Bill Maher
Submitted by Apple on Sun, 02/22/2004 - 6:03am. Other
"With a title of Politically Incorrect, was anyone really surprised?"
My Dad discussing other people's opinions and their right to have opposing views.
Just call me "Spring-heel Jack"
Submitted by Saint on Wed, 01/14/2004 - 10:06am. Other
This isn't an overheard thing; it's a shameless testimonial to my new Z-Coil shoes. Sure, they look ridiculous, but I've never owned a more comfortable pair of shoes.

Before I got them, I gimped around like a cripple for the first few hours of every day--the pain in my feet made it agony to walk, and it showed. And though the pain would subside somewhat after a while, it never went away. Now, I can walk without feeling like I have broken glass in my heels. The pain hasn't entirely gone away (but then again, I've only been wearing my Z-Coils for three days), but it's so much better I can hardly believe it.

Okay, so at $150-$200+ dollars, they aren't for everyone. But the springs are the part doing most of the work, and so are the part most likely to wear out--and the springs can be replaced for $35 for a pair. The rest of the shoe can last years without showing significant wear and tear, even when worn daily. So even with the initial outlay, that's less than I used to spend on shoes, trying to find something--anything--that would feel better.
Happens more than I care to admit...
Submitted by Apple on Tue, 01/13/2004 - 6:41am. Other
"You know, at times I identify with this song... well, not this one... OH, well, yeah, this one all the time."
"Only you could have an identity crisis with the radio."

Me and AppleMan at a local pizza buffet. First song was Green Christmas by Barenaked Ladies. Second song Unwell by Matchbox 20. So many choices on what to submit this under, I'll go with Other. *grin*
Still not funny
Submitted by Saint on Tue, 12/16/2003 - 4:01pm. Other
but in keeping with my mood for the last few days:

HOME is where the HURT is

--seen in the bathroom at Wal-Mart, Cortez, CO.

My aunt died this morning. Not that I think anyone particularly cares (I mean, it's not like you knew her, how worked up can you get?), but I hate to leave a story at a cliffhanger, so I thought I'd update. It's been less than a week since they diagnosed her with a nice rare cancer that had doctors just about wetting themselves for a chance to see it; only a couple of weeks since she went in for a biopsy on a mass in her lung that probably wasn't cancer at all, since it didn't look like cancer or act like cancer; probably only a couple months since her breathing started to get bad enough for the doctors to start caring. They say she didn't suffer at the end (it only looked like it because her body was trying so hard to catch a breath) but don't they tell that to everyone's survivors? I mean, does a doctor ever come right out and say, "Oh, geez, your loved one died hard. I've never seen anyone in so much agony. I'd have pulled out a gun and ended the misery, but guns aren't allowed in the hospital. Terribly sorry."
Words, words, words...they come, they go...
Submitted by Bob Dobbs on Tue, 11/11/2003 - 7:59pm. Other
Read in the paper today that the film I had auditioned for and had call backs for (good ones) got the plug pulled because one of the producers couldn't produce the money. So, I called the casting director to confirm this (also because I was growing facial hair for the role and I wanted to know if I could shave it off) Indeed, the film had been nixed. Then! Then he tells me I actually had the role! Like 10+ days! A Lead Role! @*#%'n *%#@%@!!! Then I get a call from another casting director an hour later that there's an audition set up for me for tomorrow, ok. I pick up the sides and it's for "the studious type" I look in the mirror and I think..."hmmm, studious? Erm, no. Biker, drug dealer, thug, bum, dockworker, yes; but, not studious. So, here i am trying to learn the scenes for tomorrow, for a role I'm really not right for. Bah! I don't know why I started acting again...should've stayed behind the camera, or in bartending, hell, I could pimp looking like I do right now! Though on a brighter note (somewhat) I found a site

www.truefoodnow.org

that let's you know what foods are Genetically Engineered and what aren't, seeing as North America doesn't have a labeling system to give us an informed choice. Hah! "Informed Choice"??? In North America!?!?! It's there, just gotta dig deep baby!

right back to these lines...
...and I gotta shave...and find my glasses...
(at least it's for an adaptation of a Carol Shields story)
lub'n'hugs'n'fartz
bd.
Freudian slip?
Submitted by persona on Fri, 11/07/2003 - 12:59pm. Other
(we're dealing with a computer name and the phonetic alphabet)

me: ok sir, was that an F or a S

him: F as in fu*k$

me: excuse me??

him: S... i said S... as in Socks....

me: ok, just checking


i'm not sure which one of us mispoke/misheard... i'm seriously thinking it was him testing me
Dump v. Dip
Submitted by Andelka on Thu, 10/16/2003 - 9:36pm. Other
"Is that pool for staff only?"
"I think it's for hospital staff and rehab groups, but if you took a dump I don't think anyone would notice."
*gigantic pause*
"Dip! I meant dip."
A woman asking me about the onsite pool, and me blushing to the ends of my toes.
Sedaris!
Submitted by Cebu on Sat, 10/11/2003 - 7:44am. Other
"To Elizabeth: With the pleasure of meeting your charming unemployed cousin." David Sedaris signed my book! I met David Sedaris!

I'm not Elizabeth, I'm the cousin. I can't believe he put the fact that I'm unemployed in there. How amusing. As he was writing he asked out loud, "How do you spell 'unemployed?'" Hee.

He was very nice, though. :) And Elizabeth will love getting this at Christmas.
Reprise
Submitted by Larry Hosken on Mon, 09/29/2003 - 10:27pm. Other
You kids today, you don't know how good you've got it. Back in my day, we didn't have our own personal inpassing blogs, so if we overheard something we had to post it in some big forum. Well, by gum, now we've got these personal blogs, so I'm dusting off some of my postings from those old forums and putting them here. You kids sit still and pay attention; you might learn something.

======================
2003 Sep 03

"I did fine. Oh, well, the instructor used the phrase, 'kamikaze lane change'."

"There was oncoming traffic?"

"Oh, there was always oncoming traffic."

--two people on a CalTrain/business park shuttle bus, one of whom has been taking driving lessons

=================
2003 Apr 18

"Where are you working?"

"In the mayor's office, in Housing."

"Is it crazy there?"

"It's-- it's just corrupt."

--two people on an San Francisco streetcar who apparently hadn't met in a while

=================
2003 Feb 05

"After lunch, let's plan out those two berms."

--A gardener (I guess) at the San Francisco Arboretum

=================
2002-11-01 15:19:22

"See, this is San Francisco. If you're a resident of San Mateo county, you don't vote here. No, see, this is San Francisco..."

--Nice lady at the Department of Elections
==================
2002-12-18 09:52:20

"There's a word for wanting to marry someone you don't know. It's called 'mental illness'"
--Young lady to another young lady at Cancun Taqueria
___
"Mental illness" is two words. "Doomed" is one word.
=================
2002 Oct 01
"You don't need very good actors if it's about zombies."

--a drama pragmatist at Comic Relief
=================
2002 Aug 28

"You have to listen to him practice?"

"Yes."

--tourist and resident aboard the not-so-big sailing ship Nehemiah, talking about the resident's husband's bagpipes.
=================
2002 Aug 25

"Roach?"

"Nnn"

--Two cooks in the men's room at Zibibbo, a Palo Alto restaurant
___
I wish I hadn't heard that right before I had dinner there. I wish I hadn't heard that at all, really.

==============
2002 Jul 25

"Dude, always wear rubber gloves."

--Dude addressing another dude around Geary and Masonic in San Francisco

===========
2002 Jan 09

"NO INPUT IS DETECTED"

--Graffito, Fillmore Street, San Francisco
===========
2002 Jan 03

"You need to learn sword etiquette."

"Sword etiquette?"

"That means don't swing your sword near where people are eating."

--Hostess, young girl in pirate costume (including cutlass) at Sears Fine Foods, San Francisco
=================
2001 Dec 27

"...back of the veterinarian hospital there; dumpster full of stiff animals..."

--hipster on 9th Avenue in San Francisco, across the street from a veterinary hospital.

=================
2001 Dec 11

"Are you excited about your trip?"

"Yeah! I'm excited to be free of my job."

--Two young ladies at a taqueria in Portland, OR
___
Maybe this was only amusing to me because I was on a trip to Portland, free of my job.

=================
2001 Sep 22

"What's your plan for today?"

"I'm addressing the masses."

"I don't have a problem with that. There don't seem to be that many masses around today, though."

--UCB police officer and some guy addressing the masses in front of Wheeler Hall on a Saturday
=================
2001 Sep 20

"...telling me to $*ing say $*ing 'please' each time. $*ing 'Please have your backpack open for a quick inspection.' $*ing 'please'. I $*ing hate 'please'."

--Greeter at San Francisco's Warfield theater, taking a moment to talk with some of her off-duty colleagues about work.
___
I think it's wonderful that she ended up in a customer service job.
=================
2001-09-02 10:11:46

"Low, I can see many things that are high. I'm high and I see lots of low things."

--very little girl enthusing over the view of West Oakland from the elevated BART train
___
This was, of course, the cue for me to have a great insight into the problem of efficiently computing the visibility graph of a three-dimensional space populated with convex polytope obstacles. But that didn't happen.

=================
2001 Aug 10

"I don't like capital 'O'. Do you like capital 'O'?"

--One little girl questioning another little girl at the counter of the Homemade Cafe.
___
That's a difficult question.

=================
2001 Jul 14
"You people all suck."

--Lady in a group waiting for a table at the Homemade Cafe, whose group had just been called; addressing another group, still waiting for a table.
__
It's sad to watch a potato addict go through withdrawal symptoms.

=================
2001 May 07
"Better give me an hour and a half. Because I'm slow when I'm buying toilet paper."
--One lady taking her leave of another lady on Ashby Ave, West Berkeley
___
Honestly, I'm not sure if I got that exactly right. I did my best to remember. But then, as I was waiting for the train, I was reading, and I looked up into this wafting of limbs which seemed to be all around me, perhaps to overlap with me, but really it was just a blind man walking past me very very close. And a little after that, I looked up from my book again because a girl was looking at me and singing "chickyboo chickyboo" and the boy who was with her was pretending not to know her even as I glanced at him hoping for a clue as to what in tarnation was going on.

But really, I just want to point out that it's quite reasonable to take an hour and a half to buy toilet paper. I mean, you wouldn't want people to think you were in a hurry. They might jump to conclusions.

=================
2001 Mar 28
"You don't deserve to go to Europe!"

--Some lady yelling at some man in the BART station as he walked away, making rejoinders
___
I couldn't really follow the course of the argument. Something about how she just wanted coffee and cigarettes, but this man was somehow thwarting her. Considering how loud everyone was, I'm dismayed I couldn't understand them better.

=================
2001 Mar 25
"Were you scared?"

"He kept not letting go of my burrito!"

--Two young boys scootering by in the park

=================
2001 Feb 14
"...has turned to powder. Soon the rats will start eating their young."

Man speaking, conversationally and calmly, to another while walking along a San Francisco sidewalk

=================
2001 Jan 27

"What, you mean both of us?"

--Sweet young thing, making a gesture to indicate herself and her sweet-young-thing friend, looking a bit shocked; to the young man sitting across the aisle from her, who had asked her a question; on the Treasure Island-San Francisco MUNI bus, which I don't normally think of as a swingers' hangout.
=================
2001 Jan 27

"...glad to get out. I had to use all of these buzzwords with the clients. Like... ...I don't even know what that means!"

--Prosperous-looking guy in San Francisco's prosperous Pacific Heights neighborhood, talking to a prosperous-looking older lady.
___
It's nice to know that some sales guys know that they don't know what they're talking about.

==========
2001-01-01 21:34:02

Graffito, written in cement on San Francisco's Masonic Street:
"Chris [heart] Debian"
___
Hey nonny nonny, it's distro love.

===========
2000 Nov 06

Middle-aged lady: "I'll have the [...] eggs, hash browns, and toast."

Young waitress: "You want our special number 2, then?"

Middle-aged lady: "I was a waitress [...] years. I worked [...] a lot of places. There's always a special with eggs, hash browns, and toast."

___
Overheard at the counter of a diner in Seattle. I never got its name. After that conversation, I'll probably think of it as the Diner Template, though.

===========
2000 Oct 30

"...a little kerosene."

"Kerosene?"

"Kerosene. Yeah. 'For the cough, a touch of kerosene.'"

"Medicine, back then, it was--"

"Yeah."

"No wonder old people are so healthy. I mean, if they lived through all that, they must be-- they must be--"

"They're a hardy bunch."

---
A few not-so-old-looking, not-so-hardy-looking ladies in line for the TWA check in counter, St Louis (MO, USA) airport.

===========
2000 Oct 16

Two window washers were standing outside SF Japantown's Miyako Hotel. One, up on a ladder, was washing a window. The other, on the sidewalk, had a window-washer brush thingy, but was not washing. Sidewalk-dude asked ladder-dude something. Ladder-dude said:

"Don't clean the bottom windows until after you've done the top."

Ladder-dude paused as he wiped a swath with his brush thingy, then continued:

"You always do the top before the bottom. I learned that soon after I started here."

================
2000 Sep 29

Overheard at Fishermen's Terminal, Seattle, WA, USA: A group of (I guess) fishermen were standing out in an area for laying out nets. I was walking past. They were talking, though only one of them was loud enough for me to hear:

"Because, you see, there's never going to be such a thing as an optimal spawning, see, and..."

(One of the other fishermen muttered something.)

"Logic? Logic can't refute this. Nothing can refute this. There's never going to be an optimum spawn. If you look at..."

==================
2000 Sep 15

One night, years ago, my then-roommate Jimmy and I were walking through lower Sproul plaza. A couple of people were walking towards us, talking. Their conversation went something like...

"...so gross, I can't stand it. Whenever he talks, he's like, spitting in her food."

"Her lawyer?"

"Yeah. So I'm sitting there, and there's all this spit landing in my mother's food, and..."

Jimmy and I realized that we had been granted a rare privelege to overhear something so strange. We couldn't keep something like that to ourselves. For months afterwards, if we were walking along some dark street late at night and someone was walking towards us, we'd re-create that conversation as best we could, with some variations.
7 August 2000
Submitted by eve on Mon, 08/07/2000 - 2:03pm. Other
"So d'you think that if you really decide to become an anarchist, there's a lot of required reading you have to do first?"
--Guy asking his friend, heard in passing on Telegraph
I wonder if he was speaking theoretically, or deciding if anarchy was worth the commitment?