Random Thoughts

Yeah—-it wasn’t even close.

I have been a victim user of Windows Mobile for a few phones now. 

I moved up over to Windows Mobile after a brief but happy fling with a Kyocera 7135 running Palm a decade or so ago—-my first smartphone.  (See, I even remember the model number.  You never forget your first.) 

(sigh)
(single tear)

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Everyone loved this song in 1988.  They would go on and on about how great it was. 

Me, I was all, “Eh.”

I was shunned for this opinion and was forced to go live in a drainage pipe.  But eventually, the novelty of the song wore off and I was allowed to rejoin society once again, with only a major drop in status. 

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You know, say what you want about Obama, but I’m beginning to think he’s a pretty shrewd guy.  I don’t know what sort of politician he is, or whether he’ll be good or bad at being President, or anything, I try to stay away from politics in general.  I believe roughly 5% of what I hear in the news, and that’s probably 3% more than I should, and anyhow if I were to show the slightest interest in politics it would only encourage politicians, and that’s never a good idea.

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We were sitting in a restaurant at the beach, most of my family and me.  We were having a nice meal. 

We were having probably the nicest meal we’d had the whole trip, because frankly a lot of the restaurants sucked:

Amos Mosquito’s obviously considered itself a fine restaurant, but apparently their definition of a fine restaurant is a restaurant at which the prices are ridculously high.  But my understanding has always been that in exchange for ludicrously high prices, one should reasonably expect some sort of proportionally improved service…like a luxurious atmosphere, or VIP treatment, or say for the sake of argument, really great-tasting food.  But this is apparently not the case.  Twelve dollars for a hamburger which would’ve been overpriced at $5.  And from there your choices mushroomed up to the $20-and-up tier (lucky for me I don’t like seafood).  But if high prices equal a fine restaurant, it was truly a fine restaurant. 

To make matters worse, the waitress refused to serve me a hamburger served medium well because it was, and I quote, ”against the law”.  This is a waitress who’d been there at least a year, because some of us remembered her, so who do you think ought to know Restaurant Law better?  Her, right?  But this is apparently not the case. 

Add to that a fairly unsettling creepy mosquito/swamp theme, and you’ve got a memorable dining experience.

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Come on.  Haven’t we put her through enough?

4. The Lady at the Horseshoe-shaped Desk.

Well I just don’t know what to think of her.  

When Dana introduced us at her library, she had apparently told the woman ahead of time that I wasn’t very social, because when Dana introduced us, she leaned over close to her and said in a low voice, “Chris is probably freaking out right now,” and the Horseshoe-Shaped-Desk woman upon hearing this shot up off her stool, turned her head sharply towards me, looked at me appraisingly, and said, “Oh, is this the one?” 

So apparently all Dana does at the library day in and day out is talk about me and my lack of people skills. This woman stared at me like a chemistry student stares at the final chemical reaction which will prove or disprove her thesis.

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3. Ama.
Real name:  available for a fee.

We didn’t actually meet Ama, seeing as Ama is in Canada, which is a heck of a long way from Dallas. (Sorry NOT Dallas.) But to be fair, there are parts of Texas that are a heck of a long way from Dallas. So Ama is a particularly long way from Dallas.

One day, Dana sits up straight and says, “Okay, we’re going to talk to Ama now.”

Sherrill replied, “Umm…”, and I added, “Uhh…”, but Dana was already walking down the hallway.  So we shrugged and docilely followed along.

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2. Eddie.
Real name: Eddie.

Dana’s husband Eddie was kind enough to pick us up from the airport and did NOT miss his turn on the way back to the Dana Household, I assure you. 

As we waited for Eddie at the airport, Sherrill made me a bet on how long it would take Eddie to offer us food.

This wasn’t our first time meeting Eddie, so we knew to expect that 80% or so of all conversation he made with us would be spent making sure that we had enough to eat.  Not just a simple ‘are you hungry?’; he might start with that, but then he’d move into elaborate suggestions of possible food combinations that might interest us, like a tourist in Vegas pulling the lever over and over, trying to hit a triple-bar.  Neither one of us are particularly big eaters, so we would end up feeling really bad, having to constantly decline Eddie’s offers of food and assuring him that we had had enough to eat, and we got very good at saying ‘no’ very apologetically.

So Sherrill bet we’d get asked about food in under two minutes.  I considered this, I mean yeah, he has this sort of food fixation, but come on, under two minutes?  So I gave Eddie the benefit of the doubt, although not particularly confidently, and I took the bet.  Surely two minutes would pass without food being mentioned!

Eddie drove up and we piled into his truck and he said, “Hey, how are you guys doing? Have you had anything to eat?”

Under ten seconds.

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1. Wench.
Real name:  Mary.  A friend of ours online, and a big fan of the Rennaissance Faire.

e walked down a shadye path to her little costume store, where she makes Fancye Costumes of All Sorts.  Dana led the way into her shoppe, my gyrlfriende Sherrill following, me bringing up the rear (in order to delay the inevitable social situation). But this is where having a Dana comes in handy…she was sort of the designated conversationalist. I finally meet Wench, and she and her, ah, Two Friends approached me cautiously and offered me a hugge, which I accepted gratefullye (in order to delay the inevitable social situation).

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Hey. Guess what. It’s American Idol time again.

Whee

You’ve heard of football widows.  I am an American Idol widower.  And I don’t even care about football, so it’s not like football season evens it out.  Super Bowl?  Yawn.  So it’s doubly tragic for me that I’m subjected to this show. 

Here is why American Idol sucks.

1. Ryan Seacrest.  I hate this guy.  What does he add to the show?  He’s nothing more than a smug arrogant little prettyboy.  With that annoying, flawless, pearly white, and completely insincere smile.  Which he switches on and off like a lightswitch, have you noticed that?  He smiles with his mouth only.  His eyes are completely uninvolved with any smile his mouth produces, because all his smiles are fake—-solely for the benefit of producing the occasional gleam under studio lighting.  The smile gives the illusion of confidence, from the nose down, but when you look above the nose he just comes off as insincere, with a sort of, I dunno, deer-in-headights quality. 
      
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