January 2, 2008

Houdini secrets exposed!

A while ago we purchased a fancy wine bottle corkscrew that they sell at Brookstone. The one where one hand holds a clamp around the top of the bottle and the other hand lowers a lever and raises it all in one smooth motion, and voila, the cork is removed with little effort. Well, the one from Brookstone broke, and since we don't have a Brookstone handy in the not-so-budding metropolis of Harrisonburg, VA, I decided to just replace it rather than go though the headache of trying to return it.

On the Monday before Christmas, it occurred to me that I should probably get some stocking stuffers for Courtney. So I took the kids to Target and and amidst the kitchen gadgets I saw what seemed to be a reasonable approximation of the Brookstone corkscrew so I bought it. I also bought her a really cool digital meat thermometer that is awesome, but I digress.

Anyway, on Christmas day, I went to use it -- isn't that great when you get to use someone else's present -- and proceeded to remove the Houdini from it's container. As soon as I picked it up, I was struck with how light it was. The one from Brookstone had obvious heft; this one felt like it was made of cheap plastic. I then picked up the box, and it was still rather heavy. Curious, I ripped off the cardboard backing on the box and found a rock screwed into the back of the plastic. What's up with that!?

It appears to me that this rock serves no purpose other than to exaggerate the weight of the corkscrew and thus inflate your perception of it's quality. It seems to me that this constitutes consumer fraud, and I'm tempted to do something about it, what do you think? Granted, the hefty Brookstone corkscrew without the sleight of hand did break, so in that case weight did not turn out to be an accurate gauge of quality. Regardless, I thought this was pretty curious.

Posted by mark at 4:41 PM | Comments (4)

October 4, 2007

Eighteen year old children?

Thanks to a friend, I was able to attend the UVA vs. Pitt college football game this past Saturday. The game was awesome and has absolutely nothing to do with this post. While walking back to the car with the throngs of people after the game, I saw two completely wasted college girls standing on the road next to the curb. I'm quite liberal with the word drunk. I can drink two beers on an empty stomach and will joke that I'm drunk. I don't use the word wasted lightly. These girls could hardly stand. At one point, while trying to stand still, they managed to be tripped by the curb and both fell ungracefully backwards onto the sidewalk. One of them was talking on a cell phone and simultaneously trying to flag down cars. She managed to get about 2 cars to stop in the 30 seconds I was walking by. These girls were both cute and wearing short skirts. It was like watching a CNN headlines abduction story unfolding. As a typical American, I watched it like reality television, and did nothing -- subliminally I'm sure I was thinking about getting some chips and salsa. Regardless, I'm about to segue into something only marginally related.

What's up with the legal drinking age being 21? We've all heard the age-old complaint of most sub-twenty-oners, "I can die for my country and can't buy a beer, what's up with that!" We treat our college students like children and then expect them to act like adults. I'm not saying that if we move the drinking age to 18 that it will mature this age group overnight, but I think we have to do it. It's one step to solving a much deeper problem of lowered expectations and standards. Our society doesn't really expect our 18-20 year olds to make wise, intelligent decisions -- heck we don't even expect most people to make good decisions. Eighteen year olds are adults -- In truth, most 13 year olds are adults. We've coddled our children so much in this country. They were doomed to make poor decisions the first time we gave in to a fit in order to keep them quiet. When we failed to teach them delayed gratification by spoiling them in the name of love. When we failed to model appropriate adult behavior. We need to raise our expectations for good behavior and start being surprised again by bad behavior. At the very least, I will hold my kids to a standard that should make them stand out amongst their peers, even if I only partially succeed.

I should point out that my children's behavior is not a point of pride. If my son is anything like me, and my daughter is anything like my wife than we're in for a roller-coaster adolescence. I even thought twice about using the word adolescence. Implicit in that is the notion of not quite an adult; and possibly lowered standards for their behavior. My 4 year old daughter and 6 year old son are already capable of adult-like manners (not that we don't constantly need to remind them). Regardless, I think we should expect great things, and try to prepare them for those great things as best we can.

Next week, I'll vent about the government requiring adults to wear seatbelts, and my tax dollars paying for public service ads about getting fat people to take the stairs instead of the elevator.

Posted by mark at 8:14 AM | Comments (1)