We're Not Dead

Hello everyone. We’re not dead. But I’m sure you and the majority of the Earth population have noticed that we haven’t posted anything in quite some time. This is true. There are a couple of reason for our internet absence and fortunately neither are because we are dead.  

The first is that I have recently been promoted at work. This a good thing. But due to the timing of it and unforeseen and untimely personnel changes I have to continue doing my old job in addition to the new one. This is not a good thing. It has meant long hours and little to no free time for yours truly. The good news though is that it’s only temporary. Once the project I’m working on for my old job is done, I should have my life back. Should be sometime around the end of the summer. Just in time to enjoy crummy weather.

The second and much greater reason why we have been so absent is that we are currently remodeling the entire PCPPP campus and we have been spending the majority of our time arguing over carpet samples. It’s been exhausting. I’m convinced that Misty Hemlock is the right color to go with but Pat insists on Sierra Flame.

Pat:  It sounds manly AND comforting, no?

Christian: Actually no. In my opinion it’s a rather aggressive color. Too aggressive. Makes me want to throw tennis balls at people. Misty Hemlock is soothing and inspires creativity. At least according to my carpet sherpa.

Pat:  Exactly! Aggressive. Isn’t that what we want? We are creating a locus of genius thought and comedy. Misty Hemlock makes me want to lay down and take a nap, or get a massage. Sierra Flame makes me want to kick a forest fire’s ass with a barrage of wit and sarcasm. “Fuck you”, forest fire! “Fuck you with my wit!”  

That’s what Sierra Flame says to me. And I want to roll around in it in the middle of our office. Maybe without clothes. That sound okay?

Christian: No. To me that would be the number one reason to go with Misty Hemlock over Sierra Flame.

So as you can see folks, this debate has taken up a lot of our time. All of it in fact. And it has been expensive having to pay my carpet sherpa all this overtime. So once I no longer am having to work two jobs and more importantly we resolve this carpet issue we may not be posting much. And not much may very well mean not at all. We’re thinking late August. When the moon crosses over into the seventh jaguar.     

Pat:  Hey Christian, this is that time of year when I don’t have to work, so just holler if you need some help. Oh, wait...is that like what they call salt in the wounds? Sorry.

Christian: You bastard. You Sierra Flamed bastard!

Daylight Savings Lame

In case any of you were wondering I will not be appearing in an episode of Catfish, that TV show about people that start online relationships with people who may not be who they seem. Turns out there was a problem with one of the routers my chat client was using and all my communications were actually being bounced back to me. Therefore it turns out I was Catfishing myself. Which is unfortunate because I felt like I had really developed a strong connection with me.

Anyways, you know what else is lame? Daylight savings. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the setting the clocks back in the fall, but do we have to set them forward an hour during the spring?

Pat, I say we start getting rid of the jumping forward part but keep the setting the clocks back in the fall part. What do you say?

Pat:  Is catfishing related to noodling? I think we posted about that awhile back--that thing where people try to catch fish my shoving their arms down the fishes gullets? Both of those terms sound kinda’ dirty when you are also thinking about online relationships. There’s too many kinks in the world, Christian. I just can’t keep up with them all.

Something tells me that continuing only half of the daylight savings/losings tradition is a bad idea, whichever way you go. Over the course of 24 years, it seems like you’ll find yourself in either yesterday or tomorrow. That can’t be good.

Christian: Why? If it’s yesterday that means we’ve gained a whole additional day! We could watch a whole season of Airwolf in a day! Sweet!

What’s not to like here?

I’m suggesting we just get rid of the spring forward part, which would put us into tomorrow after 24 years. Yes that would be bad. It seems like I always have stuff to do tomorrow.   

Pat: Amen to that, brother! WAY too much stuff. Better to live in the moment, I say. Tomorrow will take care of itself...just like my taxes.

How many seasons of Airwolf were there? Tragedy, what happened to Jan Michael Vincent. Pure tragedy.  Still chokes me up just thinking about it.

Oh wait...that was Jon-Erik Hexum.

Christian: Jan Michael Vincent is still alive as far as I know. Did you know his character’s name on the show was Stringfellow Hawke? Hawke I get, but Stringfellow?

If only we had gotten rid of the spring forward part of daylight savings time before they created the show. That would have given the writers more time to come up with a better first name for their Airwolf piloting hero.

See? This is the kind of tragic results that I’m sure we suffer from every year because of daylight savings. How many more ill-named TV action heros are we going to suffer from before we put an end to this horror?

Does this not convince you that we should get rid of it, Pat? (I’m still talking about just getting rid of the spring forward part.)

Pat: No. Not in the least. For one thing, I was never really interested in those 80s helicopter-centric TV shows. Well, I can only think of four of them (and one of them--“China Beach”--was really a Vietnam-centric show with a lot of helicopters in it)...but I wasn’t too into them beyond a couple of episodes.

Now...consider the ability to revert daylight savings time in order to get more episodes of “Square Pegs”, “Fantasy Island”, or any show starring Ann Jillian and then we’re talking!

Christian: You don’t have to watch Airwolf. Or Blue Thunder. Or… wait was there another helicopter themed show in the 80’s? I don’t put China Beach in the same helicopter category as Airwolf and Blue Thunder. You’re not including Riptide are you? Yes it had a helicopter, but I wouldn’t say it was helicopter-centric.

Pat: Yeah it was! That helicopter was almost the best part of that show! Sure, it didn’t have the rugged swagger of Blue Thunder, or the streamlined stealth of Airwolf, but the Screaming Mimi stole the show almost every episode with her shaky-but-reliable persona.

Don’t kill my heroes, Christian. We’ve talked about this before. A lot.

Christian: There is no fucking way “Riptide” was a helicopter show.

If someone was to ask “What is the premise of “Riptide”?” You would say it’s about two former Army buddies that start a private detective agency on a boat or something. But you can’t describe the premise of Blue Thunder or Airwolf without saying the word helicopter. If you did you would be a dirty liar.

I’m starting to think that you’re not the right person I should be pitching my “only fall back” daylight savings plan to.

Pat:  Probably not. Sorry you’re just figuring that out now. You know me. I like my routines, and daylight savings is just one of those annual routines that I don’t want to give up. It’s also the reason I refuse to travel to Arizona.

And we really don’t need to get into it here, but “Riptide” is, too, totally a helicopter show.

The people have spoken

Christian:  You may have won this Riptide-is-a-helicopter-show battle, but the war is not over my friend. TO BE CONTINUED!

The Sorry State of Sorry

Pat, are you familiar with that board game “Sorry” where you draw cards and move little witnesses to mob crimes around a board trying to get them all into a safe house? This game:

Is it just me or does this image seem slightly crooked?

It’s making me feel kind of dizzy.

(source)

Pat: I remember that game! It’s connected to the mob? Really? Weird...I always assumed it was part of a Soviet training regimen designed to get people comfortable with the slow pace of inconsequential activities. I guess we’re all wrong some of the time.

Why do you ask?

Christian: Maybe it was just me that added the witness to mob crimes aspect to it. Anyways, this game was one of my favorites when I was a youth/in my twenties/thirties/now. However my five year old recently received this game as a gift. A brand new version.

It had some odd optional fire and ice things and rules that you can add to the game if you want to spice it up. Which of course I immediately threw down the garbage disposal. The game is perfect as it is. Everyone knows this.

Strictly out of curiosity though, I read the rules to know what these fire and ice abominations were all about. But I quickly learned that not only did they add these stupid fire and ice things/rules but they changed some of the core rules to the game! For example traditionally to leave your start circle you had to draw a one or a two. But nowadays you just have to draw a positive number. It’s almost impossible not to do this. What the pansy fuck?

Someone told me that at some point Parker Brothers changed the rules to some of their old school games to speed them up. By making these games easier I’m concerned we are raising a generation of weak sissies.   

On a scale of terrifyingly concerned to there is no limit to the amount of concern I should have, how concerned should we be?

Pat:  Fire and ice, eh? Just got some of that myself. Heh heh heh.

Sorry?

And I don’t know what the pansy fuck, Christian. Do you think they might be trying to speed up the games in an effort to get kids bored with them sooner so that they buy more and more games? If so, that seems pretty sneaky, sis! (game pun!)

Christian: I don’t know what their game (pun!) is. All I know is that they have ruined Sorry.

In addition to the start rules they also changed how the 8 sliders along the sides of the Sorry board work. Back in my day you could only slide down a slider that was the same color as you. And we loved it.

Nowadays the sliders are multi-colored which means anyone of any color can slide down them. I prefer the old days when they segregated people by color... Wait a second…

Pat: Bigot.

But sliders got me thinking about two things:

1.  Slider burgers. Who invented those little, fucking annoying finger-burgers? And why the hell do we call them “sliders”? Where are they sliding to or from, besides from my index finger and thumb to my gullet in far too small a bite? Stupid finger-burgers!

Fuck you, stupid little burgerette!

2. Chutes and Ladders, ‘cause I used to think about how much fun it would be to slide down all those slides, ESPECIALLY the one that took you from way up near the top, where you were almost winning, to way down at the bottom, where you were guaranteed to lose. And it bummed me out, because I was smart enough to know that the goal of the game was to get to the top, but I was also smarter enough to know that who the fuck wants to spend all their energy climbing ladders when they could be zipping down slides? And then I would lose.  

Poor guy.  Missing out on all the fun.

Christian: So what I’m hearing here is that you found the old school games difficult and would prefer them to be dumbed down. And that you don’t understand small hamburgers.

Is this what you’re saying?

Pat: I didn’t find them difficult so much as disappointing. The games, that is (but, actually, I suppose it’s true for the burgerettes as well). I understood that they were about competition and winning and ambition, but I just don’t didn’t have any of those qualities or desires. So, yeah...I tended to suck at old school games. I guess I kinda’ suck at new school games, too. You’re not going to invite me over for game night anytime soon, are you?

Christian: Don’t worry Pat, that wasn’t going to happen anyways.

So you have no opinion about Parker Brothers changing the rules to their games? Great. You are aware that this blog is called Point Counter-Point Point Point. The points mean point of views.

Pat: Right. Oh yes. I disagree with you wholeheartedly!

(yawn)

I can’t believe you would even think such an inane thing!

(yawn)

What the pansy fuck is the world coming to, Christian, when you can just willy-nilly have insane ideas about very important things like the one you just had!?

That better?

Christian: Yes, but you are completely wrong. Just wait. 20 years from now when we get invaded by Canada, our future sissy soldiers - who grew up playing easy to play and everyone “wins” type board games - won’t stand a chance against Canada’s strong willed horse mounted Army Mounties. You might as well get used to putting maple syrup on everything now Pat.

Getting Sex-Murdered by Your Dental Hygienist

I would like to start out by mentioning that I have never had a cavity in my life. Does this make me special? Maybe. Does Thor’s hammer make him special. Also a definite maybe. So you would expect that I would be pretty popular with dentists and especially the hygienists. And for the most part you would be correct.

In fact I’ve had more than one hygienist compliment me on how strong my tongue is*.

But I have recently been seeing a new hygienist and things have taken a turn for the worse.  

First off, I’m not getting much praise from her. I’m used to getting a lot of compliments on my no-cavity Thor-esque mouth. I didn’t even get a simple “Good for you” from her.

Also, during my first appointment with her, after about 20 mins of silence as she examined and cleaned my teeth, out of the blue she stops and says. “Did you know that you are now older than how old the dad character from Family Ties was back then?”  

I need to have full confidence in the mental capacity of the people I have entrusted my health to, Pat. This is just not going to do.

I have additional issues with her but I wanted to get your thoughts so far.

Pat: Hate to tell you this buddy, but I was all set to tell you to just suck it up and deal with it. Not all hygienists are going to massage your ego (or tongue?) in order to make you feel dentally superior. And I’m not just saying this as a slightly jealous and bitter cavity-plagued patient. I think you need to stop being so needy, man.

But then you mentioned the comment about Family Ties, and I was like, “Whoa!”. There are limits, man! Lines you DO NOT CROSS for fear of breaching the social contract. And she did it. Right in your face. Or your ear. Or mouth. Whatever.

Not cool.

Nice choppers, Christian!

Christian: I know. This is not how someone who has never had a cavity should be treated. But to be honest I can live with the Mr. Keaton comment. There are other things that I’m having bigger issue with.  

For example the amount of mouth care she is wanting me to maintain. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a firm believer in brushing at least twice a day and flossing is always a good thing. But after my first visit with her she didn’t so much suggest as command that I purchase a electric waterpik and start using it. Naturally I asked “Do I need to still floss if I’m using a waterpik?”

She laughed a second and then became silent and said with a serious look “Of course you do”.

Fine.

But upon my second visit with her (still no cavities!) she gave me a prescription for some mouthwash stuff she wanted me to rinse with every night and….AND… said I should start using rubber picks to clean in between my teeth each night. She even told me I should get them at Costco so that I can get large quantities of them for cheap. Naturally I asked, “Do I still need to use the waterpik then?”

“Oh definitely,” she replied as if I had asked if I still need to breath in oxygen on a regular basis.

So for the record, every night, she wants me to brush my teeth, floss, use the a waterpik, then clean with a rubber pick followed by rinsing with mouthwash.

Doesn’t this seem excessive for someone who has never had a cavity? My nighttime mouth cleaning routine now takes forever. I had to start leaving work early just so I would have enough time to get ready for bed.

What am I to do here?

Pat: She’s sounding a bit, umm, dentally aggressive, man. Gentle flossing...fine.  Inconvenient--yet polite--conversation...okay. Gritty polish-swill-spit routine...sure. Pokey metal pick probing into my soul gums...whatever. But c’mon, man...she’s just asking too much of your relationship.

Sounds like trouble. I might suggest you get out while you can.

Christian: But that’s just it. How? She told me that it’s important to see the same hygienist on each visit so they can track progress or some bullshit, so she makes sure to always schedule my next appointment on a day that she works.

And as of my last visit she wants me to start coming in every four months instead of every six months to 2 years like I had been doing beforehand.

And have I mentioned, I have never had a cavity?

I’m just going to cut to the chase and state my real concern with all this. I’m concerned she’s going to end up sex-murdering me. She’s obviously obsessed with me and my teeth, and sex-murdering is naturally the next step.

I’m going to end up in the bottom of some indoor well as she yells down to me “It puts the floss in the basket”.

Help, Pat.

Pat: Is sex murdering really a thing. Like, a common thing? Because you bring it up kinda’ often in our conversations, which makes me think it’s either a bigger thing than I know it to be, or you might be secretly fascinated with sex-murdering, in which case you…

Never mind. I wasn’t thinking anything. I don’t know. Just stay calm.

Have you checked with your insurance provider? I ask, because mine will only cover two check-ups a year as part of my plan. You might want to look into that, as it could be your out.

Hmm...who’d have thunk that bureaucracy could save your life?

Christian: Pat, I assure you sex-murdering is a real thing. In fact it affects 1 out of every 300 million Americans every year. I might be that American this year!

Even if my insurance only covers me for two appointments a year that’s only going to postpone the sex-murdering by a couple of months.

Dear god, I just noticed I have a dentist appointment in two days! Pat, if you don’t hear from me again just go ahead and assume I was sex-murdered. Call the police, the FBI, and Interpol (the band). And please tell my wife and kids something that will cheer them up. They’re gonna be bummed.

Pat: Will do. Good luck buddy.

Christian:

Pat: How did your appointment go?

Christian:

Pat: Christian? Did you have your appointment? Are you ok?

Christian:

Pat: Dear god! Have you been sex-murdered!?!?!

Christian: Sorry. I ate a bad burrito. Put me out of comission for a bit.

Nope. I did have the appointment but no sex-murdering. This time. However within the first five minutes of the appointment she mentioned the movies Single White Female and Fatal Attraction. I’m not sure if it was a threat or not but I don’t like it.

I’m still afraid.

But, woohoo! Still no cavities!!!

* Totally true.

Was I THAT guy?

Okay, Christian, simple question:

You’re at a concert. The kind with music that falls between rock and pop and folk and indie (or whatever the kids are calling it these days) and jam-band. The kind where some people are sitting but most are standing. You’re standing among them, sometimes moving your body with the music (or whatever the kids are calling ‘dancing’ these days).

Is it okay to talk to the person you went to the concert with?

Christian: This is not a simple question. There are many factors involved and I will need a lot more information before I can give you the correct answer. First off what did you have for dinner before the show?

Pat:   Not sure. Bourbon and Cheetos™, I think. That doesn’t sound like my typical dinner, but those are the two things I remember consuming that night.

Just to be clear, unlike many other people, bourbon and Cheetos™ turns me into a joyful and compassionate member of the community...not a sloppy drunk.

But all of that is beside the point. Would you talk or not?

Christian: I needed to know what you ate so I could get an idea of where your breath was at. If you had a bunch of garlic tacos or something I would say you should be limiting your talking to anyone for a few days. But bourbon and Cheetos seems fine.

How large of a venue was it?

Pat: Smallish. About 300 people. And to be clear, it was mostly a rockin’ show. There was one song where the band left, and the singer announced that he was going to try a particular song a capella, as he’d done at it the previous two shows with the band and it didn’t sound right, so “this time I want you all to be real quiet so that I can see if it sounds right.” Or something like that.

I kinda’ hate it when performers do that stuff. To be clear, I did not talk during that song. Can’t say the same for the rest of the show.

C’mon, man. You were in a band. You played shows. How did you feel about your audience having a good chat while you were strumming your heart out?

Christian: I think I need some more clarification. Is your concern that if you talk you will be offending the band? Or are you concerned of annoying the person you are with? Or are you concerned of annoying everyone around you?

Just to warn you. Most likely you’re annoying someone.

Pat:  Yeah, and at this point I should probably take it out of the hypothetical and let you know that I DID talk, I DID annoy someone, and I think I WAS that guy.

The exact words exchanged were:

Annoying guy:  So, umm, are you two planning on talking throughout the entire show?

Me:  Well...yeah, I think so.

Annoying guy:  Oh,  that’s kinda’ lame.

Annoying girl (not related to annoying guy):  Yeah, it’s really annoying, you know.

Me: (silence)

Still, I don’t think that’s fair. I thought there was an understanding that concerts were fair game for open conversations. If the band isn’t holding your attention then you may converse. Do you see it differently?

Christian: First off, those people sound like hipsters. Were they hipsters? If so next time just say that you heard some local thrift store had a ton of vinyl and they’ll be running off to their fixed-gear bikes to buy records and be out of your hair. Or just spray them in the face with some mace.

Secondly, having been in bands and having played many shows, seeing two people have a lengthy conversation during our show wouldn’t be ideal. But it would be better than having them just walk off. Or having them spray me in the face with some mace.

If they were the opening band they might have been offended. If they were the headliner it’s probably not as bad since you obviously were sticking around to hear them. However if this band claims to be any sort of rock band at all, then they are at fault for this whole situation. If people can still hear conversations being held while they are playing then they are no rock band.

Let me guess, they were a sissy rock band*?

Pat: Yep. They were a pretty hard-core, to-a-tee-fits-your-definition-of-a-sissy-rock-band rock band. Nice job...very descriptive!

And you know what? Since we started the cordial and informative back-and-forth on this post, I’ve been to another concert--one where I was very interested in seeing the performer, in a small, intimate venue--and there was a group of dipshits nearby conversing throughout the whole affair, annoying the shit out of me and proving to myself that, yes, I was THAT guy at THAT concert.

Pretty sure this is what I looked like to them.

Do you know if there’s a public online forum where one can go to be absolved of their concert digressions?

Christian: I wouldn’t know. I’m not THAT guy.

* Sissy rock band is the style of music where the band claims to be a rock band and has the traditional rock band instrumentation (electric guitar, drums, bass, etc.) but for some reason only plays slow to medium tempoed songs with very little energy and absolutely no hint of any raw emotion or angst. My go to example is Death Cab For Cutie.