Nobrainer’s Think Tank

Right now, 5:20AM, I’m at the Dayton airport waiting for my 6:10 flight to Dulles to board. And I’m damn happy to be here.

Not 5 minutes after I left my parents house, I was cruising down the highway toward another highway which would take me to the interstate. From far away, there was a car stopped up near my exit. Given the distance and the whole it-being-night-thing-at-4AM thing I couldn’t tell exactly where they were stopped so I started to slow down. Then, from the left, a car comes flying from the entrance ramp, over the road, barrels through the median onto my side of the road. The driver then, kinda gained control and then he/she started heading straight for me. I, of course, froze like a deer in the headlights. Fortunately the driver straightened out a bit and passed to my left.

Fuck, that was scary.

If you don’t buy our coffee, we’ll kill you. Got it.

This is almost downright thievery!

It also makes me wonder how games like football, soccer, hockey and basketball, which basically encourage theft, have an effect on society.

These books are hot off the presses! If you pay the shipping, I’ll send it to you for free!

• Windows 95 for Dummies
• The Lotus Guide to 1-2-3 Release 2.3
• Using WordPerfect 5.1
• 1-2-3 Financial Macros

You know you want one!

I do actually have these books in my possession, and they’re in great shape. BARELY USED! And if 20 year-old computer manuals aren’t your thing, you can always use them for fuel!

I thoroughly believe that buying local is a great idea, so long as the price/quality combination is better than I’d get elsewhere. Which of course means that I don’t give two cow-patties about where my food comes from. Certainly I am not alone in this matter, but I at least do not try to delude others about my motives. It is from this perspective that I’m always suspicious of people who stake a claim to their progressivity by buying local, especially when it just so happens that they’re getting a bargain.

It is that point-of-view that hit me when I was reading a WaPo article about urbanites who are now going out of their way to buy sides-o-meat.

A friend invited [David Storm, a legal analyst in Charlottesville,] to share a steer bought from a farmer just 45 minutes away. The cost: $1 a pound, plus a 36-cents-per-pound processing fee, or $735.76 for a 541-pound carcass, which translated to 275 pounds of dry-aged beef. “We did it for a lot of reasons,” says Storm, 39. “One was cost. Two, it is grass-fed and fresh, so it will hopefully taste better. And three, we’re supporting a local farmer, something we’re very avid about.

“Plus it seemed fun. People would say, ‘Anything new?’ And I could say, ‘Yeah, I just bought a side of beef.’ “

Nevermind.

Now that I read this again, I think that David realizes that he made a bad decision but is trying to convince himself that it wasn’t. Seriously, how could you convince yourself ahead of time that freshness is important when you’re considering purchasing 275 pounds of beef that you’re just going to put in the freezer for up to a year?