This post is a response to a blog post I found on another blog A Random Web Page from April 2004. In that blog post a person was complaining about a noisy office worker and used a Dilbert cartoon on the same subject to demonstrate the point. I found this blog because I was searching for a different Dilbert comic where that same guy decides to try chewing crushed ice to annoy people and Google found this first. On this blog I complain about everything I hate (which is most things), but I also reserve a special place in my (black, rotten) heart for ice chewing and other slurp/crunch combinations.

I had the following advice, conceived of when I thought the post was current. It's probably still good advice. Personally, in his situation, I would be up front about it. Just tell her that her eating noises are very loud and disruptive. Tell your manager that sharing an office with the sow is destroying your productivity and your happiness. Managers care about your productivity, so you or she may very will get reassigned an office. If it's not that kind of situation then use earplugs and headphones and be curt with her so she gets the point. She may be too dense to get the point; after all, she is too dense to realize for herself that her behavior is intolerably annoying.

But anyway, there is a guy who hangs out in some of the same cafes that I do that gets iced tea and the first thing he does is use a spoon to slurp up the ice and chew it. Now, to start, this guy is already a mouth-breather (although I've never seen him drag his knuckles, conversations I've overheard indicate that such behavior is probable) and so naturally he chews the ice with his mouth open. I thought it was common knowledge that chewing ice is super-annoying to everybody around the chewer and that people did it only as a compulsion, a bad habit. I saw this guy get a cup of iced tea and and then commence the ice chewing while he simultaneously began flirting with the girl sitting next to him. Clearly this poor loser does not know that ice chewing is super-annoying. I was hoping to use the Dilbert cartoon to indirectly give him the message (by talking about it with somebody else in his vicinity). I'll keep hunting.

Maybe we need to do something to publicize these problems nationally. In the past we could just have a Seinfeld episode about it, but now? Maybe on the Daily Show.

Once upon a time I had a brief stint as a shoe designer, and in addition to that I run a small niche market shoe business (Jika-Tabi.com ). So I happen to know a lot about shoes and perhaps I have somewhat high standards of some sort. So when I went looking for a soft-sole shoes replacement for my old Acorn slippers I had something rather specific in mind. Before I discovered jika-tabi during the summer of 1998 I used to wear moccasins all the time, but I didn't like the typical loafer design because the damn things slip around and off. I used to buy shoes from thrift stores, remove the soles, and then sew on soft leather soles myself. It looks like I'm going to have to do that again because soft-soled shoes still seem to be only available as pseudo native American styled loafers.

Well, there are actually a couple of exceptions to this: Old Friend's bootie, Minnetonka's fringed ankle and thigh boots, and Acorn's fleece or wool sock slippers. The Old Friend bootie is very insulated and looks a lot like Tibetan footwear, so it's only good for the winter. Minnetonka's whole like is, as the name suggests, geared towards the whole Native American cliché. Fringes, seriously? The Acorn fleece with leather bottom slippers have served me well for several years and so I could replace them and maintain the status quo. But what I'd like is something more like a real shoe that happens to have a soft bottom.

Maybe you're thinking (and if you know me then you probably are thinking) that if I have tabi and jika-tabi, which are cotton and soft rubber bottomed, then what do I need these slippers for? Good question. Sometimes I'm relaxing at home wearing the indoor cotton bottomed tabi and I went to step outside to get the mail or take out the garbage or something. I don't want to change shoes; I just want to slip something over my tabi to go outside. But enough about me. I can't believe that everybody who wants some soft-soled shoes (like for driving, or chilling at home, or just to have comfortable shoes) wants them to look like stereotyped throwbacks to the reservation or split-toed ninja boots. There must be room for some decent shoes that happen to have soft bottoms. I can't find them. If you know of any then please let me know. In the meantime I guess I'm back to buying some Minnetonka fringed ankle boots and restyling them to my own desires.

The use of jewelry dates back tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of years. The modern concept of jewelry in America derives from its European roots where it played a particular role in fashion, attractiveness, and status. Jewelry serves to focus a person's attention to a particular region of the body, the place where the jewelry resides. If one has particularly attractive ears then wearing earrings will divert a conversant's attention temporarily and occasionally to the wearer's ear thereby highlighting the attractive feature and making the wearer seem more attractive. Bracelets would be worn by women with slender wrists to bring attention to that socially accepted mark of beauty. It can also be used to divert attention away from unpleasant parts; earring divert attention to the ears, and hence away from other (perhaps less attractive) parts of the face. But it also diverts attention away from the eyes and from that all-too-important eye contact.

Jewelry nowadays is used with less deliberation. People accessorize without regard for the effect it will have on other people but rather with how well the pieces go together or who nice or interesting it looks on its own. This has diminished jewelry's effect overall and has confused a once-useful signaling mechanism for social interaction. A shiny necklace may bring my attention to a neckline or bust, but if it's a manager or professor wearing the necklace then focusing on those regions is a bad thing. If you wear a nice ring (or several rings) on you finger(s) then I will naturally and subconsciously turn my eyes and divert my attention to your hands on occasion. Is that what you want? If not, then don't wear the rings. Do you really want me checking out your nostril every once in a while? If not, then don't get a nose ring. Duh!

As for the status element of jewelry, by wearing expensive jewelry you are sending a signal that you have surplus money that you can readily waste on non-productive merchandise. Like the feathers of a peacock, this sends an unambiguous signal of high quality. Or, more precisely, the quality of one's jewelry sends a signal of the quality of the person wearing it. Perhaps you should rethink wearing that five dollar necklace you bought from a street vendor in Peru. Sure it looks nice, but is that the signal that you want to send? Sometimes yes. Some people appreciate the simple things in life more than the extravagant, and if that is who you want to garner attention from then a simple piece is better suited to your desires. Then there is a whole crowd of "counter-culture" people for whom the jewelry itself is the attractive thing (it's a mild fetish) and you can expect to see multiple piercings in multiple locations (and as a rule these people know that this is only a desirable feature to other people in their clique). It may be quantity rather than quality that matters here.

This is nothing new or surprising. I pick my eyeglass frames based on how well they suit my face, the type of personality image they project, and various practical aspects such as weight and durability. Eyeglasses and watches are a type of jewelry, or at least have a jewelry-like component to their affect on other people. My point is that all jewelry does have an effect on other people and so your jewelry should be chosen strategically to have the affect that you desire. If you want people to really pay attention to what you are saying then no jewelry is probably best. If you have nothing interesting to say, then the more distraction (and so the more jewelry) the better; and you will be sending those respective signals even if you don't mean to. People have a subconscious understanding of this and it is revealed in subculture jewelry conventions (self-identified feminists rarely wear much jewelry while teeny-boppers are covered in bling). But having a conscious understanding will help you better focus your conversant's attention to where you'd like it, wherever that might be.