Hail Of A Day

Would you like to eat in this restaurant?  I bet they serve fish, but it would be ironic if they served downhome cookin’ like Black-eyed Pea or Cotton Patch. 

This is absolutely brilliant. Weezer once again knocks the ball out of the park with this video that ingeniously features tons of the last couple years’ viral internet stars.

Check out this article from Forbes.com to see where the US rank on hours worked per year compared to other industrialized countries of the world. 

Here’s a snippet from the article. Poor guy…

If you thought you worked long hours, consider 39-year-old Lee from South Korea. A civil servant at the ministry of agriculture and fisheries, Lee gets up at 5:30 a.m. every day, gets dressed and makes a two-hour commute into Seoul to start work at 8:30 a.m. After sitting at a computer for most of the day, Lee typically gets out the door at 9 p.m., or even later.

By the time he gets home, it’s just a matter of jumping in the shower and collapsing into bed, before starting the whole routine all over again, about four hours later. This happens six days a week, and throughout almost all of the year, as Lee gets just three days of vacation.

That’s right. Three days.

In Pictures: The World’s Hardest-Working Countries

And did we mention Lee has a wife and three teenage kids? “I get to see them for 10 or 15 minutes a week, and then just on the weekend,” he says of his children before adding that, on weekends, he usually gets interrupted to go to the office.

Lee, who sometimes has to sleep at the ministry of agriculture and fisheries by lying on top of his desk, might seem like a workaholic that needs to get his priorities straight. But his schedule is completely normal in South Korea, where the average employee works 2,357 hours per year–that’s six-and-a-half hours for every single day of their life. According to a 2008 ranking by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, South Koreans work the longest hours per year, on average, out of every other OECD member.

“It’s the culture,” says Lee. “We always watch what the senior boss thinks of our behavior. So it’s very difficult to finish at a fixed time.” Leaving at the official time of 6 p.m. could mean not getting a promotion or raise. What would happen if Lee took a month’s vacation? “My desk would surely be gone when I got back.”

Tags: work

Wired recently published an article titled, “Inconvenient Truths: Get Ready to Rethink What It Means to Be Green“. Their contention was that the environmentalists have their priorities wrong and their sights set low. In other words, they’re nitpicking the rest of us on things that don’t really matter all that much. This is exactly what it feels like and why there is such a huge gap in understanding between Green Peace and Green Suburban. The point is carbon emissions, plain and simple. We must reduce these or our plan will actually be in trouble in the future. See, I can understand this. It’s something that makes sense to me. Arguments about saving everglades or using one square of toilet paper, a la Sheryl Crow, go right past me.

Here are some of the controversial highlights of the article:

1) Urban living is kinder to the planet than the suburban lifestyle
2) A/C is ok
3) Cutting down old trees cuts down CO2 emissions
4) Nuclear power: Good!
5) Toyota Prius: Bad!

Take a look at this insightful article if you are slightly interested in the subject. Otherwise, my trees are lonely, please come give them a hug.

Mariachi band spotted in North Dallas!, originally uploaded by kevinhail.

I apologize ahead of time that I was not able to get a closer shot (it’s actually more photojournalistic this way), but check out the travelling mariachi band I snapped a picture of in a gas station parking lot. You can just barely make out the embroidered soaring eagle on the accordion player’s jacket. This sort of sight doesn’t occur every day in North Dallas.