&*@#!! Greedy Stores!

Last week I ordered a Magnetix i-Coaster from Amazon.com! This has been sold out in stores for a few weeks. It’s an awesome construction set. You connect different tracks to create a “coaster”. Then you connect the entire unit to a powered magnet source that magnetizes the entire toy. This allows a metal marble to roll all over the coaster and even jump in places where there are no tracks! All this and you can hook up your MP3 player to it to create your own i-coaster rock n roll experience.

I ordered the i-coaster for $90 on Amazon.com on Friday (I'm splitting the cost with another family member). Monday, I get an email indicting that my order was canceled (2 business days). I went to the vendor’s website to see why this happened. I-coasters were available for sale at $130! – 50% more than I was charged. It was clear that the seller intentionally canceled my order to sell it at a higher price. Greedy guts! Amazon received a well-worded nastygram indicating my outrage. Essentially there was nothing that could be done.

No i-coaster, no awesome accolades from my 12 y.o. nephew, at Christmas! Aw, hail no - it ain't happenin' to me (actually it’s such a cool toy, I don’t care about the cool points) I went to ebay to make this happen. I’m happy to say that I paid $109 for the replacement i-coaster and received it, brand new, in the mail today. Thanks ebay seller!

Stunts like the one the Amazon seller tried to pull really make me dislike Christmas. I hate being a “consumer” already. Christmas shopping just twists the knife in the wound, adds salt and spits in your face.

Beck you’re such a whiner! So what have I done to conquer my loathsome attitude? Small things.

- Minimize exposure to holiday songs and Holiday-themed movies (fun but they really mess with your head!). Will a real reindeer really come back to life after being shot, prancer?

(love um but they don’t sell Prozac in Christmas colors or “sparkle” –YET) –

- Tipping my servers the extra buck. Giving the obviously hung-over or strung out homeless person a buck (my inner mantra: I can’t be exploited – I choose to give – guilt won’t work).Overall being more generous when I give helps

** And my personal favorite: saying “Merry Christmas” to sales clerks instead of the politically correct “Happy Holidays”. Doing that, especially, makes me feel a little naughty and rebellious. And at times it pays off - especially if the sales clerk is a black woman. They smile and give back a heart "merry christmas to you". Love those gals! I think they share my secret delight -- and hey they can't get in trouble because the customer is always right. oh yeah, in the mood I'm in, just let management come over and give them (or me) a hard time. I implore you all to give it a try! Merry Christmas! It’s about Jesus after all!

Toxic or Truth?

I secretly delight in my guilty pleasure of dorkiness. I'm a dorklette.

I also love color! I love wearing bright colors. I love seeing bright colors. I also like interesting perspectives; visual, philosophical or flat-out mental. When I first saw this photograph I was drawn like a moth to an open flame! Like George Hamilton to unfiltered sunlight! What the heck was I looking at?

I made a pencil drawing, a water color painting, a color printout onto a large transparency from my painting. I'm obsessed! (The photo was taken underwater where a hot spring (green) meets a river, colored brown, from tannins. Apparently, it's also a nice place to swim).

I had ideas to create an art installation based on this image! Until --I showed it to my artsy friends (very nice and very artsy). They thought it looked "toxic!". Hmmm. Gosh I never thought of that! I was seduced by the color and perspective that I failed to notice the obvious... it looks like burnt-black silhouettes floating on tubes in nuclear sludge. However, perhaps because I knew what I was looking at, I saw something much more philosophical. I saw the brown of an old river merging with the fresh, deep waters of it's source. Kind of like meeting it's maker. Only the light of the sun could bring out the truth of this visual dicotomy. My question is: How can we even see the colors? Why aren't the colors obscurred or merky? The photographer must be in a place unaffected by the merge - unmerged! Otherwise it would appear as if we're looking through a brown filter, no? Kinda difficult being that it's all the "same" water!



My thoughts go to God. We are fallen sinners, submerged in the toxic water of sin. Some submerged in the water, some barely have their heads above water. Some are merely floating just above the water. Nonetheless we are tainted by the water. The sun is the light of God illuminating the truth of the situation. Do you think the swimmers know what they are swimming in? I think they are too close to it and can't dicipher it. But the photographer can see it! From some place, she sees it and captures it's truth in film. She had to get into the toxic-looking water to do this. Perhaps putting herself at some personal risk (claustrophobia for sure!). Maybe in this analogy (and I'm just thinking out loud here) Jesus is the photographer.

Jesus submerged himself into humanity by coming to earth to be our propitiation. He did not come to abolish sin (that would take away our free choice, possibly), he came to pay the penalty for OUR sin. Whether we believe it or not. Whether we accept it or not. Jesus submerged in the wretched world saw the truth (how empathetic of him), submerged himself anyways and then gave us the greatest gift of love; reconciliation with God. The only bridge between God and Man. God and me. God and you.

I may be thinking about this waaaaay too much. But I like this shot, even accepting it's toxicity. It's getting displayed in some form, somewhere in my house. I vote for the bathroom! Go Toxic!

I told you I'm a dorklette. Thanks to National Geographic's picture of the day for providing fodder for my otherwise pre-occupied mind!

SIDEBAR

How to dispose of a dirty diaper

Map of U.S. nuclear waste containment sites