We could call it Jiffy-tooth

I was recently sitting in a Jiffy Lube in order to fulfil my civic duty to have my car inspected by representatives of the state of North Carolina. These representatives were of course Jiffy Lube employees and not, unfortunately, elected officials; though I might have paid double to see the honorable governor Mike Easley out there checking my tail pipe. That would have at least been entertaining. Instead of being thus entertained, I was stuck being bored in the traditional car place waiting room. The kind with the following standard accouterments: old magazines, a couple newspapers that had been read a few dozen times, hard plastic chairs, the two part gumball machine full of runts and nuts, the overpriced soda machine, the unisex bathroom (door slightly ajar), television mounted to the ceiling with FOX news on just loud enough to make listening to my iPod difficult, but not loud enough to be understood. It was this last piece of essential car place waiting room decor that got my mind to thinking.

I wasn't really all that interested in watching the FOX news program, but as a typical American I find myself drawn to the shimmering screen whenever or wherever it is. I've found in my life that even if nothing is on, I'll sit there and flip through channels aimlessly and be perfectly content to bask in the glow of mediocre programming. I discovered while I was sitting in the Jiffy Lube that the thing I found most annoying in this particular situation wasn't that FOX news was on, but that the sound on the TV was set at just the right volume to prevent me from understanding what was being said while simultaneously being loud enough to ruin everything else. It was at this point that I thought to myself, why not just broadcast the sound on bluetooth or something like that, so that if I didn't want to hear it, I could just turn off my bluetooth earpiece. Of course in my circumstance, I don't own a bluetooth earpiece, so my options would have been slightly limited if the aforementioned situation had it in fact been the reality. However, failing to hear the FOX program would have allowed me to listen to my iPod in peace.

After I left the Jiffy Lube with my freshly certified roadworthy sticker I continued to contemplate the magnitude of this thought. It occurred to me that this idea could go way beyond auto shop waiting rooms. It could extend to all waiting rooms and beyond! Imagine for a moment that you're at the airport, and you actually make it through security with time to spare before your flight. You're sitting there at the gate, doing what? Staring up at the TV showing CNN or something like that. Of course since the airport authority doesn't want to bother anyone in a busy terminal they don't play the sound, they just put it on closed captioning, so that you end up reading the lines to the story about a forest fire in California while the TV's showing video from last nights political debate (hold on that might actually work). What if you could just slip on an ear piece, tune in the TV and listen instead of having to go through all the work and effort of reading lines that seem to have been written by laid off Japanese film translators? That would be great! You could take this idea to anywhere you can see a TV, but not hear it. It could be at the gym while you work out, a bar or restaurant (especially sports bars), a break room, in prison, the DMV, wherever. In fact this idea might be able to expand television into more public areas, which is great because if there's one thing this nation is deficient in it's television viewing time.

Color, color every where but not a drop to drink?

A few days ago, I was helping my dad with some yard work. He wanted to spruce up his yard for summer. One of the things we did was to rake out the flower beds and put down some new mulch. This year my dad decided to go for a darker look, so he got Scott's "Nature Scapes, Color Enhanced Mulch, classic black". I'm not sure why it's called classic black. I mean, it is black, but I've never considered the classic color of mulch to be black. In fact I think people from the classical era actually shunned black mulch since shifty mulch dealers would often disguise recycled soot as mulch and skip town before the hapless land owners knew the difference. That being said, it's nice to see that Scott's engineers and scientists have found a way to give us a reliable source of true black mulch. Perhaps the "classic" nomenclature refers not to the classic use of black mulch, but more to the fact that black is indeed one of the sixteen original colors in the universe back when it only supported CGA. Thankfully those days are behind us, but perhaps Scott's marketer's are trying to play the nostalgia card. Whatever the case, my dad liked the look and bought quite a few bags of the stuff.

As I was spreading the mulch out, I was really impressed by the contrast of colors between the mulch and the various plants we have growing in the flower beds. For the most part they are still just a myriad shades of green. There was one bush in particular that's a blueish green that really caught my eye. The black mulch really made the colors pop in a way that the previous brown cover hadn't. The flower beds seemed to take on a new life. I was fascinated by how a simple change in background could have such an amazing effect on my perception of the flower beds.

As I continued to spread the mulch out, I began to consider the possibilities of mixing mulches, which I believe is more acceptable than mixing metaphors, but the jury's still in the bag on that one. I remembered an art class that I had taken several years ago where we were drawing using conté crayons. We were exploring contrast by only using white, black and sepia colored crayons. Originally I thought that all conté projects were done this way, however, I've since learned this is not the case. Admittedly I was crushed to learn that I had been wrong all of these years, but after a short while of pondering how I could convince the world that my certitude was better than it's certitude, I decided it wasn't worth the effort. None the less, as I was pushing the mulch into position around the yet to bloom lilies, my mind hearkened back to this incorrect idea. Though I was incorrect about contés, I was not incorrect about contrast. I began to ponder how delightful it might be to use different colored mulches to make designs and pictures in the flower beds. I had just seen the red mulch at the hardware store and my mind associated it with the sepia crayons of my class. The problem I ran into is that I don't believe there is a pure white mulch, but I quickly decided that a light tan color would do the trick. I'm not much of an artist, but I think it would be an interesting medium to explore, the natural floor that is. Especially as plants grow up through your work and fill it with contrasting colors. I also thought that it might be easier and longer lasting to do this kind of thing with rock, since it would be easier to get the colors and because rocks have a greater life expectancy than do multi-colored wood chips (especially in a termite infested region such as North Carolina). The more I think about it though, the more I think mulch would be more interesting. Maybe it's the transient nature of mulch, the idea that it will begin to change and degrade so quickly after you place it, much more so than rock. I'm still not sure. I need to think about this a little more before I come to any real conclusions, but I'd be interested in other perspectives on the topic. I'm sure "real" artists have done similar things, or perhaps already done this exact thing. I think I'd like to learn more though.

It's great to be here at Wrigley Stadium! -- Jeff Gordon

I had an amusing thought this morning (which are the best thoughts to have, I might add. Prove me wrong, I dare you!) as I was watching a little Sports Center on ESPN. They were showing highlights from the Tampa Bay game yesterday, which I believe Tampa won, though I wasn't paying much attention because I was musing on my amusing thought. Oh, I think they were playing the Orioles. If you don't keep up to date on baseball stats, and I'll admit I often don't because my favorite team, the Reds, is usually not relevant to the post season discussion and because I don't get a lot of baseball in this area; then you probably haven't noticed that the Rays are doing a pretty good job this year and are currently in second place in their division, just a game and a half behind Boston. Of course if you don't tend to keep up on baseball stats you probably don't know that Tampa Bay changed their name from the Devil Rays to just the Rays, or perhaps your still reeling at the news that Tampa has a team.

Anyway the amusing thought that I was musing was that how sad would it be, and by sad I mean absolutely hilarious, if Tampa were somehow able to win the World Series before the Cubs could win another one. That would mean that in their short span of existence both Florida teams would have won a combined three world series (at least) before the mighty, large market Chicago Cubs, who probably draw more fans in a single game then both Florida teams combined draw for a season; could win one in a hundred years of trying. (That was a cumbersome sentence. You might need to reread it.) It would also mean that both of the Florida clubs would have won a world series before the San Diego Padres, Houston Astros, Milwaukee Brewers, Seattle Mariners, Texas Rangers a.k.a. the Washington Senators, Washington Nationals a.k.a. the Montreal Expos and the Colorado Rockies. For some reason I think this is very amusing. Of course in order to pull this off the Rays will have to win arguably the most difficult division in baseball, though the Yankees are trying to help them out with that this year. Granted they could also make it by being the best of the rest and get the wild card as well.

Another thought that has struck me in all of this; why the Florida Marlins? Why not the Miami Marlins? Traditionally baseball teams have been named after their cities, i.e. the Cincinnati Reds, the Boston Red Sox, the St. Louis Cardinals. Why the sudden statesmanship with the newer teams? Arizona, Colorado, Florida; what's up with that? They should be the Phoenix Diamondbacks, the Denver Rockies, and the Miami Marlins. Does baseball really think they're fooling the other residents of those states into thinking that they're "state" team is going to play in multiple cities? Do people in Flagstaff really think they'll get to host a couple of D-backs games a year at the local municipal diamond? Do people in Aspen and Vale even care about anything other than money, let alone whether or not they've got a baseball team representing them? If baseball truly believed this could help attract more fans and build a stronger fan base why don't they rename the other teams? Something like: the Missouri Royals, the California Dodgers, the Minnesota Twins, the New York Yankees! Just say them aloud, it sounds ridiculous! What is baseball thinking?

A little blue pill for you, a cure for me?

I thought I'd share an idea that I've been kicking around for awhile. It began it's germination when I was watching an interview of Michael Moore on the topic of his movie, "Sicko", which I thought I might like to see, but never actually got around to seeing. However, even though I didn't see the movie, the interview alone got me thinking about the pharmaceutical industry in this country, that would be the USA, if you're on the Internet then you're on US territory because we made it and we make it great (with the help of Japan and Europe and South America and Asia...etc). Anyway as one of the many Americans whose health care plan centers around pain tolerance management, I started to think about ways to improve the system. Now it has been my experience that necessity is the mother of invention and usually the people with the best ideas to fix a problem are generally the people dealing with said problem. That being said, it's probably not wise to assume that well paid politicians with the best health care package in the world are going to be quick to act on changing the system or necessitated enough to come up with solutions. I however on the other hand feel like my impoverished condition puts me at a proper perspective to attack the problem.

I've had many a thought on the health care system in this country, but I choose to write about just one for now. I have on occasion had the privilege of sitting in a doctor's waiting room and appropriately enough I've been waiting. One of my favorite things to do while I'm in a doctor's office waiting room is to watch the steady stream of pharmaceutical reps approach the receptionist and barter with her (it's always a her, have you noticed that?) for a few moments of the doctor's time in exchange for product samples, brochures that the doctor never has time to read, clocks, calenders, pens, notepads, and little flashlights that have only one function, entertaining small children and bloggers with Bjorn in their titles. You sit there in you sickened state and watch these intrepid peddlers of pills drag in their bags of goodies like dear old Saint Nick almost oblivious to the end users scattered around them. I've often wanted to ask some of them to skip the middlemen and go right to the source, me. I want free stuff! Sadly most of these pushers of pens and pads often have samples for things I don't really need. This brings me to the point. In this country and probably every other one for that matter, it is more cost effective to develop and manufacture drugs that we don't need then to develop and manufacture drugs that we do need. The reasons for this are many, so I'll only address a couple that I'm aware of. One is that if you manufacture a drug that saves lives, then only a cold hearted scrooge would let someone who couldn't afford it die. No, you need to give it to people for free, or at a price deemed reasonable by politicians worried about reelection. Another reason is because the drugs that save lives often are used by small groups of people. Companies could easily spend a billion dollars developing a cure for a disease that would only be used by a hundred people a year. Now if you're one of those hundred people, this seems like a good idea, until of course the company tells you that it will cost you ten million dollars a dose (much cheaper at the moment if you're earning Euros) which takes us back to the first point. A company could also spend a billion dollars developing said drug for said one hundred people only to not have it approved once it was said finished. Then they wouldn't even have the option of charging someone ten million dollars a dose. They might be able to sell it for two million dollars a dose in Mexico or China, but that's a little sketchy and not in America so it doesn't really apply to a discussion of the American health care system.

So to sum things up, because I noticed that my last paragraph was a bit lengthy, it's more cost effective for companies to manufacture drugs we don't need to live; like erectile dysfunction tablets, new and exotic headache medicines, yet another allergy medication, crack, meth, etc, than to create drugs to save lives. I think, however, that I've come up with a way to make it cost effective for companies to make the drugs we really need. It's fairly simple, so it should make a lot of people angry, at least that's the hope anyway. I think we should allow companies to transfer their patent rights from critical need drugs to non-critical drugs. Now before you shoot my idea down, allow me to explain how this would theoretically work, then you can shoot it down. First we'd need to create a list of critical needs. There are two difficult parts to consider here. Who is "we" and what is a critical need? I think "we" could be a group of experts, such as doctors. A critical need could be defined as a condition that will directly result in death or impairment. These will probably be refined by lawyers if this idea ever goes anywhere, so I'm not to concerned with these definitions at the moment. So this group of "we" gets together and puts out a wish list of cures. Pharmaceutical companies can look over the list and work on the cures. When they develop a cure, they submit it for review. If it is a cure they can have the option of applying some or all of their rights to the drug to another of their non-critical drugs. A company might want to transfer the rights because having the exclusive rights to a critical needs drug may not be worth keeping. Going back to the reasons I gave for not developing them in the first place; they may not be able to sell enough of it at a high enough price to recoup their losses. However, if they could take those years of exclusivity and tack them onto the end of a less important, but better selling drug, then they have something to work for.

I don't know if I'm being very clear, so allow me to give an example. Say Pfizer has a big time money maker, perhaps a little blue pill for instance, that isn't critical for saving lives, but lots of people want. This pill is making them a boatload of money. However, after a certain amount of time, anybody will be allowed to make these little blue pills and sell them for whatever they want. Suddenly, Pfizer isn't making as much money as they used to. If my system was in place, Pfizer could have a way to keep the little blue pill and all of its profits all to themselves for a longer period of time. Pfizer scientists would look at the critical need list and come up with a way to cure something like Hurler Schie Syndrome. At which point, Pfizer could decide, do we want to charge a few people half a million dollars a dose for this stuff, or would we like to keep exclusive rights for our little blue pill for an additional ten years (number of years is negotiable in this idea, I just chose ten because I'm a decimal kind of guy). Most likely Pfizer would chose the blue pill and suddenly the cure for Hurler Schie Syndrome goes straight to the open market as a generic that can be manufactured by anyone. We might even allow for a government sponsored generics program to subsidize their manufacture, for instance companies that manufacture them could get tax breaks. In the end, Pfizer would be able to recoup its losses and then some by keeping it's little blue pill in a monogamous relationship for a little while longer and sufferers of Hurler Schie Syndrome would have a cure with a reasonable price.

Are there problems with this idea? Let me know what you think they are. I can't see any, but that's probably because my head is swollen up because I can't afford the proper medication.

Vote now!

As you may have noticed, I've added a poll question to the blog. I think I'll make it a monthly staple. I originally wanted to find a way to let people comment on the poll question within the poll question area, but unfortunately I'm not very HTML savvy, so I'm stuck with this generic blogger page element. I queried my web-knower-how-to-do-er friend Tim about it. He didn't seem to have any simple ideas, and by simple I mean something that I can understand without taking a three month course or being bombarded by mutating radiation, thereby being transformed into some sort of super intelligent rat like in the book, "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH", which is a great book by the way. Much better than the movie as is usually the case. Though I have to admit that in the book, as well as the movie, the rats actually started out as rats and they weren't bombarded by radiation. I'm merely pointing out that if I was bombarded with radiation one of the possible outcomes of being radiated would be to be like the Rats of NIMH. However, in lieu of such things (things being courses, or radiation, or courses of radiation), I'm stuck with writing a blog entry so that you can comment on the poll. I think I might also include the final poll totals into the comments section for this entry so that it can be remembered in perpetuity.

Now that I'm done with the explanation, go ahead and vote! I added a "my favorite isn't listed" selection as somewhat of a catchall. Just remember that melons and squashes are parts of the gourd family, so if you like honeydew melon or butternut squash, that's the category for you.

Where in the store is Carmen San Diego?

I was perusing the aisles of a rather large local store, i.e. Wal-Wart, recently; looking for a rather obscure bit of merchandise when an idea came to me. Wouldn't it be nice if the store could tell you where everything is? Now unfortunately stores are currently unable to talk, which leaves only the workers within the store to assist us. This can be somewhat problematic because the workers are often as lost and confused as we are. This is explain in Franz Smith's theory of really big stores which states that the size of the store is inversely proportional to a store employee's willingness and ability to assist shoppers. It should be noted that willingness and ability are variables and not fixed within a set ratio, however; per the law, both desires can't be high at the same time, while it is possible for both to be low and in some extreme cases to both equal zero. Unfortunately for me Wal-Mart is very much effected by this malady, it being a large store. I endeavored therefore to find a way to circumvent this natural barrier by appealing directly to the store for help. I had time to ponder all of this because my wanderings about were unfortunately in vain. I never did find what I was looking for, but as with most futile quest, I came away learning something that I hadn't set out to find. This of course begs the question that if the quest really was futile, would I have been able to come away with something that is useful? This is something else to ponder, but at a later date. For now I'll return to the discussion at hand.

I think it would be nice if stores would create a digital map of their floors and as they place inventory on the floor have it automatically tell the map where the item was placed. I think this could be done with a few tweaks to current inventory practices. We already have bar codes on everything, and products are already scanned into databases in order to keep track of what's where. I'm just proposing an additional layer. Once this inventory map of the store is completed, it should be automatically updated every time a worker scans a new product onto the floor. Now at this stage, I've created extra work for the employees without actually helping the consumers or the store. So far this plan would only seem to help depress the "willingness to help" variable within the equation. However, if my full plan comes to fruition, Franz's law will no longer be applicable, though we will need to continue to consider the ramifications of these changes in relation to Thompson's laws of checkout line dynamics, but that's for another time.

Now, to give the store its voice! In order to do this the store's inventory floor map will have to be accessible and searchable. I believe these technologies already exist, but I don't now what they are or where to find them. My solution to this, like most things is to Google it, or just turn directly to Google for help. I think the most convenient method would be something that would allow someone to pick up their web enabled cell phone or PDA (no not that PDA! The data assistant kind.), pull up the store's plan and do a search for what they're looking for. Imagine if you were in Wal-Mart looking for say, multi-colored toothpicks, and you couldn't find them. You pull out your phone/PDA and load the store map. Then you do a Google Local Store Map search and it tells you they're on aisle seventy-two and gives you a picture of the store plan with a dot showing you where on the aisle it is, plus which side. Think of the convenience! We could expand the whole Google Maps engine to the local store level! Instead of street view, we could have aisle view. We could use GPS tracking to show where you are in the store. You could even enter your shopping list ahead of time and have your phone alert you if you passed something so that you don't have to go back for it. You could even use the map to optimize your route ahead of time. Think of the time you'll save if you use the real time traffic update info to reroute around jams and slow moving traffic. I think the applications for this kind of technology are limitless! Of course, we'll have to implement security measures in order to keep this technology out of the hands of terrorists, but I think we're up to the challenge. The risks are worth the rewards that we stand to reap if we're successful in deploying these new techniques.

Sweet home Chicago!

Alright, so I had a bit of a random thought on my way home from church, and since this site is dedicated to my random thoughts I thought I would share it, which may or may not be random in it's own way. So I was on my way home, imbued with the Spirit of God and all that and I thought to myself, "How cool would it be to see a musical version of the Blues Brothers?" Now I don't know if there has ever been a stage production of the Blues Brothers, this being a random thought that popped into my head, I haven't had time to research the subject; but I think it would be fantastic to see that story portrayed on stage. I think the really difficult part would be how to present all of the chase scenes. The chases are a major part of the story and I'm not sure how you'd be able to wreck hundreds of police cars as you race through downtown Chicago. Of course, I don't need to figure that out. I'm not the special effects guy. I think that someone on Broadway could figure it out, they're pretty smart. I think the rest of the story would translate well to a stage performance. The movie is a musical after all.

I'm putting you on Notice

I would like to begin by apologizing for my long blogging abstinence. I have a fairly good string of excuses for it, however, and if you'll indulge me I'll delineate them from the beginning. Of course if you don't want to indulge me you might want to skip down a bit and not read the rest of this paragraph. When last I wrote I was at my sister's home in Arizona along ole venerable Route 66 (pronounced like root sixty-six). That little trip in March sort of knocked me out of my rhythm. So that covers the first little bit of April. However, my life was about to be altered drastically. Sometime in April, I don't remember quite when, I started having some problems with my computer. I had recently converted to Linux because I lost my copy of Windows XP when my hard drive died and my computer is not capable of running Vista which is probably a blessing in disguise, though a thinly veiled one at that. I was able to replace my hard drive, but it seems like the problems went much deeper. Long story short, my ThinkPad is now more of a ComaPad. I'm currently writing on a borrowed computer which brings me to the reason why I've delayed my blogging ways. You see, I just hate this keyboard I'm using. I'm so used to my ThinkPad's keyboard, that now I find it a pain to go back to a desktop style. It might help if the keyboard I'm using was a nice one, but it's not. It's old and some of the keys stick and half of the spacebar has lost it's springiness making it a little more difficult to produce space's on the page, and as you can see I use the spacebar profusely as would anyone else in my situation. As a side note, I think it's very annoying that my spell checker insists that spacebar is two words. I, however, contend that it is one word, and I'm not going to let a computer tell me otherwise. Of course if any of you would like to comment on the one word, two word controversy feel free, just know that I'm stubborn. Anyway, getting back to my monologue, to sum everything up, I haven't been blogging because it's somewhat inconvenient at the moment. The problem is that some of you don't think that's a good enough excuse and have told me as much, so I've decided to force myself back into the habit.


For my first blog back, I've decided to share a sight with you that I had while I was visiting my sister. I had asked a dear friend of mine for some feedback concerning this here blog of mine. She said that it was nice, but that she would like to see some pictures because she says, and I quote, "One thing I love about blogs is that they are totally voyeuristic." With that in mind I will totally present for you're amusement a sight I had while visiting Disney's California Adventure. I went there with my sister and her family, partly to celebrate my birthday and partly because my sister wanted another adult along to help with the kids on a family vacation. Unfortunately she was sorely mistaken in my adulthood, being somewhat misled by the numbers on my birth certificate. Anyway, it was late and I was standing in line for the roller coaster, California Scream, with my two nephews when I saw the following sign:





I thought to myself, "that would make for a great CD cover, especially if the name of your band is 'Notice!'" Now I don't mean the paper art stuff. I mean that this image would be really cool if it was printed on the top of the disk. I also think the wording is somewhat profound in a 90's alternative emo rocker sort of way. It kind of reaches out and says, "pass the Cheetos, man."