-Congratulations, Class of 2008, you’re about to get your college degrees!  In just a few short weeks, you’ll be sitting at graduation, listening to words of wisdom from administrators you don’t like, faculty you don’t respect, and one disappointingly B-rate politician or executive hired to give the same forgettable commencement address at six other universities.  That’s why I believe that college graduation is like being hungover – your best bet is to drink through it.  So, in what has become an annual tradition, I’d like to give this year’s graduates an honest look at what the real world is actually like.

-Just as freshman year probably seems like yesterday to you, life after college also passes in the blink of an eye.  My friend Jen recently told me about a job she’s applying for that requires at least seven years of experience.  My immediate reaction was, “Are you kidding me?  How are you ever gonna get that?”  And Jen was like, “Karo, we graduated seven years ago.  I have that much experience now.”  Oh my God.  I never thought I’d ever know people who are – gulp – actually qualified for shit.

-As we move up the ranks of our respective industries, I often find myself engaging with my friends in serious business transactions.  While this kind of networking is not surprising, it does take some compartmentalization.  For instance, I’m working on a big project, potentially involving lots of money, with my buddy Ian – a borderline alcoholic.  I know this because I’ve been out drinking with him.  When we’re talking contracts and financials on a Friday afternoon, he’s a complete professional.  But still, in the back of my mind, I’m thinking, “In a few hours, this guy’s gonna be obliterated.”

-If you’ve decided to go to law school after graduation, good luck.  I know dozens upon dozens of lawyers, and not one has ever told me that they truly love what they do.  It’s a cold, hard fact: job satisfaction for attorneys maxes out at “rich and mildly happy.”  Remember, these are the same people who ruined the word “bar.”

-Working for your fraternity is another questionable career move.  Everyone knows at least one former frat boy who now travels the country going from chapter to chapter doing, well… I don’t know what the fuck they do.  Remaining active in your fraternity?  Fine.  Visiting your fraternity?  Cool.  Working for your fraternity?  Dude, Rush is long over.  Just sack up and take the LSATs already.

-No matter how old I get, when my parents come to town, it still feels like they’re visiting me in college.  I have to clean up my place, make dinner reservations, and throw on those khakis my mom bought me but I never wear.  Then I end up walking around with my parents, pointing out landmarks, and bumping into friends in the street and making awkward introductions.  It’s just like Family Weekend except my dad now thankfully refrains from arriving completely decked out in college logo paraphernalia.

-As children we were always admonished that our “permanent record” would follow us everywhere.  Of course, that was never really true – until college.  For years after I graduated from Penn, I actually got calls from the Office of Student Conduct investigating shit from when I was in school.  I bet they still have a file on me – like the fucking Ivy League FBI.  In fact, these days, whenever my caller ID pops up with the signature area code and first three digits of a call originating at Penn, my first thought is: “Oh shit, what did I do now?”  Then I realize it’s merely a fundraising call and think, “How much more do they want me to donate?  I just graduated!”  Seven years later, it’s still hard to accept.

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

-All of a sudden it got hot as balls in LA last week, and the pool in my apartment building was instantly packed.  And so once again I am forced to come to terms with the fact that I am the palest motherfucker in the state of California.  The problem is, being in the sun doesn’t even help because I just go from white to burnt without any browning in between.  I seem to carry the recessive gene for tanning but the dominant gene for beer belly.

-I recently got this gift basket type thing and one of the foods was a package of miniature Pringles.  Upside: they taste good.  Downside: they look like loose thumbnails.

-I am way more amazed at receiving physical mail than at the technology behind receiving electronic mail.  Think about it: you write three lines on an envelope and in two days it goes across the country to the exact right place.  I still don’t completely understand how this miracle works, but it’s definitely worth the four bucks or whatever the hell a stamp costs these days.

-I think if sex was a sport my scouting report would say that my biggest weakness is spooning.  I’ve never really mastered the technique.  Though, I’ve been thinking I should try to improve, since it’s probably the best position to conceal my blindingly pale torso.

-Big news: Triplet #1 is engaged!  I was a little pissed because I was only off by three months in the pool some of us had going, but of course I’m still thrilled for the guy.  You may remember from Ruminations #94 that Trip 1’s girlfriend (now fiancee) is also a fraternal triplet, which honestly has to be one of the craziest coincidences ever.  Always a class act, Trip 1 announced the news in a mass text message that read: “Yo soy engaged.”

-My office is an approximately seven-by-seven foot area of my apartment where I spend roughly twelve hours a day.  My cell phone gets service everywhere in the universe except that 49 square-foot section.  It’s so fucking frustrating but just not frustrating enough to change carriers.  In fact, I’ve been with the same company for so long that when I call up they’re like, “Hello Mr. Karo, I see you’ve been with T-Mobile since – (short pause) – holy shit, what is wrong with you?”

-And, finally, when I graduated from college, my dad imparted various bits of advice to me, which I wrote down and have referred to ever since (much of it is printed on the whiteboard in my office, within the confines of the T-Mobile death zone).  One of his most useful tenets is the simplest: “Keep your options open.”  It sounds obvious, but I’ve found that many graduates don’t follow it.  It works on so many levels, too.  Career: pursue the path that opens up the most doors down the road.  Apartment: don’t lock yourself into a long-term lease when you don’t know what your situation will be like six months from now.  Bars: pick one that’s close to a few others in case the first one sucks.  Chicks: don’t get roped into hitting on one girl all night.  The list goes on and on.  So, Class of 2008, I leave you with my dad’s advice, and hope it will serve you as well as it has served me.  And I wish all of you good luck in the real world.  You’ll do great.  By the way, we’re looking for a few good spooners – no experience required.  Fuck me.

HOME

-I was going through security at LAX a few months ago, and a TSA worker was reminding everyone who passed to please remove all coins, keys, and credit cards from their pockets.  When it was my turn, the guy repeated his mantra to me, only this time he said, “Please remove all coins, keys, credit cards, and condoms from your pockets.”  I did a double take.  First of all, can condoms actually set off the metal detector?  Second of all – and more importantly – do I look like the kind of dude who carries condoms onto an airplane?  Granted, that was the look I was going for, but I didn’t think I could pull it off.  Unfortunately, though, in my travels across the country, humorous yet harmless incidents like this one are far outnumbered by heart-wrenchingly annoying ones.  Simply put, travel bugs me.

-What’s that you say?  You’d like to switch seats with me to be closer to your kids on this flight?  You and your wife are on your honeymoon and want to know if I’ll swap so you can sit together?  Well, let’s see, how can I make this clear: Go fuck yourself.  I booked this flight online, chose my seat, and printed a boarding pass at home.  Now you want me to sacrifice my own comfort just because you couldn’t get your shit together?  Not a chance.  Go ahead, let your baby cry – I’m too many rows ahead to give a damn.

-Even if I know exactly what gate I’m going to, why do I still look at every single departures monitor as I walk through the terminal?

-Nothing is more demoralizing than realizing the airport you’re in has a tram.  You get off the plane happy as a clam to have arrived, only to find out you’ve still got a fucking ten-minute monorail ride ahead of you.  Even worse, I always end up squished right against that family I refused to switch seats with earlier.

-Things just haven’t been the same for me since I lost my virginity a few years ago.  I have a totally different outlook on life; even food tastes different.  I’m talking of course about losing my “first class virginity” – the transformation that occurs when you fly first class for the first time and realize what you’ve been missing out on your whole life.  Going back to coach afterward is so horrible by comparison, you almost wish you were never given a fleeting glance at heaven to begin with.

-Two things I love about air travel: kayak.com and Auntie Anne’s pretzels.  Kayak is so awesome sometimes I go there even when I’m not traveling, just to kinda hang out.  As for Auntie Anne’s, I’ve developed an obsession with it over the past year.  I just crave dipping pretzel into processed cheese.  And since there’s one in pretty much every airport, it’s the first thing I look for when I get off the fucking tram.

-Probably what bugs me most about travel is the teasing – the constant experience of being made to believe things are going smoothly before everything inevitably goes to shit.  Like settling into your coveted aisle seat, only to have the guy in front of you recline his seat into your lap immediately after takeoff.  Or taxiing from the gate in preparation for departure, only to be delayed on the runway because of “weather patterns near Chicago.”  (Seriously, Chicago, when are you gonna get your fucking act together?)  So let’s be honest, we all want to get on and off the plane as quickly as possible.  Unless you’re in first class, a flight can only be satisfactory at best, never enjoyable.  Not to mention that in all my years of flying, I’ve never encountered even the slightest possibility of using those condoms.

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

-I had a pretty bad cold last week, but the toughest part was figuring out to what lengths I should go in order to avoid getting other people sick.  I mean, what is my obligation?  If someone tries to hug me, should I barrel roll out of their grasp?

-Tax season is weird for comedians.  All my buddies pay taxes of course, but I’m betting none have to call their accountant because they’re missing a 1099 from Ha Ha Shack Inc.

-Since a lot of my favorite shows are off the air, I’ve grown a little rusty at DVR fast-forwarding.  Lately I’ve been errantly fast-forwarding a few seconds past the commercial breaks, which sucks because even at high speeds, the resolutions of the cliffhangers are spoiled.  My remote control has also been sticking, so once I hit fast-forward, sometimes I can’t get it to stop.  True, entire episodes are being ruined.  But at least I’m still not watching commercials.

-If you don’t have a BlackBerry but have always wondered what the hell people who have them are doing when they’re constantly typing, the answer might surprise you.  We’re not emailing, we’re BBM-ing.  BlackBerry Messenger is a program that lets you instant message for free with anyone else who also has a BlackBerry.  In fact, I have a few friends whom I communicate with solely via BBM.  It’s an exclusive, shadowy underworld – and no pansy-ass iPhones are allowed.

-Yesterday I tried to take a shower, only there was no cold water.  I’ve run out of hot water before, but never cold water.  I couldn’t even get any room temperature water.  Which was even weirder, because isn’t that like the default?

-I bought some wraps to make sandwiches for lunch.  The package says, “No Lard.”  I don’t understand that.  Who was thinking about lard?  Why even bring it up?

-The worst kind of April Fools’ Day joke is the one that doesn’t fool you at all.  You say to your friend, “Dude, I know you’re just fucking around.”  But they insist and insist and then finally you’re like, “Really?”  And they say, “No.  April Fools!”  Wow.  I seriously miss March.

-And, finally, my parents recently asked my sister and me if we wanted to go on a family vacation.  I politely declined.  Now don’t get me wrong, I get along great with my parents, and who wouldn’t love a free vacation, but at twenty-eight, I think those days have long since passed.  I can’t be anywhere where my mom is making me put on suntan lotion and my sister and I are sharing a bathroom.  Plus when you go on vacation with your family, and you see other twentysomethings with their families, for some reason it becomes impossible to tell how old any of the kids are.  The presence of parents creates a glitch in the Matrix that really weirds me out.  Besides, if I’m gonna get caught at airport security with a bunch of Trojans in my pocket, the last person I want to witness my embarrassment is my dad.  Once we boarded, he’d probably want to get as far away from me as possible.  Unfortunately, the only way to do that on a plane is, well, by switching seats.  Fuck me.

HOME

-I thought my buddy Brett summed me up quite eloquently when he recently said, “Karo, you’re a people person who hates people.”  It’s true.  I make a living interacting with others on stage and via email.  Yet the thought of talking to humans under any other circumstances is so repugnant to me that I even buy my toilet paper online rather than leave the house.  But I’ve realized that it’s only a small segment of the population that draws my ire, and in turn gives everyone else a bad name.  These people are known by a variety of monikers, though I think one is most appropriate: jackass.

-Guys, wearing only a V-neck undershirt to a bar is not acceptable.  Neither is sporting a blazer over said undershirt, unless you’re going for the “just went to the dry cleaners but only half my order was ready” look.

-Athletes, if your team scores an upset, don’t complain to the interviewer afterward that “Everyone doubted us.”  Of course everyone doubted you – you fucking sucked until just now!

-If you recently got stuck in unusually gridlocked traffic in San Diego, you can thank my friend Christina, who ran out of gas in the middle of the highway.  Sure she’s a doctor with two degrees from Georgetown, but that didn’t stop her from buying a car with a manual transmission – even though she doesn’t drive stick – just because the automatic didn’t come in the color she wanted.

-To be fair, here’s an example of my own jackassery: I once drunkenly threw a hundred-dollar bill at a cab driver in Vegas, which would have been bad enough had I not added, “Say hello to Benjamin McKenzie.”  I’m pretty sure I meant Benjamin Franklin – whose face is on the bill – and not the actor who played Ryan on “The OC.”

-And by the way, to my dear friends and family, I moved to LA almost three years ago.  Stop calling me at 10pm Eastern Time on Thursdays to ask what I thought about “Lost.”  I haven’t fucking seen it yet!

-As you know from Ruminations #122, I hate animals.  But I reserve a special vitriol for their owners.  I recently heard a guy bragging about how he takes his dog to the park, lets it run around without a leash, and then twenty minutes later the dog always returns to him at the same bench.  He finished this captivating tale by proclaiming, “Dogs are so much smarter than us!”  Not only is this guy a jackass, his dog is one too for not having the good sense to run away.

-In the end, I do believe that most people are generally good at heart.  Some are jackasses for reasons completely beyond their control (for instance, those fuckers with gleaming white, perfect teeth who never had braces).  Others are simply victims of a slip of the tongue, like Triplet #1, who once asked me, as we were standing in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium in downtown Los Angeles, if we were overlooking the “LA skyline.”  (My sarcastic response: “No, actually that’s San Francisco.  Jackass.”)  Still others change as a result of their situation, like my friend in law school who took six weeks to email me back a one-word response to a question because he was “so busy with finals.”  No one is that fucking busy.  Especially since all I really wanted to know was whether he’d seen “Lost.”

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

-I kinda wanna bang the chick who cuts my hair.  I figure afterwards it wouldn’t be as awkward as if I’d hooked up with a co-worker or someone else I’d see much more frequently.  Then again, I definitely don’t want to upset her and leave our next appointment with a mohawk or, worse, less ear than I came in with.

-If you’re a college student who has just gotten back from Spring Break, you’re probably suffering from what I’ve coined the “Acapulco Flu.”  This occurs when you go on a hard-partying vacation where booze is substituted for sleep, arrive home, feel totally fine for a few days, and then about a week later wind up on your deathbed.  I speculate that for the first few days, the body itself still believes it’s on vacation and is running on adrenaline, which would explain both the delay before crashing as well as the unusual desire to drink out of a yard glass.

-I was at this bar in West Hollywood a few weeks ago and when I closed my tab, the bartender saw the name on my Amex and said, “Hey man, I love Ruminations.”  I responded, “Thanks dude,” and then added, “So, can I get a discount?”  He laughed, and I chuckled in kind, as he clearly didn’t realize I wasn’t kidding.

-The other day, I forgot to take my iPod to the gym and noticed that when I lift my maximum weight, I sometimes emit an involuntary whistle as I’m exhaling.  The worst part is that I don’t even know how to whistle normally, so not only am I annoying everyone else in the gym, I’m actually taunting myself.

-Yesterday I was talking to my developers about the new web site I’m launching in a few months.  As we were in the midst of discussing the layout of the site, I had an epiphany.  I want to open a bar called Scrollbar.  Get it?  Yeah, they didn’t either.

-On more than one occasion I’ve lured a girl back to my place to drink wine only to discover that I have absolutely no idea how to open the bottle.

-And, finally, nothing brings out your inner jackass like a never-ending game of reply-to-all with your buddies.  I don’t know what it is about guys, being bored at work, and email that brings out the worst in all of us.  It usually starts innocently enough.  A few days ago I sent an email to some friends asking for a bar recommendation.  The first response came from Triplet #1, who – and I’m quoting directly here – suggested “Club Loser on 32nd and Nothington.”  That was followed by an email from Chi who recommended the ever popular “Bar Blow Me on 69th and Your Mom Avenue.”  And those were the least offensive suggestions.  The conversation soon degraded into name-calling until someone inevitably dropped an F-bomb, everyone using their work accounts feigned outrage, and then appended their Gmail addresses to the chain so that they could follow the discussion uncensored on their BlackBerrys.  I never got any legitimate recommendations and the reply-to-all eventually petered out.  I thought about asking one more question to the group – “Did anyone see ‘Lost’ last night?” – but quickly reconsidered.  Fuck me.

HOME

-When talking amongst ourselves, all guys use the standard “one to ten” scale to rate how attractive a girl is.  That’s because merely describing a girl as “hot” is insufficient.  I mean, there’s a big difference between the hottest girl that went to my high school and the hottest girl from the last season of Entourage.  Sometimes, we further subdivide for greater accuracy, assigning separate ratings for a girl’s body and her face.  The entire exercise is, of course, superficial and borderline offensive.  But for us, it serves as a universal language between guys, helps mask our own insecurities, and, well, anything with rankings or stats kinda reminds us of sports, so that’s a bonus.  Thus my alcohol-fueled attempts at hitting on the hottest women possible are not just a test of my game, but evidence of a larger phenomenon: the numbers game.

-An accent always adds at least a point to a girl’s rating.  I was out to dinner with the boys recently and our waitress had a British accent.  We spent most of the meal giggling like schoolgirls whenever she spoke and then we left about a 40% tip.  Shortly thereafter, I was at a wedding and met a girl with a Southern accent, which is extremely rare to hear in New York or LA.  I think it was the first time in my life a girl offered to text me and I was like, “No, no, please.  Call me.”

-A few weeks ago, I found myself laying in bed on a Saturday, nursing a hangover, and texting with a girl (she had no accent) to try to get her to come out that night.  When the conversation was over, I looked at the clock, saw it was 11:49am, and realized I had set a new personal record: hitting on a chick before noon.

-The International Bureau of Weights and Measures is a real organization, based in Paris, that maintains the official one kilogram brick and the one meter stick.  And I always imagine that in a little room, next to the brick and the stick, sits a ridiculously hot girl named Michelle, and she’s the official perfect ten – the international benchmark for hotness.  The thing is, living in LA has totally fucked with my head because there are more tens here than anywhere else I’ve ever been.  A few months ago, I was at a party in Hollywood – obliterated – and talking to this ten I had no shot with.  I stumbled to the bathroom, and when I returned, resumed the conversation.  After a few minutes, I realized that this was actually a different girl.  LA has got to be the only place on earth where you can be talking to a ten, and then turn around and start talking to another fucking ten!  (And have them both hate you equally.)

-My buddy Jeff has a term for girls he claims are even better than a ten: “uncomfortably hot.”  This is the rare girl that is so attractive, you actually feel awkward and weird around her.  It’s almost like standing next to a celebrity – you wonder if anyone else around you realizes what’s going on, and you want to say something to her but end up just mumbling like a crazy person before trudging away while chiding yourself for being such a fucking moron.

-To me, hitting on chicks and March Madness are similar – on any given day there’s a chance you could take down someone ranked much higher than you.  And that, in a nutshell, is the beauty of being single: you never know what girls the next bar will bring.  Hope springs eternal.  Still, in the numbers game, the odds are often stacked against you.  In college basketball, overcoming those odds is called being Cinderella.  You’ll hear a lot of gushing over Cinderella as the NCAA tournament unfolds over the next month or so but, quite frankly, I’d rate her only about a seven.

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

-Why is it that whenever I convince one of my friends to watch a TV show that I love, the next episode is always the worst one ever?

-I have a feeling that “94% fat free” doesn’t mean anything close to what I think it means.

-It really bothers me when people incorrectly combine two words into one, like Superbowl, Wallstreet, or Whitehouse.  Put a space between the words, buddy, and let those puppies breathe!

-I was at a wedding once where two of my friends – who didn’t know each other beforehand – ended up hooking up.  Later, the girl asked me if it was weird that the guy tried to sleep with her.  Dumbfounded, I replied, “It’d be weird if he didn’t try to sleep with you.”

-If you’re gonna buy me a gift certificate, don’t make it from one of those fancy, high-end stores where I’m gonna feel weird using a fucking gift certificate.

-Why does Coca-Cola make Cherry Coke so scarce?  Whenever there’s an opportunity to purchase Cherry Coke, I don’t hesitate.  Partly because it’s awesome, and partly because I don’t know when I’ll ever get another chance.

-The other day, I threw out a pair of boxers for the first time since 2005.  Well, I guess “threw out” is a bit of a misnomer.  They’re so old that they ripped and literally fell off of me as I was wearing them.  Which wasn’t as sexy as it might seem.

-I love wearing green and getting obscenely drunk on St. Patrick’s Day.  What I don’t like is green beer.  Ridiculous as it seems, I used to think that green beer was actually brewed especially for the holiday.  When I realized it’s just made with food coloring kept in a warm vat in the back, I stopped partaking.  Plus that shit is definitely not even close to 94% fat free.

-And, finally, I’ve always been impressed with my buddy Matt, who’s consistently been able to hook up with girls who are – to be honest – much more attractive than he is.  I think this is due to several factors: he’s a smart, funny dude, he has no shame, and upon getting to the bar he goes right for the girls without wasting any time hanging out with his guy friends.  You know, all positive traits.  At the end of the day, though, Matt’s secret weapon is that he plays a different kind of numbers game: hitting on as many chicks as humanly possible during the night in the hope that the law of averages will produce at least one score.  Essentially, he engages in a kind of modified speed dating, except he’s the only guy and “dating” is the least of his objectives.  I admire his moxie.  But I could never duplicate his success.  It requires too much work, too much rejection, and, regrettably, the ability to stay at least sober enough to tell two tens apart.  Fuck me!

HOME

-I was at a house party in Santa Monica a few weeks ago when my friend told me that he was leaving his job to work for a buddy on a pretty big film project.  I congratulated him on the great news and for signing what must have been a lucrative contract.  But my friend replied that there was no formal contract, saying, “My buddy was just like, bro, do you want to work on this?  And I was like, dude, totally.”  I guess I should have realized then that when two close guys friends commit to enter into a business arrangement, no lawyers are needed.  And so a new term was born: the “brogreement.”  Brogreements happen every day and are used to determine everything from who is gonna pick up the beer to who is going to succeed you as CEO.  But before you enter into one, it’s important to examine who these jackasses you call your friends really are.

-Customarily, when one of my friends crashes at a buddy’s place for more than just a night or two, he either takes him out for a nice meal or buys him a bottle of vodka as a gesture of thanks.  Last year, Brian and Triplet #1 came out to visit me in LA, and when the check came for our final breakfast, they announced they’d be picking up the tab.  My share of the bill?  $12.  Without compunction, I promptly began giving them shit for not having picked up a bigger check.  Whoever said “It’s the thought that counts” probably never shamed their friends into buying them a handle of Goose.

-When women ask what he does for a living, my buddy Eric, who’s a bond trader, enjoys describing his job in the most unnecessarily complicated terms possible.  I’m not sure if he thinks this will impress girls or merely confuse them into hooking up with him, but I have to admit that it works pretty well.  It’s kind of like asking someone for directions in a foreign country – you have no clue what they just said but you figure they spoke with conviction and had a nice watch on so they must be trustworthy.

-You know the classic Seinfeld episode where Jerry complains that the car rental place knows how to take reservations but not how to hold them?  That’s like Triplet #1 but with plans: he can make plans; he just doesn’t keep them.  If you make plans with him, he tends to sort of pencil it in until something better comes along, and then cancels on you at the last possible moment.  I love the kid, but sometimes we have to remind him that guy code clearly stipulates plans can only be broken for three reasons: a death in the family, the opportunity for sex, or playoff tickets.

-My buddy Chi, on the other hand, can keep plans, though they’re often the absolute worst plans ever.  Back in the day, he organized a trip for me, him, and Brian to fly to Tucson to visit his brother Danny.  We took the redeye and got in on Saturday morning, then flew out at like 5am on Sunday.  Our entire stay was less than 24 hours.  The only positive thing about the trip being so short was that at least we didn’t have to buy Danny any vodka.

-There is another type of brogreement implicit in all friendships: a solemn promise not to let your buddy become an asshole.  Ever try to wear a weird shirt or get a radically new haircut?  Your friends destroy you as soon as you enter the room.  They’re not doing it out of malice, but out of love.  It’s their job to make sure you stay true to yourself.  That can mean giving you job advice or it can mean making you take off that fucking thumb ring before leaving the house.  It is this solidarity that makes brogreements in the business world carry so much weight.  After all, legal contracts can always be challenged in court, but who would dare renege on a commitment to a friend who once stopped you from popping your collar?

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

-I think that walk-up apartments on really high floors can be great for parties because whenever someone gets to the door it’s a grand entrance – newcomers exult in having made it all the way up and then comically overdo the heavy breathing.  Plus the party goes all night because people would rather drink stale beer and make idle conversation than climb back down all those fucking stairs.

-Having written and sold several sitcom pilots, I’m a member of the Writers Guild – despite never having gotten one of my shows on the air.  So I’m really glad the recent labor strife is over.  Not because Hollywood can now get back to work, but because I’m tired of my friends teasing me with such ingenious questions as, “How can you be on strike… from nothing?”

-I’m not sure if this is weird or not, but I don’t like driving with anything in my pockets.  I always empty everything into the armrest or passenger seat.  That’s why I hate valet parking, because I have to make a mad scramble to gather my things before handing over the keys to the first guy who approaches wearing a red jacket.  I just want to be like, “Dude, back away from the fucking car and give me a second to pry out this chapstick that’s jammed in the cup holder.”

-It’s official!  After living here for two and a half years, and navigating a bevy of red tape (as detailed in Ruminations #116), I finally have a California driver’s license.  It’s really weird taking out my ID and not seeing my New York license; I keep thinking that I accidentally picked up the wrong wallet.  Of course, while applying for the license I almost fucked things up at the last minute.  Since I’ve had LASIK and could see the eye chart all the way from the waiting area, while sitting there forever I decided to memorize it.  When my turn came, I spouted the letters almost before the tester finished telling me what line to read.  She looked at me warily and my heart skipped a beat before she finally passed me.  So I learned yet another lesson: at the DMV, no one likes a show-off.

-Although not one of you noticed it, there was a major milestone in last week’s issue of Ruminations: I used the word “whom” for the first time in the history of the column.  Along with my former bans on the use of emoticons (annoying but efficient) and semicolons (confusing but useful), I am now lifting my embargo on “whom” as well.  I still don’t really understand how to use it, but the time has come to learn.  But don’t fret – my other core positions remain unchanged (cigarettes, white chocolate, American Idol: bad; wife-beaters, black olives, “Lost”: good).

-And, finally, one way to get insight into your friends’ true character is by observing them when they’re drunk but you’re sober.  You’ll quickly realize that some of your buddies merely exhibit heightened versions of themselves when they’re fucked up, while others become completely different people.  Your friends’ drunk personalities will in some ways reflect how they act when the chips are down.  These are important qualities to be aware of – especially in the rare instance a brogreement goes awry.  They will either maintain some semblance of control or fly off the handle.  The downside to this exercise, of course, is that by witnessing the moronic behavior of your drunken buddies, you catch a glimpse of what you yourself must act like when inebriated: one part asshole; one part maniac.  And thus you begin to think that, perhaps, it wasn’t such a good idea to lobby for that extra bottle of vodka.  Fuck me.

HOME

-Valentine’s Day sucks for single girls and for guys in relationships, but is awesome for girls in relationships, and is of absolutely no consequence to single guys.  As a member of the latter group, Valentine’s Day is barely even a blip on my radar.  However, despite reveling in my current state of bachelorhood, I haven’t always been single.  There was my girlfriend in high school (whom I haven’t seen since the day we graduated), my girlfriend in college (who later married my fraternity brother), my girlfriend in New York (my relationship with whom fell apart when I moved to LA), and my girlfriend in Los Angeles (my relationship with whom fell apart when she moved to New York).  So, I haven’t had a whole lot of luck in this game.  I can only hope, then, that my abilities (or lack thereof) as a boyfriend are not solely to blame.

-I’ve never really been the jealous type.  If I’m dating a girl and she wants to go out with an ex-boyfriend who’s in town, I always give my blessing.  I guess I just tend to feel secure in my relationships.  The problem is, chicks want their boyfriends to feel a little jealous.  I don’t get that.  To me it’s a pleasant treat to have some other dude buy my girlfriend dinner every once in a while.

-I’ve been told I get defensive.  Which is fucking ridiculous and totally not true.  Seriously, though, arguing about being defensive is probably the most futile thing a couple can do.  Because what’s the only response you can have when someone accuses you of being defensive?  “I’m not being defensive.”  Which is inherently defensive.  I mean, that’s the kind of shit that makes even couples therapists seek counseling.

-Although she’s just now making her debut in Ruminations, I did have a serious girlfriend in LA for about six months last year.  She was five years younger than me, which actually didn’t matter too much.  The bigger deal was that she had just finished college when we met and, as we all know, that’s a pretty serious transition.  Believe me, it was odd being in a relationship when one of us was still quite immature, constantly drunk, and spending too much time on Facebook – and the other had just graduated.

-When I moved to LA in 2005, long distance quickly ended the relationship I had with my girlfriend in New York.  In 2006, for reasons having nothing to do with me, she ended up moving to Los Angeles.  Incredibly, the last time I saw her, at a bar in West Hollywood, happened to be the first night I met my new girlfriend.  It was almost as if a symbolic torch had been passed: “I put up with this neurotic asshole on the East Coast; I now bequeath that honor to you on the West Coast.  Be careful, he gets defensive.”  After we dated for a while, the new girlfriend decided to move to New York for the summer of 2007.  By the time she returned, the torch had been extinguished.  Even temporary long distance proved too much for me to handle, and I’ve been unattached ever since (much to the dismay of discriminating single women throughout Los Angeles).

-In the end, I think my varied experiences as a boyfriend have taught me a lot about sharing (don’t like it), compromise (not good at it), and sacrifice (not worth it).  I learned some interesting things, such as what actually goes on inside one of those mani-pedi places.  And I learned some things I’d rather not know about, such as what a UTI is.  But, ultimately, I learned that I’m not ready to be a boyfriend again any time soon.  In the meantime, I hope my exes’ new boyfriends are as secure in their relationships as I was, and let me hang out with their girlfriends every once in a while.  Either way, it will be a Happy Valentine’s Day for me indeed – since I won’t be celebrating it at all.

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

-To me, the kind of pizza you enjoy is one of your unique identifiers.  If the cops find the victim of a grisly murder but can’t match the dental records, they could probably just check out the leftover pie in the fridge and then ask around.  “Deep dish with black olives and green peppers,” your friends would tearfully say, “That must be Jim.”

-I just finished up another round of interviewing high school seniors who are applying to my alma mater.  And once again, I’m so pissed that none of these kids seemed the least bit intimidated by me.  Now don’t get me wrong, as a relatively recent graduate myself, I go out of my way to make the interviewees feel comfortable.  But why do I feel like I’m more nervous than they are?  What are they feeding these fucking kids?

-Do you have that friend that, when you just miss his call, you know there’s a good chance you won’t be able to connect with him for about six months?  My doctor friend Adam called me a few weeks ago, but I couldn’t get to the phone in time.  I called him back six seconds later, it went directly to his voicemail, and then he never called me back.  So much for catching up.  When I’m at his wedding this summer, I may just pass him a note or something when he walks down the aisle.

-As I prepare to embark on another stand-up tour, I continue to get the same ridiculous questions from perplexed friends and family members.  My Uncle Mike actually asked me if I bring my own microphone when I travel the country.  That still cracks me up.  I told him that the B.Y.O.M. fad that briefly swept the nation has thankfully subsided and that each venue does in fact graciously provide me with a mic.  I do, however, have to bring my own stool.  Which is a pain in the ass to get into the overhead compartment.

-My buddy Justin had his annual Super Bowl party here in LA.  Unfortunately, he decided not to get a keg this year, which turned the first quarter festivities into a game of “Let’s see how many fucking beers we can jam into this fridge.”

-And, finally, that brings us to my New York Giants: kings of the known football universe.  This is the first time one of my teams has won a championship since I moved from New York to LA, and I must say it was very surreal.  Mostly because LA is a stew of people from all across the country.  There was one other Giants fan at the party, zero Patriots fans, and about sixteen other teams represented.  I was rocking my Rodney Hampton jersey in a sea of palpable (albeit drunken) disinterest.  When the Giants won, I called my dad to exult and then traipsed to an after-party in the Hollywood Hills where I’m not sure anyone had even watched the game.  Meanwhile, in New York, revelers took spontaneously to the streets.  One of my buddies, clad in Giants gear, even met a chick at a bar and got laid – most certainly the fortuitous result of abundant merriment in the air.  The next morning, I woke up late, watched SportsCenter over and over again, and fielded emails from my surprisingly gracious Boston fans.  (To be fair, I have something they want, but they have something I want – namely another World Series ring.)  I called my dad again to recap and made myself a delicious pizza – something he taught me how to do the last time I was in New York.  And as I sat down to partake of the championship feast I had created, I knew I could die tomorrow a happy man – Giants jersey in one hand, identifying slice in the other.  Fuck me.

HOME

-At the wise, old age of twenty-eight, I’ve long since given up on going to any lounge or club that might be hard to get into or involve waiting on line.  I’m so over that shit.  But every once in a while – in a moment of weakness – I’ll agree to go out somewhere and soon find myself arguing with a chick wielding a clipboard while I’m barred from entry by a gigantic bouncer.  The weekend should be about unwinding with friends and drunkenly hitting on everything that moves – not about paying a cover just so I can go inside and take a fucking piss.  Yet bars continue to crop up that cater to a certain crowd – call them velvet dopes – who don’t realize that oftentimes the longer the line outside, the lamer the situation inside.  The twentysomething drinking experience is in rapid decline, so here are a few suggestions on how I would make nightlife more about going out and less about getting in.

-Let’s take all of the bathroom attendants out of the exclusive clubs in LA, New York, and Miami, and put them in the restrooms at airports and sports stadiums – where they’re desperately needed.  It’s a waste to have attendants manning bathrooms in clubs when their sole purpose is to provide obnoxious kids a cleaner surface to blow lines off of.

-Each major city should have a designated district of karaoke bars, thus preventing me from walking into one by accident.  Nothing is worse than enjoying a quiet evening of binge drinking with the boys when suddenly some chick starts belting out “Like a Virgin” from a karaoke machine set at fifty decibels louder than the space shuttle launch.  In a perfect world, karaoke would be limited to bachelorette parties and Tokyo.

-Just like certain restaurants have a B.Y.O.B. policy that allows you to bring your own wine, clubs should let you bring your own bottles of liquor.  You would still pay for beer, mixers, as well as a small corkage fee.  OK, admittedly, that would never fly, but at the very least, let’s stop referring to paying $500 for a bottle of Absolut as bottle “service.”  It should be more accurately described as getting torn a new asshole but at least having a place to sit down and rest it.

-Sometimes I wonder if bouncers have a certain quota of people they have to throw out of bars in a given month, just like cops supposedly have to write a certain amount of tickets.  Seriously, why isn’t there a bouncer code of conduct?  If you get treated unfairly, there’s no recourse, save for writing a nasty review on Citysearch that just makes you sound like a petulant douche.  Again, bouncers should be moved from bars to stadiums and airports, where they could eject inebriated fans of the opposing team, and unceremoniously pound on idiots who still don’t realize they have to take their shoes off before going through the fucking metal detector.

-Over the holidays, my mom sat me down and had the “drinking conversation” with me.  I’m not even kidding, it was the same conversation we had when I was eighteen, complete with the usual admonishments: “You drink too much,” “Just nurse one beer,” and “Why don’t you go bowling with your friends instead of drinking?”  (I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the last time I went bowling, I got so shithammered that I threw the ball perpendicular to the lanes.)  Still, it made me contemplate how little has changed in my last decade of boozing.  Velvet ropes, bottle service, and bouncers are as prevalent as ever.  If I do happen to drink less these days, it’s not for lack of trying – but Mom doesn’t need to know that.

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

-How about those Giants, huh?  Huh??  In 2004, as I sat in Giants Stadium watching Eli Manning’s first start, never did I think that he’d be leading us to the Super Bowl just four years later.  I remember that day vividly because me and my buddies tailgated so hard beforehand that I had to break the seal in the first quarter, which basically ruined the rest of the game as I ran back and forth to the bathroom wondering why there were no attendants in there cleaning the popcorn out of the urinals.

-Unless I can score some last-minute tickets, I’ll be watching the big game with the boys in LA – which will be fun and drunken but never the same as being there in person.  My all-time favorite Super Bowl story comes from my friend Dave, a lifelong Bears fan, who went to the Super Bowl last year to watch his team take on the Colts.  When Devin Hester returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown, Dave screamed so hard that he passed out.  No joke: he literally cheered himself unconscious.  I love that.  To me it’s a sign of true heart and dedication.  Well, that or a serious neurological condition.

-I went to my first twenty-ninth birthday party a few weeks ago.  That means that I’m less than a year away from having to go to a million thirtieth birthday parties – possibly rivaling the years I turned thirteen and twenty-one in terms of the sheer number of over-the-top celebrations.  Most of my friends’ wives probably won’t let them take thirty shots to mark the occasion, which kinda sucks because for once it would have been someone besides me taking them home to vomit.

-I’ve recently been informed that I text incorrectly because I use my right thumb and left index finger instead of both thumbs, which is apparently how the rest of the world does it.  Normally I wouldn’t be too concerned, but way back in Ruminations #34, I admitted that I also snap incorrectly (I use my thumb and index finger instead of thumb and middle finger).  Now I can’t stop thinking about why the fuck I can’t use my fingers properly and – gasp! – what else I may have been doing wrong the whole time…

-Here’s a tip: during the afternoon, never drink the soda or juice that you’ll be using later that night to mix with liquor.  Your drinks will taste much better if you haven’t recently tasted the mixers on their own.  Hey, I’m no Martha Stewart, but that shit works.

-And, finally, I was walking through the airport in Minneapolis a few months ago when I spotted an ad for the MBA program at St. Cloud State University that stated: “Your BS will only get you so far.”  Now, I’m assuming what they meant was that your Bachelor of Science degree will only get you so far.  But I immediately took it to mean that your bullshit will only get you so far.  I don’t know, maybe they’re so hip and meta over there at St. Cloud that they actually meant both.  Regardless, I realize now that the one place my bullshit rarely works anymore is at the bar.  The chick with the clipboard knows I’m not really on the list and the bouncer knows my friends aren’t really already inside.  But I still go out.  Much like the Giants, I need to take advantage of every possible opportunity to score.  Except instead of playing in the Super Bowl next weekend, I’ll be pressed against a crowded bar, drawing stares with my ungainly texting, and trying futilely to flag down a bartender who’s oblivious to the beckoning of my clumsy, soundless snaps.  Fuck me.

HOME

-Recently I went out with six friends – two married couples and one couple that lives together – thereby making me the seventh wheel.  I’ve been the third and fifth wheels plenty of times, but never the seventh.  It’s nights like this that make me introspective about being single.  On one hand, it’s kind of depressing to see my friends with their significant others laughing and sharing, and realize I don’t have that.  On the other hand, it’s exhilarating to know that I’m not responsible for anyone’s happiness but my own, and that the next girl I wake up next to in bed won’t be living with me.  Upon reflection, I don’t think that being an odd-numbered wheel is something to be ashamed of.  In fact, I look at it as a badge of honor.  I’d be the fifteenth wheel if I could – if only to be in a room with fourteen people whose lives are more boring than mine.

-I’ve never been much of a dater.  I can probably count on both hands the number of official dates I’ve ever been on.  Quite frankly, I just don’t have the patience.  Drinks are for getting drunk, and I prefer to eat dinner while wearing something with an elastic waistband.  As far as conversation, well, no one likes to talk about themselves as much as I do, but listening to some chick ramble on about her career as an event planner?  No thanks, I’ll pass.  Besides, it’s not a real job if you can be rendered obsolete by an Evite.

-I love when I’m the odd-numbered wheel, surrounded by married people, plus that one couple that’s been dating for like six years but still hasn’t gotten engaged yet.  I always feel a sense of camaraderie with the girl.  She’s like, “What’s new, Karo?”  And I’m like, “Not much.  You?”  And, surrounded by others’ wedding bling, she sighs, “Nothing.”  And then we both get drunk secure in the knowledge that neither of us is getting hitched any time soon.

-Though I frequently mock the institution of marriage, I do hope that one day – many years from now – I will get married myself.  The thing is, most of my past serious relationships began with a one-night stand.  Therefore, it’s reasonable to assume that that’s how I’ll meet my future wife as well.  So I figure the next time I try to take a girl home from the bar and she objects, asking, “What kind of girl do you think I am?” I can respond, “I guess not marriage material.”

-One source of conflict that I often have in my romantic relationships is that I just don’t like pets.  Sorry, it’s true.  I hate dogs.  I hate cats.  I hate anything with fur or that needs to be fed or that has a stupid name the story behind which I’m forced to hear.   The problem is, girls with a pet want their significant other to love and care for it as much as they do.  I can’t offer that.  I really just hate all animals.  I mean, I can barely stand humans.

-In the end, I am completely comfortable with my status as a seventh wheel.  It’s actually kind of fun, especially when my friends’ wives cook for me or do me favors because they think I can’t fend for myself (which is partially true).  The only person I feel bad for is my mom.  She’s graciously never pressured me to get married.  But I’m starting to get the sense that she’d like me to tie the knot and pop out some grandkids sooner rather than later.  I tell her that it will happen eventually but, you know, she’s a mom; she worries.  I only hope she takes some consolation in the fact that one day I’ll finally be an even-numbered wheel.  Until then, I’m happy being odd.

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

-You know what would be great?  If, when I’m texting someone, my phone would actually recognize the word “texting.”

-Over the holidays, I played my six-year-old cousin Daniel in tennis on his brand-new Wii.  He consistently beat me.  And I was literally trying as hard as I possibly could.  Either he’s a prodigy, or alcohol has slowed my reflexes to a pre-kindergarten level.

-When Anderson Cooper reports about Britney Spears on CNN, do you think he’s cognizant of the fact that a little bit of his soul is dying?

-The gearshift on my truck comes out of the steering column, as opposed to being in the center console like most cars.  This has caused me to look like a complete moron when driving someone else’s car, because I always instinctively reach for the wrong lever and do something like put the windshield wipers on instead of shifting into park.  I play it off so poorly, too: “Oh, did you say go in reverse?  I could have sworn you said put the brights on and spray wiper fluid.  My bad.”

-Do Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends get health insurance and dental?

-I was running at the gym the other day, and this chick who was obviously a cigarette smoker got on the elliptical right next to me.  The stench alone that emanated from her body actually made me wheeze and slow my pace on the treadmill.  I wish smokers wouldn’t exercise.  That way they would die sooner and leave me alone.

-Are artists happy or sad when they see their work on the side of a tissue box?

-It boggles my mind that people go out to dinner on a weekend night, and then go right out afterwards without peeing, washing their hands, or freshening their breath.  I feel like I go to the bathroom about five times for every one visit of an average person.  Sure I’m a tad obsessive-compulsive, but is no one else paralyzed by the thought of going out in public with food in their teeth, dirty hands, and a full bladder?

-And, finally, I believe my aversion to dating stems partly from bad experiences and partly from being unduly influenced by television.  For instance, I once went out with a girl and later gave her some tickets to a stand-up performance of mine.  She proceeded to show up with another guy – on another date!  Plus, have you ever noticed how on TV, when thirtysomethings go on dates, the guy is always wearing a suit and tie?  What universe is that based on?  Because if that’s what dating in my thirties will entail, then Mom’s got a longer wait for grandkids than I thought.  I guess, in a way, happily married people and perpetually single people are similar: we’ve both given up on dating, but have merely chosen different exit strategies.  And so, my seventh wheel status continues indefinitely.  After all, relationships require a strong stomach – not an elastic waistband.  Fuck me.

HOME

-At the beginning of 2007, my buddy Brian and I created a spreadsheet in which we guessed when each of our four friends in serious relationships would get engaged during the year.  Whoever was more accurate would be taken out to dinner by the other.  The only rule was that at least two of the four couples had to get engaged for the bet to count.  Fast forward twelve months: one couple is engaged, two couples have moved in together but aren’t engaged yet, one couple has split up, and all eight participants resent us for wagering on their love lives.  Although the bet did not meet the minimum threshold to be deemed valid, I did learn from the experience that trying to predict the year ahead is futile.  So let’s look back instead.  This is my Year in Review.

-The best thing that happened to me in 2007 was that I stopped shaving.  I was inspired to do this by my buddy Claudio who works in advertising (which apparently is similar to being a comedian in that appearing clean-cut is optional).  Instead of using a blade and shaving cream, he simply uses a buzzer to trim down to stubble, and then lets it grow back out until he trims it again a few days or even a few weeks later.  Fucking brilliant.  Freed from irritated skin and cutting myself, I now rock stubble 24/7.  Plus now I know that if this stand-up thing doesn’t pan out, I can always go into advertising.

-Toward the end of the year, my alma mater sends out a manifest of who in my class donated to the school, and at what level they gave.  The giving levels have fancy names like “Benjamin Franklin Society,” “Ivy Stone Society,” and “Other.”  I always read the list from top to bottom thinking things like, “Can’t believe he makes more money than me,” “Shoulda dated her,” and “What a cheap bastard.”  I guess nothing engenders school spirit more than jealousy, regret, and spite.

-When I return home to Long Island for the holidays, a huge change awaits me.  After twenty-eight years, my parents have finally turned my childhood bedroom into a guest room.  The weirdest part occurred this summer when, in preparation for the renovation, I had to empty the room of all my belongings.  It was like going back in time as I ripped down Don Mattingly posters, listened to cassette tapes, and played Game Boy.  I found some cool stuff – like my first pair of baby shoes and the Young Author Award I won in fourth grade.  Unfortunately, though, any amazement I felt about growing up to actually become an author was quickly quelled by the discovery that I own the cassette single of “Rump Shaker.”

-This year, I also attended my ten-year high school reunion.  The turnout was pretty amazing, and a few people got pretty fucked up which was kinda funny, but the highlight for me was running into my first girlfriend from middle school and meeting her fiance.  After all, when we dated for about a week circa 1990, who would have thought that, so many years later, one of us would be embarking on an amazing phase of life filled with thrills and new adventures – and the other would be getting married.

-People in LA don’t tip like they do in New York.  The end of the year in New York means running around frantically trying to tip every handyman and “porter” that supposedly works in your building.  But I asked a few people in my building here in West Hollywood if they tip the maintenance guys and they looked at me like I was insane.  Of course, they might have been looking at me like that because I haven’t shaved in a month.

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

-This year, I noticed a perplexing trend: people assuming that I’m older than I am.  A few times in the past couple of months, I’ve asked people to guess how old I am, and they all thought between thirty-two and thirty-five, though I’m only twenty-eight.  Appearing older is not as big a deal for guys as it is for girls, so I’m not too concerned.  It’s probably just because I carry myself in such a mature fashion (when I’m not gambling on friends’ nuptials or listening to Wreckx-N-Effect).

-In October, the Ben Stiller movie “Heartbreak Kid” came out and, although I didn’t see it, I’ve been told the last line of the movie is “Fuck me” – the phrase I’ve been using to close this column since 1997.  I only bring this up because another weird trend started happening this year: fans concluding their emails to me by saying, “Fuck you.”  From the context of the emails, I can now tell that people are merely putting a good-natured twist on my use of “Fuck me.”  But since this hadn’t happened before, the first twenty emails caught me completely off guard.  I didn’t understand why everyone was so pissed off.   Then, in Ruminations #120, I wrote how you should always respond with “Thanks, got it” when someone emails you something important – just so they know you received their message.  After I got 1,000 replies to the column that just said “Thanks, got it” I started to wonder why I do this to myself.

-When I’m not being taunted by fans, I love to receive emails about how Ruminations has affected their lives.  For instance, there’s Jeff in Nebraska, who wrote to tell me how he got pulled over for speeding while reading my column on his BlackBerry in the car.  I don’t condone such behavior, but I do celebrate it.  My personal favorite was probably from Allison in South Carolina, who got shitbombed and convinced her friend to take her to Sonic – where she proceeded to vomit out the window in the middle of the drive-through.  The email continues that, as she booted, she actually thought to herself, “I feel like I’m living an Aaron Karo story.”  Gosh, I’m so proud.  And a little nauseous.

-Then there was the couple in Boston that bought tickets to one of my shows, but broke up shortly after the purchase.  When the show finally came around, they decided to go together anyway.  They then proceeded to get hammerblasted while I was on stage, hooked up afterwards, and are now back together.  Call me Cupid.  On the other end of the spectrum is the fan I met after a show in Minneapolis who told me he was introduced to my column by his now ex-girlfriend.  “Karo,” he said to me, “I just got out of a five-year relationship and the only good thing that came out of it was you.”  OK, now I’m blushing.

-And, finally, in 2007 I had two very interesting experiences at a bar in New York’s East Village called Professor Thom’s.  First, in June, the bar was a stop on the pub crawl I organize for my friends every summer.  However, for the first time ever, there was a rain delay and we were forced to stay there way past our allotted time.  This generally would not have been a problem, except for the fact that Professor Thom’s is a Red Sox bar.  They do not like my kind there.  I sat quietly in the corner watching the Yankees on a twelve-inch screen while the Red Sox played on ten plasmas.  I swore never to return.  Then, in September, I returned.  Professor Thom’s is also a University of Michigan football bar, and although that’s another team I couldn’t care less about, I was crashing with Claudio, who is an alum and wanted to go watch the game.  So we dragged ourselves over to the bar, both rocking five o’clock shadows though it wasn’t even noon yet, and began to drink.  A few hours later, the game ended and the Michigan faithful began to shuffle out – some even crying.  And as I witnessed Appalachian State complete one of the biggest upsets in history, I realized once again how unpredictable life can be.  I have no idea what 2008 will bring, but I wish you all health and good fortune.  And may you donate enough of that good fortune to make your classmates jealous.  Fuck me.

HOME

-This year, I spent more time on the phone with technical support than I did on the phone with my mom.  No one benefits from this – not me, not the support reps I become surly with after about 90 seconds, and certainly not my mom.  The fact is, our generation is more dependent on technology than ever before.  I’m beholden to anything with a computer chip – be it a laptop, cell phone, or DVR that always cuts off the end of Grey’s Anatomy.  While my dad thinks an email address and a URL are the same thing, and can’t copy and paste without using the mouse, I think meeting a girl in person and on Facebook are the same thing, and can’t travel more than two blocks without consulting Google Maps.  So although it’s unclear who benefits from all this new technology, one thing’s for certain: today’s twentysomethings are connected at the chip.

-In February, I did something I never thought I’d do: I switched to a Mac.  For me, this was the technological equivalent of becoming a Red Sox fan, but after doing the research I felt it was the best move.  My new computer looks totally gourmet, but, nine months later, I wish I felt more euphoric about the switch.  It’s kind of like dating a really hot girl that you don’t have strong feelings for.  You want to love her, but in the end you’ll just settle for your friends being impressed when they see you together.

-I have a Google Alert set up for my name so that if anyone writes an article about me, I get an email about it.  The only problem is, there’s an Armenian ultimate fighter named Karo “The Heat” Parisyan, and Google sometimes gets us confused.  I’ll think I’m clicking on an article about one of my books, and it’ll turn out to be about a mixed martial arts tournament.  Sometimes I wonder if the other Karo experiences the same problem, but I have a feeling he’s too busy kicking ass to configure Google Alerts.

-The best part about DVR is trying to fast forward exactly when the show is about to go to commercial, and hitting play exactly when it comes back.  We all know when our favorite shows are about to go to break – we can tell by the music and camerawork; our pupils dilate and blood rushes to our trigger finger.  We also sense when the commercials are about to be over – usually because there’s a promo for the local newscast or the show “Bones” (neither of which I’ve ever heard of anyone ever watching).

-You ever notice that you consider the time on your cell phone to be the “official time”?  You can ask someone the time, or look at your watch, but you’re never really sure until you pull out your cell phone.  And how come when your friend’s phone dies yet again, and you tell him that his phone sucks, he always gets so defensive?  He’s like, “Listen, it’s one thing to insult my intelligence for buying this phone, but it’s another thing to insult the phone itself – that’s just uncalled for.  By the way, what time is it?”

-I think that most people are in agreement that MySpace is rapidly becoming another Friendster: a spam-filled clusterfuck whose only regular users are teenagers in the Philippines.  And let’s be honest, Facebook is not far behind.  The great irony is that for all our advances in technology, the same problems keep happening over and over again.  When cell phones first became popular, I’d get a million accidental calls because my first name starts with two As and is often listed first in friends’ address books.  Now, I get a million invitations to completely irrelevant events on Facebook – again because my first name is listed at the top and people are just clicking away indiscriminately.  Life would just be so much easier if Karo was my first name instead of my last.  At the very least, people would be less likely to invite me to stupid shit if there was a chance the Facebook notification might accidentally go to a certain Armenian ultimate fighter.

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

-Why does the amount of time it takes my iPod to fully charge have absolutely no correlation to the amount of time it was actually in use?

-If I email you a document or other important information, just write back, “Thanks, got it.”  I hate when people don’t respond at all, leaving me to wonder whether my missive pierced the thicket of spam that clogs every inbox.  A mere acknowledgement would go a long way toward my peace of mind and your not being an asshole.

-One of the problems with sites like MySpace and Facebook is that there are just too many goddamn options and features.  Here’s a few things you should NOT be able to do: Caption a photo of you and your girl friends as “my beautiful ladies” when they’re all beat.  Post the phrases “It’s about time!” or “Finally!” to the wall of a friend who’s just now signing up.  Make your profile private if you’re a dude.  List your age as 99 years old.  List that you’re “married” to your best friend.  Post a profile photo of you and a celebrity.  Only post photos that make it difficult to extrapolate how hot you actually are.  (That last no-no is especially important, considering it’s the entire reason most of us non-Filipinos are on the site to begin with.)

-One type of technology I use very rarely is instant messaging.  This is only because I can’t stand to sit there waiting for a response, and most people are too slow.  If you want to IM with me, it needs to be rapid fire stream-of-consciousness.  Otherwise you’re just wasting time I could be spending wasting time on Facebook.

-I consider myself fairly tech-savvy.  I subscribe to Wired.  I spend about twelve hours a day online.  But I can’t write a lick of code.  And as I mentioned in Ruminations #86, I’m attracted to chicks who can do things I can’t do – which is why I’ve got a thing for doctors.  I’ve also got a thing for programmers.  The problem is, there’s got to be even fewer hot, female programmers in the world than there are hot, female doctors.  I’m really starting to limit myself.  I think my mom is getting worried that I might never meet someone.  Of course, I haven’t talked to her in a while since I’ve been on the phone with Apple tech support for the past week.

-My buddy Brian turns his TV’s closed captioning feature on whenever he’s watching Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Flight of the Conchords, or any other show where the characters have weird accents – because he has trouble understanding what they’re saying.  That’s just plain lazy.  The next step is to have me sit beside him and just tell him when to laugh.

-And, finally, while Facebook has been the spark behind more than a few hook-ups and relationships, to many its greatest resource is to provide post-break-up intelligence.  I get a kick out of watching jilted lovers scan the profiles of their exes, hoping for some clue as to how they’re getting along – obsessing over women that appear in their photo albums, searching for patterns in their wall posts, and analyzing their status updates for deeper meaning.  Thus another great irony is that, these days, we’re so connected that it’s easier to end an offline relationship than it is to end an online one.  We can break up but we can’t log off.  I still hope, though, that somewhere down the road, technology will make our lives truly more fulfilling – without all the hassle that comes along with it.  And when that happens, it’ll be OK to list my age as 99 years old – but only because by then it’ll actually be true.  Fuck me.

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