On renting a car

Recently I was in a car accident. A few days later, we stood at the counter of a car rental store, inquiring about our registration. We were told we had two options, a Ford or a Honda, both smaller models. This is a rough outline of our dialogue.

Us: But we were told that we were getting a full size? I mean, our wrecked car was an SUV!

Attendant: Yes, but we only have the two cars.

Us: But what about our reservation? We called and someone told us you had a larger car.

Attendant: Well, that was yesterday. And we had reservations we had to fulfill.

Us: But we had a reservation too!

Standing there, listening to this, I couldn't help but think of...
Seinfeld episode: "The Alternate Side", Season 3, Episode 11

Jerry: I don't understand, I made a reservation, do you have my reservation?
Agent: Yes, we do, unfortunately we ran out of cars.
Jerry: But the reservation keeps the car here. That's why you have the reservation.
Agent: I know why we have reservations.
Jerry: I don't think you do. If you did, I'd have a car. See, you know how to take the reservation, you just don't know how to *hold* the reservation and that's really the most important part of the reservation, the holding. Anybody can just take them.

On celebrating New Year's Eve

There are times when I've felt that the main characters of Seinfeld (Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer) are like parts of the psychic apparatus; that, to pick which character you most connect to is impossible since that is a matter of the situation (or episode and plotline) at hand. Some days I'm a bumbling buffoon who can't catch a break (George); other days I'm the calm, main character that it all revolves around (Jerry). 

As such, it likely makes little sense to look to any one character of the show for the answer to all of your questions: How do I break up with someone? How do I become successful? That depends. Still, there is little doubt which character I agree with most as we approach the end of 2010 and the coming New Year's Eve celebration: Elaine.

Year 2010 in Twitter: The Highlights (Part Two)

In the previous post, we looked at some of the highlights of the first part of 2010, from the Gamecocks winning the CWS to primary season to Paul the Octopus. Let's see what I found remarkable from this past July to December. And I don't mean Alvin Greene.

Year 2010 in Twitter: The Highlights

The year is nearly over, although to be honest, I can hardly remember most of it. In hindsight, it seems like one long series of conferences and bad weather. Thankfully, I tweet a lot, which is about the closest thing to a diary that I've ever had. Or will admit to sans poly. So, I present you: a look-back at the highlights in a year of Tweets.

How long should I keep the card?

I was alerted to a recent Dear Abby column that answered the letter of a woman who spent each holiday season making hand-crafted Christmas cards with her niece. It was a tradition that went back five years, took many hours and dedication to implement yet for some reason was seen as "being cheap" by one member of the family that received the cards.

It's that time of year when we start sending out and receiving cards ourselves and I am struck by all of the people that spend what must be non-negligible amounts of time on their cards, either by making them by hand or by having a picture taken for the card and designing the layout. I hardly have time for that kind of craftiness. Instead I'm the guy that's likely to buy generic, pre-printed cards and write 'XOXO' before sending them out.

Driving in rush hour traffic

Due to the capriciousness of automobiles, I've been forced to carpool this week. The direct consequence of this has been longer trips spent in the car, which in itself is a pain, especially since it's generally frowned upon for the driver to watch a DVD player while driving. I guess that makes sense.

But also it means more opportunities each day to engage in one of the most despised activities in the world: merging. I'm sure somewhere in the world there's a guy who likes merging, who's really good at it but he probably also likes other forms of self-torture like epilation and tax filing. Typically, I find merging to be worse in the evenings, maybe because of the lack of sunlight. Or likely it's the blinding glare of a million cars filled with tired drivers trying to get home all at the same time here in Nashville. Our traffic "won" a contest, you know.

Welcome to my new blog

I love Seinfeld. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

And it seems that just about every day, it comes up in conversation where I say to one of my friends or coworkers something like,

You know, this is kind of like that one episode of Seinfeld, where... 

and then we get off on a discussion about denim vests or whether they're really going to call or, well, that's the point: it never seems to end.

Just like the season six episode of South Park, Simpsons Already Did It, where Butters points out that the plotline is just a re-telling of an old Simpsons episode, it sometimes feels as if the normal, everyday activities of myself and my friends are merely reruns of the 180 episodes of one of the greatest shows to ever hit TV. Waiting for a seat at a restaurant, renting a car, setting multiple alarms to ensure you don't oversleep an important event? Seinfeld did it.

Hopefully this becomes a place to catalog all of the coincidences of Seinfeld in my life. At a minimum, it will provide us with an outlet of laughter; at best, it will let us delve into the philosophy of this great show. To paraphrase Jerry, in philosophy, even nothing is something.