My Coherent Nonsense

Song of the Moment: Ben E. King – “Stand by Me”

What is the truest definition of Globalization?

Answer:
Princess Diana’s death.

How come?

Answer :
An English princess with an Egyptian boyfriend crashes in a French tunnel, driving a German car with a Dutch engine, driven by a Belgian who was drunk on Scottish whisky (check the bottle before you change the spelling), followed closely by Italian Paparazzi on Japanese motorcycles; treated by an American doctor using Brazilian medicines.

This is sent to you by an American using Bill Gate’s technology, and you’re probably reading this on your computer that uses Taiwanese chips and a Korean monitor, assembled by Bangladeshi workers in a Singapore plant, transported by Indian lorry-drivers, hijacked by Indonesians, unloaded by Sicilian longshoremen, and trucked to you by Mexican illegals.

That, my friends, is Globalization.

I just thought I’d post another one of daddy’s e-mails. I could create a whole separate blog that simply has me copying and pasting interesting e-mails my father sends me. Haha.

Song of the Moment: Nickelback – “Gotta Be Somebody”

It’s funny to think that my first job out of highschool was selling knives, CUTCO knives to be exact. I’m sure most of you know exactly what I’m talking about. The summer after I graduated highschool, I was bumming around the house when I got a letter from Vector Marketing Company. At the time, I wanted to enter BU as a marketing major, so when I saw that letter, I was uber excited. Little did I know what I was getting myself into…the world of knives. When I walked in on our first training day, I couldn’t believe we were “knife salesmen”. I just remember how enthusiastic and lively our team leader was as he trained us and went through our manuals with us. The thing with this job, for those that don’t know, is that you set your own goals and schedule. This wasn’t a 9-5 type of job. You set up, what they call, “demos” with the clients and actually go to their houses and show them the knives and their abilities.

I remember starting off my demos with family first and my friends’ family. That gave me practice and established a sort of comfort level as I gave the demonstration and speech on the purpose of each knife. From there, I’d get five references after each demo, and it’d branch off from there. Our company usually expected us to do at least five demos a day, but there were days I scheduled eight to ten. I’d start as early as 8am and end around 9pm. Of course, I got people who weren’t home when they said they’d be home or the ones that asked me to leave after only a few minutes of describing my job and purpose.

I must say, though, it was a fun job. I became an expert on CUTCO knives and other accessories. Out of pity, my parents even bought an entire knife set from me, and it happily sits in our kitchen. I’ll never forget a couple of the demos I did for my clients. One involved me showing how well a tomato slicer could cut through a coarse piece of rope in one slice. I accidentally cut my finger in the process and the amount of blood that started gushing was obscene. It’s almost like the lady didn’t know what to do because a bandaid wasn’t exactly going to be of any service to me. The cut wasn’t even deep, but I’m a heavy bleeder. I remember she had me run my hand under some cold water in her sink and she grabbed a cloth and wrapped it around my thumb. The whole time I was so embarrassed I couldn’t even speak. With that said, she did not purchase any knives from me that day. Boo hoo. Another ridiculous instance? CUTCO has these pair of scissors calls Super Shears, and they’re heavy duty scissors that can separate into two pieces for easy cleaning. Anyways, these scissors are so strong they can cut through a penny. As part of our demo, we show the customer how they work. Now, as I was cutting through the edge of the penny, I must have underestimated my strength because, all of a sudden, the sliver of penny snapped off and flew into the air and hit my client right under her eye. It was one of those moments where everything froze in time, including me with the scissors in my hand. I looked at the penny, looked at my scissors, then looked at my client only to find her staring at me incredibly upset. She didn’t wish to see any more of the demonstration and asked me to leave. Go figure.

I even went to a CUTCO convention in Chicago with my team, and there, we attended an awards ceremony for the people who sold a crazy amount of knives within the two-week push period. This one girl managed to sell around 150k-200k worth of knives and sets within two weeks. With every demo, not only do you get paid $15, you also get a 10% commission for what you sell. This girl was 16 years old and made like 15k in two weeks. How crazy!

I just remember this job made me realize I’m not completely inept when it comes to dealing with people (minus those few not-so-wonderful demos). Because I knew the product and had faith in its performance, I was confident during every demonstration I did for my clients. That was a good feeling. It’s not everyday you have the luxury to feel 100% confident in what you do.

I still use my CUTCO knives to this day, and I wouldn’t use any other product. They’re amazing. Unfortunately, they’re not sold in stores, nor can you buy them online. You can go to the CUTCO website, but if you wish to purchase them, they have a representative (like me) come to your house and show you, in person, how incredible they are.

Yay CUTCO!

Song of the Moment: Oliver James – “The Greatest Story Ever Told”

My dad sent me this e-mail, and I thought I’d just copy and paste it right into this entry. As an English major and someone who loves word play, I found this e-mail highly amusing. I hope you find as much humor in it as I do and also acknowledge how difficult it must be for foreigners to learn English! Ay carrumba…

1.) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2.) The farm was used to produce produce.
3.) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4.) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5.) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6.) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7.) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8.) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9.) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10.) I did not object to the object.
11.) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12.) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13.) They were too close to the door to close it.
14.) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15.) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16.) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17.) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18.) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
19.) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20.) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let’s face it – English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

PS. – Why doesn’t ‘Buick’ rhyme with ‘quick’ ?

You lovers of the English language might enjoy this .

There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is ‘UP.’

It’s easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP ? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP ? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report ?

We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car. At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.

And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don’t give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP . When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP…

When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.

When it doesn’t rain for awhile, things dry UP.

One could go on and on, but I’ll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP, so…it is time to shut UP!

Oh…one more thing:

What is the first thing you do in the morning & the last thing you do at night? U-P (haha, get it? YOU PEE!)