Realizations One Year Anniversary

Exactly one year ago I posted the very first realization. 123 posts, 252 comments, and 11,000 page views later I wanted to take a quick glance back at the highlights of the last year. Here are what I consider the best of the best from each month’s posts.

Date	Link	Why it made the list
October ‘07	MSN Live Messenger Drawing Tool	10% of all site visits are to this post.
November ‘07	bcEOT – Equal Opportunity Tipping	The future of tipping, explained
December ‘07	Ridiculous Receipt	Lots of calculations
January	Ramblings lead to over-zealous MSN drawing	By far the best MSN drawing I’ve ever done
February	Over the Top Donuts	Connecting everyday things to TV shows
March	The Inside Track	More calculations. Also, I think this acutally works.
April	Two Realizations in One – Snow & Suggestions	I learned something writting this one
May	Sonic Drive In Review and Southgate Michigan Location	The most visited post, 1,800+ visits
June	Wal-Mart Pharmacy Closed Early	The most controversial, and commented on, post
July	You Know Your in a Room of Nerds when . . .	Short and sweet and computery
August	Ignore Facebook Addicts	A helpful realization
September	Vending Machine Randomizer	A Kosmo Kramer like invention

Auto-annoyance

Ever had a day where the actions of others around you annoyed you immensely?  Little things that usually wouldn’t bother you all got on your nerves?  What causes that syndrom of nearly automatic annoyance?

I think some of it may be sleep related.  Less sleep, more easily annoyed.  I think some of it may also be the length of time you’ve spent with the people.  Remember as a kid when you had that sleepover with your best friend Friday night, which then turned into an entire saturday afternoon and then another sleepover saturday night?  By Sunday morning you would fight about things that would never come up in a normal situation.

Now apply the best friend situation to people who you just work with.  Now they aren’t your best friend, so it dosen’t take 2.5 days of constant interaction.

Anyway, when is the pill coming out to block out coffe slurpers, nasily breathers, continuous sniffers, and all those other annoying habits?

Even Spread

I don’t think at any point in my life have I had a salt bagel that was evenly coated in salt. The top half is always coated in salt. It’s almost white. The bottom half might as well be a plain bagel.

I’m no baker, but is it terribly hard to get salt on both sides? If it is, then ok, can we at least sprinkle with salt instead of dumping a cup full on top of the bagel? I’ve seen numerous people scrapping 3/4 of the salt off just to enjoy the bagel.

Also, if it’s possible to do with salt, I would love an everything bagel fully loaded. The everything actually falls in the opposite category of the salt, whereas, if you can only coat the top half, I would like it loaded up. Salt must be cheaper than everything ingredients.

A Routine-less Day

I had last Friday off in order to get ready for some guests coming for the weekend. In the morning, I ran to a couple stores looking for some new sheets for the guest bed. I was BLOWN AWAY by the number of women I saw out shopping at 9:30. Almost all of them were in jogging suits and it was eerily quiet as the women riffled through racks, bins and displays. I was literally the only male in three of the stores I visited that morning. I was also probably the only person under the age of 30.

I wonder how many of the husbands of these women knew their day was filled with shopping while they were, presumably, at work.

My suggestion to you is to pick a random day and do something out of the ordinary for you. It’s interesting to see what makes up others routine.

Smith, Party of 20

Why do large groups of people, 13 or more, feel the need to sit at the same table in a restaurant? The people at the far end can’t make conversation with most of the people in the middle nor anyone at the other end. And by making this request, others waiting for a table within the restaurant have to wait longer than if the party was willing to split into normal table sizes so that an entire section can be cleared for them.

On a side note, when you’re in a large group like this, do you ever find yourself fighting with others to sit in one of the coveted middle seats so you can talk to everyone?

Elevator Etiquette

On more than one occasion I have been in  an elevator heading towards the Lobby/1st floor and the elevator abruptly stops a floor short.  The door opens and someone climbs in to ride down one floor, usually squeezing into an already crowded elevator.  Doesn’t anyone else find this ridiculous?  Why wait for the elevator just to go ONE floor?

Solution: Elevators should not service the 2nd or 3rd floors.  Take the stairs – save energy and all you environmentalists can say you’re offsetting carbon emissions.    A service elevator can still run to all floors, but that would be reserved for services requiring the elevator to lift people/equipment that can not make it up the stairs.  Anyone with a handicap would be given a key and permitted to use the elevator for any floor.

Since this will never happen, some Elevator Etiquette needs to be followed.  If you are in a building with more than 5 floors and you’re on the 2nd floor, don’t be that guy (or girl).  Take the stairs.  If you have 10 suitcases, get the bellboy to come get your crap and let him deal with the elevator.  There’s no reason for you and your 8 kids to pile into the elevator for a floor.

This solution could also be applied going up the stairs.  Oh, and a little exercise never hurt anyone either.

Building Management 101

Honestly, an office bathroom probably gets the most traffic between 9:30-11 AM and within an hour after lunch.  Why in the world would you close the bathrooms from 1-2 for cleaning? Maybe its a conspiracy to make lunch-goers take a few flights of stairs to get to another restroom and work off some of that lunch.

Happy New Year

Welcome to 2008. I don’t have much to complain about as I just got back to work from 2 stress-free weeks of vacation. I’m hoping that good attitude carries over for awhile, but I’m sure there will be some realizations to write about shortly. I had something trivial to post this morning about Facebook, but it’s more of a warning and found someone else has already posted it, so I thought I’d give him/her some credit: www.topofthemountains.net/2008/01/02/a-facebook-virus-of-sorts/

Ridiculous Receipt

I went to K-Mart today to buy some Airborne. I paid and the cashier handed me a 22″ long receipt – 22 inches for one item. What?!?!?!? Only about an inch and a half has anything to do with my purchase.

So besides my amazement to the length of the receipt, I did notice a portion on the receipt about making donations to St Jude Research Hospital. I think instead of wasting all this paper, K-Mart should take the savings in printing me a 3″ receipt and donate that.

I know, it sounds ridiculous, but think about it. A quick search of the cost for a roll of cash register tape said for 50 rolls of 98′ feet, it’s $20.

Cost per inch of receipt:

$20 / ( 50 (rolls) x 98′ (feet/roll) x 12 (inches/foot) ) = .00034 cents per inch.

3″ * .0034 (cents/inch) = .001 OR 1/10 of a cent per receipt

22″ * .0034 (cents/inch) = .0078 or 7/10 of a cent

Costco, the only numbers I could find, average between 2900 and 3100 transactions per day per store. Assume that average and you’re generating $18 a day in donations per store and Kmart has, as of Jan 2006, 1,416 stores. Thats about $25,500 per day just by shortening the stupid receipt. Oh yea, I also didn’t count any of the cost of the ink needed to print the receipt so for the sake of the argument, lets just put that at another $5,000 that could be saved.

K-Mart, please donate my $30,000 to St. Jude. Thanks

See the original receipt in all it’s glory below

Infuriating Shopping

BONUS — DOUBLE REALIZATION

I went to a brand new Wal-Mart Super Center today and it was packed. As I walked in the door, I turned to grab a shopping cart – not one in sight. In turned around to find that the other cart corral was empty as well. NOT ONE CART, anywhere! So I walked down to the other end of the store, same result.

Realization #1: If you have parking spaces for 1000 cars, you should have 1000 carts. I shouldn’t have to go back into the parking lot to find one for myself (which I did, the first cart corral was empty as well).

Also, with 26 checkout lanes, you would think that with less than three weeks until Christmas on a Saturday afternoon, you would have as many lanes as possible open. When, if not today, would all 26 lanes be available for checkout? If most of them were open, I’d have less of an issue, but there were less than half available – a whopping 12.

Realization #2: If you’ve got the lanes, shorten the lines.