1 Happy St

William Yuan, a seventh-grader from Portland, OR, developed a 3-dimensional solar cell that absorbs UV as well as visible light. The combination of the two might greatly improve cell efficiency. William's project earned him a $25,000 scholarship and a trip to the Library of Congress to accept the award, which is usually given out for research at the graduate level.

William, your thoughts?

Well, "current solar cells are flat and can only absorb visible light. [What I did was] I came up with an innovative solar cell that absorbs both visible and UV light. My project focused on finding the optimum solar cell to further increase the light absorption and efficiency and design a nanotube for light-electricity conversion efficiency."

Ah, interesting. Actually, I still don't even understand what it is you developed. So I can go outside without a shirt on now?

"You're an idiot."

Fair enough.

NOTE TO SELF: If you're ever on Chris Matthews' panel show (it could happen), brush up on your history in regards to Neville Chamberlain and Hitler. Oh, and try to avoid using the word appeasement more than 15 or 16 times.

Finally, try to transition the conversation to something about the White Sox or Seinfeld because those are really the only topics in which you'd be able to add to the discussion. Which is pretty sad.

ANOTHER NOTE TO SELF: Pick up a book once in a while.

Even though I was completely joking and I wasn't even in the same room as her when this very brief conversation went down, I knew as I was saying it that I would be the only one laughing...

Jill: "Do these pants make me look fat?"
Brian: "No your legs do."

I'm a complete moron.

If somebody had told you that Lance Bass would be writing a book about his exploits as a member of N'Sync, how much money would you have been willing to bet that the title of that book would be something lame and obvious like "Out of Sync"? A thousand dollars? Two thousand? A million? Personally, I would have went with a title like the one I used for this blog entry, but I'm also an idiot. But if you would have bet on Lance taking the safe route with the lame and uninspiring "Out of Sync", you would have won.

Unfortunately, there's no word yet on a scheduled release date for Britney Spears' book titled "Oops I did it again".

Or Michael Jackson's book titled "Black or White?" <----with a question mark

We'll all look forward to those though.

Book titles that didn't make the cut for this blog:
- "Mmm-Stop" by Hanson
- "Too Broke to Quit" by MC Hammer
- "My Aiken [Bleep]" by Clay Aiken

Remember the episode of Seinfeld where Jerry refuses to let a guy into his building with him because he doesn't recognize the guy as being his neighbor, but then he eventually comes to realize that the guy lives on the same floor and right across the hall from him?

This morning, I got on the elevator with this guy that I recognized a little bit, but not enough to know which floor he worked on. I turned to him and said "where you goin'?" He said "I'm on 6 with you." All I could muster in response was "oh that's right, sorry 'bout that."

I know it's only 6 floors, but that was the longest elevator ride ever. Turns out that guy has worked with me for over a year.

Oops.

There's this gay guy that I know who recently shaved his head into a mo-hawk. So yesterday we crossed paths and as we did, I said to him "hey, what's up Mo?"

I said "what's up Mo?" to a gay guy. Then we shared a moment of awkward silence and continued walking away from each other slowly.

If you have 30-40 minutes to spare, click here. By question 25, you'll be cursing me for turning you onto this. And your eyes may hurt. And there's no way you'll be satisfied with your score. And you'll be disappointed to learn that you're not special. In fact, you're probably only slightly above average. But other than that, it's a terrific exercise.

Being the good sport that I am, I will share my score with you. It was 112. I always thought it would have been higher than that. My day is a little bit ruined.

Good luck to all of you who try. Actually, I hope you fail miserably.

For those of you who don't know me personally, I'll let you in on a little something about myself that you probably could have gathered by now just by reading some of the nonsense I put up here; I am insane. Not in a 'I have an ax in my garage that could implicate me in crimes' kind of way, but more in an obsessive compulsive 'fear of inconsistencies or changes' kind of way. That is why today is a huge day for me.

I just threw away my check book's transaction register.

For the past 10 years, I have obsessively kept track of every transaction I have ever made by check or debit card. As soon as a purchase or credit is made from my account, I feverishly race to my transaction register to mark it down. In fact, if you asked me how much I paid for that pair of black shoes I used to have back in the late 90's, not only could I tell you within 5 minutes or so, but I could produce the receipt for the damn things in just as little time. Then I would ask you how it's possible that you remember my black shoes from the late 90's. That's just weird.

But anyway, I figure that it's no longer necessary to keep track of these things the way I used to being that I've fully taken advantage of on-line banking and all. Plus I hate having physical proof of how insane I am. So today it stops.

Hopefully I make it through the day. I can tell you that I've peeked in the garbage can twice already and the transaction register continues to beg me to take it out of there and put it back where it belongs. I will stand strong, I promise. Although I may have to move it to a garbage can that's nowhere near me.

This morning I got coffee for a co-worker of mine (Alex) and myself. Alex takes his with cream and sugar, I take mine with just cream. I made it a point to partially open the lid of mine just a little bit so that I could differentiate between the two as I made my way back to our desks. After all, he hates coffee without sugar and I hate coffee with it.

So I handed Alex his coffee, he took a sip, and said "no sugar huh?"

"It doesn't have it?" I asked. "That's not good. Let me try mine."

Uh oh. Mine has sugar. How the hell did that happen? I must have partially opened the lid on his by mistake.

"What do we do?" I asked. "Do we switch back?"

"I don't know," said Alex.

Tell me, what would YOU do? Can coffee be switched back? Can I get a ruling on this?

Have you ever noticed that a lot of people answer the question 'how's it goin'?' by telling you what day of the week it is? Examples:

A: "Hey, how's it goin'?"
B: "Eh, it's Monday."
A: "Yeah, that sucks."

or

A: "Hey, how 'ya doin'?"
B: "It's Friday!"
A: "Yeah, I hear that!"

Not only did the question go completely unanswered both times, but Person A found Person B's responses to be perfectly reasonable. So next time I'm in a situation like this, I'm going to change it up a bit. If somebody asks me how I'm doing, I'm going say 'eh, it's Monday' even if it actually happens to be Tuesday. Then when they look at me like I'm crazy, I'll tell them that I feel exactly like I did the day before.

Last night I had a Brian Regan moment. I was finishing up a purchase at a store and I was at the checkout counter just about ready to leave. Expecting the checkout girl to say something to me like 'have a nice evening' or something, I had my clichéd response of 'you too' all ready to go. But she threw me a curveball and instead said 'do you want your receipt?' Now I’ll admit that I was only partially paying attention to her. I was in my own little world, making sure my money was in order in my wallet or perhaps I was thinking about where I parked the car. Regardless, I didn’t answer her question. Instead, I responded with 'you too' and walked away.

Ugh.

I got all the way to the door before that little alarm in my head went off, you know the one that says 'hey moron, you just made a fool of us.' So I turned back around and the girl was still staring back at me with my receipt in her hand.

"I’m sorry, what did you say?" I asked.

"Do you want this?" she said, holding up my receipt.

"Oh. Yes I do, thank you very much," I said as I grabbed it.

"Okay, well have a nice evening," she said.

"Yeah, you too."

If you want people at work to think you're insane, do what I did on my way to the bathroom.

[right together, right together, left together, left together, forward, back, hop, hop, hop]

Alex (seeing me): "Dude, are you doing the bunny hop?"
Brian: "Yes I am"
Alex: "You're an idiot"
Brian: "Yes I am"

I'll admit, I wasn't really looking forward to watching the debut of the new Jeff Foxworthy game show "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader" last night. For one, I have never been a big Jeff Foxworthy fan and I had a feeling this would be a completely over the top version of him (to be fair, he was actually pretty good). And two, if I liked the show at all, I'd probably want to watch it again. Let's face it, the more crap on television that I'm addicted to watching on a nightly basis, the less time I have to spend on more important things like writing on this blog or spending time with family or sleeping. But last night, Jill and I gave it a chance, and unfortunately, I think we may be hooked.

I have no idea what would drive an adult to want to compete in this thing. Forget about the potential to bring home thousands of dollars. Why would anyone want to put themselves on national television and allow somebody to ask them a series of questions that they should know the answers to, all-the-while standing there like an idiot with a blank stare on their face? That's exactly what these poor contestants do.

Here are last night's questions:
- Who was the first President of the U.S. to be impeached?
- What month does Columbus Day fall?
- What's the name of the ship that the Pilgrims used to sail to America?
- Do polar bears eat penguins?
- If the area of a triangle is 16 sq ft and the base is 8 ft, how many ft is the height?
- What does R.E.M. stand for?

I'll be honest, I was positive I knew the correct answer on only 4 of those. Who the heck knows that the first President to be impeached was Andrew Johnson? According to this show, all the 5th graders on the panel did. Either they were lying, or I'm not as smart as I thought I was (insert joke here).

My only critique of this show so far is that it's extremely slow moving. They go to far too many commercial breaks for only a 30 minute show, which explains why they only got through 6 questions. My suggestion in order to make the show work better would be to expand it to an hour, or speed it up. This show has tons of filler, but there's no time for it. Regardless, I'll be watching again tonight. My contributions to this blog, quality family time, and sleep will just have to wait.

When you were a kid and it was your birthday, it was customary for you to bring in treats for the whole class. Does anybody remember why this was? Shouldn't it have been the other way around with kids bringing in treats for you? After all, it was your birthday, not everyone else's.

"Uh Mom, my birthday's coming up, can you go out and buy me 30 Handi Snacks SO THAT I CAN GIVE THEM ALL AWAY?"

That made no sense. I remember how hard it was to convince Mom to buy Handi Snacks at all. And now that she was, I was going to give them away? And maybe even to someone I didn’t even like? What the hell?

The irony here is now that I'm old enough, I can purchase my own Handi Snacks any time I want, and yet I never do. I was at the grocery store yesterday and probably circled the Handi Snack aisle 2 or 3 times, and yet I sit here today with no Handi Snacks. What's the lesson here? I'm not sure, but I think it proves that I'm an idiot.

Why do dog owners insist on trying to get their dog to look at the television whenever another dog is shown? I remember situations like this from my childhood, it went something like this:

Me: "Ginger, look at the TV. No, not at me, look over there. It’s a dog on the TV. No, on the TV. Hurry up, you’re gonna miss it. No, look over there. Damn it! You missed it. Stupid dog."

Ginger’s reaction: "What is it? You want me to do what? Get the ball? No? The kids are home? I don’t understand. Stop yelling at me. Oh, I get it. You want me to look at the stupid television again. I’m not even sure I can see anything on that thing. What, is there another dog on there? Look, I don’t care. I’ve seen hundreds of dogs. And they were real. In fact, I’m sure I’ll see Bandit tomorrow when I go outside. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go lay down in my cage for a while. I have big plans tomorrow of lying in that sun spot over by the window all day."

And we think we’re the smart one’s.

So I’m walking into my office this morning and I notice a couple co-workers of mine staring down at me from the 6th floor window. Thinking they’re making fun of me, I jokingly give them "the finger". But I get no reaction. Turns out they weren’t looking at me. I look down a bit and notice a guy I don’t know staring down at me from the 5th floor window.

Oops.

Sometimes when I’m on the phone at work, I’ll notice myself talking with my hands. But I’ll notice it mid-sentence, so rather than concentrating on finishing my point, my brain will start to focus on the fact that I’m moving my hands. By the time I’m finished talking, I will have had no idea what I just said.

Sometimes when I get home from work, my next door neighbor (the Mrs.) will be outside in the yard playing with her kids, so I’ll walk on over to say hello. It’s always a pleasant conversation (How have your days been since the kids got out of school?, We should get together to barbeque, etc), but for some reason, we always exchange awkward goodbyes. For instance, for some reason, we’ll say goodbye to each other at the same time, then we’ll have to say it again, and again we’ll say it at the same time. I always manage to walk away feeling stupid. Sometimes she mixes it up. Like the other day, we managed to pull off a flawless “goodbye”, but as I turned to walk away, she said something else. Then I had to turn back around and continue the conversation, but I was thrown off, so the whole thing seemed kind of forced and contrived. I managed to throw in a couple unfunny and awkward jokes along with a few forced smiles, and then we both botched the 2nd goodbye. It was brutal.

Why does this happen? And why does it only happen to me with this lady? I’d be interested to know if she does this to others.