Jokes I've Made at Work That Were Way Funnier Than Anyone Acted (Part 1)

Today in an important meeting someone asked what unit of measure a "Tsubo" was. I correctly guessed Japan (I watch a lot of Jeopardy). The follow up question was: "What is the basis for the measurement"? My response was: "The length of a samurai sword?".

Silence.

Turns out a Tsubo is actually the length of a rice mat, that has a uniform length. In other news, no one thinks I'm funny.

Soreness

I am devastatingly sore. It's not a surprise to me. I know the reason why: I played soccer for the first time in over a year yesterday. I expected to be a little sore, but I didn't expect to be awkwardly hobbling around the office today. So I ask the question: "Hey my body, what gives?"

A little history for you: I used to be pretty out of shape. Even now I wouldn't consider myself an Alpha Male phyiscal speciman. But I ran a 5k with relative ease three weeks ago, and I regularly run on a treadmill. And not the "regulary" that people tell the dentist when they say they "regularly" floss. I mean I run for about 30 minutes (sometimes more) about 3-4 times a week. And yes I stretched before and after playing soccer yesterday.

I feel like this (sans diaper).

You'd think that I'd be safe with regular exercise and stetching. But sadly I am hobbled and bruised and the first game of the season is tomorrow. I feel like a freshman that's so excited for a party on Friday that he pregames himself into oblivion and vomits himself to sleep before he can even leave his dorm.

I did some quick research and yes, there is in fact a wikipedia page for Muscle Soreness*. It's pretty boring stuff. I'd reccomend reading this wikipedia entry instead:  Most Confusing Concept Ever.

*Accidentally typed "Muscle SCORENESS" about 15 times.

Video Game Review: Track and Field

I first stumbled upon Track and Field while perusing the (at that point) small number of Xbox Arcade games available for download. In the early days, there weren't a lot of third party software companies making games specifically for Xbox Arcade. Instead, Xbox chose to port old arcade games to fill out the game roster. How they got the rights to a game that was originally released for NES, I do not know. All I know is that I wanted to buy a new game, and I didn't feel like handing 60 dollars to a chubby kid with a beard in a sweaty Gamestop polo. Are they all virgins? I'm not sure, but it would explain why every summer I was refused a job at Gamestop. I'm convinced the fact that I had seen a vagina was working against me.

Track and Field is essentially an arcade version of the Olympics. The gameplay is simple. There are six events (yup! A full six events!) that all require you to run and then perform an action. In order to run you wiggle the joystick back and forth as fast as you can. To perform an action you press A (on the Xbox). Each event has a qualifying time or distance that you need to beat.

Hey look! I qualified!

The first event is the 100 meter dash. If you have a pulse and one functioning thumb, moving the joystick back and forth quickly enough to qualify in under 16 seconds is easy. The next two events are basically the same thing: the long jump and the javelin. You wiggle the joystick as fast as you can, then press the action button to jump or throw before the fault line. The longer you hold the action button down for, the greater the angle of leaping or throwing. Each of these events gives you three tries to qualify, but chances are you will have no problem qualifying on your first try during these incredible easy events. With the first three events under your belt, you're probably thinking "Hey this game isn't so hard, I wonder why I spent 1000 Microsoft Points* on this...". I can measure my life in terms of the time before I attempted the fourth event and the time after I attempted the fourth event. Nothing was ever the same.

The fourth event is hurdles. The mechanics of the event are nearly the same as the 100 meter dash: wiggle the joystick a fast as you can, timing your jumps over the hurdles with the action button. In theory its simple, but if you make one mistake (ranging from not running fast enough between hurdles, knocking over a hurdle, slightly catching a hurdle on a jump) you are pretty much guaranteed failure. So you're probably thinking "Oh that's not so bad, if you don't qualify you can always try again!". You would be wrong to think that. If you fail to qualify at any point in Track and Field, you have to start over from the beginning. Again, this doesn't sound so bad, but the first three events are maddeningly easy, lulling you into a false sense of security until you get to the hurdles. Compacting this problem is that the long jump and the javelin are identical events, with three tries each. Meaning on average you need to play the game for almost 10 minutes real time, before you get a single chance to try the hurdles again. Most likely you will fail, and need to start over.

This guy has two more hurdles to go, and he's already .25 seconds too slow to qualify.

I've beaten the hurdles well under 10 times (exact figures are hard to come by, as I was high a lot in college). The fifth event is the hammer throw which requires you to spin around as fast as you can, throw a hammer in the right direction and throw the hammer far enough to qualify. You get three tries, but I've never qualified. I had to look up what the sixth event was because I've never played it. It's the high jump. Chances are I'll never get to try it. Chances are you'll never get to try it either, unless of course you are Asian, or have surgically attached Asian hands.

It may sound like I'm complaining about Track and Field, and that I hate the game. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's incredibly addictive and challenging. I recommend it for any stoner out there, or anyone with kids. Or you could be neither (like me) and still enjoy it for some sadomasochistic reason. The safeword is "Vintage"

*Upcoming rant about Micrsoft Points to come. Hopefully featuring an interview with an expert on the subject, lets call him "Beardy"



No way man! She was cute!

There comes a point in every man's life when he learns he is completely unable to verify whether or not a girl is attractive when he is black out drunk. The lesson is learned early for some, others never learn it or are aware of it and simply choose to ignore it. I had an experience when I was 21 years old that should've made me realize how completely incapable I am of judging how hot a girl is whilst blacked out (a story deserved of its own post). I didn't learn my lesson. Not until 2 years later, at my 5 year high school reunion.

I was playing wingman for a friend who was persuing some former high school crush. I should also mention how reluctant I was to attend my own reunion, fueling my need to get as drunk as possible. So there I am, drunkingly talking to this girl's friends, slowly losing any sense of the world around me, propped up only by large quantities of adderall. When suddenly one of the girl's friends that I hadn't noticed before starts hitting on me hard.

It's dark. I'm wasted. I'm into it.

The predictable happens and we end up making out HARD at the bar. I'm told it was a sight to behold. Luckily it was at the end of the night, in a PACKED room. So the event went mostly unnoticed (I hope). Unluckily, someone snapped a candid of us together. In my defense, she looks cute in the picture.

I have very little recollection of the rest of the night. All I remember is "coming to" in her apartment (which was near the bar), realizing I needed to get out of there, and planning to go on a date with her. Did I mention she was a virgin? A blessing in disguise because int he moment I didn't want to take her virginity. And after the fact, I'm grateful my penis was nowhere near her.

More predictability followed. I accept her friend request, realized how big of a mistake I made, and made sure I never saw her again. My big idea of going on a date was quickly brushed under the table (I was looking for girlfriend material at the time), brought up only by my more malicious friends. My friend's attempts with his high school crush petered out (although they were wonderfully aided by my wingman skills - which I will never let him forget), and I never had to see her again.

For the most part I have no regrets. When you're blacked out and on drugs, you do a lot of things you normally wouldn't do. Isn't that why you put yourself into that state in the first place? But I know that, at least for myself, I will always need a second opinion on any girl I'm hitting on. And like any exercise, its much safer with a spotter.