Steak-Eating 101

You're in a nice restaurant. You've just ordered a steak that is, in the most literal sense possible, perfect. You pick up your knife and fork, and are just beginning to cut a nice piece when the guy at the table next to yours blows his nose really, really hard. Sploop! Now your nice juicy steak, the most perfect steak ever crafted in a kitchen, has a nice juicy fist-sized snot on it.

Now what? You go and deck the guy, right? More than likely, you expect some compensation from him, or at the very least, an apology. Maybe you threaten him with legal action. The point is, you understand who's at fault, and you act accordingly.

You certainly don't leap up from your chair, stomp into the kitchen, and scream at the chef. You don't blame the waiter, you don't threaten to sue the restaurant, and you don't demand to speak with the manager about the 'terrible service'.

The exact circumstances in the above situation can vary greatly, but the rules are generally the same: You don't blame people who aren't responsible.

The hotel industry is in Bizarro World. Your neighbor is making noise. You don't call them up and complain, or threaten them, or curse and scream at them, or demand that they pay for your room. Nope, you call the desk clerk and chew him out for a half-hour instead. Fuck going after the source of the problem.

Another example of Bizarr-ho-tel-ness? Haggling over the price. Strange that you can go into a grocery store, find out what the price of something is, decide whether you want to spend the money on it, and then leave without a fuss. Whereas, with hotels, you go in, find out the price of a room, and then haggle and grumble and complain and whine and fuss ("But it's two-thirty in the morning! I'm not even going to be here for more than four hours!") ... and then rent the room anyway.

Imagine if Safeway got that sort of treatment:

CUSTOMER: "This gallon of milk is three bucks. Three bucks! I won't even drink the whole thing before it goes bad! I don't want to spend three bucks on that milk anyway. Can you go any lower?"

CLERK: "Uhh ... no?"

CUSTOMER: "I'm walking out the door, then! You sure you can't give me a better deal on the milk? I can't see the sense in paying for it if I'm only going to use a little of it."

CLERK: "Sorry, the price is three dollars."

CUSTOMER: "..... Fine! Screw you anyway! Fred Meyer's down the street has milk for two fifty-nine! You've just lost out on three bucks, asshole!"

Happens all the time in the hotel business.

My Morning At The Hotel

My hotel sets out breakfast at seven o'clock, which means I usually don't start making coffee until six or so. We have two large industrial coffee makers in the back room, and it usually takes me about twenty minutes to fill up all five coffee pots (the big stainless steel ones). It's an easy task.

Except for this morning. This morning, I've had a -teensy- bit of an issue. Evidently, some of our co-workers managed to break not one but both coffee makers yesterday. The problem is that nobody said anything to me about it, or even so much as left me a note explaining things. I don't even know who did it.

So, this morning I've had to run across to one of our empty rooms and borrow the midget coffee maker to make our coffee this morning. After twenty minutes, I've nearly got one pot filled. One out of five. If someone, anyone, had bothered to inform me about our broken coffee makers, I could've started this process an hour earlier. As it stands now, I'll be lucky to have more than one or two pots finished by the time people start showing up for the breakfast.

I feel sometimes as though I'm the only person here who actually tries to communicate with the other shifts. It's a frustrating situation.

Here's a couple more pictures for you to oogle while I'm off work. I'll try to write something when I get back. Enjoy!

Films And Books Need Protection?

My next bit of business involves the new edition of Blade Runner, soon to be released. The new edition will actually contain five different versions of the film, hopefully (and probably) including the original -unmodified- version. I don't understand this strange phenomenon among filmmakers, nor do I approve. However, let's put it into a different context, one that will hopefully elicit a few laughs.

Suppose that, twenty years from now, J.K. Rowling decides to go back and re-write portions of her infamous Harry Potter series of books. Or (if he was still alive today), perhaps J.R.R. Tolkien declares that his Middle Earth books are in need of an overhaul.

A little silly, perhaps, but I think it paints a fine picture. And it only gets better:

So J.K. Rowling up and declares that she's re-writing bits and pieces of her old books. When asked why, she says, "My writing style, and in fact the writing style of authors in general, has changed over the last twenty years. With all the recent advances in writing lately, I feel that I can finally present Harry's story the way it was meant to be read."

That's essentially what some filmmakers are using to justify the way they're treating their older films. "I can finally show this movie the way it was meant to be seen" is a weak argument at best. So, if filmmakers can do it to their movies, why can't authors do the same thing with their books? It isn't any different for the purposes of this argument; both mediums are used to tell stories.

Too many people who love their precious books will argue that filmakers can do whatever they want to their creations. It's hypocritical in the extreme for them to defend filmmakers, and then turn around and protest authors revamping their books.

Which, of course, makes them look rather silly.

I wanna' see how the world handles a "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: Special Edition". Maybe Rowling can try to make it the definitive version, and attempt to phase out the original versions of the books! It'll be awesome! Yay!

Anyone have any other long-standing favorite books or series' that they'd like to add to the list? Sound off, people! Let's see how many special edition novels we can come up with!

This Was Supposed To Be About Comics ...

We have ourselves a new kitten, quite suddenly! Ariel and I have been discussing this for a long, long time, but our minds hadn't been made up yet.

Sometimes, though, life makes a decision for you. We found this little fellow hanging around with our neighbor's cat, looking very skittish and hungry. It took some coaxing, but I managed to get close enough to start petting him. He was (and still is) so unbelieveably bony, so I left him at the bottom of our stairs to go get Ariel. She immediately declared that we needed to feed him, so we gave him a bit of turkey from the fridge. He still wasn't too sure about us yet but (much like myself) couldn't pass up a free meal.

After that, we were concerned for him. He was very wild, but not quite feral yet, and we wanted to see if we could find him a home somewhere. Unfortunately, because it was so late at night, there was little we could do for him. I knew if we left him outside, we'd never be able to find him in the morning, so we took him inside. Long story short, he warmed up to us, and by the time we got up the next morning, it was clear we were going to keep him.

The kitten is still a little bit twitchy about humans, especially new people, though he's quickly becoming very affectionate towards myself and Ariel. He seems very happy after only a few days of real food and shelter, and he's turning out to be (mostly) one of the sweetest, mildest kittens I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. Perhaps the best thing, though, is that he seems to have already been litter-trained. I wonder just how long he was running around for before we found him. Poor little fellow. At least things are looking up for him these days.

Ariel agreed to let me be the one to make the decision about his name, since he's my first cat. If anyone has any suggestions on a name for him, I'd love to hear them. I can't promise I'll use them, but I'd love any input you have!