Category: Life

Ninety-six percent of my life is virtual. I’ve timed it and I’m always about thirteen seconds away from the Internet. You all know this. For goodness sake, I’m taking more technical support calls than Microsoft these days. Granted, I sat down at MR’s computer over Christmas break and in about five minutes turned it from a stinking pile of crap into a shiny red Ferrari. Needless to say, this doctor doesn’t mind making house calls when a trip to the Zillionaire’s Lounge is involved. So in this virtual life, new social customs are arising. In the interest of science, I feel obliged to share some of the details of my so-called email life.

First off, we are all at very different “virtual lives.” This must be taken into account when writing an email. Am I going to get a response back next week or is it going to be in two minutes? Is this going to be more of a conversation or single-spaced autobiography? For example, I will break this down by analyzing my email habits with some of the commenters on this site. If your results are different with these folks, don’t take offense. These values are not constant and change frequently.

1. MR: Currently, the forecast for MR is pretty sunny. Right now, I have solid expectations that I will hear back from an email within the hour. The email will also be of notable length. Frequency, due to these factors, is greatly inhibited and average email count is one a day. Some visitors might be surprised to read that these are almost never funny but instead are usually somewhat serious discussions of different facets of our lives.
2. CK: Forecast on this guy is freezing cold with an occasional absolute blizzard. We’ll go months between emails then one day five or six back and forth. They are always of high quality so perhaps that is the root cause of the dry spells. No fluff. Just straight freestyle, off-the-cuff comedy.
3. Solo: Little cloudy here. We don’t get into the riffs that we once did on email. I think most of it stems from the fact that last year we both overdosed on virtuality. We were ichatting, isighting, xboxing, and emailing. It was out of control. It was like watching a television show of his life and, let me tell you, that ain’t reality tv. That is like watching the Discovery channel. He is the whole circus people, not just the dancing bears. I kid, I joke… :)
4. Etc.. (See, I didn’t leave you out. You know who you are. Yeah, this is for you. I shouted you out on the website. Yes, you! You reading this.)

Another facet of this conversation is about quality not quantity. I can’t always bring my “A” game. In fact, I rarely do. I’m ok with that. Sometimes, I’m just conducting business. Sometimes I’m catching up. Sometimes I’m trying to get you to respond with some witty banter so we go back and forth. Be thankful when you receive these emails as it’s kinda like the behind the scenes look at Zillionaire. The E! True Hollywood Emails of the site, if you will.

In conclusion, I eagerly await converting my existence to a 100% online lifestyle. It was my New Year’s resolution after all. I hope to see you all on the other side.

Wow, thanks to Vermont upsetting Syracuse, I am now mathematically eliminated from winning my office pool on the second day of the tournament. The second day! I think I actually did worse than the girl in Payroll that picks teams based solely on the color of their uniforms. Sadly, she even warned me that Syracuse’s orange uniforms were really more of a fall color. Damn. I now face the daunting task of going into work on Monday and trying to convince people that my wife actually filled out my bracket.

While Vermont played an outstanding game, they couldn’t have pulled out the win without some magnificent point shaving by Syracuse’s Gerry McNamara. Kudos on a truly first-rate performance. I’m sure there’s a bookie having his thumbs broken as we speak. Seriously, it was like watching the movie “Blue Chips” with Jim Boeheim starring in Nick Nolte’s role (and regrettably, without Shaq as a supporting actor.)

Truthfully though, I like seeing a smattering of upsets this time of year. It’s just that I’m usually on the “Called it!!!” side of these games, smugly gloating to coworkers like the outcome was obvious. “Well, Southwest Missouri Tech has won their last 11 non-conference games on the road… And Kansas tends to shoot under 50% when the opposing coach has a mustache. It was really a no-brainer.”

There’s more to this story though. With their win tonight, Vermont has unwittingly created a second major upset within our office pool. With me out of the tourney in the early rounds, my coworkers (all of which are #16 seeds to my lone #1 seed) now have a legitimate chance to win it all. Let me say right now, I can’t wait to use that analogy on Monday…

And so there it is. Let the madness begin… I can honestly say that my happiness in life over the next three weeks will depend almost entirely on how far Gonzaga goes in the tourney… (By declaring that, I almost assuredly have jinxed my way into another upset. Standard.)

Go Zags!

1. Every time I fill up at the gas station, I reset the trip-meter to zero. However, I have never calculated my gas mileage based on these findings.
2. I can’t do any work around the house without first writing a to-do list. Ninety-percent of the time my list starts with “take a shower” quickly followed by “brush teeth.” If I get those two things done early, it’s gonna be a productive day.
3. It takes me a minimum of 15 minutes to leave the house. First, I have to find my keys, wallet, and cell-phone. I actually find some joy in this task as I’m a sucker for an impromptu easter egg hunt. Then, I have to turn off the 47 lights that I’ve turned on, which usually involves turning on a few lights to find the off switches for other lights. Needless to say, I’m thinking of just biting the bullet and installing strobe lighting.
4. When I find a beer bottle on my front lawn, I get upset. Big change from just a few short years ago when I would have checked to see if there was still a swig or two left in it.
5. Roughly speaking, I spend 7 hours a day sitting a chair within twenty feet of two other poeple whose company I did not choose. This never ceases to disturb me.
6. I defend jogging as a viable means of exercise.
7. My upper body is so white that some people believe me to be a new species of human in the same vein that an artic fox is different from a normal fox. We are just waiting for the DNA results to come back from the research lab to verify the claim.

I’ve started playing basketball on my lunch hour. After two games, I hit the locker room, take a quick shower, then grab lunch. Now showering in a locker room is already an uncomfortable experience, but a little locker room etiquette makes it doable. You wear your towel to the shower. You dress rapidly. You never make eye contact. That sort of thing. So every time I’m in there, I’m constantly boggled by the guy who never learned any of that. He insists on putting his underwear on last when getting dressed. He’s got his order of operations all out of wack. You’ve got to subtract your genitals from sight before you can add your t-shirt.

This is a confession. Forgive me father, for I am about to admit a sin. You see, nearly two years ago I quit stealing cable and stopped watching tv. Yes, I take some pride in this fact, but it is a double-edged sword. I’m often left out in the cold during mindless conversations about The Swan, Survivor, My Two Dads, and other hit shows of the day. Let me tell you, it hurts. But this won’t be a rant about reality shows, corporate media, or major-network television programming (cue collective sigh). No, this will be a rant about commercials!

That being said, every now and again, I happen to catch a little tube. I’m still a big fan of the Daily Show, some SNL (hit or miss as it is), and, of course, Live with Regis and Kelly. But now when I sit down to watch tv, it’s amazing to me the number, length and sheer psychological manipulation that is so evident with television commericals. Absence doesn’t always make the heart grown fonder, I’m afraid.

Specifically, I should mention that I am not Tiger Woods. You might have been misled awhile ago by the ads that Nike ran. True, I wasn’t featured in the commercial, so you might not necessarily associate me with that ad, but the intention was to make us all believe that we all are or could be Tiger Woods. Last time I hit the links, I kept reminding everyone in my foursome (cool, bonus points for a legitimate use of the word foursome!) that I was Tiger Woods and to make sure to study my form, take some pointers, and learn from my sweet stroke. I really believed it. So you can imagine my constant malaise when time after time, shot after shot, I was in the woods chopping down Douglas Firs with my two-iron looking for Tiger Wood’s errant duff. I assured my partners that they must use more special effects on tv than we are led to believe.

So I’m asking you all, is it just me or when you catch a sitcom on tv these days does the quality of the show seem subpar compared to the commerials? Should it be the other way around? I’m seriously guessing that commercials have bigger budgets than primetime shows now.