Mild Amusement

I tend to joke around a lot with most of my friends, and anyone who has known me for any extended period of time knows why I call myself a smartass at times. Not surprisingly, it's not uncommon for me to tease someone about random things. It's not malicious, just some friendly ribbing. Of course, with good friends, there are far fewer things that are off-limits, so it gets even more interesting. Take my old friend from middle school. We're both grown men with the trappings that come with being full-blown adults now, but that doesn't stop some good-natured teasing back and forth. A few of us guys were over at his house one night, and we were generally goofing off. His wife was right there with us for most of the night, but by about midnight she complained of a combination of fatigue and not quite feeling right. Bummed that she had to leave the merry-making, we wished her a good night and turned down the volume on said merry-making (I did ask if we should just call it a...

A few years back, I took a trip to London. I'd never been there before, and one of my friends happened to be studying abroad there, so I had a place to crash. We even managed to squeeze in a weekend trip to the mainland, so all in all, it worked out well. Well, with maybe one small exception. My friend was single at the time, so she was dealing with some of the usual dating routines. As it happened, there was a guy who was interested in her, but she wasn't interested. I heard all about it during the course of the trip, so I was well aware of this guy's intentions. Well, my friend and I were getting ready to go out one night, when this guy suddenly started messaging her. Me being a guy, I had already gotten dressed, and I was more or less waiting around for her. At that particular moment, she didn't have the energy or patience to deal with him. So, she did the only reasonable thing she could: she handed me her laptop, and told me to make him go away. Not wanting to b...

You know that saying, "things happen for a reason?" Well, truthfully, I've never really believed in it much. Maybe I'm just too much of a control freak to accept that I can't change a situation, or maybe my natural tendencies to try to resolve problems run far too deep (at least one Mild-Ex has levied the latter charge against me). I can't really explain it, but you will almost never hear those words come out of my mouth. However, there was one recent, and amusing, exception to this. This tale begins very simply: I'd made plans to have dinner with a friend. We'd wanted to go to a particular restaurant, but I was worried that they'd get busy. So, I made reservations a few weeks out, and set aside the time on my calendar. Like I said, it all started out pretty inauspiciously. Well, the day of dinner arrived, and I hadn't heard from the friend in a couple of days. So, I sent her a quick text message to confirm whether we were still on or not. ...

I don't quite know what led to this particular outlook on life, but I've been known to say, "my life's an open book if you bother to ask" on more than one occasion. That's not to say that I go around volunteering all sorts of personal information, but I am very candid with others, and I am brutally honest about myself. After all, what better way to keep myself honest (pun intended) is there than remembering that I may have to tell the story about my actions later on? Well, I repeated my little mantra in front of someone who had never heard it before, and her eyes lit up. You could almost see the twinkle in her eye as she tried to figure out how best to take advantage of this new-found information. The words coming out of her mouth did nothing to dissuade this notion, either (I have some interesting friends, apparently). Still, she immediately started grilling me about the history of Sam Chang. As the questions kept coming, though, it became pretty obvious th...

Since the last time I noted that little kids say some really awesome things , I've seen little kids interact with the world in quite a variety of situations. The kids always have really obvious motivations, and watching them try to impose those desires on to the real world makes for quite a few laughs. Needless to say, the results have been highly amusing. Given all of that, I present to you the latest installment of conversations I've been a party to: Sister: (to an adult in line) "I've got this 25% off coupon that I won't be able to use, and it expires today. Would you like it?" Adult's Kid: "NOW can we get candy?" Adult's Kid: "You get 25% off of everything , not just the candy." Adult's Kid: "Look, there's some candy right there" Adult: "Ugh ... fine" Never underestimate the powers of persuasion that kids will employ in the pursuit of candy. I'm fairly certain that similar math on a test...

I've mentioned that recently I've been eating out a lot more  recently. Sometimes, there will be someone else to break bread with, but sometimes I'll just head out to grab something for myself. It's just how it goes; people have different schedules, and sometimes they don't line up properly. Heck, many times I'm restricted by the fact that I have a lunch-time meeting, so I can't exactly sit down at a restaurant with other people. On the days when I need to find something to eat before/during a lunch meeting, I usually need something quick and convenient. It seems like the perfect scenario for fast food, doesn't it? I'm in a rush, and these places specifically cater to someone in that predicament (it's called "fast food" for a reason). In a word, no. I will exhaust every single other option before I step into a place known for golden arches, royalty, red pigtails, or a gigantic head with a wit. Why, you ask? Well, there's a stor...

A while back, I was talking to a coworker when he commented that he was starting to play a lot more chess. His son liked the game, so in an effort to be supportive of a constructive hobby, the guy was playing a lot more. Actually, he discovered that he liked the game. Assuming that I knew how to play, he asked when we were going to play a game (apparently the "closet" part of "closet nerd" isn't working out so well for me). On a whim, I bought one of those cheap magnetic chess sets and brought it in to work. It's not like we sit there and goof off the whole time, but there's always a little bit of down time. Between the computer-mandated ergonomic breaks, having a few minutes before a meeting, or plain old coffee/water/fatigue breaks, there are always a few minutes to kill. I figured using up a couple of those minutes to make a move couldn't hurt, and it'd be a pleasant distraction. Well, it worked. It took us like two weeks to finish a game ...

I was at dinner the other night, generally having a merry old time with a bunch of other people. It started out like many other meals, with people showing up on time, people showing up late (guilty as charged), and all sorts of chatter back and forth. Somewhere in the middle of all that, though, the outing took a sudden, and hilarious, turn: a bet was made. I knew most of the people there, so it was easy to hop from conversation to conversation as the night wore on. On one of those hops, I overheard one of the people at the other end of the table comment that she wasn't going to eat much. She apparently hadn't eaten much for the rest of the day, either. To make matters worse, the first sip of her (alcoholic) drink had hit her surprisingly hard. Given all of that, the "I'm not going to eat much" plan seemed a bit dubious to me, so I suggested she eat more than a couple of bites of food. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who thought this way. Another guy far...

The last time I was out sick, I had to send my team an email that I wasn't going to be available. As I was typing up that email, some small part of me wondered if my team members were going to think I was a slacker. Now, it's not like this is a common occurrence. I miss work pretty infrequently, and I've probably taken something like four or five sick days for the entirety of the year. Still, I couldn't help but feel a small twinge of guilt for not being available. On second thought, though, I realized that it's a small miracle that I don't end up sick more often. Remember, my house turns into a day care during the day. That means that there are constantly little kids running around, getting their cooties all over everything. As a coworker of mine once said, "little kids are vectors of infection for the first few years. Then everyone involved builds an immunity, and things get better." You can clean as much as you want, but it's a losing battle...

A couple of years ago, I was on a trip with a friend to New York . During the course of the trip, I was leaving a restaurant when a doorman clapped me on the shoulder. My companions thought that this somehow implied a sexual advance or flirting of some sort. Well, that wasn't the last time I've had others read into a situation like that. I've been going out to eat lunch a lot more lately, largely because I get very restless if I don't get out of the office to break up my day. Eating at restaurants means dealing with waiters and waitresses, so I have had plenty of interactions with them lately. Somehow, though, the people around me have decided that this means that the wait staff is constantly flirting with me. The first example came when I ordered a burger. This particular establishment let you pick either thin-cut fries or potato wedges. I didn't have a strong preference, so I hesitated for a moment. Trying to be helpful, the waitress asked if I'd ever eate...

My friend was in town a little while back, so I spent an evening hanging out at her house. She actually wasn't around for very long, so she had invited a bunch of other people over in an attempt to see as many of them as possible. It was a very chill night, and I met several new people. Eventually, though, it started to get late, and people started to leave. That's when the fun began. One of the first guys to leave said his goodbyes, and then walked out. A few minutes later, though, he walked back in. Surprised, everyone looked up to see what had happened. Guy: "So, um, I have enough gas, but ... " He didn't actually trail off at that point, but I'm going to interject here. When someone starts a sentence like this, several thoughts can go through your head. For example, you might think: "Wait a second, does he want to siphon gas?" This was actually what went through my head, and I was not alone. At least one other guy later admitted he thou...

The other day, I got a call from a telemarketer. I politely listened to the lady, and then asked her to remove me from her list. Maybe it helped, and maybe it didn't. All I know is that all in all, it was a courteous transaction, so I had no real qualms with the exchange. As soon as I got off the phone, though, I realized that this lady got off easy. You see, my brother has something of a penchant for messing with those folks. He figures that if somebody is going to bother him and waste his time, he's allowed to mess with them. Sometimes, it's a very simple ruse. He will simply engage the person is as lengthy a conversation as possible without letting the telemarketer achiever his goal. When he use this tactic, he is super polite, but he engages the person as much as possible. He will frequently ask how that person is doing, ask about the weather, or otherwise make small talk. The real point is to just keep that person talking for a while. It's an eye for an eye , rea...

I have a fairly long commute, so I don't usually get home until late in the evening. This means that my car is now a good friend of mine, but for the purposes of this story, the important part is that I'm just not around when mail gets delivered. The result of that is pretty darn funny, I have to say. Remember, my house transforms into a daycare during the day. That means you cannot leave packages or mail just lying around. If you were to make that mistake, the toddlers who run around would quickly teach you the error of your ways. Heck, you can't even guarantee that placing those items up high is a good solution; we've got some climbers . Really, the only good solution to this is to put all the mail behind a closed door. So long as you make sure that the door is good and closed, the mail isn't going anywhere. Well, okay, you want to put the mail in a locked room. The whole reason why any particular room would be locked would be that you wouldn't want kids get...

On this latest trip, I saw six states, two countries, and one U.S. district, but I only took a total of 3 flights from start to finish. As you can probably imagine, there was a good amount of driving involved. And one of the interesting things that happen when you spend that much time in a car is that music quickly comes to play a role in the trip. I mean, you can be the best of friends, but it is very, very hard to keep a conversation going for that long. So, inevitably, someone turns on a radio or music player, and suddenly you're discovering all of these little quirks. For example, you might discover that your travel companion likes country music more than you do. I generally don't dislike any genre of music outright, but I wouldn't call myself a fan of country music by any means. There are a few songs here and there that make an appearance on my iPod, but that's about it. Also, there was plenty of music that I just flat out didn't recognize. I'm hardly a c...

One of the things you can never quite account for when you travel is the weather at your destination. I'd been planning on going on this trip for a few months, so I had no way of predicting that it would rain. Check that; I couldn't have predicted that it would rain a whole freaking lot during my trip. Put it this way: one of the local news stations was throwing around the word "historic levels" to describe the rains and the subsequent flooding. Now, I had checked the weather report before I left (I try to be responsible now and again), so I knew that I was in store for some rain. However, I like to travel light. I have never once taken an umbrella with me, so I figured that this was no time to start. Instead, I packed a light jacket that does a pretty good job of being impermeable and a baseball cap. Between those two items, I figured that I could survive a few drops of water. For the most part, this plan worked out well. I saw a few summer storms, the kind that ...

Remember how I said that I had an interesting experience after having dinner in Windsor? After that happened, I said I'd be a little more wary of entering Canada for a single meal. Well, apparently I wasn't wary enough. The next day after our initial adventure, we ended up in a place called Port Huron at about 2PM. We had to be in Detroit the next morning for a flight, but other than that, there were no real restrictions on our schedule. Now, this town is called "Port" something for a reason; it sits right next to one of the Great Lakes. That means that it's awfully close to Canada. If you were to drive over, say, a nearby bridge, you'd need your passport. We both happened to have our passports on our persons. So, we figured we'd explore a little farther inland than the night before. We weren't planning on staying long, and we even figured we'd be back before dinner. That would save us any headaches at the border, we figured. Consulting a map,...

I like to travel a little bit, it's my way of being adventurous. It's not like I'm looking for the biggest adrenaline rush I can find, I just happen to be a curious person. I like exploring, and I like seeing things that I don't see back home. All in all, leaving my little comfort zone behind seems like a good way to do this. As a result, though, I end up on a bunch of side trips. Once I end up at my destination, there's always some other place to see or thing to try. However, I have quickly learned that this is not the norm. That's all well and good, except for sometimes I have to explain myself. Some of those (some)times, I get to explain it to immigration and customs officials. This is all sorts of fun, let me tell you. This last time, I was in Detroit and my friend and I decided to hop over to Ontario to grab dinner. It was close by, we had never been, and we had time for it. All in all, we figured, "why not?" So we drove over and had dinner th...

I have a quirky personality, so I hear all sort of random commentary about me. I've written about this a couple of times before (exhibit A and B ), but it's been a while, so the comments have added up. As always, these are actual conversations that I have had with people. "You'd be an awesome team lead, if you don't get fired" Apparently this is how some people react when I suggest we should be allowed to give out dunce hats at work. I figure that in most cases, the actual social shaming would be a worse punishment than a stern talk from a supervisor. Say someone goes out of his way to be lazy. He would be awarded the dunce hat, and the social stigma would encourage him to avoid this behavior. Win-win. The person with whom I was talking agreed with the idea, but suggested that I was slightly crazy for suggesting it in the first place. Great, thanks. "You're good at writing. That surprised her because you're an engineer" I don't t...

I've been playing a lot more basketball lately. I've always liked to play, but my nagging injuries seem to be disappearing, so I can push my legs a little bit more. Also, I recently stopped for a few weeks, and my jump shot seemed to magically disappear. Vowing that I didn't want this to happen again, I figured I'd make it out to the courts more frequently. Even if my usual basketball crew doesn't show up, I'll just go shoot around for a bit. It's decent exercise, and I like doing it. However, that means that I don't have to go to the centrally located courts that my basketball friends prefer. If they're not around, I'm free to frequent some of the other courts closer to my house. So I do. As I've realized, these particular courts seem to attract much more interesting characters. I'm not there to gawk, but my basketball adventures have suddenly gotten a lot more interesting. Heck, sometimes the adventures come to me. Last time I was t...

A while back, I noted that I've seen at least one really smart kid pass through my mom's day care. As of now, that list is up to three kids. I've always said that it's actions that prove whether a kid is smart or not. All little kids parrot what they hear around them. If they use big words, it just means someone around them knows the big words. If they find ways to accomplish things that you think are impossible for them, though, that's all them. And since little kids are constantly trying to do things that they shouldn't be doing, that means the real test is in what kind of mischief they get up to. So, gather 'round, because this is a tale of mischief. There are a pair of twin one year old boys that really like to climb on stuff. It's not like this is a new phenomenon, either; they've always liked to climb on stuff. Luckily for us, they just didn't have the physical capacity for the longest time. Their legs couldn't reach high enough, a...

A little while back, I joked that I should get in the habit of twiddling my thumbs so that I don't show up late for meetings. It was just a joke, since I really can't handle sitting around doing nothing. I get bored very, very easily, and intentionally putting myself in a position to be bored sounds like one of the outer circles of hell to me. Of course, life has a funny way of throwing you curveballs . It all started when I was sitting in some random meeting where I wasn't expected to say much. In those situations, I tend to move my hands around. You can think of it as fidgeting if you like, but it's more about keeping myself from tuning out than it is about nervous energy. It's not exactly like status meetings scare me. Anyhow, I was doing my usual thing. However, I became a little self-conscious about moving my hands, so I made an effort to keep more still. I figured clasping my hands in front of me was a decent plan, so I went with that. For the clever am...

You know how some couples have a song? It'll be some random song that means a lot to them, and whenever one of them hears the song, it'll remind that person of the other half of that relationship. Well, I do that, too. The catch, however, is that I associate music with people that I'm not dating. I don't know why, but some combination of my memory, my penchant for finding patterns, and my sense of humor means that I will hear a song and be reminded of certain people. Now, I can understand if you think that this is weird. I have found that more often than not, though, the associations I make between the song and the person are pretty amusing. For example: The chorus of Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats" reminds me of one of my sister's friends. This guy apparently did not know that a Louisville slugger  was a type of baseball bat. As a result, he was very, very confused by the part where she says she used one to trash a car. Rightfully so, my...

One of the most interesting things about being single is that people have all sorts of advice for you. For the most part, it comes from friends who only want the best for you. They figure that you'll be that much happier with a significant other, and they are merely trying to nudge you towards that. It doesn't matter if the person giving the advice is single or not, that person is ultimately trying to impart some sort of wisdom. And precisely because the advice is given with the best intentions, I don't generally mind. I usually have a joke or two about the horrors of a girlfriend, and everyone has a laugh. I may listen to the person, I may not. But I don't mind the actual act of giving advice. It's just one of those things that happens. On the other hand, there are times when my best interests are not the impetus for the advice. And funnily enough, I've seen an increase in the screwball advice lately. For example: My sister-in-law was telling me that she...

In general, I really dislike the concept of tl;dr . If you care enough to read about something, just read the darn thing. Sure, there are cases where people are overly verbose, but those are the exception, rather than the rule. Instead, tl;dr gets used as an excuse for people to avoid reading. In its most common usage, it's a form of laziness. The real world is full of nuances, and you miss out on all of that if you see the world through CliffsNotes glasses. In particular, I tend to think that you miss important details when you're constantly asking for the executive summary. You want to know why I think this? Because I learned this the hard way. My friend was in town a little while ago, and she wanted to get some people together for a meal. After a little negotiating on what would meet everyone's dietary restrictions, she settled on Samovar . Now, if you either know San Francisco or if you clicked on the link, you will notice that there are several locations with that ...

A little while back, we celebrated someone's birthday at the House of Prime Rib . I'd actually never been there before, but I was interested in trying it. My friends all warned me that they served fairly hearty portions, but I wasn't too worried. I tend to eat a lot, so I can usually clear my plate. Little did I know, this was the first step on a long, sad journey. When I got my plate, I realized that my friends weren't kidding. It was a good amount of food, although it was definitely within my means to comfortably finish it off. As is my habit, I went to work and put most of it away fairly quickly. As I was down to about a fourth of the food, though, I noticed that the food didn't taste as good any more. I don't quite know how to explain it, but I think the combination of the seasoning on the meat and the gravy was starting to get to me. I don't usually like my food seasoned too strongly, so I think my brain was starting to catch up to my stomach. I still...

You know those stalls in the middle of the passageways of malls? I am suddenly not a fan of those. On my latest trip to the mall, I was walking back to my car. I hadn't taken very long to do my shopping, so I was taking my time strolling back to my vehicle. In line with my happy-go-lucky gait, I was randomly looking over at the stalls as I walked by. I had zero intention of buying anything, so I didn't actually stop in front of any of them. Instead, I just perused the wares as I walked by. It was harmless, and it satisfied my curiosity. The very last one standing between me and my car seemed uninteresting, so I more or less ignored it. In hindsight, this piece of information may have been valuable. Still, it was done. As it was, one of the salespeople decided that my passing by the stall was not acceptable. I was well past the stall when she asked for a second of my time: Sales Person: "Excuse me, do you have a second?" Me: "Sorry, I have to run." (ye...