For my recent birthday, some friends bought me a poker set.  The part that really touched me was that they included an automatic card shuffler.  This indicated a thorough, precise understanding of my character--or rather, it indicated a great deal of prior annoyance as they’ve had to watch me try to shuffle cards.  I can’t shuffle cards.  And shuffling via “52-Card Pick Up” gets old fast.

It got me to thinking of other gifts that would be similarly appropriate for addressing flaws in my character:

Sports for Dummies.  Although I’d probably only get through the chapter on mud wrestling.

Martini Maker.  Provides just the right kiss of vermouth to the vodka, resulting in the perfect martini and preventing the need for manually figuring out the highly complex vodka/vermouth ratio.  Best if gift is accompanied with a Walther PPK and a car that can turn into a submarine.

Small Talk Generator.  Just sit back and relax; this voice-activated device does all the hard work for you, finding just the right response and intonation for discussing important issues with your colleagues such as “Repairing roof shingles,” “Babies and the cute things they do,” “Those wacky kids in The Apprentice,” and “Ha!  The weather.  Yeah, just tell me about the weather.”

Gift Wrapping Machine. I don’t even try to wrap gifts.  Instead, I embrace my complete lack of wrapping talent and go all kamikaze on them.  I cram a gift into the paper, smother it with tape, and stomp a bow on it with a song of joyous anarchy in my heart.  It’s my way of paying tribute to the chaos that rules our lives.  I shove gifts at people and say “Never mind the Sex Pistols; here’s your damn present.”

Snore B Gone.  I’m actually working on a way to deal with my snoring habit using a method called “subconscious ventriloquism.” While sleeping, I can cast my voice elsewhere.  So far this method has greatly improved my life, although it’s caused three couples on the floor above me to file for divorce.

I just finished reading the very first anthology of web journal writing--Never Threaten to Eat Your Co-Workers: Best of Blogs--which is now represented in my sidebar.  At one point I was moved to tears.  At another I laughed hysterically.  At the end I felt profoundly changed, as though held in the comforting hand of a power that’s larger than myself. 

Then I read all the pieces that weren’t written by me and, hey, they were pretty good too.

But I kid.  I only have a few paragraphs in the book, and there are more skillful wordsmiths represented therein such as the incomparable Dooce and ex-cheerleader-turned-acerbic-maternal-figure Mrs. Kennedy.  Even that geek from Star Trek gets his say--which is good, because, y’know, his web site can really use the exposure.

This is the first book of its kind ever produced.  It’s a good read.  If you like blogs, you’ll love it.  If you want to support blogs as an artistic medium, you need it.  It’s the perfect gift for the person on your list who has everything but an anthology of web journal writing.

It can be purchased right here.

If a dream about being naked in public represents a feeling of insecurity, and a dream about flying represents a feeling of power and control, what does a dream about flying naked mean?

I recommend we call it “well adjusted.”

I need to contextualize this post and say that I usually apply myself pretty hard to projects.  I like to keep up a level of intensity and energy, and it doesn’t hurt that I like my job for the most part.  But this week has been one of those weeks where I feel a little bit sick, but not quite sick enough to stay home--particularly with multiple deadlines looming over me.  In addition, my right eye appears to be suffering a combination of spring allergies and itchy contact lenses.  I look like the cover to a heavy metal album called “Eye of the Demon.”

For all these reasons, I had difficulty concentrating on work yesterday.

I wrote:
“Enterprise applications sit on top of a database where they extract bits of data and display them in a web-based interface.”

But I was thinking:
Many reasons exist to consider Batman to be the world’s premier superhero.  He has adapted his image many times to fit the needs of particular eras in American culture, all the way from the 30s through the present day.  Indeed, he enjoys a great deal of popularity 70 years after his first appearance.

I wrote:
“Integration is important because applications cannot live isolated from each other.  They need to exchange information in order to ensure maximum efficiency for the end user.”

But I was thinking:
As a kid I related most to Spider-Man because of his accessibility and his everyday problems.  But although Spider-Man has remained popular ever since his first appearance, he has only had to navigate 4 decades of American culture.  Surely Batman remains the more significant achievement.

I wrote:
“Multiple technologies exist to solve the integration puzzle.”

But I was thinking:
Superman is certainly the most well-known superhero, but is he the greatest?  Batman comics outsell Superman comics as a matter of course.

I wrote:
“Regardless of how you choose to integrate Batman, the end result needs to be a 100% Internet-driven architecture.”

But I was thinking:
Furthermore, you have to consider--heyyyy, wait a second.

The condo complex next to mine has a sign that says “OPEN: SUNDAY 2-4:30.” For a moment, I thought it was great that these people were letting the rest of us know about their emotional state of being.  I considered putting up my own sign: “STANDOFFISH: TUESDAY 7-9:30.”

But maybe I could just hang the first sign a way of inviting everyone to come over and hang out.  My place would be, for all practical purposes, OPEN to everyone for a few hours on Sunday.  The only problem would be convincing some of the more die-hard buyers to get over the whole real estate thing.  They’d say “Well, the kitchen is small, but I think there’s a lot that could be done with the main living area.” I’d say “Shut up about the remodeling, grab a handful of goldfish crackers, and have a seat.  My friend and my neighbor and three homeless people are about to play a rousing game of ‘Balderdash.’”

Times are good for connoisseurs of zombie cinema.  The two movies that dominated this weekend’s box office, Dawn of the Dead and The Passion of the Christ, both feature people who die and then get up and walk around.  The jury’s still out on which movie used more gallons of fake blood, but speaking for horror fans everywhere, I think this is the kind of conversation we want to be having.

Movie executives are no doubt sitting up and taking notice.  The studios will waste little time putting together a major crossover event: Freddy versus Jason versus Jesus.

Oh lord, there’s a plumber in my home.
Oh lord, there’s a plumber in my home.
I’ve been to London and I’ve been to Rome
But I never thought there’d be a plumber in my home.

It’s sort of grown up is what I think
It’s sort of grown up is what I think
Instead of buying CDs and drinks
I’m making sure that everything’s in sink.

(ukelele solo)

He’s a Chinese plumber named Ping
He’s a Chinese plumber named Ping
“Last time, no was professional job, I thing”
Is what he says as he surveys everything.

I won’t call my bank to get a loan floated
No, I won’t call my bank to get a loan floated
Even though pipes large and small are bloated
Ping’s not charging more than what he quoted.

Oh lord, there’s a plumber in my home
Oh lord, there’s a plumber in my home…

But my sink will no longer be acting hyper
So I won’t mind having to pay the piper.

(Repeat first verse until fade out or until singers fall down drunk)

I can’t believe my friend’s wedding was in December and we still don’t have wedding photographs back.  I looked pretty cool in my tux and I want to see the pictures.  I also want to see the candids of me convincing one of the bridesmaids to down about five shots, after which she ended up swinging naked from a chandelier over the heads of wedding guests.

Wait, maybe I dreamed that part.

Anyway, I think this explains why most couples stay together for the first half year of marriage; they can’t admit they’ve made a serious mistake at least until the pictures come back.  Look at Drew Barrymore and Tom Green, who divorced five months after the wedding.  My theory is that Drew filed the papers the day after the pictures came back.  Because, for one thing, she no longer had to wait for them.  For another, she looked at them and it finally sank in: “Oh my God, I married Tom Green.”

I have a theory about why it takes so long for wedding pictures to come back, and it’s not a very nice one.  I believe that there’s a black market of wedding pictures where all the wedding participants are photoshopped and their heads are put on bodies in various stages of undress.  Then these pictures are circulated to a bizarre sexual underground comprised of wedding guest fetishists.  Every wedding photographer you’ve ever met is part of this disturbing subculture of eroticized matrimonial imagery.

It’s too bad, too, because I think I look better in jeans.  But try telling that to a wedding guest fetishist.  “Hey, I look slick in these new jeans.” “Whatever.  Look, put the tux on and then slowly take it off.  And then pretend like you’re trying to catch a garter.  But don’t pretend to give a toast or anything--that’s way too out there for me.”

In reflecting on time spent both on and off the dance floor, I realize that I’ve only “Waved my hands in the air like I just don’t care” when encouraged to do so by a DJ or a professional musician of some kind. 

It’s a pretty sensible chain of causality: you wave your hands in the air because, well, you just don’t care.  Intuitively it makes sense.  Emotionally it feels right. On the dance floor it’s unquestionably the correct thing to do.  I simply never do it anywhere else.

So I think I’m going to make a change and try to incorporate this activity into other areas of my life.  For example, an executive might say at a meeting: “This project is absolutely crucial and it affects all areas of the company.  Greg, what do you think about publishing a detailed timeline on the corporate intranet so everyone can review it and take note of our progress?...okay, what the hell are you doing with your arms?”

1. I may be a lily-livered liberal, but even I was surprised at the election upset in Spain over the weekend.  As a result of the country’s recent terrorist attack, right-wing president Jose Maria Aznar was shown the door and a socialist administration won a landslide victory.

The lesson: when you’re being targeted by a murderous terrorist organization, your first priority is to ensure that the working class isn’t alienated from the means of production.  Brilliant.  I believe this national defense strategy was first detailed in that famous political treatise, The Crackhead Manifesto.

2. Yesterday I was in the company store of a local Ghirardelli chocolate factory.  My friend asked the cashier if the factory gives tours.  She told him, “No, it’s not set up for tours, and so it wouldn’t be safe for visitors.” I said, “Right, I think we all remember what happened to Veruca Salt.” She gave me a blank look.

I am not here to argue for the quality of this particular joke.  I am not suggesting that it be enshrined in the annals of comedy.  I am merely incensed by her apparent bewilderment.  I don’t care if it is a minimum wage cashier’s job; if you work at a Ghirardelli factory, you had damn well better get Willy Wonka references.  That’s like a scientist at N.A.S.A. giving you a puzzled stare and saying “Chewbacca who?”

3. A realization hit me with the force of a thunderclap earlier and for some reason I’m compelled to write it down.  Here goes:

A female celebrity I really despise is Debra Messing.
A female celebrity I really like is Linda Cardellini.

Whew.

I never get runner’s high.  I’ve been running off and on since high school--okay, mostly off, but still--and I never get runner’s high.  All I ever feel is tired.  I think next time I should augment the experience with real drugs so I can run with a high like everyone else does.  It’s still a natural high from one point of view. I mean, what’s more natural than heroin sliding into the arm?  It’s as organic as wheat and barley.  “Holistic,” one might say.

“Holistic” is a great word when you’re trying to argue that a particular result is natural and inevitable.  When I begin supervising a large staff of people, that’s totally how I plan to fire people.  “From a holistic point of view, you’re never getting a paycheck from us again.”

Can you believe they have a magazine called Runner’s World? What is there to say about it?  I bet it’s just for show.  If you open it up, each page has the same message in 20 point type font: “YOU’RE IN HELL.” That’s the only Runner’s World I know about.

Uh oh, danger ahead.  I’m running a pedestrian path alongside Lake Merritt, and walking towards me are three very large people.  If they were vehicles, they would be wearing “CAUTION: WIDE LOAD” signs.  And they are walking in tandem.  How will I get by?  You’re only supposed to use up half of the path.  We are getting close to one other...oh, one has tried to squeeze over, but this doesn’t provide a lot of space to get between...I think we’re going to crash...I think we’re--oh god, I think--I THINK.....whoa, I really thought we were going to crash.

Okay, halfway done.

Oh, look at this girl coming towards me. Bounding lightly like a gazelle, demure drops of sweat beading her forehead.  Matching spandex outfit.  Here I am sweating like buffalo with little rolls of flesh undulating like a white tsunami every time I take a step, and she’s all, “Hmm, maybe I should have put some Michael Bolton into my iPod.” I hate these runner girls.  You know, screw it.  This time I’m going to tell her off.  I’ll let her know that running doesn’t come so easily to everyone, and it’s not even real running if you just lope gracefully along with your color-coordinated clothes and soft rock mp3s with--

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

Damn runner’s courtesy.  You always acknowledge other runners as they pass, as though the bonds of pavement pounding make up for the fact that she is evil.  Oh well, next time.

What is up with that tradition, anyway?  No matter who you are, you acknowledge the other person simply because he or she is a runner. I can just see Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat passing each other on a jog:

“Shalom.” “Salaam.” “We’re still annexing the Gaza Strip, though.” “We will destroy you all.”

Now there’s a group of war activists coming towards me.  An old hippy is sitting comfortably in one of those sit-down bicycles, pedaling along, waving a sign that says “HONK IF YOU WANT TO IMPEACH.” Oh My God...is he flashing a peace sign at me?  Listen, Wavy Gravy, right now I’m in favor of the war.  My head is full of pain and death.  If you come across a guy on mile 3 of 4 and the last one is all uphill, and you shove something in his face that isn’t a bottle of Gatorade, you better have made enough money selling hemp clothes to have hired a lawyer for your last will and testament.

Whew.  Done.  Okay.  But I can’t just stop. The running is only the first part of the ritual. For health’s sake, I have to do my “warming down” exercises.

Which means plopping on the couch and watching Ebert and Roeper.

File under Issue-driven campaigns:
Trading insults with his political enemies, Senator John Kerry bitterly railed against what he called “the Republican attack squad that specializes in trying to destroy people.” His aides reportedly ran to calm Kerry down before his eyes turned green, his shirt ripped, and he morphed into Howard Dean.

File under Cheap onanism jokes:
George Michael is retiring from the music business.  Let’s give him a hand--whoops, too late.

File under Should have put in list of minority groups it’s acceptable to discriminate against:
Indie bands that try to get a cheap hit by covering some relatively recent, much-loved song.  And if you’re going to cover “Laid,” you damn well better hit the high notes in “Prettttyyyyyyyyyy” as well as the guy from James.

File under: Total badass:
I’ve had a pair of mirrored closet doors lying around my living room for a week because the city’s recycling department won’t pick up bulky items from multi-unit dwellings--and even if they did, they won’t pick up mirrored closet doors.  So, you know, that’s two strikes.  Today I looked the closet doors in the face--although it was actually my face since they were mirrored doors--and challenged them to a fight.  They accepted. We battled it out.  It got nasty.  We didn’t play fair.  But by the end of the scrap, they were broken and shattered and lying in the dumpster.

You might say that I should pick on someone my own size.  Well, it’s true...they’re not my size.  They’re seven feet.  And I still totally won.

In fact, I kicked their glass.

Yesterday I had to go to an event for work, and ended up listening to a consultant give a lecture.  It was one of those business consultants who attempts to teach business leaders how to develop new thought processes.  In particular, this consultant advocated the creation of a “thinking environment” in which a speaker and a listener become “thought partners.”

According to this consultant, you have thought partners when:

The listener focuses solely on the speaker without moving or fidgeting.

The listener empowers the speaker to develop his or her thought process by being attentive and not interrupting.

The listener practices a “relaxed expression” for the speaker.  This expression should not be “neutral,” but rather be “positive.”

The listener doesn’t stare at the speaker, but makes his or her eyes “available” to the speaker.  “Soft eyes,” as the consultant put it.

You might laugh and sneer and say that this consultant is one of those high-priced bozos who makes a living talking nonsense.  However, I have to admit that while listening to this talk, I began to think of projects at work.  And then I thought of home repairs.  And then I thought of something funny I read.  Towards the end I spent most of the time thinking about sex.

Clearly, I am not a very skilled “thought partner.”

I need to work on this.

One might point out that supporting a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage is a fairly unconscionable position for a President to take, seeing as how the constitution (and America at large) is about inclusiveness, and such an amendment would be about exclusion.  And it’s true that I don’t support this amendment.

However, I am not necessarily opposed to a philosophy of exclusion, and I don’t want the struggle over marriage rights to obscure the point that the constitution could be very powerfully used to legislate against deserving parties. Here’s a list of minority groups that I believe it’s acceptable to discriminate against, even to the point of establishing a federal mandate.

People who bring their children to my desk to buy candy bars and other crap for their schools and bands.

People who use an apostrophe in decades (1970’s) and in a possessive form of the word “its.”

People with any form of a fish on their cars--I don’t care whether it says “Jesus” or “Darwin.” Knock it off.

Naked fat old men who have their gym lockers right next to mine and instead of changing into their clothes they stand there and scratch themselves and preen.  Listen, I wouldn’t want the statue of David striking a pose in my vicinity when I’m trying to change, and you’re no work of art, saggy.

People who think that Blink 182 are punk.

People who sell Amway products.

People with “KILL YOUR TELEVISION” bumper stickers on their cars.  If you’re so hip and progressive, why the hell are you driving a car?

People who are taller than me.  I’m at a networking event and I end up talking into this 6’4” guy’s sportsjacket.  I take a break to shout “SAY IT LOUD: I’M 5’8” AND I’M PROUD,” but he can’t hear me because sound doesn’t carry in the upper atmosphere.

Anyone who links to “Geese Aplenty” but then de-links it.  Oh, not funny enough for you, eh?  If you want professional comedy, you’ll have to pay for it.  I’m just a talented amateur.

People who don’t vote because they don’t think their vote counts.  You know what else doesn’t count?  People who are dumb.

People who are dumb.

People who are stupid.

Dumb people who are stupid and who annoy me.

I learned a lot at the baby care class.  For example: do you realize that newborns need to be “calmed” by their mothers an average of 12 times a day?  I find that number staggering, and it really makes me reflect on the difference between being an adult and being a child.  As a grown man, I only have to be calmed about 8 times a day.

The class was led by a typical left-leaning, highly-educated-yet-granola San Francisco woman who either charms you or annoys you depending on your perspective.  I personally liked her and thought she was the kind of person who can totally get away with using the word “holistic” in casual conversation.  My sister-in-law, on the other hand, was heard to mutter at one point: “These cloth-diaper advocating nazi girls are all the same.”

I was annoyed at one of the sheets handed out in the class, a piece of badly written propaganda that attempted to encourage all the new mothers to not let babies cry in order to bolster their “independence” but rather attend to their needs immediately.  I have no problem with the thesis, but rather the way it was defended.  Written by some Harvard Ph.D. schmuck, the paper argues--and I am not making this up--that promoting baby independence is wrong because of the reactions it had on members of the Gusii tribe in Africa.  I quote:

“Gusii mothers sleep with their babies and respond rapidly when the baby cries.  Gusii mothers watching videotapes of U.S. mothers were upset by how long it took these mothers to respond to infant crying” (Michael Commons and Patrice Miller, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard).

Two points:

1. Of course the Gusii mothers were upset.  They’d probably never seen a television before, much less American childrearing practices.  I’m betting that they were agitated because they thought the TV ate the mother and the child, and the screen was a window into its mechanical stomach where whole families were being slowly digested.

2. Following Gusii childrearing practices is all well and good...if you want your babies to grow up to be hunters and gatherers.

A word about baby garments: my brother followed a commenter’s suggestion to visit Dookiwear.com, a site that offers offbeat infant garments.  He has already bought two T-shirts for his impending daughter:

QUIT TALKING TO ME LIKE I’M A MORON

ALREADY A FEMINIST

And he is currently unsure of whether to buy a third one (but it made me laugh, so he should):

THEY SHAKE ME