delta’s song “In My Own Time” begins: “So much is happening to me, so much that I can’t even see, so many words of wisdom that I am trying to be.”

And that’s sort of what these four characters are going through. There is a lot going on in their lives, a lot of thoughts swirling in their heads and a lot of opinions as to what they should be doing. It is up to them to figure out how to put it all together, and be.

November 17, 2009 books Uncategorized
Taylor Swift: Pregnant and Confused?

Thanks to Kanye West, I think my feud with Taylor Swift is over. But now she may have a beef with the Washington Post.

In this morning’s edition, the Style section has a banner index promoting their coverage of last night’s CMAs. Apparently Taylor became the youngest person to win entertainer of the year, which got her a picture in the index.

Unfortunately, the section also has an article about pregnancy, indexed as “Pregnant and confused?” Put Taylor’s picture with that line and you get this:

To see a more complete context click here.

I wonder if anyone at the Post thought, “Hm, something looks awry with that.” Or maybe they have it out for her. Hard to say.

And in case you missed it, she turned in a pretty good performance hosting SNL last weekend (and appearing in just about every second of it).

If you missed the earlier post about Taylor Swift hating me, click here.

November 12, 2009 Taylor Swift Uncategorized
Give and Take (and Take and Take and Take)

When I was in elementary school, you could go to the library and check out one book for one week. Those were the rules.

I haven’t spent much time in public libraries, but I assumed the rules wouldn’t be all that different. I remember being able to keep things longer, but never really thought about how many items you could take at a time.

In this morning’s Washington Post, there is a story about a ring of suspected book thieves accused of checking out items and selling them for profit. The story says 12 people have been indicted on charges totaling $90,000 worth of books.

That’s a lot of library books. But the real question in this story is just how many items public libraries entrust to their patrons. The Prince Georges County Public Library, at the center of the Post story, allows an individual to check out 75 items at a time. I read a ton and it would take me three years to read that many books.

Naturally I was curious how that stacks up to other libraries in the Washington area, and that’s one place where the story fell short. Good thing the Internet is there to fill in the gaps for me.

In neighboring Montgomery County, the limit is 50. The county on the other side, Anne Arundel, allows patrons to check out a staggering 99 items at a time. That’s pretty ridiculous. For an extra layer of comparison I looked at Duval County, FL, which has a limit of 50.

I could understand if maybe you were working on your doctoral dissertation. I recall one of my professors at Susquehanna University having an enormous stack of books on his desk during the late days of his PhD-seeking. But outside of an academic setting, how can that number make sense?

There are only so many books to go around, and even at a large library system it doesn’t make great sense to potentially lose track of that many items at a time. Maybe more people will take advantage of the system and use their free library cards to line their pockets.

Or perhaps the libraries can just make their lending policies a little more in line with reality.

November 11, 2009 Uncategorized
The First Pick-le, The Angels Did Say

It’s always interesting interacting with new people.

You spend time weighing personalities and sort of testing people out in conversation. You also tend to come across things you’ve never heard of, like the Christmas Pickle.

I like to think I know a lot about Christmas. After all, I am gearing up for my 26th yuletide season and 26 times is usually enough to understand just about anything. But at a Saturday night shindig, I was made aware of the Christmas Pickle tradition, one that sounded quite made-up.

It helped the “that’s not real” case that the other four people within earshot of the Christmas Pickle tale had never heard of it either. It took walking to the other side of the room and soliciting more opinions before the tale was confirmed.

Today at lunch I asked my companions, and they further cemented its legitimacy. Apparently it involves hiding a pickle ornament somewhere on the tree apparatus with a prize going to whomever finds it first. Some said they thought it had German roots, but during my Internet research I came across this article that says the Germans have no idea what they are talking about.

You have to be somewhat skeptical of anything these days that doesn’t even have its own Wikipedia page. I mean, global warming has an extensive Wiki entry and lots of people don’t think it exists.

I think if you have a tradition that involves prizes, there should be a set of rules involved. So far, none of the Christmas Picklers have been able to explain contingencies for simultaneous findings. There also seems to be little concern about a prize-involved search involving kids, Christmas excitement and a tree full of ornaments. Seems to me that somewhere along the line there would be some sort of tree-toppling disaster.

Then again, the tradition did lead to the creation of this wonderful piece of stop motion animation.

Merry Pickle to all, and to all a good night.

November 8, 2009 Christmas Uncategorized
Remember Remember My Former Employer

I have worked for seven different companies in my life (not counting internships for which I was not paid).

Today I learned that yet another of my former employers has apparently closed, making it the third to do so.

My first job was as a house painter, working for my uncle during the summer before my junior year of high school. He moved onto other things shortly thereafter.

Once the school year started I began selling shoes at Galyan’s, a sporting goods store that was bought out by Dick’s in 2005. I worked there until the very end, though at that point I was only working during college breaks.

When I was at school, I started working for UWIRE, which apparently shut down last month. It was a college newspaper wire service that served as probably the greatest job I have ever had.

I began there as a story enterer — basically working 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. each morning copying and pasting articles from college newspaper websites into our newswire system. I’d assign them to different categories depending on their content, though I mainly handled sports for my first semester.

Even with the hours, it was awesome. I would make a half-awake walk from my dorm, across the railroad tracks, and through a completely deserted campus center to the 24-hour computer lab on the lower level. The only people I saw were those who had tried to cram in a paper at 4 a.m. and had fallen asleep in the lab, and the custodial staff who took that opportunity to vacuum the carpet.

Being in such a quiet environment so early in the day even led me to buy my iPod to help stay awake. I’m proud to report I still have it.

The next semester I moved up to an editor position. That meant taking the stories entered by folks in my former position, conforming the text to our style and giving each story an appropriate headline. Then I would send the story off into the world.

That was the truly great job. It meant working for 4-5 hours a day from my dorm room, which included easy access to the TV next to my monitor and the mini fridge a few feet away. My roommate, Jon, worked there too. We even had a sign on our door proclaiming our room as the UWIRE Selinsgrove Bureau.

I’m not sure our boss was aware that Jon and I knew each other, let alone worked four feet away. I think there were only four or five student editors, so it should have seemed odd that two of them were from the same tiny school in Pennsylvania.

But then again, our boss did live and work in California. Our only contact was through emails (that’s how we clocked in and out) or the occasional IM (for more pressing questions). She was also known to use the word “rad” a lot, which is always a great quality in a boss.

The other advantage of not working in an actual office — being able to spring from your desk to check out the amazing play in NHL2K2 out in the lounge that has the rest of your suitemates screaming.

There was also an arts section, whose editor frequently sent out opportunities to write original stories — mostly reviews of books or music. I wrote a review about a book by filmmaker Joe Berlinger, which recounted his experience making a documentary about Metallica. It was during this time I was making my own documentary about our college newspaper, and oddly picked up some perfectly timed insight about my own project.

When I went on to graduate school, I went back to being an enterer. After the fall semester I wasn’t able to fit it into my schedule anymore and had to bid farewell to UWIRE.

What a rad time.

November 5, 2009 shoes Uncategorized writing