Word of the Day: Steatopygia

1. An excessive accumulation of fat on or around the buttocks, esp. in women of Khoisan origin.
2. Fat ass.

What Seinfeld Episodes Remind You of Your Life? Parts I and II

Oh Seinfeld, what a great show you were. I think one of the reasons why Seinfeld was such a big hit was that you could see a lot of your own life in each episode. Even for those of us who don't live in New York, we can still see Seinfeld-ian humor all around us. So this begs the question: what Seinfeld episodes remind you of your own life?

I'll start off the discussion by sharing some examples of the intersections of Seinfeld and my life. If you are having problems recalling the episode, fortunately someone took the time to catalog all of the episodes on Wikipedia, which you can access by going here.

P.S. Becky - I hope nothing in your life reminds you of "The Junior Mint" episode!

Part I - The Reverse Peephole

One of the plot lines in this episode involves George's overstuffed wallet that is so full of junk that it explodes at the end of the show. Every time I see this episode it reminds me of my dad, who has as far as I know the biggest wallet known to mankind. At times it appears to be violating some law of physics, like it is the Tardis of wallets or something. I really don't know what he keeps in there but it is huge. How huge, you ask? Let's just say that all of my dad's pants and shorts have a stretch-mark outline of the wallet in the back pocket.

Part II - The Fusilli Jerry

This is the episode where Kramer mistakenly gets license plates that read "Assman." At work I get to scan over a ton of client names, and last week I ran into a client whose last name was actually Assman. It turns out that there are actually a number of clients who share this name. I can't get into details for privacy reasons, but I found this pretty amazing.

Word of the Day: Disappointment

1. The act or fact of disappointing.
2. The state or feeling of being disappointed.
3. A person or thing that disappoints.
4. What you feel when the gorgeous woman you've had your eye on pulls out a cigarette and starts smoking.

Don't Hate the Player, Hate the Game...

...has got to be one of the stupidest expressions I have ever heard. Rare indeed is the expression that can so effortlessly combine snide arrogance with a complete lack of responsibility for one's actions. Now, in theory this could be explained as some kind of deterministic philosophy. For some reason, though, it always seems to be used right after someone does something completely asinine (read: cheating on and/or lying to your girlfriend).

I think the next time I hear somebody say this I am going to go up to them and punch them in the mouth and say "don't hate the player, hate Newton's Second Law of Motion."

Website of the Day: Toothpaste For Dinner

Today I would like to introduce you to my favorite website (not related to blogs of course), Toothpaste For Dinner. It was started by a guy named Drew from Columbus, Ohio back in 2001 or so, and has an archive of hundreds perhaps thousands of webcomics. It's hard to describe the general theme... basically a lot of smart ass commentary on hipsters, the internet, nerds, work. Except for his fear of cargo shorts, Drew and I seem to share a similar sense of humor. If you are anything like me, it will end up in your favorites and you will visit it every day. For your convenience, I have put a link to the website so you can visit it right after you read my blog.

And while you are there, notice that he sells t-shirts and other cool shit. Make sure and buy something. Keep America rolling you cheapskate bastard.

Drew and his wife run a sister site called Married to the Sea. It is basically a mashup of hilarious old pictures with (yep, you guessed it) smart ass commentary. Although Toothpaste For Dinner is still my personal favorite, it is still worth visiting on a regular basis.

Sports: Esperanto For Guys

Around 1880, a guy named L. L. Zamenhof developed a language called Esperanto.* It was meant to be an easy-to-learn universal language. Although today there are about a million or so people that speak Esperanto, it never really took off as Zamenhof had hoped. I think one of the reasons for this is that half the world already has a universal language: sports.

Men, who are in general poor at small talk, often use sports as a kind of lingua franca to talk to each other in situations that would otherwise be filled with awkward silence. Even men who can't find Canada on a map or name the Vice President can go to any bar and strike up a conversation about sports. The sports conversation is often used as a survival mechanism in social situations such as weddings, office parties, and pretty much any time women start talking about something that most guys couldn't care less about.

Part of this phenomenon can be accounted for by this fact that a copy of the sports page can be found in pretty much any public men's bathroom.** I'm not sure what about sports and taking a crap go so well together but there you have it (ladies - trust me, handling a newspaper that has spent all day on the floor next to a toilet is the LEAST disgusting thing that goes on in the men's room). This means that even men who aren't really interested in sports are nevertheless prepared to talk about it at length.

*Not to be confused with the excellent song Desperado by the Eagles, although I think this is a great idea for Weird Al Yankovic
**Mindy/Christy - Ladies, I think we need a post on the reading materials found in the women's room.

The Peter Unzipped Women's Guide to Men Checking Women Out

Many women have expressed frustration to me (not to mention many an advice column) about their significant other checking other women out. To help clear up any confusion, I have put together the Peter Unzipped Women's Guide to Men Checking Women Out. This handy guide will help you navigate these murky waters by showing you how to identify the specific behavior in question as well as telling you how offended you should be by it.

The Glance
Description: A quick look at and then away from the target. Should not last more than a couple of seconds. Often confused with "staring at a train wreck" type behavior.
Your Response Should Be: None. The glance is largely driven by biology that cannot be overcome by any kind of conditioning.
More Information: Sorry ladies, you are not going to win this battle. Getting mad at a guy for this is like him getting mad at you for gawking at a 50% off sale for Manolo Blahniks.*

The Look
Description: Appears similar to the glance, except repeated several times. Occasionally it is simply a longer lasting glance. This behavior can be frequently observed at the gym, often involving the use of one or more mirrors to avoid detection.
Your Response Should Be: Mildly offended. In this case the perpetrator is aware of his behavior but is having a hard time controlling it.
More Information: This is something like a smoker jonesing for a cigarette, except substitute "ass" for "nicotine." Perhaps loutish, but he wins back a few points for effort.

The Stare
Description: A check-out falls into this category when it becomes prolonged. Usually concentration is only broken when the target looks in the direction of the starer, or perhaps through significant physical contact. One sure way to distinguish "the stare" from "the look" is that the offender is generally oblivious to people besides the target of said stare.
Your Response Should Be: Rather offended. Appropriate responses include eye rolling, exaggerated sighs, sternly crossed arms, and/or a strong punch to the shoulder.
More Information: This is not a good sign for your relationship.

The Ogle
Description: The grandaddy of checking women out. This involves gazing directly at a woman's dirty parts even when you know she is fully aware of your behavior. Often takes the form of staring at a woman's cleavage from point blank range. A blank stare and open mouth are also a trademark of the ogle. The ogle is often the herald to incidents such as this.
Your Response Should Be: Incredibly offended. You have my permission to kick him in the balls.
More Information: Why are you still reading this? Have you kicked him in the balls yet?

*Or in the case of Mindy, a 50% off sale at Kohl's.

Book Review: The Name of the Rose

Well, I have finally finished reading The Name of the Rose, a novel by Umberto Eco. Reading the plot summary you might think this was some kind of Dan Brown-esque book, but The Name of the Rose is more of a 500-page intellectual slugfest rather than a beach read and/or Audrey Tautou vehicle.

The story takes place in 1327. The basic plot concerns Adso of Melk (the narrator) and his master William of Baskerville, the latter being tasked to investigate the mysterious happenings at a Italian abbey. In addition, William also spends a fair amount of time trying to negotiate with representatives of the exiled Pope John XXII on behalf of monks aligned with the Holy Roman Emperor Louis the Bavarian. I won't get too much into details since you can read the book yourself. Secret book, labyrinth, yada yada. Although it is often billed as a murder mystery, to me the book was a lot more about the how than the why. If you are looking for a story that wraps up nicely and the hero gets the girl this is not the book for you. William's last (recorded) conversation with Adso, for example, basically involves the statement that there can be no learning if God is omnipotent because if God can do whatever He wants then there cannot be any universal laws and logical arguments are invalid; either that, or God does not exist. My guess is that William was a closet atheist who lamented the fact that he had to teach through riddles but you can read the book and decide for yourself.

The book covers a wide array of topics, the two most prevalent being theology and deductive logic. There are long discussions about the poverty of Christ, laughter and satire as interpreted in Scripture, the Inquisition, various heretical movements (or not, depending on your point of view), and of course the fact that women are dirty, dirty whores. A lot of the conversations between William and Adso also revolve around logical deduction, syllogisms, dialectics, the empirical method and other philosophical sounding stuff. It also covers a lot of history, mainly the tensions between the Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy.

I would give this book four out of five stars, mainly due to the frequent use of untranslated Latin phrases and the fact that you probably have to read it about five times to really get your arms around it. I highly recommend the book to anyone who in interested in things medieval, big words, dissertations on logic, and five page descriptions of Italian frescoes.

Back in Minneapolis

Well gang,

I safely landed back here in Minneapolis this morning. I'm a little groggy since I woke up at 3:30 central time to catch my flight back here. Fortunately, I took the day off of work so I can do some blogging. The trip went great, I think my grandad had a lot of fun which was kind of the main point of the trip. We went on a boat ride on Canandaigua Lake, but most of the time was spent hanging out with various family members and family friends (and taking naps). Hey, when you're 94 that's a lot of excitement right there. Even at that age, he's as sharp as a whip, and if you are ever lucky enough to meet him you will figure out what side of the family I get my smartass-ness from. I have to say when they were handing out grandparents, my grandad and late grandmother were about as good as I could have hoped for.

My parents and grandad were there the whole time, my aunt stopped in a few times with some of her friends, my brother and his wife were there for a day, and some old friends of my grandad showed up as well. Plus there were a lot of ducks as well. I tried to get some action photos of the ducks but they were not cooperating. Still, I decided that it's hard not to like ducks, so I took something like 15 pictures of them.

In other news, I have decided to start a new diet now that I am back home. I call it the stop-eating-4000-calories-a-day diet. Today might be a little rough since I'm tired and looking at a 20 hour day. But I'm starting tomorrow. I promise.

Word of the Day: S.O.A.P.

1. The abbreviation for the 2006 hit movie, "Snakes on a Plane."
2. An internet acronym that can be used to describe any generally fucked up situation. Occassionally used as an ironic self-referential double entendre to describe the movie itself.

No Blog For You!

Well gang, I'm off to Canandaigua Lake to spend a long weekend with the family. This means I will not be able to put any posts up until at least Wednesday. But never fear true believers I will be working on upcoming articles for your entertainment.

For those of you who are not familiar with Canandaigua it is one of the Finger Lakes in upstate New York. My mom rented a cabin there, and my grandad and aunt will be there, as well as my brother and his wife for Saturday. In Seneca, Canandaigua means "chosen spot." It makes you wonder whether any of the Indian tribes ever gave a place a bad sounding name. You never hear anyone say "oh, the name of our town means 'crappy cesspool' in Ojibwa." I guess they were just optimistic. I'll give them more credit than the settlers. When they weren't ripping off the natives, they decided to name everything either New whatever, Berlin, or New Berlin. It's a good thing we are running out of places to build more cities. Otherwise, by 2100 we'd start seeing cities like New New New York.

This trip has not gotten off to a great start and I haven't gone anywhere yet. Northwest cancelled my original flight and now I am leaving at 8:00. The phone message said it was due to "weather conditions," which from here can currently be described by adjectives such as "nice" and "sunny." I'll give Northwest credit though at least they called. Hopefully the airport won't be too packed. Fortunately I've got things to keep me occupied: blog-related stuff, homework, and a book (BTW I'll probably review it later).

Elevator Etiquette, Part II

Today I would like to talk about the topic of elevator etiquette. In case you are wondering why this is part two of an apparently one part series, this is somewhat of a continuation of an article written by my friend Mindy you can find here:

Mindy Does Minneapolis: Elevator Etiquette

Since she has thoroughly covered the topic of passing wind in the elevator, I would like to move on to another epidemic: namely, people who pretend not to see you coming and don't hold the elevator for you. While there is the rare offender who has the balls to do this while looking right at you, usually this discourtesy is accomplished by maneuvering oneself in the elevator so that it appears that you did not see the other person coming. If this describes you, here is a clue: you are not fooling anyone. We know that you know we are there. Besides having to live with the fact that you are a jackass, imagine how dumb you are going to feel if I can get to the button before the elevator door fully closes. Really dumb, that's how. At this point, keep your mouth shut because whatever is about to come out of it is guaranteed to be stupid.

The amazing thing about this is that people seem to do this pretty much everywhere. It's bad enough to be rude to someone that you will likely never see again, but I see people pull this stunt both at work and at home. I mean, lady, we live in the same condo. On the same floor. I will see you again, and when I do I will be thinking to myself "oh, it's the lady who couldn't be bothered to hold the elevator for five seconds. What a jerkoff."

People, you need to realize that this kind of stuff will be the lens through which the rest of us will see you in future interactions. So stop pretending you can't hear my flip-flops from fifteen feet away. Show a brother some courtesy and hold the darn door. It will win you brownie points and you never know when you're going to be able to cash them in. That is until you do something stupid like say, fart in the elevator.

The Truth Is Stupier Than Fiction

Has anyone else noticed that the spell check on this blog doesn't recognize the word blog?

A Plug for Letterbox

As long as I'm here, I figure it would be a good time to put a plug in for my cousin's wife's store, Letterbox (a.k.a. Letterbox Creative, a.k.a. Letterbox Correspondence & Home). Due to my intrepid buzz marketing campaign, many of you are already aware of this wonderful little shop. For those of you who are not, a large part of what Letterbox does is make high quality wedding invitations, and other custom correspondence. The rest of Letterbox is an assortment of unique cards and invitations, as well as a ton of gift items (or treats for yourself) including soaps, books, pens - basically cool stuff I haven't seen anywhere else in Minneapolis. They also have some local stuff, including poetry. If you want to buy a gift or card for someone that will stand out, this is the place to go. I can honestly say you should definitely check it out when you are in the Uptown area. Thank God she didn't open some crappy store I would have been embarrassed to tell you about, because THAT would have been awkward.

I put a link to their website in the "Local Websites" section. It is really easy to find, it is in same lot on Hennepin next to Kinh Do and formerly Saint Sabrina's. If you don't know where that is, the address and directions are on the website. BTW due to the angle of the sun or something the store looks dark even when its open.

Banana Bread

Well, as a couple of you know I am off work today. In addition to working on my blog, I am baking some banana bread. I have posted the recipe below, although you can find it in most basic cookbooks. If you don't make banana bread often, there are two things you need to know that you probably won't find in a cookbook. One, the bananas should be very ripe, close to being rotten. Second, baking bread takes a long time - have at least two hours.

Ingredients:
3 bananas, very ripe
2 eggs
2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 350º F
2. Mix the bananas and the eggs in a bowl
3. Stir in the flour, sugar, and baking soda and blend
4. Stir in the walnuts
5. Grease a baking pan, around 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 2 1/2-inch
6. Pour the batter into the ban and bake for 1 hour
7. Remove from the pan to a rack for cooling

Today, on special request, I am actually making banana chocolate bread, by substituting a similar quantity of chocolate chips for the walnuts. I will let you know how it turns out. I'm sure you are waiting with baited breath...

The Birth of a Legend

You know what I said to myself the other day? I said, "how can I unilaterally disqualify myself from ever holding public office, while simultaneously risking job loss, defamation lawsuits, and identity theft? I know, I'll start a blog!" Hence, Peter Unzipped was born.

Okay, that's not really true. The genesis of this blog is actually much more mundane: some hot chicks told me it would be a good idea.

Anyway, the blog is still in construction stage so there isn't much to look at currently. Hopefully, it will soon be filled with all types of stuff such as interesting stories, cool links, advice, etc. I take requests so if there is a topic in particular you want covered let me know by either posting a comment or sending an e-mail to the official Peter Unzipped e-mail account at peter_unzipped@yahoo.com.

Peter