Tape

After wrapping some Christmas presents, I got about halfway done with one oddly-shaped gift and then ran out of tape. Ugh. Off to the Target I went. Finding the tape aisle, I found that I had four choices. There are two main kinds of tape - "transparent tape" and "invisible tape." Invisible tape is about twice as much as transparent tape, but it looked better. Once I decided on invisible, I had to choose between the 3M/Scotch and Target brands. I buy Target brand products all the time and normally I'm very happy so I chose the Target brand.

After coming home, I tried to finish wrapping the present I had left half-unwrapped. I pulled a strip of tape up and went to tear it off the container. Herein lies the problem. The little jagged edge where you're supposed to rip the tape off doesn't work well. Not at all. Thinking that maybe this was a problem with the one unit I had, I pulled out unit #2 (I bought a pack of 3). Nope, same problem. Apparently, the Target brand invisible tape has a very poorly designed dispenser. So today I went back to Target and bought a pack of 3 of the Scotch invisible tape. Well-designed dispenser. It works very well.

Bottom line: This was very frustrating. I've never been disappointed with a Target brand product before. Normally they focus on design and usability. What happened with the tape?

Syriana

Well, it snowed last night. I got up at 5.15am and called the number with snow closing information and was delighted to learn I didn't have to go to work today. I woke up late, had some coffee (that's a treat since I'm almost completely a tea drinker now) and breakfast, got a bunch of errands done, and then went to see Syriana at the movies.

Great movie. It's by the same guy who did Traffic and it shows. The same idea of multiple plotlines that somehow connect late in the movie shows one key issue from many different points of view and illustrates quite effectively how that one mega-issue can change the lives of many different people in completely different ways. In Traffic, that issue was drugs and drug trafficking. In Syriana, that issue is oil. This movie is also a little like Crash where you don't see how the various plotlines are related until near the end of the movie. It's unlike Crash because in that movie, your interpreation of events is altered once you know how various people are connected to each other. In this movie (and Traffic), the various plotlines don't change their meaning once you see how things are connected - it's just different ways these issues touch the lives of these characters. The best explanation of this is in a CNN article about a conversation with the writer/director, Stephen Gaghan.

• Gaghan "mentions the front page of a recent New York Times, with articles about disgraced congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Nigerian corruption, the rebuilding of New Orleans and the Iraq war."All this stuff seems different, but it all seems the same. So [with] multiple narrative you go ... I don't know how all this fits together. That's the first hour of Syriana."

And that's what it feels like. Go see Syriana.

My (soon-to-be) New Ride

I ordered my next new car a couple weeks ago. It has a build date in January and I should receive it sometime in early February, I am told. My first car was a 1988 Ford Mustang. My second car was a 1990 Volkswagon Fox. My third car was a 1992 Geo Storm. My fourth car is a 2001 Nissan XTerra. My next car will be a 2006 Honda Civic Hybrid.

So why am I buying a hybrid? Well, there's a couple reasons here.

• First of all, it seriously depresses me when I go to the gas station and pay more than $50 per tank. And that one tank gets me about 250 miles, as the XTerra currently gets around 15-16MPG. That's a lot of money for driving miles. As I drive alot, it really adds up and too much of my paycheck goes to oil companies.
• That brings me to reason two, I do not want to support the oil companies right now. I am appalled at the position ExxonMobile has taken when it comes to renewable energy. I am appalled at the Cheney Energy Task Force fiasco and the hold these companies have over the current administration. I don't want to give any more money to these corporations than I have to. So the jump from ~15MPG to ~50MPG will make going to the pump alot more palatable for me.
• Third, I'm distressed about the lack of concern in the United States about global warming. If you have a basic understanding of chemistry and physics and you look at the available data, you would believe that humans are causing global warming via increased carbon production. The business of "we don't know if we're doing this" is crap - when "leaders" that are not scientists don't listen to the scientists that do know what they're talking about, I fast lose respect for said leaders. So I'm very happy to report that my new car will be a AT-PZEV vehicle, which is the tightest emissions standard in the world and results in almost zero evaporative emissions.
  
• Fourth, I'm tired of driving an SUV. Trucks and SUVs are fine when you need them. I do not need my truck for day-to-day driving. That's not what it's designed for. It is what the new car will be designed for. I also fully believe that driving my SUV around all the time makes me a more aggressive driver, which I really dislike.

So that's it. Sorry for the preachy statements but I'm getting more and more concerned about the current energy policy of the United States. I'm happy and proud to do a small part in reducing the amount of carbon we produce and the amount of oil we have to find and refine. I'm happy that soon I'll be driving a much more sustainable vehicle. I'm also happy that I'll have a voice-activated GPS-linked navigation system in the new car. :)

Waiting for the snow...

I feel like I'm in elementary school again.

Here I am on Thursday night, praying for snow. My work closes for snow more than most places, so I'm really hoping that it snows a decent amount. I want to go see Syriana so I hope it snows just enough so that I don't have to go to work but can still drive off to the movies in the afternoon.

Wow, I'm pathetic. :)