Mild Amusement

I wrote recently that my email is actually a pretty rich source of material for blog posts . However, my weeknight outings are also just as likely to cause some hearty laughter. Heck, I've got a tag for outings precisely for that reason. If you don't believe me, I invite you to read about the time that dinner led to a bet about whether or not someone could finish their meal . These outings also resulted in the decision to ban someone from picking the restaurant because we narrowly avoided food poisoning , my cell phone pretending to get booty calls in the middle of dinner , and people giving me grief over a gift card . Don't get me wrong, I've been laughing right alongside with all these folks, but I've come to realize that an inordinate number of amusing stories come from these types of outings. And as it turns out, an inordinate number of those outings happen to come up on a Thursday. It's like Thursday is my lucky day or something. I actually didn...

In case you haven't noticed yet, I prefer talking informally. If people IM me at work, I usually greet them then follow it up with, "what's up?" There are a few reasons for this, but the most important one is that I think there's more character to it. There's more soul in slang, if you will. In fact, one of my very first blog posts was about this very topic . It just doesn't sound the same to use twelve five-dollar words when you can use five normal ones. In particular, somewhere along the line, I decided that I like the usage of "yes ma'am" and "yes sir." I don't know if I read it or heard it first, but the idea that you'd show respect in a such charmingly simple way struck a chord with me. Of course, it's always something that's portrayed as a country manners type thing. But it sounds right to me, so I use it. It's precisely why I say that normal, every-day conversation has more soul to it; there's a sen...

Long-time readers of this blog (all two of you) know that I stick to a schedule . There are good reasons for this, all outlined in the linked post. However, the pertinent part of that post for today's purposes are near the bottom of that post: if I have to stick to a schedule, how do I ration out my funny stories so as to not run out? I don't want to end up in a situation where I post a bunch of funny stories, and then one day, I find myself staring at a laptop with nothing amusing to write. Well, as it turns out, the answer to this problem seems to be checking my email. Somehow, I have managed to gather a group of friends that consistently provide snarky and/or amusing stories. And they frequently email me about these post-worthy stories. On days when I find myself needing inspiration for the weekly blog post, I usually end up checking my email to see if there's anything worth writing about in there. In hindsight, this should come as no surprise. After all, my inbox wa...

A long time ago, I was talking to a health professional (the person wasn't a doctor or nurse, but had a heck of a lot more training than me. I don't remember what his official title was) about my diet. Like pretty much every person in that field does, he asked me if I drink at some point. Yes, I do. No, I don't drink that much. Well, what about sugary drinks? Yes, I have one of those every often. No, it's not very often. For the most part, I actually try to eat healthily. Sure, I enjoy burritos, wings, and beer, but that is hardly my every-day diet. The same extends for any carb-heavy drinks, including both beer and soda. I will maybe have a couple of beers when I go out, and I almost never drink soda. The person sitting opposite from me was not convinced, however. He didn't quite call BS, but he had a facial expression that seemed to indicate otherwise. I think he thought I was lying to him. Well, there's not much I could do about convincing him in the span...