blogwaffe

I received in the mail today two (2) complimentary VIP tickets to the American Women’s Conference (each a sixty-nine dollars ($69) value!) to be held in Pasadena on October fifth (5th). There, attendees will learn how to:

1. Use the seven (7) keys to build lasting relationships at home and on the job.
2. Apply the twenty-one (21) secrets of self-discipline to always look and feel young.
3. Be recognized and rewarded for their efforts.
4. Buy Real Estate for thirty-one to forty-eight percent (38%-48%) below market value.
5. Rapidly expand their circle of influence.
6. Develop opportunities for networking.
7. Use the top money-making secrets millionaires are using.
8. Improve the quality of their lives and the lives of their loved ones.
9. Use the essential principles of highly successful women.

Additionally, those attending the conference will see featured three (3) of “the Nation’s Greatest Celebrities” in person.

I won’t be attending, but if someone else wants to (I imagine the ratio will be good), let me know and I’ll give you my tickets. Hurry, though, seating is limited.

You have failed me, in-n-out.

Greg and I go to the window and order:

• Double-Double: no sauce, light onion. Fries.
• Cheeseburger. Fries. Chocolate shake.

We obtain:

• Double-Double: light onion. Fries.
• Cheeseburger: no sauce. Fries. Chocolate shake.

Shame on you, in-n-out. Shame.

I’m in the market for a new phone. The contenders: Motorola’s V3 RAZR and Nokia’s 6230 (for those who really keep track of their phones, the 6230i seems to not be out on the market as much).

My main objection to the RAZR: it’s a flip phone. I’m always worried about those things breaking. The fewer movable parts, the better. So to all you flip phone users out there, is the phone likely to wear out over two years? Keep in mind I’m not the most careful person this earth has ever seen.

This is not something I’m proud of; this is something I’m admitting: I make people’s lives harder.

As a reminder, automobiles (typically) drive on the right hand side of the road in .us. This is something that has been ingrained into my consciousness starting from the day I was taken home from the hospital as a newborn. It’s one of those bits of cultural DNA that structures the way society intraäcts.

Two people walking toward one another in .us also tend to veer to the right to avoid collisions. Whether the law of driving on the right came before or after this pedal social mos is irrelevant; they are certainly highly correlated. People in this country strongly expect pedestrians beset with such a situation to veer right, and they justify (rightly so) this expectation by citing the driving laws.

I always veer left.

I can’t explain why. I’ll see the imminence of such a situation, think to myself, “this time, make sure you head right”, look my opposite straight in the eye, and take a left. I’m not being spiteful or intentionally disruptive. It’s just that there’s some fundamental mental disconnect that happens between understanding the appropriate thing to do and getting my body to actually do it. My legs seem to have a peculiar yen for leftward motion.

So to all those I’ve ever unintentionally forced into the dance of the sidewalk (and to all those whom I will thusly encounter in the future), I apologize.

Everything has changed. 2+2=5 is now 4. One is three, and so is 12-51.

You guessed it, all of the songs to which I’ve given a ‘my rating’ in iTunes have been incremented up a notch (BAM!).

When I started rating songs, the ones I really loved I’d give only four out of five stars. I mean… five stars. That’s a big commitment. I just didn’t think I was at a place in my life where I could be starting a five star relationship with a song. What if I had to demote it later? From four to three isn’t so harsh, but five to four? Man, that’d be heart wrenching for the both of us. And could I get out of the relationship what I needed? Put into it what it deserved? My life’s been pretty unstable of late. Would it be fair to ask a song to be a part of that?

Too, I didn’t want to think I was settling. What if there were a better song out there? Could I really give a song I was only pretty sure I liked a full five stars knowing that any day a deep, mind shaking, lung grabbing, hot new track might bump into me from around the corner and rock my world enough to lay claim on me forever? ‘Nothing’s perfect’ necessarily implies there’s always room for something better at the top. I couldn’t ignore the possibility of finding that something better. So four stars it was.

No longer. You’re looking at a new man (supposing you happen to be looking at me while you read this: a tricky feat – and a little creepy). Gone are the days of devaluing a song simply because there might be something better. I finally realized that every one of the excuses I was giving those songs all boiled down to me blowing smoke up their (respective) asses. Now I play straight. You’re a five star song? You get five stars. You’re a four star song? I’m not going to tease you into thinking you might be worth five; I’ll give you four, I’ll mean it, and we’ll both just have to deal with it.

And just because I’ve now recently given out a few, don’t think five stars is easy. I’ve still got high standards. You’ve got to be able to compete with the likes of Debra. Or her sister. I think her name is Frontin’ On Debra (DJ Reset Mash-Up).

I like Vroman’s. They’re not quite as massively chain like as Barnes and Noble or Borders, they make me feel like I’m shopping a bit more locally, and they put on pretty good events.

But this time they lost me.

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