Silence at the dinner table is highly underrated.

Now Playing: Agnes Obel - Riverside

"Oh, she eats with her left hand?"

I'm used to getting that question from Indian aunties and uncles, usually in a disapproving voice, so when someone asked my mother that over dinner, I said, "yes, she does" in a tone of voice that most reasonable people might take as a sign to retreat.

"You know how you can fix that?"

"Uncle, I don't want to fix it!"

Mum intervened, "We never felt it was necessary to force her to use her right hand. What's the point, really?"

Uncle still didn't take the hint. "But you know, if you wanted to change, how to do it?"

I looked at Mum. Clearly Uncle was going to have his say, regardless of our feelings. "How?"

"You take a knife - oh don't worry, a very small one will do - and you cut the... what are they called, ligaments? tendons? Well whatever it is, you cut the ones on your left hand, and you'll wind up having to use your right hand by default! Ha!"

We stared.

Thankfully, there was no knife in the vicinity - very small or otherwise - or somebody would've gotten hurt real bad.

This Is Not The Sci-Fi You Are Looking For

My father and I were discussing Star Trek. As you do. 

Me: So you have The Original Series, right?
Dad: Right...
Me: And then you have The Next Generation.
Dad: ...
Me: The one with Patrick Stewart?
Dad: Right.
Me: And then you have Deep Space Nine, and then comes Voyager, and THEN you have Enterprise, which is set before TOS, so it's a prequel to all the other shows.
Dad: Then where does that other show fit in?
Me: Which other show?
Dad: You know, that show you used to watch?
Me: (thinking) What Sci-Fi show did I watch that my father knows I watched? He can't mean... (aloud) BATTLESTAR GALACTICA?!
Dad: Oh yeah, that one! Where does that fit in?
Me: They have nothing to do with one another! The two are set in completely different universes!
Dad: But they both have to do with galaxies or something...
Me: ... You are aware Star Trek and Star Wars are completely different too, right?
Dad: Oh, that I know.

I am convinced he thinks that all Sci-Fi that lacks lightsabers is automatically Star Trek.

Awkward Prose, Let Me Show You It

Now Playing: Cory Monteith - I'll Stand By You

“What makes a masterpiece? One answer is mastery. But that raises questions of its own. What is it? Where does it come from? And is it enough?”

I won’t lie: I totally cracked up typing up that quote. And come on, who wouldn’t? Doesn’t it sound like the opening to a particularly awkward high school essay? “Please write 500 words on what makes a masterpiece. You may include examples from music, literature, film and television. No video games please.”

It’s actually the opening to a piece in today’s The National discussing Beethoven’s fifth symphony. It’s the most juvenile prose I’ve seen in print in a long time, so thank you, Ed Lake, for bringing a smile to my face before the caffeine kicked in. But seriously, what were you thinking? And where was your editor, for that matter? The rest of the article is quite good, but that opening is inexcusable.

Too Hideous For Words (and I don't mean the "fatties")

Now Playing: Friendly Fires - Kiss of Life

How vain do you have to be to join a site called BeautifulPeople.com? A site so "exclusive" you can only get in if existing members agree that you're hot enough? How desperate for validation must you be?

It's alright though, they love you! You're officially one of the Beautiful People! But then, tragedy strikes. It's the holiday season, there are carbs everwhere, you can't avoid that turkey dinner with the folks, and before you can say "superficial," you've put on weight.

As easily as that, you've lost the acceptance of your peers - who aren't actually your peers anymore, as they've voted you and 4,999 others off the island and you're no longer a member of BeautifulPeople.com. Are you worth anything anymore? How can you know you're beautiful unless other people tell you so?

It's not the site's fault, of course. It had to maintain its standards as the last bastion of the Certifiedly Attractive on the internet. In the words of site founder Robert Hintze,

"As a business, we mourn the loss of any member, but the fact remains that our members demand the high standard of beauty be upheld. Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model and the very concept for which BeautifulPeople.com was founded."

So even as you languish in exile, you have hope. Because there is still a place for your people - or the people you used to be, at any rate - where beautiful people roam, unmenaced by the fatties, the plain, the uncoordinated and the unprimped. One day, you will get back into paradise - if you have to starve, purge or cardio yourself to death to do it. 

Oh Dearie Me

Now Playing: Antonio Carlos Jobim - Desafinado

A bit of background - a woman is hanging with her friends on King Street in Toronto, guy comes up to her all SuperSmooth, she gives him her card to get him to go away, and he calls back. Via Jezebel, here's a transcript of the two messages he left her - that she forwarded to local radio station Z103.5 (Today's Hit Music!).

Message the first:

Hey Olga, it's Dimitri.

Sorry I had to leave such a rushed message with you when we met the other day. I just wanted to quickly give you my phone number, and needed to get the heck out of the area. In any event, I thought I had better leave you a more detailed message and explain why I approached you. I am single. I have no trouble meeting women; I mean, women approach me six or seven times a day. But I'm extremely particular about what I like.

You're an extremely elegant woman. I couldn't take my eyes off you, and your friends were very jealous — even if they say they weren't, they were envious of the fact that I approached you, and I was very taken by you. Elegant women are very rare. I'm Greek and I'm extremely particular about what I like. So I'm giving you an opportunity here. I don't know if you picked up the message on the weekend but I'm working on a movie script so I'll be doing that all weekend…

This looks like a land line, and if it is you may not get the message till Monday. But when you do, call me and we'll get together for coffee or drinks, and let the romance begin. You looked very taken aback by my approach, and I hope that wasn't timidness, I hope it was just shock at being approached so directly. Because I don't really date timid women, because I'm a very direct, very passionate, very assertive man, and I want a woman who is very independent and strong. So… we'll talk about that, but I just wanted to formally introduce myself. I leave the ball in your court. You call me as soon as you have the courage to. Okay, Olga? Talk to you soon, bye.

Message the Second:

Hi there, Olga it's Dimitri calling again, the guy from the street.

I left you a message several days ago you said you were interested. Now, here's the way I work. I don't like leaving second messages but I like you, you're a very elegant woman, you're very attractive, but, you know, I don't play that game. I know your friends tell you not to return calls; you're playing games like you see in stupid TV shows.

So here's how it's gonna work. It is now 4:30 on Wednesday. Now I'll assume, I'll assume that you've already left work, because, you know, some people leave work early, so I'll grant you that. But if I don't receive a phone call back from you by 3 o'clock Thursday afternoon I'm no longer interested and I'm going to erase your number. I don't play games like that.

I'm completely single, I'm very intelligent, I'm great in bed, I make great money. Believe it or not, I'm a complete catch. I've only been single four months; I had a long distance relationship for about a year, it's very tough to maintain it like that; there's nothing wrong with me. As a matter of fact I'm one of the few men in the city that has nothing wrong with him. So I'm giving you the three o'clock deadline. If I don't hear from you by then, you lose my number — I'm erasing your number right now, so you won't be hearing back from me.

So that's it: three o'clock tomorrow, or you can just completely forget it.

Now I understand if you've got other issues, maybe you're not playing games, I don't know… maybe you were abused in childhood?…Maybe your mother has cancer, and you're going to chemo…maybe you're just a person who's extremely frightened or has an anxiety disorder, maybe you're on some medication for that…I don't know, there could be another issue that I'm not aware of. But nobody says "Call me," hands a person a business card and then doesn't return calls. It's extremely passive aggressive. You should actually look that up, passive-aggressive personality disorder. You let me know, if you've got issues, psychological issues, if you're on any sort of medication for anxiety or depression, I'm not interested. But if you're psychologically normal, and you haven't called me because there's been some horrible thing that's happened in your life that's prevented you from returning my calls, that's fine. But otherwise? Don't call me. Okay, bye.

You can listen to the original recording here, but this, Ladies and Gentlemen, is why people still go for arranged marriages in this day and age.

[Caveat Lector: It's not entirely clear, but this Dimitri the Doofus recording is probably a fake, created as a viral marketing campaign for a movie (Douchebag: The Movie? Send in your suggestions!). It's probably why the Jezebel post refers to the initial encounter happening in San Francisco rather than Toronto, though the names remain the same.]