Monday, April 28, 2008

Segway Scooters at the Mall

Mood: Relaxed
Listening to: Anthony Bourdain China

I just had to giggle to myself the other day. I noticed that one of the mall security guard had a nice segway that he was wandering around the food court in. Wait, what? Why in the world would a security guard need a scooter? This has just reduced my faith that mall security guards have any function beyond form. Seriously, a 2000 square foot food court. Do you really need a little scooter to move you around? This falls under the same lunacy as wheels in tennis shoes. Stop being so lazy and walk, son! The pinnacle of this sighting was when the guard parked his segway next to the stairs and walked down and outside. It was SO tempting to just jump on there and take off with it, laughing maniacally.

Becky

The Color Green

Mood: Relaxed
Listening to: Anthony Bourdain China

I know this post is going to be totally un PC, but oh well. I’ve never been too concerned about PC. Is anyone else getting fed up with seeing and hearing about living green at every single turn? I understand that being “green” and helping out the earth is important, and a worthy goal, but good grief! I’m a magazine freak. I love reading all kinds of magazines. If I see one more “green issue” I’m gonna go postal. The problem isn’t so much that they focus on being ecologically sound, it’s that the advice is either repeated or not really sustainable for regular people. I’ll give recycling as an example. Now I’m not sure how many people have had their head in the sand, but recycling has been a big deal at least since I was in grade school, some 15 years ago. My family has been recycling and doing our part since then. So how much of a difference can we really make by toting recycling as the one thing that the average man can help out with. Another example is building an ecologically friendly house. While this is a fantastic idea, it is just not sustainable for the masses. Most of the materials and process associated with this process are just beyond anyone who is not at least medium rich, which is most of the nation. Builders aren’t going to pick up the ball either. I’m all for awareness, but I’m not so hot on beating an issue to death.

Becky

Get Outta My Personal Space

Mood: Calm
Listening to: Anthony Bourdain in China

So I was at Target with my kids the other day and I had the unfortunate experience of meeting someone who had absolutely no concept of the polite distance between strangers in the western hemisphere commonly known as personal space. We were in line at the snack bar (because, well, I had my kids along and at 3 pm, lunch still looked hours away if I didn’t eat while running errands) and I noticed that someone behind me was standing really, really close to me. As in touching my back with the side of her body. Now I’m not a touchy feely person. I am very, very jealous of my personal space and generally try to avoid touching people I don’t know. I got a little uncomfortable and inched forward. There wasn’t much room to move forward, as I was as close as comfortable to the guy in front of me. This person then scooted forward until she was touching me again. I’m not talking about bumping into me, I’m talking sustained contact. I turned around to see what in the world her problem was, but then she backed up an inch and wouldn‘t meet my eye and decided that the ceiling tiles were fascinating. I’ve come across skeevy guys who don’t have a concept of personal space or just want to cop a feel, but this was a chick! An older, middle aged woman chick! After I turned back around to talk to my four year old, she sidled up to me again. It was the weirdest thing I’ve come across in a long time.

As you probably know, I live in NY. Not bumbledum upstate NY, half hour from NYC NY. People are pretty eclectic here, but overall, educated and normal. So what gives? How did this normal looking middle age woman simply miss the personal space etiquette that is glaringly obvious in the US? We just paid for our food and scooted off really quickly, and she just left. I’m still not quite sure what happened there.

Becky

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Sending Myself Sexual Solicitations

Listening to: Jungle Book
Mood: Calm – for now

I was looking through an old email inbox recently and happened to notice my name in the inbox. I was sure that I hadn’t sent myself anything, so I was really curious as to what was in that email. I opened it and found an ad for obtaining a larger penis. Now I always get a kick out of these type of ads in a roll your eyes sort of way because, well, I don’t have a penis. Why would I need a bigger one? The idea that I sent a penis ad to myself just made me laugh out loud. (That’s right fools, writing as LOL just makes you look stupid. Same goes for IDK. ) I know I probably have a spam producer somewhere on my computer, but it still made my day. So here’s to offering yourself a bigger penis than the one you don’t have.

Becky

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

To The Dude I almost Flattened

Listening to: Bare Necessities – Jungle Boy

Mood: Calm – for the moment

To the Dude I almost ran over today:

Okay, so as an older white guy, you probably aren’t a “dude”, but hey, that’s just my terminology. So I almost ran you over today. Yep, I know, it’s really scary when a car weighing a couple tons is coming right at you and you aren’t really sure it’s going to stop. I apologize for scaring the crap out of you. It certainly wasn’t intentional. I really wouldn’t want to go to jail for manslaughter over you. A rapist or mass murder perhaps, but not just for you.
A couple of things that you probably didn’t notice in your adrenaline hazed stupor as you stared at me in amazement as you crossed the street in front of me.

1. You were crossing a street. I understand that I had a red light. I really had every intention to come to a complete halt. I just had a different idea as to where that stop was going to be. It’s common practice for people and cars to stop at a corner so that they can see the activity on the street so they can judge when to enter the intersection. So I really don’t think it was worth all the attitude you threw my way when I stopped suddenly for you because you decided to step off the curb 30 feet from the corner, which brings me to point 2.

2. Drivers have lots of things to pay attention to – pedestrians don’t. Being in control of said heavy, moving, vehicle is something that requires lots of attention in different directions. To be perfectly honest, I stopped so late because you happened to be in the last direction I looked before stopping at the intersection. I’m sure this clears up my intentions about whether I wanted to flatten you or not.

3. I understand we live in a city and pedestrians are absolutely ever where, like flies on road kill, but this still does not give me the psychic ability to read your mind. Don’t you think it’s just a little foolish and arrogant to step off the curb before you make sure the cars will stop? Perhaps someone is coming along like me who just didn’t see you but was driving faster and not planning on stopping.

So I’m sure I’ll never see you again. White Plains is a pretty big place. Hopefully neither of us have another encounter like today. I know it gave me a few brand new grey hairs. I'm sure you wouldn't notice any new ones anyhow.

Becky