Monthly Archive for May, 2007

Jeff Lee, Paper Expert

Published on May 30, 2007 in Humor and Intriguing. 13 Comments

In my poetry discussion this morning, we were handed random poems to read in groups. After I read the poem aloud, I noticed a watermark on the sheet. I looked at the paper, held it up to the light, turned the sheet upside down, flipped it over, then read “25% cotton fiber.”

About 5 minutes later, after my partner examined the poem thoroughly, she got mildly annoyed at me and exclaimed, “Oh, it’s just written on there.” Apparently, she thought I was nerdy enough to have been able to tell the cotton fiber content of a piece of paper solely by examining it. I got a kick out of the situation.

The Injury

Published on May 28, 2007 in Intriguing. 22 Comments

Last night, I managed to sustain what I believe to be the worst injury I have ever had. I dislocated a toe in an unfortunate Wallyball accident.

Fairly late in the evening before teardown, I was headed to the dorms to get rest for the long day. It was a decently late hour, yet the lights were still on and there was plenty of noise coming from the old men’s dorm. I ran into Bob, so we decided to check it out together. It turns out all the kids were playing Wallyball in the racquetball court. Bob and I played foosball for a while, then joined them for some rallying. Having gotten tired of this, we left and parted ways. I ran into Brynna, who wanted to play foosball and convinced me to go back into the Wallyball game. Since it was a casual game, all the girls were still wearing skirts and half the people were wearing flip flops. It was a casual yet fun game.

When we were nearing the end of a close tiebreaker, an anonymous male teammate accidentally stepped on my left foot with his heel and pushes off. I looked down and noticed that my fourth toe in was curved in the completely wrong direction. The game paused as everyone analyzed the situation. We quickly came to the opinion that it wasn’t broken, only dislocated. I pulled it back into place and eventually hobbled over to the kitchen with two others to get some ice and tape. After a while, I gimped over to the first aid room to see if there was anything else helpful. Not really.

Despite the fact that it hurts to walk, I’m getting a big kick out of this. It’s such a genuinely random injury. I mean, who dislocates the ring toe? Of all the toes, it’s probably the most useless. And who plays Wallyball? Seriously? What’s up with that?

I’m Famous!

Published on May 28, 2007 in Intriguing. 8 Comments

This weekend, I managed to experience the true powers of the internet. Aside from Jeremiah Andrews (perhaps the most interesting commenter I have), there are only a few known readers of this blog whom I have never met. As of a few days ago, there is now one less.

Whenever I find myself at large social gatherings, I notice sizable number of strangers who seem to know me. Over the years, I’ve learned that it’s because I’m probably related to them (as the past generations had no concern for overpopulation). So when someone comes up to me and says, “Jeff, right?” I generally smile, nod, and reply with something like, “Yep. How’ve you been?”

Yet this incident was different. I could feel something that was almost excitement in his voice. It was sort of that feeling you get when you want to ask for an autograph, only not really, because I’m pretty sure he didn’t want my autograph. When I expressed my confusion as to how he knew my name, he replied with, “I read your blog. I recognized the beard.”

Ah, yes. I remember the month of March too. After sitting through that, it would surprise me if any reader couldn’t recognize me.

Anyway, it made my evening that someone recognized me solely from my blog. On the internet, everyone has 15 megabytes of fame.

So thank you, Ben. You gave me joy and a new post. I’ve been kind of slacking on that lately. Maybe I should start taking pictures of myself again.

MySpace Spam?

Published on May 23, 2007 in Humor and Intriguing. 7 Comments

Earlier this month, I got a message on my seldom used MySpace account. The thumbnail was of a male a moderately far distance away and thus mostly indistinguishable from many males. His name listed was “Thats Hella Cute,” adding to the ambiguity. Anyway, the message he sent contained no subject and I found the following in the content:

hows school? do you love it do you go to gay parties tell me tell me tell me all about it

Immediately, I assumed it was spam. It has most of the classic spam traits: poor grammar and capitalization, a request for the recipient to do something, something gay or sexual. I was extremely close to flagging the message as spam when I took a closer look at the photo. I clicked on the link to his profile and realized I went to high school with the guy. His photo was actually a professional proof of a color guard picture. Even his url is http://www.myspace.com/colorguardprincess. Color guard princess? Oh, Michael. You haven’t changed at all.

Soccer

Published on May 22, 2007 in Intriguing. 4 Comments

The last time I actively played soccer was in second grade, where I was on an AYSO team with my friends of the time. I don’t remember being terrible, only that I had a lot of fun. At the end of the season, the quality about me that the coach shared with the team was that I was versatile and played a lot of different positions. Looking back at it now, I think it means I wasn’t good at anything.

Since then, soccer has phased out of my life. In recent years, hype over the World Cup has brought the sport back into my life. I have learned to appreciate the unity this specific sport brings to countries, something no other sport can do. It makes me wish Americans would focus more of their excitement on kicking the ball, not throwing it or hitting it with a stick.

The reason I bring this up is because much to my amusement, UC Davis will be hosting a miniature World Cup. The Spanish 3 class has challenged out Italian 3 class to a game of soccer on the Quad. Intended to be a fun and educational game, all commands and shouts must be made in the language attempting to be learned. Any English words result in a penalty kick for the other team.

I thought the idea was cute and amusing enough for me to sign up. Look at me, once again attempting to play a group sport. Mi dispiace, il mondo.

Amazon Marketplace

Published on May 15, 2007 in Aspersions and Humor. 26 Comments

As is not uncommon, I recently purchased a book from Amazon.com, using the Marketplace to get a better deal as well as to support an independent seller. When I received the book, I was rather disappointed. The seller listed the product as new, specifying in the notes that the book was “brand new” and had a perfect dust jacket. When I received the book, there was a bang in the top of the front cover and the dust jacket was worn in parts around the edges. As is Amazon’s policy, I contacted the seller.

Her response:

I apologize that you are not happy with your purchase. I am not a bookstore; only an individual selling a few books. I write the descriptions as accurately as I see them. When I shipped the book it was not damaged but as I described.

Regards,
Susan

And so I replied:

Susan-

I understand this. I am a book lover and collector, meaning the condition of my books is very important. We both committed to an agreement that entailed you sending me a brand new book and me receiving a brand new book. Whether the problem lies in your assessment of the book prior to shipping or the method in which you chose to ship the book, you have failed to meet the agreement. If you do not offer an acceptable solution, I will be forced to leave very negative feedback.

Jeff

PS–Don’t use a semicolon unless you know how. There must be an independent clause on each side of the semicolon. It’s a very easy way to elevate your register, yet it makes you look like an idiot if you don’t use it properly.

She took offense:

Jeff:

Please do not resort to threatening me. I do not appreciate your nasty email or attitude. The book is new or I would not have described it as such.

Susan

I jumped right back:

Susan-

While the book may not have been read previously, it is not in a condition that a dignified bookstore would sell as ‘new.’ Also, the entire point of the feedback function is to rate you as a seller. To warn you of your potentially poor rating is not a threat; it is actually a courtesy for me to do so. I opted to give an independent book seller business instead of buying directly through Amazon. I thoroughly regret this decision. Once again, I offer to let you rectify the situation before I evaluate your quality as a seller.

Jeff

Note the excessively cocky use of the semicolon in the last email. Boy, it made me happy to write that.

Since she was unwilling to help, I contacted Amazon. They apologized and gave me $10 toward my next purchase to cover the return shipping cost.

I had a feeling that if I returned the item, the seller would not refund the original shipping cost, so I contacted Amazon about that. They went ahead and submitted a claim for a full refund and also gave me $5 to cover the return shipping cost. A few days later, it was processed and I had my payment refunded in full.

In celebration of my victory, I proceeded to buy three more books and a CD from Amazon. I also celebrated by leaving rather harsh feedback on her profile.

From my experiences at Nordstrom, I have learned an important life lesson that is applicable in this case:

The nicer the customer behaves, the more the seller enjoys the transaction. The more the customer complains, the more he or she will receive for free.

Whole Earth Festival

Published on May 12, 2007 in Intriguing and Pictures. 3 Comments

As part of being a Davis resident, I feel somewhat obligated to at least check out the Whole Earth Festival. As usual, there was an overwhelming abundance of tie-dye, drum circles, and human sweat. There were a few things that were so remarkable, I was glad to have brought my camera.

This group was some sort of Christian healing booth. They mostly sat facing the subject with one hand a few inches in front of the forehead. It was extremely creepy.

World’s ugliest dog? Is that why it needs a sweater?

Really tall person in front of a giant, childbearing cage. What’s strange about that?

Santa Barbara Bike

Published on May 11, 2007 in Intriguing. 0 Comments

For the first time in the three years I’ve been riding my bike all over Davis, someone finally correctly identified my hometown solely from the stickers plastered over the frame. The easiest one to see says in big letters, “Save Our Ellwood Coast,” which, after reading, prompted the gentleman to ask if I were from Santa Barbara.

I proceeded to explain all the other stickers I found on the bike and also how I didn’t actually put any of them on the bike myself (I stole the bike). It was one of the happier moments of my biking as transportation.

Times Three

Published on May 10, 2007 in Humor and Music. 0 Comments

I went to the Davis Concert in the Park this evening, against the wishes of the director of our CSA play. I caught the last half of Patrick Ferris‘s performance, then Rob Roy got up on stage. Once again, I got a very familiar feeling when Rob managed to break his E string. I laughed loudly and Rob mentioned my curse when he switched to the banjo. He played a few more songs, but during the second to last song, he managed to break his high G string.

I have never seen that man perform without breaking a string.

The Gyro

Published on May 9, 2007 in Humor and Intriguing. 9 Comments

When we were sitting on Rob’s porch around 12:30 am, everyone jumped up at the sound of a crash. I looked over just in time to see a rather inebriated, overweight man picking up his bicycle, hopping on, then proceeding to swerve down the sidewalk and over the curb. When he was out of sight, we all looked inward for an explanation.

Reverend Peyton pipes up. “I just said, ‘I’d really like a gyro right now.’ He felt it was his obligation to get me one. I told him that it wasn’t necessary, but he insisted. He wouldn’t accept any money.”

This led to a long discussion about fines for biking under the influence and ridiculous probability that he would receive one. After a while, we all just had a nice laugh at the strange sense of obligation this guy felt he had.

Maybe a half hour later, he bikes back carrying a gyro. I think everyone there was in a state of shock that he was actually cognizant enough to remember his purpose and not get hit by a car on the way there and back.