A different kind of stopping short

I know Seinfeld popularized the expression “stopping short” in a hilarious episode involving George’s dad. But I have begun to notice more and more a different version of stopping short that borders on sparking road rage in me. Last night, as I approached a red light, I began to slow down and pull up to the designated crosswalk area, finishing just shy of the crosswalk where a giant, wide, white line showed me where to stop. I looked over to my left and there was a man in his car at least 15-20 feet behind this giant, wide, white line that again, clearly marks where one should stop. I thought perhaps the guy was making a phone call, putting in a CD or reasoning with a child in the backseat. No. He was alone and seemingly not distracted. He wasn’t doing anything but looking straight ahead and he had a profoundly foolish expression on his face.

Who are you people who do this and why? My research (which is not funded by anyone making it pure and therefore more reliable) indicates that people who do this are also likely to:

• stop well short of the car in front of him/her when pulling up to a light.
• drive slowly in all situations, sometimes 10-15mph under the speed limit
• not notice right away (sometimes for 10 full seconds) that a light has turned green
• bring the car to a full stop when turning right (when a slow yield is more appropriate)
• drive a Toyota Prius (or want to drive a Toyota Prius)
• wonder why others are in such a hurry
• delay oddly when people ask them questions
• have a hoarding problem
• have trouble managing their hair
• wear radio headphones while at baseball games
• wear a Hawaiian shirt when wanting to “cut loose a little bit”
• be married to a pear-shaped man or woman who only talks about cats and gardening
• walk around (slowly) with both arms behind the back smiling at strangers as they walk by (sometimes greeting them - always scaring them).

Very well taken

This morning, on WSSP 1250 Sports Radio, the host Doug Russell listened to a point a caller made and then said that the caller’s comment was “very, very well taken”. While we know that this essentially means that Doug is acknowledging a good point, couldn’t this just as easily mean that Doug is really complimenting himself because he has received this comment so well? I’m considering changing my use of this expression to this more literal interpretation from now on. If I really feel strongly that I’ve listened to and understood a point particularly well, I will say “point well taken”. I’ll let you know how it works.

What’s your lifetime shooting percentage?

This morning as I was picking up toys, I shot a plastic triangular toy thing into it’s square container from across the room - drained it. Next was Olaf the bear into the toy chest - money. Then it was Ewen the giant lamb chucked on top of all the toys - the object-throwing equivalent of a swish. Suddenly I wondered, “what is my lifetime shooting percentage”? I concluded with no further thought probably close to 80%. How could it be that high you wonder? Not sure - there is a very good chance I came up with such a high number simply to make myself feel good. But I can say that I do concentrate really hard whenever trying to throw something in the garbage, the sink, the toy chest. So, I’m usually dialed in.

(The best part of this post is that once you read it, you will likely find yourself concentrating more on making that shot and you may start to keep track. Please then come back to Packergeeks to tell us what you guess your lifetime shooting percentage is…Trav, my guess is you already do this and most likely have a higher percentage than just about anyone).

UPDATE: Need to revise my earlier claim of 80%. Even if I was trying to make myself feel good, that is just too high. I would put it more realisticially at 2/3 or 66%.

Losing (remote) control

It’s Friday night. You’ve had an awful week at work. The baby has finally settled down and is sleeping restfully. You have a case of ice cold Pabst Light in the fridge and your beer glasses frosting in the freezer. You’ve just finished eating a great home-cooked meal by the wife that was inexpensive but you didn’t overeat, so you can just unwind and enjoy perhaps multiple Pabst Light. You have plans to run to the movie store quick to pick up a movie - a comedy that you really want to watch, though the wife has remained suspiciously uncommitted to this for some reason.

Then suddenly, as you’re flipping channels, even magnanimously stopping for a moment on the Food Network at your wife’s request, you happen by channel 73 (Oxygen), which usually has horrible movies or lame drama re-runs. The time is 7:03pm. Your wife exclaims “wait, don’t change it! I’ve been wanting to see this version of Pride and Prejudice for so long. I can’t believe it’s actually on regular TV!”

As a man, you have two choices: simply overrule because you’re presently in control of the remote and the last thing you want to do is watch a slow-moving period piece; or, ruin your night by buckling under the weight of wife’s demands. Of course, you buckle. You reason quickly to yourself that she did just make you yet another great meal and she too has had a long week. After about 1hour and 15 minutes, you finally start getting sucked into the plot and by 1 hour and 30 minutes, you are ashamed to admit that you’ve become desperate to know if she’ll land Mr. Darcy. But throughout you cannot help but wonder: was life back then really so incredibly lame? Sure, they had nice castles or giant houses to live in with lots of land to “behold”, they didn’t have to really “work” but just sat around and had money somehow and many of them had servants doing everything for them. But “fun” for them was drawing, chasing each other (adults included), playing an out of tune harpsichord, going to a Ball where you hop around like a fruit and drinking spirits that tasted like rubbing alcohol. No thanks.

(By the way, it took courage for me to write this as I’m sure to draw a strong rebuke from Brother Steve - but I’ve prepared myself and know I deserve it. I already know his point will be that sure, the 1800s was characterized by many people having a major non-fun time, but isn’t it even less fun to watch this non-fun on TV on a Friday night in 2008?).

Old Man Injury Alert

This morning as I started getting my lunch together, I noticed that grabbing anything with my left hand was somewhat difficult. For some reason, my left index finger was in considerable pain. I didn’t think much of it at the time though as random shooting pains throughout my body have become the norm. But a few seconds later, I noticed the pain again. From then until now, the finger has hurt sporadically, no rhyme or reason. This is among a handful of recent injuries I’ve picked up while engaged in the violent activity of - sleeping.

While all fingers certainly are important, my left index finger is especially important in golf as it is used to interlock my fingers, making for a secure golf grip. I don’t want to head out for my first round and let a club fly, accidentally burying it in someone’s back. I’d have to explain that I can’t grip the club because “I injured my finger while…sleeping”.

Does Chicago aspire to be like Milwaukee?

Check this link out from frequent reader and long-time Packergeeks friend Schaef.

Not only has Chicago claimed Pabst, but now they are going about re-introducting the original formula Schlitz with the hope of reviving it. Crazy - does Chicago secretly aspire to be like Milwaukee? Will the re-introduced Schlitz have the slogan: The Beer That Made Chicago Famous For It’s Rather Obvious Attempts To Be More Like Milwaukee?

UPDATE: More, from a much better publication (i.e. one that’s located in Wisconsin) right here.

Origin of the word lobbyist?

For those of you interested in word origin and/or politics, check this out from USAToday:

The Willard Hotel
Washington, D.C.

Call this the birthplace of special interests. “President Grant was not a big fan of the White House, and he liked to get out and have a cigar in the evening,” Fawcett says. “He would go to the lobby of the Willard Hotel almost every night for a cigar and drink. People would wait in the lobby until he got there and then talk to him informally about what it was they needed. They became known as lobbyists.”

Odd bee article - for several reasons

Check out this article on CNN today. It is about a truck tipping over and millions of bees escaping. It is remarkable (literally, worth remarking) for several reasons.

1) I am allergic to bees. The scene described is the scariest possible scene I can imagine. I’d rather have to watch 12 straight hours of Vikings metrodome “football” replays than face bees on this scale.
2) This accident was initially reported by Sacremento’s newspaper - the Bee.
3) I never thought that having the AC on might be a bad idea as the vent could suck some bees in - good new knowledge for me.
4) Steve Merchant, the Highway Patrolman quoted in the article said “there was somewhere between six (million) and 16 million of them running around out there”. Several things: a) bees don’t run; b) why did Steve Merchant give or take 10 million bees in his estimate?
5) There is a tremendous acronym used here - the CCD. I can’t wait to start using this and then look at people incredulously when they don’t know that I’m refering to the “Colony Collapse Disorder”.

Follow-up to product conspiracies post

Brother Steve wondered in his initial product conspiracies post about whether Head and Shoulders cures or causes dandruff. If it doesn’t cause it, it sure doesn’t make it better. Either way, this leads to a larger question: how do they even make shampoo? How do they decide which ingredients to put in there and which chemical concoction is going to specifically be the one that eliminates dandruff, or adds 3 times the volume, or gives you that silky shine.

This morning, I read the ingredients of my shampoo bottle and have reached the conclusion that shampoo making is a conspiracy on par with carseats for kids (about to spend our 600th dollar on carseats for one child). I noticed that there was one ingredient that was 28 letters long, followed immediately by another that was 25 letters long - both of which started with methyl….Neither of these made up words can possibly mean anything. Then I noticed one ingredient called sodium benzoate. I think what happened here is that they knew they wanted some benzo, but weren’t sure how to end the word so they added the common ending for chemicals “ate” to make it sound better - then they poured salt on it.

But what my wife and I wondered the other day is what it must be like to be a chemist for a shampoo company. Once you add the water, the coloring, some mayonnaise and the fragrance, there is nothing to do but make stuff up. I’ll bet when they write up the “ingredients” to be listed on the bottle, they are well into a keg of Pabst and roaring with laughter. I have to admit, that would be kind of fun.

Milwaukee is the official winner - Best Beer City

I just wanted to declare that Milwaukee is now officially the best beer city. My declaration is based on a scientific measure that took years to develop. This is in no way a measure that I came up with in 10 minutes over lunch. Margin for error: .000123% Here are the measurement criteria:

*5 points for having a giant brewery (St. Louis has to be the only 5 point score for this one, but Mil and Den can get 4 and other cities with large craft breweries can get a couple)
*5 points for having quality micro-brews
*5 points for having a strong beer history
*5 points for having a strong current beer identity
*5 points for # of award winning beers at the Great American Beer Festival
*5 points for # of bars per capita

I started by comparing 9 major cities I think of when I think of beer drinking:
Milwaukee (26 - 4,3,5,5,4,5), Denver area (24 - 4,5,3,4,4,4), Chicago (assuming theft of Pabst legit - 23 - 3,3,4,4,4,5), St. Louis (23-5,3,5,4,2,3), Philly (21 - 2,4,5,4,4,4), St. Paul/Minneapolis (21 - 2,4,5,3,3,4), Portland (20), Seattle (20), Boston (20). Places like Detroit were left out because their present culture is weak (used to be decent), and places like Las Vegas and New Orleans were left out because they really only have high marks for beer culture and maybe # of bars. I thought of some college towns too, but in trial phases of the testing, none could score over 19.

Please feel free to send in any other candidates that may be worthy of consideration. Or, feel free to apply this incredible scientific measure to figure out where your recommended city would fall.

UPDATE: Steve writes: We may have to include San Antonio now, as it is the oddly-out-of-place home of Pabst.