Mild Amusement

Silicon Valley is awfully close to the Bay Area, so a lot of its culture seems to bleed over into where I live. It makes sense if you think about it; the people who work there live close by, others want to try to get in on the boom, and Silicon Valley itself is bound to spill over into neighboring areas. Ultimately, I suspect this is why I know multiple people who have ideas about starting their own companies. I don't know that any of them are quitting their jobs and taking out loans against their houses any time soon, but they do have these ideas that they day dream about turning into reality. As it turns out, my brother had one such idea. He thought up a competitor for the technology company Apple. Now, he's not an engineer or an inventor, and he doesn't have a killer product that would make the iPhone look like a kid's toy. However, he DOES have plenty of ideas about how to market a hypothetical product to compete with Apple's line of products. On the off chan...

Today's post is all about the CrossFit workouts that I like to do with a few others at work . I've mentioned them on this blog before, since they can be awfully amusing. Heck, even the process of writing about the work outs is pretty amusing. And since I've been going to that class a little more regularly again, I've picked up a few more amusing stories in the process: Generally speaking, the trainer for the class doesn't tell us what the Workout of the Day (WOD, for short) is going to be. The whole idea is for it to be constantly changing, so as to keep us on our toes and force us to challenge ourselves. That means that he will often say things like, "it's not THAT bad" as he's writing up the WOD. That statement is always followed by a laugh. I don't mean that it's followed by a laugh some of the time, or that he throws in a light chuckle. I mean that he laughs every single time after saying that, and it's a full laugh, the kind th...

(First of all, "logue" isn't really a word. At least it's not a word that I intended to use. So if it actually means something in archaic Olde English or something, that's not what I meant. This post is about the epilogue to the Joys of an Earring 2 post . However, it's only going to make any kind of sense if I first explain the build-up in a prologue. So this post is going to be both a prologue and en epilogue to that earlier post. Hence, the 'logue.) Have you ever come across one of those friends that likes to play with their Facebook identifying details? I have. I have some friends my age who claim to be older than my grandparents. It's kinda funny, but it can also confuse some people. It's particularly interesting when people mess with their relationship status, since that can lead to some interesting conclusions. It leads to really  interesting conclusions if people claim to be married to their best friends. I've seen this a couple of ti...

I wrote once before that having an earring leads to a surprising number of chuckles , and that fact hasn't changed. On some intellectual level, I get that it's an oddity for some people, and that leads to interesting exchanges. But on a more tactical level, the phenomenon of a guy wearing an earring is common enough that it's shown up in popular media across the globe. If nothing else, you figure that these people saw it on TV once or saw it in a movie or something. So you might assume that people would be more or less over it, right? You'd assume wrong. I was sitting in a meeting with a couple of other people at work recently when I was suddenly reminded of this fact. Just to set the stage, these were people that I'm not super close with. I've worked with one for a while and I was just recently introduced to the other one, but it's not like we're going out for drinks after work. I'll happily chat with either of the two, but I wouldn't consider...

It's been a while since I've talked about the random compliments that people seem to throw my way, so I figure it's time to remedy that. I don't quite know what it is that leads to some of these comments, since it's not like I go out of my way to ask people to try to say nice things about me. Though "nice" might be a bit of a stretch, since some of these comments are so strange that they fall more into the category of "seriously?" than "wow, thanks." With that as a backdrop, though, let me get right to it: Me: "Eh, work's kinda lame right now" Friend: "What?! But you love your job, and you're always so happy about it" This is precisely what I mean. On the surface, that sounds like a good thing. Who doesn't want to do something they enjoy? But if you think about it, I think my friend just called me either gullible or a chump. I mean, everyone has bad days and there are always little frustrations that...

I've mentioned before that often my actions around my house are driven by the munchkins that happen to be walking around. Even simple little things like whether to leave the toilet seat up or down  and taking my temperature often involve a little kid. I've actually gotten used to it, and it's not a big deal, but it's changed how I act just a little bit. This time, however, I think someone else might have taken that to the next level for me. Allow me to explain. I'm very used to little kids wanting to play with the adults in the house ( I am no exception to this general attitude ), and even more importantly, them wanting to imitate all of the adults. That generally means that I have to be on my best behavior around the kids, so that I don't set a bad example. I don't swear when little ones are around, I make sure to say "please" and "thank you," I excuse myself from the table, and I generally act like a civilized person. They're lit...

For people that have known me for a while, there are a couple of stories that they are bound to have heard me tell. They're just amusing stories all around, so they're bound to come up eventually. Everyone involved always chuckles or flat out laughs, so in theory, it should be a win-win situation. Should be. As it turns out, though, I know a few jokers that have managed to use these stories to make fun of me . Let me start with one of these stories: a long time ago, a bunch of us were looking for a place to eat. These were friends I had known for a long time, and we'll all grown up together, so it was a very casual outing. In fact, it was so casual, that we didn't even have a destination in mind. The plan consisted of: "let's find food." So, we were driving around trying to find something to eat, when someone spotted a restaurant that looked promising: Friend #1: "Hey, what about that spot?" Friend #2: "Which one?" Friend #1: ...