Thoughts About People Standing in the Street

This is at an intersection not far from my neighborhood.

Here’s what’s going on in the picture:

A pan handler stands at the red dot, holding a sign asking for a little help.

Hispanic laborers sit at the blue dot waiting for someone to come in a truck to ask them to do some labor.

And at the green dot, a sign spinner holds a sign for gold in exchange for cash.

At this one corner, we have three different kinds of people: someone no longer looking for a job, a group of people looking for a job and guy who has a job.

Does the sign spinner hate that he has to spin signs and would rather get money directly by holding another cardboard sign instead?

Do the Hispanic day laborers envy the sign spinner for having a steady job?

I’m not sure who the homeless guy is jealous of, but I’m sure he’s jealous of one of the other two, at least.

This is like a game of employment Rock Paper Scissors.

Tags: FUNemployment! The grass is greener

Thoughts About Love

Hey, you know what I’m tired of? Love.

Not out-in-the-street love but in-entertainment love. Do relationships really have to be the main conflict in the story? In The Office, it was all about Jim and Pam. Then the writers figured that they couldn’t drag it out for 6 seasons like How I Met Your Mother. So when Jim and Pam finally got together, it moved to Michael Scott’s quest for love. Then it was Andy and Erin. And when they finally went on a date, the writers, I guess, found out that there were no other love lines to pursue so they pressed CTRL+Z on the whole thing and started over for this season and his re-quest to get Erin back.

Are there no more original ideas left? Or are we just thirsting to see people find true love?

And how many songs are there on the radio that deal with having a crush on a person, or being with a person or no longer being with a person? Is all of this really necessary?

No. None of this is necessary.

I just re-read what I wrote and I sound bitter. But I’m not. I wonder if the other countries’ The Office all deal with romantic tension as the main story line, too. I hope so. Because if there’s one idea that we need to get across to the world, it’s that office romance makes for good TV. That and shows based on Twitter accounts.

Tags: That's why 30 Rock is a good show.

Thoughts About Breast Cancer Awareness

Around October, a lot of pink things start to pop up and you’d see it everywhere — in stores, on TV, on the street. And then maybe you’d wonder, what’s going on? What’s with all the pink during fall? And then you’d read somewhere that the pink is to raise awareness for breast cancer, whether it be getting an exam or supporting the research.

Once you’ve figured out what the pink meant, you would finally be in the loop. If you felt strongly about the cause, you, yourself, would start to sport pink things to raise awareness and if someone asked you, “Hey, what’s with the pink jump suit?” You would proudly say, “Oh this old thing? I’m just raising awareness about breast cancer.”

This was several years ago. Now, I’m pretty sure everyone in America is aware of the issue. Instead of asking, “Why are there pink things everywhere?” everyone just says, “Oh, it must be October already.”

Even the NFL is getting in on this. Their shoes, gloves, hats are all pink. The ball even has a ribbon on it. I think it’s time for Breast Cancer Awareness month to take a break.

Did you know October is also Domestic Violence Awareness Month? How could you? Breast Cancer has a monopoly on the month of October. If there’s any issue that sports needs to bring awareness to, it’s domestic violence. Jason Kidd knows what I’m talking about.

Tags: I wear pink on laundry days, too! It doesn't have to be October to be aware

Thoughts About Disney

I had no idea that Disney liked to have their characters transform into different things so much.

I mean, Pinocchio turned from a toy, to a boy/toy, to a donkey/boy/toy to a real boy. Wart from The Sword in the Stone is three different animals in his lessons. And Kuzco of Emperor’s New Groove; he was a one-man zoo.

What’s the deal, Disney? It’s apparent they like their characters changing, but why did Aladdin get to turn into a prince by the genie, but Mulan only get a dragon companion? She wanted to be a man, not a woman dressed as a man with a dragon buddy.

Tags: Disney Real world issues

Thoughts About The Princess and the Frog

The only African queen Disney ever had for a while was Nala from The Lion King. Then they came out with The Princess and The Frog with a girl from New Orleans who’d be their first black princess.

It took them a while to finally replace an animal as their unofficial African princess spokesperson with an official human one, but better late than never.

So how does the movie add up for girls who look forward to see their first black princess?

Tiana is black: +1
But…so is the villain: -1
But her snobby, spoiled friend is white: +1
But her rich white father is the king: -1
The prince is sort of black, I’m not sure. He’s from a land called Maldonia, which is made up so who knows: +0?
For a majority of the movie, she is a frog. Not an African-American frog, just a frog: -1

So the overall racial score for this movie is in the negatives. Watch with racist caution.

Also, I’m not serious about my analysis of this movie being racist but Rachel Mercer’s viewpoints of the movie and its message to women is dead on. Please give it a read.

Tags: Good music, though. Ukuleles play in jazz bands?

Thought About Outliers

I finally got around to finishing Outliers. I started explaining it to a friend of mine, and we got into a discussion about how the word “outlier” is pronounced.

He pronounced it as out-liar. I said out-lee-er. I still have no idea how to pronounce it so I just avoid the topic of reading.

Tags: Book Review

Thoughts About Elliptical

Have you ever run on a treadmill facing a window and asked yourself, “Why am I not doing this in real life? Why am I choosing to stay indoors and run in place when I can be running outdoors and see what’s around the neighborhood?”

Is it because you live in the flattest city where there are no hills and your machine’s incline level goes to 10, which you’ll probably never get to? Or are you afraid of the street bandits/thunderstorm?

Doesn’t matter, I won’t judge you. As long as you’re exercising, it doesn’t matter if you’re doing outdoors or in a gym. In fact, in a gym, you have access to things you might not have at home. You can get on the exercise bike if you don’t have a bicycle. Or the rower if you don’t have a kayak. Or the stepper for stairs. Or the treadmill for concrete or legs or something.

All of those things can be done either with or without the machine. But what is the elliptical? What do you do on the elliptical that you also do in real life? Jump from cloud to cloud?

I’ve been watching people’s movements on the elliptical trying to see what real-life actions it mimics. But it’s neither running nor walking. It’s some kind of ridiculous slow-motion skipping that makes you look ridiculous if you take away the machine, and it makes me look like a creep for trying to understand what exactly it is you’re doing by staring from across the gym.

Tags: Updating Tumblr is the new sit and be fit

Thoughts About TV Sitcoms

The Office, 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, Community, Outsourced. America has spoken. Your workplace sucks compared to the scripted television workplace and you wish you were working at Dunder Mifflin instead. They’re so funny!

And even though these shows have the characters who are apathetic, overly ambitious, charming, really cute, slightly stupider than average and crazy, just like your office has those same characters, it’s just not as funny.

Because you’re real life. And real life is a shitcom.

Tags: To be fair, 30 Rock is pretty funny Television The Office

Thoughts About American Eagle

Anybody who’s heard of American Apparel has an opinion of them. Their t-shirts are plain, they have risqué advertising and hipsters seem to like it a lot.

You might have an opinion on the clothing store, American Eagle, too. They have graphic shirts, a lot of eagle imagery and their advertising’s aimed to college kids.

The big difference, however, is that with a name like American Eagle, and using the eagle and everything, you’d think they’d take a little more pride and make their shirts in the US. They don’t. They have them made elsewhere.

Whether they’re made in a sweatshop somewhere in Macau or in a not-sweatshop in Macau, I don’t know. I don’t do my research. But if you’re going to call yourself American Eagle, have some pride. 

I’d rather deal with a bunch of hipsters at American Apparel, since their clothes are made in LA, sweatshop free, than deal with a bunch of bros at American Eagle.

So American Eagle, I am now going to start calling you Macau Eagle.

Tags: Do the British even have petroleum where they are?

Thoughts About Netflix

I like books. I don’t think I’m the sort of snob that goes the book was better, but in the case of Harry Potter, The Count of Monte Cristo or even Garfield, I think the book was certainly better.

So after pondering Netflix’s business model, I was thinking how can I do the same thing but with books? Because books are good and netflix is profitable.

And then I remembered the library.

Tags: Read, kids! I volunteered at the library for two summers when I was in middle school. How could I have possibly forgotten that? What an idiot.