Blog of Josh Hall

"Treat problems from the perspective of a dog;  If you can’t eat it or hump it, pee on it and walk away."

 – Friend’s cube flare

heh, so I have been wanting to try some vitamin supplements for a while now, just to see if they help with energy/metabolism.  Get some vitamin b12 in me and see what happens, ya know?  So i go to my local wally world and start looking around at the bottles, and I find the one-a-day bottles, pretty well known brand name, right?  they say they help with energy and stuff, so i get them.  I took them for the past week…not really feeling any different at all…then I noticed today…"For age 50+" written on the bottle.  DOH  No wonder I’ve been a grumpy old bast….person, i’m taking the pills of one!  Placebo affect or not, that’s what I’m blaming it on.  So, anyone know any 50+ year olds that want some pills?  …some more pills?

There’s certainly pros to being single, I will not dispute that.  Maybe someday I’ll highlight those too.

10.  when I go to church, it’s hard not to be looking for single girls.  That’s the wrong reason to go to church, and the distraction is usually a reason for me not to go.

9.  family always asks "what happened to so-and-so" or "when are you going to find someone?"

8.  It’s so much easier to make a good meal when i’m cooking for 2.

7.  there’s no one that has to tolerate my annoying tendencies.

6.  I always have to find something to do.  I miss the default being "hanging out with so-and-so" instead of "sitting at home by myself"

5.  My friend base isn’t expanding quite as rapidly as i’d like.

4.  Neither are my cultural horizons.

3.  It’s getting harder and harder every day to find a girl that likes bald men.

2.  eHarmony never fails to say it can’t find any matches for me.  Wonders for the self-confidence.

1.  I write blog entries like this one.

What the heck is up with Don Barden?  This guy is probably the worst business man I’ve ever read stories about.  He didn’t want to play ball with the penguins when he first got the license, then he didn’t want to play ball with the steelers and pirates, then he didnt want to play ball with the science center, then he didn’t want to play ball with the city on the parking garage design, then he wants to take his $3 million ball and go away from the hill district, and now he’s saying that everyone is picking on him.  For someone who will ultimately be wanted to attract customers, he’s not being very customer focused.

Even though it’s true that the financial failures of his other casinos and larger companies should have no affect on the Pittsburgh venture, I think a few flags should be raised on what’s to come.  Barden seems like a guy who sees the growing potential of pittsburgh as something to take advantage of, not something to be a part of an encourage.  He doesn’t care about what’s in his way, just get it out of his way.  He’s not making any friends, and that’s not going to get him any slack or favor in the long run.

If you ask me, when you start saying that there’s a conspiracy and everyone is out to get you, you’re about to crack.  You’ve lost your marbles and you need to snap back to reality before reality snaps you.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08115/876258-100.stm?cmpid=news.xml

I’ve always been taciturn, but usually that’s because I’m too busy watching any analyzing.  Sometimes I get a kick out the little things that people do, not because they need to or even want to, but because they’re conditioned to do so.

when people sneeze, perfect strangers will still say a variation of "God bless you."  From what research I remember, this has roots back into Egyptian cultures when they believed the soul escaped from the nose after death.  This is why the Sphinx has it’s nose broken off; grave robbers would break the nose so that demons and spirits could not come out and haunt them.  So saying "God bless you" seems like a polite thing to say, but it just seems like something so strange to do.

The camera of the yesterday was based on expensive and limited film cartridges.  People had to carry rolls of film, and if someone walked infront of your shot as you took a picture, they just wasted a picture, and if it was the last picture on the roll, you had to change it out, wasting precious time.  With digital cameras, that are so quick and easy to use, cameras are able to hold thousands of photos, and if you mess a shot up, just take it again.  So many people still act like they killed my cat if they walked infront of my shot.  It’s cool, we live in an age of technological innovation!  It should still be considered rude to walk infront of a camera, but don’t worry about throwing your back out trying to duck below the shot.

Chivalry in the workplace just doesn’t work.  Do men really need to let the lady in the elevator first?  that leaves you in front of them and if they get off before you, they have to fight around you.  That’s stupid.  How about we all just get on the elevator and be on our way?  At the end of the day, let’s just get off the blooming thing too!  The door will not close on me, so you don’t need to hold it awkwardly as I walk out. 

Sometimes people need tradition for the sake of tradition, or something familiar.  It’s a little unnerving at times.

Throughout my years of living in the Hill District, I’ve noticed a few cultural trends on pedestrian behavior.  One is just to stand around on the corners of Centre Avenue with nothing to do but watch people drive by or make obvious glances at women as they walk by.  This happens 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  They just stand there.  Not at a bus stop, not smoking, not harrassing people or cars, just standing around.  It’s weird, but pleasant in some weird way too.   The second behavior is walking on the street.  The sidewalk can be the cleanest thing and wide open, but they’ll walk right on the street.  It’s very frustrating as a driver.  sometimes, I liken it to the country, as you wait for cattle to cross the street.  I’m not comparing residents to farm animals, more like showing that both the city and the country have their obstacles.

BUT TO THE POINT!  Thanks to some engineering students at Pitt, the Hill District has designated walking paths!  This is a pretty cool thing, in my opinion at least.  Hopefully people will make use of the paths, I know that Erik does already.  check out the post-gazette story and the official site.