Happy New Year

Yeah, Yeah, I know, I'm sorry, now deal with it.

If it's any consolation I've thought about blogging several times over the past few months.

The things I remember that I wanted to mention:

WARNING LABELS

We have become a society lacking in personal responsibility, and as such more and more warning labels have appeared to cover the rears of corporations serving us so as to save us from ourselves. The most disturbing of which I recently (recently is probably not the correct word since I am actually typing this months later) found when eating a Reese cup that had traveled for a while in my purse. Anyone who has had a Reese cup travel around in their purse knows that a decent portion of chocolate remains on the wrapper once the candy is open. The most efficient way to remove the chocolate is to lick the paper. When the paper is in such close proximity to ones eyes one is able to see "Candy is a treat and should be consumed in moderation." If only someone had told me that many years ago.

BOGUS GIFTS

Upon completing the creation of inane warning labels, corporations have moved on to creating inspired promotions to get us into their stores. Having spent a lot of money at Circuit City in one trip during my Christmas shopping (around the last time I blogged) Circuit City sent me a gift card. The front of the card simply says THANK YOU - worth 10% of your next purchase of $50 or more. The back however is more informative "Offer good for one use and applies to total qualifying purchase on a single receipt within the specified offer dates. Not valid on previous purchases. Offer excludes computers, music, movies, games, game hardware, Sharper Image, Infinity, Velodyne, Bose, Polk, Apple, Kicker, MTX Thunder, LG, plasma TV's, LCD TV's, KEF, Outlet, and Gift Card Purchases." I'm not sure what's left in the store to spend $50 on, but I think I remember seeing some Reese Cups by the checkout the last time I was there.

EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED

Mostly from fiction. My entire knowledge of the Civil War is gleaned from novels such as North and South by John Jakes. I think what I learned in school was how to learn and have continued to do so every day. I guess a lot of what I know I also got from games and game shows. I know that Neville Shute wrote On the Beach only because it is a question in the original Trivial Pursuit game (I think I remember that the question was actually "what novel was a follow up to Neville Shute's ?????") I can't recall the name of the original book in the question but I remember if the author was Neville Shute the answer was On the Beach. I have no idea what the book was about. Anyway the pondering on the way that I learn came into play twice in the past couple of weeks. (In actual time it was the past couple of weeks, we are nearing the end of what I remember about what I wanted to blog.) I just finished an amazing book, Exile by Richard North Patterson. Although, I have loved all of the previous books by this author I wasn't really looking forward to this one and was slightly disappointed when Mommy started the other book I had brought home from the library and Exile was the only thing left that I had not read. By page 3 I was hooked, and I realized that I had no idea of why the Palistinians and Isrealis were fighting. I'm not sure how that happened but I do not remember ever "learning" about the conflict, I just "knew" that Palistinian equaled terrorist and Isreali equaled sufferer. But reading this book I understand more, I have a clue, not a phone a friend clue more of an ask the audience clue, but a clue non the less. The other instance where this type of learning came into play was regarding the dumber than a fifth grader show. A question last week dealt with area, math is one subject I have retained since my school days and knew the answer immediately, when I was talking to Gordon (not known for his math skills) about that show he mentioned that he struggled messed up on the "half" portion of the question but knew the formula for area since it is repeated throughout the Pink Floyd movie The Wall.

That's all for now, it might not take a couple of months next time.