i think i have alluded to this in previous blogs and conversations with others, but i have finally figured out what the difference between women and men is, and i'll give you a hint - it's not anatomy (actually it is anatomy, but that seems a bit obvious to cover in this space. that, and i was terrible at anatomy, so i'd rather not try to discuss anything related to it at length for fear of being discovered as a fraud)
the main difference between girls and guys is level of interest. guys obsess, and girls dabble.
what do you mean, justin? (and before i get going here, know that this is not meant to be offensive to any person or group of persons. i like to stereotype. it's what i do. some call that wrong, but i call it my natural tendency and a fun way to pass the time. also, none of this has anything to do with my wife, who somehow breaks many of the guy/girl rules, and that is why i love her so...)
i have met, known, been best friends with guys who are obsessed with the following things: sports, records, movies, fine wine/beer, theology, computers/gaming, technology in general, skydiving and extreme sports, classic car restoration, weight-lifting, tattoos, getting drunk, marijuana usage, literature, bicylcle riding and a bevy of other interests i don't care to mention now.
i have met, known and been married to women who are obsessed with the following things: shoes, cooking (that one is heidi), losing weight, clothes, and getting tan.
do you notice a fundamental difference here? chicks don't get obsessed with stuff. you don't meet the girl who hasn't seen the sun for three weeks because she's locked herself in her mom's basement playing 'call of duty 4' or 'world of warcraft.' girls don't walk around in public wearing jerseys of professional quarterbacks and small forwards (unless said jerseys are pink, which is awesome. (note to reader, since i assume some comment will come regarding comment about about pink jerseys being awesome on a girl, let me tell you now that this comment was made in jest)). how many times have you walked into a girl's apartment and immediately been confronted by a 13,000 record collection? how many girls walk around quoting lines from the latest judd apatow movie and go home each night to a dvd collection of over 100? ever met a girl who couldn't stop talking about her golf score? how about the day after a game 7 loss to another team... how many times does a lady call in sick to work because she "just can't get over how devastating that loss was..."
this doesn't mean that girls don't have interests. it doesn't mean that girls don't care about important things (look at the list of things i attribute to guys... not exactly the mother theresa list of things to care about). i'm also not saying that girls can't be interested in things. they can and most certainly are. but girls dabble in many interests. so many, that it's impossible to even begin to record them here. most girls have at least 4,000 pairs of shoes. how do you decide which pair to wear each day? that's crazy to me. i have worn black chuck taylors for the last 10 years, without variance. i'm obsessed. don't give me choices. i don't do well with choices.
what conclusion can we draw from this observation? i'm not too sure. i know that dudes have the ability to get along much easier than broads (wikipedia defines broad: "a woman of lesser class then a lady but higher class then a bitch." that one's for you, brian.) because chances are you share at least one obsession with every fella you meet on the street. girls have to work too hard to find common ground to start on:
girl #1 "so, what kind of shoes are those?"
girl #2 "they're vintage, you wouldn't recognize the brand."
girl #1 "oh." (why can't i get away from shoe comments when talking about females? seriously.)
on the flip side, let's ease drop on a classic dude conversation:
guy #1 "what's up man?"
guy #2 "freakin' bengals, man... 0-7."
guy #1 (excited and raising his voice) "i know man! can you even believe that. to make things worse, you've got the entire media reporting on every insignificant detail of the dallas cowboys and jay glazer reporting every time brett favre sneezes. if it weren't for the improbable rise to greatness of the tampa bay rays, i would give up all hope..."
guy #2 (interrupting due to surge of joy) "that's what happens when you live in the entertainment age. used to be that the average middle american worked hard to sustain and build a family and sunday was a singular day in the week to come together in a social context with his neighbors and family to enjoy a competition of juggernauts and gladiators. due to the cable networks complete reliance upon "new" stories to keep the average viewer returning, the typical american is innundated with mundane and mindless trivia they try to call news. that's why i dig the new tv on the radio album, dear science, so much, because i think it captures the struggle of the modern man and woman. sure, bands like deerhunter and of montreal tell a story as well, but it far less transcendent."
guy #1 (urinating on himself now). see, that's what i'm talking about. a movie like 'forgetting sarah marshall,' or 'knocked up' shows the plight of the average american man as placed in that position by society. it's funny because it's real and it's sad because it's true. we live in a world now that rewards men for being "emotional and understanding" and rejects the heroes of old; guys like stallone, seagal, willis and schwarzenegger. everything is reversed. that's why i just sit in my apartment and smoke weed while playing halo 3. neil postman had it right in "amusing ourselves to death" when he said that we are now in the entertainment age, not the information age as once thought. do you really think anybody is any smarter now than they were before the internet? the human mind can't begin to hold onto all of the info that assaults it every day. like trying to get a sip of water from the firehose... you know what i mean?"
guy #2 i get it man. you're speaking my language. what did you say your name was again? we should hang out some time. maybe drink a few pumpkin beers and play some madden or something..."
do you see the difference between guy talk and girl talk? it's so painfully obvious.
it should be noted, at this point, that i am a male. being a male, i am most certainly excluded from the female race (it's not a race, is it? gender would have worked better there). it's possible that i'm wrong on this one, but i don't think so. my wife is taking a nap right now, or i would ask her if i am right or wrong. i'm going to go ahead and be a maverick and just his "publish post" without any confirmation. (you see what it happeing here? i'm already obsessing over whether i should discuss this with a female or not before making it public! i'm my own case study. fascinating!)
dames just typically don't get into stuff the way boys do. i don't know why this is, but it just is, and that should be enough. if i were to get all "scientific method" on this i'd feel pretty good about my question of origin and background research (28 years of being a dude and being around girls is a lot of research). my hypothesis has been constructed, but i lack an experiment that will test my hypothesis. screw it, i'll just analyze data from my frivelous background research and draw a short-sighted and possibly erroneous conclusion. you are currently enjoying the communication of my results, so 5 out of 6 in the scientific method, not bad (maybe i learned something from freshman science afterall)
now, perhaps your thinking, "justin, what is it you are trying to say? something tells me that you're going to make some grand point about how guys are better than girls..."
obviously i'm not going to make that point. as a matter of fact, in honor of this election season in which nobody makes any points, and no stance is ever taken on any issue, i'm just going to make this point (in a presidential-hopeful tone):
"people of america. men and women are different. if i am elected president, i promise to uphold and promote that difference as much as i am able. unless you don't want me to uphold that difference... then i promise to make sure everythink is homogenized, because i care about the american people. unlike my opponent who doesn't like women. or men. or puppies. he is evil, and that is why you should vote for me... because i'm not evil."
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
you will not enjoy this post. i promise. it's not worth reading. if you think i am joking and trying to get your attention, you are wrong.
allow me to welcome back my trusty little apple ibook, who had been out of commission for over a month due to a charger failure and a lack of effort to secure a replacement. i couldn't see spending another $79 on a new one from apple, and all the off-brands received poor reviews. i eventually found one for pretty cheap that had minimal poor reviews... (you care).
with the return on the ibook comes a return of access to my itunes, and most importantly, my podcasts. for the past three days i have been marathoning every bill simmons podcast in my car as i drive around for work. i'm listening to football projections for week three of the nfl season and loving every minute of it. it's almost like i have travelled into the future, observed the outcomes of these games, and now get to go back to the past (present) and mock bill and cousin sal as they talk about what they suppose the outcomes of these future games to be. i have so much power, so much wisdom. if i could just call them and say, "you got it all wrong. trust me, i've been there, the patriots will lose to miami in week 4."
on another note, i preached a sermon to a lively bunch of senior citizens at madona manor today. my friend heather asked me to come once a week and hold a "non-denominational, protestant service" for all the non-catholics in the building. let me just tell you that i know nothing when it comes to the elderly. can i make jokes about bad cafeteria food and sponge baths? can i talk about death? i spoke about the subject of hope, and plan to continue this subject for several weeks, but every time i mentioned anything about death or life i felt like i was punching somebody in the kidney. i normally would fill a time of preaching with cultural references, personal experiences and well-planned analogies, but i quickly discovered that this would not fly with this crowd. a quick reference to the economic crisis brought about no reply, so i'm pretty sure these people don't really know what's going on. i'll keep trying though. next i'll try references to wheel of fortune and 'the jeffersons' reruns, with the hope that i can break through into their world. but i like old people. i get nervous around them, always have. even my own grandparents made me nervous, especially when they became sick and frail. i'm large and clumsy, and i think i have a fear that i will topple over some poor woman in the hall as she tries to scoot to the bathroom. one kind woman told me that i did a great job, but that it was too long. i love the honesty of the elderly, there's no more pulling punches when you get to that age. what you see is what you get. there's no time for pussy-footing around (what does that even mean? one of my favorite sayings of all time). so next week i'll trim down from a 40 minute presentation to a 20 minute, and hope that i can speak loudly and slowly enough that i don't lose everyone.
this thing is going nowhere. sorry, tried to write without a subject or goal in mind. i should probably just delete it, but i spent more than 6 minutes on it, and i don't waste that much time without some result. that and i feel compelled to average four posts a month on this blog. i'll be back with something worthwhile soon. i promise. (you care)
with the return on the ibook comes a return of access to my itunes, and most importantly, my podcasts. for the past three days i have been marathoning every bill simmons podcast in my car as i drive around for work. i'm listening to football projections for week three of the nfl season and loving every minute of it. it's almost like i have travelled into the future, observed the outcomes of these games, and now get to go back to the past (present) and mock bill and cousin sal as they talk about what they suppose the outcomes of these future games to be. i have so much power, so much wisdom. if i could just call them and say, "you got it all wrong. trust me, i've been there, the patriots will lose to miami in week 4."
on another note, i preached a sermon to a lively bunch of senior citizens at madona manor today. my friend heather asked me to come once a week and hold a "non-denominational, protestant service" for all the non-catholics in the building. let me just tell you that i know nothing when it comes to the elderly. can i make jokes about bad cafeteria food and sponge baths? can i talk about death? i spoke about the subject of hope, and plan to continue this subject for several weeks, but every time i mentioned anything about death or life i felt like i was punching somebody in the kidney. i normally would fill a time of preaching with cultural references, personal experiences and well-planned analogies, but i quickly discovered that this would not fly with this crowd. a quick reference to the economic crisis brought about no reply, so i'm pretty sure these people don't really know what's going on. i'll keep trying though. next i'll try references to wheel of fortune and 'the jeffersons' reruns, with the hope that i can break through into their world. but i like old people. i get nervous around them, always have. even my own grandparents made me nervous, especially when they became sick and frail. i'm large and clumsy, and i think i have a fear that i will topple over some poor woman in the hall as she tries to scoot to the bathroom. one kind woman told me that i did a great job, but that it was too long. i love the honesty of the elderly, there's no more pulling punches when you get to that age. what you see is what you get. there's no time for pussy-footing around (what does that even mean? one of my favorite sayings of all time). so next week i'll trim down from a 40 minute presentation to a 20 minute, and hope that i can speak loudly and slowly enough that i don't lose everyone.
this thing is going nowhere. sorry, tried to write without a subject or goal in mind. i should probably just delete it, but i spent more than 6 minutes on it, and i don't waste that much time without some result. that and i feel compelled to average four posts a month on this blog. i'll be back with something worthwhile soon. i promise. (you care)
Thursday, October 2, 2008
heidi says i'm out of control
i'm sorry i only wrote two posts last month (i don't know who i am apologizing to). i try to average one a week but sometimes i just don't have anything to say. (sometimes i don't have anything to say but i write anyway)
listening to baseball is far superior to watching it on television. i love broadcaster's voices. something about listening to the game on the crackin' AM radio just makes me happy. i grew up without cable, so whenver i wanted to catch my san fran giants, it was to the radio in the garage where i would sit on this bench and listen to jon miller and mike krukow serenade angels to come down from heaven (hyperbole?) oh, and by the way, the rays are going to world series and will lose to the dodgers. i have to ride the rays (remember that i picked them as my darkhorse BEFORE the season) and they have to make it as far as the rockies did last year so that i can feel at least equal to kevin. if they win a single game in the world series then kevin owes me a pumpkin ale.
the other night i sat at a table with heidi, heather, annie and cheryle and listened to them talk about how funny ellen degeneres is. ellen degeneres is not funny. these women couldn't understand how i could possibly not be an ellen fan. simply stating that i have testicles would have been enough to settle the argument, but i insisted that there are 100 people i would rather run into on a street corner than ellen degeneres. this shouldn't be too hard. let's go
1) kelsey grammer (frasier is a great show that i am appreciating more and more recently. and i won't comment on every person, don't worry)
2-6) the cast of saved by the bell minus screech (who i have seen at a bar and was a complete tool) and mr. belding, who i also met and was the greatest human being to ever live.
7) george w. bush
8-9) bill simmons and manny ramirez at the same time.
10) alex trebek
11) bill murray (but only if i could be guaranteed that he would actually be nice to me)
12) will clark (my favorite baseball player of all time. over 170 cards in plastic sleeves located in my parents' attic supports this statement)
13) larry david
14) chuck klosterman
15) michael j fox (i'd probably say something like, "too bad you can't go back in time and change your genetic code to make sure you don't get parkinson's disease." then i'd feel really bad for making such an inappropriate comment and say something like, "i wish i could go back in time and not make that last comment.")
16-19) mark driscoll, john piper, matt chandler and tim keller (all in one room, talking about theology and stuff. i'd just sit in the corner and smile)
20) marvin lewis (later i would be charged with assault for knocking his front two teeth out with my forehead).
21) the dog whisperer guy (make my dog not crazy!)
22) conan o'brien
23) david lynch
24) wes anderson
25) dusty baker ("man, why did you give russ ortiz the game ball in game six of the 2002 world series? that was a big mistake.")
26) scott spezio (another assault charge on my record)
27) michael c. hall (who would have thought that a gay funeral director and a serial killer could be so cool?)
28) ashton kutcher
29) jim carrey (but only if he happened to be coming out of 7/11 with an oversized beverage in his hand)
30-36) paula deen, barefoot contessa, bobby flay, alton brown, guy fieri, and sandra lee (for heidi)
37-38) joe montana and jerry rice (playing catch across traffic on either side of the street)
39) phil donahue
40) garth brooks
41-44) p diddy, puff daddy, sean combs
45) a hockey player (i probably have run into lots of hockey players on the street and didn't know it because hockey is unimportant. i was going to use the name of a real hockey player, but the only one i could think of wayne gretzky and that seemed rather pointless)
46) john madden ("thanks for letting your name be used on one of the only video games of the modern era that i have ever enjoyed playing. the buffalo bills on madden 92 are unstoppable.")
47) james taylor (i'd get my picture taken with him and have him sign it for my mom)
48) chuck adomitis (see above, but for my wife)
49-50) mike and mike in the morning (i have woken up with them every morning for the last year + and though i don't really like them that much, they serve a special function in my day to day routine)
51) paul mccartney
52) chris collinsworth
53-57) band of horses (me - "hey, we used your song 'the funeral' for our wedding. thanks!" them - "we made tons of money of that song for commercials and tv soundtracks. you owe us 3,000 dollars." me - "sorry. but seriously, your music is incindiary." them - "are you really quoting 'almost famous' at us right now? you lose all listening priveleges." me - "bummer... well, see you later.")
58) matt groening ('the simpsons' deserves respect)
59) jon stewart
60) stephen colbert
61) van morrison
62) hulk hogan
63-64) robert plant and jimmy page
65) will ferrell (please make a good movie again)
66) judd apatow (thanks for freaks and geeks... and the other stuff too)
67-70) john mccain, barak obama, joe biden and sarah palin (let's settle this once and for all... on the street!)
71) the creator of street fighter (who provided me with a wonderful mental image of how the above showdown would look: sarah palin as chun li, john mccain as guile, barak obama as dhalism and joe biden as zangief)
72-98) the entire 25-man roster and manager joe maddon of the 2008 tampa bay rays who have brought me great joy by making my dark horse prediction come true. (obviously i'm running out of people to put on this list. not because it's hard to think of people i would rather meet on the street than ellen degeneres, but because i'm getting tired of this. the list is not hard to come up with. it could be anybody. that's the point. think of a name of a famous person, any famous person, and i would rather meet him/her than ellen degeneres. phil collins.))
99) phil collins
100) portia de rossi (the wife/mate/life partner/whatever of ellen degeneres. just so i could say to her, "hey, next time you see ellen, let her know that i would rather run into you and 99 other people more than her." that will get her.)
listening to baseball is far superior to watching it on television. i love broadcaster's voices. something about listening to the game on the crackin' AM radio just makes me happy. i grew up without cable, so whenver i wanted to catch my san fran giants, it was to the radio in the garage where i would sit on this bench and listen to jon miller and mike krukow serenade angels to come down from heaven (hyperbole?) oh, and by the way, the rays are going to world series and will lose to the dodgers. i have to ride the rays (remember that i picked them as my darkhorse BEFORE the season) and they have to make it as far as the rockies did last year so that i can feel at least equal to kevin. if they win a single game in the world series then kevin owes me a pumpkin ale.
the other night i sat at a table with heidi, heather, annie and cheryle and listened to them talk about how funny ellen degeneres is. ellen degeneres is not funny. these women couldn't understand how i could possibly not be an ellen fan. simply stating that i have testicles would have been enough to settle the argument, but i insisted that there are 100 people i would rather run into on a street corner than ellen degeneres. this shouldn't be too hard. let's go
1) kelsey grammer (frasier is a great show that i am appreciating more and more recently. and i won't comment on every person, don't worry)
2-6) the cast of saved by the bell minus screech (who i have seen at a bar and was a complete tool) and mr. belding, who i also met and was the greatest human being to ever live.
7) george w. bush
8-9) bill simmons and manny ramirez at the same time.
10) alex trebek
11) bill murray (but only if i could be guaranteed that he would actually be nice to me)
12) will clark (my favorite baseball player of all time. over 170 cards in plastic sleeves located in my parents' attic supports this statement)
13) larry david
14) chuck klosterman
15) michael j fox (i'd probably say something like, "too bad you can't go back in time and change your genetic code to make sure you don't get parkinson's disease." then i'd feel really bad for making such an inappropriate comment and say something like, "i wish i could go back in time and not make that last comment.")
16-19) mark driscoll, john piper, matt chandler and tim keller (all in one room, talking about theology and stuff. i'd just sit in the corner and smile)
20) marvin lewis (later i would be charged with assault for knocking his front two teeth out with my forehead).
21) the dog whisperer guy (make my dog not crazy!)
22) conan o'brien
23) david lynch
24) wes anderson
25) dusty baker ("man, why did you give russ ortiz the game ball in game six of the 2002 world series? that was a big mistake.")
26) scott spezio (another assault charge on my record)
27) michael c. hall (who would have thought that a gay funeral director and a serial killer could be so cool?)
28) ashton kutcher
29) jim carrey (but only if he happened to be coming out of 7/11 with an oversized beverage in his hand)
30-36) paula deen, barefoot contessa, bobby flay, alton brown, guy fieri, and sandra lee (for heidi)
37-38) joe montana and jerry rice (playing catch across traffic on either side of the street)
39) phil donahue
40) garth brooks
41-44) p diddy, puff daddy, sean combs
45) a hockey player (i probably have run into lots of hockey players on the street and didn't know it because hockey is unimportant. i was going to use the name of a real hockey player, but the only one i could think of wayne gretzky and that seemed rather pointless)
46) john madden ("thanks for letting your name be used on one of the only video games of the modern era that i have ever enjoyed playing. the buffalo bills on madden 92 are unstoppable.")
47) james taylor (i'd get my picture taken with him and have him sign it for my mom)
48) chuck adomitis (see above, but for my wife)
49-50) mike and mike in the morning (i have woken up with them every morning for the last year + and though i don't really like them that much, they serve a special function in my day to day routine)
51) paul mccartney
52) chris collinsworth
53-57) band of horses (me - "hey, we used your song 'the funeral' for our wedding. thanks!" them - "we made tons of money of that song for commercials and tv soundtracks. you owe us 3,000 dollars." me - "sorry. but seriously, your music is incindiary." them - "are you really quoting 'almost famous' at us right now? you lose all listening priveleges." me - "bummer... well, see you later.")
58) matt groening ('the simpsons' deserves respect)
59) jon stewart
60) stephen colbert
61) van morrison
62) hulk hogan
63-64) robert plant and jimmy page
65) will ferrell (please make a good movie again)
66) judd apatow (thanks for freaks and geeks... and the other stuff too)
67-70) john mccain, barak obama, joe biden and sarah palin (let's settle this once and for all... on the street!)
71) the creator of street fighter (who provided me with a wonderful mental image of how the above showdown would look: sarah palin as chun li, john mccain as guile, barak obama as dhalism and joe biden as zangief)
72-98) the entire 25-man roster and manager joe maddon of the 2008 tampa bay rays who have brought me great joy by making my dark horse prediction come true. (obviously i'm running out of people to put on this list. not because it's hard to think of people i would rather meet on the street than ellen degeneres, but because i'm getting tired of this. the list is not hard to come up with. it could be anybody. that's the point. think of a name of a famous person, any famous person, and i would rather meet him/her than ellen degeneres. phil collins.))
99) phil collins
100) portia de rossi (the wife/mate/life partner/whatever of ellen degeneres. just so i could say to her, "hey, next time you see ellen, let her know that i would rather run into you and 99 other people more than her." that will get her.)
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