Dear peppers and onions,

I like you guys.  I like you a lot.  Chili is just meat and beans without you.  Salsa is just tomatoes.  I wouldn't say you're the foundation of any meal, but you're definitely the culmination of quite a few meals. 

The thing is, my body doesn't like you.  Peppers, I taste you for hours after I eat you.  Like 6 hours.  And it's not so much the taste as it's the taste of burping.  It's like you never went down my throat and into my stomach.  You're still very much in my mouth.  That might be cool for some people, but it's not cool for me, or for anybody that gets within breathing distance of me. 

Onions, my body really doesn't like you.  It treats you like poison:  "Get this stuff outta here as soon as possible."  I can smell you for hours after I eat you.  Like 12 hours.  If I eat you for dinner one night, I'll still taste you in the morning.  And while I think your taste adds a flavor that no other food can provide, I'd rather not be exuding your scent through my pores and breath for hours upon hours. 

In conclusion, I like you peppers and onions, but we need to limit our interaction.  Sorry.

Sincerely,
Dave #food

Shouldn't the price of services like cable, phone, and internet decrease with time, or at least remain the same?  Instead, all three are constantly increasing, and it doesn't make much sense.  Pretty much every type of technology decreases in cost over time.  The first digital camera I bought in 2002 cost about $225.  Nowadays, the cheapest digital camera has better features than that one, and it's about half the price.  Two things happened between then and now:  (1) Components became cheaper as manufacturing costs leveled out, and (2) supply/demand and competition drove the overall price down as more and more digital cameras flooded the market and more and more people became buyers. 

Shouldn't this work with cable?  I can't imagine much has changed since the middle of last century, aside from the whole "let's all switch to digital" thing.  But that was several years ago.  Shouldn't prices have leveled off?  It would make sense if prices decreased steadily in the 80s and 90, increased slightly whenever that digital thing happened, and then continued to decrease steadily through today.  But that's not what happened.  My cable bill just went up again recently, leaving me to think, "Good GOD, what do you bloodsucking leeches want from me?" 

In terms of technology, the services I mentioned essentially use the same thing:  Wires.  I just learned from the History Channel last night that the majority of our nation has been fully wired for the past 50 years.  Aside from routine maintenance, what can my money possibly be going towards?  The technology to use the services has changed, e.g. we went from analog receivers to digital receivers, rotary handsets to digital handsets, dial-up modems to cable modems.  But that's a cost we readily pay for when we get new phones and computers; that's not a cost associated with delivery of the service.  I guess we pay more as more channels are introduced (against our will) and the cable company introduces new "features" like Optimum Autos (seriously, who would ever buy a car via TV?). 

In terms of supply/demand, it would seem to me that the more people who want to pay for an unlimited supply of something, the less each person's part would be.  It would make sense if cable rates went something this:  $100/month if we have 1-100 subscribers, $75/month if we have 101-500 subscribers, $50 if we have 501-1000 subscribers.  I understand that not everyone has cable cable; some people have satellite.  But still, shouldn't the prices be going down to attract more customers? 

In the end, I guess I just don't understand how these things work.  Or maybe I'm part of the problem:  By willingly giving my money to people who overcharge me, I'll continue to be overcharged.  Oh well, back to the steadily-price-increasing regularly-scheduled program. #business

The men's bathrooms of our nation are quite appalling.  Not in terms of equipment or usability, but in terms of cleanliness and respectability. 

At first, I thought it was an age/maturity thing.  The public bathrooms in the dorms in college were frightening.  I would expect certain things from freshman males, but things really didn't improve with age.  During my senior year, I would still walk in the bathroom and be amazed at what people deemed was acceptable bathroom behavior.  Toilet paper all over the floor.  Water and soap all over the sinks, counters, and mirrors.  Garbage cans knocked over.  It was ridiculous. 

Now that I'm a grownup and work amongst other grownup, professional males, I would expect things to be different.  They're not.  Paper towels all over the floor.  Pieces of toilet paper scattered around making it look like a cat attack.  Newspaper on the floor in the stalls.  My question is this:  Who does this?  Is it everyone, or is it that one guy who still lives with his parents?  Haven't these people ever cleaned a bathroom before?  Probably not.  A lot of people go straight from living at home (where mom cleans the bathroom) to college (where janitors clean the bathroom) to a putrid apartment (where no one cleans the bathroom) to marriage (where the wife cleans the bathroom).  I can tell you one thing:  It's not me.  I've cleaned a bathroom before.  I'm the regular bathroom cleaner of our household (she cooks, I clean bathrooms; it evens out).  It sucks, especially when you have to clean up after someone else (thanks, roommates from junior year!).  And I know for a fact the bathrooms at work don't get cleaned very often, so the stuff that's strewn about will stay there for about two or three weeks.  Do people honestly not understand that?  Or is it that guy who waits until no one's looking then runs around the bathroom splashing water all over the place and throwing paper towels on the floor?  If I ever catch that guy, I'm gonna introduce him to Mr. Swirlie. #entertainment