At Least I'm Not the Only One

Greetings from lovely, slightly overcast, San Diego. I'm currently midway through packing things up for the return trip home tomorrow, but thought I'd duck out to sit on the patio overlooking the ocean for a minute with my best friend in the whole world, the laptop. While you're here, don't forget to enter the free lunch contest here.

I was walking through Carlsbad Village today enjoying two of my favorite vacation sports: food and people watching. I was exiting a local restaurant, sandwich in hand, when a girl with bright blue hair walked by.

Wow, that's cool.

Apparently I wasn't the only one who noticed. A guy sitting at an outside table commented, "I like your hair"

"Thanks" she said without really turning, and continued on her way.

She was almost out of earshot when the guy, undaunted tried again, "Where'd you get it done?"

"My husband's a hairdresser. We do each other's hair."

Ouch...

"Um... well... uh... where do you guys cut hair? Do you have a card?"

Wow, not taking no for an answer.

He continued, "Because I'm a hairdresser too"

Sure you are, buddy

"No" she ended the conversation and finally walked off. I felt like going and giving him a pat on the shoulder, but instead found a seat and ate my sandwich.

Nerd Games: The Free LunchYear Two

Me going on vacation is about as frequent as a Halley's Comet visit, but I'm going to be out in Cali for almost a week coming up. With that in mind I figured it was time to toss up the Free Lunch contest for this year. I don't think change accumulated as fast this year as it normally does, but then the contest ran a little long. That means this year it's anyone's game. Good luck, and see you in a week or two!

Just like last year I'm inviting everyone to guess how much money is in my change jar. The closest to the exact dollar amount gets a free lunch from/with me.

Feel free to comment, email, IM, or even tweet your guess to me. A winner will be picked in roughly 10 days.

Rules:
1. The location of the dinner must be mutually decided upon, and the value per meal not to exceed 25 dollars. If the winner lives out of state, then some alternative prize will be awarded.
2. I reserve the right to kick anyone out of the competition for any reason.
3. Results may be modified to ensure the winner is a cute girl who is single and in to short nerds.
4. Non-US currency in the jar will not count towards the total.

This year, for comparison's sake, we'll use a standard sized Coke can and a half built Lego Minstorms NXT Robot, since everyone should know the exact size of that. Feel free to click on the images for a bigger picture.  

I'll give you a hint. Guess more than twenty bucks.

My Partner in CrimePart One: The Invitation

In early 2009, as they are wont do, plans changed. At first Jo's move to Phoenix was delayed for a month, but soon that delay was put on indefinite status. It was Episode One all over again. Huge excitement. Big let down.

I had other things going on though, so I took the disappointment in stride. Jo and I kept up with our online back and forth, and somehow it just worked. It was odd to have someone who got all my jokes and weirdness without much effort, and I enjoyed the long distance pen pal. She quickly became my go to girl for all things Internet.

One night in March I picked her brain about all of the attention my blog had been receiving and how I should go about handling it. We cracked jokes and swapped stories while each preparing our dinners. I mused over the fact that we were eating dinner together from a thousand miles away. Out of my last few meals with a member of the opposite sex, this had by far been the best.

Does that say something about me?

Jo went to bed, but the feeling stuck and I decided it was time to put a face to the ten point Times New Roman font that had been making me laugh for the past four months. The clock read 9:54pm, but I threw caution to the wind and began typing out an email novel.

An hour later it was done. It was done, and long. It included bad jokes, predictions of the future, wussy moments, stupid stories, and most importantly an invitation to stay at my house. I even went so far as to offer to pay for the air fare.

The goal for 2009 is to be a little more forward in all aspects of life.

I mulled it over once more before clicking the send button. It was time to be assertive.

The next morning I awoke and could see the light on my phone flashing in the mirror next to the bed. I had yet to shake off my early morning grogginess, and assumed that someone from work had emailed me. As I clumsily clicked through the menus the previous night's online adventures came rushing back.

The email was from Jo.

Ugh... what did I do? Why did I send that email? At least she responded. That means she's still talking to me. Right?

I hesitated for a moment, but finally clicked to open it.

A simple, "You should come hang out," would have worked.

This is Not the Post You Were Looking For

• Yesterday the swine flu hit the Internet. No, I don't mean the actual flu. I mean the general pandemonium of it. Twitter was on fire with messages about it. News sites were running reports. At the end of the day, what good did it all do?
  
  Let's keep in mind that roughly 155,000 people die each day for various reasons. It's really not time to freak out yet. That being said, I find it amusing that while the whole world was in an uproar, someone at the U.S. Department of Health was finding my blog by searching for Shaq:
  

• Today I went to the Podiatrist. Apparently I have a very mild case of Plantar Fasciitis if anyone really cared. The fantastic part is the location of the doctor's office. It resides right here on the second floor of this building. Anyone see the problem? Two points if you do.
  

• Alexis Gentry, the new Twitter voice of the Suns, and head coach Alvin Gentry's daughter recently asked the fans for nicknames for Goran Dragic. I posted a reply, which she actually mentioned.
  
  My family's nickname for Dragic comes from both his resemblance to my man-crush Steve Nash, and from my mother's tendency to mix up basketball players. Many a night we would walk in to the living room to hear Mom screaming, "Nash you fool!" A quick glance at the court would reveal that Nash was actually on the bench. Dragic's nickname soon became "Not Nash".
  
  "Oh man. Not Nash is on fire tonight."

• Searching Google for: Best Story on Blogger has me as the #1 or #2 hit right now.
  Searching Google for: Babe of the Day puts me on the first three pages.

The Blog Serves a Purpose

I feel like I've been taking more crap than a Dutch porn star about my blog lately. People aren't happy with this post or that post, or they're not happy with the frequency of posts. Well, there's a lot going on, and it's sort of hard to distill it all down to a manageable story for the blog. I realize in retrospect that I posted the last "Nerd Words" a bit early, since this entry doesn't use the term. I just double checked though, and it turns out that I don't care too much.

I'd like to take the time to write out this entire story before posting it as this story sets up the base for a few more, but I feel the need to post something. So, let's just wing it and see how it goes, shall we?

In the mean time, if anyone out there would like a job ghost writing for Sesquipedalis feel free to email me.

In 2007 I somehow ended up on a "Social Networking" site. I believe I was lured in by a test that promised to either tell me which light saber color I am, or which Firefly character I would be. A few months later I figured, "What the hell?" and filled out my profile. .

After the initial rush of talking to a few girls online, I mostly forgot about the account. The thing with these online sites is that single, sane women are jumped on like the last Miller Lite at a frat party about two seconds after they sign up. As a guy, you have to do something to set yourself apart from the crowed and selling "Jesse" isn't exactly my strong suit. With that in mind, I threw up a brief description of myself and a link to the blog. I figured if anyone had a genuine interest in me, a glance at the stories here would relieve them of the ailment.

Back in November I took a glance around to see if there was anyone new and interesting in the area, and to my surprise there was. Near the top of my match list was a girl named Jo. She was short, redheaded, slightly nerdy, and funny. Really funny. She even mentioned playing Wii in her profile. For a short kid with big feet this was like finding a ring in a cave that makes you invisible.

Despite the fact that I had only viewed an online profile, I was already too intimidated to talk to her. I spent a week working up the sack to send an email. I read and reread her profile thinking of witty things to say. A few self affirmation speeches, a prayer service, and a pep talk from Mory later and I finally landed on something resembling, "Will you marry me?". I immediately regretted sending the email and cried myself to sleep assuming I'd blown my chance with the girl.

The expectations were low, and the e-crush at a manageable four until a few days later when I received a rather lengthy response including the statements, "Wii bowling is rad" and "The other day I applied for a job with the Obama administration, saying that I should be the Secretary of the Internets."

The e-crush was now climbing at an alarming rate.

It turned out that Jo had not only viewed my profile, but also spent a decent portion of an afternoon reading through the blog. Even more surprising is that she still chose to respond.

Jo was living in Chicago, but had plans to move to Phoenix. She explained that she had changed her profile to say "Phoenix" in hopes of meeting some decent peeps to hang out with after the move. I read through her blog(Which you can now find linked on the side of mine), and we were soon exchanging emails on a semi-regular basis. To say that I was excited for her "early 2009" move to Phoenix would be an understatement.

Nerd Word(s): The Ten PM Rule

The Ten PM Rule
- words to live by

1. No writing personal emails after Ten at night.

[ Origin: I used to go visit Ana a lot, and it was a long drive back to my house from Chandler. I had a major crush on her, so the drive home was usually spent thinking about her and how the evening had gone. When I got home I'd generally have a whole new set of things that I wanted to talk to her about so I'd write an email that was usually overly wussy and emo.

After a while I had to make a rule: "No more emails after 10 pm". ]

- usage
1. Yeah, I almost wrote you a reply, but I had a lot to say and it was after 10 so I figured it could wait till the morning.

Call Me Sweet Pea

One of the more interesting parts of high rise living is the diversity of the neighbors.  At first I took it upon myself to get to know everyone I could, but with over 200 units in the building, I quickly found that my efforts were futile.  In the down economy, the residents rotate on a regular basis, and by the time you've learned a person's name, they're gone.

To combat this phenomenon the twins and I devised a simple "Friends" like naming scheme to facilitate in the necessity of passing building gossip.

"So, I ran in to Psycho Blond Chick today"
"Wait... Is she the one across from Scary Racist Dude?"
"No no no.  That's Angry Fighting Couple.  Psycho Blond chick is one unit over"

The interesting thing about Scary Racist Dude's unit is that it's always occupied by someone who is just off.

After Scary Racist Dude it was Pot Smoker Pete.  PSP was then replaced by the most recent occupant, Crazy Witch Lady. I'm not saying that CWL practices black magic, but if this was 1692 I'd be dunking her in the pool to see if she could escape with her hands tied.


As I opened my door a few days ago I was surprised to find a small dog running up to greet me. I looked down the hall and a moment later a door off in the distance opened. CWL would emerge, covered in henna, her hair in that oh so trendy Albert Einstein do, and a general look that said, "I'm somewhere else right now."

She didn't even glance in my direction as she shouted, "Let's go Sweet Pea."
Without hesitation I responded, "Be right there Sugalump" and it was then that she finally reacted to my presence.

"Oh. She's the ambassador of the floor" she explained the dog greeting me.
"Oh.  The dog.  I thought you were talking to me" I feigned ignorance, explaining my joke.
"You're the ambassador for the floor?" she asked, somewhat confused.

Huh?

The eleven floor elevator ride was taken in complete silence save a few socially awkward whimpers from Sweet Pea.