Uncouth PerspectivesNot on the rug, man.

I wanted to talk a little about what I am reading.

I saw this idea over at Mind on Fire. Basically it’s about taking an excerpt out of a near book and sharing it.

For the record, I do not know what a meme is, I do not care what a meme is, and, in fact, I dislike the word on principle alone. That being said, let us continue.

1. Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. No cheating!
2. Find page 123
3. Find the first 5 sentences
4. Post the next 3 sentences
5. Tag 5 people

I am not going to do #5, because I refuse to send unsolicited message, chain-style letters to -anyone-. I thought this was interesting enough to do myself, but do not even think that I am going to attempt to perpetuate it to other people who are not interested.

I had two books on top of each other so I shall share both:

The first is The Electric Church, a book which I am borrowing and combines many favorites: a dystopian and sci-fi future, religion, and hired killers. Not a very interesting blurb.

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“Hover displacement!” I shouted over my shoulder. “Distant, but coming.”

She didn’t say anything.

The second is The Godless Constitution: A Moral Defense of the Secular State, one of my many books dealing with the intersection of politics and religion. Much more interesting excerpt.

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The battle over Sunday mail began in the small market town of Washing, Pennsylvania, in 1809, the year Jefferson’s presidency ended. Its postmaster, Hugh Wyle, followed the widespread, though unofficial, practice of sorting the mail as well as keeping his post office open on Sundays to allow churchgoers from neighboring villages to pick up mail after church. The problem was that Wylie was also an elder in Washington’s Presbyterian church, and in 1809 the Pittsburgh synod of the church ruled that for such as egregious violation of the Sabbath Wylie was to be excluded from communion.

And because I know you are dying to see what my bedside pile of books looks like, here you are:

Wanted to let you know about my invited post on the most excellent Mind on Fire.  It is part of the “Leaving the Garden” series.

http://www.mindonfire.com/2008/02/22/leaving-the-garden-isaacs-journey/ 

From the site:

“Leaving the Garden” is a weekly series in which we ask someone to reflect on their encounters with religion and uncertainty. Religion is filled with stories of faith; here we will collect narratives of unbelief. If you’d like to share your story of doubt, please leave a comment indicating your interest and I will contact you with guidelines.

 Pump It Up

That is all.

(Sorry about the stock photo.  I’ll wait and see if any I can get any pictures of the party.)

I like giving gifts.

I do not like giving them on prescribed days.

At least, I do not like giving them on prescribed days for the sheer sake of the day. There is the obvious reason–the gross commercialism. Do I really need to rehash that obvious and tired (though not any less true) argument? There’s also something kind of dirty about the expectation. It is one thing for a person to know they are getting a gift and being excited. But it’s an entirely different thing when someone assumes, if not demands, a gift for no good reason but tradition says to do it–and it goes from dirty to disgusting if they get mad when you do not give them something.

But, now, giving a gift because you want to give a gift. That’s awesome. Or giving a gift because someone has done something and you want to tell them thanks, or how much you appreciate it, or whatever, that is cool. Or telling someone you’ve gotten them a gift and watching them squirm with anticipation… priceless.

I have talked about this before, but one of the things I do not understand is the idea that if someone gives you a gift, you must reciprocate. There is this kind of spiral of guilt that can begin with a single gift. In my EVER so humble opinion, real gifts do not require reciprocation. If the receiver wants to reciprocate, have a blast. But, again, it’s the expectation where things become problematic.

Although, I can imagine that if I wanted to create waves of havoc, I could start a gift reciprocation circle of DOOM. Here’s how it works. I give three or four people small trinkets. They respond with something better because, obviously, if you’re going to reciprocate, you must also better the person (nothing like a competition when giving gifts). Then I take the gifts I get back and give them to the other people. Maybe find three or four other people to give small gifts too. Then I just keep swapping back and forth until someone gives me a private island with a lemur and a turtle on it.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy defines the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as ‘a bunch of mindless jerks who’ll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes’
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

In what will be a surprise only to those who are simply not paying attention, Starbucks is losing business. Bad. Not only do they face stiff competition from upstarts like McDonalds and Dunkin’ Donuts, the economy, a bad rep on the environment (and labor, and relations with impoverished countries, and…), strong arm business tactics, or the fact most of the customers are obnoxious prats, but as far as I am concerned their products are simply awful.

I never got back to sleep yesterday, so I got breakfast at a local diner and wasted time by thumbing through a copy of the local newspaper. As I was reading a story about Starbucks caught my eye:

Starbucks Tests $2.50 Premium Coffee to Boost Sales

Here is everything you need to know about the story:

Starbucks Corp. is experimenting with a $2.50 cup of coffee that would add a new, premium product to help fight the first drop in U.S. customer visits in its 37- year history.

That’s it? That’s the grand plan? Charge more? Brilliant!

It would by silly to suggest that this is all they are trying to do, but the reality is that I do not really care what they are trying to do because I simply do not care about the company. But I cannot contain the incredulous feeling I had when I read this story. Starbucks has been on an obnoxious run, overcharging for horrid beverages and finding new ways to torture people with unwanted and probably undesirable concoctions. And when things go bad, one of the options they turn to is .. charging more?

Okay, so I lied, there is a little more to this story. Apparently, this absurdly priced “cup” of coffee is supposed to taste better. I can not tell if this is an admission that their coffee is horrid, but this quote from some random financial analyst sure makes me think so:

“If they can create a better-tasting product and if they can get people to pay more for it, then you’d have the missing ingredient, which is pricing power,” said Larry Miller…

Perhaps the missing ingredient is a decent product at a reasonable price from a company with business practices that did not make you sick to think you are supporting? Or is the sheer weight of the monolithic pseudo-monopoly simply too much to sustain or produce something of true value?

I woke up in the middle of the night tonight for no good reason that I can tell. I was just minding my own business, pleasantly lost in the caress of a dream which I barely got to know, let alone remember, when it dawned on me with a cruel and slowly conscious understanding: I am not asleep anymore. To my chagrin, my first thought was:

“Perhaps I am still asleep and this is some horrible dream where I think I am awake, but I’m really deeply asleep. If I am not careful, I will enter a cycle of fantasy life, endlessly confused, caught in a whirlwind of abnormality, desperately seeking an unknown goal which would, of course, be waking up to normalcy.”

Of course, as my eyes unwillingly opened, I had somewhat of a shocking epiphany–this was normalcy. Not that I have any problem with normalcy… except when it’s most present as my alarm clock glaring in the early hours, feeling as intruded upon to be gazed at by anyone at such an awful hour as I did to be doing any kind of gazing. My next thought was to be angry:

“Damn you cruel world! I nestled in twilight’s bosom for protection, comfort, and slumber, and I am tossed away like an orphaned child, crying into the night!”

Okay, perhaps that is a bit of an embellishment. I was definitely cranky, though. I rarely wake up in the middle of the night but every time I do (especially if I cannot find good cause), I feel betrayed by something between my body and my brain.

My brain, cunning creature that it is, took a long hard look at my body. This whole sleeping and waking thing, it seems so biological… that just reeks of the body being at fault.

Thoughts, my body counters, You woke up thinking.

In the end, I take the logical choice that it is a grand conspiracy between the two and I will never know the truth, but my yet-to-be-born great-grand children will once they’ve unsealed the documents and deciphered the lies within.

Here’s to a glass of something warm and yummy for my tummy and another attempt slumber.

Good night and I hope you have slept better than me tonight!

So I helped a friend move today.

Actually, I really helped a friend of a friend move today because I have only met the person I moved once before and that was last Monday.

Between being a fairly large (6’5″), “oh, he looks like he’d like to carry my solid oak desk by himself” person (of course the irony being I sit behind a computer all day) and the fact that I drove a truck for several years, I have moved a lot of people. I am not here to complain about moving people, though that might be different if I still had a truck (Note: someone with a truck does not automagically make them an interested moving service).

One of the things that moving day always highlights for me is how people utilize tools. Typically when you move, there is always at least a dolly or some other mechanical device designed to make moving things from point A to B easier. When you use them right. There is always an adventure when someone looks at something large and ungainly and says “You know, I bet we can put that on the dolly.” It’s been my experience that those words are definitely listed under “Famous Last Words.”

Sometimes it is just easier to carry the things. Yeah, while I made the crack about sitting behind a computer, I am a pretty big guy and carrying things is easier for me. For people who are injured or some other way disabled, I am with ya. But there’s a point when using tools, in this case perhaps a dolly, it becomes not only a crutch but is actually a hindrance.

Perhaps not quite similar, but it also reminds me of a busy parking lot. What I typically see is a lot of people running around in circles trying desperately to get a spot up front. Me, I just drive towards the back, find an easy space to park in and walk to where I am going. No stress, easy parking, and I get exercise so Nyaaaah!

It is way too easy for a tool to become a crutch. Just look at calculators (I’m guilty). But it is also easy for tools to become hindrances. Hopefully you’ve noted that I am not really talking just about moving here. One of the wonderful things about the human mind is our ability to create and use tools to our advantage. Laziness, however, is also one of our claims to genetic fame. And I think it is such a shame when people hold themselves back by trying to take the “easy” way which turns out to be a dead-end.

So, I didn’t shave the whole weekend I played hockey and I decided to play around with growing a full beard in. Mainly I wanted to see how much grey I had.

This is a conversation I was having with my friend
about it:

Me: There’s so much freaking grey in my coming-in beard.

Friend: Better for you. get the chicks easier.

Me: Yeah, cause you know the babes, they love beards.

Friend: young chicks do because it makes you look older

Me: Can I tell you something you don’t want to hear?

Friend: sure

Me: Porn is not demonstrative of how the world works.

Enjoy the pictures, because it is not going to stay.

I spent this weekend in Las Vegas at an international (Canadians and Americans) street hockey tournament. There were two divisions: the “open” (read: skilled) and the “rec” (read: me). The open division had somewhere between 15-20 teams from across the U.S. and Canada and was great to watch. The rec division had six excellent teams (also from across the U.S. and Canada) and while they did not have the overall skill level of the open divisions teams, I have to say that the play was surprisingly equal among the teams which lead to some really amazing games.

My team, the SoCal Misfits, got second place, with the final game being 3-2 and decided in a shoot-out, after a full game plus overtime. It was a blast.

Here are a few extra highlights from the trip–at least what I caught while I still had battery power…

Driving

The obligatory Zzyzx sign

The Hotel Room

Ironing boards are for drying your hockey gear on, right?

Tired, tired feet

The only action shot I got…

All of the awards on display

And, lastly, for those of you who felt the need to remind me to not break anything–I did not listen…