Anyway, in the business world it was the same deal with the water cooler.  If you didn’t want to install a new bottle of water, don’t be the one to empty the cooler!

Well someone finally solved that problem.  This new water cooler sucks water out of the air, runs it through ultraviolet light to purify it, chills it, and then serves it up!  Five gallons per day.  Who wouldda thunk it?

This is even better than Tammy Faye’s air-conditioned doghouse!

Disclaimer: I have no financial interest in the company and do not recommend that you purchase this item

HT: KC Wahe

I have found the easiest way to get the abs you’ve always dreamed of, and you’re in on the ground floor.  Introducing, Cold and Flu Abs^TM

Yes, all you need to get that sixpack you’ve always wanted is a preschooler.  The system works in five easy steps.

1) Send 3-5-year-old child to preschool to acquire the ab-activating germs.

2) Child comes home and coughs on your food, on your pillow, even in your face.

3) You acquire the ab-activating germs and begin the patented incubation period. At this point, your new abs are on the way.

4) In just days, your constant coughing provides a targeted workout for your abdominal muscles.  You don’t even have to think about it – your autonomic nervous system does all the work.

5) Enjoy rock solid abs without ever setting foot in the gym.

To order, contact an authorized Cold and Flu Abs^TM preschooler near you. Do it today. You won’t believe how simple it is!

See for yourself (if you haven’t just eaten).

 Blech.

If you need to open an investing account somewhere, don’t use E*Trade!  They’re e*vil.

Almost every time I talk to someone about jury duty, they’re trying to come up with innovative ideas for getting out of it.  But when I turn on the television in the afternoon, I can hardly fund anything that isn’t a courtroom show about Judge Somebody and roommates with a dispute over the rent or something equally sleep-inducing.

How can we be obsessed with fake court and completely unwilling to serve where it actually matters?

Eleanor and I went to say goodbye and to check out the bargains. This is a picture of my last Tower Records bag.

I had been joking with Eleanor that I always saw a panhandler at Tower Records, and then… Marty walked up.  For old times’ sake, I went and bought him a cheeseburger while Eleanor scoped out the store.

We’ll miss you, Tower!

Eleanor and I always used to take cameras along on our vacations and when we came home, we’d find that we had forgotten to take any pictures. Lately, with growing children, we’re more deliberate about taking the pictures. We want to remember each stage our kids go through. Since we don’t print them all out, we enjoy them by showing random pictures as the desktop wallpaper on our computer.

That all sounds fine, right? I’m not sure it is. Sometimes I’m so busy taking pictures that I feel like I’m documenting the event rather than participating in it. That can happen at the church too. I want to be able to share the pictures with others so they can experience a moment, but can I do that without sacrificing my ability to live in the moment?

Scrapbooking and digital cameras have made taking pictures more popular than ever as far as I can tell. But what are we giving up in order to hang onto the moment?  I don’t want to be a spectator in my own life – especially as a dad!

Check out this analysis of sugar and fat content in candy. The numbers may surprise you! At least you can use this to get the most bang for your daily calorie and fat budget.

A year or two ago, I started frequenting Starbucks – I did it because there was a Starbucks store in West Sacramento that was open late and had a drive-thru window. This was a trick for Saturday nights when Sunday morning’s sermon just wouldn’t flow. I ordered what has long been my favorite at specialty coffee stores – a mocha.

But here’s what has happened… I have become accustomed to the flavor of Starbucks coffee – it brings me comfort. I started to want it more and more often – to the point where I started tracking it as its own category in Quicken so I can make sure I’m not overspending the budget on it.

And then I found that the name of the drink I order getting longer and longer. I started getting large mochas with half caffeine since I’m mostly off of caffeine but can use some help on Saturday nights. That’s a “venti halfcaf mocha.” Then I decided to fight wight gain a bit so it grew to “venti halfcaf mocha, no whip.” Then I needed to fight harder in the battle of the bulge so now I order it with low-fat milk, which translates to a “venti halfcaf percent mocha, no whip.” This is the magic of Starbucks. People form a relationship with them. I have my drink name in their language. And I hear lots of other people come in with their special drinks – “a grande soy latte, extra hot” or whatever it is. (See a USA Today article on the trend from 2004 – wish I had bought it then!)

Starbucks founder Howard Schultz has been quoted as saying, “We aren’t in the coffee business, serving people. We are in the people business serving coffee.” He’s right. People can’t just go anywhere to get their drink. And there are more ways to personalize it all the time.

When an article came out recently about how high in fat Starbucks drinks can be, they changed their menu board to offer ways to reduce the fat in your drink. What a positive, proactive way to address it! The place keeps reinventing itself as necessary to keep up with its target audience, and the worldwide growth plans are huge.

I’m sold. Or more accurately, my kids are. I bought a few shares of SBUX for each of them. Hopefully in 15 years, they’ll make a dent in the cost of a college education. Sure, the P/E ratio is high, but my boys are in it for the long-haul.

Is that true? As a man, I pretty much never look at anyone’s shoes. I know that women do look at shoes. For example, when they describe someone to me, they’ll often say, “She was wearing those red strappy sandals” or something like that. Of course I never know who the person is because I never looked at her shoes. Still, I would never have imagined that women would think I’m treating them rudely because my showed aren’t polished.

If they’re right, it’s another example of how men and women live in different worlds. If any women read this blog, leave me a comment and let me know! How new and shiny do my shoes need to be to be respectful?

Eleanor bought a $4, battery-powered milk foamer from IKEA – mostly on a lark. But it turns out that this thing really works. This thing takes regular milke and produces frothed milk that looks and tastes like steamed milk! The only difference is that it doesn’t heat it up. (I can live with that.)

Now we can put espresso coffee in the drip coffee maker, foam our own milk, and have cappuccinos for next to nothing. And the little milk foamer only cost a few cents more than a “Venti Mocha” at Starbucks!

As a Presbyterian, I guess I’m supposed to know about bagpipes, eh? But I’m not Scottish or anything.

Anyway, I don’t know how Johnny even knows what bagpipes are, much less what they sound like. (There weren’t any in the Bach, by the way.) So I decided to show him some bagpipers on the web. Next he wanted to hear some bagpipe music. I googled “bagpipes audio” and found this:

Radio Gaita, “Bagpipes from around the world”

Check it out! I’ve never heard bagpipes from India before, for example. Just don’t ask me what the lyrics mean.