the tree of woe

We got a new phonebook yesterday.

Actually, I was a little surprised. Who uses phonebooks anymore? Certainly not I. Being the cutting edge, Web 2.0 fellow that I am, I always use Goog-411 to find the numbers I’m looking for. When that inevitably fails, (“I said HOME DEPOT… HOOOOOOME DEEEEEEE…) I go straight to Google. After scrolling through ten pages of useless, unrelated stuff, I give up.

I refuse to use a phonebook, despite its clear advantages. For example, there is a pizza coupon on the front. I’d never, ever use it, as I’d feel self conscious trotting about town with my measly phonebook coupon clutched tightly in my fist. If you have multiple places to look up, sometimes you can save some real time. Need a plumber and a podiatrist? Same page, my friend. Need a sign and a silversmith? Better yet, need a sign made of silver? The phonebook has it all and more. Take, for example, the wonderful ad on the back cover. It’s an ad for a law firm that specializes in (what else?) “serious injury claims.” They will help you with various injuries, such as:

• Automobile
• Slip & Fall
• Construction Site
• Dog Attacks
• Defective Products
• Pedestrian … ?

So if you’re ever walking through a construction site and you slip and fall, causing you to drive the Slim Jim you were eating into your eye, the scent of which causes some nearby dogs to attack your face, and then a pedestrian… steps on you… or something… you can really clean up with these people helping you out. Maybe by “pedestrian” they actually mean a boring, run of the mill serious injury claim. It’s hard to tell. I’d call them, but Goog-411 can’t find them, and I refuse to use the printed number out of pride.

I guess we’ll never know.

Seaworld still exists, which is news to me. I guess I had assumed they had all closed at some point, due to the closing of the Seaworld in Cleveland, which brings me to my point:

What was a Seaworld doing in Cleveland?

I’m pretty sure all the Seaworlds were in coastal cities, but Cleveland was the only one not on the ocean. Were they suggesting that they found that killer whale and all of those dolphins in Lake Erie? There are lots of things in Lake Erie, but healthy marine life is not one of them, let alone ocean-going, salt water marine life. At the age of eight, I failed to question all of this.

If we’re going to have inappropriately located theme parks, then I’m opening up a wildlife preserve in downtown Detroit, a year round waterpark in Fairbanks, and a Disney themepark in Paris. Ludicrous.

Firstly, I want to apologize to my readers with more delicate sensibilities.

Good. Now that that’s out of the way, why do some guys flush urinals nonstop? I encountered one such fellow today who flushed no fewer than three times. Does he require the sound of running water in order to evacuate his bladder? Or can he not stand the thought of his “waste” remaining stationary, even for just a moment?

Those are the only two explanations I can think of. In either case, I suggest next time he find himself a running creek or a river or something, and leave the rest of us in peace.

I’ve been reading a lot of Shakespeare recently. The comedies are hilarious. Check this out:

BENEDICK

Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?

BEATRICE

Yea, and I will weep a while longer.

BENEDICK

I will not desire that.

BEATRICE

You have no reason; I do it freely.

BENEDICK

Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.

Ha! Get it? “Your fair cousin is wronged”? Awesome. Adam Sandler would be a great Benedick.

One of the many things I plan on doing with my millions – just as soon as I acquire said millions – will be to hire a personal shopper to accompany me everywhere I go (to shop.) I will not be hiring just any personal shopper. I will hire Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon.com.

I imagine we will walk into a store together. Bezos (That’s what I call him) will say to me, “Hello, Kevin! We have recommendations for you. Not Kevin?”

“Uhm, hello, Bezos. Look, you don’t need to say hello, we drove together, and what kind of sentence is ‘Not Kevin?’ ” He will stare at me blankly. ”Look, Bezos, I’m just here for a new memory card for my camera.” We’d walk over to a display of memory cards, and I’d grab one off of the shelf. “This one looks good.”

“If you buy that item, you can also buy a Kingston 19-in-1 USB 2.0 Flash Memory Card Reader  and a Kingston 4 GB SDHC Class 4 Flash Memory Card for only $46.42,” says Bezos.

“Yeah… no thanks. Just the card will be fine.”

“After viewing the item in your hand, it was purchased by 78% of shoppers. 8% bought the SanDisk 4 GB Extreme III CompactFlash Card, and 5% bought the Kingston Elite Pro 16 GB 133x CompactFlash Memory Card…”

“Okay, Bezos, that’s great. Thanks.”

“Customers who bought that item also bought the Canon EOS 50D 15.1MP Digital SLR Camera with EF 28-135mm lens for $1,299.00″

“Wow, Bezos. Nope, I’m pretty sure I’m just buying this one thing. Didn’t really plan on dropping over a grand today.”

“Here are all forty five reviews for this product…”

And with that, I’d have to fire Bezos. “No hard feelings, Bezos. I will be needing your nametag back, though.”