Starbucks cards update

I posted a plea to a WSU group at linkedin and received a response with this link:

http://buckscards.com/unique.htm


It shows that Starbucks has an Arizona State University card, but no WSU?! We must end the injustice!! (That said, the ASU card looks really good).

university waste...

My wife has a permanent disabled parking placard because her psoriatic arthritis (an autoimmune disease, not an age-related illness) is pretty much eating her joints. She has had temporary UW disabled parking passes but has run out of exemptions, so she has to get a permanaent UW disabled pass, too. Her "interview" was today (despite already having submitted proof of her disability in excess of what the state requires). The woman at the UW wanted my wife to leave work, drive to campus, park in a regular parking lot (becasue, again, her disabled parking pass expired) and walk to the parking office for said interview. My wife said no, we'll do it over the phone. The woman protested. My wife, true to form, insisted that she's not doing all of the above after having already submitted the aforementioned documentation. The woman relented. The phone call lasted less than 20 minutes.

I write this as an example of the kind of wasteful mentality that is inherent in the university systems. While a simple phone call sufficed, the UW employee had insisted that the interview be done in person. I think it's safe to say that the phone call saved both of them time and saved this woman a 15 minute ass chewing when my wife figured out what a bullshit hoop this was to jump through (and probably saved the UW employee's manager some of the same ass chewing). WSU was no better when I tried to find out what summa cum laude actually meant in terms of class ranking. Four people and about a dozen emails were required to basically tell me that it's only an indication of a student's GPA and that they don't really track what percentage of students achieve each level of honors. Wasteful and lazy. Don't get me started on how much more attention on-campus students receive in comparison to online students...

Wazzu Starbucks cards...

Here's the email I jsut sent to Satrbucks corporate:

I live in Seattle, but graduated from WSU and I use my Starbucks card multiple times per day (you know where this is going...). My wife is at UW and has a UW branded Starbucks card. The manager of the store in the building I work in loves to remind me that UW is the only school whose logo is on a Starbucks card (or as he jokingly puts it, "UW is the only school COOL enough to be on a Starbucks card"). Rumors from Pullman have been carried on the wind whispering that WSU cards -may- be coming soon if the UW cards prove popular. What do the Cougars have to do to get some Starbucks love? Surely a cross-state rivalry, fuled by epsresso shots, can only be good for business. I hope to see the crimson and grey soon.

I have decided that, based on their response, we may need to take action! If they don't have immediate plans to produce WSU logo'd cards, I will begin planning a mock-protest at the Apple Cup in Pullman on Dec 4. Further, I will do my best to have the protest be sponsored by Tully's! I posted to linkedin about the card injustice, let's see how Starbucks responds.

back of the plane, baby...

Today's XX in Slate has this piece titles "Fly the Child-Free Skies" (http://www.doublex.com/blog/xxfactor/fly-child-free-skies) in which the author blogs,
someone has come up with a survey suggesting that in one circumstance, at least, we be put in our place: the back of the plane.

Oh, wait, that has some particularly unfortunate cultural connotations, doesn't it? Well, perhaps not the back of the plane. But more than half of fliers polled by fare-comparison Web site SkyScanner favor confining parents flying with children to a "family section," and with the front of the plane inconveniently located near first class, the rear section makes an awfully good place to tuck the potentially undesirable. Sure, not every baby cries, and not every 4-year-old will spend the entire flight kicking the back of the seat in front of him while throwing Skittles and hittlng his hapless mother, but you know, he might. Far better to put him and his whole family back where there's no risk of offending the polite, well-behaved adult flying public.

Is it even necessary to present a sincere argument against this, or would sarcasm suffice?


As a non-parent by choice, I would actually like to hear you defend your position. However, I would expect that you'll get the same kind of sympathy as the kid in my neighborhood who insists on riding his weedeater-powered scooter, the guy who runs his lawnmower at 7AM on a Saturday and my neighbors who insist on loud parties for every holiday (and fireworks of they think they can get away with them).

I don't have kids because I don't want the responsibility, and their noises and smells bug the shit outta me. Had I not already been married, I would have proposed on the spot to the attractive young lady stepping off on an elevator who said to her friend "I don't know why I don't like babies- maybe it's that fucking smell..."

English prof tossed from the 'bux

Here's the link to NY Post: http://m.nypost.com/;s=41LH64aAtL6yDSlEzpToZ03/p/news/local/manhattan/venti_size_fury_A0uKw71Ky1UAOksmbjrBhI

Rosenthal, who is in her early 60s, asked for a toasted multigrain bagel -- and became enraged when the barista at the [Starbucks] franchise, on Columbus Avenue at 86th Street, followed up by inquiring, "Do you want butter or cheese?"

"I just wanted a multigrain bagel," Rosenthal told The Post. "I refused to say 'without butter or cheese.' When you go to Burger King, you don't have to list the six things you don't want.

"Linguistically, it's stupid, and I'm a stickler for correct English."

Um, no. It's not incorrect to ask someone if they would like something additional, commonly added and gratis with their bagel. It may be inefficient to engage in further discussion about the item, especially if you're a regular at that location and only ever order a boring-ass plain toasted bagel- but it's not improper use of the language. And by the way, when you go to the BK in BK and order a Whopper, they'll ask you if you want cheese on it because it's a common fucking addition, just like butter or cream cheese on a bagel (though the cheese will add up to a dollar to your Whopper purchase, depending on your market). So stop being an overpaid, overpriviledged, elitist bitch, answer the question, and let me get my fucking iced tea. If you want to argue about FOOD go someplace like a diner, not a coffee shop.

Looks like Slate's Brow Beat has been reading the Contrarian:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/browbeat/archive/2010/08/16/don-t-like-starbucks-don-t-go-there.aspx

When you go to Burger King, you don't have to list the six things you don't want."

Actually, Ms. Rosenthal, Burger King might invite you to "have it your way," but if you don't want pickles or lettuce or mayo on your Whopper, you have to let them know

and their conclusion is heartily agreed with:
Rosenthal is an English professor and insists that she is a "stickler for correct English." Two points: There is correct English and there is PRECISE English. She placed a perfectly "correct" order for a bagel, but her barista wanted to be "precise" and followed up with a question, for which she could have given the correct answer of "Neither, please." (Starbucks can't read its customers minds and presumably has a lot of customers who order a bagel without requesting butter or cheese but who DO want a spread.) Secondly, you don't have to have a Ph.D. to learn courtesy. That's something that is usually covered in kindergarten.

Emo vs Macho

I just realized that The Expendables and Scott Pilgrim opened on the same weekend, possibly setting up the greatest emo vs macho conflict in history. On the one hand we have a cast of action movie legends- each who has played at most two characters in their entire career, and that's being generous. Their entire raison d'etre is to be muscley, delivery witty one-liners, shoot with impossible accuracy while the bad guys unload crates of ammo and miss entirey, then blow up everything. We have no complaints about the typecasting of action heroes.

Then there's Michael Cera who has played exactly one character in his entire carrer. I would love if someone could do a mashup of all of his pining-for-the-girl scenes because I bet if it was just audio we wouldn't have any idea what movie was being sampled. If it was a full video clip, you could probably get away with taking his character in Juno and planting it in Infinite Playlist and we would be none the wiser.

So what's my problem with Michael Cera? I'm not sure. I guess because he's tried comedies as well as these emo angsty "feeelms" I assume he's trying to branch out (more than say Stallone branching out from Rambo to Rocky to his Formula 1 movie). But more than Stallone or Schwarzenegger, Cera is the SAME character in each movie. At least with Stallone you can see subtle difference between Rocky and Rambo. Or Jason Statham's characters in Crank, Transporter and "In the Name of the King" (which was kind of a turd, but c'mon- Statham kicking ass and Ms Sobieski in tight, sheer clothing. Nuff said). I guess I just don't see those differences in an actor like Cera whose every character is a self-conscious, middle-class suburban high schooler who forever tilts at the windmill of the future-librarian hottie. I guess by way of showing his acting range, occasionally he carries spermicidal lube.

Probably to no one's surprise, Expendables crushed Scott Pilgrim, and even the touchy-feely Eat Pray Love kicked Pilgrim's ass.
[edit to add: Slate's Twitter Feed reports, "Male stupidity whups female stupidity at box office."]

Worst Paying Degrees

According to CBS/Moneywatch here are the twenty worst paying degrees. I am soooooo glad that I abandonded my thoughts of a paralegal degree for my humanities degree :)


Worst-Paying College Degrees in 2010


College Degree
Starting Pay
Mid-Career Pay



1. Child and Family Studies
$29,500
$38,400


2. Elementary Education
$31,600
$44,400


3. Social Work
$31,800
$44,900

4. Athletic Training $32,800 $45,700
5. Culinary Arts $35,900 $50,600
6. Horticulture $35,000 $50,800
7. Paralegal Studies/Law $35,100 $51,300
8. Theology $34,700 $51,300
9. Recreation & Leisure $33,300 $53,200
10. Special Education $36,000 $53,800
11. Dietetics $40,400 $54,200
12. Religious Studies $34,700 $54,400
13. Art $33,500 $54,800
14. Education $35,100 $54,900
15. Interdisciplinary Studies $35,600 $55,700
16. Interior Design $34,400 $56,600
17. Nutrition $42,200 $56,700
18. Graphic Design $35,400 $56,800
19. Music $36,700 $57,000
20. Art History $39,400 $57,100

Idea Generator

So I've been looking at this site, Elance.com, the past few days. My previous post about crappy writing is based on some "job" postings I've seen there.

There's another section for e-books and blogs that is, in essence, an idea generator. See, when you tell me you want me to write 125 unique marriage proposals for men, which you intend to publish as an e-book you just gave me a great idea for an e-book. See, with e-publishing, I completely eliminate YOU as a middle-man. I don't need a publisher or anyone else involved. I write it, save it as a PDF and put it on a bunch of websites. The only advantage I can see to writing something like this for someone else is that I'm guaranteed a check when I'm done writing,otherwise I have to wait for sales. But $50 to write your book that will probably be sold for $15-20 anyway isn't much incentive. But thanks for the idea.

Another one just says: I'm looking to have two e-books written about social media, 30-50 pages each. Really? On any aspect of social media? You don't have anything in particular you want to say or discuss?

Here's another gem, taken STRAIGHT from the site. Notice that this joker wants to retain all rights to publishing and insists that this work be 100% original. Because if I'm an acoustical engineer with the background to write his book then I'm obviously incapable of e-publishing it myself.
Here goes:
10 Chapter eBook on Soundproofing a Room.
Also provide info on acoustics and sound.
Minimum 8-10 pages per chapter.
I will provide outline and topics for Chapters
Must contain custom illustrations
100% ownership over the material
100 % quality original work (not duplicated content).
Original content will be verified
Any sources of information, such as stats or research must be cited.
Writing must be easy to understand, simple, professional
Must be free of spelling errors, written with an attention to proper grammar and punctuation

Things that are not trilogies....

By definition a trilogry must be three separate stories that share a common story arc. Star Wars* is by far the best know example of a true trilogy. Each movie has a beginning, middle and end. Each movie tells part of a larger story that has its own beginning, middle and end (though there were plans for events after the fall of the Empire and there is MUUUUUCH fan fiction with Luke as an adult, etc). A story broken into three pieces for ease of consumption does NOT a trilogy make, to wit:

The Lord of the Rings is NOT a trilogy. End of story. It was originally written to be ONE book (of a two volume set, the other book being The Silmarillion) in something like 9 'books' as with the Bible (though the current official 'book' count is 6). Tolkien's publishers had him break it up into three pieces for ease of publishing and to make it more wieldy for the average reader. I have the faux-leather bound single binding edition, which I love, in no small part because that's what God... I mean J.R.R. intended. But wait, you want to be smart and say "well, if you count 'The Silmarillion" and "The Hobbit" then you have a trilogy" and you'd be right until you realize a) no one but you and I have read "Silmarillion" and not everyone is even aware of "The Hobbit" and then, fuck us, they went off and released "Children of Hurin" a couple years ago, and we've had "Unfinished Tales" and some Tom Bombadil stuff since the Tolkein gold rush of the 1970s. I don't want to hear any of your bullshit about "well, it's always commonly been broken into three parts, so to the average reader/viewer it's a trilogy." See above about three parts /= trilogy. Let's just stick to agreeing that neither the movies nor the books can in any way be considered a trilogy.

The Matrix. Jesus this is a hard one to convince people about. See, the first movie "The Matrix" is one movie. "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions" are also one movie, broken into two segments. People don't think "Kill Bill" is two movies, they understand the concept of "halves." So what the Wachovski brothers did was take "The Matrix" and ruin it by adding a double-length sequel, which then confused millions of ignorant people who want to refer to it as a trilogy. It's right about now that people try to get clever and say "you have to count the Animatrix," but fuck that because the Animatrix is like 11 more stories set in the world of the Matrix.

Pirates of the Caribbean: See "The Matrix" above. Same shit without an AniPirates disk thrown in there. [Edit: shit, with the recent film release it's now ACTUALLY a trilogy, but in four parts.]

*re: Star Wars. "Episodes 1-3" don't count because they suck balls. We're talking old school, canonnical works here.

Crappy writing

I think I've figured out why there is SO MUCH crappy writing on the internet. By crappy, I mean sloppy structure, poor word choice, no depth to the articles, obvious plagiarism, etc. I've been looking at a website for freelance writers and there are companies that are expecting 500-1000 word articles with citations/references and they're paying $5 (or less) per article with a commitment of 10-50 articles.
It's no wonder google results are full of piles and piles of articles that are either direct copies or very close copies of other articles. 500 words, researched, would take me about 90 minutes if I didn't really care about the end result, which means I would be making $3.33 per hour for that article. That's about $7000 per year at that hourly rate if I worked a standard 2070 hour work year.

I guess like everything, you get what you pay for and that's why a lot of what we find on google is useless.

Another Valedictorian wants to join the haters....

A FB friend posted this speech by a high school valedictorian. http://blog.swiftkickonline.com/2010/07/valedictorian-speaks-out-against-schooling-in-graduation-speech.html

I was going to respond to it on FB, but as usual had so much to say it would bore most readers to  tears. So I put it on my blog  :)

I thought it was great that she lumped engineers in with the artists, etc. Having been down both paths, I can say with authority that there is an enormous difference between an engineer and an artist. You'll buy jewelry from someone self taught, but would you want to fly in a plane designed and built by a dropout, or worse, the guy who was a “D” student all the way through? At least the dropout probably built the damned thing so he could fly it himself- the student went on to be a "professional" and probably takes the train.

 I wrestled with a similar problem to that presented by Ms Goldson over the past 32 months: should I bust my ass to graduate summa cum laude, or should I give myself a break and spend some time in the shop working on my metalcraft, or playing video games, or trying to learn the guitar again? My final GPA was 3.98 and it took me 19 months to finish one knife. I still haven’t finished Dragon Age: Origins, Red Faction Guerilla, or Darksiders. But I think I made the right decision. The video games are still there and will continue to wait. The tests I took and papers I wrote are long gone.

More importantly, I think her speech misses the point- because she did all of that work in high school she opened doors that would otherwise not be available to her in college. If she, as valedictorian, goes and travels for two years and then decides to go to college, that school will look at her application and say "wow, here's a girl with a good head on her shoulders- we applaud you for taking time to see the world!" Whereas, if one of those C or D students took a couple of years off and then decided to go to college, that same admissions office would say "well, this one just kept goofing off after high school, and will probably do the same if we let them in." And surely she knows that artists can starve whether they have PhDs or dropped out of school, so if that’s what she wants to do, there’s nothing stopping her.

If her point with her speech is to try to change the fundamentals of the educational system in this country, then she’ll have to learn about irony. First, she’ll have to apply to college and continue using those skills that earned her Valedictorian status. Add four years. She’ll have to figure out which path will do her most good: Education, Education psychology, etc and then apply to a graduate program, where she’ll spend an additional 4-7 (or more!) years becoming an expert in the field of educational systems. Then her work on changing the system can begin in earnest! At this point, assuming she’s one of these people who can burn through degrees, she’ll need at least 7 years on top of being 18, so she’ll be a PhD at 25. Then she’ll have to work in the field, write papers, get herself known as an expert. How long will that take? I have no idea, but I think at least 10 to be well thought of. But here’s the rub- she’s going AGAINST the current system. A system she will have spent her entire life inside. A system designed to eliminate boat-rockers. To put it in simple terms to save my writing and your reading: she wants to be Neo, and we know the Matrix (educational systems) will continue making Agent Smiths (unions, long time teachers afraid if change, administrators, other experts, etc).

It was a bold speech, and it took a lot of bravery for her to deliver it (assuming this isn’t another Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen http://www.bondon.com/sunscreen_song.html ). I wish her the best. If she reads this, or if you need a reminder:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI

Where do I get grant money to prove obvious things?

so there's an article on News.Discovery.com about whether Cleopatra could have used vinegar to dissovle a pearl, then drink the resulting concoction. That's not the part that has me pissed. Dudes actually spent money to prove it in a lab. Are you frakking kidding me? All tehy had to do was ask a jeweler, or my wife. "hey, what about wearing a pearl when you're cooking or cleaning with vinegar?"   "Um, hells to the no! That shit will dissolve the pearl, at worst. At best it will mess up the finish- don't be retarded."   See? That's all it would have taken. But no, these jackholes treat this like they found that Roman recipe for water-hardening concrete or something. It is PAINFUL to keep reading these articles about obvious things being presented as discoveries of the century.

This is why we can't have nice things....

This morning at 1AM I emailed my final paper of my last class of my undergraduate degree. Thank. God! So I'm looking around the interwebtubes trying to figure out the best way to list my education on my resume. I had been using a format that indicated my completion date, but since that has officially past I want to highlight that I have the damned thing and I want to put it in the place that is most effective for my ass to get a new job. So I think it should be near the top to tell employers in the new field I'm looking at that my experience in the field is light, but look- BA (Summa Cum Laude), writing cert, etc. And then they see that I've been in the medical billing field for 10+ years.   I went to linkedin to see what foils had to say and this is a pretty typical response: http://www.linkedin.com/answers/career-education/resume-writing/CAR_RSW/258070-13158659?searchIdx=3&sik=1280778359264&goback=%2Easr_1_1280778359264   For those who don't have a linkedin account (you should) I'll summarize: each of the 12 responders had a different answer for how they prefer a resume to be arranged. Seriously. And they're all in hiring. So if these guys can't agree on how a resume is supposed to look, it becomes pretty damned apparent that ANY and EVERY layout is completely right AND completely wrong at the same time- it's a matter of dumb luck that the person reading it likes your format. Which further emphasizes that it's best to get to know someone who can get you the job you want, then the resume is sort of perfunctory and is put in your file as a piece of paper for them to refer back to.