Nerd Alert!

In case you didn't know I will be on vacation next week. Costa Rica baby!!! I hope you are all jealous while you are sitting in your tiny cubicles, tiny offices, or open office environments. I, instead, will be swinging around the jungle canopy with the monkeys. Since I will be away I would like to leave you with something to think about and take with you throughout your life rather than just something you read once, laugh, and then go back to your interent porn.

Wow, what a segue. Speaking of interent porn, I got an email from my dad's friend the other day. The subject matter, surprisingly and unfortunately, was not interent porn. Instead, it was a quiz about everyday things that most people should know but don't. The questions included: "In which hand is the statue of liberty holding the torch?"; "What color stripe is at the top of the American flag?"; and "Which way does the water spin down the toilet?" I took exception to this last question because its status as an urban legend is well documented. There was even an episode of the Simpsons (Bart vs. Australia) when they go to Australia and the U.S. Embassy has a machine that makes sure the toilet flushes clockwise like back in the U.S.A.

Well let me give you the correct answer so you can tell anyone you run into what is actually going on. The truth lies with the French mathematician Gaspard-Gustave Colriolis (1792-1843) who discovered the phenomenom that bears his name: the Colriolis Effect. The truth is that if you imagine the Atlantic Ocean as a big toilet bowl, then yes, the water does spin clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. But on the scale of your American Standard toilet bowl, factors such as the geometry of the toilet; whether it is flat or tilted; and the direction in which water was initially added to it control which way the water drains. Sorry.

Armed with this new fact you can impress all of your friends at the bar with your knowledge of the world around you. Actually, you would probably get beaten up for knowing this so you should just keep it to yourself and have another beer. Mmmmm...beer.

P.S. The answers are right, red, clockwise.

Who is Jaleel White?

Hope everyone had a good week. I sure did. You know what they say, when the cat is away the mice will play. So much interent surfing. I even found time to fit in a yoga session. For those of you who know me it sure wasn't to help me relax because that is the last thing I need. I am doing it to increase my flexibility and and core strength.

This brings me to a quick little tangent which will lead us to a segue and eventually to today's post. Got all that? Please, come along.

(Tangent) I was talking to my buddy who is having his bachelor party this weekend. He asked me what I have been up to and I told him that I went to a yoga class. I told him that it was pretty hard because I am not that flexible and have never been able to touch my toes in my life. We both laughed and he said that he couldn't either and that it always prevented him from getting the Presidential Fitness Certificate in middle and high school gym class. One time he cheated though and got it.

(Segue) This is that same guy who almost won a car by making a half court shot at a Penn State basketball game.

(Today's Post) So this got me thinking. Remember all of those great tv shows from the late 80s/early 90s that involved some sort of David vs. Goliath sporting event? I can think of the Saved By The Bell episode where A.C. Slater wasn't sure he wanted to wrestle anymore and Screetch had to do it. Only right before getting his ass kicked Mario Lopez came out in his singlet and won the match.

Quick side note. Is there any doubt that Mario Lopez was taking steroids during that show? Nobody in my high school ever had muscles like that...unless they were taking steroids.


And my personal favorite. The episode of Family Matters where Steve Urkel hooks up with Grandma Ma (aka former Charlotte Hornet Larry Johnson) to beat Eddie Winslow after Eddie wouldn't take Steve on his team. So what does all of this have to do with today's post? Why is the gym in any tv show always so small. One dribble and they are across half court? There is always one row of bleachers and that's it. Do the producers think we won't notice such inaccuracies? I sure do and it just drives me nuts. At least the gym in Teen Wolf was big!

Fun Fact: Jaleel White is best friends with the much maligned former Philadelphia Eagle Freddie Mitchell from their times spent together at UCLA.

Hey Fellow Writers, Listen Up

I know, I know. You are anxiously waiting for a new post so you can keep abreast of my weekend adventures. Was it another gay man trying to pick me up? Nope, sorry everyone. This weekend was an adventure of a different kind. It was a adventure for all of the senses. I ventured down to New York City for a Paul Van Dyk concert in Central Park. In case you don't know, Paul Van Dyk is one of the most popular djs in the entire world. He plays really fast techno music and just kicks ass. I am sad to say but I think it just supplanted the Men At Work concert I saw at Penn State. My appologies to Colin Hay.

Anyway, on to the post. This is actually something that has bothered me for years but I never had the forum to express my true feelings. I guess as I walking down the street in New York City with all of the advertising and publishing in the air, it struck a nerve in my head where this thorn had been residing for so many years.

So, I am assuming you have all opened a magazine in your lifetime. If you haven't, then you should stop reading right now and go jump out your window because you have nothing to live for. Well the ad wizards at the publishing houses do their best to design a cover each month with flashy graphics and big words to catch your eye so you will drop the $3.95 on their magazine and not the other one right next to it that is basically the same but with a different title.

For example, you see on the cover of People a picture of Jessica Simpson and the words "Simpson Caught Topless, Exclusive Photos". Well any guy will instantly pick that one over the Mens Health with yet another way to get that 6 pack. Weights, Cardio, and Diet in case you are wondering. There, I just saved you $3.95. And any woman will pick it up because for some reason women are more interested in the lives of celebrities than their own but that certianly is the subject of another post.

So you quickly thumb through 15 pages of ads for makeup and find the table of contents. Your eyes quickly scan for the word Jessica, Simpson, or Topless. Bang. Page 60. This is where I have a huge problem. Why does the publisher decide that he is only going to randomly put page numbers in? You thumb through and notice the numbers go from 21, skip about 13 pages, 34, and that's it. I think this is the most frustrating thing in the world. At least Playboy makes the centerfold a little thicker so you can get right to that without having to even look at the table of contents or page numbers. They also put the other two pictorials right after those awesome cartoons; one before and one after the centerfold...just in case you were wondering. But I'm sure my male readers already knew that.

So what can you take away from this? I am actually directing this towards a few of you specifically who work in publishing or aspire to. It's really quite simple: be more like Hugh Hefner.

I Miss The Seasons

I would to begin by taking some time to thank my loyal readers. I have always jokingly used the phrase "all my readers" in my posts. Just in case you are too stupid to pick up on the sarcasm I will explain it for you. I was always under the impression that the only people who read my blog were my ex-girlfriend, my brother, and my brother's friend. In the last week or so many of you have come forward to tell me that you not only read the blog but really enjoy it. Some have even said it makes their boring day at work tolerable. It's hard to know how many of you out there read it when most (all) of you don't leave comments and as far as I know there are no Neilson ratings for blogs. I think mine would be near the top. So thank you and keep reading...I will do my best to continue giving give you a reason to get up in the morning. Now on to the post.

Hope everyone had a pleasant weekend. Mine was filled with drunken X-pong and trampolining. It was most triumphant. In case you don't know, X-pong is the beer pong (Beirut if you are from New England) for the 21st century and was invented by yours truly and some other Pointe members during my senior year at Penn State. Please let me know if you would like to know how to play.

Anyway, I was talking to my ex-girlfriend about how we both still miss Hawaii as she saw Jake Shimabukuro at the Jimmy Buffett concert last week in Boston. He is only the greatest ukelele playing Japanese kid ever. Anyway, it got me thinking about my time in Hawaii and how I used to complain that I missed the seasons while I was there. Of course, once I moved back to the Northeast and it got cold out I realized how stupid that was and promptly slapped myself for ever leaving.

Note: I will try to include more interesting and perplexing questions in my posts. I noticed that recently a theme has been developing: Jordon getting hit on by men.

So my question is this: you have wintertime, you have springtime, and you have summertime; but where is falltime or autumntime? Did Webster forget to include this entry? Has anyone ever researched this? Of course, as I said previously, all of this confusion would be irrelevant if I still lived in Hawaii where there are no seasons. It's either raining or it's not. And you can stand in line at the deli counter at the supermarket in just a bathing suit but that's another post. Hope you have a great week!

America The Stupid

I just flew in from Staten Island and boy are my arms tired. I always thought that joke was really funny and I was looking for a post to slip it in to so there you go. My summer of trudging along the coast of New York City came to end yesterday in the lovely borough of Staten Island. In case you were wondering, Staten Island is very nice. The whole southern shore is beach with a boardwalk, big houses, and your token old man doing tai-chi in a speedo. I know what you're thinking but you are wrong...this post had nothing to do with me getting hit on by the speedo-clad Mr. Miyagi.

I was finally able to get to the gym at a normal hour yesterday and enjoy all of the eye candy. The pre-5 o'clock crowd is usually the senior circuit getting in a workout before heading to Friendly's for the early bird special. After pumping iron for a while it was time to do my 45 minutes of cardio. Usually I use a machine in the back row so I can look at all the girl's butts but Family Feud was on so I decided to watch that instead.

It was one of the old ones with Richard Dawson, fresh off his stint on Match Game '78. So the question was "When playing charades, name a way to imitate a dog." Easy right? Shake your butt as if you have a tail; roll over; go up on your hind legs and stick your tongue out. For some reason the number one answer remained hidden as family number one couldn't get the answer. Time for family two to steal. They go down the line. The family captain says, "Richard, I'm gonna go out by myself here and say..."

I'll tell what she said in a minute but first a little tangent. How does the family decide who is going to be the captain? It's a lot of responsibility. Do they vote? You know one of the other four is really pissed that they didn't get picked because they wanted more face time on national television. I always thought it was funny that the wild, family outcast was always put at the end of the table. It was usually the teenage son or crazy uncle. But I digress...

"Richard, I'm gonna go out by myself here and say...bark." Do I see "bark"? Ding. Congratualtions Johnson family, time for big money. Stop the presses folks. Last time I played charades you certainly couldn't talk, let alone make barking noises. What kind of crazy charades was the studio audience playing? Way to go America, out of 100 people, you are all stupid.