i discovered a foolproof plan for enjoying a cost-free evening at the manayunk brewery last night:

1. wear or bring a baseball cap to the venue. make sure it is not turned around backwards, which will give the impression that you are a gang member or a drug dealer.
2. when you are ready to leave, flip the cap around on your head so you are now wearing it backwards,like a gang member or a drug dealer.
3. make an effort to catch a bouncer’s eye. the bouncers tend to look and act like the other drunk customers, so they can be hard to pick out. if you see a skinny white dude with gelled up hair, there’s a good chance he’s a bouncer.
4. if you successfully catch the bouncer’s eye, he will come over and ask you to wear your hat the “right” way.
5. act a bit surprised, but oblige him anyway.
6. as soon as he walks away, make sure to turn your hat back around because real gang members have pride.
7. when he looks back to check on you, he will see that you are staying true to your drug dealer roots.
8. if you have carried out the above steps properly, the bouncer will come back over and escort you out of the brewery because drug dealers and people that look like them are not welcome at the manayunk brewery.
9. when the two of you reach the door, the bouncer may be a bit rude and knock your hat off your head while calling you an “asshole”. take this in stride, since you just enjoyed an evening of sushi and microbrewed beer on the house. not too shabby!

dropping off the face of the internet was fun for a while, but i just can’t stay away for good. for those who aren’t in the know, i started a new job three weeks ago. it’s super crazy fun times. and for those who are in the know, well, now you know what you know now, no?

the biggest news of this week by far is that i have been selected for philadelphia jury duty. i was so excited when i opened my mailbox to see this:

there was an ad in the metro this morning about a papa john’s celebrating their grand opening with “customer appreciation day”. call me crazy, but shouldn’t every day be customer appreciation day?

i went to lunch yesterday at a pizza parlor in university city. while i was waiting in line to order, i noticed one of the workers taking down a phone order and using his TI-83 to diligently tally up the total. warning signs being what they are, i made doubly sure they subscribed to the discrete probability distribution of poisson, the multiplicative property of equality, and euclid’s parallel postulate before i ordered. because pizza without math has threatened to vote republican.

spread the word.

my nintendo wii has inexplicably become my primary news source these days. maybe it’s the fact that i’m lazy or maybe i just take pride in the fact that i surf my news in high definition.

either way, my wii informed me today that the american dialect society (i didn’t know it existed either) had chosen the word subprime as 2007’s word of the year. i was more amused by 2006’s word of the year which was plutoed, meaning to demote or devalue someone or something. if you don’t get it then we’ll tell you when you’re older.

also worth checking out are the nominations for 2007 (pdf). some highlights include:

• Googlegänger: person with your name who shows up when you google yourself.
• toe-tapper: a homosexual. senator Larry Craig was arrested in june for an encounter in a public restroom in which toe-tapping was said to have been used as a sexual come-on. 
• quadriboobage: the appearance of having four breasts caused by wearing a brassiere that is too small.
• NINJA: No Income, No Job or Assets. a poorly
  documented loan made to a high-risk borrower.

these are very reminiscent of sniglets, which i remember my third grade teacher being very fond of.

peering at life through the lens of death is a truly effective way of discovering what is truly important in one’s life. i find this akin to beginning "with the end in mind", although i’m not sure stephen covey had that in mind when he wrote the seven habits of highly effective people.

one exercise that i find helpful is to periodically ask myself if i would spend my time any differently if i knew i only had 30 days to live. my answer is always yes, and i have been struggling to move closer to being able to answer that question in the negative.

the primary difficulty in that struggle is realizing that priorities are inherently different given a short period of time and a lengthy period of time.

is there a way to resolve the two and find a happy medium or should i just start eating red meat with every meal and smoking a carton of cigarettes every day?

i’d love to hear feedback, even if you think i’m a crazy fool. especially if you think i’m a crazy fool.

neil strauss, the author of the game, just sent out a list of what he calls "subresolutions" to his mailing list. i thought they’d be worth posting, so here goes:

1. Call your cell phone provider. Ask if you can get a  better calling plan based on your usage. This way you can afford to do the next item on this list.
2. Subscribe to a newspaper or magazine. Choose a topic that you don’t know about - be it fashion, culture, politics, science, or technology - and sign up for the best periodical covering that topic. Rather than choosing an the most popular magazine, select one that offers the most in-depth and interesting coverage, like Wired for technology or Foreign Affairs for politics or Mental Floss for general culture or New Scientist (which last month had a handy article on how to win at rock paper scissors) for science.
3. Get a passport if you don’t have one. If yours has expired, get it renewed now. You don’t want to get stuck at home while your friends are enjoying some great concert at the Acropolis in Greece. If you’re a U.S. citizen, just go to most post offices with two acceptable photos of yourself, proof of U.S. citizenship, and a valid form of photo identification. You can find more information at http://travel.state.gov/passport.
4. Register your full name as a web domain if you haven’t yet. You never know when you’re going to want your personal website.
5. Get business cards. Don’t have a business? It doesn’t matter. Sites like www.vistaprint.com will send you 250 free ones (though there’s a shipping fee of $5.45 or so). Never hurts to look professional.
6. Sign up for US Airway’s e-Saver, Southwest’s Ding!, American Airlines’ Net SAAver, or any other wackily-named airline program that offers last-minute, low-cost travel options so you can take a quick weekend getaway whenever you feel like it. Flights can be as low as $15.
7. Check your credit report for identity theft, or any other misinformation or errors that could harm your financial status and options. U.S. consumers are entitled to one free check a year at www.annualcreditreport.com.
8. Back that shite up. Most people don’t take the time to do this, and regret it later. So copy your entire hard drive onto an external drive immediately; if possible, download a program like Achronis True Image that will simplify the restoring process and regularly make backups. Also backup personal data on your cellphone, PDA, and any other device. While you’re at it, make photocopies of your credit cards, passport, drivers license, social security card, birth certificate, and other important papers. If you keep a journal or anything similarly irreplaceable, photocopy that. Keep these in a safe deposit box, parent’s house, locked file cabinet, or any other secure location. They’ll be invaluable in the event of theft, loss, fire, dinosaur attack, or any other unplanned disaster.
9. Look through your refrigerator and cabinets. Read the labels on the food. Give anything high in saturated fats, trans fats, cholesterol, and sodium to someone you don’t like (just kidding). Then make a list of healthy alternatives, go to the grocery store, and restock. Here’s what the government says you should do in a grocery store from now on: http://www.nutrition.gov/index.php?mode=whole_story&story_id=161
10. Make an appointment to get a physical exam from a trusted doctor. Head off any potential medical problems that may hinder an active, fun year. Also recommended: make an appointment with a dentist to get your teeth cleaned if you haven’t done so in the last six months. You may also want to call for an eye exam if you haven’t had one in the last four years. (Make sure you get a second opinion if any of the above tries to talk you into any costly procedure.)
11. If you want to improve your appearance, you’ve probably already resolved to work out or join a gym. So here’s a sub-resolution: Buy a suit. (Or a dress if you’re a woman.) But don’t just get any suit. Get one that’s slightly closer to the size you want to be this year, whether it be a little bigger or a little smaller than your current measurements. Try it on every morning as a reminder to yourself to stick with your fitness program; until, one day, it fits perfectly, and you wear it out and feel like a million dollars.
12. And as long as you feel like a million dollars, you might as well figure out how to make a million dollars. You can find out how much money you’ll need to tuck away here: http://partners.leadfusion.com/tools/kiplinger/savings01/tool.fcs.

would you add anything to the list?

it was christmas eve and i was going through my takeout menus trying to find a place that would deliver a meatball sub to me for lunch. i made it to the last menu in the stack and finally found a place that answered the phone:

"happy holidays. is this for pickup or delivery?", the seemingly friendly voice on the other end inquired.

i requested delivery and was then asked for my name.

in most situations when asked for my name i usually go with brad pitt, mr. awesome, or the gold medal finalist in the shoe tying olympics three years running. this time i decided to roll with my full first name and started spelling it for the friendly voice.

"J-O-N-A–"

"i know how to spell jonathan. i’m not stupid," the friendly voice pointed out.

i figured the phone clerk had a right to be a wee bit cranky being that she was working christmas eve and all, so i let it slide.

45 minutes later my buzzer rings and it’s the meatball sandwich delivery guy. and when i say guy, i mean sasketchewan. seriously, the guy was huge. i wouldn’t be surprised if parts of his customers’ orders frequently went missing.

"that’ll be $11.04," he said matter-of-factly.

i reached for my wallet and made the mistake of being friendly.

"how’s your day going?" i asked. "are you guys getting mobbed, it being christmas eve and all?"

he gave a furtive glance around and replied, "not too bad, but i just got a new shipment in."

i didn’t quite understand why a pizza place that made their own pizza would get shipments of pizzas, so i shot him a puzzled look.

he clarified: "i don’t know how best to approach this, but i just got a new shipment of porn dvd’s. they’re all out in my trunk. you wouldn’t happen to be interested would you?"

i didn’t have the heart to tell the guy i was in the middle of filming one at the moment and that the script called for me eating a meatball sandwich and involved no sex whatsoever. instead, i politely declined and took the sandwich from him.

he didn’t seem to know how to exit gracefully and tried once more for a sale.

"i’m just trying to make a buck or two on the side, you know? sorry, i didn’t know how to approach the subject. sorry."

"it’s ok, man," i said and i slowly backed inside.

as i reached the top of the stairs, i almost half expected to open the bag and find my meatball sandwich replaced by a dvd with the same name. it’s a really good thing i didn’t order a meat lover’s stuffed pizza and a tossed salad.

a really, really good thing.

my sister-in-law mentioned the word metrosexual during the course of post-gift-un-wrapping idle chit chat.

my uncle immediately queried: “metrosexual? is that when you have sex while traveling?”

my uncle learned a new word today and the rest of the family got a chance to practice their horrified but not surprised faces.

dear keeper of the winter solstice and purveyor of all things weather-related,

p.s. you used the global warming excuse last time, so let’s try to be a bit more creative.