Fuck Y'all

No really. Fuck Y'all.

I hate that word with every once of my Yankee blood. The English language has this terrible black-hole when it comes to the plural of the word You. I do understand that the plural is the same as the singular, like it is for Sheep and Deer.  But it does not work. And the work around we've devised, "Y'all" is the worst word ever invented that is not a slur.

So if you are reading this and can help me find or create a much better word that we can use instead of Y'all, I would be your friend forever.

Y'all is not the only terrible aspect of the English language. While we are at it, can we fix the gender neutral problem? Congressperson? Really? I understand the complaint about using the Masculine form of words like that as default. But we need to either use the Feminine form as default, or find MUCH MUCH better words to use as Neutral form for these words. Can we all agree that sticking -Person at the end of words in cumbersome and ineffective? I'd much rather say Chairwoman or Congresswoman as a default rather than say Chairperson or Congressperson.

I beg you, Grammar Nazis, use your powers for good instead of the nitpicking evil that you usually use them for. (Yeah I ended that sentence with a preposition, but look at the bigger issue please!) Focus that energy and passion for the English language to help us make the language a better place for all people that use it.

Thank ALL OF YOU for reading,
you're favorite y'all hating Yankee blogger,
Pip

PS- I am serious and would love help with either of these issues.

KBTuesday: September 10th, 2001

Do you remember where you were the day before? It's okay if you don't. I have a good reason to remember. It was my first day at my new position, Store Manager of the Waltham KBToys. Prior to that I worked at the Arsenal Mall in Watertown. Yeah, that Arsenal Mall. Let me tell you how shocked I was when I turned on the TV Friday morning to see my Governor holding a Press Conference in front of the Arsenal Mall.

My Grandmother was a Rosie the Riveter at that very building during World War II. It was a weapons factory, an actual Arsenal. And I spent nearly a year working there.

I met the Best-Man at my Wedding working there.

We fixed and epic shrink problem there, very quickly.

I found Watertown to be so nice that I used it's local sole-proprietor Comic Book Shop from the month I started there until everything fell apart in my life financially in Aug/Sept of 2007.

Watertown has a very large Armenian population. So large that if someone's name ends in -ian it was a safe assumption that they are Armenian. I had friend/co-worker at the time who after 9/11 started telling people he was Puerto Rican. Like the vast majority of Armenians he was Christian.  But he had a strange name and "looked Middle Eastern".

Now I never lived there, but I knew that town, and it's people.

I will share more stories from my time at Watertown in the future. But for now we'll focus on the day before.

I remember my first day on the job as a Store Manager. I had the Store Manager that trained me in the store with me, and we got a phone call.  It was from our Planner. The guy the decides what stuff gets shipped to me to sell. The phone was handed to me and he asked me about Pokemon Coins. Yes, coins.

These things, packaged awkwardly in a CD Jewel case. And yes, all you got were the three coins. I have no idea how they played with them. There was a set game with rules included.  I was fascinated by Pokemon but always stayed on the sidelines. (Except for that horrible incident where I got the entire management staff and half the other employees  at the Natick store addicted to the original Red/Blue GameBoy games.) Anyway the Planner saw that the Waltham store was actually selling the damn things. I had seen the district sales reports and knew that they were! They taunted us in Watertown and no kid seemed interested in them. I cannot remember the price point of the dumb things.  So he called and we talked about how for some reason they were selling in Waltham. He told me they really weren't selling anywhere else in the region (basically New England, New York and New Jersey). He asked if I wanted to take a large number of them, I said Sure! He asked if I wanted an awfully large number of them, I said why not. He then admitted he wanted to dump the entire quantity of them in our warehouse on my store. I ended up taking 2 gross case of them. Yes, 288 cases, 12 in a case.

Oh how they haunted my entire 7 month existence at that store. And they did sell, but not fast enough. When the store closed in April/May of the next year, to make way for the Panera Bread still there today, we still had some left. Those fuckers got transferred to Medford. Where the lunatic that ran the store, who would in the future be the best-man at my wedding, gleeful took them.


Thanks for reading,
your favorite blogger that remembers where they were the day before,
Pip

Bad Idea: Daily Show vs Fresh Air

I have a stalker. She is a brilliant woman who loves science, is intelligent, and an extremely interesting writer. But her latest book is creepy as hell and I can't get away from it!

MARY ROACH, I AM NOT BUYING YOUR BOOK!

She wrote this book, Gulp, about the entire human digestive system. From mouth and saliva to fecal transplants. FECAL TRANSPLANTS! I just ate lunch when I heard this conversation about fecal transplants on Fresh Air. And later that same day, when I got home from work, she was on The Cycle on MSNBC, and that damn night she was on The Daily Show!

Now I had calmed down about this subject, but guess who was on Science Friday today? Mary "Gross Out" Roach. I'll be heading out Tuesday morning to get a restraining order! (Monday is a local holiday so I have to wait all weekend, but I will Flatus all over this woman!) So help me God if she's on Top Gear next week!

Her appearance on Science Friday reminded me of an idea she inspired. After the day she stalked me and my digestive system, I began to notice that Fresh Air and The Daily Show tend to have a massive overlap of guests. I'd put it at 75%-80% chance that within a week of a person appearing on one of the shows, they will appear on the other.  And I began to think of the formats of the shows and differing interview styles of Terry Gross and Jon Stewart.

I realized that there a ton of material for either mash-up interviews or to make fun of one or both of them based on the wicked obvious things one asked that the other missed. Or we can do the Weird Al style of interview with intercuts from a Jon Question to a Terry Answer.

We could play a game I'd call Which one of them Actually Read the Book? (Answer will almost always be neither.)

We could compare who's the better salesperson. Who got me more interested in buying the book.

We could rate the brown-nosing. Who did a better job making the guest seem cooler/smarter/better than they really are.

The list of ideas and spin-offs is endless.

I think Terry Gross would be a much better foil to Jon Stewart than Glenn Beck was. She'd be an exercise in him going up in weight class, vs the cheap shots he typically takes.

If I had minions, they'd be going through Fresh Air and Daily Show archives right now.

Thanks for reading,
Your favorite "I was really bothered by this" blogger,
Pip

PS- As always with ideas of this nature: If you have some money, get in touch! I'd really like to do this.

I'm gonna be (500 Miles)

Music Monday:

This week's song to get stuck in your co-worker's  heads is I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) from a movie that did not at all stand the test of time Benny and Joon.




Thanks for reading,
the blogger you'd walk 500 miles for (to kill because thing song was stuck in your head the entire time_,
Pip

PS- I really did think of possibly using a Phillip Glass song or another song that would not at all get stuck in your head.  Then I decided that this gag is a weekly April's Fools joke, so it would be wisest to leave it alone.

I got nothing today...

but I need to post something, anything! So I'll think out loud about my old blog gags. In theory my original plan was 5-7 weekly gags, 4 monthly ones, and then a post every day about whatever I felt like or whatever was going on.  I see no reason why this plan can't still be the goal.  30-60 minutes of writing a night plus a binge on weekends and as with any skill speed comes with practice.

I'd end up with just over 60 posts a month.

The question becomes what gags to revisit and what new ones to develop?

For example TTFN is a lot of work, but it's fun and I like doing it. I will be doing this on Friday so if you have a Listicle from the last 2 weeks, send it along!

Songs to get stuck in your co-workers heads needs to come back. I can milk KBTuesday for a few more stories. Yesterday shows that TTT can still work, especially when I tweet the replies and people get confused. Silly Game Saturday is an easy one. Thursday was always a cop-out and I'll have think of something for Sunday. Maybe I can Storify something for Sundays....yes I like alliteration, and puns.

But the reality is I'll take this one day at a time and use it as a tool to keep my brain working on something positive.

If you have any ideas or suggestions, pass them on!

Thanks for reading,
your favorite delusional binge blogger,
Pip

Twitter Twailbag twednesday

Did you really think, I'd go this long back into blogging without picking up an old gag?

Readin this book for english ! Pip was tryin to mack on estella tho!
— ι ❤αкєℓα (@TimmyxTurner_) March 27, 2013

What can I say, boys can be golddiggers too.

@alun_davies Can I be a tester Pip?
— Ibrar (@ibronatron) March 26, 2013

No! You just want free shit. Pay up sucka!

@omgitspip hello pip! Ready to go on a treasure hunt~?
— Twilight Sparkle (@TwiPony) March 26, 2013

Did you lose your keys again Sparkle?

Meet pip pip and Sophie instagram.com/p/XVuFzzijsP/
— Michael Blair (@MichaelCoffey1) March 26, 2013

I'll state it again for the record, I'm flattered but uncomfortable with people naming their pets after me.

@afoolofaletook no can do I already had second breakfast. Pip eat 4 breakfasts today..... It was amazing to watch
— Frodo Baggins (@_FrodoBaggins__) March 26, 2013

*Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurp* And I can't wait for lunch!

But srsly tho PIP WHAT ARE YOU HIDING #lightfields
— ♥☂Fox Academy☀☃ (@Charlomonster) March 26, 2013

I can't tell you, the Illuminati are reading this!

even pip doesn't understand pip
— arial /// (@sseahaven) March 26, 2013

A more true statement about me has never been uttered.

Pip Installs Python
— Khalil (@micaleel) March 26, 2013

I did no such thing! You take that back right now!

Love catching up with pip he's always good for a laugh.
— Shane O Reilly (@shaneoreilly23) March 27, 2013

Thank you! No one ever wants to admit how funny I am.



Thanks for reading,
your favorite tweeter,
Pip

PS- Duh! I'm @PipsBadIdeas.

New Year's Resolution: 2nd chance

April Fool's Day is quickly approaching and if you know me, then you know that it is a Holy Day of Obligation for me.  But beyond scrapping the idea of poking everyone I'm friends with on Facebook, I realized it can be turned into something very positive.

Some believe that April's Fools day had it's origins as New Year's Day was once celebrated on April 1st. Let's talk about the tradition of New Year's Resolutions. By now, if you made any, you've broken them or abandoned them. So we combine these two ideas and turn April 1st into a Second Chance for our New Year's Resolution.

Stop and think about it. The Gym will be far less crowded. There will be less pressure to diet, yet summer is around the corner so you have motivation. If you want to be better with your money, or spending time with your kids, whatever it is give it another try.

Let's use me as an example: I had a simple resolution to give a shout out to everyone who followed me on twitter. I was using #FF365, and I made it to about Valentine's day. Not bad, but still not what I wanted. In the past I've tried to donate blood 5 times in a year. And I've thought about shooting for 1,000 blog posts (between here, 3SQB, LBI, GeekCubed, and a couple other blog ideas I'm letting my brain work on).

Why don't we give this a try? The rules are simple, just give your New Years Resolution a Second Chance, or start one if you didn't have one. I'll start giving shout outs again, maybe until the end of the year or maybe until I hit 365 people. I gave blood Saturday and I'll count that as 1. If I run a tight schedule, 5 can be very possible by the end of the year (June, August, October, and December).

What resolution are you going to give a second chance too?

Thanks for reading,
your favorite un-quitter,
Pip

PS- A quick googling has yielded that this is not the most original idea. With people suggesting Lent, or Chinese New Year as second chance opportunities.  Well those have passed, so I'm going to move forward with April Fool's Day and, as always, you are welcome to play along.