Chrisco Spins

This is a Blackberry. It is also one of Satan’s favorite ways to ruin your life. We were all moving along quite nicely in our careers before the Blackberry. Money was getting made. Business was getting done. Then one day, someone said, “You know what would be great? If I could be connected to work even when I’m not at work!” So was born the Blackberry.

I’m not at all shocked that someone developed the Blackberry. After all, what employer wouldn’t love to have constantly connected employees who can solve business problems from the office, from the car, even from the bathtub? There’s really no down-side from the employer’s perspective.

What shocks me about the Blackberry is that employees bought into it. It’s really one of those things that makes you go “hmmm?” Where’s Arsenio and his long-ass finger when you need him? Employees of America essentially sold all their free-time for a convenient way to check e-mail.

Don’t get me wrong, my free time is for sale, for lease, and for loan. For the right price you can absolutely get some of it. But it’s trading for a lot more than a nifty gadget. The Blackberry is the worst deal since Manhattan got sold for trinkets. It ruins marriages, makes children hate their fathers, and is the leading cause of adult on-set ADD. I’d dig up the statistics to prove all that, but my Blackberry’s vibrating my son is calling me.

Call me naive, but I still believe people. I am old enough and mature enough to understand that lying is about as natural as breathing to most of us, and I can accept that as a common and forgivable human flaw (though it’s really a combination of flaws, yours for lying and the other person’s for cultivating the reputation that they will overreact to the truth - bastards!). The problem is that now I feel I have to make a choice between believing people who may very well be lying, or doubting them, which usually involves swallowing some bitter truth.

Here’s an example. I have a myspace account, which was supposed to be a professional networking tool, but which I now use to collect party invitations and keep up with people whose phone number and email addresses I’m too lazy to keep track of. I only add people I know personally. It’s interesting to read what people write about themselves in their profiles and compare their internet version of themselves to my real-life impression. Problem is, people lie. Thus, what begins as a few idle moments browsing through the profiles of people I sort of know, so I can remember why I added them, turns into a epic epiphany. Apparently, 20% of guys on myspace are my soulmate.

Now, if asked to sum yourself up in a paragraph or less, you will undoubtedly choose what you believe to be the most flattering characteristics. You make sure to note that you write poetry, study Asian philosophy, play classical guitar, and that you are outraged by world hunger. You do not write that you stopped writing poetry once you broke up with that one girl, you read half the Art of War on a plane, you own a guitar, and you’re pissed you just ran out of cheetos. And you will certainly never make room in your 500 character soul-baring exercise to discuss your trust issues, chronic premature ejaculation, and gas.

So now I have a choice. I can assume that if you represent yourself to be unreasonably  awesome you probably are, honesty and accuracy being the earmarks of unreasonable awesomeness. Or I can remember, sadly, that people are liars in general and the fact that I am so impressed with your e-persona only proves that you’re good at knowing what to say. Either way, I can’t win. At least if I believe that people can be as dope as they would have me think they are, I get to smile and sigh and think, “He’s really cool. I’m so glad I know him,” as opposed to just rolling my eyes next time we meet.

 Eh. I suppose I’m looking at it all wrong. Perhaps I should start out believing people because it opens the door for them to make good on their claims. After all, how often are we inspired to work harder simply because we want to meet the expectations of people we respect? And maybe there is a good reason for e-fibbing. Children role-play in order to learn and develop their personalities. Maybe adults do to, ina more technologically advanced way. I guess I should go easy on internet liars while they try to match who they really are to who they’d like to be. And maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to assume that at least some of them have actually become what they use to lie about being.

For the record, everything in my profile is true, and for good measure, I’ll go ahead and admit to some flaws as well. I have a mouth full of cavities, I interrupt people when we argue, and I consistently put off doing the dinner dishes until the next day. Happy now? At least now you can’t call me a hypocrite.

Your parents are liars. I know this because I’m a parent and I’m a liar. If I didn’t expand that fact to apply to all parents I would be guilty of thinking myself peculiarly special. Since it’s inconvenient to do that in this case… your parents are liars too.

Parenthood makes even the most upright of us into serial liars. We lie to our kids, we lie about our kids, and the most degenerate of us even lie about whether we have kids. “Is Santa real?” “What are those dogs doing?” “Who is that lady Daddy?” “Who is that man Mommy?” “Daddy, what was that man doing to Mommy while you were at work last night?” These and a million other questions from our children elicit bald-faced lies from us.

Not content to have lied to our children, we take it further and proceed to lie about our children. Our 7-year-old magically becomes 6 again at the movie theatre ticket window. Our son’s goal at his soccer game turns into 3 when we tell the story to that woman at work who’s always yammering on about her kid’s accomplishments. Our child gets sick about twice a year, but our personnel department thinks he’s damn near got leukemia. You see where I’m going with this.

I’m not even going to get into the people who lie about having kids. That’s another issue entirely.

You know I’m telling the truth because at some point in your life, every last one of you has had the revelation about your parents and thought, “Those lying bastards!” You only really forgive them their lies when you finally have children and realize that you probably shouldn’t throw stones from the doorway of your newly built glass house.

There are things I do solely because they’re healthy. I would probably never eat a meal that didn’t involve pizza if that weren’t the case. So when my mother suggested I have a glass of wine each night because it’s good for your heart, I figured I’d give it a shot. That was a mistake.

There’s a perception that things which are good for you are never tasty. While some people who aspire to sophistication will argue, wine provides proof for that theory. Restaurants employ dedicated personnel to match wine with your food. Do you know why? Because wine is disgusting and will ruin your meal 99% of the time.

Thankfully, there is a wonderful alternative. You know what never ruins a meal?

Dr. Pepper: Ask for it by Name

A warning to Santa Claus. Watch your back! A couple stories out today show that not everyone has the best of intentions for the big jolly guy.

In Rio de Janeiro, a Santa Claus who was supposed to arrive at a party by helicopter got shot at by gang members. Turns out that folks in the slums that surround the city didn’t like that Santa was flying with the police. Note to Santa: don’t get mixed up with the cops when visiting poor neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, a woman in Connecticut was arrested after the mall Santa accused her of “sexually molesting” him when she sat on his lap. Turns out she was easy to catch, because she was on crutches. No word on whether her defense team will argue that she was simply trying to support herself on Santa’s candy cane.

So yeah, this is just an excuse to put up a picture of Anne Hathaway (symptomatic of my current brunette fixation). But I’m going to tell you a story that I told Kristen a couple nights ago. A few months back, I’m flipping around looking for something to watch. I land on the IFC channel because I see Anne Hathaway is in whatever movie they’re showing. Something called “Havoc.”

So I flip the channel and see Anne “Disney princess, Devil Wearing Prada” Hathaway putting on the most ridiculous faux-urban accent as a white high-school kid enamored with the streets. A few minutes later she gets naked while giving her boyfriend a blowjob. A little while later she was in the room naked with a couple gang members while Bijou Phillips was involved in a double penetration scene. Don’t worry, you can find the links. It’s really not hard.

I realize that I’ve given a few of you a new movie to add to the rental list. But take a step back with me. What the hell is Anne Hathaway doing in this movie? I realize someone probably suggested she do something non-Princess-related to avoid being typecast, but damn. Did this have to be it?

I could have gone my whole life without seeing Anne Hathaway as a wannabe gangster. It disturbs me that she was in this movie. It disturbs me even more that someone thought this was a good movie to make. I can hear the pitch now, “Let’s get some Mexican gang members, some clean cut white kids who wish they were street, and mash them all up together. It’s a gritty, fresh picture.” The whole concept is played. I’m tired of Hollywood making this movie. It’s even more embarrassing that this is considered “edgy.”

My 6-year-old son has thrown his support behind John McCain in the presidential race. He did so over burritos at lunch. He presented a careful and reasoned rationale that I had no way of countering.

“Dad,” he says, “McCain is the best.” Nevermind that he pronounced it “Mick-Cain.” That’s an entirely different story.

“Why do you say that?” I said it calmly, despite the fact that my son had just shown a disturbing vein of Republicanism.

“He’s the best. You know the Presidential Paintball game on Miniclips? McCain is the best. I didn’t want him at first because he looks old. Even older than you. But he’s the best. So now I play with him.”

When we got home, I tried it out. I tried Obama, Hillary, Rudy… all of them. Then I tried out the old guy. And damned if he wasn’t the best.