Category Archives: Rants

Innovation in Hand Drying

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The Dyson Air Blade A couple weeks back we were at the movies at the Olathe Studio 30 AMC and Alli came out of the bathroom and said, “Have you seen the new hand dryers in there?”I hadn’t, but I had to check them out. I found in the bathroom the new Dyson Airblades.I wouldn’t know what I was looking at if they didn’t have a sign over them explaining what they were and how to use them, but once I saw them, you have to admit that they were pretty cool. Then, you put your hands in them and you realize that someone just took the mundane task of drying your hands after washing them to a whole new level.Look, I realize that we’re talking about bathroom hand dryers here, but you have to understand how cool these are. At a time when energy prices are at an all-time high, Dyson is making an effort to reduce energy costs through innovations like the Airblade, which does so through 3 key ways:

  • A digital motor that runs at half the wattage of antiquated hand dryers
  • Infrared sensors that only turn on when your hands are inside the dryer
  • A 12-second dry time

I haven’t seen them implemented anywhere else besides the Olathe theater yet. I’m assuming it is a test market for AMC before they decide to roll them out to their 350+ theaters worldwide. If the energy savings are what they claim to be, that would be huge for a company the size of AMC and their success would hopefully encourage other national chains with older types of hand dryers to switch to this newer, more energy-efficient means of drying your hands.I’m surprised that I haven’t seen more about this. Maybe I’m a little too excited about something simple like better hand dryers, but sometimes the simple things can make a world of difference.

Vick to Plead Guilty

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So I’ve maintained relative quiet during the whole Michael Vick dogfighting debacle. Today, CNN announced that Vick would (as predicted by most) plead guilty to felony conspiracy charges that resulted from a federal dogfighting investigation this summer.

There are so many things that I would like to say about this case – how disgusted I am by the evidence I’ve heard, the way that it just shows how broken our system is that people have the ability to plea bargain to shorten their time in jail, essentially showing that you can, in fact buy favorable judgment. It all makes me want to puke. In the interest of not ranting and raving without facts, I’ll keep this short, but I’ll say this:

I hope the NFL bans him for life and that the judge (who is reported to be pretty tough) gives him the maximum sentence.

One thing is certain – it has certainly changed the way I view my most hated teams in the NFL. The order of the most hated now goes:

3. Denver Broncos
2. Oakland Raiders
1. Whoever pays Michael Vick’s salary

Cruelty to animals is awful and there are studies that show that it leads to more violence, possibly toward human beings. Not only that, but the way in which the dogs are treated is reflected then upon the breed. Geno the Pit BullI have a friend who has bred Pit Bulls for a while. He brought his stud over to our house one day, a beautiful blue dog named Geno (at right). And while Geno was certainly fierce-looking (and his head was bigger than mine), the dog was one of the most well-behaved, sweetest animals I’ve met.

My brother has posted about this before. Pit Bulls are a very misunderstood and extremely mistreated breed of dogs. The answer is not to ban them in cities, but to have harsher fines and prison terms for those that mistreat them. You have to eliminate the cycle. Punishing Vick to the fullest extent of the law is a start. Allowing him and his co-defendants to plea bargain down to a lesser punishment isn’t justice…it’s business. And it sucks.

The Vehicular Equivalent to a Toupee

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I saw (and felt) something really ridiculous when I was filling up my car over lunch today. I watched as a car pulled into the Quik Trip on Shawnee Mission Parkway blasting its hip-hop music, nearly shaking every car that was trying to peaceful line the pockets of the oil company executives…er…I mean fill up their car.

I turn around to see 4 teenagers (of course) exiting their car and going inside. The driver was of course some Shawnee Mission North attending kid who wants to be gangster, but what was really comedic was not just the other folks that got out of the car (a really tall skinny K-Fed lookalike, a Hawaiian looking dude in a wife beater tanktop complete with board shorts and flip flops, and his girlfriend, I think), it wasn’t the predictable hip-hop music blasting or the driver’s predictable clothes (Under Armor T-shirt, gold chain, jeans, expensive running shoes, sunglasses). No. It was the fact that this clown had put his kicking stereo and tacky chrome dubs on a 2003-ish BUICK REGAL.

I don’t get it.

Look, I like music as much as the next guy, so I guess I can understand the stereo. I don’t see why you have to have your windows down and try to shake down the Quik Trip with your bass, but whatever. I’ll give you the stereo.

But the dubs?

Really? Do you think that your dad’s throwback from a few years ago looks BETTER with chrome wheels? It is still a Buick Freaking Regal. No amount of chrome is going to make that car look any cooler. It will always be the chosen car of most grandmas and Tiger Woods in his commercials from 4 years ago. But that’s it.

Next time, save your money on the wheels and buy yourself a new haircut. Idiot.

LHIOB (or maybe not)

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<rant>

For about the last year, I’ve been selling a bunch of shirts through CafePress.com that feature Ari Gold’s signature catch phrase, “Let’s Hug it Out, Bitch” on them in a sexy typeface with a very simple embellishment on the o in “out”.

I did a search for the shirt just to see if it would come up at all and I wasn’t surprised not to find it on the front page. I was, however, extremely surprised to find this blatant rip-off (and quite ugly) version of my original design.

Now I realize that I in no way have any copyright to the phrase and that’s part of the beauty of CafePress, but for someone to just flat out rip my design off (and then put it in the absolutely awful Banana Split font they used – yuck!) really annoys me. I realize that I was not the first – nor will I be the last – person to make a shirt with that phrase on it. There are a bunch just on the first page of my search

Look, I don’t make any money off CafePress. Not enough to write home about at least. It’s just the principle of it…well, it’s a little irritating. I imagine that very few people feel sorry for me, but it annoyed me today. Isn’t that what a blog is for? A place to put the things that annoy you?

Anyway, I don’t know if this even remotely interests anyone, but if you’d like to buy a Let’s Hug It Out T-shirt, please check out either one of my CafePress stores.

</rant>

Sour Grapes

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In an essay published by British newspaper The Guardian, Brokeback Mountain author, Annie Proulx describes voters as “out of touch” and “segregated” from current issues, and insists they were easily influenced by Crash’s production company Lions Gate Entertainment. She writes, “Roughly 6,000 film industry voters, most in the Los Angeles area, many living cloistered lives behind wrought-iron gates or in deluxe rest homes, out of touch not only with the shifting larger culture and the yeasty ferment that is America these days, but also out of touch with their own segregated city, decide which films are good. And rumor has it that Lions Gate inundated the academy voters with DVD copies of ‘Trash’ – excuse me, Crash – a few weeks before the ballot deadline. Next year we can look to the awards for controversial themes on the punishment of adulterers with a branding iron in the shape of the letter A, runaway slaves, and the debate over free silver.”

Wow.

Sour grapes anyone?

Proulx isn’t the only one to complain about the loss. Whatever happened to Oscar non-winners being graceful about not being chosen? You don’t see Joaquin Phoenix out there complaining because Philip Seymour Hoffman won the Best Actor Oscar, do you? You know why? BECAUSE HE HAS CLASS.

I saw Brokeback Mountain and I saw Crash. I have to go with the Academy on this one. I thought that Crash was a far better movie as a whole. That’s not to take away from the acting put forth by Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger, but I just found the story kind of blah. Not only that, but what is interesting about Proulx’s comments is that they claim that Crash didn’t really tackle tough issues. I guess racism isn’t a touchy subject.

Here’s a tip to Ms. Proulx and anyone else who thinks their movie or their actor got the shaft at the Oscars: Quit crying. Get over it. Go write something new.

Overblown

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The media is all over this conflict between Shani Davis and Chad Hedrick, a pair of the United States’ very best speed skaters.

The conflict stems from Davis’ refusal to take part in the team pursuit event, a crazy sort of relay that was to take place 2 days before Davis’ best event, the 1000m. Hedrick wanted to try and win 5 gold medals this Olympics, eclipsing Eric Heiden’s record (Heiden is Hedrick’s mentor) from the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid.

I honestly think that Hedrick is the one who is in the wrong here. The only reason that he wanted Shani Davis to race in the team pursuit was so that he could get another one of his gold medals. Without Davis, the US had a much slimmer chance (and ultimately, they didn’t win). Even so, the US got sixth. Davis, who has never really skated the team pursuit, may not have even helped.

The thing that a lot of people ignored in “Chad Hedrick’s Quest for Five” is that he had to race Shani Davis. Twice. First in the 1,000 (which was won by Davis), then yesterday in the 1,500. Neither came out a winner yesterday, with Davis getting the silver and Hedrick right behind him with the bronze.

One assumes that the lack of ability to focus on the race may have affected their concentration. Davis was actually ahead of the leader’s pace until the last 400m and could have won.

Unfortunately, Davis has been pegged as the bad guy here because Hedrick will give an interview anywhere. Davis is somewhat of a loner and prefers to let his skating speak for himself. Hedrick is out there in the media claiming that Shani Davis is unpatriotic because of his refusal to participate in the team pursuit, but the truth is this: Hedrick’s own motivations have nothing to do with the concept of “team”. They have more to do with getting more gold medals for Chad Hedrick.

And Hedrick is taking advantage of the fact that Shani Davis won’t respond. The most fiery we saw him was at the press conference after the 1,500m when Davis said that he thought it was rude that Hedrick did not congratulate him after he won the 1,000m, especially considering that Davis had done that for Hedrick when he won the 5,000m.

So who was in the wrong? I think that Hedrick tried to take advantage of the unfortunate timing of the team pursuit to try and get inside Shani’s head because that was the only way that he was going to beat him in the 1,000m. And it still didn’t work.

I’m glad it didn’t. Davis is the only one at this Olympics who will be setting any records, becoming the first U.S. African-American to ever win a gold medal in speed skating. In my opinion, that’s more important than any medal in the team pursuit.

Online Vendors

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I’ve figured out why a lot of people are still resisting the urge to do all of their shopping online.

RETURNING ITEMS SUCKS.

We ordered a tent for Alli from Cheap Joe’s art supplies (should have known by the name, I guess) and shortly after we ordered it, we decided that we didn’t want it. I spoke to customer service, told them we didn’t want it and told them that I was going to return it. The customer service representative said just to refuse delivery (which I did) and that it would take care of itself.

Well, it’s now a full month later and our credit card still has not been credited.

So. Annoying.

Working Out Sucks

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Me and 3 of my buddies are currently competing in our own little version of The Biggest Loser. We have until March 11 to lose as much weight as possible. The person who has lost the largest percentage of their body weight wins a round of golf from the other 3.

It’s a nice little piece of motivation that I have, considering I was planning on losing weight anyway. Right now, I’m tipping the scales considerably higher than I was, well…ANYTIME IN MY LIFE…and I’m really looking forward to getting rid of this excess poundage that I’ve been carrying around for God knows too long. I’ll probably complain about it plenty on here, but for now, I’m just frustrated.

I thought that the last two days were probably my best day of eating & working out all around, but I didn’t lose a single pound. Why is that? What’s up with that?

I guess if it were easy, EVERYONE would be at their ideal weight.

Must press on though.

I’m shooting for 10% body weight loss. That would likely put me in front and well on my way to the 20% that I need to lose.

IMAGINE THAT. 20% of body weight…GONE. That’s one-fifth of me. Crazy. So if you see me reaching for a candy or drinking a soda or doing anything that wouldn’t be considered “HEALTHY”, please, SMACK ME and tell me to suck it up.

Now, where did I put my water?

The Color Purple

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No, not the movie.

I’m talking about the tendency of the media to classify someone as a “blue-state” person or a “red-state” person.

That’s unfortunate.

See, I live in the bluest of the blue states, Kansas. I voted for George Bush because, to me, he was really the better choice of two candidates. John Kerry never inspired anyone and so I voted for who I thought would be the best for the job out of the two top candidates.

There’s something inherently wrong with my reasoning, though: I’m purple.

I’m fiscally conservative (low taxes, small government, etc), but socially, I am at the very least a moderate, but I’m likely much more a little left of center.

Therein lies my dilemma (as well as that of many other people). Where is our political party? Over the past several months, the optimism that I maintained throughout the 2004 Presidential Race has been worn down. I realize that President Bush is probably doing the best he can, but the problem is that he (as well as any other president) usually has to answer to a strong lobby by his political party’s strongest proponents. For Republicans, that happens to be the religious right of the country. Now, I consider myself a part of the religious part, but why do we have to be considered “The Religious Right”. There are a lot of people that I know who are what might be considered a part of “The Spiritual Left.” Do I hold my own Christianity above theirs? Absolutely not.

Until we are provided with a viable, middle-of-the-road political party, there will continue to be the bickering and name-calling that exists in Washington today. A third voice needs to be heard…that of the level-headed, whose allegiance is not necessarily to lobbyists or interest groups, but to the WILL OF THE PEOPLE.

I think that I am young enough (29 this year) that it isn’t unreasonable for me to expect to see this come to fruition before I become an insignificant member of the polls. Unfortunately, the stranglehold on Washington by the red and blue parties doesn’t really allow for purple. Independents are looked down upon and have trouble gaining a large stage unless they are either completely loaded or completely crazy.

The question that remains is:

Why is it that our country only seems to function under a two-party system?

I can’t figure it out. This is AMERICA. The Land of Opporunity. The Melting Pot (mmm…fondue…). The Big Salad Bar. Isn’t it a bit near-sighted for the Powers That Be to think that we are all represented by two major political parties?

It just feels like there are large chunks of the country that are relatively ignored because their demographic just doesn’t fit into the system.

Until that happens, our country will continue to be sharply divided. I hope that someday we’ll see the end of that division.