Witz Pickz: Auto Lights On and Airport Oddities...

You ever walk into an office bathroom and the automatic lights go on, and just get excited? There's a kind of freedom in that that you can't find anywhere else in public. I immediately start having crazy ideas of what I'm gonna do-- rollerblade, play some wiffleball, watch a movie on my laptop, maybe set some traps for future "guests." Maybe you take a look in the GIANT mirror that's all yours and start to get crazy ideas about choreographing a dance or stage jump, or play a little air guitar. If you're like me, you take the opportunity to open wide and snoop out your tonsils, just to get a good look at the next week-- it's like the Punxsutawney Phil on Groundhog's Day, if my tonsils are red, spring and life are on their way, if they're white, it's gonna be a long unhealthy winter. If you don't need to check your future health, maybe get some crazy faces going-- because nothing makes you feel more free in the workplace than making INSANE, ridiculous, faces into a giant mirror in the bathroom. That is, until someone walks in and sees you mid Crazy Face and you have to fake like you were doing something reasonable, like flossing (which is difficult without floss) or...fighting lockjaw. I like to freeze everything completely as I am and say as clearly as possible with my frozen face, "There's a spider somewhere in here!" Try sauntering up casually to the urinal now, buddy. Inevitably, someone DOES walk in, and the freedom is gone, back to the world, without a single movie watched, ball wiffled, or blade rolled. That is why it is so exciting to begin with. Potential.

It's important to note that the "excitement" of the auto-light entry into the bathroom only applies to work hours of 8am-6pm. After hours, the "excitement" should turn to "terror and paranoia." Instead of "endless possibilities for fun" there is "a good chance of murder and death." Even if you check under all the stalls you don't feel safe, because who knows what's lurking or might enter the room? Have you ever tried to pee INTIMIDATINGLY? It's very difficult-- I don't care if you're a guy or a girl. You have to exude an air of authority and rage, as if to say, "Yeah, I'm getting rid of this and when that's done I'm getting rid of YOU!" Now, as a guy, try doing that over your shoulder while you face the toilet/urinal. The result is almost always a cross between Zoolander and Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Maybe you think you're saying, "Fuck off," but what the rest of the world interprets that look as is, "I'm passing a kidney stone."

Whether you're during office hours or not, the key is to make sure that you're aware of the situation when those lights go on. Make sure no one else is in there with you if you're gonna start to get your Drumline on. Don't go running around the bathroom recreating Stomp before you make sure there's no one in the handicapped stall. The only thing more awkward than being caught looking ridiculous in the bathroom is being someone in the bathroom when the lights go out. That pretty much means that they have been completely inactive and motionless for 10+ minutes, but they're cool with it. That's when the excitement of the auto lights on, turns into the bastion of the auto lights off. Please someone name your band Auto Lights Off.

Airport Oddity:
Ever read the instruction manual to A BACKPACK? I know an elderly woman who has! In the airport yesterday while waiting for my inevitably delayed flight, I watched as an old lady literally read her backpack instruction manual from cover to cover-- and loved it. Her slightly embarrassed looking husband sat coolly a couple seats away, and tried to hide the annoyance in his voice when she said something to him like,

"Oh, look at this! They elastisized this strap so it fits tight around your chest!"
"How 'bout that," he responded less than enthused.
"What do you think this clip is for?" she inquired.
"That's for clipping most anything to, I imagine," he replied, losing some of his authority.
"Well, look at this! This zipper is actually a way to expand the inner pocket!" she trilled, VERY excited by the development.
"Uh-huh," he quipped, clearly a man who was well aware of expanding backpack pocket zippers.

And she went on like this, every now and then exclaiming excitedly about a basic backpack feature. "They have these small pockets on the sides for your cell phone or whatever else you'd like to put there! Look how this secures around your waist! Look how your water bottle can go in this mesh pocket!" It was literally like she had never seen a mildly recent backpack. I obviously got all excited, thinking that this was a rich couple who might hire me to teach them very very basic tasks and equipment usage (i.e. my dream job of teaching the Lost Boys of Sudan how to use things like microwaves, and other basic actions that I'm fucking great at). I played out a whole fantasy of me showing her how you can hang the backpack on a hook from that top strap, and having her demand I go with them to the Bahamas before returning to their mansion in California where I would have a floor to myself, a recording studio in the basement, and all I had to do in return was astound them with my expertise of the digital cable.

Automatic Lights Are Robbing Me of A Skill To Teach the Elderly and the Newly Immigrated,
Witz

P.S. Sorry for the no posts the last few days, my good friends and Witz Pickz readers are getting married tomorrow, so I've been busy leaving and arriving. Congratulations to Jeff and Karina (aka J-Kow and K-Ray in posts), to whom I say, congrats, good luck, and I'm as baffled as you are that I chose the vegetarian option...L'Chaim!

Witz DOESN'T Pick: Air Travel, Evan Almighty, and MORE

Sorry for the lack of posts the last couple days, I was travelling and so I figured I'd make up for it with a post on Saturday (unorthodox to the max!). One might call it The Saturday Post, but that might get confusing and infringe on copyrights-- or cause the ghost of Norman Rockwell to haunt me, pastorally and in the simplest of ways. I bet it'd be quaint as hell.

Evan Almighty: Let me first say that I wasn't a fan of Bruce Almighty, but when I saw Steve Carrell and Wanda Sykes were in a movie together, I ignored the franchise involvement and decided I wanted to see the movie...on DVD...preferably for free. After rocking a 30-Day free Netflix trial, I realized this scenario was entirely possible, and hastily added Evan Almighty to the queue. It arrived, and still filled with mild interest, I brought it over to My Friend With A Pool's apartment to watch (because if you ain't watchin' Evan Almighty on a nice, big tv, you just aren't watching Evan Almighty-- *this statement will be soon disproved). So we watch the movie and guess what? It's not very good. It has the occasional giggle moment and Steve Carrell nailed one or two jokes as did Wanda Sykes, but overall, it was lame, cutesie, and a lot of the jokes were ill-advised. The first two parts were not unexpected, but the joke quality should have been higher. Anyway, once I realized the movie wasn't very good, I was sitting and thinking about it and came to a realization that I should have thought of and been wary of earlier: Evan is not Almighty. Bruce-- now HE was Almighty, that was the point of the movie. God gave him His powers for the duration, and Bruce had to deal with shit, ultimately coming to realization, as all must, that when handed the powers of God, and put under duress, one can ultimately devise a system for handling God's business and do alright with the whole thing. Good moral. Evan, however, was not given God's powers. No, instead, Evan was given impediments to his everyday life, and asked to build an outdated naval vehicle, i.e. an ark. God makes him build an ark so that his family will bond with a family activity, to ruin John Goodman's political career, and so the word "ark" is in people's minds when they come out with Indiana Jones 4. Given no powers beyond freakishly fast growing hair and beard, and potato sack robes (which came first, potato sacks or sack robes?), Evan has to use all the tools and supplies God gives him to build the ark. Nevermind that it would be quite the undertaking with modern tools and, say, a metal tanker, but he has to do it with old timey tools and wood. Oh, but animals will help, no big deal. Oh, and when those animals literally help BUILD AN ARK, people will still doubt that Evan is doing God's bidding. He's just good with animals, I guess. Idiots. Regardless, they shouldn't have pushed the Almighty Franchise (pun deliciously intended), because it makes no sense beyond the excessiveness of Morgan Freeman. They should have called it Evan Of-Average-Morality-and-Strength or Noah's Ark 2000 or Evan D'Ark or Noah's Ark 2. Anything except Evan Almighty, which is entirely contrary to the plot of the film. Stupid.

Air Travel: So I flew with a non-Southwest airline for the second time in about 16 flights. 14 of those flights with Southwest all went well, on time and smooth. My last flight on US Air went miserably with delays, and this one with United had massive delays thanks to RAIN in Philly. Are planes getting delayed by rain now? I was under the impression that except for thunderstorms and lightning, rain clouds weren't an issue these days. How wrong I was. Rain can apparently delay a flight for 4 hours when you still have to fly 6 hours to REACH THE RAIN. So we sat while the flight got delayed, finally boarded, only to find out that we had another fun hour ON THE PLANE. But don't worry, because despite the fact that you're now going to miss your connection (formerly with a THREE HOUR layover in Philly), and probably won't get to your final destination until after midnight, because we're gonna put on a movie that you can't watch because we haven't handed out the headphones yet. So I look up at the monitor, hoping for something, ANYTHING to pass the time. And what's the movie that I get to watch during these delays and six hour flight? Evan Almighty. Life is hilarious.

What's the second funniest thing you can find out when you are watching Evan Almighty silently again and it's just as bad as the first time (see, even when watching Evan Almighty on a tiny screen in a plane, you're REALLY watching Evan Almighty)? Hearing these words: "Followed by License to Wed." You can't beat that humor.

I will say that while the flight delays were probably lies to cover some United mixups and problems during the light rain in Philly, and I never trust delays anyway unless I can see actual bad weather (except late openings for schools when it "might" snow-- that's the best ever), and despite them only serving free tiny sugar cookies as a snack, making people pay for sandwhiches and such even after delaying us on a plane for an hour directly during lunch and dinner hours (what would it cost them, 100 bucks to feed everyone for free?), I will say that the customer service girl at the desk did a heluva job and turned my trip entirely around. She helped me get double-booked so I could make a later flight if I missed my original and didn't freak out at me when I questioned which plane my baggage would come in on. She even said, "That's very nice of you" when I said it'd be ok to get booked on an 11pm flight if I missed my 9pm flight-- I can't imagine her having a better solution...Anyway, good for her. Just as US Air was helpful suring my ridiculousness in Newark, United was helpful-- but they also were the only ones with issues since I've been flying with Southwest. Southwest is the way to go, and it's way easier to get bonus tickets.

WITZ PICKZ:

Hillside Tea Self-Heating Chai Tea: I can't wait, I can't wait. I didn't intend on buying it, but when I saw the self-heating tea cans sitting there in the bonus buy section of the supermarket, I didn't have a choice. Apparently, I push a button on this can and it heats itself up. Then, it's hot and ready to drink, and I just crack the top and pound my super hot tea in a can. AWESOME. I have no idea how it works (well, I'm guessing two liquids mix and cause heat), but I don't care. AND in case it didn't already have the element of danger with it, I bought one that was marked down from 2 dollars to 1 dollar for NO APPARENT REASON! SOMETHING is wrong with this one can out of the many, and now that can is MINE! Even the checkout guy was like, "Huh, I don't know why this one is marked down," in a way that meant, "Have fun with your no eyebrows and stumpy arm, cheapo." AWESOME. I am excited. I'll let you know how it goes....hopefully not by blowing into a straw.

We Are All Self-Heating Cans,
Witz