There is no disappointment in the world like looking out your window and seeing serene, unwrinkled blankets of snow and ice and then reading "one-hour delay" or "two-hour delay" adjacent to your county, college, or employer on the news ticker at the bottom of your TV screen. For crying out loud... talk about anticlimactic.
Albeit I'm no meteorologist, or any other -ologist whose salaried and leisure time is dedicated to the study and advancement of a science that touches the stratosphere or the molecular activity within accumulated moisture, but I can't possibly rationalize the benefit of a snow delay. What in the world is one hour going to do? One measly hour? Two measly hours ain't gonna accomplish much more. Is the temperature rising 25 degrees in that 60- or 120-minute span, unearthing the roads and sidewalks from its wintry layers enough to suddenly declare them "travelable"? If it was too dangerous a soap opera episode ago, aren't you still running the risk of hitting areas that aren’t clear enough for safe passage now? It's absurd to me.
These snow delays only screw up schedules and throw your whole day off kilter, trying to make up five minutes here and eight minutes there, simply so that you could wait around long enough for the visible ice to melt down to black ice. And the false benefit to a snow delay is the implied "extra sleep." Bold face lie. Perhaps if you knew about this delay the night before, but c'mon now... You gotta examine the situation outside, check the TV, wait for your county or institution to appear, and by then you hardly have enough time to get back in bed and fall asleep. And if you're like me, once you're up, you're up.
Snow delays are like those low-carb, lettuce-wrapped Thickburgers from Hardee's: You think slicing off a bit is going to make a difference when it's really not any more beneficial to you -- plus it's not even as enjoyable -- so just say "F it" and go all out.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Magic Eye
I've always been a fan of puzzles and optical illusions. What growing boy hasn't stood in awe, mouth agape, at a card trick or a vanishing act of some sort? Something about the challenge of figuring out the hows and whys behind a tangible or visual conundrum have intrigued the holy crap out of me for as far back as my feeble memory recalls.
It's why I fell head-over-heels for Magic Eye pictures. Remember those bad boys? You know, the sinfully tacky color arrangements that contained a 3-D image somewhere within its pattern. Staring and crossing your eyes at the illustration long enough produced an obscure, shadowy shape -- in retrospect, a rather weak reward for the life wasted staring inanimately at a hideous spread of graphic art.
Was that a Tyrannosaurus Rex eating an ascending Pterodactyl or two koala bears performing an indecent act? No one really knew. But that didn't really matter. What mattered is that you were one of the few who could claim, "Ooh, I see it! I see it!" and then ridicule those who ogled the picture for seven minutes with head shaking and shoulders shrugged in frustration and despair. That's all any of us were really after.
You always kind of felt like an idiot staring at those illustrations, didn't you? I did. But it was like a bowl of M&M's: if it's there, I'm partaking -- you can't just walk by without indulging your senses. Arms folded, posture bent, eyes squinting, head slightly tilted, all in the name of feeding curiosity. And what did we gain in the end? Nothing. Usually disappointment in (a) our failure or (b) its lameness.
The real humor in Magic Eye is that so many people actually had the posters framed and hung in their house or office as if it was serious art. The designs, collages of repeated graphics or intersecting squiggly lines immersed in multicolored computer vomit, were undeniably repulsive -- too ugly to exist on the face of the earth for any other reason than, hey, inside it somewhere is a fighter jet in mid-combat.
And now Magic Eye is nowhere to be seen -- unless you look hard enough. Rather self-prophesying, wasn't it?
It's why I fell head-over-heels for Magic Eye pictures. Remember those bad boys? You know, the sinfully tacky color arrangements that contained a 3-D image somewhere within its pattern. Staring and crossing your eyes at the illustration long enough produced an obscure, shadowy shape -- in retrospect, a rather weak reward for the life wasted staring inanimately at a hideous spread of graphic art.
Was that a Tyrannosaurus Rex eating an ascending Pterodactyl or two koala bears performing an indecent act? No one really knew. But that didn't really matter. What mattered is that you were one of the few who could claim, "Ooh, I see it! I see it!" and then ridicule those who ogled the picture for seven minutes with head shaking and shoulders shrugged in frustration and despair. That's all any of us were really after.
You always kind of felt like an idiot staring at those illustrations, didn't you? I did. But it was like a bowl of M&M's: if it's there, I'm partaking -- you can't just walk by without indulging your senses. Arms folded, posture bent, eyes squinting, head slightly tilted, all in the name of feeding curiosity. And what did we gain in the end? Nothing. Usually disappointment in (a) our failure or (b) its lameness.
The real humor in Magic Eye is that so many people actually had the posters framed and hung in their house or office as if it was serious art. The designs, collages of repeated graphics or intersecting squiggly lines immersed in multicolored computer vomit, were undeniably repulsive -- too ugly to exist on the face of the earth for any other reason than, hey, inside it somewhere is a fighter jet in mid-combat.
And now Magic Eye is nowhere to be seen -- unless you look hard enough. Rather self-prophesying, wasn't it?
Monday, January 12, 2009
Office Refrigerators
Although I'd rather have one than not have one, a community refrigerator, like the one found at your office, screams disaster. It's where culinary packaging, social responsibility, and enzymatic browning all collide within a shared setting. It's where your evolved bad habits of uncleanliness and failure to timetable your expiration dates taint the sanctity of all other brown-bag brunches and leftover lunches. Simply put, it's where your mess is everyone's mess.
These refrigerators don't have to be like this. They can run and cool and preserve without the presence of vomit-inducing sights and odors. The problem is such refrigerators don't seem to exist in any office break room.
Every office refrigerator contains undiscovered horrors, where fruits and vegetables that once donned vibrant hues of red and yellow and orange have waned to greens and browns that Crayola has yet to name. Food textures have altered and grown fuzzier, with their cores and surfaces hardening where soft and softening where hard. And somewhere in the corner, behind that half-eaten office birthday cake and the bottle of lemon juice no one knows who originally brought in lies a small, cubed Rubbermaid container enclosing a now unidentifiable dessert with a questionable glaze and 5 o'clock shadow. Some of the dishes, beverages, and condiments have been imprisoned within the walls of the fridge for so long, for so many consecutive weeks, that they have better office attendance than their owners.
With just a few months of dedicated collective ignorance and rudeness, the office refrigerator successfully transforms from a temperature-controlled safe house for snacks and meals-for-one into a 24.9-cubit foot Petri dish. God knows what's festering on the surface of that chicken salad sandwich that’s been enclosed in a baggie since Labor Day.
If you're going to use the office refrigerator, use it like it's your own at home. And if you use your own at home the same disgusting way, then think about changing your fridge habits, or just scrapping the idea of owning a fridge altogether and relying on take-out nightly. No one wants to see or smell today what you brought in for lunch four months ago.
These refrigerators don't have to be like this. They can run and cool and preserve without the presence of vomit-inducing sights and odors. The problem is such refrigerators don't seem to exist in any office break room.
Every office refrigerator contains undiscovered horrors, where fruits and vegetables that once donned vibrant hues of red and yellow and orange have waned to greens and browns that Crayola has yet to name. Food textures have altered and grown fuzzier, with their cores and surfaces hardening where soft and softening where hard. And somewhere in the corner, behind that half-eaten office birthday cake and the bottle of lemon juice no one knows who originally brought in lies a small, cubed Rubbermaid container enclosing a now unidentifiable dessert with a questionable glaze and 5 o'clock shadow. Some of the dishes, beverages, and condiments have been imprisoned within the walls of the fridge for so long, for so many consecutive weeks, that they have better office attendance than their owners.
With just a few months of dedicated collective ignorance and rudeness, the office refrigerator successfully transforms from a temperature-controlled safe house for snacks and meals-for-one into a 24.9-cubit foot Petri dish. God knows what's festering on the surface of that chicken salad sandwich that’s been enclosed in a baggie since Labor Day.
If you're going to use the office refrigerator, use it like it's your own at home. And if you use your own at home the same disgusting way, then think about changing your fridge habits, or just scrapping the idea of owning a fridge altogether and relying on take-out nightly. No one wants to see or smell today what you brought in for lunch four months ago.
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