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user Elisabeth_ has entered room

Pearl(Mon Nov 10 2008 14:02:46 GMT-0800 (PST))>Hi there! How are you doing?

Elisabeth_(Mon Nov 10 2008 11:02:56 GMT-0800 (PST))>
good, how're you?

Pearl(Mon Nov 10 2008 14:03:10 GMT-0800 (PST))>Glad to know your doing good.

Pearl(Mon Nov 10 2008 14:03:20 GMT-0800 (PST))>I am doing great. Thanks for asking.

Elisabeth_(Mon Nov 10 2008 11:03:22 GMT-0800 (PST))>sure.

.....

Pearl(Mon Nov 10 2008 14:15:27 GMT-0800 (PST))>You are most welcome.

Pearl(Mon Nov 10 2008 14:15:29 GMT-0800 (PST))>Would that be all for today?

Elisabeth_(Mon Nov 10 2008 11:15:35 GMT-0800 (PST))>Yep, thank you.

Pearl(Mon Nov 10 2008 14:16:14 GMT-0800 (PST))>You are most welcome.

Pearl(Mon Nov 10 2008 14:16:15 GMT-0800 (PST))>Thank you for the time spent with us. Enjoy the rest of the day..

Pearl(Mon Nov 10 2008 14:16:43 GMT-0800 (PST))>Thank you for contacting Comcast. It is a great pleasure to serve you. You have a great day always.

Pearl(Mon Nov 10 2008 14:16:45 GMT-0800 (PST))>Good bye for now and take care.

Godzilla Workout 2008

True Crime Encounter

This is a real conversation overheard standing in the gas chamber at San Quentin prison:

Guy1 : (to guard) Hey man, you know Scott Dunkle? Guy on death row?
Guard: Dunkle? Yeah, I know him.
Guy 2: They went to school together!
Guy 1: Yeah we went to school together, he was in my class!
Guard: Dunkle? Was he?
Guy 3: They were classmates!
Guy 1: Yeah, he was crazy back then too!
Guard: hah hah!

I guess I must've missed whoever was selling beer at the canteen, all I saw was soda and 1,200 packs of instant ramen soup. Beer would've been nicer.

Guinness Attempt!

I watched LA Ink the other day, where tattoo master Kat Von D went for a Guinness World Record for most people tattooed in a single day, by the same person (her). More than 500 people lined up and waited for hours (hours!) to pay $20 to get the exact same tattoo as 500 other people. The tattoo seems to basically be Kat's logo, and the money went to charity. What about me? I support charity, too!

So I decided to go for a World Record as well.
Starting now, I'm going for the most people to ever give power of attorney to a single individual (me). There's no time limit; it's a lifetime achievement award. Basically, just go to this site, pick your state, fill out the form and mail it to me. Kat charged $20, but I'm only going to charge $15. All the proceeds will go to framing your signed and notarized statement to hang on my wall.

Hurry to be a part of history!

a short story about hats:

(all confidential or sensitive information has been replaced with the word "hat")

All Hat Airlines Agent: how can i help you?
Me: I have about $600 that's not mine.
AHAA: yes?
Me: So Hat had a ticket from Hat to Hat that was purchased under the wrong name. When hat tried to change her ticket, the hat counter cancelled the old ticket, and issued a cash refund to hat. The hat counter then issued hat a new ticket without charging any money.
AHAA: that is impossible, we don't issue cash refunds like that.
Me: but i have the money!
AHAA: no... we have no data that the money was issued.
Me: but it's here...
AHAA: no.
Me: what the hat?
(and that's why, if i didn't work for the government, i'd be $300 dollars richer - at least there was that incentive check)

I survived ABC, kind of

Last night I watched two amazing hours of television. I haven’t been that riveted and that vocal since season 1 of Tila Tequila: Shot at Love (I did not watch the finale last night, but I did read the recap – I applaud the producers).

Show 1: I Survived a Japanese Game Show
Contestants are divided into two teams, the Yellow Penguins and the Green Monkeys. They go on an “actual” Japanese game show and compete. Each show, each team nominates a weakest link member, and those two face off in an Elimination Challenge. Last night’s elimination challenge was called “Go for it! Postman Taro!” (がんばれ！郵便太郎！) One contestant walked against a wind machine and delivered packages while the other contestant threw beach toys, bags of fake garbage, newspapers, etc. The most popular were those blow-up whales you can sit on in the pool.

Meanwhile, the audience is made up of 20-30 year old Japanese people who bang drums, scream, and laugh like they were shot every time an American falls. Seriously, every mess-up by an American cuts immediately to some Japanese guy who is going to dislocate his jaw if he doesn’t scale back his hilarity.

We also see clips of them at “home” where they have a Japanese woman to take care of them (thank god, I’d worry about their foraging skills otherwise). We get comments like,
“Is this turkey or chicken?”
“It’s fish chips.”
“What’s a fish shaving? How do you even shave a fish?”
Since they don’t go on to explain what fish shavings are, they must assume we know. But this scene would just piss off anyone who actually knew (like reliving JET orientation over and over), and wouldn’t make sense to anyone who hasn’t been to Japan, so who are they targeting? People who’ve been to Japan for 3 days and talked to someone in a club who had “totally great English, what is everyone whining about?”

At first this show seems demeaning to Japanese culture (“what’s wackier than Japan?!”) but then it seems horribly demeaning to Americans (“What’s clumsier than an American?!”), but now it just seems demeaning to ABC and Toho studios. Whoops!

Show 2: The Outsiders, Primetime (more detail)
This show has the blow-the-lid-off journalist who nods a lot and looks extremely concerned. Last night he talked about people who keep monkeys, not as pets, but as surrogate children. Yes, children. The most understandable woman explains that she’s way too busy to take care of a child, but she really, really wanted one, so she got a monkey. Another woman explains that monkeys are great because they never grow up – they’re always like 2-year olds.

The problem is that monkeys have a much greater capacity for violence than most 2-year olds – they have more skills, is what I mean – and eventually just about every monkey will attack its owner. Then they get abandoned, or killed, or sent to this monkey rehab place where they run around and act violent with other monkeys, in a totally natural monkey way. The weird thing? I found most of the monkeys really ugly, like not cute at all, and my roommate agreed. And the too-busy-for-a-kid woman? Now she’s adopting a child from China; way to go with the low-maintenance solutions.

Their second segment was about the fattest man in the world, Manuel Uribe, who has clocked in at over 1,200lbs. But he’s losing weight now, which is great. Unfortunately he’s still bedridden. But he has a girlfriend! Cue the journalist, “Is there really someone for everyone?” Well... Do I feel bad about my singleness now that I know I’m losing to a bedridden, horrifically obese man? No, not at all. His girlfriend says he’s a “divine person,” and I just don’t think we’d hit it off.

The last segment had something about people who obsess about other people’s tragedies and put grisly photos on the web, I didn’t watch.

Vagueness is NG!

Sometimes while texting I feel unable to convey my general goodwill through my words, and I find myself falling back on the most basic of strong emotions, the exclamation mark! With the exclamation mark, everyone knows that my one word-reply of "good" is happy! anticipating! not sarcastic!

And it's not just me! Bank of America now has a service where if you stay on the site long enough, or maybe if you click something specific, a window pops up asking if you'd like to LiveChat with a SalesPerson.

If you click Yes, you are directed to wait (yay).

When the person comes on, they will use an astounding aray of pre-set phrases, most of which will end in exclamation marks! It's like talking to a Vonage SalesNightmare, but you have to read everything and add emphasis yourself! And the SalesPerson doesn't seem to know much of what's going on! Which is just like Vonage!

Here's what happens if you say "thank you" at the end:

Roberto: You're welcome! Not a problem. It was a pleasure assisting you today! To close this chat session, please click on the close button in the upper right-hand side of the chat window. Thanks for choosing Bank of America! Have a great day!