Yummy or Crummy?

If you’re at all like me, you like to research the products before you buy. You take full advantage of the Internet, surfing to get product specs, user opinions, whatever information you can get your hands on. You make the purchase confident that your decision was the best one that could have been made — you feel like a smart consumer. By the time UPS drops off the new gadget, you’re ready to wholly accept it into your life — it’s your new toy, something you can show off to your friends. You tear open the packaging, barely read through the instructions, start playing by pushing a few buttons, then what does it do?

It advertises itself.

Our new all-in-one device has a “Wow!” option that can print a sheet that “demonstrates the remarkable output qualities of your printer!” Our also new stereo, when left alone with the power turned off, runs a fancy light show displaying all its features on the screen. Isn’t it enough that we committed ourselves to these products after long hours of comparing features? I just want to say to these guys, “It’s OK — you’ve done your job! You can stop now.”

Peace poster project

I didn’t enter the contest, but thinking about it made me realize how much easier it is to be anti-Bush or anti-anything than to be pro-peace and communicate the message in a way everybody can understand and relate to.

We recently had a small party, for which we gathered some cocktail recipies that could be made with some of our favorite liquors. We didn’t quite get around to trying all of them (the party was, after all, in the middle of Saturday afternoon), but one of them did leave a lasting impression. The drink is called “Pink Panther,” and it may soon become the nightcap of our choice.

Here’s the recipe we used, but a quick googling revealed that a martini by the same name has completely different ingredients, plus there are other variations, most common one using pineapple juice and no cream. Hey, whatever floats your boat.

1 oz amaretto
1/2 oz vodka
1 tsp grenadine
2 oz light cream

Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake well and strain into a cocktail glass with ice.

Enjoy.

A combination of sore throat and too much trash-talking playing World Cup 2002 on Xbox resulted in my voice being completely lost. It’s easy to see some irony in this, because of what I posted the day before.

I can’t decide if I should take this as a sign to just shut up, both physically and metaphorically, or an encouragement to use the blog as my alternative voice.

Just as I begin my weblog, I find a post like this. While I agree that there are way too many echoes and dumbass rants, I’m not worried cuz I’m here to neither help nor hurt the situation. It’s the good ol’ “tree in the forest” concept — if nobody is listening, the silence hasn’t been broken….

Also, with or without huge audience, each blogger is an individual and it’s good to keep in mind that whatever is expressed is one person’s opinion. To me it’s a bit silly to take yourself so seriously that you assume whatever you’re breaking the silence with has so much impact. Yes, people need to think before they open their mouth, but censoring yourself before your words have a chance to be judged? I can understand if this was television, radio, etc — but it’s a freakin Internet, man. The whole beauty of the medium is that a little man could be heard. We all have our own minds, so let the people be the judge of if you’re improving on the silence or not. I’m probably spending way too much time thinking about this already… anyway he should check himself if he thinks he’s doing a huge service to the world by either posting or NOT posting. Whatever, dude.