The Adventures of Chris

A few days ago, I admitted to co-workers that I’m a huge fan of Beauty and the Beast (the movie) and the soundtrack.  I admitted that I’m such a fan that I even own the soundtrack on CD.  I was ridiculed, with some co-workers even mockingly singing “Be..our..Guest!”

I came home that same evening and listened to the soundtrack.  You’d think the ridicule at work would somehow diminish my enjoyment, even making me feel foolish or immature while listening to it.   Not even close.  The soundtrack was better than I remembered.  Everything about the music is melodic and magical.  It completely kicks ass.  It’s not even a question.  Even the prologue, where the guy tells the story, is amazing.  I mean, the guy is just talking.  How’s he making it sound so cool??
But that’s just the beginning!  C’mon, “Belle” is the all-time greatest opening song for an animated movie ever, especially the part two minutes and thirty seconds in where Belle sings the line about the plot in her favorite book (this theme also reappears at the one minute mark of “Something There”.)  Also, Mrs. Potts’ version of the title track is awesome and so much better than the “human” version.   I also think the beginning of “Transformation” is incredible (this is where the Beast collapses after being stabbed by Gaston).  I remember seeing the movie and thinking that the music was literally perfect, recapping the themes in a way that perfectly reflected the emotions of the scene.  DAMN this soundtrack is so awesome.
I’m sure I wrote this exact same blog entry a few years ago but I don’t care.

Reason number 1,525,142 that my job is stupid:  It is almost impossible for bad things to happen to my boss without somehow trickling down to us.  Today my boss got his work clothes stolen out of his locker at his super fancy gym during his lunchtime session with his trainer (yeah he has a trainer).  So the boss walked back into the office wearing his gym clothes and was very embarrassed (he’s not secure enough to deal with that).  Everyone was amused because he has enough bad karma for 10 lifetimes and because despite the fact that he buys expensive clothes, he still looks like an idiot.  Even though everyone was amused at the clothes getting stolen, that was quickly erased by the boss taking his bad mood out on everyone else.

Reason number 2,623,053 that my job is stupid: My boss thinks he’s the greatest legal writer in the world but just so happens to be the worst legal writer in the world.  The boss passed out a memo discussing good legal writing today.  It was so “good” that it contained sections that were unintelligible and filled with incomplete sentences.

I don’t like St. Patrick’s Day (”SPD”).  It’s the holiday that I feel the least connected to because it’s an Irish holiday, and although I’m not sure about any genealogical basis for this, I feel like I’ve got absolutely nothing in common with the Irish people.  This is besides the fact that one of them is a really funny guy who’s entertained me at 12:30 for the last 13 years (Conan).  Other than that, I’ve got nothing.  They’re from a cold, wet place (Ireland) and I’m from a warm, dry place (LA) and I’m one degree away from a warm, wet place (Hong Kong, Taiwan).  They’re pale, I’m brown.  They have red and brown hair, I have black hair. They’re racist, I’m…not as racist.  They love drinking and I don’t love drinking.
The latter issue is the basis for another reason that I dislike SPD.  Ive always thought that drinking in large quantities is not that cool.  If you have money, you can drink a lot.  What’s so good about that?  It’s like bragging that you smoked 200 cigarettes in a day or bought 100 pairs of designer jeans in a day.  I mean, I like a good drunk-person story just like anyone else, but that’s just a form of laughing at someone else’s expense, which I’m always up for.  I’ve always thought that people that treated drinking like it’s cooler than it is are idiots and SPD is an excuse for all of these types of people to go out and collectively be idiots.  So, to me, going out on SPD is merely a chance to pay money to hang out in close proximity to people that annoy the crap out of me.
Another thing that bugs me is anyone who wears Irish-themed shirts.  Like “Kiss me I’m Irish” or “Irish Today, Hungover Tomorrow.”   One problem is that it glorifies the kind of drinking mentality that I think is stupid. Another problem is that only a small sliver of the population is Irish and the shirts are misleading (I know that’s lame sounding but really, it’s true).  Another problem is that it glorifies Irish people, and really, what have they ever done?  Fine, they created the market for higher SPF suntan lotion, but what else?

The end.

I was trying to figure out what of my shopping vices is the biggest waste of money.  My apartment is an embarrassment, but I do spend a few minutes a day thinking about what I’d like to buy if I had more money (this doesn’t include real estate or a BMW M3).

I came up with a preliminary list of big ticket items that I would like to waste more money on if I could afford to:

- watches

- jackets

- shoes (both dress and athletic)

- high-end home audio equipment

- Awesome TV’s

- Computers (super powerful ones, both big and small)

- custom tailored clothing
There are other things, but I narrowed this list down to these 6 because I figured these are the most wasteful in the sense that you don’t really get any extra utility out of owning more than 1-2 of these things.  Camera equipment almost made the list but I think you actually do get more utility out of owning different lenses.  But I’d like to own a lot of these things.

So of these 6 things, I tried to figure out the most wasteful item.  It’s tough.  I figure jackets probably aren’t the most useless, since you can get jackets of varying warmth (as frigid as Southern California is).  Plus if it gets really cold, you could wear them all on top of each other to form a super jacket.  Shoes probably aren’t either because there is some faint utility by owning shoes that match different outfits and/or social occasions.  Computers do things too, so they’re out.  Now I’m down to watches, high end audio equipment, custom tailored clothing and awesome TV’s.  This is too tough to split.  I want to go with watches, but I just don’t know.

This is what I do in my spare time.  And yes Susan, I know that giving to charity would be so much more beneficial to the world.

I’m such a huge fan of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ new album.  I’m also a fan of Neko Case’s album and the Morning Benders album.  The Little Joy album is pretty good too.  I’m not as big a fan of the new U2 album.  I’m a huge fan of Ludacris’ “One More Drink.”  It’s a real song, but I couldn’t have written a better song if I had to write a parody for some sketch comedy show.  Plus, “Luda” is so articulate.  He enunciates so damn well.

My brother and I have been working on compiling a list of songs that are “necessary to own.”  Actually, that label is misleading - the songs on the list are songs that we’ve never had the initiative to get, but we’re occasionally reminded of how awesome they are.  But they’re not awesome enough to compel us to get them.  So we just think about getting them.  Two examples are Air Supply’s “All out of Love” and Tears for Fears’ “Head over Heels.”  Basically these are songs that you’d hear on KOST or KBIG (i.e. Roxette’s “It Must Have Been Love”), at some karaoke joint (Mariah Carey’s “Dreamlover”), at a wedding (Earth Wind and Fire’s “Let’s Groove”) or in a taxi cab in a foreign country (Culture Club’s “Karma Chameleon”)  The list is getting pretty extensive.

I almost never read nowadays, since my job requires me to read for 12 hours a day.  But I did read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.  That guy can really write some entertaining stuff.  I don’t think this particular book told me a lot of things I didn’t know, but there were a few gems, most notably the part about airline pilots.  The book also made me feel like I was a loser who should be taking more chances in life.  I’m trying to read Food Matters by Mark Bittman, but 20 pages in and I’m getting discouraged.  Apparently everything I eat is bad and I should be trading all of my food in for whole grains, nuts, legumes and fish.  I hate how things like whole grains, nuts and legumes are suddenly so good for you.  I grew up eating white bread, avoiding nuts because I thought they’d give me zits and shunning beans because I thought they’d make me fart.  Now everything is upside down.  Now I want zits and farts, and I can never order a sandwich on white bread without feeling bad about it.  I just don’t get why scientists can’t figure stuff like this out faster.  I could have had it easier in life.  My kids are going to grow up loving bean and nut sandwiches on whole grain bread.

Since I got back from my vacation, I’ve been working really late, especially this month.  You know that stereotype that lawyers spend 15 hours at the office, eat dinner at their desks and then come back, come back to their sweet pad and then collapse, only to wake up 6 hours later to do the same thing over again?  I’m just like that except for the sweet pad part.  Let me give you an example.  I’ve had “return items to Costco” on my list of things to do for the last month.  Costco closes at 8:30pm and I can’t get there in time (Costco’s hours actually aren’t that great).  But that’s besides the point, the point is, I’m working a ton.

The surprising thing is that working a ton isn’t really bothering me.  Part of it is that my boss runs a per-hour pay scheme that is extremely rare in the industry, and in my opinion, borderline illegal.  Part of is that I don’t have any friends where I live and my wife lives in a different part of the state.  But the main thing is…that I actually sort of like it (well, “it” being some parts of litigation).
I hate my boss.  That’s never going to change.   But I do like trying to outmaneuver, outwit and out-logic (that’s not a word) someone else.  When my boss isn’t getting in my way, and when I’m not doing completely inane things that are necessary for litigation, I’m getting paid to compete and, sometimes, to try to convince someone else that I’m right.  Like today for example, I had to reply to a ton of arguments in one case, so I literally spent 12 hours outlining logical counterattacks and then putting them in written form.  I know it sounds like a pain in the ass but for me it was the opposite….of a pain the ass (I don’t know what that is).  But it was…fun.

The reason for the title of this blog post is derived from a concern I have.  I’m a naturally competitive person who “loves logic” (more on this later) and who is suffering from a constantly strengthening belief that I’m almost always right.  For me, working in litigation just feeds all of these tendencies.  It’s nuts.  It may not be healthy.  It’s…[drum roll] like an alcoholic getting a job working as a bartender (that’s the title of this post).  Actually that’s stupid.  It’s more like an alcoholic getting a job as a beer taster.  This is why writing without editing is a problem.
Btw, one reason I’m doing this 30 minute posting race is because I’m actually too tired to do anything else after working so much this week.

I’m going to try to write individual blog entries for the next 30 minutes, nonstop.  I’m not even going to edit the entries.  Okay, only necessary editing for egregious spelling, punctuation and grammar errors.

I’d like to report a personal first for me.  Last week I went to Target to buy feminine products.  This was a fully legitimate mission into completely uncharted territory where I was armed only with a shopping list and my jittery self-confidence (complete with thoughts like “c’mon man, you’re married now, this is ok….right?”)

I went to Target on a Friday night.  Apparently it was “moms shopping alone and teenage guys kicking it at Target” night.  Probably the worst night to go on your first feminine products-buying expedition.  I was self-conscious so I first parked my cart outside the aisle and then slipped into the aisle when it was unoccupied.

I looked down at the list at item number one and immediately panicked.  The first item didn’t have a brand name!  But the panic was short-lived, as I realized that Target pretty much only carries one brand of pads and tampons (what happened to Kotex and Stayfree?  I knew those brands!)  Problem solved.

But then I realized that there are twenty types of pads and all of the packages look the same.  Nightmare.  So I look down at the list and went for the first descriptor.  Check.  Ok.  Then I looked for descriptor 2…but then I realized that although all of the packages look really similar, they can contain totally different products.  For instance, wings.  C’mon, even I know that wings change everything.  Why isn’t the entire box of pads with wings shaped like a bird’s wing or something???  (Yes I now realize that the regular maxis are sold in packages that are as big as bales of hay, but still)
I then realized another problem - not only were there different descriptive words, those words are translated into different languages.  Is that really necessary?  They can’t make different boxes for different countries?  Will a non-English speaking person really not be able to figure out the difference between a “super” and a “normal?”  I think “normal” is actually “normal” or “regular” in Spanish.  It’s the same word.  Why is this translation necessary?  You’d think extra information could never hurt, but having the translations of each word makes the packaging tougher to read and distinguish.

Then I noticed that they sell different numbers of certain kinds of pads.  For instance, a package of normal pads contains 16 pads, but a package of super pads only has 14.  I’m sure this is common sense to any girl, but I had to actually check to make sure I wasn’t messing up by buying the wrong number.  I ended up realizing that it made sense to sell less supers because those probably have more material and are probably more expensive.

Finally, I realized one extremely helpful thing - they package different types of pads into different colored wrappers.  That’s a fantastic idea.  Really amazing idea.  I love that idea.   I finally had my product.

Now I was only halfway done.

I started on the tampon section.  I found these slightly easier to navigate, probably because the packaging is just a little big easier to distinguish (kudos to the Tampax box design team).  But the tampon section leads to…a lot of questions for guys.  I mean, we know how tampons are used…but we don’t really know how tampons are used.  And there’s nothing that makes a guy realize that more then staring at a wall of tampons.  I had tons of thoughts rushing through my head such as “cardboard applicator?  That can’t feel good…” and “pearl…now that sounds nice.”

Unfortunately, the needless translation of terms occurs with tampons too.  Let’s see, Regular is “regulier”, “lite” is “light” and tampons are “tampones.”   Tampones?

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity (but was probably no more than 5 minutes), a mom-type person walked by, looked at me, and laughed.  I figured this would happen, but I realized that she laughed because I had the most incredulous look plastered on my face as I was staring at two “combo” packs of tampons.  That must have looked funny.  That look on my face was totally genuine and involuntary.

I finally figured it all out.  I felt great leaving the aisle with products in the cart.  Almost triumphant.
And of course I screwed up and bought the wrong combo pack.