Nobody wants to go to Your Wedding!!!!

Though I have sincerely enjoyed screaming those words first uttered by Jerry Seinfeld for past few months any time someone mentioned my friends’ wedding, I actually did want to go to it. Why do I bring it up now? Because it happened to take place this very Memorial Day weekend… 8 hours away… In Harrisburg, PA… I went over the George Washington to get there…

And off into there be dragons we went. It wasn’t actually that bad a ride, the confusing part of the trip came when we actually set foot in PA. I wondered if leaving the passport at home had been a mistake.

So here is an abbreviated list of the things I can remember learning this weekend.

In Harrisburg…

• When you ask for a lager they don’t say, “what kind?” they just give you a Yuengling

• When you go to pay for the keystone of lagers that has just been placed before you, you won’t pay more than $3

• A similar trend was seen among other beverages – a shot of SoCo = 6. A legit margarita = 5. Basically, I felt like I’d landed in Estonia or some other eastern European country, therefore I was a millionaire

• People are friendly – I was walking down the street and on more than one occasion some random ass person said “hello.” They didn’t know me. They were just being “friendly.”  I figured “hello?” back was a solid answer. They probably thought I was a big asshole. They may be correct.

• A pancake is a hotcake – what the hell

• If you plan on eating that hot cake or buying aspirin, a toothbrush, or a wedding card, you better plan on doing it before 2 pm because everything closes wicked early

• People at bars and clubs dress like they just stumbled off of the beach

• People drive backwards down the highway – random impatience?

• As it turns out, there are no left turns in New Jersey. Also, that state smells like a foot

So there you go – everything I learned in Harrisburg. Enthralling, I know…

Still Talking...

I have a bone with the radio during my morning commute. I've actually already picked that bone, but I'm gonna keep picking just for kicks. See, my commute is 30 miles long and both the morning and the evening commuting sessions tend to look a little like this:

And this is beyond a good day 

So needless to say I spend a lot of time channel surfing only to find more talking and less music. 

If you so happen to be one of those people who enjoy morning radio shows (don’t ask me why) but don’t feel the need to listen to the asinine episodes of someone else's life, then you probably wait around for segments, or whatever they call them. Every station seems to have them.

There’s the Senseless Survey in which people are called, and asked (you guessed it) senseless questions until they either get pissed off and hang up, or get pissed off and start swearing uncontrollably at the radio station. (The second one is funnier at least, mainly because the station needs to hang up on them before the FCC fines start rolling.)

There’s Jam Scam in which someone, presumably an unemployed someone with nothing to do at 7 in the morning, has the station prank call their friend. Then there’s a lot cursing and bleeping and “ohhhhh hahahahhah, you got me!” moments.

There’s Can’t Beat Kennedy in which someone calls in and tries to beat one of the hosts in a battle of pop culture questions. The best and worst part of this one is the parody of Can’t Touch This by MC Hammer that’s played in the beginning.

So yeah, morning radio shows. I don’t get it.

Best URL Ever. Period.

My job requires me to research the topics of small businesses, big data, SVAs, employee retention, foreign islands, gardening equipment, what middle aged women find appealing, the lifestyles of farmers, recognition, converged networks, customer service, coconuts, sunbathing, fitness, and commonplace tools found in high school biology labs. But the first one is what led me to my newest and most favorite website. Well, URL anyway.

http://bjconquest.com/

It’s about small businesses. Beverly here, shares her extensive knowledge on growing small businesses. If your business is small, she can provide a solution. What she has that stimulates business growth is apparently knowledge, expertise, and experience…  

See? It's the best. End of.

No Commuter Left Behind

Let’s just start this out with a little PSA. If you are traveling on the T between the hours of 6-8 in the morning or 4-7 in the evening, then put the book away. I love literature as much as the next person, but you and your Kafka are taking up, like, two people’s worth of space during rush hour. ‘Nuff Said.

Do you see room for a book in here?

It had been a while since I’d been on the T, but I had a meeting in Cambridge so the car got dumped in Wellington, I sat on the orange line, I sat on the red line, I dodged that random guy who stands in Downtown Crossing hissing at people, and before you know it I’d landed.

The ride back was not so smooth. I would first like to bring up this ‘view from inside Boston’ which states that the MBTA is ranked third in the U.S. for transit systems. My heart goes out to those poor souls in Portland. This was also published on the same day, by the way, that anyone going to Alewife was bound to see a twelve minute ride turn into a two hour one.

But anyway, as it was rush hour, I figured it would be the perfect time to head home. And so I and about a billion of my closest friends rushed on board and we took off… For about one stop. The train came to a grinding halt, the doors opened, people left, more crammed on, and we waited. And waited. And waited.

The announcer came on and announced quite impressively, “Therrrrrre’s a train crossing ahead of us aaaaand it’ll be just a few more minutes before we take off. I’ll leave the doors open” A few minutes later and he came back on, “Aaaas I said before just a few more minutes, and the doors are open for anyone else who wants to jump on.” At that point I was in the mood to shove a few people off. Some greedy bitch decided to use her body as a shield between me and two other people and the train pole you grab onto. Finally the guy came back on for yet another update, “And we just got word that that other train has move past us.” Good, we can move. “I’ll just leave these doors open a moment longer so everyone can get on.” So who can get on? Who the hell hasn’t gotten on?  And then he let out in one last cry, “WE won’t leave anyone behind!!!” Oh dear. No I believe everyone and their mother is on this train.

The doors finally closed and I was left to train surf my way back to the orange line along with all others excluded from the train pole. 

Talk Radio Would Better Without the 'Talk' Part

My morning commute takes me down through 2 very long highways, which around 7 AM look more like parking lots than actual roads. So what does this mean for me? Channel flipping through my radio for roughly an hour and a half. Super.

If you too are plagued by this, then you understand you’re basically limited to two radio options:

You can listen to a mish mash of Gavin Degraw declaring that he is doin’ just fine,  Rihanna declaring that she found love in a hopeless place, or those random British guys declaring that they’re glad you came.

You can listen to talk radio...

And this leads me to my main question: Why does anyone ever call into talk radio?!  Because let me tell you, calling into morning radio shows will result in you either.

           Embarrassing yourself by sharing personal information no one wants to know.

                     Being ridiculed by radio station personnel because you shared personal information no one wants to know. 

People need to cool it with oversharing. First of all, why the hell aren't you at work? If I have to be up at this miserable hour, then you should be equally as unhappy. Fact. 

Second, if you aren't on your way to your place of employment, why are even awake? 

Third, why is it necessary to share this story? 

GOD! JUST MARRY ME!

Some lady called into a show the other day, then had them call her boyfriend, and then gave him crap about not proposing. So what do we think the outcome of this went? Spoiler alert, we won’t be hearing wedding bells anytime soon. Yep, this chick got dumped on the Matty in the Morning Show, sobbed for a bit and then hung up in a huff. I mean really. The audacity this man has to not propose to his crazy girlfriend, who made the effort to call into a radio show so she could bully him into marriage. It’s amazing they weren't already hitched.

Who Else Loves Route 128 to Waltham?

Once upon a time ago I wrote a post where I, believe it or not, whined for a hefty amount of time about sitting in an hour and 15 minutes of traffic. My how the times have changed. Now if I'm lucky I get to work that quickly.

Except for today, today I got to sit in traffic three hours. Yayyyyyy! That was really all. Just a whine. Promise I'm done now. I'll be sitting at my desk for the next 4 hours to make up the time I missed. WAhhhhh!

OK now I'm really done. Next time I'll write something real.

Lessons from the Titanic

Spoiler alert: the ship (and my job) sinks

Monday was a boring day. And what do I do on boring days? Why pay $13 to watch a movie I’ve already seen of course! Duh, silly. Yep, after much whining about my friends dragging me to see Titanic, I have to say I may have, uh, errmm enjoyed it… Egg on my face.

But here is an important life lesson that I wish I had taken from Titanic back in 4^th grade when I had originally seen it. Though my 4^th grade expectations for life didn’t include me getting some sort of low paying corporate bitch position that I would ultimately get laid off from… So here we go.

The boat takes off, yayyyyy!

Woooo I'm the queen of the office!!!

The engineer of the ship declares that his 46,000 ton ship made of iron couldn’t possibly be sunk. The chairman of White Star Lines insists that they go faster even after he’s told they shouldn’t. The captain is told there will probably be icebergs everywhere, but decides he needs his beauty rest.  

The ship could SINK?? Why that's...

Yada, yada, failed suicide attempt, yada, yada, sex in antique car (this part only pertains to the movie, not my job), yada yada ship hits iceberg –shock – and starts sinking. Now let’s look at the two types of people on this ridiculous nonunsinkable ship.

We have project manag- I mean snooty rich people running the show, who wear uncomfortable outfits and use too many forks at dinner.

Do you take your fish eggs with sour cream or toasted bread?

And we have the people who actually work, show up to meetings on time, and write 3 different kinds of repor – I mean everyone else gets to hang out with the rats and shovel coal all day.  

Just another day livin' the dream...

So when the ship goes down who gets to fill those life rafts? Not the coal shoveling, report writing, meeting attending steerage occupants. Nope, it the geniuses in charge who take 2 hour lunch breaks and think supplying 20 lifeboats instead of 32 is OK because deck might look cluttered.

So yeah, I got laid off... Sour grapes, can you tell?