Shaloha, people and other highly-advanced animals that somehow learned to read English. I hope you're all doing well. I have nothing in particular to talk about this week, so I'm just going to jump into some random stuff and hope it forms itself into a post.
We had a strange day at work earlier this week. Being an early bird, I'm always the first person into the office. In fact, I usually have at least an hour to myself before anyone else gets here, which is a nice way for me to ease into the day and get some good stuff done before having to actually speak to people in person. My routine is a fairly simple one: I come in and as I make my way to my office, I turn on every light along the way. On Tuesday, I hit the first group of three switches and noticed that only about half of the lights turned on. "That's weird," I thought, but pressed on. The next switch in the routine is the one in the little kitchen. I hit that one, and the light came on...but it was about twice as bright as it normally is. "Well that's really weird," I said (probably aloud). As I went through the office, the individual lights either turned on, stayed off, or turned a blinding hyper-on. There was no rhyme or reason either; all three outcomes could happen within the same office.
I called the building management, and an engineer came out. I told him the problem, and when I mentioned the ones that were brighter than normal, he very condescendingly said, "There's a dimmer on these switches, so maybe they're just all the way up this morning." I pointed to another one with the same problem. "Well unless someone switched out the bulbs between last night and this morning, this has nothing to do with it," he said. He then said he'd check something out and come back. When he returned a minute later, I said in my big-boy voice, "I know it sounds weird, but I turn these lights on every morning and a few of them are definitely brighter than normal." He nodded dismissively and went to check on more things.
When he came back ten or fifteen minutes later, he said in a serious tone, "This is going to be a while. Make sure all computers are off or unplugged, because something big happened." I started to ask what "a while" meant when he added this mumble: "And you were right about the brightness thing. That's really strange though." Hmmm, maybe the engineer should've listened to the guy who knows absolutely nothing about electricity or how anything works after all.
It was about 8:45am when my co-worker Jamie came in, and we had no idea what to do. The plan was to wait for our co-worker Rob to come in around 9:15 and devise a plan of action based on the estimated time we'd be without power. In the meantime, we were completely useless to the world. The phone system was completely down, we had no computers, and neither of us even gets good cell phone reception in the office. I was doing some work emails from my Blackberry, but my battery was getting low. I have a charger, but that requires electricity. I thought about going back down to my car and charging it in there, but that seemed a little pathetic.
"Let's play a game!" I said to Jamie, only half-serious. "Ok!" she said, surprising the hell out of me. She then told me about a game that she called, "Landmass." The instructions were simple: we take turns listing non-man-made types of objects until someone's stumped. Here's how it started:
Jamie: Mountain
Me: Peninsula
Jamie: Ocean
Me: Oh, so it doesn't have to be land?
We went on for about five minutes, which really is a long time if you think about it. I was very pleased with using "marsh," "tributary," "isthmus," "delta," and few more choice selections. We eventually got interrupted by Mr. Condescending Engineer and never made it back to the game. For something that sounds really boring, it ended up passing the time quite nicely for those five minutes. In the end, we were told that a transformer blew and that we'd be out of power all day. Our boss realized our complete uselessness without electricity and sent us home for the day.
The inappropriately-named "Landmass" game got me thinking (uh oh) about other diversions sprung out of boredom. One in particular came to mind that I played way back in...gosh, '92 I think. Wow. Am I really that old now? Anyway, when my friend Jon and I were both 15 years old, our social options were slightly limited by our lack of driving ability. (My nerdiness and awkward stage of adolescent development had nothing to do with it too, I swear.) So we often walked to the Sherman Oaks Galleria, which Google Maps tells me is 1.2 miles away from my parents' house.
As 15 year-olds, we were fairly adept at entertaining ourselves on those walks. We would talk about all sorts of deep topics, ranging from music and cute girls to music and not cute girls. Despite that never-ending supply of conversation topics, we occasionally fell into extended silences. During one walk back home, we encountered such a silence. Jon spoke up and suggested that we play a game that he and his friend Arash used to play. It was simple and it was great. While walking west, we'd watch the westbound cars that passed us. The third car that passed would be "his," and the third after that would be "mine." Then back to him, back to me, etc. I know that can't sound super exciting to you from that description, but it had four elements that maximized the fun factor:
1. Since the cars were coming up from behind us, it was always surprising to see what appeared.
2. The cars that were either number one or two in the sequence (and therefore neither of "ours") added a great element. If it went BMW...Porsche...we'd start getting excited right until a beat-up '78 Cutlass Supreme showed up.
3. Sometimes there would be a virtual tie as to which car was second and which was third. The argument couldn't last long though because we had to get back to counting the next three cars.
4. Sound. After car number two, we'd hear something coming and only have a second or two to determine whether it sounded like a fancy car or a clunker. We could never really tell (unless it was a city bus or cement truck), but it added a different level of anticipation. Maybe that old, smoke-emitting VW bus would be overtaken by a new Lamborghini at the last moment to secure the third spot. We never knew.
The reason the car game so easily came to mind is that I thought of it just a couple of weeks ago (for the first time in years). I went to pick someone up from LAX by myself, and I had a bunch of time on my hands. First of all, I'm hyperpunctual by nature, so I left a little too much time to get there. Second, there wasn't any traffic whatsoever, which simply doesn't make sense. And third, her flight was delayed a little. Needless to say, I sought some mental diversions. I plopped down in the perfect location: I could see both the board that showed the changing flight arrival times and the escalator that all arriving passengers were using to get to baggage claim. The people came in waves as flights landed, and I created a ridiculously immature version of Jon's car game to pass the time: To save the fate of mankind, Jon would have to "do it" with the third person who came down the escalator, and I would have the same duty with the third after that. Let me repeat - this act was not for pleasure but rather to save the entire human race. And it was hilarious. I played for twenty minutes, and I think I had only one woman (who was at least in her 60s) fall my way. The first three or four of mine were older Asian businessmen, and if any of them were looking my way as they came down the escalator, they may have wondered why I was giggling to myself. Not to sound too shallow, but there were only two mildly attractive women the entire time. One was in her 40s and in a business suit, and she narrowly missed saving the world with Jon. The other was in military fatigues, and she was sharing her escalator step with a male soldier, so it was hard to tell which one Jon ended up with. It was childish and occasionally a little mean-spirited, but it passed the time and made me laugh, so I feel comfortably sharing it all with you. In fact, I encourage you all to try that game at some point and see how undeniably funny it can be.
And with that, let's ride the electronic staircase on down to the Car Watch.
My loving mother-in-law sent me a license plate that took me a few minutes to get: "WERYNOS." I went through "weary nose," "weary Nos" (like I get when I ask my lovely wife if she's still awake), "we rhinos," and "wearin' Os" (like the Baltimore Orioles or Oregon Ducks). Then I realized that it was most likely saying, "We are winos." I hope that's not really the driver's family's most distinguishing characteristic. I understand that "WINE (Heart)RS" was probably taken, but "wino" yields a much different mental picture than "afficionado," ya know?
I saw a plate that read, "2PRIUS." Oh yeah, it was on a Toyota Highlander and not, as any reasonable person would assume, a Prius. What the hell, man? I'm trying to make sense of it all but coming up woefully short (like Danny Devito). Is the driver "too Prius for a Prius?" Is that "Prius 2: Bigger and Badder...at gas mileage?" I have no idea, but I do know that I don't like it.
Lastly, my homey Rockabye sent me an incomplete Car Watch item. It was a bumper sticker that said, "Register Librarian." "There was some other text but I couldn't read it," he said. Well that puts us in a bit of a pickle, now doesn't it? I like the pun of using "librarian" instead of "libertarian" quite a bit (if that's indeed what they're going for), so I want us to work together to find the best "other text" possible. How about, "Register Librarian: Vote for Dewey?" "Register Librarian: Let your whisper be heard." "Register Librarian: State your reference." Let's here it, people.
Ok, I'm out of here. I actually turned a blank mind into a post with a coherent theme, so I count that as a success. Have a Happy Valentines' Day tomorrow if you choose to celebrate that slightly commercialized holiday. Happy birthday next Thursday to my Bratty Kid Sister; she's the best fake sibling I've ever had. As for the rest of yous, have safe and healthy weekends and weeks. I'll see you next Friday unless you choose to grace my ptklein@gmail.com inbox with your presence before then. Peace out, homepeople.
We had a strange day at work earlier this week. Being an early bird, I'm always the first person into the office. In fact, I usually have at least an hour to myself before anyone else gets here, which is a nice way for me to ease into the day and get some good stuff done before having to actually speak to people in person. My routine is a fairly simple one: I come in and as I make my way to my office, I turn on every light along the way. On Tuesday, I hit the first group of three switches and noticed that only about half of the lights turned on. "That's weird," I thought, but pressed on. The next switch in the routine is the one in the little kitchen. I hit that one, and the light came on...but it was about twice as bright as it normally is. "Well that's really weird," I said (probably aloud). As I went through the office, the individual lights either turned on, stayed off, or turned a blinding hyper-on. There was no rhyme or reason either; all three outcomes could happen within the same office.
I called the building management, and an engineer came out. I told him the problem, and when I mentioned the ones that were brighter than normal, he very condescendingly said, "There's a dimmer on these switches, so maybe they're just all the way up this morning." I pointed to another one with the same problem. "Well unless someone switched out the bulbs between last night and this morning, this has nothing to do with it," he said. He then said he'd check something out and come back. When he returned a minute later, I said in my big-boy voice, "I know it sounds weird, but I turn these lights on every morning and a few of them are definitely brighter than normal." He nodded dismissively and went to check on more things.
When he came back ten or fifteen minutes later, he said in a serious tone, "This is going to be a while. Make sure all computers are off or unplugged, because something big happened." I started to ask what "a while" meant when he added this mumble: "And you were right about the brightness thing. That's really strange though." Hmmm, maybe the engineer should've listened to the guy who knows absolutely nothing about electricity or how anything works after all.
It was about 8:45am when my co-worker Jamie came in, and we had no idea what to do. The plan was to wait for our co-worker Rob to come in around 9:15 and devise a plan of action based on the estimated time we'd be without power. In the meantime, we were completely useless to the world. The phone system was completely down, we had no computers, and neither of us even gets good cell phone reception in the office. I was doing some work emails from my Blackberry, but my battery was getting low. I have a charger, but that requires electricity. I thought about going back down to my car and charging it in there, but that seemed a little pathetic.
"Let's play a game!" I said to Jamie, only half-serious. "Ok!" she said, surprising the hell out of me. She then told me about a game that she called, "Landmass." The instructions were simple: we take turns listing non-man-made types of objects until someone's stumped. Here's how it started:
Jamie: Mountain
Me: Peninsula
Jamie: Ocean
Me: Oh, so it doesn't have to be land?
We went on for about five minutes, which really is a long time if you think about it. I was very pleased with using "marsh," "tributary," "isthmus," "delta," and few more choice selections. We eventually got interrupted by Mr. Condescending Engineer and never made it back to the game. For something that sounds really boring, it ended up passing the time quite nicely for those five minutes. In the end, we were told that a transformer blew and that we'd be out of power all day. Our boss realized our complete uselessness without electricity and sent us home for the day.
The inappropriately-named "Landmass" game got me thinking (uh oh) about other diversions sprung out of boredom. One in particular came to mind that I played way back in...gosh, '92 I think. Wow. Am I really that old now? Anyway, when my friend Jon and I were both 15 years old, our social options were slightly limited by our lack of driving ability. (My nerdiness and awkward stage of adolescent development had nothing to do with it too, I swear.) So we often walked to the Sherman Oaks Galleria, which Google Maps tells me is 1.2 miles away from my parents' house.
As 15 year-olds, we were fairly adept at entertaining ourselves on those walks. We would talk about all sorts of deep topics, ranging from music and cute girls to music and not cute girls. Despite that never-ending supply of conversation topics, we occasionally fell into extended silences. During one walk back home, we encountered such a silence. Jon spoke up and suggested that we play a game that he and his friend Arash used to play. It was simple and it was great. While walking west, we'd watch the westbound cars that passed us. The third car that passed would be "his," and the third after that would be "mine." Then back to him, back to me, etc. I know that can't sound super exciting to you from that description, but it had four elements that maximized the fun factor:
1. Since the cars were coming up from behind us, it was always surprising to see what appeared.
2. The cars that were either number one or two in the sequence (and therefore neither of "ours") added a great element. If it went BMW...Porsche...we'd start getting excited right until a beat-up '78 Cutlass Supreme showed up.
3. Sometimes there would be a virtual tie as to which car was second and which was third. The argument couldn't last long though because we had to get back to counting the next three cars.
4. Sound. After car number two, we'd hear something coming and only have a second or two to determine whether it sounded like a fancy car or a clunker. We could never really tell (unless it was a city bus or cement truck), but it added a different level of anticipation. Maybe that old, smoke-emitting VW bus would be overtaken by a new Lamborghini at the last moment to secure the third spot. We never knew.
The reason the car game so easily came to mind is that I thought of it just a couple of weeks ago (for the first time in years). I went to pick someone up from LAX by myself, and I had a bunch of time on my hands. First of all, I'm hyperpunctual by nature, so I left a little too much time to get there. Second, there wasn't any traffic whatsoever, which simply doesn't make sense. And third, her flight was delayed a little. Needless to say, I sought some mental diversions. I plopped down in the perfect location: I could see both the board that showed the changing flight arrival times and the escalator that all arriving passengers were using to get to baggage claim. The people came in waves as flights landed, and I created a ridiculously immature version of Jon's car game to pass the time: To save the fate of mankind, Jon would have to "do it" with the third person who came down the escalator, and I would have the same duty with the third after that. Let me repeat - this act was not for pleasure but rather to save the entire human race. And it was hilarious. I played for twenty minutes, and I think I had only one woman (who was at least in her 60s) fall my way. The first three or four of mine were older Asian businessmen, and if any of them were looking my way as they came down the escalator, they may have wondered why I was giggling to myself. Not to sound too shallow, but there were only two mildly attractive women the entire time. One was in her 40s and in a business suit, and she narrowly missed saving the world with Jon. The other was in military fatigues, and she was sharing her escalator step with a male soldier, so it was hard to tell which one Jon ended up with. It was childish and occasionally a little mean-spirited, but it passed the time and made me laugh, so I feel comfortably sharing it all with you. In fact, I encourage you all to try that game at some point and see how undeniably funny it can be.
And with that, let's ride the electronic staircase on down to the Car Watch.
My loving mother-in-law sent me a license plate that took me a few minutes to get: "WERYNOS." I went through "weary nose," "weary Nos" (like I get when I ask my lovely wife if she's still awake), "we rhinos," and "wearin' Os" (like the Baltimore Orioles or Oregon Ducks). Then I realized that it was most likely saying, "We are winos." I hope that's not really the driver's family's most distinguishing characteristic. I understand that "WINE (Heart)RS" was probably taken, but "wino" yields a much different mental picture than "afficionado," ya know?
I saw a plate that read, "2PRIUS." Oh yeah, it was on a Toyota Highlander and not, as any reasonable person would assume, a Prius. What the hell, man? I'm trying to make sense of it all but coming up woefully short (like Danny Devito). Is the driver "too Prius for a Prius?" Is that "Prius 2: Bigger and Badder...at gas mileage?" I have no idea, but I do know that I don't like it.
Lastly, my homey Rockabye sent me an incomplete Car Watch item. It was a bumper sticker that said, "Register Librarian." "There was some other text but I couldn't read it," he said. Well that puts us in a bit of a pickle, now doesn't it? I like the pun of using "librarian" instead of "libertarian" quite a bit (if that's indeed what they're going for), so I want us to work together to find the best "other text" possible. How about, "Register Librarian: Vote for Dewey?" "Register Librarian: Let your whisper be heard." "Register Librarian: State your reference." Let's here it, people.
Ok, I'm out of here. I actually turned a blank mind into a post with a coherent theme, so I count that as a success. Have a Happy Valentines' Day tomorrow if you choose to celebrate that slightly commercialized holiday. Happy birthday next Thursday to my Bratty Kid Sister; she's the best fake sibling I've ever had. As for the rest of yous, have safe and healthy weekends and weeks. I'll see you next Friday unless you choose to grace my ptklein@gmail.com inbox with your presence before then. Peace out, homepeople.
10 comments:
You and I had our share of games to avoid boredom over the years too. I remember when we flew to Las Vegas for a bachelor party, you and I would turn to random pages of the Sky Mall magazine and choose which items we'd rather have. Kind of lame, but these games pass the time. P.S. If your reading this, I guess they turned on the power in your office and that the light bulbs have returned to an acceptable consistent level.
I guess it's not possible for you to just sit and watch the world go by without turning it into a game.
I remember being on car trips as a kid and counting volkswagens or keeping track of the colors of cars to see that red always seemed to win back in the 50's and 60's. But now, just go into any parking lot and silver (gray), white and black seem to be the only colors you can find. What happened to yellow and red? We've become boring. Oh, that's right, I have a silver car.....damn. I guess I'll just sit here at my desk and stare off into the distance. Maybe I'll count the ceiling squares and how many holes each one has. I'm not boring.
Each square has approximately 300 holes and there are 194 squares. Making the total number of holes 58,200. As Martin Sheen said as the president on The West Wing....."What's next?"
For both of our sakes, I sure hope I'm never the third person walking by.
"Approximately 300 holes," Pops? I'm sorry, but I don't deal in approximations.
Why, Mom? Jon's a nice enough guy.
Well, there are actually 308 holes per square, but they are some partial squares so I rounded down using my years of estimating experience.
If you google "register librarian" you get 5,070,000 hits. So I regoogled "register librarian bumper sticker" and got 25,400 hits. You'll be proud to know that UOPTA came up third & fourth. I did find one website that might fit your bumper sticker. It's Ask a Librarian. They have their workshop schedule at www.tblc.org. They ask you to register so that you are added to the list. It's the best I could do without looking at 25,400 websites.
I googled Sue Goldstein and got 938,000 potential matches.
I wonder what it says about me that I "got" the werynos license plate so quickly??
Also, thanks so much for going to the airport - sorry you had a long wait!
Your-loving-M-I-L,
Melodie
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