Yeah, that's probably true, but I've already contacted the one woman I wanted to contact, and it's not as if my profile is public. I guess I'll change it when it becomes clear that she's not going to respond (ie, tomorrow) and I'm on to woman #2.
If 4 I didn't seriously think you would put "Being and Time" as the last great book you've read. Isn't that simultaneously pretentious (albeit true) and has strong connotations of not-fun.
Um, I hope it was clear that I don't think you should put it in your personal, if your goal is to actually get dates? Although if you're going to ask out one woman at a time you could just change your profile to suit your current target. The problem being that if this were discovered I'm pretty sure that it would be legal for all your targetees to get together and club you to death.
If it's absolutely clear that it's a joke, maybe you should add it. You want someone who will appreciate your sense of humor. But I think it probably would not be absolutely clear, and then I think it could come across as totally not-fun and controlling. I mean, if people want to be corrected on little details all the time, they can hang out at the Mineshaft.
Who do you want asking you out: women or hairy married men? I appear to be the only offer on the table, and I fear I'm not your type. In a sense, the joke only makes sense in a public profile.
So, you should follow the others' advice. But if a woman sent that to me, I'd be totally charmed.
Add it only if it's clear that if your personal ad fails, it will be educating others by being an example of what not to do. Still. Hard to pull off without sounding overly convinced of your own superiority.
Gawd, I'm newly impressed by my friends who have found mates through these things. I don't think I could answer any of those questions in an appealing way. Just being the sort that answers them seems sort of unappealing. Could you imagine what a ponce you'd seem like if you asked those questions on a first date?
Book - OK. Song - OK. But everything else: Jeebus.
I agree with SCMT. I'd end up getting really snarky really fast. What would you find in my bedroom? Everything I own, except my car. And the things I own that aren't in my bedroom. Which isn't much.
You have to work really hard to rein in the snark. The best profiles tend to be non-snarky, because unless you're truly witty, snark doesn't work, especially in such a weird space as an online personal questionnaire.
"Yeah, that's probably true, but I've already contacted the one woman I wanted to contact, and it's not as if my profile is public. I guess I'll change it when it becomes clear that she's not going to respond (ie, tomorrow) and I'm on to woman #2."
As a helpful hint, let me suggest that you tell each woman you meet exactly which number she was in the ranking. Woman love honesty, and what is more honest than telling her "you weren't my first 35 choices, but you are #36"?
suffer like castle anthrax suffer? or suffer like monk-style* suffering...
*i'm not saying monks suffer. in fact, i've said before that i think being a monk would be really cool, except for the whole celibacy and religion thing.
Ogged, not to be Captain Obvious here, and I'm sorry if you've already assimilated this info into your attitude, but people on Salon/Nerve people use Secretary as a code word. Many of them who use this code might not even like the movie, or the sex scenes therein. It's a useful, discrete marker, especially if you've got a picture attached to your ad.
I hate people on Nerve ads who say the same exact goddamned things as everyone else. I've rejected even people who wrote to me platonically if they said they were looking for "a partner in crime."
Also, many people seem to confuse "Last great book I read" with "last book I read period". This makes it hard to answer the question of the last great book you read without sounding pretentious compared to other people who recently read The Fountainhead.
I will now read the other 35 comments to discover these points have already been made, and better.
I filled one out as an experiment with the literary form. It's not in my zip code, though, so good luck finding it. Also, I think I hid it when I wrote yours. Maybe I'll unhide it and if you find the right one I'll club you to death with my giant dong.
Goddammit. Now I have "thong song" in my head, with predictably revised lyrics.
I thought it was about the perversions of character that can be wrought by enacting one's most personal moments for an incorporeal public, but I'm down with discovering my sexuality too.
I have about forty books stacked on and around my bed along with a seven foot tall shelf with more books and books stacked on an ottoman in the corner as well as books on the nightstand.
The sexiest thing in my bedroom is my copy of Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent.
I should get a personal ad and answer all the questions scrupulously honestly just to see how many idiots answer it thinking I am lying.
I could never decide on what the best lie I've ever told is, because I tell outrageous lies all the time and I love them each, as if they were my own children.
The best lie I ever told was when I convinced someone from Hoboken that I was from Newark.
With my thick, thick Southern accent.
I guess that was actually the most gullible person I've ever met, and not my best lie. Wouldn't the best lie be the one that convinced the least gullible person?
Not necessarily, because you could tell the least gullible person that you're sick and can't come into work. That's not much of a "best lie". Your best lie should be something daring and outrageous, something wildly implausible. Something strong!
I think my candidates are convincing several people on my floor in college that my dad had a pet kangaroo named Pierre, and telling a coworker when we were both applying for law schools that I was going to down as my greatest accomplishment a description of the time I reattached a man's severed arm on a roadside.
I revealed the lie to the coworker after about ten, fifteen minutes. There isn't much point in keeping it up once you see that you've convinced the person.
The kangaroo thing I'm not sure. There was ongoing discussion.
*peeks around, hopes no one remembers she's banned*
Can I tell a story about the best lie anyone ever convinced me of?
When I was seven my dad told me both that the Jujubee was an actual bee, native to Africa, with stripes of every color of the rainbow except blue, and fed on nectar of the Juju Flower, with petals of every color of the rainbow except blue, and better, that somewhere in the world there had been a large-scale nuclear holocaust and some people had mutated by growing fully formed goat's heads out of their stomach, and they had to feed the goats or else they themselves would die. I believed both the stories implicitly and I told them to my second grade teacher and the rest of the class. When she gently suggested that maybe he was telling me fictional stories, I took great umbrage, and informed her that maybe she just didn't know as much as my daddy did.
Since we're all on a magical journey of adventure I went and filled out eHarmony's twelve thousand page survey. And they turned me down. I do not fit their profile for a good match.
The questions on that thing are so, so skewed to make people fit preconceived gender roles, too. Things like ' Answer True or False: I like to create a beautiful, peaceful home environment'.
No, I like to have power drills going at all times in every room and I sleep on concrete blocks! Bah.
winna, I'd be interested in that ad only if I were thinking you weren't lying.
And what's with Latin America book titles? Born in Blood and Fire and all that.
Of course US history has its own titular fun: it's not in my bedroom now, but I've got a copy of Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs lyring around somewhere..
I might have mentioned here before: someone I know (actually, he of the "if I'd killed her, I'd be out by now") told his almost-five-year-old daughter that if she didn't behave, he wouldn't let her turn five. It was very effective.
Open Veins is heart-warming, in the way that all polemic is heart-warming. It's like a fire-and-brimstone sermon for Marxists.
See? If only eHarmony would have let me in I could have shared my wealth of books with some good evangelical Christian man! Hah!
It would have been, as I've said before about the prospect of me + some poor religious person, like the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes every day of the week.
I never carried it far enough to have to pretend to know another language; mainly I've used it abroad when people have come up to me and asked, probably because they wanted to then ask for directions: "Do you speak English?"
One time, though, after I said "a little" with an indeterminate accent, I was immediately asked where I was from and I answered honestly, at which point they just started laughing.
I and one other friend once convinced more than one person that we were handing out tickets, of the type that carry fines, for them being on a beach after the beach closed. We convinced them of this despite the fact that we were handing out blank napkins. Convincing drunk people at 3:30 AM is pretty easy though.
I could never decide on what the best lie I've ever told is, because I tell outrageous lies all the time and I love them each, as if they were my own children.
Hey, me too, although I've had to tone it down in professional contexts. As a summer associate I convinced a tableful of attorneys and other law students that the reason our rice was taking so long to show up was that we were in a Northern Chinese restaurant, where millet, rather than rice, was the local default grain, and they were probably just having trouble figuring out how to cook it. I really wasn't expecting that one to fly -- explaining that I had been kidding was a little embarassing.
I might have mentioned here before: someone I know (actually, he of the "if I'd killed her, I'd be out by now") told his almost-five-year-old daughter that if she didn't behave, he wouldn't let her turn five.
I'm the shortest member of a tall family, and as I was growing up my father explained that there was a height requirement for being considered legally human, with full civil rights. When I was a kid, the height limit was 5'0". When I hit 5 feet, I went running to Dad, who explained that the height limit had been raised by act of Congress, and was now 5'4", although people who had been human before the change were grandfathered in. As I grew, the height limit kept on being raised: Dad would explain that he, personally, deplored it, but the matter was out of his hands. It stopped at 5'10" -- I stopped at 5' 7 1/2".
Also, I've convinced people that I only speak "a little" accented English.
I used to telemarket with a thick Irish brogue. I started to be funny, and kept it up because I sold a lot more that way.
I took their endless questionaire and they said I wasn't a match.
I saved my personality profile, though. Reading that, I can't see why I wouldn't be a real catch.
'Your response indicates a strong need to be precise. This projects into the social environment by the need to have a place for everything and everything in its place.'
Who wouldn't want someone who feels pain and distress if the toothbrushes aren't back in the toothbrush holder?
Ogged being a gentleman, would we even find out if he had reset his TiVo?
Is this a joke? We have to be told. In fact, I expect him to post something about the experience the next morning, from her. Under the title, "Yes, Virginia, There Is Such a Thing As Too Drunk."
I can't wait for this usage to spread, so that ending a long dry spell would be reported like this: "Yeah, I ran into Gretchen at DUIFriday's last night. She still looks great. And guess what? I took her home and reset Ogged's TiVo."
The height, the lying, the feigned accents (tried Southern as well, but while my brogue is convincing, my drawl is not), the telemarketing job? Which one seemed unlikely?
When I was two, 2 was my favorite number, so I refused to turn three--I simply explained that I was now two for the second time. For some reason my parents somewhat humored me about this. IIRC I was somewhat relieved when I was able to come up with what I thought was a legitimate rationale for turning four.
A friend of mine once pointed me to a profile from a philosophy professor whose "Best/worst lie I've ever told" was "Saying to a nineteen-year-old, 'That's a really good point.'" This profile, I should add, was not mine nor that of anyone I know.
I suggested to ogged that his first post after the PG-date should have been entitled, "My Tivo Reads Zero," no matter what actually happened. (He went with the much classier "Holy Fantastic Rack".)
Ah. I suppose I don't do it online -- you really need the body language to pull it off. ("Did you know researchers in Virgina have trained oysters to do simple household tasks?")
My grandmother had to go in for some form of inpatient surgery when I was about 6. My dad informed that the bolt that held her butt on (the belly button being the recessed screw head at the end of the bolt) had broken, and that they had to take it out and superglue her butt on to hold it in place, as otherwise it would just fall off.
On multiple occasion over the next year or so, I caused myself minor injuries trying to get my bellybutton to unscrew. I think I believed him for several years...
There was a guy named Ivan that LB and I went to school with, who once gave a presentation in AP Bio about lichen. His lichen presentation was strangely moving--he began his talk by describing a trip to Norway with his father when he was little, and how he became interested in lichen on walks they took together. I was nearly in tears by the end of his lichen story, which lasted a good 15 minutes, and was really very informative and inspiring--filling the audience with a desire to take nature walks with their dads.
When Ivan sat down in his seat, behind me, I turned around to him and asked if it was just one trip or if he regularly went there with his dad. He shook his head indulgently as though touched by my innocence and said, "Never been to Norway. Not once."
If I can't get a date, I hope at least to make everyone else's personal ad a bit better.
I hope you put that in your profile. You will get MAD play.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 5:19 PM
On second thought, add a "pot, kettle" to that.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 5:20 PM
Huh, I didn't think to put in my profile.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 5:21 PM
"Last great book I read"
It's a good thing the reading group isn't more active or this might be googleable.
Posted by NickS | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 5:33 PM
Magic Matt is right. You should put that in the personal. I would ask you out.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 5:33 PM
Yeah, that's probably true, but I've already contacted the one woman I wanted to contact, and it's not as if my profile is public. I guess I'll change it when it becomes clear that she's not going to respond (ie, tomorrow) and I'm on to woman #2.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 5:37 PM
Added it.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 5:39 PM
Is 6 in response to 4 or 5?
If 4 I didn't seriously think you would put "Being and Time" as the last great book you've read. Isn't that simultaneously pretentious (albeit true) and has strong connotations of not-fun.
Posted by NickS | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 5:41 PM
Um, I hope it was clear that I don't think you should put it in your personal, if your goal is to actually get dates? Although if you're going to ask out one woman at a time you could just change your profile to suit your current target. The problem being that if this were discovered I'm pretty sure that it would be legal for all your targetees to get together and club you to death.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 5:41 PM
Ok, now I feel stupid. Why does trying to get a date turn everyone into an idiot. Add it or not add it? Make up your collective mind.
Nick, it was to 5.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 5:42 PM
If it's absolutely clear that it's a joke, maybe you should add it. You want someone who will appreciate your sense of humor. But I think it probably would not be absolutely clear, and then I think it could come across as totally not-fun and controlling. I mean, if people want to be corrected on little details all the time, they can hang out at the Mineshaft.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 5:45 PM
Don't -- while funny in this context, it looks like contempt for all the other losers who post profiles. Contempt is bad.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 5:46 PM
Listen to the CwO.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 5:49 PM
Listen to the CwO.
Who do you want asking you out: women or hairy married men? I appear to be the only offer on the table, and I fear I'm not your type. In a sense, the joke only makes sense in a public profile.
So, you should follow the others' advice. But if a woman sent that to me, I'd be totally charmed.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 5:58 PM
What if 1 > c > 0 ?
(Any tricks to getting a less-than symbol to show up in a comment?)
Posted by Todd | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 5:58 PM
ampersand-l-t-semi-colon
<
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Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 6:00 PM
Who do you want asking you out: women or hairy married men?
You do ask the hard questions. No women have flashed me. But I took it out, since there's enough in the profile that's jokey.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 6:03 PM
Add it only if it's clear that if your personal ad fails, it will be educating others by being an example of what not to do. Still. Hard to pull off without sounding overly convinced of your own superiority.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 6:04 PM
Most humbling moment:
Being nominated for the Supreme Court.
Winning a championship.
Having the definition of humble explained to me on a pseudonymous blog.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 6:07 PM
Gawd, I'm newly impressed by my friends who have found mates through these things. I don't think I could answer any of those questions in an appealing way. Just being the sort that answers them seems sort of unappealing. Could you imagine what a ponce you'd seem like if you asked those questions on a first date?
Book - OK. Song - OK. But everything else: Jeebus.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 6:19 PM
I agree with SCMT. I'd end up getting really snarky really fast. What would you find in my bedroom? Everything I own, except my car. And the things I own that aren't in my bedroom. Which isn't much.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 6:39 PM
You have to work really hard to rein in the snark. The best profiles tend to be non-snarky, because unless you're truly witty, snark doesn't work, especially in such a weird space as an online personal questionnaire.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 6:58 PM
"Yeah, that's probably true, but I've already contacted the one woman I wanted to contact, and it's not as if my profile is public. I guess I'll change it when it becomes clear that she's not going to respond (ie, tomorrow) and I'm on to woman #2."
As a helpful hint, let me suggest that you tell each woman you meet exactly which number she was in the ranking. Woman love honesty, and what is more honest than telling her "you weren't my first 35 choices, but you are #36"?
Posted by Maynard Handley | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 7:43 PM
Ogged, you're like the Christ of online dating, taking all the weight of the personal-creation-process onto your own shoulders.
Posted by winna | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 7:47 PM
I think the women sense this, and will make me suffer appropriately.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 7:59 PM
suffer like castle anthrax suffer? or suffer like monk-style* suffering...
*i'm not saying monks suffer. in fact, i've said before that i think being a monk would be really cool, except for the whole celibacy and religion thing.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 8:33 PM
Celibacy's not as bad as you think.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 8:36 PM
There are indeed worse things than being celibate.
On the other hand, you just have to find your Mary Magdalene. Or your Maid Marian. Or something.
Posted by winna | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 8:44 PM
Ogged, not to be Captain Obvious here, and I'm sorry if you've already assimilated this info into your attitude, but people on Salon/Nerve people use Secretary as a code word. Many of them who use this code might not even like the movie, or the sex scenes therein. It's a useful, discrete marker, especially if you've got a picture attached to your ad.
I hate people on Nerve ads who say the same exact goddamned things as everyone else. I've rejected even people who wrote to me platonically if they said they were looking for "a partner in crime."
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 8:52 PM
I did not know that, Tia. Thanks.
There's nudity on your blog.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 8:56 PM
Not to mention, the following sentence:
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 9:00 PM
There, is that better? I could also only comment after 11p.m.
Posted by Tia (Never Save for Work) | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 9:02 PM
I wasn't complaining. I just thought you should know.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 9:03 PM
Oh, thanks. I actually consulted with the marketing department and we decided it was worth the higher rating.
And I meant "discreet," before someone complains.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 9:10 PM
You're banned.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 9:14 PM
This is a blog-defining post: the critical eye turned on ephemera. Love it. Won't ever show you my personal ad, though.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 9:25 PM
"if a+b/c is sexy; then a+b+c is sexier."
Oh yeah? What if c is .001 sexiness units?
Also, many people seem to confuse "Last great book I read" with "last book I read period". This makes it hard to answer the question of the last great book you read without sounding pretentious compared to other people who recently read The Fountainhead.
I will now read the other 35 comments to discover these points have already been made, and better.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 9:30 PM
Do you really have a personal ad, Labs?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 9:31 PM
I filled one out as an experiment with the literary form. It's not in my zip code, though, so good luck finding it. Also, I think I hid it when I wrote yours. Maybe I'll unhide it and if you find the right one I'll club you to death with my giant dong.
Goddammit. Now I have "thong song" in my head, with predictably revised lyrics.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 9:47 PM
If you unhide it and I find it, I'll show you mine, and we can post out-of-context quotes from each other's on the blog.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 9:50 PM
This is sort of turning into an afterschool special about discovering our sexuality, isn't it?
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 9:53 PM
I thought it was about the perversions of character that can be wrought by enacting one's most personal moments for an incorporeal public, but I'm down with discovering my sexuality too.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 9:56 PM
I have a scavenger hunt in my bedroom, so what you find depends on how hard you look.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 10:07 PM
I have about forty books stacked on and around my bed along with a seven foot tall shelf with more books and books stacked on an ottoman in the corner as well as books on the nightstand.
The sexiest thing in my bedroom is my copy of Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent.
I should get a personal ad and answer all the questions scrupulously honestly just to see how many idiots answer it thinking I am lying.
Posted by winna | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 10:17 PM
I could never decide on what the best lie I've ever told is, because I tell outrageous lies all the time and I love them each, as if they were my own children.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 10:19 PM
The best lie I ever told was when I convinced someone from Hoboken that I was from Newark.
With my thick, thick Southern accent.
I guess that was actually the most gullible person I've ever met, and not my best lie. Wouldn't the best lie be the one that convinced the least gullible person?
Posted by winna | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 10:22 PM
Not necessarily, because you could tell the least gullible person that you're sick and can't come into work. That's not much of a "best lie". Your best lie should be something daring and outrageous, something wildly implausible. Something strong!
I think my candidates are convincing several people on my floor in college that my dad had a pet kangaroo named Pierre, and telling a coworker when we were both applying for law schools that I was going to down as my greatest accomplishment a description of the time I reattached a man's severed arm on a roadside.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 10:30 PM
For how long were these people convinced?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 10:39 PM
I revealed the lie to the coworker after about ten, fifteen minutes. There isn't much point in keeping it up once you see that you've convinced the person.
The kangaroo thing I'm not sure. There was ongoing discussion.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 10:47 PM
Huh. Well done.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 10:49 PM
Your best lie should be something daring and outrageous, something wildly implausible.
Hmm. I assumed "best lie" meant something noble; a "There are no Jews in the attic" type thing.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 10:51 PM
*peeks around, hopes no one remembers she's banned*
Can I tell a story about the best lie anyone ever convinced me of?
When I was seven my dad told me both that the Jujubee was an actual bee, native to Africa, with stripes of every color of the rainbow except blue, and fed on nectar of the Juju Flower, with petals of every color of the rainbow except blue, and better, that somewhere in the world there had been a large-scale nuclear holocaust and some people had mutated by growing fully formed goat's heads out of their stomach, and they had to feed the goats or else they themselves would die. I believed both the stories implicitly and I told them to my second grade teacher and the rest of the class. When she gently suggested that maybe he was telling me fictional stories, I took great umbrage, and informed her that maybe she just didn't know as much as my daddy did.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 10:52 PM
Since we're all on a magical journey of adventure I went and filled out eHarmony's twelve thousand page survey. And they turned me down. I do not fit their profile for a good match.
The questions on that thing are so, so skewed to make people fit preconceived gender roles, too. Things like ' Answer True or False: I like to create a beautiful, peaceful home environment'.
No, I like to have power drills going at all times in every room and I sleep on concrete blocks! Bah.
Posted by winna | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 10:52 PM
winna, I'd be interested in that ad only if I were thinking you weren't lying.
And what's with Latin America book titles? Born in Blood and Fire and all that.
Of course US history has its own titular fun: it's not in my bedroom now, but I've got a copy of Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs lyring around somewhere..
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 10:53 PM
lying
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 10:54 PM
Tia, your dad is way not banned. That's awesome.
I might have mentioned here before: someone I know (actually, he of the "if I'd killed her, I'd be out by now") told his almost-five-year-old daughter that if she didn't behave, he wouldn't let her turn five. It was very effective.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 10:56 PM
I was told something similar about my approaching third birthday.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 11:00 PM
Open Veins is heart-warming, in the way that all polemic is heart-warming. It's like a fire-and-brimstone sermon for Marxists.
See? If only eHarmony would have let me in I could have shared my wealth of books with some good evangelical Christian man! Hah!
It would have been, as I've said before about the prospect of me + some poor religious person, like the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes every day of the week.
Posted by winna | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 11:09 PM
Also, I've convinced people that I only speak "a little" accented English.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 11:09 PM
I did that when I worked at a restaurant. I would speak broken English and French, or just use sign language.
Why I was never fired is a mystery to me.
Posted by winna | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 11:10 PM
I never carried it far enough to have to pretend to know another language; mainly I've used it abroad when people have come up to me and asked, probably because they wanted to then ask for directions: "Do you speak English?"
One time, though, after I said "a little" with an indeterminate accent, I was immediately asked where I was from and I answered honestly, at which point they just started laughing.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 08-11-05 11:16 PM
I and one other friend once convinced more than one person that we were handing out tickets, of the type that carry fines, for them being on a beach after the beach closed. We convinced them of this despite the fact that we were handing out blank napkins. Convincing drunk people at 3:30 AM is pretty easy though.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 12:03 AM
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes every day of the week.
Celebrity I resemble the most:
Catherine de Medici
Why you should get to know me:
L'état, c'est moi.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 12:28 AM
What's this, ogged? I'm on vacation a mere week and already you're searching the personals?
I suppose you saw fit to reset the tivo, too? Huh?
Posted by profgrrrrl | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 12:52 AM
Ogged being a gentleman, would we even find out if he had reset his TiVo?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 12:56 AM
Winna, were you lying about eHarmony? Because they DID reject me. For real.
Posted by bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 1:00 AM
Ogged being a gentleman, would we even find out if he had reset his TiVo?
I've wondered about how to handle this, Ben. Then I realized I had far more pressing concerns.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 7:31 AM
The states relationship also doesn't work if a, b and c are negative. This guy's an idiot. Don't go out with him, ogged.
The best possible response to the great book queston ends with, "It was okay."
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 7:44 AM
ogged,
I'll finish reading the entry soon but I wanted to stop and say that this:
Usually rendered as "I don't lie, I'm not good at it." You're damn right you're not.
is absolutely brilliant!
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 7:55 AM
I used to say that "Alex Mcleod is sexy, Paige Davis is sexier," but now Paige went and quit so the answer is no longer topical.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 7:57 AM
would we even find out if he had reset his TiVo?
Look for the puff of white smoke.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 8:04 AM
I could never decide on what the best lie I've ever told is, because I tell outrageous lies all the time and I love them each, as if they were my own children.
Hey, me too, although I've had to tone it down in professional contexts. As a summer associate I convinced a tableful of attorneys and other law students that the reason our rice was taking so long to show up was that we were in a Northern Chinese restaurant, where millet, rather than rice, was the local default grain, and they were probably just having trouble figuring out how to cook it. I really wasn't expecting that one to fly -- explaining that I had been kidding was a little embarassing.
I might have mentioned here before: someone I know (actually, he of the "if I'd killed her, I'd be out by now") told his almost-five-year-old daughter that if she didn't behave, he wouldn't let her turn five.
I'm the shortest member of a tall family, and as I was growing up my father explained that there was a height requirement for being considered legally human, with full civil rights. When I was a kid, the height limit was 5'0". When I hit 5 feet, I went running to Dad, who explained that the height limit had been raised by act of Congress, and was now 5'4", although people who had been human before the change were grandfathered in. As I grew, the height limit kept on being raised: Dad would explain that he, personally, deplored it, but the matter was out of his hands. It stopped at 5'10" -- I stopped at 5' 7 1/2".
Also, I've convinced people that I only speak "a little" accented English.
I used to telemarket with a thick Irish brogue. I started to be funny, and kept it up because I sold a lot more that way.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 8:15 AM
No, seriously.
I took their endless questionaire and they said I wasn't a match.
I saved my personality profile, though. Reading that, I can't see why I wouldn't be a real catch.
'Your response indicates a strong need to be precise. This projects into the social environment by the need to have a place for everything and everything in its place.'
Who wouldn't want someone who feels pain and distress if the toothbrushes aren't back in the toothbrush holder?
Posted by winna | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 8:16 AM
I used to telemarket with a thick Irish brogue. I started to be funny, and kept it up because I sold a lot more that way.
Were I one to type out laughter, I'd do so here.
Posted by Tarrou | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 8:41 AM
Ogged being a gentleman, would we even find out if he had reset his TiVo?
Is this a joke? We have to be told. In fact, I expect him to post something about the experience the next morning, from her. Under the title, "Yes, Virginia, There Is Such a Thing As Too Drunk."
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 8:56 AM
LB, I really never would have suspected.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 9:21 AM
I can't wait for this usage to spread, so that ending a long dry spell would be reported like this: "Yeah, I ran into Gretchen at DUIFriday's last night. She still looks great. And guess what? I took her home and reset Ogged's TiVo."
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 9:24 AM
The height, the lying, the feigned accents (tried Southern as well, but while my brogue is convincing, my drawl is not), the telemarketing job? Which one seemed unlikely?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 9:33 AM
The lying.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 9:35 AM
When I was two, 2 was my favorite number, so I refused to turn three--I simply explained that I was now two for the second time. For some reason my parents somewhat humored me about this. IIRC I was somewhat relieved when I was able to come up with what I thought was a legitimate rationale for turning four.
A friend of mine once pointed me to a profile from a philosophy professor whose "Best/worst lie I've ever told" was "Saying to a nineteen-year-old, 'That's a really good point.'" This profile, I should add, was not mine nor that of anyone I know.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 9:36 AM
Apo:
I suggested to ogged that his first post after the PG-date should have been entitled, "My Tivo Reads Zero," no matter what actually happened. (He went with the much classier "Holy Fantastic Rack".)
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 9:37 AM
Ah. I suppose I don't do it online -- you really need the body language to pull it off. ("Did you know researchers in Virgina have trained oysters to do simple household tasks?")
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 9:37 AM
I did know that.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 9:41 AM
Licking stamps, mostly.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 9:41 AM
my drawl is not
Jessica Simpson got the Daisy Duke role despite a wholly unconvincing Southern accent. Maybe you should try telemarketing in a skimpy bikini?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 9:41 AM
Given that I was 16-17 the summer I had that job, I believe there would have been legal issues. And my videophone was on the fritz.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 9:45 AM
A telemarketer worried about legal issues? I'm not sure I believe that.
But you are certainly of legal age now, no?
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 9:51 AM
But I'd rather pull my own toenails out with a pliers than telemarket again.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 9:57 AM
a pliers?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 9:58 AM
a pair of pliers?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 9:58 AM
Yes, I would hate to see you telemarket again.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 9:59 AM
"Pliers" comes from the Japanese for "a pair of pry bars."
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 10:02 AM
Best lie anyone ever told me:
My grandmother had to go in for some form of inpatient surgery when I was about 6. My dad informed that the bolt that held her butt on (the belly button being the recessed screw head at the end of the bolt) had broken, and that they had to take it out and superglue her butt on to hold it in place, as otherwise it would just fall off.
On multiple occasion over the next year or so, I caused myself minor injuries trying to get my bellybutton to unscrew. I think I believed him for several years...
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 10:39 AM
There was a guy named Ivan that LB and I went to school with, who once gave a presentation in AP Bio about lichen. His lichen presentation was strangely moving--he began his talk by describing a trip to Norway with his father when he was little, and how he became interested in lichen on walks they took together. I was nearly in tears by the end of his lichen story, which lasted a good 15 minutes, and was really very informative and inspiring--filling the audience with a desire to take nature walks with their dads.
When Ivan sat down in his seat, behind me, I turned around to him and asked if it was just one trip or if he regularly went there with his dad. He shook his head indulgently as though touched by my innocence and said, "Never been to Norway. Not once."
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 08-12-05 1:55 PM