Congratulations to Richard “crysflame” Soderburg, for posting the 500th comment for this blog since I moved it over to Blogware!
Sorry Richard, I have no actual prizes to offer, but please accept this virtual high-five as a token of my appreciation.
And thank you, Blogware development team, for putting in running tallies of articles and comments!
Back when my buddy George and I were in Crazy Go Nuts University, we used to say “Yeah…girls…geez” a lot. I’ve since adopted that lament as one of the this blog’s categories. All dating-related stories will fall under this category, and you can access it by going to this blog’s main page and clicking the “Life” link under “Topics” in the left -hand column. You’ll be taken to the “Life” category. “Yeah…girls…geez” is a subcategory of “Life”; click on “Yeah…girls…geez” under “Topics” in the “Life” section to see all its stories.
From FARK: The Washington Post has a story on Modern Flirting and how women and girls are more aggressive than they used to be.
I dare you to resist visiting a site named BarBitches.com:
The BarBitches pick up where Ann Landers and Emily Post left off, providing modern-day etiquette lessons for bars and other social venues. If you’re not sure how to appropriately interact with others–people you want to talk to, people you want to sleep with, and people you want to get the hell away from–or if you’re just sick of seeing bad behavior when you go out, BarBitches.com is your new bible.
The BarBitches dream of a world where everyone knows how to properly order a drink, signal interest to an attractive stranger, figure out when and when not to make a move, politely signal non-interest, and properly conduct a hook-up from start to finish.
I’ve already finished telling the story of my worst date ever. I have four or five dates that I would consider to be my best, but one in particular is the most tellable, especially since it goes from disaster to success in a very odd way. It’s also tellable because it happened so long ago that anyone involved probably won’t mind my telling the story. Anyone want to hear it?
Nobody does funny, angsty comics quite like Derek Kirk Kim. Some goodies of his include:
If I ever wanted to put out Worst Date Ever in comic form, I’d hire Derek to draw it.
Derek’s best-known work is Same Difference, a serialized comic starring the outgoing and exuberant Nancy, and Simon, the overly-angsty sombre geek. You can read the whole thing online and you can also buy it in book form. It’s a great read.
Derek’s latest work, The Ten Commandments of Simon, features Simon from the aforementioned Same Difference. In it, Simon dispenses the secrets to becoming a 29-year-old virgin. Part one, with the first five commandments, is currently available; part two should be coming soon.
When I was living in San Francisco and working with Cory Doctorow at OpenCola, we probably went out to go catch a movie once every couple of weeks. Our observation, as Canadians living among Americans, was that “American etiquette” is:
a) an oxymoron, and
b) at its worst in movie theatres.
Cory told me that he believed the home theatre changed movie-going behaviour: people were simply behaving as if they were in their own homes rather than in movie theatres. It’s an example of the inappropriateness of certain private behaviours brought into a public space.
The most over-the-top breach of manners we experienced was during Hannibal. We sat in front of a couple that insisted on giving voice to every stray thought that crossed their minds throughout the movie.
During the beautifully-shot scenes in Florence: “Damn, Italy is beautiful. We gotta go there sometime, baby.”
Watching Hannibal Lecter overpower just about everybody: “Damn, he strong for an old man.”
When Gary Oldman’s disfigured character first appears in full view: “Damn, you ugly.”
Cory threw them an angry glance and I turned around to shush them with each outburst of theirs. Each time we admonished them, they’d sheepishly make some kind of apologetic gesture and remain contritely quiet for a couple of minutes. Soon afterwards, something would happen onscreen, a new thought would coalesce in their brains and they’d vocalise once more.
During Ray Liotta’s last scene — a rather grim and gross one at that — the guy behind us broke the stunned silence with his funniest outburst of the show:
“Daaa-yum! Hannibal be eatin’ HIS BRAIN!”
Glarkware has a product that might help out in situations like the one I just described. For a mere US$3.50, you can purchase a pack of 25 business card-sized “movie manners courtesy cards”, shown below:
According to Glarkware’s site:
Handing one to a talker means that you don’t have to make a “shush” noise even louder than the talking. The vague wording of the text gives the (false) impression that the cards have been distributed by the theatre chain, lending the card-giving an authority that your “shush” lacks.
Just for counting’s sake, the entry prior to this one was number 300 since moving to Blogware.
I have no idea how many entries there are in my old blog, but they date back to November 11, 2001.
Here are some articles from the old blog that you might’ve missed:
Reading a recent entry in Meryle’s blog, I just found out that she was drinking with The Strokes, who just happened to wander into my local watering hole, the Bovine Sex Club, on Tuesday night.
And she didn’t call!
Meryle! I would’ve called you!
After all the accordion-related rock star fun we’ve had together…
Sniff…
Correction: The spelling of Kerry-Ann’s name has been corrected from the incorrect “Carrie-Anne”.
The scene:
Last Sunday evening at Kickass Karaoke, upstairs at the Rivoli. I’m returning to my table from performing Nine Inch Nails’ Head Like a Hole. Sitting to my left is a friend I’ll refer to as Dude, and sitting across the table from me are Sam and Kerry-Ann. Meryle and Erik are sitting nearby, dressed for Disco Night, looking as if they’ve fallen out of a 1977 high school yearbook.
Sam: That was great!
Me: Thank you!
Sam: By the way, you should turn ar–
Dude: Shhhhhh!
Sam (sheepishly): Sorry.
Me: Huh?
Dude: It’s nothing. Don’t worry.
Later…
Sam: Joey, I think you should kn–
Dude: Shush!
Sam: But —
Dude: Shhhhhh!
Sam (sheepishly): Okay.
Me: Will somebody please tell me what’s going on?
Dude: Later. Let’s see how this develops.
Me: Whatever. I’m going to buy this round. Who wants what?
Later…
Dude: See the brunette with the black T-shirt? She’s been checking you out all night.
Me: Why didn’t you mention this before?
Dude: Because I didn’t want to interfere. This should just happen naturally. The girls wanted to tell you, but I told them to let it play out — if you knew, you’d act differently and maybe it might not work out.
Me: Mmm-hmmm.
What Dude said sounded like such complete nonsense that I dismissed it as him having a little fun with me.
Minutes later, a skinny punk rock girl would walk directly up to me, make eye contact and start dancing against my chair. You know what happened afterwards.
The scene:
Last night, after the Radiohead concert.
Sam: You know, that woman at karaoke really was checking you out.
Me: Karaoke? What woman?
Sam: The woman at the bar. Kerry-Ann and I were watching her check you out, and we both agreed she was into you.
Me: Why didn’t you tell me? I thought you were my friend!
Sam: We wanted to, but [Dude] told us not to. He was really forceful about it, saying that if you knew, your chances would be ruined.
Me: Wait a minute. When he said it, he used that “if you’re aware of it, you’ll ruin it” bullshit. I thought he was kidding because of that. You mean to tell me that he wasn’t?
Sam (sheepishly): No. Uh…you want me to tell you next time?
Me: Yes, please. Oh, and another thing…
Sam (sheepishly): Uh-huh?
Me: [Dude] must die.
No, Dude, I’m not going to kill you. Even though the Universal Code of Guys gives me the right to do so — and pee on the corpse, too! — under such circumstances.
What you did was with the best of intentions and in the spirit of true friendship. Perhaps you were worried about violating the golden rule of baseball that you should never mention to a pitcher that he’s on a no-hitting streak, because once he knows, he’ll fumble and the streak will end. Perhaps you were worried that by “interfering”, you might make the same kind of mistake that Steve Bartman made (although Bartman would not do so until two evenings later).
But really, “let things happen naturally”? The natural outcome for 99% of bar and club-goers is a state of equilibrium, which is for nothing to happen at all. No conversations, no exchanges of phone numbers, no nuthin’.
When this happens again — and I mean when, not if, bucko — I want to be informed. Please. Have some faith that I will know what to do with the information. After all, outside of 1984, the saying isn’t “Ignorance is power”.
Here are the new rules. Be assured I will do the same for you!