Another funny story about my roommate to kick things off, this one pertaining to his continued terrible taste in music and unintentionally comedic ways.We were on a ride out to Haifa, and since I was the one driving I figured I would pick the music. I put on Only Built for CubanLinx , a classic rap album.
My music consumption has gone way down since I have been out here, where I am without fast Internet and my nice speakers, so I was thoroughly enjoying the chance to listen to some decent music for once while we drove. As to be expected, about 4 songs in he abruptly turned off the cd player, stating that he “could not listen to it anymore” and that “he was past the phase in his life” where he listened to this type of music.
So I asked him, “What phase of life are you in?” and he replied, I kid you not, with a straight face, “the getting money phase.”BAM . I should have known, what other phase could he be in? It was pretty damn difficult to not burst out laughing at this. First off, I know for sure he is not getting very much money (at least offbball ). Second, whatever he does get is spent on necessities such as paying for a maid to wash his clothes, buying drinks at clubs and plenty of Axebodywash .
I would have loved to ask him to go through the phases of his life for me. It would probably be: the I grew up filthy rich and got spoiled in Beverly hills phase, the I could hardly put up decent numbers on a terrible high school team phase, the I must have been a practice player because I never recorded a single stat at CSUN phase, the I took a few years after college to putz around and make a half hearted effort at the GMAT and o ya played in the freaking ABA (that still exists???) phase, and finally the “gettin money phase” aka I am an OK 25 year old role player on a division II Israeli team phase.
To be clear, my roommate has had a funny moment every now and then, and we have been getting along better, but the thing is I don’t really have the kind of relationship where I can make fun of him when he says dumb stuff. He would take my jokes way too seriously. (or maybe I am meaner than I think I am)
Even worse, he rarely ever gets my sarcasm, and when he does it is met with a quizzical expression. There is just a total void where his sense of humor should be. At least, that’s my opinion, he probably thinks I am like some sort of a-hole who is always poking fun at him and other things. I don’t have a specific example right now, but there will be scenarios along the lines of us going to practice and he will be like “What time is the game?” And I could be like “oh, not sure, but I heard they might cancel all the games this month because of a swine flu scare.” And he’ll be like, “huh, wait what?noooo , hold on, seriously, uh what time is the game?” Like he always takes the ridiculous things I say seriously for a brief moment, then gets confused or angry.
Not to get too narcissistic or anything. I am sure there are people like this all over. They are the reason the black eyed peas can dominate the radio, why Mike Myers fart joke movies can make a billion dollars, and why they have to have disclaimers on the bottom of commercials telling you not to try the things you see, even if the commercial involves some guy using a magic carpet to get to the grocery store or something.
Sticking with unintentional comedy, I really need to start recording some of the speeches where my coach butchers the English language. Now, he is a really great guy who speaks very good english, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t consistently slip up.
After a lack luster first half in our most recent practice game he wanted to really lay into the guys for their poor performance. He screamed at us that “WE HAVE NO PROUD!! WE HAVE NO PROUD! WHERE IS OUR PROUD?!!” He went on like this for quite some time. I kept thinking he was gonna correct himself, but he either didn’t realize it or was too angry to care. You kind of had to be there, but just trust me that these mistakes are hilarious. This provided me with some needed comedic relief after being bored to death sitting through another practice game I could not participate in.
Yes, still not participating. Turns out maybe I should have got that MRI I have been asking for since the date of the injury. This theory was corroborated by seeing a doctor for the first time, on accident. I went to the first division teams practice just to hang out and to make sure the coaches knew I wasn’t dead.
They happened to have an injured player being looked at by the doctor, and the coaches asked if he would take a look at me as well. He put me on a table, twisted my knee about, spoke to someone in Hebrew and that was it. After about 2 minutes he told me he wanted to do an MRI.
The thing is, I heard someone say that there are only 3 MRI machines in the whole country! I could not believe that. It’s like “ohh Israel, so advanced, look at those solar panels, awesome, wow such great technology, ohhh you want an MRI? that will be 1500 dollars and a 3 week wait.” What the hell?
I thought MRI’s were pretty standard these days, but I guess I just don’t realize how good the US is in that regard. So, last I heard from the trainer was I could start jumpshots again (yipee) in a week, and then we take it from there.
This is a new guy I’ve been seeing, and he was telling me how the original diagnosis, even without an MRI, should have been 8-10 weeks. Hmm, something about 10 days- 6 weeks always sounded off to me. MCL injuries are just torture, because you can walk around fine and do all sorts of things, but god forbid you try a lateral movement. So you look like such a sissy cause you are not in constant pain, you are not in a cast or brace, and you just have to sit there and wait, something I have never been good at or enjoyed. The knee is improving, just much slower than I would like.
Anyway, back to things that annoy me. Commercials deserve a separate rant bigger than the one I went on earlier.
Sorry to offend anyone in the advertising business but generally, they are all unfunny, uncreative annoying pieces of shit. Few things provoke immediate, visceral rage out of me, and terrible commercial are one of them. Car commercials are some of the worst.
I just can’t stop thinking about who actually sat in the editing room, watched the ad, and was like “ya, this is it, we’ve got a winner here guys!” And the commercial is just 30 seconds of some smarmy guy with those annoying side swept guy bangs and he drives his Infiniti G 35 through the city, makes a few hard turns, and they zoom in on the guys face and he breaks out a little grin and hits the gas, pulling away from the other clunky looking cars at the stoplight. Then all the drivers gasp as they take on this clearly forced look that is a mix between exasperation and envy, all the while trying in vain to keep up with the Infiniti . Then some voice will boom out their corny, poorly thought out catch phrase, such as “THEIR BREATH WONT BE THE ONLY THING THEY HAVE TO CATCH.”
Godddddddddd I despise those, and the fact that people are getting paid such good money to make them seems so ludicrous. Like has anyone ever known a person in all their years of living who was like “Dude, did you see that Infiniti commercial last night? That driver looked like such a badass , and that car was all fast and stuff, I have to go get one!” No, no one does that. They would be much better off just quickly listing the features and telling us the price. People would be far less annoyed and the company would save money on stupid, embarrassing advertising. Or, maybe JD and I are the only ones who hate these so much. It’s probably not healthy to care about such dumb things, but I can’t really help it.
My thoughts on everything 