james & kim's fun page // thoughts on...

Unanswered Letters

Monday 15 July 2002

The Straight Dope

What's the deal with those old Memorex commercials where Ella Fitzgerald breaks the glass with the sound of her voice? What does that prove?

Hints from Heloise

I save a lot of time when I load the dishwasher by putting all like silverware together. Then when I unload I can grab all the teaspoons at once, etc.†

Marilyn Vos Savant

What do these words have in common: boring, monotonous, tedious, irksome, tiresome, humdrum, self-serving?

The Word Detective

Why are dead people sometimes referred to as "late?" Is this merely a term of respect or is it intended to indicate someone who died recently?

Personality Parade by Walter Scott

My friend and I have a wager that perhaps you can settle. What is one of my favorite actors from the 80's up to these days? Of course I'm talking about Bernie Kopell, the sexy doctor from tv's "Love Boat." I say he's relaxing and playing tennis, my friend says he's dead.

†This is an actual hint Kim has read a few times. It always sends Heloise into a lather about this practice not cleaning you silverware properly due to the "spooning" effect.

The Late Dr. Jackson

Thursday 28 March 2002

We have a family friend who runs estate sales on weekends. More often than not the reason behind the sale is because the owners of the house moved out of town, to a retirement home or died. Their bright yellow signs with blue arrows let us know where to turn. We enjoy barging into other people's living rooms to see what they owned, where and how they lived.

This past weekend we visited a sale in a nearby neighborhood. You could tell that the occupants were old folks. People under 80 would have changed the lime green (and stained) carpeting long ago. The kitchen cabinets had odd metal handles. The garage door opener had a hand crank. I noticed something after going past the not unusual items (inexpensive but old china, various pieces of furniture with oak veneer, shelves full of books in the general field of the man's occupation); that there were also many personal items for sale. Things that are usually kept by family. Things like family photos, some of which were from the 1920s. A PhD diploma. Suddenly I went from feeling voyeuristic to a little sad. Didn't these people have anyone who wanted to keep at least some of their stuff? I mentioned to Kim that some of the items seemed to me to be quite personal.

Kim asked "Aren't all of your belongings personal in some sense?"

"I guess so."

An announcement was made that everything in the garage and carport were now free. This announcement was not, however, made in the garage/carport area. It was obvious because people were still picking over the $10 and less items with some degree of discretion. Discretion not generally held when the word "free" is bandied about. I looked through the old photos, trying to learn something about who lived here. I began reconstructing a life in my imagination. I would include that here but it is far to sketchy to commit to paper (html?).

Tiptoeing between the former possessions, I felt a little like I was walking through a cemetery. I collected a few empty picture frames. Since because we failed to bring enough cash for a substantial purchase, Kim and I put a deposit down on a picnic bench (ours is falling apart from rot). We drove the boys home and I returned with my father to finalize payment and collect the bench.

It seems word of the garage special was well known by the time we returned. The old photos were gone. So were home made oil paintings. Little glass ampoules. The diploma. Most things light enough to lift and not obviously broken.

We looked through some 78s: Pinocchio, various big bands. I paid the remainder on the bench and loaded it on the car with bungees. I don't know how I survived before I had bungees.

I was still saddened by my thoughts that these personal items were being snatched up with no reverence for the previous owner. I was mad that no family claimed them. Maybe there was no family. There was no evidence: kid furniture, games, pictures of kids from past 1940.

Out of some sense of respect, I decided to pick up a pamphlet entitled "The Gospel Messenger and Primitive Pathway Butler, Georgia" dated December 1888. I have not read the pamphlet yet but I did find a folded newspaper clipping inside that I suppose to be from the same era. A joke from the past. Maybe someone saying thanks.

Zickety-Boom Rah! Rah!

Not My Type

Tuesday 10 December 2001

I realize that some people may have a problem with (my) sarcasm. I have safely encased it in gray to protect the innocent. Likewise, to protect the sarcasm-dependant I have enclosed the words of others in navy.

Recently I was subjected to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test. This is a test of preferences that is used to determine your personality. The results are a four letter code that identifies your behavior as accurately as DNA identifies your molecular composition.

Isabel Briggs Myers

Who is Myers-Briggs? Must be some learned psychologist! Isabel Briggs Myers (who had a bachelor's degree in political science from Swarthmore College and no academic affiliation) and her mother, Katharine Cook Briggs, are the originators of the test. They are described on an affiliated web site as "astute observers of human behavior." Apparently, because Isabel's husband, Clarence Myers, was so different from the rest of the family, Katherine became interested in types. She introduced Isabel to Jung's book, Psychological Types.

MBTI is now owned by Consulting Psychologists Press, Inc. There are sixteen personality types based on testing results that determine which side of the following pairs you most resemble: Extraversion-Introversion (EI), Sensing-Intuition (SN), Thinking-Feeling (TF), Judgment-Perception (JP). No matter how noble the intentions, the test has many elements of pseudoscience. For instance, if you disagree with the results of your test, the publication states, "changing a letter or two may help them find an MBTI type that more accurately captures their personality." Say, if the water doesn't boil at 100° C, add or subtract a few degrees.

Carl G. Jung

The MBTI is based upon Carl Jung's notions of psychological types, although this line of thought goes back much further. In the fifth century B.C., the physician Hippocrates (think Hippocratic oath) explained the four temperaments in terms of dominant "humors" in the body. The melancholic is dominated by yellow "bile" in the kidneys; the sanguine by humors in the blood; the phlegmatic by phlegm; and the choleric by the black bile of the liver. Hippocrates was simply adding to the ancient Greek insight that all things reduce to earth, air, water, and fire. Each of the four elements had its dualities: hot/cold and dry/moist.

And now back to today: I think there's only one other person who also can't stand the Customer Service class. Using the valuable lessons I've learned, I believe my problem is that I am an INTJ (or INTP, the test was inconclusive). All INTs would feel the way I do. Just like all people who, like me, were born in the year of the goat share certain characteristics.

The thing that bugs me about classes like this is that they try to tell you how to behave.

Presented with an angry customer, follow these steps, in this order:

Empathize with their problem.
Find out how to solve the problem.
Restate their problem to demonstrate that you understand.

This is a scientific formula that has been proven to work in 94% of all angry customer calls.

You are going to meet with failure when you try to categorize and formulate human behavior. Captive Humans, in their natural settings, do not necessarily know that the person on the other end of the phone is waiting to answer your question only once they feel the proper empathy for your problem has been delivered.

Those of you who are IS (introvert) may want to just watch the others. By nature you will not want to participate in this exercise.

By nature the Ts will do things that will infuriate the Fs (thinking and feeling).

I know at least one T that finds generalizations like this to be infuriating. While studying Federico García-Lorca as a college student I once read "Like all Spaniards, Lorca constantly thought of death."

The only thing worse than being told how to act is being told how you should feel. Let's save that for another discussion.

borrowed heavily from the excellent Skeptic's Dictionary

Customer Appreciation Letter

Wednesday, 20 June 2001

20 June 2001

Dear Smirnoff,

I've never done this before, but I thought I should let you know about my experience with Smirnoff Vodka.

The other week I was having a particularly bad day at work. My joints were aching, my cycle was off and my clothes weren't their whitest.

I was about to try my usual beer when a customer told me about Smirnoff. He told me that three shots of Smirnoff is equivalent to eight Buds. Who wants to drink eight beers when three shots will do?

I later found out that a Smirnoff every morning can actually help prevent me from noticing these problems.

Although Smirnoff has not corrected my joints, cycle and the brightness of my clothes -- it has made me care a lot less about these things, and pretty much everything else.

Yours,
James

The Barometer of Cool

Friday, 15 June 2001

There was a time when you could check for a certain actor in a movie to rate its cool factor. It is important to note that a cool movie is not always a great movie. For instance, (from the examples below) A Midsummer Night's Dream is probably a better movie than Heartbreakers. But Midsummer doesn't have Ray Liotta, mini-dresses or guns. So Heartbreakers wins that one. The Ricky Jay factor certainly puts Heartbreakers over the edge.

Ricky Jay? He's a tubby man with a beard, receding hairline and bad complexion. He has the voice of a salesman who has land for you in Florida. There have always been film makers who have a small group of actors they prefer. Think of John Ford and John Wayne, John Huston and Humphrey Bogart. Some of my favorite modern directors also have their packs. Ricky Jay just happens to be a favorite of both Mamet (Mamet's Mafia) and Anderson (so does William H. Macy). Mr. Jay (unlike Mr. Macy) holds the Guinness World record for throwing a playing card over a hundred and ninety feet at ninety miles an hour. Mr. Jay has a good number of movies above the equator of cool. Judging by the chart below, I think I have scientifically proven that Ricky Jay very well may be the bellwether of cool.

I know my tastes favor David Mamet, P. T. Anderson and the Cohen brothers, among others. Taste is subjective. I have narrowed the field to the past 15 years.

Runners up: Gary Oldman, Toshiro Mifune, Eric Stoltz, Sarah Polley, Johnny Depp, Lawrence Fishburn, Chris Penn, Christopher Walken, Giancarlo Esposito, John Lurie, Laura Linney, David Bowie, Forest Whitaker, Harvey Keitel, Christopher Guest, Steve Buscemi.