Loony Idea: Metering Tables

In my opinion one of the problems with a restaurant or bar as a 'third place', somewhere other than work or home for people to hang out is the inadequate correlation between consumption and the occupying of seats. The establishment needs to sell a certain number of drinks or meals, but there is a limit to how much a person can healthily consume.

So my crazy idea would be to put an old style coin operated parking meter (they can be purchased quite inexpensively right now) on the table and let the people there stay as long as they want as long as they feed the meter. So instead of getting falling down drunk at the local bar a patron can consume as many drinks as he will enjoy and separately pay for the space.

Since they're disappearing or gone the old style mechanical parking meters would also add to the decor or atmosphere of the establishment, I would think. But since this would be a new/different way of doing things I suspect it would not catch on with patrons.

Six Hundred Fifteen Dollars

That is how much I owe myself right now. I think I'll be brave and transfer the money to my savings account sometime today. It if for driving my car around as I figure I need to start saving money towards eventual repairs and/or replacement of my vehicle. I am trying to save 50 cents per mile, but that's rather severe given how much I am ending up having to drive for my job. Still, it must be done either now or later when something bad happens and I have to replace my car.

Still, ouch. No more fun purchases this month. I'm not broke or anything (far from it), but I'm going to delay certain purchases until after my next payday so I can maintain my 'zero balance' in my checking account. If I can I always keep a certain amount of money in my checking account in case of emergencies and so that if I make a minor error in the balancing of my checkbook it does not matter. Never an overdraft for me! It is one of those little strategies I recommend to anyone as a way to reduce stress. If you always have $200, $500, $1,000, or even $2,000 in your checking account it does not matter the exact timing of your paycheck deposit vs. expenses like rent on the first of the month.

But I used up my cushion when I was unemployed (of course) and I've been working on getting it back up to where it should be over the last two months. I will be $70 short, or so, once I pay all the start of the month bills for May, but that's pretty darn close and it happens with our biweekly pay that I'll have three pay dates in May. That should put me well over the top for June. Little things like that really make me happy.

Shameless Self Promotion

I am, contrary to some indications, rather introspective. Often my very flightiness is wrapped up in introspection where I go off on some tangent because I'm busy living in my head where one thing has already lead me to go off in some other mental direction instead of finishing what I had intended to do.

So long after the very minor brouhaha over giving a negative review in response to someone promoting his work in my journal I kept poking at why I few off like that. It isn't as if the internet is some sort of pristine no advertising zone, after all. Or that most of us are not out looking for some sort of validation or a minuscule shard of fame. After all if we're not interested in at least some attention from people we do not know we'd be posting in locked journals, if at all.

So what is different about posting a comment on a journal entry? I think in my case it seems like a violation of one of those messy unwritten social rules. There are exceptions, but if a person promotes his or her own work or is doing so for pay, I expect it to come through pay channels rather than through channels reserved for two way communication. A person might get around this rules by being sneaky about it, cheeky about it, or even brazen, but that's a delicate act. If you're not willing to take at least a few tomatoes along with the roses it is a very bad idea to use personal communication channels as a way to seek gain. It is part of why Amway has such a bad reputation, it trades on friendship.

So, what route is open for a person who's an aspiring self-publishing artist on the internet? Short of spending actual money on advertising anyway.

One route is to contact your actual friends and then just keep plugging away. If you're good or getting better you'll connect with an audience somewhat naturally. Friends will tell their friends and so on. If what you're doing is more blog than free book/comic/art on the internet it makes sense to offer up links to other blogs you read when you feel inspired because this will tend to lead to reciprocation if it is honest.

If that's too passive cultivate a great facility for feigning interest in other people and posting comments on their blogs/journals/whatever. You cannot do this with a canned comment saying, "Hey you're neat, come check out my work." You've got to let people make up their own minds to check you out. And if you are not actually interested in the person then expect someone to figure this out at some point and be even more outraged than if you'd been up front about what you were doing. I did a bit of this when I was first on livejournal, but I was actually interested in the people I commented on their blogs.

The third option is to just not care that you're going to attract negative attention. Plenty of people get away with this, but you're going to need a thicker skin.

That's everything I know about self promotion. It isn't much, but I thought I'd share. I should do another post later about how my view of friendship is somewhat similar to this. Reciprocation, dishonesty, and strange methods.

Don't Do It Man, It Ain't Worth It

Important life safety tip: Don't steal. Ignore moral implications for a minute, stealing from a large corporation is a bad idea because of the low reward to risk ratio.

Yes, everyone does it. But you shouldn't not because you're a better person, but because it could potentially screw up your life.

Let me spin you a little story based in reality of something I saw happen, but where I have changed all the details and give no names. Girl works for company that is a subcontractor with a retail establishment. One day when girl is out and about she impulsively chooses to put jar of face cream into her pocket and then pay for some other minor item thinking she's clever. Unfortunately store security is on the ball that day and one of them spots her slipping the makeup into her pocket. They stop her just as she's outside the door and they have her dead to rights.

Worse it happens that this one item is on the expensive side and so she's over the limit where they have discretion on if they call the police on her or just give her an expensive warning. Even if the loss prevention people wanted to be nice and just let her go they would be risking their own jobs to do so and they're not willing to do that for a stranger in this economy. So they call the police. It isn't as bad as it could be because she's cooperative and has official identification and nothing else against her like chronically unpaid parking tickets or something. But she's still cited and given a trespass admonishment.

What does that mean? It means that she's banned from the property of the retail establishment for one year from the date she was caught on. So she's likely to be put in an awkward situation. She's going to be sent back to this retail establishment by her job and if any of the security people spot her she'll go to jail. Plus there is the court costs and civil restitution so that she's going to end up paying nearly one thousand dollars and not even get to keep the makeup she bought so dearly.

So she can be out of work or run the risk of going to jail. Don't shoplift kids.

This is a sort of worse case scenario where someone loses a job over shoplifting, but that's the problem. You don't know when everything will go wrong for you. Sure, you'll probably get away with taking that CD, but what if you don't and it happens to get much worse than the minor problem of not being able to go to one store and a $100-250 civil restitution (in Colorado). And this is not completely made up, I got a ringside seat to seeing it go down.

By the by, civil restitution is a thing where retailers can charge a person for shoplifting. Never heard of it? Relatively new and if it goes unpaid they turn into actual arrest warrants and criminal charges later. It is so that the police do not have to deal with every case of shoplifting a candy bar and to let the store get back some money for all the times a person took something and did not get caught.

Lights and Dinner

I forgot to mention that I did get my LED light strings and put them up in time for my party. They work really well for giving enough light, and in a pleasant color, for parties or just walking around in the evening. Personally I'm just as happy using them as any of the brighter twisted florescent lights. I think they may not be rectified though as i do detect a bit of a flicker when they are on. And, as is usual with such things, I could have used just one more string. But they'll last a very long time and I'm happy with my purchase.

I turned them on again tonight as things got dark and I was finishing up dinner. Lamb, white asparagus, and spring mix salad. Lovely things and I'm quite happy to have tried white asparagus. It has an earthy taste quite different from the wonderfully bitter flavor of the more common green variety. It makes me think of a radish without the bite. I'd just as soon have the regular green kind (especially considering the price), but it was very neat to try the other. And I might have it again next year on my birthday.

The leg of lamb was simply lovely. I'm going to have lamb sandwiches and other wonderful things the rest of the week. And plenty of salads on the side and asparagus (of the regular sort) with dinner every night. What a wonderful spring! Today was a particularly fine day, the sort that makes you happy to be alive even if you are loading boxes into a truck for your parents. Yes, still helping with that though it should only last one more week and I have some hope that I won't have to go out again on Wednesday. Only a little though. There will probably be a last minute crazed push in a week. They might even call upon me to help after work some other day. We'll have to see.

It is part of the nature of things for a job to fill up as much time as is available. Speaking of which I'm off to do a few dishes before bed.

Results of the 32nd Birthday Party

So now I am 32 years of age. I suppose I can deal with this. The final result on the orange chiffon cake was another fall. Having been very scrupulous about making sure that everything besides the different ingredients was exactly the same as the lemon chiffon cake I think it is clear that it is a problem in the recipe rather than something I have done wrong. Two cakes using the same ingredients and methods and one came out just fine and the other fell (though not as destructively as the one last night) so it is clear that the recipe needs further adjustment.

I am going to proceed on the assumption, possibly wrong, that what is needed is slightly more baking to cause the structure to hold together better. If this hypothesis does not work out I shall try reducing the amount of sugar to see if that will cause it to hold together better.

The party has been a great success in that I have given away a great many books and everyone drank and ate as much as they wanted. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and the last guest left at about a quarter past eleven at night. As far as I am concerned the only way it could have been better is if there had been someone who was interested in me sexually in addition to someone to have a good conversation with. I did not meet anyone new, but I had plenty of wonderful guests. Three bottles of champagne have been consumed and I'm flying higher than a kite. I'm now going to try to get some real food into myself (salad) and do some more hydration so that I do not regret today's excess upon the morrow.

Though I had dread and wanted to quit before thing started happening I am glad at how things worked out. Score one for being determined to enjoy myself rather than giving into the old demons of despair trying to escape from my past. Even though my second cake went wrong it did not bother me as much as the first one going off did. Interesting. Perhaps I am getting better at managing my own life.

Lunatic Baking

Update on condition. Still crazy, but there is a lemon chiffon cake in the oven. Now I need to decide what to do next. I have 58 minutes while it is baking and then another two hours while it is cooling to do other things. Should I try to mix up some cookie dough or clean? And when should I take my shower? And should I attempt the orange chiffon cake again? Decisions, decisions.

Further Update: The cake has been hanging for about an hour now and has yet to fall so I'm cautiously optimistic that this will work out. I've been moving things about and started in on my vacuuming. If I could get oranges delivered to me by some kind soul I think I would make the attempt at a second cake.

Final Update before Tea-Time: I am making a run to the store to get oranges. This may not be wise, but I am determined to make good on my attempt to get the orange chiffon cake to come out. Positive thinking and getting back on the horse that threw you and all that.