Two More Bathroom Pet Peeves

1.) You walk forward into the stall, and you push the door shut, which isn't that hard to do. And then the world goes crazy around you. You reach out and grab the locking lever with your left hand in an upside down bird-shadow-puppet grasping position. This is the kind where the fulcrum (the point at which the lever rotates about) is at the right end of the lever, and to lock the door, you rotate the left side of the lever clockwise. No matter what the orientation, it seems unnatural, the way you have to hold and rotate the lever. The only way the beginning and ending orientation of the lever MIGHT make sense is if you were a small person or a child, because then you could reach UP at it and push it up and over to the right. If anyone knows the benefit behind this, please let me know. I'd much rather see a sliding bar or just a knob that you twist.

So far it might not sound that bad, but NOW imagine the stall opens OUT. So you PULL the door open before you walk into the stall. Now you have to hold that lever as you pull the door shut and keep pulling it towards yourself while you rotate it clockwise. This design is enraging and no benefit could possibly outweigh its annoyingness. Both sides of the lever, the ones you grip, are angled so that you have no ledge to hold. The only thing giving you a grip on it is the friction between your skin and the metal, which would at least be partially redeeming if the entire lever handle was rectangular.

2.) Automatic-flush-SIT-DOWN-toilets. Okay, I don't even need to get too graphic. But these always go off early on me. So maybe I stand on the toilet seat while I'm cleaning up, it DOESN'T MEAN I'M DONE!

Second of Most Recent Posts About Music

While rediscovering the power of music of the other day (coincidentally, with the power of love) by Huey Lewis and the News playing on my ipod), an old thought struck me. And so I think while talking about this I'll also get into what heaven might be like. Now some of this might just sound psychadelic, but I think there is something that drugs and alcohol do to the brain that loose it (pause here...not LOSE it, but loose it, loosen it), and while harmful and not recommended while on earth, maybe it's some sort of a hint.

When I listen to music that I like, I get the urge to do things that I can't do. Like fly, or maybe just stretch around in a weird position, or maybe even just dive at the ground and roll or something. Or backflip, or parkour. And while some of those are possible to some extent, they're usually not without pain or scorn from normal people. These urges I don't think would be satisfied even if I did have the skill to do those things. I think my soul wants me to do something impossible, so my mind thinks of something related but more realistic or dumbed-down that might just be possible.

This is part of why I disagree that time is the 4th dimension. If you're new, go back to the first couple posts in the archive about dimensions. If you were a 2D square, moving in the 3rd dimension would be moving in a direction that you never experienced, and that you couldn't control with your normal means of movement. So I believe it's permissible to do some extrapolation and say that being a 3D human, there are additional dimensions that are accessible, although not by our familiar means of movement. If there is a heaven in the way that many of us think or hope of it, I think we will be able to move in these additional dimensions as a way to just move, or to express ourselves, or just for fun.

Music has a way of loosing the mind to at least consider these spiritual or at least beyond-three-dimensions kinds of movements. Maybe drugs do too, but in a more uncontrolled way.

I also think that heaven will be much less worshipping God by singing and bowing than we think. I think there will be all sorts of things we like. And worshipping God by playing 6-dimensional football (we will be required to use only 6) will be as meaningful as anything else.

First of Most Recent Posts about Music

I was listening to my ipod this morning and rediscovered beauty in music. Sometimes I go a while without, I'm not sure why, but I just won't have the urge to listen. It doesn't mean I don't love music, I just want a break from or something. But then whenever I do take it to work or something, it just completely changes the day. It's a lot more bearable.

Music brings out emotions and feelings, it must touch certain parts of the brain, that nothing else does. I think other arts are more for observation, like visual stuff. When you hear music you perform it in your head, maybe similar to how you will hear the song playing in your head if you're just humming or singing a tune. And your mind, conscious or subconscious adds to it, so that it's different each time. Even if it's not so much different, it just requires some kind of participation from your mind. Even if you're not really thinking about it, your mind is processing the music. Which is probably why we like it, it's doing something in there that just makes us feel good.

Listening to the radio the other day, there was a typical 2002-to-present song, and to be honest, it's not like the music is necessarily less complex than a lot of songs I like, but I hated it anyway. So I wondered if it's fair for me to think that. I hear the guy's voice, it fits into a certain category and I don't even give it a chance. Apparently some people like the guy's voice/music if he's richer than me, so I guess the lesson here is don't make fun of anyone's music. Someone reacts positively to that music, so who am I to assume my taste is better.

If I heard any guy sing one word, I can tell you if I'll either hate the band and all its music, or possibly give it a chance. And it's easy for me to be confident that my taste is in the higher-percentile of musical tastes. I know a lot of my friends feel the same and it's really annoying.

Bottom line, that song seriously does suck. Musically it sucks. Lyrically, probably in just about every way it sucks. And mostly, to me, the reason that it sucks is that it does nothing to interest me, consciously or sub-. It's not creative, style, music, or lyrics, and I hate it. My mind does not have anything it wants to add to the music. It does not want to perform it, because my mind and all my senses are unimpressed. BUT...somebody likes it, for some reason, and they're not claiming all those things about it, they just like it. So I can live with that. Which is why we all have to try harder not to look down on anyone's tastes.

Learning a New Word

This is a short post about a new word I learned. Or at least, that I looked into. I stumbled upon an article about holiday tipping. There was a section about how for some people, tipping is actual income, and not just a bonus, like servers and drivers and the like.

The writer stated said:
"This is a very important factor to consider since an issue of livelihood is at stake. For folks whose jobs pay less than standard, tipping doesn't mean luxury; it means subsistence."

Now if I was making this statement, I wouldn't say subsistence. I would say sustenance. So I set out to find out what was more correct.

Here is the most important definition I've found so far. One of dictionary.com's definitions says that subsistence is "the providing of sustenance or support." Another is "existence."
Sustenance is "means of sustaining life; nourishment" or "means of livelihood."

When I initially did a thesaurus check in Word, subsistence had a single synonym--existence. If that was the only definition, then I would disagree with the author, because tipping does not mean existence, it just means "means of sustaining life" or "nourishment." It's a stretch to say that without temporary "means of sustaining life," one will cease to exist. Especially if you're in the service industry. There are other similar places to go and get jobs. You know that if you don't get tipped you're not going to die, you're just going to have to make adjustments.

BUT, to be fair I continued my definition search and found that subsistence can be "the providing of sustenance or support." SO, my conclusion is that either word is usable.

I still lean toward sustenance.
Tipping = sustenance = means of sustaining life
Tipping = subsistence = providing of means of sustaining life

Subsistence just seems unnecessary here.