Trashing Justin Bieber and other Random Thoughts.

I Shall Call them "Mini-blogs"

I was flippin' through what television channels we have left (Comcast is slowly pulling channels to go all digital, which is a pain) and found Justin Bieber performing on the David Letterman Show. It was an array of complex dance moves by 20 dancers while Justin sang this hip-hop type song about a girl....which is what kid singers have been doing for ages. But Bieber takes cheesy songs, mediocre talent, and shameless commercialism to a whole new level. He has subjected himself to the wolves of the teen pop star industry, and, when they are done with him, he'll be spit out like yesterday's Jesse McCartney. The few seconds I saw of the performance was enough to make me nauseous. A person can only stand so much cheesy photoshopped goodness before it turns their stomach. And there is good cheesy pop, and then there is processed American plastic cheese. Aaron Carter had some talent, before he flushed his life down the toilet. Hanson was good, mature, sharp cheese (like Smoked Gouda). All I know is that Bieber better make his albums now, because in a few years, when the voice drops and the acne scars take ahold, there won't be anyone drooling after him. Try to find pictures of Leif Garrett, then and now, and you'll see what I mean.

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I always see interesting things while driving to each of the schools delivering Teacher Appreciation Week fliers. Live Oak Elementary School, in Newton Co., used stimuli to soothe the children, and the teachers. They used the overhead speakers to pipe in soft jazz music in the hallways and the outside corridors. So relaxing. And in the office, they had potpourri candles lit up on some of the shelves with a sweet minty smell. Obviously, the principal had done some research on stimuli that relaxes stressful people. It works very well.

Also in Newton County, the DOT people have put up speed limit signs, each solar powered with a speed detector on them, reflecting what your speed is flashing below the sign. It's much like the flashing lights they used to have on the interstate ramps between 20 and 285. And they'd never stop flashing. I sometimes wanted to just stop, in the middle of the road, to see if they'd stop flashing. But what the speed detectors do is to activate the area of your brain that competes with itself. It's a goal oriented part that makes you want to match the number of your speed with the sign. It works marvelously, because everyone wants to reach a goal, match a target, whether it be at work (with Book Drive quotas, for instance), or on the road. It keeps you awake, competing with yourself. They should have these on all the major speed zones throughout the counties, as it would make people slow down, not out of fear, but of their own volition.

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Book Review: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan.

A very good children's fantasy in the vein of Harry Potter. In fact, you could call it an imitation. But there are good imitations and bad ones. I have nothing against following an established plot line as long as it's done well. The characters were very well developed, sympathetic, with good dialogue and description. There were a couple of instances where Riordan says, of course it has to happen this way, it's a rule in the Greek God's world." and just introduces it when he feels the need to. It makes for some odd plot problems that, while very minor, just makes it feel like you've hit a small pothole. The plot twists were good, and I enjoyed reading it. Like I said, it's an imitation of the Harry Potter plotline, but a very good one. If you want to see a bad imitation, go pick up the first Charlie Bone book. So very awful.

One comment about the movie (which I haven't seen, yet.) It's easy to see why they cast Logan Lerman as the main character, with all the characters much older than the ones in the book. The producers wanted to appeal to the older Tween crowd. I think it takes a little bit out of the weakness of the children doing it that way, for instead of 6th graders, they looked like High Schoolers with more strength and determination. It might have done better with the kid audience if they had cast younger people. Just a thought.
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I wish, in Conyers, that I would not get behind people that are practicing to drive in funeral procession. Short cuts aren't short cuts if we're driving behind an imaginary Hertz.

bbzzzzzzz....thwack!!!

Yes, it's time once again for a "Things That Bug Me!" session. It's generally where I get to rant about things I've seen, and you get to read it.

♣ I know everyone's frozen here in Conyers, GA, with the polar winds that have pummeled the area for the past week (and believe me, 40 degrees is balmy right now), and there has been some ice on the ground the past couple of days. But it's gone now, and hasn't been there forever. So what I want to know is, why do people, when I'm on my way to work up the 2 lane backroads to save time, insist on going 30 mph down the roads!!! And today was even worse. It was a Mustang sports car! Going 30... Now, as much as I totally don't care about cars or things like that, I can appreciate the potential of a Mustang when there are no police cars around. It would be the same as some old guy taking a Ferrari down the interstate at 40, when the speed limit was 70, and the car could easily go 90 without thinking about it. You bought the car! You know what it can do!! Use it!!!

It's like the guy on Price is Right this week. Fit, muscular, Adonis type guy, tall, in his mid 20's, and he gets to the Showcase Showdown and does one of these finesse spins to try and get a dollar. Spin. The. Wheel. Let it go around 8 times... show it who's boss! Drove me nuts!

I've talked about this before... using your natural talent to its fullest extent (which applies to everyone except me, see my Singing post a few weeks ago.) If you can sing...then sing. David Phelps went from this booming tenor voice with the Gaither Vocal Band to his solo career where he sang these weaker ballads. Let's punch the notes. And while my stepdad would have said that he was resting his voice, because you can actually harm it if you strain it too much over a given time, there's a part of me that says, "So?" Produce the best work you can for as long as you can, and then you can be proud of the creations that came forth. Or athletes.... Barry Sanders did it right (although for the wrong team.) He let it fly for a few years, then retired. I would suspect that he would have stayed longer had his efforts been equalled by anyone else in the organization, but the Lions are like that, even today.

♣ And I'm sure I've said this before, in another blog sometime in the past, but I'm gonna say it again. I went to Blockbuster and was instantly greeted by the cashier as I came in....well, sort of. She said, "Hello," but never looked up from what she was doing, never acknowledged I had come in outside of the bell on the door that announced that someone had come in. Unacceptable behavior, in my opinion. If I am working near a door at Borders, I will move around a shelf and make sure they see me. Make eye contact. It's the best way of letting some know you're there, and you care about them. Of course, if Blockbuster let's this behavior go on like they do (and this isn't the only Blockbuster I've seen that does this,) it's no wonder they look like they're on their last leg. They must have better customer service that that if they hope to stay open. That mistake alone would make me want to order from Netflix, or download them online through, um, other means.

Just imagine what Blockbuster would be like if there were employees there that truly cared about the product they were selling, and were experts at that field, and good in giving customer service. Then, all the customers that call up Borders and ask, "I'm lookin' for that movie that has Johnny Depp in it...you know the one I mean?" could call Blockbuster and the employees there would actually know and could order it or have it in stock. That would be a service that even Wal-Mart could not duplicate, even with the low prices. And then, if Blockbuster had contracts with the major studios, they could easily have a downloadable center where empty DVD's could be made into movies, complete with the covers on the DVD's, and the packaging...etc... Talk about a considerable cut in costs, as well as the availability of thousands of movies without actually having to process them or wait for them in the mail. This would set Blockbuster back on the road to profitability, but I doubt it will ever happen. I described something like this for bookstores a year or two back.

♣ And speaking of bugs...I think scientists need to introduce a DNA strand that makes cockroaches taste like chicken. Undoubtedly, bad taste is something that the bugs use to keep animals from eating them. Because my cat, while she'll chase after moths and lizards and whatever else, totally ignores roaches, even though they run about by the dozens. But if scientists were to introduce a slight change into the pests genetic makeup, like making them smell like tuna or something, they would become a viable food source for bigger animals. Just a thought..... :)