Things That Make Me Go Hmm

Photo: Sam Howzit

For years, the most popular posts here at Little Nuances were related to the movie Elizabethtown – specifically the post I wrote about the phrase, “substitute people,” from that movie. But there’s a new sheriff in town. It’s a post I wrote called Baseball Dartboard, and if Blogger’s statistics are correct (I’m pretty sure they are inflated), then some 3,384 people have googled or found that post – far more than my “substitute people” post has drawn (2,147). What it is about a baseball dartboard that is drawing so much interest?

While in various waiting rooms the past few weeks, I’ve heard the song “Easy” by the Commodores a couple of times. I love the line, “I’m easy like Sunday morning,” but I have no idea what it means. From what I can tell, it’s a song about a man who is leaving a woman after knowing he’s done all he can do to make the relationship work. And now that he’s come to terms with that, the pressure is off. What do you think?

While sitting in yet another waiting room this morning – this time at my car dealership, waiting for some routine maintenance to be completed – an elderly gentlemen sees me pull out my laptop and says, “A laptop, huh? Do those damn things work?” I had no idea how to answer him. I didn’t really have to though. Without missing a beat, he glanced down at the USA Today on the table between us and started complaining about something President Obama did. I’m thinking he just needed somebody to talk to.

Same car dealership waiting room, one hour later. A woman sits down at the PC provided by the dealership for customers to use while waiting for their vehicles to be fixed. She brings up a website and begins playing a pinball game. It’s so loud that it wakes up the the guy who was questioning the validity of laptops, but has since fallen asleep. And it causes me to do a double take. I’m thinking, “Surely, she won’t keep playing it, given how loud it is.” And I was wrong.

How about those recent changes to Facebook? They seem to have generated a lot of complaints. I’m not really complaining. I just no longer understand what I’m looking at when I sign in. Little info bubbles pop up, informing me about the changes and all I can think is, “Why in the world would I want to do that?” In fact, the more I look at the news feed, messages, events, pages, lists and apps, the more I want to hit the X button and sign back into Twitter. But I’ll stick around anyway. Too many people I know and love are on Facebook.

My bowling season started a few weeks ago. I entered the season with a 180 average. I just never found a rhythm last season – couldn’t make the proper adjustments. I didn’t touch a bowling ball all summer, but three weeks into the new season, I have a 202 average. The adjustments I’m making are working. I have no idea why, but I’m not complaining.

Yeah, it’s a random list, but it’s what is floating around in my head right now.