Tomorrow is Labor Day. That means you are not working. I am because I’m self-employed and I get paid by the hour, and if I don’t work for a day I don’t eat for a day. Do you know why you don’t work on Labor Day? Probably not. You probably don’t even know what Labor Day means. You probably think the ‘Labor’ part is in reference to giving birth to a baby. Yeah it’s national shoot your baby out day, that’s it Google.
No, I’m not telling you to google it. I’m calling you Google. What’s that? You don’t understand? I’m not surprised, your overall rating for the day so far is: Very Unimpressive. Let’s start with Labor Day.
work, esp. hard physical work
That is what the dictionary has to say about labor. So why on a day whose name literally translates to Work Day, do you fuckers not have to work? Cause 101 years before I was born, the Central Labor Union decided that all New York City laborers should get a day off from their work, to celebrate that they work. A holiday to celebrate your work, by not working. So pretty much it’s just a day to make fun of unemployed people, except that they blend in because no one works so you can’t even do that. Great. I hope you burn yourself on your grill.
Now Google, let me explain why I’m calling you Google. When your parents were younger and still had friends (this is before you ruined their lives), when one of them did something moronic, their friends would say something to the effect of:
Way to go, Einstein!
If you don’t know who Einstein was, you can’t even read so I’m not worried about you reading this. The humor in this insult relies on the receivers awareness of the sarcasm that’s being conveyed. Einstein was brilliant, the receiver did something dumb, the insulter calls the receiver by the name of a brilliant man to highlight how unbrilliant he or she is. This was all great for half a century, until ‘your momma’ jokes came long, and then Internet happened.
See Einstein was the end-all be-all of knowledge until the Internet came along. Now that we have the Internet, and better yet, a quick user-friendly clean interfaced index of said Internet that goes by the name of Google, Einstein isn’t worth his weight in atomic blast ash particles. Google knows more in 10 minutes then Einstein knew his whole life. The bottom line is Einstein is deprecated, and now to insult your friends who do something dumb you call them Google.
Get your pants off, get with the program, and get to work (tomorrow).
Over the last few weeks I have asked a few close friends to write a bio for me. I gave them all very generic instructions and the freedom to construct the about page using their own creative juices. My hope was/is to compile a collection of blurbs about me that contain enough truths (that I wouldn’t necessarily put forward on my own) to give the reader an accurate perception of who I am.
That being said, my friends are my friends which means one of two things: 1) They are shitty, or 2) they are busy. If I haven’t asked you, it’s probably because I thought you were either too 1 or too 2 to contribute, but prove me wrong and send me a blurb for the About page of the site. Feel free to write it from my perspective, from the perspective of someone who hates me, or from any perspective you want. If you do it, have fun with it, and if you don’t, have fun reading them.
Today I took pictures of the house I am buying. It was being inspected, and everything looks good. I was sharing this good news with a friend over AIM and it went a little something like this:
Me: that is it Aimee: oh NICE Me: yeah Me: im stoked Aimee: you should be Aimee: im proud of you Me: i’m going to be in heaven Me: again Me: like Me: i am in heaven Me: already Me: but now i’ll be at the next level Me: like the level where only suicide bombers usually get to go Me: minus the 72 virgins Me: but plus a 1950s style beach house Me: and a nice quiet beach nearby Aimee: hahaha Aimee: its not so very often that someone actually follows through with something they say they are going to do Me: thats true Me: i am a man of action… Me: and i believe obama is too Me: which is why ive been a supporter Me: for a long time Aimee: you are my obama Me: hahahaha Aimee: haha Me: blog post tonight = coming from this IM convo Aimee: oh no…
I made a conscious decision when starting this site, not to turn it into a factory of regurgitating links/sites/videos found elsewhere on the Internet. I’m a firm believer that if you don’t have anything unique/new/distinct to say then you shouldn’t say anything (in a public forum). However that being said, sharing things found elsewhere on the web is not a terrible idea, especially some of these less-obvious gems. I have stock-piled these three videos for your enjoyment.
James Valley is the mayor of Helena-West Helena, Arkansas. The town is in a pretty poor state, so Mayor Valley implemented a curfew to keep the streets safer and protect the tax-paying citizens. Sounds like a good guy just trying to do his best to clean up the town. As he states, the curfew is a ‘zero tolerance, they’re going to jail’ type of curfew. I like that, everyone knows the rules, swift justice for those who violate them. The last seven seconds of the video though, Mayor Valley’s real sense of justice is revealed when he let’s us know that instead of putting the drug dealers and hustlers in jail, “we gonna pop them in the head.” I wonder how he became mayor?
Margaret is an Executive Assistant for a Cisco Networks executive (Marthin DeBeer). She doesn’t want to do her assisting in the office (or even the same state) as her boss so she telecommutes everyday on a plasma screen display that is located at her old desk. Her new name placard says Virtual Margaret, and her co-workers still love to gossip with her. One even offers her some tea/coffee with 18 seconds remaining in the video. We’ve had web cams since the Internet went public, so that’s really not a big breakthrough. I think that Cisco may be hinting at some new technology coming down the pipe, where you’ll be able to teleport coffee/tea to your telecommuting co-workers. Either that or Margaret works with idiots.
I’ll end on a positive note. Where to start, where to start. Clearly the best speech of the convention, and I’m sure most of you missed it the first time around. If Kucinich wasn’t so quirky, he’d actually get votes in primaries and maybe be an excellent President (how many other candidates carry a copy of the constitution in their pocket?) From the “Are you ready for November” (“Let’s get ready to rumble”), to giving a shout-out to Stephanie, he owned this speech. He stops using a teleprompter half-way through the speech, and begins to evoke the Hulkamania fever that swept over the nation in the 80’s. But the best part of the speech, is the woman at 4:30 who doesn’t know the color of the money in her purse. That’s okay, she was mesmerized. He finished strong, and it resonated with me.
Up with the rights of workers. Up with wages. Up with fair trade. Up with creating millions of good paying jobs rebuilding our bridges, our water systems, our sewer systems, our ports. Up with creating millions of sustainable energy jobs to lower the cost of energy, lower carbon emissions, and protect the environment. Up with health care for all. Up with education for all. Up with home ownership. Up with guaranteed retirement benefits. Up with peace. Up with prosperity. Up with the Democratic Party. Up with Obama-Biden. Wake up America, wake up America, wake up America.
A man who clearly loves his country, countrymen and countrywomen. A man who clearly has his priorities in proper order. A man after my own heart.
Many of you have asked me how I got the name for my blog. Since yesterday the site and half the Internet were down, I couldn’t post it. Today, here it is:
[18:25] Lynn: i have them email open, i [18:26] Lynn: ‘ll just forward even though i havent checked it out [18:26] Me: okay [18:26] Lynn: youremaail@gmail right? [18:26] Me: with one a [18:26] Me: yes [18:26] Lynn: sans the double a [18:26] Lynn: ya [18:26] Me: .com [18:26] Me: at the end tooo [18:26] Me: sans the o [18:26] Me: sansyour serif face [18:26] Lynn: yesyes sansyourpants [18:27] Me: sansyourpants [18:27] Me: ! [18:27] Me: .com [18:27] Me: what a great domain name [18:27] Me: or band name [18:27] Me: or blog name [18:27] Me: i think its gonna be my blog URL [18:27] Lynn : sansyourpants ? [18:27] Me: yes [18:27] Me: .com [18:27] Me: do you like it? [18:27] Lynn: i bet its taken [18:28] Me: doesnt resolve [18:28] Lynn: o [18:28] Lynn: nice [18:28] Lynn: its pretty catchy [18:28] Lynn: but could be read as smutty by up tights [18:28] Lynn: which is maybe funny too [18:28] Lynn: nerd smut [18:29] Me: nerd smut [18:29] Me: from a beach hut! [18:29] Me: SansYourPants.com [18:29] Me: ‘Nerd smut from a beach hut.’ [18:29] Me: dont tell anyone
While signing the final purchase contract tonight I noticed the title of one of the sub-contracts:
Plain Language Addendum
It’s a two-page contract that states that the signer understands all the words used in the actual purchase contract. A contract to confirm that you know all the words in the other contract. Did I mention it was called the “Plain Language Addendum.” I don’t know about you, but ‘addendum’ was like the thirtieth word in my vocabulary, right after ‘mom’, ‘dad’, ‘plain’ and ‘language.’ Wouldn’t the world be a better place if the plain language was used in the actual purchase contract? Few less pompous words, few less pages to sign, few less jobs for some lawyers, but they can make things happen for themselves.
The more important thing is that the deal has been executed, and now there is the long and tedious 30-day process of inspections and titles and deeds and escrow and mortgage applications and all the really fun parts. Yesterday I had record turn-out to the blog and many of you contacted me about the post but apparently don’t know how to use comments on a blog. Most of the exchanges were congratulations, but a few (read: none) were about how you, the reader at home/work/school/Starbucks, could make things happen for yourself. I can’t really answer that, but what I can do is impart some ancient wisdom that was passed on to me, today.
A few days ago I had the pleasure of catching up quickly with an old friend of mine who is Chinese over the phone. I’m not sure if he would be comfortable with me toting his wisdom on the intertubes, so we will just call him C.W. (California Wok). I let him know what I was getting for dinner (Orange Beef, G. T.’s Chicken), and he just did what he always does, listen carefully and repeat everything. It’s funny, he always repeats what I say back to me, but when he says it, it just sounds different. It sounds more authentic, more wise, and when I hear him say it, it all just makes more sense. Sometimes, after reflecting on my words, he presents me with options in life I didn’t realize I had available to me (like white or brown). In the end, it’s always short, but always satisfying.
Remember when you were little and your mom/dad/aunt/grandma used to write little letters on your napkin in your lunch box? Well C.W. always sends little baked goods to me shortly after we talk and each of these baked goods contains a pearl of his ancient wisdom, and although this one was a day late for my post yesterday, I think it sums up how you can make things happen for yourself:
Pearl Of Wisdom
Now you know his ancient secrets, and mine. Use it wisely, only for good, never for evil. Never, never, never forget that there is free delivery within 4 miles for orders over $15.
I put in an offer to co-purchase a house. Tomorrow the sellers either accept, counter, or reject the offer. It’s a nice house that meets my needs perfectly, in an area of the island I want to live for the foreseeable future. Hopefully it all goes well, but if not, there are many more houses that fit my needs (the benefit of having few needs).
I’ve thought a lot about being 25 recently. Like when I was seriously deciding to look into buying property, when I was filling out a mortgage application, when I was signing the offer contract, when I was contemplating being in debt for thirty years, when I was thinking about how much my life has changed in just the last five years and how much potential for change there is in the next five, when I was reflecting on how little job security I have as an un-contracted freelancer that is dependent on a single person providing me with enough work to sustain my lifestyle (that is not guaranteed), when I spent three hours in Starbucks on Saturday night reading through a hundred pages of documents that I had already signed and agreed to, and when I was sitting on the beach over the last few weeks looking at all the people a lot older then I.
I’ve thought a lot about being 25 recently. Like how I haven’t had even a hint of a relationship in two years, or how I live in a place where I am isolated from everyone but my parents and grandfather, about how I will very soon have no friends within a 5-hour plane ride, about why that doesn’t bother me, about how all my posts start off light and end heavy and how that could be seen as a metaphor for my life so far.
I’ve thought a lot about how it doesn’t matter how old you are. A boy dies at 4, a woman lives till 120. A 13 year-old girl builds a multimillion dollar empire, an 80 year-old man loses everything he owns in a tornado. If you have support, and the ability to make things happen for yourself, I think little else matters. If you don’t have the support, maybe it’s time to start building it by giving to and trusting others. If you can’t make things happen for yourself, maybe it’s time to stop depending on your support so much and learn to hold your own. If you are afraid to lose what you have, maybe you should think about giving it up. Maybe it’s just easy for me to say because I have both already.
I’m 25 and I’m co-buying a house in Hawaii. A year ago I didn’t know what that meant. I might still not actually know what that means. It doesn’t matter, because I’ll figure it out, it’s what I do. In no time, I have climbed to the top of my list, and I wans’t even racing. I figured out a way to get a job I love, I figured out a way to live in paradise, and I figured out a way to own a piece of paradise. One day I’ll figure out what to figure out next. Until then I’m free falling.
I am a nerd by choice and by profession. I spend a good portion of every day coding web sites and applications (and soon maybe an iPhone App or two). Because of the large portion of time that I spend focusing on syntax and the need for it be precise (has to be perfect or it doesn’t work), I notice things that others may not be inclined to notice.
English is a tricky language. There are no rules. There are things that are called rules but they all have exceptions, which means they aren’t rules (because there is no punishment for breaking them). They are just generalities that are followed a majority of the time which isn’t useful for someone trying to remember them or for someone who has the misfortune of trying to learn the language. One rule, which I think is one of the few rules which is followed 100% of the time, is that punctuation always goes inside of quotation marks.
“I hate English.” – Correct
“I hate English”. – Incorrect
It’s great that we have this rule, but this rule is wrong and should be ignored from here-on-out. The period/question mark/exclamation mark is used to end sentences. Below we have a sentence that contains a quote:
He exclaimed “what a stupid fucking rule.”
The word ‘He’ begins the sentence, and the entire quotation ends the sentence. Since the quotation is a part of the sentence, the quotation should be concluded before the sentence is concluded (with it’s appropriate punctuation mark).
<Sentence><Quotation></Sentence></Quotation>
That is how it would look as web code. Even a non code-monkey can tell that it looks funny because you have the tag to end the sentence before you have the tag to end the quotation, and the quotation is is started within the confines of the sentence. It should be:
<Sentence><Quotation></Quotation></Sentence>
I know English isn’t perfect, that’s why we left England. I just wish we could have some sort of consortium that could gather every year and discuss ways to improve the language so that it makes more sense. Make sure you get someone smart to chair the consortium though, otherwise it defeats the purpose. Pick someone who understands rules and conventions. (Call me).
Today while I was clicking around Facebook (hunting mice most likely) I stumbled across a page that had this ad displayed:
Double Your Dating
At first glance I was pretty psyched, because this David DeAngelo guy was going to “get (me) a girlfriend now.” I don’t even know you buddy and already you’re hooking a brother up! My eyes then naturally fell to the red and white image of the book/course which read “DOUBLE YOUR DATING.” Wait a minute David, I don’t think the girlfriend you just got me (immediately) would want me going on ANY dates, not to mention twice the amount I normally do.
Actually David, I have a confession. By my young age, dashing good looks and deeper-than-the-ocean pockets, you may assume I’ve been on quite a few dates. Offering to double my dates then, would be quite a tall order. So for those of you not so strong in the maths, allow me to crunch the numbers for you.
Dates (In Last Calendar Year): 0
Multiplying Factor : x 2
0 x 2 = 0 Total Dates
Wait a minute, you are going to get me zero dates dude? Good thing you got me that girlfriend just a minute ago.
My eyes then fell ever so slightly to the description of the service that this ad-buyer provides. “Age, looks and money don’t matter.” Phew, now you just need to convince the other 6 billion people on the planet. “Knowing how to create attraction is the key.” I think you threw out that key of knowledge when you gave up on age, looks, and money buddy. “I teach you how to do that instantly.” Wow, first a girlfriend instantly, then teaching me how to attract other mates instantly, you sir are a pro. “7 day free trial.” Who needs days 2 through 7 when you’ve taught me all you know in an instant, am I right?!?
At first my “THIS IS A SCAM” alarm went off, but then I remembered that I saw it on the Internet, and the law of Internets reminds us that if you read it on the Internet, it is definitely true and definitely not a scam. Thank god for the tubes in blue.
Above is a prioritized list of where I spend my time. Most of my time is spent in the hut. If not at the hut, I can often be found at the beach. The third most frequented place I am found is the post office. What is wrong with me? So much, but not because I love the post office.
Coming from Manhattan, where I used to spend considerable amounts of time at the post office as well, you’d think I’d share the disdain that my fellow New Yorkers do for the post office. Most of you are familiar with the out-the-door lines, severely underpaid/under-motivated/under-basic-intelligence men and women behind the counter, the bulletproof shutters that lock from both sides that you have to slide your package through (but only once they have released the lock on the inside), the Spanish you have to speak to be able to understand what delivery confirmation/signature receipt you are being offered, and the fact that you can’t possibly fit anything “fragile, liquid, powder or potentially hazardous” inside your post card but are asked anyways. “Oh actually yes, I am trying to mail a bomb in this shoddily marked box of mine, a fragile bomb in fact, that when kicked around like a football by your co-workers will combine both powder AND liquid to decimate a city block.”
Alas, I don’t. I find every and any excuse I can to go to the post office. I mail things to people that they aren’t expecting, things that they probably don’t even want, but I just want an excuse to get rid of them AND to go to the post office. Something about the post office in Hawaii specifically, is so therapeutic. I know there is going to be a line (it’s Waikiki after all, and I can’t tell you how many times some European person has tried to ship a run-of-the-mill pineapple in a box they bought which has to be turned down because it hasn’t been checked by the agriculture department). I know the service is going to be slow (it’s Hawaii, no one is in a rush, nor should they be). I know just when I’m the next customer in line to be serviced, half of the staff will take their lunch break. But I don’t mind.
It’s kind of like walking into the shit-storm, but being covered in toilet paper. I’m the only one (especially in Waikiki, where everyone is a tourist) that doesn’t mind all of those things. Everyone else hates the post office before they even get inside, and so when the post office in Hawaii is even slower then their post office at home, has more regulations about what can be sent in/out of the state, has higher rates and slower delivery times because things have to go by boat, they really lose it. I really love it.
My love for the post office is two-fold. The entertainment factor is a big part, but what provides me with even greater satisfaction is that if I’m there, it means I’m getting rid of something. Something that doesn’t fit in an envelope (usually) is leaving my possession to be sent somewhere else. And in my never-ending quest to get rid of everything but the essentials in my life (that includes you), shipping something off can only be good news. It’s not an event, or a project, or an art installation, or like that guy who wrote All My Life For Sale (he sold everything he owned on eBay, and then spent the money traveling around to see/photograph his possessions in their new homes, and ended up falling in love with the woman who bought his kitchen table and her three daughters, and then he married her). It’s just a conscious decision to reduce the clutter.
The more stuff you have, the more stuff you can do things with. This is great if those things are what you want to be doing, if they are not, then these things (which seem great) are obstacles. So I get rid of the obstacles. Here’s where you say “well what if you need/want one or some of things one day?” Go buy it. I’ve gotten rid of hundreds of things, and haven’t bought any of them back yet. The money/time/energy you save from selling your obstacles and as a result not spending money/time/energy on those obstacles will more then cover the costs of buying any of those items back if ever the time comes when you decide they weren’t obstacles but things you actually wanted (you just didn’t think so at the time).
“Yes but what about those things that can’t be bought back or replaced.” Oh touche smart reader, but I challenge your belief whether they can’t be bought back or replaced, and whether or not you need them in the first place. Are you assigning too much value to a thing? Does that note from your high school crush that you saved really serve as a reminder of your love/pain/childhood. If you lose/burn/auction off that note, will you really forget what it felt like to receive/read/write/feel it? Would a scanned copy suffice to remind you of the feelings/memories? Would one instead of the hundred you kept adequately serve the same purpose? Must you insist on dwelling on the past so much? Don’t get me wrong, a handful of items that are kept for sentiment can be great, I just don’t want to have so much that the items that evoke the most nostalgia are lost in a sea of items that evoke little to none.
I have come to terms with the fact that I will never be a good designer, but in that defeat I have decided to set my bar a little higher and aim to be a good liver. A good designer knows that you need space in order to give context, meaning, and value to what it is you are trying to display or the message you are trying to convey. Just because you have room, doesn’t mean you should fill it. In an ever-crowded, cluttered, and over saturated world, a good liver knows that the less stuff you have to occupy your space, the more space you have to breath.
