cellphones

taking a page out of nick's book, i give you the simanek six!

top 6 things that annoy me about cell phones and the idiots who cram them to their jawline:

6. unintelligible ring tones - with 16bit polyphonic working for you, you can only do so much. "It's the theme from the Nutcracker Suite!" "Um yea, sounds like Sweet Home Alabama to me." Unless you have one of the mp3 ringtone capable phones, just don't do it.
5. deaf talkers - we were a bar the other night and i sat next to man who, in order to hear the conversation he was having, had the thing on speakerphone with the speaker pressed to his ear periodically turning it around in order to yell into the microphone. i know it's a difficult concept, but try stepping outside of the bar in order to have a conversation. I swear, i won't drink your beer.
4. Restaurant talkers - now i don't mind if people at other tables are talking on their phone, as long as they do it quietly and the phone was on vibrate (see number 2), but if i'm sitting at dinner with you, unless it has something to do with your job or an emergency, don't answer it. I'm here to talk to you, not watch you talk to someone else.
3. Belt clips - If you've purchased your phone in the last year or so, it is NOT large enough to not fit in your pocket. Contrary to what many believe, a cell phone is NOT a fashion accessory. It is a tool. And so are you if you insist on putting it on your hip. I admit, there are exceptions to this rule, big nextels, having to carry more than one at a time, concern for the RF going through your nuts 24 hours a day...etc. but gut instinct says you're a dork. And look who that statement is coming from.
2. Ringers - Ringtones are designed to catch your attention. In other words, they're annoying as fuck. If I'm in a restaurant, movie theatre, library, or anyplace else where people are supposed to act civilized, stick the damn thing in your pocket and put it on vibrate. You might even get a cheap jolly out of it.
1. Car talkers - Yes, I'm guilty of it too but I'm making a conscious effort to get better. How many times have you seen somebody sit at a green light or go 30 in a 45 because they were too busy yammering away on the phone? I wonder how many incidents of road rage are indirectly caused by the cell phone. Hang up and drive!

hopeless romantic

today being valentines day i decided to do something extra special for that certain someone in my life...me. i went to the gym, had a nice dinner and then, did the most romantic thing of all, my taxes. Queue the Barry White. There's nothing sexier than a well prepared Schedule D. Except for maybe a 1099. ooohh...i think i've got wood.

yea right.

I wonder how busy the strip clubs are on valentines day.

tito lives!

and i'm not talking about tito jackson. last night i successfully lured another unsuspecting customer into thinking that tito's vodka is wonderful stuff. now i'm not much of a vodka fan, but i know enough to be able to tell that this is pure unadultered distilled cattle piss. i feel like i should run this stuff through a charcoal filter and garnish the martini with iodine tabs to make it sanitary. my sales pitch usually includes "if you like your vodka to have a bit of a bite to it...blah blah blah...some people prefer this to grey goose...". Gordon's vodka has bite to it and it's barely worthy or taking epoxy off of your garage floor. And the only people who prefer this to grey goose are probably college students who can't afford grey goose. So now, by the power of suggestion, this poor customer is convinced that tito's is fantastic and paid through the nose for 3 of these martini's. i bet he feels like crap this morning after tito's brand turpentine disolved his insides overnight. i can be such an ass sometimes.

brain power

I was bartending last night and, being the saturday before valentines day, it was pretty busy. I'm getting pounded at the bar and that's making all the server's impatient for the drinks for their tables. I finally finish off a ticket for Danielle and she loads up her tray and starts to walk off. She's about 20 feet away when i see that she's left one of her drinks at the waitress station. The voice goes off in my head yelling "Danielle!", but, with a bar full of people, I decide that it wouldn't look very good if i did that. Here's the wierd part. Just as I'm deciding to keep my mouth shut, she turns around, looks strait at me, and asks me what i wanted. I tell her that she forgot a drink and then i look at our manager and confirm that I didn't say anything. I figured she heard someone else talking and it sounded like here name. Coincidence. Give me another day and I'll forget about the whole incident. But this morning, I read this:
http://www.rednova.com/news/display/?id=126649#121

I don't really believe in this crap, especially since some of the science behind what the guys did in the article is pretty questionable. But every once in a while, something wierd will happen that I wish I could explain.