New Rule: People must stop using their upbringing as an excuse to justify being a closed minded idiot and bigot.
In last night's Miss USA pageant, Miss California (who got 2nd place) was asked a tough question about legalizing same-sex marriage. She answered diplomatically that "no offense to anybody out there", but she was raised to believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman. Don't get me started on the homophobic bigotry of this nice young woman because my mom reads this blog and I don't want her to hear me use profanity. But what I can't stand most of all is people who use the "I was raised this way" defense to justify limiting other people's freedom and quality of life.
Miss California, I am ashamed (though not surprised) that my state picked you to represent us in this retarded superficial contest. I was "raised" in a country that brainwashed its people to believe all sorts of retarded things, like "capitalism is evil" and "communism can actually work". My parents and grandparents grew up in a world where everyone around them was "raised" to hate Jews. But luckily many of these people de-programmed themselves and became kind, intelligent citizens who started using their own brains to deduce right from wrong. If you're going to be a bigot, at least don't credit your parents, who were raised by their parents living in a very different time. And try to notice that many of the freedoms you enjoy today are the direct result of people de-programming the sexist, racist, bigoted misconceptions of their upbringing so that women could vote and join the workplace, a black person could marry a white person, a Jew could marry a Catholic, and so on.
Maybe then you would be worthy of first place.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Monday, April 6, 2009
This title sucks because I'm overthinking it
As this college basketball season comes to a close tonight, I can't help but notice that The Boys are getting their butts kicked. By "the boys" I actually don't mean Michigan State, but all the guys who spent hours meticulously contemplating their bracket picks after Selection Sunday, only to get beaten by girls whose knowledge and interest in college basketball consists wholly of noting how tall/good looking certain players are. I speak not only from anecdotal (but completely scientific) observation, but also from firsthand experience, as for the last two years, I have made my picks quickly and arbitrarily, with only the seed numbers to guide me. My ignorant picks have afforded me a respectable second place both times in decently sized, mostly male bracket pools. First place usually seems to go to a lucky girl with a similar level of athletic acumen and agnosticism.
So I can't help but wonder, is it really luck, or is it the absence of overthinking stemming from a healthy degree of ignorance? People often weigh the merits of going with your heart/gut vs listening to your head when making decisions, but is one really better or wiser than the other, when you don't have all the information anyway nor a magic crystal ball? Choosing a crappy team to go to the final four because it's your alma mater--that's heart. Choosing a team after studying the season's stats and determining who has a higher probability of making all their free throws--that's head. But both body parts have potential to cloud your judgment and leave you inevitably blind to lots of uncontrollable forces. And both leave you with a similar level of regret if you're wrong, albeit for different reasons.
So I guess the moral of the story is, when faced with decisions big or small, save yourself hours of unnecessary stress/deliberation and make the decision based on something arbitrary (e.g. team with brightest uniforms, job that would give you the shortest email address, etc). That way, if you're wrong, at least you can blame it on me rather than beating yourself up over it.
Over and out,
Alla
So I can't help but wonder, is it really luck, or is it the absence of overthinking stemming from a healthy degree of ignorance? People often weigh the merits of going with your heart/gut vs listening to your head when making decisions, but is one really better or wiser than the other, when you don't have all the information anyway nor a magic crystal ball? Choosing a crappy team to go to the final four because it's your alma mater--that's heart. Choosing a team after studying the season's stats and determining who has a higher probability of making all their free throws--that's head. But both body parts have potential to cloud your judgment and leave you inevitably blind to lots of uncontrollable forces. And both leave you with a similar level of regret if you're wrong, albeit for different reasons.
So I guess the moral of the story is, when faced with decisions big or small, save yourself hours of unnecessary stress/deliberation and make the decision based on something arbitrary (e.g. team with brightest uniforms, job that would give you the shortest email address, etc). That way, if you're wrong, at least you can blame it on me rather than beating yourself up over it.
Over and out,
Alla
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Beary funny
There are very few videos I'll watch more than once, so I'd like to thank this bizarre ambiguously Slavic man for entertaining me for a whole 6 minutes, and also for making me realize that the melody to Rihanna's "Umbrella" bears (pun intended) striking resemblance to Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land".
In the scintillating world of digital advertising, we often wonder what makes a video go viral and how we can create funny online video sensations for our clients. Without ostensibly trying too hard, this man has seemingly unlocked the formula for success: accordian + bear suit + cat + recent hit song of recently hit pop star (sorry, Rihanna--I love you!). Though the video is 1.5 years old, it's still timely because of the pop star's prominence in headlines and music charts, and combined with the timelessness of grown men dressed in furry animal costumes, you have a music video that is sure to please and bewilder.
With that in mind, I'm off to make my own viral YouTube hit. Don't want to ruin the surprise, but let's just say it may or may not involve a giraffe suit, Katy Perry and a fake Russian accent.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Bad Mom Award
What is up with people in this country being so uptight and completely over-reacting to everything? (I mean in comparison to other Western nations, not to countries where women have no rights). Specifically I refer to the backlash and outrage from moms over the new "grown up" Dora the Explorer for tweens. Some parents are claiming the new character looks too sexed up, with her short dress and shiny come-hither pink lips. I feel really sorry for these people's kids, who are probably gonna turn to drugs and casual sex as payback for their parents not letting them play with sexy Dora. Seriously though, if your daughter is gonna do naughty things before she's old enough, giving her a nun doll to play with isn't going to derail those desires and shenanigans. My parents let me watch all sorts of R-rated movies when I was 9 to 16, and I led a perfectly innocent and over-achieving childhood and even teenhood. I wish some parents today would take a chill pill. Especially when their concerns are completely moronic and unfounded, as in the case of poor older Dora, who I'm sure hasn't even kissed a Jonas brother doll yet.
Monday, March 23, 2009
A visual treat for you slow readers
Some of you have been asking for pictures to break up the monotony of my lengthy posts, so hopefully your prayers have been answered with this Jesus-riding-a-dinosaur monstrosity.
I love pictures that are worth a thousand words and yet kind of leave you speechless at the same time. Anyway, am I the only one who didn't have a "flesh of Christ" colored crayon in my crayola box? (might be a Jew thing)
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Sweet-talking sandwiches
There's a deli near my office where I go when I'm having a bad day and need to hear a little sweet-talking. For months I kept hearing about some "Honey Sweetie Deli" with its allegedly delicious tri-tip sandwich. I thought that was a stupid name for a deli until I went there myself and finally realized that was merely a nickname bestowed by its lunch-goers, along with variations like "honey baby deli."
No one actually knows or cares what the real name is. What we do know is that when we're in the sandwich line, there's a 94% chance that someone behind the counter will call us "honey" and/or "sweetie" repeatedly throughout the brief ordering encounter. Example: "What can I get for you, honey? Great choice, sweetie--do you want that toasted? By the way, I love your shirt."
Needless to say, you walk out of there glowing and feeling like a million bucks. Now, I've gone back for the turkey cranberry sandwich enough times to know that they're not very selective with the sweet-talking. As long as you have a pulse, you'll probably be buttered up. But even though you know they're cheating on you with everyone else in line, when it's your turn, it still feels glorious. I'm tempted to approach the deli owner with a social psychology study to see what incremental impact the name calling has on purchase behavior.
Anyway, this all makes me wonder why we don't employ more random acts of sweet-talking in our daily lives, particularly when dealing with ornery clients. "Sure thing, sweetie--I'll have those TPS reports to you asap. Thanks for your email, honey muffin." Too often at work we're the victims of rudeness and impatience, and I'm sure sometimes we are the instigators (by "we" I mean everyone except me). We already know pet names work splendidly in relationships, so why not spread the love to platonic friends and strangers?
I challenge myself and you all to try it and report back on the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards (or consequences). If you're feeling particularly confident/adventurous and want to deviate from the more generic honey/sweetie/baby options, here are a few of my favorites:
baby cakes
apple of my eye
carebear
cheeky monkey
huggalump
shnookums
Good luck and thanks for reading, buttercups!
No one actually knows or cares what the real name is. What we do know is that when we're in the sandwich line, there's a 94% chance that someone behind the counter will call us "honey" and/or "sweetie" repeatedly throughout the brief ordering encounter. Example: "What can I get for you, honey? Great choice, sweetie--do you want that toasted? By the way, I love your shirt."
Needless to say, you walk out of there glowing and feeling like a million bucks. Now, I've gone back for the turkey cranberry sandwich enough times to know that they're not very selective with the sweet-talking. As long as you have a pulse, you'll probably be buttered up. But even though you know they're cheating on you with everyone else in line, when it's your turn, it still feels glorious. I'm tempted to approach the deli owner with a social psychology study to see what incremental impact the name calling has on purchase behavior.
Anyway, this all makes me wonder why we don't employ more random acts of sweet-talking in our daily lives, particularly when dealing with ornery clients. "Sure thing, sweetie--I'll have those TPS reports to you asap. Thanks for your email, honey muffin." Too often at work we're the victims of rudeness and impatience, and I'm sure sometimes we are the instigators (by "we" I mean everyone except me). We already know pet names work splendidly in relationships, so why not spread the love to platonic friends and strangers?
I challenge myself and you all to try it and report back on the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards (or consequences). If you're feeling particularly confident/adventurous and want to deviate from the more generic honey/sweetie/baby options, here are a few of my favorites:
baby cakes
apple of my eye
carebear
cheeky monkey
huggalump
shnookums
Good luck and thanks for reading, buttercups!
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Security questions--remembering what you remembered
I can't think of a greater user experience failure than those online security questions that are so baffling and stupid that they lock out their owners rather than the bad guys. Last night I tried to log in to my ING savings account after a few months of inactivity. "Enter your customer number." So far so good (thank god Gmail has impeccable search functionality). "Our records show that this computer is unregistered. Please answer the following security questions to proceed." First up--"What high school did you graduate from?" Now, I know full well that I graduated from Plano East Senior High. What I no longer know/remember is how I typed in this school name when setting up my security questions two years ago. "Plano East Sr High" doesn't get me anywhere, and "plano east senior high" exceeds the character limit so that can't be it.
Next up, "What city were you born in?" That's easy, I say. Gomel, Belarus (You can't see it from Alaska, in case you're wondering). I type in "gomel", praying that the security question validator is not case-sensitive and that I didn't put in the country and the city together during setup. Turns out I will never know the correct answer to these questions, because I get "either one or both" of them wrong and am taken to a judgmental screen where I have to validate 97 things about my identity. Good times. Luckily I succeed because the answers are all numerical-based and there's no cause for ambiguity.
But the fun doesn't stop there. "We noticed you had some trouble with your security questions. Please update below." Now I'm forced to select 5 NEW security questions from a drop-box list of 10. Half of these don't even apply to me, such as "Where did you go on your honeymoon?" (I'm not married) and "What is your mother's middle name?" (we Russians don't have middle names). So now I'm left with a big list of crap and ambiguity--"What was the color of your first car?" sounds easy enough, until I remember there was much dispute on this topic among my friends and relatives, some claiming my '92 Mitsubishi Galant was blue, some insisting it was gray, and some saying silver. (In reality it was a cool metallic hue that definitely contained all three of these). Now, I don't need to know what color my car actually was--I need to know what color I will most likely remember entering in to a security question months or years from now. Chances of this having a happy ending? Not high. Next up--"What city was your first job in?" Again, who the hell knows? Not me. First my mind jumps to my first official job out of college, at Yahoo in Sunnyvale, but then I remember that I had a paid internship right before that at a software company, and then memories of all my summer jobs during high school in Texas come rushing back...
Ok, so I may not be the most mentally stable person, and my tendency to over-analyze things to death isn't helping, but come on, are we really expected to remember not only the facts but also our interpretation of those facts several years ago when we set up these damn questions? In the words of my wise friend Lizzie, choosing a password and answering security questions are like writing a note full of inside jokes to your future self, and hoping that you'll get them.
When I voiced my frustrations to my boyfriend, he insisted this was a "female problem" and that boys' minds are much simpler and more steadfast. I think anyone remotely analytical and with a triple digit IQ score would have a problem with "what is your favorite movie?" as the access gatekeeper to his/her entire credit history. Let's see.. 15 years ago it was The Little Mermaid, 10 years ago it was a tie between Clueless and Encino Man (j/k..maybe), 5 years ago it was probably Shawshank Redemption, and now it changes daily. Unfortunately, my punishment for periodically changing my mind is that my credit card account is about as easy to access as the Pentagon.
So in summary, if the geniuses who make up security questions could start thinking like human beings and stop including words like "favorite", I would sleep much better at night (and stop having to keep my important passwords and security question answers under my pillow).
Next up, "What city were you born in?" That's easy, I say. Gomel, Belarus (You can't see it from Alaska, in case you're wondering). I type in "gomel", praying that the security question validator is not case-sensitive and that I didn't put in the country and the city together during setup. Turns out I will never know the correct answer to these questions, because I get "either one or both" of them wrong and am taken to a judgmental screen where I have to validate 97 things about my identity. Good times. Luckily I succeed because the answers are all numerical-based and there's no cause for ambiguity.
But the fun doesn't stop there. "We noticed you had some trouble with your security questions. Please update below." Now I'm forced to select 5 NEW security questions from a drop-box list of 10. Half of these don't even apply to me, such as "Where did you go on your honeymoon?" (I'm not married) and "What is your mother's middle name?" (we Russians don't have middle names). So now I'm left with a big list of crap and ambiguity--"What was the color of your first car?" sounds easy enough, until I remember there was much dispute on this topic among my friends and relatives, some claiming my '92 Mitsubishi Galant was blue, some insisting it was gray, and some saying silver. (In reality it was a cool metallic hue that definitely contained all three of these). Now, I don't need to know what color my car actually was--I need to know what color I will most likely remember entering in to a security question months or years from now. Chances of this having a happy ending? Not high. Next up--"What city was your first job in?" Again, who the hell knows? Not me. First my mind jumps to my first official job out of college, at Yahoo in Sunnyvale, but then I remember that I had a paid internship right before that at a software company, and then memories of all my summer jobs during high school in Texas come rushing back...
Ok, so I may not be the most mentally stable person, and my tendency to over-analyze things to death isn't helping, but come on, are we really expected to remember not only the facts but also our interpretation of those facts several years ago when we set up these damn questions? In the words of my wise friend Lizzie, choosing a password and answering security questions are like writing a note full of inside jokes to your future self, and hoping that you'll get them.
When I voiced my frustrations to my boyfriend, he insisted this was a "female problem" and that boys' minds are much simpler and more steadfast. I think anyone remotely analytical and with a triple digit IQ score would have a problem with "what is your favorite movie?" as the access gatekeeper to his/her entire credit history. Let's see.. 15 years ago it was The Little Mermaid, 10 years ago it was a tie between Clueless and Encino Man (j/k..maybe), 5 years ago it was probably Shawshank Redemption, and now it changes daily. Unfortunately, my punishment for periodically changing my mind is that my credit card account is about as easy to access as the Pentagon.
So in summary, if the geniuses who make up security questions could start thinking like human beings and stop including words like "favorite", I would sleep much better at night (and stop having to keep my important passwords and security question answers under my pillow).
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