More Likely

More Likely

Guess what.  Children who are overweight are 75% more likely to be overweight as adults.  Know how I know?  The news told me (which means you can take that to the bank!). You see, someone did a “study” on it.  Well, I’ve got 2 cents for them:

#1 First of all . . . really?  They needed a study to find that out?  I’m trying to tread lightly, here, but that study is kind of like saying that people who drive a car are 75% more likely to get where they’re going faster than walking.  People who eat beans for lunch are 75% more likely to have a noisier afternoon than those who don’t.  People who own cats are 75% more likely to have cat fur on their furniture.  My point is: duh.

#2 Who cares?  Can’t they find something more relevant to talk about on the evening news?  How about world events or politics?  How about the economy?  Extend the weather section of the news, for Pete’s sake.  Oh, well.  I guess if this study is the only thing we all have to worry about at the moment, we’re doing alright as a society.

#3 Surely, someone had to spend money on conducting this study.  I feel like that money could be better spent curing cancer, feeding the homeless, or, let’s see, maybe improving defensive driving videos or something.

I could say more, but then I would be getting into topics not involving evening news studies.  Got any more “duh” studies you’ve heard of?  Please share!  J

Word Verification #8

Word Verification #8

Happy Mother Teresa Day!  Aren’t you glad the standard work week is 20% over?  I am.  J

Here is the second entry for Captcha week. 

Inisec:

-adjective

1.  A subjectively short period of time.

Ex:  “Wash your hands, kids!  Dinner will be ready inisec!”

-adverb

2.  Eventually, but not necessarily, next.

Ex:  The audience sat quietly and patiently in the theater during the previews.  They all knew the film would be playing inisec.

Things They Don't Tell You Before You Have Kids

Things They Don't Tell You Before You Have Kids #1


You might as well just buy a family cow and plant your own apple tree.

This really is my fridge.  That's like a gallon of milk per kid!

Friday 6/25

Countless

Every once in a while, a situation arises when you need instant credibility about your expertise on some subject.  For instance, say you’re about to jump out of a plane tandem to an experienced parachuting instructor:  (and by the way, you’re scared out of your mind):

“Don’t worry,” he says, “I’ve done this a lot!”

“Oh,” you stutter, “Okaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy…….”  (That’s you being pulled out of a plane.)

You need to trust the tandem skydiver, right?  So he tells you how often he does it: “…a lot,” that is.  And you believe him because he’s done it before.  To you, he’s now credible on some level.  (Of course it doesn’t matter, anyway, because you just jumped out of a plane.)  Kids are experts at this.  The problem is, kids are convincing and they over-exaggerate.  Here’s  a scenario:  Two kids are swinging on a swing set.  One turns to the other and says, “You should flip backwards out of the swing when it’s all the way forward.  It’s easy.  I’ve done it a million times.”  A million times, huh?  If that’s not an expert, I don’t know what is.  The other problem is, kids believe it.  Kids believe almost anything that other credible kids say.

“Let’s climb on top of that slide and jump off the side.  There’s gravel down there.  Trust me, I’ve done it a million times.”

“Let’s ride this pillow down this steep flight of stairs.  Don’t be scared.  I’ve done it a million times!”

“Hey!  Eat this mud pie.  Don’t mind those bugs.  I’ve done it a million times.  It’s safe.”

But this doesn’t translate into adulthood.  A million occurrences of anything is absurd.  So what we do to convey our expertise on something now is to make a more logical proclamation of experience, like a “hundred times” or “a thousand.”  Adults, however, are keen to even these more logical projections.  So how do you fool adults in to believing you when you need it?  Your coworker needs you to help them fill out some form.  You say, “Sure.  I’ve done it countless times.” 

“Countless” is perfect.  Who can question countless?  No one.  Either you’ve filled out that form so many times, you’ve actually lost count or it’s such a menial task that you don’t bother counting because you’ve done it so many times!  Bingo!  Next time you need someone to believe you, throw down a “countless. ‘ Even adults don’t know how to react.

Trust me, I’ve done it a million times!

By: S. Cole Garrett

Thursday 5/27

Lock Down

There is a reason they invented these:

... to prevent this:

Monday 4/19

Baggers

Don’t you hate it when you choose a line at the grocery store because you think it will get you checked out the fastest and then it turns out to be the slowest in the end.  This happened to me the other day.  The family in front of me was writing a three hundred and something dollar check and wanted cash back on top of that.  The clerk had to call the supervisor over to approve the transaction.  It was really no problem having to wait, even though it took a few minutes.  What really made it seem like forever were the three goofball grocery baggers standing around flirting with the clerk for my line.  I looked over at the lane next to me (where at this point, I wish I were standing) and the clerk was scanning and sliding groceries to her sacker faster than he could bag them and the three numbskulls at the receiving end of my lane were laughing at his plight.  Then it hit me.  Why in the world do they even keep that position at the smaller grocery stores?

I really try to look at both sides of arguments.  (I had time to go over it in my head, anyway, just standing there.)  So this is what I came up with.

#1:  Originally, I think the grocery baggers were also available to help customers to their cars with their purchases.  That’s very chivalrous, but when was the last time you saw someone do that?  I’ve seen it before, but not for a long time, that’s for sure.  Think about it.  Why do supermarkets have the cart holders out in the middle of the parking lot?  So that when you take your groceries out to your car, you can just park the cart in that cart-catcher.  Duh.  There’s really no need for the sackers.  For example, Target and Walmart don’t have them.  (Probably because they realize it’s a luxury better left to memory.)  So…

#2:  Perhaps grocery baggers help maintain the personal service atmosphere of the not-so-super-duper stores.  Hmm.  Is it working?  Nah.  Not that day.  The three kids bagging groceries in my lane were just happy getting paid to stand so close to the pretty clerk and ask her about her favorite movies.  I was too lost in their immaturity to appreciate the nostalgic nobility of their positions.  Well, then.  What is it?  Why do stores keep them?

#3:  There is a disillusion that having one person ring up items and another bagging them is quicker than just having a single employee performing both tasks.  Wrong again.  (Think Target and Walmart.)  How do bigger stores keep prices low?  No baggers!  (There’s more to it than that, but those paychecks for all those pizza faces add up!) 

There’s more to argue, but all points are about as moot as the argument itself.  Bottom line is, grocery sackers tend to be more of a distraction than a positive discernable difference in productivity or a shopping experience enhancement.  You do have to appreciate job creation in a bad economy, but I think (and I’m no pro) that if there were three less baggers and three more cashiers that day, I would have gotten out of there much quicker.  Just a thought.

By: S. Cole Garrett

Friday

On the Bubble

I was walking down the toy aisle the other day looking for an inflatable beach ball for my son, and I saw something else I knew he would certainly enjoy: bubbles.  Bubbles are endless fun and they’re super easy to make.  As long as you have an arm, a hand, and at lease one opposable digit to grab the bubble stick and wave it in the air, you can make bubbles!  I picked one up and suggested it for the kids.  I was rejected immediately being told the only thing bubbles are good for is spilling.  Come to think of it, I don’t know that I’ve ever made it to the bottom of one of those bottles.

Want to ruin a bubble party quickly?  Kick over the bottle of bubbles.  It begs the question.  Why aren’t they spill-proof?  Well some of them are, but they are hardly as hap-happy to use.  Part of the beauty of blowing bubbles is their simple nature.  Dunk, wave.  Dunk, blow.  Dunk, anything.  Basically, dip the ringed stick in the soapy water and somehow get air to pass through the hole.  The spill-proof containers get in the way of this uncomplicated process and consumers buy the good old “even-though-it’s-going-to-spill-it’s-easier” bottle anyway.

Another solution to the bubble bottle toppling travesty is bubble-making toys.  It seems like a great idea because you can pour the liquid into a toy and screw on the top and the toys do all the work.  No spilling!  The novelty of bubble-blowing is lost, though.  When you reminisce someday about your youthful pastimes, you probably won’t think about how fun it was to shoot bubbles out of an AK-47-looking bubble gun or how you used your air-powered 10,000 bubbles-per-minute mega blower!  No, you remember the good, old-fashioned using-your-lungs and stick that always seemed to fall into the bottle.

(It’s kind of funny how the stick has a ring on both ends so that you can fish it out of the bottle when you drop it in.  The people who made these had to have realized this because they put the ring on both ends.  Why didn’t they just make the stick longer and strap it to the side of the bottle or something instead of putting it inside from the start?).

(And are they ever going to change the colors of the bottles?  I wasn’t alive, but I think they’ve been the same since the seventies!)

Good thing regular bubbles are cheap, because until they make a spill-proof (but not fun-intrusive), longer-sticked (but not lose-able), memory-friendly version, we’re stuck with the ever accident-prone bubble bottles of old. 

By: S. Cole Garrett

3/18/10