fast food

(what a surprise)

essentially unrelated: I discovered that my home has seating for 23 people-between sofas and chairs. That's a 7:1 ratio of chairs to inhabitants. (yes, there are 3.285714 inhabitants here). Since I'm the average world person, that means that there are over 45 billion chairs on the planet (think of all of the additional chairs in businesses and it's probably more than double that)! Chairs are the business to be in.

So everyone knows fast food is bad for them, right? But how could it be? It's engineered by people for people. Feeding the masses what they want. Cool. How do you wrong a business for supplying what the people want? And it's edible too! OK, this is just silly. What people seem to want is lots of fat, salt and sugar. Most of the 'deluxe' burgers contain 30+% fat. It's where the flavor comes from. Yum.

A friend of mine worked at Carl's Jr. long ago. Seems that they used to make their french fries with a machine. You drop in this powdered stuff and some water-makes a dough, then shakes back and forth while extruding perfect 'crinkle-cut' fries. Scary. I think some of them places use the same magic dough to make everything from the bags to all food stuffs. Same goo, different shape.

Isn't this a great world we live in.

slow food

What is it about eating at a restaurant that is appealing? You have to wait to sit down, wait to tell someone what you want to eat, wait for the food, wait for everything. Where's the instant gratification? And, if you go to a snazzy enough joint, you have to valet park too. That means you have to stand around looking like an idiot while someone goes and gets your car for you.

I just don't get it. And you have to pay through the nose for the experience. I guess there's a big sign on your head that says "Sucker", right? People not only choose to do this, they go out of their way for the experience.

Here's my idea, c'mon over to my house and wait in line for hours in the rain, and I'll charge you lots of money to listen to me scratch my fingernails on a chalkboard. Maybe, if you want to pay more, you'll get a poke in the ribs too. Sounds appealing, doesn't it?

Oh, in thinking about it, that's the night club experience, isn't it? Darn, someone beat me to it.

Pop! ulation (2)

So what's the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear or read the word "Pop"? Just wondering. Has nothing to do with the rest of the post.

If you didn't read the prior post "People u lation 1", this one might not make as much sense. Maybe it won't make any sense anyway.

The really big populations (India and China) are starting to get to the point that they are having a consuming middle-class. They're going to be wanting all of the junk that Americans (and Europeans, too) have had for so many years. Just think of how great it will be to have another billion or so cars driving around. Of course, that may not matter much, since the world is running out of oil (more on that in another post).

Anyone remember those psychological experiments that they did with rats and population density? I think it works on people too. Too many of us in too little space, and we all go nuts and kill each other. That's what the rats did. They gave them all the food and water that they needed, but not the space. Star Trek had an episode on that one (in the 60's-not that wanky Star Trek of the 90's).

So what do we do? How to deny the humungous profits to multi-national corporations just waiting to take over the world? Eliminate Baywatch. That's all it will take. It's one of the most popular TV shows of all time, from what I've heard. Get rid of that, and no one will know any better. Or, just wait for the major disease, violence, starvation, and other things that will eventually kick in to try to take care of the problem. Oh, Benny Hill too-well whatever.

I wouldn't be surprised if we see a reality to the corporate control of the planet-ala books and movies (not that it isn't that way now anyway) (1984, Rollerball, Handmaid's Tale, etc.)

Soylent Green is People! (do you think the band Green Day got its name from that movie?-unfortunately no. They aren't so clever-it seems to have come from something about smoking illicit substances). But Duran Duran, at least can claim to get their name from "Barbarella".

People u lation 1

As far as I can find out, humans are the largest single species population on the planet over about five pounds. That means that there are more of us than there are anything bigger or smaller in a very wide range of sizes-like a thousand times more of us than most other things (*one exception, below). If you believe the 'census-y' sort, there's about six and a half billion of us roaming about right now. The population of the world has more than doubled in my lifetime. I remember hearing that there were three billion when I was young, and thinking that was a lot, and really too many. Now it's more, and too many more. Not only that, it is getting to be even more even faster.

Go here: http://www.populationconnection.org/ to see the doom associated with too many of us.

Because of agriculture, there are about six billion chickens too-(*there are also about 1.5 billion cattle). To get anywhere near our population [without farming], the animals get pretty small-like about mouse size, I think. I'm not sure about plant life, but I would bet that the same holds true. Naturally, things like beetles and ants and such far outnumber and outweigh us. I don't think they have as big a negative effect on the planet as us though.

I think what this means is that the world is getting to be a worse place to live. I think that there is a finite amount of intelligence, and that it's all being spread thin over the total population. Haven't you noticed that people seem to be acting stupider? Well, maybe if there get to be enough of us, we'll all be dumb enough to be happy anyway.

That's the start. More in the next post...

Off

No post today. Down for maintenance.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha. ahhh....

Self conflicting. A way of life for so many of us.

Three shopping events (whee):

Twice in one day, I noticed that I was charged for something other than what I purchased (more in both cases). The first time, the cashier couldn't deal with the concept that the price marked on the object and the object itself didn't in any way match what was on the receipt. Had to ask for a supervisor after arguing the illogic of the guy. Second time it happened (different place), they apologized profusely and made it right as fast as they could. "Sorry, that happens sometimes". [that's two so far]

I was at the register to purchase my thing, as was some unknown [to me] woman to purchase her thing. Clerk took both of our things and fumbled about some. Then he said something like "I'm stressed out!", took our items and left the store. He didn't come back. It was funny and odd. [and that's three]

This now eases us into the concept of self-conflicting data (just line 03, not the shopping stories). There will be some babbling about that soon.

Now I'm done with my no post and am off to maintain.