Let's Go Topless, Yo

Ah, the warm, sunny beaches in Southern France. Topless women and almost naked men sunbathe and play in the water. Meanwhile, in Philly, it snows! But in Maine, Donald Crabtree had a stroke of genius and started a coffee shop in which all waitstaff go topless. Women, men, big-boned, skinny, all naked from the waist up. In this economy, the servers are glad for the job (most of them being laid-off), while the customers are generous, tipping on average about $30 a table. That's a lot of coffee.

Yo. Yo yo yo. I went home to Central PA this weekend. My friend and I went to a party hosted by some of my closest friends. We got made fun of for saying "yo". Well, we are from Philly, and we refuse to apologize yo! It is interesting how regional slang varies from place to place. At home, we say "young-uns" or "youins" instead of "ya'll". But most importantly, the inflection and/or emphasis of words is different. My Philly friend finally realized that the way I talk was because of the region I grew up in, not because I have a speech impediment! By the end of the night, my Central PA friends were saying "yo" too, and not just because they were teasing us. Astutely, we observed later that if you pick up on the way people speak and imitate it, they are more likely to, well, like you and relate to you.

As soon as we got off the train in Philly I said "Yo, we are back in Philly, we can say 'yo' again without fear of teasing!" My friend replied "Yes we can. We can take off the mask that we had to pretend was there. Yo is now acceptable in the beginning and end of sentences." Immediately after that, we passed a guy talking on a cell phone: "Man, Ima gettin' on the train YO!"

In other news, way to go consumers!!! We had a 0.6% increase in spending in January and February. Good news for the economy. Spend, spend, spend (and hope the stimulus doesn't cause hyperinflation).



"Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."
-Mark Twain