Bulls

Ouch.

Last week we had a company outing to see the Durham Bulls play Klinger’s favorite team, the Toledo Mud Hens. It was a perfect night for a ball game, and I like the new ballpark, although it does lack the considerable character of the old Durham Athletic Park (the “DAP”), and by character I mean smelly toilets.

I’ve never been a huge baseball fan, but I did have a Baseball Week sometime in the early ‘90s. I left my office in Durham one summer evening and for some reason decided to drive to the DAP. It was a weeknight and I got a seat right behind the plate, had a hot dog and a beer or three and had a perfectly pleasant time. The next night as I was leaving work I couldn’t think of a single reason not to do it again. Of course, after the second night that meant I had to be there for every night of the home stand against Kinston, and I was. I think the Bulls won, or possibly lost.

Oh, hey. When did Wool E. Bull start tear-assing around the diamond in a little car? Between that and shooting rolled-up t-shirts into the crowd with a cannon in the shape of a hot dog, that looks like a pretty cool job. Except for having to wear the costume, which probably gets pretty hot. Hmm. I guess without the costume, you’d get in a lot of trouble driving around on the field and shooting things at people.

Special thanks and a tip of the Plooble hat to Jerry who discovered that the “E” in Wool E. Bull officially stands for “education.” That would have been my second guess, after “Ewww, does anybody smell wet mascot?” I’m sure thousands of kids over the years have been encouraged to stay in school knowing that the middle name of the giant frightening thing that forcibly hugged them at the ball game is “education.” Just like A.B. Cardinal has no doubt kept scores of kids off the booze.

It was kind of a slow game, and around the seventh inning our attention waned considerably. We noticed when the players at bat step out to the plate, the sound system plays a little snippet of a song, presumably chosen by the player. (The only one anyone in my group can remember is “Crazy Train.”) This naturally led me, Jean and Jerry to discuss what our at-bat theme song would be. Jerry chose “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon” and Jean wants “Loser.” I think I’d pick “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now.” You?

W61.49

yes, I know I’ve used this photo before

I went to Atlanta last week for a conference and stayed in the Westin Peachtree, which unfortunately is a lot less Blade-Runneresque than this photo would indicate. It did have the distinction, however, of being the only hotel I’ve ever stayed where my room actually looked like the room pictured on the web site (albeit less dramatically lit).

The entire outside wall of the room — wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling — is one big window, which allowed me a bird’s eye view of the CNN Center and Olympic Centennial Park or Centennial Olympic Park. Whatever. The park where the bomb went off. Since my room faced west, it also meant that every afternoon the sun bore in like an angry deity, causing the A/C to work frantically and continuously to keep the room from reaching sauna levels. It does seem a bit hubristic to build a giant glass sunlight-collecting structure in a state known for being, you know, really hot.

The hotel also has a bar on the 74th floor that revolves, which sounds like a good idea until you hop on. After one beer you think you’re about to hurl.

Forget all that, though. The hotel featured the smartest thing I’ve ever seen in a rented room: a shower curtain rod that bends outward. Perhaps there are people who enjoy the sensation of a plastic shower curtain blowing against their wet legs as they bathe, but I’m not one of them. I don’t know whether it was Mr. Westin or Mr. Peachtree who thought of this, but whoever it was deserves the Nobel Prize for Bathroom Fixtures.

I was in Atlanta for work, at a convention of people who do medical coding for a living. I didn’t know anything about coding before I started my new job, and I know precious little a whole lot more about it now, but suffice it to say that everything that goes on your chart (and your bill) at a doctor’s office or in a hospital — your medical history, your symptoms, your diagnosis, the treatment — has a code assigned to it. In addition to coming up with several potential band names (Coxsackie Virus, Glasgow Coma Scale) I learned about the next iteration of the international medical coding schema the U.S. is considering, which depending on who you believe is either right around the corner or never gonna happen.

“If I had to use one word to describe it,” said the presenter, “that word would be specificity.” I’ll say. Suppose you go to the doctor’s office having been “struck by a hit or thrown ball.” Of course they would want to put that down on your chart (W21.0). But is it really necessary to distinguish which type of ball – football (W21.01), soccer ball (W21.02), baseball (W21.03), golf ball (W21.04) or basketball (W21.05)?

There are also codes to describe observations made by the admitting nurse or physician. Do you know anyone who could be described with:

R46.0 – Very low level of personal hygiene

R46.1 – Bizarre personal appearance

R46.2 – Strange and inexplicable behavior

Hell, do you know anyone who can’t? That pretty much covers your average Saturday night in Chapel Hill.

My favorite codes are ones that probably aren’t going to get used very often, but I promise you, they really do exist:

W61.4 – Contact with turkey (domestic) (wild)

W61.42 – Struck by turkey (domestic) (wild)

W61.43 – Pecked by turkey (domestic) (wild)

W61.49 – Other contact with turkey (domestic) (wild)

(The instructor read the last one and said, “I don’t even want to go there.”)

After the session I asked the instructor if you would still use W61.42 if someone struck someone else using a turkey as the weapon. Then we had one of those uncomfortable moments when you’ve just said something really odd assuming the other person would know you were kidding and in fact the other person thought you were serious and you don’t know if it would be better to interrupt and tell them you were kidding or just act like you were serious. Or at least I had one of those moments.

I’m Sorry. I Do Understand.

We’ve often heard that English is one of the most difficult languages to learn, and not just because “ghoti” can be pronounced “fish,” or because we say things like “Let’s run it up the flagpole and see who salutes” when we mean “Let’s see if people think this is a good idea,” or “weapons of mass destruction” when we mean “fabricated excuse to use those bombs that have been lying around.”

English is a rich language, which is nice for poets, but can often be a hazard when clarity is desired. I got a phone call Saturday afternoon from what sounded like a very nice woman looking for the YMCA. I said, “You have the wrong number.” She said, “I’m sorry,” only I thought she was saying it in the interrogative, “I’m sorry?” way, instead of the “I apologize” way. So I said it again, more slowly and deliberately: “You have the wrong number.” Which I’m sure she took to mean, “How dare you disturb me.” When she said “I’m sorry” again, I realized she had in fact been apologizing, so I apologized, too. I think we were both on the same page and singing from the same hymnal when the rubber met the road, and that no bad blood had passed over the dam.

I studied Japanese when I lived in Tokyo, and people always ask me if it’s a hard language to learn. It’s a hard language to read, because you have to memorize something like 500 characters to even be able to read a newspaper, but it’s not as hard to speak, and mostly because Japanese seemed to my unscientific analysis to have less variation than English. For instance, if you’re explaining something to someone in English and the concept begins to dawn, your interlocutor might say, “Oh, I get it” or “That makes sense” or “Now I understand.” In Japanese, at least in my experience, 90 percent of the time the other person will say “naruhodo,” which means something like “it becomes clearer.” Much easier for the language student.

That doesn’t mean Japanese is without its pitfalls, of course. My ex-wife knew of one unlucky gaijin exchange student at a Japanese high school who was required to give a speech to the student body at the end of the term – in Japanese. He took the stage and came out with his opening line, which was supposed to be, “Because I am an exchange student I see much of the Japanese lifestyle.” Due to three very simple mistakes in that one sentence (he drew out one vowel sound too long, transposed a consonant sound and paused where he shouldn’t have) he instead said, “Because my crotch stinks, I meet many Japanese policemen.” Imagine how that would have gone over in your high school. He left the stage before his classmates had picked themselves up off the floor.

Technophobia

I’m definitely off my blogging stride. Here are some of the lame-ass topics I’ve recently considered:

a) Pistachios are good.
b) People should say what they mean.
c) I hate it when people drive slow.
d) Computers can be annoying.

And the winner is… D! Enjoy.

As a confirmed technophile, I’m a little reluctant to admit that I’m peeved with technology at the moment. Hey, don’t get me wrong, I love a good computer as much as the next person, but when they go wrong on me, I tend to take it personally. I actually found myself complaining to Jean last week, “Why do these things always happen to me?” as though perhaps there was some overarching technology intelligence that had decided I needed bringing down a few pegs (or that I’m the only person who has ever had a problem with Windows). I’m sure this is a symptom of some kind of advancing mental illness.

Currently, my laptop is pissing me off. I won’t go into all the details, but I have decided that I no longer want any wireless devices in my life. In order to solve my current problem, I either need to call Linksys, HP, EarthLink or Time Warner. And as you know, whoever I call is going to say I need to call the other three.

Then I get an email announcing a new comment on the post called Ol’ Buttermilk Pie, which you might remember had some more of the Finger Pointing Thing. Messygirl20 posted to ask, “Anybody have any further information?” Further information on what? Buttermilk pie? The Finger Pointing Thing? Turns out that Messygirl20 is just spam; click on her link and you go to some site or other that I decided not to gratify by entering.

Even though I am now getting close to 200 spams a day (I love the Earthlink commercial where the guy says, “I use EarthLink because they hate spam as much as I do”) some of them are still fun. Recent correspondents have included Balloon H. Hindquarters, Spacy H. Pothole and Drunks R. Fatherly. Shelley T. Jacobs sent me an email with the subject tline, “poliomyelitis sweatshirt.” Hey, Shelley, make mine an extra large!

I suppose the sheer volume of spam I receive makes this inevitable, but I’ve gotten some lately that I was sure must be real emails, based on the subject line. Not too long ago I got one with “Reykjavik” as the subject. Yes, I opened it and no, it wasn’t real.

Still, I continue to be amazed that spammers think I’m going to see beyond the gibberish in their emails to the no-doubt sensible financial or medical advice inside. Yakut E. Amiable sent a message with the subject line, “Geronimo!” He opens his pitch by announcing, “Jesus was a brilliant Jewish stand-up comedian, a phenomenal improviser. His parables are great one-liners.” Okay, Yakut! You can refill my prescription!

Several others have taken an even more unusual approach, following the “build sales by insulting your customer” maxim. Luisa wrote to wish me “Good morning, good morning, idiot dbt.” Veronica Goff’s subject line read, “Please don’t be dumb.” Kevin says, “Don’t be such a little fruit cake” and Gonzalez says, “I’ve had enough of your bullshit.” Sorry, Gonzalez. I promise I won’t… um… do whatever it is I’ve been doing to annoy you.

The one that has stuck in my mind the most, especially considering the ongoing economic situation, is the mortgage offer I got from Elsa Blue. Her subject line read, “The easiest way to refinance – incinerate.”