Randomnessism

Today involved a large meeting at a church near downtown, the reaching of which required driving through some street construction, including a four-way stop. Some thoughts:

-- Four-way stops are some of the most democratic traffic constructions known to humanity. Be you driving a Jaguar, Lexus, F-150, Mustang or 16-year-old beater, you wait your turn.

-- Persons who have questions that pertain only to themselves and their experiences should ask them on their own time, rather than take the presence of an open microphone and the call "Any questions?" as a license to inflict their stories on those uninterested in them.

-- Our organization's new health-insurance providers had a form at our tables to be filled out that allowed to judge our group's overall health and "wellness interests." We were told that we should drop off the form upon leaving the meeting and we would receive a $25 gift card (we were not told the issuer of the card, so for all I know it was for $25 off a $2,000 MRI). By the time I dropped off my form, they had run out of the gift cards. Based on the mismatch between the number of cards on hand and the number of meeting attendees -- which was known beforehand -- I am now agnostic about their ability to keep track of our health expenses and records.

-- A new Social Distortion album was released today -- although it sounds in no way attractive or soothing, it's amazing how much Mike Ness's nasal snarl calms the middle-aged punk rock aficionado who has spent several hours listening to insurance reps describe just how screwed he will be if he ever gets sick, because his particular occupation is flooded with superannuated folks who keep hangin' on and active plan participants who seem to think "cardio" was an ancient Italian theologian.