the Unexpressed Advantage

Note: this blog is a "rant" of sorts. If you don't like rants, don't read this.

I find it interesting, of course, that now that I have plenty of free time to write whatever I want, I don't have anything to write about. This must change, and it must change. To quote the words of my pastor here,

"Danny, we must see this change. It must change Danny and we must do it!"

That could basically be implied to any situation. I'm really just pointing out that he likes to call me Danny and use the word "must".

Now. Let me make one thing clear:

You do not call me Danny. Nobody calls me that. Even my own father doesn't call me Danny. In general, I don't like it, and if you call me Danny and think you're being coy, I'll say something once or twice, and then secretly dislike you in my thoughts. Plus when it comes time for fun pranks, you'll be at the top of my list.

My pastor has somehow gotten around this, and my Mom, Aunts, and Grandma. So you need to be a small Mexican woman or a very confident South African; otherwise I think you should stick with Dan or Dan Ray. And it's fine. We're good.

Also:

Whistling:

Me and colleague Crystal are arguing about my facebook status, which says, "Dan just noticed that walking around the hallways whistling the "death star" theme evokes funny responses." I thought that was pretty funny, Crystal says I'm strange and that whistling is strange, especially whistling star wars. Lame.

Lame:

It occurs to me that lame is a great word to use to silence somebody or end an argument. I mean really, what can you say against lame? "Not lame?" Well that's lame too. How you say it makes all the difference, but if you just inflect it properly, nobody can come back from it. Try it. Try it on your kids…

Mom I don't wanna go to bed!

Go to bed!

No! I don't want to!

Why not?

Cause I want to stay up and watch more tv!

Lame…

Kid will be sleeping inside of 10 minutes, I guarantee. Some may disagree. Lame.

Construction:

The nice construction people at my work have decided that from about 8:30am to 4:30pm would be the perfect time to start drilling into the wall right next to my cubicle (and everyone else's) with a 40-foot-tall drilling machine. During this time I have:

• heard several people complain
  
• watched the Dean of the Business School run around frantically trying to get the construction workers to stop drilling with their 40-foot-tall drilling machine
  
• found out just how wonderful in-ear noise cancelling headphones truly are
  
• eaten a lot of bagels from solly's, with solly's fresh-made cream cheese, and
  
• asked several people over email, "hey do you hear a noise or anything? Is it raining outside?
  

Seriously though. It's really loud. Imagine if you took the biggest metal mixing bowl in your house, put it on your head, and then somebody stood on a chair behind you with a pair of chopsticks and a wooden spoon and they played drums on the bowl rapidly while screaming "African Drum Solo!" It's that loud.

Other Stuff:

• Bought a new (cheap used) bike. Giant size. Since I'm a giant. Anybody need a morning cycling partner? I'm thinking 5-10k rides.
  
• I've decided to learn how to play the djembe drum. My instructor will be youtube.
  
• I've been sending about 20-30 emails a day outside of my job. Why?
  
• I need a vacation. Anyone got any good ideas (trips to see family and friends in California don't really count as a "vacation")?
  
• I'm getting a lot of flak for not wearing a bike helmet. Including – but not limited to – obnoxious Canadian men coming up next to me in their cars and giving me a hard time about it. Do you think that's fair? I don't think it's fair.
  

- DK