incongruent feng shui and other incompatibles

aka
Your Yin is Outta Whack with My Yang
aka
A Few, Just a Few, of My MANY Pet Peeves
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I Loves Me a Curmudgeonly Blogpost

* wall mounting a flat screen TV above a fireplace.
- besides providing a small amount of warmth, fireplaces traditionally evoke a sense of the heart of the home. The Hearth. peaceful, crackling, mesmerizing. quiet yet interactive - prompting some, or a great deal - of mental contemplation.
- television sets are visual as well, with their fast flickering images accompanied by visually and audibly jarring advertisements. TV, also mesmerizing - is something of a passive- aggressive, yet minimally interactive, form of entertainment.
- mesmerizing describes both the TV and the fireplace, but to pass the two off as compatible enough to share the same bit of wall space is, well ------ desperate.
and it's gotta be some kind of bad feng shui, right?

* kitchen counter top surfaces that are not conducive to heavy kitchen usage.
- it's almost impossible to find a kitchen counter top that is impervious to the messy realities of cooking, slicing, spilling, burning and slopping foodstuffs. oily spots, berry drippings, coffee and tea stains are to be expected, on numerous occasions, to slosh across the kitchen counter. so why all the fancy schmancy high cost slabs available as kitchen surfaces?

- is there one that is truly compatible with humans wreaking spill, stain and cutting mishaps? most counter top material come with a warning: that normal kitchen use could irreversibly mar or stain the material. hey - shit happens in the kitchen. on the floor (don't get me started on the latest kitchen floor materials...) and on the counter tops. surfaces should be user friendly. cleaned up with a quick wipe off. once in a while, a thorough scrub down. no more. no less.

- silly too, is the idea of presenting one's kitchen as yet another decorative 'admire-but-don't-use-like-the-work room-that-it-should-be' area of the house, with surfaces that are more to look at than to actually perform kitchen duties upon. this too ...... is ludicrous.

* clothes that are not washable with soap and water.
- having to clean an article of clothing (that is not a suit, fur coat or pair of leather shoes) with a special chemical process. 'wear it knowing that it'll cost you $10 to $20 when time comes to clean it' ------ is impractical. for me it is anyway. since most of my togs only cost once or twice the dry cleaning fee.

* social gatherings where just about everyone is plugged into their cell phones, and for all intent and purposes - not socializing - in the least.
- if choosing to ignore others in your midst - and turning full attention to the delights of what your phone or other handheld techno gadget offers, then may I suggest that you and said gadget 'get a room'.
socializing with your cell phone in a setting meant to promote human-to-human interaction ------- is rude.
&%#!ing rude.