2 Things That Beg A Question. (Just 2?)

Sometimes you just gotta say, "What the..."?

Hurry up, it's time to relax.

I'm a fan of meditation, except for that "sit still, think about nothing, listen to the birds chirp" part of meditation. I was searching the Android Market for a good guided meditation app and found Meditation Helper. Meditation Helper is an app that allows the user to set a daily meditation time target and a widget that displays the number of consecutive days the target has been reached. Imagine the possibilities:

• "I bet I can meditate longer than you."  
• "Damn. I blew my meditation today and only 3 days away from my personal best, too."
• "How long till the bell rings, anyway?"

Funny, I thought the idea of meditation was to get away from the corporeal and live in the moment.

I'm Here To Help. How Soon Are We Done?

A while ago I was introduced to Sparked.com. Sparked is a wonderful site. Sparked catalogs member skills and crowdsources on behalf of non-prof's that need specific help. The non-prof gets free consulting and the member micro-volunteers according to his/her time availability. This is not a critique of Sparked. I think Sparked is wonderful, but ..."Wow that was great. Can I call you a cab? You told me your name, right?"  Again, I participate on Sparked but shouldn't volunteering also include a piece of soul, too?

What do you think? Am I nitpicking just for the sake of a post? Do you agree with me that the purpose is at odds with the concept? Do you have any similar examples?