HIDWtS: Don’t be that guy.

Some days I have a clear picture of what is right and what is wrong. Per yesterday’s post, there are unspoken rules that are pretty obvious. When they occur, passengers are fazed, or are at least slightly less apathetic than usual.

Other days, I am just not sure. There is one Muni seating situation that never fails to throw me because it seems wrong yet fazes no one but me: Blockit No Pocket.

You know how much I love sitting in The Pocket. As much as I love that, other people love sitting in the Blockit without anyone sitting in The Pocket. In general, I do not understand the habit of sitting in the aisle seat to block off the window seat. It’s not like I can’t see the empty seat next to you.

Worse than this is when I attempt to sit in the window seat and the aisle-sitter does not get up, but merely twists aislewards so I can attempt to smush past or climb over.

Don’t be that guy. I mean that with love and compassion and gender neutrality. Don’t make your preference — which is everyone’s preference, by the way, not to sit next to a stranger who might poop on you — anyone else’s problem. Just sit like a responsible adult, out of the way of other people. And get off the phone!

HIDWtS Rating: Yes, I am bossy today.

HIDWtS: Crazy train.

Things that are commonly acceptable to do while on public transit:

• Reading.
• Writing.
• Listening to music.
• Playing games on your handheld gadget of choice.
• Knitting, crocheting, embroidering, or any other craft that doesn’t involve poking someone else’s eye out.
• Sitting quietly.
• Napping if you don’t fall over into the aisle or into someone’s lap.
• Smiling.
• Singing, but only if you are part of a way-cool a cappella group and only singing one song and it happens to be one I like. Also please wear matching sweater vests.

Things not on the first list that I have witnessed (bolded items witnessed today):

• Talking on the phone.
• Eating sweet and sour pork.
• Slamming miniatures during the morning commute.
• Most manicure- or pedicure-related actions.
• Asking for donations.
• Selling cookies, candy, t-shirts, and God.
• Glaring.
• Aggressively attempting to start conversation with strangers.
• Hawking and/or spitting.
• Having sexytime, solo and otherwise.
• Sneezing without covering your mouth.
• Losing control of your bowels and/or bladder.
• Singing of all non-sweater-vested a cappella varieties.

HIDWtS Rating: I learned today that it is “hawk” and not “hock” which is good because I don’t think you can get much for phlegm at the pawn shop.

Cozy coffee.

coffee cozy redux

Originally uploaded by cygnoir

This is not the best photograph, but I won a small battle this morning that I wanted to share immediately.

I have been knitting for decades, but at a very basic level. This is the first thing I have ever successfully knitted in the round with decreasing stitches and the whole deal.

I am not completely satisfied with this yet, but I think I am ready to try again with nice yarn. This one I will keep for myself.

HIDWtS: Smell ya later.

Today the shuttle was nearly full when I boarded, so I chose the seat next to the person who looked like she smelled good.

I know I didn’t include this in my rule set, but that’s because I hadn’t realized it was a rule before today. So here is my new rule set:

1. Sit in empty row.
2. Sit next to someone who looks like they smell good.
3. Sit next to someone who looks like they smell neither good nor bad.
4. Sit in rumble seat.
5. Sit next to someone who looks like they smell bad.
6. Stand in aisle.

I love the sense of smell. I enjoy wearing essential oil, and I enjoy trying to guess what others are wearing, too. Sometimes I even enjoy trying to discern bad smells, but not enough to willingly sit next to them.

Today’s revelation was that I would rather sit uncomfortably than smell something bad for twenty minutes, but I would rather smell something bad than aisle-surf.

I was in luck today, because the woman I sat next to smelled like freshly-cut grass and roses.

HIDWtS Rating: Inexplicably, someone always smells like watermelon Dum-Dums.

Life three months after Facebook.

Something Facebook-related happened today, and since I closed my account three months ago, it was time for an update.

This morning, one of my former coworkers emailed me to let me know that another former coworker had died recently. She very helpfully included some information, including a link to his memorial website, which mentions that his family and friends are posting photographs to his Facebook page.

We weren’t close, but I still wanted to see the photos and remember him a little. This exemplifies the only thing I really resent about Facebook. It functions just as it is supposed to — show these things to only these people, and exclude the rest — but in the case of someone’s death, the assumption is that only the person’s closest friends are the ones who want to say goodbye.

Otherwise, I am not suffering from FOMO. My social life is just fine. I am lucky that I have had a website for a while, so folks can find me if they look. But if they are not around to look …

HIDWtS: Pat endings.

This morning I was very distracted, which meant I got out of the house early instead of just on time. I don’t know why this works the way it does, but it may have something to do with how I am too distracted to worry over the little aspects of getting ready. The getting-ready part is in automatic mode as my brain cells tussle.

The subject of the distraction was a bad movie I watched last night. I am finally getting around to selling some of my things on eBay, but first I have to sort through decades of clutter. To motivate myself, I put a movie on in the background and spread my things out on the coffee table so I can put them in piles: Keep, Give Away, Sell.

The movie was called “500 Days of Summer” and I do not think it set out to be a bad movie. I think it set out to be a good movie, a thought-provoking movie about the nature of fate and coincidence and romance and all sorts of things that normally interest me a lot. But none of the characters in the movie were at all likable. Zooey Deschanel’s character, Summer, is outright loathsome, playing yet another emotionally distant, quirky woman-girl, a trope that should have ended with Kate Winslet’s character in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”. The plot was predictable, told out of order in a way that I think was supposed to comment on the jumble of memory but instead just left me curious as to what exactly happened that turned Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character, Tom, into such a gigantic jerkface.

There was one moment in the film I liked a lot, however. (SPOILER ALERT) I liked seeing the moment where Tom realizes that not everyone’s “soulmates” match up, that sometimes you think someone is your soulmate and they do not think you are theirs. I liked this because it was relatively subtle, yet had real emotional impact.

And then it was all ruined by the pat ending. (SPOILER OVER)

Musing about the film this morning distracted me enough that I do not remember how I got myself to the early shuttle. When I boarded, there were only five other people on it. I wondered briefly if the rapture had happened after all, and then I fell asleep.

HIDWtS Rating: Writers, please stop writing pat endings. Hey, wait …

HIDWtS: Predictably unpredictable.

Today’s installment is not brought to you by anything. At all. Because that’s how I am. I mix it up on you. See? I’m not predictable!

Well, I am. But I’m not! And also am. It is the age-old struggle of loving an established routine and yet always getting bored enough to poke at it.

There is one constant in my life: too little sleep. Last night, I guest-starred in a game of D&D. It was my first time playing 4th edition. While I will save the in-depth critique for another time, I will say that the mechanics of 4th edition lend themselves to more of a hack-and-slash game than a storytelling session. Still, I enjoyed myself immensely, this enjoyment only topped by a member of our group discovering that someone was watching porn across the street on a giant screen facing an open window. If you had told my younger self that I would grow up to someday pretend to be a goblin warrior while studiously ignoring gay porn, I would have told you to stop with your beautiful lies because no future is that bright. But here it is. It’s my future. Suck it, high-school haters.

So, uh, where was I? Ah yes. Mixing it up on you. Zigging and then zagging. Disliking Muni with sassy intensity and then taking it all the way to work. This impulse is less of a reactionary opposite-of-what-you-expect thing and more of a curious poke-this-to-see-what-happens thing. I don’t really mind when people call me predictable; I do mind when I start to feel bored.

Good for my career but not for my boredom, Muni deposited me near work without incident and I was right on time.

HIDWtS Rating: What does this button do?

Evidently there is a gushing river of verbal creativity in the normal human mind

Evidently there is a gushing river of verbal creativity in the normal human mind, from which both artistic invention and lying are drawn. We are born storytellers, spinning narrative out of our experience and imagination, straining against the leash that keeps us tethered to reality. This is a wonderful thing; it is what gives us our ability to conceive of alternative futures and different worlds. And it helps us to understand our own lives through the entertaining stories of others. But it can lead us into trouble, particularly when we try to persuade others that our inventions are real. Most of the time, as our stories bubble up to consciousness, we exercise our cerebral censors, controlling which stories we tell, and to whom. Yet people lie for all sorts of reasons, including the fact that confabulating can be dangerously fun.
ARE ARTISTS LIARS? | More Intelligent Life

HIDWtS: Inappropriate footwear for the Apocalypse.

The fog is back. Yesterday morning it was 70 degrees at 7am. Today it was in the fifties and foggy. I’ll let you guess which I prefer as I don my sweater, scarf, coat, and boots.

After a night of disturbing dreams — which I cannot blame solely on “The Wire” but I probably should not be watching that right before bed — I stumbled through my morning ablutions and to Muni. Again, I don’t know what is wrong with me. I keep getting on Muni despite knowing how slow and problematic it is. It’s a sickness. I just want to live in a real city with real public transit, and I am willing to pretend if that’s what it takes. (Note: that is not what it takes.)

Got The Pocket and had one blissful stop before the Blockit was filled. The passenger had gold metallic flats on, which I remembered is a Hot Trend in Footwear according to the Style Channel, which I watched once for five minutes before realizing that it was pure, distilled evil. But I do admire flats-wearers. As a person with no arches, I am not masochistic enough to wear flats, so I console myself with the knowledge that flats are inappropriate footwear for the coming Apocalypse. My feet will be ready.

But back to today! Gold-Footed Blockit sat, shuffled through her purse for her phone, and immediately entered an extremely animated conversation. On public transit. Next to me.

Blah blah blah, demise of civilization due to lack of manners, blah. Here is where I thank Etymotic (who is not paying me to say this) for making the outstanding mc3 earbuds. Thanks to them, I enjoyed the Judge John Hodgman podcast so much that I missed my shuttle stop entirely. I still got to work early, and now I know about Etymotic’s programmable noise-isolation app, Awareness, so I don’t risk that again.

HIDWtS Rating: John Hodgman. That is all.

Linkdump for 21 June 2011

• Via @samspratt:

  JUNE Portrait Contest/Custom Portrait Giveaway!…

  

  Via @samspratt:

  JUNE Portrait Contest/Custom Portrait Giveaway! To show my appreciation for all of you following me on facebook and tumblr, I am giving one guy/man/dude AND one girl/woman/chick the chance to win a custom portrait from me. Free, no strings attached. All you need to do to enter is reblog this but here’s the breakdown:

  What You Get:

  A Web-resolution (1100 pixel) custom portrait, tailored to your most bizarre of requests. You can get a very traditional portrait done or as outlandish as you can dream—so long as it remains in the portrait format. Zombies, Hipsters, Pirates, Ninjas, Superheroes, Harry Potter, Robots, etc. are all fair-game themes in which you can have yourself transmogrified in painted form. I want to make something unique to you.

  How to Enter:

  Simply reblog this photo! If you “like” it, your entry counts once, reblogs count twice. 

  How to Increase Your Odds:

  The Contest is running in parallel over on my facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SamSprattIllustration

  Simply enter there for a second chance and additional options.

  If you tweet this link by @mentioning my twitter handle @samspratt   http://twitter.com/#!/SamS pratt . Your entry now counts double.

  
  How long this will last:

  I will keep the contest open through June and have the winner’s portraits following very shortly after. I have done numerous contests like this both personally amongst my social media platforms and sponsored through Gizmodo.com.

  Good Luck and again thank you to everyone for the ongoing support. You guys and gals, “The Spratt Pack”, if you will, are THE BEST, THE ABSOLUTE BEST. <3 Sam

  

  

• 10 Myths about Introverts
  10 Myths about Introverts:

  This introvert agrees. Via youmightfindyourself:

  Myth #1 – Introverts don’t like to talk.
  This is not true. Introverts just don’t talk unless they have something to say. They hate small talk. Get an introvert talking about something they are interested in, and they won’t shut up for days.

  Myth #2 – Introverts are shy.
  Shyness has nothing to do with being an Introvert. Introverts are not necessarily afraid of people. What they need is a reason to interact. They don’t interact for the sake of interacting. If you want to talk to an Introvert, just start talking. Don’t worry about being polite.

  Myth #3 – Introverts are rude.
  Introverts often don’t see a reason for beating around the bush with social pleasantries. They want everyone to just be real and honest. Unfortunately, this is not acceptable in most settings, so Introverts can feel a lot of pressure to fit in, which they find exhausting.

  Myth #4 – Introverts don’t like people.
  On the contrary, Introverts intensely value the few friends they have. They can count their close friends on one hand. If you are lucky enough for an introvert to consider you a friend, you probably have a loyal ally for life. Once you have earned their respect as being a person of substance, you’re in.

  Myth #5 – Introverts don’t like to go out in public.
  Nonsense. Introverts just don’t like to go out in public FOR AS LONG. They also like to avoid the complications that are involved in public activities. They take in data and experiences very quickly, and as a result, don’t need to be there for long to “get it.” They’re ready to go home, recharge, and process it all. In fact, recharging is absolutely crucial for Introverts.

  Myth #6 – Introverts always want to be alone.
  Introverts are perfectly comfortable with their own thoughts. They think a lot. They daydream. They like to have problems to work on, puzzles to solve. But they can also get incredibly lonely if they don’t have anyone to share their discoveries with. They crave an authentic and sincere connection with ONE PERSON at a time.

  Myth #7 – Introverts are weird.
  Introverts are often individualists. They don’t follow the crowd. They’d prefer to be valued for their novel ways of living. They think for themselves and because of that, they often challenge the norm. They don’t make most decisions based on what is popular or trendy.

  Myth #8 – Introverts are aloof nerds.
  Introverts are people who primarily look inward, paying close attention to their thoughts and emotions. It’s not that they are incapable of paying attention to what is going on around them, it’s just that their inner world is much more stimulating and rewarding to them.

  Myth #9 – Introverts don’t know how to relax and have fun.
  Introverts typically relax at home or in nature, not in busy public places. Introverts are not thrill seekers and adrenaline junkies. If there is too much talking and noise going on, they shut down. Their brains are too sensitive to the neurotransmitter called Dopamine. Introverts and Extroverts have different dominant neuro-pathways. Just look it up.

  Myth #10 – Introverts can fix themselves and become Extroverts.
  A world without Introverts would be a world with few scientists, musicians, artists, poets, filmmakers, doctors, mathematicians, writers, and philosophers. That being said, there are still plenty of techniques an Extrovert can learn in order to interact with Introverts. (Yes, I reversed these two terms on purpose to show you how biased our society is.) Introverts cannot “fix themselves” and deserve respect for their natural temperament and contributions to the human race. In fact, one study (Silverman, 1986) showed that the percentage of Introverts increases with IQ.

  

  

• Photo
  

  

  

• fromme-toyou:

  ****GIVEAWAY!****
  I’m obssed with this bag! Want…

  

  fromme-toyou:

  ****GIVEAWAY!****

  I’m obssed with this bag! Want to own it too? Get ready!

  ONA is giving away Camera Bag to one lucky person!

  How to enter: Check out ONA’s Brooklyn premium leather camera satchel then come back here leaving a comment on the blog (not a Tumblr reply) on which color you would want when you win! 

  Double your chances: Friend them on Facebook! 

  *a winner will be chosen at random on Friday! Good luck y’all! I LOVE mine. 

  

  

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