Speak Up!

The way my desk is positioned at work makes it to where 98% of the conversations I have are on my right side (your left). The only thing I have to listen for on my left is someone coming in through the front door of the office. And when I play video games, or talk on the phone, or do anything having to do with listening with one ear, I almost exclusively use my right ear. So naturally, when one of my ears decides to stop working, it's the right one.

I'm not sure exactly what's going on, but I woke up last week with what I can only describe as a muted ear. I can hear out of it, but only a little bit. And everything I hear on that side sounds like I'm hearing it from underwater. And up until today, it cleared up after a few hours. Something would unclog, and my hearing would come back. But today, I've sat at my desk unable to hear my coworkers, feeling lopsided and unbalanced.

I've tried everything: eardrops, Q-tips (against the recommended use), peroxide, warm water, pounding my fist against my sideburn. But nothing has worked. Everyone still sounds like they're talking to me in an aquarium. And it's starting to make me dizzy.

I'm almost to the point that I would try one of those ear candles (which always sounds like a mad lib). But sticking something into my head and then lighting it goes against my gut instinct. So I might hold off on that until it's both ears.

Curl Up With A Good Book

I finally got an iPhone.  My parents gave it to me for my birthday, and I love it.  And I realized that I'm fast becoming a Mac snob.  I have two iPods (a Mini and a 5th generation Nano), my wife and I each have an iPhone, I'm typing this post on a MacBook Pro, and I'm seriously considering getting an iPad next year.  But being a Mac snob doesn't really bother me that much.  Mac snobs are way cooler than regular snobs.

No, in fact, the thing that concerns me is that because I'm so used to using an iPhone (my wife's), that the "wow" factor has been missing from my newest toy.  I feel less like a snob in that respect and more like a spoiled brat.  But I did find one thing that I hadn't used on my wife's iPhone.  I downloaded the Kindle app and started reading Sherlock Holmes on it.  It was pretty sweet.

But the real story here is that I was reading Sherlock Holmes for the first time today.  And because I saw Guy Ritchie's film before I read the series, I can only imagine Robert Downing, Jr. as Sherlock Holmes and Jude Law as Watson.  I don't think those were the faces Arthur Conan Doyle had in mind when he invented those characters.

But the real real story here is that I was reading Sherlock Holmes in the bathroom at work today, and both of my legs fell asleep.  Then the automatic-timer on the lights went off, and I had to wait for my temporary paralysis to go away before I could wave my arm out the stall door to turn the lights back on.  And then someone walked in and found a person sitting in the bathroom stall with the lights off.  Luckily, I had locked my phone so there wasn't an eerie glow coming from under the stall when they walked in.  So I think from now on I'll limit my reading destinations to places that have chairs and manual lights.

"Don't Wanna Be An American Idiot"

Every year when I was a kid, we spent a good portion of the summer in South Carolina with our extended family. We'd drive up to my grandmother's house and stay a while with her, visiting some cousins in a different part of the state occasionally. One summer, my aunt and uncle had a foreign exchange student with them. And she was there while we were visiting for a few weeks. And due to my cousin's accelerated, South Carolina-accented speech, the Spanish girl who barely spoke English (I think her name was Olga) got confused a lot. So I took it upon myself to translate his fast, Southern English into slower, unaccented English to keep her from feeling lost. I didn't want her to be completely confused the whole time she was there.

So I turned into her English-to-English translator during that time. And she got in the habit of looking at me whenever she needed something explained (or simply slowed down as was often the case). Well, one day we were planning a trip into Atlanta to see a baseball game, and someone mentioned taking a bus instead of parking downtown. And Olga looked at me and said, "A bus?"

This is where there was some confusion. When she said that, she meant it as, "We're taking a bus? Why would we need to take a bus if everyone here has their own car?" But what I took it to mean was, "A bus? What in the world is a bus?!  I've never heard of such things!"

So I said, "A bus? Well… how do I explain? Okay, it's basically a really long car with LOTS of windows." And when I said "really long car" I put my arms really wide and raised my eyebrows as high as I could.

So then she had to explain to me that she knew what a bus was. They have buses in every country, and it's a fairly common English word. And then she explained that she wanted to know why we were taking a bus. Then, the little Spanish girl who barely spoke English did her first truly American thing. She shook her head and rolled her eyes at my ignorance. And though it really hurt my feelings, I couldn't help but feel proud of her for learning to judge people when they're stupid.

There Are Better Ways Of Getting Your Fiber

My older brother works for a company that gets a lot of promotional merchandise. It's usually useless stuff like baseball caps and mousepads and stuff like that. But at this time of year, they get a lot of gift baskets and holiday items. And a lot of them have baked goods or candy in them. Well, one of their suppliers sent them a box of Mrs. Fields cookies. But instead of just regular cookies, they sent cookies with the supplier's logo printed on the top.

Now some of you might be familiar with fondant. And if you are, then you may skip this paragraph while I explain it to the naïve ones. Fondant is a sorry excuse replacement for good icing. It is not even close to edible (meaning it won't kill you), but it's disgusting not very tasty. And bakeries use it on cakes because they're lazy to keep a flat, smooth surface. And they can also print stuff on it a lot easier than they can on regular icing. So think of sugar-flavored Play-Doh thick, edible paper when you think of fondant.


The supplier had the logo printed on a circular piece of fondant that was then slapped onto the cookies. But as soon as my older brother opened his cookie, the logo fell off. Not one to waste a semi-edible piece of paper that had some cookie shrapnel attached to it, he took a bite of the fondant logo disc. And that's when one of his coworkers walked up and saw him.

But the coworker didn't know the logo had fallen off of a cookie. It looked very much like my brother was eating a supplier-sponsored coaster at his desk. And the "you-caught-me" look he had on his face didn't help. So now that guy thinks my brother eats flimsy coasters when people aren't around.

My Facebook Page Is Blowing Up Today!

Today is my birthday. So today's post is the one where I wax nostalgic about years gone by and lament my ever-fading youth. But I won't do that. It's a waste of time, really. And I'd rather stay in complete denial of my aging and talk about other things.

My (actual) brother and I share a birthday. And we share that birthday with our mother. And as weird as that may seem to anyone on here who doesn't know me, it's true. Three family members. Three different years. Same birthday.

In some ways, I like it. It means that I'll never forget my mom's birthday. And growing up, it meant two different birthday cakes (and sometimes three) on the same day.  I can't complain about that. But in a lot of ways, I hate it. My brother thought it was funny while we were kids to say "Happy Birthday" to me just so I would have to say it back. And I rarely get to use the phrase "my birthday." It's always "our birthday" or "THE birthday." So it's an unusual situation.  I would compare it to being a twin, but without the twin perks (clothes-sharing, switching places in school, twin ESP).

The one complaint I have about getting older is that my age will continually get harder to type until I hit 30. Ages 21 through 24 were easy. I could get those with my left hand while typing. Then I started to have to use two hands to type my age. So the bigger the distance between the "2" and the last digit, the closer I am to 30. And I realize that is probably confusing. But just try it on your keyboard above the "W" key, and you'll see what I mean.

So anyway, I'll leave you with a quote from comedian Steven Wright:
"I plan to live forever... so far, so good."