Magnet

Unless you live in a big city this may not happen to you but for me this seems to be an almost ubiquitous experience.  I'll be standing at a bus stop with a group of people and a panhandler will approach the group and unerringly I will be the one and only person the guy will ask for money.  Bill Gates could be standing next to me and the homeless guy would ignore Bill and still only seek money from me.  I do not know why I have become the world's bum magnet but there must be a way to depolarize myself.  Maybe its time for a disguise?

There used to be a crazy guy wearing an outlandish outfit who would stand on State Street with a bullhorn and lecture people about eternal damnation.  He would rant and wail and invariably people would cross the street to avoid him and almost always give him a wide birth.  So I guess I have answered my own question.  Thus I will be stopping after work today and getting myself a bullhorn and an electric color dreamcoat.  No doubt this will make me pretty popular in general so I will be available for all your party appearance needs, so get your requests in early.

Amusing

"I was in the grocery store.  I saw a sign that said ‘pet supplies’.  So I did.  Then I went outside and saw a sign that said ‘compact cars’ …."  

Steven Wright

Fortune Cookie

After eating 9000 or so fortune cookies over the years I finally got one that accurately predicted my future:

"You will eat a meal."

Of course why couldn’t it say:

"You will win $ 1,000,000.00 and meet many intelligent showgirls!"

Willpower Malfunction

Still True

" In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. "

Lawrence Peter

Imponderable # 4

You are sitting on the back of a CTA bus.  The bus is half full and filled with losers of all shapes and sizes.  Four consecutive seats in the back have just one person sitting in them (including yours), leaving an empty seat available.  The fattest woman in the world boards the bus and begins to lumber towards the rear of the bus.  There are many other open seats but you know it is coming.  Somehow, some way, that person is going to trudge down the aisle, passing up all the other empty seats, and head unerringly towards the one open next to you.  Then, no matter how far you are going, they will not get up first.  Instead, it is no doubt more pleasing to them, and to the Gods, to squeeze you into a small bit of crushed matter.
 
Finally, as you near the end of the line, you will mention to them that you are getting off.  Immediately they will sigh a heavy sigh, and commence trying to get up.  They will fail of course, and you then will need to scream at the bus driver that you are getting off.  The bus driver will drive on anyway because that is how he rolls.  Inexorably then, your stop will disappear in the background, and you will find yourself cursing the enormous person who has trapped you.  They will huffily reply and say something so mind bogglingly insipid that you will not have the words to be able to respond in a civil fashion, and you will have started another perfect morning.

Six Simple Rules for Poker Success

1. Play with the stupidest people possible.
2. Don’t tilt.
3. Embrace variance, it is your friend.
4. It is always useful to appear to be what you are not.
5. Planning ahead is mandatory.
6. Seek to make your decisions as simple as possible.

nota bene: These are too simplistic of course, but that does not make them wrong.

In the Belly of the Beast

The Red Line – Roosevelt Stop

Libation of the Week

I was playing pool last night in a joint on the South Side of town, so let’s stay with that theme for our cocktail of the week:

8 Ball

• 1.5 ounces Dark Rum
• 1.5 ounces Peach Schnapps
• 1.5 ounces Almond Liqueur
• 1 tablespoon Grenadine
• 8 ounces Pineapple Juice

In a very tall glass, mix ingredients.  Stir until arms are quite tired.  Drink.  Rack’em.

Stichomancy

There are some mornings when you decide things can not be left to chance and everything must be planned to the smallest degree.  There are others where you acknowledge the randomness of the world and embrace the chaos which is you know is out there waiting for you.  This morning feels like a chaos day so we must act accordingly.

Stichomancy is a kind of fortune telling that seeks to know the future by randomly selecting a passage from a book.  A such I have picked a book, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values,” by Robert M. Pirsig.  Now I will open it at random and thus see what might fate will be today:

“(What makes his world so hard to see clearly is not its strangeness but its usualness).  Familiarity can blind you too.”

I see then the Gods are directing me to do something different with my day.  As such I am headed out now, to wander through a new and different part of the City and embrace my destiny at random.  Hopefully the Gods will show a little kindness and there will be beer and super-models at the end of the road.

Two Thoughts

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

and

“The good life is a process, not a state of being.  It is a direction not a destination.”

Carl Rogers

At the Musée

Radical

I know, your ego needs assuaging.  I have just the thing.  I have taken the radical step of installing the Words with Friends Application on my phone.  This means that you can play this game with me, and no doubt crush my soul.  Remember though, I am not very good at games, so you will have to play at half speed to keep things interesting.

Anyway, if you should feel like bolstering your self image, you can compete with me.  My details are:

User Name: Laoch of Chicago

Defy the Romantic Industrial Complex

"In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus one equals nothing."

Mignon McLaughlin

Could there be a lamer holiday than Valentine’s Day?  The idea that you are supposed to treat your various girlfriends "specially" on this day by taking them to an expensive restaurant which will inflate their prices for this one day and then buy these women gifts or you do not "love" them, is just ridiculous.  You should treat the people you are involved with specially throughout the year. 

As someone who essentially eats out almost every day, I know that this is one of the few days all year where you should not go out to eat.  It is absurd to pay $ 300.00 for a meal that will cost you $ 100.00 the next day. 

If you want to get your person small presents throughout the year to show that you are thinking of them, that is splendid.  But you should not have to go and buy them a present on a holiday created by the greeting card industry or risk losing your relationship.

This is also a holiday which seems to give women the message that they are useless if they are not involved in a romantic relationship during Valentine’s Day.  They are urged to pamper and be nice to themselves because they are not fortunate enough to have a soul mate at this very moment of their lives.  Well I agree that women should be nice to themselves, but whether you are in a relationship has nothing to do with your worth as a person.

So I urge to you to be unconventional, treat this day like any other.  Then sometime soon, out of the blue, do something nice for your significant other.  They deserve it.

Reading Matter

Here are some interesting things I came across this week:

• Are we living in a computer simulation (God I hope so)?  Philosopher Nick Bostrom tackles this question in this thought provoking article.
• Here is an article which presents some data about how running can improve your fluid intelligence.
• Wired magazine brings us this article entitled: “Why Being Sleepy and Drunk Are Great for Creativity.”
• Ok, it turns out that Mom was right after all.  Here is an article detailing a study which showed that High School students did best on tests with seven hours of sleep.  Perhaps my three hour a night high school sleep regimen was ill advised?
• A new study apparently claims that eating chocolate cake for breakfast could help you lose weight.  I am skeptical, but you can read about it here.  Tuesday it will no doubt be cake time!