Category: Observation

Hallmark Wins

Sorry for the long delay.  I have been fighting a stupid cold for about 4 days now and it is not showing any signs of letting up.  In general  I rarely come down with colds, but when I do they tend to be the nastiest strains on the continent.  Since I don’t take any medications unless I absolutely have to, I resort to the bombardment of Vitamin C.  The guess at this point is I sunk it in pretty deep by running 4 miles during the early stages.  This may have weakened my immune system enough for it to take a stranglehold.  Don’t worry, I’ll make it through.

Fortunately, I identified blog material during that run.  Since treadmill running is an immense bore,  I always have the TV or stereo going to keep my mind off the fact I’m at most moving back and forth about 6 inches for 30+ minutes at a time.  This is probably one of the few times I am actually exposed to commercials beyond when I am getting ready for work in the mornings.  Similar to when I was forced to watch 7 minutes of Obama’s infomercial because it came on before completing my mileage for the day, I caught my first Christmas commercial of the season.  Yes, on Friday Nov 7th, Hallmark ran a Christmas add for some kind of talking giftbag.  Thanksgiving is all but irrelevant these days and my guess every year they will push the Christmas season even further ahead.  I already see Christmas decorations start hitting the retail shelves before Halloween is over.  I’ve decided to honor my favorite pumpkin holiday and commit to not purchasing any Christmas themed item before Thanksgiving.  Mind you, this does not apply to purchasing gifts ahead of time.  My wife likes to get that out of the way as soon as possible in contrast to my theory that the best deals are on December 23rd – Chia Pets for everyone!

Hitman Ignites the Spidey Senses

Last night I started out watching Sweeney Todd with my wife.  It is rare when we get to actually watch a movie together and there was actually something on HBO we had not already seen.  I must admit, I did not do any research on this particular movie, but I had heard it received some fairly good reviews.  5 minutes into it we realized it was a musical and take a guess on what genre I typically dislike.  Shows about Music (Rock Star, Spinal Tap…) no problem.  Shows delivered in music format (Sweeney Todd, Hairspray…) suckage.  After about 15 more minutes we decided it was not worth wasting our together time on so we switched over to WALL-E.  Again, no research on the movie and caught a little off guard by the fact there were only mechanical sounds until near the end.  This was not the best I’ve seen out of the Dreamworks studios.  It had its cute moments, but didn’t hold our attention very strong.  We stuck this one out, but I’ll definitely do a little more Googling before the next movie night.

I decided to go check out the latest news stories on the web and ended up turning the TV on to have some background noise.  Hitman came on HBO and even though I had already seen it previously, I kept it on mainly because I was too lazy to find the controller and hunt for something better.  Again, I would not put this in the “good” category, but it has its moments if you like some action and blood on your screen.  What I did think was stunning was the formula damsel in distress.  When I saw it the first time, I was intrigued by her face tattoo.  I also distinctly remembered something about that tattoo bothering me on first viewing.  I made a mental note to pay closer attention when her scenes came on to see if I could figure it out.  Often times my brain will pick out something odd, but it takes me awhile to clarify what it is.  I think made a comment on this before, but I tend to take mental snapshots over time and if two snapshots don’t correlate well, the spider senses initiate.

Part way through the movie she shows up for the first time:

hitman

Kind of a cute tattoo don’t you think?  Subtle image yet striking since it takes commitment to place it on such a noticeable location (unlike Tyson who is just an idiot).

Here are a couple of other snaps so you get the feel for the placement and lack of symmetry on the other side.

hitman

hitman

Our hero (holding the gun in the previous picture) kidnaps the woman and hauls her off to interrogate her.  The scene cuts away and returns with the lady sitting in the middle of a dark room.

hitman

hitman

Spider senses ignite instantly, but it passed the screen pretty quickly.  She continues to respond to the main character’s questioning who eventually passes in front of her.  As soon as he walks by, we are left with this shot

hitman

There it is.  The two contiguous snapshots didn’t line up.  Do you see the difference?  Guessing you did since I framed it for you, but yes, the tattoo switched sides.  My brain didn’t like this one bit.  I decided to spend a little time tracking down an explanation.  As it turns out, there is a mirror in the room which would produce the same effect if the camera chose to shoot through the mirror instead.  I strongly doubt this since on closer inspection, the mirror is way to dirty to get those shots.

hitman

From that point on, it stays on the expected side

hitman

So, thanks to the director intentionally or accidentally putting this into the film, I wasted 1.5 hrs figuring out why I was so bothered after the first viewing.  Okay, maybe not wasted since I did get blog material out of it, but none the less, I could have been playing Rock Band 2 or reading some materials that have been building up lately.  I would have to think the actress would notice something like this if they had tried painting it on the wrong side of the face since it is such a stunning style element… and even if it got through that litmus test, someone should have caught it during production.  Of course, there are others things that make it through the splicing process that somehow make it out (see Lethal Weapon Movie Goof on this page).

Spider senses under control now, issue successfully identified

I Got My Sticker

Today, I did my Patriotic Duty.  Thanks to Biden, you first might think I went and paid more taxes today.  However, you would be dead wrong.  Instead I voted.  Yep, I took advantage of the opportunity to get my vote cast early in the presidential election.  Before I leave the Biden thing, I was caught off guard by my brother who offered up a quandary;  if the Democratic ticket is so willing to pay more taxes, why don’t they just go and do it now.  He is absolutely correct; there is nothing out there that is preventing them from doing that.  Any takers?

Back on track.  So I finally get there and pleased to find out there was only 15 or so people ahead of me.  One interesting thing I noted was a blue piece of paper being passed back through the line that was supposed to be read before you voted.  Basically the paper detailed out the fact that there was question on the ballot asking if there should be a Congressional Caucus (think that was it) that was worded unconstitutionally.  Apparently stating that a non-vote represents a specific vote (I think yes in this case) was illegal.  How ironic that constitutional request would be worded in violation of the law.  But that was the most interesting part.  I finally made it to about 2 or 3 back when the steward held up the blue paper and asked if everyone had read it.  I nodded along with the people ahead of me and most of the people behind me, but it then the nods turned horizontal.  How odd.  This rationalized into a short in the process in a very apparent location… that being the individual right in front of the first negative motion.  I think the lady in that position noticed me looking in her direction (honestly, I was just trying to understand the situation and not trying to apply any guilt).  All of a sudden, she pulls out the piece of paper and proceeded to undo the quad-fold and then passed it to the person behind her.  Clearly, she saw the paper being passed continuously in front of her, so the only thing I could think of was she was the last in line at that particular time.  Which would mean she forgot the process when the line started up again behind her.  I’ll chalk that up to short term memory, but then became very alarmed that she was actually preparing to vote.  Good thing they do not allow campaigning near the building.

I also read the polling location rules and your rights list posted on the window of the voting room.  One caught my eye.  This particular entry pertained to having the right of a non-harassing environment to make my vote in.  I had to chuckle to myself.  The horde of middle school girls practicing their annoying cheerleading routines literally 3 feet from where I was standing had to make that specific location the MOST irritating and thus harassing environment I have been in all year.  The horror, the horror.

Lastly, I had my first experience with an electronic voting machine.  I have spent a large percentage of my life in the I.T. world and can only wonder “What were they thinking when they designed this specific unit?”.  As a check and balance, I was given a PIN I had to enter into the voting c0mputer before I started.  So there are 4 empty squares to put your numbers in and a grid of numbers right below it.  So I hit the numbers on the grid and nothing happens.  I hit them again thinking I didn’t hit them properly, but nothing happened again.  Turns out after a little investigating that you have to spin a large wheel below the screen until the number you want is highlighted and then you can hit an enter  button to accept the number.   Don’t try to claim older people can’t figure out a touch screen, I’ve seen the grey hairs going to town on the video poker machines in casinos.  So this method progresses through the ballot until I come to the verification step.  I actually liked this and I am assuming this was a hanging chad requirement.  Once accepted, it then started printing out on a paper roll next to the screen and indicated I could leave the booth at that time.  Note to voting machine designers, I am not leaving until my vote printout is completely rolled passed the display window.   I will tell you I had a little bit of uneasiness while I was voting.  I was given a unique PIN number which I had to put into the machine first.  A unique number that is assigned to MY name.  You would think they would have pamphlets and notices about how that PIN is assigned to you only for validation purposes and is not associated to your particular vote selections.  Did I mention I am in the IT industry?  I did scan the printout and didn’t find it on the paper, but the barcode printout at the end ….

Get out and Vote!  and if you feel the need to pay more taxes, feel free to stop by your local IRS office

Whack A Time Share Peddler

I like Vegas.  My wife and I have a tendency to spend some time out there at least once a year and have become quite familiar with all of the sights and sounds that go along with a place labeled affectionately as Sin City.  Our recent visit was actually to go to a family wedding being held there, but for specific reasons I am going to hold off on commenting about that specific event (for now).  As a perk from visiting that city at a regular frequency, we tend to get fairly good rates on hotels.  Such good rates that we often end up going back to the same hotel(s) even after we have decided we wanted a change.  That is the situation we had on our recent trip.  Even though we have stayed at the Luxor like 6 or 7 times now, the $59/night room rates is hard to pass up especially since they usually end up comping them out at the end of stay anyway.  We could also use our offer to get a cheap room for others that were heading out there with us.  So, setting the tone for this post is we went to Vegas, stayed at a hotel even though we would prefer to go elsewhere and had brought a number of people with us.

Four things stick out about that visit that has significantly impacted my desire to ever go to that particular hotel again.  I will let you form your own opinion if I am simply overreacting.  The first of these issues is the room location we were given.  Having been to Vegas so many times, the room view is not an issue for us – to be honest, I really do not sleep much while I am out there and prefer to spend time out in the lights rather than just looking at them from a window.  What is critical is my ability to actually get some sleep when I decide to head there.  Keep in mind, this usually consists of me going to the room after 4am and getting up around 10am to sleep the rest off under the sun at the pool.  Note, the reason for the couple of hours in the sun is to detox from the smoke and fumes from the casino floors.  The first day plays out as expected, hit the room about 3am and hit the zzz’s.  At 8:30am I am awakened by extremely loud drilling from what appears to be the floor right below my room.  This I find extremely annoying and even try to drown it out with the pillow without success.  Frustrated, I decided to simply get up and head out to some places my wife wanted to visit.  Day plays out again exactly the same along with the same drilling which starts closer to 8am this time.  Furious, I call the front desk and ask them how long I am going to have to listen to them drilling every morning.  The response was “Oh, they are replacing windows below you, but we can move you to the other tower if you want to?”  No, really I enjoy the sound; I just wanted to know if you could add a jackhammer.  Idiot, of course I want moved or I would not have bothered to call you.  My take away from this was that they KNEW this was happening but put us there anyway.  The other issue is they had to move another party that was on the same floor (they needed to be close to us… no comment at this time).  I relayed that they needed to be moved as well and that was agreed to by the clerk.  So we packed up both rooms and headed out to the casino floor to kill sometime before the rooms were ready.  At 1:00pm we gathered up our luggage and headed to the registration desk to get the new room assignment.   Turns out they second room wasn’t done yet, but ours was.  We took the keys and I specifically asked the clerk what the second room number was and wrote it down on the key envelope as well.  We dropped all the stuff off at our room and headed out to the casino floor again.

Continue reading Whack A Time Share Peddler

Left ’em hanging at the Courthouse

A week ago, I was heading out for a quick lunch in downtown Peoria.  Local restaurants bring carts downtown by the courthouse with various menu items.  Now that I have multiple offices for an assignment I am on, I get the benefit of being able to enjoy a larger variety for lunch.  As I walked past the courthouse I saw an individual of African American descent (is that the proper classification these days?) walk past an individual of Anglo Saxon heritage standing by a retaining wall.  The guy standing must have said something to the guy walking by because he turned back to talk to the guy standing.  As soon as the walking guy recognized him, he put out his right hand for the standard greeting handshake.  He literally stood there with hand out for close to 30 seconds while conversing back and forth.  The standing guy never took his hand out of his pockets nor even changed his expression to acknowledge the extended hand.  Finally the shake initiator raised his elbow up higher to draw further attention to the request for a shake… no response.  In a last desperate attempt he switched hands and tried to get the guy to shake the other hand but that was met with the exact same lack of acknowledgment.  Finally the guy turned back and continued on his way.  I found this very strange.  There was no change in voice tone that I could tell so it was not an issue of being angry, just a complete lack of desire to shake his hand.  I wish I could have actually heard the conversation to be able to determine if the visuals matched what was actually going on.  For all I know the standing guy could have been completely paralyzed in both arms and was unable to remove them from his pocket – of course, Biden would have demanded that he extend his arms anyway – maybe the standing guy saw him spit into both his hands earlier in the day.  He certainly could not have felt threatened in the presence of the universal sign for “I am not carrying a weapon” and he did not even twitch to the opposite direction.

Anyway, I thought it was odd and that is what this site is all about.

The 3P Principle… or Gaming Gas Pricing — Now NOPE

Updated: Oct 31st, 2008 My brother has now provided further clarification of the principle and has given this m0vement the moniker NOPE for Not One PEnny.  Please see his comment below for more discussion and additional tie breaker rules.

I have to credit my brother Ron for the topic of this post.  The catalyst for this entry was that I actually acted upon his theory twice while traveling around Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin this weekend.  So about now, you are wondering what this theory is all about.  Ron and I have had numerous discussions regarding the price of gas.  During one of these discussions, he detailed out a plan to influence market pricing for gas.  It is actually fairly simple in understanding and execution, but the dilemma is that it has to be regionally followed or it will have little impact on the overall pricing.  If collectively executed, I think it may change the way the market looks at demand based pricing.  Ron never gave a clever title to his concept, so I am going to go ahead and label it for him…. he is definitely welcome to change it if he wants.  So here goes.. ready… The 3P Principle or expanded… the Perfect Petro Pricing Principle.  Unlike most economic principles these days, this one doesn’t take a thesis to explain.  In fact, it only takes a sentence.  If there are multiple gas stations in reasonable proximity, ALWAYS go to the station with the lowest displayed price even if it requires an inconvenience to get to the location or wait an additional amount of time waiting for a free pump.  Now that was not that difficult was it?  The heart of the theory is market based pricing.  There is absolutely no way an establishment can continue pricing different than a competitor who has the same customers.  Eventually, depending on his loss longevity, the price will have to come down to at least match the other businesses…. and ideally, from a capitalist point of view, he might re-price down below the competitors to win back some of the lost customers.  That sets up another round of discounts from the rest of the competitors.  There are some quirks to the principle due to some options like the level of octane that is provided, what detergent is included etc.  But apparently the gas stations don’t really think this is important to you or they would actually put it on their sign next to their displayed gas prices so you could decide how much YOU really care about it.  If you are not driving a high end vehicle, I doubt you care if it is 87 or 89 and in the Midwest just assume it has 10% Ethanol in it.  So instead of just complaining about the high prices or bandwagoning on the dependency of foreign oil so we must go green crap, do something about it and start following the 3P Principle (or whatever he decides to call it)

Doing my part this weekend, I had the chance to make this choice twice.  The first time was South of Rockford IL in a small town called Rochelle…. and as I say everytime I pass that city: “Rochelle Rochelle, a young girl’s erotic journey from Milan to Minsk”  If you are a Seinfeld fan, you should be laughing now.  Anyway, we had to fill up for gas and as usual on the interstate, there were three filling stations to choose from.  Two of them were at $2.99/gallon and the other one was at $2.84.  Even though we had to drive 500 feet extra and wait for a light, I made my wife go to the cheaper gas.  Of course, there were some customers at the other stations paying too much, but it will probably take a little while to get the word out on this genius plan.  We filled up and went on our merry way having lost only about 4 minutes extra due to seeking out the cheaper price.

The second time was up in Lake Geneva, but it slightly backfired on us but on reflection, the proximity parameter really wasn’t met.  We drove into Lake Geneva off of Rt 12 on the East side of the lake.  The gas price at that particular spot was $2.95.  We were still okay on the guage, so we completely traversed to the West side via the southern Lake Shore drive.  On that end, there was a gas station displaying $2.85.  Can someone please tell me why the gas is priced differently a mere 20-30 miles away?  We noticed the cheaper gas, but the guage was still in our favor so we started heading back to the East, but this time via the North side.  Unfortunately, I made my wife take a wrong turn which literally brought us back down to the exact same point we saw the $2.85 station.  Yes, I heard about that for at least 20 minutes straight.  At that point I decided it was an omen so I made her stop for gas.  Unfortunately, when we retraced our Northern route, we passed another gas station that had $2.84 displayed…. still better than $2.95 though.  So, we did our part this weekend.  A few more thousand regionally concerned citizens and we should start seeing a true impact.

All credit goes to my brother Ron!  now about that nomogracult thing…

Lake Geneva Gets It

I was able to catch the last presidential debate between Obama and McCain.  To be honest, at one point I was stunned and left just starring at the TV.  Both candidates clearly have their faults and quirks, but the last time I witnessed the statements like – we need to redistribute the gains of the wealthy to others and a patriotic duty to pay your (unfare) share to the government – I was reading about Marxism.  This is completely unbelievable and quite frankly the most disgusting thing I’ve heard so far in this campaign… with exception of course to Biden telling a wheelchair bound individual to stand and Palin purposely leaving off her G’s.  I clearly do not have the assests of the individuals at the top of the wealth lists in the US, but in no way, shape, or form do I think they should be obligated to give it back to those who didn’t take the same chances or make the right decisions.  Last time I checked, America was built on capitalism, not a share the wealth commune. 

I was close to the Wisconsin boarder this weekend at a dog show and happened to have the opportunity to run up to Lake Geneva to find out why Chicago natives flock there every weekend.  It is definitely a pretty nice area and the lake is clearly large enough to have some fun on, but honestly, it didn’t leave me with the unquenchable desire to rush home and book a hotel.  Beyond the lake, there didn’t look like a whole lot to do – other than checking out the georgeous houses out there.  On the other hand, when Lake Delton fills up again, we will be heading up there for more fun on the jet skiis, casino and all the miniature golf you can handle.  Now what did catch my attention at Lake Geneva was the near 15 to 1 ratio of McCain signs to Obama.  Apparently they get it… which isn’t surprising based on some of those dwellings.  Sure, I am a little envious of their opportunities, but glad I live in the land of choice that provides everyone that opportunity should they have some initiative.

Now we just need to figure out how Joe the Plumber is going to pay his back taxes.

Mathematically Eliminated.. or Yeah for the Goat!

Let’s start this quick post by saying I am a St. Louis Cardinal’s baseball fan.  This was not so much selected as opposed to handed down from my father.  As a result of this affiliation, I am also an anti-Cub fan.  No surprise there since it also goes along with my distaste for the Beatles probably based entirely on being a fan of the Rolling Stones.  I wonder just how much of our likes and dislikes are really based on contrasting scenarios?  I like the Illini, I dislike Michigan – I like Physics, I dislike Chemistry…. sounds like a future post topic, but the point of this one is to pick at the wound we like to call “Cub’s Post Season Dysfunction”

So I had the opportunity to go up to Wrigley field for a game in the final series of the season between the Cards and the Cubs.  So I grabbed my Cards hat and headed up with my Cub friends (and another Cardinal fan that was apparently too worried to actually wear the RED).  It ended up being a fairly pleasant day, probably due to the fact we hit their star pitcher out of the park for an early exit and rode a nice 12 run outing to the win.  Only twice that day did I hear the taunt of Mathematically Eliminated tossed my way in light of the Redbirds inability to make the playoffs this year.   Then on the way back to the car and SUV drives by with a similar disparaging remark on my team.  Yes, they got us this year, but noted to myself to see just how far they make it in their Cinderella year.   Last night I got the answer to that question… EXACTLY 3 GAMES.  Nice going Cubbies – a stellar year full of highly paid players who choke when it matters.  So… we concede we didn’t make it to the playoffs, and we admit your season was longer than ours…  a whopping 1.9% more.

Here’s your broom… see ya next year!

A Fine Art Day for a List Check off

You already know I have a life list and I was able to check an entry off earlier in the year.  Well, I was able to check another one off today.  I always wanted to purchase a piece of fine art.  The closest I have ever come to this is some wolf paintings I bought a long time ago at the Eagle Days in the Quad Cities.  I really don’t count this because it was not really an art show as much as a craft display.  The artist was there and signed them, but again, not what I had intended when I put the entry on the list.  A number of stars aligned today that I decided I had to take advantage of.

Peoria Fine Arts Fair Ticket

The Peoria Riverfront was hosting their annual Fine Art Fair.  I was always intrigued by it since it actually carried a description indicating it was not a pretentious affair.  Yesterday, I was sent an email by a coworker indicating her husband’s band was performing at 10:00AM at the same event.  Ah, the extra nudge to get me to wake up early on a Saturday and trek the 30 minutes down to the Illinois River.  I decided I needed some guiding principles to keep in mind while trying to acquire my fine art piece.

  • I decided $200 was my limit for my first piece (need to ease into this whole artsy thing)
  • The artist must be present at the booth – part of the thrill should be actually engaging with the artist to learn a little bit about the concept and creativity involved
  • The piece cannot be something I could actually create myself with less than a year’s concentrated effort (at least get close visually without the scrutiny of an artist’s eye).  This automatically eliminates the yard utensil art and any tile mosaic pieces (the latter since I can already do that now).
  • I should not be able to purchase a similar piece at a local (non-art retail) store
  • I will not purchase from a vendor that fits the “snobby artist” profile – you know, “The I’m better that you and you are not qualified to look at my wonderful creations much less explain them to you”
  • I will not be pressured by the vendor into purchasing a particular item.  I can’t stand people pushing product on me including the product vendors at work and the food sample ladies prowling the local convenience stores
  • I will take the time to look at every booth (if even just in passing) before I make my decision
  • The piece has to impress me or be unique enough to really capture my attention
  • I cannot acquire something I would be embarrassed by other people seeing it in my house (think naked lady statues)
  • I have to be able to get it home

I thought this was a pretty good list, but gave myself the option to augment If I had to.  Remember, I have never been to an art fair before so I really did not know what to expect.  Thanks to a late night of Rock Band 2 (crested 1.2Million fans last night and probably ranked in the 2,000s now) I was a little groggy this morning, but the anticipation of checking the list item overcame that as I headed to the event.  Confusing at first, there were actually a lot of parking lot spaces available in a lot right by the fair.  Once I arrived at the ticket area, I realized the show did not start until 10:00AM (actually Art Guild Members were able to enter an hour earlier).  I took a walk and enjoyed the riverfront for a little bit and returned when the show opened.  I heard the band warming up and figures I would check out the various booths first and then decide which pieces stood out while taking in a few songs.  That would be a good indication of something that impressed me.  Some booths I was able to pass fairly quickly through – jewelry items, pottery and photographs really was not on the radar.  Besides, I already have a really nice piece of pottery of friend of ours hand made for us last Christmas.  Unfortunately, my first rule ended up filtering out a lot of opportunities.   It was not uncommon to see $8K and $10K pieces causing my heart to stop a couple of times merely due to fear I was going to knock them over if I got too close – assuming the you broke it, you own it principle applied here.  Pleasantly, there really was not any vendors that were in the “push” mode.  Almost all of them simply manned their booth, had cheerful words to say as you passed and let you browse at will.  Note, due to my unfamiliarity with the whole scene, I was being careful not to touch anything.

After looking at every booth, I decided to go see the band play.  As I neared the stage, I was caught a little off guard by the type of music being played since it sounded more like gospel which was not what I was expecting at all.  A quick scan of the stage confirmed my confusion and decided that someone had given me bogus information – Oh well, more time to devote to finding the perfect art piece.  After reviewing all of the booths in my head I decided there was 4 booths worth going back to for further scrutiny.  Two of these were specializing in very distinctive wooden vases/containers with unique woods.  After going back to each of these I discovered a very similar piece at both booths.  This concerned me a little bit since it didn’t seem that distinctive if two artists could create an eerily similar piece of art.  That left me two other booths to go check out – hit the continue link to see what I ended up buying.

Continue reading A Fine Art Day for a List Check off

Can You Spare a Lesson

Wow, I was called out by a loyal reader on my lack of posts as of late.  There are really two reasons for my slacking.  One, I was in Vegas all last week and 2) Rock Band 2 came out this week and unfortunately, I have one addiction (and absolutely my only one) and that is playing the fake drums.  But I can’t disregard my readers so I decided to crank one out tonight foregoing badly needed sleep even with a long trip ahead of me to see the Cubs and Cards play in Chicago tomorrow.

Tonight’s quick topic actually covers a whole year time span.  The last time I went to Vegas was about this time last year.  One of the observations that always caught my attention was the individuals begging for money on the overpasses between the hotels.  Typically the approach has been “I’m a war vet and fell on hard times…” or “some wording followed by God Bless You”.  I am not going to get into a debate on the authenticity of these individuals, but from a marketing perspective, those are pretty good approaches if you want to elicit the emotional side of individuals.  I’ll confess that I never give any money mainly because I don’t think encouragement is the right thing to do in this situation – I also give a tremendous amount of money to other forms of assistance which I know each and every one of them have the opportunity to benefit from.  With that said, I was actually totally caught off guard last year when I was crossing the overpass to Bally’s.  As I reached the top of the stairs I passed an individual sitting on the ground.  I don’t know if it is a byproduct of spending so much time observing people or not, but I have a tendency to take mental snapshots that I ponder on as I walk – this gives me the ability to assess the situation without having to resort to staring.  The downside of this is I sometimes catch stuff a few seconds later while scanning the mental picture.  As I traversed down the mental image to the individual, I was able to read his cardboard sign “Ninjas killed my parents I need money to take karate lessons so I can have my revenge”.  I thought it was fantastic and actually considered turning back and donating to the cause.  Unfortunately, as I turned back, I realized I had actually walked completely to the other side of the overpass and didn’t really want to double back that far.  Regardless if the cause was fake (no, not the ninjas, the individual actually needing to beg) I thought he demonstrated ingenuity and distinguished himself from the rest of the begging community.  Surely there is some marketing organization out there that could harness this creativity and take a person off the street at the same time…. or he is already in the marketing industry and just gaming the system for extra cash.

Comparing that to last week’s Vegas trip, there are still people begging at all of the overpasses.  Unfortunately, almost every one of them was going with the “Why Lie I need a Beer” sign.  Although honesty is an admirable trait, in this setting it doesn’t really hit the marketing sweet spot.  I know the odds that a given donation is going to be diverted to non-sustaining or non-healthy decision are pretty high (we’re in VEGAS), but providing a donation under the pretense that he needs an alcoholic drink doesn’t generally make the giver feel that good about himself.  To be brutally honest, I believe this self benefit is at the root of giving.  I would be willing to debate this further, but I just don’t see someone giving away some money and chastising himself for doing it as opposed to taking a few lighter steps while “patting himself on the back”.  I wonder if you could measure the internal pleasure that comes from an act of kindness – maybe an internal heat change or chemical change?

However, I did notice the emergence of a new approach.  At a number of the overpasses, there were individuals carting around coolers selling cold water for a dollar.  In fact, I even saw this at the Bellagio Water Show and down on Fremont Street.  This might be another good example of marketing.  Assuming the bottle water can be obtained cheaply enough (yes, I’m dismissing the bathtub bottle filling for now) , the seller can actually make some change on each bottle sold providing a win-win situation for himself and they purchaser.  It was 105 degrees out so clearly fluids is a demand item and the price seems pretty good compared to the rest of the drink prices in the area…. and NO, the free drinks while gaming isn’t really FREE if you are actually playing the game.  I think it also brings some dignity to the seller since it requires effort as opposed to resting on the pavement.

Anyway, it’s late and time to get some shut eye