1. Favorite Product – Facercise (courtesy of everythingisterrible.com)
2. Favorite AFP Photos -
3. Favorite Book – Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris
4. Favorite SNL Digital Short - Hero Song
5. Favorite Comments – All of them on Beach Rules
6. Favorite Commercials – FedEx Infomercials (with this being a close second)
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After spending a week in Florida, I can’t help but think that we’re not all on the same page when it comes to social acceptability at the beach. Unfortunately, we cannot depend on a person’s common sense, which is why I feel it is important to compile a list of rules that every beach-goer should have to read before stepping foot on the sand. Here’s what I have so far:
1. The foot-rinse hose is not a shower.
Once the grizzled old woman in front of me was finished hosing off her feet and ankles, I reached out for the hose pass… but it never came. Instead, she took off her watch and hairband, then violently bent over and slowly started washing her upper back and the underside of her hair. As my discomfort grew, I couldn’t help but feel like I was intruding on a very intimate moment. Does she even know I’m here? I just wanted to wash the sand off my feet. When her husband sidled up beside me and asked what I was staring at, I made some hurried comment about the rusted spigots and walked off, deciding a little sand on my feet wasn’t going to hurt anyone.
2. I will kill your football.
Hey Johnny Teenager, if you’re football lands near my son again, I’m going to get out of the pool (yes, actually get out) and stab it several times with that bottle opener over there. Then I’m going to punt it towards that row of Harleys in the adjacent parking lot and blame you when the owners come storming over here pissed off. “Yeah, like I’m throwing the football with my two-year-old,” I’ll tell them. Then you’ll get yours.
3. Yawn at your own risk.
Yawning at the beach is now unsafe. If your mouth is open for more than a second, the dude next to you will have managed to coat your tonsils with the spray sunscreen that he’s unsuccessfully applying to his back (Just point it back there and spray, he thinks). I recommend sporting a doctor’s mask. Sure, the doctor’s mask tan is a little more embarrassing than the sunglasses tan, but at least you’ll be able to taste your shrimp scampi that night.
4. Move.
Hey guy, guess who I don’t want blocking my view? You. I didn’t drive six hours with two screaming children to sit here and watch you unsuccessfully skim board for three hours. I would move my chairs, my umbrella, the 47 toys, the cooler, my four books, my two boys, and the baby pool, but it just seems more practical for you to relocate. Oh, and I’d stick to body surfing if I were you.
Please, add to the list.
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I’m having some problems with my blog this morning, so I thought I’d post parts 2 and 3 of The Waiting Room, the short film I was in a few weeks ago. Click on the links below to check them out (they’re about three minutes each).*
On another note, does anyone know a lot about the technical side of blogging and/or Wordpress? I’m having some issues that I need your help with.
*If you have more than three minutes, you should really keep watching. Jeff Henderson killed it.
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Is anyone willing to join forces with me in my quest to eliminate the following birthday customs?
Cards
There really are only two types of birthday cards out there – those that have money, and those that we wish had money. Think about how many hours of our lives we’ve wandered the card aisle looking for the perfect card, the one with words that capture exactly what we want to communicate. Let me tell you this – if I don’t have to move a Hamilton or Jackson out of the way to read those words, the communication has already been done.
Restaurant Singing
Guess what, Chili’s? Sending a handful of unenthusiastic waiters and waitresses over to my table to sing your clever variation of Happy Birthday to me isn’t quite hitting the spot. Don’t get me wrong though – I used to love it. I would go spend ten minutes in the bathroom to give my table plenty of time to arrange my “surprise.” But now, when it’s around September and I hear the distant sound of rhythmic clapping getting closer and closer, I die a little inside.
“And Many More”
There are always a couple people at a party that have been enthusiastically waiting to cap of the group’s performance of Happy Birthday with a performance of their own. It’s only three words, and it’s somehow always operatic – “…and many moooore!” As if that wasn’t enough, the more socially inept one continues on – “on channel four, and Scooby Doo on channel two, Frankenstein on channel nine – until, thankfully, someone burns him on the chin with a candle.
The Reminderer
I love when people try to casually remind people that it’s their birthday.
Birthday Boy: Man, I can’t remember the last time my birthday was on a Tuesday.
Neil: Hmm? Oh, me neither.
Birthday Boy: It’s just that… I only eat egg salad on my birthday.
Neil: Interesting choice.
Birthday Boy: [Eyebrows raised, grinning expectantly, while nodding down to his egg salad] Eh?
Neil: What? … Oh! OK. It’s your birthday. OK. I get it.
Birthday Boy: Thanks!
Neil: For what?
The Extended Birthday
I think we all know people that are never satisfied with a mere day of celebration. They like to milk their birthday for at least a week, if not longer. You’re heading out to dinner with your friends, certain that it has something to do with your birthday tomorrow, only to find out you’re still celebrating Melissa’s birthday from eight weeks ago. I guess the tiara she was wearing should have given it away. That, or that ice cream cake she’s been toting around all night.
That being said, 09/09/09 is coming up (this, by the way, will be the first time I’ve ever had a birthday where all the numbers matched up like this!). We’ll be celebrating from 9/6 to 9/22.
What other birthday customs should we eliminate?
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1. Favorite Video – Kindle 3 (via CollegeHumor)
2. Favorite Twitter Humorists – @bryanallain, @trippcrosby, @jimgaffigan, @zingersandwich, @timbratley
3. Favorite Stop Motion Video – The PEN Story (they used 60,000 prints for this)
4. Favorite Blog – The Eleventy Million Dollar Blog
5. Favorite Song – This (especially at 2:02)
6. Favorite Comedy Duos – Barats and Bereta, Rhett and Link, Tim and Eric
This is a video we made a few years ago for North Point’s Concert on the Lawn.
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PART I