Fashionistas you have arrived 3-25-03 - 10-3-03

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Has anyone actually seen a Segway? Not on TV, but in person?

I've seen four in person. Two at the art car parade in May, one at an antique festival in April and one at the gay pride parade two weeks ago. They look like fun.

[Aloha Mr. Learned Hand]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Has anyone actually seen a Segway? Not on TV, but in person?

A couple of times, Ty: Saw one in the Loop that an apparently wealthy gentleman was riding to work. I was waiting at a red light and heard this whirring noise. Came to a stop 5 feet from me. Told another pedestrian he bought it on Amazon and rides it 2 miles each way to work.

Second time was two weeks ago when I took Mrs. Hand to see Peter Gabriel (can't imagine a big FB following, so here's all the spoiler space you get if you're going to see him), but he and his daughter Melanie performed "Games Without Frontiers" on Segways, going back and forth across the stage and rotating in place. Seem very maneuverable and look like fun, but I'm not sure about their utility yet...

[fufu]

Originally posted by Aloha Mr. Learned Hand
A couple of times, Ty: Saw one in the Loop that an apparently wealthy gentleman was riding to work. I was waiting at a red light and heard this whirring noise Seem very maneuverable and look like fun, but I'm not sure about their utility yet...

The USPS was trying them out in San Francisco because of the hills. However, a group of very concerned senior citizens complained to the Board of Supervisors about the Segways sharing the sidewalk with people, and how they had the potential to scare people when approaching from behind because of their lack of noise. Segways haven't been seen in Pacific Heights for a while.

[str8outavannuys]

Originally posted by dtb
Do I have to go over this AGAIN ? It's Jackie Chiles not Childs. (Although now I suppose people would pronounce it Chill-eez.)

(There is an episode where you see the door to his office, and it clearly says "Chiles".)


Please, people, don't make me do this again...

Speaking of "don't make me do this again," today's thread 'Dilemma' has me singing to myself: "Nelly I love you, Nelly I need you . . ." It has to stop. It has to.

Str(really, it has to stop. Really.)8

[cheval de frise]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Has anyone actually seen a Segway? Not on TV, but in person?

Yes. Twice here in Manhattan, both times on the sidewalk (fuckers). The first rider was wearing casual clothes and had a big 'ol grin on his face - he was probably paid to ride it around for promotional purposes. The second one was a guy in his late 40's or early '50's wearing an expensive suit, carefully coiffed silver hair, etc., unsmiling - he looked a little like the mayor character on Spin City. The type of guy who's a "look at me, look how rich/important I am type," who in reality has a micropenis and three mortgages on the mansion he inherited from daddy.

The machines themselves are spooky. Utterly quiet, fast, and self-balancing. They put the rider up at least 6-8 inches and are wider than they look on TV; you feel small standing next to one that has somebody on board.

I respect Kamen's genius....but I really hate his multi-city campaign to allow these things on crowded sidewalks.

CDF (as if bicyclists going 30 mph the wrong way on one-way streets weren't enough for us pedestrians to worry about...I've almost been run down and killed twice. If I ever see one of them coming in time, I swear to God I'm gonna knock him off his bike and beat him to a pulp.)

[str8outavannuys]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Has anyone actually seen a Segway? Not on TV, but in person?

Tommy Lee was riding around on one in the VIP area at Coachella. He looked like he was having big fun tormenting Pat O'Brien.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by cheval de frise
. . . The type of guy who's a "look at me, look how rich/important I am type," who in reality has a micropenis and three mortgages on the mansion he inherited from daddy. . . . If I ever see one of them coming in time, I swear to God I'm gonna knock him off his bike and beat him to a pulp.)

I was gonna say hi, and ask how your month has been going, but that would be sort of superfluous now, wouldn't it?

[cheval de frise]

Originally posted by bilmore
I was gonna say hi, and ask how your month has been going, but that would be sort of superfluous now, wouldn't it?

Naaah, it hasn't been that bad. Thanks for asking, though. Family's great, I get along fine with my co-workers, I don't mind SUV drivers, and I don't even mind the Segway people that much. I just get really riled every time I think of having almost been killed in a crosswalk -- TWICE -- by speeding wrong-way bike bozos. And those are just the REALLY near misses. If I ever have a baseball bat and two seconds' warning, you'll be seeing me on the evening news. In handcuffs and smiling....even though I'm fully clothed.

So, how've you been?

CDF

[bilmore]

Originally posted by cheval de frise
In handcuffs and smiling....even though I'm fully clothed.

Ya know, you tell me - what? - like, five times - DAMMIT, BILMORE, DON'T MENTION THAT NIGHT ON THE BOARDS, and now you go and allude to it like this?

It makes me think you regret what happened. It makes me feel . . . I don't know . . . cheap.

[cheval de frise]

Originally posted by bilmore
Ya know, you tell me - what? - like, five times - DAMMIT, BILMORE, DON'T MENTION THAT NIGHT ON THE BOARDS, and now you go and allude to it like this?

C'mon, I showed SOME discretion. I didn't mention the zipper mask, or the greased farm animals, or the country music tapes we played backwards after tonguing those little bits of paper with the Donald Duck heads on them.

Originally posted by bilmore
It makes me think you regret what happened?

You actually think that I remember what happened? All I know is what I saw on that videotape afterwards. I'm not even sure it was me in that get-up.

Originally posted by bilmore It makes me feel . . . I don't know . . . cheap.

Well, you paid in 1972 dollars. It's only now that it seems cheap.

I truly hope that this makes you feel better.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by cheval de frise
C'mon, I showed SOME discretion. I didn't mention the zipper mask, or the greased farm animals, or the country music tapes we played backwards after tonguing those little bits of paper with the Donald Duck heads on them.

I had completely forgotten the greased farm animals.

Ah, those days o' auld lang syne.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
You can have him. He's funny, but short. I would, however, fight you over Stephen Colbert. He's dreamy.

I'd consider sleeping with Colbert - he's that fucking funny.

Why Mo Rocca gets all the outside press over Colbert amazes me. I'd rank the correspondents as follows:

1. Colbert
2. The Bald Guy who's name escapes me at the moment
and Ed Helms (tie)
3. Rocca
4. Everyone else

Lewis Black is of course my favorite person on the show because of the rants. I have yet to see a bad "Back in Black" segment.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by paigowprincess
Can someone teach me how to perfect one of these bad boys? I have noticed that some of those in offices near mine are really strong in this area. They use them for chit chat around the proverbial water cooler with people who clearly make their skin crawl (like the fat guy, the Bill Lumbergh guy, the bimbo looking lady). One of these folks tries to make a funny and these fake chucklers just toss the head back and do their thing. They also do it really well with partners, who do it right back if they are in a fake good mood that day. Me, I just do a fake grin and try to squint my eyes and make it look like a real grin. Then I get the hell away from the water cooler. My fake laugh, which is quite rusty, always sounds so transparently fake to me that I think it would offend the undesirables on the receiving end of it. And god forbid they heard my real laugh which sounds nothing like my fake chuckle, and which apparently cannot be simulated, then the undesriables would know for sure that they were being fake chuckled at. Which I think is kind of insulting to their intelligence, such as it is.

So how do these people pull it off? Are they really fooling the undesirables? And arent these fake chuckles more rude than polite?

PP:

The fake Chuckle is tricky because if you fuck it up you look like a patronizing asshole. The Fake Chuckle is best used with people who are bubbly and positive, but not very funny. You know the type - the ones who say something like "And then I realized we'd purchased fuschia rather than watermelon linoleum for the countertops" and then burst into hysterics. These people tend to grab you by the shirt and tell you about how they tripped getting off the subway and nearly fell down while guffawing as though they'd just stumbled across a gaggle of midget clowns re-enacting the battle of Gettysburg against a mime troupe in a public park on the way to work.

Laughing at the banal is a studied art. When these drones regale you with their wild stories, the trick is to laugh at the very same moment they start laughing. This way, they have no idea exactly how fake your laugh was because they were too busy wiping their eyes from the hilarity of their story about how their lab got loose and ran all about the backyard while they were leaving to go to work. As soon as they're done laughing, you muct stop laughing and make some sort of facial expression that makes it seem like your facial muscles are recovering from a serious bit of chuckling. You might also want to throw in some generic comment like "Wow, that's not a good start to the day." I often go with a drawn out "Shiiiit... that's pretty nuts." That makes them feel not only like their story was funny, but also pretty damn unique - enough to bring me to mild swearing and a reference to craziness.

If you feel as much like an idiot faking laughter at god-awfully dull stories as I do, you may want to turn your head and pretend you're doing something else while faking the laugh. If you happen to be at the water cooler, lean over and start filling a cup with water as you fake the laugh. This will allow you to not have to make eye contact with the stand up comedian, thus avoiding him or her discovering that you're totally patronizing him/her.

I've faked the laugh for so long I can do it directly in a person's face and throw in one of over 500 random generic strings of words which makes the comedian feel like I really thought the joke/story was interesting. Very often, I find myself blurting non-sequiturs and no one notices. Starting off any response with "Wow" usually does the trick. Next time Mary from HR stops by and regales you with a wild ditty about how her husband called little Billy's soccer coach a "ninny," smile and say "Woww... I have swiss cheese toaster skateboard." Mary won't notice a goddamn thing and walk away thinking she's just made your morning. You can then get back to researching online how to cut the brake lines on Mary's minivan.

S(Your Heloise for the modern office)D

[evenodds]

Marriage tames geniuses and criminals

PARIS (AFP) - Creative genius and crime express themselves early in men but both are turned off almost like a tap if a man gets married and has children, a study says.

Satoshi Kanazawa, a psychologist at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, compiled a database of the biographies of 280 great scientists, noting their age at the time when they made their greatest work.

The data remarkably concur with the brutal observation made by Albert Einstein, who wrote in 1942: "A person who has not made his great contribution to science before the age of 30 will never do so."

"Scientific productivity indeed fades with age," Kanazawa says. "Two-thirds (of all scientists) will have made their most significant contributions before their midthirties."

But, regardless of age, the great minds who married virtually kissed goodbye to making any further glorious additions to their CV.

Within five years of making their nuptial vows, nearly a quarter of married scientists had made their last significant contribution to history's Hall of Fame.

"Scientists rather quickly desist (from their careers) after their marriage, while unmarried scientists continue to make great scientific contributions later in their lives," says Kanazawa.

full text: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...ychology_crime

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Has anyone actually seen a Segway? Not on TV, but in person?

I have ridden one. Briefly.