Oh, the creepiness

After the advent of social networking web sites and pretentious ledes, the main question in my life has become: is it possible to fall in love at first facebook sight? There's this girl, and I know of her ( and I think she knows of me too, for the record), so one day when I saw that we had a couple of facebook friends in common (namely my roommate), I clicked out of curiosity. And lo and behold, she seemed cool. Real cool (I think my exact quote to one of my friends when I noticed this was "Dude, she seems mad chill"). So, being the relatively single 20-year-old male that I am, the thought of actually being more than friends occured to me. Of course, we're not even facebook friends yet.

And this, my faithful reader, is what scares me. I don't even know this girl. I've never said a word to her. Yet, I've been able to gauge enough of her personality through her facebook profile to harbor a little crush on her. Now, I have other crushes too, bigger crushes, but this one is the only one that I've never met. I'm a normal guy. And if I had a conversation with this girl, and her facebook profile is an accurate representation of her actual personality, I would almost definitely like her just the same. But the facebook has turned me into a really, really creepy guy. I try to tell myself that it's not like I was scouring the facebook for someone to like, and that the information that led me to my "dude, she seems mad chill" conclusion was information that she voluntarily posted in public view. But still. I've never met this girl. And I kinda like her. Sketch.

Tourist trap

Tourists are the bane of my existence. Seriously, I don't get tourists. I was walking on the Brooklyn Bridge earlier, and these idiots were walking in the bike lane. I've stated many times before that anyone who gets hit by a bike while walking in the bike lane is liable for any damage to the cyclist's bike, even if they're from Minnesota or some other place prone to ignorance about walking in front of moving objects travelling at high speeds. But today, these tourists are walking in the bike lane (if anyone has never been on the Bridge, there are these big bikes painted onto the bike lane to make sure you know that it is the bike lane, as well as big people painted onto the walking lane - it can be confused for a men's room though), and they got mad when some innocent guy riding his bike had to swerve out of the way to avoid hitting them. One guy turned around and whispered "fucking asshole" under his breath (of course, the cyclist was already out of earshot when this happened. The reaction time of this tourist was remarkably slow). His friend turned to the first guy and shook his head, bemoaning the insolence of New Yorkers. I don't understand this Bruce Banner-like transformation. What makes a presumably rational person turn into such a complete, utter moron? Maybe I'm just overestimating the intelligence of a person who can....well, get dressed. After all, they can't deduce from a big painting of a bike in the lane they're walking in that they may be in the bike lane.

The rules of being good

There's this girl I work with, whom, for the sake of this writing, will be called Corey Hart. She may be the epitome of all that I find wrong with people. I hate her, loathe her, detest her. Whatever your favorite verb signalling a strong dislike is, I [that verb] her. Simply put, she breaks all the rules that govern respectable people. Namely:

1. You have to realize that you are not perfect. Everyone has faults. If you act like you don't have any flaws, you're a liar. You are presenting a false image of yourself (isn't that the Fourth Commandment? Thou shalt not bear false witness? I'm not sure, me and the bible never got along...more on that at a later date). It also makes you seem like you think you're superior to everyone else, and if you're superior, why should I waste my time trying to converse with you as equals?
2. As a corolarry to the first rule, you most certainly do not know everything. If somebody asks you a question, and you don't know the answer, you say you don't know. You don't try to make something up, and pretend you know what's going on. For example, if someone asked me what the Fourth Commandment was, and I was a respectable person (a very big if, in this case), I should make it perfectly clear that I have a guess, but I'm not 100% certain.
3. Quietness is a big must. Unless you're on a desert island, there will be people around you who have absolutely no interest in your mundane conversation you're having with other people. Keep your voice down and let other people be spared from having to listen to you.
4. No matter how big or small your past achievements are, they're in the past. You can bring them up once, or twice, that third time you're pushing it. The fourth and fifth time? Just shut up. The hundredth time? OhmygodIwanttoslapyouinthefaceyoudumbbitch.
5. Never, ever wear Aviators unless you're sitting in the cockpit of an airplane and are about to be/in the process of/just finished flying it. And especially not inside (and at night...hence the name Corey Hart).

Just following all these rules does not automatically make a person good. I'll get into what else there is later. But a person could be a total jerk while still following these rules, and a person could still be a good person while breaking one or two of these rules. But if, from across a room, I can hear you talk about how the US dollar is strong, but the "British....what's the British currency...Columbia? See, I'm funny!" (that is a paraphrase of what Corey Hart said), I'm going to want to pound you (I won't even pretend that was funny).

And what makes me qualified to judge a person? Well, I hate a lot of people. Myself included.

15 Minutes of Brilliance

This blog was born out of the same thing many great ideas are born of: boredom (the uncle of innovation). I have some marginal writing ability, a bit of wit (and rhyming ability to boot!), and an abundance of free time. So why not? Maybe I'll get lucky and get a book deal out of this. Maybe no one will read this (that's the safe bet). But I wanted a place to write without having to deal with all the hassles of the various newspapers I've written for the past few years. Welcome to the observation deck of my world.

About the name and title of this blog (I feel dirty typing blog, but for lack of a better word...). Funny Headline because a) part of my job is to come up with funny headlines and more importantly b) I wanted to think of something witty, clever, or maybe even insightful, but why should I try to be so complicated? I wanted a funny headline. I came up with Funny Headline. In the most literal way possible, I got what I wanted. And 15 Minutes of Brilliance because every day, I have a few moments where I'm actually smart. Usually those moments are spent watching TV. Hopefully I'll be able to get the resultant rant on here. And the Andy Warhol reference makes me sound sophisticated . Well, not really. It's just a name anyway.