Open car door Mar 22, 2006
Sometimes I'll be driving to work on a 40-mph road and I'll have to come to a sudden and alarming stop because some dude parked on the side of the road is taking his sweet old time getting in his stupid car and left his big fat door open to oncoming traffic.  At times like this, I'm tempted to teach people a lesson.  I'd like to speed up to about 80 or 90mph and run into their open door, propelling it several hundred feet down the road.  Then I'd stop my car, back up a little bit, and say, "That's what you get for parking on the side of the road and leaving your door open to oncoming traffic.  Ya jerk." 

This was a huge problem when I lived in Hoboken.  Like any city, Hoboken isn't meant to be driven through.  It's a city for walkers and parkers.  Driving is highly discouraged, and the people parked on the side of the road know this.  They'll open their doors to oncoming traffic without even thinking about looking.  But it's not too big of a deal because the speed limit is around 25mph. 

This kind of thing shouldn't be a problem for undercrowded country roads.  It's not like there's a scarcity of open space.  The real issue is that stupid people don't park far enough off the road and don't think it's advantageous to use caution on 40-mph roads. #travel
Chubby Bunny Mar 22, 2006
Chubby Bunny is a game played by children and adults everywhere (that's probably not true).  The idea of the game is to stuff as many marshmallows as possible into your mouth while still being able to clearly say the words "chubby bunny".  The person with the most marshmallows in their mouth at the end wins.  It gets really gross toward the end because people start to drool and shoot marshmallows out of their mouths because they're laughing.  And watching a person spit 14 marshmallows out of their mouth at once is enough to make you gag. 

There's an urban legend out there that a child died from suffocation while playing this game.  Emails were forwarded that said something about a first-grader who stuffed her face so full of marshmallows that they emulsified (turned into a liquid mass) in her throat and blocked her airway.  Part of this is true:  There was a case of a girl who suffocated while playing chubby bunny, but she simply choked and died before anyone could resuscitate her.  The marshmallows didn't turn into a liquid mass in her throat.  The parents later sued the school and won lots of money. 

So whenever you play Chubby Bunny, be sure to have someone around who knows CPR.  You'd be surprised at how few marshmallows it takes to kill a person. 

(Although death is never funny, death by marshmallow kind of is.  Hence filing this under the funny category.) #food
Morning person Mar 21, 2006
I'm surprised I never wrote about this before:  I'm absolutely, unbelievably, indisputably not a morning person.  It takes me about 4 hours to fully wake up.  Yeah sure I can run, read, drive, and work, but I still don't feel awake until about 10am.  It doesn't matter if I get 15 hours of sleep or 5.  It doesn't matter if I drink 7 espressos or nothing at all.  It doesn't matter if I start my day with exercise or inactivity.  It's always the same.  And people know this.  They've told me.  "Good God, you look horrible.  Did you get any sleep at all?"  Yeah, I got like 10 hours of sleep and I got up over 5 hours ago.  But thanks for pointing that out. 

I usually try not to do much at work before 9 or 10 if I can help it.  It's my time to eat my breakfast, drink my coffee/tea, and wake up a little.  I used to work on a project with people that started at like 8am.  And they didn't start off slow; they started at a sprint.  The loud walker would come to my office and tell me all the things she wanted me to do that day.  I would sit there and try to pretend to be fully functioning.  Then about 2 or 3 hours later, I would go to her office and try to figure out what she asked me to do, without actually coming out and asking her. 

If you're around me in the morning, the best thing you can do is keep quiet.  I'm not a big talker, and my listening abilities aren't exactly at peak functionality in the morning.  Your best bet is to write it all down and send it to me in an email at around 10am.  That's about when I'll be able to respond.  Or if you can cure my inability to wake up, that would be good too. #health
Comb over (1) Mar 20, 2006
One of the most hideous and ridiculous things that happens atop peoples' heads is the comb over.  Wikipedia defines a comb over as "a hairstyle worn by bald or balding men where the hair on one side of the head is grown long and then combed over the bald area."  Calling this atrocity a "hairstyle" is quite a stretch.  It's more like a "joke" or a "mistake" or a "failure to admit baldness".  Whenever I see a comb over, I'm tempted to have a little heart-to-heart with the perpetrator.  "Hey man, listen.  You're bald.  Everyone knows it.  You couldn't hide it if you spray-painted your head black.  So just admit you're bald and move on.  Lots of people are bald.  Being bald doesn't make you any less of a man.  Having a comb over makes you less of a man." 

I think it's oddly appropriate when a comb over goes horribly wrong.  I saw a guy at a restaurant the other day who grew his hair out to about 8 inches long so that he could slick it over the top of his completely bald head.  He looked ridiculous.  And as the meal continued, part of the long stuff started to unstick from top of his head and dangle down the back.  He looked like Gollum from Lord of the Rings.  It was both funny and gross at the same time. 

I've already decided that I won't have a comb over when I go bald. 

On an interesting side note, the comb over was patented in 1977. #lifestyle
Not willing Mar 18, 2006
I was talking to a guy from my church recently, and he said something awesome and funny about his job:  He said he's not willing to do what it takes to get to the next level.  It's not that he doesn't have the ability or the credentials.  It's not that it's unattainable or impossible.  It's just that he's not willing to put in the time or the effort to make it to the next level.  It sounds like someone else's criticism of him, not his own personal statement.  I think it's awesome because he's made up his mind to not make his job the focus of his life.  And he's not a failure; he's a married man with a kid and a house.  He's not struggling.  But he knows that the next step in his job will require more time and more effort.  He's just not willing to do that.  And that's awesome. #business
Autographs Mar 18, 2006
I don't think I fully understand the purpose of autographs.  Yes, I see the point of meeting a famous person and having a little smalltalk with them.  And I understand the idea of getting something that belongs to a famous person.  But getting a them to sign a little piece of paper for you?  It just seems a little pointless.  What are you planning on doing with that little piece of paper?  Keeping it in your wallet?  Hanging it on your wall?  What will you tell people who ask about it?  "That's the piece of paper I got the famous person to sign."  That's dumb.  I can see the purpose behind getting an autograph on something like a baseball or a picture.  But having a book full of autographs?  Meh. #psychology
URLs in comments Mar 17, 2006
I edited the AbsoluteRSS plugin to fix the same problems in the comments feed.  I changed "the_content" to "comment_content", and made a few other similar changes. #technology
Drywall Mar 17, 2006
Drywall is a building material used in walls and ceilings of houses.  It's made of gypsum sandwiched between two sheets of thick paper.  Sheetrock is a brand of drywall. 

All my life, I've called it drywall because that's what my dad called it.  Some people would refer to it as Sheetrock, and it always threw me off.  But I just learned recently that I've been right all along.  I went to Home Depot to buy some drywall and noticed that there are other brands of it besides the Sheetrock brand.  Although I ended up buying the Sheetrock brand, I bought "drywall", not "Sheetrock".  It's like calling a tissue a Kleenex or a copy machine a Xerox.  I've written about this before. #products
Car wash Mar 17, 2006
I grew up in a house with a well, so we used to wash our cars by hand.  This went on for the first 22 years of my life.  I used to see places that offered to wash your car for money and I'd think, "Why would anyone pay money to have their car washed?  Buncha idiots." 

Then I got married and moved into an apartment that didn't have a well or anything close to it.  I still couldn't justify paying for someone else to wash my car, so I went to a self-washing place in beautiful downtown Dover, NJ.  I would put some quarters in a machine and wash my car as fast as possible, because the quarters bought me a certain amount of time.  For about $4, I could wash my whole car.  Not bad. 

Then one day, for some reason, I went to a paid car wash.  I think Wendy might've convinced me that the $8 was worth it for someone else to wash my car.  So I tried it. 

And, good Lord, was it awesome.  I drove up to the entrance, put my car in neutral, and let the big car washing machine take over.  I watched soapy water being shot at my car at high speeds.  I gazed at big finger-shaped sponges move back and forth across my windshield.  I was tempted to open my window to touch the "big spinning thing" (technical term).  It was hypnotizing.  I felt like a little kid watching his first fireworks display. 

Ever since then, I've loved going to the car wash.  Even when they keep increasing the price and giving me mediocre customer service, I just can't stop going back.  I'm addicted to the car wash. #travel
XUL applications Mar 16, 2006
This application launcher launches programs that are written in XUL, which stands for XML User Interface Language.  They can only be opened in browsers that support XUL, which means Mozilla/Firefox/Camino.  Pretty interesting stuff.  (via Digg) #technology