Four tiny bites of carrot ruined my night.

I’m annoyed with my daughter tonight. Had she eaten four tiny pieces of carrot, she could ended dinner with a delicious black and white cookie, straight from William Greenberg Desserts on Madison Avenue, makers of the best black and white cookies on the planet. But no. She refused, rather vehemently I may add, and therefore she gets no dessert.

It wasn’t the whining or the crying or the overly aggressive shoving aside of the plate or even the lack of vegetables in her diet that bothered me.

It was the inability to see the pure joy that she experiences while eating a cookie. I love a black and white cookie, too, but I love watching my daughter eat one even more.

The smiles. The laughs. The chocolaty fingers. The extreme focus on the cookie itself. The repeated declarations of love for the cookie.

Bearing witness to this display of sheer happiness is better than any dessert that I could consume myself (except maybe ice cream cake). Yet I was denied that pleasure tonight because she refused to eat four stupid little carrots.

As soon as she is in bed, I’m going to go downstairs and eat a black and white cookie.

And it’s going to taste even better than usual because it’s going to be served with a heaping side dish of spite.

An end to the ritual of the funeral processional, at least for me

Far be it for me to attempt to eliminate something as solemn and traditional as the funeral procession from the burial traditions of the deceased. I mean, if someone requested that I rid the world of the funeral procession, or if I had the power to do so myself, I would.

But I don’t.

Besides, doing so would be somewhat presumptuous of me. Right?

But just for the record, if I were to die, which would never happen because I plan on living forever, I do not want my remains transported to their final resting place via a funeral processional.

We all have some kind of a GPS technology in our cars or our phones now, and those little flags that you hook onto the car windows look stupid, and there’s no reason to slow down the living just because I’m dead, which again would never happen.

Just plug in the address of the cemetery into your GPS unit and meet me there, which is not necessary since I am planning on immortality.

Besides, I have requested that my ashes be spread in a beautiful but somewhat annoyingly difficult place to reach, so no cemetery ride will be required at all. But if my wife plans some kind of ceremony at this location or you’d like to sprinkle a bit of me as well, then simply input the address of the location into a GPS and go.

No need for a funeral procession, both because they are annoying and because I will never die.

Okay?

Oh, unless of course I end up as President or Emperor or King and the funeral procession would be some badass parade-like affair, complete with horses and fire engines and elephants and thousands of spectators.

In that case, fine. I can handle a funeral procession.

They are morbid relics of a time long since gone, and they accomplish little save getting in the way of the living.

I can't identify a Kardashian because I look away.

I told a friend that I ended 2011 still unable to pick a Kardashian out of a lineup. She didn’t believe me.

In my younger days, I might have tried to convince her that it was true. But I’m older, wiser and more of a jerk these days. Instead I said, “Thankfully, I don’t care if you believe me or not. It does not change the truth.”

But it’s true. Unless you put a Kardashian in the lineup with a bunch of construction workers, I would be hard pressed to accurately point one out.

Here’s why:

I don’t watch very much television.

95% of my television viewing is time-shifted, so I see almost no commercials.

I do not read magazines like People or US.

Actually, I don’t read magazines at all. I read articles originally published in magazines on the Internet, but I can’t remember the last time I read from a physical magazine.

I also rarely see magazines like People or US. Most of my purchases are made at BJ’s (no magazine racks) or in self-checkout lines at Stop & Shop (also no magazine racks).

When I find myself facing one of these magazine racks, I am typically occupied by something else. A Twitter stream on my phone, an audiobook in my ear, or both.

I actually know very little about the Kardashians. From what I have gleaned through osmosis, their father was the attorney in the OJ Simpson trial and their step-father may or may not be former Olympian Bruce Jenner, who once graced the box of Wheaties that I ate as a child.

I also know that one of the Kardashians married and then divorced a second-tier NBA player on the New Jersey Nets.

I know this thanks to the brilliant Andy Borowitz, who made fun of the Kardashian repeatedly on Twitter.

I am happy that I cannot pick out one of these girls (are there two of them?) from a lineup. It is a source of pride for me. I hear so many people complain about their inexplicable popularity while simultaneously knowing so much about them.

If you don’t want to have the Kardashians in your life, simply look away. Stop reading magazines that earn a profit from celebrity baby photos, paparazzi pictures, and Kardashian wedding rumors.

Stop tuning into programs like the Today Show, which seem to report almost exclusively on celebrity marriages, the British royalty, the latest YouTube phenomenon, and the disappearance of upper-middle class, blond female twenty-somethings.

Just look in another direction. There are people in this world who are genuinely worthy of our attention, and these people are constantly overshadowed by people like the Kardashians.

Pay attention to people like Arielle and Austin Metzger instead.

At least stop complaining about the popularity of the Kardashians while simultaneously watching their television shows, reading about them in People magazine and watching them on the red carpet (if that is something they do).

But even better, let’s just give our attention to people more deserving. If we all just look away from people like the Kardashians, they will eventually go away.

They already have for me.

Pen and ink are not required for history

Last week I criticized this sentence in Roger Angell’s recent New Yorker piece on the demise of the post office:

Troops in Afghanistan and, until lately, Iraq keep up by Skype and Facebook, and in some sense are not away at all.

Reading it again still makes me angry, but if you’re curious why, read the original post. Today I’d like to criticize Angell’s maudlin, shortsighted, overly sentimental view of the post office and letter writing in general. The thesis his piece is that the demise of the post office, in many respects, can be directly attributed to the demise of the written letter, and with the loss of hand written letters, historian will be left with fewer and fewer artifacts from which to interpret history.

If we stop writing letters, who will keep our history or dare venture upon a biography? George Washington, Oscar Wilde, T. E. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, E. B. White, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Vera Nabokov, J. P. Morgan—if any of these vivid predecessors still belong to us in some fragmented private way, it’s because of their letters or diaries (which are letters to ourselves) or thanks to some strong biography built on a ledge of letters.

I can’t help but wonder if Angell is under the misguided impression that email, text messages, tweets, Facebook status updates and other forms of electronic communication are ethereal and temporary?

Has he not heard the adage that it would be easier to erase a message carved in granite than an email or blog post from the Internet?

Has he not heard that every tweet ever sent is currently being stored in the Library of Congress?

I would argue that future historians will have access to resources that past historians could only dream about. Rather than reconstructing someone’s life from the carefully crafted, undoubtedly measured words found in letters and other written communication, historians will have access to the day-to-day communication of any historical person. Not only will this constitute a considerable increase in the amount of historical material for study, but in many ways, it will provide them with a considerably less filtered image of the figure as well.

Which is preferable? A series of letters exchanged between two public figures over a twenty year period, or every email, tweet, text, status update, blog post, and online comment sent over the same twenty year period?

Angell is crazy if he believes that historians wouldn’t opt for the latter.

Angell also argues that the loss of letter writing is an issue of quality and depth of writing, that today’s electronic communication does not convey the sense of humanity that a well crafted letter might.

The poets Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop conducted an enormous correspondence—four hundred and fifty-nine letters, between 1947 and 1977 (“What a block of life,” Lowell said), spanning three continents and, between them, six or eight different lovers or partners—but one need read only a few pages of these melancholic literary exchanges to know that the latest BlackBerry or iPhone never would have penetrated their consciousness.

I would argue that the 459 letters exchanged between Lowell and Bishop (which amount to about one every other month) is nothing compared to the tens of thousands of text messages, tweets and emails that these poets might have exchanged over the same thirty year period had the technology existed to do so. Lowell and Bishop were consciously writing for one another. One must assume that these letters were finely crafted and self-edited with their specific audience in mind.

Might we have a more honest, more realistic view of their relationship had their communication been more frequent and less filtered?

I think so.

The demise of the written letter, and of the post office in general, is sad, but it is sad mostly to sentimentalists and individuals who do not understand the permanence of bits and bytes. Aware that the post office was operating in the red for quite some time, I was shocked that postal officials did not eliminate Saturday delivery a long time ago and even switch to an every-other-day delivery schedule.

Would any reasonably-minded person be upset if home delivery of the mail was restricted to Monday, Wednesday and Friday if it allowed the post office to operate in the black?

Don’t mess with my 7-11

I stop at the 7-11 a few blocks from my house several times a week, to pick up a Diet Coke after my workout, a gallon of milk when we are running low and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s when Elysha and I are craving ice cream. It’s a place I know well.

Yesterday I stopped by on the way home from the gym for a soda. As I entered the store, the woman at the cash register, who owns the store with her husband, said, “Hello! How are you doing today?”

The greeting caught me off guard. She has never spoken to me like that before. Her voice was uncharacteristically cheery, and her platitude was unprecedented. I looked up. Standing beside her was a short, red-headed man in a dark suit. He smiled at me upon making eye contact, a smile that was much too large to be genuine.

I nodded and moved on.

As I turned toward the soda dispenser, the owner said, “If I can help you find anything, please be sure to let me know.”

For a moment, I thought that the red-headed man was robbing the place.  This statement was so out of character that I thought there had to be something wrong. Then I heard Red Head begin speaking to her in a low voice about the importance of making each customer feel important.

Suddenly I knew. Corporate 7-11 had come to town. Training was underway.

After pouring my soda, I assumed my position in line at the register. I listened and watched as the owner greeted each customer with a cheery voice and a bright smile as she offered a hot dog, a corn dog or a Cadbury egg to each customer.

I grew more and more annoyed with each passing word.

Finally it was my turn to pay. I placed my soda down upon the counter and reached for my wallet.

“Would you like to try one of our delicious hot dogs today?” the owner asked.

“Stop,” I said. “Please don’t do this. I liked things the way they were before.”

“Excuse me?” the owner said.

“I liked our relationship before,” I said. “When you didn’t greet me at the door and ask if I needed any help. I don’t want any of this.”

Red Head immediately jumped in. “We’re just trying to make your experience as positive as possible, sir,” he said, still smiling.

He reminded me of Ned Flanders from the Simpsons.

“This is the only experience I have ever had in this store that wasn’t positive,” I said. “This is a 7-11. I want to get in and out. I know this lady. We have an actual relationship. Not one of these fake ones that you are forcing upon us.”

“We’re just trying to make sure every 7-11 customer is satisfied with their visit,” Red Head said, still annoyingly upbeat.

“I understand, but this is the only time I haven’t been satisfied with my visit,” I said. “You’re ruining everything.”

Red Head went on to explain that it’s 7-11’s mission to ensure that its customers are assisted in every way possible while visiting their stores, and I went on to explain that the only thing wrong with my neighborhood 7-11 was his presence.

The jerk never stopped smiling, no matter what I said.

But I was serious. I don’t want a warm, falsified greeting every time I enter that store. I don’t want to be offered assistance in finding something in a store that is smaller than my classroom or suggestive-sold a hot dog every time I try to pay. I want my usual quick entry, the occasional nod of acknowledgement, and the rapid exit.

The last thing I want is an experience.

I ended the conversation by asking Red Head if he would be back tomorrow.  “No, sir,” he said. “Not tomorrow.”

“Good,” I said, reestablishing eye contact with the owner. “Then we’ll talk tomorrow. Or not talk. Okay?”

She did not offer me a smile in return. She said, “Okay,” and nodded, which was exactly what I wanted.

If bacteria can solve Sodoku, how challenging or worthwhile can it be?

I have always thought that Sudoku was stupid. In terms of productivity, it is time spent and mental energy expended with nothing to show for it.

Yes, the solving of the puzzle probably exercises your brain in some way, but I believe that there are more productive, more meaningful ways to exercise your brain that ultimately result is something more significant than a square filled with numbers.

Exercise your brain in a way that produces something.

Plus Sudoku is just a dumb game.

And now I’ve learned that a strain of Escherichia coli bacteria has been engineered to solve Sudoku puzzles.

Kind of makes the puzzle seem even stupider now. Huh?

Cheesy, over-the-top, obnoxious nonsense

How does one possibly explain this?

Is it a Miami thing?   
Or a Miami Heat thing?
Or a Lebron James thing?

I spent some time this morning viewing several other NBA team’s introduction videos (many of them can be found on YouTube), and unlike the Heat’s video, every one that I watched featured highlights from the previous year.  Three-point buzzer beaters, thunderous two-hand jams, behind-the-back passes and the like.

Nothing like this. 

After last year’s media fiasco involving the introduction of LeBron James and Chris Bosh to the Miami Heat fans (below), how could the Miami Heat media relations people actually this intro video was a good idea?

Or maybe it was a good idea. 

Maybe this kind of thing plays well in Miami. 

Oy.

Skype and Facebook do not mitigate the absence of a loved one, and it was stupid of Roger Angell to assert otherwise

I am going to criticize the maudlin sensibility and shortsightedness of this The New Yorker piece tomorrow, but for now, I ‘d like to take issue with Roger Angell’s lament over the loss of soldiers writing actual letters from the battlefield. Angell writes:

Twenty years ago, many of us got a whole new sense of the Civil War while watching and listening to Ken Burns’s nine-part television documentary, which took its poignant tone from the recital of Union and Confederate soldiers’ letters home. G.I.s in the Second World War wrote home on fold-over V-Mail sheets. Troops in Afghanistan and, until lately, Iraq keep up by Skype and Facebook, and in some sense are not away at all.

While I have no friends or family members currently serving overseas, I have had my fair share of students whose parents and relatives have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I can assure Mr. Angell that these mother and fathers and aunts and uncles are in every sense of the word away, regardless of how often their image may appear on a computer screen or how often they may update a Facebook page.

To state otherwise is stupid.

I can’t imagine how that sentence found its way past an editor or any other reasonably minded person at The New Yorker.

Six months later, the New York Times finds a whole need breed of douchebags to quote about wrist watches

Six months ago, the New York Times published a piece about the unexpected ascension of wrist watches in certain segments of the cell phone generation. Somehow they found men willing to say things like this:

“In certain circles,” Mr. Thoreson said, “if you don’t have a substantial timepiece with some pedigree, you feel like you’re missing out on something.”

“Right now there is no clearer indication of cool than wearing a watch. If it was your grandfather’s bubbleback Rolex, even better.”

This led me to suggest several alternate titles for the article, including my favorite:

Douchebags Make It Douchy for Non-Douchebags to Wear Watches

Fast forward six months. The New York Times has once again published a piece on wrist watches (perhaps a bi-annual feature?) and has somehow managed to find an entirely new set of douchebags to quote for their story.

This piece centers on the increasing size of wrist watches, spurned on my celebrity fashion trends, and includes quotes like:

“Guys wanted a fine timekeeping device that not only kept time but said something about status and personal style.”

“It (a large wrist watch) gets attention, and it makes a statement.”

“No man wants to wear a watch smaller than a woman has on.”

Once again I am stunned that they were able to find men willing to be quoted like this.

Have we really reached a point where male coolness is determined by the size and price of a man’s watch?

Whatever happened to the strong, independent man?

The man with his own sense of style?

The man whose style of dress was dictated by personal taste and not by a desire to dress like Tom Cruise or compete with the 64 millimeter watch that his buddy is wearing?

Why haven’t these guys realized that high school is over?

That unfortunate penis size cannot be compensated for by a wrist watch?

That materialistic displays of wealth strapped to a wrist only serve to demonstrate your insecure, sheep-like douchebaggery to the world?

I have a friend who, like me, does not wear a single item of clothing (other than sneakers) that displays a name brand. He intentionally opts out of fashion name-plating despite the fact that he was able to sell his company and retire quite early in life.

Unlike me, he is a man with plenty of money and could purchase the finest clothing and accessories possible, yet his style is completely his own. It is not dictated by celebrity fashion or the appearance or fashion choices of his friends or the people around him.

This, in my estimation, is a man. A real man.

The need to wear a time piece that “says something about status and personal style” is sad.

The belief that “there is no clearer indication of cool than wearing a watch” is pathetic.

The need for a man to wear a watch that “gets attention and makes a statement” is disgusting.

I do not understand these men. They sound like cartoon characters to me.  They sound like the mean, rich bad guys that populated so many of the John Hughes and John Hughes-like films of the 1980s.

Did films like Pretty in Pink and Revenge of the Nerds teach them nothing?

There is nothing wrong with wearing a wrist watch. It is an excellent way to keep track of the time.

There is nothing wrong with wearing a wrist watch that you think looks great.

There is, however, something wrong with a man whose choice of wrist watch is dictated by price, celebrity style trends or a mindless, materialistic competition with the men around him.

This is the sign of a man who never grew up. Never became a man.

And I remain shocked and dismayed why this guys would offer these kinds of douchebaggy quotes to the New York Times.

Again.

Alcohol must have been involved. It’s the only explanation. I hope.

You are not pregnant. She is.

New rule: No more “We’re pregnant.” Especially from men. In the realm of pregnancy, there is no we. While I’m sure that the men who use this ridiculous phrase probably have the best of intentions, it is a stupid thing to say.

If you are a man, you are not pregnant. To imply otherwise is an insult to the  women who actually bear the burden of pregnancy, and it makes you sound like anything but a man.

It makes you sound desperate for attention.

Like impregnating the girl wasn’t good enough.

Like you need more.

You don’t.

“My wife is pregnant” says it all. It indicates that you are responsible for creating a baby and are probably assisting your wife as the burden of pregnancy becomes greater, but doesn't imply that you are seeking any credit where credit is not due.

Take a stand against “We’re pregnant.” Push back at every utterance.

Stop using this ridiculous phrase if you have been, and if someone is foolish enough to use it, inform them, with grace and civility of course, that they sound utterly stupid.

Let’s make this a year filled with a little less stupidity.

Inexplicably real

This is real. I just can’t decide if it’s ingenious or disgusting.

These Jersey Shore Christmas tree ornaments are also real.

There’s no debating what I think of them.

I hereby call for a boycott on the stupidity of packaged greeting cards

At some point in recent history, it was determined that a certain breed of pretentious, overpriced, faux-artsy greeting cards should be individually wrapped in cellophane.

This must stop.

Not only does it allow these greeting card companies to charge you $5 or more for a greeting card, but the practice is wasteful and purposeless, and above all, stupid.

Truly, utterly, exorbitantly stupid.

I hereby call for the boycott of all greeting cards wrapped in cellophane or any other packaging material.

We end this pretentious practice today.

Who is with me?

I’d raise my sword over my head and roar to get you excited if this wasn’t the Internet.

And if I had a sword.

The stupidest thing that you can say when helping someone locate lost keys or a wallet or a phone

The inability to locate an item like a set of keys, a phone or a wallet can be frustrating.

Thinking it helpful to offer someone advice like “retrace your steps” or “think about when you had it last” only makes the situation worse.

We all know about retracing our steps. This is not some cutting edge strategy. If you want to help us find the lost item, spare us the annoying platitudes and just look around a little.

But the worst piece of advice that you can give in this regard is this:

“It’s always the last place that you look.”

Of course it’s always the last place we look, you moron. Once you find a lost item, only an idiot would continue looking for it.

Therefore, whether the lost item is in the first place that we looked or the thousandth place we looked, it’s always going to be the last place we looked.

Is it really so hard to keep your mouth shut and simply help in the search?

Time flies when you're creating?

I have never found this to be the case.

Mean, stupid teachers.

The New York Times reports that “millions of American schoolchildren are receiving free or low-cost meals for the first time as their parents, many once solidly middle class, have lost jobs or homes during the economic crisis, qualifying their families for the decades-old safety-net program.” I was a free lunch kid throughout my entire childhood.

For most of my elementary and middle school career, I was also a free breakfast kid.

While I appreciated the access to food even as a child (since there was never a lot of food at home), my one complaint was how the program was managed by the schools. Each morning, my teachers would take a lunch count using the following procedure:

Please raise your hand if you’re buying hot lunch.

Please raise your hand if you’re buying cold lunch.

Please raise your hand if you’re receiving free hot lunch.

Please raise your hand if you’re receiving free cold lunch.    

Having to raise my hand every morning and remind my classmates that I was poor sucked.

Today, the process is designed so that even teachers aren’t aware of who receives a free lunch. In fact, most kids aren’t even aware that they are receiving a free lunch every day. A family’s financial situation is considered confidential information, but even if it was not, no teacher today would ever require a student to raise his or her hand in order to receive a free lunch.

Which leads me to wonder what the hell teachers and administrators were thinking when I was a kid.

This is not an instance of my mother drinking wine during her pregnancy because she didn’t know any better or my parents allowing us to ride our bicycles without helmets because the public had yet to be educated about the important of their use.

This seems rather obvious to me:

It’s cruel to require kids self-identify their economic status in front of their classmates.

Was empathy, common sense and basic human decency really at a premium when I was a kid?

The worst thing I have ever done to my wife (unless she can think of something worse)

Here's the best way to tell someone that your wife is pregnant: While playing poker with a close friend, wait until he has a difficult and expensive decision to make. As he is pondering the probability that he might have the best hand, calculating the odds, trying to get a read on his opponent and attempting to make the most important decision of the game, lean over the table and whisper, “Hey Tom. Elysha is pregnant.”

Tom ultimately called the bet and lost the hand.

I’m not sure if my distraction played a role in his decision, but it was most assuredly a distraction.

Here's the worst way to tell someone that your wife is pregnant:

While your wife is in the bathroom, get on the phone and tell her father that his daughter is pregnant.

In my defense, I thought Elysha was in the room. My mother-in-law was over the house for dinner, so we had told her about our good news earlier in the evening. But my father-in-law was in New York, visiting with his mother in the hospital, and we wanted to tell him the good news as well. My mother-in-law was speaking to him on the phone, so I asked her to hand me the phone when she was finished speaking.

When I asked for the phone, Elysha was in the room with me.

After a few minutes, my mother-in-law handed me the phone, and because I am an unobservant, callous, idiotic, insensitive dolt, I failed to look up and confirm that Elysha was still in the room.

I just went ahead and told her father the news.

Unfortunately, she was in the bathroom. She could hear my voice through the door, but it took her a moment to realize what was happening, and by that time, I had already spilled the beans.

It might be the worst thing that I have ever done to my wife.

I will never forgive myself for my stupidity.

I suspect that she will not as well.

A man invites friends to a tool party. Hammers and saws demonstrated and sold in his living room. The response would be universal.

The difference between men and women: A buddy sends an invitation to me and a dozen other close friends inviting us to a party where he will be serving beer and some light snacks while demonstrating a selection of top-of-the-line, brand name tools. Following the demonstration, we will be given the option of purchasing any of the products if we so desire.

Hammers, jigsaws, ratchet sets, drills, screwdrivers. A wide selection of toolbox staples will be made available. We may even be given the chance to try out the tools in some makeshift living room workshop.

Or maybe instead of tools, our friend is selling golf clubs or poker paraphernalia or fishing tackle.

The actual merchandise doesn’t matter. It’s our reaction to our friend’s invite that makes the difference.

Upon receiving the invitation, it would immediately become a race between all of the invitees to see who could arrive at our friend’s doorstep first in order to punch him in the face.

Men would not stand for this kind of nonsense. We understand the dangers of the slippery slope. Allow just one man host one of these “parties” and before you know it, we’d be getting invitations for all kinds of retail-in-the-living-room nonsense.

Hell no. A punch in the face seems quite appropriate in a case like this.

Extreme situations call for extreme measures.

Women, by contrast, reluctantly agree to attend these product parties. They politely purchase an item or two that could have otherwise been purchased in a store or online, and then they complain about the “party” after the fact.

I have heard three different women lament their grudging participation in these parities just this month, and as a man who works almost exclusively with women, I can assure you that this month is not unusual.

Women do this to themselves by agreeing to polite.

Men understand that polite isn’t always the best course of action.

Could someone please tell Michele Bachmann that whining about the source of your apology is not exactly Presidential

Over the past three years, I have been extremely critical of people who demand apologies, more so than I ever even realized. In February of 2010, I was critical of a parent who demanded that a teacher apologize to her daughter for doing something exceptionally stupid.

In July of 2010, I commented on this favorite quote of mine by P.G. Wodehouse:

It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.

In March of 2011, I posted my own quote about apologies:

The need for a thank you and/or the request for an apology is a clear indication of a person’s likelihood to be eaten first in a zombie apocalypse. That is, if the zombies can stomach their degree of self-importance.

In April of 2011, I commented on NATO’s refusal to apologize for bombing rebel targets in Libya.

In October of 2011, I commented on how the request for an apology is often a signal of a lack of self confidence.

Please don’t get me wrong. I don’t think there is anything wrong with an apology, and I often counsel colleagues and students to simply apologize for their mistakes rather than trying to explain or defend them.

It’s a strategy I employ quite often.

My complaint is when people feel the need to demand an apology, as if doing so will somehow improve their position or make them feel better.

The only kind of apology that anyone should desire is the unforced, unrequested kind.

Otherwise an apology is nothing more than an assemblage of meaningless words.

Which brings me to my latest apology criticism, this time leveled at GOP candidate Michele Bachmann, who announced that she is dissatisfied with the apology she received from NBC after she was introduced on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon with the song “Lyin’ Ass Bitch.”

From The Daily Beast:

After NBC’s senior vice president for special programs sent Bachmann a written letter of apology, Bachmann said, "Of course I accept the apology, but my guess is that it would have been the president of the NBC that would have been apologizing not a senior vice president," if the same thing had happened to a liberal candidate.

Seriously? The network apologizes for what amounts to a tasteless joke on a late night comedy program and you feel the need to complain about the source of the apology?

Jimmy Fallon, the person actually responsible for the choice of song, has already apologized to her.

This should’ve been enough.

Now the senior vice president of NBC has now apologized as well.  In writing.

This really should be enough.

The woman is campaigning to become President of the United States and leader of the free world, and yet she finds it necessary to whine that the source of her apology isn’t important enough?

Wodehouse was right.

The wrong sort of people take mean advantage of apologies.

And I was right, too.

If these are the things that concern Michele Bachmann in the middle of a Presidential race, she would likely end up as an appetizer in a zombie apocalypse.

Dressed up to not work out

Regardless of how many times I see this (and it’s almost daily), I’ll never understand it: Two women are working out together at the gym.

One is dressed in a tight-fitting, leopard-print leotard, black and pink tights, pink sneakers and a matching pink headband. The other is wearing a yellow hoodie with coordinating socks and a black and gold headband.

Both are wearing large, hoop earrings.

They are deeply tanned and both have clearly spent a great deal of time on her hair prior to arriving at the gym.

There is product in those follicles. Lots of product.

Best of all, both are plastered in more makeup than I have seen my wife wear in her entire life. Eye shadow, mascara, blush and who knows what else.

If you work out at the gym regularly, you’d probably recognize the type immediately.

While the great majority of people at a gym appear to give little thought to their general appearance (and justifiably so), there are always a couple women who walk around the place as if it’s some kind of athletic singles club. These are women who appear to spend a great deal of time dressing up for the gym.

Probably more time getting ready than actually exercising.

In a sea of ragged tee-shirts and fading gym shorts, they look like slightly less athletic versions of the aerobic instructors that you used to dominate early morning television.

Unable to sweat because of the amount of makeup caked onto their faces, they often do as little as possible while attempting to appear as active as possible.

Four reps on a leg machine here. Three there. Half a dozen sit-ups. And stretching.

Lots of stretching.

Watching them try to be noticed while not actually exercising is often more entertaining than anything I can find on the television affixed to my treadmill.

But I can’t help but wonder if any of this attention seeking yields results.  Are these women catching the eye of some hunky lady killer at 8:30 AM on a Sunday morning?

Are they routinely leaving the gym with guys’ phone numbers?

Do they hope to find Mr. Right amidst the barbells and rowing machines?

Or could their goals be completely unrelated to men?  Is there another, more mysterious purpose to this attempt to look good while not actually exercising?

Curious minds want to know.

There may even be a male version of this female oddity, a manly prima donna more interested in being seen than actually exercising, but I am not observant enough to have noticed these particularly breed yet.

Though I suspect that absent the makeup that these women wear, even the most vain of men could probably manage a genuine workout while still donning the most stylish of gym paraphernalia and tanning their skin to a golden brown.

Right?

The maypole is kind of stupid. Right?

It’s the kind of thing that parents love because they get to watch their kid run around a pole as they genuflect on tradition and ancestry and Earthy goodness, but in the end, the kid is just hanging onto a ribbon and running around a pole. Of all the ancient traditions to survive into the modern day, why this one?

I mean, if your kid grabbed the clothesline and ran around the pole in the backyard, you’d tell him to knock it off.

Right?

Add a few men in skirts and funny hats, a beer garden, and some old timey music and suddenly it’s a thing.

Even if your kid is excited about dancing around a maypole, how long does that last?

Three rotations? Four?

Why couldn't trebuchet firing been the tradition that lived on?