The Devil’s Advocate

A cheese, lettuce, and tomato sandwich doesn’t sound very exciting.  But it’s important to understand that a name isn’t everything.  You have to look at the details, and realize how important they are.For example, the bread.  Proper sandwich bread consists of dutch style potato bread.  Soft, sweet, tasty , a perfect balance for just about any sandwich, complimenting the contents within each slice, and yet not overpowering them either.Next, the proper condiments on each slice.  I prefer miracle whip on one slice, and dijon mustard on the other.  It’s a surprising combo of sweet and sour, separated by three additional layers.Continuing, you have fresh Romaine lettuce.  The crunch and texture give the sandwich body.  If you prefer something slightly sweeter and softer, red leaf or green leaf lettuce are good alternatives.  Red leaf also give your sandwich a little color.Directly in the middle you can’t demand less than vine ripened tomatoes.  Beefsteak tomatoes aren’t sweet enough and sometimes too firm and mealy.  Vine ripened are just right, tender, juicy, and delicious.  Careful though, they don’t last as long, so eat them quickly.And then, you have the proper cheese.  Surprisingly, kraft cheddar slices are very good, not to strong, not to mild.  However, another good cheese is mild provolone, which has a better and more sophisticated taste.  Take it a step further, and smoked provolone is an even greater treat!Finally, the order is important.  Lettuce on the dijon mustard slice of bread, then tomato, then cheese, then the miracle whip bread slice.  This places the appropriate layers against each other to complement the flavors in the correct manner.  Changing the layers changes the taste of the sandwich.For an added treat… make the sandwich in the morning and eat it for lunch.  The tomato, cheese, and bread will run together a little bit, making it a tad soggy, but you’ll be surprised how it just adds to the flavor!And you thought this sandwich would be boring?  I’m ready for my book deal now.

For my 2 or 3 fans, I apologize for not posting as of late.  You would think with all the things going wrong as of late in the world, I’d have plenty to complain about and go on about.  Well, instead of writing more, it motivated me to write far less.  Life is getting me more and more bitter, and I’m paying close attention to the terrible stock market and the heated political races.Because of this excessive bitterness, I’ve found I’ve turned more to my friends.  The comfort of good companions has certainly kept my spirits up.  My life could be a lot worse, but I’m easily annoyed at the world around me, with all the rotten bullshit that continues to happen while stupid, greedy, and selfish CEOs and politicians make it worse for the little guy.It’s not really all that unusual, because according to Barack Obama, many of us in the US are bitter.  Particularly those gun-toting bible thumpers.  Many people blasted Obama for this comment, but not only is this comment accurate, it doesn’t go far enough!Many people thought this comment was elitist, but this is the political landscape we live in, and people twist words constantly.  It’s the truth!  People cling to the things that give them comfort in an age when they think the government is paralyzed and unable to do anything for them.  The government either can’t or won’t protect them from what they cannot protect themselves from.  So the only thing some people have left are their religion and their guns.  All else is falling apart around them.For me, my family and friends are what I cling to.  I didn’t realize how much I did until I realized how much those friends were pulling me away from my computer.  Now that’s a good thing, but basically I’ve been writing less, playing games less, and engaging with people I want and need to see more often.  It’s a very good thing for my social life, though I’m probably spending too much on gas… but I digress lest I get even more bitter.Ironically, perhaps instead of clinging to religion and guns, more people should be clinging to their friends.  Economics is slowly killing us, not weapons, so guns are useless.  Organized religion seems to be part of the problem not part of the solution.  If you must practice religion, perhaps you should practice it with your friends in your home, don’t go out and listen to crazy radical preachers who plant falsehoods in your head.  Go to your friends, find new friends, expand on your friends, and listen to what they have to say.  Laugh, cry, learn, listen, complain, and cheer with them.Right now, it’s all we’ve got until January 20th, 2009.  With some luck, that will get us thru until then. 

1. What is your favorite word?

Ergo

2. What is your least favorite word?

Can’t

3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?

intelligent debate

4. What turns you off?

Unintelligent dogma or rhetoric

5. What is your favorite curse word?

I happen to like 7 words, spoken in a specific order, with proper emphasis.  Everyone has to have a unique answer for this question!

6. What sound or noise do you love?

The sound of a woman’s voice emoting something positive, such as singing, laughing, socializing, or simply expressing any kind of joy or pleasure.

7. What sound or noise do you hate?

A child crying and screaming at the top of their lungs.

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

A teacher.

9. What profession would you not like to do?

Catholic Priest 

10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I love it when you atheists show up, it cracks me up! C’mon in, C’mon in, you’re just in time for Mel Brooks movie marathon night.”(I, of course, do not believe in God, but if I’m ever wrong, he needs to exist with an excellent sense of humor).

YouTube is a collection mostly of videos you can make fun of or laugh at.  Once in a while though, you see something like this.

I work in a software company where all we do is make business software for distributors. It’s vitally important that they know where their material is at all times in order to tell customers what to expect and when. They also have sophisticated tools to figure out demand and predict it for the future. It’s obviously not 100% but it works pretty good. We make our distributors high tech and look smart.

Retailers, on the other hand, always, to me, look stupid. I’m talking boneheadedly stupid. They hire a bunch of minimum wage workers, put them in the stores, and ask them to basically stock the shelves. They sometimes answer questions, but a majority of the people can’t answer complex ones, or the rare ones when you are looking for something not often purchased. Some can, but eventually they are hired away for better jobs because they need better pay.

I point this out because I called 3 Toys ‘R Us stored and asked if they had “Guitar Hero 3 for Wii.” They said no they don’t. I asked them when will they get shipments in. They said they don’t know, they get shipments every day but they don’t know until they unload them.

I call bullshit.

In distribution, I could have an order for an engine kit. IT has 20 pieces, 3 could come in from my current warehouse, 7 could come from various satellite locations that I have in other cities and states, and 10 could be purchased from up to ten different supplying companies. Thanks to our software, I’ll know the average estimated time it will take for all 17 of those components to get from each warehouse and each supplier to my business where I’m building it. I’ll also know the average time it takes to make once I have pieces in stock. And finally, I can estimate with shippers like UPS and Fedex how long it will take to deliver to the customer. With today’s software, not just my company’s but just about any serious modern system, especially for huge corporations, I can give the customer and estimated time of when they would have this engine kit in their hand!

This is a game, a simple disc with a booklet of instructions, a case, and a label on the outside. It’s the easiest thing in the world to manufacture in mass quantities. A retailer should be able to reach into the internet and pull a date they estimate to have it in the store.

But they don’t. Why not? Because they don’t want you to know!

A distributor hates to not stock something a customer wants, but even still, a distributor has to be upfront because their customers expect yes, no, or specific date. If you say “we don’t know,” that’s even worse. You look incompetent. You’ll never be called again by that customer. Absolutely everything is key on saying if you can get something, and when can you get it.

Apparently retailers treat average customers like shit. The answer why is obvious, however.

Distributors are business to business companies. A business has a decent amount of money, and talks to other businesses. Some businesses are even bigger than you are, and expect royalty-like treatment. Therefore most distributors give their customers everything they possibly can within their power to make them happy and keep them coming back as a repeat customer. The stuff they sell is the same as another distributor, and usually costs the same (price competition is possible at times and customers also cut contracts for special prices but this does not mean the customer can’t leave and buy it elsewhere), so the main way they can compete is on service.  Distributors also primarily over the phone, or sell by taking orders for someone at a counter but you can’t browse the inventory.  Most of distributors customers know what they want when they show up (though sometimes the salesrep can talk the user into a good deal, but it’s not like a used car salesrep trying to sell you the special $500 air freshner just to up their commission).

Retailers compete by treating a customer like someone who should be spending as much money as possible.  Get the customer to come into the store.  If they are in the store, maybe they’ll browse and pick something else up.  They advertise specials and you go in and find out they are out of those specials because they only stocked 6.  Okay, so maybe you’ll buy something else while you are in the store.

What’s worse, on websites for retailers, they advertise specials, and then say they can’t sell you the item online “temporarily” and that you have to go to the store to buy it.  This means you can’t enter an order and put yourself into a queue which basically says “ship it to me when you are ready.”  This is a retailers attempt yet again to get you to walk into the store.  Sure you can call into the store, but that’s inconvenient to do every day.  It’s not about making it easy to pick one item up, it’s about making you come to the store and spend as much money as possible.  Since all retailers do it, it’s not like the customer has a choice of going somewhere else.

This is not all.  The person who makes these retail items often has their own consumer screwing agenda.  Like I said, creating a CD of music or DVD movie or game is the easiest thing in the world.  You never hear of shortages of movies or CDs.  So why of games?  In the games market, they like to create artificial shortages.  This makes the game look more popular than it is.  It also ensures a steady revenue stream.  The truth is they could make almost any amount they need very quickly, they just like to make the game seem more popular by limiting supply and to guarantee revenue stream into the future.

As a group, consumers are not as organized as business.  Even the people who work for distributors don’t always put the pieces together.  If they did, they couldn’t do much, because one person doesn’t concern a large company when the next 200 people will buy something without a problem.  You have to get organized, and in large numbers, especially since corporations have been allowed to get so big these days.

And that’s another rant I’ll need to get into someday about corporations are too huge to combat these days.

Fortunately, I have a plan.  For the sake of suspense, since my son reads this from time to time, I’ll have to say I don’t know for sure if it will work.  We’ll see, won’t we?

Now’s here is something for those who love to think outside of the box.

The definition of a Pessimist is:

I happen to believe that the worst is more likely, given any situation, just based on chance. However, it’s not because I’m a negative person, it’s because, well, quite honestly, I’m very knowledgable and worldly. My experience tells me that shit happens because that’s what I see. I have reasonably high standards as well, because I believe in what I feel are very important things. Freedom and liberty for all, privacy, economic security, etc.

However, being a pessimist doesn’t make me a bad person, nor does it make me a negative person. What it means is I expect the worst. What works along side this pessimism is a sense of logic and reason. I expect the worst, but I also plan for the worst. If the worst happens, the best outcome occurs. If I can control the situation in some way, I can turn an unfavorable situation my way, or simply prevent it from ever happening.Considering the overwhelming evidence that the world continues to screw us over, pessimism is a logical choice, while optimism does not always seem to be warranted.Granted, I do not think pessimistically in all things.

This is the power of logic. Given any random topic you might bring up, I might be pessimistic, but there are many things I’m optimistic about. I’m optimistic, in general, about the legal system. That’s because of the experiences I and people like me have had and the evidence put forth in front of me.

It’s also interesting that I bring that up, because in another post I described a story where an African-american friend of mine had a very negative experience with the legal system, and, along with other friends of his, would have a pessimistic view of the legal system. Again, that’s based on their experiences and evidence put forth to them.  Therefore their actions are influenced by this knowledge, but they can takes steps to make sure they aren’t “screwed by the system” in the future.  Frankly, being white, I do trust the system more, at least to a reasonable extend and not just blindly, and, thanks to discussions with him, I understand completely why he does not.

The point is that pessimism is not unjustified, particularly when backed up by logic. Assuming the worst with no evidence is crying wolf, but identifying a problem and presenting the arguments as to why it’s a problem are crucial. I think this is a valuable aspect of liberalism that’s made negative because those that are conservative don’t want change, or they want change to older ways of thinking because they’ve been indoctrinated that everyone should behave a certain way and that’s what’s best for people. The most radical conservatives often are very optimistic about their own ideas, especially religion, and are insulted when you question them. A pessimist will stop and ask deep probing questions about how these things work, either to make religion work for them, or reject it and find a more suitable alternative. A blind conservative will accept what they were taught as the best, with no critical thought.  “Jesus saves!” “Oh really? How? And how will this make my life better on Earth? Will it feed all the homeless? Will it stop all wars? Will it end all corruption? Will it grant freedom to all to believe what they want to believe?” Apologies to my religious friends but again I write in a polemic style, I hope you get my point.

Another example is when any politician says “this bill is great, support me to get it passed as law!”  I’m pessimistic about that, because they say that and then the bill takes away rights, gives money to a huge corporation, or does absolutely nothing.

This is not to say you should just accept things. Obviously saying things just suck and not doing anything about it is wrong. Sometimes you can’t affect change, but you never know until you try.

The point is, look to see what’s wrong, so that you can make things right. Blindly accepting anything is overly hasty optimism and leads to bad things happening! Pessimism leads to bad things being controlled and redirected so they become positive!