scottsimpson.net

mea culpa

As I walked into the dermatologist's office, I nonchalantly tossed my gum wrapper in the trash can. And then I couldn't figure out why everyone was looking at me kind of weird. I had thrown my wrapper in the magazine bin. That means it's time to organize the thing. The wait was long, but bearable. It kind of makes me feel all special when I read US News from a few weeks ago, because it's like I know the future. I got a kick out of the article hedging around the prediction that Arnold was running for governor. But those issues of Modern Woman... I haven't seen any modern women that look like the ones in that magazine. (I got bored, okay?) And no one should read Fast Company. Their cover story was about how Word of Mouth advertising was essential. They actually paid someone to write thousands of words about something that everyone knows already. (No, Fast Company isn't about keeping an audience with low women... it's an allegedly progressive and supposedly insightful business rag)

I love Starbucks. Some of you might not have noticed. They sell Chicken Asian Noodle Salad. Which is pretty tasty... I'd give it an 8. What really gets me is the chicken in the little hermetically sealed plastic bag. What is this for, vegetarians? If you don't like the Chicken Asian Noodle Salad, don't buy the Chicken Asian Noodle Salad. Get the Garden Trimmings Salad or something vegan. Anyway, the little bag thing is ridiculously hard to open... I ended up having to lance it with my keys. The salad is labled '13.3 OZ (377g)'. Would it have been so hard to add another thing of chicken or another pea pod to round one of those out? It can't be that nutritionally balanced. Oh yeah, one more thing.. it's "microwarmable"

As some people may remember, I like making fun of stupid people and things. This article about disabled accessibility lawsuits is great fodder for such things. This crazy guy that's in charge of the ADA in Oakland claims that 100% of places should be 100% accessible to people with disabilities. But his logic hasn't caught up with him yet. Sure, wheelchair-bound people (radially-enabled chair-enabled individuals) could reach things up to a certain height. But what of tall persons (the vertically enhanced among us) with, say, a bad back or fused vertebrae or bad hips or whatever that can't bend down to get something at wheelchair level? And don't say that's an exception case. I know I'm inconvenienced when I have to deal with ridiculously huge doors and other such ADA-compliant (inconvenience-enabled?) things. But I'm 'abled' and male and white, so I've come to not expect any sort of legal protection anymore. My point is this: if a business does not choose to have eight foot aisles or two-meter doors or expensive ugly ramps, that's their choice. They'll lose some customers, sure... but that's business. Know why I don't shop at American Eagle in Sunvalley? The clothes are too close together. I'm not complaining about discrimination. It's my choice. Simple as that. It causes me great ire to hear that people want to pave quaint country roads so the occasional (if ever) chair-bound visitor can experience them. What do we tell kids thirty years from now when they ask what a dirt road is? "Well, it's what's under this asphalt" But asphalt's black, so we can't walk all over that either.

So today's my last day of work, and I'm staring at a VBScript thing on one side of my screen, and this blog editor window on the other. I've watched a bunch of music videos, but they seem to skip a little. The one for Jewel's song Intuition is pretty neat.

Careful readers and consummate geeks will notice that in yesterday's blog, I refer to XML tags. They're not visible. That's because MoveableType seems to want to render anything in the weird < > brackets. They're there. Trust me.

I was reading an article on wired.com that referenced "a tort-reform law that offers blanket lawsuit protections to makers of antiterrorism devices, should those devices fail during a terrorist attack." Isn't that a little counter-productive? I should make shiny balls and sell them to the government and tell them that they'll discourage terrorist attacks. What, they didn't work? Oh well, I'm protected. Evidently the FBI and CIA share the same protection.

I'm about 40% packed for moving back to San Diego. It's easier this time, and it seems to be going much faster. Maybe because half my stuff is at Lisa and Adelles But I'm trying to cut back on what I take, taking a cue from Michael and logic. I suppose I don't really need 30 pairs of socks.

It took two hands to open the restroom door just now... I should get back to the gym. Or maybe I'll just sue.