On my Jet Blue flight I watched a commercial that showed people losing a bazillion pounds in a couple weeks by using some dumb product.  Near the bottom of the screen was the disclaimer: “RESULTS NOT TYPICAL.”

I think this is a bold new move in advertising, and I look forward to it being implemented across the board. Hot Pockets commercials could remark “NOT ACTUALLY EDIBLE” and trailers for Ben Stiller movies can point out “NOT ESPECIALLY FUNNY.”

Aside from that, my trip to New York was a mostly uneventful blur of work and play.  I did, however, get to have dinner and drinks with long-time blog acquaintances Sarah B. and Evie at the Comfort Diner, which was excellent as well as being comforting.

Those who read Sarah on a regular basis will not be surprised that she frequently says things such as “I like the idea of testing people you meet to see if you like them.  On a first date, for example, you can wear a lot of fake blood.  The person’s reaction lets you know immediately if they’re in or out.”

Talking with them made me reconsider what I’m doing for a living.  Sarah recently quit her job after getting a book deal, and Evie is an editor for a nationally known magazine.  Evie’s boyfriend Aaron produces a talk show on Sirius and plays in two bands.  I, too, desire this Nora Ephron-style existence.  I’ll start by being John Stewart’s houseboy and work up to being whatever Mark Ruffalo does when he’s playing the boyfriend in Jennifer Garner movies.  Plus, maybe I’ll record a hit song.

My friend Praveena was with me.  She doesn’t know a blogosphere from a hemisphere, so afterwards I asked if she was bored listening to the conversation of a bunch of people who post about their lives on the Internet.  She said, “Are you kidding? I had a great time!  They were hilarious!”

I nodded proudly, paternistically, and said “Why yes.  Yes, they are.”

I strongly believe in religious tolerance, but I can’t figure out people who worship the Devil.  There’s no way to do anything that will make the Devil happy; he’s just pissed off in general. Why would you want to do the bidding of someone whose sole purpose is to lie and be evil?  Devil worshippers should ponder this question carefully, and so should people who work for Karl Rove.

I suppose the Devil could give you riches and fame in this earthly life or something, but I’m not convinced he actually does that.  For example, have you heard anyone give thanks to Satan after winning an academy award?  I was pretty sure Jennifer Hudson was going to--she loses on American Idol and goes on to win an oscar?  I sensed the presence of dark forces.  But no, she thanked God profusely, and despite the win I’m not convinced she’s a very good actress so I believe her.  (There is a theory, however, that you can play Marisa Tomei’s old oscar acceptance speech backwards and she says “I owe everything to the Lord of the Flies and also I want to give a special shout out to my man Belial.")

What kind of payoff do Satanists expect? With the other guy there’s eternal happiness and no canker sores and all that.  What is the Devil going to say when you finally show up?

“Well, uh, thanks for all the worship and sacrifices and whatnot.  Okay, you’ll be located in Pit of Agony #137.  Asmodeus will take you down there. Okay, so long and have a nice eternity.”

“Wait!  I was faithful to you my whole life!  Isn’t there a reward for me?”

“Oh, uh. Well.  This is awkward.  No, basically, you get to writhe in eternal torment just like everyone else. I mean, hello, I’m the ruler of Hell--not Fiji.”

“But I did so much for you.  Don’t I get any special consideration?”

“Oh, uh, right.  I did install a CD player over your pit to help drown out the screams of the damned.  You should dig that.”

“Cool, thanks!”

“Right, but uh, unfortunately it only plays Abba’s Greatest Hits.”

(with apologies to Robert Herrick)

Spread your blog postings while ye may
But your future do not shirk
That which amuses today
May one day put you out of work.

That YouTube video full of skin
Such revelry, drunken shows!
A grim visage may chance to find
And think: “My employees should wear clothes.”

Nothing is lost upon the Interwebs
Not one sexcapade nor shouting row
Even if deleted, it’s always cached
And spread viral to and fro

Oh ye Washington intern! Blog your antics
Put politicians to shame
But if your treachery discover’d
Land an agent to secure your fame.

Oh ye stewardess!  So free in flight
Bored with passing out meals
But pose in airline duds?
If fired, you’ll need a book deal.

Oh ye ex-Mormon!  If you lose your job
Due to aspersions cast upon your employer
Well, actually, you’re now self-employed
Your site makes more than many lawyers.

But the rest of you, guide your actions well
They may come back to haunt in time
And if you must post your birthday suit
At least make sure it’s not past its prime.

GIRL IN BAR: There’s certain books I hate to look at.  Because you turn it over and you see the author’s picture, and she’s beautiful and her bio shows that she’s written four other books and she lives with her husband and her dogs in one of two houses on either coast and she’s my goddamn age.

----

DRUNK GUY (sitting and tearing up credit card): Heh. Heh.  Heh.  Look, I’m tearing up this credit card.

FRIEND: That’s good, as long as you’re not planning to use any credit cards.

DRUNK GUY: Well, not this one.

(long pause)

DRUNK GUY: I have another one, though.

---

GUY #1: Here, use these matches to light the birthday cake.

GUY #2: Whoa, that’s a Franz Ferdinand matchbook!

GUY #1: Uh, yeah.

GUY #2: If I had a Franz Ferdinand matchbook, I wouldn’t be actually using the matches. I’d probably put it on my bookshelf next to other geek ornaments such as my bowling pin.

GUY #1: Here, take it.

GUY #2: What? No, I was just kidding.

GUY #1: Seriously, take it.  I work in a music store; they send them to me. I’ve got a ton of them.

Sadly, I was Guy #2.

I heard that some people suffered strange reactions to the daylight savings time this year.  I don’t know about that, but on Monday I slouched into work and started the coffee, as I have probably hundreds of other times.  But this morning I somehow put in the filter and pressed “Brew” without actually putting the coffee pot in place.  Then I staggered away to check my email.

I came back a few minutes later to find the VP of Sales and another co-worker frantically scooping up and bailing out the coffee as it cascaded onto the countertop, as though they were sailors aboard a submarine in a coffee-filled ocean, and the hull had been breached by a gigantic sugar cube.

I have a couple of justifications I’ve been giving about the incident:

- Studies show that caffeine is good for the countertops; I’m doing my part to protect the integrity of the company’s internal infrastructure.
- It was abstract art. Medium: coffee on countertop.
- I wanted to foster teamwork and cooperation among my colleagues, so that they would join together in service of a common cause.

Regardless, it was worth it to get those extra daylight hours a few weeks early.

A friend of mine who works as a healthcare provider told me that sexually transmitted diseases aren’t referred to as STDs anymore, but rather STIs.  “They’re not diseases, they’re infections,” she said.

As a former English major, I am completely on board with the idea that words have power and that we should carefully modulate our use of words so as not to cause undue harm.  For example, I encounter an unbelievable amount of stupid people on a daily basis.  But I don’t call them that.  I don’t even call them cretins.  Instead I refer to them as “competence impaired.”

However, I’m not sure that STIs is a more positive term than STDs.  When I think of STIs, I think--well, to be honest, the phrase makes me think of a Satellite Defense System.  If someone told me they had an STI, I’d say “Cool!  How does the laser tracking system work?”

But when it comes right down to it, the word “infection” and the word “disease” aren’t all that different to me.  Is one really going to make someone feel better?  Plus, I mean, they’re diseases.  It’s not like a lifestyle choice where someone decides to wear speedos to a public swimming pool and therefore we need to respect his individuality.  Rather, it’s something that someone doesn’t want to get that they’d like to be cured.  That’s a disease.

I think I’d be the first to say that if I got one. I’d say “This is a disease, and I’m fully comfortable calling it an STD because that’s what it is.  However, I’d prefer it if you didn’t refer to me as a ‘victim’ of the disease. I prefer to think of myself as ‘gonorrhea capable.’”

It probably doesn’t speak well of my character when I’m doing a run and my iPod randomly shuffles in “Funky Town,” and for a few moments I’m not sure which version it is because I happen to have several.

CAPTION #1:

Hilary: “Natalie, sweetheart, let me put my hand up your back and make you recite my favorite lines of Queen Amidala dialogue.”

CAPTION #2:

Hilary: “You don’t have psychotic to pose for this picture--but it helps!”

CAPTION #3:

Natalie: “Well, Hayden, now you know why our love scenes were so unconvincing.”

CAPTION #4:

Natalie: “Hilary, I’ll vote for you--as long as you pass a law that forces everyone to turn up the heat.  I’m freezing in here.”

Hilary: “But I’m trying to fight global warming.”

I didn’t expect to end up at a club after work on Friday, but it was just that kind of day. The problem was, I was dressed for a casual day at the office and so I was wearing my Murrells.  Not exactly club footwear.

Merrells are my new favorite shoes. My parents discovered them in India, and then my brother started going off about how great they were, so I got them for Christmas and now I am a convert.  Merrells are like slippers you can wear outside.  They feel like someone you love is hugging your feet, all the time--except without the creepy foot fetish part.

I was surprised they let me in the club, and then I had to explain to my friends about my shoes.  This led to someone delivering a monologue on what makes trendy shoes:

FASHION EXPERT: They have to be black and pointy. See that guy over there?  His shoes aren’t pointy enough.

ME: Pointy.  Check.

FASHION EXPERT: It’s because you want elongation in your shoes.  It makes you look taller.

This was genuinely new information, and very useful because at 5’8” I can use all the optical illusions I can get.  It’s just that I thought guys liked long shoes because it made them seem as though they had...well, y’know.  Long strides.

The next day I went with my friend Stephanie to Wondercon, a general comic book and pop culture convention.  I was pleased to see that not everyone in attendance was a paunchy 40-year old.  In my day, actual young people went to these things.  Nowdays they’re speaking stops for celebrities.  Well, not celebrities but Ali Larter.  And also Hilary Swank, who was promoting some upcoming horror movie that will likely not add to her horde of Oscars.

The point is that now everyone wants a piece of the pop culture pie.  But won’t someone please think of the children? If you actually pick up a comic book these days you realize that they have become extremely dark--supervillains raping and murdering the wives of superheroes, civil wars, etc.  The problem with making those stories more sophisticated is that you sound the death knell for the medium, because then the stories won’t be accessible to young readers and eventually all the current readers will grow old and die. Therefore, it was nice to see that a few young people were still showing up:

Of course, the guy behind him may have been his truant officer, so who knows how long he got to stay?

On the way back home, I saw a parade full of strange people dressed in bizarre costumes that was so completely disassociated from reality that I figured I had made a wrong turn and was back in the convention:

Whoops, no, just the Chinese New Year’s parade.  Next year they ought to combine the camps. I would really love to see the X-Men beat the crap out of that dragon.

My television has apparently decided to protest my Veronica Mars habit.  It remains blank when I try to turn it on, which reminds me of my last date.  The point is, there’s two things that I always hear when I call tech support:

- “Please listen carefully, as our menu of options has changed.”

- “Due to a high call volume, there may be a long waiting period.”

I mean...without fail. I have never called any kind of tech support line without hearing these phrases. Just once I’d like to hear two different things:

- “We know that you don’t make a habit of calling tech support lines, and you barely remember what you had for lunch yesterday, so it’s nearly impossible that you’ve actually memorized our menu of options. Therefore, it won’t mean jack squat that we’ve recently changed them, even though we’re pretty proud of ourselves for doing so.  Therefore, just hang out and we’ll recite them for you.  Cool?”

- “We’re always understaffed and overburdened, so there’s no point in telling that you’re going to be hanging on the line for thirty minutes.  That pretty much goes without saying.  But in the meantime, instead of upselling some dumbass Circuit City product or service, our soothing female voice will now tell you how good looking you are today and why you’re the absolute best caller we’ve had all day.”

I was thinking that maybe my love life would go better if I went with a completely different paradigm and became a Sugar Daddy.  I started to write a personal ad to that effect. But then I suddenly realized that I’m not rich--and on top of that, I’m kind of a cheapskate.

So I rewrote the ad:

“Economy-minded and fiscally responsible Sugar Daddy seeks eager supplicant.  Promises to keep you in onion rings and gold-toe socks.  Weekly shopping sprees at Target (max $50 per trip).  Will pay for your education--at the University of Phoenix.  Plans extensive, soul-nurturing travel in five mile radius of immediate neighborhood, with occasional long-distance trips to Bay Area suburbs such as Antioch and San Lorenzo.  Window shopping at only the finest stores.

The successful applicant will be responsible for the typical duties that accompany such arrangements, notably clipping coupons, rolling up spare change into coin rolls for exchange at the bank, and surfing Froogle and DeepDiscount.com using a set of pre-designated keywords.  Room and board all included; don’t miss this exception opportunity to obtain the security and stability that you seek.  (Please note: The successful applicant will also be responsible for 1/2 electricity, 1/2 cable, 1/2 DSL, and for providing a bottle of Charles Shaw for each evening’s romantic repast.”

1. Sting boasts to interviewers that he has frequent tantric sex with his wife that goes on for hours.  Is it really something to brag about that you can’t focus enough to get the job done?  Maybe Sting ought to be dreaming less about blue turtles or fields of fire and concentrating more on the job at hand. Where is Entertainment Weekly asking me for the secrets of my two-minute technique? 

2. I want to be clear: I saw An Inconvenient Truth and loved it. I’ve been genuinely impressed how it changed the fundamentals of national debate on global warming, so that the discussion became less about “It’s just one side of the argument” and more about “It’s real; now what do we do about it.” Still, though. The movie rails against the American tendency to consume too much--and wouldn’t that message have been more compelling if Gore, himself, showed a little restraint?

I’m not saying he has to go all Christina Ricci. But saving the world starts at home, tugboat.

3. Everyone wants to know the truth about Britney.  Why wasn’t my phone ringing off the hook when I began to go bald?  Frankly, discussing the matter in public would have been very healing for me.

Ingrates.

Have you seen those frozen crock pot dinners that you can buy in the supermarket? Who buys those things?  Having a crock pot is already admitting that you’re kind of person who would like to sleep twelve hours a night.  Having a crock pot frozen dinner is like saying that after you sleep those twelve hours, you want a servant to carry you around your house on a cot.

How long does it take to chop up the ingredients for a standard crock pot stew, anyway? Five minutes?  Do people who buy crock pot dinners pride themselves on their time management? 

“I’ve saved an average of five minutes a night by putting in a crock pot frozen dinner rather than chopping up fresh meat and vegetables.  With that time, I’ve learned three languages, two martial arts, and the difference between ‘meiosis’ and ‘mitosis.’ But I’m really hoping they make a ‘time saver’ version for busy people like me.  You’d buy the dinner, and twelve hours later it would cook itself, jump down off the stove, leap on to your face, and pour itself down your throat.”

Sharing old pictures of yourself on the Internet is apparently the new low-rise jeans, and God knows I can’t stand to not be trendy.  So here’s a few pictures my folks gave me when I visited them a few weeks ago.

Both of them are from 1983.  This first one is confusing to me because I don’t recognize myself--and not just because I’m surprised to see myself with a full head of hair.  I don’t remember that jacket, that rock, nothing.  But the look?  It is, as the kids say, pure bershon.

My mother says that I always looked bershon.  (Well, she didn’t exactly use that word because she’s not one of the kids, but her meaning was the same.) She says that I hated having my picture taken and made my feelings known about it.  I can confirm this; I remember resenting the camera. But it wasn’t because I was too cool for school. It was because I hated the feeling of my soul being sucked out of my body.

This next picture more closely resembles my mental picture of myself at that age--a scrawny runt who looked like he’d get the crap kicked out of him by a stiff wind.

But I’m less interesting here than my friend Wendy, with whom I’m sharing a birthday in this picture because our families are on a ski trip together.  She’s currently in the foreign service in Afghanistan, and she just got her orders for next year--Argentina!  Buenos Aires in ‘08.  Me, that is.  I’m hoping she’ll be in a good mood and/or not involved in international espionage and therefore can show me around the city.

Hmm, maybe I shouldn’t have taken all the cake for myself.