My son can’t find his cell phone . . .
“You should glue it to your hand,” I say, “since you lose it at least once a day.”
“No, I don’t,” he says.
“Once a week, then.”
“Okay, but I never lose it. I just can’t find it at the time I need it.”
Twitter: 2009-07-02
- RT @Lileks: There's not a man alive who's ever said "I have enough fireworks." #
Organic Organizing
A problem-solving leader’s entire orientation is toward creating an environment in which everyone can be solving problems, making decisions, and implementing those decisions, rather than personally solving problems, making decisions, and implementing those decisions.
Twitter: 2009-07-01
I Remember it Had a Yammy Aftertaste
Appearances Matter
When you’re reinventing yourself in a new career, first impressions are even more important because everyone secretly doubts that you have what it takes to be successful. Without waiting for you to explain why you’re qualified, people will make a snap judgment based on your appearance and demeanor. Do you look and sound like someone who does this job?
Pesto Pete
Leftovers from a catered lunch meeting found their way into the break room refrigerator.
I pull out a tin of pasta . . .
“Look,” I say to the woman watching me, “this one has my name right on it! ‘Pesto Pete,’ that’s what they call me.”
“That says ‘Pesto Penne,'” she says.
“Close enough!”
To Whom It May Concern
- “Obama Breaks Silence on Gaza, Voices ‘Deep Concern’ Over Civilian Deaths” — headline, Ha’aretz, Jan. 7
- “Obama Voices Concern About Freed Guantanamo Inmates” — headline, Reuters, Feb. 2
- “Obama Voices Concern About Pakistan” — headline, New York Times, April 30
- “Obama Expresses Concern for Tissainayagam” — headline, TamilNet.com, May 2
- “Obama: Long-Term Joblessness a Concern” — headline, CNN.com, May 20
- “Obama Says North Korea Nuclear Test a ‘Grave Concern’ ” — headline, Reuters, May 25
- “Obama to ‘Voice Concerns’ in Egypt Speech” — headline, Hill, May 29
- “Obama Concerned at Sentence of Journalists in NKorea” — headline, Agence France-Presse, June 8
- “Obama Names Video Games as Health Concern in Speech to A.M.A.” — headline, GamePolitics.com, June 15
- “Obama Has ‘Deep Concerns’ About Iran’s Election” — headline, Newsweek Web site, June 16
- “Obama Concern About Oil Speculation Unchanged-W.House” — headline, Reuters, June 18
- “Obama Expresses Deep Concern Over Honduras Coup” — headline, Deutsche Presse Agentur, June 28
How Korean Markets Keep Prices Low
My wife’s in a great mood. She’s just back from grocery shopping at the local Korean market, where fresh produce is sold cheaply.
“Guess how much for these,” she says excitedly, holding up a package of eggs.
“How many are there?”
“Twenty.”
I haven’t bought eggs in years so I have no idea how much they cost. I’m thinking of guessing $1.99 but I don’t want to undershoot the real price and take all the fun out of it for her.
“Two ninety-nine,” I say.
“Ninety-nine cents!” She’s now holding up a small carton of fruit. “How much for these?” she asks.
“What are those?”
“Boysenberries.”
“Ninety-nine cents,” I say, since that was the right answer on the eggs.
“Thirty-three cents! How can they sell this stuff so cheap?”
“They sneak around local farms by night, stealing eggs and boysenberries. It’s the only possible explanation.”
Team Player
“Mom, can you drop me off at the park for basketball?”
“Not now, honey, I’m on a business call.”
“People are waiting for me! YOU’RE KILLING MY TEAM!”
Greatest Tweet Ever
I say to my ex: “How can you ask if he’s your kid? You can count backward from his birth to one of the two times in six years we had sex.”
Classification of Books You Haven’t Read
From Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler:
- Books You Needn’t Read
- Books Made For Purposes Other Than Reading
- Books Read Before You Even Open Them Since They Belong To The Category Of Books Read Before Being Written
- Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered
- Books You Mean To Read But There Are Others You Must Read First
- Books Too Expensive Now And You’ll Wait Till They’re Remaindered
- Books ditto When They Come Out In Paperback
- Books You Can Borrow From Somebody
- Books That Everybody’s Read So It’s As If You Had Read Them, Too
- Books You’ve Been Planning To Read For Ages
- Books You’ve Been Hunting For Years Without Success
- Books Dealing With Something You’re Working On At The Moment
- Books You Want To Own So They’ll Be Handy Just In Case
- Books You Could Put Aside To Maybe Read This Summer
- Books You Need To Go With Other Books On Your Shelves
- Books That Fill You With Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified
- Books You’ve Always Pretended To Have Read And Now It’s Time To Sit Down And Really Read Them
EppsNet Restaurant Review: Anaheim White House
Pasta e fagioli — amazing! Linguine with shaved truffles — exquisite! Service — impeccable!
My wife had the veal liver. I don’t even like liver but I tried it and loved it! They can make you like things you don’t even like.
It’s not inexpensive — that needs to be mentioned — but if you feel like helping to spend the country out of this recession we’re having, I think you’ll really enjoy it.
The Half-Full Glass
I put a half-full cup of soda from Extra Mile in the fridge and went out to run some errands. When I got back home, the soda was gone.
“What happened to my soda?” I asked.
“I cleaned out the refrigerator,” my wife said.
The optimist sees the glass as half full. The pessimist sees the glass as half empty and throws it out, even if it belongs to someone else . . .
Hot Dog Diplomacy
Iranian envoys hoping to get a piece of American pie, or at least a hot dog, will have to wait. The invitations extended last month to Iranian officials to attend Fourth of July celebrations at American embassies have been rescinded, reports The Times’s Mark Landler.
I hope that’s because they continue to murder their own citizens in the streets and not just because they failed to RSVP in a timely manner.
I stand side by side with President Obama in my support for human rights and opposition to totalitarian autocracy!
NO IRANIAN DIPLOMATS WILL BE ALLOWED AT MY HOUSE FOR JULY 4 FESTIVITIES!
Oh yeah, we’re playing hardball now . . .
Kodachrome
Kodachrome
You give us those nice bright colors
You give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah!
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So Mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away
Kodak takes your Kodachrome away
Another Way to Tell When Your Relationship is in Trouble
I saw these husband and wife profile photos on a Facebook friend list:
The photo on the left is the husband’s profile photo. He looks like a more effeminate, French-looking version of the Dos Equis guy.
The photo on the right is the wife’s profile photo.
You’ll notice it’s the same photo, but she’s taken a page from the Stalin revisionist history playbook and removed hubby from the photo.
And note that she didn’t just crop him out, which would be the easy thing to do. She went to the trouble of firing up some photo editing software, erasing him, and recreating her bustline against the new background.
She’s just not that into you!
Wanna Be Starting Something
Seen on Facebook:
Original Poster: RIP Michael Jacokson!
Commenter: Michael Jacokson died on the same day as Michael Jackson? How bizarre is that?
Original Poster: OMFG really!! I think the death of Michael JACKSON is more important than a freakin typo!
Commenter: So Michael Jacokson is still alive? THANK GOD!
The Triumph of My Pedagogical Method
Northwood High School grades came out today. My son got A’s in all of his classes. He won’t know that himself until Saturday night because he’s currently incommunicado at Children of the Corn camp, but the honors classes at Northwood are anything but a slam-dunk A, even for the best students, so we’re very proud of him.
He’s become a lot better at managing his time and plotting out academic strategies, down to the level of selecting the right background music for study sessions. He’s still not as proactive with his teachers as I’d like him to be, but behavioral modification takes time. You can offer ideas, but until an idea and the kid’s readiness for the idea converge, nothing happens. Years may go by.
For example, he just recently started setting up more study groups with his friends, a mere four years after I first mentioned to him that study groups were a big help to me when I was in school.
I’m considered the parent in charge of academics at our house. I used to spend quite a bit of time with the boy up through junior high school but now that he’s in 10th grade, I don’t really do much. Or actually, I do the same thing I’ve always done, which is to say, ‘Let me know if you need any help with that,” the difference being that he rarely asks for help anymore.
My wife has never been totally on board with my approach. “You can’t just say, ‘Let me know if you need any help,'” she says. “You have to help him.”
I say, “You’ve probably already noticed this yourself, but if a person doesn’t want your help, you’re not going to be successful in helping him, no matter how smart or wonderful you are.”
“Blah blah blah,” she says.
I’m scoring this semester’s report card as a triumph for my pedagogical method.
Icons Are Falling Like Dominoes
