Saturday, March 31, 2007

Not Getting Things Done

Jay is generally hardworking, and spends really long hours at work. However, outside the realm of work the guy just can not get things done. It's not that he's lazy, it's just that he will not spend time on anything that he doesn't enjoy. Unless it's directly involved with his work it's just not getting done. If my life depended on Jay taking a bullet for me I wouldn't worry. If my life depended on Jay running five small errands during the next month, I'm fucked.

Some of my favorite examples of Jay's ability to not get things done:

1) The phone. Jay was without a cell phone for a while then one day he proudly called me up and told me he'd gotten a new phone. I was impressed. I assumed this meant he'd actually gone to a store and purchased a phone. I was less impressed when a few days later I got his voice mail. The first part of the voice mail message was a standard pre-recorded greeting of "The person you have called is unavailable. Please leave a message for:" The next part was in the shaky voice of an old woman "Jaaay Haaalking". When I called him up the next day: "Jay, your grandmother got that phone for you, didn't she?" "Man, ... how did you know?".

2) The car. Around six years ago Jay was thinking about getting a new car. At the time he was thinking about a mini cooper. A few weeks later I was on the phone with him. Jay: "Man, I got my new car!" "Awesome, what did you end up getting, the mini-cooper?" "No, I ended up getting a Buick." "A Buick?!? Dude, did you let your grandparents pick out your car?" "Well ..."

3) The wallet. Now I'll admit I'm a little uptight about wallets. I like to keep my wallet fairly empty with as few cards as possible. So, a few years ago Jay is up visiting and he pulls out a bloated, overflowing Castanza Wallet. This thing barely qualified as a wallet; it was really more of a decaying leather wrapping around a giant pile of frequent shopper cards, business cards, and receipts.
"Dude, WTF is that thing?"
"What, it's my wallet."
"That thing is not a wallet. What the hell is in here?"
I start going through the wallet
"Why do you have all these receipts in here?"
"I don't want people to get my credit card number."
"Jay, your credit card number isn't even on these receipts"
I spend the next 20 min or so sorting out the wallet and getting everything organized. 90% of it was pure trash.
"Dude Jay, you see this business card you had in here"
"Yeah, I know that guy"
"Is there any reason you had two copies of his business card in different places in your wallet?"
"Well... I met him twice."

Next up is "The List". And just as a reminder to myself I need to tell you about "Direct Deposit" and "The Frenchman's Shower".

Monday, March 5, 2007

Paperus

Many of the stories Jay and I joke about intertwined. So, in order to tell you one of my favorite Jay stories, "The List", I need to tell a few background stories including "Paperus". About three years ago Jay was dating a girl named Tara. Now, let me just say up front that I really didn't like her. She was immature, controlling, and she had a compulsive need to be right. She could never loose an argument or admit that she was wrong and she would frequently interrupt and correct people in the middle of a conversation. She was also constantly on the go and couldn't tolerate down time, or just hanging out.

Jay and Tara flew in to visit and we took them to a local museum. We walk around for a few hours and then take a break in the museum cafeteria. Now, Jay, my wife, and I were exhausted and just happy to be sitting down and chatting. Tara ignores the conversation and pulls out an address book and a pen and paper and starts writing a letter to a pen pal. I have no idea why a 27 year old woman has a pen pal, but ignore that for a minute. Tara finishes her two page letter and then busts out an envelope and stamps. Yes, not content to just carry letter writing supplies she walks around with a post office in her purse in case her day has a spare five minutes.

Later that day we spent some time in a local mall that had a Papyrus store, it's a chain that sells paper products. Now, for those not familiar with the word Papyrus think of it as an old form of paper. The word is pronounced [puh-pahy-ruhs]. I was standing with Jay in a bookstore when Tara walked up with a bag:

"Hey, what do you have there Tara?" - Jay
"I just bought something from Paperus." Tara pronouncing it "Paper Us"
"Uhhh, Tara I think it's pronounced Papyrus"
Now imagine the most condescending tone possible:
"Sigh, no Jay; no. It's Paperus, because they sell paper. Paperus"
"... OK Tara"

Sunday, March 4, 2007

Loving AdSense

I threw up some ads to play with AdSense, and wow those are some ads. Not sure what I was really expecting Google to show, but as it stands it reads like Jay's worst nightmare.