* There's a barber shop in my neighborhood that I regularly frequent when the facial hair is in need of cleaning up (I'd do it myself -- and believe me, I've tried -- but I usually end up looking like a deranged homeless ex-con after an unsolicited steel-wool scrubdown). It's a cool little, old school spot that is somewhat refreshingly untouched by the passage of time (you'll be gruffly advised look elsewhere if you're looking to get a faux-hawk, in other words). The scissor-wielders there are these three Italian dudes who chatter away ceaselessly in their musical native tongue while they go about their biz (I'm always slightly paranoid that they're talking about me, but being that I wasted my high school years studying French, I'll never know). In any case, the oddest element of this shop is their stack of reading material. Along with dog-eared copies of Newsweek from a month ago and maybe the latest issue of The New York Post, the gents stock an impressive stack of higher-tiered porn. Splayed out in plain view on their waiting bench are the last several issues of Playboy, Penthouse and even the odd copy of Hustler, the preferred pages of each looking rather worryingly "distressed". Now don't get me wrong; I love me some porn just as much as the next red-blooded American male, but I just can't help thinking that it's a little bizarre that they're there. I've never seen any of my fellow customers rifling through them (and, really, isn't that how these mags are usually "read"?). I'm especially surprised by those random copies of Hustler. I mean, arguments can be credibly made that the actual writing in Playboy is worth the occasional glance, but let's face it...Hustler magazine is tailor-made for one solitary activity, and that activity is surely not the appropriate way to spend your time when you're waiting for a haircut.
* In trying to compose a post about how much I'm wary of ever having to own a Blackberry (more about that later), I started trying to think of some needlessly clever-clever way to title the post, and figured that if there was a long and complicated sounding phobia of blackberries (meaning an irrational fear of the actual fruit), that would be fun. While I was unable to find out if there is an actual phobia of blackberries (and if there isn't, there should be, dammit), I did stumble upon this List of Phobias that I found most illuminating and not just a little amusing. Did you know, for example, that some people suffer from a fear of Dutch people (that being the rather straightforwardly named, Dutchphobia)? Some people, it seems, harbor an unfortunate fear of shellfish (these folks suffer from Ostraconophobia). My personal favorites were the fear of Halloween (that being the excellently named Samhainophobia) and, of course, the phobia of phobias (that being --- WAIT FOR IT -- Phobophobia). Hours of fearful fun to be had there. You're welcome.
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