Smoke on the Water

So the other day I was thinking about the water sloshing around in my toilet bowl.

Yeah, this is going to be a profound post.

Anyway, what got me thinking was how metallic blue the water was. I recently tossed a long lasting cleaning tablet into the reservoir that is supposed to clean the john whenever you flush it. For whatever reason the doo-dad dyes the water blue as well. This is probably to put one in mind of the endless blue of the ocean or a mountain lake. That, and when the color runs out you know it's time to buy a new breath mint for your toilet.

But what if you don't want blue water? I think the cleaner comes in some sort of wintergreen color as well. Neon green water is not exactly a color you see in nature outside of stagnant, algae filled ponds. But why not let the consumer decide on the color of water they want? Why not red? Every time you flush you could thrill to the sight of blood red water seeping out of the fixtures. It would be like a horror movie every time you flush. That would be quite the sight.

Nothing for Something

If there was one thing that I thought I might get out of this trip to Tokyo it would be a few frequent flyer miles. Silly, I know.

The on-line travel agency I booked this trip through recently started up their very own frequent user/sucker program. [Since I'm grumbling and not actually publicly calling out a problem here I won't name names concerning the company. It wouldn't be, uh, expedient on my part.] Anyway, I managed to get in on the ground floor of this new fan club and received 2,000 points for booking passage to the other side of the planet. That sounds nice, but to qualify for any sort of reduction on future airfare you need over 20,000 points. How far do you have to go to get that many points? Do I need to circle the world five to ten times to land a reduced rate to Albuquerque? Other people must travel a lot more than I do.

I know these programs are mainly used to create brand loyalty in people with the remote promise of possible free stuff. It's the same racket skeeball games use where you need to receive thousands of tickets just to win some greasy little beanbag bear. So while I'll play along with the free aspects of this frequent flyer thing I know the chances of me receiving any rewards are about as slim as me skipping the plane and swimming to Japan.