Trip On This
If you're going to start and run your own coffee shop, here's the very first thing you should do before you even start deciding what kind of coffee you're going to serve to your customers: go to the place you're planning to lease and count the outlets. Where are they positioned? Make sure there are at least two plugs per table, and that they're accessible to each table without having to run a lot of...
TV Shows on DVD
I know a few people who claim that they don't watch any television. None. They refuse to do this because they feel the majority of television is insulting to their intelligence, uninteresting, and is responsible for making people stupider. I don't really agree with their elitist take on how television is making those who watch it "stupider", but I do understand why they feel it has little to offer them. Personally, I watch just enough...
People Are Their Perceptions
There's a sight called Squidoo that was founded by marketing guru Seth Godin. After you sign up, you get to create a page that is your own "lens", with content from all corners of the internet that interests you. People can find your lens, you can view the lens' of others, and there is a "most popular lenses" type feature on the home page. I haven't found the site very useful, but there are lots...
The Elitist Mentality
You've met that person. The person who comes off as arrogant, name-dropping, and condescending. It's clear that they think they're better than you in several ways, and while we all feel this way to some extent, this person has an unabashed knack of implying it in casual conversation. And they do it often. The most annoying thing I've found is that you cannot compete with a person who has the elitist mentality, because they'll always...
Digital Downloads
These are probably fighting words, but I do believe that Napster hurt CD sales back when it was widely used by people for downloading music illegally. This happened when I was in college, and as I remember, the bulk of the conversation I heard about it was people talking about how greedy the guys in Metallica were for publicly championing against Napster. Lars Ulrich spent a lot of time in the limelight claiming that their...
Why Good Actors Do Bad Movies
People tend to be really surprised when an actor or actress they really like winds up in a film that is terrible. More often, the actor in question takes a starring role in a movie that ends up being "just okay". Exactly who you think is a good performer, and which of the films they've been in is bad, is your own opinion. I'm not going to provide specific examples, since that's too subjective, but...
Do Something Different
My dad does a lot of Sudoku puzzles, and I think that most weekends he takes the morning newspaper and does the crossword puzzle. He does this, he says, in the interest of keeping his brain sharp. While doing Sudokus over and over again are certainly a better means of keeping your brain active than no stimulation at all, the brain would be helped a great deal more by doing something different. After ten Sudoku...
Michigan State University's Email System
Recently, the college that I attended some five years ago updated their email system, giving their web interface appearance a facelift and adding functionality that makes it easier to use. This is great, but the old interface that was in place back when I first started going to the college in 2000 was pretty archaic even for standards back in those days. Now, in 2009, they've done an update and the new system feels very...
Identity Theft and the Paper Trail
Recently, I got a cross-cut paper shredder at Target, which was desperately needed on my part as I had a large box of junk mail sitting in my living room, waiting to be shredded so I could throw it out without worrying that someone was going to try and use the contents to get a credit card in my name. As I spent the two hours opening all of this junk mail and reading it...
Threat Level: Ambiguous
On the wait to board our airplane in Detroit before flying back to California last month, I overhead an announcement in the terminal: "The threat level according to [some organization] is: Orange." I turned to the nearest baggage handler standing by me and asked him what "Threat level: Orange" meant. Trying to avoid eye contact with me, he said that he didn't know and that I would have to talk to someone in TSA to...