I got a bike trainer. No, my bike doesn't need training and a bike trainer is not a person. It's a thing you attach to a bike that allows you to simulate a riding experience, or to put it differently, that allows you to pretend to ride your bike inside.
In truth, this is profoundly silly. As a general rule I hate to exercise by pretending to do stuff. Treadmills, rowers, and especially climbing stairs, all ways to pretend to do something. And a big reason I bike for exercise is because it's fun. The biggest single difference between the pretend activities and the real ones is the lack of fun. I mean, it's nice that I don't have to wear a helmet when I pretend ride, although I can't quite get over the fear that the bike is going to somehow wiggle loose and I'll careen toward the basement steps at 20 miles an hour (and 20 miles an hour, while slow in a car, is very fast when you're indoors). But the only way I'll feel the wind in my face if I turn on the fan.
The best thing about pretend riding is that you can watch TV while you're doing it. All of my attempts to do that when riding on the streets have been brutal failures. But what am I going to watch? As hard as I look, I can't find any shows that are wordless video of passing countryside, so I need some options. Commercials are annoying, and I don't want to have to keep changing channels. The best thing I've found so far is soccer. If you can start watching right around the beginning of a half, they run for at least 45 minutes straight. Fortunately, on Comcast there's lots of soccer on channel 1513, and I just like the idea of watching channel 1513 anyway.
Thursday, November 03, 2011
Tuesday, November 01, 2011
Passing thoughts
I'm tired of driving. Not that I been drive all that much, but I've been doing it for like 40 years and I'm just tired of it. Maybe it's because too many people I encounter on the roads, while nice people I'm sure, are just not cut out to be drivers. Driving properly requires a combination of complete attention and strategic planning that is clearly beyond the ability of many people whom the state has deemed worthy of sharing the road with me.
Most folks probably don't think of strategic planning when they are driving, but that's a mistake. Driving is pretty difficult and bloody dangerous and one is foolish to think differently. But you can be strategic about it if you keep your objective in mind, and objective is simply this: Get from point A to Point B without bumping into anything. Everything else you do flows from that. Since it's much harder to avoid moving objects than stationary ones, keep the moving things (cars, trucks, bikes, people) as far away from your car as possible at all times, and never do anything that could be surprising to another driver.
Lately, the most frequent mistake I've seen people making is getting impatient behind someone making a left turn, swinging out to the right and going around them, especially on a road with 2 lanes in each direction. This is so risky as to be just plain stupid. You simply cannot look everywhere another car might be coming from at the same time, since you need to see (1) if there's someone coming in the right lane, (2) if someone behind you is doing the same thing at the same time, (3) if someone in front of you is doing the same thing at the same time, and (4) if someone going in the other direction is making a left turn into your lane as you swing around. Sorry, can't be done. If you get away with it you're lucky, but still stupid.
Most folks probably don't think of strategic planning when they are driving, but that's a mistake. Driving is pretty difficult and bloody dangerous and one is foolish to think differently. But you can be strategic about it if you keep your objective in mind, and objective is simply this: Get from point A to Point B without bumping into anything. Everything else you do flows from that. Since it's much harder to avoid moving objects than stationary ones, keep the moving things (cars, trucks, bikes, people) as far away from your car as possible at all times, and never do anything that could be surprising to another driver.
Lately, the most frequent mistake I've seen people making is getting impatient behind someone making a left turn, swinging out to the right and going around them, especially on a road with 2 lanes in each direction. This is so risky as to be just plain stupid. You simply cannot look everywhere another car might be coming from at the same time, since you need to see (1) if there's someone coming in the right lane, (2) if someone behind you is doing the same thing at the same time, (3) if someone in front of you is doing the same thing at the same time, and (4) if someone going in the other direction is making a left turn into your lane as you swing around. Sorry, can't be done. If you get away with it you're lucky, but still stupid.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Happy Birthday Frank!
 |
Sunday, October 23, 2011
So what is this thing called again?
I got an iPhone this week. I hadn't intended to; I was just waiting for something that I thought would be a noticeable upgrade over my prior phone, which was a 3 year-old original Droid. That phone worked very well. It was just very slow on the data end. So I got the iPhone because it had a fast processor. Plus everything else in my house is Apple, so why not my phone.
So far, with my new phone, I have created task lists and shopping lists, listened to music, gotten directions, checked train schedules, played solitaire, received and sent text messages and e-mail, and a played with the voice controlled stuff. Can we spot the obvious omission?
I've had the phone for 4 days now and have not made or received a single phone call. In fact, I don't even know if the phone part of the thing works. The other kinds of messaging things I've done have made it unnecessary to make phone calls. So I've used my phone a lot, just not as a phone.
This makes me think of two things that I said about mobile phones, one while I was working as a marketer in the early days of cellular phones, and one of which I said several years later when I first got my oldest child a cell phone. They both sound kind of stupid, but put them together and it all kind of makes sense, not that I knew that at a time.
Back in the late 80's when cellular phones first burst onto the scene, most people know they were big and heavy and inconvenient to carry around. In fairly short order, this began to change. At around the point when there were finally phones you could put in your pocket, I said to the guy running our cellular biz, "You know when this business will be really big? When you don't have to carry the damn phone around with you." In the early 00's, when deciding what phone to get for a child, we decided, "The purpose of the phone is to make phone calls, not to play games on," (this was a HUGE concern to parents at the time).
So here I am, carrying around this thing that does so much more than could have been imagined back in the 80's. Now, one could be excused from thinking small at that time, 5 years or so before the World Wide Web had been invented. We knew the cellular had data transmission capabilities, but at the time we were deciding whether it made more sense to have messaging devices be separate from the phone. Nobody thought of transmitting data as a major thing in any aspect of life or even business.
But in a way, I was right 20 years ago. I'm not carrying a phone around with me, at least not in the traditional sense. I'm carrying a computer that makes phone calls. It's a thing to play games and a whole bunch more. And as an advertising person, what's really interesting to me is that we still call it a phone, when the telephone part of it is almost an afterthought. We've redefined what the word 'phone' means.
So far, with my new phone, I have created task lists and shopping lists, listened to music, gotten directions, checked train schedules, played solitaire, received and sent text messages and e-mail, and a played with the voice controlled stuff. Can we spot the obvious omission?
I've had the phone for 4 days now and have not made or received a single phone call. In fact, I don't even know if the phone part of the thing works. The other kinds of messaging things I've done have made it unnecessary to make phone calls. So I've used my phone a lot, just not as a phone.
This makes me think of two things that I said about mobile phones, one while I was working as a marketer in the early days of cellular phones, and one of which I said several years later when I first got my oldest child a cell phone. They both sound kind of stupid, but put them together and it all kind of makes sense, not that I knew that at a time.
Back in the late 80's when cellular phones first burst onto the scene, most people know they were big and heavy and inconvenient to carry around. In fairly short order, this began to change. At around the point when there were finally phones you could put in your pocket, I said to the guy running our cellular biz, "You know when this business will be really big? When you don't have to carry the damn phone around with you." In the early 00's, when deciding what phone to get for a child, we decided, "The purpose of the phone is to make phone calls, not to play games on," (this was a HUGE concern to parents at the time).
So here I am, carrying around this thing that does so much more than could have been imagined back in the 80's. Now, one could be excused from thinking small at that time, 5 years or so before the World Wide Web had been invented. We knew the cellular had data transmission capabilities, but at the time we were deciding whether it made more sense to have messaging devices be separate from the phone. Nobody thought of transmitting data as a major thing in any aspect of life or even business.
But in a way, I was right 20 years ago. I'm not carrying a phone around with me, at least not in the traditional sense. I'm carrying a computer that makes phone calls. It's a thing to play games and a whole bunch more. And as an advertising person, what's really interesting to me is that we still call it a phone, when the telephone part of it is almost an afterthought. We've redefined what the word 'phone' means.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
No boo hoo
I find it strange to hear people upset about the fatal auto race crash this past weekend. Of course, I don't wish sudden untimely death on anyone, but more than mourning the poor guy who perished, there's a lot of hand-wringing about how the conditions weren't safe.
Well, DUH. In what universe is it ever safe to drive in heavy traffic on a curvy road at 200 miles per hour? Anyone who's ever tried that on the Schuykill can tell you that it's no easy feat getting from King of Prussia to Center City in 4 1/2 minutes without crashing.
Really, the fact that there are so few crashes is a testament to the skill of the drivers and a reasonably strict code of conduct, but there's an inherent tension between speed and safety. I think people tend to underestimate the force involved in hitting a stationary object that doesn't give when you hit it. The best way it's ever been explained to me was to try to imagine what it would be like if you were just standing there and a brick wall came along and hit you at 40 miles per hour.
And the problem with high speed is that the force with which you hit the wall is based on the amount of deceleration you do, or how quickly your velocity decreases (which is pretty quick when you hit a wall). I could throw some numbers around, but I know neither what they signify nor what they really mean in terms of bodily harm. Key point though: Newton's laws of motion say that if you hit an immovable object that the object necessarily hits back with an equal force (that's the only way the motion can stop). That's actually the force that crumples your car. The way you get hurt is that you are moving at the same speed of the car and do not stop until something applies an equal and opposite force to you. This tends to hurt.
The reason we have airbags is that they increase the time it takes for that force to be applied- the stopping is more gradual, and since time is the denominator of the force formula, the bigger it is, the less force. Less force means less pain and less frequent death.
In any event, there's only so much you can do to mitigate the damage done to the body in a high speed crash. And that's not even talking about the fire part, which is another inevitable result of using combustable fuel to power the cars.
I certainly don't think there's anything wrong with imposing safety measures, but unless you take some of the speed out of the equation, so to speak, there's only a limited amount you can do.
Well, DUH. In what universe is it ever safe to drive in heavy traffic on a curvy road at 200 miles per hour? Anyone who's ever tried that on the Schuykill can tell you that it's no easy feat getting from King of Prussia to Center City in 4 1/2 minutes without crashing.
Really, the fact that there are so few crashes is a testament to the skill of the drivers and a reasonably strict code of conduct, but there's an inherent tension between speed and safety. I think people tend to underestimate the force involved in hitting a stationary object that doesn't give when you hit it. The best way it's ever been explained to me was to try to imagine what it would be like if you were just standing there and a brick wall came along and hit you at 40 miles per hour.
And the problem with high speed is that the force with which you hit the wall is based on the amount of deceleration you do, or how quickly your velocity decreases (which is pretty quick when you hit a wall). I could throw some numbers around, but I know neither what they signify nor what they really mean in terms of bodily harm. Key point though: Newton's laws of motion say that if you hit an immovable object that the object necessarily hits back with an equal force (that's the only way the motion can stop). That's actually the force that crumples your car. The way you get hurt is that you are moving at the same speed of the car and do not stop until something applies an equal and opposite force to you. This tends to hurt.
The reason we have airbags is that they increase the time it takes for that force to be applied- the stopping is more gradual, and since time is the denominator of the force formula, the bigger it is, the less force. Less force means less pain and less frequent death.
In any event, there's only so much you can do to mitigate the damage done to the body in a high speed crash. And that's not even talking about the fire part, which is another inevitable result of using combustable fuel to power the cars.
I certainly don't think there's anything wrong with imposing safety measures, but unless you take some of the speed out of the equation, so to speak, there's only a limited amount you can do.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Something's fishy
Being a male in his 50's, I have to worry about all kinds of things. Many of these things are health-related. I have to worry about health related things because, I gather, otherwise I will DIE. I don't particularly want to die, though I don't really know anything about what it would be like to do so. But since it's inevitable I'll eventually find out what it's like anyway, I might as well do the other thing for as long as I can.
This means several things, some of which I do, some of which I kind of do. They don't do a lot of studies on kind of doing things, so I know I'm on shaky ground in some instances.
One of the top things men my age need to worry about is cholesterol. Actually, I long for the day when it was as simple as cholesterol. Now there's good cholesterol and bad cholesterol. There's also something called triglycerides, which I don't think is exactly cholesterol but I've heard it's bad. I have no idea what my triglyceride level is or should be, but I had a friend visiting recently who was under doctor's orders to lower his triglycerides. He was to do so by exercising more frequently and by taking fish oil.
I've taken fish oil in the past because it's supposed to be good for you. In fact, if you use the internet, it's very easy to find many many many things that fish oil is good for. There's only one problem. Fish oil comes from fish. This may seem obvious, but in nature, for example, calcium comes from a number of sources, but it can be made (or purified anyway, I don't think you can technically "make" calcium) in a lab into a pill. Fish oil, on the other hand, comes from fish, or more accurately from things fish eat via the fish. And that's it. They can't make it or get it from anywhere else.
This means that if you wish to take a fish oil supplement, it comes in a capsule full of, yes, oil from fish. This has some downsides, of course. First of all, in order to get the purported benefits, you need to consume a fair amount of the stuff, which means taking 3 or 4 very large capsules every day. Even if that's not a problem, fish oil tastes like, yes, fish. Maybe not when you first take it, but once the capsule part dissolves, you've got it. The typical way you get it is affectionately known as fish burps. Re-peats will do as well. These can go on for a while, so even if you take it with a meal, as recommended, within a half hour you'll think you had fish for dinner.
As a result, I am now taking what is referred to as "Pharmaceutical Grade Fish Oil," otherwise known as the very expensive fish oil. The kind I'm using is about $40 per month and I know there are more expensive kinds. I've only taken it once, but so far I am fish burp-free and I can feel my triglycerides dropping as I sit her.
This means several things, some of which I do, some of which I kind of do. They don't do a lot of studies on kind of doing things, so I know I'm on shaky ground in some instances.
One of the top things men my age need to worry about is cholesterol. Actually, I long for the day when it was as simple as cholesterol. Now there's good cholesterol and bad cholesterol. There's also something called triglycerides, which I don't think is exactly cholesterol but I've heard it's bad. I have no idea what my triglyceride level is or should be, but I had a friend visiting recently who was under doctor's orders to lower his triglycerides. He was to do so by exercising more frequently and by taking fish oil.
I've taken fish oil in the past because it's supposed to be good for you. In fact, if you use the internet, it's very easy to find many many many things that fish oil is good for. There's only one problem. Fish oil comes from fish. This may seem obvious, but in nature, for example, calcium comes from a number of sources, but it can be made (or purified anyway, I don't think you can technically "make" calcium) in a lab into a pill. Fish oil, on the other hand, comes from fish, or more accurately from things fish eat via the fish. And that's it. They can't make it or get it from anywhere else.
This means that if you wish to take a fish oil supplement, it comes in a capsule full of, yes, oil from fish. This has some downsides, of course. First of all, in order to get the purported benefits, you need to consume a fair amount of the stuff, which means taking 3 or 4 very large capsules every day. Even if that's not a problem, fish oil tastes like, yes, fish. Maybe not when you first take it, but once the capsule part dissolves, you've got it. The typical way you get it is affectionately known as fish burps. Re-peats will do as well. These can go on for a while, so even if you take it with a meal, as recommended, within a half hour you'll think you had fish for dinner.
As a result, I am now taking what is referred to as "Pharmaceutical Grade Fish Oil," otherwise known as the very expensive fish oil. The kind I'm using is about $40 per month and I know there are more expensive kinds. I've only taken it once, but so far I am fish burp-free and I can feel my triglycerides dropping as I sit her.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Hallowverkill
I went to Target to try to buy some halloween candy. I've been aware that Halloween is now the closest thing to Christmas as far as consumer spending is concerned (estimated to be close to $7 billion this year- in the middle of a recession), but that doesn't even begin to cover its takeover of every store in neighborhood. Acme has 3 separate candy displays, the entire front of any Rite Aid can only be described as spooktacular, and Target? Well, Target has 5 display aisles of candy on top of the regular candy aisles.
Why do they need so much space? Are there suddenly more kinds of candy? Is it all candy corn? Nope, it's mixing and matching of existing products, with the occasional exception like Reece's pumpkin-shaped (but thankfully not flavored) peanut butter cups, and bag sizes. Mars, the largest candy maker, has 8 different kinds of chocolates that might show up, 10 if you include multiple M&Ms varieties. I know from teaching this stuff that if you make a mixture of 4 of these, you have 210 different combinations. Sell them in bags of 50, 100, and 150 and you now have 630 possibilities. Add in the other candy companies and you could argue that they're actually exhibiting restraint.
Since I try to only buy halloween candy that I will eat myself, making leftovers a feature and not a bug, I have to rifle through the shelves to make sure I get the combinations that have good variety but not one weirdo thing that'll end up in the garbage. Hence, 15 minutes doing nothing but wandering in and out of those 5 aisles at Target to get the bags with optimal variety and minimal waste. I'll give you the rundown after the trick or treaters have been through.
Oh, and don't let me forget to remind everyone of the importance of not eating anything pumpkin flavored. Not that anyone even knows what pumpkin tastes like anyway.
Why do they need so much space? Are there suddenly more kinds of candy? Is it all candy corn? Nope, it's mixing and matching of existing products, with the occasional exception like Reece's pumpkin-shaped (but thankfully not flavored) peanut butter cups, and bag sizes. Mars, the largest candy maker, has 8 different kinds of chocolates that might show up, 10 if you include multiple M&Ms varieties. I know from teaching this stuff that if you make a mixture of 4 of these, you have 210 different combinations. Sell them in bags of 50, 100, and 150 and you now have 630 possibilities. Add in the other candy companies and you could argue that they're actually exhibiting restraint.
Since I try to only buy halloween candy that I will eat myself, making leftovers a feature and not a bug, I have to rifle through the shelves to make sure I get the combinations that have good variety but not one weirdo thing that'll end up in the garbage. Hence, 15 minutes doing nothing but wandering in and out of those 5 aisles at Target to get the bags with optimal variety and minimal waste. I'll give you the rundown after the trick or treaters have been through.
Oh, and don't let me forget to remind everyone of the importance of not eating anything pumpkin flavored. Not that anyone even knows what pumpkin tastes like anyway.
Early morning metaphysics
I was driving back from dropping my daughter off at school at 7AM and I saw there was traffic on the main thoroughfare, City Avenue. There is seldom any traffic at 7AM, so I was surprised. I then saw a car with its flashers on in the right lane blocking the road, so the traffic made sense. I don't normally go on City Avenue anyway, but rather use a parallel road closer to my house.
As I head up that road and approach a traffic light, I see a long line of cars waiting. My initial thought is, why are there so many cars here? Then my exact thought was, "Oh they're just from City Avenue, they're not really here."
Because the cars clearly were here, this made me wonder, from a philosophical point of view, whether the people who were on the road as a detour existed in a different plane of reality from people like me who were on the road because it's my usual road. I would tend to think that the answer is yes. Whatever the physical manifestations, the people in the detouring cars were operating on a different level of consciousness than I, because all they were thinking about was how and when would they get back to City Avenue. They were, in a certain sense, not really there.
It was 7 AM and I was sleepy, so I began to think about whether this was true in a broader sense. If I'm not really thinking about where I'm going but instead just going along a familiar path, was I really there during the part I can't remember when I've arrived? Fortunately, I was soon home. Philosophers must have very strange lives if this is the way they think all the time.
As I head up that road and approach a traffic light, I see a long line of cars waiting. My initial thought is, why are there so many cars here? Then my exact thought was, "Oh they're just from City Avenue, they're not really here."
Because the cars clearly were here, this made me wonder, from a philosophical point of view, whether the people who were on the road as a detour existed in a different plane of reality from people like me who were on the road because it's my usual road. I would tend to think that the answer is yes. Whatever the physical manifestations, the people in the detouring cars were operating on a different level of consciousness than I, because all they were thinking about was how and when would they get back to City Avenue. They were, in a certain sense, not really there.
It was 7 AM and I was sleepy, so I began to think about whether this was true in a broader sense. If I'm not really thinking about where I'm going but instead just going along a familiar path, was I really there during the part I can't remember when I've arrived? Fortunately, I was soon home. Philosophers must have very strange lives if this is the way they think all the time.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Friends, not food
I'm not one to criticize Community Supported Agriculture, which supports small farms by having members pay upfront for fruit and vegetables to be delivered later. And I love getting a crate of whatever they happen to be harvesting this year. But every once in a while, they try to pawn something off as a crop that just isn't.
This week it was Sweet Potato Leaves. Really? Does anybody genuinely think that sweet potato leaves are food? If they were, they would have their own name and not be called the leaves of something that is food.
Earlier this year we got something called garlic scapes, which I think are some vestigial part of the garlic plant (okay, I made that up) and taste like a combination of scallions and garlic, without any of the good flavor notes. I've been to a farmer's market where they sell spreads and pesto made with garlic scapes and they are universally awful. The other thing we got were pea shoots. Again, it's a by-product of growing peas, not its own thing.
The farmers try to trick you into taking this stuff by including recipes using them and treating them as exotic ingredients. But ultimately, they are the kinds of things that farmers probably eat when there's absolutely nothing else to eat and that they would never even try to sell because nobody would ever buy them.
Hope we get some actual sweet potatoes soon.
This week it was Sweet Potato Leaves. Really? Does anybody genuinely think that sweet potato leaves are food? If they were, they would have their own name and not be called the leaves of something that is food.
Earlier this year we got something called garlic scapes, which I think are some vestigial part of the garlic plant (okay, I made that up) and taste like a combination of scallions and garlic, without any of the good flavor notes. I've been to a farmer's market where they sell spreads and pesto made with garlic scapes and they are universally awful. The other thing we got were pea shoots. Again, it's a by-product of growing peas, not its own thing.
The farmers try to trick you into taking this stuff by including recipes using them and treating them as exotic ingredients. But ultimately, they are the kinds of things that farmers probably eat when there's absolutely nothing else to eat and that they would never even try to sell because nobody would ever buy them.
Hope we get some actual sweet potatoes soon.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Decaf night
A lot of schools have things they call Coffee House, where kids come and perform mostly but not exclusively music. If this were talking place at an actual coffee house it probably wouldn't be called a coffee house, but that's another matter. This is a charming proposition, if fraught with risk from the perspective of the listener. It reminds me of the old Chris Rock line, "You know, they call it Community College because everyone in the community can go there." It always has the potential for awfulness.
This potential is one of the charms at my daughter's school, where they not only don't call it a coffee house but hold it in a room where no coffee or drinks of any kind are allowed (because why would a bunch of singers ever want a drink of water?). This particular school has these things every month or so, with the number of performers ranging from 15 to nearly thrice that.
The popularity of these shows tends to grow as the school year progresses, and the room's seats were about half full when the show began by showing a very nicely done if unremarkable music video done by students. Then the MC came on and immediately starts bemoaning the small size of the crowd. He continued to do so throughout the show, until a few of us called out, "Hey! The people you're talking to are here! You're complaining to the wrong people."
The performances range from bad karaoke types of things to some really excellent stuff to things that are just fun. The problem with many of the singers is the American Idol Syndrome, which requires one to have every song build to a huge, belted out crescendo. The better performers realize there's more than one way to sing a song and give the audience something beautiful or charming. There were also a couple of songs where I thought, "This is a good song to open a cellophane-wrapped candy to," where the aural assault was so intense that I literally grimaced.
One of the ways people do things differently is to not decide what they're going to perform until the day before or even day of. This has increased entertainment value if, for example, they have never even considered doing the song they've chosen, meaning they have to start from scratch, learning words and music a few hours before show time. You find these people frantically rehearsing in various alcoves of the building and outside until minutes before the show. It's all done in good fun and the crowd cheers everyone.
My favorite moment in the past year was when a lone 8th grader with an acoustic guitar decided to perform "Tubthumper" by Chumbawamba. He did a good job stumbling through and the audience was more than happy to join in for a rousing "I get knocked down, but I get up again" chorus. And we all went home happy.
This potential is one of the charms at my daughter's school, where they not only don't call it a coffee house but hold it in a room where no coffee or drinks of any kind are allowed (because why would a bunch of singers ever want a drink of water?). This particular school has these things every month or so, with the number of performers ranging from 15 to nearly thrice that.
The popularity of these shows tends to grow as the school year progresses, and the room's seats were about half full when the show began by showing a very nicely done if unremarkable music video done by students. Then the MC came on and immediately starts bemoaning the small size of the crowd. He continued to do so throughout the show, until a few of us called out, "Hey! The people you're talking to are here! You're complaining to the wrong people."
The performances range from bad karaoke types of things to some really excellent stuff to things that are just fun. The problem with many of the singers is the American Idol Syndrome, which requires one to have every song build to a huge, belted out crescendo. The better performers realize there's more than one way to sing a song and give the audience something beautiful or charming. There were also a couple of songs where I thought, "This is a good song to open a cellophane-wrapped candy to," where the aural assault was so intense that I literally grimaced.
One of the ways people do things differently is to not decide what they're going to perform until the day before or even day of. This has increased entertainment value if, for example, they have never even considered doing the song they've chosen, meaning they have to start from scratch, learning words and music a few hours before show time. You find these people frantically rehearsing in various alcoves of the building and outside until minutes before the show. It's all done in good fun and the crowd cheers everyone.
My favorite moment in the past year was when a lone 8th grader with an acoustic guitar decided to perform "Tubthumper" by Chumbawamba. He did a good job stumbling through and the audience was more than happy to join in for a rousing "I get knocked down, but I get up again" chorus. And we all went home happy.
Saturday, October 08, 2011
End of Phillies 2011
Last night was pretty sad. The crowd was great. I hate it when people only get loud when the scoreboard and music urge them to do so. Last night, it got louder after that nonsense stopped.
The game itself was an absolute masterpiece. I don't think I've ever seen two pitchers pitch so well against each other. Take out the first two batters of the game and you have 17 consecutive scoreless innings by the starters. It's impossible to know which pitcher was better. Even though the Cardinals scored and the Phillies didn't, they're a better hitting team to begin with.
It was sad to think it might have been the last time I cheered for Rollins and Madson. It was sad to think I'll probably never yell "Rauuul!" again. It was sad to see Howard go down in a heap. It's sad to see Charlie Manuel's faith in his players go unrewarded.
I could give you my in-depth analysis of how and why this series ended the way it did, but there's so much baseball writing out there that it seems pointless. From the third inning of the second game on, the Cardinals played better, by whatever measure you might care to use.
But what's saddest for me is that I don't get to go to any more games this year. I don't think I've ever enjoyed watching baseball more than I did this spring and summer, miserable weather and all. I'll miss the energy and the fun and the way it made me feel to be there and part of it. It was a fantastic season and I loved every minute. I just could have used a few more hours of it.
Now my raft of crimson t-shirts and my ballpark rain kit are put away, the year's souvenirs locked up in a zipper bag, and it's time to watch some good baseball without really caring who wins. And to hope that the time until pitchers and catchers report to camp soon feels shorter than it does right now.
The game itself was an absolute masterpiece. I don't think I've ever seen two pitchers pitch so well against each other. Take out the first two batters of the game and you have 17 consecutive scoreless innings by the starters. It's impossible to know which pitcher was better. Even though the Cardinals scored and the Phillies didn't, they're a better hitting team to begin with.
It was sad to think it might have been the last time I cheered for Rollins and Madson. It was sad to think I'll probably never yell "Rauuul!" again. It was sad to see Howard go down in a heap. It's sad to see Charlie Manuel's faith in his players go unrewarded.
I could give you my in-depth analysis of how and why this series ended the way it did, but there's so much baseball writing out there that it seems pointless. From the third inning of the second game on, the Cardinals played better, by whatever measure you might care to use.
But what's saddest for me is that I don't get to go to any more games this year. I don't think I've ever enjoyed watching baseball more than I did this spring and summer, miserable weather and all. I'll miss the energy and the fun and the way it made me feel to be there and part of it. It was a fantastic season and I loved every minute. I just could have used a few more hours of it.
Now my raft of crimson t-shirts and my ballpark rain kit are put away, the year's souvenirs locked up in a zipper bag, and it's time to watch some good baseball without really caring who wins. And to hope that the time until pitchers and catchers report to camp soon feels shorter than it does right now.
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
I love getting e-mail
Here's one I got this evening:
I was really confused with the homework, will we be going over it in class? Also, the soccer team has a game tomorrow and our dismissal is at 2:30 so we will only have about 10 minutes of your class
I was really confused with the homework, will we be going over it in class? Also, the soccer team has a game tomorrow and our dismissal is at 2:30 so we will only have about 10 minutes of your class
Saturday, October 01, 2011
Thank you for not helping
I was in Acme today and every time I paused or hesitated somewhere, an Acme employee was right on the spot asking me if I needed help.
I found this extremely irritating. I've been shopping at Acme for 20 years and throughout that time, the one constant has been their awful customer service. The checkout lines were always long and slow, and it was clear that nobody there had any interest in getting customers out of the store efficiently. Nobody smiled and certainly nobody ever offered to help. I've grown comfortable with this arrangement, and since they put in the self-service cashier I almost never have contact with an employee.
Over the years, I've become proud of my self-sufficiency and the last thing I expect when I step in the store is assistance. I just want to tell them, damgummit I can do it myself. I'm not a hillbilly so I don't, but I am tempted to wear a t-shirt that says "I Know What I'm Doing. Just Leave Me Alone."
I found this extremely irritating. I've been shopping at Acme for 20 years and throughout that time, the one constant has been their awful customer service. The checkout lines were always long and slow, and it was clear that nobody there had any interest in getting customers out of the store efficiently. Nobody smiled and certainly nobody ever offered to help. I've grown comfortable with this arrangement, and since they put in the self-service cashier I almost never have contact with an employee.
Over the years, I've become proud of my self-sufficiency and the last thing I expect when I step in the store is assistance. I just want to tell them, damgummit I can do it myself. I'm not a hillbilly so I don't, but I am tempted to wear a t-shirt that says "I Know What I'm Doing. Just Leave Me Alone."
Sunday, September 25, 2011
MS City to Shore 2011
Every time I do this ride it's different. The first time is hard because unless you're one of those strange people who ride 80 miles a day on a regular basis, you're likely to have trouble pacing yourself. The second time I had myself incredibly well trained and it was very fast and almost easy. And so on.
This year, I did a just fair job of training. On the good side, I knew what I was in for. On the bad side, I'm now 5 years older than the first time and feeling it a bit. So I decided I'd leave a bit later to get more sleep and take it easy. So instead of getting up at 5:30 AM I set my alarm for 6. I woke up at 6 and then immediately fell back asleep and reawakened at 6:45 and flipped out. The only saving grace was that I had looked over the race materials the night before and knew for certain that I had until 8 AM to be on the road and the starting line is around 30 minutes from my house.
Although I'm older, I've retained the ability to dress myself and make coffee, and really, what else do you need? I was out of the house at 7:05, got parked by 7:35 and on the road at 7:40, less than an hour after I'd woken up.
The weather forecast had been ranging from lousy to dreadful, but it turned out to be near-prefect, in the 70's, slight sunshine, no wind and no rain. I did about 2 hours of this ride in the rain one year and it is no fun at all.
The first few miles of the ride rolls through the southeastern part of Cherry Hill (I think; New Jersey suburbs are mysterious to me except I can find Wegman's). Even in the early stages you can see the various sorts of people who do this ride. There are a number of people roughly like me- middle-aged folks riding solo. Mostly men but a decent cohort of women too. We're generally serious riders and keep up a decent pace. There are the socialites- people doing the ride with a friend or two, riding 2 or 3 abreast, talking non-stop, and generally holding up the people behind them. There are the big young men, whose discussions revolve mostly around how fast they're intending to do, who zoom past periodically. And there are the teams. These are mostly corporate and vary widely in quality. The bigger companies/organizations have dozens of people, some of them very fast and some very slow.
The ride was almost shockingly problem free for me. I never felt overly fatigued. In a 5-6 hour ride like this, you can divide it roughly into 4 parts- the beginning, where you're feeling fresh, then part 2, where you're warmed up and rolling along pretty well. Usually the trouble, if there is any, happens in part 3, from miles 40-60. At this point, you are definitely no longer fresh, and unless you've been training like crazy, you've now ridden further than you have at any point in the recent past. My 4 longest training rides ranged from 30-36 miles, for example. Your legs are dead and your butt is not too happy either. Once you're past the 60 mile mark you can start to feel the finish approaching and you get an adrenaline rush. Just in time for the bridges.
The ride is almost entirely flat and miles 10-65 are pretty rural. Then it gets more populated as you approach the shore, and fiendishly, at mile 74 you can see, looming in the distance, the two bridges from the mainland to Ocean City. The race personnel, so supportive for the first 73 miles, delight in razzing you as you approach this point. The bridges are tall and very much exposed to the elements. The first year I did the ride, there was a stiff onshore breeze that made it necessary to pedal pretty hard to get down the bridge, much less up it.
The bridges encapsulated my problem with this year's ride. As the event has gotten larger, the participants' understanding of group cycling etiquette has decreased. You can no longer count on your fellow cyclists to call out obstacles or signal that they're slowing or stopping. A lot of people were routinely violating basic rules of the road, mostly by insisting on riding side by side, even on busy roads with traffic coming from the back. It's both rude and dangerous. This caused me to ride impetuously at times, bursting out of a pack and swinging almost left of center to pass. This isn't fun to do anywhere, but on a bridge it's insane.
I have an idiosyncratic way of climbing, where I go as fast as I can in high gear until the hill starts to bite, when I downshift and continue pedaling furiously until I near the top at which point I all but stop and coast over the crest. I don't know anyone else who rides like this and I'd imagine it'd be infuriating to someone trying to ride with me, which is part of why I prefer to ride alone. Here, though, I kept getting caught behind clumps of people not riding single file and not staying to the right, and since I hate slowing down going uphill, not only was I dealing with the climb but I was trying to not get rear-ended by a car as I swing around.
But these are quibbles. I enjoyed the ride, once I knew I was getting there in time to do it, and I raised $1000 for a good cause. At the end, they have food and music and a t-shirt and buses back to the start point.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Advertisinguese
To understand how advertising works, you need to pay attention to the way the words are put together. For instance, here's the exact wording of a poster at SuperFresh: You won't find better tasting beef at any other supermarket in the Northeast. Guaranteed. Woodson and James Angus Beef.
So what exactly does this mean? The key point to understand is that in advertising language, saying your product is "better" is the ultimate claim. In order to broadcast that claim of print it in a reputable outlet, you must offer hard evidence that your product is, in fact, superior to the other product. To say your product is "best" means only that nobody else is better, so, for example, you can say your brand of salt is the best-tasting, even though salt is salt and it all tastes the same, or that your detergent is best for removing stains. It would really mean what people think of as "best" if they said it was better that every other detergent for removing stains.
So what I saw on the sign was a weasely way of trying to get the word "Better" into the ad, and it certainly sounds superior to, "Our beef will taste at a minimum the same as beef from every other supermarket in the northeast," which is what it means. My two favorite weasel phrases? "Fresh picked," (well duh, of course it's fresh when it's picked) and "Hearth baked," (hearth means oven, and you got some other place you're baking stuff?).
I'm also intrigued by the guarantee. Do you think they'd argue with you and refuse to give your money back if you said you found better-tasting beef? What if you got your beef at someplace other than a supermarket. And what if you'd bought your beef in a border state, like Maryland, which is not technically in the Northeast? And who the heck are Woodson and James? Are those first or last names? And do you think they're real names or names the marketing manager thought sounded western and rancher-like? Same for Target's Sutton and Dodge Beef.
Not sayin' there's anything wrong with SuperFresh beef, just that it's not better when you use the words that way.
So what exactly does this mean? The key point to understand is that in advertising language, saying your product is "better" is the ultimate claim. In order to broadcast that claim of print it in a reputable outlet, you must offer hard evidence that your product is, in fact, superior to the other product. To say your product is "best" means only that nobody else is better, so, for example, you can say your brand of salt is the best-tasting, even though salt is salt and it all tastes the same, or that your detergent is best for removing stains. It would really mean what people think of as "best" if they said it was better that every other detergent for removing stains.
So what I saw on the sign was a weasely way of trying to get the word "Better" into the ad, and it certainly sounds superior to, "Our beef will taste at a minimum the same as beef from every other supermarket in the northeast," which is what it means. My two favorite weasel phrases? "Fresh picked," (well duh, of course it's fresh when it's picked) and "Hearth baked," (hearth means oven, and you got some other place you're baking stuff?).
I'm also intrigued by the guarantee. Do you think they'd argue with you and refuse to give your money back if you said you found better-tasting beef? What if you got your beef at someplace other than a supermarket. And what if you'd bought your beef in a border state, like Maryland, which is not technically in the Northeast? And who the heck are Woodson and James? Are those first or last names? And do you think they're real names or names the marketing manager thought sounded western and rancher-like? Same for Target's Sutton and Dodge Beef.
Not sayin' there's anything wrong with SuperFresh beef, just that it's not better when you use the words that way.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Why, despite my charms, you might not want me for a father.
Actual conversation:
"Hey dad, want to see something?"
"How would I know if I want to see it if I haven't seen it yet?"
"Hey dad, want to see something?"
"How would I know if I want to see it if I haven't seen it yet?"
Sunday, September 11, 2011
How to ruin a moment
I was very unhappy today to pick up the newspaper and see WE REMEMBER and a huge picture of the World Trade Center buildings. Thanks, Inquirer for telling me that and how I'm supposed to remember.
Part of what makes this day powerful is the collective memory but I think what makes it significant is that everyone had their own memories and their own reactions. The media frenzy has unduly influenced the first part and all impeded the second part. My strongest memories are intensely personal. Of course they are a piece of the national consciousness because I live in America, but they're my own feelings and I'm finding it difficult to focus on them with everyone shouting WE REMEMBER.
There's not really anything to be done about it. Considering that the national holiday called Memorial Day has been reduced to a barbecue opportunity, it's good for people to stop and remember that they're part of something larger. I'm just sorry to have the experience diluted because people want to sell newspapers and ads on their TV shows.
Part of what makes this day powerful is the collective memory but I think what makes it significant is that everyone had their own memories and their own reactions. The media frenzy has unduly influenced the first part and all impeded the second part. My strongest memories are intensely personal. Of course they are a piece of the national consciousness because I live in America, but they're my own feelings and I'm finding it difficult to focus on them with everyone shouting WE REMEMBER.
There's not really anything to be done about it. Considering that the national holiday called Memorial Day has been reduced to a barbecue opportunity, it's good for people to stop and remember that they're part of something larger. I'm just sorry to have the experience diluted because people want to sell newspapers and ads on their TV shows.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
The main reason I got into advertising as a career was that I always liked products. I know that sounds silly, but I clearly remember being fascinated by commercials for cleaning products that miraculously removed stains. I also grew up in the dawn of the convenience food era. Frozen foods were pretty new because only recently had a large enough portion of households acquired freezers. Pre-prepared foods were called TV Dinners because they came in aluminum trays that you could take into whatever room your family's TV set was, (Yes, set. I didn't know anyone who had more than one. They were huge and expensive). We had them when we had a babysitter. Fried chicken with mashed potatoes and peas. All in a tray. Amazing.
So now, with every conceivable kind of food now available in pre-prepared form, and microwaves at the ready to heat anything, whatever are the geniuses who invented convenience foods doing?
As far as I can tell, they are working along 2 different paths. First, there are what I think are referred to as superfoods. These are familiar sorts of foods that have been "improved" by filling them with things that are good for you with minimal noticeable change to the way they look or taste. The most obvious one we have around is pasta. You know what's in pasta? I've made pasta. It has two ingredients. Flour and water. I have to say that I'm impressed by how companies like Barilla have tried to make pasta better for you while using pretty natural ingredients. But I don't expect my pasta to include lentils, chickpeas, flaxseed, barley, spelt, oats, egg whites and oat fiber (guess there even oats has to be enriched with oat fiber). This give Barilla Plus extra protein, and fiber, plus ALA Omega-3 fatty acids which the label said is essential, though it doesn't mention what it is essential for.
Is this bad? Depends on what you mean. All of those things (except for spelt, which I'm pretty sure doesn't really exist) are good for you, and the stuff tastes pretty much like you'd expect pasta to taste. So that's good. But does it lower the incentive for people to eat a real healthy diet consisting of real foods? Of course it does. Why eat foods that naturally contain protein, fiber and essential fatty acids when you can get it packed into a noodle?
The other thing food scientists are doing is making food even cooler. My favorite that I saw today was packaged cake mix to make cupcakes with creamy filling like a Twinkie. I'm guessing that the fatty acids in those aren't the essential ones.
So now, with every conceivable kind of food now available in pre-prepared form, and microwaves at the ready to heat anything, whatever are the geniuses who invented convenience foods doing?
As far as I can tell, they are working along 2 different paths. First, there are what I think are referred to as superfoods. These are familiar sorts of foods that have been "improved" by filling them with things that are good for you with minimal noticeable change to the way they look or taste. The most obvious one we have around is pasta. You know what's in pasta? I've made pasta. It has two ingredients. Flour and water. I have to say that I'm impressed by how companies like Barilla have tried to make pasta better for you while using pretty natural ingredients. But I don't expect my pasta to include lentils, chickpeas, flaxseed, barley, spelt, oats, egg whites and oat fiber (guess there even oats has to be enriched with oat fiber). This give Barilla Plus extra protein, and fiber, plus ALA Omega-3 fatty acids which the label said is essential, though it doesn't mention what it is essential for.
Is this bad? Depends on what you mean. All of those things (except for spelt, which I'm pretty sure doesn't really exist) are good for you, and the stuff tastes pretty much like you'd expect pasta to taste. So that's good. But does it lower the incentive for people to eat a real healthy diet consisting of real foods? Of course it does. Why eat foods that naturally contain protein, fiber and essential fatty acids when you can get it packed into a noodle?
The other thing food scientists are doing is making food even cooler. My favorite that I saw today was packaged cake mix to make cupcakes with creamy filling like a Twinkie. I'm guessing that the fatty acids in those aren't the essential ones.
Thursday, September 08, 2011
You again?
Today was this year's first day of school. I, of course, had been doing inservice for the past couple of days. which for me mostly consists of a few meetings and then a semi-successful search session of burrowing through my huge piles of accumulated paper to try to find the stuff I need for my classes. This is something I usually do over the summer but I didn't get to it this year.
The most humiliating part of this process was when I reached into one of my desk drawers and pulled out a 3 inch-thick pile of papers and realized that I had no idea what any of them were. Why were they there, along with the binder clips and white board markers? It's a little frustrating because I'm not trying to be messy. I'm actually pretty well organized mentally, but it comes to paper, I just have no organizational sense and hate filing. At home, I put every paper for filing in a box until it's full and then I tape it shut. If I then don't open the box for another 6 months I throw the box away.
People who have read this blog know how fond I am of meetings. This year was a bit better because there's a lot of new going on. The biggest change, of course, is that the guy who had been head of school was suddenly explore-new-opportunitiesed, so we have an interim head of school, who was already going to be the new head of academics. This seems to be a positive development and that is my last word on the matter.
I've been looking forward to the start of school for a simple reason. I like it there. I like what I do and I like the people. The kids are fun to hang out with.That was my biggest takeaway after the first day, that I'd spent the entire day smiling.
And of course we start the year with spectacular weather. I was completely clueless this morning. I knew it rained during the night, but it's been raining all the time so I didn't thing anything of it. Then I saw a tree down, and big piles of rocks in the road, and then the roadblocks started. It took me a while to get in, but my daughter, who normally has a 10 minute drive to school, took close to an hour.
This year there's a big new rule: NO GUM CHEWING. They told us to say we were a gum-free school but I can't do that with a straight face. I did, however, make a kid disassociate himself from his gum. Also, I've been told that we will be taking the radical step of (gasp!) decorating the walls. Not with gum, I presume, but perhaps some student work? Make it look like a school, perhaps?
And finally (for tonight), a quick peek inside the math office. We have a new teacher this year and at one point, he asked me if I'd be willing to switch rooms with him one period. Then another teacher, who would have to approve and make the switch official says, "So are you going to make the change?" And New Guy says (jokingly), "Well if he doesn't, I'm not going to speak with him again for the rest of the year." I don't respond, and eventually the other teacher says, "So?" And I said, "Well, I'm just wondering whether I'd prefer New Guy not speaking to me all year."
Back for more tomorrow.
The most humiliating part of this process was when I reached into one of my desk drawers and pulled out a 3 inch-thick pile of papers and realized that I had no idea what any of them were. Why were they there, along with the binder clips and white board markers? It's a little frustrating because I'm not trying to be messy. I'm actually pretty well organized mentally, but it comes to paper, I just have no organizational sense and hate filing. At home, I put every paper for filing in a box until it's full and then I tape it shut. If I then don't open the box for another 6 months I throw the box away.
People who have read this blog know how fond I am of meetings. This year was a bit better because there's a lot of new going on. The biggest change, of course, is that the guy who had been head of school was suddenly explore-new-opportunitiesed, so we have an interim head of school, who was already going to be the new head of academics. This seems to be a positive development and that is my last word on the matter.
I've been looking forward to the start of school for a simple reason. I like it there. I like what I do and I like the people. The kids are fun to hang out with.That was my biggest takeaway after the first day, that I'd spent the entire day smiling.
And of course we start the year with spectacular weather. I was completely clueless this morning. I knew it rained during the night, but it's been raining all the time so I didn't thing anything of it. Then I saw a tree down, and big piles of rocks in the road, and then the roadblocks started. It took me a while to get in, but my daughter, who normally has a 10 minute drive to school, took close to an hour.
This year there's a big new rule: NO GUM CHEWING. They told us to say we were a gum-free school but I can't do that with a straight face. I did, however, make a kid disassociate himself from his gum. Also, I've been told that we will be taking the radical step of (gasp!) decorating the walls. Not with gum, I presume, but perhaps some student work? Make it look like a school, perhaps?
And finally (for tonight), a quick peek inside the math office. We have a new teacher this year and at one point, he asked me if I'd be willing to switch rooms with him one period. Then another teacher, who would have to approve and make the switch official says, "So are you going to make the change?" And New Guy says (jokingly), "Well if he doesn't, I'm not going to speak with him again for the rest of the year." I don't respond, and eventually the other teacher says, "So?" And I said, "Well, I'm just wondering whether I'd prefer New Guy not speaking to me all year."
Back for more tomorrow.
Thursday, September 01, 2011
News you can't use
I know that everyone turns to this blog to catch up on the news of the day, so here goes.
I saw going through Google News and saw the following headline "A Bit of Urine Makes Mouse Embryos Transparent." Of course, my first reaction was, is that a good thing or a bad thing? My second reaction was "Cool, I wonder if that would work on anything else." Just because our floor does not turn transparent when my dog pees on it does not eliminate all the other possibilities.
The reality of is that it makes scientific observation of lab mouse embryos easier because they can see inside without destroying it. Boring, yet interesting.
The other thing I saw was a sports article whose headline contained the utterance "Ruh-row." Everyone seems to think this originated with Scooby Doo. I knew this to be false, because Astro, the dog on the Jetsons, said "ruh-row" (and referred to himself as Rastro) and the Jetsons was on the air before Scooby Doo. Amazingly enough, I found an article on the Chicago Tribune website confirming this, but saying that the origin was confusing because the guy who did the voice of Astro was the same guy who did the voice of Scooby Doo, albeit 7 years later.
I saw going through Google News and saw the following headline "A Bit of Urine Makes Mouse Embryos Transparent." Of course, my first reaction was, is that a good thing or a bad thing? My second reaction was "Cool, I wonder if that would work on anything else." Just because our floor does not turn transparent when my dog pees on it does not eliminate all the other possibilities.
The reality of is that it makes scientific observation of lab mouse embryos easier because they can see inside without destroying it. Boring, yet interesting.
The other thing I saw was a sports article whose headline contained the utterance "Ruh-row." Everyone seems to think this originated with Scooby Doo. I knew this to be false, because Astro, the dog on the Jetsons, said "ruh-row" (and referred to himself as Rastro) and the Jetsons was on the air before Scooby Doo. Amazingly enough, I found an article on the Chicago Tribune website confirming this, but saying that the origin was confusing because the guy who did the voice of Astro was the same guy who did the voice of Scooby Doo, albeit 7 years later.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)