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John Y’s Musings from the Middle: Impenetrable Packaging

By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Apr 17, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET

Impenetrable Packaging: There’s got to be a better way.

A few years back the “He Man” serving was all the marketing rage. Restaurants would offer up 20% more food than people could eat and charge 40% more and get away with it because of the “perceived value.”

Today the problem is with packages that cannot be opened by mere mortals. If you are a bodybuilder or keep a chain saw in your car, no need to keep reading. This doesn’t apply to you.

For the rest of us, though, I don’t get this need of putting items we purchase in packages we can’t open.

Is it to create a “perceived value add” bc we have to work so hard to open our new product that we are supposed to feel even more excited than we would have been to start using it?

It can’t be to prevent store theft. If so, only easily lifted store items would be encased in a impenetrable packaging –not everything in retail stores.

Yesterday, after wrestling for nearly 10 minutes with an ear bud package, I finally successfully tore it open. I looked around to see if others were watching. I felt like Arthur successfully withdrawing the embedded Excalibur sword from the giant stone.

I felt I should be knighted or at least applauded.

And I didn’t feel a “value add.”

I did feel several abrasions on my hands and fingers. Which I hope I’m not being charged extra for. And I didn’t bother trying to buy band-aids. That would be another battle to open that package.

 
John Y. Brown, III, Musings from the Middle   ,  

John Y’s Musings from the Middle: Middle Aged Bodies

By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Apr 16, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET

Leaving Starbucks –which was packed with middle-aged patrons like me.

Couldn’t help wonder if ages 45-49 is when we Americans transform body types from the angular to more of a spherical body shape.

UPDATE: Just leaving Starbucks and couldn’t help but notice how trim and fit everyone was.

I used to think (about an hour ago) that ages 45-49 may be when we Americans developed softer body types.

After reflection and discussiion, I now realize I was mistaken.

Turns out it was just me projecting and rationalizing as I wolfed down an apple fritter. ; )

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

 
John Y. Brown, III, Musings from the Middle    

John Y. Brown, III: Happy Tax Day!

By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Apr 16, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET

Tax Day and silver linings.

When I found out about tax extensions I had the same ecstatic feeling as when I was a college freshman and found out I could withdraw from a class I was struggling in.

Sure it just puts off the inevitable –and with a penalty.

But much like dropping a college class, it sure can do wonders for my attitude today.

 
John Y. Brown, III, Musings from the Middle   ,  

The RP: Oh, Holy Noel!

By Jonathan Miller, on Fri Apr 13, 2012 at 12:30 PM ET

 

 

 

I asked my barber to “take a little off the top,” but I forgot he was a University of Kentucky basketball fan.

Here’s me and my celebrity doppleganger, Merlens Noel, the newest recruit for Big Blue Nation.

 
The RP   , ,  

John Y’s Musings from the Middle: Celebrity Look-alikes

By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Apr 13, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET

Celebrity look alike?

Who are the celebrities you think you look most like? And which one do you really look most like?

Oh, I know. You’ve never thought about this because you aren’t that shallow. Baloney. Don’t worry, I haven’t either.

And that’s baloney too.

I’ll go first.

Being associated with a celebrity based on appearance must have some instinctive pull on us. Maybe it gives us a sense of validation that we are somehow important (or have the potential to be) bc we look like someone who is considered important and successful.

When I was a boy I had blondish curly hair. And lots of it.

The first celebrity I was told I looked like was Shirley Temple. A little girl. This displeased and distressed me to the point I took a pair of scissors and cut my own hair. It would be the last time I’d do anything like that again before the Flowbee was introduced some 25 years later.

The Shirley Temple comments ended around ages 6 or 7. And a new celebrity comparison began. Jody –from Family Affair (as in Buffy and Jody), i.e. Johnny Whitaker. Jody was a quantum leap better than Shirley….And best of all he was a male! But if I could have chosen any celebrity in Hollywood, he would have been my first choice.

So I tried to improve on it. When I was 15 the movie Blue Lagoon came out. Two good looking teens, Christopher Atkins and Brooke Shields are stranded on a deserted island and forced to fall in love. Atkins had curly hair and was my age. I floated a the idea to several people that someone had suggested I looked like him. (The person who suggested I looked like him was me–and I suggest it to me.) Suffice it to say the idea never caught on.

No one –other than me–ever thought I looked like Christopher Atkins. Ever. Not even a little.

Chastened, a lowered my standards. I floated the idea a few years later around age 17 that someone (again me) told me I looked like Tommy from the sitcom Eight is Enough.

It didn’t catch on either. Mostly because no one I told could understand why I would want to look like Tommy –of all the celebrities out there.

That’s when I gave up on trying to find a celeb look alike to bolster my self -esteem. At least for the next 30 years.

I may float a rumor later this week that I look like a mature Jonah Hill (after the weight loss). It’s not that I want to look like Jonah Hill. It’s mostly my last ditch resistance before making peace with the fact that the only celeb I’ve ever seriously been told I look like is Johnny Whitaker (Jody).

Like so much in life, it’s not what I was hoping for. But could have been a lot worse. I need to simply accept this and be grateful it’s not Shirley Temple.

 
John Y. Brown, III, Musings from the Middle   ,  

John Y’s Musings from the Middle: What’s Funny

By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Apr 12, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET

You know what’s really funny?

Well….um…..shoot. I was thinking of something really funny and now it’s gone.

Huh.

It’s on the tip of my tongue….give me just a minute……
…well……..I think it started with the letter “r” and was a humorous story that happened recently.

It had something to do with….um….Doggone it.

It may have started with the letter “b” and happened when I was a child.

Well, anyway, I had a good laugh to myself about it and if I think of it again I’ll try to share it on Facebook.

Or at least share what letter it starts with.

 
John Y. Brown, III, Musings from the Middle    

The RP’s Weekly Web Gems: The Politics of Laughter

By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Wed Apr 11, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET

The Politics of Laughter

Life if like… [comic]

I’ve always been curious how boomerangs work. [Yahoo! Answers]

This guy plays by his own rules. [picture]

And then The Masters got awkward. [gif]

Once a Pizza Hut, always a Pizza Hut. [picture]

 
Weekly Web Gems    

John Y’s Musings from the Middle: Teenagers

By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Apr 11, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET

Having teenagers is a gift.

Not necessarily a gift that I would have picked out for myself. For example, like brides-to-be pick out for their bridal registry.

More like a sort of gag gift. That gets a knowing laugh at a party when opened but not as big a laugh as you’d hoped.

Because you begin to realize it’s not really a gag or a gift. So you put it in the corner and hope your spouse will know what to do with it and put it away for you. And not tell you where it is.

But you find it and after ignoring it many times you decide one day pull it out and read the instructions. And realize unlike most gifts, it doesn’t come ready-made.

The gift depends entirely on how much time you spend working on it. Like a Rubik’s Cube. You never figure it out.

But working on it makes you a smarter person—while simultaneously reminding you how incredibly dumb and limited you are. And makes those watching you play with it–your teenagers–realize they don’t have to be that smart or talented or together to make it in this world.

And they love you (and learn a lot) by watching you try–in front of them.

And they –your teens–are amused that you try to teach them the secrets of the Rubik’s Cube while daily failing to figure it out…And shocked when you get mad at them for not listening.

After all, why should you be mad? You’re playing with your gift.

 
John Y. Brown, III, Musings from the Middle   ,  

John Y’s Musings from the Middle: Awkward Encounters

By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Apr 10, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET

“Funny awkward” or just “awkward”

Sometimes when I’m out and see someone I know out of the corner of my eye, I just don’t have the energy to say hello… so I pretend I don’t see them. And hope they don’t see me.

We are likes two ships passing in the dark of night (or light of day, really).

Sometimes, though, I’ll see them catching a quick glimpse at me. But also choose not to say hello because they are preoccupied with something and don’t have the energy or time to speak to me.

Once I know they have seen me and not said hello, I get uncomfortable. There is a chance they have also seen me see them and know that I failed to say hi when I had the chance.

So, I slyly “pretend” to have just seen them and act surprised (like I’m spotting them for the first time) and say hello. They–in return–act like they are just seeing me for the first time and say hello.

But what if their “fake first time hello” is less enthusiastic than mine? You can’t help but wonder if that be considered a slight? Or just life as it is in our hurried world? It’s the latter, of course.

That’s when I feel the whole exchange is “funny awkward.”

And when that happens, I admit, there’s a part of me that wants to point out that I did notice they saw me about a minute ago and could tell they didn’t want to talk to me.

Just so I know that they know…that I knew.

But I don’t. Because that would be just plain “awkward.”

And probably the last time we’d ever pretend not to see each other in public again…. before pretending to see each other for the first time and striking up a conversation.

 
John Y. Brown, III, Musings from the Middle   ,  

John Y’s Musings from the Middle: “The Talk”

By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Apr 9, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET

I try to think each night before going to bed of what I’m grateful for that day.

One item on tonight’s list is not having to have any more “birds and the bees” talks with my children.

I was reminded tonight of my first attempt which did not go the way I had planned.

Finally ready for the talk (me, that is), I launched into it with my son when he age 9. I thought he’d be fascinated and want to know details and pepper me with curious questions.

Instead he interrupted me, “OK. Stop. I don’t want to hear anymore. That’s just gross. You act like picking your nose is gross–well, that’s way grosser. You have to promise me it won’t happen again until I’ve moved out of the house to go to college.”

So, the conversation that had begun with me anxious about trying to explain human reproduction and nervous I’d fail, ended up with me proud that my son was already planning to go to college at age 9.

I guess it all worked out somehow.

 
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