Friday, June 24, 2011

Existential Sushi

Yesterday, a coworker came back from lunch talking about the happy roll, and how it had made her happy. That's when I realized that if I ever opened a sushi restaurant, I would go the opposite direction: Existential Sushi. The menu almost develops itself. The malaise roll, the boredom roll, the ennui roll, the futility roll.

Now, what actually goes into one of these rolls? Who knows, we're talking marketing at this point, not production. Additionally, decorating would be easy too. Just take some public domain images of famous essentialists, Camus, Heidegger, Sartre, and Photoshop (well Gimp, I prefer open source) in some sushi! A simple but effective way to merge the two pillars of the endevor into a common image.

Speaking of Jean-Paul Sartre, there would have to be a nausea roll, but even with this strongly themed menu, that might not be a big seller. But it did remind me of a story I was told of an unfortunate attempt to get someone to try sushi for the first time which resulted in projectile vomiting. The story was told, ironicly enough, at a sushi restaurant, so maybe this idea of an existential sushi has been bubbling up through my subsconscious for a while now just waiting for the correct overt triggers.

So there it is, my idea for a restaurant should I ever want to give up on computer programming. No stealing!

Monday, June 13, 2011

The Craft, Dog, and the Tipping Point

I went to Dayton for the first time since Feb, and had a good trip. I got caught in traffic Saturday morning heading up, but I left early enough that it was probably a wash between heading straight up 71/75 and taking 275 around. That road is a complete mess right now. They've got it torn up to the point that you can only use one lane, and even that gets blocked sometimes to let construction equipment onto the road. On the drive I listened to The Tipping Point, and that book is really fascinating. For example, if you want to found your own army, organize the men into fighting units of no more than 150 men, otherwise you'll have discipline problems.

Suzanne and Jon have been watching episodes of Dog the Bounty Hunter, and that's interesting for different reasons. I would have never guessed at how much help they get from the friends of the fugitive. The "wisdom" of Dog is usually enough to make you laugh more than once an episode, so the show is pretty easy to watch. I took pictures of Abby, and I think I converted Suzanne to Gimp over Photoshop. (Gimp does have the advantage of being free.) I even learned about the red eye reduction tool when Suzanne asked about it. I haven't been zapping red eye in my photo editing, but I guess I don't have an excuse not to now.

Chip and I completed a minor woodworking project; I needed a new flap to cover the crawlspace on an addition to my house. I wanted something more sophisticated than a sheet of plywood, and the final result ended up looking almost impressive. Now I just need to get it painted and put in place. We also watched The Craft, yes it's kind of cheesy, but it's also the style of movie I enjoy. It kind of freaked me out how much Robin Tunney http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000677/ looks like Kristen Stewart http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0829576/. It's really surprising that I had never seen that before. Also ironic was the use of of the theme song from Charmed in this movie. (However, since this movie predates Charmed by 2 years, it would be more accurate to say that it's ironic that Charmed picked a song used in this movie for their theme song.)

Finally, I stopped by Michele and Dan's on the way home. Karina was completely wild. I did get to see Ethan take 2 steps. (One step on 2 different occasions.) She introduced Ethan after Thomas and Percy the trains and a toy airplane, however, that's more credit than he usually gets from Karina. She probably spent a good half an hour or more spinning in circles and talking about the need to spin faster and faster in musical terms. She also told me Pluto is a dwarf planet and repeatedly made use of the word Gondola as a synonym for boat.