Mild Amusement

I can't remember where I saw it, but there was a funny graph about the relative importance of socks and sweatpants in 2020. It looked sort of like this: With credit to  https://accidentalfire.com/2020/04/03/relative-importance-2020/ The general gist of the graph is that as people have quarantined, the need for comfortable, "at home" clothing has gone up, and other things have become less important. I definitely chuckled when I saw this. In that vein, I recently got myself a new pair of shorts. Much like the sweatpants line in the graph above, my desire for comfortable clothing during the summer heat has gone up quite a bit. I actually don't own tons of pairs of shorts for everyday wear, so it was nice to pick up a new pair. Now, we ordered the shorts online, much like every other purchase we've made in recent times. That meant that I didn't get a chance to try them on first, or to see how they fit. I wasn't particularly worried about this because men's...

I have mentioned it on occasion, but I sometimes get mistaken for a Filipino person . Honestly, I'm never surprised when it happens. For one, it's happened enough times that I recognize that it is a thing. For another, I have a complexion that looks very much like what a stereotypical Filipino person looks like. All in all, it sort of makes sense. Still, it's amusing when it happens. What makes it all the more confusing for people passing by is that I sometimes hang out with a whole lot of other Filipinos. For example, any time I am with the Mild Wife's family, I happen to be one of many people who are/look Filipino. Given the context clues, I can't fault someone for assuming that I am simply another one of the family. I mean, there are people in the family who are lighter than me in skin tone and there are people in the family who have a darker complexion than me. I'm somewhere smack dab in the middle, so it's a perfectly reasonable assumption. If y...

Every year, companies work with United Way in a coordinated week of volunteering effort . Basically, it is a way to try to make a difference by getting a bunch of people to all focus their efforts in a set amount of time. I usually try to pitch in, because I think it's a worthy cause. Hell, I think it's a bunch of worthy causes, and doing my part in some way has always seemed like a good idea. This year, my willingness to volunteer led to some unexpected laughs. You see, this year I volunteered with an organization that has a big yearly yard sale. I think they might make some money off of the effort, but the general idea isn’t actually to be a fundraiser. Instead, the idea is to have a sale of affordable items for their constituents. To give you an idea of what they have in mind, they sell items of clothing for five bucks. I think they might make actually make some money from the process, but that’s almost incidental at that point. I thought that was pretty c...

I've mentioned more than once on this blog that I get up really early during the work week. This leads to all sorts of shenanigans, from having to tip-toe into a bedroom to being mistaken for a car thief . It's just one of those things that leads to amusing stories. If you think about it, it should come as no surprise. I have just woken up, so I'm very likely to be operating at less than optimal levels. It is usually dark at that hour without any sort of natural light, and I can't just go traipsing through the house for fear of waking other people up. So, a groggy person wakes up, has to navigate a dark environment, and can't make any noise. Doesn't that sound like the perfect set up for some slapstick? So, let me add to the list of amusing stories. In this particular case, it has to do with my "countermeasures" to this hilarity. You see, I am more than aware that I have to get dressed in the dark. It's not the sort of thing you forget about a...

This is one of those rare posts about work. I don't usually write much about my 9 to 5, in part because there's almost always something more amusing going on in my non-work life. In fact, I try to find  something amusing in my non-work life to write about because it sort of forces me to look at life a certain way. If life outside of work is legitimately devoid of any and all amusement, the fix to that is to have more fun, not to write about work. Still, there are rare occasions when something amuses me so much that I'm willing to bend my rule. This, as you can probably imagine, is one such occasion. First, let me start off with a little bit of background: in some offices, there is the practice of Tie Tuesday . If you've never seen it in practice, people at workplaces that don't enforce business attire show up with a tie on. It's like the opposite of casual Fridays, and people do it for no other reason than to spice things up a bit. I'm guessing it also a...

The last time that I used this particular title, I told the tale of a pair of ripped jeans . I'd actually forgotten about the episode until I did a search for posts (I don't like reusing the post titles), but it seemed incredibly apropos given the story I want to tell this time. I don't want to give away the punchline, but you'll see what I mean. So, during that last story, I had to buy a new pair of jeans at the last minute, and I ended up having to change in a public bathroom. It all just felt very odd. Fortunately for me, I was at home when the shenanigans happened this time around. Specifically, this happened: Yes, that is a belt in two pieces The real kicker of it all was that I wasn't even wearing the belt when it decided to end its waist-cinching days. It was, as you can see in the photo, hanging on the hook. I forget what I did, but there was no violent motion involved. I think I tried to move the hanger, but I don't really remember. However, the ...

Last time, I mentioned that the Mild Wife and I decided to honeymoon in snowy Montreal . We ended up choosing it over much sunnier places, but we figured we'd still have a pretty good time. After all, we were heading out on our honeymoon, and we both like a good adventure. This one would just be a tad colder than some of our previous adventures. Well, that was basically the attitude, with one slight exception. The Mild Wife was concerned about the state of my outerwear. You see, I have never lived in a city or town that experiences snow, hail, sleet, or any of the other words that mean "it's cold up in here." So while I understand what "cold" means on an intellectual level, I've never actually lived through it. More specifically, I've never had to bundle up and protect myself against that kind of weather. So, we went shopping. I would only learn this after the fact, but it was an exercise in frustration for the Mild Wife. She has lived through...

So, I lied just a tad. The Mild Wedding actually consisted of a couple of different events, rather than a single day's worth of festivities. One of those events was a Chinese wedding banquet, where they serve you ten courses of food . Yes, ten courses. Pretty much everyone left stuffed. Now, the Chinese ceremony was obviously a nod to part of my heritage. I've been to enough Chinese weddings and have enough Chinese family nearby that we figured it made sense to get married that way, as well. In fact, I remember telling people that I didn't really consider myself completely, thoroughly married until the paper work was done AND we'd done the cultural ceremonies. We don't do things half-assed around here. That said, I am a make up of several cultures (as has been documented in the past to amusing results ), and the Mild Wife brings her own, unique cultural heritage to the table. So, we decided that we would make sure no particular cultural would get left out. S...

Last time, we learned that I can actually pull off a Clark Kent to Superman style transformation if I put on a suit. It doesn't give me super powers, it just makes me look drastically different (apparently). That, however, was not the extent of the hijinks at the Mild Wedding. First, I should mention that the Mild Wife and I are not super traditional. I walked down the aisle hand in hand with both of my parents, because we wanted to honor them both. That's most definitely not the old school way of doing it, but we figured it was a nice way to do it. Similarly, the Mild Wife also walked down the aisle with both of her parents at her side. Again, we liked that better than tradition. However, one of the traditions we did want to adhere to was that the wedding dress should be a surprise for me. I'm not sure there was a deep meaning behind the decision, other than I thought it'd be fun to be surprised by how she looked. So, even though we picked up the dress in advan...

So, as I mentioned in the last blog post , I got married. I now have a Mild Wife. The whole process was very interesting, and there were all sorts of amusing stories along the way. Sure, there were moments of stress, but all in all, it actually went fairly well. That said, the first story that comes to mind came from the actual day of one of our ceremonies. As you can imagine, we had a lot to think about on the day of that ceremony. There were a few things we had to set up, and the Mild Wife had to do her hair and make up for the big day. Ultimately, we decided to stay in one of the rooms offered by the venue in order to make the whole process smoother. I mention that particular detail because it meant that we were hanging around the venue for longer than just the ceremony. We had at least a couple of meals there (we were feeling lazy about driving anywhere), and talked to a few members of the venue's staff off and on throughout our stay there. In fact, at one point, the recept...

Summer time in the new digs has been interesting. I grew up where temperature swings were pretty mild, so I've never really had to deal with actual seasons. I don't own a large number of shorts, nor do I have a winter coat. I basically have clothes that I wear all year round, and I stack/layer them as necessary. It works out fine most of the time, but I still don't think about these things reflexively. The Mild Fiancée, on the other hand, grew up where summer time temperatures would routinely reach triple digits. That sort of weather makes an impression on you, and it teaches you some habits. From what I understand, some days were spent doing as little as humanly possible to try to minimize any sweating or humidity loss. The pertinent part of this story, however, is that she dresses according to the seasons. Summer dresses are a thing for her. Well, I happened to get her a dress for her birthday. It was actually a bit of a failure on my part, because the brick and mort...

Do you remember when I learned to crochet a baby beanie ? I was happy to pick up a new skill, but it almost felt like a parlor trick. I mean, it's not like I was going to start making beanies left and right. Right? Heck, I even finished that blog post with a joking recommendation for people I know to have more babies precisely because I figured it was a one-off type occurrence. Well, the universe has a quirky sense of humor. As it turns out, I now have FOUR close friends and family who are all pregnant. What's more, they are all due around the same time. What are the odds? I can understand four such people being pregnant at the same time, or even being pregnant in the same year (I'm at that age). But four people all due within a month or so of each other? What are the odds? One of those people just so happens to be my sister. She is the first of us siblings to have a kid, so it's an extra special big deal. It wasn't a matter of whether I was going to make her ki...

A while back, I helped the Mild Girlfriend move. Luckily, we had plenty of time to do so, so we were able to move all of her stuff with just our two cars. We also made more than one trip, spread out over a couple of weekends. All in all, it wasn't the worst move I've seen. It took time, but that's just how that goes. During the last weekend, we had to make one last push to get everything done. She had to be out of the apartment by about 11AM, and we'd parked the cars in a zone that ended up becoming commercial parking around 8AM. Since we wanted to be on the road by about that time anyway, that wasn't much of a problem. However, it did mean that we got up pretty early to pack the last of the stuff into our cars. Like I said, it wasn't horrible, but it just meant a lot more movement than most people are used to at that hour. We did get out of there when we expected to, but the process had a very unexpected consequence: I tore my pants. Even now, I have no ide...

So, I like to travel (I got curious, and the travel tag gets used fairly frequently on this blog). Most of the time, I travel for fun, and I end up with funny stories about my clothing  or experiences as a result. It's not like I go looking for adventures or shenanigans, but these things tend to happen when I'm somewhere other than my home town. Occasionally, though, I get to travel for work. It used to happen a little bit more in years past, but these days, it's a little bit more rare (apparently they realized that having me represent the company wasn't the best idea). Even so, I still end up with funny travel stories on those trips. Those stories are a particularly rare breed, but they're all the more fun as a result. In this particular case, I was traveling to the East coast for a conference. The timing of the trip wasn't particularly important, other than the fact that it was some time in the fall. Me being me, I didn't really think too much about ...

For the most part, I'm a t-shirt and jeans kind of guy. I can certainly clean up when I have to, and I have my occasional forays outside of that comfort zone . Still, though, you wouldn't realistically describe me as being trendy or highly fashionable. Hell, there are little kids who consistently put me to shame . Keep that in mind. It will make the rest of this post that much more entertaining. Recently, a bunch of us went out for happy hour after work. It was promoted more as a team building thing, so I made a point of joining in on the fun. Either way, it was the first time I'd hung out with some of these folks outside the confines of a cubicle. That made for some interesting revelations and exchanges, mostly centered around what I refer to as "girly girl" things. Allow me to explain. We were talking when one of my coworkers commented that she really liked nice purses and jewelry. We're talking luxury brands, the kind of stuff that costs you at least th...

I am at the age where a bunch of friends either have kids or are due to have kids soon. For the most part, this is not a big deal for me, since I am quite used to being around munchkins. I'm going to be kind of confused when they grow up, since that'll be a new experience for me. For the moment, though, I get to see lots of munchkins. One thing I've noticed, however, is that some of these kids are WAY more stylish than I ever was. Yes, yes, the parents obviously have a hand in this. But some of it is also the kids, right? I mean, you could slap the latest Paris runway fashions on my body and I'd look preposterous. You still have to pull off the look. And man, do these kids have a head start in that department. Let's start with a birthday party for some munchkins I happened to attend. One little girl, probably about 5 or 6, came running up to her mom at one point and asked if she could take off her shoes. We were in a playground thing, so I figured she just wante...

Since I was on a bus tour for this particular trip, I didn't really bother to pack much other than some jeans and t-shirts. Sure, I had a little bit of outerwear in case the weather got cold, but I wasn't super concerned about that turn of events. In fact, I wasn't even horribly concerned about rain because I figured that we'd be on a bus for good chunks of the trip. There were some advantages to traveling on one of those pre-packaged group tours, after all. Anyhow, since I was on this trip for a little over a week, this meant that I needed more than a week's worth of t-shirts. I did own that many t-shirts, but it's not like I the number I owned was orders of magnitude higher than that. This meant that I was bound to pack at least one shirt that I owned because I found it amusing (read: there was something smart aleck-y about it). As it turns out, I packed a few of them. For example, the current and former school teachers in our travel group chuckled heartily...

I happen to be a Chris Rock fan. Most of the time, his stuff is funny and has a little social commentary thrown in. The goofy looking faces don't hurt, either. Anyhow, he did this one bit where cops gave him a hard time because he was black. The punchline is something along the lines of, " he scared me so bad, I thought I'd stolen my own car ." I've always thought it was funny, if nothing else because it's a ridiculous response to a bad situation. As of this week, I know how he feels. I got up on Tuesday morning and went about my business as usual. I had ironed a shirt & picked out a pair of gray slacks the night before, so I got dressed fairly quickly. It's not like it's hard or anything: slacks, shirt, jacket, shoes, beanie. It's also the same routine every morning, so I don't even think about it any more. I can, and do, do it while half asleep. Really, the only detail that's changed over the years is that I'll wear a black leat...