Doser

Doser: is someone you can take in only small doses. You still want to hang out with them, but they have an expiration time like a pint of milk. After kickin' it with a doser, you are mysteriously drained, like it took all of your efforts to put up with them. They are your cooky and crazy friends and they provide you with some amusement. A doser is the person you call when you are really, really bored and none of your normal friends are free.

Not only do you have to cut your doser sessions short you have to space them out. After a doser sesh, you need a detox period so that you can purge yourself of toxins and build up stregnth to handle the next time.

Nom de Zoom

Nom de Zoom: likened to nom de plume, this is your bar name. While you are not creating a literary work of art, you are creating a complex character of fictional proportions. Prior to an evening outing, your friends give you a believeble yet slightly more exotic name. I was dubbed Mercedes and given that everyone thinks I am Mexican, the name is believable (or so they tell me). When you encouter someone who you do not wish to talk to you or you are just not feeling it, you give them your nom de zoom. Then when your conversation is over you can split, leaving the interlocateur unaware of your real name and identity.

The persona you take on to embody your nom de zoom is completely different than your actual personality. For instance you could be a flight attendant, a bartender or a professor at the University of Pheonix online. To keep up appearences, you friends must refer to by your nom do zoom and play into your alter-ego. It is helpful to have a list of hobbies and a fake place of residence to keep the conversation going until your zooming point.

Digi-dust

Digi-dust: invisible dust that covers technology and the internet. Though you can't see it, digi-dust settles on something that has been replaced, improved upon, discarded or neglected. Just like the old and tired things collecting dust on your shelf at home (be it an old stuffed animal or earrings from last season), these digital entities are quickly covered in a film signaling that someone has moved on rendering them irrelevant. It refers to something that is passé like Friendster and MySpace, communicating with your friends exclusively via AIM and saving files on CDs.

Google often digs up digi-dust covered websites, blogs and articles via its search engine and it just fills your screen with dusty, old information. I wish that Google would develop a digi-dust filter with an added tab marked "Clicked here to rate this like as Tired" but maybe the search giant can't keep up with the rate of fallout.

PhOCD

PhOCD: obsessive compulsive checking of the cell phone. This is a disorder that particularly affects those people with iPhones, BlackBerrys, PDAs and Smart Phones. These super cell phones are basically an extension of their hand, a portal to the world—updating them on the status of everything. Without their phone, users can feel naked, disconnected and disoreinted.

Do you really need to know what everyone of your 600-plus Facebook friends are doing at 3 p.m.? Chances are if they are posting in the middle of the work day, it is probably to tell you what kind of latte they had on their coffee break (see Captain Status post), that's one caffeinated story that will make you yawn.

The constant need to stay in contact with whomever or whatever is "contacting" them is like an addiction. Everytime the little red light flashes on the top right corner of the cell phone it beams out check me, read me, respond to me. The warm glow of the electronic light signals that someone want to talk to you, connect with you. Maybe it's no coincidence that the cell phone manufactors selected red for the signal light, a color of urgency and love, something that your phone communicates to you. It's no wonder that these days people are soo "connected" with the world, but yet they feel so alone. If human relationships were all about being informed of what their freinds and families were doing, people would have just sent each other tearsheets from the day planner with notes like here is what I have been up to, say hi to the kids.

I have to admit I too have fallen victim to my BlackBerry's seductive ploys, constanting vibrating, rining and flashing, trying to get me to stay connected with the world at all hours of the day. Is this really making my life better? I doubt it, instead I am on my lunch break and I get a ridiculous email from my boss, which I don't want to read when I am out of the office. But, once again, I fall victim to the enticing red light, which gleams with the promise of offering me something new, exciting and different. It takes me all of one second to cave and I check it. I respond with the rapid whir of frantic thumbs to craft an appropriate response. However instead of really getting work done, I am really getting an advanced case of carpal tunnel thumb from the overuse of my opposable fingers.

Master-piece

Master-piece:is someone who is pleasing to the eye, but offensive to the ears. Like a work of art, you can appreciate the sheer beauty of the piece, the attention to detail when outfitting themselves and their overall appeal. However, when these striking creatures open their mouth it makes your head hurt—a beast-like speech flows from their mouth in the form of vapid, loud or ignorant commentary. You wish you could go back to that blissful moment before they spoke—when you appreciated their divine aesthetic without realizing how stupid they were.

Similar to a but-her-face, a master-piece is a but-her-brain and they can be either men or women. Their designation is much like that of a creative work, beauty is in the eye of the beholder—and only you can decide if someone goes from goes from a hot "piece" of ass to a master-piece. A perfect example of a master-piece is Brian’s girlfriend Jillian on Family Guy. Sure she is a super hot (in cartoon land), but she has less brain power than the illustrated silicon accentuating her curvy silhouette. But Brian being the appreciator of the Beaux Arts that he is, he just keeps going back for more a little more cultural education every time.

InBoxer

InBoxer: Someone who puts on a normal front to your face and then sends you a snarky email to tell you how they really feel. They don’t have the cojones to tell you something in person so they rely on technology to communicate their message. You may pass them in the halls and they will smile at you or hang out with them at an event and everything will be fine. You guys will laugh and joke around, they might even compliment you on your outfit.

Not even a minute goes by and your inbox pings with the sound of a new message as if to say you’ve got mail, but you don’t want read it. Its just a passive email from that fake person you have just been talking to. They can't seem to face you in person with honor. Instead they hide their real feelings behind feigned displays of affection and overly enthusiastic displays of emotion. When faced with such an irritating person I think to myself, I know you don't like me. Yet you put so much energy into leading this duel personality.

The gloves are off when it comes to text-based communication. They don't have to be present for your reaction to their message, they can text, type, e-mail, update or tweet until their heart's content. They will blindside you with an electronically delivered knock-out punch, leaving you stunned lying on the floor. In the real world (where genuine human interactions exist) you could "take this outside" to work things out when verbal altercations or disagreements happen. Well inboxer you need to get out of the ring. Stop hiding behind technologies excuses for cowardice and express your opinion with honor. There is no winner at the end of this verbal fighting match—the result is just a confusing chain of communication that leaves both parties panting from a repeated swing and a miss.

My friend Macie helped me solidify this current incarnation of this word, which went from Inbox Avenger to the InBoxer.

Palcohol

Palcohol: past alcohol consumption. It is not the feeling you get after an all night bender or the expanded abdomen after a day of pounding beers. It is the long term effects of drinking. Not to be confused with a hangover, palcohol is the reason you get winded after walking up a flight of stairs, even though you put in time at the gym. Palcohol is the mysterious "cushion" you find lining your six-pack abs after a summer of fun.

Palcohol is the reason you can't remember anything that happened last week, last night or last year. Palcohol (aka your favorite wine) is the reason you will never be a size four, the reason why you are in a constant state of dehydration and the reason why you have bruises on random places of your body. Palcohol is why you can't seem to keep your balance and why you always stumble into static objects that just appeared out of no where. It is why your head always feels heavy at work from lack of sleep, though you pass out cold every night. It is the reason your brain hurts when you attempt simple math or anything else that requires more than a fifth grade education.

Man Howl

Man Howl: is the unofficial call of the male species that draws them into a pack. Like Jack London's Call of the Wild, a man howl is a signal makes men instinctively come together. One "howl" is placed into the environment and every man in an audible radius has the same reaction. Women don't respond to the howl, we just look on perplexed as a group of men magically form a pack. The TV is one with a football game humming in the background and by the next touchdown play every man in the building is glued to the set, high-fiving after an awesome play. The man howl can apply to many situations of unsolicited male togetherness and often occurs among men who are complete strangers.

When thinking about the Man Howl, one recent event comes to mind. My friends and I were hanging out at a local dive bar when we discovered that the pool table was broken. As soon as the words this pool table is broken were uttered the men just started showing up. Gentlemen of all shapes and sizes were walking around the table and scoping it out from every angle, analyzing how they would fix it. All of sudden a few of them just lifted the table of the ground and got the pool balls out again. It was their calling to form a pack and fix this table. No other events transpired until the pool table was restored to its full operation.