John McDonald

Blogging about politics, life, and the web

Monthly Archives: March 2010

April Fools Online? Can’t say I’m a fan

March 31st, 2010

We get it.  You’re joking.  Nothing anyone says is serious and people seem to think that creating disappointment is the height of comedy.

Welcome to April Fools Day – a most sinister holiday that doesn’t even come with candies or cookouts or turkey dinners.

I guess this blog is where I choose to expose myself as the boring and humorless person that I am, but I just don’t enjoy April Fools Day on the internet.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love a good prank or practical joke, but it seems like on April 1st everyone is trying to be The Onion and failing badly.  Or worse – my favorite TV station drops its normal schedule and plays a bad shows on purpose (really). Worse again, tons of social websites will try to add funny themes or pretend they’ve released new features – oh yeah, by the way they only spent the time and effort to think up the “joke,” not the time it takes to actually implement what could have been a good idea.

This is kind of related to a bigger trend:  Making up good news and trying to pretend it actually happened.  That’s not really even a prank, that’s just getting someone’s hopes up with a blatant lie.  Is the Publisher’s Clearinghouse junkmail suddenly a comedic goldmine because it arrived on a certain day?

Anyway, you’re really not fooling anyone when you launch your pranks and fake stories on the one day of the year that everyone is on guard and expecting that kind of stuff. Want to be original and actually catch some people off guard?  Try dropping your prank at the end of April!  (I was going to suggest the middle of April, but the proximity to paying taxes might ruin some peoples’ sense of humor.  I know it does for me and apparently I didn’t even start off with much to spare.)

If its not funny on March 23rd, its not going to be funny on April 1st.  Think about that next time you try to pass off some quick content or the lack thereof!

On a lighter note, have you actually seen any April Fools Pranks that were really good?  I’m sure there have to at least be a few out there!

Sleeping by the moon

March 11th, 2010

I’ve never really fit on to a 24 hour daily schedule.  During school and through my first jobs it was always a nightmare – I just couldn’t go to bed and wake up at the same time day after day.

First I got around it by taking on jobs with irregular hours, the kind of gig where you might work lunch one day and close up on the next one.  Of course, its hard to get a good job that way so I also tried out the regularly scheduled, five-day plan.  Pulled it off for almost two years, but the stress just kept piling on despite the fact that I actually liked the job’s environment and tasks.

So it was shortly after a very painful dental surgery that I realized I had to go mercenary and learn how to make money on my own – any time of day, any way I could.  No more schedules, no more putting the rotation of the sun over the cycle and rhythm of my body.

And it worked…

Shortly after abandoning the scheduled day that everyone considers normal, I almost immediately noticed that a different pattern was developing.  Every day I would want to go to bed about an hour later than the day before.  Yesterday, I went to bed at 6:40pm, the day before was about 5:45, and the day before that was right around five.

I didn’t think much of it at first because, well, that was the point – to go to bed and wake up when my body says its time.

Then almost as a joke, my friend mentions that I’m not sleeping randomly, I’m sleeping on a lunar schedule.  It sounded like it had some grain of truth in it and I had to go find out more…

Well apparently, the lunar day is about 24 hours and 50 minutes long.  Weird – that’s very close to the interval between my bed times.  So I decide to check it out a bit further:  How does my bed time coincide with the flow of the tides?

Pulling up a local tidal calendar, I can’t say I was too surprised to learn that my daily trip to bed – for the whole last week – had lined up almost perfectly with the high tide of the river at the nearby Mainstreet bridge.

So … now what does my nature tell me?  What is this adaptation good for?  Fishing?  I guess this means I wake up shortly before low-tide – and that’s a good time to start fishing as the tide comes in and rises.

Oh well, the river here is pretty gross (thank you, local industry!) and there’s no way I’m going to give up the comfort of my website revenue to go chasing after a rising tide at 5 am.  Maybe I’ll check it out next time I feel like I’ve got spare time and need a hobby…

So what is up?!  Do you know anyone with an odd sleeping schedule that doesn’t ever quite sync up to the “normal world?”  Is there some lunar influence on our circadian rhythm when we’re able to shut out the outside light and use electrical illumination instead?

New York considers a ban on salt in restaurants

March 10th, 2010

I wouldn’t have believed it unless I had read the actual proposal from the New York legislature’s website:

NO OWNER OR OPERATOR
OF A RESTAURANT IN THIS STATE SHALL 
USE SALT IN ANY FORM IN THE PREPARA-
TION OF ANY FOOD  FOR  CONSUMPTION  
BY  CUSTOMERS  OF  SUCH  RESTAURANT,
INCLUDING  FOOD  PREPARED TO BE 
CONSUMED ON THE PREMISES OF SUCH RESTAU-
RANT OR OFF OF SUCH PREMISES.

Really, someone actually wrote this bill up and went through whatever it takes to have it considered, placed on the agenda, and uploaded to the public legislative website.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  Most places use way too much salt, but this is hardly limited to the kitchen – the one place salt actually belongs.  The problem is usually that the “raw materials” are already loaded with salt before any cook actually begins cooking.

Of course, if you’ve ever baked, cooked rice, or fried potatoes, you know exactly how indispensable salt is for certain foods.  I’ll be the first to complain if the chef uses too much in his recipe or when the chicken breasts from the grocery store come packaged in a salty brine, but to expect any kitchen to actually cook decent food without the ability to use a dash and a pinch here or there?  Pure insanity.

I’m all about encouraging and educating people to make healthy dietary decisions, but this micro-management of the kitchen is just out of sync with reality and does nothing to stop people from overindulging on salty snacks and frozen meals outside of the restaurant.

If governments want to get involved in policy that will encourage better eating choices, they should start off by undoing all of the subsidies designed to promote grains and all of the trade barriers designed to protect local farmers from places with better climates and environments for certain crops.  Yes, I’m looking at you, American sugar cane and corn farmers!