Friday, September 29, 2006

People Say the Darndest Things (not just kids)

No I am not going all Bill Cosby on you (but a little would never hurt "The kids, with the Jello, and the pudding pop, and the Pokemon, oh so wacky, with the goofiness") but it seems in the past couple of weeks people have been more and more prone to say ridiculous, dumb, or just straight up weird things to me. Who knows, maybe they aspired to have me write about them in this very popular forum (I think popular means at least 4 people skim your work, so yeah, total popularity going on right here). But really they shouldn't have because they are going to ripped some sort of new orifice (but really in all kindness I hope the new orifice proves useful...I mean the eyes, ears, and nose are all orifices and you don't complain about them...maybe you'll get some new sense...I don't know).

1)This past week at work I used the phrase "jump the shark" which means:

"Jumping the shark is a metaphor used by television critics since the 1990s. The phrase, popularized by Jon Hein on his web site www.jumptheshark.com, is used to describe the moment when a television show or similar episodic medium is in retrospect judged to have passed its "peak" and shows a noticeable decline in quality. Hein also uses the "jumping the shark" concept to describe other areas of pop culture, such as music and celebrities, for whom a drastic change was the beginning of the end. "

So basically it is like saying something is done-zo. And that all I was telling my co-worker (hopefully not telling him that either he or a family member had "jumped the shark" because that seems like it would be a creepy threat) was that something, in my mind, had done this shark jumping activity (I think it was about The Simpsons, a show which has definitely lost its luster). To which he asked me if I knew what it referenced, this whole phrase "jumping the shark". When I told him I did not he told me I could therefore not use the phrase.

First of all, it turned out to be some obscure reference to the TV show Happy Days, a show which was on before my years on this Earth. Secondly, unless I worked, not for Kenny & Kenny, a small accounting firm, but rather for the Oxford English Dictionary, which can tell you the first usage and root of every word, I have no idea why I would have to understand where every word or cliche came from that I ever spoke. If this were the case, I would have a vocabulary (and though it may already seem this way it is not true) limited to about 20 words and 20 phrases...many of which might be viewed as obscene, creepy or bizarre...so F all that noise.

2) Someone told me "You'll get what's coming to you."

Hahaha, I had a fine laugh at this one. What does this even mean? That I am going to get my ass kicked? No. That I have had a curse placed on me by a ninja? A more real, frightening possibility. That disease or natural causes will eventually cause my demise? Alright, yes this must have been what it meant. And if I did not already feel horribly not threatened by it already, it was told to me by way of text message, which for me, pretty much every text message strikes fear into my heart, as I am secretly a time traveler from 1217 and modern technology confuses me sometimes.

3) In watching NFL games the past few weeks, there is a commentator who enjoys saying that wide receivers, rather then merely catch the ball out of the air, prefers saying "capture the ball". He likes to make it sound like the ball is some sort of autonomous, free-willed creature often impervious to such attempts at capture. Newsflash buddy: IT IS A FREAKIN BALL MADE OF DEAD PIG PARTS AND FILLED WITH AIR. NOT A BEAST THAT WR AND TIGHT ENDS LUST AFTER IN ATTEMPTS TO CAPTURE.

4) When I told someone that I was writing some quasi-autobiography that was laced with fiction, they asked me , "Are you writing the made up fiction or the other kind?" No elaboration necessary.

Fun times to all, and to all a good 4:43 in the afternoon.

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