The intellectual equivalent of a ham sandwich.

Posts tagged ‘Du Jour of the Week’

New Year’s Resolutions

New Year’s Day is fast approaching and that means I’d better get my resolutions in order. (Despite the fact that I sort of made fun of such things in a previous poem post.)

Last year, as far as I know, the only resolution I wanted and achieved was to reduce how many paper towels I use. After I go to the bathroom at a public bathroom I dry my hands with only one paper towel instead of two. This is simple but it does make a difference. You just spend a bit more time shaking water off your hands before grabbing a paper towel and wha-la, paper towel usage greatly reduced!

This year I would like to do another sort of green thing, as well as the usual personal resolutions which probably won’t happen.

Green resolution: take my Starbucks thermos to Starbucks whenever I go there (usually once a week). This will keep those paper cups I normally use from being used. Just like last year this is very simple but it does make a difference.

The usual litany of personal goals will make up the other resolutions …

  • Eat out less (priority number 1)
  • Send off query letters (which also means touching up my query letters)
  • Write more (finish that book I started for NaNoWriMo)

I am ok with the amount I read this past year for fun, but I could always use more of that. And of course expanding any knowledge I use for work (like by glancing at top coder in my spare time) would be great. But really, the top things are to eat out less and pursue my writing goal more. In November I cut down how frequently I blog so I’m reducing my excuses. Time to act on my goals!

Feel free to write some resolutions you have in the comments! (And yet more goals would be to read other blogs more, and get other people reading my blog more.) I hope you have some achievable and good goals for 2014. Whether resolutions or not, I believe it’s always good to be striving for something.

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Inferno, by Dan Brown

Recently I read my first Dan Brown book. The book I read was Inferno, which is one of the Robert Langdon books (the same main character in Angels and Demons and the Da Vinci Code).

Apparently Dan Brown’s character Robert Langdon is known for a few things:

  • Stirring up controversy with “facts” that are included in the books
  • A page-turning action story
  • Annoying amounts of descriptions of buildings and history in the middle of scenes where it makes no sense (which is basically the entirety of the book because the story is fast-paced but the narration is not)

Here is a paragraph from the book (this could be considered a spoiler so … feel free to skip this):

Langdon hurried toward them, although as an architecture enthusiast, he found it almost unthinkable to rush a trip along the Grand Canal. Few Venetian experiences were more pleasurable than boarding vaporetto no. 1 – the city’s primary open-air water bus – preferably at night, and sitting up front in the open air as the floodlit cathedrals and palaces drifted past.

Meanwhile someone is chasing him with a gun or he’s on fire or whatever, something is happening that makes this kind of reminiscing normally associated with coffee and lazy days slightly out of place.

This book is an example of something enjoyable that is wrapped a coating of annoying. I remember a quote from The Office where Michael Scott has an interesting story for once and Pam says that Michael realizes this and is taking even longer to tell the story because he knows he has everyone’s attention.

To me, that is Dan Brown.

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Are Doctors Too Well Respected in America?

I hate to be the one to say this – but I think we’re giving a little too much kudos to doctors these days. Look at all of the controversy around health care. Who is a primary player in all of this? Gee, I don’t know, maybe DOCTORS?

Look, doctors are useful, I am not saying they’re not. But I just think we should take a step back and examine just how high of a pedestal we have placed them on.

For example, the other day I was driving to a secluded area to go for a jog and I must have driven by at least half a dozen streets named after doctors. How insane is that!? America, what are we doing to ourselves?

First there was Circle Doctor Street. That’s fine, I guess. I mean, who was this Circle Doctor? Or was it a person who was a doctor of circles? If so, what’s that mean? If it instead was or is someone’s last name, what country are you even from?

Then I was driving past Saint James Doctor. Then Callaway Doctor.

That’s another thing, when we name roads after doctors, why do we reverse their names? Shouldn’t it be Doctor Circle? Doctor Saint James? Doctor Callaway? (And really, Doctor Saint James? Someone named their child Saint? Come on, people, that’s a tough name to live up to.)

Look at this, another overly praised Doctor. Boyden, pft, I bet you’re not that good.

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