Karma Meter

“May the days be aimless. Let the seasons drift. Do not advance the action according to a plan.”

-Don DeLillo, White Noise

"Animal Collective has replaced being alive.  I aspire to think of myself as an analog person, but I am not.  I have been converted to digital without the remastering, and the fidelity is appalling."

-Chuck Klosterman, Eating the Dinosaur

Ya Know?

Everyone has thought at some point that “we should have our own TV show.”

All whiptail lizards are female.  Guess how they reproduce.

Good novels aren’t about stories, they’re about ideas.

Band name:  HMO and the Pre-existing Conditions

Do pregnant women pay a sharing charge at restaurants?

Jefferson's Bible

I can never think of a joke when someone asks me to think of a joke.

Thanks, Google, for reminding me it was Mother’s Day.  We’re even now.

Tap water is regulated much more than bottled water.

Doesn't disingenuous just mean genuous?

Thomas Edison founded General Electric.

If mayo is so fattening, why is there a health clinic named after it?

Handwritten signatures will soon be obsolete.

Demographic-Economic Paradox

We’re all method actors.

"The tides come in, the tides go out, sun go up, sun go down."

Let Me Know

The following is a story that a friend sent to me through text messages.  I edited it for minor grammar mistakes and changed the names.

Okay first of all, he looks the exact same as he used to be.  It’s like he’s stuck in his little “Lance in Mr. Pfeiffer’s class” skin for the rest of his life.  So we start talking; it’s made all the more awkward cause Deborah [Lance’s mom] is just standing there moderating our conversation.  Soon into our chat Hank [a fellow congregant] walks into the room.  I impulsively looked over due to his imposing stature.  We caught each other’s eye and he strode over to shake my hand.  He gave his condolences (“Thank you, thank you”), made some small talk, (“No, Hank, I didn’t catch the game last night”), and then he left.  Just completely ignored Lance who, chipper just seconds before, was now obviously disgruntled. 

After that incident we returned to conversing, but the level of uncomfortableness was now unbearable.  Naturally our talk turned to schooling and our future plans.  It turned out we both go to BCC.  Finally we had something in common!  However, this moment of bliss was short-lived.  He was talking about some class (I forget what it was, let’s just say it was Ethics of Business Law and Marketplace Philosophy for the purpose of our discussion).  Reluctant to trod on any toes, I feigned interest in this class (much like I did with Steve Holt and Nimitz class). 

This is where the bomb gets dropped.  I said, “Let me know how the class is and if I should take it next semester.”  “Sure, I’ll be sure to tell you how it turns out,” he responded.  It seemed like we had finally reached a level of nonawkwardness.  But then ten seconds later after the banter, we both realized something:  we didn’t have each other’s number, and we weren’t Facebook friends.  I didn’t even have his e-mail.  We never go to synagogue anymore.  It was highly likely that I would never see Lance again, and if I did, it would be in a few years when this topic would be obsolete.  Once it dawned on both of us that there was absolutely no way he would ever be able to “let me know” how his class was, it became horribly awkward, and I had to bow out of the conversation soon after that.