The House has an edge

With the price of fuel going up and up for the usual reasons, it seemed to me that a mashup of the one-armed bandit with the one-hose bandit might work.

You'd put your folding money in, take a pull, and see how many gallons you win. Fun for everyone!

I think it might work in Nevada, though not here in New Jersey or in Oregon because of the bans on self-service gas pumps.

Bringing it to the States

IMG_9493,
originally uploaded by スコット.

There have been a number of attempts to popularize sumo in the United States, which have usually included a big dose of explaining the heritage and traditions of the Japanese sport to the curious viewer.

Perhaps it would do better to take a different approach.

1. You can keep calling it sumo, but bill it as Center vs. Nose Tackle instead, in order to tap into the huge football fan base.


2. Get rid of the circular dohyo in favor of a linear playing field 5 yards long. The way you win is to either bring your opponent down in a position of helplessness or to push him back past the far line.


3. Geez, guys, put something on. After all, we'll be having you play outside, or at least in a domed stadium.


4. The match begins with the initial charge by the center. On the other hand, he is not allowed to hold (much), whereas the nose tackle is free to do so, plus he can score points by deflecting a prolate spheroid lofted overhead at random intervals.


5. Instead of purifying the playing area with salt before each bout, douse it with Gatorade afterwards.


6. Referees in stripes, not brocade.

I'll be watching the line tomorrow night to see whether there is some talent we could try to attract to the new sumo league, which would be active during the off-season period for the NFL.

I'd like to teach the world to whine

We went on a lightning holiday to western Massachusetts and I came back with three tiny little issues to carp about.

1. I thought I'd be prudent and rotate out the Sprint phone card that I kept with the jump bag I prepared last summer. The idea was to use it to call my parents in California and avoid the extortionate rates commonly charged by the motel we were staying at. Neither the card nor the folder it was attached to had any date on it, but deep in the fine print was a line about how the card expires "15 months from the date of purchase/activation." When I input the number on the card, a synthesized voice informed me that the account I used was "invalid," so I called up the Customer Service number about this. I was prepared to pay some kind of fee or other in order to recoup some of the minutes I thought I'd bought, or at least be told how I could recharge the thing with more minutes, even at a rate just about as exorbitant as the room phone rate. Instead, I got the voice of a rep nearly as cold as the computer voice, informing me that the number was not in the computer and there was no provision for refund.
   I know the Nextel merger was a costly one, but would it really have been too much to expect them to keep the number on record a month or two longer, if only in hopes of extracting more money out of your consumer? Was it so important to take my $20 and run with it with such unseemly haste? Doesn't it actually make good business sense to put an expiration date on the product if only to encourage a repeat sale when the time draws near? But no, the unfeeling telecom sees fit to do none of these things, and for that they deserve my scorn and rancor, now and for a long time to come.
   In the same vein, only with regard to gift cards, I point out the public service announcement: Don't Give Your Friends Fees this Holiday Season!


2. We went out to the movies Thanksgiving evening, and as our group could not reach a consensus choice, split according to gender, the ladies seeing the latest Disney movie and us guys opting for medieval fare.
   Please note, kids, the book is different.
   I give the moviemakers credit for including the side stories about Beowulf's swimming-race early on (gory though the depiction of it was), and didn't even find too much to object to with regard to the repurposing of Grendel's mom which made the final climactic battle a struggle between father and son. The thing I did not much care for was the way Zemeckis mistrusted the audience to pick up the bit of foreshadowing regarding the proper way to dispatch a dragon: the B-man is helped out by having the weak spot picked out in vivid color, as if it were made of the stuff of mood rings perhaps, a "plot point" which by all rights ought to have been labeled "break glass in case of dramatic climax," then having the old hero reach in to fool with his offspring's viscera in a way that reminded me to much of this:
   
   
   
   So actually, that part's not like the original poem. But maybe if this does well at the box office, they'll do a cinematic version of The Elder Edda.
   
   Edited to add: I think this happy fellow has the right idea - don't go into battle with a sword that's too damn short.


3. I picked up this flyer for a local eating establishment in the motel lobby.
   
   
   Chinese Food to Take Out or Sit In
   Thanks, think I'll pass.

Don't they want my money?

I got pretty annoyed the other day at a local Dunkin' Donuts shop for the following reasons:

• There was a long line which went all the way to the entrance, so when we came in, I was right up against the door itself. Popular place on a Saturday morning.


• The counter is way back there, behind the people in line and the high displays on either side of the registers. It's like the order-takers have barricaded themselves against the masses.


• The displays are so high you can't see the products. I wanted a biscuit, but I couldn't tell if they had any until I got to the front of the line. (They didn't.) Pam wanted a pumpkin muffin sans frosting along with her iced coffee. (They had the muffins, but only the frosted kind, and they were kind of low down so you couldn't see them from back in the line.)


• The prices are up high, so at least you can see them, but they don't include everything for sale. Such as biscuits.


• I think there might have been four people working, but taking orders at two registers only, wedged between the aforementioned high displays.


• Once people ordered, they stayed in place in front of the registers while they waited for their food, so the next person was blocked from placing their own order. Every other fast food place has figured out that after the customer has ordered, they should be encouraged to yield their spot to the next customer, picking up their order at a different location. Why hasn't Dunkin' Donuts figured this out?


• We get to the front of the line and I find out the bad news about the biscuits. I order a French Toast stick. "No coffee?" "No, thank you." "You sure?" "No coffee!" I know that they make more money on the coffee than on the baked goods, but they don't have to be quite so pushy about it.


• It was actually so crowded around the register that it was difficult to settle up.

It was fortunate that the food was good (hence the big crowd), but I was fuming about all the obstacles getting in the way of what should have been a simple transaction.