Cowboy boots Nov 22, 2005
What's the deal with cowboy boots?  I'm surprised (disgusted, appalled) at how often I see people wearing them.  What's the appeal?  I think we can all agree that they definitely don't look good.  They're not a fashion statement.  You may say, "Yeah, but look at you.  Tucking your shirt into your underwear isn't too cool either."  I agree with you, but I still do it.  At least I don't wear cowboy boots.  I see people wearing them at church, at work, in airports.  And it's not like they just blend right in.  It's not like they look like regular dress shoes.  You see the tops hidden under someone's pants and you know exactly what they are.  All you can think is "Why?"  Maybe their reasoning is that cowboy boots are comfortable.  How?  How could tall leather boots with big heels be comfortable?  Maybe it's a cultural/regional thing.  My answer to that:  You're not in Texas anymore, broseph. 

And whenever I see people with cowboy boots, I can't get this image out of my head:  The kid who likes playing cowboys and Indians and likes watching westerns, and who convinces his mom to buy him cowboy boots.  Then he puts on his boots and straps some guns to his belt and rides his imaginary horse that looks remarkably like a broomstick. 

And these people expect other people to take them seriously? #lifestyle
Inappropriate clothing Nov 21, 2005
The Metropolitan Transit Authority (the organization that runs New York City's subway and buses) has a new ad campaign entitled, "If You See Something, Say Something".  It's meant to monitor suspicious activities to prevent terrorism.  Among its several major points is this interesting imperative:  "Take notice of people in bulky or inappropriate clothing."  Based on that statement, I don't know if any of these MTA people have ever been to NYC.  All you see is people who are dressed in bulky or inappropriate clothes.  I'd love to hear some of the conversations from the 800 number: 

Gay guy:  "I'm calling because there's a guy on the F train whose shoes don't match his belt.  Talk about inappropriate!" 

Old white woman:  "A young man just got on the bus, and he's wearing baggy clothing!" 

Kid:  "There's a lady on the train who's wearing a tight leather skirt and leather boots up to her knees.  My mom said it was inappropriate, so I called in." #lifestyle
Matching socks Nov 17, 2005
I just realized quite recently that I'm not wearing matching socks today.  This bothers me, not because I can't match things in the morning, but because I didn't even know I had navy blue socks.  I thought all my socks were black. 

So now the question is should I own up to it and throw the other non-matching pair in the laundry, or should I stick it out and wear the other non-matching pair?  A dilemma indeed. #lifestyle
Modest Homeschooling Christian Clothing Oct 27, 2005
Modest Apparel Christian Clothing Lydia of Purple Dresses Custom Sewing is probably the best internet site I've ever come across.  Not only is it 62 letters long, but it's the place to go for Mennonite and Amish clothing.  The most amazing part about this site is that it's not a joke.  It's completely serious.  Look at the family pictures. #lifestyle
Bald Oct 18, 2005
Sometime I (and we) refer to people as "the bald guy".  I feel bad about doing this, but sometimes it's completely appropriate.  Some people are just bald; there's no question about it.  But unfortunately, the term is often used negatively.  This doesn't quite make sense to me.  If a guy is bald, he's bald.  The sky is blue and the grass is green.  These are all descriptive adjectives.  You can't refute them.  But I guess I can understand if the person isn't completely bald.  Maybe they're thinning.  That gets a little tricky.  A little hairy, if you will (zing!).

But I feel I'm justified in calling somebody bald, seeing that sometime in the next ten years, I will undoubtedly go bald.  I think I'm already thinning.  Wendy says she doesn't see it, but I think she's lying.  I only really notice it when my hair is short.  That's why it's a little long right now.  But it'll probably be short again sometime soon when I get tired of having too much of it. 

When baldness actually sets in, I plan to fully embrace it.  Why not?  What should I do, cover it up?  Take drugs to make my hair grow back?  No way!  I'll completely shave my head or at least make my hair really short, so it doesn't look like I'm trying to hide anything.  People with comb overs or long hair are wasting their time.  Baldness, I say to you:  I'm ready. #lifestyle
Underwear Oct 5, 2005
College is over.  I'm a "grownup".  I have a job.  I'm married.  Some things can't carry over from college.  I can no longer sleep 11 hours a day.  I can no longer watch the Simpsons 3 times a day (and it's no longer on as much).  I can no longer fake my way through life -- oh wait, yes I can, and I do. 

But there's one thing I used to do in college that I should've never given up:  not folding my underwear.  I figured "Hey, I have a job now.  I need to fold my underwear."  Maybe I'm the only person who ever folded their underwear.  If so, then this post makes me sound a little crazy.  If not, then I need to share my findings with the whole world:  Folding underwear is the biggest waste of time in the history of the world.  There's absolutely no point to it.  It's not like anyone is ever gonna see your wrinkled underwear.  Y'know, 'cause they're underwear.  And underwear aren't like socks:  Socks must be folded or at least grouped together.  Otherwise you waste your time trying to find matching socks in the morning.  And if anyone's like me, mornings aren't the best time to test out your matching skills.  So instead of wasting precious minutes folding underwear and neatly placing them in your drawer, just throw 'em all in there in a big ball.  There's no need to sort them in alphabetical-color order anymore (not that anyone would do that).  Some people may argue that it saves precious drawer space by folding things.  To them I say this:  Shut up stupidheads!  The space you save isn't worth the time you waste.  You can quote me on that. 

And if you're really bold and want to save even more time, stop folding your undershirts (if you wear them).  There's no need for an unwrinkled undershirt; it goes under.  Instead, focus more time and effort on labeling your shirts with days of the week and writing your last name on all your underwear (just in case anybody steals your underwear; then they'll know it's yours).  Thank you for your attention, and have a nice day. #lifestyle
Shave Oct 4, 2005
Sometimes I decide to stop shaving for a while.  This decision is usually based on the fact that running a sharp piece of metal across my face tends to hurt sometimes.  Plus, it saves time and energy.  I can be a bit lazy.  But when I stop shaving, I try to keep everything at least somewhat neatly trimmed so I don't look like a dirty freak. 

But the best part about not shaving is the number of comments I receive from people.  One girl plainly stated, "I really don't like it" with a disgusted look on her face.  Another girl said, "I think it looks pretty good.  I don't mean on you.  I mean guys in general."  And after a month of not shaving, my boss asked, "Are you trying to grow a beard or something?"  It's like my social experiment:  See how many mean and offensive things people can say.  And it's not like people try to mask their feelings or anything.  Nothing like, "Hey that's different" or "What does your wife think?"  Instead, I hear things that you wouldn't normally hear from a person concerning your appearance.  I don't go around saying things like, "Ouch.  Your haircut is hideous."  "Nice try with the whole weight loss thing.  But not quite."  "Is that makeup you're wearing?  Oh.  Oh." 

If I was really offended, I would just shave.  That's pretty easy.  But I kinda like the comments I get.  It's entertaining.  I guess it just surprises me how open and honest people are with me.  Sometimes I'll answer that I'm letting myself go.  Y'know, 'cause I'm married.  I have no reason to try to look good anymore. #lifestyle
Wear Jul 22, 2005
I'm amazed at what girls deem acceptable to wear in public.  I noticed it most when I went to the airport.  All I saw were tiny little skirts and shorts, tight pants, tanktops, etc.  I'm sure this isn't a problem for most males.  But I'm not most males.  Message to females:  if you don't want guys to look at you like an object, don't dress like one.  If you want to meet guys that are more interested in your personality than in your body, dress to reflect that.  And think about this:  if girls dressed in non-showy clothes, there'd be no girls to check out.  So girls would be happier because their boyfriends wouldn't be checking out other girls. #lifestyle
Waste my time Jul 13, 2005
I have this thing with people who waste my time.  I had to get to a meeting this morning, so I had to leave the hotel by a certain time.  There's one other person on travel with me right now, so we were traveling together in the same rental car.  So I show up at the car at the time we're supposed to meet, and he's not there.  No problem.  Yet.  I wait a few minutes, and he's still not there.  Since it's first thing in the morning, I start thinking that he could've missed his alarm and overslept or something like that, so I walk to his room (which wasn't very close).  Just as I reach the door, he's walking out and ready to go.  I say hey.  He says hey.  Nothing else.  No "Sorry I'm 10 minutes late and might make us late for the meeting," no "I hope this doesn't ruin your career seeing that everyone will be watching as we walk in late."  Nothing like that.  Why do people think it's ok to be unreliable? 

While I'm on the subject of wasting my time, there's a guard shack at work.  On most mornings, I drive up, show him my ID without even opening my window, and he motions to drive through.  But recently, he made me stop my car and roll down my window, and he looked at my ID more closely.  Then he asked me to take it out of the little plastic case.  Then he took it from my hand.  Then he looked at the back of it.  Then he gave it back to me and motioned for me to go through.  Since this was an utter waste of time, it made me a little mad.  [Note:  For those of you who don't know, the easiest and best way to make me mad is to do something in the morning.  I always wake up in the morning feeling like I got about 15 minutes of sleep, so everything on earth gets to me.]  It was obvious that this guy's supervisor told him to look more closely at IDs.  I'm fine with that.  Do what you're told.  But I'd like to talk to that supervisor who thought it would be a good idea to casually glance at the back of an ID.  What were you expecting to find?  This same thing happened another time.  It happened to be raining harder than I've ever seen in my life.  It was about 7:40 am.  The guy at the guard shack made me open my window and take my ID out of the case, all the while rain was pouring in my window and onto me.  I was pretty psyched that morning. 

How about cops?  One of my friends is becoming a state cop.  God bless him.  I can't stand cops.  And it's not because they keep fining me for breaking the law.  It's because they do things that not only waste my time, they waste everyone's time and actually cause more problems than they solve.  Here's a bright idea:  let's set up a road block on Route 15 so that we can check if people are wearing their seat belts.  This was done by the cops in Dover.  I understand that seat belts save lives and that safety is important.  Just don't waste my time.  And how about this idea:  let's pull people over on the highway during rush hour traffic.  Let's park our squad car in the middle of an intersection and direct traffic.  Let's pull people over and park our squad car so it juts out into the road. 

And finally, I come to tolls.  Getting past the stupid idea that tolls are needed to pay for road improvements and upkeep because regular taxes don't pay for that, I still have a problem with tolls.  On the beautiful and wonderful Garden State Parkway in lovely and affordable and spacious (not overcrowded) New Jersey, tollbooths pop up every few miles.  My question is this:  What idiot came up with the idea to cause a stop in the regular flow of traffic traveling at 70 mph so that people can slow down to 0 mph, line up and pay to use the road?  EZPass is a great invention.  High Speed EZPass is even better.  What on earth took them so long to come up with that?  One day, some engineers sat down and said, "Hmm, these tolls seem to be causing traffic.  What if there was a way to collect a toll without having people slow down?  We could collect tolls when people exit the highway.  Nah!  That's what the Turnpike people did."  And thus we have High Speed EZPass, the long-sought-after solution to a made up solution to a non-existent problem. #lifestyle