Do you mind?

I was having some boozi with a friend a few weeks ago, and we were both itching for a smoke, but we had to go one at a time so we wouldn’t lose our prime bar seating. And he said…

“Do you mind if I just…go first?”

TITS! He put me in a verbal headlock with the most powerful question in the English language: “Do you mind?” This lead to a Seinfeldian discussion about the phrase, like we do, and this is what I’ve now determined:

If you deny the request which follows a “do you mind,” you’re implying that the asker is being unreasonable. Thus the askee is forced to decide if the interaction will be pleasant or confrontational, and this dilemma can crush the strongest wills. There is a counter, if you have the balls, and that is another “do you mind.” You can prefix it with an “actually” for added impact.

“Actually, do you mind if I go first?”

It didn’t work.

Anyway, I do have a point, and that is that signage could benefit from this observation. Instead of our office’s flaccid “Please! Keep the kitchen clean,” which basically says, “Whatever, fuck this shit up,” the sign should read, “Do you mind keeping the kitchen clean? Thanks champ.” That’s a compelling sign. That sign says, “Damn straight you’re keeping this kitchen clean, you filthy bastard.”

By the way, do you mind leaving a comment on this post? Thanks pal.

Why do I make elevator small talk?

It’s Monday. I’m in the elevator. An acquaintance from another part of the office steps in. We ride in silence, and everything is fine. Then, without warning, one of our windpipes ruptures and a “conversation” oozes out like toxic sludge. It inevitably involves one or more of the following phrases:

• “Oh boy, it’s too early for me.”
• “Haven’t had my coffee yet.”
• “Boy these elevators are slow.”
• “How was your weekend?”
• “Cold out there today, huh?”

And then comes the absolute worst – the one that makes my toes curl into raptor-like claws:

• “Hoh boy… Mondays.”

I AM NOT GARFIELD!

From now on, I’m keeping my mouth shut. No more elevator small talk. It’s stupid, and I say stupid things. I can feel them exiting my mouth, and when I do, all I wish is that I could somehow snap out my tongue and grab them before they infect the space with their vapidness.

And if anyone ever hears me say anything like, “Oh man, last night’s lasagna sure was good,” shoot me in the face.

Media Saturation

I was listening to the radio for the first time in a long while, and what I heard was a little perturbing: the same damn songs I was listening to in Jr. High. I know they’re good songs, but seriously, you can stop now. I suppose the corporate overlords are playing it safe, but it just seems like a strategy doomed to fail.

Media is consuming our lives. Compared to twenty years ago, or even ten years ago, the volume of media in our lives has increased dramatically (no, I don’t have any statistics or charts, but I’m sure someone could find some). I feel like every moment I’m either consuming media, participating in it, or on my way to find it. I’ve got my iPod, my Palm, my laptop, my Xbox 360, my TV, my Netflix account, my Twitter account, my Facebook account, Reddit, this blog, movies, CDs, books, magazines, and I could easily go on. I am constantly sending or receiving communication.

So with all this complex interconnectivity and ultra-high-speed information consumption (at the press of my button, not someone else’s), am I still listening to songs from 1992? NO! I’m listening to songs that were released last week! Of course I have my collection of favorites (Pink Floyd, The Dead Kennedys, Modest Mouse, etc.) but my revolving collection is brand-fuggin’-new.

Why isn’t radio changing with us? Are they still managing to pick out a segment of the population that likes listening to the same Hoobastank song five times a day, and doesn’t mind 10 minutes of ads for 6 minutes of music? It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to notice that people are finding and consuming music at a much faster rate, and with much more demand for new, fresh, un-played-into-the-bloody-ground tracks. It can’t be that I’m listening to the wrong station, because I flipped through all of them, over and over, and only found one station I could bear.

Microwave popcorn is stressful

I hate making microwave popcorn. The packages are absolutely fucking plastered with instructions…instructions with a lot of exclamation points. This side up! Open from this end! Overcooking may cause scorching! Caution! Hot! Do not use the popcorn setting on your microwave! Wait, what the shit? Who invented this useless “popcorn” setting that popcorn manufacturers don’t even want us to use? Shit, people who make microwaves suck at making microwaves. And while I’m on the subject of microwave manufacturer incompetence, can someone please get me a mute button so my 3 AM French bread pizza doesn’t wake up the whole goddamn house – if you hadn’t noticed, the sound of a microwave beeping is awfully similar to the sound of a fuckin’ alarm clock.

But mostly it’s the “cook until there are one to two seconds between pops” bit that kills me. I stand in front of the microwave practicing my ability to notice the difference between one to two seconds and one to three seconds. What if there are two pops in rapid succession, no pops for three seconds, and then two more rapid pops? What if there’s a false stop – a four second gap and then a flurry of pops? What if I pull out the bag and half of it is still seeds? Or they’re all burnt to oblivion?

The stress of the whole thing tarnishes the actual enjoyment of the stupid shitty popcorn.