Giving the world a hand since February 3rd, 2002. "If you're gonna dine with them cannibals, sooner or later, darling, you're gonna get eaten."




Comments by YACCS

 
Once again, I'm amazed at the record label Anti- for providing a link to a Tom Waits appearance on NPR's "All Things Considered" on their website. Now this is a record label that actually likes the fans of its artists.

It's 36 minutes of pure Waits & in the RealPlayer format. Check it out.
so wrote Leper around about 3:50 AM

 
ESPN2 is currently showing two hours of a spelling bee. A. Spelling. Bee.

Even cricket would be better than a spelling bee, and I don't even understand the rules to cricket....
so wrote Leper around about 8:09 PM

 
The NY Times has an op-ed by Salman Rushdie on the current crisis in the Indian subcontinent. He seems to think that the beating of the war drums on the part of the Indians is more to prop up their existing government in the face of impending elections rather than any true moral outrage at the violence.

Gee, it's a good thing that stuff like that doesn't happen in America.....*cough*bullshit*cough*
so wrote Leper around about 11:19 AM

 
Drove with my parents to see my brother last night, to pick up some stuff & go out to eat. We got a free meal out of the trip....all I had to do was have the waitress spill a glass of ice water down my back. You know me, always happy to "take one for the team"...

Immediately after the spillage, the waitress was mortified & said that we'd get our meal for free. I wasn't mad at all--in fact it was kinda funny--which I'm sure made things easier on the waitress. She quickly disappeared into the back room, eventually coming back (10-15 min later) to clean up some of the spilled water. The manager didn't make an appearance until after we had gotten our food & were almost done eating, and even then she gave a halfhearted apology before she zipped off.

This little incident brings me back to the importance of good customer service. To my way of thinking, the manager should've been out to the table as soon as the server told her about the incident. I didn't really care about the free meal, I was looking more for a show of contrition on the part of the management, an ackowledgement that something bad had happened & some inquiries as to whether I was ok, needed dry-cleaning, a towel, etc. What made it worse was the fact that the place wasn't even busy--we were the only customers at that point. I was left with a feeling that the people were in hiding, avoiding my possible wrath (such as it is...*snort*). It was unprofessional & rude. Good customer service is more than giving away free stuff to keep people happy, especially when you aren't being treated as a person.

One more thing: my parents left the server a $5 tip, even though we got the meal free & the service was less than...um....dry. Had it been just me, I wouldn't have left a tip at all, especially after the lack of recognition from the management. Does anyone know what kind of tip is customary after the server dumps cold water on your back?
so wrote Leper around about 11:08 AM

 
I wasn't gonna yammer any more about "Attack of the Clones", but what the hell...

Steve over at Now This has a rant about the movie that makes very valid points, from a certain point of view. This ain't the Mona Lisa of movies, more like dogs playing poker--clever, entertaining, but ultimately forgettable. Breaching the Web also makes a good point, except I suspect she's seeing the Jedi as soldiers instead of the galatic policemen that they are. A good government doesn't keep around more policemen than it needs, unless it's expecting a whole mess o' trouble...
so wrote Leper around about 10:48 AM

 
British professor proves that time really is money. Here's the equation, for those of you so chronically bored or woefully overeducated:

V=(W((100-t)/100))/C

V is the value of an hour, W is a person's hourly wage, t is the tax rate and C is the local cost of living.
so wrote Leper around about 10:23 PM

 
Webcrumbs points to a letter to Roger Ebert that makes an excellent point about why Eps I & II seem so....remote from the rest of the SW movies. I totally agree.
so wrote Leper around about 10:07 PM

 
Instapundit has an interesting discussion on the effect of a nuclear exchange on future deterrence/abhorrence of the use of nukes. Basically, the concensus believes that with the advent of live news & instant updates to information, that the sights of the victims & destruction will sicken the world into never using nukes again.

My take? Well, in a perfect world, where everyone values human life equally, I'd agree. However, there are people in the world today whose culture (be it terrorist cell, religious order, country, etc.) thinks that sacrifice paves the way into the afterlife, or who don't give a damn about how many people have to die in order for them to "win". To vastly oversimplify, the Western world will be horrified (France will offer to surrender), the Middle East will be concerned about how the "taking off of the nuclear gloves" will effect Israel, the Subcontinent won't react as there won't be a Subcontinent, and China will just shrug (to paraphrase the 1950's China leadership, "What does the loss of a few million matter when you have 3 billion citizens?") & annex the parts of northern India left intact. Heck, a small nuclear war might even scare some smaller countries into starting or accelerating their own nuclear programs (Iran? Japan? Iraq? North Korea? Indonesia?). How destabilizing would that be?

As to whether a Subcontinent nuclear war will stop the use of nukes forever, let's look to history, shall we? In the past, certain inventions were supposed to make war "so horrible that humanity would never again want to go to war". The inventions? The crossbow, artillery, the rifle, dynamite, the machinegun, poison gas, nuclear weapons.....see a pattern?
so wrote Leper around about 3:02 AM

 
I finally got to try Vanilla Coke, and I have to say that I like it. It tastes like a rum & coke, without all of the nasty effects that rum has on my delicate digestive system. Or the horny drunkeness.
so wrote Leper around about 2:35 AM

 
There must be spring-like weather now, as I'm starting to see those big, black spiders in my apartment. You know, the ones with an attitude. I saw one crawling across my ceiling not an hour ago. I picked up the flyswatter, intending to turn him into a squishy stain, but this sucker (about the size of a silver dollar--remember those?) saw me coming & dropped to the carpet with an audible thud (well, a *pat*-type sound). After chasing him out of hiding with the swatter & a can of Raid (which didn't phase him--scary), I thwacked him into smushyness. This happens at least once a week in warm weather.

Well, at least I don't have roaches...
so wrote Leper around about 2:28 AM