Bob-a-job-alog-a-roonie

Showing ID.

Even if you are 60, there's a massive list of places where you need to prove you are over 18, such as:

- buying a violent video game
- entering a cinema that serves alcohol
- entering a bar or nightclub

And yet I have been buying beer from 7/11 without showing ID! Go figure.

The USA needs to have more faith in their staff's ability, less of the ability to sue over silly things, and basically just chill out.

Drive thru fast food... OK we have that in Australia, makes sense, because fast is the operative word, the staff are teenage idiots you'd rather not meet face to face, the food is crap and you wouldn't want to admit you were there!

But drive thru banks?

As far as I can tell, the only efficiency is the time it takes you to park and walk into the bank. About 30 seconds.

For which you trade away:

- familiarity with staff
- familiarity with customers
- familiarity with promotional materials
- the teller checking things before your very eyes

It seems to me that the US has, vis drive thru, pre-empted virtual internet living by 50 years, and I wonder if that is a fundamental problem.

I just saw an ad for the new Incredible Hulk movie. From my brief glimpse it seems to be a remake, if not in story, than in CGI and epic style. The last one was OK, but not good enough to inspire me to see the same thing again. I predict a box office flop.

I'm riveted.

Not far North of Oklahoma City, I'm watching a revolving meso-cyclone, filmed from a helicopter that dares to be just 1 mile away.

The local TV station is showing this and only this.

The commentators are conflicted. You know they want to see a tornado form, but at the same time they don't want any harm to occur.

4 tornadoes so far...

Meanwhile, when I walked past the pool at the Marriott, and got served at 7-11, eevryone is oblivious. Probably because it's kinda regular but usually doesn't make it to OKC.

As a 2012er who expects 100x worse potentially in 2012, it's fascinating

$200/night. No idea of what the star rating is, but it's very overpriced. $80 would be more reasonable.

Faults I noticed:

Had to ask for bathroom to be cleaned, despite 5pm checkin.
Bed is a fold-down-from-the-wall variety - way not cool
Internet is an extra charge!
Peeling wallpaper, carpet from the 70s
Op-shop sofa, needed to be repaired because it was unstable
My room service order of 6 beers was 1 short
Rooms are stupidly big!
Intolerant front desk staff
Breakfast orders came out wrong both mornings
Basically the only hotel with available rooms today - 'nuff said

Do you suffer from it as well?

Our fridge, once the door has been left open for 30 seconds, beeps. When I am preparing the milk bottles for the little ones I try to fill both the bottles, put the lids on, and get the milk back in the fridge before it beeps. I am realising that this is causing me stress. I don't want the fridge to tell me off!

Obviously I should be in charge, not the fridge.

Other areas of my day-to-day existence are similar:

Did I place the wrong type of trash in the recycling bin?
Will I make it to Monday without the rubbish bin overflowing?
Will I get caught watering the garden on the wrong day of the week?
Will the neighbours somehow me walking nude from the bed to the bathroom?
Has the postie been, and I received no mail today?
...or is he running late?
Will I get to the phone on time, before the caller gives up (real problem in a large house)?
What will the cleaner think when she sees X?
Did I lock all the doors?

I could go on. I guess the point is, these are all the result of modern living. About all the housewife of 100 years ago had to worry about was would it rain after she hung out the laundry.

God Bless America!

...from today, larger food chains such as McDonald's, Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks must display the calories of their products on menus.

The new rules apply to all chains with at least 15 outlets across the country, which in New York accounts for 2000 restaurants.

This is great news for anyone watching their weight. An extra step I'd like to see is listing of ingredients. Products in supermarkets are required to list ingredients, and so should major restaurant chains.

Labels: calories

Funny thing about scientists - if they work out they are able to do something, they tend to try and do it. They are more interested in experimenting than they are considering the ethics. Turns out a half human, half chimpanzee is possible:

Dr Calum MacKellar, director of research at the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, warned the controversial draft Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill did not prevent human sperm being inseminated into animals.

He said if a female chimpanzee was inseminated with human sperm the two species would be closely enough related that a hybrid could be born.

He said scientists could possibly try to develop the new species to fill the demand for organ donors.

The question that comes to mind is, would it look like President Bush?

Labels: humanzee

...whenever I see someone with my name. In this instance my namesake is lipsynching to a country song in Tennessee:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=mDcX23C4yB0&feature=related