Once again, JonAbad has amazed me with his link to: Extreme Unicycles.

This excites me to the point where I want to learn how to ride a unicycle.
feel free to make a bet as to how long it takes me to:

a. give up my unicycle dream or casually let it fade away until we all forget about it
b. learn how to ride a unicycle

I went to the foodstore yesterday, and used coupons for the first time.

wow. wow I say.

I purchased 90 dollars worth of products but with coupons, clever credit card usage, and shaws discounts I dropped that price by 40 dollars. That’s right folks. 40 dollars of free eats. that’s nearing 50% savings.

The key to coupons, as I learned from my dear mother, is to use the manufacturing coupons in addition to the store sales. For example, I had two coupons for ‘save a dollar on 4 hunts diced tomatos.’ As I get diced tomatos all the time, this was a coupon I wanted to use. When I got to shaws they had a sale on hunts. 8 cans for 2 dollars.
WHOA!
that’s right. I got 8 free cans of hunts diced tomatos. I got similar deals on Baked Beans! Delicious Baked Beans!

occasionally society throws you a “great job, here’s some free stuff” curveball. It’s like winning a mini-lottery.
I can’t help but smile.

There’s this car that is always in the front parking lot of our building. A few nights back, I was leaving late. In fact, I thought I was the last out of the building. The last one out has to set the alarm, so I turned on the intercom and requested that anyone left in the building call my extension.

no on called.

but there was a car parked in the front lot. Could they be using our lot for their own personal use? Nay. there’s nothing around my building. It’s a mini-sanctuary amongst the swampy wetlands of east haven.

Sure enough yesterday morning I arrived early and the car was still there… but this morning.. it’s gone. Was this the fabled East Haven Phantom car? I’ll keep you updated.

The Question

Shaun of Mystery,
Why does the business section of the newspaper still have pages and pages of stock activity?
Aren’t investors wired these days and just looking this stuff up via fancy webpages and such things?

Comment by jon abad — 9/24/2004 @ 2:10 pm

The Answer

Three reasons.

One is tradition. That’s the way it’s always been; that’s the way it is.

Another is because the newspaper financial listings aren’t intended for the stock market guru – they are targeted at the personal investor who wants to quickly check the stocks over coffee and a bagel. Not all personal investors are as tech-savvy as you and me, buddy!

The final (and most influential) reason is because grandmothers reads them there, and if they disappointed that group, whoo boy, trouble would be a-coming.

I dialed a local radio station during their blues show with the intent of requesting some Stevie Wonder. I called and it started ringing. I figured “hey, I’ll just let it keep ringing until someone picks up. then, I’ll be able to make my request.” so I let it ring.

about four to five minutes passed, but I really wanted to here some Stevie, so I let it keep ringing. Finally someone picked up.

“WCCC, you’re Caller 1″
::Click::
“Waaait I just wanted to hea–”

useless.

Caller 6, Bob from Manchester CT, won two tickets to a blues show.

background: recently I stayed over at Jesse’s apt in Hartford. Holy Cross Alicia’s cat was there. the cat spent most of the night curled up with me on the couch.

Holy Cross Alicia: It’s frustrating sometimes because Mike’s exactly the kind of person who should be voting, you know?
Alicia’s Mom: Have Ellie Mae [the cat] talk to him.
Holy Cross Alicia: (raised eyebrow)
Alicia’s Mom: She slept with him, maybe he’ll listen to her.

Coming soon! Alicia’s most sought after movie reviews!

Expect wonders!

The Question

Dear Shaun,

Sometimes I experience a zen-like moment wherein I think, “Wow, nothing exists. I don’t exist, this room doesn’t exist, and the world definitely does not exist.” Everything seems very clear. However, I don’t know whether I should trust those brief seconds of clarity, especially when the rest of the time, my bills, Judeo-Christian values, and the trials of dating occupy all my attention and manifest themselves in an extremely real fashion.

My question is: What is reality, Shaun?

Sincerely,

Alicia, Cambridge, MA

Comment by Alicia — 9/22/2004 @ 4:21 pm

The Answer

Alicia,

There is no spoon.

Also, let’s examine a work of literature that I believe contains many answers to life’s most difficult questions: Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol”. In this passage, Scrooge is confronting the ghost of Jacob Marley. I quote:

“What evidence would you have of my reality, beyond that of your senses?”

“I don’t know,” said Scrooge.

“Why do you doubt your senses?”

“Because,” said Scrooge, “a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”

What I’m trying to say is that you have no evidence of reality beyond that which your senses provides. And we all know that our senses are inadequate when trying to discover the true nature of things (especially if they are affected by mustard). My belief (and this is not truly YOUR answer, only an opinion) is that the human spirit can transcend the mundane and drink in the true nature of things. Picture your mind as a camera with a focus knob. When you have these moments, perhaps the focus has been opened all the way – and because the focus is so wide, you can’t see the solid things you usually can.

Perhaps when you have these moments of unreality, you are sensing the fact that most of what we consider “real life” is made up of atoms, which are made up of mostly empty space. Since everything is really more empty space than solid, maybe that is what you are getting. Additionally, perhaps by disentangling your consciousness from the narrow focus that life forces on us, you are feeling a bit dwarfed by the vast expanses of space and time that surround us. Honestly, the numbers that represent the size and age of the universe cannot really be processed by our brains – and that could enhance your sense of unreality. Then, life crowds back in (in the forms you mentioned), and your focus narrows.

I suppose this doesn’t provide an empirical answer for you, but I would recommend enjoying those moments. I hope this answer satisfies you – and I would be more than happy to continue the debate it doesn’t. Good one!