The Daily Procrastinator

Recently, I had the good fortune to be invited to watch the Astros play in Minute Maid Park. A friend of mine had some really great second-row seats she wasn’t going to be able to use, so J-Roy and I got the nod. Whether or not the Astros won (which they didn’t, of course) is immaterial to this post. The thing that deserves my scornful eye (and yours, procrastinators) is the group of “fans” who sat in front of me at the game.

If you’ve been paying attention, you must realize that anyone who sat in front of me was in the FRONT ROW. These people were just a few feet from the grass at field level about two-thirds of the way down the right-field line. The right fielder was so close I could smell his bubble gum. Was this fantastic view of the game enough to keep my neighbors interested? Of course not! Of the four “fans” (one guy and three women, all in their early twenties), only the guy, who sat on the far right, and a girl in a purple shirt, who sat on the far left, paid any attention whatsoever. The two girls who sat in the middle, YellowShirt and TankTop, literally didn’t watch the game for a single moment.

That guy in the background is neither J-Roy nor I, but this should give you some idea of what we were trying to accomplish.

As soon as the gang sat down, YellowShirt and TankTop both busted out their cameras and began holding them at arm’s length and snapping pictures of their group. I don’t know when this practice of digital onanism began, but the girls seemed intent upon taking the perfect picture of their group at the game. They fussed with timers and flashes, balanced their cameras on the railing (which divided their seats from the FIELD OF PLAY), tried several different poses, and generally wasted about an inning and a half trying to get some nice shots for their FaceBook pages. J-Roy and I joined the fun by occasionally leaning down and making distasteful faces in the backgrounds of their pictures. We’re kind of hoping to show up on ruinedphotos.com.

Once the exercise in narcissism was complete, TankTop embraced the opportunity to complain loudly about her employment situation. Allow me to quote: “I don’t know why I can’t find a job. I have an eighty-thousand dollar degree hanging on my wall. I mean, I majored in communications and took a minor in business (imagine an eyeroll and finger-quotes as she said “business”). I should totally be able to get a job. Maybe it’s because I’m only applying in Austin, but that’s, like, the only place I want to work.” She continued in this vein at great length. As she spoke, her designer sunglasses, used not for (gasp!) blocking sunlight, but instead as a hair accessory, bobbed in time with her incompetence.

J-Roy and I immediately launched into a loud conversation about what a pain it is to be a member of an interview committee. You just have to interview so many idiots before you find a few good candidates, ya know? Of course, TankTop didn’t hear us. Or if she did, she wasn’t able to make the tremendous cognitive leap that would have lead her to understand that she was being mocked. Meanwhile, YellowShirt used her iPhone to compose a long, sappy, badly-punctuated letter to someone named Piper. We read it over her shoulder. Apparently, Piper is way behind on what’s happening in YellowShirt’s life, because it took her two full innings of pecking away at her touch-screen and nodding in response to TankTop’s incoherent babble before she could finish her manifesto.

By this point, J-Roy and I were sincerely hoping that they’d all have to get up and pee soon. Apparently, though, while this pair had the mental capacity of field mice, they had the bladders of grizzly bears. They didn’t leave their seats once during the whole game. Not. One. Time. Just when we thought this was a bad thing, a trivia game sponsored by a travel company came on the JumboTron. A kindly-looking woman with a microphone appeared on the screen, standing next to an excited fan. In order to win a round-trip airline ticket, all the fan had to do was listen to these three clues and then name the city they described:

• The Imperial Palace is located here.
• This city is home to the world’s largest sushi market.
• This city was formerly known as Edo.

Upon reading the clues, TankTop loudly offered this sage bit of wisdom: “Oh, that’s gotta be someplace in California.” YellowShirt responded, “Could be.” My God. Even if you don’t know that the city being described is Tokyo, you’ve GOT to know it’s in Japan. Imperial Palace!?! It took every bit of willpower I could summon not to reach down and knock their heads together. Wow. I wonder why she can’t find a job.

After the trivia debacle, the dynamic duo grew quiet. They weren’t watching the game, though. They were wiling away the oh-so-boring final hour in the front row at the ballpark by playing games on their cellphones. Remember the game where you draw a huge grid of dots and then take turns connecting two of the dots? The one where the object is to draw the line that will close in a box, then put your initial in that box, thus scoring a point? YellowShirt’s iPhone crushed her at that game. Three times in a row. I had to stop watching for fear that I’d actually burst out in hysterical laughter.

Oh, well. At least they were quiet for the last couple innings.

I learned a few new things at Minute Maid park the other day, and some things I’ve known for a while were confirmed. Let’s review them:

• The Astros cannot hit with men on base.
• The Astros’ bullpen is awful.
• Piper is, like, totally out of the loop.
• California is the only logical place for the Imperial Palace.
• iPhones are surprisingly skilled at games of wit.
• Dressing, talking, and acting like a spoiled teenager will NOT get you a job, even if you have an eighty-thousand dollar degree.

Greetings, procrastinators! Another beautiful Spring week has come and gone. I know you sit at your desk during the work day and wish you could be outside enjoying the season. Unfortuantly, odds are that your boss would frown upon that idea. There’s good news, though! You can access The Daily Procrastinator right there in your workspace! It’s not the same as sitting outside in the Spring weather, but it beats working…

Let’s look back at this week’s posts, one writer at a time, and make sure you didn’t miss a thing.

TallGirl led the team in posts this week. She began the week with a fond farewell to Harry Kalas, longtime voice of the Philadelphia Phillies. She continued by posting a photograph that simultaneously celebrates Easter and borderline insanity. In the following days, TallGirl posted a thought on (supposedly) discounted footwear and a stupefying bit of Octomom news. She wrapped up her week as a Procrastinator with a rumination on the effects the economic downturn is having on long-standing American businesses.

"You're going to procrastinate? In THAT outfit?"

Magnus, the Procrastinator responsible for marketing, techinical expertise, and all things geek-related, is normally pretty quiet, but he spoke up twice this week. First, he announced the iPhone-specific version of The Daily Procrastinator. A few days later, he posted a brief tutorial on the use of Real Simple Syndication (RSS) to make information bring itself to you, instead of spending your valuable time searching for it. I had no idea this service existed. It’s genius!

Finally, BigRedPoet threw his hat into the proverbial ring twice this week. First, he posted a celebration of the arrival of crawfish season and outdoor concerts in the American south. Later, BRP provided a list of five links to help the procrastinators of the world wile away a few valuable hours of work time. Click them. Trust me.

Visit The Daily Procrastinator at any of the links above and sign up to receive daily email updates so you never miss an article!

The Daily Procrastinator: Contributing to the Dramatic Reduction of Your Personal Productivity

I am in the unfortunate situation of having bought a new car. Unfortunate, you ask? Yes, because I’m getting 2-3 auto-calls per day from companies trying to sell me a worthless extended warranty. This is a known scam and not even being on the Do-not-call list stops them from calling.

Fortunately, there’s a solution for those of us with iPhones. The Blacklist application for $1.99 in the iTunes App Store.

Blacklist creates an iPhone contact named “Blacklisted Number” full of thousands of numbers (over 30,000 and growing) belonging to US telemarketers, scammers, and prank callers so that when one of these numbers calls, you know not to answer because it displays the caller as “Blacklisted Number”. 

Blacklist connects to callerdb.com’s extensive database of problem callers every time you sync. Since I installed it two days ago, I’ve avoided four calls. Installation and sync is painless if you’re on a high speed wifi connection.

With the minutes it saves you, Blacklist will pay for itself. If you’re getting telemarketing calls to your iPhone, you need this application. Why isn’t Vonage doing this?

For those of you who prefer to procrastinate via your iPhones, load up The Daily Procrastinator URL there and you’ll get a shiny iPhone specific user interface.