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Showing posts from 2010

Get Involved

As many of you already know, use of the phrase "no homo" has become pervasive among rap and hip hop fans (my friends included). This was mostly inspired by social justice pioneer, Lil' Wayne (please disregard current prison sentence). For those unfamiliar, it goes something like this: "I love you, man...no homo." Anyway, I think gay people need to get in on the fun. For example: "Damn girl, that top makes your boobs look great...no hetero." Why should straight people be the only ones who get to discriminate?

What's Wrong With This Picture?

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Below is a car that parks outside my house all the time. Actually, that's a generous use of the word "car." Crapbox is a much better description. In fact, the only reason I know it's not abandoned is that I occasionally see it parked across the street, rather than around the corner. But I digress. Like the title says, what's wrong with this picture? I know what you're thinking: "Jawann, is it the passenger's side window all sealed up with duct tape?" Nope. "Maybe the driver's side mirror that's hanging on by a thread?" Wrong again. I'll just tell you. You see that red thing peaking through the windshield? You know what that is? It's...The Club. That's right, not only is the owner delusional enough to think The Club is an effective method of deterring auto thieves, but they think someone might actually want to steal their ride. While the 1980 Volkswagen Vanagon that also parks nearby is no Maybach, I&

Do Good

The last thing I would ever want to do is sound pessimistic, but I don't think that reusable bags are going to save the world. It's a good idea in theory, but as with any other consumer good, people end up buying them in excess. User error is part of the problem. I'm the owner of two reusable bags that I got as Christmas gifts last year. Unfortunately I can also count the number of times I've remembered to bring them shopping with me on no hands. A surprisingly large number of people will simply a buy a new one when this happens, adding to their already inflated inventory. I go for the paper bag, but we'll get back to that later. Since shoppers need to get their money's worth, the bags are made to last. I will make the completely unsubstantiated and yet seemingly reasonable claim that reusable bags consume between 20 and 50 times more resources during production than their disposable counterparts. That means every bag purchased must be used 20-50 times to break

You Might Even See A Moose

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This shit cracks me up...enough to be worthy of a post: I love New Hampshire.

Under My Umbrella

Okay, not MY umbrella. I don't own one. And you couldn't pay me to carry one. But I think I'm part of the minority here. Half the people I see on the street don't seem to realize that wind + umbrella = stumbling around, getting soaked, and looking like a dummy while valiantly attempting to turn it outside in (guess that's the opposite of inside out). The other half have Gore-Tex jackets on, with hoods pulled tight, like the Wicked Witch of West doing her best to avoid another melting incident. Department of redundancy department anyone? Maybe not everyone got CC'd on the memo, but here are the cliff notes: some guy invented the raincoat.

Poor Planning 2

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(See the original Poor Planning post from March 13, 2009.) For the past several weeks a wood flooring company's van has been parked in close proximity to my house. As the picture shows, they do it all: dustless buffer, installation, sanding, refinishing, and staining. I'm not sure which one of my neighbors is utilizing these services, but their floors should be lookin' fly before too long. Now I'm sure these guys are fine purveyors of the wood flooring arts, but marketing geniuses they certainly are not. www.hardwoodfloors.com would have been a great URL, but the fact that it was already taken didn't make putting "my" at the beginning a good idea. On the contrary, it's probably the worst pronoun they could have chosen. Let's take another example: even if Merriam-Webster found that their first, second, third, and fourth website choices were all taken, picking www.mybigdictionary.com would still be ill-advised.

Think Before You Act

This has finally happened enough times to get me sufficiently heated for a blog post. That's a pretty low bar, I know, but today gave me the inspiration I needed. Two radio stations that sometimes get run in my car are JAM'N 94.5 and KISS 108 (which is actually 107.9, which also gets me heated, but is not the point right now). Nowadays I'm usually tuned in to NPR, but taking a break from the financial crisis and the dubious wars in various Middle Eastern countries that most people couldn't place on a map can be necessary. JAM'N used to be my favorite, but it's degraded over the past decade. KISS used to suck, but has undergone moderate improvement. The reason for this convergence? They're both owned by Clear Channel now. Their playlists are disturbingly similar, covering much of the same pop music. JAM'N leans slightly to the hip hop side, while KISS leans to the "I'm a 12 year old girl" side. An hour spent switching back and forth will

New Word For Your Noggin

Welcome to my newest segment: New Word For Your Noggin. Your number one source for slang, bad puns, and vernacular from the not-so-mean streets of Cambridge. These are words I either made up, stole from someone else and am claiming as my own, or simply want to pass along for the greater good. Today's entry: textastrophe tex•tas•tro•phe - noun 1. A catastrophic text message-related event. 2. A grossly misinterpreted text message. Examples Sending that text about what she was gonna do to her boyfriend, to her dad, turned into a serious textastrophe. The most prominent textastrophe to date was the result of Tiger Woods texting his hos in different area codes. Using the word "fat" in a message is a textastrophe waiting to happen, even if you mean it in a good way. Remember, you heard it here first.

Sleeve, Meet Emotions

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For Christmas ESPN and ABC got me five NBA games back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back. I didn't even have to ask, they just knew. Besides just being awesome, it was a great opportunity to play one of my new favorite games: Emotional NBA. The game is a close cousin to Celebrity NBA, which I'm sure is still fresh in your mind from April . Have you ever known someone who looked like they were constantly immersed in a deep pool of sorrow? If so, you already know how to play. Anyone can be the focal point (friends, co-workers), but for some reason it's hard to find many pictures of my boys on Google. With NBA players, the examples are everywhere. Below you'll find the name, team, picture, and whatever's going through his head. Let's start with the classic: Anthony Randolph (Golden State Warriors) "Why's everybody in the NBA gotta be so mean?" *sniffle sniffle* Kendrick Perkins (Celtics) "I'm 'bout to kill a mothafucka." Andrei Kirilenk