5 Tips for Making Ramadan Better for Everyone

For the past 5 weeks every single sermon on Friday has been about the same thing, our good friend Ramadan who is visiting again, as he does every year. They talked about what we need to do make sure we get the most out of this holy month but I'm going to give you five tips on how to make it better for people around you.

1. Share Your Acts of Worship on Social Media

You see, it's not enough to fast, pray taraweeh, witr, tahajjud and give charity. To amplify your blessing share your accomplishments on social media. Woke up for Fajr? Or even better, went to the masjid for Fajr? Begin by instagramming a picture of the masjid while it's still dark, as proof, then tweet and make a facebook status about how you made it to the first row and only 11 other people showed up. I recommend using a hashtag so the youth will be able to understand your posts. Not only do all your friends and followers LOVE seeing those statuses but seeing your good deeds will only encourage them do more themselves!

2. Encourage Our Sisters to Dress Modestly

I'm pretty sure there's a hadith somewhere that says modesty is a part of faith. So when we see our fellow sisters in Islam make sure you examine them fully and make sure they're modest. Remember that us men have to lower our gaze so make the most out of your first look! Then remind them to wear loose fitting clothes and to wear hijab properly. Chances are, they're never heard this before and need a quick reminder. Women can be emotional sometimes and might not take kindly to your sincere advice so tell them that women who don't wear hijab are like moldy lollipops or something, trust me they'll understand. After you inform them of proper modest dress they will be very thankful for your wisdom and be more conscious of modesty.

3. Forget About Proper Parking Etiquette

We are told in Islam to "race to do good deeds". What is more good than to pray in the masjid? Therefore brothers and sisters, race to the masjid! Literally, drive as fast as possible to maximize the time spent in the masjid. And when you reach the masjid do not waste time parking your car properly. Squeeze into the nearest parking spot, even if a car already occupies it, and get out and rush to the prayer. If you can't find a parking spot make your own. The lines in the parking lot are created by man and man is not perfect, only Allah is. If there is pavement, there is parking. If you can't find absolutely anywhere to park then feel free to block the entrance with your car. It will encourage others to get to the masjid earlier than you, and you will be rewarded for encouraging this.

4. Bring All Your Young Children to the Masjid

There's a problem in the Muslim community with teenagers who don't want to go to the masjid for various reasons. To combat this we need them to develop a love for the masjid early on, as early as possible actually. As soon as they're out of the womb they should be in the masjid, actually they should come out of the womb in the masjid itself. Bring your children to taraweeh so when everyone is dozing off their cries and screams will wake everyone up and keep them attentive to the prayers. And don't you dare put them in the free child care the masjid offers, your children should not be quietly playing with toys and making friends while everyone is praying. Keep your children in the praying area so they can help everyone maintain their focus.

5. Keep Up Your Dawah Efforts 

I've noticed many brothers who, during the other 11 months, keep in contact with many non-Muslim people, mainly of the opposite gender. This is amazing, think of all the dawah these kind brothers are giving, throughout the entire year! For some reason I see a lot of them stopping during Ramadan and then resume their dawah the first day of Eid. I don't understand? Ramadan is the month where our reward is multiplied so why stop a source of immense rewards? Brothers I encourage you to keep up your dawah at all times. Sometimes your acquaintances might want to meet, GO! Spread the message to these kind non-Muslim sisters.

The College Admissions Process

This is the story of Mr. Worthington Wordsworth, imaginary Dean of Admissions at the Best University in America.

August 1st, 2013

Mr. Wordsworth meets with several of his highest ranking admissions officers. These are the people who create the parameters for admissions for every school year. Today's meeting was to establish the guidelines for this year's early admissions process. Mr. Wordsworth was tired of the rather high acceptance rate of 20%.

"We can no longer be the easy chick everyone has a shot with at the party! We must be more selective!" Mr. Wordsworth emphatically preached to his admissions officers. They then decided to set up new numerical cut-offs for the upcoming school year. One admissions officer realized that the school preached that they didn't have numerical cut-offs and voiced his opinion to Mr. Wordsworth.

The admissions council didn't respond, but all silently gawked at the officer's blatant heresy. Mr. Wordsworth responded, but with a golf club to the ear instead of words. With the one traitor eliminated  the admissions process could proceed. The council decided on SAT scores of at least 2110, to be achieved any way the student wanted. They also needed an unweighted 3.85 GPA...and then decided to make it 3.86. They also required at least 6 A.P. classes and a minimum score of 4 on each A.P. test.

"Excellent!" Mr. Wordsworth declared, "What is next on our agenda?" Mr. Wordsworth's right hand (wo)man, Ms. Largemouth piped up and squeaked, "Well I made sure we weren't on the stupid Common Application, that would make applying much too easy. I also think we have to discuss our racial quotas for the next year."

"Correct, racial quotas are very important," Mr. Wordsworth emphatically replied. "What are our statistics for the current school year?"

Mr. Hardick (pronounced Haar-Deek, not whatever you perverts are thinking) was the master of statistics of the school and eagerly pulled out his notes and spoke with a very heavy Indian accent saying, "Ve have 67% percent Vites, 2% Hispanic, 23% Chinese, 5% Negros, and 3% Other."

"Interesting...so I am going to propose a plan and you all are free to comment. We must reduce the amount of the chinese! They work too hard and they all have 4.0s, we should care more about different colors of people in our school rather than just their academic accomplishments. Additionally, we need more blacks. The blacks should have lower requirements for admissions because we need more of them. I suggest a 3.0 GPA, 1600 SAT and 1 A.P. class as their requirements. And if they play sports then all they need is a high school diploma. Fair enough?"

Everyone nodded their heads in agreement but one, rather slurred, voice spoke up hesitatingly, saying "but...thats not...fair. Equal...opportunity...everyone," and then passed out again. It was the traitor from before, apparently a 9 iron wasn't enough to shut him up so Mr. Wordsworth got out his carbon fiber driver out of his caddy bag and whacked him again, and taped his mouth shut for good measure.

"I'm sorry about that, please ignore Mr. Logiclyspeaking. He probably had too much to drink last night.  So...no objections to the block Asians and admit Blacks plan?"

"No sir!" The council replied in unison.

"Excellent! Now for the essay topic...what do you all propose?"

The responses overwhelmed Mr. Wordsworth so he asked for them one at a time. The responses were interesting. The top five in consideration were: "Why are you a leader and does leadership help you in life?", "Pick a color: black or white?", "Where IS Waldo?", "What can you contribute to the Best University in America besides tuition fees?" and finally, "Write an essay explaining the environmental benefits of marijuana."

The council was stuck for the first time that day, and pondered long and hard before Mr. Wordsworth decided to give everyone a 15 minute break. After they returned from using the bathroom and not washing their hands, the admissions council feasted on the donuts and small sandwiches Mr. Wordsworth had brought in for them and56 they settled on the first one. The rationale being a leader somehow contributes to how well you do in college level courses.

With the requirements and application details complete, Mr. Wordsworth assigned three of the council members to create an application online and to work in a couple of short answers that they would never read in order to make it as tedious as possible. And with that, the admissions council departed, to return on November 1st, the deadline for all applications.

November 1st, 2013

Mr. Wordsworth walked into the war room, as he liked to call it, to begin the reviewing of applications.
"How many did we receive this year?" He asked.

"Exactly 41095 applications sir!" Mr. Hardick replied.

"And how much in application fees is that?"

"Approximately 32876 double zero dollars."

"So that's 3,287,600 correct?"

"Yes sir!"

"And how many have we disposed of due to numerical cut-offs?"

"10 triple zero sir!"

"Good! Now how many Chinese applications did we dispose of?"

"95% of them! so now only 1000 applications are from the Chinese"

"So that leaves only 21095 applications right?"

"Correct!"

"And how many of the blacks met their numerical cutoffs?"

"Three triple zero sir!"

"Good, send them their acceptance letters and we shall start reviewing the remaining applications. Good work Mr. Hardick"

"Thank you sir!" And Mr. Hardick sat down.

The admissions committee looked at several applications every 10 minutes, throwing away essays at the first sign of a grammatical error. They instantly rejected applicants who hadn't been a president of some organization, because they clearly lack the proper leadership skills of a student at B.U.A.

And with some amazing show of resiliency, the traitor stirred to life, chiming in for what were probably his last words: "why...do you care about leadership...these kids are here to LEARN not LEAD! That's what our professors are for..." and his voice trailed off with a sound THUMP, indicating his head had fallen back down.

"We'll just ignore that, yes?" Mr. Wordsworth asked his team, "Obviously, a popularity contest is more important to success at B.U.A. than their petty school work."

"Of course Mr. Wordsworth, leadership is ever important! You don't need to tell us twice." Ms. Largemouth replied.

As they continued to review the applications over the next few days, another group of admissions staff worked diligently in the background. See, the admissions team didn't believe in disposing of all the paper from the rejected applications. They also didn't want to print rejection letters or invest in a huge server to handle online application checking. The admissions council was stumped for about two days after the University first opened in 1776.

Somewhere between 1045 and 1058 A.D. Bi Sheng of China invented movable type, a monumental step forward in the making of books. The admissions council took his invention a step further, and made a fixed movable type prototype that inked itself and would print in red ink. They called it a rubber stamp. The word on the stamp: a nice, thick, capitalized REJECTED, all in a nice juicy red.

Instead of printing a rejection letter and wasting more paper they would simply stamp the front page of the application with the stamp pictured on the right and then send that right back to them. No explanation, no nothing. Saving paper and helping the United States Postal Service, simply a double win for the admissions officers at B.U.A.
The people responsible for this were not the direct admissions staff. There was an army of workers right under the floor where the counselors made their admissions decisions. The trash bins upstairs funneled all the rejected applications downstairs so they could be stamped and sent back to their owners.

This process would continue for several weeks until the amount of applications was narrowed down to 4 times the size of the actual incoming freshman class.

This is around the first week of December and Mr. Wordsworth was really excited, "Bring out the dart board!" Two people rolled out a rather large custom dart board, divided into four separate quadrants. This was the best part, the infamous dart board contest. The remaining stack of potentially accepted students was to be divided equally among all the senior admissions officers and they would each cut down their stacks to one fourth of the original amount. After making sure all the race diversity quotas were filled they would take their applications, four at at time, pin them to the dartboard, give it a spin and throw one dart. The person whose application was hit would be accepted while the others would be sent down to the next floor.

Eventually, after many days at the dart board, the admissions council decided to release the decisions of the lucky few who got admitted, finally bringing happiness to some applicants as opposed to all the misery they sent out in the previous weeks. And so ends the admissions process for this year, Mr. Wordsworth accomplished what he wanted.

Next would come the story of Ms. Moneybags, the head of financial aid services at B.U.A. but that story is for another time. Thanks for reading!

Can't Stand Foams

Nike Foamposites. For those who don't know, Nike, one the world's most popular shoe makers, released a shoe for NBA star Penny Hardaway back in 1997. These were basketball shoes made for basketball players. Fifteen years later they still a smashing hit with teenage males in the United States.

These shoes are not ugly. They are beyond ugly. They look like Sarah Jessica Parker after a train ran over her face. But seriously, they look like pieces of plastic with curvy lines going through it. No symmetry at all and looks as though the designers puked on the drawing board and then sent it to the production lines.

They are staple in every PG County teen's closet. Why? They're completely hideous, make you look like a tool for wearing ugly shoes, and make you like an even bigger tool when people realize how much they cost. I've worn some ugly shoes in my day, that's because they were cheap. I was a Payless man all the way until the 9th grade at which point I got a pair of classic Chuck Taylor high tops (for only $30 at that). These shoes are EXPENSIVE. Here are some prices I found.


1. Pink Foamposite Ones: $400
These cost more than the laptop I'm typing this article on. My laptop cost me $250. (2nd Gen Series 5 Chromebook, a review will be up soon!) $400 dollars for shoes!? My parents haven't spent that much on shoes since they came to America! Ridiculous.

2. 2003 Blue/White Foamposite Pros: $1000
I pray I get to the point where I can afford $1000 shoes. And when I do have $1000 shoes they better come equipped with wheels and rocket boosters. And they better make me a sandwich too. Until shoes do that I will never spend this much on them. And even if they do end up with those features my cheap self will probably still go to Payless.

3. Galaxy Foamposites: $2500
Really? $2500 dollars? I'm just going to give a list of things you could do with the cost of those utterly repulsive shoes. 100 Movies with a large popcorn and drink at theatre prices. 5000 Spicy chicken wings from 7-11. 65 tanks of Gas for my Civic. A 95' Jeep Grand Cherokee, My Honda Civic (only paid $600 for it), 2000 Dodge Durango, 1997 Audi Convertible, two and half hours with a quality prostitute, the most expensive and latest iMac computer, 5 Dell Laptops, food for 6 months and the list goes on. All I'm saying is that an Audi > Shoes

4. Nike Air Foamposite Paranorman: $4500
Kill yourself.

I don't hate all expensive shoes. Like any other item there is some innate desire to possess nice clothing. And the nicer the clothing the more expensive it is. I can see myself buying expensive-ish suits once I'm older while hopefully making an income to afford such suits. I can understand when people spend their hard earned money on expensive clothes that look good and are well made, but spending $4500 bucks when 5 year olds in China and Vietnam make them for $2? No thanks.

It's one thing to waste your (or your parent's) hard earned money on this crap, that is simply your prerogative and while I encourage everyone to buy something else, it is your call. And if that were the end of it I wouldn't have that strong of a case, but not only are you wasting Dad's paycheck on shoes but you can also end up like Montre Bradley.

Montre Bradley, a 19 year old, was camping out with others hoping to snag a pair of the Foams at $220.  I'd camp out to buy foams with that ridiculous resale value. Except Montre Bradley didn't get a nice pair of Foams to take home to his parents. They got a body bag instead. You see, Montre Bradley was shot and killed by others who wanted the shoes. Beyond poor Montre there are many others who have gotten into fights and been hospitalized over these Foamposites.

Most teens my age don't have a proper sense of priorities. I don't either, it's just a part of growing up; regardless at some point you have to realize that the only one looking at your $500 shoes and thinking "Wow those were worth it" is you. There are better things to splurge on and an ugly pair of Foams isn't worth a dime.

Eleanor Roosevelt High School I.D. Policy Repealed

In breaking news today, Eleanor Roosevelt Principal Mr. Reginald McNiell announced that the school was cancelling its tedious I.D. badge policy in favor of a much simpler way to secure the building against trespassers. As in the last 30 years Roosevelt has had over TWO visitors without proper I.D. badges resulting in an astounding zero crimes. This is a clear need for stricter regulation as we're surely due for an act of violence by now.

Effective Tuesday, September 18th, every classroom will have a surgeon implant a RFID chip in every student's skull, complete with their birthday, full name, grade, homeroom teacher, ID number and suit size. The administrators and teachers will all have scanners to check attendance and make sure they have hall passes. The cafeteria is going to have to find other ways of getting kids trash duty...just kidding, I temporarily forgot the genocide that is 9 kids sitting at an 8 person table. No worries. Problem solved.

After spending most of the budget on the RFID chips and associated programming costs, Roosevelt's Budget Committee decided professional surgeons were out reach and settled for any med students. They also sent a memo illustrating the need for people with surgical experience and help setup an interview day for prospective surgeons. Everyone who showed up happened to be an Indian child whose parents stopped the reading the letter at the word doctor and simply herded up their kids and all their Indian friends and drove to the school while telling Aunty Sheela and Uncle Nandu that Rajesh is already a doctor.

Some parents spoke out against the policy, saying it should lab tested first, to which NHS Teacher of the Year in 2011, Mr. Hendley, replied: "Are you kidding me? IT'S TEST TIMEE!"

All the parents who spoke against the policy are currently unavailable for comment, three of which were quite irritated to find their cars dented as they parked in the student parking lot for over 15 seconds.

In other news Mr. Bagley announced his retirement, saying he just can't deal with in-school bums without letting off steam and yelling at the petrified freshman to get their I.D.s on.

"I TRIED CONVINCING THEM THAT THERE'S A POOL ON THE ROOF, BUT IT DOESN'T HAVE THE SAME JOY AS CATCHING KIDS WITHOUT THEIR I.D.S ON," said Mr. Bagley, who for some reason, has only one volume when speaking.

Roosevelt's student population also voiced their opinions on the issue. Here are some samples:

1. "Oh yeah girlaaa I ain't gots to wear my ID no mo! But I aint tryna get no surgery up in my weave!" -ShaniquabigBstaytattedratchetness Quarystulz (Pronounced Crystals)

2. "..." -That guy who never talks in class

3. "I dun care about no stupid IDs I just clutched a 2350 on my SAT!" -Asian guy whose lived long enough in P.G. County to learn the slang.

4. "Well, personally, I find the situation to be a staunch violation of my constitutional rights." -Educated person. (Representing a minuscule percentage of the student body)

5. "I.D.s? Who cares about I.D.s?! Chapter 1 is due TOMORROW and I STILL don't have a mentor!" -Science and Tech Student.

6. "Yolo" -Unknown.

This is sure to be a big milestone in the two time blue ribbon school, the perfect skin on the acne covered face of PGCPS. Other schools are slowly following Eleanor Roosevelt's innovate leap into the future, Charles Flowers is drawing blue prints of a dog collar that gives electric shocks when the student receives a text message, and a school in New York is mandating chemically unique uniform pants, that instantly dissolve weed, crack and heroin, making them unsuitable for sale. What do you think? Agree with the policy? Disagree? Email the editor at idontgiveadamn@aol.com.



As always, thanks for reading!

Indecision 2012. Why Campaigning is Stupid

You know what I could do with 5.3 billion dollars? Anything I damn well pleased is what. We hear billion and trillion dollars on the news so much I feel as though we've gained a numbness to the enormity of the number. Let the pictures and statistics refresh our memory.

Image from roundtree7.com

That picture shows you, in order, the size of a man, a thousand dollars, a million dollars and then a billion dollars divided into 100 million dollars crates. Mind you I didn't skimp and find pictures of 1 dollar bills. No sir these are the highest denominations of United States currency, the coveted 'benjamin'. Now that you grasped the enormity of a billion dollars add forty three more crates to that images and you have 5.3 billion dollars. 

Now being the Asian I am I want to do some math. According to the Social Security online website the average wage index for 2010 was right around forty two thousand a year. Lets say in 2012 the economy sky rocketed and that number jumped to 60 grand a year. And lets say the average size of a household is at 3 (Its currently around 2.6). Finally the life expectancy of an American according to the World Bank is 78.2 years. Now for the math, the family requires sixty thousand per year to live. Multiply that by 78.2 and you get 4.7 million dollars (roughly) for the parents to live out their lives with out working a day. Given that number approximately 1127 generations of that family could be supported with out having to work a single day of their lives. Assuming around 30 years gap per generation that comes out to enough to sustain the family for a good 33810 years. Without getting off their butts except to go shopping. Insane right? 

So whats my point? Five point three billion dollars is how much was spent on the 2008 campaign by Obama, McCain and all the various special interest groups according to Politico. Over 1 billion was spent in 2004 by Kerry and Bush and around 866 million by Bush and Gore in 2000 (Both of those stats from the F.E.C.). But its okay right? As these men were vying to be leaders of our great nation the money obviously, in some way shape or form, benefited American citizens right? No? That isn't what happened? How shocking. While obviously campaigning is not free the unregulated manner in which it is done is ridiculous. Candidates give speeches, travel expenses are expected (as a side note I had NO IDEA candidate was spelled can-did-ate I always thought it was can-id-ate. Praise the lord for spellcheck!) but what substance is behind these speeches? 

'See its voters like you who want to learn
about the issues that ruin my campaign!'

Most of the campaign speeches are vague generalities tailored to the simplistic minds of uneducated voters. Obama won 2008 by saying "Yes we can!" great, but he didn't close Guantanamo Bay, and he's been the biggest kick the pants of civil rights since the Patriot Act. Additionally Romney claims to have experience balancing budgets in Massachusetts and will balance America's budget the same way by cutting spending. I'm sorry what? Cut spending? Some one call the New York Times! Willard Romney (his real first name) has solved America's budget crisis in two words! All we needed to do was cut spending!

No.

Its clearly not that simple, yet Romney won't go into specifics because either he has no clue where he's going to take money out of, or he thinks his idea won't go well with the public because it won't work. Either way its not good. But the point I'm making is that these campaign speeches are so broad that they prove nothing and pamper to idiot voters who are too lazy eating fritos on the couch while watching the Biggest Loser hoping they will someday lose that weight. Okay that  may be an exaggeration but the point I'm making is most voters, myself included, aren't going to be doing much research on the issues independently in an unbiased manner and therefore don't really know who they're voting for. 

The biggest individual part of a campaign budget is television advertising. Campaign ads are ubiquitous on every major station and are usually just as substance-less if not worse than the speeches. They often are mud-flinging contests showing what dirt, real or not, the candidates can dig up on one another. Some of them maybe true but others are complete and unethical atrocities. Take for example Obama's infamous "You didn't build that speech." Romney takes something blatantly out of context and then attacks him for it. Here is part of the speech that puts everything in context:

Now lets look at what Romney did with this video:

Excuse me?! At the very least we can expect the candidates to play fair but clearly all they care about is winning. In case you didn't watch the video right after Obama says you didn't build that he says "the point is that we succeed because of individual initiative but also because we do things together." Its clear that Obama is in no way "demonizing" (term used in the Romney ad) small business owners for accomplishing what they did but simply saying that the government helped them by creating the system they can thrive in, for creating the roads they drive on for providing the fire and police services on call and such. All he is saying is working together is better for the country. I'ts this type of nonsense that can sway innocent voters into thinking Obama hates small business owners for no good reason and there isn't much he can do about it. We are seeing a common theme here, a ton of generalities, non specific crowd pleasing lines that sway voters but do nothing in terms of putting out their plans for the country. 

Given that I'm 16 I already can't vote but even if I could I wouldn't vote for either...I'd vote for...Ron Paul....or maybe Elmo. Who doesn't love Elmo? Probably has the same chance of winning as Ron Paul does as it is. Its sad how difficult and expensive it is to run for president. I don't recall George Washington, Abraham Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson ever spending a pretty penny to get elected. That's because they were great individuals with a proper vision for the country and the voters knew and could easily agree with their goals. Its quite possible the next Ronald Reagan or John F. Kennedy is lurking out there in congress or in some state as a governor or what have you, unable to run simply because they don't have 4 crates of 100 dollar bills. 

Seriously! You could buy 5 of these airplanes and
still have gas money left over!

As with my usual ramblings I have a solution. Earlier I posed the question of what could I do with 5.3 billion dollars, well lets tone it down and see what I can do for 1 million. That'll buy 27 thousand gallons of gas, 4000 one way plane tickets, 1667 weeks of rental car usage, heck it'll even give you 4-5 small used Cessna airplanes. That should be enough to cover travel expenses for a few months. But if there are no more campaign speeches or t.v ads then why are they travelling? Public debates, being the debater I am I truly adore this solution. Debating brings out positives and negatives of the topic. Everything is right there on the table, unlike in speeches when campaigners just cheer like fans at a Colts game (not last year but you know...back when they had Manning) at every mindless slogan the candidate says. Every week have a debate about some specific issue plaguing the country. Let the voters and the audience share questions with the moderators, let the voters get informed of the issues without all the muck in the middle. This creates a level playing at 0.000377% of the cost of 2008's campaign. Giving 1 million to each candidate for travel expenses and the like. With the rest of that money we can feed the hungry, create jobs, fund schools, give scholarships...or we could just keep making annoying and false television ads that get in the way of episodes of The Big Bang Theory or NBC's new comedy hit Go On. 

In essence I personally think there is too much garbage and yellow tape to go around in order to lead this country. Shouldn't being a solid leader be the one and only requirement? Agree, disagree or just love Elmo? Comment! And as always thanks for reading!

My Day at the M.V.A.

C72. As I walked into the train-wreck that is the Maryland Motor Vehicle Association I performed a quick survey of the pain and suffering my mother and I were about to endure. For starters the line to get into another line stretched beyond the portable railings and well into another section of the MVA where I began my dreary wait. A quick check of my watch revealed the time was 3:10,  it was go-time. Surprisingly the 4 window kiosk worked with a chipotle-esque efficiency and I was being attended to before I knew it. The personable attendant asked what I needed, checked my papers, and just like that I was handed a ticket.

C72. That was the number on my ticket. Considering how fast this line moved I figured it wouldn't be long before they called my number. I was wrong. A glance at the high definition announcement board showed that among the A's and D's and S's and I's C32 was currently being served at counter number 17. I also noticed that while there were multiple counters serving customers whose tickets began in A or D there was only one serving C's, counter number 17. A second check of my watch revealed the time was now 3:30 and my mother and I found seats and began the wait. We both had brought books to read as we assumed it would take a while, despite this my mind started drifting after about 50 pages of David Baldacci's The Sixth Man and I started observing the other patrons. Some were asleep, some unwitting or simply unfortunate parents brought their kids who were crying, running around and simply irritating people whose already short tempers didn't need anymore pushing. Others were on their phones and iPads, but i really felt sorry for those who had nothing. Those who wouldn't fall asleep for fear of missing their number yet had nothing with which to occupy their time except to stare at the message board that had various advertisements and the occasional health/safety tip. I, for instance, learned that a rowing machine is one of the best exercise machines you could own as it increases cardio and works both the arm and leg muscles. Or that drinking and driving don't mix. Which I find hard to believe because I see tons of people every morning chugging away their starbucks lattes on their morning commute. But I digress.

So I slowly drifted back to my book and finished another 58 pages before they called number C71. The time now was 5:05, 35 minutes past closing time. I closed my book and sorted out all my various forms and made sure I had everything to streamline my time at the kiosk. I waited another 7 minutes for counter 17 to clear up and then, by the grace of God, we heard the announcement for C72. I woke up my mother and we eagerly made our way to counter 17. There, I explained to the attendant what we needed and gave him all the appropriate paperwork. Then we stood there. And after we were done standing we stood some more. The attendant continuously made various entries into his computer and after another 10 minutes of silence and the click-clacking of the ancient IBM keyboard the man finally asked for our payment and handed us our tags. We left the building and got home around 6 PM.

Should I apologize for wasting your time by making you read another mindless rant about the bureaucracy involved with cars? Nope as I will provide what most mindless rants lack. A solution. The glaring detail that irritated me and and many of my fellow patrons was there there were 20 counters. Logic dictates that there be 20 employees to man each counter to maximize efficiency and serve as many customers as possible.  It soon become apparent that common sense isn't all that common. Ten counters were unattended. Ten. That  is half of the total capacity of the MVA. By this and this alone we see that they are already operating at 50% below their maximum efficiency. Not taking into account their methods for serving the customers but by the numbers alone we see that they are 50% below where they could be. Its like buying a pair of shoes but only wearing one. Or like having a 4 cylinder car that only uses two. Complete idiocy that makes no sense. Yes, I understand that this would require paying more people but in the long run this is for the benefit of the MVA. Lets say they serve 500 customers a day and spend 15 minutes on each customer. That amounts to a total of
125 hours to split among 10 people. That becomes 12.5 hours of work just to service customers. That doesn't include any behind the scenes tasks such checking driver records,issuing letters for emissions and inspections / renewal notices etc. Now lets say they fill up all 20 counters with staff. That becomes 6 hours and 8 minutes of work per member. What that means is that its the exact some cost per hour but those 500 customers get served in half the time. Instead of disgruntled employees working long days they can end their days at 3. This will keep them happier and more personable to the customers. They also have the ability to now service more customers in a day and this will increase the MVA's daily revenue while reducing the amount of people who need the MVA's services therefore decongesting the MVA for the future.

Getting more people to the counter is one thing, streamlining what goes on behind the counter is another. The MVA is rather prehistoric in terms of technology. Still grappling with the creation of electricity, the MVA should accept my challenge to try and utilize bar codes. Close your eyes. You are at Costco with your parents. You have a cart full of groceries, over 30 items, you wait to pay while the cashier manually types in each item by name. Twenty minutes pass before the cashier tells you your total. Needless to say this is archaic and just plain stupid considering this technology has been around since 1948. So how do we implement  bar codes in our automotive beauracratic tasks? Simple. Assign a code for the top 10 most common transactions. Be they registration renewals, car titling, turning in tags or what have you. This way instead of searching for a list of programs and then clicking up the right one a simple scan is all you need. Additionally, have a barcode on all our drivers licenses. I have no clue why the MVA still manually enters in our 13 digit license numbers when a simple scan would save time and prevent errors. Then lets add a barcode on our car titles so a simple scan will input all the necessary information on the title. And then have barcode labels for forms! Instead of typing in your tedious VIN number have a sticker than you paste to allow the MVA to scan it. And labels for your drivers license number can be placed  when buying or selling a vehicle, so instead of the poor staff member entering in all the data by hand they can simply scan the drivers license numbers and then check to make sure all the signatures are accurate. In essence  bar codes do two things to make life easier: save time by taking mere seconds to do what a human would do in minutes, and second: eliminate the human error factor making sure all entries and transactions are accurate.

In summary, the MVA sucks. I pray that one day a trip to the local MVA or DMV is considered routine and  painless like 10 minute run to the grocery store for a bottle of milk instead of the yearly root canal it is today. Maybe they'll use my ideas, maybe they'll find something better or, and lets pray this doesn't happen, they don't change a thing. What do you think? Post your opinions in the comments section! And, as always, thanks for reading!