Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Nice to Know

      It's nice to know that if you live in a city anyone can take their dog on the bus if the animal is reasonably well-behaved and they can tell the bus driver with a straight face that Mr. Piddles is a "service animal". It's also nice to know that your service animal need not be a dog. There is a certain Hanna Montana obsessed individual who often rides the bus and totes around her "therapy hamster" in a small cage. It is also nice to know that your therapy animal may not necessarily have to be real. I have never once seen her therapy hamster and suspect it might well be imaginary.
      It's nice to know that even army guys who might seem to be straight-laced can be cool enough to lament that they can't smoke pot because of piss tests.
      It's nice to know that in the middle of downtown it's pretty safe to leave your doors unlocked all night but you have to be careful if you live a little bit out of the way where your neighbors are pretty nice.
      It's nice to know that if you leave your door unlocked during the daytime mysterious strangers will open it to leave you packages so they don't get ruined by the rain when you're gone. I love coming back to my house, checking the box and thinking we have no mail and then almost killing myself on the way in because the mail man or UPS guy left a box just inside the door.
      It's nice to know that other people are also crazy and dysfunctional.
      It's nice to know these things so that in the future I can surprise people with startling trivia. I already know a lot of non-startling and largely useless trivia but now I'm adding to my repertoire things that may vaguely alarm or (hopefully) amuse the people I know. Now if I am conversing with someone and they mention always keeping their door locked I can mention something about not really doing that because then the present faeries can't open the door to leave me packages.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Angry Stupid People

      Stupid people as defined by: The fact that they are easily angered because of their own stupidity.
      An example of this kind of stupidity would be the folks who leave long, angry, ranting, poorly-worded and badly-typed negative feedback for online sellers who sent them- exactly what they paid for. These people are not angry because they got what they paid for. They're angry that they didn't realize what they were paying for. They often try to blame the seller for their oversight by saying that the listing didn't say that the product was generic or that it didn't come with the controller. This is rarely the case.
      Someone who sells online on a place like eBay or Amazon might make a little bit of money by deceiving someone once but they can make a lot more money in the long-term by being entirely honest. Which is not to say they might not hope you think you're getting the genuine article and therefore bid more for it but they don't expect you to. Therefore you can be fairly certain that if you read the product description it will say that what you're bidding on is generic or that it doesn't come in the original box or that it's scratched.
      These angry stupid people nearly always try to blame the seller because they know, deep inside, that if it's not the seller's fault then they were deceived because of their stupidity but as they are not stupid this cannot possibly be the case. Another feature of stupid people is that they generally have no idea that they might not be particularly bright.
      These people are the same people who might blame their bank if they lost their identity and someone used it to wrack up massive debt. Because obviously it wasn't their fault for falling for that phone scam. It must be the bank's fault for not adequately protecting their identity. It could not possibly be their own fault for giving out personal information over the phone as you are frequently warned not to do.
      Despite the fact that I work in a place that sells severely over-priced gift items I have yet to have the pleasure of dealing with a stupid angry person attempting to make a gift return. I have heard some fun stories. In fact we had one person who came in a couple of weeks ago and was (in his own words) "just looking for something cheap for my girlfriend". He bought her some jewelry that has never been very popular and was thusly marked down. He returned the next morning before the store opened and yelled at my manager because they weren't open yet and he wanted to return the gifts that his girlfriend hadn't liked. He literally threw the items on the floor in disgust and stalked off to one of the other stores until they opened. When he came back he said he wanted to return the items and Dianne said she wouldn't take them without a receipt. He yelled and said to get the girl he had purchased them from the night previously. Obviously it wasn't possible for Dianne to get Jenn on the phone or in the store to confirm his identity (not that she would have wanted to) and told him that if he found the receipt he could come back later.
      I really wanted to talk to this guy. I wanted to ask him how he could lose his receipt overnight and what the logic in buying his girlfriend something cheap was if she wouldn't like it for that very reason. Why not buy her something thoughtful instead? Or give her a gift card if he was so totally clueless about what would please her?
      I honestly hope that someone else like him comes into the store when I'm there and starts yelling so I can explain to them that our return policy is clearly posted in several places around the store and that we, like most other stores, will not accept returns of items without the receipt. We can't give refunds on credit card purchases unless you have the card with you. We absolutely will not accept Webkinz returns, not even for store credit unless you haven't opened or tampered with the tag even if you do have proof of sale. We do not accept returns of any adult magazines unless they are wrapped in plastic that hasn't been tampered with. We will not refund you for a book because you didn't like it. And if you cannot understand any of those concepts you shouldn't be trusted with money.
      Of course, this would have to occur when there was a K&E guy at the mall because otherwise I suspect this might incite the stupid angry person into harming me in physically violent ways. I guess it's a lot to ask for; having a security guard on hand at the same time as an angry stupid person is trying to return something without a proof of purchase but I can always hope.

Friday, June 11, 2010

The Key to Happiness is Online Shopping

      My favorite kind of retail therapy is the kind where I sit at my computer, click things, examine stuff and have it sent to my house. I enjoy the limitless selection, the low prices and my agoraphobia especially enjoys the lack of crowds. I like to look up stuff I have no intention of buying just to see what the prices are. I like to look up random things just to see if they exist. I love to speed through Amazon or Google check-out where I don't even have to put in my information. It's practically a magical experience at that point.
      I've read a few different things about what makes people happy lately. The interesting theory right now (probably best described by the Empirical Cynicist Nassim Nicholas Taleb author of The Black Swan) is that getting something nice makes you happy. Getting something nice worth as little as ten dollars one week and something of equal value the next week will make you happier than if you got something worth thirty dollars the first week and nothing the second week. Happiness does not scale up. If you get something really nice or make a lot of money all at once you're not going to be as happy as if you got small but steady rewards that, as a whole, didn't add up to as much material value as the theoretical lump sum.
      As far as work goes that means that working in the medical profession or as a salesperson is going to make you a lot happier than if you're a scientist. Helping someone by giving them a life-enhancing treatment or helping them to pick out the perfect cellular phone for their needs gives you a steady diet of small rewards. Picking M&Ms and eating them one at a time will be a lot more satisfying for your sweettooth than getting a Snickers and scarfing that down in three bites. Searching for the cure to a crippling disease year after year with no results until finally after decades of work you discover that cure and win a Humanitarian Award just wont make you as happy as being a doctor. Your brain just is not wired that way.
      But since we can't all have steadily-rewarding careers we need some other plan to be happy. Which is where I like to digress back to online shopping. The online shopping experience itself is very enjoyable. You can sit in perfect comfort in your favorite chair, totally naked, while drinking beer, eating chips and watching sitcoms. Regular shopping means you have to stand up. You have to be wearing clothes, possibly uncomfortable clothes. You cannot drink or be under the influence of anything more mind-altering than caffeine. You can't watch television when you do it. You have to go out of the house where there are other people and actually interact with them. You probably have to drive or at least walk someplace. You have to go into a store and see if they have a product in stock and examine the package scrupulously to see if it's what you actually wanted. If you want to comparison shop you have to go to multiple places and look at many different products to figure out the best deal. Most likely you will find this process exhausting and expensive no matter what you're buying.
      Going back to sitting naked at your computer. You're comfortable. It's easy to comparison shop at dozens of different places in a short period of time. It's easy to see whether other people in similar situations were happy with the product you're considering. It's easy to see whether the product is what you want and check out the specifications. It's easy to get a really good price without going anywhere. It's all very easy.
      Not to mention that ease and comfort aren't the best parts. It's often significantly less expensive to buy products online. When I check-out online I always feel very satisfied. I found what I wanted and got a good price. It makes me happy. For the next few days I get to happily anticipate when my package will come. I don't like to obsessively check the tracking on things I order so when they show up it's a surprise. Everyone loves surprises. Especially good surprises. And it's always shipped in a box of course so you get to open it up and unwrap it just like a present. To take it out of the packaging and read the instructions. And then you can tell people about it even if it is not the most exciting thing in the world. "Today my new coffee carafe came. It was exactly what I wanted."
      Ordering things, anticipating them and having them finally arrive are all good for your brain. People like to shop because it actually makes them happy. You get a nice release of dopamine in your brain. that's why some people can become addicted to shopping. But at the same time dopamine is an antidepressant. So the next time you're feeling down or you need something that you don't have to have immediately do yourself a favor and get on the computer and order it, you'll be a happier person. But remember: Don't order your groceries online and always shop in moderation!

Monday, June 7, 2010

Typically Up for Interpretation

      My typical day starts with being woken up by a small child who is angry because the preparation time of breakfast is not instantaneous. I then get up, blindly, and grab my contacts and go into the bathroom. I go and I wash my hands, just like everyone else and then pop in my contacts. I either eat oatmeal or I get fancy and make pancakes or a breakfast sandwich for breakfast, I almost never eat cold cereal- not for breakfast, anyway. I will then often go into our other bathroom for a shower or into our living room to watch an episode of inane television from Netflix or play Wii Sports.
      At some point during my usual morning I log onto my computer and put in time checking my dozen or so e-mail accounts. I also check the social networking sites to which I belong and spend some time composing responses to various things that have occurred or been sent. This happens every day. I usually have about a dozen or more tabs open in my browser while I'm doing this because I can't usually manage to stay on one page for more than a few minutes. I find myself pressing command-t so I can check the definition of a word or to grab a url or just going to another site to briefly put off responding to some other internet situation.
      Eventually (usually later rather than sooner) I will get dressed in "real clothing" and caffeinate my brain. I will pack myself some kind of lunch. The kind of lunch will vary wildly depending on factors such as how recently we have been shopping, whether anyone has felt like cooking lately, whether I feel like cooking before going to work, what I had for breakfast and what I think I might intend to eat for supper. I'll usually fill my bottle with water and mix with a very small amount of Crystal Light just so it doesn't taste like water but isn't obvious enough that my boss will tell me we can't drink anything but water behind the counter at work.
      Just about forty-five minutes before I have to be at work I will leave my house. I'll walk down town to Pickering Square and wait briefly to get on the bus. While I'm walking I will mostly skip through various songs on my iPod and occasionally listen to some of them. I usually use this time to think busily about either writing or reading (every other time I think about these subjects it is lazily and with a lot of interruptions.) I pay eighty cents to ride the bus. The trip usually takes longer to go a shorter distance than if I was in my car but this does not bother me greatly.
      While I am riding the bus I either stow my iPod in my bag or I turn it off but leave the earphones in so that I can listen to the people on the bus who are talking. Listening to the Dull Normal having religious, political, scientific or philosophical conversations for fifteen to twenty minutes is often the best part of my day. At least in the sense that it gives me lots of funny stories to tell even if it tends to be rather painful to listen to.
      Last Thursday my day had been going very much like this. I got onto the bus and sat in my favorite seat at the front of the raised tier in the back. Just before the bus started moving I noticed that the woman sitting right in front of me in the lower section was looking at what I thought was a Biology test. It looked a lot like the standard tests we took when I was in AP Bio in high school. Since I like biology and I felt like being nosy and wondering what a middle-aged woman with gray shot through her hair was doing looking at a biology test I tried to read some of the questions. What I could make out made me very suspicious about this test booklet.
      A few minutes later she re-arranged the pages to put them in the right order and before she replaced them in their manila folder I got a good look at the cover page. It read: "Starfleet Academy Marine Corps Entrance Exam". Yes, I do mean that Starfleet Academy. From Star Trek. That one. My immediate thought upon seeing this was to start Star Trekkin' by Dr. Demento playing on my iPod but I was quickly distracted by a conversation that had just started.
      The conversation was between three people I had seen on the bus on previous occasions. One was a youngish buff african-american man. One a middle-aged scrawny italiano man who I knew from previous encounters had worked at a variety of jobs, mostly business, in a variety of places, and who had also been in the Army once upon a time. The third participant was an older lady who came into the bookstore where I work at least once every week. I usually resist calling this woman the crazy cat lady but if it came down to explaining who I was talking about to one of my co-workers that phrase always gets across who I mean.
      The conversation started when the two men were talking about the weather. There were some severe storm warnings evidently (two days later there were tornado warnings in northern Maine) and they mentioned that they both liked Maine because of how safe and normal it is up here. And then, what seemed randomly to me but probably made sense to someone who watches the news, one of the men brought up the Bishop who recently married another man in New Hampshire (please take note that I make no effort to know anything about this story other than what the men on the bus mentioned because I am of the belief that news rots your brain).
      They both seemed to think that this was an awful, terrible thing while I was affirming in my brain that this was a step in the right direction. I don't necessarily think they had anything against people who are gay but it seemed terribly wrong to them that a member of the clergy could be gay. One of them brought up the fact that according to the bible men can't be gay. The crazy cat lady said that some religions didn't think so and that they thought it was okay. He responded by saying that that was just their interpretation and that the interpretation of god, the bible, didn't say anything like that.
      It was at this point that I had to get off the bus. If I thought my face would be more attractive with the crooked bump from having had my nose broken I might have wished the lady good luck getting into Starfleet and reminded the man that god did not write the bible. People wrote the bible. And not only did people write the bible but it wasn't even written in English. So by the time most catholic or protestant practitioners got around to interpreting the bible it had already been filtered and colored by other people's perceptions. Unfortunately for the edification of the world I generally like my face the way it is.
      Thusly I said nothing and walked into work five minutes after I was supposed to be there. The bus is habitually late. It's supposed to get to the mall I work in at five minutes before the hour but this almost never happens. I clocked in. I shuffled books. I smiled at people. I read from the same script over and over. And then my boss left and I ate the lunch that I had packed after I went and got some more caffeination from one of the other stores in the mall. While I was hanging out at the desk to allow my coworker to roam the rest of the store doing her share of the book section someone asked if we carried The Cannabis Grow Bible. My first thought was that I was sure that the Cannabis Grow Bible had nothing to say about gay men. I shook my head because knowing my boss it was fairly easy to know that we didn't.
      A minute later I checked on the computer to see if we could order this book. I did this for two reasons. One, I knew my boss would be disapproving that a customer wanted one, and two, you have to have a lot of some kind of interesting quality to walk into a bookstore, totally stoned, reeking of pot, and ask if they carry the Cannabis Grow Bible. It turned out that we could order it. I looked and saw that he and his friends were looking at Adult Magazines so I told him what I had learned. He seemed excited and explained that actually he already had that book and he was looking for one by the same author on Hydroponic growing (of Marijuana).
      I did some checking on this and determined that as far as I could tell no such book existed and suggested that either it was no longer in print (which seemed strangely unlikely) or that it was by a different author and if he wanted to find out who from his friend (who apparently owned this book) I could probably find it to order for him. He seemed terribly sad and dejected that I couldn't find his book for him but thanked me anyway, bought a copy of High Times and left.
      After closing I either get home in one of two ways. I go there directly in a car with either my brother whom I share an apartment with or one of my coworkers or I go to the grocery store, walk around and buy a couple of things, call a cab to pick me up out front and then take the cab home.
I usually cook myself dinner. I then usually entertain myself on the computer for at least a few minutes. Friends of ours usually show up unannounced after the baby is asleep and then it is time for the temporary chemical alteration of our collective brains and either playing a board game (of which we have many), some Wii Golf, or watching bad Netflix television. I usually take out my contacts, brush my teeth excessively and go to sleep somewhere between sixteen and twenty hours after waking up.
      And then we start it all over again.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Making Fun of Omnivores

      Well, I had wanted to write another post making fun of vegetarians but I thought that since I had already bashed on them once I should take the time to be fair and make fun of omnivores because everyone knows omnivores have it easy and no one makes fun of those idiots. A little objectivity never hurt anyone after all. I like to be an equal-opportunity jerk and poke fun at everyone, including myself. If you're a vegetarian you should enjoy this post. If you're an omnivore I hate to say it but you might enjoy this post just as much as the vegetarians.
      First of all we'll explain omnivores. I like to break down scientific words into Latin components for the sake of confusion when I begin to clarify and define things. Omne means all or everything. Vor comes from the verb meaning to eat or devour. Literally omnivore means to devour everything. Dirt, metal, vegetables, fruit, powdered bone slime, gasoline, meat, plastic, sexual organs, everything would be in the diet of an omnivore if it were translated literally. A quick Google search for "define: omnivore" will reveal that the general definition is much narrower and comes down to a person or animal that eats or can eat both meat and plants. The same quick Google search will reveal that, apparently the term was popularized by Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. This, as you should immediately realize, is a load of crap. Saying that Michael Pollan popularized the term "omnivore" is like saying that Stephanie Meyers popularized the term "twilight" with her Twilight Saga.
      Omnivores do not obviously live up to their clinically-defined name. You don't eat petroleum or rocks. You're not going to devour someone's cotton shirt. But if you consider the generally-accepted definition everyone is an omnivore. Vegetarians can eat meat just because they choose not to. Someone who lived on a strict diet of chicken nuggets and french fries could not be not considered an omnivore just because they never had anything else.
      Eating is as much evolution and availability as it is a choice. Our ancestors survived because of their ability to consume many different things instead of fitting into one very small niche which might have easily been wiped away. A socially-conscious person who doesn't have a lot of money, despite wanting to help out local farmers by buying their produce is trapped into continuing to go to the big boxes to get groceries because they don't have the means so that food is not available to them. People who are vegetarians (generally) have the ability to get and consume meat but choose not to for moral or physical reasons, it doesn't mean they don't have the physical capacity to digest meat (boctoe) so they are technically omnivores.
      Now let's make fun of the omnivores. If you are a human omnivore you have almost certainly at some point in your lifetime consumed: Bugs, feces, dirt, metal, plastic, petroleum, sexual organs, fish bladders and powdered bone slime. Sounds like the recipe for some kind of terrible witch's brew, doesn't it? And how have you eaten these things? Wouldn't you know if this was in your food? Shouldn't it be listed on the ingredients?
      You've probably consumed an insect either accidentally while sleeping or awake or possibly intentionally but it's basically unavoidable not to eat one on accident. If you've ever gone to the bathroom and not washed your hands before preparing your food or ever eaten food someone else prepared for you then you have eaten feces. If you've ever eaten a vegetable that was not well washed before you ate it you have probably eaten feces then as well as dirt. If you have ever eaten any kind of meat, any number of vegetables or taken a vitamin containing iron you have eaten metal. If you have ever eaten any kind of food packaged in plastic you have eaten both plastic and petroleum at the same time. If you have ever eaten food that was fertilized by a petrochemical fertilizer or eaten an animal that ate any plants that were fertilized with a petrochemical you have eaten petroleum. If you have ever eaten a clover or broccoli or any other kind of flower you have eaten sexual organs. If you have ever had a beer or wine made with "isinglass" you have had fish bladder. If you have ever eaten jello or anything else that contains gelatin then you have eaten powdered bone slime. If you have ever had anything containing High Fructose Corn Syrup you have eaten a product that comes from a wet mill and could not exist without human production.
      If you are an omnivore of any kind and you have the capacity to think about what you put in your mouth the only reason you haven't is because you thought you knew. If you're happy eating a processed food that has several ingredients on the list that you cannot comfortably sound out or you cannot say what they are or where they come from I challenge you to look up some of those words. You might think you're safe by not eating processed foods but that's not the case. What part of the word does the coffee you drink or the lettuce you eat come from? Are you comfortable with how it got into the country or how and by whom it was grown. Are you comfortable with the conditions under which the chicken you eat lived it's life? Or would you rather clear your mind and play dumb?
      Omnivores enjoy being in the majority and feeling very much that might makes right. Everyone else is doing it so it must be okay. Being in the majority is not a good argument for anything. If the majority of a town is christian but a devout Muslim moves to town it does not give their neighbors any right to suggest they should go to a christian church just because everyone else in town does it. If you're going to eat meat, and fruit and mystery ingredients in your crackers that is fine with me as long as you have a good reason to do this other than the fact that this is what you have always done.
      Omnivores also tend to be food addicts. If you choose to willfully ignore where your food comes from or what it contains because you cannot give up a certain type of food then you would be considered a food addict. There's nothing wrong with being a vegetarian but the reasons you do it for are important. Similarly there is nothing wrong with being an omnivore if you have good reason to do so.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Riding On City Busses

      Last week was "Commute Another Way" week. Commute Another Way Week promotes eco-friendly habits and encourages people to commute another way under the assumption that they usually drive cars. The event is heavily advertised and suggests that people bike, walk, car pool or even ride the bus to work that week instead of driving. I probably heard ads for this dozens of times a day on the radio. Presumably there were just as many television advertisements and mentions of it on the news. There were also posters up in the B.A.T. City Buses where I live.
      You would think, from the level of advertising that you would have seen a lot of pedestrians on the morning commute or in the evening. You'd think there would have been a lot of bikes around. You'd think the buses would have been packed. You probably wouldn't think that everything looked exactly the same. There were no more people on the buses than usual and no more pedestrians than I would normally see.
      My theory on the lack of commute-another-wayers is that they're all secretly terrified of changing their routine. They don't know how long it would take to walk or bike so they can't do that. They don't know how to decipher the bus routes or what the fares are or even how to find that out. They don't know anyone conveniently close enough to carpool with. And so they assuage their guilt by assuming that lots of other people will be doing all those things. Except everyone seems to have assumed the same thing.
      Environmental impact wise the campaign would do a lot better by explaining to people how to go about commuting another way. Suggest they go on a test walk/bike the weekend before to see how long it takes to get to work. Tell them they can easily go online and find the bus routes, fares and times in most cities. Explain that even carpooling with your spouse counts as carpooling. I have a feeling that if people weren't quite so terrified of changing their habits they'd be more likely to do this.
      What did I do during commute another way week? Was I being a hypocrite driving my car? Of course not. I got to work the same way I go to work nearly every day. My commute takes about forty-five minutes total in the summer and about an hour in the winter and I arrive at work fifteen minutes early. This past winter I would walk up to the top of the hill and cross a busy main street so I was on the correct side to flag down the in-bound bus which I would then ride to Pickering Square where all the buses meet up every half hour. I would switch buses to the line that went to my place of work and arrive there about an hour after I had left my house and fifteen minutes before I was scheduled to come in. Now that it's not so cold I leave about forty-five minutes early and walk down to Pickering Square which takes about twenty minutes at a casual pace. I then get on the bus line that goes to my place of work and arrive there usually just about on time. I am occasionally a few minutes late through no fault of my own but my boss completely understands. I told her I rode the bus before she hired me.
      It is occasionally inconvenient to ride the bus to get where you want to go but when you live in a city it's a nice way to get around and it's very inexpensive. It's also a good way to reduce your carbon footprint if you're the kind of person who's concerned about that kind of thing. And even if you're not concerned about that kind of thing it's always a good point to bring up in conversation if someone else is pointing out how they have a Prius or something else equally pretentious. Or if you're having a pissing contest in how good a person you are. "Oh yeah, you recycle? Well, I recycle and I ride the bus to work."