The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

It seems the satirical site The Onion is facing a slow-down in readership, has blamed Facebook for it, and is responding by going social. At least, that's what the site says it's doing, over and over and over again. The Onion  isn't going social. It's just pretending to do so to continue poking fun at Facebook. There's even a make-believe form you can fill out to create an account. It, of course, gets rejected. The following articles regarding the non-existent social site have been posted at The Onion in the past few days: - "Onion Employees Return To Mundane Lives Of Writing Game-Changing News Coverage Read By Billions Across Globe" - "25 Million Onion Social Users Run Into Glorious Flames Of Headquarters In Hopes Of Using Website One Last Time" - "Onion Social CEO Vaporized By Wall Of Light While Trying To Stop Algorithm From Self-Destructing" - "'Humanity Deserves To Live In Darkness,' Onion Social Algorithm...

Ever go to a bar for a bit, observe a bartender, interact with him or her, and walk out wondering why they're a bartender? I've run into this scenario on three occasions. One bartender was just extremely rude and after receiving several complaints, she got fired for that very reason. Another bartender just wasn't very social - he lacked the bartender personality, and even though he tried, the job just didn't seem to suit him well. Unsurprisingly, last I heard, he was doing something completely different with his life. That brings me to the third bartender - the one I know the best of all three, largely due to the fact I attend this pub about once every 2-3 weeks. While I'll admit that for the most part, the guy does work hard, he simply comes across as the anti-bartender bartender.  Almost any "expert" in the field of bartending will say the five most important qualities for a great bartender to possess are: Multitasking, communication, organization...

I live in an area which is kind of a hybrid of suburbia and the country. Most of the people in this neighborhood are older than me, married, and with fairly young kids. Cliques here appear to have been formed many years ago. When I came rolling into town about 5 years ago, while the people here seemed nice for the most part, I definitely felt like an outcast. What I'm probably most known for in this neighborhood is walking my Siberian husky multiple times every day. It's during these times when I'm at a loss of when to truly interact with some people. If someone is jogging or walking and wave, I know that, like me, he/she is probably in an exercise-type zone and a hello is just a hello. However, there have been other times when someone has waved during my walk and actually wanted to chat for a couple minutes. Then there have been a number of times when a person waves, asks, "How's it going?," without really meaning that. So, how is a person - especially a ne...