The Independence, Missouri, City Council had their hands full this week.
They voted on whether or not Hooter's Restaurant could occupy a space in their fair town. The opposition included a conservative Christian church which happens to congregate on the block in question.
Hooter's won out. In the words of a representative of the City Council, "Morality is not a good enough reason to stop progress."
Who comes up with this stuff?
I ran across this post in a blog some place and it rang true for me so I thought I'd share it...
There's a pretty good chance I've broken every one of the Ten Commandments in thought, word, or deed. But I have to say that one of them, for me, stands out as awfully hard to break.
I've intended to take the Lord's name in vain countless times, with an abysmal failure rate.
I scream "JESUS!" so energetically while narrowly averting a car wreck that any listener would imagine I'm taking His name in vain, but I'm a fraud, really. Often, I add "Mary, and Joseph!" and cross myself without even realizing it, and my cover is blown.
Bidden, or unbidden, He is present, and He tacitly turns my feeble attempts at blasphemy into answered prayers.
Still, the commandment gnaws at me today. Something about it makes me seek out a second opinion, just to verify my innocence.
"I doubt the commandment has much to do with cussing. I think it's about something else entirely," Doug says.
Oh-oh.
"I think it's about presenting yourself, your words, your lifestyle and your choices to others as if you're following the Lord, when you're not. It's about attaching His name to efforts He'd rather not be associated with. It's about being presumptuous enough to believe that God himself is behind all your schemes, plans and ideas without checking with Him first."
So, I'm ten for ten, after all.
This link is probably the best online puzzle game I've played.
1. Zelda and Jane were given a rottweiler at their commitment ceremony. If their dog needs to be walked two miles a day and they walk at a rate of 3/4 mile per hour, how much time will they spend discussing their relationship in public?
2. Michael lives in Los Altos Hills and has two abusive stepfathers and an alcoholic mother. If his self-esteem is reduced by 20% per dysfunctional parent, but Michael feels 3% better for every person he denigrates, how long will it take before he's ready to go home if one person walks by the window of the sushi bar every three minutes?
3. Sanjeev has 7 piercings. If the likelihood of getting cellulitis on a given day is 10% per piercing, what is the likelihood that Sanjeev will need to hitchhike to Berkeley during the next week to renew his erythromycin prescription?
4. Chad wants to take half a pound of pot to Orinda and sell it at a 20% profit. If it originally cost him $1,500 in food stamps, how much should Nicole write the check for?
5. The City and County of San Francisco decide to destroy 50 rats infesting downtown. If 9,800 animal rights activists hold a candlelight vigil, how many people did each dead rat empower?
6. A red sock, a yellow sock, a blue sock, and a white sock are tossed randomly in a drawer. What is the likelihood that the first two socks drawn will be socks of color?
7. George weighs 245 pounds and drinks two triple lattes every morning while working on his laptop. If each shot of espresso contains 490mg of caffeine, what is George's average caffeine density in mg/pound?
8. There are 4500 homes in Mill Valley and all of them recycle plastic. If each household recycles 10 soda bottles a day and buys one polar fleece pullover per month, does Mill Valley have a monthly plastic surplus or deficit? (Bonus question: Assuming all the plastic bottles are 1 liter size, how much Evian are they drinking?)
9. If the average person can eat one pork pot sticker in 30 seconds, and the waitress brings a platter of 12 pot stickers, how long will it take five vegans to not eat them?
10. Todd begins walking down Market Street with 12 $1 bills in his wallet. If he always gives panhandlers a single buck, how many legs did he have to step over if he has $3 left when he reaches the other end and met only one double-amputee?
Advanced Placement Students Only:
11. Katie, Trip, Ling, John-John and Effie share a three-bedroom apartment on Guerrero for $2400 a month. Effie and Trip can share one bedroom, but the other three need their own rooms with separate ISDN lines to run their web servers. None of them wants to use the futon in the living room as a bed, and they each want to save $650 in three months to attend Burning Man. What is their best option:
a. All five roommates accept a $12/hour job-share as handgun monitors at Mission High.
b. Ask Miles, the bisexual auto mechanic, to share Effie and Trip's bedroom for $500/month.
c. Petition the Board of Supervisors to advance Ling her annual digital-artists-of-color stipend.
d. Rent strike.
So...what I do for a living...
Its hard to define really. I tell people "pit-boss". And strngely enough, that about sums it up. It is my job to coordinate the goings on of the productions team, and see that they meld appropriately with the Customer Services Team. Basic Middle Managment junk with a little coding thrown in. That work out fine.
The thing that makes me struggle with enjoying the job is my belief that our product can really go places, and that in this world that is nearly to the point of disrepair, Goalview could make the lives of at least a few children, a bit easier, and allow them to live a richer, fuller, more joyous life. I know that doesn't make sense, so I'll elaborate.
Every now and again, a customer will get grumpy at us because we aren't going to give them things they didn't pay for. At that point, they will begin acting innapropriately; doing things like forwarding emails from their users saying that 'Goalview Sucks' or 'This program is worthless', or (my personal favorite...and its real) 'Goalvew made me deaf'. At which point, I must intervene, get to the heart of the issue. 9 times out of 10 the issue stems from something that is not our fault, or we have no responsibility for.
Today's example:
7 emails from a customer who has been a thorn in our side from his very inseption as our customer. All of them stating their woes, but also, all of them simply forwards of emails he has received. The sources of these emails are teachers, and frighteningly enough, there tends to be very little punctuation, TONS of spelling errors, and a general display of their lack of education in the ways of computers. Anyhow...
I guess the thing that kills me is that I think the product can help. I believe it very deeply. But seeing users gripe and complain and generally beat down this thing which I believe to be great...it hurts. It makes me not want to come in to work because I might have to deal with this crap. It feels like a personal attack on me. And that makes me want to give up.
THis site just goes to show that there are way too mny people with WAAAY too much time on their hands...
So, why is it, whe I say I don't drink milk, people give me a look like I have just passed wind in front of their mother and say, "Really???"
Well of course. I'm freakin lactose intolerant these days. It suXXors big time too. My favorite foods include:
1. Pizza (cheese)
2. Cereal (Milk)
3. Cream, Peas, and Potatoes (Cream...duh)
4. Creamy Soups (ditto)
5. Mochas from the Coffee Shop (Milk)
Pretty much everything I love to eat gives me the heartburn somethin' fierce. Anyway, griping complete.
Well, Okay, its want 180, it ended up being more like 100, but still. We were told to make arrangements for 180-200. WEEEE!
We bought Union Hotel lasagnas. The menu said they feed 16 people. So you figure about 12-13 lasagnas ought to do it. Well, what they failed to tell us was that the 16 people that these lasagnas feed are the 16 fattest men in Italy. These things were huge. We fed 100 people PLUS the team with fewer than 4 of these babies...Now, last time I checked 16x4 equals 64. So, now we have 9 left over lasagnas. WEEEE! A quick trip to Redwood Gospel Mission took care of that.
Anyway, it was a good night in all. The students did very well, and worked together like they had done it before.
Well, I haven't written anything interesting in a while...well okay...ever. And I've been doing a lot of soul-searching to figure out why. Here are my results:
* I am not very interesting.
* Nothing terribly interesting ever happens to me.
* I have not been oppressed, repressed, garlic-pressed, bench-pressed, or hard-pressed.
* I am neither funny, nor clever nor original. All my humor is stolen from other sources (sorry misha).
It's a sad day when you realize you wouldn't hang out with you if you met yourself on the street. Likewise, when you realize you would mock your own appearance, well, its just bad...
Brent and I have been working on a Double secret project. It looks like it was recieved well, and may actually come to fruition. This is good. We are going to find out next Monday if it will actually be finalized. This is good.
More to come...
What I wanted for Christmas, but didnt get:
1. I wanna dance NAKED!
2. I want to bottles of glue to be my friends
3. I want a table made of cheese
4. I want a chair made of cheese...