DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA!!!

Sure, I yelled out “D.C.!!!” in response to the question of which states were the smallest in square mileage before I fully understood the question. I’ve never been one to hold in those first thoughts that burst their way into each of our minds in any given situation. I’m not flexible enough to put my foot in my mouth, but needless to say, if you’ve ever gotten to know me you might have noticed that it deserved to be wedged there on occasion.

I skim things and jump to conclusions, especially at work. Reading extremely dense material which needs to be explained to customers in a very quick selling situation lends itself to skimming the information that’s only important to the geekiest of the geeky. You pull out the key selling points and let the rest go in one ear and out the other.

There is a cool study that was done concerning how we see and comprehend writing.

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

You’ve probably seen it.

I really did yell out “D.C.!!!” today, as well as see the above paragraph later in a meeting. It brought to mind the subject of skimming and something that happened to a friend this past weekend. I’ll share because I roll in that fashion.

My buddy is from Canadia. It’s a land somewhere north of our kick-ass country and to be honest with you I think it’s pretty much the same as our country except they have the Beer Store, Swiss Chalet, and roads that are smoother than a babies ass.

So this event that myself and the beautiful lady friend were at had a silent auction ending a few hours after dinner was served. It gave everyone ample time to stroll the many gifts on auction in case something caught your fancy. Now, I’ll readily admit that my fancy is a slut. Many things catch it. But one thing that I really couldn’t give two shits about would be tickets to hockey games not involving my favorite team. (The Emilio Estevez coached Mighty Ducks)

They had two different sheets out for sets of tickets to random Toronto Maple Leafs games. At one point there were an additional two that were found. Since there were so many items up for bidding it was easy for everyone to just assume they had gone unnoticed. My buddy stopped bidding on the expensive pair and switched to bidding on the local tickets.

The sheet gave an estimated value of what the tickets were worth. My buddy, and everyone else in attendance that night, just assumed they were upper bowl tickets based on the estimated value listed on the bidding sheet. Nobody questioned the fact that other auctions for tickets stated what date the game was while this auction didn’t say a thing about when.

They announce that the bidding is over. I win (and by “win” I mean agree to purchase for charity) a week stay at a Canadialand hotspot for summer vacationers. I believe I got it for a very reasonable price and the ladyfriend is pumped, too. Maybe we invite people up for a weeklong party and maybe we just go alone and leave love stains on every piece of furniture or well placed ledge in the entire place. One of the two.

Anyhow, they bring you the bidding sheet and you go pay, getting your gift after you pay if it is something tangible. My friend walks up and pays his money for the two tickets upon getting his sheet delivered to the table. They locate the tickets and congratulate him on his $200 purchase of preseason tickets for 4 days later. Awesome.

If that wasn’t shady enough we saw the auctioneer lady announce that there was 5 minutes left, when the auction should have just ended, before walking from table to table outbidding people on shit.

Oh, and Tim Horton’s sucks.