If You Really Loved Me You'd Let Me Eat Your Brain

Sometimes it can be fun to sit back and let people talk.  One game I play is to see how long someone can talk without completing a sentence or expressing a complete thought.  It would be impolite to stare at my watch while playing so I don't have scientific measurements.  I think the record belongs to the president of the company that spawned Unemployo the Klown.  He had to have rambling on for about three minutes before I interrupted him.  Moron.

Another variant is to listen to someone talk for a long time and, when it's my turn, summarize their point in as few words as possible.  The polite speaker will confirm that the message has been received and is understood by all.  The motor-mouth will launch into another rambling steam of consciousness, the length of which is inversely proportional to the length of my summarization.

The least fun variation is listening for an overused word, phrase, verbal tic, or filler sound.  That's a game I play only when I'm in the very best of moods, because it tests my patience.  Last week on NPR, home of the elliptical, multi-branching thoughts and points which are to be gotten back to later (but never are), I counted over thirty "aaahs" in one dude's jet of verbal diarrhea before I hit the flush lever.

So today…much was spoken, little was said, and I got to play with some very nerdy aspects of SQL Server.  And I didn't have to use my AK.