We Don't Walk Slow

15 Jun, 2011

On the Phone

By Tom Stortz|2016-11-01T23:43:54-04:00June 15th, 2011|My Brain|0 Comments

There are so many weird things that people do on the phone. Whether it’s talk to fast, talk to much, awkward silences, or the 1-2-3 principal, I try to stay away from the phone as much as possible. The funny thing is I don’t have a problem talking on the phone. If you call me and I don’t pick up it’s not because I don’t like talking but I don’t feel like talking at that particular time. For instance, when I was driving to OCMD I was getting calls from people back home and like a dick, I just let it ring. What am I supposed to say?
“What are you doing this weekend?”
“Yeah I’m not around this weekend”
“Oh, well, let’s talk about the weather…”
So I just don’t pick up and avoid it all. I answer the phone non-stop at work and talk to people all day so the phone isn’t a foreign object to me. The one thing that bothers me at work is when people call up and they obviously know who they are calling but they expect me to guess who they are. They call, I pick up, and the first thing they say is “Hey Tom.” Now I could say “who is this” and sound rude I don’t know them or I could just take a shot in the dark and insult them if I don’t know their voice. If you are calling someone just tell them who it is first. I know this isn’t a cell phone situation where you usually know ahead of time who you are talking to but still.

This brings me to the 1-2-3 principal. If I’m calling you, you pick up and say “hello”, do I immediately go into what I’m trying to say or do I have to say hello back. If I say hello back then it puts it on the other person to find something to say even though I was the person who had the reason to call. So usually when someone picks up, they say hello, I just say “hey, I’m calling because” rather then give it a chance to get weird.

My biggest problem with the phone is disappointing people. Say someone is calling me to do something that I don’t want to do and they give me a buzz. I sometimes prefer just ignoring the call rather then telling them “I don’t want to do it.” Once I pick up the phone I’m getting myself into a situation where I’m going to be peer pressured into doing something I don’t want to. Now if I was strong willed and didn’t succumb to peer pressure I would answer every time. Sadly, my social skills have a long way to go.

This is the type of wacky nonsense that goes through my head. I analyze and then over-analyze everything. I think I read people really well. Meaning that I have a good understanding of the principals they live by. I think because of this I’m pretty good at getting along with everybody. There are very few people I can’t get along with and for those people they usually did something stupid that makes me judge their character. For instance, this one kid in college BBall intramurals never took himself out of the game. If he was dominant I’d understand but he was just an average Joe. After that I never liked him. I’m a firm believer that a player should be cognizant of other player’s playing time. Selfishness stops you dead in my book. Jesus, I’m really rambling now. I don’t even know why I wrote Jesus but it just popped in my head and I wrote it. Then I just guessed if there should be a comma after Jesus. I’m going to end this before it goes too far.

14 Jun, 2011

My Life

By Tom Stortz|2011-06-15T09:21:44-04:00June 14th, 2011|My Life|0 Comments

I’ve been writing mostly posts about my thoughts on things and not my life. With a change of pace in mind, I’m going to give you a detail by detail description of my Tuesday, June 14th and you’ll see why I don’t write about my life that often.

I woke up at 6:45 and slept in till 7:08. I drove to work listening to music, mostly classic rock, and decided to get something to eat. I went to Johnny’s for a sausage, egg, and cheese and I have this one OCD trait about me that I hate when this PGW truck parks on the side. It’s this big truck and something trailing it that makes it take up the entire side parking and their parking lot is a nightmare because if you pull in forward you have to back out directly onto Delaware Ave. Anyway, I’m at the light about to make the turn and take a guess who pulls in directly in front of me, PGW truck. That tilted me and also the place was packed so I drove down the street to the gas station and bought a microwaveable breakfast sandwich and a Half and Half Nantucket Nectar for 6.50! After calming down I went to work. Work was bearable and I’m going to skip ahead to 4:30 when I’m leaving.

I drive back and decide to go for a run. I left at 5:45 into a slight drizzle. At 6 it started to rain harder and then by 6:15 it was a torrential downpour. I put up about 9 miles at 6:30-6:45 pace. Immediately after running I cut a blood blister from my foot because my socks were soaked and made it bad on my feet. I took a shower and decided I needed a new shower curtain and bathmat because they were getting gross (probably already gross). I go to target and buy a 5.99 curtain liner and a 9.99 bathmat. I also stopped at Boston Market and bought a half chicken with loaded mashed and stuffing as the sides. I came back home, put up the shower liner, placed the bathmat down and then cleaned the entire bathroom spotless. Shower, sink, toilet, it’s never been so clean. I watched some of the Phillies, then a thing on Tom Brady and the 6 qb’s beneath him and here we are. I’m going to read a book called “The Day the Dollar Crashes” for 15 minutes and then I’m going to call it a night. My biggest concern today is that I hope I didn’t give myself a stress fracture running. There you go ladies and gents, 6/14 wrapped up into one blog entry. Was your day any better?

14 Jun, 2011

Let’s Talk. Or not

By Tom Stortz|2011-06-14T08:11:13-04:00June 14th, 2011|My Brain|0 Comments

One of the strangest things I see are couples who are together and they just prefer to not talk to each other. As humans, we obviously have the ability to communicate with one another but when that leaves, what are you left with? Two examples from recent memory.
– JC and I went out for lunch and were sitting next to an older couple who didn’t say one word the entire time we were there. Maybe it’s being together so long that you don’t have anything to say to each other or maybe they just prefer silence. If I’m with someone there might be a minute or two of silence while I browse the menu or something but I couldn’t sit there quiet for an entire meal. I would feel awkward around pretty much anyone I know even if I’ve known them for a long time.
– While driving to work I was rear view stalking and this older gentlemen with, presumably, his smoking hot daughter who was probably in her early college years were behind me. We were both at a red light for maybe a minute and both of them just had their heads turned gazing out their respective windows. 1 minute straight, no form of communication. There could be reasons for this like they listening to the radio but it just felt really cold. Like you could cut the tension with a knife that neither one had anything to say to another.

I guess what I’m getting out in this post is that you can tell how good a relationship or friendship you have by the ability to communicate. Maybe some people have no interest in communication. I just feel that comfort level is one of the key components to good friends and companions.

13 Jun, 2011

Who wants to win?

By Tom Stortz|2011-06-13T23:54:55-04:00June 13th, 2011|My Life|0 Comments

I know someone is going to read this and think I’m lecturing him but that is just 100% incorrect. I’m writing this post because I’m sharing with all of you my general life philosophy from my experiences. Starting off this post, it’s better to win than lose. I think everyone will agree that no one wants to lose. Winning is more fun, it makes you feel superior, it boosts self esteem. There is a sense of accomplishment to winning. Everyone wants to be a winner. So why am I writing this post? 3 examples from this recent weekend.

I shot a 119 on a golf course this weekend. This is not winning. This is about as far from winning as I’ve ever been. For reasons that were probably health related, I couldn’t hit the ball. On hole 1 I plunked one 5 yards into the marsh. Same thing on hole 2. I was barely making contact and yes it was frustrating. Did I let it ruin my round because I wasn’t playing the norm? Did I start throwing clubs? Was I a sourpuss all day? No. I finished the round with my head as high as it could be held shooting a 119. What difference does it make what score I shot. To get respect from my peers? I’m not firing out 76’s like Bake. I’m going to be around a 90’s golfer for my life and I don’t see what that prizes await me in life. My point is that I’m not going to let a bad round ruin my mental state on the course or away from it. It just doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

On Saturday, Steve and I lost the first 4 or 5 games of beer pong in a row. This next statement is a complete fact for me personally, I can’t play beer pong sober and one person isn’t going to beat 2 very often. Some people start feeling an inferiority complex if they lose. Not me. When I play beer pong, I’m actually winning because I’m losing. My goal is to get drunk and I’m drinking all my beers. As the night wore on and Shee started to get too drunk because he can’t drink like grads from Pitt, we started winning. Try playing me in beer pong 20 games in a row and see who starts winning the drunker we get. My point is once again, people who win at beer pong don’t get the hottest chicks, or the most money, or really any prize except bragging rights. I don’t feel pathetic because I lose at beer pong and the outcome means very little to me. Do I try to win and try my best? Of course, but I don’t really care if I lose.

A final example came on Sunday during a tennis match between Me and the Shee vs Bake and CK4. It’s an odd matchup because Shee and Bake are far better than Chad and me. We lost badly the first set 6-1 mostly due to my poor play. However, the Shee never gave up hope and was encouraging the entire time. He didn’t let losing get him down and was in it for the fun and not the competition. He was helping me out on where to play and where to direct shots, all around good teammate. We ended up winning the next set 8-6 and then start dominating with a 6-2 beatdown followed by a 6-1 thrashing. With a good attitude and not caring about winning but rather working on team chemistry and strategy it was a complete reversal after the first set. Notice at no point do I say I’m not trying as hard as I can to win. It’s just if you lose, you lose, that’s it. You can’t let it get you down or frustrate you. I really believe this concept goes along way.

I do want to point out one final thing. The people who achieve the greatest ranks only care about winning. MJ would not have losing and he would devote his entire life to winning. The best people in the world probably all think like that. Being the best at what you do is a strong quality to have. I don’t want this post to come across as a Peter Gibbons mindset that I don’t care about anything. For the rest of the 99% of the population who won’t be the best at what they do, it’s about giving it your best and hopefully things work out. You can’t fret too much over results because most likely they aren’t deal breakers. This may be a losers mentality but it makes my mental state that much easier and I feel good all the time. I may not always perform my best but that won’t stop me from having fun trying.

12 Jun, 2011

My least favorite quality about females

By Tom Stortz|2011-06-12T18:14:30-04:00June 12th, 2011|My Brain|2 Comments

I’m very adamant about this post. When I’m going to the bar and looking to dance/grind on girls there is nothing more annoying than (correct Jkash?) a girl’s friends. If it’s not intimidating enough to go up to a group of 4 girls and try to start something, I certainly don’t need to add attitude from her friends. It’s like if one of the friends doesn’t approve of the guy they try to “save” the girl. They start shaking their head or laughing or doing other dumb things dumb girls do. What they are doing is “saving” the girl from a decent looking guy, he has a job, he’s nice and respectful and will probably shell out some cash on drinks. I’m not Danny Zuko on the dance floor but where is even the opportunity. Here is the mindset I think they take “well if this girl is going to dance with my friend, what am I going to do?” This is how a guy handles this situation “my buddy is making moves on a lady I’m going to leave him alone and let him work his game.” It just happened a bunch of times last night and I’m sure it’s going to be happening for the rest of history but seriously, why all the intervention. I think this is probably the biggest problem with meeting girls at the bar and I’m completely realistic about this, girls in bars don’t care about “good guys,” they are looking for the best looking meathead who probably is a complete asshole, no cash, and will treat them terribly. Am I right here and can someone please throw in some input?

12 Jun, 2011

Scattergories Rules Interpretation part 2

By Tom Stortz|2016-11-01T23:39:21-04:00June 12th, 2011|My Brain|1 Comment

In this previous post, I discussed how we play Scattergories and ruling issues. We played on Saturday night before going out to the bar. I was pretty drunk and my answers were a bit haywire. I’m going to share my answers and my thought process for the list and then give a few of my thoughts on the rules.
List 7 – Letter J
J isn’t the easiest letter either just to point out.
1. Fictional Characters – I had Jack in the Box and changed it to Jiminy Cricket. Jack and Jill would have been a great answer. Going with Jack in the Box may have been too risky so I swapped and Jiminy got canceled out with another player. Safer to go with the obscure answer?
4. Capitals – Jefferson. Someone else had Jefferson City. I’m not getting this point. Close but no cigar for this particular example, there is no fighting this.
7. Footwear – I put jellies. I had to look at the only girl in the room and get someone on my side because this would be an answer that could easily lead to a heated debate if no one knew what they were. No guys should know what jellies are but they are shoes usually worn by little girls. I had a sister growing up, I’m not a pedofile.
8. Something you keep hidden – I wrote Jews. I have nothing wrong against Jews and I know that this is a really wrong answer but I have no problem offending people for 1 point. Amber said she didn’t want to write it because it was in bad taste. I am not that person. This is an answer that could lead to debate though. Have Jews been kept hidden? Yes. Are they always kept hidden. No. I have a strong stance on this point of the game, CREATIVITY should be rewarded. This is where practicality gets thrown out the window, we all have a good laugh about the horrible period of time, life moves on.
12. Crimes – Jerking in Public. I think this answer deserves some analysis. Obviously jerking isn’t a crime and notice it’s a verb. Should I be able to add additional words to describe an answer? I think this is where rule interpretation deserves a standard. On another question, for the letter O, the question was household chore and someone put “oven preparation”. It’s the same adding additional words to your answer except this time it’s the noun which is the key word. It’s why the game is very difficult to judge and why it leads to debates.

I have a couple other thoughts on rules that I think make sense:

Jkash had “tripping” down for a bad habit. Obviously not the best bad habit and he explained it as falling down, vetoed. I had “tripping” for a leisure activity and explained it in terms with drug use. If Jkash explained it as tripping drug wise, he would get the point, because he didn’t, he doesn’t. When you use answers you have to be able to justify them properly (or at least other people can produce their own opinion of them DURING THE RULING). Evan, this is why Nick Nolte as a TV star doesn’t get you two points. It doesn’t matter that he was in TV but you (and no one else) could produce one of his series. Everyone playing the game needs to understand this.

Which brings me to my next part of not getting salty. I actually think we do a very good job on this and it’s something that I’m going to write another post on. Let’s face it, most people could judge their own answers as a good answer or not. There are going to be some good answers, some bad answers, and some iffy answers. If your bad answers get vetoed, accept it and move on. I read on a forum about someone saying they didn’t like the game because it leads to heated arguments. If the game is going to lead to heated arguments, don’t play the game. It’s a game. It’s fun. No one cares who wins. I didn’t write this last section for how we played by the way but for others who search for this post.

11 Jun, 2011

Lebron takes too much Heat

By Tom Stortz|2011-06-11T11:29:16-04:00June 11th, 2011|Sports|2 Comments

I’m going to voice my opinion on Lebron because everyone else is. If you don’t like Lebron because he’s too cocky, I think you are barking up the wrong tree. People who know nothing about basketball (these people tend to voice their opinion the loudest) don’t understand that Lebron is an amazing basketball player. Let me run through his lines real quick in the 2011 finals:
Game 1 – 9-16, 4-5 3pt, 9reb, 4ast
Game 2 – 8-15, 2-7 3pt, 8reb, 4ast, 4 st
Game 3 – 6-14, 1-4 3pt, 3reb, 9ast, 2 st
Game 4 – 3-11, 0-3 3pt, 9reb, 7ast, 2 st
Game 5 – 8-19, 0-4 3pt, 10reb, 10 ast

Here are MJ’s Finals average stats, possibly the best playoff player ever.
FG% – .481, 3pt% -.368, RPG – 6.0, APG – 6.0, PPG 33.6

Here’s the thing, HE’S NOT BETTER THEN MICHAEL JORDAN. Scottie Pippen is just yacking because he can. Stats don’t really matter because MJ went to the finals 6 times and won them all. Lebron isn’t MJ but his stats clearly show he’s doing something. Maybe he’s not a winner like MJ, but he’s the reason his teams are consistently going to the finals. When people like to say he sucks I just have to laugh. You try being the talk of Sportscenter after every single game and see how you handle it. I know it’s hard to defend Lebron because his mannerisms seem so laddi da but the guy is a winner. He’s not MJ, but doesn’t deserve the flack. Can your team ever be better without Lebron? He also hasn’t even lost the Finals yet so let’s just see how he finishes up before we are saying he’s disappearing every game.

11 Jun, 2011

Socks with Sandals

By Tom Stortz|2016-11-01T23:39:42-04:00June 11th, 2011|My Brain|2 Comments

I know this is a terrible look but sometimes I don’t care what I look like. I was watching sportscenter and I saw Lebron wearing this look. Then when I was down the beach I saw it countless other times. I’ve been doing this for years but I know why I did it. These other people do it because they think it looks good. I don’t like having my bare feet touch my sandals UNLESS I’m at the beach where the look is just accepted. I think it’s so gross that I can only do it for week or two during the entire year. Here’s also something that I want to point out. If your sandals have a spot for your big toe, you can’t wear socks. They have to be the open kind. This does not look good.

Basically this look is making it mainstream and I’m not going to partake anymore. Everyone knows that it’s ok to do things if you are the only one doing it but once it goes mainstream, you have to change. These are just the rules to fashion. Trust me, I know.

10 Jun, 2011

Beach People Problems

By Tom Stortz|2011-06-10T23:53:14-04:00June 10th, 2011|My Life|0 Comments

I know the 6 day hiatus between posts is probably killing some of my fans but I am back now for a week and then I get to spend another week down the shore. I spent the last week down in Ocean City, Maryland which I think is accurately described as Sea Isle on steroids. The whole atmosphere is just juiced up down there. Naturally the week we picked to go down was senior week and there were loads of young girls walking around, which is a great if you are a high school senior but I’m 27 now. I think most girls who are 17 just consider you a creep when you get to be 27. We were making jokes about things from the 90’s that would pass for a relevant ID check. One girl didn’t know what Seinfeld was which just blew my mind. Do you know who Gordon Bombay is was another funny.

I’m not really going to go into a day by day account of what I did because I just don’t feel like explaining what I did for 6 days of nothing. The title of this post is going to be my theme. I also want to point out if you know me you know I’m not racist and I’m just trying to be funny. If you get offended you can give me a dead arm next time you see me. Basically my week consisted of beach people problems. My red cup that contained my beer kept getting sand in it. My beer was pouring out with way too much foam on the beach. It was 100 degrees on the beach instead of 90. The water on the beach is a couple of degrees too cold. My sun burn is itchy. The bars are too far apart. You get the idea. The weather for the week was perfect and there wasn’t one day I didn’t get to the beach. I also prevented becoming a lobster this year because I used sun screen smartly.

I also came home a day early which seems ludicrous I know but I was finished after 5 days of partying. I went on a stretch on Thursday of 14 straight hours of drinking beers. I would guess I consumed about a case of beer by myself, probably more. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I’m a quitter. I was partied out and I left for my health. I’ve hardly ate anything today and I have to assume that’s my body working off the thousands of empty calories I put into it. But I survived without any incident with coastal highway or any injuries. Things went to plan and I have no complaints. I was even made a rookie of the fun police with my strong stand on why people should swim in front of the life guards and why you need to look both ways 100 times crossing coastal highway. I might go into some more detail later but I’m tired right now.

3 Jun, 2011

Music Analysis

By Tom Stortz|2011-06-03T10:32:06-04:00June 3rd, 2011|Music|0 Comments

I’m going to give a quick explanation of good music vs bad music. I’m picking two really random songs but I think they do a decent job explaining my point. The song Best Night of My Life by Jaime Foxx has a lyric in it that immediately puts it into the bad category. “Shawty you drinkin gon that Martini, I wanna see you in a bikini.” This sole lyric is enough to make me dismiss this song and say I dislike it. When we are referring to “good” music, the Beatles don’t have lyrics like this. Lyric’s like this are the reason no band is going to touch the Beatles. Jamie is creating pop music at it’s finest. Put together some words that rhyme, a catchy chorus, and we have a hit. Do not get fooled into thinking this is a good song.

All music in 2011 isn’t bad though. I want to point out a lyric from another random song and show you how lyrics should be written. The song is Next Girl by The Black Keys. The Black Keys are a good band that get little recognition because their music isn’t mainstream. The chorus to the song “My next girl” is, “My next girl, will be nothing like my ex girl. I made mistakes back then, I’ll never do it again. My next girl, will be nothing like my ex girl. It was a painful dance, I got a second chance.” Let’s consider these lyrics for a second. They are describing an issue that countless people can relate to. The lyrics make sense. The lyrics actually mean something other then I want to see you in a bikini. This is the fundamental difference between garbage and good songs. It’s why no bands are as good as they were 30 years ago.

And one more song just to show how ridiculous the music industry is.

Katy Perry is a hit right now. This song isn’t good, HOWEVER, its going to get air time as another Katy Perry single. It’s catchy, her lyrics are better then Jaime Foxx’s as bad as that is but she does something which makes these songs good. It’s simple, people relate to it. I have no problem with Katy Perry and her songs will continue to climb charts because she is now known for being good.