The hazards of golfing at high elevation

Proof that inflation is out of control, or I need to find a new job

The other day I'm driving home and there was a little girl on the side of the road standing behind a card table with a sign hanging off the front which read, "Lemonade Kool-Aid 25 cents". Smiling, I remembered back to summers when I was a kid and tried the same venture, so I pulled over, rolled down my window and said, "One cup please."

The cute little girl smiled at me showing off a full set of braces. As she poured my glass I fished around for a quarter. As I looked up, she was holding out what looked like an incredibly small cup. I was a bit taken aback. It was tiny. It was one of the little Dixie cups kids keep near the sink to use while brushing their teeth. It was this size (see below), but not this cool because it didn't even have a TIE fighter on it.

I handed her the quarter and thanked her. Then I looked in the cup. It was only half full. The little girl skipped happily back to her table waiting for her next vicitm/customer.

I took my 1/16 gulp of sugary water and pondered my transaction.

After doing a little research, I found that the cup size she used was 3 oz. Filling it only half full meant she sold me 1.5 oz of Kool-Aid for 25 cents. If I'm doing the math right, that means the retail/street value of a pitcher of Kool-Aid is a little over $11, or $5.50 per liter.

Since we Americans don't do the whole metric thing, let me put it in more general terms:

THIS LITTLE GIRL WAS SELLING KOOL-AID AT MORE THAN $20 PER GALLON.

Her overhead: nothing - she probably stole everything from her mom.

And she doesn't pay taxes.

I think I'm in the wrong business.




Stand image courtesy of here.
Cup image couresy of here.

Seriously, so blessed!

If you haven't seen it yet, Seriously, So Blessed! is a brilliant parody site, written by an unknown author, from the point of view of a young married woman living in Utah, Tiffany/Amber/Megan/Nicole (take your pick) who is married to JJWT (Jordan/Jason/Wes/Taylor) and life is, like, so good.

JJWT is going to law/dental/business/medical school and TAMN has her degree in hair dressing/teaching 2nd grade. The blog is about their perfect life being so busy doing all sorts of (self) righteous, Utah things.

Their marriage couldn't be happier. In fact, nothing goes wrong in her life. And if you want a perfect life, start with the perfect man. Here are her tips for you ladies out there who are looking to meet your own JJWT:

• Avoid wearing sweats, BUT, if you're gonna wear sweats, MAKE SURE there is something sassy written on your bottom. 

• TEXT IN CHURCH. This will make you look even cuter and way less boring...if you can do this with tonz of gum, EVEN CUTER!
  

• Do NOT get a short haircut and/or make your hair one color (BOAR-RING!). Long and multi-colored is your best bet (but, don't bet, it's practically porn).
• WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT GO TO MORE SCHOOL, unless you want people to start calling you Yawnette. Think about it! Serious! How often do guys whistle and yell "Nice degree!" or shake there heads and say "What adorable knowledge"? EXACTLY.

Some other choice quotes:

In reference to being grateful for the Pioneers on the 24th of July: "If it weren't for them, we wouldn't even HAVE a Gateway!"

And..."It’s so fun to just go up to my family’s cabin and look at the things that make up our beautiful world and feel so greatful. Love just looking at nature at night while I sit in the hot tub with a 44 ouncer of Diet Coke (bad I know, I’m off it now), and my cute pink ipod blaring, and just BEING with nature, soaking it up til I get pruney."

Brilliant. Anyway, great site. Check it out, and start from the beginning.

Do not disturb

On vacation (see above).

Image courtesy of here.

Apple on fire - literally

 Oh, snap! Apple's R&D department went up in flames late last night, triggering a three alarm fire. Heads are gonna roll. Rumor has it that Macworld, which is normally held in January, will be pushed off until July 2011. Also, reports are coming in that Steve Ballmer, or someone who greatly resembled him, was seen fleeing from the scene, laughing manically.

Either that, or Apple got a taste of its own medicine with regard to its laptops.

In other Google news...

I got this sign-in screen when I tried to login to my Google account. Unfortunately, after sign-in it was the same ol' iGoogle. I wonder if this has anything to do with the problems going on with Gmail right now.

The world is coming to an end: Gmail is down - UPDATED x3

Heaven help us. Russia is bombing Georgia, the ice caps are melting, France is still a sovereign nation, and Gmail is down. It's not an isolated incident as people on Twitter are reporting the same problem:

Whatever could be the problem? I've never really had any issues with Gmail. Interestingly enough, I can use Gmail over IMAP on my iPhone. Weird.

One clue may be (yes, I'm really reaching here) is this new "Create an account" button I saw this morning:

Most of the time it's just a text link, although occasionally I've seen it as a blue Aqua-esque button. New UI?

What do you think? Is Google rolling out a new UI? Is it a technical glitch? Are they going to give us Push functionality? Has your account been affected? Let me know in the comments.

UPDATE: I saw a  Cult of Mac article in my feed reader saying MobileMe's mail is also down.

Oddly, when I clicked the link in my feed reader to go to the actual article, Cult of Mac gave me an error page. Hmmm...strange stuff is afoot. Perhaps my initial hunch that Apple just transitioned all their .Mac stuff to Google's services, masked in a pretty Apple design, is true. ;)

UPDATE 2: TechCrunch is reporting the same thing: Gmail is down systemwide. As a side note, I'd like to point out that I had the "story" up before Arrington did. ;)

UPDATE 3: As of about 4:35, my account is back. Same ol' look and at first glance no new features. Also, no word on the Official Gmail Blog about the outage.