BETTER THAN THE RURAL JUROR.
RETIRED BULLETIN ENTRIES
|
|  | 20.00: Finally
NICK: Welcome to the new site.
20.01: You've Won This Round, Battered Chicken Strip
NIDA: I'll admit it. I am a three a square kind of girl. Someone told me that breakfast was the most important meal of the day, and I figured they have a one in three chance of being right, and in the majors that kind of batting average will make you a hall-of-famer, so what the heigh-ho. But this whole design business is not very supportive of the three square, which means hoping you can make it to the diner before the early bird rush and looking down the wrong end of a fist-sized chicken croquette when you do. It's not the first croquette that gets you. It's that second one, the one that starts out nice and easy on the first two bites because you're so hungry from not having anything but 3 malted milk balls in your stomach since your peanut butter toast breakfast at 8:30 and here it is 4:30, just you and the seniors chowing down. But that next bite, the third one, that one always bites back. And by that time, you're committed. You have to go for it. So if I've learned anything from this, it's that I am still a three square kind of girl - I just have to remember not to try to fit the last two in at the same sitting.
|
|
| | 11.25: The government taught me how to kill … but they never taught me how to stop.
NICK: As a kid I spent an unhealthy amount of time trying to construct a realistic looking gun using only Legos. It didn't help that the only Legos I had were yellow and red. If only these guys were around back then.
11.32: Why I Just Don’t Care
NIDA: Congratulations to Peyton Manning, Tony Dungy, and the other Indianapolis Colts. I like my winners to win...I can't get with the whole underdog thing. Sure, I empathize, and I know everybody feels good when the little guy wins (or the guy who can't seem to get a first down), but I see no point in trying to be the little engine that could. We never hear if that little engine ever made it again...and what if that was the one great thing that happened to it and all it ever did from then on was live on its memories, never getting past that one moment, and constantly haranguing anyone within earshot with its one story of glory? Reruns are only good if you find something new with each retelling. But that's not my main point today, and I am probably missing several points about the whole underdog thing at any rate, so on to my real rant: Why I Just Don't Care About Super Bowl Ads.
Actually, very few commercials, Super Bowl or otherwise, reach the forefront of my waking world, which may be a bit hypocritical since advertising is huge part of how I earn my chicken croquettes. But I see no reason to watch the Super Bowl just for the ads (though I did keep it on for the actual football) in an age where information is easily disseminated in various forms and is readily available whenever is most convenient for me. I know it's a heavily watched event and that the commercials have become an annual ritual for a lot of people as well. But how effective is it really? The only reason to watch is so you aren't totally clueless when you chat with your coworkers the next day, who are probably watching for the same reason. Here at GO, we are fans of the kind of football where you actually use your feet (being an international design unit and all), so none of us planned to watch the game. (Although I did because all the other channels just assume that you aren't watching them and run crap during those 3-4 hours.) And if I were really interested in the commercials, I probably could have found them online before the game, Gizmodo has them up right now, and I'm sure they'll filter through to my consciousness whenever I watch TV. But the only commercials I actually remember are usually those done by Crispin Porter because they are (a) annoying, (b) ubiquitous, and (c) occasionally good (their leeches/anti-smoking/anti-drug one—ed. because they didn't even do that one good one I liked, so good on you, whoever does Above the Influence). But am I going to buy Bud just because I like their commercial? No, because if I want to drink a beer, I want to drink a good beer. If your product sucks, your product sucks, no matter how much money you throw into primetime advertising. Let's not forget that the message is just as important as the means and the manner through which it is distributed.
|
|
| | 13.35: The One Hundred
NIDA: Currently trying to think of my own list.
17.10: A Tribute to Soft Drinks No Longer With Us
NICK: You've got to wash down those fist-sized chicken croquettes with something.
|
|
| | 11.55: Go to Hell, Carolina, Go to Hell!
NIDA: Obligatory cool link of the day.
|
|
| | 10.58: Oh, somewhere in this favored land, the sun is shining bright...
NIDA: So much madness to blog about today...the smackdown that my boys put on the Tarheels last night, at least in the first fifteen minutes (the rest of the game is blocked out of my memory)...the ice age that has taken over the northern half of the country...the death threat I received in my inbox today...how dried dates are the most disgusting thing ever and why do they keep putting it in dried fruit mixes?! apricot good, banana chip good, pineapple yum, what the fudge is this dusty brown turd?!...
Let's go with the death threat. Our once and future collaborator, landlord, and dear friend, Luke (see pic below), is generally a genial guy who walks softly and carries a well-rounded collection of firearms. He and his lovely wife are also expecting a baby boy sometime in the very near future. Luke is a champion, a good guy, an absolute prince of a man. We are ecstatic that there will be a little Bunting running around soon. Here's the thing: Luke is also a very tall man (if I stood on my own shoulders, I might be on eye level with him), one who does not necessarily think the picture below shows his best side. Did I mention the guns? So in the interest of saving Luke from having to clean our spattered blood off the walls of our shared conference room, please help us help him come up wtih a good name for his future son. Good Will Bunting (my suggestion) and Jean-Claude Van Bunting (Jeronimo's) have already been ruled out. Please email us at info@gedesignunit.com with your ideas.
16.45: Maschinenleuchten
NICK: Coolest. Lamps. Ever.
|
|
| | 08.59: All Thumbs
NIDA: I think I shake hands wrong. I haven't yet pinpointed the exact instant of breakdown, the point where it all goes pearshaped and everyone ends up with fewer or more fingers than they started, but with some fresh infusions of tea (earl grey - mmm...bergamot...) and some of that ol' midnight oil, I think the lads and I will be able to hash it out with some venn diagrams.
You're thinking, how hard could it be? How many ways could it all go wrong?
Many, many ways, my friend. Many ways. And once it's gone off once, you become self-conscious about it and then there is the very real danger that you will undergo the strange and arduous journey of exploring the many ways that a handshake can go wrong. Myself, I have shaken hands many a time, going back to my high school tennis days, although those post-game congratulations could barely be considered second cousins to a true clasp-and-shake, there being barely clasp and definitely no shake. I think it had something to do with the skirts, there being no shake. You can only properly shake in a proper suit.
Do you rememeber where/how/when you learned to shake hands? It's such a simple thing (one would think!), that we forget it's not instinctual. I learned at the feet of my high school German teacher. He was very insistent on a firm grip and the two eyes staring straight into the back of your head. Firmness and eye contact were key to showing your sincerity, or at the least, your sincerity in appearing sincere. And I had no problems back then. I received many hearty German congratulations on my handshaking (Ach, wunderbar!). So I wonder now how it's all fallen apart. To be continued...
|
|
| | 11.12: Older than I Once Was, Younger than I Feel
NIDA: I know I'm relatively young and I have miles and miles to go before I sleep, but I don't feel it. I'm finally over the slacker existential angst of my early twenties (although with the occasional relapse), which I thought would be a good thing, until I realized that I was spinning headlong into a late twenties fear of impending decrepitude. They tell you that when you hit twenty-five, your car insurance goes down and you can rent a car. What they don't tell you is that suddenly, the entire world has unanimously and silently agreed to start calling you "ma'am". Or that you suddenly gain an opinion on the healthcare system. Or that gingervitis is really really brilliantly funny but gingivitis is suddenly really really not. Who knew that flossing would become such an obsession? Before I used to worry about the meaning of life, wonder what would come from my hands and my brain and my heart, worry if I would be able to leave an impression before it was my time to melt into the win. Now I worry about the ding in my car, the chip in its paintjob and whether I'm getting enough calcium in my diet to offset osteoporosis. I would normally wrap this up tidily with some sort of clever summation, but my creeping senility is rather overbearing today, and I can't think of anything good.
|
|
| | 12.04: Ach, Wunderbar!...The Handshake, part 2
NIDA: So back to the handshaking jibba jabba...
I know this real cool head, J-Stax, who does a triple pound (or is it only a double? I was once in a long argument over which was socially acceptable and which was not, the double or the triple, and we figured that it was divided by race, with Stax being an anomaly-but he's so cool, it doesn't matter). I don't think I could get away with a triple pound. Unless there's a girly way to do "daps and hugs."
I've been roadtesting various handshakes to see what works best. Luke advises a big windup with a reared-back thumb, so there's no mistaking the intent and you hit the taint and lock properly. Again, great on a 6-foot-forever guy but awkward on a small Asian girl. I've done the limp fish fingers, which works since you only give them fingers, no thumb, but I always hear someone berating me in German, and I just don't carry enough arrogant disdain to pull it off. Sometimes I go with a stronger version of the limp fish, the strictly over the top, since it provides a great deal of control without the repulsion (because really, if someone gives you the limp fish, that's how they feel about you), but again, there are dominance and alpha dog issues there that aren't really me. I don't believe in the up and under, unless I'm really trying to work someone and will use that to segue to a two-hander. See, that handshake and similar ones, usually used exclusively by politicians and diplomats, break the normal time limit on the handshake. Because we all know that there's a proper length of time to a handshake and it gets very awkward if that time is abbreviated or elongated. Gah-maybe I should just go with the pound.
|
|
| | 16.15: Cool Hand Luke
NIDA: Congratulations to our new favorite baby daddy! (Sorry K-Fed.) You still have a very limited time to find the proper nom de guerre for the little big man (also an excellent movie), so e-mail us at info@godesignunit.com with any suggestions. And Jean-Claude may still be in the running! (Keep your fingers crossed.)
|
|
| | 12.16: O Punxsutawney Phil, What Have You Wrought?
NIDA: Why did anyone ever invent plastic shovels? Whose genius idea was that?
Today is Tidbit Thursday. Weekdays after any inclement weather are never productive, particularly when that inclement weather laughs in your face for not struggling outside in the blinding white yesterday to dig out your car. We're all just biding our time until Spring, which better come soon or one weather prophesying groundhog is going to find his magic Elixir of Life spiked with something that doesn't sit well this year. But on to the tids and the bits!
I really need to buy some closet organizers. Or at the very least, more hangers. I didn't really buy clothes for two years, because I worked in an Americorps program that provided very unflattering yet very sturdy uniforms. For anyone looking for some pleated khakis, I highly recommend Timberland.
Apparently it is ok to walk into an office space and poke around with nary an explanation or even a hello, as long as you are holding floorplans.
We are trawling the Interwebs for CHEAP LABOR! Please visit our recruitment page if you are looking to intern with the GO-ness that is...erm, GO.
The After VD Aftermath is on! I hope you all enjoyed the pseudo holiday and managed to check out our VD cards. For anyone wondering, the cheesiest pickup line that anyone's ever used on me is: "Yo, are you Chinese?" Hmm...cheesy and racist. Good times. Good memories.
A good sitcom should make you laugh out loud, even when you're alone and if you're only channel surfing during the game's timeout (please marry me, Josh McRoberts-I want to have your 6'12" babies) so you don't know what's going on. Best line in a Wednesday night sitcom soon to be canceled: "You're violating some serious ass code here." Or was it: "Beware my tiger punch!" Or: "I was inside making crazy party just two minutes ago!"
|
|
| | 10.21: Disgracing the Peacock
NIDA: As it is now Friday, it's time for the awarding of our weekly award! Yes, it is time to hand out the Rusty Spoon this week. What is the Rusty Spoon you ask, and how does one climb to such lofty heights? The Rusty Spoon Award goes to the person, place, or thing (hereafter known as a noun) that makes us most want to scoop out our brains with a rusty spoon through the temple.
I was originally going to award the Spoon to clouds this week. Because clouds rain down rain and snow and frozen rain and sleet. The kind of rain and snow and frozen rain and sleet that builds a five inch igloo around your car. But there was a bright side to this week's inclement weather. I got a good upper body workout from chipping the igloo blocks off the old car (arms). And because I hadn't cleared the snow from my car before the frozen rain and sleet came down, it all came off in nice big chunks of varying poundage (chest and back) since there was no ice underneath. And now I can build my own igloo somewhere else.
So the clouds have redeemed themselves. Well played, atmospheric moisture and particle accumulations, well played. So who deserves the Rusty Spoon this week?
The City of Lancaster and its goateed, bow-tied Mayor, for failing to adequately prepare and clear the roads. And by preparing and clearing, I mean radical ideas like spreading salt before the storm and plowing at regular intervals to stay ahead of the accumulation. And watching the weather channel. I haven't ridden on roads so bumpy and divoted and slippy since I was going up a mountain to my aunt's house in Chiang Mai. That road was unpaved, purely a trail of red dirt, in an undeveloped area surrounded by rice paddies and banana trees in a THIRD WORLD COUNTRY. The mayor and other city leaders, I learned from the local news last night, will meet to discuss how they can better prepare for the next storm. Because apparently this is the first winter storm ever, and they had to see how things went before knowing how to plan and prepare. So hats off to you, the City of Lancaster and its Mayor, and enjoy your Rusty Spoon.
|
|
| | 10.32: Happy Lunar Golden Pig Presidents' Carnivale!
NIDA: Today seems to be a day full of auspices. Or at the very least, crazies. [sigh] They always come out on Presidents' Day...what is it about Lincoln and Washington that inspires a grown man to ask me if I want to engage in the practice of throwing one's arms around a side of beef? Or a shoulder of mutton, a haunch of venison well hugged...And he wasn't even cute. Maybe it was just that side of the street. When I crossed Queen, I walked past an older gentleman whom I see in the library quite often. He keeps to himself, seems very sweet, and never has his hand down his pants, the last of which I can't quite say about the vast majority of the library's regulars. And when I passed this sweet older gentleman, he said quite distinctly, "Angeleye". I'm still not quite sure if he was handing me a compliment, handing the nearby furniture Rent-a-Center a compliment, or merely commenting on the pleasantness of the morning, but it made me feel a little better about being propositioned a few moments earlier.
So thank you, sweet older library gentleman whom I've never seen with his hand down his pants. Thank you for restoring my faith in humanity.
|
|
| | 15.56: Today's Entry Powered by Lard
NIDA: Happy Fat Tuesday/Shrove Tuesday/Pancake Night to all you out there in the cybernets and interwebs. I am convinced that the readership of this blog consists of me, myself, and my dad, who has no particular reason to celebrate today, not being a fan of the shroves or the pancakes, but Happy Tuesday to you anyway, Dad. Here in Lancaster, in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch Country, itself smack dab in Central Pennsylvania, today is Fastnacht Day. Mmmmm....fastnachts....[insert drool here]. If you have never had one of these lardicious delights, you're missing out [insert coronary disease joke here].
So what can I squeeze from the old mindgrapes today? I broke my usual morning routine to try to get into the office a little earlier than usual, and that was just a bad idea, as it seems to have thrown off my whole day. I tried to hit the ground running, tripped because of a lack of caffeine, and haven't really been able to pick myself up since. I consider myself a morning person, but I still need an hour to get acquainted with the morning (I'm a respectable girl after all) before jumping into things.
But onto mindgrapes and squeezing the rich juice from them...I write (I originallly typed "blog" there, but I have decided I am suddenly very anti the word "blog" as a verb, but not "anti" as a full-fledged fix) about the little things because it's usualllythe little things that fill our lives. Not that there aren't big things to grind your teeth over in your sleep (which is one of the little things I started worrying about after I hit the quarter-century mark), and they matter too, and I wish that more news coverage and civil discourse were devoted to the big things, rather than Anna Nicole Smith and Britney Spears. But big things tend to take over the night through our dreams (or mine, at least) and if I didn't give space in the waking world to the little things, the chipping away would make me weary. Although I'm sure you would love to hear my well-educated, well-informed opinons on healthcare, the penal and justice systems, social welfare, public education, life, the universe, and everything. We could have a very civil discourse on these and other topics (over high tea, of course), but filing one's thoughts away in a web-type log is not necessarily conducive to informed opinions and civil discourse. What it is conducive of is rambling and ranting and tangents and attention deficit disorder. Which works out well for me and the little things.
|
|
| | 22.47: The Phantom Menace Rides Again!
NIDA: I am once more one of the motoring gentry. It took 45 minutes of hacking away at layers of slush and ice and the wrath of Al Gore, but finally, my car is free from the ravages of the Arctic. Of course, freedom must always come at a price, and sacrifices had to be made. One cheap-ass plastic shovel laid down its life that my car may be freed from its ice prison and I may drive down to the store to buy turkey bacon and sugar wafers. If there is a lesson to be learned here, it must be that you should stock up on turkey bacon and sugar wafers before the storm.
|
|
| | 10.08: Government Issue Nerd
NIDA: I'm going blind.
Not immediately, mind you, or anywhere in the near future, but my eyesight has been on a downhill slide since the second grade. It's just the one eye, so I suppose I could Lasik the other and rock a monocle, but stylish monocles are so hard to find these days. So I have been the tragic victim of coke bottle lenses since the tender age of seven or eight, have known the stigma of astigmatism for almost as long as I can remember. And living in Lancaster, epitome of middle class strip mall suburbanism as it has become, it can be difficult to find a decent pair of frames that will leave you with a decent sized bank account.
I've needed new glasses for awhile (up there on the list with a dental appointment and a haircut), and I've wanted to go NASA (heavy black rims on top, rimless on bottom), for reasons only Gary knows, but until now have been unable to find frames that didn't give me an Insta-Unibrow. Now I know why there weren't many (if any) female engineers in the control room back in the Sixties...the geek frames were simply too unflattering, even for a NASA nerd. But Rex Litwin of Optique (2110 Harrisburg Pike, in the Health Campus complex) has come to my rescue! I can now look like a standard government issue nerd with my new specs. Rex has the coolest selection of designer frames this side of London, which is where he orders many of his designer frames from. Plus, it's a small mom-and-pop type operation, with pretty much just Rex manning the helm, so not only is there a great selection, there's great customer service. As soon as I get some more disposable cash, I am going back to pick up a second pair of frames (funky plastic ones that actually fit well on the non-existent bridge of my nose). Too bad he doesn't carry any monocles.
22.38: The Pipes, the Pipes are Calling
NIDA: It was an evening of piping distress. I had to unclog my toilet and then spent the rest of the evening hoping the internal pipes would unknot or decompress or de-twist or de-hurt or anything to make the pain stop. O turkey bacon and sugar wafers, why why have you betrayed me? Being alone with a pain in your right side and the internet is not a good idea. Because then I spent a good part of the night, which was pretty long considering I couldn't sleep, poking around my right side. Good news is that I'm not running a fever, I'm not vomiting or nauseated, and the pain has lessened, though it is still there. So I'm thinking I just need to find some kind of plunger to ungunk the works. And that it's time for some turkey bacon.
|
|
| | 18.26: My Appendix is a Champ
NIDA: Loyal readers of this blog may have noted that last Friday I did not award the Rusty Spoon for the week. This was due to my being too busy crossing all my fingers and all my toes for an extended period of time in the hopes that my appendix would not rupture. In which case, had it ruptured, it would have naturally earned the coveted title. But my appendix took a licking and kept on ticking, presumably, and my trusty physician's assistant (who had warm hands, which I find indicative of trustworthiness in any healthcare professional, like how public bathrooms that smell clean make you think they are clean) told me I was good to go, as long as the pain didn't escalate. So my appendix deserves a medal for recovering like a champ, if in fact it was ever inflamed.
Instead, I hereby award last week's Rusty Spoon to Fox Studios, for unceremoniously and surreptitiously dumping Mike Judge's (King of the Hill and Office Space) latest satiric masterpiece into the nether regions of almost-but-for-contractual-obligations-straight-to-DVD hell. More on that later.
|
|
| | 17.57: Do You Have the Fanta Fevah?
NIDA: I swear this is not another post about my GI tract and various vestigial organs. No, today I am extolling the virtues of my favorite fruit-inspired fizzy drinks, the Fanta. Here in the States, I believe it comes in four flavors: Purple, Orange, Red, and Yellow. I have not yet had the pleasure of tasting Yellow, and I'm not quite sure what fruit inspired it, but I'm sure it is fantabulous. In the homeland of my fores (the fathers and the mothers), Green Fanta (!) is also available, and it pains me (like the pains of a thousand inflamed vestigial organs) that Green Fanta is only available in Southeast Asia (that I know of) and Southeast Asian markets. Green Fanta is the best of all the Fantas, so hike down to Asian Market on Clay Street between Queen and Prince to buy one if you're in Lancaster.
To recap: Fanta is good. Fanta Fevah I am not so sure about. I know they want me to sign up for something. I'm just not sure what.
|
|
| | 08.16: Never Ask an Asian Where She's From and then Insist that "Pennsylvania" Is Not a Legitimate Answer*
NIDA: You'll have to forgive me. I started listening to all the podcasts piled up on my PC this morning during breakfast, and now I am all fired up. About Big Things.
I know I've written previously about celebrating the Little Things of life (I am one of the Seinfeld Generation, after all, that is, the generation who grew up watching Seinfeld, not actually of Jerry Seinfeld's generation, which already has some catchy nickname, I am sure), but some things deserve to be reported and discussed. Like the illustrious head of our nation-state implying in his annual speech before the bicams of our national legislative body, that we may possibly be invading the land of the Persians very soon. Read Ted Koppel's thoughts on NPR's website here. And then, please read the rest of NPR.
This distresses me, not because I believe in having or want to have my homeland attacked, but because of all the atrocities against myself and my fellow citizens that are committed in my name and in the names of my fellow citizens. LIke having the wrong skin color. This poor man, a Rutgers professor and artist, might possibly have been disappeared merely through ignorance and fear. We have regressed from the fight for civil rights to the fight for mere human rights.
I would like to think our decision-makers and elected officials do what they do because they believe they are doing what is right, however far their concepts of right may be from my own. I threw up a little in my mouth when I first learned of Iran Contra (somehow, the Ollie North thing didn't really interest me when I was five) in my high school polysci class, but I've come to believe over the years that President Reagan and/or his advisors were doing what they thought they needed to in the looming spector of a Communist threat. For me, the looming spector in that situation was the threat against the rights, freedoms, and sovereignty of the South American peoples. But then, I had the advantage of growing up without that looming Communist threat, maybe because of the decisions and work of the people with whom I disagree. (See what I did there? Tried to see more than my own side of the situation. Others should take note.) I feel the same about the current global political climate. I just have radically different priorities from the people in charge. And I'd like to think there's room and space and a solution that addresses both those sets of priorities.
Until then, those of us not in charge can Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way which is a major theme from one of my new favorite movies, Idiocracy, the latest opus from auteur Mike Judge (he of Office Space). I promised a review of that movie, and I assure you, it is on the way. Until then, please, please don't just get out of the way.
Be an active citizen. I don't mean rolling around to your local voting station every four years. I mean, read a newspaper. Read a book that expands your worldview, one that isn't by Stephen King or John Grisham or Dan Brown. Find out what's going on around you, beyond your own personal circumstances, and take part.
* I believe this line of questioning is highly offensive to most Asian Americans. I can't even coherently explain why, it gets me so very very angry. If you can't understand why, you're probably one of those people who want to see my birth certificate and notarized pedigree for proof, and then you'll probably check my gums and teeth.
|
|
|
|
