Lost in Translation

Peep this.

I just went and picked up a sammich at the Subway shop on West End Ave. and 61st Street. I ordered a 6" turkey on roasted garlic bread. Sounds simple enough, doesn't it?

The distinguished young sandwich artist standing across the counter before me was at the ready. He put on a fresh pair of exam gloves and looked at them as though they were his paintbrushes. The sandwich artist grabbed a footlong bat of roasted garlic bread, sliced it, and started filling it up with turkey. Okay, so I'm getting a footlong now. I guess it's only $1 or so more if that and I'm kinda hungry anyways... no skin off my back. He then grabbed a tile of flatbread, put turkey and cheese on it, and asked if I wanted either one or both toasted.

Says I: "Uh, sorry, but I did not order another sandwich, much less one on flatbread.. cancel that one, please." He then went over to the footlong and started scooping the bread-meat out of the loaf, essentially leaving a hollowed out bread-bowl pod. "This good.. you mean like this?" he asked.

Okay. So that's how this is gonna go down? I explained to him once more as clear as possible that I only ordered one sammich, NOT 2. Just the 6" footlong that he was making for me. I went into caveman mode and pointed to it and nodded my head yes, pointed to the flatbread and shook my head no. Big sandwich. Yes. Sandwich on bread tile. No. Please, thankyou, etc.

I thought to myself He clearly understands my order now, right?

"Okay. Lettuce tomato?" he asked, pulling both the scalloped loaf of bread and flatbread canvases toward the pallet of fresh fixins. Every time I told him what I wanted on my 6" footlong he would throw it on the flatbread as well. This sandwich order discombobulation continued to the bitter end. I contemplated leaving in lieu of sticking around for whatever sheer terror was about to transpire at the cash register. The man couldn't operate a loaf of bread... how could he possibly ring me up - especially without any pictures on the buttons?

I was going to add a beverage to my order but refrained from doing so. There was no need to complicate matters more than they already were. The way things were going he'd probably snap his fingers and a team of sandwich artists would suddenly emerge from the back room with a 6 foot party sub loaf crammed full of oatmeal raisin cookies.

In the end I was charged for only 1 footlong and left with two sammiches. Not a bad deal. I can only hope that this particular sandwich artist changes professions someday. I'd love to see what would happen if he ended up being my teller at the Bank of America counter and had to exchange my $10 bill for a roll of quarters.

My life is about to change forever

Tomorrow I'm expecting the UPS man to deliver a box to me that contains a brand new 3rd generation Kindle e-book reader. Thanks to all of the electronics purchases I make on behalf of my employer, I recently racked up enough bonus points to cash in for one. Six months ago I could have cared less about such a doodad, but I'm currently going on almost a year of reading roughly 2 hours a day on the train to and from work. I have 30+ notches in my finished book belt since last October which is prolly more books than I've read (through to the end at least) in the last 20 years combined. And a lot of these books I've been reading don't even have pictures! I know! It's amazing how my attention span with books significantly increased when suddenly the only alternative I had to reading them was staring at Docker and pantsuit-adorned asses 12" from my face when sitting in a crowded train.

The problem with reading books on the subway is they're just another gall damned cumbersome thing to carry, not to mention at least once or twice a day while I'm reading someone will brush past me getting on or off the train and inadvertently flip a few pages. In order for that to happen after tomorrow, someone will have to bend down and press the page turn button on the side of the Kindle.. and I will take that Kindle and whap them on the head with it providing there's room on the train for my arms to adequately pivot.

I've always had this weird thing with trying to keep my books in pristine shape when I read them. Not so easy to do when I have to shove my books in my backpack every day.. by the time I'm done with them they're far from mint (I still haven't read my Dave Mustaine book for that reason). That won't be an issue anymore being that there are no covers or dust jackets to worry about with e-books.

Another great life change I anticipate with Kindle ownership: it plays mp3s. This will really come in handy when I jog around the park because now instead of bringing my iPod along for the run as I always do, I'll bring the Kindle to a) play music and b) read as I run. I have a cartoon bubble over my head of running, listening to Slayer, and reading some Mark Twain - all at once. Sure, I might crash into another runner, tree, or maybe even a cyclist, but that's OK. As long as I have my Kindle I can use its 3G service to email someone for help.

My Kindle will hold up to 3,500 books. That's fucking sweet, man. Can you say "book burning party"? The wife and I have quite the little book collection on the 6 tier bookshelves in our living room area that surround our television. Now we can get rid of those unsightly books and I can put the Kindle on one of the many empty shelves in their place. The rest can be filled up with dirty dishes, beer bottles, unopened mail... the sky is the limit. I'm so excited to get all of that shelf space back! I almost want to burn them now just to get an early start.

I wonder why it's called a Kindle? I know the people at Amazon are clever sometimes... Maybe that's some sort of sarcastic name and it's actually nonflammable. I'm going to go throw some lighter fluid and a Zippo in my backpack for when it arrives in my office... I'll spray it all over the box, set it on fire, and once all that can be burned has been burned there will be one thing remaining in the pile of soot: my sweet new Kindle. When co-workers inevitably walk by to see what all of the fire and fuss is about I will hiss at them so they know to keep their distance. Leave me alone, man. Sue me if you have to. When I have to do that thing in court where I put my hand on the ho-lee bible I'll be able to download it to my Kindle on the spot via the Amazon store in less than 60 seconds.

My Hanes T-Shirts Are Sealed for Freshness

I noticed something about my 3 pack of Hanes Premium shirts when throwing it into my basket at Target yesterday: the top of the bag is resealable. Well I'll be damned. This is something that I've noticed before, but I didn't notice notice it. I never really stopped to think about why that Ziploc-style technology is there.

I'm all for sealing my shirts in a bag and keeping them fresh; there is nothing like that first time you wear a shirt or pair of socks after buying them. You get that one day of pure absolute joy and then after the first washing they just become another t-shirt or another pair of socks. But here's the problem: the 3 shirts are all stacked together like flapjacks, folded over a square of cardboard, and then secured together with a few pieces of clear tape. If you're like me, you wear only one Hanes Premium t-shirt at a time. Am I supposed to remove the glob of shirts from the package, get my one shirt, and then fold and tape the two remaining shirts back onto the cardboard and stuff them back into the resealable bag? That seems like a lot of work, but it dawned on me that maybe that's why my white t-shirts are "spoiling". They seem to develop yellow stains in the pits after a while. Could it be because I'm not storing them in the resealable bag?

Call me crazy but I've always just removed them from the bag after buying, refolded them, and stashed 'em in my dresser drawer with my other white tees. Could it be that the yella pit stains are contagious and transfer from my old shirts to the new ones? Should I be throwing out the older ones and keeping the new ones that aren't in use in the resealable bag just as an extra measure of protection? Do I need to have our dresser fumigated or swabbed for traces of yellow pit stain bacteria? Maybe a black light test is in order.. I saw that on Dateline once and haven't looked at hotel room TV remote controls and faucet knobs the same since. One thing I'm guessing wouldn't be too contaminated in a black light test is the bible in the nightstand drawer. Chances are if you're someone who reads the bible you already have your own good book in tow laced with your own personal holy DNA and bacteria.

Back to the shirts in the resealable bag. I pay a premium for my premium shirts which I thought all this time was just for thicker fabric. The regular flimsy Kleenex-thin white tees reveal my chest hair and upper arm tats which is something I'm not cool with; it looks trashy and grody. But now I see part of that premium also goes towards the deluxe resealable packaging. Although I'm not going to dilly dally with stuffing my new shirts back in that bag I'll at least try and repurpose it. It's too bad they don't make loaves of bread as tall and wide as the bag dimensions.. it would make a killer sandwich carrier. Perhaps Hanes could get into the bread business. Flatbread might work. Is there such thing as a square pita? The Ziploc-style seal is much nicer than those on the deli meat bags we get with the little white square pull tab that always falls off, so maybe the next time we go get a pound of smoked Boar's Head toikey I'll throw the bag at the clerk and say "Fillerup!" I will request a stack of extra large slices - that way I can also reuse the cardboard by taping the turkey slices onto it (that probably looks a lot cooler in my head than it does in written word form).

It would also make a good resealable bag for 45rpm records. The problem with that is I don't have any. Part of the premium I pay is for this deluxe bag and I'm not just going to throw it away... At least not until I get a hold of the people at Dateline to do an expose on my theory of yellow pit stains being contagious to other shirts. I might have them bring the bag back to their labs to see if there's some sort of stain-blocking particles in the bag that they could clone and turn into an underarm spray.

Adventures in Podiatric Space Taco Selection

I've been a jogger of sorts on/off since my high school days. Mostly "on" for a week or two then "off" for a few years. This past year however I have really taken a shining to it now that we're spoiled by living a mere 2 blocks from one of the coolest parks in Brooklyn to run around. The scenery is something I now look forward to every morning. I've got trees, trails, grassy fields, horse poop, water, an unspent condom, an empty enema box... it's really quite breathtaking. I've been doing about 20 miles a week and as a result my feet and knees have been letting me know lately that I need better shoes. Apparently running shoes are supposed to be replaced every 300-500 miles. I did not know this. My current pair was approaching the 3 year mark and had the support of a pair of flip flops. I've been ignoring the fact that I need to buy new ones for the plain and simple fact that I don't want to spend money on the f'in things. It's much more fun to spend money on more important needs such as beer and pizza.

All that I can say after buying a new pair of running shoes this weekend is that running shoes are pretty much the ugliest fucking things ever. It's not much better for chicks either, but dude running shoes win the ugly race by a long shot. There are decent looking options that appear to be running shoes, but after doing some pretty extensive research on running shoe ratings I found that basically anything I'd instinctively walk up to and want to buy was not a practical option if I was planning on doing anything more than regular old walking in 'em. Dropping what to me is a substantial amount of money on something I wouldn't want to be caught dead in is not a fun shopping conflict to be in the middle of. Hmmmm.... On that note I think I'll tie a pair of Chuck Taylors around my waist in the event that something happens to me. Hopefully I'd be able to change back into those and throw my running shoes into the bushes with the crushed beer cans and enema box.

Is there such thing as a running shoe that doesn't look like a space caterpillar wrapped in a doily crochetted by an intergalactic alien grandmother? Seriously.

What the fuck is this?



For reals?? Did the shoe trailer accidentally get dropped off at the Edge shaving gel factory? Why silver? Why shave gel blue? Do the stripes on the side make you run faster? Do the little red nubs on the bottom that look like LED lights illuminate or blast you off the ground into the mothership? I know that running shoes are a result of some highly sophisticated engineering and foot nerdery, but that doesn't mean they can't camouflage said nerdery. You're pretty much left with no choice but to have your feet adorned with shoes that yell out to the world "LOOK AT ME EVERYONE! MY FEET ARE IN SPACE TACOS!"

Maybe they make them look like that so that you have to run from people who are trying to beat you up because you're wearing such ugly shoes. Exercise via fear. Perhaps it's a ploy to get you to run more and wear them out faster so that you go buy them more frequently with aspirations of the manufacturer opting for newer, less shaving-gel-burrito-from-Pluto aesthetics. The particular shoe that I was sold on provided me with the option to pick my own custom colors on the Nike website for an additional $30. Bryn had mentioned that this was maybe why they make the standard shoes so gall damned ugly - it makes you consider paying even more just to get something that doesn't look like Stevie Wonder chose the colors while standing in one of those cash tornado booths filled with ugly color swatches.

I ended up going with the peculiar looking chunk of rubber and other space-age fibers to the left. Yeah, they're pretty rad. Out of the 4 available colors this was the least nauseating choice. The others were black with white and baby blue accents (yes, that combo is for dudes), light grey with white and fluorescent radioactive urine-colored accents, and then white with puke grey and bright blue accents. Alas, this particular specimen was one of the higher rated podiatric space tacos within my budget and the very instant I put 'em on, my feet were in absolute bliss. For Christ's sake though, why all of the busy stuff? Who was the genius that decided on off-tan, brown, white, orange, and maroon? It's not like I'm Tim Gunn or anything or that I have anyone to impress - especially while running. It just boggles my mind that people have to abandon basically all and any taste when it comes to buying footwear for running. I accept the fact that although the build of my running shoes are just a few strands of DNA from Gene Simmons' dragon boots, they're saving my knees and feet. But this color combo madness needs to stop.

I'm sure there are those who see a pair of shoes that look like the design was based off of a late 1990's Aiwa 3 CD changer bookshelf stereo system and think "Wow, those are really sweet. I absolutely must have them and wear them at once!" I ask that those of you on that side of the fence take my running shoe rant with a grain of salt. I'm a dude who has adhered to a strict diet of Chuck Taylors since the late 1980s and maybe am just a little narrow minded. I'm guessing that the pro-running shoe design fans are far outnumbered by the anti fans, though.

Anyways. My run this morning was an incredibly cushy ride in my sweet new A&W root beer colored kicks, so I should be thankful that at least they're serving their purpose. I paid close attention to the shoes of other runners in the park and realized we're all on the ugly shoe train together. Perhaps we all need to gather in the middle of the park to protest and have a shoe burning. Do you hear us now, Nike?

(Insert Twisted Sister's We're Not Gonna Take It here)

No rallying until I hit the 450 mile mark with mine though... I paid good money for these ugly-ass sunnofabitches. In the mean time I guess there's always that Croc burning protest idea I can start putting together.

Enema Enigma

Men At Work's "Business As Usual" was cranking through my earbuds and I was on the home stretch of my morning run through Prospect Paahk today when something caught my eye. Occasionally I'll see a stray empty beer can, a few fast food wrappers, and other assorted garbage that presumably ends up there as a result of someone mistaking beautiful, flourishing park foliage for a waste receptacle. I can see where it's pretty easy to mix the two up.

Today's standout garbage item was something much more unique and thought provoking than your run of the mill nugget of garbage. Even more thought provoking than the unrolled prophylactic that I ran past on the park's east side dirt path for about a month until it mysteriously disappeared. Did a dog eat it? Was it finally used? Did a kid pick it up and inflate it? I'll never know and it's causing me to lose sleep. At any rate, this morning's bright and shining mystery star on the ground was none other than an empty enema box.

An empty enema box? In Prospect Paaahk?! On a 50' stretch of trail that goes through a tunnel of trees?

If only empty enema boxes could talk.

Instant Everything™

Instead of screwing around on Facebook when I'm mentally restless I'm going to try and focus at least some of that energy on journaling instead when the urge to type brain Twinkies emerges. Even if it's just a short entry and not a mile long book like I've been doing lately what little I post on this thing. Facebook is fun and all but it's a little too instantaneous and time stamped. I don't like the fact that I can post something and potentially have someone read it and think "Hmm... so Mike hasn't responded to my email/voicemail yet but he has time to post on Facebook?" A few times people have called me out on that. Sure, I'm guilty, but a) I'm horseshit at answering my phone much less putting forth the effort to press and hold the 1 key on it to check voicemail, and 2) maybe you need to make your messages stick out a little bit more or at least interesting enough for me to make it past the first few words. Did you ever think of that, lame email/voicemail leaver? It's not all my fault. It takes two slices of bread to fulfill my attention defect disorder sandwich of correspondence.

So anyways, this new Google Instant thing sort of concerns me. If you're not yet familiar with it, try Googling it and a million links will vomit themselves up in your browser without you even having to press enter. I tried searching for something this morning and it looked like my web browser was having a seizure every time I typed in a character. At first I thought it was a cool hallucinogenic side effect of the 16oz Red Bull I'd slammed but it turned out that my browser was the one that was doing the jitterbug.

Does the world really need this? I've been an avid Google user ever since being blessed with a Gmail invitation from a friend back in the invite-only days. I'm starting to notice that the more changes they make to the Gmail interface and the Google search engine over time they're really not making life easier. Sure.. that's what they're doing on the surface. But at the same time they're slowly turning our brains into lazy mushy globs of mashed potatoes, and not even real ones. Yeah - powdered ones. I recall the days of searching the innernets for something and if I happened to misspell a word or two (shocking I know, but even awesome people like me make mistakes) it would kick back zero or very few results. Usually the only results were meaningless sites that happened to feature the identical misspelling that you'd just fed into the search engine. It was at least reassuring to know there was another human out there who made an identical fuck-up, and even went so far as to accidentally publish it on a website.

Looks like those days are becoming extinct. I suppose it's convenient. But so was watching Jerry Blackwell's big sweaty ass on AWA on Sunday mornings and drinking Pepsi instead of doing my homework in 5th grade. As a result of computers thinking for me I'm finding that I no longer pay close attention to how I spell stuff. I've talked to other people who are going through the same thing. That's fine and dandy on a computer, but when I have to hand write something or type into one of the few text applications left in the computer world without spell check I'm pretty much fucked with most of the words my inner proofreader stops me and taps my shoulder on. This is not good. That helpful skill has been overwritten with other information.. like the echoing sound of a robotic auto pilot voice in my head that tells me "DON'T WORRY, YOUR FRIEND MR. COMPUTERMACHINE WILL FIX IT FOR YOU. THANK YOU AND HAVE A NICE DAY, YOU JUST KEEP ON MAKING MISTAKES NOW, YOU HEAR?"

If this keeps going, what's next? Google Fridge? I open the fridge and if I think of the letter B, butter, beer, and broccoli suddenly swoosh to the front and center? Google TV? Google purse? Google chewless chewing gum that blows its own bubbles and loses flavor after 10 minutes all by itself? Google poop-and-dingleberry magnet toilet paper? Can we not just leave the entertaining psychic computer stuff to 20Q?

I dunno. Call me old fashioned but sometimes I enjoy the whole process of having to think and react in order to accomplish something. Sometimes. Just some occasional combustion up in the ol' noggin to shake the dust off. Such as when I want my shoes tied: I bend over and tie them and bask in the fruits of my labor with a rewarding walk from point A to B without my shoes falling off. I do not need a Google Shoelace app to accomplish this. I love my iPod but still find the greatest joy in dropping a needle down on a record and looking at the massive 12x12" album art printed on the cardboard sleeve. It's nice to still have to press COPY on the copy machines at work if I want something that's on 8.5 x 11 duplicated.

I have this fear one day of satellites being blown to bits by aliens and the internet as a whole crapping out like an old car. You never know, someone's pet hamster could get stuck in the internet pipes or something. What will the people who have subconsciously become dependent on technological conveniences do at that time besides hit things when they don't work and then stand there and drool? I'm slightly scared... I think I'm going to head on over to Google.com to find help. Sadly that involves either typing Google.com into my web browser or pressing its home page button. That sounds incredibly exhausting to have to do. Maybe if I sit and stare at the screen it will go to Google.com and do all of the rest of the work for me.

I'm getting verrryyyy sleeeepppyyyyyyy.....