Twitter Quip

    Words to live by and a language to speak

    I got a phone call from a number I didn’t recognize last month. I answered the phone to a person who asked me if I speak Spanish.

    “No,” I told him.

    He asked me again. I’m not sure why (I’m pretty sure the Spanish translation of ‘no’ is ‘no’). Perhaps he though my answer might’ve change in the past two second.

    “Why would I speak Spanish,” I asked him. “This is America–we speak English in America.”

    “Hablas espanol?”

    “Who is this,” I demanded. The guy must not’ve understood the question because he stuttered. I didn’t wait for him to respond. “Why are you calling me and asking me if I speak Spanish? I’m an American in America and I speak English–I don’t appreciate strangers calling me up and asking me if I speak Spanish.”

    After a long pause (probably because he was using his pocket dictionary to translate what I said), he hung up the phone, ending the most unwanted phone conversation in the history of the world (no, I don’t think I’m overstating it).

    My take on this isn’t exactly unique, but that won’t stop me from complaining. It really makes me mad how many people I come across . . . . .

     

    Insignificant Corporate Created Holiday observations

    I saw someone using a pay phone last week. That was an odd sight–I didn’t even know pay phones existed anymore. Who needs them–doesn’t everyone have a cell phone nowadays (I have two)?

    The thing is, pay phones are actually everywhere–I noticed this after I started thinking about pay phones. They’re still out there. With everyone having cells, pay phones can’t be making any money–I wonder if there’s some sorta government subsidiary to keep ’em around (like a safety issue or sumhin’). Even in a great location, how does a pay phone average more than a call a day? At 25 cents a call, that’s only like 28 bucks a month. It might be more than I make, but certainly not an endeavored worth investing in.

    Unlike most guys in the country, I’m not dreading February 14th. I don’t hafta deal with teddy bears and heart-shaped chocolates because The Girlfriend doesn’t believe in Valentine’s Day. The Girlfriend realizes that I treat her like a goddess year round and there’s no need to do anything special mid-February because Hallmark says so.

    I am a long-time VD-hater–and not just because my horrific adventures in singlehood. I believe Valentine’s Day is an insignificant, . . . . .

     

    Vehicular litterbugs & other car-related nuisances

    Nothing pisses me off more than walking out to my car after a long day of work only to find an advertisement tucked under my windshield wiper (‘cept maybe Kevin Costner movies and the Sprint corporation). I hate those flyer for about a million reasons. I think they should be illegal because they bring more harm than good. When I was a kid, my folks used to make me pass out flyers for their failing restaurant, but that has nothing to do with it.

    I’m not a tree-hugging hippie–I like to shower and don’t smoke pot. But I despise waste. And to me, windshield wiper flyers are nothing but waste. They’re unsolicited ads that can’t possibly be efficient. How many windshield wiper flyers have influence your shopping habits? Suppose one in a hundred actually get customers into a store, it’s still terribly ineffective–and I don’t even think that many actually work.

    Even more distressing, most folks who find an ad placed on their car don’t have trash cans with them. You can always tell when someone was placing ads on cars because the parking lot is littered with discarded flyers. Most folks simply take the unwanted ad off their car . . . . .

     

    Horrible person thought of the day

    I’ll be the first to admit I’m not an important person. Stock markets don’t crash without me; lives aren’t lost if I can’t be found. Yet here I am–one individual–with four phone numbers that are solely for my use. I have a home phone that I never use (a requirement to have DSL), a personal cell phone, a work-issued cell phone, and an office line. One person, four phone numbers. No wonder we keep running out of area codes.

    Imagine if I had any importance.

    Heath Ledger died this week. I’m neither happy nor sad by this news. From what I’ve been told, he was a pretty good actor–but I wouldn’t know. The only thing I ever saw him in was “Ten Things I Hate About You” (it was for an English class–I swear). But like I said, I’m pretty apathetic to his death. The Fiancee thinks I’m a horrible person because I don’t think his death is sad. Why would I think it’s sad? It doesn’t affect me. People die all the time and society is never sad for the countless 28-year old nobodies who die on a daily basis. Maybe if I knew Heath Ledger or saw a . . . . .

     

    Cross the line (there’s no ‘me’ in ‘union’)

    Being a consistent hater of The Man, you’d think I’d be pro-union. I’m not entirely sure how I feel on that issue. I think a union has every right to fight for its members. If they want to band together and strike as one, that’s their choice. But I also believe that employers should be allowed to run their business how they see fit…including firing all those striking employees. I guess you can say I’m on the fence of this . . . . .