Scene and heard

"The Starfish is the only animal that can turn its stomach inside out".

Ah, thnks I! But can it touch it’s nose with it’s tongue or sniff milk up it’s nose and make it come out of it’s eyeballs? These aren’t my particular party tricks, but I have seen them done.

Then I sat pondering the practical uses of such a feat, and a joke came to me that would mean nothing to you if you didn’t know this startling fact.:

What would you get if you crossed a Supermodel with a Starfish? Answer? A very happy bulimic!

Someone had left some promo cards for a new restaurant in North Brunswick called Noodle House. This is undoubtedly the worst self promotion I have ever seen.

Under the restaurant name are the words ‘Trendy Asian Cuisine’. In terms of how attractive that sounds to me, they might as well guarantee botulism!

This is where it gets good. They have taken excerpts from a New York Times review. (The capitalisations are theirs)

“Silk Route Cuisine That Fumbles Toward Ecstasy”
“The Menu is First Kiss. Enthusiastic, a Little Awkward”
“More Thrilling in Memory”

It fumbles towards ecstasy. Fumbles! It is a little awkward and more thrilling in memory?” Can’t wait to go there! Right! I’ll feel awkward but have a good memory of the place? Exactly what do they season their food with?

The voiceover in the commercial states that the gels “combine the fast acting relief of Tylenol with a sleep aid that when used as directed has not been shown to cause dependency.” I shall repeat that last part: Has not been shown to cause dependency!!!!!!! Note, they don’t say that it has been proven to not cause dependency; merely that it has not been shown to do so.

This is disgusting advertising, the like of which should not be allowed. Please folks, be very wary.

This is fucking obscene! A woman asks for a Disarrono on the Rocks and a voiceover talks about how “with its warm and sexual taste, you never want it to end”. Sexual taste? She motions for another, but stops the bartender from pouring more over the ice cubes, by putting her hand on his wrist and looking at him suggestively. She picks one of the ice cubes from the glass and puts it towards her mouth. Thankfully, before I want to vomit on the TV, the camera cuts away.

Do watch this joke version of the commercial. Beats the hell out of the real one!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoZJ3Vxsoso

On the subway this morning, there was one bottle blonde standing by the front left doorway of the carriage, and another at the second door. I was at the fourth door, which is at the rear of the car. The immediately striking thing about these women was that both had been attracted to the same colour, although the one closer to me had spent considerably more money on her hair, having it streaked. The next striking thing was that this colour, so obviously not one of nature’s own, did not suit these obviously naturally brunette women one iota!

Indeed, the woman closer to me looked positively ghostly! She was also clearly uncomfortable in all of that hair. It was below her shoulders and was thick and shiny enough that it should have been attractive. However, it was clearly two sizes too big and she couldn’t keep her head still. She was constantly tilting it this was and that or doing the full head hair shake. Her right hand would then need to flick the hair into place.

So why was she moved to do this to herself? Gentlemen prefer blondes? Actually, I don’t really believe that. It may be instantly eye catching, but that really is the extent of the effect. An online poll I saw on the subject seemed to soundly refute this notion – and it made no provision for whether hair colours were real or L’Oreal! The size of her hair was something of a throwback to my early New York days, when Brooklyn women typically had rather too much of it. As with men who wear bad toupees, she was in real need of a friend to be honest with her.

I have recently started an assignment which requires me to go into my company’s head office in East Brunswick, NJ, several days a week. The commute is one and three quarter to two hours if all goes well. But it rarely does. Having arrived a mere two minutes early for my bus one day – they only come every half hour - I decided that I should leave several minutes early each morning. The bus goes from Port Authority and is supposed to take 40 minutes. It did once!

The real fun is on the way home. Buses are due at 25 and 55 past the hour, but come from Princeton, over an hour away. In the afternoons, the traffic on the first leg of the journey is very poor, so the actual arrival time into E. Brunswick is 25-30 minutes late. I have learned that the thing not to do, is to arrive when the bus is due to leave. Most likely, this will result in you barely missing the prior bus. Case in point: Two days ago, I decided to leave my office a little earlier and catch the 5:25 bus. I arrived at the bus stop at exactly 5:25, quite out of breath. And catch it I did – at 5:52, breath fully recovered!

My message to Suburban Transit is, if buses arrive within 5 minutes of the scheduled time, please let them sit at the stop until the scheduled departure time, even if that is supposed to be for the next bus. The way things are currently, there are many days when large numbers of people have to wait for 25 minutes or more having arrived on time. I realise I am trying to apply logic in an area where none exists. I am frequently told this is naïve. Perhaps so. But how much nicer would the world be if a little more logic were applied by companies, organisations and governments which seem to forget that without their customers or citizens, they are nothing.

One last thing: I wonder if the bus I catch each morning smells of stale foot odour, or if one of the regular passengers does!!