]> Larry Hosken's blog http://www.inpassing.org/blog/view/66 ensummary http://www.inpassing.org/node/view/2534 "...Barbados..."<br /> <br /> "...it's gone. So, OK, she has lost her wedding ring..."<br /> <br /> "...husband's really..."<br /> <br /> "...Yeah, in the ocean, so..."<br /> <br /> "...That's the thing. This SCUBA diver saw the notice and..."<br /> <br /> --snippets of what a clerk said to another clerk behind the counter of Canvas Cafe, San Francisco<br /> ___<br /> I'm kind of sorry that I didn't hear the whole story. Because it sounds like it was a good story.R Brief Nudity http://www.inpassing.org/node/view/2505 "Hey!<br> What do you think of my girlfriend's titty?<br> Hey you!<br> What do you think of...<br> You, you in the pea green coat!<br> What do you think..." <p>--Man failing to engage the interest of the N Judah streetcar in an old-fashioned Mardi Gras flash <hr> <p>The late night streetcar lacked enthusiasm; I was no better. It wasn't until I exited that I realized that I had a bead necklace that I should have thrown. A party favor from work, it just missed its true calling.the hills are alive http://www.inpassing.org/node/view/2412 "That would have been <i>much</i> easier without that beer."<br> --unsteady mountain biker, Mt Victoria lookout point, Wellington NZBest Left-My-Purse Story http://www.inpassing.org/node/view/1940 "...best left-my-purse story. I was in the middle of the airport--in Japan! And we're... don't have my purse. And we've already pulled away from the, the, the plane is already moving. And so I'm now... the man in the truck sees me jumping out of the plane, an he... and I'm running down the tarmac, and the truck is..."<br /> <br /> --Lady on a San Francisco streetcar regaling her friend<br /> ___<br /> I wish I'd been able to hear the whole story; those fragments were pretty interesting.Mar 25, 2004 http://www.inpassing.org/node/view/1867 "Actually, it's 'Jennica'."<br /> <br /> "What?"<br /> <br /> "Like, if you take part of 'Jennifer' and part of 'Jessica,' it's 'Jennica'"<br /> <br /> --Two ladies. <br /> _____<br /> I sure hope the first one wasn't explaining the name of a newborn daughter. Like Jennicam without the 'm'?jargon pump stuck in 'on' position http://www.inpassing.org/node/view/1649 "I was thinking of going to Ikea."<br /> <br /> "Going to get your metrosexual on?"<br /> <br /> "Uh, yeah."<br /> ___<br /> Two patrons of a Haight Street (San Francisco) cafe.That's not healthy http://www.inpassing.org/node/view/1593 "I lost twenty pounds today."<br /> <br /> "You did not--how did you do that?"<br /> <br /> "It's because I'm hungry for a wife."<br /> <br /> --two patrons at Zona Rosa taqueria on San Francisco's Haight Street.link http://www.inpassing.org/node/view/1551 I haven't overheard anything interesting lately, but <A HREF="http://jwz.livejournal.com/283265.html">Jamie Zawinski did</A>.Reprise http://www.inpassing.org/node/view/1322 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.<br /> <br /> ======================<br /> 2003 Sep 03<br /> <br /> "I did fine. Oh, well, the instructor used the phrase, 'kamikaze lane change'."<br /> <br /> "There was oncoming traffic?"<br /> <br /> "Oh, there was always oncoming traffic."<br /> <br /> --two people on a CalTrain/business park shuttle bus, one of whom has been taking driving lessons <br /> <br /> =================<br /> 2003 Apr 18<br /> <br /> "Where are you working?"<br /> <br /> "In the mayor's office, in Housing."<br /> <br /> "Is it crazy there?"<br /> <br /> "It's-- it's just corrupt."<br /> <br /> --two people on an San Francisco streetcar who apparently hadn't met in a while <br /> <br /> =================<br /> 2003 Feb 05<br /> <br /> "After lunch, let's plan out those two berms."<br /> <br /> --A gardener (I guess) at the San Francisco Arboretum <br /> <br /> =================<br /> 2002-11-01 15:19:22 <br /> <br /> "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..."<br /> <br /> --Nice lady at the Department of Elections <br /> ==================<br /> 2002-12-18 09:52:20 <br /> <br /> "There's a word for wanting to marry someone you don't know. It's called 'mental illness'"<br /> --Young lady to another young lady at Cancun Taqueria<br /> ___<br /> "Mental illness" is two words. "Doomed" is one word. <br /> =================<br /> 2002 Oct 01<br /> "You don't need very good actors if it's about zombies."<br /> <br /> --a drama pragmatist at Comic Relief<br /> =================<br /> 2002 Aug 28 <br /> <br /> "You have to listen to him practice?"<br /> <br /> "Yes."<br /> <br /> --tourist and resident aboard the not-so-big sailing ship Nehemiah, talking about the resident's husband's bagpipes. <br /> =================<br /> 2002 Aug 25<br /> <br /> "Roach?"<br /> <br /> "Nnn"<br /> <br /> --Two cooks in the men's room at Zibibbo, a Palo Alto restaurant<br /> ___<br /> I wish I hadn't heard that right before I had dinner there. I wish I hadn't heard that at all, really. <br /> <br /> ==============<br /> 2002 Jul 25 <br /> <br /> "Dude, always wear rubber gloves."<br /> <br /> --Dude addressing another dude around Geary and Masonic in San Francisco <br /> <br /> ===========<br /> 2002 Jan 09 <br /> <br /> "NO INPUT IS DETECTED"<br /> <br /> --Graffito, Fillmore Street, San Francisco <br /> ===========<br /> 2002 Jan 03 <br /> <br /> "You need to learn sword etiquette."<br /> <br /> "Sword etiquette?"<br /> <br /> "That means don't swing your sword near where people are eating."<br /> <br /> --Hostess, young girl in pirate costume (including cutlass) at Sears Fine Foods, San Francisco <br /> =================<br /> 2001 Dec 27<br /> <br /> "...back of the veterinarian hospital there; dumpster full of stiff animals..."<br /> <br /> --hipster on 9th Avenue in San Francisco, across the street from a veterinary hospital. <br /> <br /> =================<br /> 2001 Dec 11<br /> <br /> "Are you excited about your trip?"<br /> <br /> "Yeah! I'm excited to be free of my job."<br /> <br /> --Two young ladies at a taqueria in Portland, OR<br /> ___<br /> Maybe this was only amusing to me because I was on a trip to Portland, free of my job. <br /> <br /> =================<br /> 2001 Sep 22<br /> <br /> "What's your plan for today?"<br /> <br /> "I'm addressing the masses."<br /> <br /> "I don't have a problem with that. There don't seem to be that many masses around today, though."<br /> <br /> --UCB police officer and some guy addressing the masses in front of Wheeler Hall on a Saturday <br /> =================<br /> 2001 Sep 20<br /> <br /> "...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'."<br /> <br /> --Greeter at San Francisco's Warfield theater, taking a moment to talk with some of her off-duty colleagues about work.<br /> ___<br /> I think it's wonderful that she ended up in a customer service job. <br /> =================<br /> 2001-09-02 10:11:46 <br /> <br /> "Low, I can see many things that are high. I'm high and I see lots of low things."<br /> <br /> --very little girl enthusing over the view of West Oakland from the elevated BART train<br /> ___<br /> 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. <br /> <br /> =================<br /> 2001 Aug 10<br /> <br /> "I don't like capital 'O'. Do you like capital 'O'?"<br /> <br /> --One little girl questioning another little girl at the counter of the Homemade Cafe.<br /> ___<br /> That's a difficult question. <br /> <br /> =================<br /> 2001 Jul 14<br /> "You people all suck."<br /> <br /> --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.<br /> __<br /> It's sad to watch a potato addict go through withdrawal symptoms.<br /> <br /> =================<br /> 2001 May 07<br /> "Better give me an hour and a half. Because I'm slow when I'm buying toilet paper."<br /> --One lady taking her leave of another lady on Ashby Ave, West Berkeley<br /> ___<br /> 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. <br /> <br /> 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.<br /> <br /> =================<br /> 2001 Mar 28<br /> "You don't deserve to go to Europe!"<br /> <br /> --Some lady yelling at some man in the BART station as he walked away, making rejoinders<br /> ___<br /> 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. <br /> <br /> =================<br /> 2001 Mar 25<br /> "Were you scared?"<br /> <br /> "He kept not letting go of my burrito!"<br /> <br /> --Two young boys scootering by in the park <br /> <br /> =================<br /> 2001 Feb 14<br /> "...has turned to powder. Soon the rats will start eating their young."<br /> <br /> Man speaking, conversationally and calmly, to another while walking along a San Francisco sidewalk<br /> <br /> =================<br /> 2001 Jan 27<br /> <br /> "What, you mean <i>both</i> of us?"<br /> <br /> --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. <br /> =================<br /> 2001 Jan 27<br /> <br /> "...glad to get out. I had to use all of these <i>buzzwords</i> with the clients. Like... ...<b>I don't even know what that means!</b>"<br /> <br /> --Prosperous-looking guy in San Francisco's prosperous Pacific Heights neighborhood, talking to a prosperous-looking older lady.<br /> ___<br /> It's nice to know that some sales guys know that they don't know what they're talking about. <br /> <br /> ==========<br /> 2001-01-01 21:34:02 <br /> <br /> Graffito, written in cement on San Francisco's Masonic Street:<br /> "Chris [heart] Debian"<br /> ___<br /> Hey nonny nonny, it's distro love.<br /> <br /> ===========<br /> 2000 Nov 06<br /> <br /> Middle-aged lady: "I'll have the [...] eggs, hash browns, and toast."<br /> <br /> Young waitress: "You want our special number 2, then?"<br /> <br /> Middle-aged lady: "I was a waitress [...] years. I worked [...] a lot of places. There's <I>always</I> a special with eggs, hash browns, and toast."<br /> <br /> ___<br /> 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. <br /> <br /> ===========<br /> 2000 Oct 30<br /> <br /> "...a little kerosene."<br /> <br /> "Kerosene?"<br /> <br /> "Kerosene. Yeah. 'For the cough, a touch of kerosene.'"<br /> <br /> "Medicine, back then, it was--"<br /> <br /> "Yeah."<br /> <br /> "No wonder old people are so healthy. I mean, if they lived through all that, they must be-- they must be--"<br /> <br /> "They're a hardy bunch."<br /> <br /> ---<br /> A few not-so-old-looking, not-so-hardy-looking ladies in line for the TWA check in counter, St Louis (MO, USA) airport.<br /> <br /> ===========<br /> 2000 Oct 16<br /> <br /> 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:<br /> <br /> "Don't clean the bottom windows until after you've done the top."<br /> <br /> Ladder-dude paused as he wiped a swath with his brush thingy, then continued:<br /> <br /> "You always do the top before the bottom. I learned that soon after I started here."<br /> <br /> ================<br /> 2000 Sep 29<br /> <br /> 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:<br /> <br /> "Because, you see, there's never going to be such a thing as an <i>optimal</i> spawning, see, and..."<br /> <br /> (One of the other fishermen muttered something.)<br /> <br /> "Logic? Logic can't refute this. Nothing can refute this. There's <i>never</i> going to be an optimum spawn. If you look at..."<br /> <br /> ==================<br /> 2000 Sep 15<br /> <br /> 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...<br /> <br /> "...so gross, I can't stand it. Whenever he talks, he's like, spitting in her food."<br /> <br /> "Her lawyer?"<br /> <br /> "Yeah. So I'm sitting there, and there's all this spit landing in my mother's food, and..."<br /> <br /> 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.