To call or not to call

I’ve got no problem with flying. I certainly don’t mind cell phones seeing as I own one. But one those two combine I get seriously pissed. It seems that ever since people got cell phones they feel compelled to call their entire phone list their flight status changes. I get calling the person who’s picking you up, but you don’t need to call your best friend, your grandmother, and your ex just because we changed gates.

2008 isn't anything special

I know it's been awhile since I posted and I know the random few people who follow my blog have been missing my posts horribly, but hey, I've been busy. But I'll try to keep up to date and if I don't I'll lose some serious sleep, like at least 20 minutes, worrying about it. But off I go:

I've never understood New Year's Resolutions (I'm abbreviating it to NYR cause I'm cool like that). It seems like they're an excuse for people to feel like they're bettering themselves when most of them know that the resolutions won't amount to anything. Approximately 73% of NYRs fail within the first three months according to a study I just made up. But I've never understood what the point of NYRs: if you want to change, don't wait till December 31st to do it.

All of that being said, I've made exactly one NYR in my life. In 5th grade I got tired of being yelled at for being late to school so I resolved to lay out my clothes for the next day and pack my backpack the night before. Not very profound, but I kept it for every single day until I graduated from high school. I guess it's about time for another NYR. Ehh, I'll get to it in 2009.

My average Thursday

8:00 – Alarm goes off
8:01 – Profanity
8:30 – I microwave my oatmeal for breakfast. It's the best packaged oatmeal I've had in my life.
9:15 – I feed my fish. It’s the highlight of his day and my morning.
10:00 – I read the last 100 pages of an assigned book. Its main point is that slavery was a bad thing. No shit.
11:00 – I make myself brunch and expand my culinary skills to cooking scrambled eggs and hash browns.
11:30 – Nap
1:00 – We meet in class to discuss the book I just finished reading. The professor says that the main point of the book was that slavery was bad and asks for our opinions. I say, “No shit”. Not the smartest move.
3:30 – Time to answer students’ e-mails.
3:34 – Student #1 can’t make it to tomorrow’s test due to a sick grandmother.
3:37 – Another sick grandmother.
3:42 – A student has a sick rabbit and also can’t make it. Hey, at least it’s a new excuse.
4:00 – Nap: the sequel
6:00 – dinner
6:30 – Staring outside the window and bitching about how cold it is
7:00 – Studying. It’s the highlight of my day (well, after the second nap)
8:00 – the couple in the apartment above me are arguing again
8:45 – The couple stops arguing. I can go back to studying.
9:30 – The couple starts having sex quite loudly. I’m not sure which I hate more.
10:00 – I watch my lone hour of TV for the day. Tonight it involves koala bears. Did you know they sleep up to 18 hours a day? Ahh, the good life.
11:00 – Some more studying as the upstairs couple is mixing arguing with sex. I pound on the ceiling with my broom.
11:45 – Finally blessed with silence I get to sleep.

I'm out of title ideas

I saw a commercial today where a lady was stressing out about her "thick" eyebrows. Suddenly someone showed up and gave her tweezers and some electric doodad and now she has scary pencil thin eyebrows and will live happily ever after. That's just silly.

Ladies, when you see your eyebrows, can you count to two? If you answered yes, then you're fine.

The Plight of a 49er Fan

On January 29, 1995 I officially became a man. That was the date that after two long years of being a San Francisco 49ers that they rewarded my allegiance with a Superbowl win. It was glorious.

When my father had first strapped me into a chair at age 7 to learn the great American game of football I thought it was stupid. What the hell were all of these downs and turnovers? And the giant yellow posts at each just freaked me out. But as the season stretched on I began to see the point. I especially liked knowing something I could explain to my mother. By the 94 season things were looking up and the West Coast Offense came to fruition on the fateful January day.

Since then, things haven’t been so great. Oh sure, we made to the playoffs in most late 90s seasons, but never again to the Big Game. Most of the time the Packers were there to stop us, but I could never bring myself to hate Brett Favre. Now my team is going through a rebuilding decade. Sure, I can root for the Packers now that I’m living in Wisconsin but I don’t have that irrational, will sacrifice my first born for a win, devotion that I have for the 49ers. Instead I’m stuck watching the 49ers while grading tests, which is a lose-lose-lose situation. Lose for the 49ers, lose for me because I get grumpy and lose for the students because grumpy Paolo means lower test grades. For everyone’s sake I’m just hoping SF makes it to an 8-8 season.

Last Call

Well, more proof that Milwaukee is crazy.

I’ve never understood the concept behind phone sex lines. It always seemed like the people who use those are the weirdos who are too scared to find a prostitute. Now I’ve also never given much thought to phone sex lines until I moved to Milwaukee. Now whenever I turn on the TV to watch Leno or Letterman I can’t go one commercial break without seeing at least two different phone sex ads. After awhile I started to notice a few things about these disturbing commercials.

First, the ladies on the commercials look like picking up the phone could be the most exciting thing that I could do. Forget about food, sleep, or anything else. All you need to do is touch that handset and bliss is yours (at $2.99 a minute). Sometimes they’ll be whole gaggles of ladies huddled around a phone having the times of their lives and that I should call too! Another thing is that there is more than one type of sex line. There are lines for guys calling for girls, girls calling for guys, guys calling for guys, and girls calling for girls. When the advertisements for different varieties it gets pretty confusing. I’ll go the bathroom and when I come back the lady in the lingerie has suddenly turned into a 250 lb shirtless man with a deep baritone voice. Now I’m not passing any moral judgments and I’m sure that all of these businesses make some people very happy. But for me I’ll take commercials advertising something that I might actually buy, like chocolate.

Time to Pack it on out of here

I already knew that most people in Milwaukee were crazy, but for proof I had to look no further than Sunday afternoon. You see, Sunday afternoon means that a Green Bay Packers game is on and that means people go insane.

My first clue was when I was at the gym during game time. I hopped on the treadmill and looked up at the bank of TVs above the bank of treadmills. Of the 8 TVs, 6 of them were set to the Packers game, 1 was set to the other football game, and the last was set to “Saving Private Ryan”. The other joggers were watching the Packers game with such intensity that they would swear with what spare breath they had. I swear that one guy almost fell off the damn treadmill when Brett Favre fumbled the ball. The guy recovered when the ref ruled it an incomplete pass.

On the way home the game ended and people began pilling out of bars and restaurants cheering like the Packers had won the Super Bowl. I get home looking for the next game to be covered on CBS but I was out of luck. The local stations had taken over and were going to give me 3 HOURS of post game coverage. How can post game coverage be longer than the actual game? However, the fans did look like they’re having a fun time rooting for their team. I don’t know whether to join them or filing a restraining order against everyone in the state.