Yearly Archives: 2007

Personal “Massage” Device Sales Set to Take Off in Alabama

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A court has upheld a ban on selling adult toys in Alabama.  Quick note: I’m trying to avoid using a three letter word that begins with "s" and ends with "x" because you don’t want to know what kind of links I get when I use it. Here’s the story from Boing Boing:

In a unanimous opinion, a
three-judge panel for the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an
Alabama statute banning the commercial distribution of sex toys, saying
that there is no fundamental right to privacy raised by the plaintiff’s
case against the law.

According to the statute, it is ‘unlawful for any
person to knowingly distribute any obscene material or any device
designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human
genital organs.’

Damnit, I ended up using the word anyway.  More about this story can be found at the American Constitutional Society blog.  The ACS blog points out that the law doesn’t prohibit the possession or use of these devices. My question for the obviously repressed leaders of Alabama is this: how do you discern the difference between a neck massager and a vibrator?

I’d Like to Buy Davis Cup Tickets, but…

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Tickets for the Davis Cup tie in April here in Winston-Salem went on sale at 10 a.m. this morning for USTA members.  The USTA phone line they provided to order tickets has been busy every time I’ve tried to call (1 hour 15 minutes so far). No online sales, so the 888 number is the only way to order. I’d have thought that they anticipated high demand for the tickets, but for whatever reason didn’t expand their call center operations.  I’m getting a little irked.

**Update** I just called the USTA member support line and found out from Lynn (very nice lady) that the company handling ticket sales has 170 lines dedicated to ticket sales, and that they’ve been overwhelmed to the point that people are being bounced to a line for an event at the Rose Bowl, and that the only thing we can do is keep trying the same number.  Unfortunately they USTA customer service folks can’t take ticket orders and Lynn informed me that they’ve been getting hammered with calls similar to mine and she wished they could be more helpful.  I’m a lot less frustrated now that I’ve talked to a live person, and now I just hope I don’t get locked out of good seats.

**Update #2** Finally got through at 2:30 and the member allocation of tickets is already gone.  I’ll have to try on Monday when they open up to the general public.  Membership has its privileges, huh?

Why are you really sorry?

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Today’s "controversy of the day", at least for the morning, is what ex-NBA player Tim Hardaway said when he was asked about he would handle having a gay (homosexual, not happy) teammate.  Here’s what he said:

You know, I hate gay people, so I let it be known," Hardaway said. "I
don’t like gay people and I don’t like to be around gay people. I am
homophobic. I don’t like it. It shouldn’t be in the world or in the
United States…

And second of all, if he was on my team, I would, you know, really
distance myself from him because, uh, I don’t think that’s right. And
you know I don’t think he should be in the locker room while we’re in
the locker room. I wouldn’t even be a part of that.

Yowch.  His statements are definitely politically incorrect, obviously objectionable to many people and just as obviously reflective of his true feelings.  And I’d hazard a guess that his views are shared by many of his NBA peers and by a fairly large segment of the population.  Personally I don’t share his views, but they are his views and he’s being brutally honest about his feelings with his comments.

Well, not 24 hours after his comments hit the airwaves Hardaway has issued an apology.  Here’s an excerpt from an ESPN.com story about the controversy:

Hardaway, later saying he regretted the remarks, apologized for the
remarks during a telephone interview with Fox affiliate WSVN in Miami.

"Yes, I regret it. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said I hate gay people or anything like that," he said. "That was my mistake."

Well, I’m sure he is sorry for making the comments.  He’s probably lost a lot of future dollars from media and PR gigs and I’ll bet he is sorry for that.  But is he sorry for hating gay people?  I doubt it, and in our society I don’t know if we can or should demand that people apologize for expressing their true feelings.  Nothing says we have to agree with them, or support them, but their feelings are as legitimate as anyone elses.  If anything we should say, "I hear what you’re saying and here’s why I think you’re wrong."  Instead we shout "You’re wrong you bigoted asshole!" and then wait for the public bowing down and apology.

Our airwaves are filled with celebrities, athletes, politicians and other infamous folk who open their mouths, utter something considered objectionable by a segment of the population, and then when they figure out they might lose money or status they issue an apology.  Their apologies are sincere in that they really regret making trouble for themselves, but otherwise they ring hollow as a damage containment tool.

For once I’d like someone to say something like, "I know most people don’t agree with what I said, but it’s what I believe and that’s that.  Maybe I should learn to say nothing if I’ve got nothing nice to say, but it’s too late for that now so if you disagree with me let’s talk about it."  Unfortunately we don’t seem to have people in the public eye willing to do that.

What’s real interesting about the Hardaway story is the reaction of John Amaeche, an ex-NBA player who came out of the closet in a book he recently wrote.  Amaeche’s book has caused a big stir in the NBA universe and is what prompted the interviewer to ask Hardaway about his feelings on having a gay teammate. Here’s what Amaechi said:

Finally, someone who is honest. It is ridiculous, absurb, petty,
bigoted and shows a lack of empathy that is gargantuan and
unfathomable. But it is honest. And it illustrates the problem better
than any of the fuzzy language other people have used so far.

Exactly.  Without people like Hardaway, people who say what they really feel, we don’t stand a chance of having an honest conversation about issues like these.  And without an honest conversation we don’t ever get any closer to understanding each other’s position.  In Amaeche’s words we will continue to have a gargantuan and unfathomable lack of empathy.

So they’re Double-Ds muscle-wise?

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We’re having dinner last night and my daughter is telling us about
a girl at school who is really muscular.  The following exchange
occured:

Daughter (13 years old, seventh grade): "So,
like this girl bends over to tie her shoes, and like, her muscles
bulge out.  They’re like, huge!  And this boy, he like
looks over and like says ‘Man your muscles are huge.’ And the girl
says, like, ‘Stop it you’re embarassing me’."

Youngest Son (10 years old, fifth grade):
"So they’re Double-Ds muscle-wise?"

Entire family (Dad-40 going on 100, Mom-Age not
defined out of sheer self preservation, Brother-14, 8th grade and
aforementioned sister): Moment of shocked silence followed by
uproarious laughter.  Then almost simultaneously all four ask,
"You know what Double-Ds are?"

Fifth grade son: Turns eight shades of red and
nods his head.

Dad (now going on 120): "So what are they?"

Fifth grade son: "You know…boobs."

Fade to black for childhood, or parental, innocence.

Lofts to Keep Old Farts on Their Toes

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Oldfartcondos
My Mom’s greatest fear is losing her mind.  At least that’s the excuse she uses for the hours she spends playing video games and solving crosswords, acrostics and Sudokus.  She cites research showing that geezers who engage in such activities maintain sharper minds.  Hell, I’ll take her word for it since I enjoy wasting my time on such activities as much as she does.

It seems that a Japanese architect believes in helping old farts feel act more like young farts by designing condos that challenge them to stay on their toes.  The condos, pictured above, are described in this article thusly:

Most people, in choosing a new home, look for comfort: a serene
atmosphere, smooth walls and floors, a logical layout. Nonsense, says
Shusaku Arakawa, a Japanese artist based in New York. He and his
creative partner, poet Madeline Gins, recently unveiled a small
apartment complex in the Tokyo suburb of Mitaka that is anything but
comfortable and calming. "People, particularly old people, shouldn’t
relax and sit back to help them decline," he insists. "They should be
in an environment that stimulates their senses and invigorates their
lives."

With that in mind, Arakawa and Gins designed a building of nine
apartments known as Reversible Destiny Lofts. Painted in eye-catching
blue, pink, red, yellow and other bright colors, the building resembles
the indoor playgrounds that attract toddlers at fast-food restaurants.
Inside, each apartment features a dining room with a grainy, surfaced
floor that slopes erratically, a sunken kitchen and a study with a
concave floor. Electric switches are located in unexpected places on
the walls so you have to feel around for the right one. A glass door to
the veranda is so small you have to bend to crawl out. You constantly
lose balance and gather yourself up, grab onto a column and
occasionally trip and fall.

Even worse, there’s no closet space; residents will have to find a
way to live there, since the apartment offers only a few solutions.
"You’ll learn to figure it out," says Arakawa. Ten minutes of stumbling
around is enough to send even the healthiest young person over the
edge. Arakawa says that’s precisely the point. "[The apartment] makes
you alert and awakens instincts, so you’ll live better, longer and even
forever," says the artist.

If this concept takes off I think there’s a great business opportunity in opening an urgent care center in the lobby.

 

Sometimes the Grass is Browner

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While I was at the Frost & Sullivan conference last week in Anaheim I met a guy who had worked in Greensboro years ago, moved to DC and then moved on to Michigan.  The conversation was particularly interesting to me because he knew the two housing markets I had dealt with, DC and the Piedmont Triad, and while he agreed that it was a very positive move my family made from DC to NC (sold in a sellers market and bought in a buyers market) his move from DC to Michigan was even stronger.  In fact he said he almost feels guilty because the market in Michigan is so depressed that the deal he got on his house was almost "criminal".

To give me a taste of how bad the economy is in Michigan he told me that the unemployment rate in Michigan is the highest in the country. I just checked and it’s 7.1% which makes Michigan second to last, in front of only Mississippi’s 7.5%.  That makes North Carolina’s  4.9% (36th in the nation) seem not so bad by comparison. 

By the way Virginia is tied with Montana for third lowest unemployment rate in the country at 2.9%.  The job market in Northern Virginia is so strong that they actually worry about finding enough workers and finding a place to house them.  That equates to high salaries that are eaten up by astronomical housing prices, over-crowded schools, world-class traffic congestion and the flight of at least one family to the embrace of the Piedmont Triad.

Worse for Michigan is that things seem to be continuing downhill after Chrysler announced today that they’re eliminating another 13,000 jobs.  Here in NC there aren’t a whole lot of manufacturing jobs left to lose and the service, biotech, tech and financial sectors seem to be gearing up for growth.  In addition NC is becoming a retiree destination, which isn’t something I think you’ll see happen in Michigan until global warming really kicks into gear.

 

Just goes to show that while the grass often seems greener on the other side of the fence you can be certain that someone in the neighborhood has a lawn with more weeds than yours.

“Good systems don’t require saints but bring out the best in sinners”

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The title of this post is a sentence in an editorial titled "Truth in Affordable Housing" by a Harvard economist named Edward Glaeser.  It’s an interesting piece about Massachusetts’ effort to push developers to build affordable housing, the challenges of creating the proper incentives for the developers and the nature of people in general.  I think this sentence will someday define my business:
"Good systems don’t require saints but bring out the best in sinners."

Glaeser has another interesting column on the anything-but-free roads we enjoy.  Basically he advocates the use of tolls, "smart" tolls in particular, to help ease congestion in major metropolitan areas since we pay for our "free" roads with hours spent in traffic.  As a former DC-traffic sufferer it was of great interest to me.

I’m a Slob, but…

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TrashcarI’m one of those guys who’s happy washing and vacuuming my car a couple of times a year.  I also don’t mind my trunk getting a little cluttered and having stuff on the floor in front of my passenger seat, or having it on my back seat.  If I’m giving someone a ride and I haven’t had time to clean it out I’ll apologize for the mess, but that’s just to be polite.  If they’ve got a problem with it they can always ride with someone else.

Still, I’m not even in the minor leagues when it comes to car-slobbery.  The picture above shows the car of a woman who had an accident because the trash spilled into the driver area and made her brakes and accelerator impossible to use.  Just check out that pile!

Cool Cupcake Carrier

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I’ve created a new category called "Product Alert" in which I will store all the cool stuff I come across that I’d like to buy or might want to buy for someone I like.  I guess if I find products for people I don’t like I’ll have to come up with another category.  Anyway the first entry in the Product Alert category is the Cupcake Courier.  No more battling your way into your childs classroom for her birthday with two cake tins covered in aluminum foil, or if you’re sophisticated two of those Tupperware contraptions.  This handy-dandy little carrier allows you to easily tote enough cupcakes to feed 36 of those little bast****, er, children.