I was at the grocery store the other day buying my weekly crap, and during the checkout process, the young man ringing up our junks was perusing the items we were buying... bratwurst, buns, an onion, a bell pepper, some beer. I guess he assumed some sort of event was taking place, so he says "So am I invited to the cookout?". Wow. Now, I think most people would probably just assume he was simply making small talk. I too, quickly drew this conclusion. But, what if I wrong? What if he truly wanted to come to my house and eat my groceries? What if his game was to ring up groceries all day and more or less ask each customer if he could go to their houses and hang out and have some food, just to see who would bite. What if he was just trying to push the envelope? What if he was running some kind of experiment to see how people would react when given something that could be read as small talk, or could be taken as a serious question. What if, on several occasions, someone said "sure, come on over!", and he went to their houses. By just letting this pass and not giving a definitive answer, what if he feels as though he has won this round. We all know how important having the upper hand is, and now this chump has it, possibly over every person that goes through his checkout facilities. DAMN IT!

So, when presented with his potential challenge, I went to my old standby. I said "hmmm... perhaps!" Ok, so what would be the worst thing that could happen if instead I said "Yes you are my friend." I suppose he could have then asked for my address, and later showed up with a weapon and tried to steal all my fancy shit or end my life. That seems unlikely. A little less extreme would be he shows up, hangs out, and eats my food. Either way, its a break from the norm, so what have I got to lose? If he tried to murderize me, I would reply with my shotgun. If he was really just hungry, perhaps I gain a new friend. Its win/win.

So what am I trying to say? Nothing really. I just thought it was interesting. I guess in the future, we should all consider not just taking the easy road. We should challenge ourselves to challenge others. Can anyone really afford to let someone else have the upper hand? I think not.

Phucket

Wow, a new record period of time without posting. But, I am back from vacation and feeling back to my old form, so posts should start rolling out more frequently now, or least posts of a higher caliber. ...by the way, have I mentioned how bad ass squirrels are lately?

I have always sort of studied words and the way people use them. I think I have been more tuned into this study after reading a few books on psychology and human nature. Today I'd like to quickly analyze two things. One is related to the use of words, and the other is a quick analysis of a phrase I hear a lot, and how much I hate it.

This weekend Hurricane Ike devastated the Texas coast. For some reason, I really got into the whole event. I suppose it’s because I have spent time in the Galveston area, and have a lot of fond memories of it. I watched coverage end to end. DirecTV even put on special extra channels just dedicated to hurricane coverage. One of the channels they had available was a local Houston network, which had non stop coverage of the entire event. After the hurricane hit, one of the anchors from the local Houston network said something I found very peculiar. She said that a lot of homes on the Bolivar Peninsula were "completely completely destroyed." What? Really? Completely completely? This got me thinking about how often I hear people doing this... using the same adjectives and/or adverbs twice in a row to somehow try to give greater impact to the statement. Perhaps the most popular one would be "very very". "Hey, look over there, that's a very very large donut", or "Good Christ Tom, would you look at that, she has very very big titties!". I was a little surprised to see a trained news anchor do this, but I guess once they stray from the teleprompter, they are as dumb as a bag of hammers. Totally, totally dumb. Why stop there though? If you are trying to make your stupid babble sound more important why not pull out something like this? "Jeff was very very very very very very very very very VERY V E R Y angry, so he shot Donna in the stomach with a harpoon." It would be an instant classic to hear the television news anchor say something like "The Bolivar Peninsula was completely completely completely completely completely completely destroyed". You look stupid either way, so just go balls deep already.

Next up is these people that say "I don't have time". BULLSHIT. You have plenty of time. I am sure I am guilty of this from time to time when I hit a bit of a funk, but come on, there is plenty of time. This is the absolute easiest defense mechanism for people to try and use to justify not doing something that's hard or something that doesn't have as high a priority as something else. Let's get something straight here. Everyone has plenty of time. The interesting part is that people pull this out a lot when talking about something they really want to do. "I want to learn Spanish, but I just don't have time." Bullshit, it’s not like you have to spend 8 intense hours a day trying to learn it. "I would like to exercise, but I just don't have time". BULLSHIT! Quit lying to yourself. You have time. Obviously you have time to lie to yourself about not having time; you could have used that time to do something, rather than doing nothing. Just about everyone spends some time watching TV. If you watch TV for just 30 minutes a day, that's 30 minutes you could be exercising while watching TV. If you spend 30 minutes a day driving in your car, that's 30 minutes you could spend learning Spanish from audio CDs.

So, your homework now is to analyze your time, and see how much time you spend doing virtually nothing, or how much time you could multi-task and do multiple things at once. I think you would be surprised how much time you have. A whole whole lot of time.

So fuck off with your double adverbs and your "don't have time". Eat shit.