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daily snapple fact #27
A ball of glass will bounce higher then a ball of rubber.

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doug at freewayslowdance.com

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Hello. *cough cough* Uh, I guess you all know why I'm here. My name is Doug. And I'm a news addict. I'm not sure exactly when it started. Years ago. As a kid, I read the newspaper over breakfast, then finished it after I got home from school. At first it was just a healthy desire to see what was going on in the world. Find out what was going on outside my little sphere. Always does, doesn't it?

But even then, I guess there were signs. I'd read the paper instead of doing homework. But the newspaper is only so thick, and well, after awhile it runs out.

Not anymore.

These days, when I get up, I first check the mainstream news line. News.Yahoo.Com, primarily. First the Top Stories, then Most Popular, then the World, then the Los Angeles section. Then it's over to !404, a bulletin board for my San Diego friends, to see if they've stumbled on anything interesting and what they have to say about it. Then ESPN.com to check on my teams and the big sports news. After that, there's BoingBoing and Digg to see some of the highlights of fun/interesting stories and the tech news. Then TheSuperficial for the celebrity gossip. Then to the 6 blogs of friends whom I check up on everyday. Then to MySpace to check on the social-sphere. Then Fark.Com to check on the stories of dumbasses doing dumb things and other lower-brow type stories.

Then I start retreading. Back to Digg, !404, Boing, Fark to check up on the newest stories. All the while, listening to NPR and ESPNRadio.

I probably spend 5 or 6 hours a day doing this.

At night, I watch the GameShowNetwork, History Channel and Discovery Channel for this same sort of feed.

And you're probably thinking "Well, it's over the top, but it's enrichment right?"
But I rarely ever read books. And I could be spending the time learning to record music better or engaging in some sort of skill-based learning. Instead, I seek out the kind of short magazine-article-length/depth stimuli that fires off those "Oh wow that's interesting" neurons without getting too close to those dangerous critical-thinking neurons.

But as soon as there's some sort of resistance. As soon as I don't quite get it all the first time through, I stop. Something, laziness perhaps, prevents me from say, trying to rap my head around computer-programming, IT management, or physics, all things I wish I knew something about.

Knowledge without work.
Only articles I'll understand on the first pass-through.

And I'm not trying to memorize any of it. It's just the letting-it-phase-through I'm looking for. Whatever my brain picks up, it picks up, but I don't try to learn anything. It just absorbs what it does. Nothing is forced.

And more importantly, nothing is contributed. Nothing (or very little) is put back out there.

And the worst part about it is this: I know it. And I still haven't done anything about it.

There's another level, it's right there. I know it.

posted by Doug 11:04 AM

Toro Sushi

Usually when I have an experience with a bad waiter, it's because, you know, they're either lazy, or an ass, or sometimes both. How many times have you glanced around a restaurant looking for your waitress while your water-glass sits empty.

But I guess there's always room for something new. Last night, Reina and I went to Toro Sushi in Chino. So we're walking to the table, and before we've even managed to sit down, this girl who must've been all of 16, says "Did you guys want anything to drink?"

"Um, well, water for now."
"Oh, okay. Are you sure?"

... "Are you sure?" No, ma'am, I'm not sure, because I haven't sat down and looked at a beverage menu, or hell, even sat down! We didn't say so, of course. We said, "Yes, water's fine for now."

So we order, and maybe 30 seconds after leaving the table, she comes by again and says "Hi guys! How're you doing?! Can I get you anything?" Literally, order taken, walks away, turns around, walks back, asks how we're doing.

"No, we're fine, thank you."
"Oh, well, okay."

Here's the next time she comes by:

"Hi there! How're you doing?!"
"Just fine, thank you."
"That's good. That's the pepper-salmon roll, right? Man, it looks so good. Sometimes when I'm bringing the food to the table, I look at the rolls, and they look really really good, and I just want to eat it all up."
*pause*
"Oh?"
"Yeah. It gets real busy here sometimes, so I don't really have a chance to. But they look so pretty. Do you like it?"
"Um. Yes, it's good, thanks."
"Awesome! I'm glad. The chefs are very good here."
"Oh, well ... I'm glad too."
"Okay, well. Bye!"

And this happens a few more times! She comes out, talks about how pretty the rolls are for a few minutes, then leaves.

At one point, we look to order our second round of Sushi, but we're not sure about which roll to pick.
"Do you like the Aloha Hawaiian Roll more or the Green Bay?"
"I don't know. I haven't really tried either one. They both look really pretty, though. Especially the Aloha, that one is the prettiest. Sometimes when I'm bringing it out to people, I look at it, and I think 'Wow, that's so pretty, I just want to eat it up!' but I don't. I don't know, though."
*awkward pause*
"Which do other customers like more?"
"Oh! A lot of people get the Aloha. That's, like, our most popular one, I bring that one out to a lot of people. And it's really pretty!"
"So the Alo-"
"A lot of people get the Green Bay too. That's probably the other most popular one. It's not as pretty, but it still looks really good. I bring that one to a lot of people too. People like that one a lot. I -"

And at this point Reina chimes in and says "Both. We'll get both." just so we don't have to hear about its prettiness anymore.

We wait.
And we wait.
Another waitress comes by asks if we need anything else, and we tell her that we already ordered another round from our waitress.
And we wait.

Our waitress comes back out.
"Did Angie come by?"
"What?"
"Oh, Angie, you know. I told her you guys wanted something."
"But. We asked you for. We told her that we had already asked you for the Aloha and the Greenbay."
"OH. I had to go get some drinks for another table, so I told her that you guys needed something so she could come by and write it down. Dang! And I said to her, too, I said 'Angie, Can you take care of these people, they want something and they're really nice.' Wait, so what did you want again?"
"The Aloha and the Green Bay."
"Oh, okay. I'll go put that in right now! Those are really pretty."

*sigh*

posted by Doug 8:18 AM

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