They have the internet on computers now?

Greed (see also: Why the drive-thru needs video monitors)

2009-06-22T11:57:00.001-07:00

Money may or may not be the root of all evil, but I think it's pretty safe to say that greed causes, or at least contributes to, its fair share of problems in our society. For example, take obesity and our national over-intake of sugar products.

I recently started working at a national chain coffee store (who shall remain nameless). As you are probably aware, there is a large range of coffee-related beverages available at these types of shops, from regular black coffee to ultra-deluxe infusions of sweet syrups, powders and candy products. Much like a doctor sometimes chooses to induce labor for a past-due baby, customers at risk for diabetes can choose to accelerate their Type 2 onset by selecting one of the latter drinks. Once in a while, as a treat, they're probably fine. However, a Large Extreme Twisted Coffee Pancreo-Blaster isn't probably your best choice for your morning coffee, but since it's sold at a coffee shop and has a shot of espresso in it, it slips in under the radar. Note that no one is stopping by Dairy Queen at 8 am for a wake-me-up Blizzard. So come on customers, who are you kidding?

That's not to say that all customers choose these options. A lot of them actually do just get a simple (read: cheap) regular coffee with cream & sugar or a latte. And this is where the corporation steps in. "What? You don't want a $4+ drink today? Well how about a baked good/flavor syrup/whipped topping/mainline glucose IV/reverse liposuction with that latte?" In the sales world, this is called upselling. In the way that some customers look to push the envelope by adding sugary options to their morning coffee, the corporation looks to squeeze a few more bucks out of each sale. Nevermind that it may not actually be in the best interest of the customer (or their health). Case in point: today I (blindly, since it was drive-thru) upsold two muffins (ie: unfrosted cupcakes) to an obese man whose steering wheel was being held in place by his stomach. He only ordered a single latte, but ended up with probably 800 surplus calories. That was a successful upsell, but just another nail in the coffin for America's health problems. Hey kids, I just helped poison your dad's arteries a little more!

America is the land of opportunity, so if you want a muffin or a large sugary drink, by all means, you should be able to go out and buy one. But if you don't want one and have the presence of mind to avoid one, rest assured that the helpful purveyors of these products will be more than happy to help you re-analyze your decisions. Yes, lots of progressive corporations do try to do "what's right" these days, but when it comes down to it they are still designed for one thing: making money.

New posts

2009-06-16T19:23:00.000-07:00

It's been about 3 months since I last wrote anything in this hog. I didn't really have much to say and I had other stuff to do at work. However, now that it's summer break and I don't have to teach for a few months, I want to use my new found free time to actually do stuff, instead of just wasting time online (which makes up some of the stuff I had to do at work.)

Some of the things I want to do this summer include (note my Jamfla style bucket list approach):

Cooking and eating new foods
Reading some books
Watching more than 1 Netflix per month
Continuing to work out
Finding a new place to live (in C-bus)
Writing more blog entries

At this point, I'm gonna go ahead and open it up to suggestions for each of the categories. Please let me know if you have any suggestions for any of the above areas, and if I approve, you might be treated to my review of your suggestion on this very blog. I'll give you a sprinkling of my current musings on each area now.

In the food arena, we have recently been working our way through the bag of frozen tilapia fillets I bought at Kroger in various methods; this was tonight's entry.

As for books, I will probably go to the library across the street at pick out some books that I feel like I should have read but never got around to. By that I mean the classic ones where people mention them in some reference and out loud you're like "oooh yeah haha that's a classic," but on the inside you are getting ready to dump your drink on yourself and run to the bathroom if they keep talking about it. Having said that, I read all the Harry Potters last summer, so if you're going to suggest that, you're preaching to the goblin-conducted choir.

Movies - Suggest away, then wait 6 months for it to trickle down through our Netflix queue.

Working out - I'm pretty much set as far as having workouts to do, but if anyone wants to start some kind of informal fighting club in C-bus, let me know. We can wear sparring gear to maintain appearances at work.

For the living situation, unless you live in C-bus, you probably won't have many suggestions. But we are thinking of moving to Grandview if anyone stumbles across anything.

And finally, for my summer series of blog posts, here are a few of my ideas so far:

1) A chronologically-ordered list of albums that remind me of each semester/season of my life from Autumn 2002 to the present. So for each semester/season, I would pick one album that instantly makes me think of that time/place, with maybe a few honorable mentions. (As a friend pointed out, John Cusack did this in High Fidelity. That is a coincidence.)

2) My top 5 list of video games for each of the systems I have owned (Game Boy, Sega Genesis, PS1, PS2, Gamecube, PC)

3) Why Twitter and Facebook are starting to annoy me a lot.

4) Why you shouldn't trust movie critics.

If anyone has ideas for other posts, please let me know. (I think it would be hilarious to pitch ideas to each other's blogs and then have that person bring try to write about that. The results will be zany and hilarious!)

5 weeks later...

2009-03-05T09:08:00.000-08:00

It's official: I'm a terrible blogger.

I manage to waste multiple hours a day on the internet, including various social networking sites and other people's blogs, but for some reason I can't scrape together the time to write down any thoughts. It's not like I don't have the time or the thoughts/misinformed opinions or the technical prowess; I am just lazy. Also, half the time I can't stand reading or hearing other people's inner thoughts (not their fault, totally mine, especially when it comes to weather...), so I don't always feel like it's worth the time to post mine. Like, why add to the problem? Everyone knows what opinions are like, and in 2009, blogs are the new opinions.

Hey, McCorkley!
Everyone's got one and they all smell!

However, the other half of me DOES like reading other people's blogs (thanks to Google Reader), and this half of me wants me to write in my own blog. And by writing, I mean something beyond self-serving posts about my entries in T-shirt contests which are apparently judged by middle-aged shut-ins who only shop at Hot Topic and the NPR sassy sweatshirt catalog: "Approach with caution: I haven't had my coffee and my Office T-shirt today!" Yes, we all know Jim put Dwight's stapler in some Jello. You don't need to wear a shirt about it.

"Hey look at me, I am familiar with this generally known event from The Office, and not only that, but I spent $20 to be able to passively tell you about that. Want to share a box of carb-sensible Triscuits?"

One reason I want to start blogging more is because I recently read a book in which the main character narrates the story in the form of his diary throughout a year of his life. The book is Twentysomething: The quarter life crisis of Jack Lancaster, by Iain Hollingshead. Much like the fictional British protagonist of TS: TQLCOJL, it might be therapeutic to put my thoughts to paper (or some web server in Mountain Valley, CA) for a while. Also, it would be nice to have a record of my life to look back on and print out and bind as Christmas gifts for my family in the future. (In the future, showing your relatives your blog from the early 2000's will be like looking at slides from your family vacation in the 1980's: obsolete and emotionally trying.)

Another reason for my (re)new(ed) interest in blogging is that famous TV anchor Brian Williams recommended it in his speech at OSU Spring 2008 Commencement: Hell on Earth. Brian suggested that we start blogging about things that matter instead of just ourselves. I like to think that I am knocking out both those birds with one stone when I write about myself, but hopefully I can also offer my valuable opinions about something other than my day-to-day life.

So there it is.

The Office T-shirt contest

2009-01-22T13:59:00.000-08:00

NBC is sponsoring a contest to design a t-shirt based on The Office. The top 20 designs get submitted to the show's producers, who pick out a winner to be sold on NBC.com. Here is my submission:

You can check out (and vote for!) my shirt here:

http://www.nbc.com/The_Office/photos/gallery#item=59035

January 20, 2008

2009-01-20T11:47:00.000-08:00

I'll always remember today as the day I officially survived the Bush administration.

I wish I could say the same for other members of my generation.

We have a chance to turn things around. Let's not waste it.

le linguistique

2008-11-24T12:11:00.000-08:00

This is a post I started a few weeks ago and just finished today, long after my trip to Canada. This weekend is Thanksgiving, which deserves to be spent in the US, not America's Top Hat.

---

This weekend I am going to Quebec (the city, and also the state, I guess), Canada to present a paper at a linguistics conference. Why are they having a symposium on Hispanic linguistics in French-speaking capital of North America? Good question.

Two years ago I might have actually been excited to spend the weekend at a conference hearing "well-known" academic people talk about linguistics, but now the only reason I am going is to go to Quebec. I have always wanted to go to the good parts of Canada (not an oxymoron), and since I'm getting paid for it, I guess I'll put up with giving a 20 minute presentation on something I've lost all interest in. Think of it as sitting though a two-hour timeshare pitch just to get a free vacation.

So why have I lost all interest in something that two years ago I liked enough to pursue a postgraduate degree in? Basically, I got burned out. And I don't mean the Rain and Hail Crop Insurance "Oh I hate my job so much because it's so boring and I just wish they would fire me and Star 102.5 makes me want to drill out my ears" burned out, I mean really, honest-to-god burned out. Before last spring, I didn't even know that burn out had a real diagnosis. It does, and it sucks.

When I got to the point where my school/work was interfering with my quality of life, I knew it was time to quit. Who the hell wants to spend their weekends and evenings feeling guilty for not working or gauging the quality of their weekend on how "productive" it was. Maybe I was just studying the wrong thing that I didn't care about, but sorry academia, you can keep it. Also, the more cynical I got about my situation, the more I started to notice the dysfunctionality (at least in my eyes, probably some kind of justification mechanism) of the faculty and other students around me.

About that time, I realized I wasn't doing what I wanted to. I don't have any idea what that thing actually is, but at least now I know what it's not. So now I am just teaching: no classes, no Sunday night self-loathing guilty rage spirals. I mean, now I can even do something crazy like watch TV or go shopping. It might not be my ideal career path or life goal, but who even pretends to have that figured out at 24? At least I'm not doing what I hate.

In the end, some things might just be more important that prestige and productivity.

Oh my god it's so cold out!

2008-10-27T19:29:00.000-07:00

Have you heard this lately at school or work - "Oh my god it is so cold out! I can't believe it's going to snow!" "Oh yeah, I knooow! Let's continue to talk about it for 15 minutes!"

Hey, newsflash, it gets cold every year around this time. It's called winter. Why do you think I went as a ghost for Halloween for 4 years? Because it's the only costume that would fit over my snowsuit. Deal with it; you live in the Midwest. Also, no one cares that you had to get your winter coat out this week.

Joey JoJo Junior Shabadoo

2008-10-02T06:50:00.000-07:00

Spain

2008-10-01T07:38:00.000-07:00

I went to Spain a few weeks ago for vacation. Here are the pictures I took.

Spain 2008

INTJ

2008-10-01T07:22:00.000-07:00

According to most Myers-Briggs type tests, I am an INTJ. I mostly found out about this last winter/spring when I was freaking out about what to do with my life; I thought knowing my personality type would help me find the right line of work. Anyways, I just found this list again of pointers on how to deal with an INTJ type person. I think about every item applies to me:

Dealing with INTJs (taken from http://fuzzy.snakeden.org/intj/ ):

1. Be willing to back up your statements with facts - or at least some pretty sound reasoning.

2. Don't expect them to respect you or your viewpoints just because you say so. INTJ respect must be earned.

3. Be willing to concede when you are wrong. The average INTJ respects the truth over being "right". Withdraw your erroneous comment and admit your mistake and they will see you as a very reasonable person. Stick to erroneous comments and they will think you are an irrational idiot and treat everything you say as being questionable.

4. Try not to be repetitive. It annoys them.

5. Do not feed them a line of bull.

6. Expect debate. INTJs like to tear ideas apart and prove their worthiness. They will even argue a point they don't actually support for the sake of argument.

7. Do not mistake the strength of your conviction with the strength of your argument. INTJs do not need to believe in a position to argue it or argue it well. Therefore, it will take more than fervor to sway them.

8. Do not be surprised at sarcasm.

9. Remember that INTJs believe in workable solutions. They are extremely open-minded to possibilities, but they will quickly discard any idea that is unfeasible. INTJ open-mindedness means that they are willing to have a go at an idea by trying to pull it apart. This horrifies people who expect oohs and ahhs and reverence. The ultimate INTJ insult to an idea is to ignore it, because that means it's not even interesting enough to deconstruct.

This also means that they will not just accept any viewpoint that is presented to them. The bottom line is "Does it work?" - end discussion.

10. Do not expect INTJs to actually care about how you view them. They already know that they are arrogant bastards with a morbid sense of humor. Telling them the obvious accomplishes nothing.

Sounds about right. If you want to find out your Myers Briggs personality type, try some tests like this one.

Wallpapers

2008-08-28T19:06:00.000-07:00

In my free time, I try to learn how to use Photoshop. I put some of the wallpapers that I've made in a Picasa gallery. On the right is a slide show of the gallery, and here is a link to it:

Wallpaper

Feel free to download any of the images you want; most of them are 1280x800, which should work especially well if you have a MacBook.

Three year hiatus

2008-08-08T15:36:00.000-07:00

After a three year hiatus from internet publishing, I started a new blog (they used to be called online diaries). You are reading it.