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August 30, 2010

Your parents warned you this could happen

I was attracted to this story because of the rather absurd headline: Woman burned while playing with magnifying glass: 34-year-old has burns on 50% of body.

I mean, a woman burned more than half her body with a magnifying glass?I What kind of glass is this? Was this some kind of super glass that's 30 feet wide, with enough power to incinerate small puppies? Was this woman tied to a table and made to suffer, like in Dr. No? I was really hoping for something sensational like that. (Wasn't there a Simpsons or Far Side cartoon with a giant magnifying glass?)

The truth, while definitely absurd, was still way less fulfilling than any of the above-mentioned scenarios:

[The victim], 34, was playing with a child's magnifying glass when it started a fire on her clothes, investigators said.

Aw hell. Now, back when I was a kid, I did my fair share of magnifying glass fire-starting. I was never the kind to fry ants, but I definitely burned up pieces of grass and paper. I might have even disassembled a model rocket engine and blown up the gun powder. But I can truthfully say I never lit my own clothes on fire. Here's hoping she survives, and can have an interesting story to tell some day.

Posted at 01:02 PM | Comments (0)

August 27, 2010

God bless America

I don't know I got into it, but I saw some videos on Youtube of a British TV show. The hosts - or as they say in Britain, presenters - repeated the mantra that Americans are just plain dumb. Admittedly, some Americans are pretty dumb. There was the recent survey where 20% of Americans said they thought Obama was a Muslim, for example. And then there are surveys where 25% of people don't know why we celebrate the 4th of July. Those are some mind-numbingly awful things not to know, and I really do question how an American can go through life not knowing what the 4th of July is about.

So, because apparently Jay Leno's Jaywalking is avant-garde on ITV, the show then proceeded to play a bit where their correspondent stopped Americans on the streets of New York City and asked innocuous questions like "On what date the 9/11 occur?" Or "Name a country that starts with the letter U." Cue some guy saying "Yugoslavia!" Meanwhile, the studio audience tittered away, laughing at those dumb Yankees.

Well, to those people, I say: fuck you. Sure, there are dumb Americans. I can probably go outside right now and find some guy who doesn't know what year it is, or who the President of the United States is.

But you know what else? Drop me in London, in Kensington Garden, where lots of respectable Englishmen live. Do you think every single British citizen there knows who the Prime Minister is, or the names of the individual kingdoms that make up the UK? I'd venture a guess that some of those people are pure knuckleheads.

Are those Englishmen who go to England soccer matches all refined Oxford men? Or do they drink Carling, get liquored up, shout Oasis songs, and also have no idea what the little channel of water between England and France is called.

So, laugh away, British people. You aren't fooling anyone - lots of you are dumb as rocks, too.

Posted at 04:37 PM | Comments (0)

August 25, 2010

Cologne capers

I've had this big jug of cologne for what seems like ages. It has served me well, but it is finally nearing the end. I decided, in the interest of mixing things up a little, to buy some new cologne. This was one of the more intimidating shopping experiences I have had, even more so than buying a suit.

When buying stuff, I prefer to figure things out on my own. Of course, this flies directly in the face of the typical model, which is to have someone there to help you. So, after I strolled into the Macy's (a/k/a the dearly departed Marshall Field), I was able to sniff a few colognes without attracting attention. Soon, however, an older lady noticed me, and started peppering me with cologne questions.

Sidenote: my greatest fear when being nabbed by a salesperson was that it would be a guy. I do not like dealing with other dudes in situations like this. I like a kindly and matronly woman. It's just less intimidating, and, really, how could an old lady steer you wrong? In that respect, my fears were allayed.

But, as I mentioned, she started asking me a bunch of questions. What kind of cologne did you used to have? What did it smell like? What are you looking for now? Are you looking for more of a day or night-time cologne? (Day or night-time? Wtf!) I stammered some generalities, and instead of running for the door, allowed her to show me some nice scents. I may have said how my last cologne was "fruity," which was the way wrong answer.

I smelled a few, telling her which ones I liked and which ones I didn't. She then said, "let me get the coffee beans," and before I could comprehend what was happening, a tin of coffee beans was in my face. I was completely flummoxed, but figured this must be some way to cleanse my sniffing palette, so I took a whiff. The saleswoman didn't laugh me out of the store, so I must have done it right.

(That's something that always gets me. There are certain customs which are completely normal, but I have never heard of. For example, if you got to a fancier restaurant - nicer than, say, Cheesecake Factory - and order a bottle of wine, the waiter will show you the wine bottle before opening it. This is so you can make sure you got what you ordered. Then he'll pour a small glass for me to taste. The first time this happened, I had no idea what to do. Even now, I feel slightly fraudulent whenever this happens, because I never remember what wine I ordered, and because I don't know what it's supposed to taste like.)

So, fortunately, I navigated the coffee beans unidiotically enough. Finally, it was time to make a decision. Part of me wanted to, again, run away, but I sacked up and realized I needed new cologne. I picked out the one I liked, even without asking how much it cost. (I'm a lawyer, see, and lawyers are rich. Right?) It wasn't overly expensive, so I paid my money, walked out, and now I smell much nicer than I used to.

Later, I was walking downtown and stopped to look up at some filming for the new Transformers movie. Of course, this was the exact same time so enterprising homeless fellow bent down to shine my shoes, unsolicited. He tried to charge me $16, but I "negotiated" him down to ten. I still feel like kind of a sucker.

Posted at 04:41 PM | Comments (0)

August 23, 2010

Say it ain't so

Curse you, Internet, and your misleading headlines. I'm talking, of course, about the fools who are posting story after story entitled "triceratops never existed." My five year old self, who was obsessed with dinosaurs and therefore accrued an encyclopedic knowledge of them, would have been distraught. My thirty year old self, however, decided to click on the link and investigate how a species whose fossilized skeletons exist in museums can not actually exist. Oh:

Known for its three horns and the bony, frilled ridge around its head, the triceratops was most likely just a younger version of the rarer torosaurus, say researchers John Scannella and Jack Horner at the Museum of the Rockies in Montana.

The species were very similar. Both had three horns and each had the distinctive head frill that makes the triceratops famous. But in the torosaurus the horns and ridge were shaped differently, with the ridge appearing smoother and thinner. It also had two holes.

After studying 29 triceratops skulls, the scientists discovered the bone was thinning in the same area where the torosaurus’s holes were. Evidence began mounting as they counted the growth rings in the bones and discovered all the triceratops skulls were from young dinosaurs. What’s more, juvenile specimens of the torosaurus have never been found. They concluded the dinosaurs were actually the same, with the horns and ridge changing shape as the lizard matured.

This is a much more plausible, and interesting explanation. To appease little boys everywhere, the dinosaur will continue to be known as triceratops, rather than the absurd-sounding "torosaurus." I mean, what the heck is that, anyway?

Apparently this is the same thing that happened with the brontosaurus and apatosaurus. Growing up, I learned the name of that particular dinosaur as brontosaurus, and although its "official" name is apatosaurus, I refuse to abide by that name. Brontosaurus just seems right to me. Also, as if to endorse the righteousness of my cause, the spell check on my browser here puts a red line under apatosaurus, but not brontosaurus. So, somebody at Google feels the same way as I do.

I'm also annoyed at the headline writers, who, again, in order to generate pageviews create misleading headlines. I am sure I have whined about this before. My favorite is the "man arrested for x" variety of headlines, where, for example, the headline is "Man arrested for ordering cup of coffee," but it turns out he was pointing a Glock at the counterperson when ordering the coffee. So, I would suppose that the headline is technically true, but it misses the point entirely.

Posted at 05:29 PM | Comments (0)

August 20, 2010

Fantastic

The big glaring headline on Yahoo right now is "Top 5 Fantasy Football Mistakes." I clicked on it, only to mock it. I have yet to read it, because I do not play fantasy football. I am certain I have written on here before of my distaste for fantasy sports - my heart, tattered as it may be, belongs only to the gentleman currently wearing the red, white and blue of the Buffalo Bills. I have no interest in cheering for anyone else.

So, in honor of the Top 5 mistakes list, here is my list of the most annoying things about fantasy football.

5 - Fantasy football magazines. Do I really need an entire magazine to tell me which players are bound for a breakout year? More importantly, after a century and a half, more or less, of organized sports, isn't it fair to say predictions are almost always wrong?

4 - Your stupid fantasy football draft. I love getting together with the guys and getting rip-roaring drunk just as much as the next guy. Regretfully, it doesn't happen as much as I used to. But a bunch of dudes, sitting together for 8 hours as each one methodically picks their dream team, is not the way to do it, because you know there will always be one guy who is a slavedriver and will pee his pants with rage if people don't abide by the tentatively set ground rules. Why not get a case and watch football, you knuckleheads?

3 - Scoreboard tickers. Hey, ESPN, tell me the score. I don't want to wait fifteen minutes for the ticker at the bottom of the screen to go through every NFL score because I have to know that Elvis Grbac was 2 for 4 with 12 yards and an interception, and how St. Louis' outside linebacker has 0.5 tackles. Jesus Christ, just give me the damn score, I don't have all day!

2 - Conflicts of interest. As I mentioned, I hate the idea that somebody who is playing against the Bills needs to have a big day in order for my fantasy football team to win. It would not cheer me up for the Bills to lose by a last-second field goal, if said field goal was kicked by my fantasy team's kicker, enabling the fantasy team to win. Talk about a hollow victory.

1 - You telling me about your fantasy team. I used to go to this bar to watch football on Sundays, and there was always a guy who sat, by himself, with a laptop monitoring the stats of his fantasy players. Everytime one of them scored some points, he would turn to the nearest guy and tell him what happened. Or, I'd be in an elevator, and somebody would be telling his coworker how his fantasy team did over the weekend. News flash: I don't freaking care. Nobody cares. The only people who care are the ones in your league, and then probably half of them don't really care anymore because they are at the bottom of the standings and have no hope. Just take your damn laptop home, and watch some football. Gah!!

Posted at 03:19 PM | Comments (0)

August 19, 2010

Commuting

I am fortunate enough to have several commuting options to my job in the Loop. If I was a glutton for punishment, I could probably take the bus. I could also ride my bike, which for various reasons I have yet to do this summer - I need to do that.

My preferred way to get downtown is on the El. I've always loved trains, especially the subway/metro variety. They're so powerful, fast, and distinctly urban. The elevated train, of course, is such a Chicago staple that almost every character in a Chicago movie lives next to one or rides one.

I happen to live by a station where I can take either the Red or Brown line. The Red Line is, by far, the busiest line on the El. It runs north to south through almost the entire city. The Brown is an exclusively North Side line, but is still packed to the brim during the morning and afternoon rush. I prefer the Brown Line, however, because it never goes underground, unlike the Red Line. I feel safer that way. However, the trade-off is that the Brown Line takes about ten minutes longer to get to my office, which is bad news for a chronically late person like me.

My favorite part is that I get to know the individual train operators. Some are gruff - all they say is "doors are closing, don't try to board the train," which is a hare-brained solution to a problem of people who get caught in the doors. There's one driver on the Brown Line who is fundamentally chipper - he always says "Welcome aboard the CTA! Join us for your ride home!" I like when I get on his train.

There's another driver on the Red Line who is also talkative, but he also sounds very detached. I had him today - he announces the stops, and says what important buildings are there. At the Lake station, for example, he tells people who have jury duty that this is where they need to get off. He also says, in a monotone voice, things like "Have a good day, don't forget your lunch," or at my stop today, "Have a good day, no worries today - hopefully." I chuckled, but nobody else did - perhaps *they* have too many worries.

It's things like that, that make the city seem not so big and bad. I wonder if other subways are like that?

Posted at 12:12 PM | Comments (0)

August 18, 2010

Great moments in crime

Every guy who drinks beer has, at some point, hypothesized what a great idea it would be to own one's own bar. Those guys are idiots, in that bars are expensive, a hassle, and not very profitable unless you want to cater to idiots in Ed Hardy shirts. At least that is my understanding of it.

So, what better way to avoid the hassles of a bar, yet still run one? Step one: find an abandoned bar. Step two: break into the abandoned bar. Step three:

Detective Jim Hudson became suspicious after reading about the Valencia Club's re-opening in an Auburn Journal newspaper article that featured a picture of Kevie and identified him as the club's new "owner/operator". Not only had Detective Hudson had previous run-ins with Kevie, he knew the Valencia Club's liquor license had been surrendered.

When Detective Hudson went to the bar to investigate, he found it open for business and customers at the bar. Kevie quickly went from behind the bar to behind bars.

Deputies describe Kevie as a transient. They say he broke into the Valencia Club and put an open sign in the window on July 16th. Kevie kicked off his business with a six-pack of beer he bought and resold at the club. He used his profits to buy more alcohol keeping the club open throughout the weekend serving about 30 customers a day, deputies say.

Gold star for creativity; frownie face for getting busted. Cue the sad trombone.

Posted at 10:18 AM | Comments (0)

August 17, 2010

A mission from God

Part of my new job involves going out to pieces of land, checking them against maps drawn by the state, and photographing them for potential later use in litigation. I did this for the first time yesterday.

It may surprise you, but people do not like it when some weird guy is standing outside their property, taking pictures. At one particular piece of land, I was wading through some tall weeds when a voice through a speaker boomed, "what are you doing!"

I turned around to see a DuPage County Sheriff [Note: actual sheriff not pictured], sitting in his car, looking at me quite suspiciously. I approached his car, told him who I was and what I was doing, and he responded with a barrage of questions. Apparently I answered them properly, because he let me go, except he then sat in his car for a good ten minutes as I traipsed around the land.

Maybe he was running my license plates to see if there were any outstanding warrants on me. That sort of frightens me - because what if some bozo commits a crime, and *my* license plate number is mistakenly entered as his? I mean, I am sure there have to be typos every now and then.

This usually then ends with me in the interrogation room, where the cops are grilling me about some crime - but not necessarily telling me what crime - so as to lead to me unintentionally admitting to capital murder. I'm talking about like There's Something About Mary, where Ben Stiller thinks he is confessing to picking up a hitchhiker, and not that hitchhiker's murder; or My Cousin Vinny, where they confess to stealing a can of tuna instead of murder. This is because the cops say "I saw what you did," without ever saying what it is, and then the suspect says "I did it," without ever saying what he did. I have a feeling it's a lot funnier in the movies than in real life.

That's why, if I ever find myself in an interrogation room, I am going to ask those damn cops what exactly they think I did.

Actually, once I got pulled over coming off the Kennedy. It was at Wilson Ave, where for whatever reason the left turn lane of the expressway turns into a left turn lane to get back onto the expressway once you are on Wilson Ave. This caught me completely by surprise, more so because the left turn arrow was ludicrously faded on the road. So, I did what any Chicago driver would do - once the light turned green, I zoomed off straight ahead right out of that turn lane.

Lo and behold, John Q. Law (I've always wanted to say that) saw this and pulled me over. He did the stereotypical "do you know why I pulled you over?" I, remembering the unintentional confessions in those movies, asked him what he thought I did, to which he said, "No, you tell me what you did." So I told him, and he let me go.

Great story, I know.

Posted at 05:36 PM | Comments (0)

August 12, 2010

Whoops

Hello dear reader, sorry about the delay between postings. There were some computer shenanigans which inhibited my ability to write this here commentary.

Fortunately, I found a really awesome story. I always worry that when I get a new cell phone, what is going to happen to me old one? Will it end up in a trash heap? Recycled? Will somebody else use it? Clearly, some people sell them to used phone stores, who then resell them.

One ten year old boy got one of these phones. And when in his mother found out what was on that phone, the store had some splainin to do:

The cell phone was purchased used from Cellular World on South Broadway.

Mom Melody Olson says that when her 10-year-old son started looking through old text messages that were left on the phone, he found two that no child should see.

"There's one video, and there's one still text and they're both really graphic," dad Joe Hood told us.

The images appear to be home made porn, sent attached to text messages, a practice called "sexting".

Oopsy-daisy! I'm more concerned about the genius who owned the phone beforehand. You can bet that if I am giving an old phone to somebody, regardless of what's on it, every single bit of info is getting erased. This is the cell phone equivalent of writing a bank robbery note on your own personal check. People be so dumb, lolz!

Posted at 12:23 PM | Comments (0)

August 06, 2010

A lemon of a decision

I never quite understand people sometimes. Namely, every now and then, you will read about a health inspector/police officer/city official who shuts down an enterprise that a kid is running. For example, this health inspector ran off some kids who had set up a lemonade stand. Amazingly, the government officials actually apologized:

Julie Murphy came up with the idea of starting a lemonade stand after seeing one on a cartoon, according to her mother.
"Julie has been bothering me about doing a lemonade stand all summer," said Maria Fife, Julie's mother.
Like any young entrepreneur, Murphy broke out the pens, pencils and markers to create a sign for her stand.
She and her mother set up the stand on the corner of Northeast Alberta and 26th Avenue near the Last Thursday Street Festival. It wasn't long before business -- at 50 cents per cup -- started to pick up.
Soon after, however, a health inspector showed up at the stand and told Julie and her mother they were violating the law.
"They said to pack up and go home because they were going to fine us," Fife said.
On Thursday, Multnomah County Chair Jeff Cogen called Fife to apologize to her daughter. He said the health inspectors were simply doing what they were told to do.

I always wonder if stuff like this happened 30 years ago. Did health inspectors tell kids their lemonade storage and refrigeration methods were unsanitary? Did licensing agents inform them they needed a $500 permit? My suspicion is that this sort of joke always happened to an extent, but now that we have the internet, everyone knows about it. To me, the sorriest types of these stories are the ones where an adult turns in the kids.

Nevertheless, I can understand, at least, the motivation of some health inspectors. Suppose some guy buys some lemonade, then gets violently ill, or swallows an Ebola-infected cockroach. (It's possible!) You know if that happens, someone is getting sued, and little Suzy probably does not have liability insurance on that lemonade stand. It's a fine line, really.

Posted at 10:29 AM | Comments (0)

August 02, 2010

How not to beg

In downtown Chicago, there are quite a few beggars. At the corner of State & Jackson, there is one who stands outside the Walgreens and repeats "Help a guy get himself somethin' to eat," and his cadence sounds like someone selling peanuts at a baseball game. There are others, but he stands out the most.

Last Friday, I was walking around Wabash, when I heard the unmistakable sound of a cup filled with coins, being wooshed around. I'm sure this is the universal sign for "gimme money." When the person making the sound caught my eye, I was stunned: she was sitting in a lawn chair, the coins were in a plastic Starbucks mug, and she had a roller suitcase parked behind her chair.

Now, I know nothing of this woman's circumstances. I haven't seen her before, and unfortunately certain beggars tend to become fixtures. But she was such a non-pitiful beggar. The reason people are begging, presumably, is because they are completely out of options. No job, can't work, or can't get hired. Nowhere to live. No money to eat. This woman didn't look like that: she looked like her next stop was the bingo parlor. Why should I give money to someone who, for all intents and purposes, didn't look like she was struggling too badly?

I'm aware that appearance matters, and I think an unkempt beggar will be less successful than one who isn't dirty. However, there is a fine line between presenting oneself well, and not looking the part. A lady in a lawnchair just doesn't seem deserving of charity; a beggar in a rumpled suit, however, might earn a dip into my wallet.

I think the biggest part of this to me is the lawn chair. Lawn chairs spell relaxation. People don't take the MCAT in a lawn chairs. They watch fireworks; or Little League games. But they do not work in them. As I mentioned in my post about labor union giant inflatable rats, it is hard to seem outraged when sitting in one of these, or any sort of negative emotion.

So, to recap, lawn chairs are good for amusing, and bad for begging or protesting. I mean, look at these people - does this make you want to march on Washington? A note to future beggars out there: if you want to garner sympathy, looking relaxed in a chair isn't the way to do it. Try a milk crate or cardboard box instead.

Posted at 04:39 PM | Comments (0)