Some dumb things I've thought about in the past few days:
1. Over the weekend my grandma's sprinkler pipe froze and broke, because the water hadn't been shut off. So the water pipe broke. But when I learned about this, I imagined a funny sketch where this happens to a pregnant woman, and she's saying "my water pipe broke, my water pipe broke," but people think she's saying her water broke, and they call an ambulance and try to get her to go to a hospital, but really it was just her water pipe. But it wouldn't be a sketch with anywhere to go, unless maybe there's a second thing that could be confusing like that. Like, then she says, "I'm having baby lamb chops," and people think she's saying she's having the baby... but that isn't funny at all, and doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
2. I was telling someone the other day that I don't read before I go to sleep, partly because the light switch is on the other side of my bedroom, and so I'd have to get up out of bed to turn the light off. And as I way saying it, I realized there's a really easy solution to this problem, if I just buy a little reading lamp. I probably won't. But, still, I hadn't even thought of it until I actually said it out loud.
3. I got a questionnaire from my publisher, starting to think about marketing stuff, and it was a standard form that doesn't really need to be changed very often, and it said at the bottom, last revised in 1999... but the only thing that really gives that away is that in the instructions it says that if I want, I can turn in my response on a floppy disk. I can't remember the last time I used a floppy disk. My laptop doesn't even have a floppy disk drive. Actually, I used a floppy disk for law school exams, and my old laptop had a detachable floppy drive that I could plug in. But besides that, no floppy disks recently...
4. I bought a new bottle of shampoo, and it's the same kind of shampoo as I was using before, but it used to be white and now it's clear. The bottle doesn't have any indication of the change. So part of me thinks I'm actually crazy, and might have been using two bottles of conditioner before, and no shampoo. I don't really think that's the case, but who knows. Would I notice? And would they really change the shampoo from white to clear without warning the user about it on the bottle? I mean, Dannon even announced when they changed their yogurt from 8 oz. to 6 oz. -- "now there's room for mix-ins!" Oh, you mean less yogurt in the same size container, for the same price? Yeah, exactly.
5. I bought a "Holiday Metrocard" the other day. New York City is giving people 41 days for the price of 30, for the holiday, if you pay in cash at the booth. So I brought $76 to the subway station to do this. This felt like the closest I've been to a drug deal. "You have any holiday metrocards left?" "Yeah, you have the cash?" "Yeah." "You have a dollar bill so I can give you back a five?" "Yeah, sure." "Thanks." "Yeah, thanks."
6. I got an e-mail from a reader, no subject line. "Random thought.... but if you put a container of baking soda in your refrigerator, with the lid slightly open, it keeps everything smelling better...." Now I'm worried my refrigerator smells bad, and, even worse, people reading my weblog can tell.
7. When I was home over the weekend for the holiday, I had to sneeze, and the only tissues I could find were Key Food brand, and they felt like sandpaper. I don't understand generic tissues. They're not soft. They hurt. Why is it worth saving ten cents to buy crappy tissues? I understand generic cereal. I understand generic lots of things. But if something's being rubbed on my skin I'd rather it not be generic. That sounds kind of disturbing when I write it like that. You know what I mean though.
8. Thumbs down to Sarah Silverman's movie "Jesus is Magic." The articles about it give away all the jokes. Not so funny. I really wanted to like it. But I didn't.
9. I'm reading a book I got from the library called "AA Gill is Away." He's a British travel writer, and this is a collection of his columns. I saw it in a bookstore and it looked good enough to get for free at the library. I'm surprised. I really like it. He's a good writer. The pieces on America are the most engaging so far, just because I have more of a baseline for understanding than I do with his pieces about Africa, which are interesting too, but since I've never been, they're less engaging to me. This seems like the opposite of what I should read travel writing for. Like, I should want to read about places I haven't been, not about countries I already know a lot about. But that's what I'm finding.
10. Lists shouldn't have to have ten things, but it's a nice round number. I just installed Norton Internet Security on my computer because my old version expired and was starting to make my computer do funny things, like not connect to the Internet. This is really just a filler point. I have nothing to say for #10.
1. Over the weekend my grandma's sprinkler pipe froze and broke, because the water hadn't been shut off. So the water pipe broke. But when I learned about this, I imagined a funny sketch where this happens to a pregnant woman, and she's saying "my water pipe broke, my water pipe broke," but people think she's saying her water broke, and they call an ambulance and try to get her to go to a hospital, but really it was just her water pipe. But it wouldn't be a sketch with anywhere to go, unless maybe there's a second thing that could be confusing like that. Like, then she says, "I'm having baby lamb chops," and people think she's saying she's having the baby... but that isn't funny at all, and doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
2. I was telling someone the other day that I don't read before I go to sleep, partly because the light switch is on the other side of my bedroom, and so I'd have to get up out of bed to turn the light off. And as I way saying it, I realized there's a really easy solution to this problem, if I just buy a little reading lamp. I probably won't. But, still, I hadn't even thought of it until I actually said it out loud.
3. I got a questionnaire from my publisher, starting to think about marketing stuff, and it was a standard form that doesn't really need to be changed very often, and it said at the bottom, last revised in 1999... but the only thing that really gives that away is that in the instructions it says that if I want, I can turn in my response on a floppy disk. I can't remember the last time I used a floppy disk. My laptop doesn't even have a floppy disk drive. Actually, I used a floppy disk for law school exams, and my old laptop had a detachable floppy drive that I could plug in. But besides that, no floppy disks recently...
4. I bought a new bottle of shampoo, and it's the same kind of shampoo as I was using before, but it used to be white and now it's clear. The bottle doesn't have any indication of the change. So part of me thinks I'm actually crazy, and might have been using two bottles of conditioner before, and no shampoo. I don't really think that's the case, but who knows. Would I notice? And would they really change the shampoo from white to clear without warning the user about it on the bottle? I mean, Dannon even announced when they changed their yogurt from 8 oz. to 6 oz. -- "now there's room for mix-ins!" Oh, you mean less yogurt in the same size container, for the same price? Yeah, exactly.
5. I bought a "Holiday Metrocard" the other day. New York City is giving people 41 days for the price of 30, for the holiday, if you pay in cash at the booth. So I brought $76 to the subway station to do this. This felt like the closest I've been to a drug deal. "You have any holiday metrocards left?" "Yeah, you have the cash?" "Yeah." "You have a dollar bill so I can give you back a five?" "Yeah, sure." "Thanks." "Yeah, thanks."
6. I got an e-mail from a reader, no subject line. "Random thought.... but if you put a container of baking soda in your refrigerator, with the lid slightly open, it keeps everything smelling better...." Now I'm worried my refrigerator smells bad, and, even worse, people reading my weblog can tell.
7. When I was home over the weekend for the holiday, I had to sneeze, and the only tissues I could find were Key Food brand, and they felt like sandpaper. I don't understand generic tissues. They're not soft. They hurt. Why is it worth saving ten cents to buy crappy tissues? I understand generic cereal. I understand generic lots of things. But if something's being rubbed on my skin I'd rather it not be generic. That sounds kind of disturbing when I write it like that. You know what I mean though.
8. Thumbs down to Sarah Silverman's movie "Jesus is Magic." The articles about it give away all the jokes. Not so funny. I really wanted to like it. But I didn't.
9. I'm reading a book I got from the library called "AA Gill is Away." He's a British travel writer, and this is a collection of his columns. I saw it in a bookstore and it looked good enough to get for free at the library. I'm surprised. I really like it. He's a good writer. The pieces on America are the most engaging so far, just because I have more of a baseline for understanding than I do with his pieces about Africa, which are interesting too, but since I've never been, they're less engaging to me. This seems like the opposite of what I should read travel writing for. Like, I should want to read about places I haven't been, not about countries I already know a lot about. But that's what I'm finding.
10. Lists shouldn't have to have ten things, but it's a nice round number. I just installed Norton Internet Security on my computer because my old version expired and was starting to make my computer do funny things, like not connect to the Internet. This is really just a filler point. I have nothing to say for #10.
posted by Anonymous @ 4:18 PM
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