Scary!

“Simulated Imagery”?
Try “We Photoshopped Her Some New Skin” instead.

Operation: Cheap Groceries

Over the last several weeks, I’ve been attempting to improve my thriftiness, particularly with groceries (inspired by my super-savvy mother-in-law). For my latest project, I decided to get some actual data to help me decide which grocery stores had the best prices, and (in the future) to decide whether a sale is actually as great as it looks.

So, I made a list of our favorite staple products and wrote down the prices at 6 different grocery stores in town. Then, with the help of my skilled husband, I made a nifty little spreadsheet.

The result? A combination of Sam’s and Target is the best choice for us. I was surprised to find that Target’s grocery prices are very competitive, even beating Wal-Mart on several of my list items. The same cart of groceries that costs $78.13 at Wal-Mart costs $80.74 at Target. (Both of these totals are significantly lower than United, which is practically the only true grocery store in town.) When you subtract my team member discount (I work at Target, for those of you who didn’t know), I can get it for $72.67! If we get basic things like cheese, butter, sandwich meat, etc., at Sam’s, the total goes down even more. Yay!

Side note: My Target is actually not a SuperTarget, but is just what we call an “extended set.” This means we have an extensive grocery section, but it’s limited to packaged foods. Produce, fresh meat, and deli products are things I’ll have to go to Wal-Mart or Sam’s to get. Ah well.

So there you go. I’m sure I’ll have more projects to come!

Helvetica

I watched an excellent movie a few weeks ago; it was Helvetica by filmmaker Gary Hustwit.

I thought it was excellent because of its insights into the design field, the process of design and the thoughts of the designers themselves. I thought it was also excellent because it avoided the slanted perspective that most documentaries seem to come from.

You might ask, “Could someone really feel that strongly about a font?” to which I would reply, “Certainly.” I might not be in the ranks of people who hate particular fonts, but I have seen people who did — I didn’t realize until the other day that apparently there are plenty of schoolteachers who hate Comic Sans. It seems that the rest use it exclusively. Hustwit interviews people who think that Helvetica represents homogenization and loss of identity and also people who think of it as the height of design in the 20th century.

To all of you (read: nerds) who are interested in how “things” are designed, I would recommend this movie. You might find it as quotable as I did.

Being green? How about being sensible?

If you watch TV, surf the Internet, or read any kind of periodicals whatsoever, you’ve probably heard a lot lately about being “green.” Although environmental concerns have been discussed in the public square for years, suddenly, after Al Gore’s ridiculously successful documentary An Inconvenient Truth, it’s become very fashionable to talk about how “carbon-neutral” and “green” one’s lifestyle is. I haven’t come across a magazine yet that’s resisted the temptation to jump on the bandwagon and publish articles about how many carbon credits you can save by doing this or that. So how, as Christians, should we respond to this “green” cultural phenomenon?

I know that many Christians, including myself initially, have responded by saying, “Rubbish. I don’t want anything to do with it.” This is an understandable reaction, since we don’t really wish to associate ourselves with tree-hugging Mother Earth worshipers who idolize the creation rather than honoring their Creator. However, I don’t think this reactionary response is particularly Biblical. In fact, I think the Christian community as a whole should place a higher priority on caring for the environment, but not for the sake of being green or trendy.

Genesis 1: 28
“And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Genesis 1:31
“And God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.”

Mmmmm…

I just got a craving for spiced beef quesadillas from El Fenix.

They call it Picadillo Meat now, apparently.

Pizza.

Welcome to Two-Point Perspective

Welcome to Two-Point Perspective: Life from a Christian Worldview. Jenny and I will be posting on this blog together and as far as we know the topics will include everything that comes to us.

All the posts below this one (older than this date) belonged to my old blog, Wrinkle In Time.

The old site will not be updated any more, though I will probably eventually fix the dead links.

Pizza.