Coffee Klatch

It’s amazing what goofy or nonsensical things people will do in the name of fashion. If it is perceived that something is “cool,” it doesn’t seem to matter much if it’s safe or attractive or even practical. “Cool” is critical, and fashion is determined thereupon.

Some examples of what I’m talking about:

• Reclining the driver’s seat in a car so far back that the car’s frame between the two doors blocks your vision and you can barely see over the hood (yes, I saw this today)
• Females wearing pants so low cut that they can’t bend over to pick up something off the ground without scandalizing the entire room
• Playing around with fireworks
• Lying in the middle of a highway at night because you saw it in a movie
• Alaric tells me kids at school wear visors upside down and backwards
• Trying ever more extreme skateboarding tricks (ever seen all the video clips circling the Internet with people wiping out?)
• Drugs
• Getting a cell phone, but never turning it off when you’re in a meeting or class
• Wearing your pants hanging down off your butt just because a rapper does it

It’s like on the second Back to the Future movie, where kids wore their pants inside out because it was cool.

As for me, I’m with Gilda Radner, who said: “I base my fashion taste on what doesn’t itch.”

Current music: Autumn, by George Winston

There are lots of interesting and useful (or not) weather utilities on the web.

The Weather Channel has a nice desktop utility.
So does WeatherBug, and, NO, it’s NOT Spyware!

Another good overall program, and probably my favorite over the free versions of the two I just mentioned, is Weather Depot. I like it because you’ve got the hourly forecasts, and the next couple days, and a map and current conditions all on the default start screen.

Weather Watcher is another free program that does the same basic things.

If you use Firefox, you MUST download the ForecastFox extension. It keeps the forecast (customized to your settings, and even including a popup of the radar) available in any select toolbar. For instance, I keep the radar, current conditions, and the forecasts for today, tonight, and the next three days all on the same menu bar that has File, Edit, View, etc., on my web browser. Lots of information at your fingertips, displayed in an otherwise unused portion of your browser window. That’s what good utilities should always do!

Here’s a cute one that I just found this morning. It’s called Froggy. It’s a cute little program that shows a frog in a jar on your desktop. He climbs the ladder and basks in sun, or shivers under an umbrella, based on the weather. You can even pick different locations and have him display the weather conditions as you pick them.

Current music: None. I’m working the Reference Desk for a few hours while we greet new students and parents. Butler University classes begin this week!

They say that smell is the strongest scent tied to memory. So it’s no wonder that I have a particular cologne that conjures up specific memories.

In March 2004, I went on a 10-day trip to Italy with the Cornerstone University Chorale. I had just bought a bottle of Lagerfeld, which I got hooked on when my college roommate knocked a bottle off a shelf onto the tiled floor. (It smashed behind one of our recliners and the room smelled like it for weeks.)

Anyway, I hadn’t used it in a long time until I bought that bottle before our trip. Now, every time I put some on, I’m mentally transported back to Italy. In particular, to the room I was staying in in Rome, where I remember hurriedly trying to change for a concert. We arrived in Rome in the late afternoon, and by the time we got our luggage, got to our bus, and got to where we were staying, we hardly had any time to change before we ran out to do a concert that same night. A couple other evenings were less hurried, but they all involved the smell of Lagerfeld, since that was the only cologne I brought along.

So now, every time I use it, I’m taken for a moment back to Rome. Ahhh… Rome!

Current music: Conversations With God, a Windham Hill Collection