Jew don't know me.....I'm not just one of your many goys...

Let's start today's blog with the answer to yesterday's semi-obscure picture. Depending on when and where you grew up, you may or may not know the following song. Apparently my sister got it immediately so if you're in your late 20's or so (you're welcome sis) you probably know it.

The song goes like this:

There's a place in France
Where the naked ladies dance
And/With/There's a hole in the wall
Where the men can see it all.

That third line has a little variety.

No matter what the lyrics, it is always sung to the tune played in the video from yesterday's post. So, a big congratulations to anyone who got it from seeing the picture. An even bigger congratulations to anyone who got the even more obscure reference to the Leslie Gore song in the title of today's post. Bravo!

On to today's topic, "Jew don't know me". I'm sure my fellow members of the tribe have all been in this situation. Someone non-Jewish just found out you are Jewish. Their first response is to call you out for not being what in their mind is "Jewish". For example: "You're Jewish? Where's your little hat thingy". Or, "You're Jewish, but you just ate bacon" and my personal favorite, "You're Jewish? Wow, I can't even see the scars from where your horns used to be". I think it goes without saying that there are a lot of people out there with various misconceptions about Jews. I'm gonna lay a few things out for them.

First: Very few Jews wear "that little hat thingy", properly known as a Yarmulke. (pronounced Yahm-a-kah) It's typically the orthodox, or as I prefer to call them, "Super-Jews" that wear it all the time.

Second: Most Jews don't keep kosher. However, there are plenty that have created their own laws of Kashrut. They'll eat pork, but only if it's on the Cobb salad at the country club. They don't eat shellfish, except for the shrimp cocktail on the cruise ship. You get the idea.

Third: Horns? Really? People believe that crap? I blame Borat for this one. Enough said.

Finally: The one thing that all Jews (and really, people from any other religion have in common) feel is that no matter where you lie in the "I just dabble" to "Super-Jew" spectrum, anyone who is more religious than you is "Yeccchhhh, too Jewish" and anyone less religious "has the nerve to call themselves a Jew".

This brings us to today's picture. I was in Walgreen's earlier today checking out the Hanukkah sale items while waiting for my Chinese food from the restaurant next door. I saw this display which was really the inspiration for this post. Although they sort of had the right idea, there is a clear "sore thumb" in this display. It's kind of like a Sesame Street "One of these things is not like the other" Can you find it? (Click on the image for a larger view, there is a hint below if you need it)

Hint: Imagine this were a Christmas item display, would you expect to see Peeps?

Bonus: Upon further inspection, there could really be two items. Extra credit if you can find them both. Answers tomorrow.

Somewhere in France...

On the eighth night of Hanukkah, my Schnoozle gave to me...
Eight salad croutons,
Seven flavors of popcorn,
Six chocolate fondue dipped biscottis,
FIVE SLICES OF HAM,
Four Meatballs,
Three Chicken Wings,
Two Egg Rolls,
and a pizza with Pepperooooooooooni.


Well, tonight concludes what has truly been a lovely and as you can imagine, tasty 8 nights of Hanukkah. However, with every ending comes a new beginning. Tonight is no different. Tonight marks the debut of the first work of art from my illustrator. From time to time I have ideas that require some custom artwork. Often, the clip art I find on the web and my super skills with MS Paint just won't cut it. Therefore, I have found someone that has the ability to bring my ridiculous ideas to life. Tonight will be the first of such ideas.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Seems possible...but, with this one, I'm only looking for 23. (up to 25 if you want to be picky about the contractions) I thought this could be a funny idea for a T-shirt but want to see if people get it or not. It might be a little too much. Can you figure it out? Let me know what you think, but don't post the answer in the comments and spoil it for anyone. Click on the picture for a larger view.









Play the video if you need a hint.

Still don't get it? It's ok, I'll post the answer tomorrow.

More Einsteins...

On the seventh night of Hanukkah, my Schnoozle gave to me...
Seven flavors of popcorn,
Six chocolate fondue dipped biscottis,
FIVE SLICES OF HAM,
Four Meatballs,
Three Chicken Wings,
Two Egg Rolls,
and a pizza with Pepperooooooooooni.


So I have had the benefit of meeting many people in my life that I can pretty much guarantee I'd beat out if we were ever going head to head for a technical job. Granted, I'm a pretty technical person. I can hook up a home theater, I can program the clock on just about anything, I can setup a bluetooth earpiece to work with a mobile phone. (Two phones actually, you're welcome Schnoozle.) However, it's my personal opinion that just about anyone with a high school education should be able to do those things too. I have lots of these stories, but here's two about people I've encountered that were a few potatoes short of a Latke .


It was this past Tuesday, at the grocery store. I wanted to get some movies from the redbox to watch over the holidays. As I'm browsing the choices, the Einstein standing near me, watching me intently says "That's a pretty good deal, $1 a night" Of course I agreed, it is a good deal. Then he ruined what could have been a perfectly painless encounter. He said "So what do they do, just beam the movie to your television?" No joke, those were his actual words. Being a pretty technical person, I was absolutely frozen with awe at the thought of that. So as I stood under the Gigantic sign that said Redbox DVD rental machine, I decided to be polite and said, "no, the machine just spits out the dvd you choose." "Oh, ok." he answered. That seemed to sufficiently satisfy his curiosity and he walked away. Maybe he had to get back to his job of designing exercise room signs, I don't know. Unfortunately for me, I started thinking about it and it made my brain hurt...Beam it to your TV? What? Let's just imagine that was even possible. (Without the use of an addressable set top box...just to clarify for the other techies out there that want to argue.) Let's say that by using advanced GPS, there was some super high tech way for the machine to take your address and the location of the tv you want to watch the movie on and "beam it there"...why on earth would you drive all the way to a store to use a giant vending machine to do it. Ugh.

Here's a classic- About 10 years ago, in my days working at Wegmans (Greatest grocery store ever) I was the guy that was called over when the cashier or customer had an issue. One day I got to observe this priceless moment. The store had just installed new credit card reader machines and a lady asked for help using it. My co-worker said, "No problem" and pointed to the payment choice buttons on the screen and said, "Just tell it how you are gonna pay." The woman held her credit card up, put her face right up to the card reader and said very clearly, "I'll be using my Mastercard". She then stepped back and watched the card reader, waiting for something to happen. We both looked with disbelief and tried to hold back the laughter. My co-worker was able to keep it together long enough to say, "What I meant was, press the button that corresponds to your method of payment, then swipe your card."

There's two more signs you can make Mr. Engvall.

Live and Learn...the hard way.

On the sixth night of Hanukkah, my Schnoozle gave to me...
Six chocolate fondue dipped biscottis,
FIVE SLICES OF HAM,
Four Meatballs,
Three Chicken Wings,
Two Egg Rolls,
and a pizza with Pepperooooooooooni.



Tonight's post is another installment of "Word of the Day" Here goes:

Word of the day:

Wisdumb: Knowledge that is acquired by doing something stupid.

Here's a partial (very, very partial actually) list of things I've learned, the hard way, that I think are worth passing on.

-Close your eyes when you snap the lid of the shampoo shut. There seems to be some kind of magnetic force in the eyeball that always attracts the one little drop of shampoo that shoots out when the lid snaps shut. This same force seems to also exist for fresh squeezed lemons, limes, and other citrus fruits.

-If you're at someone's house and have to use the bathroom, first check that there is toilet paper, then do a test "pre-flush" so that you get a good idea of what their toilet is capable of handling.

-Increasing the temperature on the oven is not an effective way to reduce the time needed to cook something.

-Smell the milk before you pour it in the glass. This prevents unnecessarily dirtying a glass if it's bad. Also, do this before you pour the Cereal in the bowl. Nothing worse than having your Cap'n Crunch in the bowl ready to go only to find out that there's no milk, or that the milk is bad. I've had many a morning ruined from this.

-The best way to wash your hands in a public restroom is in the following order. Roll out the paper towels from the dispenser. Yes, you heard me right, do this first. Then, turn on the water, soap your hands, rinse your hands, dry your hands with the towel that is already out....see, no need to touch the nasty towel machine handle thing. Then use the towel to shut off the water and open the door. Perfect.

-Adjust the volume on that thing that is on exercise equipment at the gym (or the one on the airplane) before connecting your headphones. There's always that one 80 year old lady with severe hearing loss at the gym that was on the machine before you watching Murder She Wrote at full blast.


I'm sure Schnoozle could put together an even longer list of Wisdumb I've gained, considering she's witnessed or cleaned up most of it. I bet if we ask her really really nicely, she'll write some of them here. :-)

Happy Birthday to Jew...

On the fifth night of Hanukkah, my Schnoozle gave to me...
FIVE SLICES OF HAM,
Four Meatballs,
Three Chicken Wings,
Two Egg Rolls,
and a pizza with Pepperooooooooooni.



So here it is, the birthday of one of the most famous Jewish Carpenters of all time. This year however, it falls on the 5th night of Hanukkah. Does that mean all of his friends would have to buy him two presents? One for his birthday, and one for Hanukkah? Gold, Frankincense, Myrr and perhaps something sensible, like a new robe, waterproof shoes, or some fresh water for his wine making hobby. In honor of this, I created a T-Shirt for such a special occasion.

So Happy Birthday to you J-Man! Have your Cake and eat it too. Then, take six of the candles from it and put them in the Menorah. Might as well get your money's worth out of them.

Amothr Onr oF Mydeas...

On the fourth night of Hanukkah, my Schnoozle gave to me...
Four Meatballs,
Three Chicken Wings,
Two Egg Rolls,
and a pizza with Pepperooooooooooni.

So tonight's post will be another one of "Mydeas"...a somewhat practical one. I'm still working on the prototype for "No Toz". If Schnoozle asks you what happened to all of her Dr. Scholls shoe inserts, I don't know anything about it.

As I've mentioned several times before, it gets really cold here. As you can imagine, hands can be very affected by this. Normally, people wear gloves, which is a perfectly logical solution. However, when you wear gloves, much of your dexterity is lost. This becomes particularly inconvenient when trying to use a mobile phone. Most things typed on a mobile phone while wearing gloves end up looking like the title of this post...pretty much incoherent. This brings us to Mydea.

So there are a couple things going on here. Ignore the ugly 1980's glove and focus on the functionality. Picture a plastic, slightly stretchy thimble inside that the thumb snugly slides into. That thimble is attached to a small plastic/rubbery "nub" that passes through to the outside of the glove. By having this as one piece, the user would get tactile feedback when a button is pushed. They'll also have the precision they are used to when typing with that small part of the side of their thumb that is between the nail and skin. It could even help all those people with fat sausage fingers that alwyz Typ mssge tath lkoo lkie tish. Wanna take it one step further? Make the piece out of a conductive material and you can use an iPod too, that's easy. Now you can type away and still keep your fingers nice and toasty. No more holding your glove under your arm while trying to type, which inevitably falls in the snow or on the ground. Hands stay warm, messages are readable. Everyone is a winner.

So let me know what you think....Thumbs up?

Ain't no thing....

On the third night of Hanukkah, my Schnoozle gave to me...
Three Chicken Wings,
Two Egg Rolls,
and a pizza with Pepperooooooooooni.


So one of my co-workers has passed on a couple wise quotes to me. The first is "only the paranoid survive" and the second is "you can't fix stupid". Although I agree with both, I'd like to focus on "you can't fix stupid".

I've had my own, similar saying for a number of years now... "Stupidity is contagious and everyone's dying to catch it" My experience teaching is really what started this thought. Not only were the kids stupid, see "One D Ten T 5" for more details, but more importantly they were proud of it. Nothing made them happier than to not know the answer to a question. "Psssshhhh, I don't know that shit, that's smart people stuff." The scary part is that it's not just kids, it's adults too. Ever ask a clerk at a store what your change is gonna be, or what the price will be after the 10% discount? Clueless, and happy about it. "I don't know, that's why they make calculators" is the typical answer. I see things all the time that clearly show that someone's been infected with Stupid.

Here's today's example- This is a picture I took at a Marriott Courtyard.

Really? The Exercise room is open from midnight to noon? How convenient. This wasn't some temporary thing either. This was a professionally made, solid plastic, permanently attached sign.

To the person who put in the request, the person who made it, the person who received it and the person who hung it, I think Bill Engvall says it best. "Here's Your Sign."

How I Roll...

On the second night of Hanukkah my Schnoozle gave to me....
Two Egg Rolls,
and a pizza with Pepperooooooooooni.


So Friday I met Junkass for lunch at KFC. Yes, another ManDate. I ate a ridiculous amount of delicious fried chicken, biscuits, mac and cheese and potato wedges. So much in fact, that I skipped dinner since I was still full. Saturday, we had Indian food for dinner. Sunday, as shown above, we had homemade pizza and wings. (Mmmmmm, Anchor Bar wing sauce, the true original Buffalo wing sauce) and tonight, Vietnamese eggrolls and soup, also known as Pho.

Hopefully you are thinking "So What? Not interesting, not funny, get on with it."

The point is this, if you were to have a room full of Southerners, Indians (dot Indians, not feathers Indians...Schnoozle sugar coated it by saying "India, not Native Americans, but as usual I have a more PC way to describe it), East Coasters and Vietnamese, the chances of them all getting along is probably pretty slim. Their food in my stomach is no different. There has been lots of churning, gurgling and so on these past few days.

This brings us to our word of the day. (Just one today, I've clearly been spoiling you all with lots of everything these past weeks)

Crap-Dusting- The act of slowly releasing (so as not to be noticed) intestinal gas while walking around a big, often public area. The method is similar to and inspired by crop dusting, where a farmer sprays pesticide from an aircraft to cover his whole field evenly.

Example: "Dude, I think it must have been all that chili I ate today, but I just non-stop crap-dusted the whole cereal aisle, from Apple Jacks to Wheaties."

So just remember the old song, "Beans, beans, a food you can trust, the more you eat them, the more you Crap-Dust."

Come on baby light my....candles.

On the first night of Hanukkah my Schnoozle made for me.....A pizza with pepperoni.

Yum. She made the dough from scratch, made the pizza sauce, covered it in cheese and pepperoni and baked it just for me. Delicious!

This brings us to the first night of Hanukkah, a most joyous occasion. The celebration of the oil lasting not only one night, but an incredible 8 whole nights. It's no knocked up virgin, but we do with what we have. Although in more modern times, it's really turned into a way for Jewish kids to not feel left out on Christmas, when all their non-Jewish friends are celebrating up the wazoo. Why would they feel left out you may ask? Let's do a side by comparison. We'll start with my house and examine traditional "in-house" decorations.

We have a nice tree decorated with gold and silver ornaments and ribbons and crystal icicles, (All meant to symbolize the wealth and riches of my people...it was no accident) and a lame ass crooked Menorah. You should be beginning to see my point. Christmas decorations: a gorgeous tree decorated with ornaments, ribbons, figurines and a star. Hanukkah decorations: a candle holder. Blah.

Christmas 1, Hanukkah 0.

Next, let's look at Outside decorations.

Here's the non-Jewish house on Christmas:

Snowmen, candy canes, lights, garland, trees. Gorgeous.


And the Jewish House on hanukkah:

Christmas 2, Hanukkah 0.


How about music? Let's compare. Here's a very, very condensed list of Christmas songs:

Jingle Bells
Frosty the Snowman
Winter Wonderland
O Holy Night
Holly Jolly Christmas
Silent Night
Santa Claus is Coming to Town
Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer
Let it Snow
Little Drummer Boy
Let it Snow
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Feliz Navidad (for our amigos)
Silver Bells
And the list goes on and on...

Let's look at Hanukkah songs:

I have a little Dreidel
Adam Sandler's "The Hanukkah Song"

Christmas 3, Hanukkah 0.

How about presents?

A typical Christmas present:

Now, a typical Hanukkah present on nights 2-8:

Christmas 4, Hanukkah 0.

Finally, let's take a look at something especially near and dear to both Schnoozle's and my heart, Food.

A typical Christmas meal:

My mouth is already watering. Ham with gravy, carrots, crescent rolls...an all out feast fit for royalty.


Hanukkah dinner:

Don't let the picture fool you, that's not a hashbrown, it's a potato Latke. Even dressed up with sour cream or jarred applesauce it's mediocre at best. Yeah, we serve a breakfast side dish as the holiday meal honoring our miraculous history.

Christmas 5, Hanukkah 0.

Well, it appears that this contest between Christmas and Hanukkah was a complete shut out. Sorry Hanukkah. But then again, we always have Passover.