Death on a Segway. Say WHAT?!

Just read a report about the death of Jimi Heselden, the 62 year old owner of the Segway company. You know Segway, the 2-wheeled chariot made more famous by Paul Blart Mall Cop? Well, it seems that Mr. Heselden died while riding his Segway and going off a cliff. OK Say WHAT?! He drove off a cliff to his death while on a Segway? How was this possible? I know it's a serious thing and my condolences go out to his family, but this borders on the absurd. It ranks a spot on 1000 Ways to Die! Let's break this down:

1: The Segway has a max speed of 12 MPH. Couldn't he have just STEPPED OFF the damned thing before reaching the edge of the cliff? I mean I WALK faster than a Segway. I've stepped off skateboards that were moving faster than one. Sure he was an old guy, but even if he fell on his ass, the most he could have gotten was a dislocated hip. He could have stepped off!

2: Granted he was 62 years old and his reaction time may have been slow, but the Segway is responsive to your body movements. It should have stopped when he, supposedly, instinctively pulled back from the edge. Even given bad eyesight due to his years, he should have seen that there was no road ahead of him.

3: Someone mentioned that maybe it was a suicide. Perhaps. But given the speed of the Segway, you'd think he'd have 2nd, 3rd and maybe up to 10th thoughts about going through with it. With a car you don't have much time to change your mind. You hit high speed, run off the cliff and that's it. Not so with a Segway. You can see your entire life pass by and press Pause on the interesting parts and even replay them before you even reached the edge.

It's like I said, this accident(?) borders on the absurd. It shouldn't have happened for a whole mess of reasons besides the ones I mentioned above.

The report says that Heselden loved the Segway so much, he bought the company. Victor Kiam did the same thing when he bought Remington, but I doubt we'll ever see him involved in a runaway shaving accident. (EGADS! Could you imagine the press on THAT?!)

Nope! Sorry. This death is just too weird for reality.

My Pet Peeves

A couple of days ago, a very old and dear friend asked me what my pet peeves were. She then proceeded to post some of hers on her blog (find her link under My Favorite Blogs). Got me to thinking what my personal pets were. I came up with quite a few. But since I don't to bore you with the entire list, here's the Reader's Digest version:

1- Stupid Questions and Obvious Statements
This has got to be the biggest pet peeve I have. I HATE questions like "Did you fall down?" when I'm flat on my ass. Or how about "Are they twins?" No, you putz! They're perfectly identical strangers!. The one that I frequently hear since I live on a tropical island is "Is it raining, outside?" This after I walk in dripping wet. My usual answers to this are "No, I'm just a heavy sweater!" or "Where else is it going to rain? Inside?!"


This leads me to pet peeve #2:
2- Being called a Smart-ass, Wise-guy or Too Logical
Answers to that are also obvious. I'd rather be a smart-ass than a dumb-ass! Same goes for wise-guy. Now my mother is the first to complain that I tend to be too logical. So what if I am? At least I think things through. I can't help it if I have a very high IQ. It all goes back to stating the obvious. If the clouds in the sky are dark and heavy, and there's a constant sound of thunder in the air, then LOGICALLY it's about to rain! Why then do people ask me, "Look at those clouds. Do you think it's gonna rain?"?

3- People who hire me for whatever reason and then refuse to pay for the most outrageous reasons. If I get hired to design a webpage, do some logo work or create some jewelry or figurines for someone, I expect to get paid for it. So why do people insist on finding excuses for not paying me? The most recent example was one client stating that since he didn't use some artwork I created, among other projects I did, that he didn't feel he should pay me. I pointed out that despite the fact that he didn't use it, I still did the work and that I had to get paid. After a little back and forth he finally decided to pay me, but not before telling me he was taking the project to a print shop. Sure go ahead. Now not only are you going to have to wait LONGER to get the job done, you are now going to have to pay a lot more for the job that was already done.

4- As readers of my previous posts will know by now, I have a major issue with the way some people dress nowadays. Woman that I call 5-3 women. Women with an ass 5 sizes too big in pants 3 sizes too small. And they have the audacity to think they're sexy! well, I can't fault them for their overwhelming self-confidence.
And how about the guys wearing their pants below their butts? Do I really need to know what kind of underwear, if any, you're wearing? I can tolerate it a bit if it's a hot chick with an exposed g-string, but sometimes too much is too much.

5- Stores and gas stations that demand that you buy a minimum of $10 before they accept your ATM card. I just want to buy a friggin' bag of Doritos and a diet Coke. Why should I be forced to buy $8 more of stuff I neither need nor want?! Or how about when you buy gas and the tank fills up before reaching the prepaid amount? Do they give you back change? Not everyone. Most require you to buy more stuff you don't need.

Finally, politicians, unemployment offices, traffic jams, Michael Jackson coverage, Lindsay Lohen drama, SPAM telling how to increase my penis size (really?), the frequent emails and letters from some dudes in Nigeria telling me I've inherited millions, the dogs and cats using my backyard as their personal toilet bowl.....

You know, I could go on and on, but I think you get my point. The world in general tends to drive me nuts. Sometimes it feels like I'm the only person alive that sees the black hole we, as a species, are falling into. My only hope is that someone, somewhere, reads my blog and a lightbulb goes off over their head.

Hope that someone is you.

Invasion of the Geriatric Accordion Players

For what seems like a couple of years now, I've noticed a strange event going on in various malls here in Puerto Rico.

Usually I see this old man with an accordion walking through the food court of a mall playing some unrecognizable piece of music while making faces like Carlos Santana squeezing notes out of his guitar. He would walk S-L-O-W-L-Y through the court looking for tips and looking like he was on the verge of a music induced orgasm.

At first, this annoying old man would just be confined to the one mall. Then one day I saw him at another major mall doing exactly the same thing. I thought to myself, "The old man really gets around."

It wasn't until I saw him at yet ANOTHER mall that I started to get a bit concerned. Was he following me? Was he *GASP* some kind of clone? Could there be some kind of alien invasion going on? Are aliens using strange accordion music to somehow turn our brains to mush?!

Then one day I really freaked out. I went to the mall where I had originally seen the old man. There he was, grinding away like a geriatric Weird Al Yankovic. I got out of there as fast as I could and made my way to another mall. Lo and behold! There he was again!!! What the heck?!

What really got to me was later that night I went to yet ANOTHER mall closer to my home and , yes, you guessed it, THERE HE WAS AGAIN!!!

So, my theory is this: either he's hitching a ride in the trunk of my car unbeknownst to me, or...

WE'RE BEING INVADED BY ACCORDION PLAYING ALIEN CLONES!!!!!!

Confessions at an All You Can Eat Buffet

Recently my family and I went for diner at an All You Can Eat Buffet place whose name rhymes with Twizzler.
Anyway, my wife goes to the food bar to fill up her plate and comes back trying miserably to stifle some laughter. Seems that some guy confessed to her that, in his opinion, eating there was the best possible deal. After all, $9.99 per person and all the food you can stuff down your gullet? Of course it's a good deal. So much so that he confessed that he had been there for over 2 hours doing just that.

My wife pointed the guy out to me while he was walking back to his table with yet another plate of food. It got me to thinking, just how many food combinations can you come up with? How many different ways can you eat fried chicken, pork chops and macaronis?

While I was contemplating the mysteries of buffet combinations, the man culpable for my thoughts got up from his table contentedly rubbing his protruding belly with both hands while walking towards...yep...the bathroom. After a few minutes in the john, he comes out, goes to his table and...yep...gets another plate and proceeds to make his way back to the food bar. And again, starts to pile more food on his plate. By now he is entering his 3rd hour of face-stuffing.

I couldn't help notice the guys behind the counter looking in confusion at the empty trays of food they had just placed there not 2 minutes before. Their looks said, "Whaddaya mean there's no more fried chicken? I Just put a whole tray-full out there! What? No pork chops either? No macaronis? Hey, where'd all the biscuits go?!!"

When the time came for my family to leave the establishment, we had to pass by his table on the way out. We couldn't help overhear him telling the couple at the table next to his the exact same story he had told my wife, while happily shoveling MORE food into his mouth. Meanwhile I happened to glance at the woman who I can only assume was his wife sitting next to him. The poor woman seemed almost embarrassed to be there (although she seemed to have a few empty plates of her own in front of her).

For all we know the man is still there today, eating everything in sight.