Minnesota, at least in parts, has now instituted a smoking ban. It doesn't matter for me anymore, thanks to my non-smoking ways, not to mention that I have lived in the smoke-free state of New York for a couple years. Nonetheless, I abhor the idea of smoking bans. Katie and I have been disagreeing over the last couple days regarding employment ethics, what should and shouldn't be required of people at the workplace. I am generally in agreement that people shouldn't have to be exposed to dangerous shit as a condition of keeping their jobs, but I also have a certain amount of sympathy for the rights of private establishments to do what they please. I will always identify as a smoker in one way or another, so I have a sense of righteous indignation whenever these things come up. To begin with, maybe there is some way to make a reasonable accomadation to people who want to work in bars but don't want to be exposed to smoke. I see two solutions in this respect: 1) places are required to provide safety equipment (breathing masks, gas masks, whatev) for them so they have protection. Yes, it would suck to wear a gas mask at work, but if you work with dangerous chemicals thats what happens. There are things that are intrinsic job risks and since there is a significant part of the population that likes to smoke when they are at bars (in NYC the estimate was 40+ percent, I'm not sure in Minnesota) I think smoke there is intrinsic to the job. 2) smoking areas should be sealed off, so that no employess are required to enter them. I mean, for instance, as you may have seen at a Perkins or a Dennys, there is a smoking section which has windows and an air-sealed door, so no one who chooses not to be in it is exposed. Basically it means that if you want to get your drinks, you have to go out to the bar and bring them back to your table. That option puts the added burden on the customer rather than the worker, so its up to you witch is more important. If you owned an establishment and wanted to be tricky (which I personally would) you could set up little windows at the tables like at old school fast food restaurants in bad areas, where you put the bags on a tray which is then spun around into the smoking area, meaning that you could have wait staff bring people food/drinks without ever having to enter the smoking area. Anyway, I think there are good solutions to this problem that don't require impinging the rights of smokers nor telling waiters/waitresses/bartenders, to suck it up.
Certainly much more importantly to my life than a ban on something I no longer do in a state where I no longer live, is the fact that living comedic legend Mitch Hedberg, is no longer living. Mitch was one of the funniest people I think has ever lived. I love that dry one-liner sense of humor (My friend asked me if I wanted a frozen banana, and I said no, but I want a regular banana later, so, yeah) and the ridiculous set ups that made me crack up every time I heard his bits (My apartment is infested with koala bears. Its the cutest infestation of all time. Way better than cockroaches. Every time I turn on the light, a whole bunch of koala bears scatter.) I was unfortunate to never see Mitch perform live, though I listen to his CD pretty religiously and have the Comedy Central specials all but memorized. It seems that he had a heart attack and though it would be sad to lose Mitch at any age, for him to go at only 37 is hearbreaking. Personally my thoughts and prayers go out to his wife and family, I'll think of him everytime I end up screaming some insignificant shit: "that tree is far away."
Other shitty news: Fox officially canceled Point Pleasant, so they can go suck my ass. Fox has now canceled two of the potential heirs to Buffy's domain after less than half a season. Its a freaking mystery show for the love of ass, you can't evaluate it before things have really started to go down. I swear that if the OC hadn't debuted during the middle of summer allowing it to build an audience without any competition they would have canceled it before the Summer/Ana conflict even developed. It looks like Veronica Mars will get another full season and Katie assures me that things are looking up for Arreseted Development, which I thought was as good as dead.
Katie, who is awesome in every respect notably, was especially awesome in her quick dealing with of the massive figure skating glob that accumulated in her absence. I only had to watch about an hour of total figure skating as well, which is an uber-bonus. Those 14 hours move fast without commercials and minute long breaks for judging, not to mention that when I annoy Katie about the repetitive boring ass biographies alot of those get skipped too. It seems that figure skating is the reverse of a regular sport, where you use the off-court biological crap to fill in the holes during the game (i.e. halftime) since the skating is basically an afterthought after hearing the story of each of the 12 ponies that Slutskaya raised during her childhood. The only other note I intend to offer re: figure skating is that the art of the exhibition seems lost on today's generation. You want to see an exhibition figure skater, check out none other than the immortal Elvis Stojko!! Dude used to do incredible shit, slidey moves and ridiculous jumping combinations and freaking backflips! We have seen all your good footwork and arm movements during your lame-ass ice dance, the whole point here is to show off what you wouldn't do in normal combinations, not just do your boring routine to a Cherry Poppin Daddies tune.
Hippo was playing with her fishy-pole today, which is prolly her all time favorite toy. I mean, she's got alot of toys still to come, so its a bit early in her playing career to determine all time favorites, but she likes the fishy-pole. Anyway, somehow she got herself all tangled in the pink string that attaches the fishy to the pole and after getting fed up with being tangled, decided the best way to deal with it would be to take off as fast as her kitten paws would allow. She heads for the bedroom and as the pole smashes around behind her, clattering against doorways and furniture we realize what has happened. She went through every room in the apartment at least once before I was finally able to catch her when the pole got wrapped around my cell phone charger. Not a happy Hippo. I had to agree to let her watch at least one David Cronenberg movie before she would cheerup. I think she can handle eXistenZ.
Peace,
MB-K
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Claire used to have a crush on the Stojko. He was pretty much the most masculine figure skater I can think of, except maybe Katarina Witt (J/K). Victor Petrenko was also an excellent exhibition skater- at the 92 Olympics he just went out there and did triple axels over and over again, which you know is what the crowd wanted to see anyway.
Meg
Hello, I would like to meet some other local people who are interested in Dancing On Ice. I'm using this Dancing On Ice site; are there any other around?
Cheers
Post a Comment