Corporate Cooperation....

If you go to Jack in the Box and order a large drink, they use a fork lift to serve you a small aquarium. The cup is close to 18 inches tall and as big around as my leg. Whether that is good or bad is for the Morgan Skerlocks of the world to debate. What I care about is the fact that the straw they give you to drink from this pony keg of Dr. Pepperocity is only about 10 inches long. On more than one occasion I have pushed my straw all the way down through the lid and lost it in the oblivion below. Any patron is left unable to consumer the final 25% of their drink without Cirq du Soliel-esque tipping maneuvers or resorting the barbarian practice of drinking without a straw.

Now, if you go to Quiznos and order a combo they give you a sandwich, chips, and a medium drink. The cup is probably in the 16 to 20 ounce range. Fairly standard size. But, the straws the have on offer are like two feet long. It is a pain to sit down at the table and eat my sandwich and then have to stand up to drink from the straw, maybe even on a chair if you are a short person. These straws are so ridiculously long that you are unable to take your drink to go unless you have a sun roof to accommodate the protrusion.

Someone should arrange a meeting of these fast food magnates and arrange a swap. Or, if that is unattainable, one of you politically minded activists down at the train yard should "accidentally" facilitate a switching of straw deliveries. The world would be a much happier place.

Political Victory?

Gonzales announced the indictments of 50 colombian drug lords today.

The catch? They are all still in Colombia. He claims to be persuing extradition, but getting a rich and powerful man out of a country rife with coruption is not likely to happen.

Right. So....we have indicted a man who lives beyond laws. His entire existence is based on flooding the streets of the U.S. with illegal drugs and flaunting it in the face of american law enforcement. Does anyone think that being indicted will inspire this man to stop sending drugs to the U.S.? If anything this is a happy day because he now has a cool new nickname: Narcoterrorist.

It seems to me that these indictment and the publicity and fan fare are more about making the attorney general's office and the government he works for look good. No one in washington really thinks this was a major blow in the war on drugs.

Social Stigma....

The Gulf Coast Regional Blood Bank sent me a letter about 7 monts ago telling me I had a positive test result for an HIV screen. The letter then went on to say that I tested negative for all of the following tests. But, since their job is to protect the blood supply, I had to wait six months and then be retested before I could donate again. Fair enough. It is an inconvenience for me but I'd rather have confidence in the blood supply than have them bow to my individual preferences.

I called and talked to them, asked them about what kind of tests were done and am 100% positive it is a false positive. Especially since I have done nothing that would even put me in the slightest danger of contracting HIV. So, if this happened to you, would you be embarassed to tell people? Since then a couple of blood drives have come up at Rice, and since I usually donate, people have asked me "you want to go over and donate with me?" and I say "I can't. I came up false positive for HIV so I have to wait a few months." They immediately get all appologetic or shocked like I shouldn't be saying things like that outloud.

Relax people. I said "false positive". When I called to reschedule my retest the guy said "you can just come in and say you don't want to donate, just drop off a few samples and not tell them what it is for". Yeah, like they couldn't figure it out. And, why would I care? My guess is they are more worried about other people who are donating over hearing and getting freaked out.

I think it is getting past the time when we should all be freaking out about HIV. Yes it is a growing epidemic and steps should be taken to control and reverse it's spread. But, it has become fairly ubiquitous among all cultures and classes. You can no longer make assumptions about a person's life style based on the fact that they contract HIV. And, given technological advances, it isn't even such a terrible prognosis in the short term. I don't think people should be so shocked or damning of a person if they reveal they have HIV. Unless of course you are in the middle of having sex with them.

Oh, to be famous.....

So far this week I've been reading about what went down at SXSW, especially on the tech front. There has been some discussion about blogging. It has seen its meteoric rise. Everyone and their grandmother leapt online and posted pictures and stories about vacations, and pets, and porn.....lots of porn. But now, it seems that lots of them are falling off the net. Knee-jerk speculation is that blogs are dying off. But I feel as though this is probably a thinning of the field. People are realizing (me being one of them) that it isn't really easy. Posting regularly is hard given a work schedule. Coming up with content worth a damn can be virtually impossible at time.

Those that have mastered these skills are becoming small out of the mainstream celebrities. As I am writing this I am listening to the SXSW day 1 keynote between Dooce and Kottke. Dooce has done a series of TV and radio recently that is getting her face recognized by more of the general public. But, only the true techies know what(who) kottke is. And only those in blogspace have really read Dooce and know her more for the style and humor than for the motherhood/public vs. private issues. Oh, and the dog. But these people who have become popular can now even support themselves based solely on blogging.

I guess I don't have any aspirations to be able to support myself, and the truth is I have no unified focus for this page. But, I would like to find my niche. Maybe know what the goal, and or purpose of this page is. That would probably help with the content issues. I've been kind of half-assing this blog for over a year now. Some of it has been good and there are a small number of people (some of them I don't even know) that come back and read fairly regularly. Development is coming along, and I think the next step is for me to make some sort of commitment to this if I want this to grow. Design needs a major overhaul. Looking into new tools and venues would be neat. But if that will ever happen is still to be seen. Right now this is still a hobby, but I have aspirations and those could one day motivate and inspire. Keep checking back to see what happens.

what's old is new again....

I've hit a retro phase in my life. This actually isn't all that new or sudden, it's been growing slowly for about a year. I'm not entirely sure what the cause is. It might be just a simple longing for the joys of my youth (not that i'm all that old). It may be a disenfranchisement with the current state of affairs and technologies. It may just be that a lot of retro stuff is cheap an I'm poor. Whatever the cause, I'm actually kind of enjoying it, so I'm not going to consider it a bad thing.

About a year ago I started picking up arcade emulators off the internet and compiling old school arcade games. And over the weekend I scored myself a dirt cheap copy (read: free) of the classic zelda games reworked for the gamecube. It is beyond awesome, except for the fact that i currently suck at it. There was a point in my life where I rocked the NES. Especially Zelda. But yesterday, i got my ass kicked...repeatedly. I am looking forward to redeveloping my skills. I don't mind the graphics, the music is cool because it is so simple. I had a conversation with the guy I got the game from about how I am a Nintendo hard core. I own an XBOX and I bought a playstation. But the main reason I got the playstation was because of final fantasy. If the revolution goes off like they claim. I'll be camping outside a bestbuy later this year. And i probably won't buy that many new games, I'll spend most of my time downloading the classics. I've even started putting together a list. I hope konami and square play along because this could be a very good thing for my free time. Nintendo has their priorities straight. Great gameplay always trumps great graphics.

I didn't really intend for this to be about my love for oldschool video games. The purpose was discuss how revisiting things that made you happy in the past can remind you of what really makes you happy. It's not just video games for me. It is the challenge of doing something that is hard and becoming the best at it. It is discussing the intricacies of something that only other people who are "in the know" would understand. And it is about how much I enjoy seeing things that should be bad be turned into something really great. NES game were sprite based, only had a few hundred colors and the music could only consist of eight different notes and no more than three note harmonies. Yet it was awesome. The systems today fill hundreds of meg worth of digitally remastered shit and it can't compete. And they seem to not realize that there is a difference between challenging and so fucking hard you get bored of replaying the same 3 minute section for days and just give up and never pick up the game again.

Maybe we should just roll back the world about 15 years and do it over. I'll start. Just let me dig out my hypercolor shirt and a couple of slap bracelets.

Internet Quote of the Week....

"But do you ever see a person leave a cathedral toting a to-go box?

Coffins don't count."

Courtesy of the guys over at penny arcade. Their comic is funny too. Usually.

AAAAAAAAACCCCCHHHHOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

I have never had problems with allergies. I used to look down on those with inhalers, and nasal sprays, and shots, and daily pills. "You are weak and have not the will to control your own body." I would remark. "Quit your whining and just deal with it, it's not that bad."

Then starting about a year and a half ago I would have these days where I would walk from my car to school and by the time I got to my desk my eyes were bloodshot and watering and my nose would run and I would sniffle like a child. "Have you been sobbing in the corner like a little girl all morning?" others would ask me. I didn't know was going on.

This year these episodes have become slightly more frequent. I was told I should pay attention to when I was feeling like this and then go online and check the allergy forecast in my area to see what allergens were high on those days. Sure enough, tree pollen was almost always elevated.

This morning I woke up and found my nose running. I was even sneezing occasionally inside while still inside my apartment. I checked online and saw that tree pollen was "Extremely High". "Uh, oh." I thought. "Well, maybe there is an upper limit to my discomfort and I have already been saturated. It can't get much worse." Then I stepped outside.

Well, maybe it would be more accurate to say I opened the door and then stumbled outside in a horrific explosion of mucus. I walk a little less than a mile and a half to lab every day, and I have to cross two fairly busy streets. Today, I couldn't even see the cars clearly through the bleary smear of visual input that was managing its way through my severely watering eyes. Not to mention that having to deal with losing a third of my body weight in snot that was streaming from my face.

As I collapsed on my desk I realized: I may be forced to become one of those that I used to loath.