Monday, January 7, 2008

The Birth of a Word

My friend sweats a lot. Let's call him Gino. He doesn't usually sweat a lot. He's about 5'10" and 140 lbs. But whenever you give him anything spicy to eat, or if he's dancing with a girl, he sweats. And this past weekend, not only did he sweat massively while dancing with this girl at a club, he may have coined a new word.

Me: So you know she had a boyfriend, right?
Gino: Yeah, I tried to kiss her, and she said she had a boyfriend.
Me: Nice work. I mean really, you did good out there.
Gino: What do you mean?
Me: You're a marathon dancer. You danced with the same girl for three hours, dude.
Gino: Haha, I actually tried to quiss her again and --
Me: Did you just say "quiss"? What the hell is a "quiss"?
Gino: I meant kiss. I'm drunk, man.

We came up with a definition for quiss (as of this writing, I have not googled or wiki'd it, so it may already exist).

Quiss - An attempted kiss with the purpose of finding out whether one is available or not. A combination of the words quiz and kiss.

Personally, I have never quissed anyone. I generally go in for a kiss knowing full well that the person will kiss back. I also don't attempt to kiss someone until I've run a background check, and it comes back clean (includes urine sample and bloodwork, in addition to criminal records). I guess you can say I've never taken a chance.

Which brings me to my new year's resolution: Try new things.

Actually, the whole resolution is "It's a new year, so try new things." And it's said with a New Jersey organized crime accent. Like this: It's a nooh yeeah, so try nooh tings.

So maybe this is the year that I finally try paintball. Maybe I'll give Linux a shot just to say I did. I might even try vegetables. Who knows? But perhaps this is the year that I finally quiss someone.

And maybe, in doing so, I might try giving up my obsession with electronics (HD gear, videogames, the usual CE sweetness).

Maybe. But probably not.

Update: A lot of you have been asking me what CE means. It's short for consumer electronics.

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