How to Fix Something Yourself
When I was a kid, our family had this make and model of vacuum.
How to Explain Your Personal Feelings
This story about James Doohan is true, except for the part about my relatives thinking he was in Star Wars. They all knew he was on Star Trek, though some either called it “the Star Trek” or “Star Track,” I suspect in a deliberate effort to irritate me.
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
How to Share an Innovative Idea
During a fit of boredom I gave the first episode of the Netflix series Formula 1: Drive to Survive a chance, ended up binging the whole thing over two weeks, and, heaven help me, I’ve actually recorded a couple of F1 races, despite the fact that F1 racing is generally recognized as a “sport.”
There are three things I find interesting about F1 at the moment.
1. It’s the most high-tech sport.
2. It isn’t just one sport. The drivers try to out drive one another, the mechanics try to out-mechanic the other teams mechanics, and the pit crews engage in what could classify as a sport in its own right. My understanding is that the Red Bull racing team currently has a noticeable advantage because their pit crew can perform a full tire change in 2 seconds, instead of the positively glacial 3 seconds the other teams take.
3. The drivers’ training regimens include exercises that look like clips from a montage in a Will Ferrell movie.
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
How to Introduce a Female Version of an Established Male Superhero
I enjoyed the all-female Ghostbusters. I also enjoyed Ocean’s 8.
A lot of guys ask why the teams in those movies had to be all-female. It’s not hard to figure out. When your car is veering left into a ditch you don’t just straighten the wheels out, you steer to the right for a while first to get back on the road. All-female protagonist movies are us course correcting until we can straighten out and center ourselves in our lane (By that I mean, have an even mix of male and female protagonists in movies, the way we should have to begin with). Women are 50% of the population, why shouldn’t they be 50% of our heroes?
The question to ask isn’t why we have all female teams in film reboots now. The question is why the originals had to be all male. The original Ghostbusters had, I think, six speaking roles for women. Aside from Sigourney Weaver and Annie Potts, there were the frightened librarian, the student Venkman hit on, the realtor who sold them the firehouse, and Jean Kasem as the tall woman agreeing to dance with Rick Moranis.
It was a different time, and I hate to second-guess Dan Aykroyd, but if dealing with Gozer and Zuul was such an emergency, why not give Janine a pack? You can’t tell me Annie Potts wouldn’t have been funny in an ill-fitting jumpsuit.
I’ve written here more than once about my how much I enjoy Ocean’s Eleven (Clooney, not Sinatra), but why were all eleven men? Again, that movie had five speaking roles for women: two off-camera parole board members, a blackjack dealer who is going on break, a thieving stripper, and Julia Roberts as “The Prize.” (Tess doesn’t split eleven ways!)
There’s no one actor of the team I would single out as needing to be replaced, but almost any of the characters could have been a woman and it wouldn’t have changed the story.
This is only tangentially related, but if they ever do another Ocean’s movie, one where team members from 11, 12, and 13 mix with the cast from 8, I hope that they’ll have Thandie Newton play the wife of Basher (Don Cheadle), and that she will do a terrible American accent.
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
How to Not Sell My Wife a Car
This comic was written after a trip to a car dealership. The salesman introduced himself to me and shook my hand. I introduced him to Missy and I told him that she was buying a car for her to drive. Missy also told him this. He asked me what kind of car she was looking for, addressed all of his questions to me, and afterward followed up by contacting me, not her.
We did not buy a car from him.
Note from Missy: I honestly cannot remember which specific experience Scott based this comic on, because it’s happened several times—pretty much every time I’ve shopped for a car, even when I’ve gone alone. Like when I went to test drive a Smart Car, and they tried to steer me to a 4-door sedan and a minivan instead. Or there was the guy who would listen to my questions while looking at Scott, then direct his answers at Scott as well. (Except when he asked about paint color preferences; he definitely directed that at me.)
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
How to Justify Your Unjustifiable Actions
At some point in this country, failure to quietly accept other people’s rudeness became viewed as the greater act of rudeness. Expecting people to be civil is often viewed as un-civil.
Also, more and more broad, anodyne statements are capable of being construed as partisan political statements.
Note: I did not say “misconstrued.”
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
How to See a Point Where the Path of Your Life Changed
Is there a one-word phrase that means the opposite of bravado? I can’t think of one, but whatever it is, Phil Collins is loaded with it. It’s strange to look back and remember that he was a hit solo artist, lead singer of a hit band, a legendary drummer, producer of several hit albums for other artists, a guest star on popular TV shows, and eventually starred in a movie, all while carrying off his “What, me? I’m just an ordinary balding man in a slightly oversized suit” vibe. That’s a tough trick to pull off. You have to respect it.
I really did want to grow up to be Phil Collins when I was in middle school. Part of it was that he managed to be cool while being bald and physically unimpressive. I had seen my father and my uncles. I knew where things were going. Back in those pre-Picard days, if you wanted a role model who was comfortable with their baldness, your choices were Phil or Telly Savalas.
(Note: This performance has been one my go-to “weird things you can find on the internet” for a few years, but this is the first time I’ve seen this extended version, which shows Telly was performing on a German variety show. Now I wonder if it’s not actually an example of Telly Savalas trying his hardest to be cool, but might be something he was inflicting upon the Germans as revenge for the war.)
Note from Missy: I feel like the opposite of bravado would be cowardice. Which doesn’t quite describe Phil Collins’s particular brand of weepy, freshly-dumped, playing-the-blame-game songwriting.
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
How to Make Conversation with Someone Who You Have Not Seem in a Long Time
Back in my old office job, the company headquarters would occasionally send us “corporate trainers” in a vain attempt to fix whatever was wrong with us. It was part of my job to help the trainers set up. This usually involved setting out chairs, rigging the A/V system, arranging visual aids, making sure everyone in the office knew what was happening, when it was happening, and why they wanted to be there to see it. Usually I’d end up introducing the trainer to the staff at the beginning of their presentation. At the risk of sounding full of myself, I usually got high marks from my supervisors at how efficiently and effectively I managed these tasks.
I don’t think it ever occurred to them that the skills I used in those situations were the same as the ones I honed doing awful one-night-stand comedy shows in hotel bars, which, sadly, had been my bread and butter, thus making it inevitable that I would eventually take on an office job.
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
How to Play Devil's Advocate
If someone actually came up with a pill that instantly stopped all itching, they would win a Nobel Prize.
That said, we need itchiness. Itching is an important early warning system for your skin. A fine elementary school educational film could be made about how we all need to itch sometimes. Some poor guy tries to ask a girl out, but keeps scratching his nose, so of course she says, “In your dreams, Itchy.” In his anger he wishes he would never itch again. At the end of his first itch free day his face is all dry and peeling, his rough wool sweater has rubbed his torso raw, his arms are covered with mosquito bites he failed to notice, and we don’t even want to mention anything going on below his waist.
He’s never going to get a date now! Oh, how he wishes he itched again!
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
How to Focus on the Positive
This is not a political statement.
Donald Trump Jr. has written and is self-publishing a book. A great many people took a tremendous amount of joy in pointing out that there is a typo on the front cover, in the book’s subtitle.
I don’t bring this up to shame him. (I don’t actually think that’s possible. [That wasn’t a political statement. Don Junior’s not technically a politician, since he has never run for office {yet, ugh}.]) I bring it up to illustrate the point that if you’ re going to self-publish a book, you should definitely spring to have it professionally proofread if it’s at all possible. When I wrote my first novel I didn’t, and I still regret it.
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).