first off, i found these (research paper and NPR article from this morning) very interesting in regard to my prior discussion with a Restless Legs Syndrome sufferer. I do wish her the best, but the paper in particular includes the mot juste that I was searching for in regard to her rare, debilitating condition. "disease mongering."
PLoS Medicine
NPR Health
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I think creationism is arrogance--the belief that human beings are somehow special, or special-er than every other species on the whole planet in the whole universe. "God made the whole of the heavens and the earth, and then he made us to live in it and worship him." That's the most narcissistic statement i've ever heard. Today on my ride home Terry Gross was interviewing Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, writer of The Language of God, and a practicing Evangelical. I about threw up when he said
"it was all his plan, he just carried it out, using the tools of evolution. . . . god had the intention of creating life--this wonderful diversity of life that we see all around us on this planet--and ourselves, special creatures with whom he could have fellowship, in whom he would imbue the soul, the knowledge of good and evil, and the ability to practice free will."
Way to adapt truth to fanciful egotism. You work in a field in which you have the facts of life shoved into your face daily--there's no getting around it by hiding in the church--but rather than accept the fact that we are just one species of many on one of many planets in many galaxies in possibly many pan-dimensional universes and That's It, you'd prefer to crawl back into the recesses of your selfish imagination and try to Justify It To Your Ego somehow.
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I'm really getting tired of excessive safety features. Like the auto-slide door on minivans (people carriers). You push a button in the door and it closes itself in a controlled manner. Sounds like a good idea--fewer crushed fingers and tearful eyes--until you sit through its opening/closing procedure a few times. The thing takes about half an hour to slide across. You coulda been to the grocery store and back by the time the damn door closed. It also takes a lot of battery power, Breaks if you try to close it manually, and get this--they don't actually have enough power to get over the holding lever. Yep--that's the whole reason children's arms get thrown out in the first place. Slowly sliding a door closed Never gets it to actually click closed. I know a number of dads who've perfected the technique of leaving the door wide open, getting all the kids in their seat belts, and then driving a few feet only to slam on the brakes, causing the door to likewise slam. Not only does it delight the stickier members of the family, but its one of a very small number of ways to successfully close those doors.
this also pertains to the manufacture of shoddy products that are loaded with safety features which fail to take into consideration the most likely course of events--that being the product Breaking.
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I just finished Mary Wollstonecraft's Mary, a delightful, short narrative on how one woman's life starts out bad, gets worse, all her friends and family die in her arms, and she spends the rest of her life alone. I've since embarked upon The Wrongs of Woman, and i've gotten a whole four pages in without anyone coughing up blood!
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An ad searching for egg donors recently caught my eye. I nearly started the preliminary forms, but then was reminded of my family history of alcoholism, depression, cancer, blood disorders, arthritis, pulmonary disorders, poor vision, patella disorders, back pain, and oddly-shaped fingernails. I think I'll keep my shoddy DNA to myself.
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Before the invention of toilet paper, I'd imagine your average person was a lot better at botany.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
people-watching
I was facing the window from a restaurant on Telegraph and Durant for a fat half hour today and it pleased me to notice that in that time I was passed by representatives of at least thirty different countries and cultures, as represented in their appearance, dialect, dress, and public behavior, all cohabiting my little town peacefully. I also noticed that tapered jeans are back "in." Dios mio.
I thought I was witnessing the end of band rehearsal when I saw a bunch of soft-sided clarinet cases walk down the street. Then I realized they were leaving the Computer Sciences building.
The Pillowman is done and gone. All that remains is the glistening patch of crystallized red gel that seeped through to the deck downstage right. Tomorrow that'll be gone too when we further dismember the stage to start loading in The Blue Door, which is low and raked. Someone, ignorant of Pillowman's seat-gripping end, saw the drippy mess and said "Eugh! It looks like someone died there." to which it was very easy to reply, "Someone did. Six nights a week for two months. You try not leaving a mess." But then it occurred to me that I never actually stated it was the same person each time.
I thought I was witnessing the end of band rehearsal when I saw a bunch of soft-sided clarinet cases walk down the street. Then I realized they were leaving the Computer Sciences building.
The Pillowman is done and gone. All that remains is the glistening patch of crystallized red gel that seeped through to the deck downstage right. Tomorrow that'll be gone too when we further dismember the stage to start loading in The Blue Door, which is low and raked. Someone, ignorant of Pillowman's seat-gripping end, saw the drippy mess and said "Eugh! It looks like someone died there." to which it was very easy to reply, "Someone did. Six nights a week for two months. You try not leaving a mess." But then it occurred to me that I never actually stated it was the same person each time.
Monday, March 19, 2007
home economics
It just occurred to me that middle school Home Ec taught me nothing about household budgeting. Why the name?
When I walk down the street, I often wonder what passers-by think of when they give me the once-over. I bet its not "there's a girl who folds her underwear."
My intern project, which was to create a 22' high x 6' wide bookcase that appeared to have no visible means of support (just rows of floating books) was canceled due to a miscommunication between the director and the designer. I kinda wish they'd told me before I hacked into those Bibles.
When I walk down the street, I often wonder what passers-by think of when they give me the once-over. I bet its not "there's a girl who folds her underwear."
My intern project, which was to create a 22' high x 6' wide bookcase that appeared to have no visible means of support (just rows of floating books) was canceled due to a miscommunication between the director and the designer. I kinda wish they'd told me before I hacked into those Bibles.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Murphy's scene shop
If you want a cable to slide, it will catch. If you want it to catch, it will slide. Same goes for hoses, casters, keys, and soft goods.
If you cut all your lumber perfectly, it will warp. If you miss a cut it will always be too short. If it does neither, the piece will be cut from the show. so there.
Routers have the most suicidal power cables of any hand tool. Every five seconds they dive in front of the spinning bit, just begging to be torn in two.
You will only find raised nail heads and staples by kneeling...on them.
Homosote will never be square.
If it fits together in the shop, it will find a way not to onstage.
The faster you try to go, the more screws will have malformed heads.
The moment you find yourself proud of what you've made, you'll manage to hurt yourself on it.
If you cut all your lumber perfectly, it will warp. If you miss a cut it will always be too short. If it does neither, the piece will be cut from the show. so there.
Routers have the most suicidal power cables of any hand tool. Every five seconds they dive in front of the spinning bit, just begging to be torn in two.
You will only find raised nail heads and staples by kneeling...on them.
Homosote will never be square.
If it fits together in the shop, it will find a way not to onstage.
The faster you try to go, the more screws will have malformed heads.
The moment you find yourself proud of what you've made, you'll manage to hurt yourself on it.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
drugs
The other day i saw a television advertisement for a new medication targeted at people with "Restless Leg Syndrome"--folks who wiggle so much in bed that they have a hard time sleeping.
Um. Wow. Screw searching for treatments for legitimate diseases, lets patent and sell a drug for folks who don't get enough exercise during the day so they have pent-up energy at night. I have a funny feeling pharmaceutical companies have taken to inventing medical conditions so they can invent treatments for them. Restless legs? Take a walk. Go out, buy a dog, buy a leash, and walk it.
Now I recognize that profits are falling for one of the bigger drug companies after a cholesterol-lowering medication, made available to the public, turned out to have some nasty side effects that got it recalled. It came as a biting hit as they were really counting on the patent revenue from this drug (i think its called Lipitor?) to keep them afloat for the next few years. So i can only assume, now that this product has generated a loss, that they're going to be promoting their less-interesting drugs a bit more vehemently to make up for it. Unfortunately, an unwanted side-effect of this marketing campaign is that they make themselves look like dorks.
And i can only hope that this RLS drug occurred completely by accident. I envision a tired chemist mixing, pouring, looking cross-eyed at a sheet of ingredients, filling an eye dropper with a cloudy pink solution and feeding it to one of his twitchier lab rats through the grating on a sterile aluminium cage. After a few minutes the rodent falls asleep and he checks his vitals, takes some blood, pokes and/or prods the animal and records "day 312: Mopsy's tumor is no smaller, but interestingly, though his resting vitals are all normal, he's less wiggly in his sleep."
If anyone actually funded a project to develop a drug to reduce nighttime twitchy-ness...i think the entire medical community should hang its collective head in shame. That's a waste of money, time, resources, and above all, intellect. I would be so embarrassed to go through twenty years of schooling and get four PhDs, only to get a job heading that product team.
Um. Wow. Screw searching for treatments for legitimate diseases, lets patent and sell a drug for folks who don't get enough exercise during the day so they have pent-up energy at night. I have a funny feeling pharmaceutical companies have taken to inventing medical conditions so they can invent treatments for them. Restless legs? Take a walk. Go out, buy a dog, buy a leash, and walk it.
Now I recognize that profits are falling for one of the bigger drug companies after a cholesterol-lowering medication, made available to the public, turned out to have some nasty side effects that got it recalled. It came as a biting hit as they were really counting on the patent revenue from this drug (i think its called Lipitor?) to keep them afloat for the next few years. So i can only assume, now that this product has generated a loss, that they're going to be promoting their less-interesting drugs a bit more vehemently to make up for it. Unfortunately, an unwanted side-effect of this marketing campaign is that they make themselves look like dorks.
And i can only hope that this RLS drug occurred completely by accident. I envision a tired chemist mixing, pouring, looking cross-eyed at a sheet of ingredients, filling an eye dropper with a cloudy pink solution and feeding it to one of his twitchier lab rats through the grating on a sterile aluminium cage. After a few minutes the rodent falls asleep and he checks his vitals, takes some blood, pokes and/or prods the animal and records "day 312: Mopsy's tumor is no smaller, but interestingly, though his resting vitals are all normal, he's less wiggly in his sleep."
If anyone actually funded a project to develop a drug to reduce nighttime twitchy-ness...i think the entire medical community should hang its collective head in shame. That's a waste of money, time, resources, and above all, intellect. I would be so embarrassed to go through twenty years of schooling and get four PhDs, only to get a job heading that product team.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
ROTFLOL
It occurred to me today, after babbling at someone about the hyper-education of the subordinate classes until his ears started to bleed, that the American general masses have gone from being overwhelmingly illiterate to taking literacy completely for granted in the space of about 150 years. (give or take--some middle class families may be able to claim their ancestors could read from the day they made their first cave drawings, but i'm pretty sure my grandparents' grandparents were lucky if they could scratch their names in the dust.) Throughout the backlog of human history the ability to read was a skill reserved for monks and the wealthy elite. It was a huge dividing factor between the empowered and the disenfranchised castes (other divisions being footwear, suntans, and the right to not grovel.) It has only been within the past few generations that anyone thought public education might be a fun idea, and only very recently (in terms of the history of modern homo sapiens) that women and minorities have gotten the opportunity as well.
And now, in spite of the novelty of these things called words, we've already gotten lazy with them. It started simply, with little acronyms such as "TTFN" and "RSVP" jotted at the ends of friendly letters and informal invitations. Sentence truncation remained infrequent, really, until the 1930's, when the Great Depression settled in. Roosevelt's numerous attempts at tackling industrial health and safety, agricultural production, unemployment, trade, social security, and sustainable energy sources after the 1929 financial collapse led to the mind-bending alphabet soup that dominates the pages of US history textbooks today. From the AAA, NIRA, TVA, and PWA all the way down to the WPA, CWA, and the CCC that hired shoeless farm boys to plant trees in the forest, FDR's nation-rebuilding projects initiated what would soon become a trend of commerical, industrial, and political initialism throughout the twentieth century. From the first broadcast of CBS news, the first sheet of MDF, the first use of SWF ISO SBM in a personal ad, to the swearing in of W, we just can't seem to be arsed anymore to make use of whole words.
The development of text messaging, however, has taken what was once merely a mild grammatical confusion into a whole new dictionary of conjoined consonants. what began innocently enough in replacing "that's funny" with "LOL" has spurned communicative code that would leave Sam Morse scratching his head. Entire paragraphs are now reduced to meaningless jumbles of letters, all punctuated with multiple exclamation points and parentheses-based facial expressions. Written communication as we know it has been reduced to the typing of pithy phrases using as few characters as possible. Maybe its just me, but i feel linguistic development has taken a step back in this regard. Indeed, perhaps several steps back. The text conversation "RUOK?" "SSDD." "OIC." has the same depth of meaning as the exchange "Grunt?" "Snort." "Humph." (as communicated by our pre-cave-dwelling ancestors the month before Urg really worked out fire.) There's only so many phrases you can spit out using sentence acronyms before your friend has to turn off the caps lock to ask "huh?" so perhaps it is an attempt to simplify mundane conversation topics down to nothing so as to leave space in the text block to actually type out more worthwhile, personal, or at the very least situation-specific information. But if we're using acronyms to take the place of social niceties and small talk...doesn't that defeat their purpose? Might as well omit them altogether. I've never gotten the hang of writing in text-message speak and don't think i want to. If something's not worth saying fully, its probably not worth saying at all.
...perhaps, given the average word count of my blog entries and the actual amount of substance I tend to mix into them, i should rethink this stance.
And now, in spite of the novelty of these things called words, we've already gotten lazy with them. It started simply, with little acronyms such as "TTFN" and "RSVP" jotted at the ends of friendly letters and informal invitations. Sentence truncation remained infrequent, really, until the 1930's, when the Great Depression settled in. Roosevelt's numerous attempts at tackling industrial health and safety, agricultural production, unemployment, trade, social security, and sustainable energy sources after the 1929 financial collapse led to the mind-bending alphabet soup that dominates the pages of US history textbooks today. From the AAA, NIRA, TVA, and PWA all the way down to the WPA, CWA, and the CCC that hired shoeless farm boys to plant trees in the forest, FDR's nation-rebuilding projects initiated what would soon become a trend of commerical, industrial, and political initialism throughout the twentieth century. From the first broadcast of CBS news, the first sheet of MDF, the first use of SWF ISO SBM in a personal ad, to the swearing in of W, we just can't seem to be arsed anymore to make use of whole words.
The development of text messaging, however, has taken what was once merely a mild grammatical confusion into a whole new dictionary of conjoined consonants. what began innocently enough in replacing "that's funny" with "LOL" has spurned communicative code that would leave Sam Morse scratching his head. Entire paragraphs are now reduced to meaningless jumbles of letters, all punctuated with multiple exclamation points and parentheses-based facial expressions. Written communication as we know it has been reduced to the typing of pithy phrases using as few characters as possible. Maybe its just me, but i feel linguistic development has taken a step back in this regard. Indeed, perhaps several steps back. The text conversation "RUOK?" "SSDD." "OIC." has the same depth of meaning as the exchange "Grunt?" "Snort." "Humph." (as communicated by our pre-cave-dwelling ancestors the month before Urg really worked out fire.) There's only so many phrases you can spit out using sentence acronyms before your friend has to turn off the caps lock to ask "huh?" so perhaps it is an attempt to simplify mundane conversation topics down to nothing so as to leave space in the text block to actually type out more worthwhile, personal, or at the very least situation-specific information. But if we're using acronyms to take the place of social niceties and small talk...doesn't that defeat their purpose? Might as well omit them altogether. I've never gotten the hang of writing in text-message speak and don't think i want to. If something's not worth saying fully, its probably not worth saying at all.
...perhaps, given the average word count of my blog entries and the actual amount of substance I tend to mix into them, i should rethink this stance.
Monday, February 19, 2007
games and recreation
When I was a kid I hated gym class. From first through twelfth grades, I was the Anti-PE. And in retrospect, its no wonder.
The thing is, when it comes to physical exertion, there are several activities I dread: running, hauling, and team sports. Running and hauling hurt, and as any archive-reader will know, I'm of the opinion that pain is your body's way of saying No. I carried a 4'x8' (1.2m x 2.4m) sheet of half-inch MDF about a city block today. These sheets generally weigh about 80 lbs (36kg) and catch the wind like a sail (which, naturally, pushed me backwards). By the time I put the damn thing down my hands were blistered and raw and my arm was tingling. Hauling just isn't fun. I don't understand the appeal of the "world's strongest man" competitions because frankly, all they're doing is heavy labor that nobody in their right mind would do for fun--and only the winner gets paid!
Anyway. Team sports. I despise team sports. I just do not have the enthusiasm for any activity that involves running after or hitting or trying to gain possession of...a ball. Maybe if it involved swords or oranges or something, but certainly nothing so pointless as a ball. What always made it worse in school was the teachers' constant attempts to get you "into the game"--to get you to look like you gave a damn. Yes, i was one of those girls in softball--standing in the outfield, chatting with the other apathetic outfielders about how cute the batter looked in his little gym shorts, and occasionally glancing up as a ball sailed three inches over my head and over the fence. They always told us we were graded on participation, but as there were about 80 students in each class, we figured out pretty early on that "participation" meant "attendance."
Thing is, though, I enjoy a lot of physical activities, but I always hated gym class because they never offered us the option of doing any of them. We always had to line up with tennis rackets and whack a ball over a net or line up with basketballs and try to make a lay-up shot or simply run around in circles for an hour and a half every day. When I was in school, I was a dancer. I have the knees to prove it. I also spent about four hours a day, five days a week practicing (okay, i was in the school color guard. I didn't go to Julliard or anything.) It always struck me as funny when my gym coach would accuse me of being lazy because i couldn't be arsed to chase other children around the football field until i was winded. I always wished they would offer you the option of taking ballet or gymnastics or yoga or something. We got the choice of jock- PE or Marine Corps ROTC, and i figured the former was slightly less likely to get me shot.
When I was really little, PE frequently involved group games that involved a lot of squealing and giggling. Back in the day we played Red Rover (i've heard it was recently banned in schools as too many children were getting broken arms and concussions from it), London Bridge is Falling Down, and one i never quite got on with, Mother May I. For anyone who's never heard of it, Mother May I is played by a medium-sized group of children who all know each other's names. One caller (the "Mother") is at the front, and the other children face him or her from a line a specific distance away. One by one, the Mother orders each child to take a specific number of steps toward or away from him/herself, frequently in a forceful or threatening voice. At which point the called-upon child must remember to ask, "Mother, may I?" and wait for a response before proceeding. The Mother may then choose to respond by saying "Yes you may" or "No you may not" and the child must behave accordingly. If the child fails to ask if he may move, or if he moves too few or many steps, he is thrown out of the game. The first child to reach the Mother wins, and becomes the Mother for the next round.
As an adult, it occurred to me that this game is based upon the notion that all mothers are, in fact, senile. Did your mother ever holler at you to clean your room, even threaten you with punishment if you didn't, then show up in your partly-cleaned room ten minutes later and ask why you weren't downstairs doing your homework? That's kinda the premise of this game. You are given a direct order, made to ask if you are permitted, and then are frequently told you may not do as you were told. Huh?! Its like the conversation, "Go do your laundry." "Do I have to?" "Not a bit. You stay right there and play your video game." I just don't get it. Is the game intended to encourage obedience or sass? If a kid ever responded to an instruction with "mother may i?" to her own mother, she'd be smacked for givin' her attitude. Yet this game has been around for probably centuries in one form or another. It resembles Simon Says in that you're supposed to wait for a specific word or phrase before complying, but i never liked that one either on account of the fact that the teacher usually played Simon or Mother and they barked orders at you like a friggin' drill sergeant. After a while I really wanted to miss a command and wait for them to say "You didn't ask 'mother may i', you're out!" just so i could look incredulous and say "So, what, you're encouraging me to question authority now? Well I'll be damned. And in public school."
The thing is, when it comes to physical exertion, there are several activities I dread: running, hauling, and team sports. Running and hauling hurt, and as any archive-reader will know, I'm of the opinion that pain is your body's way of saying No. I carried a 4'x8' (1.2m x 2.4m) sheet of half-inch MDF about a city block today. These sheets generally weigh about 80 lbs (36kg) and catch the wind like a sail (which, naturally, pushed me backwards). By the time I put the damn thing down my hands were blistered and raw and my arm was tingling. Hauling just isn't fun. I don't understand the appeal of the "world's strongest man" competitions because frankly, all they're doing is heavy labor that nobody in their right mind would do for fun--and only the winner gets paid!
Anyway. Team sports. I despise team sports. I just do not have the enthusiasm for any activity that involves running after or hitting or trying to gain possession of...a ball. Maybe if it involved swords or oranges or something, but certainly nothing so pointless as a ball. What always made it worse in school was the teachers' constant attempts to get you "into the game"--to get you to look like you gave a damn. Yes, i was one of those girls in softball--standing in the outfield, chatting with the other apathetic outfielders about how cute the batter looked in his little gym shorts, and occasionally glancing up as a ball sailed three inches over my head and over the fence. They always told us we were graded on participation, but as there were about 80 students in each class, we figured out pretty early on that "participation" meant "attendance."
Thing is, though, I enjoy a lot of physical activities, but I always hated gym class because they never offered us the option of doing any of them. We always had to line up with tennis rackets and whack a ball over a net or line up with basketballs and try to make a lay-up shot or simply run around in circles for an hour and a half every day. When I was in school, I was a dancer. I have the knees to prove it. I also spent about four hours a day, five days a week practicing (okay, i was in the school color guard. I didn't go to Julliard or anything.) It always struck me as funny when my gym coach would accuse me of being lazy because i couldn't be arsed to chase other children around the football field until i was winded. I always wished they would offer you the option of taking ballet or gymnastics or yoga or something. We got the choice of jock- PE or Marine Corps ROTC, and i figured the former was slightly less likely to get me shot.
When I was really little, PE frequently involved group games that involved a lot of squealing and giggling. Back in the day we played Red Rover (i've heard it was recently banned in schools as too many children were getting broken arms and concussions from it), London Bridge is Falling Down, and one i never quite got on with, Mother May I. For anyone who's never heard of it, Mother May I is played by a medium-sized group of children who all know each other's names. One caller (the "Mother") is at the front, and the other children face him or her from a line a specific distance away. One by one, the Mother orders each child to take a specific number of steps toward or away from him/herself, frequently in a forceful or threatening voice. At which point the called-upon child must remember to ask, "Mother, may I?" and wait for a response before proceeding. The Mother may then choose to respond by saying "Yes you may" or "No you may not" and the child must behave accordingly. If the child fails to ask if he may move, or if he moves too few or many steps, he is thrown out of the game. The first child to reach the Mother wins, and becomes the Mother for the next round.
As an adult, it occurred to me that this game is based upon the notion that all mothers are, in fact, senile. Did your mother ever holler at you to clean your room, even threaten you with punishment if you didn't, then show up in your partly-cleaned room ten minutes later and ask why you weren't downstairs doing your homework? That's kinda the premise of this game. You are given a direct order, made to ask if you are permitted, and then are frequently told you may not do as you were told. Huh?! Its like the conversation, "Go do your laundry." "Do I have to?" "Not a bit. You stay right there and play your video game." I just don't get it. Is the game intended to encourage obedience or sass? If a kid ever responded to an instruction with "mother may i?" to her own mother, she'd be smacked for givin' her attitude. Yet this game has been around for probably centuries in one form or another. It resembles Simon Says in that you're supposed to wait for a specific word or phrase before complying, but i never liked that one either on account of the fact that the teacher usually played Simon or Mother and they barked orders at you like a friggin' drill sergeant. After a while I really wanted to miss a command and wait for them to say "You didn't ask 'mother may i', you're out!" just so i could look incredulous and say "So, what, you're encouraging me to question authority now? Well I'll be damned. And in public school."
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Command + P
I'm convinced that color printers are a scam. Everything about them is infuriatingly designed to be as counter-productive and expensive as possible. I'm convinced its a conspiracy on the part of Kinko's and Kodak photo centers in drugstores everywhere to keep themselves in business during the heaviest battle of the D.I.Y. Revolution. These companies and others are relying on the consumer becoming so frustrated with their HP MoneyPit 3000 or their Epson Print-n-Shred that they'll actually cave and come to their stores to have their photos developed the old fashioned way--inside the belly of a giant, whirring contraption that keeps customers and employees alike baffled as to how it works.
To support this claim I provide the classic examples of printer frustration: the persistent paper-jam. the $30 ink cartridges which contain exactly enough ink to print one beautiful, automatic test-page. The refusal of full black cartridges to work until the color one has been replaced. Until now everyone merely assumed it was companies such as Hewlett-Packard keeping themselves contentedly in business, even to the extent that they started giving away printers for free provided you bought a set of inks. But this system doesn't exactly add up.
Think about it. When a product doesn't work, and consistently fails to work, people stop buying it. When a computer OS, for example, is riddled with bugs and virus loopholes and a bizarre tic that freezes your cursor in a corner but still allows you to move around and click things, consumers stop buying it and eventually the manufacturer stops making it. It is no longer a wise business decision to continue making products that people don't want. Thus, the only reason why these shitty rip-off printers keep being manufactured is because people keep buying them. Which is stupid, but somehow--either through advertising, subliminal messaging, or outright ignorance--people keep thinking that its better to put up with this piece of crap than to take their film rolls to the drugstore (which, like hybrid cars, has turned out to Not be cheaper in the long run.)
So long as we idiots keep being swindled by these obviously contrived highway robbery systems, the printer manufacturers are not going to improve their products. They don't have to, and moreover they don't want to. They're benefiting from our continued purchasing of inefficient, jammy, shoddy printers--ink sales are up, replacement printers are up, home repairs are impossible. Then Krishna Copy and print labs are there to catch the rest of the people who've gotten fed up enough to toss their personal printers in the bin. No matter what, unless you can employ a personal scribe, you have to use these people's services in order to run business and maintain personal affairs. The modern world has not yet reached a point at which we can function without the ability to put words on paper, so we are essentially these people's pawns. Me, i'm just going straight digital from here on out.
To support this claim I provide the classic examples of printer frustration: the persistent paper-jam. the $30 ink cartridges which contain exactly enough ink to print one beautiful, automatic test-page. The refusal of full black cartridges to work until the color one has been replaced. Until now everyone merely assumed it was companies such as Hewlett-Packard keeping themselves contentedly in business, even to the extent that they started giving away printers for free provided you bought a set of inks. But this system doesn't exactly add up.
Think about it. When a product doesn't work, and consistently fails to work, people stop buying it. When a computer OS, for example, is riddled with bugs and virus loopholes and a bizarre tic that freezes your cursor in a corner but still allows you to move around and click things, consumers stop buying it and eventually the manufacturer stops making it. It is no longer a wise business decision to continue making products that people don't want. Thus, the only reason why these shitty rip-off printers keep being manufactured is because people keep buying them. Which is stupid, but somehow--either through advertising, subliminal messaging, or outright ignorance--people keep thinking that its better to put up with this piece of crap than to take their film rolls to the drugstore (which, like hybrid cars, has turned out to Not be cheaper in the long run.)
So long as we idiots keep being swindled by these obviously contrived highway robbery systems, the printer manufacturers are not going to improve their products. They don't have to, and moreover they don't want to. They're benefiting from our continued purchasing of inefficient, jammy, shoddy printers--ink sales are up, replacement printers are up, home repairs are impossible. Then Krishna Copy and print labs are there to catch the rest of the people who've gotten fed up enough to toss their personal printers in the bin. No matter what, unless you can employ a personal scribe, you have to use these people's services in order to run business and maintain personal affairs. The modern world has not yet reached a point at which we can function without the ability to put words on paper, so we are essentially these people's pawns. Me, i'm just going straight digital from here on out.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
ooh me back
General inquiry directed toward any and all who may casually read this blog--my back is killing me. every morning i wake up kinked all to hell and it lingers all day. I've tried putting a sheet of plywood under the mattress to give it some back support, i've tried it with egg crates and memory foam and without, i've changed out pillows, i've even tried sleeping on the floor. i still hurt!
i exercise regularly and sleep just about 8 hours a night. i'm a theatre carpenter and spend my working hours lifting, hauling, and using high-torque power tools, but i've been doing this for years without adverse effects and i'm still young. So--question time: does anyone know a way to improve a shitty bed (note: the bed provided in my temporary housing is sized to comfortably fit a ten-year-old pygmy...but my bedroom is also appropriately sized for such a being) without caving and buying a new bed that i'll only use for the next three months?
in other news, i think i have found the evil "left wing liberal media" that the white house made such a stink about a few years ago. its called MAD magazine. they've completely given up on subtly criticizing the president and are even today warping our nation's youth with blatant statements of dissent concerning our nation's foreign and domestic policy. And to think, i was about to let my 12-year subscription lapse.
i exercise regularly and sleep just about 8 hours a night. i'm a theatre carpenter and spend my working hours lifting, hauling, and using high-torque power tools, but i've been doing this for years without adverse effects and i'm still young. So--question time: does anyone know a way to improve a shitty bed (note: the bed provided in my temporary housing is sized to comfortably fit a ten-year-old pygmy...but my bedroom is also appropriately sized for such a being) without caving and buying a new bed that i'll only use for the next three months?
in other news, i think i have found the evil "left wing liberal media" that the white house made such a stink about a few years ago. its called MAD magazine. they've completely given up on subtly criticizing the president and are even today warping our nation's youth with blatant statements of dissent concerning our nation's foreign and domestic policy. And to think, i was about to let my 12-year subscription lapse.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Why are we jaded?
I am a member of a generation that has gotten a pretty impressive amount of attention for its lack of enthusiasm, sarcasm, frustration, and crossed-arm stance toward pretty much everything that crosses its path. I was pondering the reason behind this on the way to work, and after a short walk had accumulated a pretty hefty list of causes for an entire age group to be overwhelmingly more jaded than the previous one.
I should start off by mentioning that i didn't start the morning with the question "why do I have a chip on my shoulder about the world?" but rather the question "Is there any way I could get a job at Google?" (the answer is no.) I like Google as a corporation, and I realized it's because their image promotion is directed squarely at people like me. Google is popular among recent college grads who are broke, can't find entry-level employment, can't afford housing, and honestly can't afford anything even resembling a luxury item. They're grumpy that there's heaps of new technology and gadgets and shiny objects in the world that they can't have.
Google, of course, offers the bulk of its products and services to the public free of charge. The only snag is that they post an unobtrusive list of ads everywhere you go, which most people have learned to ignore. Most of the time ads piss us off--the pop-ups that resist every blocker, the flashy obnoxious ones that induce seizures, the "you're the ten-millionth visitor" banners that mislead children and the elderly--indeed, internet-based advertising has done nothing to improve anyone's sales since its inception. But Google's ads are polite. Discrete. Apologetic, even, as though they begrudgingly post them as a means of paying the bills so they can offer you, the impoverished techno-geek, their cool programs for free. As though they want you to believe that they're philanthropists slaving for the public good and wanting nothing in return.
Which explains, of course, why Google is a massive, multi-billion dollar company. The whole image is a complete sham, but it works wonders on the jaded mind. See, poor people like folks who give away things for free. Unfortunately, though, the new generation of educated poor people expect there to be a catch, so we're reluctant to take that which is given to us. We expect the ads, the sermons, the viruses, the pickpockets, and the fine print that go along with free things. People don't give things away for free unless they expect a mighty return on the investment.
So what Google does, then, is put up the ads and plainly say "we know you're expecting a catch, and that's it. right there. Money doesn't grow on trees." They give you the illusion of showing all their cards. But oho! Turns out the last card in their hand is the one they've convinced us we don't want to see. That, of course, being that Google is an advertising company. They turn a very sweet profit off of their discrete advertisements. And they do it through trust. A Gmail user understands the agreement of ads for free products, and assumes Google is out there for them. They logically can conclude, then, that any company Google would be willing to do business with is staffed with nice people too, and, just as a favor to the generous free-stuff provider, folks click the ads occasionally. To show their support for what's going on. Well, naturally, those clicks add up and Google's clients pay up. Everybody gets what they want, especially Google.
Similar arrangements can be seen on any Comedy Central webpage, where the words "Payin' the bills" are scrawled over the ad banners. Its an apology. It makes the company look humble so you don't grumble when faced with them. So Comedy Central turns some cash for hosting ads and you keep coming to the site. Brilliant. (It goes without mention that comedy central and Google are frequented by the same sort of patronage.) Serious advertisers will pay a lot of money now to have their commercial not only seen, but given attention. Most will agree that any company that advertises via false offers, flashing lights, and flying pigs is going to go down on every viewer's "no" list. As in "No way in hell do i want whatever you're trying to sell."
So, as I was saying, I'm a member of an increasing number of startlingly jaded young adults. And i came up with some reasons why. It's really quite rational, given the context of our lives.
We're jaded because we've just spent between four and six years and between ten and fifty thousand dollars to get a piece of paper that clearly states we're just as dumb as everyone else.
Moreover, we've got proof that we're a dozen times more intellectually capable than the person the majority of our countrymen elected to be our executive leader and we're getting turned down by temp agencies.
We're jaded because we live in a diverse, multicultural, international country that is in the process of erecting walls to keep out foreigners.
We're jaded because, although we live in an age in which every magazine cover screams that a good sex life is vital to physical and mental health, our Puritanical society consistently tells us to keep our bits to ourselves.
We're jaded because big corporations have replaced edible food with corn syrup and petroleum derivatives. These same corporations keep their employees locked up throughout all daylight hours, seated, squinting at computer monitors, breathing canned hi-rise air. These same corporations fund research into the American obesity problem, which points to poor diet and lack of exercise. These Same corporations air ads stressing the importance of an active lifestyle, plenty of sunshine, and healthy food, and blame the individual's poor nutrition choices for their newfound Type II diabetes. These SAME corporations...are the only people hiring.
We're jaded because the will of the masses is repeatedly consulted and ignored by the government.
We're jaded because we're smarter than everyone ever and we're still considered members of "the masses."
We're jaded because television has been reduced to cameras following boring people around through their boring daily lives, but we still squirm through the commercial break to find out what happens next.
We're jaded because we pay a lot of money for curbside recycling pickup but we hear homeless people pick the bottles out of the bin and take them to the center for their own profit.
We're jaded because even the church has conceded that there's no meaning to life, but we'd feel silly to just end it.
We're jaded because we're capable of realizing all of this, and yet helpless to do anything about it.
Feel free to add your own!
I should start off by mentioning that i didn't start the morning with the question "why do I have a chip on my shoulder about the world?" but rather the question "Is there any way I could get a job at Google?" (the answer is no.) I like Google as a corporation, and I realized it's because their image promotion is directed squarely at people like me. Google is popular among recent college grads who are broke, can't find entry-level employment, can't afford housing, and honestly can't afford anything even resembling a luxury item. They're grumpy that there's heaps of new technology and gadgets and shiny objects in the world that they can't have.
Google, of course, offers the bulk of its products and services to the public free of charge. The only snag is that they post an unobtrusive list of ads everywhere you go, which most people have learned to ignore. Most of the time ads piss us off--the pop-ups that resist every blocker, the flashy obnoxious ones that induce seizures, the "you're the ten-millionth visitor" banners that mislead children and the elderly--indeed, internet-based advertising has done nothing to improve anyone's sales since its inception. But Google's ads are polite. Discrete. Apologetic, even, as though they begrudgingly post them as a means of paying the bills so they can offer you, the impoverished techno-geek, their cool programs for free. As though they want you to believe that they're philanthropists slaving for the public good and wanting nothing in return.
Which explains, of course, why Google is a massive, multi-billion dollar company. The whole image is a complete sham, but it works wonders on the jaded mind. See, poor people like folks who give away things for free. Unfortunately, though, the new generation of educated poor people expect there to be a catch, so we're reluctant to take that which is given to us. We expect the ads, the sermons, the viruses, the pickpockets, and the fine print that go along with free things. People don't give things away for free unless they expect a mighty return on the investment.
So what Google does, then, is put up the ads and plainly say "we know you're expecting a catch, and that's it. right there. Money doesn't grow on trees." They give you the illusion of showing all their cards. But oho! Turns out the last card in their hand is the one they've convinced us we don't want to see. That, of course, being that Google is an advertising company. They turn a very sweet profit off of their discrete advertisements. And they do it through trust. A Gmail user understands the agreement of ads for free products, and assumes Google is out there for them. They logically can conclude, then, that any company Google would be willing to do business with is staffed with nice people too, and, just as a favor to the generous free-stuff provider, folks click the ads occasionally. To show their support for what's going on. Well, naturally, those clicks add up and Google's clients pay up. Everybody gets what they want, especially Google.
Similar arrangements can be seen on any Comedy Central webpage, where the words "Payin' the bills" are scrawled over the ad banners. Its an apology. It makes the company look humble so you don't grumble when faced with them. So Comedy Central turns some cash for hosting ads and you keep coming to the site. Brilliant. (It goes without mention that comedy central and Google are frequented by the same sort of patronage.) Serious advertisers will pay a lot of money now to have their commercial not only seen, but given attention. Most will agree that any company that advertises via false offers, flashing lights, and flying pigs is going to go down on every viewer's "no" list. As in "No way in hell do i want whatever you're trying to sell."
So, as I was saying, I'm a member of an increasing number of startlingly jaded young adults. And i came up with some reasons why. It's really quite rational, given the context of our lives.
We're jaded because we've just spent between four and six years and between ten and fifty thousand dollars to get a piece of paper that clearly states we're just as dumb as everyone else.
Moreover, we've got proof that we're a dozen times more intellectually capable than the person the majority of our countrymen elected to be our executive leader and we're getting turned down by temp agencies.
We're jaded because we live in a diverse, multicultural, international country that is in the process of erecting walls to keep out foreigners.
We're jaded because, although we live in an age in which every magazine cover screams that a good sex life is vital to physical and mental health, our Puritanical society consistently tells us to keep our bits to ourselves.
We're jaded because big corporations have replaced edible food with corn syrup and petroleum derivatives. These same corporations keep their employees locked up throughout all daylight hours, seated, squinting at computer monitors, breathing canned hi-rise air. These same corporations fund research into the American obesity problem, which points to poor diet and lack of exercise. These Same corporations air ads stressing the importance of an active lifestyle, plenty of sunshine, and healthy food, and blame the individual's poor nutrition choices for their newfound Type II diabetes. These SAME corporations...are the only people hiring.
We're jaded because the will of the masses is repeatedly consulted and ignored by the government.
We're jaded because we're smarter than everyone ever and we're still considered members of "the masses."
We're jaded because television has been reduced to cameras following boring people around through their boring daily lives, but we still squirm through the commercial break to find out what happens next.
We're jaded because we pay a lot of money for curbside recycling pickup but we hear homeless people pick the bottles out of the bin and take them to the center for their own profit.
We're jaded because even the church has conceded that there's no meaning to life, but we'd feel silly to just end it.
We're jaded because we're capable of realizing all of this, and yet helpless to do anything about it.
Feel free to add your own!
Saturday, January 27, 2007
unemployable
So i was lookin' on Craig's List today at housing in theatre-friendly cities. Y'know, big, overpopulated cities with high crime rates, few available jobs, and insanely expensive rent. The kinds of towns in or near which I would have to live in order to do the job I'm most qualified for. The kinds of towns I, along with every other claustrophobic person in the world, despise.
And y'know what? The career I've chosen to pursue directly prevents me from being able to afford housing within a four-hour commute from any of these cities. The only way I'd be able to do it and contribute a fair part to payment is to share a one-bedroom flat with four or five other people. Which, frankly...no. Sharing a room with one rarely-present girl in uni was unpleasant enough (as anyone who's heard the "Chinese food made into the bed for a week" story can vouch for) and i think i've outgrown the stage of life in which i'd be content to climb into a bunk at sleepaway camp. The only adults i've ever known of to do that are soldiers, prisoners, and the occasional renaissance faire performer.
In the Bay area its $500/month to rent a trailer park space. Not even a trailer. Just an open spot on the ground that someone says its okay for you to park in. Pay half a thousand dollars monthly for 32x10 feet of...space. Just enough room for you to back in your wheeled house and be able to hear your neighbors whispering with the windows closed.
My question is this--who the hell thought cities would be a good idea? "I have a brilliant plan--lets cram millions of people into the tiniest amount of space possible--make 'em crawl into each other's laps if we have to--where all other flora and fauna (excepting mildew and cockroaches) asphyxiate and die and the human inhabitants are choked on the stench of their own compacted bodies. Let's then make it so expensive to have a home here that everyone must work two full-time jobs to afford the luxury of crawling into someone else's lap to sleep. Then, let's make it so expensive to run a business here that employers will have to make do on the smallest number of employees possible, creating rampant job scarcity! Tada! A recipe for producing the highest per-capita rates of homelessness, anxiety disorders, drug abuse, and overall failure in the country. So why do people move here in the first place? Why on earth would anyone subject themselves to this sort of torture? Why, because its the promised land of opportunity!
And if you don't live in or around a city you probably live in Nowheresville, South Carolina and don't have all of your teeth. Which is fine, if you didn't want them anyway. Because there really aren't opportunities outside of cities. Its just unfortunate that there really aren't opportunities in them either.
And y'know what? The career I've chosen to pursue directly prevents me from being able to afford housing within a four-hour commute from any of these cities. The only way I'd be able to do it and contribute a fair part to payment is to share a one-bedroom flat with four or five other people. Which, frankly...no. Sharing a room with one rarely-present girl in uni was unpleasant enough (as anyone who's heard the "Chinese food made into the bed for a week" story can vouch for) and i think i've outgrown the stage of life in which i'd be content to climb into a bunk at sleepaway camp. The only adults i've ever known of to do that are soldiers, prisoners, and the occasional renaissance faire performer.
In the Bay area its $500/month to rent a trailer park space. Not even a trailer. Just an open spot on the ground that someone says its okay for you to park in. Pay half a thousand dollars monthly for 32x10 feet of...space. Just enough room for you to back in your wheeled house and be able to hear your neighbors whispering with the windows closed.
My question is this--who the hell thought cities would be a good idea? "I have a brilliant plan--lets cram millions of people into the tiniest amount of space possible--make 'em crawl into each other's laps if we have to--where all other flora and fauna (excepting mildew and cockroaches) asphyxiate and die and the human inhabitants are choked on the stench of their own compacted bodies. Let's then make it so expensive to have a home here that everyone must work two full-time jobs to afford the luxury of crawling into someone else's lap to sleep. Then, let's make it so expensive to run a business here that employers will have to make do on the smallest number of employees possible, creating rampant job scarcity! Tada! A recipe for producing the highest per-capita rates of homelessness, anxiety disorders, drug abuse, and overall failure in the country. So why do people move here in the first place? Why on earth would anyone subject themselves to this sort of torture? Why, because its the promised land of opportunity!
And if you don't live in or around a city you probably live in Nowheresville, South Carolina and don't have all of your teeth. Which is fine, if you didn't want them anyway. Because there really aren't opportunities outside of cities. Its just unfortunate that there really aren't opportunities in them either.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
little notes
I love the feeling of having just learned something new. For a few elated moments it's as though I'm the only person in the world who knows, and I feel empowered. Like when i was 8 and learned that "s/h" stood for "shipping and handling."
Berkeley consistently has gorgeous sunsets. The locals barely notice them, they're so frequent, but i secretly wonder if they're what the tolls pay for.
I recently made a Myspace friend. I was so stunned that an actual person wanted to talk to me on account of common interests, without wanting me to buy anything, attend an overpriced concert, or put any component of herself on or in any component of me, that I very nearly clicked "disapprove." Any time it looks like someone is using Myspace for the use it was intended it must be a hoax.
"We want the finest wines available to humanity. We want them here, and we want them now." -Withnail, Withnail and I
Berkeley consistently has gorgeous sunsets. The locals barely notice them, they're so frequent, but i secretly wonder if they're what the tolls pay for.
I recently made a Myspace friend. I was so stunned that an actual person wanted to talk to me on account of common interests, without wanting me to buy anything, attend an overpriced concert, or put any component of herself on or in any component of me, that I very nearly clicked "disapprove." Any time it looks like someone is using Myspace for the use it was intended it must be a hoax.
"We want the finest wines available to humanity. We want them here, and we want them now." -Withnail, Withnail and I
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Subconscious Sadism
Over the past few months I've had a series of dreams in which I've lost body parts. Most recently my sleeping mind decided it'd be funny to lop off my left pinkie toe, but before that I had my tongue cut out with kitchen shears and lost a leg up to the hip. I Googled "amputation dream" and found a series of dictionary/advisory/astrological sites which all suggested I felt "trapped in an unpleasant situation" or "silenced by an oppressive home or job." i.e. I'd lost the parts of me used for moving around or speaking. Others mentioned castration anxiety (. . .) or amusingly vague and multi-purpose responses such as "you're worried about a difficult situation that you're going to have to address." and "you have a lot of stress in your relationship."
As cute as that is, I honestly think I'm just scared of losing bits of myself in the power tools at work. Knock on wood.
As cute as that is, I honestly think I'm just scared of losing bits of myself in the power tools at work. Knock on wood.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Open A Window
I am the anti-smell. Scented candles make me nauseated. Bathroom fresheners cause my temples to throb. Odor-eliminating sprays are my #1 migraine trigger. It Baffles me that people spray nasty chemicals into the air in their stuffy houses to "freshen" them, and then they proceed to stay in the room and Breathe that shit. Ever read the side of a bottle of Febreze? "odor eliminator" is considered an ingredient. I consider that a massive unpronounceable compound that someone figured they'd simplify. Some sort of noxious, plastic, cinnamon-inspired completely-artificial vein-inflaming horror has been reduced to "odor eliminator" on a brightly decorated spray container. Frequently these have warning labels that say "may be harmful to children or pets." but not harmful to you, you grown-up purchaser of pressurized stench. It may kill Fido but you'll come out with little more than a nagging head cold and a depleted immune system. Because This stuff is good for the air and your brain cells. That's why Corporate America encourages you to spray it directly into your nose--so you'll unlearn the dangers of huffing vaporized industrial particles and BUY MORE.
...someone put one of those stink-cones in my house. Two hours after I removed it my head still hurts and I'm dizzy.
...someone put one of those stink-cones in my house. Two hours after I removed it my head still hurts and I'm dizzy.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
on sports and sugar
I gotta say, I am so proud of myself for not dating a sports fan. I don't know how golf widows do it. So frequently I hear my friends' young men babbling excitedly about whatever sport is in season--how the player slammed the puck straight out of the court with the bases loaded with ten seconds left to score the winning touchdown. I see them running around, using furniture and pillows to re-enact the momentous scene, even going so far as to mimic the player's particular end-zone dance, to prove to their dearest loves that this is only the awesomest thing to happen in the history of the universe. I see my friends' eyes glaze over as soon as the word "basketball" is uttered, and I watch their default game-faces set in like a dose of Botox. You know the ones--the smile that doesn't quite reach the eyes, the frequent nod of understanding, the occasional "ooh, wow!", and the gradual development of a twitch in the right side of the face that worsens as time draws closer to the Superbowl. I listen as these patient ladies comfort their distraught mates when their teams lose in spite of everything--blame the refs, blame the weather, blame anything to keep the boy from crying. They hum the school's fight song like some grim travesty of a lullaby and stroke their greasy heads that reek of so much cheap beer.
I do not envy these women. I have no patience for sports and even less for the people who enjoy them. I do not understand people who's evenings are made or ruined according to the behaviors of people they do not know who get paid whether or not they win. I don't understand the joy or the grief of game watching. The last time I watched a football game the only thing I recall feeling was my ass going numb on the aluminium bleachers. It was not a joyous experience.
In other news, since I moved to California I've decided to eliminate corn syrup from my diet. It has gone well and i feel that i am eating more healthily than ever before. Moreover, it is very easy to avoid chemical foods out here--in fact, there are chains of grocery stores here that exist on the very premise that food should be healthful and inexpensive. What a concept. Unfortunately, when i went to the east coast this winter I was reminded that this is not the case for everyone. Entire areas of the country know nothing about the contents of their food, and have no other option for sustenance than the preservative-riddled, corn-sweetened, petroleum-based offal sold by Wal-Mart. WHEN DID AMERICA DECIDE PLASTIC COULD BE SOLD AS FOOD?
You wanna know why American children are overweight? Even the ones who don't have playstation threes? You're feeding them bright pink corn-syrupy garbage. Just because the advertisers can get away with calling Lucky Charms "part of a complete breakfast" doesn't mean its okay to feed to toddlers.
What's that? You say you don't feed your toddlers bright pink food but they're still fat, ADD, lethargic morons? READ THE INGREDIENTS. Most "whole wheat yes this is good for you" bread is full of high fructose corn syrup, maltodextrin, hard-to-pronounce sweeteners and bizarre chemical combinations that are not good for you. They sell it as "healthy" because its brown and the first ingredient is unbleached wheat flour. But read the rest of them. Yeah, all the rest of them. Get out your periodic table and figure out which lab-developed molecule you're eating today because Post or General Mills wanted to cut corners on raw ingredients.
General rule of thumb: If it ain't found in nature, its not food. That's not to say rocks and arsenic Are food, but let's be reasonable. Scientists invented trans fats because they thought they'd be better for you. Now they're killing people. Oops. Chances are, 20,000 years of species development has figured out a lot more about what's edible than 50 years of molecular science. I'm waiting to hear that Omega 3 fatty acids are a carcinogen or the inevitable "okay, we lied, there's no such thing as good or bad cholesterol." The country only started having pandemic obesity and obesity-related disease problems since we moved our jobs inside and started eating silicone. Somebody please pass a law. We must make healthy, chemical-free food readily available to the general masses if we don't want to watch our national IQ plummet even lower.
I do not envy these women. I have no patience for sports and even less for the people who enjoy them. I do not understand people who's evenings are made or ruined according to the behaviors of people they do not know who get paid whether or not they win. I don't understand the joy or the grief of game watching. The last time I watched a football game the only thing I recall feeling was my ass going numb on the aluminium bleachers. It was not a joyous experience.
In other news, since I moved to California I've decided to eliminate corn syrup from my diet. It has gone well and i feel that i am eating more healthily than ever before. Moreover, it is very easy to avoid chemical foods out here--in fact, there are chains of grocery stores here that exist on the very premise that food should be healthful and inexpensive. What a concept. Unfortunately, when i went to the east coast this winter I was reminded that this is not the case for everyone. Entire areas of the country know nothing about the contents of their food, and have no other option for sustenance than the preservative-riddled, corn-sweetened, petroleum-based offal sold by Wal-Mart. WHEN DID AMERICA DECIDE PLASTIC COULD BE SOLD AS FOOD?
You wanna know why American children are overweight? Even the ones who don't have playstation threes? You're feeding them bright pink corn-syrupy garbage. Just because the advertisers can get away with calling Lucky Charms "part of a complete breakfast" doesn't mean its okay to feed to toddlers.
What's that? You say you don't feed your toddlers bright pink food but they're still fat, ADD, lethargic morons? READ THE INGREDIENTS. Most "whole wheat yes this is good for you" bread is full of high fructose corn syrup, maltodextrin, hard-to-pronounce sweeteners and bizarre chemical combinations that are not good for you. They sell it as "healthy" because its brown and the first ingredient is unbleached wheat flour. But read the rest of them. Yeah, all the rest of them. Get out your periodic table and figure out which lab-developed molecule you're eating today because Post or General Mills wanted to cut corners on raw ingredients.
General rule of thumb: If it ain't found in nature, its not food. That's not to say rocks and arsenic Are food, but let's be reasonable. Scientists invented trans fats because they thought they'd be better for you. Now they're killing people. Oops. Chances are, 20,000 years of species development has figured out a lot more about what's edible than 50 years of molecular science. I'm waiting to hear that Omega 3 fatty acids are a carcinogen or the inevitable "okay, we lied, there's no such thing as good or bad cholesterol." The country only started having pandemic obesity and obesity-related disease problems since we moved our jobs inside and started eating silicone. Somebody please pass a law. We must make healthy, chemical-free food readily available to the general masses if we don't want to watch our national IQ plummet even lower.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
observations from a window seat
Flying over the American west today I noticed that terraced hills look exactly like topographical maps when covered in snow.
You want your two year old to stop whining. We want your two year old to stop whining. If speaking gently to them is ineffectual at reaching this goal, why not try your parents' method? You can't make a child feel emotions he's yet incapable of feeling (guilt) and you can't use explanations he's yet incapable of understanding. Children are simple creatures--telling a spoiled toddler to be quiet "because its nice" is like telling my three-legged cat to stay inside tonight "Because its safe." Actions speak louder than words.
There are some seriously isolated people farming in northern Utah. I wonder if they're paranoids.
The Midwest is so square its scary. Not only is the ground divided up into big regular squares, but the roads between them are straight lines, the houses on the roads are of similar shape and evenly spaced, and the streetlights could have been placed with a ruler.
Today i got two sunrises--one from the air, which is always a treat, and another on the ground about an hour later and a time zone westward. Breathtaking. All westward-headed flights should leave at six am.
If you get to your gate two hours early, don't go to sleep. Your flight might move to another end of the airport without you noticing. That said, it is a good idea to travel in running shoes.
Nebraska+Snow=sliced birthday cake
In-flight movies these days are followed by reality tv shows and advertisements. Added to the "Snackbox" program (wherein, after having your healthy, inexpensive lunch confiscated at security, you're expected to fork over cash for a box full of junk food on the plane), the sheer number of McDonald's restaurants in every terminal, and one's ability to buy a la-z-boy recliner from the Skymall and I can't help but notice that airlines are taking advantage of the fat, brainless American in all of us.
You want your two year old to stop whining. We want your two year old to stop whining. If speaking gently to them is ineffectual at reaching this goal, why not try your parents' method? You can't make a child feel emotions he's yet incapable of feeling (guilt) and you can't use explanations he's yet incapable of understanding. Children are simple creatures--telling a spoiled toddler to be quiet "because its nice" is like telling my three-legged cat to stay inside tonight "Because its safe." Actions speak louder than words.
There are some seriously isolated people farming in northern Utah. I wonder if they're paranoids.
The Midwest is so square its scary. Not only is the ground divided up into big regular squares, but the roads between them are straight lines, the houses on the roads are of similar shape and evenly spaced, and the streetlights could have been placed with a ruler.
Today i got two sunrises--one from the air, which is always a treat, and another on the ground about an hour later and a time zone westward. Breathtaking. All westward-headed flights should leave at six am.
If you get to your gate two hours early, don't go to sleep. Your flight might move to another end of the airport without you noticing. That said, it is a good idea to travel in running shoes.
Nebraska+Snow=sliced birthday cake
In-flight movies these days are followed by reality tv shows and advertisements. Added to the "Snackbox" program (wherein, after having your healthy, inexpensive lunch confiscated at security, you're expected to fork over cash for a box full of junk food on the plane), the sheer number of McDonald's restaurants in every terminal, and one's ability to buy a la-z-boy recliner from the Skymall and I can't help but notice that airlines are taking advantage of the fat, brainless American in all of us.
Monday, December 25, 2006
jack-o-tree
i gotta say, whenever i have my own house, i'm gonna set up my holiday decorations special. in the spirit of oddball pagan rituals, i'd like to grow a fir tree in my back yard and periodically decorate it--with candles, berries, wooden carvings, and (best of all) top it with a large, grinning, glowing jack-o-lantern. just to make the odd person stop, think, and call me a jackass.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
I Don't Brake for Jaywalkers
Berkeley residents, if you feel the need to dart into and through traffic, you better know--you're doing it at your own damn risk. I am sick to the teeth of my groceries spilling everywhere because I have to slam on my brakes for some asshole who has decided to run out in front of me against my green light. SORRY, but this is the only country in which that is endorsed by traffic enforcement. Everywhere else in the universe knows that traffic laws pertain to EVERYONE--motorists, pedestrians, bikers--hell, even trains and light aircraft. ("no, this is a Freeway, not a Runway. see the difference?") Why is it that foot-traffic gets to break the rules and we have to friggin' tiptoe around them like they're special? And don't fucking flip me the bird when you hear my brakes a-squealin'--you should get down on the fucking asphalt and THANK ME FOR NOT MAKING YOU PEDESTRIAN PURÉE.
Cyclists, this applies to you too. No, Members of Critical Mass, You Do Not Have The Right To Direct Traffic. Don't hold up your fucking hand to "stop" me while all eight hundred of you BLATANTLY VIOLATE traffic LAW and turn left in the middle of a red light. There's a REASON traffic laws exist. For your and my safety. I don't want to see you get killed, but you have to recognize that you're pissing off Everyone whom you're inconveniencing. You're not proving a point--you're being arrogant.
I really want one of you to tell me that this is for the sake of the "revolution"--that Berkeley still has what it takes to come together and fight for the common good. That doesn't exist anymore. Berkeley has become a fancy-pants exclusivist genius resort that bizarrely plays host to an inordinate population of delirious beggars and drug-addicted transients. the once-proactive hippies are now a sad lot of confused elderly folks who wander the streets during their lucid hours and spend the rest of their time watching the ants in People's Park. Berkeley is little more now than a rusting hull of a revolution, a modern Roman ruin, attracting tourists curious about how it used to be. We live in a world in which people need their cars. Motor vehicles in America are not a luxury--they are vital to business and family. We live in a very big country which is incapable of providing reliable public transportation outside of major urban areas, and nobody has figured out how to transport anything larger than a backpack using any method of transit outside of a car. The fact that you have time to get stoned and ride around the streets with your little friends is not an indicator that other people aren't on the clock, hauling stacks of lumber in the back of a pickup truck. Some people have to work for a living and aren't going to appreciate your roadblocks which stink of privelege and frivolity. You're not sticking it to the Man, man. You're sticking it to me--a young, poor, liberal, pro-choice, pro-gay, atheistic, Berkeley Bowl-shopping, recycling, artistic, theatre employee.
Listen to your mothers. Stop playing in the road. You'll get hit by a car.
Cyclists, this applies to you too. No, Members of Critical Mass, You Do Not Have The Right To Direct Traffic. Don't hold up your fucking hand to "stop" me while all eight hundred of you BLATANTLY VIOLATE traffic LAW and turn left in the middle of a red light. There's a REASON traffic laws exist. For your and my safety. I don't want to see you get killed, but you have to recognize that you're pissing off Everyone whom you're inconveniencing. You're not proving a point--you're being arrogant.
I really want one of you to tell me that this is for the sake of the "revolution"--that Berkeley still has what it takes to come together and fight for the common good. That doesn't exist anymore. Berkeley has become a fancy-pants exclusivist genius resort that bizarrely plays host to an inordinate population of delirious beggars and drug-addicted transients. the once-proactive hippies are now a sad lot of confused elderly folks who wander the streets during their lucid hours and spend the rest of their time watching the ants in People's Park. Berkeley is little more now than a rusting hull of a revolution, a modern Roman ruin, attracting tourists curious about how it used to be. We live in a world in which people need their cars. Motor vehicles in America are not a luxury--they are vital to business and family. We live in a very big country which is incapable of providing reliable public transportation outside of major urban areas, and nobody has figured out how to transport anything larger than a backpack using any method of transit outside of a car. The fact that you have time to get stoned and ride around the streets with your little friends is not an indicator that other people aren't on the clock, hauling stacks of lumber in the back of a pickup truck. Some people have to work for a living and aren't going to appreciate your roadblocks which stink of privelege and frivolity. You're not sticking it to the Man, man. You're sticking it to me--a young, poor, liberal, pro-choice, pro-gay, atheistic, Berkeley Bowl-shopping, recycling, artistic, theatre employee.
Listen to your mothers. Stop playing in the road. You'll get hit by a car.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
on heavy metal...
I've never understood why the word "metal" signifies a type of screechy, screamy, incomprehensible noise that some people refer to as "music." metal is only loud when you cut it. true, welding produces bright light and grinding throws sparks everywhere, so perhaps some of the onstage pyrotechnics used in metal concerts would be reminiscent of this, but i don't think that's what the gist is. as a welder, it is my principal responsibility to make structures that are sound and safe to be on and around. i grind down sharp edges and everyone knows not to touch a weld until it has cooled.
more to the point, "heavy" metal is just that. it weighs a lot. thick steel plating, iron pigs, and lead sinkers are...heavy. Aluminium, conversely, is not, and makes for light, sturdy ladders and trusswork.
If the name "metal" is in reference to the painful noise, heat, and sparks given off when one cuts steel box with an abrasive saw...that's hardly a good association to make with a sound that you'd like for people to listen to. Indeed, OSHA requires we wear eye and ear protection when we make those sorts of noises.
There's nothing offensive, edgy, or spectacular about metal. I don't get it. Maybe I'm just trapped in the mundane.
more to the point, "heavy" metal is just that. it weighs a lot. thick steel plating, iron pigs, and lead sinkers are...heavy. Aluminium, conversely, is not, and makes for light, sturdy ladders and trusswork.
If the name "metal" is in reference to the painful noise, heat, and sparks given off when one cuts steel box with an abrasive saw...that's hardly a good association to make with a sound that you'd like for people to listen to. Indeed, OSHA requires we wear eye and ear protection when we make those sorts of noises.
There's nothing offensive, edgy, or spectacular about metal. I don't get it. Maybe I'm just trapped in the mundane.
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