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

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

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...

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

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