Small talk

I don’t think I could ever become a successful politician.

**** Quick digression here before we even really get started. What is the minimum achievement or skill needed to be labeled a “politician?” Do you need to actually win a political race? Gain a political seat? Could I be considered a politician by just officially running in a lot of races even if I never emerged victorious? With that in mind, by definition I could give myself a number of different labels as long as I didn’t need to put “successful” in front of them. Example:
- Musician – I can play guitar
- Lady’s man – I got married
- Counselor – I give tons of great advice all of the time to everyone I know
- Comedian – I am hilarious
- Writer – I send emails like this one out to people I know

Something to think about when someone labels themselves.
******

Back to political aspirations. I would struggle with this as a career choice for a couple of fairly obvious reasons, but the main one would be: I am not great at talking to people I don’t know. If we know each other even a little bit, no problem, I can talk for hours about whatever you please. But if we just met or are sitting together somewhere? Forget it. I’ve got nothing. I clam up, have nothing to say, don’t want to know anything about you, don’t want to tell you anything about myself, and want the situation to end quickly. To this end, this is one of the reasons I do not want to ever go on a cruise with Sabrina. Once I was told that on cruises you have to eat meals with complete strangers. That little nugget alone was all the excuse I ever needed to never ever get on a cruise ship. The idea of night after night of worrying about where I was sitting for dinner would be more than I could handle.

Part of me just doesn’t see the point in small talk. Why do I want to get to know you if there is potential we will never see each other again? That’s like watching the first two episodes of a new show only to know it is getting cancelled before anything of substance happens. Small talk like that just seems pointless. Hence the long odds against a successful political career (forgetting the fact that I don’t know the first thing about politics). How would I ever campaign? I would walk up to someone’s door, introduce myself, stand in awkward silence for a minute or two until I handed them some literature, ask for the vote and leave. Not exactly Obama-like. So in the next couple of years if you see a campaign sign akin to:



Elect Norrie for Comptroller (or something similar)**

You know one of two things have happened. I have overcome my disdain for small talk or I am running on the “silence” campaign. Neither sounds too promising.

*** Wouldn’t this be great if the parenthetical addition were actually on a campaign sign? Like saying, “Vote for me for whatever you think I would be best at.”

Quick entertainment notes

- Tonight I will resume covering “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” for cinemablend.com if anyone is interested in reading about the struggle to save mankind from robots that used to sing for the band Garbage.

- Additionally, in March I will also begin covering the new animated sitcom The Good Family . It is a new show from Mike Judge of King of the Hill fame.

- If anyone watches 24 my buddy Mike is covering that show for cinemablend as well. After reading one of his reviews Sabrina asked me, "Is it bad that I liked his review better than watching the actual show? And I like really liked last night's episode."

Janbruary

Every year I dread late January and all of February. Foremost, the weather is awful and has been especially cold in New Jersey over the last couple of weeks. Beyond that, this time of year is absolutely dead in terms of sports. Unless you are among the millions of Steelers fans or one of the seven Cardinals fans, there is very little to get excited about right now. NBA basketball, if you even follow it, doesn’t really kick into gear for another month, NCAA hoops hasn’t quite wrapped up its preseason before the madness that is March, hockey – never mind everyone hates hockey, women’s basketball, and baseball is still months away from meaning anything. Beyond that, I can’t even go out and play the sports I am good at: bocce ball, swimming pool basketball, or betting on horse races. Come to think of it, why do we even have this terrible section of the calendar?

Maybe it’s time to consolidate. That is what all of the economists are telling us to do right? Cut back. Save. Combine services. It’s time to do that with January and February. Would anyone even notice except to revel in the time that is Janbruary? Consider the implications of this new month. Get ready for it. We could kick it off with New Years, roll right into MLK weekend, and get a bunch of TV premieres to fill our nights. Just when we are getting back to work we chuck in Valentine’s Day to appease the lady folk (not mine, we don’t celebrate), roll through a weekend of playoff football, and then into the Super Bowl, which happens to combine with President’s weekend so now we have the Monday after the big game off and then bam! it’s March, the NCAA tournament is starting and St. Patty’s Day is just around the corner. Gasp. Who wouldn’t love this new month?

I was trying to think of examples of two (or more) crappy, terrible or useless things that when combined turn into an awesome pairing. It was harder than I thought so I enlisted my buddy James to help. Here is what we came up with:

- Horseshoes and stakes
- Slinkies and stairs
- Cheech and Chong
- Bricks to the face and the guy from the Sprint commercials who walks around in cities in his overcoat talking about how amazed he is at his company’s phones
- All of the people ever to appear on The Real World

I can’t find any fault in this month-merging plan at all and I encourage you to come up with any downside. Also if you can think of combinations of stupid things that make a great thing let me know. Until then, let’s make Janbruary happen.