Redefining Marriage

I'm not going to get into the marriage debate with anyone because no amount of debate will make any difference to what really matters. What I will do, however, is relentlessly mock some of these extreme examples of people who have taken marriage to levels it was never intended to go.

November 2009. A Japanese man married Nene Anegasaki. Big deal, right? I don't know if any of you have heard of the Nintendo DS game "Love Plus", I hadn't before I read about this. Apparently Nene is one of the characters in the game. This wasn't like some Comic-Con appearance where his girlfriend dresses up like the character (or slave Leia, which apparently is a big thing). No, he brought his DS to the ceremony and was married to the character.

May 2010. Lee Jin-gyu from Korea marries his pillow. To be fair, it wasn't just a regular pillow. It was a large one with the picture of an anime character on it. I know what you're thinking... "Whew! That's okay then. For a moment there, I thought this was going to be weird.

Uwe Mitzscherlich, a German postal worker married Cecilia, his love of ten years. What could possibly be wrong there? She wasn't a game character or a pillow. The doctor told Uwe that Cecilia was ill and may not live for much longer, which seems to have prompted the wedding. Now, when I say "doctor", I really mean veterenarian. I'll let your minds wander around to all the different possibilities for a minute before I mention that Cecilia is a cat. Said Uwe, "Cecilia has such a trusting character. We constantly smooch and she has slept in my bed from the beginning of our relationship, which is unique." I almost feel to apologize about some of the things I may have said about pet parents, because this is a whole new level of stupid. I've heard many statistics in psychology and sociology about how married people tend to live longer, and how people with pets tend to live longer. I can't say I've seen any statistics on the lifespan of people who marry pets. I wonder if there's a government-funded study in there somewhere...

On a similar note in India, Selva Kumar felt guilty about killing two dogs around fifteen years ago and feels he has been cursed with paralyzed legs and hands as well as the loss of hearing in one ear as a result. What's the cure? It's so obvious, I don't know why anyone would even have to ask. Find a stray dog and marry it. No, seriously, he married a dog. It may be too soon to tell if the curse is lifting or not, though.

A 37-yr old Chinese man, Liu Ye, married himself to show his dissatisfaction with reality. He had a life-sized cardboard cutout of himself dressed as a woman to stand in at the ceremony. To be clear, the cutout was not dressed as a woman, it was a photo of him dressed as a woman. I'm not sure how the divorce proceedings would work in a case like that. How would you structure visitation rights? Who would get the house? What about the conditions of the restraining order? It seems a little problematic at best. The scary part was that he found 100 people to actually show up to the ceremony. Personally, I'm not sure how he managed to stay single long enough to marry himself.

I won't even discuss the man who married his Volkswagen Beetle named Vanilla, or the fact that he had relationships with Airwolf (the helicopter from the 80's TV show), or a Ford Ranger he named Ginger. Won't talk about the woman who married the Eiffel Tower (changed her last name to Eiffel too), or the woman who married a piece of the Berlin Wall, or the woman who wants to marry a roller coaster ride.

Forget about trying to define which two (or more) people can get married, apparently we need to start worrying about what people can marry. And what if these people believe in arranged marriages? Heaven forbid any of them should actually have children, but just imagine when mom or dad introduces you to the family pet, or Wii game, or whatever, with that hopeful gleam in their eyes.

iLuv It

This year for my birthday Dawn (and her co-conspirators) got me an iPad.

I've talking about them for months (apparently we stopped to look at them on our way home before the accident), but in the way I talk about maybe someday I'll get a Corvette. This time I was actually looking into it though. I checked out the specs, even surfed the App store periodically to see what I'd do with one if the planets aligned just right. I had about 12 apps added to my wish list, just in case...

So, now I have one (32GB wi-fi, no 3G service) and it is awesome! The iBooks reader is cool, although there isn't much content yet compared with readers like Kindle. That's okay because I also have the Kindle app. The default calendar and contacts programs will sync with Outlook or Google, and email syncs with several different services. I transferred my movies from the iPod so now I can watch them on a large screen (and toggle between full and widescreen modes). The Safari browser is pretty good and works with most of my favorite sites without many issues. It doesn't like the animations on the Lego site, sadly.

Some of the cool apps I've found so far:
-Dropbox, filesharing app which let's you access your files from various computers and devices. I can update a file at home and it will be automatically updated when I access it from work, or now my iPad.
-LCARS clock, a Star Trek themed clock with an alarm. It looks like the computer screens on Next Gen. Dawn was so happy she was speechless when she saw it. I think she may even have had a tear in her eye...
-Chronicle, a password protected journal app which also lets you add photos and export to your computer.
-Google Earth, a stripped-down version of the desktop app. Still fun.
-Planets, shows the position of the sun, moon, and stars relative to your location. I'm lucky to find the big dipper, so this is a great app for me.
-DocumentsToGo, allows viewing and editing of Microsoft Office documents.
-MormonChannel, audio streaming of various radio programs. Also includes audio for the Church magazines, scriptures, and conference sessions.
-GospelLibrary, can read the scriptures, conference talks, curriculum manuals, etc. as well as making your own notes and cross-references.
-The Weather Channel, cool forecasting app where you can get weather updates on your favorite locations.
-iFitness, has a very comprehensive section on various exercises based on equipment, or no equipment at all, and let's you set up your own workouts. It also tracks progress and stats. Hopefully this will help get me off my flabby backside.
-Mythbusters, this is too much fun. A few video clips and three little games based on experiments done on the show. Awesome.
-AirAttack, a fun arcade-style flight game where you can control the plane by tilting the iPad. Somewhat addictive.

I'm still scouring iTunes for more cool apps. I'm even thinking of doing my lesson on Sunday just from my iPad instead of printing off 4-5 pages every time. The screen is easy to read and it has a ridiculously long battery life. This is one of the coolest gadgets ever. And somewhat depressing to think that the first computer we bought after Dawn & I got married didn't even come close to any of the capabilities.

I wasn't a fan of the screen protector, it showed fingerprints and smears more than the regular screen. I would recommend the Apple case though. The cover folds back and makes a handy stand for using on your lap or desk.

As you can see, I'm having a lot of fun with my new toy. To give you an idea of how much fun I'm having, I didn't even put my two new Lego sets together until Saturday because I was playing with the iPad on Thursday night and Friday.

Oh, and I wrote this entry entirely on my iPad...

How NOT To Get A Tip

Let me preface my wonderful experience at the Montana's across from the Sunridge Mall in Calgary (32 St and Sunridge Blvd NE, just in case anyone was wondering) with my philosophy on leaving tips. If I'm going to give you more money than what is owed on the bill, it's because you have given me more service than for what you have been paid. I do not tip because there is an unspoken expectation or because there is a space for "Tip" on the bill. I will happily give you a tip for going above and beyond your required duties.

I used to carry Canadian Tire money with me for those times when the staff didn't deserve a tip, but I'm not allowed to do that anymore. So now I don't leave anything at all if the service has been poor (just think what they could've done with all that Canadian Tire money).

You will not get a tip from me if:
1. After I have been waiting thirty minutes for my meal, you come to my table to ask if I have received my food yet. I seriously couldn't give her an answer. Honestly, how do you answer a question that stupid?? My table is bare, there is no plate in front of me, my cutlery is still wrapped in the napkin because I haven't used it yet, and I've started chewing on the table to hold me over. It's not like she hasn't walked past my table repeatedly while serving other customers. "I'll go check the kitchen to see if it's ready yet." That's a good idea, princess. It tells me you haven't been watching for it and has probably been under the heat lamp for twenty minutes. Nothing hits the spot like a warm steak sandwich...

2. You bring my meal without any sort of apology for the delay. At least pretend to be concerned. I'm not asking for tears or an Oscar performance, but a simple "I'm sorry for the wait" would help.

3. You have walked past my empty glass eight times without stopping to see if I would like a refill. The menu says "free refills on soft drinks", don't hoard them as though you have to draw them out of a well from atop a treacherous cliff where even the mountain goats fear to tread with a bucket and a long rope.

4. You don't stop to ask if my steak is done right, or how the meal is. Granted, the piece of meat they stuck on the bread may not technically be steak (it may have at one point been in the fridge beside a steak), take a second to see if I need anything (like a Costco-sized jug of BBQ sauce to help soften it up enough to gnaw through).

5. You bring me the bill before you ask me if I want dessert. This, probably more than any other offense, is your tip's kiss of death. If the desserts were big enough, I'd order one instead of my meal. In fact, dessert is my favorite meal of the day. I really like their deep-fried cheesecake and was actually going to order the full-sized option, instead of the individual portion. Heck, I probably would've given her a tip after all that, just for letting me have chocolate and caramel sauce on it, which they do sometimes (I still don't understand why they offer those as either/or choices).

The sad part is how easy it would have been to fix any one of those issues, but she didn't even try. It's too bad there isn't a negative tip option...

Is Nothing Sacred??

I was watching TV in my hotel room the other night when I saw a commercial which pushed a couple of my buttons. To be fair, some of them are bigger than others and are much easier to trigger.

I am a HUGE fan of ice cream. We usually have two 2.5 gallon pails in the freezer at all times. One is vanilla (for mixing, topping, milkshakes, etc.) and the other is flavored. While I have a few definite favorites (hmmmmmmm, tiger), I'm open to most flavors (just keep the raisins and bubblegum away from it). I have learned not to eat ice cream on my way to work because I will invariably spill it on my shirt, so I will intentionally schedule some of my trips around being able to stop for ice cream on my way home.

So you can imagine my horror when I saw the commercial for *gasp* Dairy Queen's new mini blizzards.

By the power of Greyskull, who was the over-paid marketing executive genius who came up with this?!?  A 6oz blizzard?!? It's half the size of the small cup. And it was only a couple of years ago when they scaled back the cup sizes, hoping no one would notice (like I'm not going to realize the large is suddenly in a medium cup). I was trying not to yell, or throw something, at the TV (don't shoot the messenger, right?) while holding back tears.

If they are so bent on ruining something, why not mess around with something that didn't single-handedly save their entire chain from extinction. Experiment with the hot dogs, the iron-grilled sandwiches, the salads, because heaven knows we aren't coming to DQ specifically for those gems. I've never heard anyone say, "Let's make a DQ run, I really want a salad!"

DQ is known for ice cream. Dilly bars, Peanut Buster Parfaits, and most of all, Blizzards. I am of the opinion that the current sizes were already too small. I miss the good ol' days when a large blizzard really was large. If you want to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the blizzard, give us a larger size, not a smaller one. This is the Texas of ice cream treats, don't mess with it!!