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Author: James Created: 7/24/2006 1:58 PM
The catch-all category

An Ode to the Phone Browser
By James on 11/26/2007 4:49 PM

Is there anything handier during a boring meeting than a phone browser right now?  Even though browsing speeds are still rather slow and you won’t get a site’s complete bells and whistles, it still is a great way to avoid eye contact in places like an elevator.  It’s true saving grace arrives in the ability to pass time in tedious meetings where your mind is anywhere but that conference room.  You surreptitiously put it within reading distance and, voila, you are instantly transported from Dull

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Finally, some holiday sanity!!!
By James on 11/21/2007 10:34 AM

I doubt Nordstrom’s is high on any guys’ list of stores to go to.  Even though that might be, they moved up a notch in my opinion this week.  I was at the mall on Monday and at each of their areas where there would normally be a display as you’re entering their store, they instead had the following sign.

 

I’m sure

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Beyond the Third Person
By James on 11/19/2007 12:28 PM

OK, English majors, answer this one.  Let’s say a celebrity is being interviewed and one of the questions refers to the interviewee by their full name.  Example – Brad Pitt, being interviewed by one of those artificial celebrity shows is asked the question “So where does Brad Pitt fit into this picture?” or “What does a Brad Pitt do for fun?”  If Brad is referring to himself, obviously it is referred to as speaking in Third Person.  But if the target of the conversation is referred to by their full name, is this considered Third Person also or is it a different ‘Person’ conversation?  &l ...

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Oooh, that smell
By James on 11/13/2007 10:46 AM

There are certain things in life where people have almost the exact same word association as you would when you mention a particular item/person/movie.  Not that this happens any more, but 15 years ago if anyone said the name “Clara Peller” you would be obligated to yell “Where’s the beef?!”  If someone mentions the movie Dances With Wolves, I have no choice but to make my index fingers like horns on my head, tilt my ear horizontal to the ground and say “Tatonka”.  Are there any middle aged white guys out there, if someone begins to make that m ...

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"I'm sorry that someone I didn't know but you did has died"
By James on 11/8/2007 12:18 PM

I spotted a sympathy card that Megan had bought (not sure who died yet, to be honest) and noticed that it actually didn’t have the standard boring “Our thoughts/prayers are with you”.  Those were always generic to me, although there’s not a lot of ways of tastefully saying “Hey, sorry someone you knew died, and even though we can’t do anything, here’s a shiny card.”  The “You are in our minds” cards are also used a bit too often although sometimes those two selections are your only choices.

 

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Post-Halloween thought entrails
By James on 11/1/2007 11:37 AM

Why is it that everyone (myself included) brings leftover candy into work for others to have, yet we all somehow wind up eating each other’s candy, nullifying your initial intention of resisting an overload of sweets?  If you bring in leftover Kit Kats that you have no desire to eat, how is it that another person’s leftover Kit Kats somehow are more appealing?!

 

**********

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Donkey Punch?!
By James on 10/19/2007 1:05 PM

Sweetwater Brewing, the local irreverent brewers who have brought us beers with such naughty names as Summer Hummer, Dubbel D’s, Happy Ending, and 420 Pale Ale, finally released a limited amount of a new barleywine they call Donkey Punch.  For those of you not aware of the unspeakable act that references, I’ll let you search on wikipedia on your own to see why this is a rather saucy name.

 

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This bad word is brought to you by the color Blue
By James on 10/18/2007 5:54 PM

Make fun of me all you want, but when you become a parent it becomes imperative you try not to swear in front of them.  That doesn’t mean I’m not going to let loose a stream of epithets when they’re not around if the situation calls for it, but I find myself saying a lot of kid-friendly phrases not only in place of bad words but also simply expressions of wonder.  Instead of “Holy shit!” I might find myself exclaiming “Holy Mackerel!”.  “Jesus H Christ on a corn dog stick!” might now sound like “Geewhillikers!” or “Criminy!” or “Jiminy Cricket!” coming out of my mouth now.

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Not too hot, not too cold, not too spicy
By James on 10/17/2007 8:40 PM
While I’ve been able to have spicier foods as the years go along, I still wonder what the allure is in food that goes beyond spicy and begins to crawl into the painful category.  As a teen in the midwest, “spicy” to a WASP family like mine meant Nacho Cheese Doritos.  Not only was that dipping your toe into the “spicy” category, you were also venturing into the unknown “ethnic style” of food since the cheese wasn’t American or Velveeta-based.  Yep, we were living the cultured lifestyle in 1970’s and 80’s Detroit.

Now I can stomach most name brand salsa’s “hot” varieties and even throw some jalapenos on certain foods to jazz up the flavor.  But I draw the line at the point where the food becomes an endurance test.  Can you truly taste your food when your face is making survival faces?

Let’s use another example.  Most BudMillerCoors swill and its ilk is intended to be drunk very cold.  Why?  Because it ...
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Ice Road Truckers
By James on 10/16/2007 1:05 PM

Continuing my obsession with All Things Bitterly Cold, I found a new show the other month that allows me to live vicariously through others without all those pesky details such as lack of sleep and extremely cold temperatures and potential frostbite and the always annoying Chance Of Death.  OK, so I do currently experience Lack of Sleep since we have a two-month-old in the house, but other than that I’d say my job is relatively tame assuming you don’t factor in the Potential Death On The Interstate variable.

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