Wi-fi trumps all

Bob: so how was that new restaurant that you went to?
Joe: Well, later on I threw up the dinner, the wine was vinegar that had the label torn off, I had to take my order to the kitchen because the waiter was engaged in an urgent discussion of kleenex brands, and I caught the valet joyriding in my car, but it did have free wi-fi.
Bob: so i should go?
Joe: Oh yes, definitely!

These are the desperate lengths we will go to to obtain the holy grail of our internet society, free wi-fi. Few have made the journey, and most of them end up stranded in the back rooms and winding passageways of various coffee-shops, until they die from lack of Myspace and Facebook. But, a few brave souls have made the journey and return victourious, to flaunt their signal strength as a badge of honor.

I have had the honor of being related to one valiant adventurer who survived the quest, my mother. Starbucks will make you pay for internet access, but using all her wits and cunning she dodged the sticks of dynamite, automated blowpipes, and swinging axes to emerge from the maze with her wireless connection held aloft. This was probably the high-point of her month. She had outwitted the devious god of the no-signal-can-be-detected-zones without the loss of so much as one USB port.

But then again, I can't really make fun of these people because at the moment I am siting with my laptop precariously balanced on the arm of my chair, forcing me to type one-handedly wile my computer teeters on the edge of the precipice, in a desperate attempt to boost my signal.

C'EST MA VIE

Forget the treadmill, stack cups instead

Let us take a brief moment to reminisce about ye olde P.E. classes. Remember games of dodge-ball, calisthenics, and rope climbing? Those activities have become relics of a forgotten past. Dodge-ball is a forbidden "contact sport," not even the gym teachers have the energy to make it through the calisthenics, and with the child obesity epidemic rope-climbing has been declared cruel and unusual punishment (of the ropes). "So" you ask "what kind of kinds of strenuous and challenging physical workouts are todays children being subjected to?" the short answer is that they aren't. Instead we have lessons in cup-stacking.

This means exactly what it says. We receive lessons in how to stack up plastic cups into various formations, as fast as we possible can. Maybe I am missing some hidden value, such as the fact that cup-stacking promotes a valuable skill which no one who doesn't have the right security clearance can know about. Or maybe we are being trained in manual dexterity so that we will be able to put together happy meals with extreme precision. But then again there is a much more obvious reason: our parents are promoting cup stacking because it trains us in the proper use of our fingers, a skill which will allow us to win 25,000 dollars in a text-messaging contest.

Another mark of this sport's absurdity is that one can purchase special cups online which come in their very own padded carrying case. Soon there will be display cases containing slivers of wood from "the tables I have stacked on."

that's all I have time for right now because I'm in training and those cups won't stack themselves.

C'EST MA VIE