Coincidence

Coincidence is an interesting thing. It's something that seems to happen to a point that it's hard to say so many things are coincidental.

Here is an example:

Yesterday afternoon I decided to go get my car cleaned. I pretty much only go to one place to get my car cleaned. And yesterday was no different. The guy who I dropped the car off with told me that it would take about 2 hours. I dropped the car off at 4:30pm. So, I decided to go on walkabout. (Yes, the aboriginal practice of wandering until you find yourself in this epic coming of age type journey - it was exactly like that). So I wandered.

I wandered down a couple blocks to India street, the main thoroughfare that cuts through Little Italy in San Diego. I was waiting for a phone call, and I was strolling, looking for some little nook that might have some good food and not too much bustle (hustle was ok). Well, after my fabulous phone conversation, and having gone all the way down and then back up India street, I saw a sign at this one little restaurant that had several delicious desserts on it. One of these desserts was tiramisu (one of the best desserts ever devised by the mind, hands, and culinary expertise of man). Just down the street there was some sort of concert, so I thought, "Why would anyone pay for an outdoor concert when you can hear it just fine from this fabulous pizza place that has tiramisu?"

Well, it just so happens that my buddy, who lives an hour away was a roadie for the night for one of the bands at this concert. So when he sent me a text message asking me if I was back from my usual sojourning, I said yes. However, I assumed he was at least an hour away. But then when he said he was in Little Italy at a concert, and I told him I was also in Little Italy at a restaurant it was like the intersection of two seemingly divergent universes, splitting the atom and peeling the onion of coincidence to some sort of obvious fate. He was two blocks away. So we ate pizza, tiramisu, and I got to check out this concert for free. It was awesome. I don't care much for the Wall Flowers, but one of my latest favorite bands was there. Walk the Moon:

EXTREME TEXTING! LOL WTF. TTYL.

We live in a world of extremes. Extreme temperatures, extreme politics, and of course, extreme sports. But there is a way to become part of the extreme fun without going inside a volcano, fomenting an insurrection, or doing a 1080 on a riding lawnmower while jumping a tank of alligators.

How?

Extreme texting.

Not to be confused with extreme ironing.

No, I don't mean texting from your car while driving on the interstate (not extreme, just dumb). Neither do I mean sending texts from outer space. No. If you want to be an extreme texter you have to think outside of the box. Beyond 160 characters. Beyond human. For instance, let's say you wanted to involve space travel while texting. Well, no one cares if you send a text from space, but if you send a monkey or an overweight orangutan to text from the moon, that is extreme.

Becoming a zombie, and then texting is not extreme, especially if you work at Best Buy.

The possibilities don't end there though. You could also text from inside the belly of a shark. How? Figure it out. This is not rocket surgery. You could also text while doing a contortionist stunt while being launched out a torpedo tube on a submarine. And if that doesn't float your boat, then create the world's largest cruise ship/cell phone (ie: a cell phone that is also a cruise ship or vice versa) then become a jet pilot and launch missles at the keypad so that it sends a message to your grandma in Pocatello.

Texting while squatting on a manhole cover and eating icecream is pretty extreme (especially once the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles jump out and surprise her with some pizza)

Yeah. Sweeeeet.

Easter Text Messages

So today is Easter Sunday, and I am Christian. So, it's an important holiday to me. And, apparently it is also important to other people. While some people in the Philippines are flagellating and scourging themselves, some even doing mock crucifixions and resurrections, my friends just send me text messages. I think that's nice. And, not quite so messy. Fortunately I do not have any friends who have sent me videos of themselves reenacting the passion of Christ. However, what is one to do when receiving a mass text that says, "Happy Easter!" with possibly a million smiley's after it? Here is a similar conundrum:

The Inconsiderate Bad Communicators

Most people in the world suck at communicating. Seriously. How many people do you know who always send thank you notes out soon after receiving a present? How many people always return phone calls and text messages promptly? The answer is...next to no one. And I know everyone has fabulous excuses, but shut up already. Just learn to be better at it. It's not hard. I swear. It'll take you only a couple extra minutes, and you might even gain a title like "Someone I can count on." That's not a bad deal.

On this same vein I must say that women are the worst when it comes to returning text messages or phone calls. And, I honestly don't care if they think they are trying to send a message by delaying their response or not responding at all. It's just rude. It's inconsiderate. It is much crueler in my mind for someone to shun or ignore you than to come straight to your face and bluntly say, "I'm not interested. Leave me alone." It would save everyone a lot of heart ache and wasted time if we just said what we meant, and stopped trying to be "overly polite" and therefore tactless. It is more tactful to be upfront and truthful. Beating around the bush and not calling people back is like being a middle schooler. Grow up ladies!

Twitter Revisited

It's almost like some big secret. No one really wants to explain it. Well, that was until I got into it. I know I mocked it before, mostly because it seemed a little odd to say the least. Twitter. The actual website is twitter.com and on the site, you have a little profile like so many other social websites, with one massive exception. I know those of you who have facebook and myspace are familiar with status updates. Well, twitter is basically only status updates. You can hook it up to your phone and send a text to '40404' wherever you are and you can tell people what you're doing from one moment to the next (not that anyone really cares). But, occasionally you can plug a new website or blog and if you gain a pretty good following, you can boost the traffic there many fold. You may have noticed (those of you who are observant) that I linked twitter to my blog. That means you can keep up to date with my daily ramblings and sojourns. Lucky you. So I recommend you all go to twitter, visit my page, and become followers. The cat's out of the bag.

Wazzup Dude? How are you?

The ways we communicate are many and intricate. From town to town, county to county, state to state, or nation to nation there are variations in inflection, nasality, dialect, and language. For the purpose of this post I'd like to address a some what common trend. You may see it as a bad thing, or a good thing, or you may not care either way.

The simple fact is, wherever you go in the United States, you run into a preponderance of colloquialisms, slang, and mumbling. Personally I find myself more drawn to the mumbling (It is the perfect way to say something offensive without anyone really perceiving it except your closest mumble-translating friends). But, the far greater concern is not the mumblers, although perhaps we should enunciate more clearly.

The real problem is everyone who overuses the following words: stuff, things, dude, yeah, sweet, cool, crap, ya know, like, etc. Rarely, if ever does anyone truly use any of those words correctly in day-to-day speech. What it could represent is a dumbing down of the American-english vulgate. Or, perhaps the spread of MTV and surfer culture has made a massive juggernaut movement. I happen to be part of the surfer culture, but, contrary to what you might think, not all are sun-crisped air heads. In fact most are not. But, even though they may have MBAs or be CEOs and lawyers...they still love to use the words brah, dude, whoa, wazzup, gnarly and the like. This lingo has its proper time and place in my opinion. On the beach, at the board shop, on a surf trip, in the ocean, at the X games, etc. But, this language has made its way into Universities and the workplace and places that one might have thought could be safe, or even immune.

However, what helps it gain momentum is instant messenging, text messaging, and the ever-growing need to be cool and maintain a "I'm smart, but I don't need to use good grammar or complicated language to communicate." With the information age, it becomes easier to talk to one another in a variety of ways, but we also tend to communicate in the most base and easy way. Why? It's less time consuming. It's much easier to send a text that says "Wazup bro? R U goin 2nite to that thing?" than "Hey Tom, how are you? Are you going to the Maroon 5 concert?" And, some might think the second form makes you sound like a pompous dork. Why should we need to punctuate? Who cares about grammar? I got the point across didn't I? Yes. Yes you did, but I can't say I could vote for you for public office, or feel comfortable about sending my kids to a school where you teach. I doubt there is much we can do about the trend...unless we decide that we want to take the time to speak and write well without being ashamed of it.

The cool kids with the sweet lingo don't get the important jobs that go places or change the world. The stubborn people who like books, reading, writing, and public speaking get them. Talk amongst yourselves.