Five simple words that mean so many different things to so many different people. While it's typically meant as a compliment, what the guy usually hears is "You're really nice, but I have no interest in dating you." I'm sure it works the same way for "You're not like other girls," but nobody's ever said that to me, so I can't really speak on it firsthand.
Rachel and I had a pretty in depth conversation about "You're not like other guys" (which I will shorten to YNLOG from here on out) on the way home from the coast yesterday. I was stating my case that nearly every girl that told me YNLOG was currently dating some guy they were upset with and was venting to me. In many of these cases, I had some sort of romantic interest in the girl and was wondering why in the heck she was dating the other guy and not me. Rachel claimed that it usually had nothing to do with dating, etc. and was a compliment.
In college, I think I was only told YNLOG once, and in that case, it probably would've led to a romantic encounter had my roommate drunkenly fallen over her couch and made inappropriate advances towards her roommate. I had to get him out of there prior to finding out what exactly YNLOG meant. The next day I went home for Xmas break, and by the time we reconvened for winter term, said girl was dating some guy from California whose parents owned a winery or some crap. He was apparently NLOG either. Whatever. I'm not bitter.
Rachel claims that most "good" girls date douchebags in high school out of some sort of crazy primal instinct. It's almost like you have to date the wrong guys in order to figure out what the right guy should be like, even if you have an idea in your head already. Rachel further went on to say that guys that hear YNLOG in high school end up getting their pick of the ladies down the road in their mid to late 20's. She might be right. I can't speak from personal experience because I decided to marry the first girl I dated after college. I guess all those YNLOG comments through my formative years convinced me that I should hop on the first train leaving singletown.
(I make jokes, but given my choice of 100 random girls, Rachel would still be my choice, I'm 100% sure of that)
After having this conversation with Rachel, I've come to a few conclusions:
1. I probably dismissed the YNLOG comment too quickly. While I figured that automatically meant the girl didn't want to date me BECAUSE I wasn't like other guys. In all actuality, she probably didn't want to date me because I was kind of socially awkward, had bad skin, and was seriously lacking in confidence.
2. When a girl says something like that, as a guy you should probably follow up on that conversation. Figure out if it is in fact a good thing or a bad thing, and use it as a way to suggest maybe she should pursue dating someone who is NLOG. Again, I never did this because I was under the belief if a girl REALLY liked me, she'd take action. Turns out being a passive wimp isn't a good plan to get chicks. Go figure.
3. As always, my wife usually has a better handle on a situation than I do. I should defer to her before making a decision in almost every situation.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Rachel Proves I Suck at Negotiating Yet Again
DirecTV fired another bomb in the battle last night, but in doing so, probably ultimately lost the war. Why? They woke the sleeping giant. They made Rachel angry. Rachel is a lot like the Incredible Hulk in the way….you really wouldn’t like her when she’s angry.
Last night our local networks were switched to Eugene feeds. As promised, they were not broadcast in HD. Plus, instead of having normal, easy to remember numbers like 2, 6, 8, 10 and 12 for the major networks, we get 9, 16, 34 and some other ones that I haven’t found yet. Rachel goes “let me get this straight, they took our HD, but we still pay the same?” I gave her a few more of the details, then she goes “ok give me the phone, I’m calling them.”
There are few things that get my adrenaline pumping like watching Rachel when she’s fired up. For a tiny person, she can totally dominate you. I’m sure the checker at Fred Meyer is still regretting her decision to suggest that maybe Rachel’s card declined because she didn’t have enough money to buy a jelly donut. I know I’m still regretting the decision to go out to lunch on my credit card in an attempt to prevent Rachel from knowing exactly how much money I was spending on food. In hindsight it was an extremely ill conceived plan on my part, and I deserved to be skewered.
Anyways, Rachel has this strange ability to get what she wants before she even has to get really angry. Like the mere threat of raising her ire is enough to make people tap out. Keep in mind that I had just talked to DirecTV a few weeks ago about these exact same problems. I was extremely nice, explained my frustration, and got nowhere. Rachel maneuvers her way through the automated menu and finally gets a real person. “Um, yeah, I was just a little confused. We just lost our HD networks, but our bill is the same? Can you explain this?” That’s all she had to say, and they’re working on getting us a waiver to receive HD feeds again. My emails and phone calls never even got me close to this. Then she goes “I have another question….we’ve called you before because our box was malfunctioning, and it’s still broken.” I don’t think she said anything else about it, and now they’re giving us a $60 credit to cover the $50 service call to repair it.
This is why Rachel and I make a good couple. She’s very, very good at getting people to give her what she wants, and I’m very, very good at letting people have what they want.
Last night our local networks were switched to Eugene feeds. As promised, they were not broadcast in HD. Plus, instead of having normal, easy to remember numbers like 2, 6, 8, 10 and 12 for the major networks, we get 9, 16, 34 and some other ones that I haven’t found yet. Rachel goes “let me get this straight, they took our HD, but we still pay the same?” I gave her a few more of the details, then she goes “ok give me the phone, I’m calling them.”
There are few things that get my adrenaline pumping like watching Rachel when she’s fired up. For a tiny person, she can totally dominate you. I’m sure the checker at Fred Meyer is still regretting her decision to suggest that maybe Rachel’s card declined because she didn’t have enough money to buy a jelly donut. I know I’m still regretting the decision to go out to lunch on my credit card in an attempt to prevent Rachel from knowing exactly how much money I was spending on food. In hindsight it was an extremely ill conceived plan on my part, and I deserved to be skewered.
Anyways, Rachel has this strange ability to get what she wants before she even has to get really angry. Like the mere threat of raising her ire is enough to make people tap out. Keep in mind that I had just talked to DirecTV a few weeks ago about these exact same problems. I was extremely nice, explained my frustration, and got nowhere. Rachel maneuvers her way through the automated menu and finally gets a real person. “Um, yeah, I was just a little confused. We just lost our HD networks, but our bill is the same? Can you explain this?” That’s all she had to say, and they’re working on getting us a waiver to receive HD feeds again. My emails and phone calls never even got me close to this. Then she goes “I have another question….we’ve called you before because our box was malfunctioning, and it’s still broken.” I don’t think she said anything else about it, and now they’re giving us a $60 credit to cover the $50 service call to repair it.
This is why Rachel and I make a good couple. She’s very, very good at getting people to give her what she wants, and I’m very, very good at letting people have what they want.
Friday, November 6, 2009
The Civil War isn't for another month, but we're already losing
Be nice to me, I gave blood today.
Sort of.
I said that I was giving blood in support of the Beavs because the Civil War blood drive might be the only Civil War victory we claim this year. However, I would say that I lost this one.
You know it didn’t go well when your bag is halfway full and the lady says “I’m calling it. Sorry Mr. Lasselle, it was nothing you did, I just had a bad stick from the start. You’re going to have a lot of bruising, and I apologize for that.”
If the football game goes like that on December 3rd, it’s going to be a loooooong year.
I knew it wasn’t going to go well when the lady comes up to me and says “Have I asked you your name yet?” Seeing how I was the FOURTH person of the day, you’d think they’d be able to remember that I was not one of the three people that had been in there before me. Sadly, this was not the case. Things got worse when she starts looking for a vein and, after poking around for a while, looks at me and says “do you have a preference?”
Reading between the lines, she was saying “I have no clue which vein to use, please tell me which one you normally give out of.” Like I keep track of that. I’m not scared of blood, but I’d rather not pay attention when I’m being gored.
Make no mistake, this was a goring. After sticking me, she determined that I wasn’t draining fast enough. She pulled the needle back. She pushed it forward. She twisted it. She tried again. She asks how I’m doing. I say I’m doing fine. Next thing I feel is the needle hitting something new. And it didn’t feel good.
So I got the bag halfway full. I have ice on my arm. I think my story caused one of my coworkers to back out of her appointment.
In other words……MAJOR FAIL.
Sort of.
I said that I was giving blood in support of the Beavs because the Civil War blood drive might be the only Civil War victory we claim this year. However, I would say that I lost this one.
You know it didn’t go well when your bag is halfway full and the lady says “I’m calling it. Sorry Mr. Lasselle, it was nothing you did, I just had a bad stick from the start. You’re going to have a lot of bruising, and I apologize for that.”
If the football game goes like that on December 3rd, it’s going to be a loooooong year.
I knew it wasn’t going to go well when the lady comes up to me and says “Have I asked you your name yet?” Seeing how I was the FOURTH person of the day, you’d think they’d be able to remember that I was not one of the three people that had been in there before me. Sadly, this was not the case. Things got worse when she starts looking for a vein and, after poking around for a while, looks at me and says “do you have a preference?”
Reading between the lines, she was saying “I have no clue which vein to use, please tell me which one you normally give out of.” Like I keep track of that. I’m not scared of blood, but I’d rather not pay attention when I’m being gored.
Make no mistake, this was a goring. After sticking me, she determined that I wasn’t draining fast enough. She pulled the needle back. She pushed it forward. She twisted it. She tried again. She asks how I’m doing. I say I’m doing fine. Next thing I feel is the needle hitting something new. And it didn’t feel good.
So I got the bag halfway full. I have ice on my arm. I think my story caused one of my coworkers to back out of her appointment.
In other words……MAJOR FAIL.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
The one where Andy is reminded life is a gift
Last night was a good night of TV for me. Jonah wasn’t demanding to watch Wonder Pets and played politely with his toys, meaning I could pay attention to what was on. In an even more bizarre turn, Jonah decided at 8:30 that it was time for him to go to bed, and grabbed Rachel by the hand and led her into the guest bedroom where they cuddled up and fell asleep, leaving me some serious alone time with the television.
First, I watched V. I wasn’t planning on watching it, but it was on and nothing else really sounded appealing. Had there been a World Series game last night, I’d have watched that. Lucky you, V. Turns out it was really good. There’s nothing like going into something expecting to hate it and it turns out that you enjoy it. My favorite example of this is that I was adamantly against trying Panda Express for the first 20 years of my life. I saw no appeal in Chinese food, so why would Chinese fast food be good? Turns out that Orange Chicken is amazing, and it’s now one of my favorite places to grab a bite to eat when on the go.
After V got over, I watched the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary on Len Bias. The thing I like about this series ESPN is running is that these are stories I know about, but am not familiar with. I knew Len Bias had died of a drug overdose in the days following his being drafted by the Celtics, but I didn’t know it was with his teammates in a college dorm room. I didn’t realize how good he was at basketball, and how much he meant to the people of Washington DC.
Really, the whole hour I was upset. I came to find out that Len’s brother was murdered a few years later. His parents are good people. They weren’t absentee parents. Len was a good kid. He made a mistake and it cost him his life, a life that was just about to become uber- successful. I couldn’t figure out why this story about a guy who died 25 years ago was so upsetting to me.
When it ended, I got up and went into the guest bedroom to wake Rachel up and transfer Jonah to his bed. That’s when it hit me why the Len Bias story was so upsetting to me. As soon as I picked up my son, I realized why, 25 years later, Len Bias’ father was still so tortured by what had happened. He’d been a good parent, but he couldn’t protect his sons.
Growing up, we hear all the jokes from our parents about how once we turn 18 we’re on our own and they get to relax. As a parent, you do have to let go of the reins at some point. You have to trust that you’ve done all you could to teach right from wrong and good from bad. When something like that happens, it has to make you question every parenting decision you made. Were you tough enough on him? Did you push too hard? Was it something I did? I felt so awful for Mr. Bias.
I held Jonah for a few minutes in his room in the dark before putting him to bed last night, realizing – maybe for the very first time – that every day, every smile, every hug I share with him is truly a gift.
First, I watched V. I wasn’t planning on watching it, but it was on and nothing else really sounded appealing. Had there been a World Series game last night, I’d have watched that. Lucky you, V. Turns out it was really good. There’s nothing like going into something expecting to hate it and it turns out that you enjoy it. My favorite example of this is that I was adamantly against trying Panda Express for the first 20 years of my life. I saw no appeal in Chinese food, so why would Chinese fast food be good? Turns out that Orange Chicken is amazing, and it’s now one of my favorite places to grab a bite to eat when on the go.
After V got over, I watched the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary on Len Bias. The thing I like about this series ESPN is running is that these are stories I know about, but am not familiar with. I knew Len Bias had died of a drug overdose in the days following his being drafted by the Celtics, but I didn’t know it was with his teammates in a college dorm room. I didn’t realize how good he was at basketball, and how much he meant to the people of Washington DC.
Really, the whole hour I was upset. I came to find out that Len’s brother was murdered a few years later. His parents are good people. They weren’t absentee parents. Len was a good kid. He made a mistake and it cost him his life, a life that was just about to become uber- successful. I couldn’t figure out why this story about a guy who died 25 years ago was so upsetting to me.
When it ended, I got up and went into the guest bedroom to wake Rachel up and transfer Jonah to his bed. That’s when it hit me why the Len Bias story was so upsetting to me. As soon as I picked up my son, I realized why, 25 years later, Len Bias’ father was still so tortured by what had happened. He’d been a good parent, but he couldn’t protect his sons.
Growing up, we hear all the jokes from our parents about how once we turn 18 we’re on our own and they get to relax. As a parent, you do have to let go of the reins at some point. You have to trust that you’ve done all you could to teach right from wrong and good from bad. When something like that happens, it has to make you question every parenting decision you made. Were you tough enough on him? Did you push too hard? Was it something I did? I felt so awful for Mr. Bias.
I held Jonah for a few minutes in his room in the dark before putting him to bed last night, realizing – maybe for the very first time – that every day, every smile, every hug I share with him is truly a gift.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
The People vs. DirecTV
When Rachel gave me the go ahead some 20 month ago to make the switch from Comcast to DirecTV, I don't think I'd ever been as excited to give my money to a company. I'd never been a satellite guy. Always kind of scared of it, yet drawn to it. I sort of understood the bug's desire to get as close to the zapper as possible. So we made the switch, and I was convinced, for the time being, that this was the greatest thing we'd ever done. I was getting way more sports programming. I would be able to see Friday Night Lights commercial free! 1080p programming! Who cares if I didn't even know what 1080p programming was at the time, I had it! I lived in this utopian TV universe for over a year. Then the honeymoon stage ended with a thud.
Remember in college when you met someone at a bar or party, and you were so distracted by the fact that they looked really good in a pair of leather pants and looked you in the eye while mouthing the words to Nelly’s “Hot in Herrre” that you completely ignore the fact that they’ve downed 3 pitchers singlehandedly and tells you constantly that they had a “strictly sexual” relationship with their ex? That was me with DirecTV. I was dazzled by the programming that I ignored the fact that their “on demand” content was almost exclusively pay-to-view” and that “on demand” was a complete bastardization of the term. By on demand, they meant you could download it whenever you wanted, but be prepared to wait 3 hours while it downloads before viewing. I also learned that no television stations air shows in 1080p as of yet, but you could download 1080p movies for roughly $6. Just be prepared to order said movie a day in advance, because it will take that long to download. Also, my channel lineup changed without notice. I was willing to shrug this off because I got the Big Ten Network and MLB in HD, while my friends with Comcast were stuck with their lame Comcast SportsNet. Suckers.
The major honeymoon killer came a few weeks ago, when I received a letter telling me that I was being “reassigned” to the Eugene market, and my local channels would be changing from Portland feeds to Eugene feeds. Not a big deal, but the very last line in the letter stood out like the guy who didn’t get the memo that it wasn’t a costume party: DIRECTV DOES NOT CURRENTLY OFFER LOCAL CHANNELS IN HIGH DEFINITION IN THE EUGENE MARKET.
Really? These channels are available over the air in HD, but you can’t offer them through your satellite service? When I inquired about this via email, I was told that they were in negotiations with the Eugene affiliates to provide HD service, but that the affiliates were currently demanding too much money from DirecTV, which they of course didn’t want to have to pass on to my bill. Very noble of them. Although I noticed that this was the same reasoning they had for why they didn’t carry Comcast channels such as Versus. Is everyone out to gouge DirecTV? I had my doubts. Then I found out I could still receive my local channels in HD…..if I purchase some sort of piece of equipment from DirecTV for $50. So they could spread out the cost of this rate increase over everyone in the area and add $1 to my bill a month…..OR CHARGE ME $50 RIGHT NOW? That was the deal breaker for Rachel. She’s ready to head back to Comcast because she’s disenchanted with Qwest’s internet service, for which I can’t really blame her.
Now I’m having an issue with my DirecTV box. I come home from work, the picture is choppy, almost like when you’re watching a video on a computer that doesn’t have enough processing power to display the video smoothly. Thinking it was the signal, I reset the box. Success! Then it happened again the next day. And the next. And – well you get the point. After about six days of this, I looked online in DirecTV’s handy “troubleshooting” forums and found out multiple people are having this problem. So I called DirecTV. The girl was really nice (for once I have nothing bad to say about a company’s customer service rep) but she had me go through the process of resetting my box, even though I told her that alleviated the problem temporarily and I’d just be calling back the next day. So she had me check the cables to see if any of them are loose. While I’m behind the TV checking cables, I all of sudden hear Jonah saying “Hi!” I turn around and Jonah’s chatting on the phone with the customer service rep, who he thinks is his mom. Kind of embarrassing for me, yet funny at the same time. I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to call them back tonight.
So now the dilemma is this….if they have to come replace my box, it’s going to cost me at least $50. So do I stick with them, or make the switch back to Comcast and take advantage of a new customer deal? Or do I just threaten to leave, and sort of force DirecTV to give me a free box and the hook up thingy to get local channels in HD? I think if I threaten to leave, I better be fully prepared to actually leave if they call me on it. Anyone else in this situation, or gone through it before that can offer me some advice?
Remember in college when you met someone at a bar or party, and you were so distracted by the fact that they looked really good in a pair of leather pants and looked you in the eye while mouthing the words to Nelly’s “Hot in Herrre” that you completely ignore the fact that they’ve downed 3 pitchers singlehandedly and tells you constantly that they had a “strictly sexual” relationship with their ex? That was me with DirecTV. I was dazzled by the programming that I ignored the fact that their “on demand” content was almost exclusively pay-to-view” and that “on demand” was a complete bastardization of the term. By on demand, they meant you could download it whenever you wanted, but be prepared to wait 3 hours while it downloads before viewing. I also learned that no television stations air shows in 1080p as of yet, but you could download 1080p movies for roughly $6. Just be prepared to order said movie a day in advance, because it will take that long to download. Also, my channel lineup changed without notice. I was willing to shrug this off because I got the Big Ten Network and MLB in HD, while my friends with Comcast were stuck with their lame Comcast SportsNet. Suckers.
The major honeymoon killer came a few weeks ago, when I received a letter telling me that I was being “reassigned” to the Eugene market, and my local channels would be changing from Portland feeds to Eugene feeds. Not a big deal, but the very last line in the letter stood out like the guy who didn’t get the memo that it wasn’t a costume party: DIRECTV DOES NOT CURRENTLY OFFER LOCAL CHANNELS IN HIGH DEFINITION IN THE EUGENE MARKET.
Really? These channels are available over the air in HD, but you can’t offer them through your satellite service? When I inquired about this via email, I was told that they were in negotiations with the Eugene affiliates to provide HD service, but that the affiliates were currently demanding too much money from DirecTV, which they of course didn’t want to have to pass on to my bill. Very noble of them. Although I noticed that this was the same reasoning they had for why they didn’t carry Comcast channels such as Versus. Is everyone out to gouge DirecTV? I had my doubts. Then I found out I could still receive my local channels in HD…..if I purchase some sort of piece of equipment from DirecTV for $50. So they could spread out the cost of this rate increase over everyone in the area and add $1 to my bill a month…..OR CHARGE ME $50 RIGHT NOW? That was the deal breaker for Rachel. She’s ready to head back to Comcast because she’s disenchanted with Qwest’s internet service, for which I can’t really blame her.
Now I’m having an issue with my DirecTV box. I come home from work, the picture is choppy, almost like when you’re watching a video on a computer that doesn’t have enough processing power to display the video smoothly. Thinking it was the signal, I reset the box. Success! Then it happened again the next day. And the next. And – well you get the point. After about six days of this, I looked online in DirecTV’s handy “troubleshooting” forums and found out multiple people are having this problem. So I called DirecTV. The girl was really nice (for once I have nothing bad to say about a company’s customer service rep) but she had me go through the process of resetting my box, even though I told her that alleviated the problem temporarily and I’d just be calling back the next day. So she had me check the cables to see if any of them are loose. While I’m behind the TV checking cables, I all of sudden hear Jonah saying “Hi!” I turn around and Jonah’s chatting on the phone with the customer service rep, who he thinks is his mom. Kind of embarrassing for me, yet funny at the same time. I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to call them back tonight.
So now the dilemma is this….if they have to come replace my box, it’s going to cost me at least $50. So do I stick with them, or make the switch back to Comcast and take advantage of a new customer deal? Or do I just threaten to leave, and sort of force DirecTV to give me a free box and the hook up thingy to get local channels in HD? I think if I threaten to leave, I better be fully prepared to actually leave if they call me on it. Anyone else in this situation, or gone through it before that can offer me some advice?
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