Attention span (2) May 22, 2006
I think I have a frighteningly short attention span.  This is mostly a bad thing.  As I sat through hours and hours of meetings last week, I was constantly surprised at how certain people could pay attention and continue to be involved in presentations and conversations for hours on end.  I couldn't stay focused for more than a few minutes at a time.  Probably 2 or 3 to be exact.  And even at the end of a long day of meetings, certain people wouldn't quit.  They'd still bring up topics and ask questions and make their speeches long and drawn out.  I don't know how they do it. 

I have a possible explanation:  What if years of TV-watching and school-attending have turned me into a time-abiding robot?  What if I can only focus for 30 minutes at a time, or more accurately 23 minutes (the running length of a typical TV show, sans commercials)?  What if my attention span is limited to 44 minutes because that's how long every class in high school and junior high lasted for?  It makes some amount of sense.  In high school, you knew when class was over.  You didn't have to look at the clock.  You could feel it.  Maybe that sixth sense has continued into my post-school life, forcing me to switch gears every 40 minutes or so.  I wonder if there's a way I can undo this... #psychology
Computer illiteracy May 22, 2006
A lot of Americans know how to use a computer.  My grandmother doesn't, and that's fine.  She has no use for strange electronic gizmos, and my grandfather was a bit resistant to change, as evidenced by his frequent criticism of "rock and roll music" as "a bunch of weird guys just jumping around and screaming".  But even my mom and dad are computer literate.  My mom knows how to use fancy things like mail merge (I have no idea what that is), and my dad was one of the first people I knew with an internet connection. 

With this is mind, it pains me to see people who should be adept at using computers instead having trouble performing simple tasks like copying and pasting.  I work with people who have been using computers since mainframes, punch cards, and vacuum tubes.  And yet these same people don't understand how to do basic things in Microsoft Excel.  One woman was a very important person on a big project, and she knew about useful little Excel tidbits like using a single quote at the beginning of a cell to force it to display text instead of a formula.  Yet she wasn't completely comfortable with using Enter, Tab, or the arrow keys to move to different cells.  She would type something in one cell, click another cell, and start typing there.  After a few seconds, I almost had a nervous breakdown.  One of my professors used to open a separate instance of a program for each document he would open.  So he would open Microsoft Word and File - Open a file.  When he was done with that file, he would close Word, reopen Word, and File - Open another file.  It was more than painful to watch.  Another thing that gets to me is people's inability to find files on their computer.  They'll be working on something and save it in a location that's easy to remember and find.  Then they'd struggle through minimizing all their windows and displaying the desktop so they could find the link to Windows Explorer.  When they couldn't find the icon that literally says "Windows Explorer" (even though My Computer and My Documents do the same thing), they'd clumsily bumble through the start menu and open and close every single subfolder.  Then when they finally found Explorer, they'd try to find their file in the Windows folder or some other place that never stores files you're working on.  I think I had an aneurysm while watching this. #technology
Green Light Anxiety Disorder (1) May 19, 2006
Whenever I approach a green light while driving, my heart starts beating faster and harder.  I'm usually going around 50mph, and the fact that the light is green means it could change any second.  But I really hate using my brakes when I don't need to, so I maintain constant speed as I approach and go through a green light.  The problem is that there's a "minimum braking distance" as I'm approaching the green light.  In other words, once I cross a certain line on the road, my car can't possibly stop if the light turns yellow.  It's like the point of no return.  If the light turns yellow before this line, I can easily slow down and stop while the light turns red.  But if it's green and I pass this line, I can't slow down or stop.  In fact, I usually accelerate.  So right around that minimum braking distance, my heart races and I become super-aware of my surroundings.  I know who's behind me.  I know where cops would hide.  I know what color underwear I'm wearing.  These few seconds of hyperactivity have been aptly titled (by me) Green Light Anxiety Disorder.  It has an official name because it happens at literally every single traffic light I've ever passed through in the entire history of my strange little life.  You'd think I'd get used to it or figure out how to turn it off completely.  But no.  I struggle with this disorder day in and day it, hoping someday that a miracle cure will be found. #travel
A sign May 19, 2006
When talking about Christianity, a lot of people say something like, "If God really wants me to believe, he should show me some sort of unmistakable sign.  That way, there'd be no way I could doubt the existence of God."  The official response to that question is this:  God already did that.  But people didn't believe the sign, beat him up, and killed him.  The typical re-response to that is something along the lines of, "Well that was 2000 years ago.  How about something recent?" 

The thing is, I don't think some people will believe any sign, no matter how convincing it is.  The people in Jesus' day didn't believe the things they saw him do on a daily basis.  Today's Our Daily Bread talks about this.  It talks about a passage from John, right after the story of Jesus feeding over 5000 people with a few loaves of bread and a few fish.  After this miraculous event, Jesus took a boat to the other side of the lake, and a bunch of the people came after him.  Jesus calls them out, saying (basically), "You're trying to find me so you can benefit from these cool miracles I'm performing.  You should really be trying to find out about God and eternal life." (vs. 26-27).  In response, the people ask him to perform a miracle so they'll know he's legit.  If that wasn't bad enough, they mention a story from several thousand years in Israel's past where God provided bread (manna) for his people to eat while they were living in the desert.  So in other words, the people saw Jesus perform a miracle, and then they asked him to basically perform the same one again. 

My point is this:  People ask for a sign, but they've historically rejected or denied that sign.  So maybe a sign isn't what it's gonna take.  Maybe what God says is right:  "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."  Or maybe that cover-all "Christian cop-out" called "faith" is where it's at:  "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." #religion
Putting things off May 18, 2006
I keep hearing about this philosophy called "Getting Things Done".  It's a big thing that's spawned websites and products and all kinds of stuff.  It's a pretty simple idea, based on the practice of writing things down to get them out of your mind. 

I applaud a different way of doing things, called "Putting Things Off".  While my life is pretty organized and I tend to Get Things Done, I love when people say, "Eh, it can wait till tomorrow".  What a profound statement.  "It can wait till tomorrow."  It says, "This task or objective doesn't really need to be completed today.  Sure, it originally needed to be completed yesterday, but that was a bold-faced lie meant to stimulate motivation.  The truth is, it can be done whenever you want.  All deadlines are flexible."  Replace the word "tomorrow" with "Monday" and you've got a real winner.  That's why Friday is always the best day of the week:  Any task can be stopped in mid-thought and put off until Monday.  And tomorrow's little sister, "after lunch", can be equally as good when you don't feel like doing something.  "It's 9:30 now.  Why don't we get started after lunch?"  Sounds good to me! #psychology
Traveling elitism May 17, 2006
I love how so many aspects of traveling resemble the caste system and other archaic forms of "ranking" people.  It's so wonderfully degrading. 

When boarding the plane, all the "Elite Access" members can board first, and they get the best seats in the house.  Not only do they get spacious leather seats, these "Elites" get to watch all the pitiful scum that walk by them and sit in coach.  How lucky we are to even be allowed to walk past these people, these "Elites". 

Even before boarding, special people with a "Corporate Card" get to sit around in a room filled with luxury, drinking free sodas and lounging on comfortable leather chairs.  And who could blame them?  Who wants to sit near all the dirty common folk in the normal waiting areas?  Unthinkable. 

After the flight, everyone hops on a bus to pick up a rental car.  What's the first stop?  The "Gold Club" lot, where there are no lines and only European cars.  The rest of the untouchables wait in long lines to get junky American cars.  Only convertibles in the winter.  Only black cars in the summer. #travel
Shovel May 12, 2006
One of the biggest inconveniences of eating is transferring the food to the mouth.  Should a fork be used?  Maybe chopsticks?  Or should you just use the hands? 

Here's a better idea:  Skip the middle man.  Just shovel the food into your mouth, right out of the container.  Why waste time and resources?  Just pour it right into your face. 

I do this on a regular basis.  Sometimes I'm concerned about what other people are thinking when I do this.  "Look at this freak.  He eats like a starved raccoon.  Someone should really say something."  But the other times (most times) (actually, all the time), I do it anyway.  Why should I be restricted by social norms?  Why should I be a product of the system?  As I pour food into my mouth, you should be praising my ingenuity and writing down everything I say.  Obviously I'm on some sort of higher mental plane. 

I adopted a new practice based on this idea:  Eating cereal out of a cup while driving to work.  Who has time to sit around and eat breakfast in the morning?  And why should a spoon or a fork be used to transfer food from one container to another?  Just put it all in a cup and pour it down your throat. #food
Wiretap me May 11, 2006
Sometimes, the federal government listens to my phone calls.  Sometimes they record them.  Sometimes they just make a note of who I called.  This is called wiretapping, and it makes a lot of people mad. 

I, for one, couldn't care less.  If George W. wants to listen to my phone calls, he can go right ahead.  He might be sad to find that my phone calls are quite uneventful.  My life isn't very exciting, and my phone calls reflect this.  But if he wants to listen, I don't mind. 

I don't really see what the big deal is.  Actually, I do see what the big deal is:  The government isn't really supposed to invade my privacy.  It has something to do with one of my constitutional rights.  And if the government gets away with listening to my phone calls, they might take it a step further and listen to my brain waves.  And they might take that a step further and send me to jail for committing a crime before I actually commit a crime.  Hello, Minority Report.  And Tom Cruise.  He's weird. 

But I think the key word in the previous paragraph is "might".  The government might do a lot of things.  They might take away my right to vote.  They might prohibit the consumption of alcohol.  They might shut down the internet.  But they didn't.  They didn't do any of these things yet.  And I doubt they will.  I guess my point is that I'll be concerned with government wiretapping as soon as they do something that annoys me.  I don't care if they listen to my phone calls.  I don't care if they know my social security number (since they gave it to me) and my credit card numbers.  But if they publish my phone calls in a book, I might be mad.  If they write me a letter and tell me to stop pretending to know what I'm talking about, I might be a little peeved.  But until something like this happens, I say this:  "Wiretap me". #politics
Circular Kitchen May 10, 2006
The Circular Kitchen is an 8 foot tall "thing" that rotates 360 degrees, enabling different compartments to be opened and appliances to be used.  It's meant to be an alternative to the traditional kitchen by transforming the normal "dedicated, inflexible room" into a big spinning island.  (via Cynical-C) #technology
Just give up (1) May 10, 2006
School of Rock is one of my top ten favorite movies.  This quote is great: 
Give up, just quit, because in this life, you can't win. Yeah, you can try, but in the end you're just gonna lose, big time, because the world is run by the Man. The Man, oh, you don't know the Man. He's everywhere. In the White House... down the hall... Ms. Mullins, she's the Man. And the Man ruined the ozone, he's burning down the Amazon, and he kidnapped Shamu and put her in a chlorine tank! And there used to be a way to stick it to the Man. It was called rock 'n roll, but guess what, oh no, the Man ruined that, too, with a little thing called MTV! So don't waste your time trying to make anything cool or pure or awesome 'cause the Man is just gonna call you a fat washed up loser and crush your soul. So do yourselves a favor and just GIVE UP!
Sometimes, when people are having trouble with schoolwork or are stressed out at work, I give them this little piece of advice:  Just give up.  It's not worth it.  You're wasting your time.  Think of all the other things you could be doing right now.  Don't even try. 

It's my way of making the world a better place. #psychology