The Other Drummer

The other day I’m driving home and there was a little girl on the side of the road standing behind a card table with a sign hanging off the front which read, “Lemonade Kool-Aid 25 cents.” Smiling, I remembered back to summers when I was a kid and tried the same venture, so I pulled over, rolled down my window and said, “One cup please.”

The cute little girl smiled at me showing off a full set of braces. As she poured my glass I fished around for a quarter. As I looked up, she was holding out what looked like an incredibly small cup. I was a bit taken aback. It was tiny. It was one of the little Dixie cups kids keep near the sink to use while brushing their teeth. It was this size (see below), but not this cool because it didn’t even have a TIE fighter on it.

I handed her the quarter and thanked her. Then I looked in the cup. It was only half full. The little girl skipped happily back to her table waiting for her next customer/victim.

I took my 1/16 gulp of sugary water and pondered my transaction.

After doing a little research, I found that the cup size she used was 3 oz. Filling it only half full meant she sold me 1.5 oz of Kool-Aid for 25 cents. If I’m doing the math right, that means the retail/street value of a pitcher of Kool-Aid is a little over $11, or $5.50 per liter.

Since we Americans don’t do the whole metric thing, let me put it in more general terms:

THIS LITTLE GIRL WAS SELLING KOOL-AID AT MORE THAN $20 PER GALLON.

Her overhead: nothing – she probably stole everything from her mom.

And she doesn’t pay taxes.

I think I’m in the wrong business.

Stand image courtesy of here.
Cup image couresy of here.

If you haven’t seen it yet, Seriously, So Blessed! is a brilliant parody site, written by an unknown author, from the point of view of a young married woman living in Utah, Tiffany/Amber/Megan/Nicole (take your pick) who is married to JJWT (Jordan/Jason/Wes/Taylor) and life is, like, so good.

JJWT is going to law/dental/business/medical school and TAMN has her degree in hair dressing/teaching 2nd grade. The blog is about their perfect life being so busy doing all sorts of (self) righteous, Utah things.

Their marriage couldn’t be happier. In fact, nothing goes wrong in her life. And if you want a perfect life, start with the perfect man. Here are her tips for you ladies out there who are looking to meet your own JJWT:

• Avoid wearing sweats, BUT, if you’re gonna wear sweats, MAKE SURE there is something sassy written on your bottom. 

• TEXT IN CHURCH. This will make you look even cuter and way less boring…if you can do this with tonz of gum, EVEN CUTER!

• Do NOT get a short haircut and/or make your hair one color (BOAR-RING!). Long and multi-colored is your best bet (but, don’t bet, it’s practically porn).
• WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT GO TO MORE SCHOOL, unless you want people to start calling you Yawnette. Think about it! Serious! How often do guys whistle and yell “Nice degree!” or shake there heads and say “What adorable knowledge”? EXACTLY.

Some other choice quotes:

In reference to being grateful for the Pioneers on the 24th of July: “If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t even HAVE a Gateway!”

And…”It’s so fun to just go up to my family’s cabin and look at the things that make up our beautiful world and feel so greatful. Love just looking at nature at night while I sit in the hot tub with a 44 ouncer of Diet Coke (bad I know, I’m off it now), and my cute pink ipod blaring, and just BEING with nature, soaking it up til I get pruney.”

Brilliant. Anyway, great site. Check it out, and start from the beginning.

Here are my thoughts on different types of eggs. Please let me know if I forgot any.

Scrambled: the best, especially on toast
Fried: Tasty, as long as they’re not overly runny
Omelettes: Mmmm.
Poached: don’t think I’ve ever had one, but they sound gross. Really, do we need to illegally hunt eggs? Sounds a bit excessive to me.
Hard boiled: No, no, no. Texture, smell…yikes.
Deviled: Never tried one, but the mere thought of a hard boiled egg mixed with mayo…yeah. No.

There you have it. In case you were wondering.

I was, of course, frustrated when my iMac crapped out on me. However, I decided to try and have an optimistic outlook. It would be a refreshing, liberating experience. Yes. I’d find that I could get by just fine without it, thank you very much. Kind of like when you go camping and remember there is life without the Internet and cell phones and it’s quite relaxing.

I was wrong.

It was terrible. For both my wife and me. Computer companies have done a very good job of getting us to center our lives around our computers (*ahem* iLife) and I have admittedly become very dependent. From music and podcasts to calendars and the Internet, it was a royal pain to be without a computer for a month.

What do I do about this habit, this way of life? Do I slowly adapt and find new ways to do things to become more independent? Of course not. I plan on buying a laptop as soon as I can.

*Sigh* I may never learn.

It’s a little late in posting, but Walmart isn’t going to tip-toe around with uber political correctness this “holiday season”. They’re going to be saying “Christmas” in their store, to their customers and in their advertising. *GASP!* Merry Christmas and all that. Who’da thought?

That’s the second thing Walmart has done this year that’s impressed me (the first being their “green” push, not only internally but with their suppliers as well). Maybe by Walmart not bending to the obnoxious minority (as well as going green) others will follow. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I’m actually considering shopping at Walmart this year. Lower prices weren’t enough to convince me, but hearing “Merry Christmas” just might be.

Apparently the Hubble telescope is in need of some repairs and NASA is planning a repair mission in 2008. The only thing holding them back is the $900 million it’ll take to keep that bad boy in orbit for another five years of pretty picture taking.

*sigh*

I’ve expressed my frustrations with space programs in the past and this quote reaffirms my position: “The veteran crew members agreed that the next Hubble flight would be less risky because of the safety improvements made since 2003, such as an inspection of the shuttle in orbit and new tools for repairing the ship in space.”

Repairing the ship in space? We’re spending millions of dollars to send people into space in a ship that’s going to break when they get there so we can spend $900 million to (again) fix a busted telescope that we’ll replace in five years? Seems like that money could be better spent on, say, health care, education, tax breaks or me.

P.S. The thing looks like a couple of tin cans wrapped in aluminum foil on training wheels. No wonder it’s always breaking.

This could be one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard of. There’s a school district in Massachusetts that’s banned kids from playing tag during recess. Why? Because they’re afraid of someone getting hurt and suing.

I’m serious. I wish I wasn’t, but I am.

I feel like yelling and ranting and raving about this subject (I feel rather strongly about our “entirely too timid/I would hate to offend anybody” society), but I’ll leave it at this: if we shelter our kids to the extent of not letting them run around during recess, not only are we robbing them of their childhood, we’re going to raise a generation of sissies that would easily be overrun by the French. And we can’t have that.

There’s some buzz about Leopard (OS 10.5) coming out and how it will compare to Vista when it finally rears its ugly, but shiny head.

Frankly, I don’t think it’s a fair comparison. (No, I’m not even remotely concerned that Vista will be better than OS X. I just want to make sure the comparison is fair so when Leopard blows it out of the water it will be all the more spectacular.) Leopard is and incremental upgrade, one of many made over the past six years or so. Vista is the first upgrade made in the same time period. So if you look at the features Vista offers compared to its predecessor versus the features Leopard offers over Tiger, you’re more likely to be impressed.

Apple has been allowing their customers to enjoy new, innovative features over the last six years thanks to consistent updates while Microsoft has apparently been too stunned at their progress to do anything for their customers but issue security patches.

In short, if people are going to compare Leopard to a Microsoft product (which they inevitably will) it should be against XP, not Vista.

I have one word for you my friends: powerlines. Or maybe it’s two words: power lines. Regardless, it’s something that’s sorely wrong with Utah. The mountains are one of Utah’s few redeeming aesthetic features and too often they’re obstructed by power lines. C’mon people! Bury those bad boys and clear up the view!

This is the same model, one picture taken in her “natural” state and one “post production.” I grabbed the pictures from a video that shows the process models go through (hint: lots of Photoshop) to look the way they do. The tag at the end of the video reads, “No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted.”

I couldn’t agree more. It comes as no surprise that girls get depressed when they see something fake, and unattainable, being promoted as a standard. This is all part of Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty. Check out their website, and the video, by clicking here.

On a professional note, I think the whole campaign is an excellent example of advertising being used to further a worthy cause while also promoting a brand.