Black Oneday

I heard my wife talking on the phone, "What are you going to dress up like for Black Oneday?".

Black Oneday, what a stupid name.  What a stupid day.  On November one, all the stores have doorbuster sales.  The shoppers dress up in Halloween costumes the night of October thrity-one and wait in line.  It seemed like there was a time when people did things for Halloween besides shop, but I can't really remember that far back.  But what do you expect when Thanksgiving is the biggest retail holiday in the country?

If it were just for Black Oneday, it probably wouldn't be so bad, but it seems like we're overdoing Thanksgiving in general. They even have radio stations that start playing Thanksgiving music in September. There are only two Thanksgiving songs--"Simple Gifts" and "We Gather Together". There is even a secular Thanksgiving music station that only plays "Simple Gifts".  It's named "Simple Gifts". Simple Gifts, a simple station for simple minded people.

How early is too early to start Thanksgiving Season? The big retail stores have been trying to make this last as long as possible. The term for it is Thanksgiving Creep. It's a funny term, I tend to think of a Thanksgiving Creep as the weird uncle who shows up for Thanksgiving dinner and no one is quite sure if he really is a relative or who invited him.

I try not to take sides in this "War on Thanksgiving", but I do think it's a little ridiculous when the temperature outside is in the 100s, and people are starting to put their Thanksgiving decorations up. They say Americans consume 1 million tons of fake leaves every year.  I remember when people used to pay people to take away the leaves.

I have to go--my wife and I are going to see a Thanksgiving movie with some friends.  They're all the same--a combined message that the spirit of Thanksgiving is about being with family and spending money on Thanksgiving merchandise.  They're very subtle with the second point, but it's still there. The Hollywood executives know there's a symbiotic relationship between the success of retail market during Thanksgiving and their ability to make profit off of throw-away Thanksgiving movies.

I better stop complaining, though. People might get the impression I don't like Thanksgiving. I do like Thanksgiving--it's my favorite holiday. At least it used to be...

If you're going to point out someone else's mistake, you should first point out something they did well.  At least, that's what you're supposed to do to maintain polite, friendly relationships with people.

Unfortunately, I've been subjected to this enough to know that when I get paid a compliment, it's only because the person compliment me wants to point out a flaw.  I may be exaggerating a bit, more often than not, they need to point out a problem that I need to fix. I am an engineer, fixing problems is what I do.  I am used to dealing with having problems pointed out.  What is far more painful is when this technique is used to point out what someone believes to be a personal flaw. It could be the person believes I behaved improperly or issues a warning. A wise person can take criticism, though, so I try to listen to the criticism and see if it is valid.

The problem, though, is that some people only offer compliments right before they offer criticism.  There a two thing that happen as the result of that:
1. You don't hear the compliment.
2. You develop a conditioned response to put up your defenses whenever you get a compliment.

Seriously, someone comes up to me and says, "I really liked what you did..."
In my head I think, "Great, what did I do wrong now?".

I don't know the solution to that, but how well I take the criticism depends less on whether or not it was softened with a compliment, but whether or not I trust the person it came from.

whatever.

Yesterday though, our pastor had a good sermon, but one of his slides had a reference written wrong.  I used the old compliment, then correct tactic.  I only offered the correction, in case he wanted to update his slides later, but what seemed to happen is that the correction I offered seemed to undermine my compliment.  I wished I had only offered the compliment, because to me, that was far more important than the error I noticed.

Dealing with people sucks.  Why does it have to be so hard?

This Greek crisis is interesting.  I find it funny how the Greek people are protesting the austerity measures and going on strike.  It's not funny that they have to go through those measures, and it's understandable that they are angry about what they have to give up.
It just seems as if they do not realize their leaders have no choice.  It's pretty cut and dry:

• Foreign investors will not throw good money after bad.
• Greece needs foreign money.
• Greece needs to convince investors it is fixing it's broken system.
• Greek leaders impose painful measures in order to avoid far more painful circumstances.

My question is, why are there people protesting that? They might as well be protesting against gravity.

The more interesting question is how much does the current Greek situation parallel what we are in now? I am not talking about the occupy protests going on right now. I am talking more about our debt-powered economy.  Personally, I have been against cuts in Federal spending until the economy improves, but isn't that the same argument the Greek protestors are making?  Perhaps the difference is that the United States is not on the verge of defaulting on our debt. We still have foreign investors willing to loan us money. Austerity measures are not our only option. Even if we did take austerity measures, they would look far different. We also have our own currency, whereas Greece does not.  I think that may be just as important to their situation.

I think Greece does offer a good example for us of non-sustainable socialism.  All sorts of money flows down from the government, people get used to it, and when the money is no longer available, the citizens act like spoiled children who have to give up their iPhones because their dad lost his job. Actually, it may be worse than that. I would think if a family were going through a financial crisis, they might all rally together to try to scrape by.  The Greeks seem hell-bent on destroying themselves.

Back to our situation though, when is our economy going to pick up enough steam that we can finally start running a surplus in our Federal budget again? Could we restructure our economy so we don't rely on debt?

I saw a headline today:
U.S. aims to "unite the world" against Iran

It reminded me of a time I tried to unite my 6th grade class against a bully. It didn't work out so well.

I hope the U.S. government's attempt fares better than mine did.

I was watching a football game yesterday, and the commentators were talking about Al Davis.  They had a lot of good things to say about him.

Maybe part of this is my bias against the Raiders, but I didn't think there was all that much good to say about him.  I think I did recently learn he was instrumental in the founding of the AFL and it's merger with the NFL.  I don't know that resigning as commissioner just before the merger is really "instrumental".

It does seem odd the way the media tends to focus only on the good of a person's legacy after they die.  Unless that person is a criminal.  I don't recall Osama Bin Laden or Timothy McViegh being remembered for anything good.

But still, why do we put such a halo on the dead?  I can understand only remembering the good if you're a family member or friend.

Along those lines, recommended reading: What Everyone Is Too Polite to Say About Steve Jobs
OK, so some of the criticisms of him are things I would think are common for most successful moguls/tycoons/CEOs:
Apple's products were made in foreign factories
Steve Jobs was a jerk

But still, at least there is someone out there not ready to immediately canonize Steve Jobs.

whatever.

http://grooveshark.com/s/Styrofoam+Plates/2pLPWq?src=5

I have three or four things running through my ahead about the death of Steve Jobs:
1. Is the media making a bigger deal of him than he really was?
1.a. How will Apple fare over the next decade without him?
2. "We are the innovators--they are the imitators." Apple sure has plenty of imitators.
3. Thom Yorke from Radiohead was interviewed on NPR yesterday and referenced John Lennon saying, "It's not who you steal from, it's how you steal."  Perhaps this applied equally well to a number of Apple's more successful innovations.

whatever.