This is All Steve Jobs' Fault

I'm working on a project for my dad. He has Thursdays off, so I brought my laptop next door to go over it with him. There's a list of names he wants in two columns, but the laptop keyboard doesn't have an "ENTER" key, which differs from the "RETURN" key in that it starts a new page or column rather than just a new paragraph. So I ran back to home get my external keyboard and realized that I have once again locked myself out of my house. I specifically made sure the door was unlocked before I left by turning the knob both ways, and figured since it's able to turn, it must be unlocked. As you may have guessed, I apparently have no idea how doors...

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The Day That Wasn't

Yesterday morning I helped a guy named Randy get to class. He goes to a special needs school up the street, so I walked him there. When I got home, it was dark. Michele asked where I'd been all day. I told her I was helping Randy get to school; I couldn't have been gone longer than half an hour. But it was night. How could that be? It didn't make any sense. Did I go somewhere else and completely forget about it? Had the passage of time gone wonky? I thought about the walk to the school. On the way, I ran into the woman who used to live next door to me. I used to go to school with her daughter. These days she lives in Rockland and I live underneath where she used to live (her mother lived here when I was growing up.) Anyway, she was also walking someone to the school. He was her nephew. He...

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Art Attack

When I was younger, I had this book, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. The stories weren't remotely scary, but the pictures, sweet Jesus, the pictures haunt my dreams to this day. If you've ever seen this book, the bride chick with the hollowed-out eye sockets probably came screaming back into your memory just now, so it's perfectly fine if you may have wet your pants a little. If you've never seen it, basically the illustrations made otherwise idiotic stories kind of terrifying. If I remember correctly, one of the first stories was about a kid who found a severed toe sticking out of the ground, and then some giant tracks him down and says "You...

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Lady and the Stamp

Here's a quick story from my mom: Mom: Do you sell stamps? Cashier: You mean like...food stamps? Mom: No...postage stamps. Cashier: I don't know what those are. Bagger: (laughing)You know...to mail a letter? Cashier: Oh. I've never done that. I know people don't mail a whole lot of letters anymore, but she's never heard of postage stamps? Really? Maybe she should have asked ChaCha. Or maybe she d...

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Cha Cha Cha Changes

Remember when I was looking for the name of that damn rocket cartoon? Or who's kids Huey, Dewey and Louie are? Whenever I have a question, I can always Google it and find the answer. That's why Google gets to be a verb now. But some people aren't content with the already convenient method of looking something up online. They want people to look it up for them. That's why there are sites like ChaCha, where you can learn that Jorge Garcia played the affable slacker "Hurley" in the move Armageddon. And then, there's this: "Bailiff, whack his pee-pee!" is NOT from Laugh-In! It's Cheech and Chong, specifically "Trippin' in Court," from their...

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From Russia With Love

And now, a Cold War-era Russian guy that looks like an Animatronic Steve Buscemi hypnotically yodel-singing. This was most likely meant to be used as some kind of doomsday device. ...

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Father of the Year

You might be wondering what Joe's been up to these days. Well fear not, I still get the occasional e-mail from John T, keeping me updated on the latest Joenaningans. I got this one back in December, when I was in a blog coma: Joe just asked where Clarendon Street is. If some of you folks reading at home have never been to our fair city, I wouldn't expect you to know where Clarendon St. is, but to give you an idea, here's a map: USELESS TRIVIA: Starting at the Public Garden, the north-south cross streets are named alphabetically from A-H (Arlington, Berkeley, Clarendon, Dartmouth, Exeter, Fairfield, Gloucester, and Hereford.) This same...

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What the Hell Happened: Game Over, Man. Game Over

As you may know, today is Nick's Anniversary Spleen Day, so I guess now is as good a time as any to talk about what happened last year. Michele and I realized that what we were paying in rent was the same as some people payed on their mortgage, if not more. That, combined with the eight thousand dollar tax credit for new home buyers, sent us looking at houses rather than another apartment. Getting laid off almost killed that little quest as soon as it started, but with Michele's salary and some government programs, we thought we'd at least be able to buy a small place. We found one, on a busy street across from my eye doctor, that was in our...

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The Ironing is Delicious

This may look like Lamb Chop, but it's actually a Webkinz llama. Webkinz are stuffed toys that come with a unique code that allows you to interact with a virtual version of the toy online, because kids today have no imagination. The plush animals are manufactured in China. Do you know what this means? That's right, China is mass-producing dolly llama...

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Brain Nuggets

My brother and I used to have a paper route. There was this old woman that always complained if the paper was ten minutes late. She would leave us a nickel for a tip. She was just a mean old lady. She's dead now. Isn't it cool how Tylenol knows exactly where to go when you're in pain? If you have a headache, it soothes your head, if you have back problems, it works on your back. I wish all medications did that. Imagine if you took one of those Plan B pills, but you weren't pregnant, so instead it kills all the egg sacks a spider laid in your ear. That would be really useful. In The Matrix, when Neo downloaded kung-fu into his brain, and he...

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Or Else What, Mr. Flapjack Sam?

A few years ago, I lent Mr. Schprock my copy of LOST Season 1. He returned it when he was finished, and I let him borrow Season 2. He was ready for Season 3, but I didn't own it yet. I told him he could borrow it as soon as I get it, but then, well..things took a turn. With only a few episodes left until the series finale, I'm still banking on some of my crazy theories being true. But it wouldn't be fair to spoil my former co-worker by mentioning them here; it's bad enough he still has to work with Joe. So I can't say anything about Frank, or Miles, or Juliet or even Ben. He wouldn't know who they are. Instead, I will regale you with this epic,...

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Gasification, Baby!

It seems eda's been chatting up a whole bunch of people. Spreading her provocative artistry here, here, even here, on this Spanish-language rock & roll blog. But eda's a ghost; wiped from existence again and again. In all instances, only references to her sexy trouser poetry remain. I guess the world isn't ready to jump wireless the egg. With eda nowhere to be found, I feared that I would never learn the meaning of "gasification baby." Thankfully, I found tootoomart.com, which appears to be China's answer to Amazon.com. Tootoomart doesn't dabble in anything as ribald as sexy T-shaped trousers, but they do sell inflatable Minnie Mouse chairs...

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Dig Those T-Shaped Trousers, Jack

We are not alone. It may seem that way, with the absence of Trina and NYPinTA (I think she's still mad that I almost broke her face) but make no mistake, there's a new disciple of the House of Squeeg. I've recently noticed a couple of older posts had comments by someone I didn't recognize, eda, written in what appears to be Chinese characters. What kind of praise could eda be heaping on me? Or was it scathing MSG-laden criticism? I had to find out, so I cut and paste them into babelfish, which I know is not the most accurate translator, but it's a start. Here's what our new friend eda had to say: "The appeal, G spot, the sexy T-shaped trousers,...

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The Secret of HeteroNYMH

I was just sitting here and the word "predicated" popped into my head. Then I started thinking and realized that I don't remember ever actually saying or writing that word in my entire life. I've obviously heard it before, and probably even thought it a few times, but it's never escaped my head until just now. That's a long time for a word to be trapped in someone's brain. I wonder if his escape was like the Shawshank Redemption. Stranger still is that while I've never used the word predicate--that's the verb predi-KATE, as in "To carry the connotation of; imply" or "To base or establish"--in school I used predicate--as in predi-KIT, "one of...

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The Mystery of the Shamed Businessman

You know those Google Doodles, where they alter the Google logo to commemorate some thing or another? Once in a while I know immediately what they are, but most of the time I have to click on it to figure out what it's suppose to represent. Last summer I saw one that completely baffled me. It looked like a guy with a box on his head, wearing a dress shirt and tie, bending over with his hands on his knees, the way kids stand when they're in left field waiting for the ball to come their way. Here's an altered version of the picture, to show you how it looked to me: I thought maybe it was some disgraced CEO or something; maybe it was the anniversary...

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Moral Conflict

So, everybody...oh who am I kidding? So, LL, here's your question for the the day. What if you could go back in time and prevent World War II from ever happening, but here's the catch: the only way to do it is to have sex with Hitler. You can't trick him and say that you'll have sex with him and then kill him or something, you've got to go through with it. But if you do, he won't invade any other countries or kill Jews or anything. Millions of lives will be saved. Instead of genocide and world domination, Hitler will focus on music. He'll form a folk group called Der Flying Deutschmen. A protegê of Woody Guthrie, Hitler will write songs about...

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On This Day in Squeegee History

DATE: MARCH 22, 1998 (more or less...) LOCATION: PIZZA HUT. QUINCY, MA I was sitting in a booth with Nick and Jose. Jose noticed a clown sitting a few booths behind me. I don't mean the "oh boy that guy's such a clown! kind of clown, I mean the rainbow wigged, floppy shoed, balloon-animal-making kind of clown. Jose told me to look over my shoulder because he continues to think that I'm afraid of clowns, when in reality, I merely would just prefer to avoid them whenever possible. Anyway, forget about the clown. When the waitress brought us our pizza, she asked me "How's your headache?" And I thought "Well that was cryptic. I don't even have...

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Missed Opportunities

Yesterday would have been a good day for a rousing speech. Because it was March 4th, and you could have been like "March fourth...TO VICTORY!" or something. March fourth...TO ZERO DOWN PAYMENT ON A 2010 KIA SORENTO! And it would resonate with people, because it was the date, and it means to move forward. Now we've got to wait a whole year for the opportunity to come around again. It's a shame, really. Kind of like how I never got around to writing the second part of my friend's wedding story, and now it doesn't matter, because they're friggin' divorced. Oh, did I just casually throw that out there? Yes I d...

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A Brief Conversation

For Lent, Michele is eating nothing but some kind of seaweed soup thing, so I went to my mom's house for dinner on Friday. MOM: I think I'm going to go to the gym Saturday morning. ME: What gym do you go to? MOM: Planet Fitness. ME: Oh, you know who lives right next door? Mom: No, who? ME: Jim Nabors. See, it's funny, because...well, I'll let my brother explain. GLENN: It works on two levels. BRIANNA: I don't get it. MOM: They are gym neighbors, like Jim Nabors? You know "Well Gaw-aw-aw-lly!" GLENN: Wait, what? MOM: You don't know who Jim Nabors is? Gomer Pyle? GLENN: Oh. ME: Hold on, then why were you laughing? GLENN: I thought you just made up a name for the joke....

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The First Rule of Jury Duty is You Do Not Talk About Jury Duty

I'm a jury duty magnet. I've had to report in just about every three years since I turned 18, which is the minimum amount of time they have before they can legally send me another notice. The first few times I didn't have to go to the courthouse; I called the number on the juror card the day before I was to appear and an automated message told me that my group was on standby. A few years later, I had to go to the Quincy courthouse, which I walked by several times before I realized where to go. I guess I was expecting a big marble building with massive pillars and that lady with the scales and blindfold out front. It was just a plain brick building that looked like an elementary school. Anyway, when I did find it, I proceeded to sit in a room all morning waiting for something to happen. A...

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