Please Stop Pinging My Wheelhouse

So now that I work in financial services I have to be up on the lingo. I have to know the acronyms and I have to know what the "kids on the street" and the "kids on The Street" are saying these days. My job has an abundance of acronyms...CER, VER, REC, RGGI to name a few. I still prefer the simple, yet effective, WT for White Trash.

Two words that have really made their way into not only the industry lexicon, but I think everyone's lexicon are "ping" and "wheelhouse".

PING

Ping used to go with pong, plain and simple. And then when you got old enough you basically stopping saying ping, because you started substituting "beer" for "ping". It was kind of like a rite of passage. Like a dormant sexually transmitted disease apparently "ping" is baaaack. You are walking down the hall. You have your blackberry in your pocket. You feel it buzzing. You say, "dude, who's pinging me?" Or you're at a bar. Your buddy is taking his sweet time in the men's room while you wait entertaining the marginally attractive girl he thinks looks like Jessica Beil. You ping him and tell him to hurry the hell up. Back in the day you'd call or text or if you're really old, you'd go and say something in person. At some point along the line people stopped caring to distinguish between how you label initiating contact, so they just say "ping". I don't have a blackberry, so I'm not sure it's possible to ping someone yet. I guess that's something to look forward to.

WHEELHOUSE

By no means is this word new. If you pinged dictionary.com (is that possible?) you'd find the following under wheelhouse...

"An enclosed area, usually on the bridge of a vessel, from which the vessel is controlled when under way"

For me, wheelhouse was primarily used when describing a baseball pitch that fell right into your sweetspot that you'd crush. Now, everyone and their mother is saying wheelhouse. Wheelhouse made it's way back into my life during my recent trip to Aruba. It started when we were sitting around one morning and we were thinking about what to do. My friend said "drinking beers on the lazy river would definitely be in my wheelhouse". So the whole trip we were always talking about our wheelhouses. At two in the morning after a night out we'd all talk about what kind of food would be in our wheelhouse. Out on the boat deep sea fishing we concurred that catching a marlin would definitely be in our wheelhouse. We met a blonde girl who we all agreed we'd invite into our respective wheelhouses, and by the end of the trip we just simply referred to her as "Wheelhouse". For example, "is that Wheelhouse over there by the pool?"

Anyway, I've been away from the working world for some time now, but people at work are dropping "wheelhouse" every five minutes. Projects, agreements, vacations...I mean, how big are these wheelhouses these days. All I know is that I'm going to start dropping wheelhouse into conversations at least once a day now.

What really is in my wheelhouse right now is sleep.

Must Love Dogs...and Laying Pipe

This just in from cnn.com...Jamie Lynn, a baby herself, had a baby. In case you don't remember...

"The Spears family announced in December that Jamie Lynn was pregnant. The father is Casey Aldridge, a pipe-layer from Liberty, Mississippi. The couple is not married but announced an engagement several months ago."

Mazel Tov Jamie Lynn. And mazel to you as well Casey Aldridge, you pipe laying son of a gun. Honestly, if Jamie Lynn's baby daddy did anything aside from laying pipe for a living I feel like I would've been disappointed. Mr. Aldridge, you are an inspiration for pipe layers of all shapes and sizes. Anyway, I'm hoping that in traditional white trash fashion, Jamie Lynn names her baby something ridiculous with several unnecessary "y"s...like Cheyenne, but spelled Chyaynn.

Jamie Lynn, basically, you effed up. You were a child star. You could've laid low, done some shitty movies, married an arguably gay movie superstar and become a scientologist. But no, you had to get knocked up by a guy who lays pipe for a living. He lays pipe. I'm sorry, I can't get over this. Alternatively, you could've, I don't know, gone to school and lived a sorta kinda normal life, but no, you have officially guaranteed that in two years your body will look 15 years older. Well done.

Renewable energy has been my mistress these past two weeks. We've had some late nights. I take her out to the suburbs to sit by the pool with me on the weekends, and in 8 weeks (who's counting?) I'm going to dump her. The work is exciting though. I mean, it's not pipe laying, but it's been interesting. Unfortunately, work has sucked all of my weekday blog mojo, so I'm going to bed, but I'll be back this weekend. Have a good Friday.

First Knives Club

Yeah, I know, it's been a while. I became a working man this past Monday. I am officially part of the "machine". It had been over a year since I sat in an office, so I'm making the transition. The financial services world has given me something that I've never had before...2 computer screens. My goal is to have at least four by the end of the summer. I need one for my work email, one for ESPN.com, one for ESPN.com, and one for ESPN.com. Some traders have eight screens; those guys must really read a lot of ESPN.com. But seriously, when you are a summer associate and you're sitting on a trading floor you're not reading ESPN.com. It was nice to rejoin the working world just because it has given me some sort of purpose again. Staying tan wasn't really something incredibly aspirational. Hands down though, the WORST, absolute worst thing about working at a bank is having to shave every day. It's like my face was the secret ingredient on Iron Chef.

Chef Batali is plating his Fingertheblog face carpaccio

I can't even remember the last time I shaved five days in a row. Actually, I might never have shaved five days in a row. No more razors please. If that ends up being the worst part of my job then I think I'll be all right. What everyone always wants to know about are the hours. I'm working 12 hour days, which isn't so bad, and the work is interesting so the day goes by quickly. Going to the gym has become a luxury which is also something I'll have to adjust too. On Thursday I left work and went for a few beers with some colleagues and then despite feeling a little buzzed and tired I still went and lifted. Lifting a little buzzed...not a good idea, but sometimes you get to the gym for peace of mind more than anything else.

But I want to talk about something that doesn't give me peace of mind, and it's the bathroom situation at work. What do you do when you go into the bathroom and the three stalls are occupied and the three urinals are being used? You go in and pretend that you just wanted to wash your hands, so you wash and then you leave. When you work on a floor with two huge trading floors in a male dominated industry you're going to find that the bathroom is completely packed for good portions of the day. So now I have the cleanest hands of everyone in Manhattan and everyone probably thinks I'm OCD. I guess it could be worse...I could, I don't know pick up a nasty habit of say, blackberrying whilst on the toilet. I'm willing to bet that someone is reading this blog on their blackberry while sitting on the toilet. I think there needs to be a sign above the sink that says "Employees Must Wash Hands and Blackberries". I mean, that's just gross. Although if I had a blackberry, would I do the same thing? Um, no comment.

I'm going to try my damnedest to get to this thing more often than I have. So far work has not provided much fodder, unless of course you are dying to learn about renewable energy. Wait you are?

The Most Disciplined Man in Media Services

If you've been watching any TV lately maybe you've noticed the ads for the McDonald's Southern Chicken Sandwich. Unfortunately I can't find the ad I want on youtube right now, but if I do I'll be sure to post it. For the first 20 seconds you think you're watching an ad for TIAA-CREF or something, but then some cute artsy chick with some fancy reading glasses likens the new McDonald's Southern Chicken Sandwich to a piece of art. This is followed by some hipster surfer dude dubbing the new McDonald's creation as the perfect sandwich. While next Monday I start my career in Financial Services, I really won't ever be able to completely forget or ignore my passion for media. While working at my last job one of my buddies once called me "The Most Disciplined Man in Media Services" which I think had something to do partly with how I worked, partly how I played, and partly how I ate. Whatever it was, I liked the moniker. So while I haven't officially put on my financial services hat, I thought I'd dust of the media services hat and see if there was any truth behind McDonald's claims about this new chicken sandwich. Oh, and here's what it looks like in their print ads...

First off, what's this sandwich missing? Color. Sesame seeds on the bun. Some character perhaps. And most importantly, it's missing any clear distinction that this isn't actually a fish fillet sandwich. Already four strikes against this sandwich before even tasting it. Being the investigative journalist that I am, I didn't just take some stranger's word that they saw a tape of the Rams pre-Super Bowl walk-through, I actually decided to go and try this thing. Just to be very clear, I would NEVER go to McDonald's, ever, unless I was eating for free, or I had to use the bathroom in an emergency. It just so happened that I was eating for free because there was a coupon for a free Southern Chicken Sandwich in the paper this weekend.

While running errands with my sister I asked her to pull into a McDonald's so I could try the thing. I walked into the McDonald's looking for that cute artsy girl with the glasses. She wasn't there. What about the surfer dude, who totally rode some killer tubes at this morning's surf sesh? Not there either. Who was there? A bunch of fat people on their lunch break. Weird, I know. Know your customer Ronald, know your customer. And speaking of knowing your customer, watch this commercial for the breakfast version of this sandwich and ask yourself whether McD's is targeting white kids who are asking for a beatdown somewhere in Harlem.



And yes, that white kid says "A chicken fo' brefast, girl". A part of me wanted to go and find the cutest woman in the place and sidle up next to her and say, "A chicken fo' lunch, girl, I knew there was something freak-ay abou' chu". Since I was in a crowded McDonald's in Port Chester with a bunch of ravenous women around, I decided to spare myself a black eye before I start work and just order the sandwich and leave.

I ordered the sandwich and presented the coupon to the cashier and was asked if that was all I wanted. I calmly pointed to my hat

and told her it stood for "Most Disciplined Man in Media Services" and that I live a spartan lifestyle and all I wanted was the sandwich. No way McDonald's was making money off of me today. I got to the car and my sister had locked me out. Not to blame her, but that McDonald's smell in a car might as well just be called the White Trash air freshener. I looked at the sandwich, and it looked back at me, and it looked as sad as it did on the commercial. One piece of chicken, three pickles, no sauce, no lettuce, no tomatoes. Why would anyone get to the register, look up at the menu and order the most plain, boring looking thing on it. The sandwich tasted okay, but perhaps if I acted like a jackass like that kid in the commercial it would taste not only "Freaky", but "Freaky good". Naturally, I started doing the Running Man in the parking lot of the McDonald's while eating my sandwich. Unfortunately it still just tasted okay. I took about four bites and then threw the rest out (again, MDMIMS).

What I learned was that McDonald's new racist chicken sandwich is a) racist, b) questionably chicken, c) not that tasty, d) not that tasty even while doing the Running Man, and e) unpleasant to look at.

I'd love to have been in on that marketing meeting where some braniac was like, "Okay, my idea is to take off the tomatoes, the lettuce, and the sauce, but we're going to have not one, not two, but three pickles". And then there was silence....and then Ronald McDonald stood up, cried a little white tear and started clapping and then everyone else in the room burst out in applause. I love marketing. I love media. I sure as hell don't love me a McDonald's Southern Chicken Sandwich fo' lunch and not fo' brefast either.