I - Hokey Hookah Holla'

MSNBC has this article about how Hookah pipes are becoming the preferred substitute for cigarettes among young people.

I have to wonder if their research is quite as complete as they want you to think it is, since they seem to have a somewhat naive idea that the only thing burning in that hookah bowl is fruit flavored tobacco. Now I don't want to put myself forward as any sort of expert on these things, but I'm a bit inclined to think that the popularity of the hookah has more to do with some of the possible alternatives to peach tobacco that might be getting incinerated. Think of various international smokes that might be successfully smoked in your hookah - say, Thai, Columbian, Mexican, Matanuskan and possibly just a bit of local inflammables.

I suspect that any use of commercially available tobacco products is more of a side-effect of the never-ending quest of the North-American Slacker to find a way to avoid the major harsh-out that comes from that last nasty puff on the blunt.

L - Ugly Van

So I have to wonder just what the designers were thinking here. This must be the ugliest mini-van I've ever been forced to look at. Someone should introduce them to this little concept called "proportion". After that maybe they could work on "flow". If we get really lucky they'll stop channeling the guy who designed the AMC Pacer long enough to study "style".

This beast has been parked at the local Ford dealer for a couple months and I keep hoping it will either grow on me and start to look cute or something or else sell so I don't have to look at it any more. Neither seems to be happening, so I'm forced to write about it for the T-WHIRL.

T - Rant - Government Web Sites

Why does it seem like any web site associated with the government was designed by idiots who last payed attention to the Internet back in about 1990? Their sites are horribly designed with absolutely no flow to them and the data input forms are archaic beyond belief. I just tried to put a date into the FAFSA web form and discovered that they want it as 02152010 rather than something a normal human might think up - like say 02/15/2010. I've been getting more and more pissed about these things lately because there is absolutely no excuse for them. It is simply a case of incompetent people being paid by the taxpayers to produce crap. Maybe they ought to think about firing them all and getting some web programmers who have at least basic knowledge of e-commerce and web programming. At least when an on-line merchant has an unusable site you can vote with your dollars. There just doesn't seem to be anything to be done about lousy government sites.

T - Recycle Bins

Driving around town today. In one neighborhood it was the first recycling pickup since Christmas. I found it very interesting to look at the bins and study the cardboard in them. Oh, this house got a new Wii, and this one got a Blu-Ray player, and over here they got an HDTV. It really is amazing how much our trash says about us. For many years police departments have cautioned people about putting boxes from high-end electronics out in the trash where burglars can use them as a shopping guide for which houses to break into. I never really thought about it too much until today when it was abundandly apparent that most people enthusiastically announce to anyone who wants to know that they have just gotten a new electronic gadget. Maybe a little thought and caution really is in order.