Conversational Beer

I find myself judging cities by only a few deciding factors, usually consisting of their airport quality, general cleanliness, and roadways. I used to judge cities by the general look of the people that inhabited them, but I found that far too depressing, so I moved on. Today, I've decided I'm going to start judging new cities by the conversations that I listen in on. It's probably just a phase, and I'm sure I'll resort back to something far more shallow and simple, like the smell of the hotel lobby, or the percentage of women with above-size tops, but for now, I'm sticking with my conversation idea. As a side note, I had a brief jaunt with using hotel room quality to qualify an overall city, but I found it to be far to disgusting to consider and unusually a-typical. One dark curly on a remote control, and suddenly a dream excursion in a mountain village became second rate to a Motel 6 in downtown Indianapolis. But, I digress....

The conversation methodology poses two problems for me:

1. I have to listen in on conversations that I have no business hearing, and
   
2. I have to explicitly not react to things that are said as part of this conversation

It ends up that problem 2 is far more difficult to overcome than 1. First off, given the right surroundings, 1 isn't a problem at all. Sit at any bar in any restaurant, and you'll quickly be able to pick up on several conversations, made audibly clear through the wonders of alcohol. I also have no remorse about being busted for listening in. After all, who the hell am I to the others involved? If they don't like it, they can shut their cake holes.

The second problem is far harder to cope with. People say some really stupid, but funny, things when they think no one else is listening. Here are a few gems I heard tonight.

• Patron to bartender: "That cork is really stuck." Bartender back to patron: "Creme Brule?"
• Patron from local geography: "Boulevard Wheat is an excellent local micro-brew." Patron from west coast: "Uh huh." (This one nearly made beer shoot through my nose.)
  
• Patron: "Can I have one of your wings?" Other Patron: "I'm got burnt ends."
• Patron: "Oh my god, you're so awesome!" Other patron: "I know, I know!"
• Patron: "Why did this come with two spoons?" Bartender: "One of them is mine."
• Patron: "I don't play any sports, but I know a lot about them. I just don't agree with how people stand behind their local teams... (long pause...)" Other Patron: "(pause...) (blink..., blink)"

Based on this, I'm going to write off my most recently traveled city as "drunkenly naive", which is a good rating in the grand scheme of things.

A Deviant With A Toothbrush

I was buying a toothbrush and socks at a local store tonight. I was waiting in line, behind a family with some small children who were in the process of checking out, and ahead of a short young woman who had a few small items and no cart. The family in front of me was purchasing a variety of thing, including a young girl's pink ballerina costume. Had this been late October, I wouldn't have thought this to be particularly odd, but being a 90+ degree in early August, I decided to ponder on possibilities for the use of the costume. Was it an impulse purchase to keep a grumpy daughter happy? Do people in Kansas dress very differently than people in other states during spells of high temperatures? Was this girl actually a ballerina and had traveled great distances with her family to give a performance, only to realize, much like my situation with my toothbrush and socks, and she too had forgotten a vital piece of equipment.

I was almost starting to make sense of the situation when another checkout isle opened and the woman behind the cash register announced that her isle was open. This generally leads to an awkward moment between the people already waiting in the nearest lanes. Who has the right to go to the new isle? Who should stay? Can one pass another person during this unexpected lane change? When is someone committed to an isle and not allowed to change?

These are issues that everyone ponders when this situation arises, but this is not what concerned me about this particular instance. Rather, it was the comment that the short young woman standing behind me posed after I quickly said "go ahead" to her, implying that she should go ahead of me in the new isle. She quickly responded with "No, no, you go ahead, errr...., Ummmm..." I must have had a confused look on my face, because she felt the need to explain her indecision. She said she didn't know if the pink ballerina dress, already on the counter ahead of me, was mine or not, so she didn't know if I would want to move to the new isle since I was arbitrarily committed to the existing isle.

This was deeply concerning. She actually considered that the pink ballerina dress belonged to me, the guy standing in line in business attire, holding socks and a toothbrush. I can only imagine, while standing behind me in the isle for several minutes, what she was thinking of my intended use for the dress. Did I have a daughter in need of a dress? Was I some kind of a fashion designer looking for inspiration? Was I a horrible social deviant with intentions of doing terrible things involving a pink ballerina dress, a package of socks, and a neon green wear sensing medium bristle toothbrush?

I chose the latter, as it was the most fun. I simply said, while quickly moving to the newly opened isle, "Oh no, not for me. I prefer purple ballerina dresses with my socks." I paid, walked out of the store, and didn't look back.

When Money Flows Like Water

I recently watched a documentary titled Who Killed The Electric Car and also started reading/listening to The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria. I know that's a lot of heavy input, but after finishing up the most recent David Sedaris book, I felt the need to give a little back to society. I'll spare you my reviews, but they both provided me with a large number of facts and figures that I had not known or considered before. As a sample:

• China is big... really big, yet despite their huge economy and impending world dominance, their GDP per capita is still quite low.
• The US is the largest consumer of almost everything, but the largest producer of very few things.
• Wal-Mart brings in almost 8 times as much money as Microsoft each year.
• If you were to combine the work forces of GM, Ford, and General Electric, they do not come close to matching the work force of Wal-Mart. What does this say about our culture and values?
• Hundreds of years before Columbus's voyage to the new world, China had far more ships than did Europe, their ships were vastly larger, and they were technically superior in almost every way. Why did China not discover the new world instead of Europe? Chinese leadership at the time virtually made sailing illegal for reasons apparant at the time. That seemingly simple choice may be the only reason China is not the single dominant super power in the world today.
• As a country, the US is one of the most arrogant and hypocritical entities in all of history. The fact that we are despised by so much of the other countries of the world is not at all surprising.
• The electric cars of 25 years ago are still superior in many ways to equivalent modern concept vehicles. What happened?
• Over 20% of our nation's electricity is generated from nuclear power plants, which are far more green than coal burning plants. Far less environmental and direct damage to human life has been produced by nuclear power plants than almost all other types of energy generation in the last 30 years. Why then, have no nuclear plants been built in the last 30 years while hundreds of coal burning plants have?
• Hydrogen fuel cell cars, while being promised as a "within 15 years" reality for the past 30-40 years, still consistantly fail to be cost-effective solutions and have virtually no fueling infrastrucutre. Why then is this the technology that almost every politician focuses on as the transportation enerty source of the future?
  
• Purchasing water in a bottle, of any sort, is stupid. Unless you happen to live in a place that has unsafe drinking water or none at all (which means you most likely don't live in the United States), there is no excuse for drinking bottled water. The actual water is less safe, not at clean, far more expensive, and about as anti-green as one can be. The cost of fuel that is wasted in the United States simply by shipping bottled water across the country in one year is staggering. How staggering: analysts estimate the the amount of money wasted by drinking bottled water rather than tap water in the United States in one year is enough to provide basic potable drinking water sources to almost everyone in the world within the same amount of time. Think of that the next time you walk past the drinking fountaing and blow $1.29 on a 20 oz bottle of water.
• Evian, a popular bottled water vendor, is NAIVE spelled backwards. Those French are tricky. ;-)

Anyway, you can do what you want with this, but it's certainly food for thought.