chuck e. cheese

I didn't go to Chuck E. Cheese too much when I was a kid, but when I did it was a treat. I think the fact that I didn't go too much made each visit something I even looked forward to more. There weren't any near where I lived, but there was one a few miles from my grandparents' house, so that is the one I visited.

This weekend, Golden's mom said she wanted everyone to go to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate Mother's Day because that is something that they did when Golden was a kid. It was something that NJ would enjoy as well. So, that is what we did on Saturday.

I had some concerns that there would not be anything there that someone as young as NJ would be able to enjoy Chuck E. Cheese's, but I was mistaken. There was plenty there that he liked to do. The only part of the night he did not seem to enjoy was leaving.

While we were there, I had plenty of time to observe the intricacies of how a Chuck E. Cheese store operates, and I had an epiphany. Chuck E. Cheese is essentially a casino for kids. I am sure that I am not the first to come to this conclusion, but this was the first time I drew the parallel. Given the big focus that some churches put on gambling and the casino environment, it is amazing to me that I have never heard anyone decry Chuck E. Cheese or Showbiz Pizza at any point in my life. Below is a sampling of the similarities that I saw.

• Casinos have chips and Chuck E. Cheese has tokens. Both of these imply to the person inside that they are not spending actual money.
• In a casino you hear "clink, clink, clink, clink" from the slot machines. One of the noises that you hear a lot at the cheesy mouse is the "click, clink, clink, clink" of the token machines.
• There are a lot of lights.
• The carpet is very busy.
• There are a collection of games that are fun enough that you don't really care if you get a payout, and there are a collection of games that you only play on the small chance of a big payout.
• The animatronic machines provide entertainment similar to the singers that sometimes work for casinos.
• In both situations the house always wins.
• Most importantly, almost every part of human nature that a casino is supposed to appeal to exists in the local Chuck E. Cheese.

It seems the only similarity I can't draw is that you have to pay for your drinks at Chuck E. Cheese. Then again, Mr. Pibb doesn't lead a person to spend money as freely as a mixed drink does.

After I have said all of that, this doesn't mean that we are going to keep our kids out of Chuck E. Cheese. It just means that I am going to try to be fully aware of what appeal the place has to them.

naive

Spoiler alert for those who have not yet watched the latest episode of Survivor (Thursday, May 8, 2008) and intend to. That specific episode is discussed in this post.

The sixteenth installment of Survivor concludes this weekend. For this season the hook for the show has been that previous members of the show were pitted against major fans. While this sounds like a good angle, I am not sure the survivors who were picked all portray the image that the producers of Survivor want people to have of fans of the show.

Two of the fans in particular, Jason and Erik, made multiple missteps out of naivete that eventually led to their departure from the island. This was unfortunate, because I liked both of them. Their weaknesses were due to them not understanding how dishonest other people can be. They did not pick up on even obvious deviousness because they didn't think deviously. These personalities more or less guaranteed that they would get played somewhere along the line. The women who played them were all natural liars too, so that definitely helped.

For as much as I liked both Jason and Erik, I don't think that either should have been on the show for several reasons. First, having them on the show puts the idea in people's heads that the typical audience is socially awkward. Second, it was not pleasant for me to watch their almost predestined skewering. Third, I don't think there are many things that are more demoralizing to most men than to be exposed as stupid, ineffective, or naive, so I think they should have been spared what seemed to me an inevitable outcome.

I mentioned a couple of years ago that I don't like to be seen as particularly naive. I know I am naive on some levels, but I really don't want to be. Where I can, I try to rid myself of that image. Because of this I think I would have been too paranoid to make the mistakes that Erik or Jason did if I were in their shoes. Even so, seeing those mistakes played out on screen hit home. You won't find me on an island with nineteen other people who are all anxious to stab me in the back as they smile to my face.

unqualified

Think for a moment about what the following have in common:

• Police Officer
• Electrician
• Diamond Appraiser
• Photo-Copier Technician
• Army Private
• Train Engineer
• Bus Driver
• Firefighter
• Interior Decorator
• Chemist

Do you give up? This is not one that I expect anyone to be able to guess, even when considering the title of the post. All of these are part of the set of careers where people can be rejected for failing a colorblindness test. On some level I have to concede that all of these make some sense. I still really feel I that I dodged a bullet in moving into a career where colorblindness does not matter much.

When the career paths that colorblind people should avoid are considered, the number of different jobs that I can't have adds up fast. Even so, I almost never hear anything about what these career paths are. Can you imagine someone going through four years of school to get a criminal justice degree only to find out that he or she does not qualify to join most police forces? Can you imagine repairing black and white copiers all of your life, then losing your job because you are not considered qualified to work on color copiers?

The issue that I have is not that I want to be in any of the careers mentioned above. Not since I was five have I wanted to be a policeman or firefighter, and I always saw my colorblindness as an easy way to keep from getting drafted into the military. I do wish that there was more education provided to families with colorblind kids, though, about what careers they simply should not pursue. I did strongly consider pursuing a career as a pilot when I was in junior high, even going so far to write a paper on it. I did not know that, at that time, the FAA did not allow colorblind people to be commercial pilots.

Never did anyone warn me to avoid pursuing police work or firefighting. Never did anyone inform me that chemists or diamond appraisers (both jobs that I considered while I was in high school) need to be able to differentiate colors. Never did anyone say that I should not spend thousands of dollars and several years on a degree program that may end up being worthless to me. I consider myself very fortunate that I inadvertantly took a career path where I don't have to distinguish green from brown from red from black. What about those who were not so fortunate?

Note: I used the following websites as the source material for my discussion on this topic (Here, here, and here).

recycle

When I started work at my current place of employment there was a good-sized box for recycling cans in the kitchen. I always made a point to drop my used cans in the box, and everything was right with the world. Eventually, the box was removed because cans would pile up and no one who had the room in their vehicle for several trash bags full of cans wanted to drive them to the recycling center. This all transpired three to five years ago.

Recently, I noticed a very small trash can in the kitchen affixed with a piece of paper containing the hand-scrawled word "Recycle." When I first saw the can I was amused because there seemed to be no consensus as to what recyclables should be in the can. Aluminum cans, plastic bottles, and plastic wrappers all filled the can. At least now, no one is putting plastics in the can.

This raises some questions, though. Why bother with such a small trash can since we have already had troubles with a big can? Is someone going to actually take these cans to a recycling center? How many cans are required to make the trip worth it? Why not specify the type of recycling that goes in the can? Is this just someone trying to make a buck or two on the run up in aluminum prices?

going backwards

The other day when I was visiting the local Blockbuster the guy at the counter asked how I felt about my online service plan with the company. I noted that it worked fine for me. He then commented on how it had gotten more expensive, so maybe I would be interested in a different plan. Below are the details of my plan and the plan the guy wanted to sell me.

My Plan:
$19.99 per month plus tax. I get three movies at a time through the online service and I can turn in five movies a month into the store for a free rental. It is certainly not as good as my plan a year or two ago, but it is still acceptable given how much I use it.

The Other Plan:
$21.99 per month plus tax. I would get one movie at a time through the store and could exchange it for another movie whenever I wanted.

I know there is probably a scenario or two where the second plan makes sense, like if someone lives across the street from the Blockbuster and only wants to watch movies available at the local Blockbuster. I have some serious questions about the sanity of even offering such a plan, though. Consumers may have bought into it ten years ago but they will not today. If I am stuck with getting only the movies available at the local Blockbuster, Redbox is almost certainly a better deal.

It is no secret that Blockbuster's business model is broken. The company's strength is in its brick and mortar stores, but the future of video is viewing movies through an online connection. The brick and mortar stores are probably going to get to be too expensive to maintain for the value they provide at some point. Furthermore, I haven't seen any evidence that Blockbuster is prepared to compete with NetFlix on downloadable movies and if it isn't, I think that will ultimately be the death of the company.

I actually hope that Blockbuster picks up on this shortly because I don't want it to fail as a company. I want both Blockbuster and NetFlix to be around for a while to keep prices down. Otherwise, I'll have to pay even more to get my movie fix.

tornado alley

Q: What's a tornado watch called in Kansas?
A: Spring.

Everyone who I am aware who reads this blog has lived in a tornado-prone area of the country at some point, so going through a tornado warning is hardly post-worthy stuff unless it includes video of a funnel cloud or an account from one hundred feet in the air. So, in case you are wondering, this is a post that falls into that "unworthy" category.

This is not meant to come off as a complaint, but I have lived in the Midwest for many years, gone through several tornado warnings, and I have seen nary a funnel cloud. I am thankful because this means that my home, family, and life have never really been in danger. At the same time, it feels like I have missed part of the Midwest experience to not have seen a tornado.

On Thursday night I was in class when the tornado sirens went off. It is a small class, so everyone crowded around the window to see if they could see anything. Eventually, we were instructed to go into the basement of the building. While this felt very safe, it guaranteed that I would go another tornado warning without seeing a funnel cloud.

Afterwards I heard about all of the destruction that the tornadoes from that night caused. My heart goes out to the families impacted. This reminds me why I may not want to see an actual tornado.

sandals

When I walked into class last night I noticed something that reminded me that summer is around the corner. The room smelled like feet. The smell was not too strong and it didn't bother me, but it was unmistakable. This was due to the fact that a large percentage of the people in the room were wearing sandals or flip-flops.

For several minor reasons, I have never gotten into wearing sandals or flip-flops myself. They aren't any more comfortable to me than tennis shoes are. They are impossible to run in. There are more rules about what you should and shouldn't wear with them. They just aren't worth the effort to me. Regardless, there is no denying sandals' perennial popularity.

A lot of people appear to have different opinions about the value that sandals provide than I do. As a result I more often than not feel like the odd man out for wearing shoes rather than sandals when doing things in the summer. I don't care, because I love wearing sneakers and wearing sandals would go against my personal identity I maintain for myself. I wouldn't feel like myself to bow to the sandal-wearing consensus.

So, this summer, like every season, I intend to continue enjoying my standard footwear and let the sandal-wearers of the world enjoy theirs as well. To do otherwise would make me feel like a heel.