Playing doubles

Good morning, my fellow computer-owners. See, yet another thing we have in common. I hope this post finds you all well and in good spirits. Today, December 21st, is special for a pair of reasons. First, it is my grandparents' anniversary, and I want to very publicly wish them a happy one. (By "very publicly," I mean, "tell a dozen or so people, many of whom already know this fact.") Second, it's my homey Rockabye's birthday. As a supreme contributor to Car Watch every week, he gets First Paragraph Status today. I don't give out FPS willy nilly, mind you. Also, he pointed out that I didn't mention his birthday last 12/21, so that bumps him up a little. Oddly enough, I mentioned his half-birthday in June. I guess I felt that was more important or something. We'll never know.

Speaking of things in pairs, I'm going to see if I can stick to that as a very loose theme of this week's edition of UOPTA. To start things off, I'd like to take you back in time to when I was in elementary school. You there yet? Good. One morning back then, the teachers organized a little breakfast gathering for the whole grade. The day before, they told us that they would be serving "Green Eggs and Ham." Come to think of it, it might've been for St. Patrick's Day. That would make sense. In any case, I was excited about this, and eager to see their use of food coloring in action. The morning came, and I distinctly remember walking up to where the food was and being very confused. There before me sat light green eggs...and regular ham. I asked a teacher why the ham wasn't green also, and I then learned the valuable lesson of misleading modifiers. I was pissed off about this and felt like they were cheating us out of green ham just to save money or something. That night, I looked at our home copy of the Seuss classic, and the illustrations clearly showed that I was wrong all along. Still, it's very confusing to have it like that.

I thought of this story because of a holiday newsletter we received from our friends Danielle and Jesse who live back east. In it, they wrote that they visited "Honorary Aunt Amber and Uncle Peter." "So we're honorary," my lovely wife said. "I'm not," I said. "What?" "Honorary aunt...and uncle," I said, "just like Green Eggs...and Ham." She understood my point but still disagreed (which was wise because neither Jesse nor Danielle is my actual sibling). I was proud of myself for so quickly coming up with support for my theory, even if the support was the same thing that pissed me off as a little kid. My ire is apparently quite flexible.

Last week, my co-worker Jamie and I were in a nearby restaurant waiting for our take out order of breakfast burritos. Mmmm, burritos. So we were sitting at one of the vacant tables, watching the muted news on tv and reading the closed caption on the bottom. After a few seconds, they broke into a very sad story about two window washers in NYC whose scaffolding had broken and they fell 60 stories. They went on to say that one had already died, the other was in critical condition, and that the two were apparently brothers. While reading these awful facts and feeling horrible about the event, guess what song was playing in the restaurant. "Jingle Bell Rock," of course. So picture this scene: we're sitting there with pained looks on our faces and we watch the screen, and "Giddy up, jingle horse, pick up your feet" is our soundtrack. I asked Jamie if she'd been a part of a more incongruous pairing in the recent past, and she couldn't think of one. It was such an odd situation that it easily could've been a scene from a Tarantino movie.

Speaking of television and keeping with the topic of pairs, I had a thought and ran it by a few people who agreed with me. Therefore, I deem it appropriate to share. Here is my bold statement: Every single sitcom from the 80s (and an extremely high percentage of those before and after that decade) had two scenes somewhere in their catalog. The first one involves a person saying bad things about someone else - a boss, an ex, etc. - without knowing that the subject of the discussion is right there. The person goes on and on, eventually ending with, "He's right behind me, isn't he?" I can't tell you how many times I've seen that, so I'm quite certain it's in all of them. The second one involves a character apologizing to someone. He or she (usually a he) ends up saying something very close to, "I was an idiot, I was selfish, unreasonable, inconsiderate, you can stop me any time..." Hahahahahaha.. I don't think that was ever funny, yet I've seen that same scene play out more times that I can count. Why is that? Were these all the same writers just getting different gigs, or was it just the fact that formulaic sitcoms can only have so many unique situations?

That leads me to another topic that just came to mind. I find sitcom pilots to often be excruciating. Unless it's something very untraditional in nature (which there are some and I'm eternally thankful), then it always plays out the same way. It's not really their fault, since they have to introduce the characters someway, but it just comes off so awkward more often than not. "Hey everyone, I'm the wacky friend who says funny quips and appears shallow. The opposite sex digs me, but I sure treat them differently than the star does. Don't worry, if the show gets picked up, I'll prove to have more layers and may even have a few episodes centered around me!" "Hi viewers, I'm the unattainable love interest. Oh don't worry, I won't be with my current partner very long, and then we can draw out the whole process of me and the main character maybe getting together. Don't tell anyone, but we might even kiss in the season finale." There are obvious exceptions to this, and uncoincidentally, they're shows that I enjoy. There was nothing formulaic about either "Arrested Development" or "Extras," for example, and they're among the funniest things on tv. Yeah, I know neither are still on, but I'd rather sit and think about their old episodes than watch new ones of "According to Jim" any day of the week.

I have another little story about pairs to share if you care (or dare), so beware. Years ago, I was at an Italian restaurant with my lovely wife. After being served our food, we were approached simultaneously by the fresh ground pepper guy and the parmesan cheese guy. After they left, I asked her which job she would rather have. "The cheese," she stated fairly quickly. "Really? That surprises me," I said. "I would choose the pepper for a few reasons. Mainly, it's all about customer service to me. With the pepper, when someone says to stop, you can just stop turning the grinder and the pepper stops coming out almost immediately. With the cheese, once you say it's enough, they usually have one more grate coming (due to inertia), plus the final pat of the cheese against the grater that drops some more on there. I want to give them the exact amount they desire. Why would you choose the parm?" "I like cheese more than pepper," she said.

I mentioned this interaction to my boss, and he suddenly got very animated. "The pepper job is WAY better than the parmesan cheese one," he said. I told him my reasoning, and he said, "It's not even about that though. With the cheese, you get messy and smelly and probably go home smelling like parmesan cheese every night. With the pepper, you just have the cool grinder that you turn." He had very valid points, and it only strengthened my position on the matter. I've seen some automatic parm graters that lessen some of the negative side effects, but they can't sway me. For the record, I like cheese more than pepper too, but sometimes my lovely wife and I just can't see eye to eye on key issues.

I had a somewhat similar interaction with my Bratty Kid Sister via IM earlier this week. It's very common for me to start quoting "Anchorman" with anyone who will allow me to do so, and this conversation was no exception. After going back and forth a few times, I mentioned one of my favorite Ron Burgundy/Veronica Corningstone interactions. (They're a famous pair and therefore appropriate for this post as well, dontchaknow.) During their love scene, they're magically transported to Pleasure Town. Ron points and says, "Look, it's the most glorious rainbow ever!" She replies, "Do me on it!" BKS said, "Oh man that one is amazing. It's like the sleeper hit. I didn't even notice that line till you pointed it out to me." I replied, "It really gets me because I would expect her character to either ignore his line or shoot him down somehow, but she shows the audience why they're such a good match." "Very English student of you; I just think it's funny," she said. So there I go with my over-thought reasons of liking or disliking things again versus "I like cheese more than pepper" and "I just think it's funny."

My birthday homey Rockabye wrote me and asked what the opposite of "inept" is. "Hmmm," I thought to myself, "do I go with 'ept' or 'outept?'" I think I like "outept" more. You know why? Outeptitude: Kobe's outeptitude at getting to the free throw line helped the Lakers close out the game with a victory. See what I mean? It's cool, no? Oh, and if you think outeptitude's not going to be one of the tags at the bottom of this post, you're only fooling yourself.

I got a corned beef sandwich last week, and something occurred to me. Although it's one of my favorite things to eat, I don't think I ever would have said, "I like to have my beef corned." I don't know what the process of "corning" is, but whenever someone does that to my beef, I tend to enjoy it. Why is it "roast beef" and not "roasted beef" to match its corned counterpart? It was roasted, in theory, correct? Ah, so many questions swirl around the mystical world of deli meats.

And my final item dealing with pairs today come from the medium of radio. Starbucks put out what I'm sure they thought was a cute little Christmas jingle with the names of their drinks as some of the lyrics. Early on, they ended a line with "latte." I had enough time to think to myself, "Hmmm, what are they going to pair with that in two lines to make a rhyme? 'I want it very hot-eh,' 'When at a Christmas pahtay,' or 'If you've been nice, not naughtay?'" The line came, and I got angry. They rhymed "latte" with..."latte." Bravo, Starbucks, bravo.

On that (sour) note, let's see what's in store down at the Car Watch.

Longtime, loyal reader Sue sent an email to ptklein@gmail.com (because it's just so darn easy to do so) saying the following: "I just saw a personalized plate on a black BMW speeding by on the freeway, 'WH84NO1.' Going about 95 MPH cutting people off. Pretty apt huh?" That is quite apt, Sue. I guess "W84NO1" and "IW84NO1" were taken, so s/he created the word "whait." It's fun to say. Or...maybe this person has "W hate" for the "number 1" person in our country. WH84NO1. Doubtful, but if I can read it that way, others are bound to also, right? Right? Hello?

My dad wrote me about a bumper sticker he saw: "Unless you're a hemorrhoid, get off my ass." I think you probably see my issue with this. This driver appears to want hemorrhoids. "If you are one, feel free to hop aboard my ass," basically. "If not, I'm sorry, that seat is reserved."

My favorite brother called me with a license plate he saw. He prefaced it first, and rightfully so: "I've thought about how easy it would be to remember your plate if you just chose a random seven-letter word, like 'Tuesday' or something. I just saw one, and it's kinda strange. I'm not sure if this is blogworthy, but it said 'SADNESS' on it." Yes, Kevin, I think that's blogworthy. I'm having a hard time thinking of reasons why someone would have that word on his or her license plate. Here are the two I came up with. One, the person wrote a book or sang a song by that name, and it was the only hit to his or her credit. Therefore, to honor that success, s/he "named" the car after it. Two, it's a real new-agey person who feels that by focusing all of her sadness onto those plates, it will free the rest of her spirit to concentrate on positive emotions. Or some crap like that. That's it though. Folks, ya got any other possibilities? Comment away!

I saw a license plate frame that made me chuckle: "My grandson excels at everything." Oh really? Not setting the bar too high there, are you? Everything! I hope this kid's like four years old, because I'd walk up to him and say, "Hey buddy, can you do me a favor and change my tire while reciting the names of the 86 Celtics in reverse alphabetical order? Oh, and I need that 1,472nd digit of pi when you get a sec. And write me a sonnet in Portuguese with one hand as you make tiramisu with the other." Everything, my ass.

I was in the car with my co-worker Rob, and I saw something and started emailing it to myself from my phone to remember. He chimed in, "That's a windshield decal and not a bumper sticker," holding me to a high level of accuracy. So, I saw a windshield decal that said, "Get Money or Die." I think that's a little overly simplistic. I understand the premise, but I don't quite agree for two reasons. First, there are many people who do not get money and still live due to either being attached to someone wealthy or by virtue of being a kid. Second, not to be too morbid, but no matter how much money one "gets," death is probably still going to be in the cards at some point. Hate to break it to you.

My homey Rockabye sent me a plate: "IWERK4U." No, actually, you don't. F'n liar.

Lastly, Rockabue texted me with another plate, and we may be making UOPTA history here. It read "KBE 81." If you recall from last week, I saw "KOBE 8Y1," and marveled that someone still wanted to commemorate one particular basketball game, even though "KOBE 81" was apparently already taken. Looks like that first guy has company. Who knew?

Ok, folks. That's it for now. We have a busy weekend and week ahead of us. Winter begins, Kwanzaa begins, my half-birthday comes and goes, as do the full birthdays of my friend Tricia and, ya know, Jesus. Speaking of which, by the time we meet up again, I will have attended the annual Klein Christmas Party. Maybe I'll get number one again in the grab bag and be obnoxious about it. One thing's for certain: I will have eaten a good amount of Aunt Lynn's delicious and spicy casserole thing. Mmmm. Happy Holidays everyone, and please comment to your heart's delight and email me with anything at all. Shaloha to you and yours.