The continuous pursuit of food

In conversation today, much like conversation from every other day, I realized that my life, along with a friend’s life, is a continuous pursuit of food.

Virtually every day the conversation goes something like this (via email, BB Messenger, or IM):

Con Lee: “What should I have for lunch?”
Me: “Beef sammich.”
Con Lee: “No, I don’t want that.”
Me: “How about pizza? Mmm, Lou Malnati’s… That was the best sauce ever.”
Con Lee: “No, I don’t want pizza. Go to GrubHub.com and search for something around 60613.”
Me: “OK.”

Time goes by as I search and I eventually return with the results:

Me: “How about Thai?”
Con Lee: “No.”
Me: “How about Chinese?”
Con Lee: “Nope.”
Me: “How about Chicago dogs?”
Con Lee: “No, I want something different.”

By this point I’m probably tired of figuring out what someone else should eat for lunch, and as my interest wanes I tend to let the topic pass. Sometimes, however, the conversation is so intense that a phone call is warranted to discuss the topic further… and after a few moments of that, my waning interest continues.

These conversations happen almost daily, including weekends, and also take place during dinner and late-night hours as well.

And also (this just in):

Jennifer: “Do you find it concerning that I eat a king size box of Junior Mints daily while at work and have been since April?”
Me: “Yes. Do you mind if I blog that?”
Jennifer: “It’s fine with me, but more importantly should I be worried about my wellbeing because of this? Diabetes perhaps? I can’t stop.”
Me: “Yes. Stop.”

…We (yes, WE, including me, because I'm not exempt from said what-should-I-eat discussions) seem to have issues with food.

_

PB & BB

_

Following suit with yesterday’s post:

Apparently my blog post is the #2 search result for 'listening to Playboy Radio at work'. Someone out in internetland actually searched that and opted to click on my blog – how fun! I doubt it’s what he/she was looking for (probably he), but that’s alright. Unlike yesterday’s interesting tidbit, I don’t think I mind cornering this part of the market.

In other news:

As you may or may not know, I have a BlackBerry. And on that BlackBerry is BlackBerry Messenger, a neat little application that allows you to chat with other BB users without using text messages. This saves you from racking up your text plan and, ideally, saves you money… assuming the people you want to chat with have a BB as well.

My friend and his wife both have BBs, thus they’re on the contacts list in the app. I have another friend whom I text with regularly, but for some reason he’s not on that contacts list, and it doesn’t seem right to chat with him through BB messenger. I added him once and tried to converse through the app, but it didn’t seem right, it actually felt a little awkward. I’m not sure why... I could save some text messages if I chat with him through the app, but what’s a few text messages for the sake of comfort?

Anyway, in the BB Messenger you can populate a profile. I like to change my name in the profile every once in a while to spice things up, even though I’m chatting with only two people there. I’ll usually change my last name to their last name, but right now I have it changed to her maiden name. At least I think it’s funny…

I haven’t started branching out into crazy names yet, but I will. In fact, I might just do that right now.

_

We need to communicate, interact, and embrace.

On the way to work this morning, I had a flashing thought as I saw a middle-age woman turn the corner in her SUV while chatting on the phone:

Humans have an intrinsic desire to communicate.

Cell phones have brought us together in a communicative way. Now, of course, there is the other side of the argument as well: cell phones are causing us to be enclosed within ourselves and within our own little world, even when we’re in the middle of a crowd… essentially forcing us apart from those around us; the building of a virtual wall, if you will.

While the cell phone (as well as the Internet, PC and the like) has increased our worldwide communication, our ability to communicate, and will keep us communicating in ways that were never before possible, at the same time we are losing the “human touch” of communication.

I think that we all long for that “human touch” sometimes, and find that we often times seek it through the technology around us… only to find that it’s not there. Yes we’re fulfilling our need to communicate with one another, albeit verbally, but we’re missing the “human touch” of communication, the full form of communication – the kind of communication that you can feel.

Technology has done wonders for mankind and will certainly continue along that path, but to what cost? It may be a stretch, but think about the possibility of the person tens or hundreds of years from now who turns on a screen within their home, has everything at their fingertips, and never has to leave home… Science-fiction entertainment or not, this person is still a hermit. Someone who does not interact with society (and some would argue that screen-to-screen or voice-to-voice only communication is not interaction with society) is probably not the type of people we long to become. The science and technology is exciting; the thought of this as reality is not.

I think we need to be careful, not cautious, of the implications of technology. Yet, I am in no way suggesting that we stop or hinder technological development out of fear that we may lose touch with society and grab on to an artificial world; I am simply saying, like Ms. Amy has proposed, that we put down our phones, interact with the world around us, embrace technology, but also embrace those around us.

Imagine the world we may create if we simply embraced those around us…

_

Is That a Parade, and The Secret V

I like a good parade. I haven’t been to a parade in a long time and really want to get back out into that scene. If only parades were more abundant… we need more parades in our streets. Much like carnivals, circuses, fairs and the like, parades have a sense of adventure, mystique, and excitement about them. They’re made of candy, sugar, funnel cake, and charcoal. If I could, I would wrap a parade in a package and sell it under the brand name Francine – that’s how great a parade can be (and no, I haven’t met anyone named Francine… so that brand name might be a stretch).

My phone continues to annoy me, but seems to be lasting since the last two crashed within a week. I wanted it to break again, but I’m coping for now. Whenever I send a text it seems to continue on and type the letter V on the screen, without me typing the letter V, and even if the last letter I typed was a W. I’m calling it The Secret V because no one knows about it, well, not until now at least. Before this, no one knew about it but me, thus making it a secret. What keeps it interesting is that The Secret V comes and goes; you never know when it’s going to pop up.

What can we learn from these? Go to the next parade or any exciting function of the sort that you can find: have some fun and enjoy the treats. Also, and no less important, watch out for your own Secret V’s… they mostly go unnoticed.

_

Artificial Life and the Death of a Giant

I arrived to work today in my usual fashion. Made it to my desk, unpacked my stuff, turned on the laptop, and started the Facebook app on my BlackBerry. The first update I saw was from a friend back home: “Peter Steele is dead? He can’t DIE! wtf.” In disbelief, I patiently awaited my laptop to finish its startup process, which was entirely too slow for my patience today. I quickly opened the web browser on my BB and googled it: Peter Steele. Up came the headlines: Peter Steele had died sometime last night. Heart failure.

I quickly notified a coworker whom I knew was familiar with Type-O. I posted a status update on Facebook. I commented on a status. And I commented on my own: I hope it’s a hoax… again. You see, they pulled a stunt back in 2005 with a headstone posted on the band’s website that read RIP and led us to believe it was Peter Steele who had died. And here we are again. 2010. This time, few think it’s actually a hoax. Hopefully it is, and good for them to be able to pull something like this off twice in the band’s career – but we expect otherwise at this point.

The short conversation with my coworker went from Peter Steele and his alleged heart failure at age 48, to Ozzy Osbourne and his continued existence: somehow rock n’ roll got Peter Steele at 48, but it hadn’t gotten the best of Ozzy at age 61 (arguable, at the least). This thought prompted me to wonder: is Ozzy just lucky? Had he been able to pump so much poison into his system that he was either on the brink of failure, or pickled to the point of suspended animation? Had he truly made a pact with the devil and sold his soul for rock n’ roll? Either way, it’s amazing Ozzy’s still alive.

It’s not often that I stop to think about artificial life (not counting your typical zombie and vampire discussions). The possibility of man creating a monster, a cyborg, or even a robot with full automation isn’t something that regularly comes mind. Yet, for some reason when I thought of Ozzy I immediately thought of artificial life.

Coincidence?

_