The Pandemic Soul

The more I read blogs, and their subsequent comments, the more annoyed I become with people who like to include irrelevant information for the sake of sounding more intelligent than they are. As I become more aware of this trend, I’ve noticed that people tend to do the same thing a lot when they speak to others — adding long, useless flourish where shorter to-the-point style works better.

George Orwell had these as two of his five rules for effective writing:

• Never use a long word where a short one will do.
• If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

Who could have said it better than a pro like Orwell? The bottom line is: stop adding useless nonsense to the things you write. And I’m not just talking about prose, but also in informal dialogue. Let’s look at an example I saw recently:

This resembles most of the business plans (aka gap analysis strategies) I had to write for teams & failing suppliers while at the company I used to work for.

This is part of a larger comment on a blog, but you get the gist. Do you see the problem? Let me make it clear: “(aka gap analysis strategies)” Why the hell do any of us care that a business plan was also called, in your jargon terms “gap analysis strategies”? It clarified nothing about the point, and instead injected industry-specific wording to people who are not part of her industry. It’s useless, it wastes the reader’s time, and it wastes your time as the writer. More to the point, “business plan” is a much more recognizable, and widely-known term which everyone grasped the meaning of right upfront. Why go any further?

So try being more efficient when communicating. By attempting to make yourself sound more intelligent, you instead make yourself appear overly concerned with sounding important.

Imagine: it’s 8:30pm on a Sunday night. You’ve just spent the whole day at Long Beach pride in the sweltering heat, and your face is burnt crispy. You’ll be peeling for weeks, which is gross. Moreover, you wore flip-flops because you wanted to look super hot for all the studly men with no shirts on, but in the end you just made yourself look like someone who had run their feet through a meat-grinder. Then, you had to take your dog for the world’s longest walk (this time in running-shoes, thankfully), because he likes to see you suffer before he poops.

Okay, now imagine you’re at home, you’ve eaten through everything appetizing in your kitchen (which included two mugs of goldfish crackers and — well, that’s it), and you’re hungry as hell. God, pizza sounds amazing right now, doesn’t it? But wait! You’ve lost 20 pounds in the last few months from all the walking you’ve done with that stubborn dog! You already drank a gallon of soda today, so don’t throw away the rest of your gains! What’s a guy to do?

Search the internet for home grocery delivery, that’s what. I could really go for some cut strawberries right now and something else really good for me. But I’ll be damned if I’m going down to the local Ralph’s just to find out that they’re out of any produce that isn’t wilted to shit. Jesus, my face looks like I bathed in a fountain of fire today.

So, imagine my surprise when I search for “Grocery delivery in LA” and “yummy.com” pops up, stating that they deliver 8am to midnight 365 days a year within 30 minutes. Shitmonsters, how have I lived without this?! Continue Reading »

After a long dry-spell this winter (I guess celebrities don’t go outside in the cold?), I’ve started seeing a bunch of celebrities again. Recently, it was Norm from the first Real World in New York, then Hulk Hogan at the airport, and now one of my all-time favorite guys: Nathan Fillion.

Of everyone that I’ve seen in-and-around Los Angeles, this is the one celebrity I wish I had done the uncouth “I’m a geeky fanboy, will you sign my face?!” move for. He’s such a cool guy (reference his filmography!), and I’m a total die-hard Firefly fan. After walking away, I thought of a half-dozen appropriate, “I’m a cool fan” greetings I could have used. Hrmph. I suppose it’s best that I didn’t, though, as we were on a rather stretch of sidewalk that’s highly trafficked, in front of La Poubelle at the corner of Bronson and Franklin in Franklin Village, and it probably would have been completely awkward. I nonetheless feel the need to express my gratitude and geekyness to one of the hunkier gods of sci-fi. If you’re out there Nathan, I’m the guy who was wearing the blue-and-yellow sweatshirt walking the world’s cutest dog! Couldn’t have missed me!

I guess I’m going to have to spend some time making a list of celebrities I would totally approach (probably most of the people from BSG, Star Trek, or Firefly) and prepare appropriate methods of telling them how, if I have the opportunity before they can realize what I’m doing, I’m going to tear their clothes off and weave them into bedsheets and washcloths. That way if this happens again, I won’t be complaining about a missed opportunity.

Although I recently had some problems with my 2004 Volkswagen Passat (I like to tell folks that the doors and wheels fell off after my warranty expired at 50,000 miles), I have to say that it’s the first car that I ever owned and really loved. Before this, I had a 2001 Jeep Cherokee, a 1996 Chevy Corsica, and a 1998 Ford Contour. Nonetheless, my lease was coming to an end in April, 2008, and had been looking around for possible new cars.

Just a few weeks ago, I received a letter in the mail from Livingston Volkswagen, in Woodland Hills near where I work, with three coupons: one for a “pull ahead” program where the last few payments on my lease would be “forgiven,” one for up to $2,500 off a new vehicle, and one for something else which didn’t apply to me.

Excited that I may have the opportunity to get a new vehicle early, I went down to the dealership and made an appointment to speak with a salesman a few days later. On Thursday, 12-6, I went in to the dealership and walked out with a new, 2008 Jetta. Continue Reading »

I’m rather sick of hearing about how the United States is a “Christian Nation.” I’m also sick of hearing about Christ. But more than anything, I’m sick of self-righteous Christians talking to me.

So from now on, any time a Christian even begins to talk about their religion, no matter what the context, I’m going to ask them the questions listed below. I suggest anyone else who is concerned about how religion continues to poison America do the same. Continue Reading »

Once again, I’m underwhelmed by celebrities who make half-hearted attempts at showing the GLB community how open-minded they are without actually doing anything about it. The newest incident comes from J. K. Rowling, as she outs Dumbledore as gay. Continue Reading »

Here’s an idea: why not, instead of letting dead malls turn into decaying urban eyesores, we turn them into parks?

Rip up the concrete parking lots, demolish the buildings, ring the place with a nice 6′ chain-link fence, and create urban greenery right on our main roads and highways. We can reclaim these vestiges of corporate waste for the public good.