it might be a little unfair to write blog entries at the expense of people who act like they have nothing better to do than harass other people, but hey, no one made me the czar of blog ethics. here’s yet another ridiculous encounter i had tonight at a bar near my building.

a certain unkempt male walked by who looked like he came in to take a break from panhandling, which is quite possibly the case. a few of us were joking around in our clique-y circle, since that’s how we roll, he walked past, pointed at the lone attractive female in our midst, and said “were they just talking about playstation baseball?”

i gave him a double take, a well-crafted confused look, and a gift certificate to home depot. he repeated the question. i slowly answered him: “i’m pretty sure there’s no damn motherfucking way in hell they said anything about baseball.”

he calmly replied in a drunken drawl with “what about playstation, were they just talking about playstation?”

what does one say to that when both topics were as far removed from the conversational radar as easter island is from the warp whistle in the castle in stage 1-4 after you defeat bowser’s third cousin once removed?

at this point the hobo-in-training looked me dead in the eye and said, “well, they should totally get into playstation baseball,” and exited stage south (for all the non-drama nerds, that means the exit door was due south of my ass).

after that, we continued talking about the price of canadian bacon in south brazil and other politically relevant topics, all of which had nothing to do with a playstation. or, as my one friend put it, a “no friend-station”. that guy is one clever guy.

it cracks me up when two people with very different accents think that raising their voices at each other is the greatest communications tool since myspace. i just finished booking a hotel room in central pennsylvania, but i would have seen more success directing a bollywood movie. the phone operator did not hear a key piece of information i gave him at the beginning, so we had to do the whole joyous dance all over again. after that, i renovated my apartment with my face.

a gentleman walked onto the train this evening wearing a pair of those all-in-one radio headphones that went out of style shortly after rickets. the kind that came with a free chiropractic adjustment and a set of therapeutic counterbalance weights. if beethoven rode trains, collected vintage electronics, and wasn’t deaf or dead, he would totally be this guy. or this guy would be him. beethoven or not, he looked ridiculous.

i’m guessing the strap around the back of his head is an after market dental headgear add-on and health insurance would only pay for the leonard nimoy special edition. it also possibly doubles as a hairloss prevention device and a camouflaged beer hat.

i think i might be on to something.

i got into a conversation tonight with a girl. she was cute.

she taught me a tip for using google.

if you want to find the synonyms along with a particular word, use the tilde sign (~).

i was outnerded by a girl and did not get her number.

it’s probably for the best.

if you’ve been living under a granite slab for the past month or so, I will bring you up to date on the biggest scandal to hit the music industry since prince was found out to be a male. The band that most music critics have dreams about while dreaming, radiohead, recently released their latest album ‘in rainbows’ as a pay-what-you-want-if-you-even-feel-like-paying download on their website. according to an article at nme.com:

Thom Yorke admitted he paid nothing for the band’s album, adding that the idea to release the album as a download came from the band’s management who didn’t want to release an album while out of contract, and that they were not trying to make a point by allowing fans to name their own price.

“There wasn’t any point,” he said. “I just move some money from one pocket to the other.”

The band then explained the measures they went to to stop the album leaking.

Ed O’Brien explained: “We had to literally tell no one. I didn’t tell my wife we were going to release it like this.”

Yorke added: “Every record that we’ve done for ages has been leaked. Why not leak the bloody thing yourself?”

while that little insight inside the band’s motivation is interesting, i find the cultural phenomenon that the band’s move has ignited to be even more fascinating. writers everywhere are speculating that radiohead has changed the industry forever, musicians everywhere are wondering what they should charge for their next album, and red-blooded males everywhere are hoping that rock band really will be as fun as it looks.

the ultimate sign of a cultural phenomenon, besides being parodied on snl, is when someone creates a t-shirt that immortalizes the phenomenon in question. radiohead has made it, thanks to tasty tee’s:

pay what you want, or don’t pay at all. all they ask is that you cover shipping. how awesome is that?

sometimes i forget what city i’m in and someone always steps up to let me know i’m still in the city of brotherly love. tonight’s candidate appeared during a quick bathroom run while waiting for the last train at suburban station. ever seen a full grown man standing in front of the sink of a public washroom, without a shirt on and his pants around his ankles? tonight i did. on my way out, i noticed a bar of soap sitting on the counter next to him. i guess i’m ok with people trying to be sanitary, but still–couldn’t you just invest in a family size bottle of purell?

my obsession with in ‘n out burger has quelled somewhat over the past week and i attribute much of that to the ever-tasty five guys. the one part of in ‘n out that i haven’t stopped thinking about is the refreshingly simplified menu. last night, my brain connected points a and b with a unilateral four-dimensional dodechahedron and came up with an idea that surprisingly made sense.

if ordering from in ‘n out and using google are so enjoyable because of their deceptive simplicity, the logic behind that should also apply to my interactions with other people. my layman’s opinion is that we enjoy simple interactions because we don’t like to be forced to think. these interactions are enjoyed even more when there is a complexity hiding behind the simplicity waiting for us to discover.

one of the social mistakes i make quite often is introducing unnecessary choice into my interactions. the gift of making trivial decisions for someone far outweighs the perceived kindess of offering a choice. in other words, don’t ask your fast food junkie of a friend whether he wants to go to burger king or wendy’s. skip both of them and go to taco bell.

another way i tend to clutter up conversations is by explaining things that offer no value to the interaction or its members–also known as grandpa simpson syndrome. the best single cure for this is to have a purpose for everything that comes out of your mouth. many times i say things hoping that someone else will insert purpose or value into my words, but that’s not the way it works. trust me.

one of the best conversational habits i have worked to establish is that of silently offering complexity. glossing over some of a story’s engaging details is a great way to do this. not unlike in ‘n out’s “secret menu”, let your listeners engage you directly and actively find what makes you tick below the surface. a little mystery goes a long way.

on a side note, if someone approaches you and mentions the words ‘2×4′ and ‘animal style’, you probably should run the other direction. trust me on that one.

you know you have honest friends when you wake up to a text message that says:

“I am dqumk aq hell”

balancing teaching and being taught outside of a formal teaching environment is something i find very difficult. i’m referring to everyday interactions among friends, coworkers, parents and children. i’ve learned that our minds are not two-way streets in this sense, similar to the reverse and drive gears in a car’s transmission. i’ve yet to see a car that can run in both gears at the same time; then again, i’m not a mechanic.

ideally, switching between the two should be an automatic subconscious process. many times i find myself consciously forcing my brain to actively observe and learn. this is in contrast to helping someone else actively observe and learn (my contextual definition of teaching). the convenient car analogy is a manual vs. automatic transmission. one is more expensive, but allows the driver to concentrate on more important things such as operating blinkers and not hitting telephone poles.

i have found it helpful to identify and be aware of the obstacles that make active learning more difficult. two of the biggest mental obstacles i struggle with are a lack of focus (letting my mind wander out of the present moment) and my ego (when is that thing ever useful?). to complete the automobile analogy, an effective driver is always aware of bumps in the road, drivers cutting him off, and pretty girls in the car next to him. i’ll let you connect the dots and learn something for yourself.

i love thanksgiving. more specifically, i love thanksgiving food. less specifically, i love food in general. at lunch today, all three of those statements were tested and all three passed with tasty colors.

lunch took place at a mexican restaurant in university city called mad 4 mex. the service there is beyond terrible, but the food is pretty tasty and they offer a stellar beer selection that’s rotated more often than shakira’s hips.

immediately after opening the menu, i knew what to order. number one on the specials was a little item called the gobblerito. if you can’t imagine what this aptly named burrito could contain, i’ll spell it out:

• corn
• mashed potatoes
• stuffing
• gravy
• and of course, turkey

this was all served with sour cream and a slice of cranberry sauce from a can.

my stomach can’t wait to go back.