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5 Ways in Which My Yoga Instructor Resembles Tobias Funke.

4 Feb

I’m pretty sure my yoga class was led by Tobias Funke this morning. If you don’t know who Tobias is, he was a character in Arrested Development. Here is a highlight reel to give you a bit of flavor:

So now that you have a taste for Tobias, here are the parallels between him and my yoga instructor:

  1. Both consistently project a STAGE VOICE to project when communicating and over-enunciate for dramatic effect. DownwarD. DoG. 
  2. Both have mustaches that hail from another decade. By which I mean the 1980s.
  3. Both present a vibe of confused sexuality.
  4. Both wear nut-hugging shorts.
  5. Both play the flute. I’m just going to leave it at that.

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I think we’re starting to sound like old ladies.

22 Jan

When I arrived at my friend’s house for dinner this week, she opened the door clutching a remote and looking frazzled. She was trying to get music from their cable provider to play through the stereo without the television being on. “I know it’s ridiculous to let this stress me out,” she said, “But it’s completely annoying. When did it become so difficult to do something simple?”

I looked at her remote and could see the problem: it was like the Ferrari of remotes. “What all does this control?” I asked her, intimidated by its eight bazillion buttons.

“Everything,” she said. “My husband has programmed it so that everything is driven by this one remote. It probably controls me, for all I know!”

I cracked up, imagining a “Power Down Spouse” button. And then realized that most people would probably like a remote like that – something to pause their children or mute their partners.

You know technology has jumped the shark when your friend, an IT professional, is shaking a remote, saying, “When did it all get so complicated?”

HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey

Did you know? The French version of Hal was named Carl.

“I mean,” she continued, “the other day I was thinking about phones. The new iPhone has a feature that will read text messages to you. How crazy is that? We went from leaving voicemails for each other, to sending text messages to each other, to having computers read these text messages to us. It just seems like we’re ADDING steps instead of removing them.”

So true.

That has been kicking around in my head this week as more than one friend has apologized for being slow responding to me because their new year’s resolutions include technology fasts. I like it – the idea of completely unplugging one day a week to regain our power over the devices that increasingly control us.

Otherwise, we might as well start naming our children Hal. Or Carl.

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Really, loose lips did THIS?

15 Jan

This is what we call a "Career Ending Move" by the captain.

I’ve never taken a cruise. Not a day cruise of the Bahamas or a week cruise of Alaska. Until this weekend, my reasons for avoiding this type of travel were:

  1. The Environment – do you know how much fuel it takes to power a cruise ship and how much pollution it creates? Tons.
  2. The People – I hate touristy vacations, so the idea of being holed up on a boat with tourists = anti-vacation.
  3. The Idea – my kind of vacation is going somewhere and exploring and immersing myself in the local culture; a cruise seems to allow only a superficial exposure to the port cities where you stop, with a larger emphasis on the on-ship experience – buffets, entertainment, etc.
Tourist Vessel off the coast of Antarctica - 2007

Tourist Vessel off the coast of Antarctica - 2007

Don’t get me wrong – I understand that loads of people love cruises and I’m not putting them down (although I do think you should realize how bad they are for the environment before you book a ticket so that if you decide to do it anyway, you can at least make sure your enjoyment is worth the extermination of a few species). I’m just saying: not my thing.

Anyway. After this weekend, a whole new reason tops this list: SINKING SHIPS.

Fascinated by the vessel that ran ashore off the coast of Italy, I started googling “sinking ship” to see if I could find videos of it. Know what I found? Videos of many, many passenger ships that have sunk. WTF? Call me naïve, but I was thinking that ship builders got their shit together after the Titanic and built these things so they were unsinkable. Apparently NOT. Here’s a rundown if you’d like to fact-check my claim: http://www.cruisejunkie.com/Sunk.html

Copyright: Michael Hipler

2007 - off the coast of Greece

Granted, most people generally survive. But still? Any cruise that a) Sends deck furniture into the ocean, or b) Tilts my porthole so I am looking directly into the water = unacceptable. Because either situation would prompt me to crap my pants, and – I don’t know about you, but – any vacation in which I have to deal with my own excrement isn’t actually a vacation. (High standards, I guess.)

From the limited research I did (two minutes on Google) it looks like the most common cause is pilot error. Um. Just looking at the photos from the current wreck and the one off the coast of Greece in 2007, I’m pretty sure anyone who wasn’t drunk or half-asleep could’ve guessed that those boats were too close to shore.

Another thing that’s messed up about cruise ships? PIRATES. Every time a pirate attack makes the news, I’m left scratching my head, puzzled that such an occupation still exists. What next? Stagecoach robberies? Sorry, does not compute. Pirates belong in the same category as gladiators: dwelling only in the past or the movies. (And yes, I realize I’ve mixed comparisons – I know that a gladiator isn’t someone who holds up a stagecoach.)

Anyway, I’ll close with one final tip. Look at these photos. Notice anything? Correct: If you insist on taking a cruise, book your room on the LEFT side of the ship. And – just to annoy your travel agent – refer to it as the “above-water” side.

Bon voyage.

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Psyche Test for the 21st Century: What your WishList Says About You.

11 Dec
Glenn Beck's Amazon WishList by NewCorpse.Com

It can't be all bad if even the crazies are doing it. Right?

It is a fact: every one of my single friends out there has contemplated creating a gift registry for herself (á la Carrie on Sex & The City) so that her friends (whose showers and weddings and births she’s celebrated) will have an opportunity to balance the scales and occasionally recognize her milestones with a little something she’d like.

Well, fortunately, Amazon has a plug-in for their website that allows customers to capture ANYTHING on the web and add it to their Amazon Wishlist. Clever, Amazon.

I’m a believer in the Wishlist. Mainly so I can track my impulses for months before pulling the trigger on a purchase, but also so that if someone is struggling to find me a gift, they can get a sense of what I’d truly appreciate.

Seems innocent enough to create such a list, but remember: your WishList (like pretty much everything online) is searchable. By potential employers.

Why would that matter, you ask? Well, a friend recently told me about a candidate his company was interviewing. She looked good on paper and everyone she had met with liked her. When it came to the final stage in the process, the VP of HR did a quick google search and landed on her Amazon WishList, which – we shall say – did not reinforce the image she had put out there during her interviews.

That got me to thinking… what does my WishList say about me? And would it cost me a job?

Interestingly, when I was adding items to my WishList, I wasn’t aware of any themes. Yet, in revisiting the list in its entirety, certain, um, patterns start to emerge. Like: Apparently I’m cheap. Or have a high degree of guilt associated with buying nice things. Because almost every item on my list is accompanied by a comment I wrote along the lines of, “Yes. This is expensive. But it will last forever.”

I especially like one entry for a bracelet, in which I not only point out that it’s expensive, but then also offer tips on how to find it cheaper. “Don’t pay full price! Monitor eBay. Only buy it if you can get a good deal.” I’m not even sure who I’m offering this advice to, because – to my knowledge – I don’t have any WishList followers.

Other observations? I have shampoo and lotion on my list. Is this normal? For people to include toiletries on their WishLists? Maybe I’ll go one step further and start using it to create an online grocery list each week. How fun would it be to visit someone’s WishList and see that they’d like chicken stock, a bag of carrots and detergent?

I could only handle so much self-analysis, so I decided to look for some odd items on Amazon that I could’ve included on my list but didn’t, to make myself feel better. And I learned a few things…

  • Did you know you can buy Cremation Urns (and corresponding necklaces that allow you to wear your loved one’s ashes) on Amazon? Per the reviews, they are quite a good deal. I feel sorry for the people who have had to buy so many urns they  now comparative shop for them.
  • When you search “Adult Diapers” on Amazon, the most common item in your search results is “neoprene lunch totes.” Is this some kind of well-kept senior secret? Those would-be retirees aren’t bringing their lunch to work, they’re carrying a disposable toilet with them? Smart.
  • We’ve all seen “wall art” – those images and words that people apply to their walls for a graphic effect. This by far has to be the most bizarre image I’ve seen. I think it will look fantastic right over my bed. No, seriously – in what context was this invented, and does anyone ever buy it?
  • You can buy a 12-pack of fake mustaches for under $10. I’m tempted to add them to my WishList just to leave someone scratching their head when they think they have me figured out.
  • And if you’ve never visited this product to read the customer reviews, you must. It is the best free comedy you can find on a major e-tailer. This is my best guess regarding their market segmentation for this product:

Pie Chart showing Amazon sales of infamous wolf shirt
What does YOUR WishList say about you? Other than that your middle name should be Greedy McGreederson for expecting people to give you gifts?

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A Tip for the Yogis

27 Nov
Little Kitteh says “Namewste.”

For the yoga teachers who read my blog, let me offer you a tip: Keep the chanting simple.

We usually open and close class with a single group “OM.” I’ll admit, the first time I attended a yoga class, it freaked me out. For a minute I thought I’d accidentally joined a cult and they were going to shave my hair off while my eyes were closed.

But then I started to dig it. There’s something pretty powerful about people united in purpose, joining their voices together. It’s a good reminder of the interconnectedness of all life.

So now I’m cool with an OM, or even three OMs if we have an enthusiastic instructor, though sometimes I can’t stop my mind from focusing on the one clearly tone deaf person who seems to be willfully trying to create discord. (<–BTW, just me or does it seem like that word should be spelled “dischord?”)

However, one thing I am decidedly NOT cool with are the instructors who try to get all creative and work in full chants. I’ll use what is perhaps the simplest of chants to explain why chants – in general – are a bad idea.

Let’s take, “Om. Shanti. Shanti. Shanti.” It’s an invocation of peace, which is nice in theory. And the words are simple and easy to remember. The thing that makes it a mess is that the first two “shantis” go down tonally (like “Mary” in “Mary Had a Little Lamb) but the third “shanti” goes up.

While that seems pretty simple, inevitably there will be a new person in class who doesn’t know that. They try to play along and go with the crowd. They are timid on the first “Shanti” but then more confident on the second one since it’s a repetition of the first. But then, just when they’ve worked themselves up to full participation and go to belt out that third “Shanti,” the rest of the class throws a curve ball.

Now do you understand why it's called Porky Piggin?

It’s like we all told the person it was “No Pants Friday” but then when he shows up Porky Piggin, the rest of us are fully clothed.

This exact thing happened today, and the poor dude who got orphaned on the third “Shanti” scrambled to try to get his pitch to match the rest of the class. The result was that he sounded like Peter Brady when his voice was changing. And it struck me as ridiculously funny. So I started laughing. To the point where I had tears coming out my eyes.

When we opened our eyes and bowed to say “Namaste” (meaning “the light in me bows to the light in you”), I remained face-down on my mat, shaking with laughter. Someone else from class is probably home right now, writing her own blog entry about the crazy girl that was so moved by her practice, she wept.

I guess it depends how you define “moved.”

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