Tuesday, March 29, 2005

We’re all about the all about all about here, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

Finger food

In California, a woman ordered Wendy’s chili and bit into a severed finger. That’s not the worst of it. The finger had a really nasty hang-nail.

It is no fun finding a finger where it doesn’t belong. Take it from any guy that has had a prostate exam.

Wendy’s is trying to put a good spin on this. They are advertising that they now have digital chili.

That makes more sense
After four years the Backstreet Boys are going on tour. The tour is sponsored by Dominoes Pizza. Wait, no, I’m sorry, the Backstreet Boys will be working at Dominoes after the tour. That’s it.

Not a good idea
They have discovered soft tissue and blood of a Tyrannosaurus Rex and now scientists say could clone the T-Rex. Excuse me, but am I the only one who remembers what happened in both “Jurassic Park” movies?

It adds up
“Blender” magazine says the average person spends 3 years in the bathroom. Unless you have 75 porno magazines, like Michael Jackson, then it’s up to 10 years in the bathroom.

Correction
The Robert Blake jury is demanding an apology for being called stupid. They’re right, stupid is not fair. Incompetent, inept, unintelligent, that’s fine, but not stupid.

Robert Blake says he’s broke. How broke? Today Blake had to borrow money to hire someone to shoot his accountant.

We kid and love the beautiful Kirstie
Burger King has the enormous omelet sandwich, 750 calories and 47 grams of fat. There are only four people in the world that could finish that sandwich. Two that aren’t named Michael Moore or Kirstie Alley.

That ain’t easy for a guy to get on
Yesterday, Fred Funk won the Players Championship. It was a windy day. The wind made the signature 17th island green hard for the guys to get on. In fact, that green was harder for the guys to get on then Ellen DeGeneris.

Oh, now it’s just getting mean
A California scientist has cured mice of their cat allergies. Is it necessary to cure mice of their cat allergies? That’s like curing a ham of its fear of Kirstie Alley.

Is this really necessary? Are there a lot of mice out there that want to cuddle with a cat?

Leave her alone
CBS “The Early Show” revealed the new Optimal diet, the Polish fat diet. It recommends three times the normal amount of fat, 250 grams of fat a day. Or as Kirstie Alley calls 250 grams of fat: a midnight snack.

That is sooo mean
The Anchorage Alaska zoo has installed a huge treadmill in order to get their overweight elephant, Maggie, to lose weight. Maggie weighs 9,000 pounds and needs to lose a thousand pounds, or in other words about one Kirstie Ally.

Finally, not a Kirstie joke
In Michigan, a 12-year-old boy sat in the lap of a man in an Easter Bunny costume and then, unprovoked, the boy began to pummel the guy in the bunny suit. How angry are we getting when a child punches the Easter Bunny? What’s next? Santa Claus elder abuse?

Since you asked:
There are two kinds of people: people who are good with names, and people who are good with faces. If you’re one you’re probably not the other. As I am extremely good with faces – I once spotted a guy in Boston whom I hadn’t seen since we were in second grade together – that means I am horrible with names. Really horrible.

A lot of people confuse my name, Alex, with Eric, either because they sound the same or I look like an Eric or both. Either way, I get Eric a lot.

Knowing that I am weak at names, when it starts to become embarrassing, I make a concerted effort to remember someone’s name, and, just like that, their name is forever lodged in my head. It’s easy, you just take one brief moment to make a game out of the name and it sticks.

For example, there was a woman at my gym that always tied up her dog outside. The dog’s name I could remember, but I couldn’t remember her name so that was embarrassing. The dog’s name was Bella, and the woman’s name was Ellen. Then I thought, take the B off Bella, and you got the start of Ella which is almost Ellen. It worked. The dog had made a much bigger impression, but at least now I knew her name.

So now I know her name, but Ellen couldn’t remember my name to save her life. That’s fine, I thought. The only reason I was even friendly to Ellen was because her dog was a cute yellow Labrador, like my dog, Kasey. (Incidentally, she always remembered Kasey’s name) For a while I would say “Hello Ellen,” just to remind her I knew her name and she didn’t know mine, but usually I would be nice and let her off the hook and not say her name so she didn’t feel bad.

But then, after a good solid two months of this, Ellen started to make a big deal out of not being able to remember my name and that became deeply irritating. If she had put half the effort into remembering my name instead of talking about why she couldn’t remember it, she would have remembered my name. After that I felt free to rub it in:

“Hello Ellen. How are you, Ellen? Ellen, are you having a good day? Well, Ellen, it was good to talk to you. Have a good workout, Ellen.”

She would look at me uncomprehendingly like a cow at a passing train. She simply could not remember my name. And then, one day, she became exasperated:

“I can’t understand it,” she complained, “Why can’t I remember your name? What is it again?” Now, somewhat testily I have to admit, I reminded her, “Alex” for about the fifteenth time. Then she began to dig herself even deeper:

“That’s so weird, I really like the name Alex, it’s a good name. I guess you just don’t look anything like an Alex to me. That must be it.”

What an idiot. She just insulted me to my face, so when she asked, once again, why she couldn’t remember my name, I let her have it with both guns;

“You know why you can’t remember my name, Ellen? Because you couldn’t care less. If remembering my name had any benefit to you at all, you’d have taken a slight effort about two months ago, but you clearly don’t give a sh#t. I promise, if you got $5 bucks to remember my name, you would remember.”

As a name forgetter, this lecture made me a world class hypocrite, but, it had become insulting and it felt good. Well, my lecture must have worked because the next time I saw Ellen, she ran up to me and proudly announced;

“After you practically yelled at me, now I remember your name. It’s Alex.”

“No,” I dead-panned, “It’s Eric.”

Sometimes it is really fun to be a total and utter d*ckhead.