Is the bar too high?

I love the marketing, and the push to try new things, and do things better, but does this sort of idea create in our minds an ideal that leads to trouble?

Not For Profit

My Alma Mater called me tonight. Just checking in to see how I'm doing, what I've been up to, and to see if I might want to donate to their fund. The psychological methodology of the call was very interesting. Young, chatty girl talks it up with me about my experiences in school and what she's doing for a good 10 minutes before moving on to the meat of the conversation.

I think her first offer was looking for a minimum donation of $350. Apparently her foundation had mistaken me for one of their many A-list graduates. I politely declined.

Interestingly enough, she now was able to come below the previous minimum. "Would you be able to do at least $250," she innocently queried?

"Nope."

Somehow we got to $50. Lucky for me I had the same answer.

"Sorry."

When she asked about $25 I felt low and inhumane. How could I not possibly afford $25? Outrageous, preposterous even. I've either got to be lying, or worse, just a total complete loser. I graduated from their prestigious University with 2 bachelor degrees 14 years ago and still can't even cough up the equivalent of a bottle of Gin. Way to shoot for the stars, boyeee!!

So I did what any man would do, I caved. And the beauty of it all? She told me they were a non-profit. But my question is this:

Who is the bigger non-profit: The University of California or me?

Chavez at the Helm

Per the Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times, Venezuela's yearly inflation rate is 25%, and that figure is twice that government's goal. Copernicus I am not, but that seems to indicate a target rate of inflation of 12.5%. (Of course, Zimbabwe's has passed the 1000% mark and it's looking completely uncontrollable.)

And so Chavez has instituted price controls. This is not going to go well for Venezuela.

God Help Us...please

I was never a fan of going into Iraq. But I also just couldn't figure out Saddam's fearless defiance....they strung him up, right? Why'd he have to pull a 'Thelma and Louise' on his country?

And, why can't humans just get along. Is it really that hard? It doesn't need to be nice and rosy, but what's with all the 'I'll bet my life on it' playground showmanship?

Iran has got to be kidding me.

Better?

I found this while perusing The Big Picture today. Verdict: wow, awesome! I suggest downloading this free app and checking it out soon....

Computer Wars

So I've been looking at Macs lately, and I must say, I'm tempted. The 20" iMac looks really, really cool. Of course the MacBook Pros look just as good, but damn! they're expensive.

And so here's the thing that I know is happening: it's glistens so I want it. Do I need it? No. Would it make anything I want to do easier? Maybe, but this maybe is a very complimentary maybe, and I think it's actually negligible.

My PC doesn't really give me any problems. And I've got 2.5 megs of ram, so it runs pretty quick. But I will say that it does have it quirks, like the CD burner that is never recognized by the machine anytime I need to burn something. And I was watching an episode of The Office, downloaded from iTunes, that would freeze anytime I adjusted the volume. Weird, huh?

Anyone actually ever read this blog? Any thoughts?

I will say it's pretty fun to go into an Apple store and have all these Apple freaks act like the difference is night and day. Like one is a cheese sandwich (American slices) on white bread with no condiments and the other is a plate of bluefin ahi seared to perfection with all the Tsingtao's you can drink.