Beer is a Piece of Peace

I love cafés. Just when you thought that it was relatively easy to order some food, and have everything clearly displayed for you, ie contents, price etc, cafes decide that it that display the price to one decimal point.

So a latte isn’t $2.50 anymore, it is simply 2.5. I will note the exact time and date when the waitress tells me that my brew is, “Two and a half dollars, love.” That will be the day that I unsubscribe myself from the Human Sanity Project Newsletter, and conclude that the country has finally purchased its one-way ticket to Hell on Jetstar for $3, not including airport taxes.

Is minimalism some form of increasing a certain panache factor? I don’t know.

On the flip side of the coin, making a withdrawal at a bank ATM requires me to enter in the amount of cents I require… despite the fact that there is no such slot for the dispersal of coinage.

If café owners and the ATM designers met up and had a think-tank, they could quite possibly devise some form of menu design/ATM concept that would actually be easier to fathom. It’d be one small step to a utopian society in where people won’t have to endure inconveniences. After that, we must knuckle down on the task of ensuring there is some kind of universal law on which way the toilet paper is hung.

It’s baby steps, people. But, if we can nail this problem down, then we’re on the right track.

Lets change tack for a second.

I like to think that I go through a week, and am able to make some form of realisation, earth shattering or otherwise. Last week I learned that no matter who you are, what background you have and what your heritage is, you always act the same as every other toolbox when you’re on the turps.

I had the privilege of going to the street party that runs alongside the local motor race, the Clipsal 500. The typical demographic was participating; the redneck yokels who believe their self worth is validated upon the amount of cylinders and litres their fuel-sappers have mounted under the bonnet. They were typically loud, obnoxious types who stumbled around like a fawn trying to walk for the first time.

However, I also had the privilege of attending a food and wine festival down at the beach some weeks earlier. The demographic there was of the cosmo-reading, coffee sipping, art appreciating types, who would only be concerned with their car when it’s a nice day to take the roof off, and cruise down Rundle Street as a poseur. However, they too were loud, obnoxious types who stumbled around like a fawn trying to walk for the first time.


Beer. A big piece of pavement on the road to world peace

I love the possibility that two societal poles could actually harmonise with the excessive consumption of alcohol. Maybe it could resolve some of the world’s major problems if leaders could just sit around a table, down a few drinks of choice, and then marvel at how similar they actually are, and then find a compromise that benefits both parties… maybe world peace is right around the corner.

… unless someone’s religion eschews booze… then we’re all fucked.

But then maybe alcohol could help those afore mentioned leaders to help design an ATM that uses fewer keystrokes…