Random Thoughts

Over the years, I’ve noticed some distinct differences between men and women. And I’m not talking about the obvious anatomical diferences. Let me illustrate…

Toilet Paper
Women love to have the paper coming from the back of the roll (as shown in the image). Men love to have the paper coming from the front of the roll. Why is this? I have absolutely no idea. I don’t even have a theory on this one. And believe me, I have no shortage of theories about random stuff.

TiVo
Women need to delete shows from the TiVo after they watch them. I think this has something to do with women’s propensity to be neat and tidy. They feel like they’re keeping the TiVo neat and tidy. Ladies, the TiVo will delete the shows when it needs to make room. Relax already.

Communication
When a man says “Do you see anything on the menu you like?” we actually mean exactly what came out of our mouth. We’re simple like that. Women are complicated. When a woman says “Do you see anything on the menu you like?” she is really saying “I don’t see anything on the menu I like, so you better tell me we are going to go somewhere else now.” There is a secret subtext to what a woman says. It is our job as men to crack the code. I have the code partially cracked, and it has taken decades.

Complaining
Guys you should never, ever, EVER offer advice to a woman that is complaining. Ladies, let me tell you, as a man that’s just about the most difficult thing in the world to do. We hear about a problem and we want to solve it. I get it now, though. I’m just supposed to sympathize.

I’ve noticed there are two kinds of walkers in this world. The majority walk with their arms swaying forward and back parallel to the way they’re walking. Then there’s this weird minority that walk with their arms swaying perpendicular to the way they’re walking. It’s like they started to do some tap dancing routine and now they’re stuck walking awkwardly. It’s completely unnatural. Look at the pedestrian crossing sign. Is the silhouette swaying its gender neutral arms in a perpendicular path? Of course not. The arms are in motion in a plane parallel to the way the silhouette is walking. This is the way humans were meant to walk. I wonder what happens if you try to walk while holding hands with an awkward walker? Awkward walkers must need to couple up with other awkward walkers.

The latest trend in conspicuous consumption: putting a bunch of crap on display in the rear window of your car. This is for the person who loves clutter and needs yet another spot to clutter up. I’m not a fan of clutter. And I really hate cutesy clutter. My mom loves cutesy clutter. The problem the clutter lovers eventually face is that they’ve maxed out on spots to clutter. So then they have to buy clutter as something to give to other people. If my mom were going to decorate the shelf under the rear window of my car, it would be filled with various cutesy things working on computers. See, I work with computers. So she thinks I’d like computer-themed clutter. This might be something like a dragon working away on a computer. My rear window would be filled with dragons working on computers.

Would you like to buy a phone you’ll really hate? Then you should definitely buy a Sony Ericsson T637. Look. Look at what they did with this phone. THERE ARE NO CALL AND HANG-UP BUTTONS. They replaced them with “clear” and “go back”. For Pete’s sake, what the hell am I doing with my phone 99% of the time!? I’m calling and hanging up. When am I clearing and going back!? Who thought this was more important than call and hang-up?

So, of course, I have to wonder. How did this come to be? Who at Sony Ericsson could possibly have the seemingly impossible combination of mental disability and absolute power? Here’s my theory. I think Mr. Sony Ericsson has a lazy stoner kid. This kid just wanted to sit around and play Tony Hawk all day long, but papa-san had different ideas. Mr. Sony Ericsson made him take a job at the family business. So Junior decides to get even with dad by screwing up the family business. “I know what will make sales of these phones tank!” he thought, “I’ll get rid of the call and hang-up buttons. Then I can play video games and get stoned all day long without this stupid job getting in the way. Heh heh heh.” And thus the evil plot was hatched.

This evil plot happened to coincide with an evil plot by the cell phone carriers. They wanted to make more money from having people use their phones to go on the internet. “Together we will rule the world!” the evil carrier person tells Junior. Junior is staying up late in the lab, becoming a cell phone supervillain. He acquires some evil henchmen. Every supervillain needs evil henchmen. Together they plan to make a new Frankenbutton. This monstrosity combines “hang up” and “go online” into a single button of pure evil. As soon as you press “hang up” it turns into “go online”. Which is just great if you’re in the habbit of pressing “hang up” a bunch of times to make sure you really did hang up. Now you’re hanging up and going online. That just cost you $1. Oh, did you do that again? That’s another $1. Hey, did you accidentally do that again? Gosh that’s too bad. That’s another $1.

And, for the coup de grace… the camera button. This is the work of an evil genius. It seems so nice and accommodating at first glance. Look, they gave me a special button so it only takes one click to take a picture. And they put it in a spot where I can hold my phone sideways like a camera and the button right where the shutter button usually is on a camera. What could possibly be evil about that? What you can’t see is the button that’s on the exact opposite side. Can you guess what that button is? Of course, it’s our favorite GO ONLINE button. See, if you want to take a picture, you have to brace under the camera button by putting your thumb on the go online button. So now you take a picture and go online.

I think we haven’t seen the last of this new evil cell phone supervillain. Be alert my friends…be alert.