Dear Mrs. Mouse

I am writing to regretfully inform you of the death of your husband, Mr. Mouse, recently killed during his heroic service. I have had the pleasure of serving alongside Mr. Mouse for a number of weeks, and let me say there are few mice among us as brave as your husband.

Last evening while on patrol, your husband came upon an enemy trap. Mr. Mouse had discovered a stockpile of oats that would have been invaluable in aiding our efforts. Sadly though, Mr. Mouse became enveloped in a particularly sticky situation.

I know it may be some small consolation, but Mr. Mouse fought bravely to the end, struggling even after he found himself snared in the enemy glue. Sadly, the enemy carried him off before we were able to reach him.

Sincerely,
Capt. M. Mouse

Tea

I've always been into tea. When I was nine or ten I insisted on having a tea party, though this was more about being an Anglophile and wanting to have fancy chocolates and cucumber sandwiches than the tea. And for a while in high school, tea was the drink of choice. But by college, I hardened into a full fledged coffee addict and the whole tea thing sort of went away.

I think part of the problem in college was that the tea, like the meat, in the dinning hall was shit. I gave up both after a few weeks. Further adding to this was the coffee house culture prevalent in college. It was easy to sit and have three or for cups of coffee-- free refills-- but drinking tea meant buying another tea bag. Even once I moved off campus, drinking tea had a number of obstacles, namely, the kitchen. Shared between seven guys, the kitchen was never exactly in the sort of condition that would pass a health inspection, which really meant making tea was completely out of the question.

I rediscovered tea a few years ago after graduating from college. Don't get me wrong, I was and still am a coffee addict. If I could inject coffee, I probably would. But once I was into a somewhat cleaner post-college living situation, the idea of boiling a kettle of water for tea was a whole lot more reasonable. I bought a kettle and tea pot. I stocked up on Earl Grey and a Twinnings mixed pack that had Prince of Whales, English and Irish Breakfast, and Lady Grey.

Growing up, my mother, being something of an old hippie, stocked a whole collection of Celestial Seasonings herbal teas in all sorts of various flavors. For a long while, that's all I thought tea was. Then I discovered Earl Grey and there was no going back. I've gone through all sorts of phases, adding honey or lemon or sugar or milk or drinking it black. But at the end of the day, Earl Grey is really my tea of choice. Then came the green tea.

I started mixing things up a bit with a cup of green tea every about a year ago. Green tea is somewhat lighter in flavor and certainly lacks the floral bouquet that comes with a cup of Earl Grey. It is also, if you believe the mythology that some marketing executive came up with, healthy and rejuvenating. There is also the legend that the finest green tea was once picked by virgins wearing silk gloves and snipping with gold scissors. Which myth is motivating me? Anyway, I drink the Tazo gourmet green tea or an Asian brand with packaging covered in Chinese characters, and it was good. But then along came White Tea.

I picked up a package of white tea the other day. White tea is a lot like Green tea, though a little bit lighter and not quite as dry. Coincidentally, I also recently discovered that the office water cooler dispenses hot water at the perfect temperature for brewing bag tea. Bag tea should not be brewed in boiling water, but rather a few degrees below boiling to avoid bitter flavors.

Before my discovery that the hot water tap actually works, I had been drinking tea strictly at home, usually in the evening. Now though, I start the day with a cup of coffee, or two, and continue with tea throughout the day. Then at home for the evening, I'll have another round of tea or alternately, an espresso.

Though not a substitute for a proper cup of coffee, tea has earned its place on my table. And my desk. And anywhere else I can find warm water and teabag.

The Grocery Store

I once enjoyed going to the grocery store. Trips to the grocery guaranteed I'd be coming home with fun knew things, but there was none of the guilt that comes with paying retail at the mall. That was the old days though, when I regularly shopped at the suburban mega mart with fresh food and empty checkout lines.

Sadly though, my trips to the grocery store are more like high school. I say its like high school because as a hormone filled, pre-teen geek, high school was nothing more than a daily frustration, just as the local super market is.

Here's the rub: there are no gourmet supermarkets in my neighborhood. There are small gourmet groceries, but not the sorts of shops large enough to actually do your grocery shopping at. And there supermarkets, but not the fancy-- and by fancy I mean clean and properly stocked-- that populate the suburbs. Sure, I could take the subway into Manhattan and visit a number of Whole Foods markets, or Chelsea Markets, or Trader Joes, all of which are to the foodie what a college fraternity party on ecstasy is to a sexually frustrated high school geek.

But lets face it, no one wants to ride the subway to do their grocery shopping. That leaves ShopRite with vegetables that look like Bob Dole: old, wrinkled, and limp. Then there is the recently renovated A&P with a gourmet selection of food, though rarely on the same day of the week. Today there was lemon grass, but no ginger. Last week ginger, but no lemon grass. How is one supposed to make a curry in this town anyway?

Oh, and don't let me forget Pathmark, its bordered by project housing on two sides, so its not exactly the gourmet selection I'm hoping for. Actually, whenever I go to Pathmark I'm really only for hoping two things: one, that the store doesn't smell like a dirty diaper and that two, I make it out alive.

I long for simple pleasure of browsing through bins of ripe fruit, refrigerators of soft creamy cheese, aisles filled with foreign delights like HP sauce and Gnutella. Where are my chedder cheese filled, TGI Friday's branded frozen jalapeno poppers A&P? Where are Italian blood oranges, Shoperite? Is it really too much to ask that you have both the fresh food I need and the deep fried frozen treats I crave?

I once enjoyed grocery store shopping. Now though, it has become a chore. But I suppose the lack of Chicken & Broccoli Croissant Pockets and the inability to find imported Parmigiano Reggiano is one sacrifice I have to make to live in an "up and coming" neighborhood.

The Bully

School yard bullying has been a headline getter for the last few years, especially since the Tina Fey movie Mean Girls highlighted the issue. Rockstar, the makers of Grand Theft Auto, came up with a game. There were articles in the weekly news magazines and on cable television and everyone was upset that the bullies had arrived on America's playground.

Growing up, I wasn't much for the popular side of the school yard. There were a good number of altercations between me and the bullies. Luckily though, I've always been rather tall and big and for the most part quite quickly put an end to those little squabbles. For the most part, these things were settled by the Bully and the Victim.

School officials never really want to get involved. There was a great deal of apathy on the part of the teachers in my elementary school, a bit of the 'boys will be boys' attitude. Perhaps things are a bit different on the school yard today, but I seriously have my doubts.

Part of this apathy is probably the fact that school teachers in this country are generally paid too little to care about anything other than the curriculum. Why should they care if a few ten year olds want to pick on each other? They don't. But that's not really what's at issue. The bigger issue is that society likes Bullies, that society wants Bullies, and in fact even encourages Bullying.

Society really likes the idea of bullies because bullies reinforce the authority of society's norms. Specifically, bullies encourage folks to conform to societies, and without that conformity, society's leadership would be powerless.

Bullies never pick on the kids that act like they act, do what they tell them to do, or wear what they tell them to wear. Bullies pick on the different kid, the kid with different shoes or different shirt or different name. The victims in this case learn to be like everyone else. Its much easier, particularly is a child, to blend in than it is to stand up to bullying or to ignore it (the advice frequently given to me when growing up). Society really likes it when people conform, and bullying is a method for producing conformity.

Further, bullying leads people to think the same way and to do as they are told. Bullies tell their peers to do something or think something. Anyone who disagrees with the Bully quickly becomes the victim and the target for the Bully's rage. Thus victims and non-victims alike quickly learn not to question authority or risk getting made fun of. Bullying is a tool that keeps members of society from question authority because the social lesson is "do as you are told, or else you will be bullied."

Society embraces bullying so much, we've come to expect it even as adults. Adult bullies are all around us. They are the over eager police who thinks a gun and badge means he can harass people, they are the driver of the sport utility vehicles, they are the people who cut queues at the bank or the grocery store. Society accepts these people because Society likes bullying.

Bullying is a tool society has embraced to socialize children into obeying authority Often the victims of bullying are the free thinkers, those who question authority, the philosophers, the artists. As long as there are those who question authority, society will produce bullies to quiet the free thinkers.

Blame TiVo

We're fairly irate about Comcast's recent decision to install advertising on the guide menu of our digital cable box. But perhaps our anger should be directly at TiVo.

We came across this little bit from over a year ago about a Comcast / TiVo relationship.

"As an extension of the relationship, TiVo and Comcast will make TiVo's interactive advertising platform available across Comcast's customer base"

One of the alternatives we were considering was dropping digital cable and returning to the old days of standard analog cable, and buying a TiVo box for our DVR-ing needs. This would not have been quite as convenient as a direct Cable DVR box, but it would be slightly cheaper and those fuckers at Comcast would be getting a whole lot less of our green. But if TiVo is responsible for those ads, then I see no reason why they should get any money from me either. Probably just means waiting things out until Verizon Fiber Television is available.