-I was born and raised in a place that’s often misunderstood by the outside world.  A strange place that’s equal parts beloved and hated.  A place called Long Island.   Though I haven’t lived on Long Island regularly since I left for college a decade ago, all natives are permanently branded with certain stereotypes (starting with the fact that we often pronounce it “LawnGUYland”).  And, strangely enough, since I moved to Los Angeles, I’ve felt a stronger bond to Long Island than ever before.  This month, as I return home for Thanksgiving and my ten-year high school reunion, I thought I’d reflect on the place that deftly shaped me and a generation of fellow Long Islanders into a nice, tidy little cult.

-Since this column is read around the world, first here’s a brief geography lesson.  Manhattan is an island.  Just east of Manhattan is a much larger island, comprised of Brooklyn, Queens, Nassau County, and Suffolk County.  Nassau and Suffolk together form what’s known as Long Island.  We have some of the best bagels and public schools in the country.  Our primary export?  Hordes of overly well-dressed, frighteningly bitchy, petite-framed chicks who are simultaneously hot and annoying.

-I think that twentysomethings are often overly sentimental or overly cynical about high school.  Now don’t get me wrong, by the time senior year rolled around, I was ready to get the fuck out, but for the most part I enjoyed high school.  Sure, I took enough AP classes to earn a year of college credit when I should have been trying to get laid, but I didn’t quite have my priorities straight back then.  My friends and I still partied the best we could.  Though what more can you really expect from the suburbs than drinking in a park on weekends and running from rent-a-cops?

-Interesting tidbit: everyone from Long Island does in fact know each other.

-It was a pretty awesome experience when, two years ago, I was asked to speak to my high school’s senior class about college life.  But when I got to the school, I ran into a girl from my graduating class, who was now a Spanish teacher there.  Right before I went on, she told me, “Buena suerte.”  That totally depressed me.  Not because she was a teacher at our old high school, but because she was speaking to me in Spanish – as if I was still a fucking student.  I wanted to say, “Hey, I should be the one looking down on you, not the other way around!”  But instead I just said, “Gracias.”

-I’m not sure how I feel about my ten-year reunion.  A lot of people tell me the best part of reunions is catching up with people you’ve lost touch with.  The weird thing, though, is that I haven’t lost touch with any of my good friends – not a single person.  The guys I took a limo with to the prom are the exact same guys I’m taking a limo with from the reunion.  I guess what they say is true: bonds formed while sprinting from the hood-mounted searchlight of a cop car… are bonds that last a lifetime.

Interesting tidbit: People born west of the Mississippi who attend college in the Northeast are often appalled when they first meet people from Long Island.  Don’t worry, this is normal.  The shock will wear off as soon as you buy overpriced jeans and assimilate.

-Having spent the last ten years since high school living in Philadelphia, New York City, and Los Angeles, I don’t know if I could ever reconcile moving back to the suburbs, at least until I have a family.  Long Island is a great place to grow up, but a weird place to be a single twentysomething.  I mean, I guess there are a couple of places I could recommend to get a drink with a girl – but, just to be safe, make sure she wears running shoes.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-Have you ever opened an Evite as soon as you received it, noticed that over 100 people had already responded, and then realized that the host blatantly forgot to include you the first time around?

-I’ve met a lot of people in LA whose high school graduating class was only like fifty people, and they’d all been going to school together since kindergarten.  That’s the kind of fucked up thing that if, twenty years from now, it turned out to actually be some kind of cruel government experiment, I wouldn’t be surprised at all.

-The other day, I was in West Hollywood about to get a haircut when I asked the receptionist if I could use the bathroom.  He said, “Go for it.”  For some reason, this enraged me.  Just say, “Sure.”  Fucking hipsters.

-How come when I’m waiting for a haircut, all the other people who walk in look like they’ve just gotten one?

-After I spoke at my high school, which by the way is succinctly named Plainview-Old Bethpage John Fitzgerald Kennedy High School, or for short, P.O.B.J.F.K.H.S., I was not invited back the following year.  It turns out certain faculty members didn’t approve of my overall message, which was essentially: “You’re gonna get really fucked up in college; just try not to boot on anyone’s girlfriend.”  Originally, I thought I had been banned.  But recently I was told this is not the case; my next appearance at the school has simply been delayed… forever.

-I’m a bit of an oversignaler.  When I drive, I signal no matter what – even if I’m just pulling into my building’s parking lot.  This in and of itself is not a problem.  It’s just that I’ve begun to rationalize that, as long as I signal, I can do anything.  I’m king of the mid-street U-turn.  But I always signal first – which I assume other drivers interpret to mean, “Watch out, ‘cause I’m about to do some illegal shit.”

-And, finally, a rite of passage that comes with growing up on Long Island is the “Penn Station mad dash.”  Penn Station, which lies beneath Madison Square Garden, is the hub that connects all of Long Island with the city via the Long Island Railroad.  (And yeah, to us, Manhattan is always just called “the city”).  When native Long Islanders return from college or fly in for the holidays, they usually go out partying in the city, then all end up back at Penn Station at around 4am waiting for trains back to the Island.  When a train is called, a bunch of sloppy drunkards make a mad dash to get a seat, then spend the ride home either vomiting, passed out, or talking really, really loudly to each other.  This tradition has not changed since I was in high school, and in a sense, it’s emblematic of a larger phenomenon: no matter your age or where you’re from, something will always drag you back home.  Hopefully, it’s just not a rent-a-cop.  Fuck me.

HOME

-Our generation is generally more apolitical, agnostic, and, well, apathetic than our parents’.  When asked to speak out for or against an issue, we default to ambivalence – because it just seems like a lot less work.  This tepidness extends not just to matters of national importance, but also – and, perhaps more so – to the day-to-day minutiae of our lives.   We don’t say what we’re thinking because we don’t want to piss anyone off, or worse, get fired.  Because I’m not concerned about either of those things, I’d like to take this opportunity to vent on behalf of my peers.  After all, generations past spoke out on what they cared about most.  But if there’s one thing that today’s twentysomethings are most passionate about, it’s not caring at all in the first place.

-Nobody cares about your fucking fundraiser.  Listen, charity is great and I donate every year – on my own accord.  But these days I get invited to more fundraisers than I did birthday parties the year my friends all turned twenty-one.  So please stop emailing me about car washes, bake sales, sock hops, and silent auctions for random-ass causes I have no desire to support.  It’s enough already.  I don’t want to go.  In fact, no one wants to go.  Unless of course it’s open bar – then maybe we’ll consider it.

-Don’t include a list of your favorite books in your online profile if you’re just going to list the Harry Potter series.  Hell, I’ve read them, too.  But who are we kidding?  Everyone knows that, in your case, those are the only seven books you’ve read in the past decade.  Considering their target age group is about eight years old, you should be embarrassed.

-Fuck global warming.  That’s right, I said it: fuck global warming.  I believe it exists and I believe it’s bad.  I just can’t stand to hear one more celebrity talk about it.  If the federal government wants to enact a law that within five years all cars need to get 50 MPG, I’m fine with that.  In the meantime, leave me the fuck alone.  I mean, what the hell do you expect me to do – build a compost heap in my fucking one-bedroom apartment?

-For years, I’ve wondered how it’s possible that annoying people who don’t shut the fuck up don’t realize how annoying they are.  We’ve all been there – trapped in a conversation with someone who isn’t able to pick up on the most obvious clues that you’re not interested whatsoever in what they have to say and are desperate to leave.  I call these people HCIs – “head cock inducers” – because while you’re standing there listening to them blab on and on you subconsciously cock your head to one side and think to yourself, “Is she fucking serious right now?”

-Don’t send me Snapfish albums from events I did not attend.  Nobody cares about your friend’s sister’s wedding.  Don’t list your income on MySpace.  Nobody cares that you make more than $100,000, you lying douchebag.  Don’t let your girlfriend be the one to tell the story if both you and her witnessed an event.  Nobody cares about the intricate details of what everyone was wearing.  Don’t reply “maybe” to Evites.  Nobody cares that you might be coming – and if you don’t show up I’m gonna send you the Snapfish album just for spite.

-In the end, I think that my problem, and the problem of my generation, is a lack of patience.  Information comes at us so fast these days, it’s hard not to be impatient.  I’ve been known to ask a question, and then lose interest a few seconds into the answer.  Sometimes, I can’t even be bothered to finish my own sentences.  A typical story I might tell my mom: “So, I went to the store like Dad suggested and blah, blah, whatever, I gotta go.”  I guess I forget that moms are interested in everything.  Like this one time – actually, forget it.  You don’t give a shit.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-I used to have this gourmet welcome mat outside my apartment.  Instead of “Welcome,” it said “Leave.”  I really got a kick out of it.  Until someone stole it last week.  Man, some people just take shit way too personally.

-I love being a bachelor.  My fridge has a drawer labeled “fresh produce.”  That’s where I keep the beer.

-One strange thing about living alone is that when you finish something like a big jug of olive oil, you realize that you and you alone ingested the entire thing.  And even though it took you a full year, you still feel like a fat bastard.

-Ex-Girlfriend once got upset because a girl she knew was dressing up for Halloween as what she had considered being the year before.  To clarify: Ex-Girlfriend was considering one costume, then went with another.  A year later, her friend chose the costume that she didn’t go with, and Ex-Girlfriend somehow got pissed.  It’s absolute insanity and makes me feel glad to be single with a freshly stocked produce drawer.

-My buddy Josh works for the Padres, and when I texted him to wish him luck the morning of the Pads-Rockies one-game playoff, he wrote back to say he and his co-workers had just arrived in Denver to prepare.  How cool is working for a sports team?  Can you imagine if your accounting firm had to fly to Denver on a moment’s notice for a one-game playoff versus the rival accounting firm?  How awesome would that be?  Instead, you’re stuck with the company softball league and driving to Jersey for team-building exercises.

-When the check comes and someone offers to treat me to dinner, my first thought isn’t, “Wow, what a nice gesture,” it’s “Damn, I should have ordered more.”

-The other day, my iPod said “Do not disconnect” but I said fuck it and disconnected it anyway.  I felt kinda badass.  A moment later, though, I felt pathetic for earlier feeling so badass.

-And, finally, last weekend I ran into a bunch of guys from my fraternity who were seniors when I was a freshman.  I always looked up to those guys – I mean literally looked up to them, as I often lay passed out drunk on the floor of their off-campus apartment.  Also, whenever I would see those guys after they had graduated, it would be like a glimpse three years into the future for me.  When I was a sophomore, they were living in Manhattan and working on Wall Street, as I would later do.  By the time I had graduated and they were in their mid-twenties, they had started to pursue other interests and disperse across the country, as I would also later do.  But now, most of them are back in New York, married, and even have kids – none of which are particularly likely to happen to me in the next three years.  I got a little worried that I disrupted the time-space continuum or something.  On one hand, they’re all enormously successful and have very hot wives.  On the other hand, though, their fresh produce drawers are definitely stocked with actual fresh produce, which is kinda lame.  And so it dawned on me that if their future was an Evite and I had to respond, for once I’d have to simply say “maybe.”  Fuck me.

HOME

-One evening this August, I was riding the subway with my buddy Rob.  We were both drinking beer from open containers, and every word we spoke was met with a stare from the train’s other passengers.  Strange, yes.  But not when you consider we were in Tokyo at the time.  On my vacation to Japan this summer with Rob, we made a number of startling discoveries – such as that drinking in public places is legal, but seeing two white dudes speaking English is a sight so rare it drew celebrity-worthy gawks wherever we went.  By the end of our ten-day jaunt – covering Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and Nara – I could confidently say it was the best trip I have ever taken – outpacing even my previous mancations to Sydney and Rio de Janeiro.  Perhaps most surprising was that the trip didn’t even cost me the arm and a leg I thought it would.  Maybe I’m desensitized to outrageous prices from living in Manhattan and Los Angeles, or maybe Rob is just a cheap bastard who moderated my spending.  Either way, the trip was fast, furious, and surprisingly affordable.  This is my tale of Tokyo thrift.

-Every employee in Japan smiles.  They seem genuinely thrilled and honored to serve you – from waiters to shopkeepers to the female janitor cleaning the urinal next to mine while I pissed in Kyoto Station (they don’t even bother closing the bathroom).  Everyone is just so happy to see you.  One day, however, Rob and I went to a giant investment bank in Tokyo where a fan of mine had left us baseball tickets to pick up.  In the elevator, we noticed something very odd – no one was smiling.  Which just goes to show you that no matter where you are in the world, investment bankers are still fucking miserable.

-90% of chicks in Tokyo are thin, have perfect skin, dress well, and are hot.  The downside?  They don’t speak a lick of English.  In fact, I found that, in general, most Japanese people know only three English phrases: “Go left,” “Go right,” and “No, we don’t sell beer here.”  Since I wanted to get immersed in the culture (and hit on chicks), I learned a few Japanese phrases: “Hello,” “Excuse me,” “Thank you,” “Hideki Matsui,” “You are very pretty,” and of course, “I am an extremely famous comedian from Los Angeles.”  Sure, I exaggerated a bit on that last one, but I figured if anyone called me out on it, I could just pretend I was Rob – since no one could tell us apart, even though we look nothing alike.

-Japan is the cleanest, safest, most punctual country I have ever been to.  You know those black, gum-looking, filth spots covering the sidewalks and streets of every American city?  Didn’t see one of them in Japan.  In fact, I walked through Tokyo for ten hours in flip-flops and, at the end of the day, my feet were perfectly clean.  Even stranger, public garbage cans are almost impossible to find – so I have no idea where any of the garbage even goes.  No one locks their bikes up in Japan, and cops are even rarer than garbage cans – probably because there’s really nothing for them to do.  Maybe the best part of Japanese society is that all subways, trains, and buses come exactly to the SECOND that they’re scheduled to arrive – which makes getting wasted onboard all the more efficient.

-In the end, I think one reason the trip was so amazing was that I honestly believe I accomplished everything a human could possibly do in ten days in Japan.  From almost accidentally bidding on a giant tuna at the famous Tsukiji fish market auction, to violently booting in the Park Hyatt hotel (of “Lost in Translation” fame), to being attacked in the street by the free-roaming deer of Nara, to taking a shit at a Tokyo Giants game (no seat; just a hole), I had the experience of a lifetime – and filled an entire gig of memory on my camera in the process.  In fact, the only time I was disappointed by Japanese culture was at the very end of the trip.  I really didn’t want to leave but, of course, the train that would take me to the airport arrived exactly on time.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-Common misconception: people in Japan have tiny, futuristic cell phones.  This is false.  Their cell phones are clunky and huge – like what we had in the ‘90s.  Of course, their phones do have live TV on them, so they’ve got us beat there.

-I always like to have the most up-to-date information when I travel, so I splurged for the new 2007 Fodor’s Japan guide, while the ever penny-pinching Rob toted around an old, well-worn Lonely Planet.  I’ll have to admit, though, occasionally he put me in my place.  At one point, as he was trying to navigate, I said, “Dude, you have no idea what you’re talking about; that guidebook is four years old!”  “Karo,” he replied calmly, “I’m not too worried.  This temple was built in 738 A.D.”

-Japan is famous for its comically over-literal Japanese-to-English translations that always seem to include a few too many words.  My three favorites were: “bus system line figure” (i.e. bus map), “postal savings cash service” (i.e. ATM), and “transaction advice” (i.e. receipt).  I also did my part to teach the Japanese people we befriended as many English slang phrases as possible – with varying results.  There are now a bunch of kids running around Tokyo telling their friends that a drunk American named “Kay-lo” taught them that throwing money in the air is called “makin’ it lain.”

-Another one of the amazing parts of the trip was just having conversations (or attempting to have conversations) with local twentysomethings.  Two guys that Rob and I met were named Yu and Yohei, pronounced “you” and “yo-hey,” respectively.  Just imagine trying to have a conversation with two people named “You” and “Yo-Hey.”  It was like the Japanese version of “Who’s on First?”

-And, finally, a superficial look at Japan reveals a country that is far superior to ours.  Their employees are friendly; ours give you a look of death if you even try to ask a question at the cell phone store.  Japan’s cities are clean; ours smell like hot garbage.  Japan is safe; our citizens buy guns at Wal-Mart.  Japan is efficient; our transportation schedules are more like loose guidelines than actual departure times.  But if you look closer, you’ll see that, in a way, Japanese society is royally fucked.  Everyone is totally repressed.  Men are subservient to their bosses.  Women are subservient to men.  Appearing honorable is paramount to expressing oneself.  The suicide rate is sky-high.  Is having a safe, clean, efficient country worth all that?  I think not.  Still, as they say, “When in Rome…”  Thus, while in Japan, I did my best to adhere to their traditions – though sometimes that merely served to expose me for the proud, narrow-minded American I am.  After asking a passing family to take a picture of Rob and me, the mother snapped the photo and, as is custom, I smiled, bowed slightly, and said, “Domo” (thank you).  As we walked away, the woman’s daughter, who must have been about six, ran up to me, tugged my shorts, scowled, and said in perfect English, “Um, excuse me – we’re Chinese, not Japanese.”  Fuck me.

HOME

-A few years ago, I was having such problems with my computer that the Dell support rep who was assisting me actually had to call tech support at another company, and then wait silently on the line for three hours while the second rep talked me through the problem.  At the end of the call, the Dell rep, who was based in New Delhi and had apparently Googled me while waiting on hold, said to me in a thick Indian accent, “Dude, Ruminations totally rocks.”  And so my experience writing this column over the past decade has never ceased to be eventful.  This is the last of several special issues published this month to celebrate ten years since I began writing Ruminations in September 1997.  All of my columns pasted back-to-back produce a 460-page, single-spaced document containing over 213,000 words (about one-third of which are some derivation of “fuck”).  That makes for a lot of memories, my favorites of which I’d like to share with you all today.

-Ten years is a long time.  I’ve gone from making fun of my friends who were pre-law to making fun of my friends in law school to making fun of my friends who are lawyers.  (It never gets old.)  Or, put another way, when I first began writing this column as a college freshman, no one I knew owned a cell phone and Facebook was literally a physical book full of faces that we would scour trying to get laid.  Now, you’re probably reading this column on your cell phone, before logging on to Facebook… and scouring it trying to get laid (OK, some things never change).

-In college, I got an email from an employee at Microsoft who said that he had been at a huge conference, walked by Bill Gates’ table, and overheard him mention my site.  I was blown away at the time and since then have heard reports of Ruminations cropping up in the strangest of places.  It’s been used to teach conversational English to students in Finland, Austria, China, and Japan.  (Somewhere there are a bunch of Austrians running around saying, “Yo dude, let’s get fucked up!”)  It’s been cited in numerous college term papers, assigned as required reading by professors, and even made the focus of an entire class at Berkeley.  I’ve been the subject of one student’s graduation speech at Binghamton and another’s application essay to Tulane.  Which to me confirms what you’re probably thinking right now – our education system has gone to complete shit.

-Speaking of which, people love to read this column in the bathroom.  When I first started, word spread when students would print out and post my emails on the inside of dorm bathroom stalls.  Later, some of my cubicle-dwelling fans would print out the column, take it with them to the bathroom, then leave it there for a co-worker to discover.  Recently, I got an email that students were once again posting Ruminations up in their dorm bathrooms.  So ten years later I’m right back where I started – in the shitter.

-I pride myself on personally reading every email I receive and responding to about 99%.  (Yes, it’s really me responding to you; you can stop asking!)  But I think some of my fans take my accessibility a little too far.  I must get more drunken emails than anyone on the planet.  I’m not exactly sure what possesses people to come home from the bar, accidentally hit caps lock, and then write me a rambling missive in which all the letters that are supposed to be lower-case are capitalized, and vice versa; but I still laugh – because they look like little electronic ransom notes.  Also, about five times a week, people will receive my column, then think they’re forwarding it to a friend, only to accidentally reply directly to me instead.  And the message is always like, “Hey Michelle, this is that email I was telling you about.  This week’s kinda sucked though.”

-Lately guys have been emailing me from their BlackBerrys while at the bar, asking me to give them real-time advice on how to pick up chicks.  I usually read those emails on my BlackBerry while at the bar and wondering the exact same thing.

-Occasionally, I’ll make an offhand reference to a brand in Ruminations, one of my subscribers will happen to work for the company, and then they’ll just send me free shit.  I’ve gotten cases of Chapstick, Bosco chocolate syrup, Zagat guides, and caffeine-infused beer, as well as gym memberships and about a thousand coupons from 7-Eleven.  All of which were nice but, quite frankly, not particularly useful to me.  But if any of you out there happen to work for LifeStyles, I prefer the ultra sensitive condoms.  You know, just putting it out there.

-Sometimes, something I’ve ruminated about will leap right off the page and into my real life.  For instance, two months ago, in Ruminations #113, I wrote how my denial about moving to Los Angeles two years ago was evidenced by the fact I still have a New York State driver’s license.  The very next day, I was pulled over for the first time in my life.  The cop proceeded to write me two tickets – one for the initial violation and another for missing the deadline for getting a California license by about twenty-three months.  Then, when I went to the DMV in LA to get a new license, I was denied by the system.  Apparently, a DMV in Philadelphia had red-flagged me for an unresolved underage drinking citation from eight years ago when I was in a bar that got raided while at college at Penn.  And as pissed as I was, the only thing I could think was, “This will be great for my column.”

-Of course, the whole reason I came out to LA in the first place was to spread my gospel to an even greater audience.  I’ve made some headway.  Earlier this year, I wrote a pilot for the sitcom version of Ruminations and sold it to the CW.  Obviously, they chose not to go forward with it.  Don’t worry, though, I have plenty more tricks up my sleeve.  But for now I guess you’ll just have to make do with fucking Gossip Girl.

-More great emails I’ve received: soldiers in Iraq writing to thank me for helping them pass the time, mothers and fathers trying to set me up with their daughters, and even a fan who quoted Ruminations while proposing to his girlfriend.  (I hope to God he didn’t conclude with “Fuck me.”)

-I also need to take the time to say some thanks.  First, to my sister Caryn, who has served as my Editor-in-Chief for the past few years.  I count on Caryn to take an objective look at all my columns before I send them out.  Without fail, every week she reads them and then tells me, objectively speaking, that she doesn’t find them particularly funny.  I’d also like to thank my mom, who was my original editor, and who still steps in occasionally when Caryn is unavailable.  And let me tell you, when you’re in a pinch and need someone to quickly review your profanity-laced tirades, it’s definitely not awkward when that person is your mom.

-I’d also like to thank all of my friends – from Plainview, Penn, Manhattan, LA, and beyond – who have continued to allow me to document their exploits.  I must admit, it’s a trying experience being friends with me.  For example, in Ruminations #51, I wrote about my buddy Jud’s apartment getting robbed.  Soon, sitting in his bare apartment, he received dozens of calls from friends – not calling to commiserate, but rather to congratulate him for getting a shout-out.

-Last month, I was in my old bedroom in my parents’ house on Long Island when I discovered a long-lost artifact: the original list – handwritten, no less – of the first hundred or so people who signed up for Ruminations in 1997, after I had sent my first email to twenty friends.  After a little legwork, I was able to pinpoint my original subscriber and contact her.  Back when she was first forwarded Ruminations (from who she does not recall), Mandy was a freshman at Azusa Pacific University, a small Christian college I’d never even heard of until recently, and she abstained from sex and foul language – literally the opposite of any person you would expect to read Ruminations!  But Mandy was intrigued, so she signed up and has been receiving my column – at the same email address – for the past decade.  She has since married and moved to Denver where, as luck would have it, I actually met her last year when I came to town to perform.  It’s funny how life comes full circle.  When Mandy subscribed ten years ago, I had no idea where life would take me.  And I certainly didn’t expect it to take me to where I am now: my apartment in West Hollywood – only thirty miles from Azusa Pacific University.

-And, finally, I want to say thanks to you, my loyal readers.  For all these years you have forwarded my emails, bought my books, and watched my stand-up.  It has been an honor and a privilege to entertain you and, in some instances, try to sleep with you.  As I embark on my 11th year of Ruminations, my philosophy remains the same.  College is awesome most of the time but sometimes kinda sucks.  The real world kinda sucks most of the time but occasionally is pretty awesome.  During the times that suck, take a step back, look at yourself, and laugh.  During the times that are awesome, take lots of pictures because you won’t remember shit in the morning.  People who say “follow your dreams” are douchebags.  99.9% of the population is talking completely out of their asses at all times.  Always work hard and play harder.  And to paraphrase the esteemed sociologist 50 Cent: get laid or lie tryin’.  So once again, I must say thank you, dear readers, for coming along for the ride these past ten years.   It’s been gourmet.  And to think, you guys have followed me all the way from Philly to New York to Los Angeles.  Much like my underage drinking citation.  Fuck me!

HOME

-Greatest Hits compilations are a tricky business.  Everyone hates those fucking bands that have been around for like three years, produce a couple of mildly popular songs, and then just start putting out multi-disc Greatest Hits box sets like it’s their job.  As a comedian, I didn’t want to fall into a similar trap.  Throughout September, I am proud to be celebrating ten years since I began writing this column way back in 1997.  Although I’m no musician, I have now been putting out material (and taking down the occasional groupie) for a solid decade – a milestone I humbly deemed worthy of my first Greatest Hits issue.  Selecting which of my anecdotes would be considered “greatest” was a challenge – they’re all my babies.  But in the end, I chose jokes that met one of three criteria: 1) they invoked a strong reader reaction, 2) they remained particularly poignant after many years, or 3) they were a personal favorite of mine.  And don’t worry, this will be my last Greatest Hits edition for at least another five to ten… months (just kidding).  As with last week’s glossary, the issue and year in which the entry originally appeared follows each joke.  I hope you enjoy, and thank you for joining me to celebrate ten years of Ruminations!

-I’ve found that when I’m on the treadmill I tend to slyly glance at the person next to me to see how fast they’re running.  Like we’re in some sort of crazy race that goes nowhere.  [#45, 2003]

-Ever notice that when you’re sitting at a restaurant and the waiter comes over to take your order, you instinctively re-open and look at your menu even though you already know exactly what you want?  [#46, 2004]

-Do you have that one poster in your dorm room that has fallen down every single day so far?  And it’s always right over your bed so it falls on you in the middle of the night and scares the shit out of you?  And the funny thing is you’re too lazy to put any extra tape on it to make it stick so you put it back up knowing full well that it’s going to fall down again in about twelve hours.  [#10, 1998]

-I have this sneaking suspicion that when people say to me “No worries,” they mean just the opposite.  [#96, 2006]

-Ever realize that when the light turns red and you are still in the middle of the street and you do that little hybrid jog/skip/walk where you flail your arms about like an idiot, you are actually moving at the same speed as if you just plain walked instead?  [#31, 2002]

-I love pre-med kids.  They’re fucking nuts, especially when it comes to the MCATs.  Those crazy bastards won’t go out for five months just to study for one test.  I think I’m going to have to study medicine alongside my pre-med friend Shermdog, just so I’ll be able to administer first-aid when he gets bombed out of his mind right after the test is finally over.  [#18, 2000]

-I love watching people dab the top of a slice of pizza with a napkin to try to soak up some of the grease.  Good job, big guy.  Now it’s just like eating a rice cake. [#37, 2003]

-Just once, when you’re walking down the hallway at work and a co-worker is walking toward you and you both almost walk right into each other because you both moved the same way, and then you laugh under your breath and start sort of stutter-stepping to try to get around one another, don’t you just want to uppercut the guy in the face and be done with it already?  [#47, 2004]

-I don’t know what scares me more, the fact that my mom asked me if I want luggage for my birthday, or the fact that I think I do.  [#39, 2003]

-Why do cab drivers get so upset when you hit traffic?  It’s not like they’re getting out.  [#32, 2002]

-My mom’s response to every problem is always, “You drink too much.”  Mom, I’m not feeling well.  “You drink too much.”  Mom, I got a C on my last test.  “Maybe it’s because you drink too much.”  Mom, the football team lost.  “They drink too much.”  [#17, 1999]

-To me, summer in New York City is like going through puberty.  Beforehand, you’re both apprehensive and excited about what lies ahead.  Then, you don’t even realize it’s underway until halfway through when you start breaking out and can’t stop thinking about girls.  And when it’s all over, your memory of what actually happened is fuzzy, the frequent awkward moments replaced forever in your mind with sporadic instances of glory.  [#41, 2003]

-The other day, my remote control died.  I grabbed some new batteries, opened the remote, took out the old batteries, then looked down at the pile of four batteries in front of me – two new, two old – and had no idea which was which.  I think the shock of how dumb I felt was enough to power the remote.  [#71, 2005]

-I was partying in Chicago last year when I accomplished a first for me – I had two different tabs on two different cards open simultaneously at the same bar.  Some might call that being an idiot.  But I call it “building credit history.”  [#105, 2007]

-How come whenever I am introduced to people who are supposedly “so like me” I hate them?  [#35, 2003]

-I think that people’s reaction when I tell them that I don’t drink coffee is equivalent to my reaction when people tell me that they don’t drink alcohol.  [#85, 2006]

-I have no idea how to do laundry.  No, no, not like I have some idea but just don’t know how much fabric softener to use, I mean I have NO IDEA how to do laundry.  I just had this vision that there would be some cute chick in the laundry room every time I went there who would show me how to do it.  Dreams die hard, but I have no underwear.  [#1, 1997]

-Getting up at the crack of dawn for work is sort of like doing the New York Times crossword puzzle – it gets harder and harder as the week goes on until it’s almost impossible on Friday.  [#40, 2003]

-My college girlfriend recently got engaged to my fraternity brother, who she dated immediately after me.  Like I always say, if you’re gonna lose in the playoffs, might as well be to the team that wins the championship.  [#94, 2006]

-Why I am I constantly being bombarded with mass emails containing “new contact info” from people I never contact in the first place?  [#32, 2002]

-Here at Penn it’s time for Rush and oh what a great time it is.  The freshman girls are putting on their finest black pants and having fake conversations with sorority girls they will eventually backstab.  Later, the sororities will utilize the accurate process of scantron bubble sheets to determine which girls are best suited for their house.  Meanwhile, the freshman guys are realizing that free beer does taste better and getting so wasted they don’t even remember which frat boys they were talking to.  Later, the frat boys will attempt to figure out which guys they want even though they were so wasted they didn’t even know Rush was going on in the first place.  It sure is a good thing that the next three years of a person’s life are being determined in such an efficient manner.  [#18, 2000]

-I hate dudes wearing suits in bars.  Listen buddy, it’s a hundred degrees in here and no one is impressed that you’re a fucking banker.  [#29, 2002]

-I stayed in my parents’ house on Long Island for most of last week, which was confusing for everybody because I sound exactly like my father on the phone.  I swear one time my dad called the house, I picked up, and he was like, “Wait a minute… me?”  [#91, 2006]

-Why is there a sign outside the sauna in the men’s locker room of my gym that says: “Do not use if pregnant.”?  [#39, 2003]

-Why are the last few days before you leave for college when you run around trying to see everyone you didn’t bother to hang out with the whole summer?  [#9, 1998]

-You know what I’m tired of?  People saying, “I’m very disappointed in you.”  When I was a kid and got in trouble, my parents always gave me that same speech: “We’re very disappointed in you.”  In college, when my fraternity got in trouble, we were told by an administrator, “I’m very disappointed in you.”  At work, when I messed up, my bosses said to me, “We’re not your parents and this isn’t college anymore…but we’re very disappointed in you.”  You know what?  Shut the fuck up already.  I’m sick of everyone having such high expectations.  And when do I get to be the one disappointed, huh?  [#39, 2003]

-If you can’t feed Gremlins after midnight, then when can you feed them?  [#10, 1998]

-How come moms never know their own cell phone number?  [#23, 2001]

-You know you’re wasted when you’re standing in the elevator for ten minutes, wondering why nothing’s happening, before you realize you never pressed any buttons.  [#73, 2005]

-To me, single women in their twenties are like a preseason football game – it may seem like they’re trying to score, but really they just don’t want to get hurt.  [#43, 2003]

-Doesn’t it suck how you’re always bragging to your friends at other colleges how awesome your school is and how much you party and when they finally come and visit, it’s the worst weekend ever?  And you try to explain to them that it’s not usually like this, but they totally don’t believe you.  [#11, 1998]

-My roommate Brian and I regularly have a woman clean our apartment and do our laundry.  I am not embarrassed by this – we are both financially independent and that’s one perk we choose to spend our money on.  What I am embarrassed about is that we decide to call the cleaning woman not when our apartment is sufficiently dirty, but when we run out of underwear.  The problem is, we have different amounts of underwear and so an argument ensues every time.  In order to ease tensions between us, we held an “underwear summit” where we both decided on a per day underwear allowance that would result in a mutually agreed upon laundry day.  Cooler heads prevailed for a while until Brian’s girlfriend broke the ceasefire by buying him a few new pairs, thus throwing off the balance of power.  My ally, my mom, responded by buying me even more underwear and now Brian and I are locked in a heated battle to stockpile the largest arsenal.  It’s like the Cold War of boxers.  [#48, 2004]

-Is it weird that when I’m introduced to two people who are going out, the first thing I do is imagine them fucking?  [#38, 2003]

-I think that every college campus has “that bar.”  You know, that bar that everyone goes to all the time yet everyone complains it sucks and asks why everyone keeps going there?  I think we should all stop complaining about “that bar.”  Embrace it for what it is and accept that you will always go there anyway.  And admit it, sometimes it’s even fun.  [#20, 2000]

-Why are there more personnel at the airport helping people who can’t figure out how to use the “self-service” e-ticket machine than anywhere else?  [#39, 2003]

-All my friends who share a dorm bathroom with just one roommate always brag about how great it is.  Personally, I would rather share a toilet with ten other guys than just one.  It’s all about the uncertainty principle.  When there is something disgusting on the toilet seat in a communal bathroom, you’re never sure who did it.  But if you only share the toilet with one other person, you know exactly who the dirty little fucker is – your roommate!  [#2, 1997]

-I hate waiters who attempt to memorize your order.  Don’t try to impress me, just write that shit down.  [#32, 2002]

-The women of New York will always be my first love.  But after careful empirical analysis, I have to say the chicks in LA are, on average, much hotter.  Whether gourmet LA girls are approachable or not, well, that’s another story.  In fact, my buddy Ryan even makes the laughable but logical case that the girls out here are actually TOO hot.  Which prompts me to pose an important philosophical question – if a perfect ten walks in the door but no one can talk to her…does she exist?  [#74, 2005]

-Quote of the Decade.  I thought Brian summed up the twentsyomething experience beautifully when he once said to me, “Karo, you know what would make me completely happy?  If I could just weigh less than my jeans cost.”  [#37, 2003]

-I believe that marriage is the great equalizer of twentysomething life.  There’s nothing I enjoy more than watching a chick wait desperately for her boyfriend to get off his ass and propose already.  You have to understand, ladies, our entire lives since puberty have been predicated on waiting for you.  We’re always ready to hook up, but we don’t get blown or fucked until one of you decides the time is right.  But by tradition, the man alone decides when to propose.  This is the first and only time we hold all the cards.  So if your boyfriend has been beating around the bush about dropping the knee, don’t misinterpret it as cold feet.  It just takes a while to absolve fifteen years of sexual frustration.  Payback’s a bitch, ain’t it?  [#94, 2006]

-I love when someone at the pizza place tries to pay with a fifty-dollar bill and the cashier holds it up to the light and studies it closely like he’s some kind of counterfeiting expert.  Stick to slicing pepperoni, chief.  [#40, 2003]

-Does this happen to you?  You’re at a party, hanging out, drinking a few beers.  You sit down, put your half-full beer can on the table, and turn to talk to someone.  You look back a split-second later and notice that there are a thousand identical beer cans on the table and you have no idea which one is yours!  Then you start to pick each one up, because you think you know how heavy yours was.  [#11, 1998]

-I think that if you went to college anywhere with a direction in its name, you drink way more heavily than anybody else.  Think about it.  University of North Texas.  Western Carolina.  Central Florida.  These people get really fucked up.  I don’t know if they feel inferior because their school is so far in the middle of nowhere that a directional name is necessary and they have to compensate or what.  They might as well call it University of South Holy Shit I’m Plastered.  [#55, 2004]

-To me, talking to my parents is like being a producer for CNN – even if nothing is happening, I still have to come up with some sort of news to satisfy everyone.  [#108, 2007]

-And, finally, here is a prime example of why I feel strongly that you should never lie to chicks about your age.  Triplet #1 and I were at this dive bar downtown that is frequented by NYU chicks.  While I was distracted by a game of Golden Tee, Triplet #1 approached a bunch of girls and asked them if they went to NYU.  They said they were first-years.  Not wanting to intimidate a bunch of freshmen by telling them we were twenty-three, Trip 1 lied and said we were juniors at NYU.  When I joined the conversation, I was then forced to continue the charade.  As I talked to one of the girls, I realized that something was terribly wrong.  These chicks weren’t freshmen at NYU, they were first-years at NYU Med.  We had just lied ourselves younger than them.  Fuck me!  [#33, 2002]

HOME

-Well folks, it’s finally here.  This month officially marks ten years since I began emailing Ruminations from my freshman dorm room in September 1997.  Ten years!  Quite frankly, I can hardly believe that I’ve been ruminating for a decade.  To celebrate this milestone, I will be sending out some very special issues of Ruminations this month.  This week’s edition is a glossary of some select terms I’ve referenced, popularized, or coined in the past 113 columns.  For longtime readers, I hope it will be a trip down memory lane.  For new fans, it’s a fun way to get up to speed on the key points I’ve been ruminating about for the past ten years.  Either way, I’m sure this will be unlike any glossary you’ve ever read!  Also, for reference purposes, the issue and year in which the term first appeared follows each definition.  I hope you enjoy, and thank you for joining me to celebrate ten years of Ruminations!

-“Alt-Tab”
The keyboard shortcut that allows you to quickly switch from the web site you’re fucking around on to a complicated-looking spreadsheet just as your boss walks by.  [#60, 2005]

-“Appetizer Russian Roulette”
When you’re ordering first and you’re not sure whether to gamble and get an appetizer – thus risking sitting there eating while the other person is not.  [#44, 2003]

-“The Bad Basketball Game Theory”
Idea conceived by my friend Brian that bad basketball games are a great place to pick up chicks.  The thinking is that when two bad teams are playing, dads who have season tickets give their seats away, presumably to their hot daughters.  Ergo, bad basketball games are often filled with hot chicks.  Note: zero data backs this theory up.  [#66, 2005]

-“The Balls Theory”
My hypothesis that when going out with a group of guys to an exclusive club, your chances of getting in are inversely proportional to the amount of testicles present.  If it’s just me, I’ve got a 2:1 shot.  If it’s me and a friend, we’ve got a 4:1 shot.  Four guys?  8:1 shot, and so on.  [#34, 2003]

-“Beater”
I’ve always had a thing for chicks in wife-beaters, more commonly known simply as beaters.  Ladies, please take note: wife-beaters are white!  If you’re wearing anything but white, or anything with rhinestones or designs of any kind, that’s not a beater, it’s a fucking tank top.  [#41, 2003]

-“Bloodbath”
An event of epic drunken debauchery, as in, “Dude, New Year’s Eve is gonna be a fucking bloodbath!”  See also “DBD” and “Match Day.”  [#80, 2005]

-“Booty Call Button”
The feature on my old Nokia that let me quickly turn off my outgoing Caller ID, thus blocking my identity from being revealed in the missed call logs of chicks I tried to hit up at 4am but who didn’t pick up.  [#32, 2002]

-“Boyfriend-Mentioner”
A girl who always finds a way to bring up her boyfriend in just about every sentence she utters, even if you’re not hitting on her, i.e.: “My boyfriend thinks this, my boyfriend did this, my boyfriend said this.”  Somehow, though, her boyfriend is never around, probably because she’s really fucking annoying.  [#40, 2003]

-“Brian”
My childhood friend and roommate in Manhattan from 2001-04.  Notorious for describing his meals in detail and claiming to be able to tell the difference between 1% and 2% milk just on sight.  Ridiculed in Ruminations for once having his girlfriend sleep over in our tiny apartment for 95 nights out of 100.  Currently married to said girlfriend and still living in New York.  Fun facts: my second book, “Ruminations on Twentysomething Life” is dedicated to Brian and my Best Man toast at his wedding was seventeen minutes long.  See also “The Bad Basketball Game Theory” and “The SAT Bet.”  [#20, 2000]

-“CBP”
Stands for Clustered Birthday Phenomenon.  Occurs when you all of a sudden receive a dozen different Evites from friends of various backgrounds all inviting you to celebrate their birthdays on the same night, at the same time, and in one of the three same bars.  [#55, 2004]

-“Cell Phone Survivor”
When the address book on your cell phone runs out of memory, so that every time you want to make room to add a new number, you have to scroll through all your current contacts, find the one you like the least, and delete them.  [#24, 2001]

-“The Code of AFS”
AFS stands for Anything For a Story.  All guys operate implicitly under the Code of AFS, which requires them, while hooking up, to try do something weird or outrageous just so they can tell their friends about it later.  See also “Total Recall.”  [#93, 2006]

-“Cruise Friends”
When your friends go on a cruise with their family, meet other kids on the cruise, and then annoyingly keep in touch with them afterwards.  Essentially the twentysomething version of camp friends.  See also “January Tan People” and “The Triplets.”  [#34, 2003]

-“Daycrawler”
Someone who works from home.  Can often lead to strange habits, such as my tendency to sniff the tub of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter in my fridge when I’m bored.  [#82, 2006]

-“DBD”
Stands for Don’t Be Dumb.  Traditionally, I write the acronym DBD in black Sharpie on the back of my left hand before any night of drinking I predict will turn into a total bloodbath.  This is meant to remind me during moments of severe inebriation not to do or say anything stupid.  Has almost never worked.  [#95, 2006]

-“Downstairs Bathroom Guy”
The guy whose bathroom gets fucked up when you throw a party because his is the only one on the ground floor.  [#77, 2005]

-“Drive of Shame”
A variation on the walk of shame in which you have to awkwardly drive the other person home in the morning.  [#100, 2006]

-“Duck Hunt”
A bar or situation where girls are shooting down guys right away.  [#102, 2007]

-“Dude/Chick Ratio”
The most important attribute that guys consider when determining whether or not to stay at a bar.  Can be determined upon entering a bar, scanning the crowd, and taking count:  “OK, let’s see.  Dude, chick, dude, dude, dude, chick, dude, chick, dude, dude, chick, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude.  Dude, let’s get the fuck out of there!”  [#31, 2002]

-“Fartonomy”
The autonomy to fart whenever you want.  Usually the first right a boyfriend gives up upon entering a relationship and the first right a husband takes back upon getting married.  [#103, 2007]

-“Fredding”
A wedding where many of the male guests are frat brothers of the groom (derived from the words “fraternity” plus “wedding”).  Freddings often involve a lot more drinking and the occasional tuxedo-clad human pyramid.  [#66, 2005]

-“Fuck Me”
My sign-off used to conclude every Ruminations column, beginning with the very first email in 1997.  The term usually follows a story in which I find myself in an unenviable position or in which I realize I’m an idiot.  Although I’m not quite sure why I originally used the term “Fuck me,” it has now become a general exclamation of frustration.  “Fuck me” is also sometimes misinterpreted to mean “have sex with me” though I rarely if ever mean it that way.  Fun facts: all instances of the term were removed by the publisher from my first book, “Ruminations on College Life,” for fear that its use would make the book harder to market.  In my second book, “Ruminations on Twentysomething Life,” the term was included and used to end every chapter.  [#1, 1997]

-“The Get-Out-Of-Life-Free Card”
When your completely directionless friend who has never before expressed any interest in studying law but really doesn’t want to get a job all of a sudden decides to take the LSATs.  [#31, 2002]

-“Girlfriend”
My girlfriend from 2004-05 in New York.  Actual name never revealed in column and was known only as Girlfriend.  We broke up in 2005 when I moved to Los Angeles and long distance just didn’t work out.  Ironically, in 2006, she also moved to Los Angeles, though we never got back together (possibly because I think Santa Monica and West Hollywood are far enough away to still be considered long distance).  Now referred to as “Ex-Girlfriend.”  [#50, 2004]

-“Gourmet”
Originally coined at Penn by me and my buddy Roby while we were pledging together in the spring of 1998.  Used as a synonym for “dope,” as in, “Check out that chick by the bar, she’s gourmet!”  After I first introduced the term in Ruminations, I was thrilled when fans wrote me to say they were trying to inject it into conversation as much as possible.  Now, whenever I hear someone describe a girl or a new pair of sneakers as gourmet, I think back to Roby and I as pledges sitting around in our own filth.  Which is totally not gourmet.  [#49, 2004]

-“Halloween Walk of Shame”
When you hook up on Halloween and then have to stumble home the next morning wearing your costume.  [#32, 2002]

-“Have-Knot”
There are “Haves” – those who are already married or about to tie the knot, and “Have-Knots” – those of us who still think of weddings as really expensive open bars with cover bands.  [#94, 2006]

-“Hide-the-Beer Day”
The day before Family Weekend in college that you spend emptying the alcohol out of your fridge, throwing out all the empties on your coffee table, and taking down all the pictures of you drunk off your ass from the wall.  [#3, 1997]

-“The Hook-Up Cycle”
Derived from the term “hitting for the cycle” in baseball, in which a player hits a single, double, triple, and home run in the same game.  Hitting for the hook-up cycle means hooking up with a freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior in the same week.  The closest I ever came was my first Homecoming at Penn in 2001, when I fell one junior girl short.  [#88, 2006]

-“January Tan People”
Those fuckers who go away every single winter break and return home bronzed to perfection while you spent the last two weeks shoveling snow.  Often the same people who have cruise friends.  [#45, 2003]

-“Karo”
My last name.  The correct pronunciation is “KAY-ro” (it kinda rhymes with J.Lo).  My last name attained additional significance in 1982 when my parents accidentally named my baby sister Caryn, not realizing our first names rhymed.  To avoid confusion, friends started calling me by my last name and to this day, everyone – friends, fans, co-workers, doormen, even girlfriends – have always just called me Karo.  [#38, 2003]

-“Karospacing”
Technique adopted by some of my buddies who troll through my friends on Facebook or MySpace looking for hot chicks to message.  Note: many Karospacers are imposters.  Ladies, if you are Karospaced, send me a message and I’ll let you know if they’re actually my real friends.  If they are, feel free to bang them.  [#79, 2005]

-“Laying Groundwork”
Initiating contact with a girl via email or text message approximately one week before you are likely to see each other, thereby making it seem like you aren’t all of a sudden calling her out of the blue to try to hook up once you get in to town.  [#93, 2006]

-“Look for the Ring”
The act of looking at the hand of the chick you’re hitting on to see if she’s wearing an engagement or wedding ring.  Doing this never even occurs to most guys until they’re about twenty-four and accidentally hit on a married chick for the first time.  [#31, 2002]

-“Magic Hour”
Occurs between 2:30 and 3:30am in New York City bars and refers to the window of time when girls are just drunk, tired, or lonely enough to respond to guys’ advances.  In cities such as Los Angeles in which last call is at 1:30am, magic hour simply does not exist.  [#77, 2005]

-“Martini Run-Off”
Occurs when drinking a martini or buying one for a girl and half the fucking thing spills all over your hand because the glass could not be more poorly designed.  [#42, 2003]

-“Match Day”
Annual event in March when fourth-year med students find out where they “match” – i.e. where in the country they will be spending the next five years of their lives as residents.  After matching, said med students go out and get obliterated.  In 2005, Match Day fell on both the first day of the NCAA tournament and St. Patrick’s Day, making it an absolute bloodbath for newly minted doctors.  [#63, 2005]

-“My Friend’s Band”
The band that your annoying buddies always want you to come see, usually in the form of: “You guys should totally come to this bar tonight.  My friend’s band is playing.  They’re really good!”  Note: they’re not good.  Everyone’s friend’s band sucks.  [#38, 2003]

-“Nodder”
That dork in the front of every college classroom who never says anything, but just nods his head in approval at whatever the teacher says.  See also “Splash Zone.”  [#14, 1999]

-“Pee-Introverted”
A derivation of the condition “pee-shy,” in which people are unable to urinate in crowded public restrooms.  I consider myself only pee-introverted, meaning I can still go, it just takes me a bit longer.  Coined in a Fenway Park bathroom as I tried to take a piss while wearing a Derek Jeter shirt and being screamed at by dozens of Red Sox fans.  [#86, 2006]

-“Promoter”
Someone hired by a bar or club to tell everyone they know about a party that night and then stand outside and not let anyone in.  [#34, 2003]

-“RCFs”
Stands for Random Couple Friends.  These are the groups of couples you’ve never seen before that your buddies all of a sudden start hanging out with once they get engaged or married.  [#65, 2005]

-“RDI”
Stands for Random Drunken Injury.  Occurs when you get fucked up, hurt yourself, and then the next day have no idea why you have a sprained ankle.  [#45, 2003]

-“Recovering Frat Boy”
The lifestyle I have chosen to espouse.  Simply put, being a recovering frat boy means leaving college behind but always trying to instill some of that glory into your post-college life.  Put even simpler: work hard and play harder.  You don’t have to have been in a fraternity to be a recovering frat boy.  You don’t even have to be a boy.  All you have to do is accept that college is over but that your quasi-Peter Pan lifestyle can be almost as much fun.  In other words, it’s not, “I won’t grow up.”  It’s more like, “OK, I’ll grow up, as long as I can still throw up once a weekend.”  [#43, 2003]

-“Refill Limbo”
Occurs when you’re having casual drinks with friends, they order another round from the waitress, but you still have 3/7 of your beer remaining and are momentarily unable to decide whether to order or pass.  [#41, 2003]

-“Relationship Extra-Value Meal”
When a guy asks a girl to be his girlfriend on a major holiday, such as her birthday or Valentine’s Day, thus positioning their anniversary to henceforth fall on said holiday.  This makes the anniversary easier for the guy to remember and enables him to combine two gifts in one every year.  [#61, 2005]

-“Ruminations”
The title of this column.  The term “to ruminate” is officially defined as “to go over in the mind repeatedly, to engage in contemplation, to reflect, to ponder.”  Over time, I think that “Ruminations” has become the perfect title to describe the meandering observations in my columns, but in hindsight, when I first started calling my emails “Ruminations” during my freshman year, I’m not even sure I knew what the word meant.  I must admit, though, it still kind of pisses me off when people email me and mangle the title by calling it “ramifications” or “rumblings,” or even “relicitations” – which isn’t even a fucking word.  [#1, 1997]

-“The SAT Bet”
In our junior year of high school, my friend Eric bet Brian that he could not break 1400 on the SATs.  Brian ending up getting exactly 1400.  Eric subsequently claimed that getting 1400 is technically not “breaking 1400” and that a 1410 was needed to win the bet.  Brian argues that scoring a 1400 is synonymous with breaking 1400.  Personally, I agree with Brian, but almost twelve years later the argument continues and neither side has paid up.  [#33, 2002]

-“SB”
Pronounced “sib” and short for “surprise body.”  These are girls who, when you remove their bulky clothing while hooking up, turn out to have amazing bodies.  Unfortunately, very rare.  [#78, 2005]

-“Secondary Confirmation Status”
Conferred upon a friend who you no longer trust to set you up on blind dates.  Originally applied to my Wall Street buddy Rob after he set me up with two girls who, let’s just say, weren’t anyone’s type.  Now at least one other trustworthy guy must see a girl before Rob is allowed to set me up with her.  [#35, 2003]

-“Sexual Loitering”
When your one-night stand does not leave promptly the next morning.  [#64, 2005]

-“Shermdog”
My fraternity brother and currently a surgeon in New York.  Notorious for his prodigious success with the ladies.  After we graduated, he told me how he’d once hooked up with a chick on the roof of our fraternity house – which shocked me because I didn’t even know there was a way to get on the roof in the first place.  [#18, 2000]

-“Slow Walkers”
Assholes on campus who like to stroll leisurely side-by-side up the stairs right in front of you, preventing you from getting by when you’re late for class.  Also commonly seen on the sidewalks of New York City.  I fucking hate these people.  [#14, 1999]

-“Splash Zone”
The first two rows of a college classroom.  Don’t sit there unless you are prepared to get called on.  Often populated by nodders.  Derived from the splash zone in Sea World where the first few rows always get soaked during the killer whale show.  [#14, 1999]

-“Total Recall”
My theory that guys get more pleasure from remembering, telling, and re-telling the story of a crazy hook-up (under the Code of AFS) than they do from the actual hook-up itself.  Derived from the plot of the movie Total Recall.  [#56, 2004]

-“The Triplets”
My high school friends who are fraternal triplets.  Actual names never revealed in column and are instead referred to by their birth order (Triplet #1, Triplet #2, and Triplet #3).  Trips 2 and 3 are also my fraternity brothers.  All three live in Manhattan.  Known for going away on vacation and coming back with cruise friends.  Trip 1 lives with his girlfriend, Trip 2 is single, and Trip 3 is married.  Ironically, Trip 1’s girlfriend is also a fraternal triplet.  Just imagine what that wedding party might be like some day.  Best Men and Maids of Honor will be tagging in and out of the ceremony like some sort of black tie WrestleMania.  [#33, 2002]

-“Two-Man Spotter System”
Technique my buddy Chi and I used to take naps when we sat in adjacent cubicles on Wall Street.  When tired, I’d call out a number that corresponded to the amount of minutes I wanted Chi to let me sleep before throwing a stress ball at my head to wake me up.  And of course, I’d do the same for him.  Note: system does not work if you always forget to wake the other person up.  [#71, 2005]

-“Wasted Happy Hour Chick”
Girl who comes straight from work to the bar and is still there at midnight even though her colleagues are all gone, she’s lost a shoe, and she’s been carrying around her laptop bag for seven hours.  Easy prey and can usually be found dancing wildly by herself in the corner.  [#63, 2005]

-“Wideclops”
Perhaps the term I’m most proud of creating.  Used to jokingly refer to a person whose eyes are a little too far apart (i.e. the opposite of a Cyclops).  Often employed to describe a chick at a bar.  A telltale sign you’ve spotted a wideclops is that she’s looking right at you but you can only see one of her eyes at a time.  May be incorporated along with other glossary terms as the following conversation between two guys demonstrates: “Hey man, you think that girl is a SB?”  “Doubtful.  Plus I already talked to her – total boyfriend-mentioner.”  “That sucks.  Let’s bounce then – it’s magic hour but the dude/chick ratio in this place is way off.”  “Hey, we’re only here to see your friend’s band, I knew the bar would be a duck hunt.”  “Wait, what about that wideclops in the beater over there?  She’s pretty gourmet.”  “Dude, you know you have to look for the ring – she’s married and surrounded by RCFs.”  “Fuck me!”  [#64, 2005]

HOME

-One of the oldest running jokes in Los Angeles is that no one is actually born here, they’ve just moved here from someplace else.   That’s why at parties, when asked how long they’ve lived in LA, people will often tell you their exact anniversary – like they’re an alcoholic telling you how long they’ve been sober.  For instance, having left New York on July 31st, 2005, tomorrow marks two years since I arrived in California.  The second-oldest running joke in LA is that people come out here only intending to stay temporarily, and then never leave.  Considering my original lease was a five-month sublet, I can’t argue with that one either.  Having long since resigned to the fact that my foreseeable future will be spent on the West Coast, I’ve tried my best to adapt.  Like our forefathers, who believed that America was destined to reach the Pacific Ocean, I too have come here to follow my dreams.  Though of course, back then, no one could have imagined that Manifest Destiny would eventually spawn the whacked-out freak show known as Los Angeles that I call home today.

-Whenever a celebrity enters a bar in LA, the paparazzi set up camp outside.  Then, when you walk out of the bar wasted at 2am, they’ll look you up and down to figure out if you’re famous or not, before letting you pass.  They might even snap a picture or two just in case.  If you really want to fuck with them, you can walk out with your hands covering your face, which makes them take pictures like crazy.  And there’s nothing like seeing a photographer’s disappointment when he realizes you’re merely just a regular, upstanding, underwear-wearing citizen.

-Before I moved here, I checked weather.com to get an idea of what the weather would be like.  I didn’t know what any of the local zip codes were, so I simply entered 90210.  Only later did I feel stupid.  Not because my knowledge of LA was limited to a cheesy ‘90s television show, but because it turns out the weather here never varies more than five degrees.

-The most striking difference between New York and LA is that New York is so much more egalitarian.  Everyone takes public transportation in New York.  In LA, there’s a bus and subway system that half the people (myself included) have never used.  Merely waiting at a bus stop in LA reveals much about your socioeconomic status.   I hate that.  New Yorkers never really know exactly how much one another makes, but rather assume it based on preconceived notions and rash judgment – you know, like normal people.

-You know those absurdly hot chicks that walk around in every scene of Entourage?  It’s not too much of a stretch.  I’ve been in fairly low-key bars in LA and still had trouble keeping track of how many “tens” were in the room.  I’m not saying I hook up with them, or even talk to them, but I’m strangely comforted by the fact that at least someone is.

-By far the most frequently asked question I get from friends and fans is: “How is LA?”  But the emphasis is always on the word “is” – “How IS LA?” – as if I moved to Mars.  No one asks, “How IS Chicago?” or “How IS Boston?”  Why are we subjected to such scrutiny?  I think it’s because people are fascinated by Hollywood.  But in truth, the city of Hollywood is only a small segment of Los Angeles (and, ironically, one of the seedier parts at that).  Most people in LA don’t even work in the entertainment industry.  Of course, I don’t know any of those people, but I’m sure it’s true.  That’s why, from now on, when people ask me, “How IS LA?”, instead of racking my brain for an appropriate response, I’ll merely tell the them truth: 85 degrees and sunny.  Every fucking day.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-It still bugs me out that there are a lot of “open-air” buildings in LA.  Like if you walk out of the elevator in my apartment building, you end up outside.  And my hallway has no door or anything; it just leads to a courtyard where there’s a gourmet pool and Jacuzzi.  Pool-worthy days a year in LA?  300.  Times I’ve actually swam?  One.  Seeing hot chicks sunbathing on my way to the mailbox?  Priceless.

-LA is dominated by graduates from colleges that feed the entertainment industry, namely Harvard, Syracuse, Northwestern, USC, and UCLA.  This is a marked difference from New York, which I found to be filled with alums from Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Cornell, and Penn.  Luckily, however, we’re all brought together by the common language of Flip Cup.

-Despite the unapproachable but Entourage-worthy chicks that abound, one area that LA is severely lacking in is nightlife.  Sure there are cool bars, but there’s much fewer of them, they’re much farther away from each other, and they’re much harder to get into than any other city I’ve partied in.  Plus they’re either dives or really upscale – there’s nothing in between.  Getting laid is supposed to be hard work; getting drunk is not.

-People tell me all the time that they love LA because the “quality of life” is better than on the East Coast.  But how is having to get in your car to go to the ATM better?  How is waiting 90 minutes for your food to be delivered better?  How is spending half your day searching for parking better?  To me, quality of life means instant gratification and not having to deal with people who use the word “stoked.”

-In New York, if you run into someone in the street who you don’t want to talk to, all you have to do is say that you’re hurrying back to your apartment to use the bathroom.  In LA, if someone calls who you don’t want to talk to, all you have to do is say that you’re gonna lose them because you’re about to drive into an underground parking structure.

-And, finally, a cursory glance at my life would seem to reveal that I’m not only living in the state of California, but a state of denial as well.  After all, I still have a New York State driver’s license, still subscribe to New York Magazine, still have a New York cell phone number, and still see my dentist in New York every six months.  I have a clock set to New York time in my home office, the only Lakers games I’ve ever been to have been against the Knicks, and despite my open-air apartment building and pool, I’m still pale as fuck.  But despite all that, my current career path in comedy necessitates that I live in Los Angeles, and I’ve been doing my best to integrate.  I’ve made some great new friends out here and reconnected with old ones.  I’ve learned my way around the city pretty well (thank you, Google Maps!).  I have a doctor and a broker here, bought a pair of Chuck Taylors, and even have a landline with a local area code.  And, OK, I’ll admit, I occasionally say “stoked.”  I guess I just eventually realized that living in Los Angeles doesn’t change the fact that I’m originally from New York, and never will.  So, I’m not there yet, but hopefully one day I’ll learn to love LA.  After all, when the paparazzi mistake me for someone else and snap my picture – there’s no reason I shouldn’t be smiling.  Fuck me.

HOME

-Last August, when I first drew the distinction between those twentysomethings who are already married or about to tie the knot (“the Haves”) and those who still think of weddings as really expensive open bars with cover bands (“the Have-Knots”), I was still a wedding novice.  A year later, though, with four weddings under my belt and eight more scheduled in the coming year, I’ve already become a grizzled vet.  Summer is, of course, wedding season.  And that means the Haves are busy taking ballroom dancing lessons to prepare for their first dance as husband and wife, while the Have-Knots just can’t wait to make fun of them.  Ah, marriage.  It can be a wonderful thing – when it’s not happening to you.

-Getting engaged seems really annoying to me.  I mean, how do you tell everyone the news?  Obviously close family and best friends get a personal call.  But what about everyone else?  I’ve actually gotten a few “I’m engaged!” text messages.  Which is fine – as long as you actually have the person in your phone book and don’t have to text back: “Congratulations!  Who is this?”

-On my refrigerator, I have Save the Date notices in all shapes and sizes for my next year’s worth of weddings.  My favorites are the ones that feature a picture of the happy couple because I like to imagine what the conversation was like that led them to include that photo on the card.  I usually envision the girl looking lovingly into her fiance’s eyes and saying, “Honey, we’re gonna take a picture in which I look beautiful and you look awkward, send it to everyone we know, and you have absolutely no say in the matter.”

-At a wedding, the bride and groom are like celebrities to me.  They’re the center of attention but they’re mostly surrounded by their best friends, like a little VIP section.  If you’re not a VIP, you actually have to observe and plan out when there’s an opening for you to go up and talk to them – as if you were looking for an autograph.  Then you chat for like two minutes but you know they won’t even remember it.  Let’s face it, the only difference between the groom and Justin Timberlake is that JT didn’t spend the summer taking lame-ass ballroom dancing lessons.

-I used to say that married people shouldn’t be allowed in bars.  I’d like to expand that to say married people shouldn’t be allowed on Facebook.  If I ever see in my news feed that Jane Smith went from “in a relationship” to “married,” the next line better be:  Jane Smith has deleted her profile.

-In the past year, I’ve learned not to stress out too much about all my friends getting married – to just go with the flow.  I happened to come to this realization at a wedding where I hooked up with two bridesmaids in the same weekend, but I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.   Still, the older I get, the more the pool of fellow Have-Knots will dwindle, and the number of Haves will grow.  Soon, I’ll be in the minority.  But that’s OK with me.  I just bought a brand-new tux and there’s plenty of room on my fridge for more invitations.  My guy friends can expect that the only wedding-related text messages they’ll be receiving from me any time soon will be solely for the purpose of making fun of our awkward-looking buddies in their Save the Date photos.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-My friend Christina got legally married six months before her actual wedding, in order to exploit some loophole that allowed her and husband – both doctors – to get jobs in the same city.  You’d think the wedding would be a little anti-climactic, but I was pleasantly surprised to get just as belligerently drunk as usual.

-So far, I’ve never been invited to a wedding with a guest, and somehow I feel like I’m getting screwed.  The way I figure it, everyone I’ve given a gift to so far is earning interest on it.  Meanwhile, if/when I get married down the road, I’ll have to invite, and thus pay for, all those couples to attend my wedding – when I was only invited as a single.  I’m not sure of the exact economics, but I think I’m gonna end up in the red.  That’s why I think my buddy Matt had the right idea when he gave Christina a check for her wedding – and it promptly bounced.

-Unless you’re only inviting like fifty people, if you have your wedding out of the country or on New Year’s Eve, you’re an asshole.  Plain and simple.

-My buddy Seth is getting married this year on December 30th.  Brilliant.  I’ll fly to New York, party at his wedding, stay in New York, and go out for New Year’s the next night.  It’s like he organized the whole thing around me.  Someone get me the name of that wedding planner.

-As I get closer to thirty, the girls around me want to get married more, but I actually want to get married less.  The obsessed-with-getting-married chick is a breed I’ve only recently encountered.  To be honest, I kind of feel bad for them, because there’s obviously a double standard about being single depending on whether you’re male or female.  I do have some advice for the girls, though.  To me, finding your keys, hooking up, and getting engaged are all similar: they happen when you’re not thinking about it and least expect it.

-Maybe it’s just denial on my part, but I still refer to my friends’ wives as their “girlfriends” and continue to call my married female friends by their maiden names.  I figure, at some point, someone I know will get divorced.  And since I won’t have to update their last name in my address book twice, I’m the big winner.

-And, finally, even though I’ve spent most of this column mocking weddings and married people, I actually have no problem with the institution of marriage itself.  I love my married friends.  Weddings are great for me since I get to hang with buddies I don’t normally see since I moved to LA.  And I look really, really good in my new tux.  I guess in the end, as they say, we mock things we don’t understand.  While I understand theoretically why the people I know are getting married, it’s hard to comprehend that commitment when you’re personally not there yet.  Thus, wedding season is sometimes bittersweet for me.  For instance. my next wedding is in New York over Labor Day weekend.  A little over ten years since we went to Prom together, my friend Marcia is getting married.  Since then, our lives couldn’t have become more different.  But, in a way, not much has changed in a decade.  Once again, I’ll find myself at the end of a long night – alone and in a tux – with nothing to do but jerk off.  Fuck me.

HOME

-I don’t particularly enjoy going to the doctor, and I’m terrified by the sight of my own blood, but I’ve always been fascinated by the lives of my friends who practice medicine.  (Side note: weird how it’s called “practicing” medicine – as if it’s akin to working on your jump shot.)  My doctor friends seem to genuinely enjoy when I pepper them with annoying medical questions – and they usually know all the answers.  Ever ask one of your lawyer friends a legal question?  They not-so-subtly sigh, roll their eyes, then plead ignorance because it’s outside the scope of their firm’s practice (again with the practicing).  That’s why, when it comes to the coolest job a twentysomething can have, there’s no second opinion needed: the doctors are in.

-As a borderline hypochondriac, I decide which of my friends to turn to for an impromptu diagnosis not by the field they specialize in, but by their personal experience.  For instance, if I think I feel a lump, I call Christina – even though she’s an anesthesiologist – because she beat cancer many years ago.  Just like when I strained my groin, I called my buddy Shermdog – even though he’s an orthopedic surgeon – because he gets a lot of pussy and thus is probably well-versed in the intricacies of the crotch region.

-Ever notice that the person who takes your blood at the doctor’s office seems to have become less and less trained?  It used to be the doctor who did it.  Then it was the nurse.  Now it’s a medical student.  Soon the UPS guy who comes to pick up the samples and take them to the lab is just gonna prick you on the way out.

-I’ve always wondered how doctors choose weird specialties.  Pediatrician?  Fine, you like kids.  Orthopedic surgeon?  Well, fixing broken bones is cool.  But I know a guy who’s a liver specialist.  How did he pick the liver?  You can’t even fucking see it from the outside!  I know alcohol can harm the liver, but it must take a shitload of drinking to decide to study it.

-It took eons to get an appointment with my last doctor, but the one I have now can always see me right away.  The fact that he’s so available kind of scares me.  I call up and the receptionist is like, “Can you come in tomorrow?” and I’m like, “Um, well, how about in three weeks?”

-I love when parents are so blindly proud of their children that they’ll believe whatever the hell their kids tell them.  This guy I used to rent an apartment from was telling me about his very successful twenty-two-year-old son.  He told me, ever so proudly, that his son was an “an assistant brain surgeon.”  I had to physically stifle a laugh.  I just wanted to say to the guy, “Yeah, that’s not even a real job.  I’m pretty sure your son sells pot.”

-At least three male doctors I know are engaged or married to female doctors.  At first I thought it was just because they’re always in the hospital surrounded by each other and misery loves company.  But then I realized that the reason male doctors marry female doctors… is that female doctors are super hot.  I think I’d like to date a doctor chick some day.  After all, they work crazy hours, they make good money, and they’re not terrified by the sight of my blood.  To me, that’s the perfect girl – unless it turns out she gets around so much that she’s well-versed in the intricacies of the crotch region… even though she’s a liver specialist.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-I saw this guy in the street the other day, and although I couldn’t see which NBA team was on his t-shirt, I could tell the shirt read “Eastern Conference Champions.”  Who buys a shirt like that?  Either he got the shirt after his team made the Finals and he didn’t think they’d win it all (otherwise he’d have waited for the World Champions t-shirt), or his team did in fact lose in the Finals and he got the shirt afterwards to celebrate how far they’d made it anyway.  Either way, the moral of this story is that I spend way too much time staring at random dudes in the street.

-Is there an entire cottage industry dedicated to making things that hang on the walls in dentists’ offices?  That just seems like a very specific niche.  I mean, you’re not exactly diversifying your revenue streams by solely producing caricatures of mice covered in floss and alligators getting their teeth pulled.

-One thing that I don’t do very well is sleep.  Although my insomniac tendencies were the original impetus for writing this column, almost ten years later it’d be nice to get some fucking shuteye for once.  I’ve even tried using a Carrie Bradshaw-style eye mask, which actually kind of worked (though for the sake of my manhood, I almost hoped it wouldn’t).  When I do finally doze off, I’ve been told I sleep like Dracula – flat on my back, arms crossed over my chest.  And while I’m no believer in dream analysis, for as long as I can remember, my dreams have always had one recurring theme:  frustration.  Weird stuff like the airline losing my luggage but I can’t even remember what kind of suitcase I had, or a hot doctor chick wants to bang me but I can’t get the door to my bedroom open.  Even weirder is the fact that my real bedroom doesn’t even have a door.  Let Freud chew on that.

-Recently, I passed this guy in the mall who looked just like me.  Think about how odd that is.  Usually you only notice strangers who look like people you know, not who look like you.  It kind of freaked me out.  Frankly, though, I was just glad my double wasn’t wearing an “Eastern Conference Champions” t-shirt.

-And, finally, my surgeon buddy Shermdog, who as I’ve mentioned has always impressed me with his prowess with the ladies, recently shared with me one of his tenets.  He said, and I quote: “Being a doctor and getting laid are very similar concepts.  You are actively focusing all your attention and energy on one person – it’s not fake; it’s real – and they know it.”  I thought that, first of all, Shermdog clearly cares very deeply about his patients.  And second of all, only he could compare sex to surgery and make them both sound so profound.  I continue to be fascinated by the passion, dedication, and knowledge that doctors undoubtedly possess.  At the end of each day, they must collapse with exhaustion.  Though I have a feeling that in Dr. Shermdog’s dreams, the bedroom door is wide open.  Fuck me.

HOME

-Upon turning twenty-eight next week, only 731 days will remain before my thirtieth birthday.  This realization is frightening, because I’ve found that twentysomethings generally pass judgment on other people’s age without paying attention to their own.  For instance, a twenty-eight-year-old pilot at the airport seems young to me; a twenty-eight-year-old chick on MySpace seems old to me.  But a twenty-eight-year-old sitting in the airport checking his MySpace (i.e., me) seems just right.  With that in mind, over the past few months I’ve tried to pay careful attention to what turning twenty-eight really means and what the last 731 days of my twenties might be like.  First observation:  calculating to the day exactly how much time you have left in your twenties is really unhealthy, neurotic, and weird.

-You know you’re twenty-eight when, for the first time in your life, you turn to your buddy and complain that the bar you’re in is “too loud.”

-You know you’re twenty-eight when you find yourself reading Maxim while taking a shit in your apartment and thinking to yourself, “Why the hell do I still subscribe to Maxim?”

-When your birthday nears, girls find out what zodiac sign you are.  Chicks seem to find it interesting that I’m a Gemini.  Some of the most intelligent women I know read their horoscopes religiously.  Who the mother-fuck cares?  It’s all bullshit!  If I bang a Libra, I don’t think, “Our moons must be aligned!”  No, I’m just wondering how I even managed to take her home since the bar was so goddamn loud.

-You know you’re twenty-eight when, every once in a while, you turn on Saturday Night Live and realize you’ve never even heard of the musical guest.

-You know you’re twenty-eight when you start scheduling your hangovers.  My dentist’s office recently called me to set up an appointment a month away and I was like, “Well, that Saturday morning doesn’t quite work for me.  The night before I have a wedding so the next day is blocked off for a hangover that I just can’t reschedule.”

-The older women get, the more they tend to want to get married soon.  But strangely enough, the older I get, the less I want to get married soon.  Girls sometimes find my outlook frustrating, but I merely tell them with a smile that unreasonableness is a common trait in Geminis.

-You know you’re twenty-eight when – since you’ve stared at them so much – you can point out the exact location of each of your gray hairs with your eyes closed.

-And, painfully, you know you’re twenty-eight when SportsCenter refers to LeBron James as a “veteran” and you realize he’s a full five years younger than you are.  In fact, one of the scariest parts about having two years to go before thirty is the knowledge that the next 731 days are your last chance to accomplish something notable – be it in your personal or professional life – while still in your twenties.   So whether your poison is Maxim or the horoscope page, it’s time to put that shit down and get focused.  731 days is not a whole lot of time – and you’re not getting any younger.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-Recently I was using the unisex bathroom in an office building when I noticed there was a 25-cent tampon dispenser on the wall.  Fair enough – chicks need that shit.  But right next to it was a 25-cent condom dispenser.  I mean, I guess you can argue that both tampons and condoms can be needed in an emergency.  But that really all depends on your definition of “emergency.”

-I’ve always said that golf combines two of my least favorite things:  getting up early and being outside when it’s hot.  But my dad, man.  My dad fucking loves golf.  He just got back from a weeklong trip to Scotland where he and his buddies played golf non-stop.  He even squeezed in a round the morning he left for the trip.  I just wish there was anything I loved doing as much as he loves golf – that is, anything that doesn’t require a quarter and a trip to the unisex bathroom.

-Mail-in rebates are just absolutely painful.  I think I’d rather pay full price than go crawl around looking for a fucking stamp that’s not outdated and then wait eight weeks for the discount.  I think these companies make their money by advertising the rebate and then counting on some of their customers being lazy bastards.  And as it turns out, those lazy bastards are me.

-My buddy Brian loves food as much as my dad loves golf.  When I’m in New York and need a restaurant recommendation, I call Brian.  He’s a human Zagat guide.  He’ll even make the reservation and critique the menu for you – kind of like an overenthusiastic concierge at the Marriott.  Food is an experience to Brian.  To me it’s just something to shit out while reading Maxim or noticing the condom dispenser on the wall.

-I’ve found that office distribution among my friends is quite random.  Some friends, who I didn’t think were necessarily excelling, already have their own offices.  Others, who I assumed were kicking ass, are still in cubicles.  A handful of my buddies have an office, but share it with another person – usually with desks that face each other.  I’d prefer a cubicle over that.  A shared office is like moving in with someone you found on craigslist – you’re spending hours together with a person you barely even know and who you’re pretty sure is staring at you while you sleep.

-And, finally, with my birthday coming next week, one might think it’d be time to reflect on how much I’ve grown in the past twelve months. And one might be wrong.  Here’s a quick recap of my twenty-eighth year on this earth: got drunk in South Beach and broke my BlackBerry by vomiting on it, went to Triplet #3’s bachelor party in Montreal and had to pay to replace most of the hotel room furniture destroyed during the weekend, booted in parking lot during Triplet #3’s wedding (twice), got thrown out of bar in the West Village for calling bartender a douchebag, and last but not least, got shithammered at a party in Malibu, spotted Justin Timberlake, and proceeded to walk directly into a plate glass door that I thought was open.  So “matured” probably isn’t the word you’d use to describe me in the past year.  But you know what?  I may have played hard, but I worked hard as well.  And, 80% of the way through my twenties, that may be one of the few things I’ve figured out how to balance.  With that said, I’m really looking forward to the next 731 days until my thirtieth birthday.  But as far as days 732, 733, and 734 go, don’t try reaching me.  I have a massive hangover scheduled.  Fuck me!

HOME