Posts
On September 2 of 2007 a man at a Home Depot became frustrated after he accidentally hit the wrong icon on a computer screen at the self-checkout line and the machine started speaking Spanish.
He went postal¾as in with an item like a post¾and smashed the computer with a pry bar. He fled and was not apprehended.
Maybe some people need to check themselves out, um, with a psychologist.
But once again life imitates art. The news story reminded of an essay I wrote back on February 2, of 2007. Here’s the appropriate passage.
“…Much in life depends on expectation. We expect life to conform to what we know already. So when I first went to Mexico I had to interpret it based on what I knew. I was cautious.
I remember back in my junior high school Spanish class when I mistakenly assumed frijoles were some kind of bonus donut thing¾you know, free holes.
Or the time someone told me that the word luge was pronounced loogie in Spanish. And that there was a Mexican luge/loogie team for the winter Olympics from Oaxaca.
Oaxaca loogie?
A week after I got back from Mexico, I got the other end of the expectation thing. I went to the self-checkout line in Home Depot. I accidentally pressed the Spanish button instead of English when the opening screen came up. I couldn’t get the machine to go back to English.
So I went through the rest of the transaction in Spanish.
The machine was rather loud in its Spanish prompt. Finally, I reached a point where the checker overseer had to help. I’d used a coupon and the machine was telling me in Spanish to wait for cashier assistance.
I looked around with an enquiring look on my face and the cashier said in slow, loud and exaggerated English, Cou-pon? Cou-pon?
I handed it to her and said Si.
Who was I to shatter her world? She made me accidentally bilingual for a day.
Funny thing though—the receipt was printed in English.”
America, ya gotta love it.
Monday, September 17, 2007
#602 Question Wonder
So I admit, I wonder about the weirdest things.
The other day I went by an establishment that apparently catered to Chinese folk. There was one of those pictogram things on the window—one big Chinese character, presumably a letter of some sort. I’m told that Chinese has over 3000 of them.
You think learning your ABCs was hard.
Anyhow, this character-pictograph-Chinese-letter thing was drawn on the window in a blocky manner and it made me ask myself, do Chinese letters have fonts?
I mean, the story is, each delicate swirl and nuance changes the meaning of a character, so wouldn’t changing from, say, New Times Roman to Copperplate Gothic change the meaning too?
Just wondering.
Or the other day, I was in a meeting and this guy was introducing someone else. He was singing his praises and listing his accomplishments and then he said the other guy used to be a former pilot.
So I wonder, if he used to be a former pilot, does that mean he’s flying again?
We were driving out in the country and I saw one of those roadside signs on the side of the road. This one appeared to be from some hunter type that either wanted to be in the sheep raising business or possibly just had a hankering for lamb rather than all the venison he seemed to have on hand.
His sign said, “Buy Sheep, Sell Deer.”
I wonder if this hunter is related to my Jewish uncle in some way.
I hate it when people spoil books. Especially the new Harry Potter. I hear there are some big surprises in it.
One guy told me, before I had a chance to plug my ears and go nah nah nah nah, that the most surprising part was when Harry started dueling with some wizard who claimed to be the descendent of Mary Magdalene and Jesus.
That was right before Professor Gandalf, I mean Dumbledore, had Harry throw the ring of power into the cracks of doom in Mordor.
Made me wonder where J.K. Rowling gets all her original ideas...
America, ya gotta love it
The other day I went by an establishment that apparently catered to Chinese folk. There was one of those pictogram things on the window—one big Chinese character, presumably a letter of some sort. I’m told that Chinese has over 3000 of them.
You think learning your ABCs was hard.
Anyhow, this character-pictograph-Chinese-letter thing was drawn on the window in a blocky manner and it made me ask myself, do Chinese letters have fonts?
I mean, the story is, each delicate swirl and nuance changes the meaning of a character, so wouldn’t changing from, say, New Times Roman to Copperplate Gothic change the meaning too?
Just wondering.
Or the other day, I was in a meeting and this guy was introducing someone else. He was singing his praises and listing his accomplishments and then he said the other guy used to be a former pilot.
So I wonder, if he used to be a former pilot, does that mean he’s flying again?
We were driving out in the country and I saw one of those roadside signs on the side of the road. This one appeared to be from some hunter type that either wanted to be in the sheep raising business or possibly just had a hankering for lamb rather than all the venison he seemed to have on hand.
His sign said, “Buy Sheep, Sell Deer.”
I wonder if this hunter is related to my Jewish uncle in some way.
I hate it when people spoil books. Especially the new Harry Potter. I hear there are some big surprises in it.
One guy told me, before I had a chance to plug my ears and go nah nah nah nah, that the most surprising part was when Harry started dueling with some wizard who claimed to be the descendent of Mary Magdalene and Jesus.
That was right before Professor Gandalf, I mean Dumbledore, had Harry throw the ring of power into the cracks of doom in Mordor.
Made me wonder where J.K. Rowling gets all her original ideas...
America, ya gotta love it
#601 Graft Legislation
Lately we’ve been hearing about the mortgage meltdown. Those in the know are using a more subtle alliteration and calling it the mortgage implosion.
There’s even a website dedicated to it called ML-Implode dot com. Employees of national mortgage chains visit it every morning to find out whether they lost their heads on the chopping block the previous night.
The last total I saw was 144.
This debacle is far from over. No-down payment loans, interest only loans, and most importantly, adjustable rate mortgages, affectionately known as ARMs, are wreaking untold financial havoc as homeowners with marginal credit are defaulting left and right.
As one financial wag put it: “Finally, a farewell to ARMs.”
This is the inevitable result of the ARMs race, when lenders out-competed one another for “creative” financing solutions.
Like the old inflate the price of a home and then come up with an imaginary “qualifying” down payment from the difference when you reduce it back to normal price.
Or qualify a barely qualifiable person with an incredibly low initial ARMs rate, and then try to farm out the mortgage to another lender, skim the commission and run like hell, knowing full well the homeowner was likely to go, um, tics up at the next reset.
I love that word, reset. That’s what they call it when your arm interest rate tics up to open market loan rate. In some cases doubling your house payment.
Reset. It sounds so innocuous. Like the timer on your oven. Or the clock on a time bomb.
All that was okay in a market where you could sell your home quickly if you got in too deep. Not okay now, when homes languish unsold for months on end.
So the homeowner defaults, the mortgage company eats it, then pleads to the government for help out of the situation they created.
There’s talk in congress of some sort of emergency bailout graft legislation, I mean draft legislation, to help.
Hmm. Seems to me there was some deal in the first Bush administration about savings and loans and shady loans. Weren’t we taxpayers the ones who finally had to eat it?
I’m just glad we learned our lesson.
America, ya gotta love it
There’s even a website dedicated to it called ML-Implode dot com. Employees of national mortgage chains visit it every morning to find out whether they lost their heads on the chopping block the previous night.
The last total I saw was 144.
This debacle is far from over. No-down payment loans, interest only loans, and most importantly, adjustable rate mortgages, affectionately known as ARMs, are wreaking untold financial havoc as homeowners with marginal credit are defaulting left and right.
As one financial wag put it: “Finally, a farewell to ARMs.”
This is the inevitable result of the ARMs race, when lenders out-competed one another for “creative” financing solutions.
Like the old inflate the price of a home and then come up with an imaginary “qualifying” down payment from the difference when you reduce it back to normal price.
Or qualify a barely qualifiable person with an incredibly low initial ARMs rate, and then try to farm out the mortgage to another lender, skim the commission and run like hell, knowing full well the homeowner was likely to go, um, tics up at the next reset.
I love that word, reset. That’s what they call it when your arm interest rate tics up to open market loan rate. In some cases doubling your house payment.
Reset. It sounds so innocuous. Like the timer on your oven. Or the clock on a time bomb.
All that was okay in a market where you could sell your home quickly if you got in too deep. Not okay now, when homes languish unsold for months on end.
So the homeowner defaults, the mortgage company eats it, then pleads to the government for help out of the situation they created.
There’s talk in congress of some sort of emergency bailout graft legislation, I mean draft legislation, to help.
Hmm. Seems to me there was some deal in the first Bush administration about savings and loans and shady loans. Weren’t we taxpayers the ones who finally had to eat it?
I’m just glad we learned our lesson.
America, ya gotta love it
#600 Grog and Nano
Recently I bemoaned the overuse of cellphones with our young.
I love that word. Bemoan. It means, “complained about” or “whined about” but it sounds so incredibly old-fashioned. I bemoaned her broken fine china. We bemoaned the lack of civility and etiquette.
Nowadays we just bitch about things.
It occurred to me that when society shifts, the young are quicker to embrace change and less likely to bebitch about it. So it’s no surprise that when the cellphone came along the younger folks saw it as one more tool in their gadget arsenal.
Remember, this is the generation of the Nano-pet—those little electronic beasts. From Nano-pet to Ipod Nano to I-phones was a logical progression.
So it’s probably high time I adjust to the world of You Tube and My Space, however much those names make Freud roll over in his grave.
Because if you stop to think about it, “talking” was once a new technology. And it was probably first made popular by the young. I can imagine my curmudgeonly equivalent during cave man times as the first words emerged and the kids started jabbering.
“I don’t know about these kids today, Grog, they’re always making funny sounds. It’s enough to drive a cave person crazy, what with the echoing in the cave and stuff. The acoustics hurt my ears.
“Look how they follow each other everywhere, like they have the same idea or something. How efficiently they work together to achieve a common goal by making those ‘words’ at each other.
“It’s unnatural I tell you. If the Great Spirit had meant us to do things so quickly, he would have made us like bees or ants. This talking thing is going to be the downfall of communication.
“Where’s the jumping, and the hugs, and the pats on the back, and the taking each other by the hand to lead someone to the creek?
“And it’s dangerous! One of them crashed into me the other day on the trail when he was trying to talk and chew gristle at the same time!”
This rant would, of course, have used the old technology—sign language, grunts, hoots—and bemoaning...
America, ya gotta love it
I love that word. Bemoan. It means, “complained about” or “whined about” but it sounds so incredibly old-fashioned. I bemoaned her broken fine china. We bemoaned the lack of civility and etiquette.
Nowadays we just bitch about things.
It occurred to me that when society shifts, the young are quicker to embrace change and less likely to bebitch about it. So it’s no surprise that when the cellphone came along the younger folks saw it as one more tool in their gadget arsenal.
Remember, this is the generation of the Nano-pet—those little electronic beasts. From Nano-pet to Ipod Nano to I-phones was a logical progression.
So it’s probably high time I adjust to the world of You Tube and My Space, however much those names make Freud roll over in his grave.
Because if you stop to think about it, “talking” was once a new technology. And it was probably first made popular by the young. I can imagine my curmudgeonly equivalent during cave man times as the first words emerged and the kids started jabbering.
“I don’t know about these kids today, Grog, they’re always making funny sounds. It’s enough to drive a cave person crazy, what with the echoing in the cave and stuff. The acoustics hurt my ears.
“Look how they follow each other everywhere, like they have the same idea or something. How efficiently they work together to achieve a common goal by making those ‘words’ at each other.
“It’s unnatural I tell you. If the Great Spirit had meant us to do things so quickly, he would have made us like bees or ants. This talking thing is going to be the downfall of communication.
“Where’s the jumping, and the hugs, and the pats on the back, and the taking each other by the hand to lead someone to the creek?
“And it’s dangerous! One of them crashed into me the other day on the trail when he was trying to talk and chew gristle at the same time!”
This rant would, of course, have used the old technology—sign language, grunts, hoots—and bemoaning...
America, ya gotta love it
#599 Groups and Cells
I went into this driving school to see a client. While I’m waiting for him, I notice the place is packed with teenagers.
They appear to be grouped in twos and threes and sixes; that clumping together with social gravity you usually see in the young.
Like galaxy clusters or tribal groups.
At first I cringe from all the incessant chatter, I rarely find myself in a big crowd of people, especially young people with a lot to say. Then I notice something.
None of them is talking to each other.
That’s right, there are about 36 people in this room and all of them have cellphones. And they are all talking to someone else.
Or texting.
This worried me, old-fashioned persnickety curmudgeon that I am, in a number of ways.
Do each and every one of our young people really need a cellphone? Is this combination safety-net/apron-string really for the kid’s safety or the parent’s peace of mind? And is that good for us as parents, or is it just a sop to our worries?
Worry this: Just having Billy call from an after-school activity doesn’t actually mean he’s at that activity.
Is his self-reliance ever going to develop if we’re at the other end of the line 24/7? And most importantly, are his social skills going to develop if every time he gets uncomfortable in a group situation he flips open his phone and starts talking or texting to someone he knows elsewhere?
How is he going to mature if he’s always able to avoid that awkward uncomfortable silence that grows between strangers in a strange room?
Where will he develop his elevator speech? How will he build up a small talk repertoire?
How will he learn to talk about the weather?
Small talk, irksome as it is, is the grease upon which social wheels turn. And physical groupings, with all their terrors, are what force us to learn to communicate, as ourselves, not some imaginary psychological avatar on the internet.
Real rooms are infinitely better for world peace than chatrooms.
If only because we must rise above our fear of others and engage in real communication.
America, ya gotta love it
They appear to be grouped in twos and threes and sixes; that clumping together with social gravity you usually see in the young.
Like galaxy clusters or tribal groups.
At first I cringe from all the incessant chatter, I rarely find myself in a big crowd of people, especially young people with a lot to say. Then I notice something.
None of them is talking to each other.
That’s right, there are about 36 people in this room and all of them have cellphones. And they are all talking to someone else.
Or texting.
This worried me, old-fashioned persnickety curmudgeon that I am, in a number of ways.
Do each and every one of our young people really need a cellphone? Is this combination safety-net/apron-string really for the kid’s safety or the parent’s peace of mind? And is that good for us as parents, or is it just a sop to our worries?
Worry this: Just having Billy call from an after-school activity doesn’t actually mean he’s at that activity.
Is his self-reliance ever going to develop if we’re at the other end of the line 24/7? And most importantly, are his social skills going to develop if every time he gets uncomfortable in a group situation he flips open his phone and starts talking or texting to someone he knows elsewhere?
How is he going to mature if he’s always able to avoid that awkward uncomfortable silence that grows between strangers in a strange room?
Where will he develop his elevator speech? How will he build up a small talk repertoire?
How will he learn to talk about the weather?
Small talk, irksome as it is, is the grease upon which social wheels turn. And physical groupings, with all their terrors, are what force us to learn to communicate, as ourselves, not some imaginary psychological avatar on the internet.
Real rooms are infinitely better for world peace than chatrooms.
If only because we must rise above our fear of others and engage in real communication.
America, ya gotta love it
#598 Gritty in the City
Summer is short in the great northwest and it seems like every weekend is devoted to one festival or another. From Arbor Day to Harbor Days, Lakefair to Seafair, tugboat races to hydroplane races, people congregate in the parks and on the docks and shores looking for something to do.
So, as is usually the case when it comes to rare venues, different people try to cram in to the same space. And like a building with only one elevator, there are bound to be some unexpected encounters.
That’s how it was not long ago here in Olympia, when one weekend saw two major festivals competing for time, space, and public attention. There was “Sand in the City,” the annual fundraiser for the Hands On Children’s Museum and “Hempfest,” the annual hands on consciousness raiser for the promotion of childlike innocence.
Getting Sand in the City and getting stoned in the city.
Or getting gritty and no being able to get spitty. Because there seemed to be dry mouths in both festivals.
The biggest raisers of funds were the purveyors of bottled water.
Nothing makes your mouth dryer than saltwater air and sand. Well one thing. Flaming hemp takes the cake.
Or maybe the brownie.
It may have been a testimony to the corporate sponsorship mentality of our times, with insurance company ball fields and beer-sponsored rock tours, but I’m pretty sure the Doritos delivery truck parked at Hempfest was just the driver servicing the convenience store nearby.
At least I hope. Although there was a Snickers van parked close by as well.
Still, most people looked pretty happy¾for some reason¾and it was nice to see everyone getting along.
In one way, the events were quite compatible. I mean, if I were to ask your average out of town visitor what he thought of a festival that imported 70 tons of sand so that adults could make massive sandcastles and wildly imaginary sculptures on the waterfront, he may conclude automatically that such a fantastical endeavor was fueled by something called Hempfest.
Adults playing in the sand?
It’s just not your normal, mature, corporate rat-race behavior.
Dude.
America, ya gotta love it
So, as is usually the case when it comes to rare venues, different people try to cram in to the same space. And like a building with only one elevator, there are bound to be some unexpected encounters.
That’s how it was not long ago here in Olympia, when one weekend saw two major festivals competing for time, space, and public attention. There was “Sand in the City,” the annual fundraiser for the Hands On Children’s Museum and “Hempfest,” the annual hands on consciousness raiser for the promotion of childlike innocence.
Getting Sand in the City and getting stoned in the city.
Or getting gritty and no being able to get spitty. Because there seemed to be dry mouths in both festivals.
The biggest raisers of funds were the purveyors of bottled water.
Nothing makes your mouth dryer than saltwater air and sand. Well one thing. Flaming hemp takes the cake.
Or maybe the brownie.
It may have been a testimony to the corporate sponsorship mentality of our times, with insurance company ball fields and beer-sponsored rock tours, but I’m pretty sure the Doritos delivery truck parked at Hempfest was just the driver servicing the convenience store nearby.
At least I hope. Although there was a Snickers van parked close by as well.
Still, most people looked pretty happy¾for some reason¾and it was nice to see everyone getting along.
In one way, the events were quite compatible. I mean, if I were to ask your average out of town visitor what he thought of a festival that imported 70 tons of sand so that adults could make massive sandcastles and wildly imaginary sculptures on the waterfront, he may conclude automatically that such a fantastical endeavor was fueled by something called Hempfest.
Adults playing in the sand?
It’s just not your normal, mature, corporate rat-race behavior.
Dude.
America, ya gotta love it
#597 Gripping Story
Recently a young gentleman was awarded an additional term to his jail time. He was in prison for armed robbery and serving ten years for that crime.
The young man was twenty years old.
The additional sentence he received was 60 days.
The authorities fined him 60 days for indecent exposure. Seems the young man was passing the time—alone—late at night on his prison cot. A female prison guard observed him on the closed circuit prison TV system.
He was lonely and administering some personal, um, therapy.
As the young man was amusing himself, the lady prison guard watching on the TV was apparently appalled by the exercises he was doing.
The young gentleman was in the nude. And certain aspects of his exposure the lady in question found indecent.
After his sentence was rendered, the prison spokesperson, one Elliot Cohen, explained that privacy is one of the rights that inmates forfeit. “That’s why there are no doors on the bathroom,” he said, “That’s what jail is.”
So let me get this straight. It’s okay to use the bathroom and it’s not indecent exposure, but it’s not okay alone on a bed.
At what point does the indecent exposure come into it?
As I understand the statute, indecent exposure can involve something as simple as flashing an innocent bystander with a sight of something they are not prepared to witness. It’s the shock value, as it were.
I would think that a prison guard, male or female, would: First, be unshockable in this regard, and second, have the common decency to look away should something of a private nature emerge from the shadows.
I mean, come on, armed robbery is not punishable by self-celibacy.
I’m surprised the charges stood up.
Then again, the whole thing took place in Florida, land of quickie capital punishment and electile dysfunction.
I say, get a grip Florida. This is, hands down, cruel and unusual punishment. Most 20-year-old guys would be earning 60 days every 60 hours.
Looks like this guy’s got a long pull ahead of him.
America, ya gotta love it
The young man was twenty years old.
The additional sentence he received was 60 days.
The authorities fined him 60 days for indecent exposure. Seems the young man was passing the time—alone—late at night on his prison cot. A female prison guard observed him on the closed circuit prison TV system.
He was lonely and administering some personal, um, therapy.
As the young man was amusing himself, the lady prison guard watching on the TV was apparently appalled by the exercises he was doing.
The young gentleman was in the nude. And certain aspects of his exposure the lady in question found indecent.
After his sentence was rendered, the prison spokesperson, one Elliot Cohen, explained that privacy is one of the rights that inmates forfeit. “That’s why there are no doors on the bathroom,” he said, “That’s what jail is.”
So let me get this straight. It’s okay to use the bathroom and it’s not indecent exposure, but it’s not okay alone on a bed.
At what point does the indecent exposure come into it?
As I understand the statute, indecent exposure can involve something as simple as flashing an innocent bystander with a sight of something they are not prepared to witness. It’s the shock value, as it were.
I would think that a prison guard, male or female, would: First, be unshockable in this regard, and second, have the common decency to look away should something of a private nature emerge from the shadows.
I mean, come on, armed robbery is not punishable by self-celibacy.
I’m surprised the charges stood up.
Then again, the whole thing took place in Florida, land of quickie capital punishment and electile dysfunction.
I say, get a grip Florida. This is, hands down, cruel and unusual punishment. Most 20-year-old guys would be earning 60 days every 60 hours.
Looks like this guy’s got a long pull ahead of him.
America, ya gotta love it
#596 Goldi-mullet
Pepsi has got into trouble with their Aquafina brand of bottled water. Seems they’ve been using the initials P.W.S. to identify the water’s source.
The feds are requiring them to spell the initials out.
Guess what? P.W.S. stands for Public Water Source.
What is also known as T.W.
Tap Water.
Yep, Aquafina is tap water—with added minerals, of course, to make it taste sweeter. It turns out that over 25% of all bottled water sold comes from municipal sources. And not necessarily good ones. There are no regulations.
I’m reminded of the souvenir chocolate someone once brought me from New York. And not just New York, from the Empire State Building. It was all packaged up and everything as an “official souvenir” of the Empire State Building. Then you looked at the label and it said, “manufactured in New Jersey.”
Just remind me not to buy any water from L.A. Gear. I come from that area and you wouldn’t have to add any minerals. At least those from the heavier end of the periodic table. Iron, Lead, Mercury, Diesel ...
So speaking of what’s up front not being the whole picture, my big question is, who still specializes in cutting mullets? How does the saying go for a mullet¾business in the front, party in the back?
The other night when we were in Chehalis—which, believe or not, is an Indian word that means “mullet”—we were amazed by how many people were still sporting same. So I’m guessing there are hair styling salons with a special mullet section on their price list and everything.
A little pre-mullet shaping shampoo and condition, to work in some 10-40 emollients.
A gum-snapping beautician in a Billy Ray Cyrus T-Shirt.
Well-sharpened scissors the size of hedge clippers for the flowing locks in the back.
Sheep shearing clippers for the patented mullet tight sides.
And at the amenities table, instead of yuppie organic tea, micro-roasted drip coffee, and questionably bottled water, a case of Buckhorn in a tailgate cooler.
Oh yeah. With Buckhorn you know what to expect.
The thought of it nearly causes an infarction in my achy breaky heart.
America, ya gotta love it
The feds are requiring them to spell the initials out.
Guess what? P.W.S. stands for Public Water Source.
What is also known as T.W.
Tap Water.
Yep, Aquafina is tap water—with added minerals, of course, to make it taste sweeter. It turns out that over 25% of all bottled water sold comes from municipal sources. And not necessarily good ones. There are no regulations.
I’m reminded of the souvenir chocolate someone once brought me from New York. And not just New York, from the Empire State Building. It was all packaged up and everything as an “official souvenir” of the Empire State Building. Then you looked at the label and it said, “manufactured in New Jersey.”
Just remind me not to buy any water from L.A. Gear. I come from that area and you wouldn’t have to add any minerals. At least those from the heavier end of the periodic table. Iron, Lead, Mercury, Diesel ...
So speaking of what’s up front not being the whole picture, my big question is, who still specializes in cutting mullets? How does the saying go for a mullet¾business in the front, party in the back?
The other night when we were in Chehalis—which, believe or not, is an Indian word that means “mullet”—we were amazed by how many people were still sporting same. So I’m guessing there are hair styling salons with a special mullet section on their price list and everything.
A little pre-mullet shaping shampoo and condition, to work in some 10-40 emollients.
A gum-snapping beautician in a Billy Ray Cyrus T-Shirt.
Well-sharpened scissors the size of hedge clippers for the flowing locks in the back.
Sheep shearing clippers for the patented mullet tight sides.
And at the amenities table, instead of yuppie organic tea, micro-roasted drip coffee, and questionably bottled water, a case of Buckhorn in a tailgate cooler.
Oh yeah. With Buckhorn you know what to expect.
The thought of it nearly causes an infarction in my achy breaky heart.
America, ya gotta love it
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
#595 Grand Prius SBD
There are a couple of interesting things about the Prius I’ve learned recently.
The word Prius really is a word. Doesn’t it seem like car companies are really reaching for car names these days? You got your “Stanza” and you got your “Précis.”
They are no longer naming cars for animals and weather but instead naming them after parts of speech and language.
Prius was the first to delve into the land of the medical. It’s a word that’s used in medical prescriptions. In that realm it’s pronounced “pray-us” and it means “before” or “former.”
Apparently, doctors sometimes change their minds and have to convey to pharmacists that, yes, they know it used to be one thing, now they want it to be another.
Perhaps as in, “...ignore the former prescription and instead dispense this latest mood-leveling or erectile dysfunction medication the drug companies want me to try out on the unsuspecting general public in return for a new set of golf clubs.”
“Which will fit conveniently into my Look-I’m-green-just-like-my-patients-Prius.”
I’m not sure Toyota knew that’s what the word meant but, hey, there’s something charmingly oxymoronic about the newest and most modern example of car technology being called “before” or “former.”
The other thing I learned about the Prius is that various advocacy groups for the sight-impaired are concerned it’s too quiet. The Prius poses an unacceptable risk to blind people who use audio clues to navigate through their daily lives.
Silent but deadly.
The new Prius SBD. The first electric/natural gas hybrid.
Toyota has promised it will try to develop a noisy alternative.
Maybe blind people could wear a transponder hat and the Prius could have an automatic sensor that picks up the signal and then honks the horn.
Other groups are worried about runners and bicyclists that need to hear car noises over their earphones as they’re out for a jog or spin.
Get over it. Pay attention. Save your Ipod for the health club.
These people annoy me. I say charge them double for Prius transponders and use the extra money to pay for the blind people’s.
That’s my prescription.
America, ya gotta love it
The word Prius really is a word. Doesn’t it seem like car companies are really reaching for car names these days? You got your “Stanza” and you got your “Précis.”
They are no longer naming cars for animals and weather but instead naming them after parts of speech and language.
Prius was the first to delve into the land of the medical. It’s a word that’s used in medical prescriptions. In that realm it’s pronounced “pray-us” and it means “before” or “former.”
Apparently, doctors sometimes change their minds and have to convey to pharmacists that, yes, they know it used to be one thing, now they want it to be another.
Perhaps as in, “...ignore the former prescription and instead dispense this latest mood-leveling or erectile dysfunction medication the drug companies want me to try out on the unsuspecting general public in return for a new set of golf clubs.”
“Which will fit conveniently into my Look-I’m-green-just-like-my-patients-Prius.”
I’m not sure Toyota knew that’s what the word meant but, hey, there’s something charmingly oxymoronic about the newest and most modern example of car technology being called “before” or “former.”
The other thing I learned about the Prius is that various advocacy groups for the sight-impaired are concerned it’s too quiet. The Prius poses an unacceptable risk to blind people who use audio clues to navigate through their daily lives.
Silent but deadly.
The new Prius SBD. The first electric/natural gas hybrid.
Toyota has promised it will try to develop a noisy alternative.
Maybe blind people could wear a transponder hat and the Prius could have an automatic sensor that picks up the signal and then honks the horn.
Other groups are worried about runners and bicyclists that need to hear car noises over their earphones as they’re out for a jog or spin.
Get over it. Pay attention. Save your Ipod for the health club.
These people annoy me. I say charge them double for Prius transponders and use the extra money to pay for the blind people’s.
That’s my prescription.
America, ya gotta love it
#594 Grand Prius
A great woman once said: For every Hummer, the good Lord put a Prius on earth.
A strange modern religious sentiment, but I kind of get it. Nature seeks a balance.
As I’ve indicated before, I’m always uncomfortable just saying the word Prius. It reminds me too much of that other word that refers to the Greek god of procreation and all phalluses generally—Priapus.
And then there’s the medical disorder—Priapism. It’s the real thing Viagra is marketing to you, excuse me, warning you about, when they caution against it lasting longer than 4 hours.
But things are getting harder now.
Because there is more than one Hummer and so, more than one Prius. And it’s created the plural question.
Like the other day when I came to a stop behind a blue Prius. He, in turn, was stopped behind another blue Prius.
Prius blue, by the way, is that new blue all the car companies are suddenly adopting. Kind of somewhere between midnight blue and robin egg blue.
Prius calls it “seaside pearl” and has it available with two interior color choices, dark grey or bisque. I’m not sure about the seaside pearl. Do they mean pearls found along the seaside are blue or this is a blue reminiscent of the blue of the sea at seaside with pearl translucency? I have no idea.
I’m more worried about my interior being the color of bisque. Isn’t that some kind of hoity-toity soup?
Still, considering bisque is a soup made from pureed crustaceans, the seaside theme remains intact for this particular color option package.
Let’s just hope that “new car” aroma doesn’t smell like someone left a case of crabs in the back seat.
If car companies were smart they’d make all new car interiors the color of lattes or mocha, maybe even machiatos—at least around the cup tippers.
I mean cupholders.
So, okay, driving a Prius invokes that Freudian thing psychologists are always talking about with Americans and their cars.
But seeing more than one Prius conjures up a more basic predicament: What is the plural of Prius?
Is it Pri-I, like octopi? Or it Prius-es—like Lexus-es?
Um...
I know. How about Toyota Hybrids?
America, ya gotta love it
A strange modern religious sentiment, but I kind of get it. Nature seeks a balance.
As I’ve indicated before, I’m always uncomfortable just saying the word Prius. It reminds me too much of that other word that refers to the Greek god of procreation and all phalluses generally—Priapus.
And then there’s the medical disorder—Priapism. It’s the real thing Viagra is marketing to you, excuse me, warning you about, when they caution against it lasting longer than 4 hours.
But things are getting harder now.
Because there is more than one Hummer and so, more than one Prius. And it’s created the plural question.
Like the other day when I came to a stop behind a blue Prius. He, in turn, was stopped behind another blue Prius.
Prius blue, by the way, is that new blue all the car companies are suddenly adopting. Kind of somewhere between midnight blue and robin egg blue.
Prius calls it “seaside pearl” and has it available with two interior color choices, dark grey or bisque. I’m not sure about the seaside pearl. Do they mean pearls found along the seaside are blue or this is a blue reminiscent of the blue of the sea at seaside with pearl translucency? I have no idea.
I’m more worried about my interior being the color of bisque. Isn’t that some kind of hoity-toity soup?
Still, considering bisque is a soup made from pureed crustaceans, the seaside theme remains intact for this particular color option package.
Let’s just hope that “new car” aroma doesn’t smell like someone left a case of crabs in the back seat.
If car companies were smart they’d make all new car interiors the color of lattes or mocha, maybe even machiatos—at least around the cup tippers.
I mean cupholders.
So, okay, driving a Prius invokes that Freudian thing psychologists are always talking about with Americans and their cars.
But seeing more than one Prius conjures up a more basic predicament: What is the plural of Prius?
Is it Pri-I, like octopi? Or it Prius-es—like Lexus-es?
Um...
I know. How about Toyota Hybrids?
America, ya gotta love it
#593 Get Nugs
The other day I was thinking of nuggets.
Like chicken nuggets, those strange amorphous pieces of fowl flesh that we have embraced in American cuisine. Like we’ve embraced that fake crab stuff—the concoction they reconstitute from bottom fish.
It’s sort of crab like, and if they add crab flavoring to it, all the better.
Somehow the idea of meat to which they have to add “meat flavor” misses the point of eating. If it were just about consuming protein, why, any wandering tofu master could render us up something passably palatable.
When you can make the tofu taste like grasshopper, Qwai Chang, it will be time for you to leave.
What got me thinking about chicken nuggets was McNuggets. I was passing by a McDonalds and my brain was reeling from a juxtaposition of signs.
I had first passed by a health club. The sign on the health club said, “Open 24 hours.” The sign I passed next door said, “McDonalds, open 24 hours.”
I suppose after a heavy aerobic workout and a light circuit of weights there’s nothing more refreshing than a Quarter-Pounder and a large fries.
Maybe top it off with a McFlurry if you did a little spin work.
Talk about taking advantage of a cross promotional sales opportunities. McDonalds benefits from hungry post-workout patrons. The health club benefits from the fat they bring back the next day.
But all this chicken consumption has a price—the antibiotic problem. Seems that one chicken farm way back determined they could increase chicken weight by force-feeding their non-range chickens antibiotics.
As a result, antibiotic resistant bacteria now thrive in chicken farms.
The bad thing is, it isn’t true. A recent study showed farmers actually lose .0093 cents per broiler chicken when they use antibiotics.
The farmers are more successful breeding bacteria that’s outpacing medicine for humans.
Before the FDA approved it for humans, a new antibiotic originally designed to fight resistant bacteria was licensed for use in poultry farms for weight gain. Chicken-bred bacteria strains have already developed resistance to it. Before humans could ever benefit.
Here’s a really scary nugget—of paranoia.
Humans dying from superbugs: Could this be cosmic karma? Factory farm chickens’ revenge?
America, ya gotta love it
Like chicken nuggets, those strange amorphous pieces of fowl flesh that we have embraced in American cuisine. Like we’ve embraced that fake crab stuff—the concoction they reconstitute from bottom fish.
It’s sort of crab like, and if they add crab flavoring to it, all the better.
Somehow the idea of meat to which they have to add “meat flavor” misses the point of eating. If it were just about consuming protein, why, any wandering tofu master could render us up something passably palatable.
When you can make the tofu taste like grasshopper, Qwai Chang, it will be time for you to leave.
What got me thinking about chicken nuggets was McNuggets. I was passing by a McDonalds and my brain was reeling from a juxtaposition of signs.
I had first passed by a health club. The sign on the health club said, “Open 24 hours.” The sign I passed next door said, “McDonalds, open 24 hours.”
I suppose after a heavy aerobic workout and a light circuit of weights there’s nothing more refreshing than a Quarter-Pounder and a large fries.
Maybe top it off with a McFlurry if you did a little spin work.
Talk about taking advantage of a cross promotional sales opportunities. McDonalds benefits from hungry post-workout patrons. The health club benefits from the fat they bring back the next day.
But all this chicken consumption has a price—the antibiotic problem. Seems that one chicken farm way back determined they could increase chicken weight by force-feeding their non-range chickens antibiotics.
As a result, antibiotic resistant bacteria now thrive in chicken farms.
The bad thing is, it isn’t true. A recent study showed farmers actually lose .0093 cents per broiler chicken when they use antibiotics.
The farmers are more successful breeding bacteria that’s outpacing medicine for humans.
Before the FDA approved it for humans, a new antibiotic originally designed to fight resistant bacteria was licensed for use in poultry farms for weight gain. Chicken-bred bacteria strains have already developed resistance to it. Before humans could ever benefit.
Here’s a really scary nugget—of paranoia.
Humans dying from superbugs: Could this be cosmic karma? Factory farm chickens’ revenge?
America, ya gotta love it
#592 Grilled Pig Apples
The other day I was at a place where they were barbequing a whole pig. The barbeque smoker was apparently fueled by wood.
In these times, it’s always amazing to see people using wood for uses other than that most modern pinnacle of wood processing technology—toilet paper.
On the grill was an extremely woebegone looking pig. Head and skin were in place, but you could see backbones trying to poke through, and the splayed out limbs indicated the pig’s innards had been removed.
Which for my money was probably a good thing. Barbequed pig stomach may be okay, but intestines and liver and stuff don’t improve substantially with alder smoking in my cookbook.
The skin was looking bright red and crackly and stuff but didn’t appear to be in any danger of become chicharrones anytime soon. I like the word “chicharrones” rather than the English “pork rinds” or “pork cracklins.”
It sounds so much less white trash when you give it a Latino twist.
In any event this pork skin was crackling but it wouldn’t end up being cracklins. Charred leather was more like it.
What was disconcerting about the whole pig barbeque was the head.
Now, I’m a carnivore from way back. And I firmly believe that if you are going to eat something, you should be able to look it in the eye. But that’s before it’s rendered and butchered and what not.
Not while it’s actually cooking.
There’s something about leaving the head on through the entire cooking process that makes we want to join PETA.
Bodies cook. Heads suffer.
Say all you will about body language. Expression is in the face.
So seeing this pig’s face while the rest of him was splayed out smoking and barbequing to a fine savory succulence added a different dimension to my eating experience.
A more upchucky one.
Especially when I noticed they had put the traditional apple in the mouth of the pig.
And what was even more disconcerting—the apple appeared to be half eaten.
Why? Was the cook eating the apple as the cooking progressed as some ancient method to test for doneness?
Or did they kill the pig...mid-snack?
America, ya gotta love it
In these times, it’s always amazing to see people using wood for uses other than that most modern pinnacle of wood processing technology—toilet paper.
On the grill was an extremely woebegone looking pig. Head and skin were in place, but you could see backbones trying to poke through, and the splayed out limbs indicated the pig’s innards had been removed.
Which for my money was probably a good thing. Barbequed pig stomach may be okay, but intestines and liver and stuff don’t improve substantially with alder smoking in my cookbook.
The skin was looking bright red and crackly and stuff but didn’t appear to be in any danger of become chicharrones anytime soon. I like the word “chicharrones” rather than the English “pork rinds” or “pork cracklins.”
It sounds so much less white trash when you give it a Latino twist.
In any event this pork skin was crackling but it wouldn’t end up being cracklins. Charred leather was more like it.
What was disconcerting about the whole pig barbeque was the head.
Now, I’m a carnivore from way back. And I firmly believe that if you are going to eat something, you should be able to look it in the eye. But that’s before it’s rendered and butchered and what not.
Not while it’s actually cooking.
There’s something about leaving the head on through the entire cooking process that makes we want to join PETA.
Bodies cook. Heads suffer.
Say all you will about body language. Expression is in the face.
So seeing this pig’s face while the rest of him was splayed out smoking and barbequing to a fine savory succulence added a different dimension to my eating experience.
A more upchucky one.
Especially when I noticed they had put the traditional apple in the mouth of the pig.
And what was even more disconcerting—the apple appeared to be half eaten.
Why? Was the cook eating the apple as the cooking progressed as some ancient method to test for doneness?
Or did they kill the pig...mid-snack?
America, ya gotta love it
#591 Golden Circle
Went to a concert the other night. It was at the Southwest Washington fair.
It started just a little late, as the band apparently thought it was a good idea to wait for the people in the Golden Circle to show up. They finally did, loaded with corn on the cob, curly fries and elephant ears.
Probably a safe precaution. Nothing worse than a hungry Golden Circle in Chehalis.
As the chairs in the Golden Circle were the folding type usually reserved for bad investment seminars and school assemblies, I was a little worried at first. Especially when I noted the ground upon which they were set covered with sawdust.
Suddenly I felt like a 4-H animal hoping to win first prize, thereby guaranteeing me at least one more year as a breeder before they led me to slaughter.
Concerts on sawdust usually mean two things—chaw spit and cowpies. Either way, my sandals were a bad choice.
The audience was, um, diverse. Apparently, the lead singer of REO Speedwagon thought so too. When he engaged the crowd in a long commentary, his voice shifted through about three dialects—from urban cool to bluesman slur to just a touch of drunken southern redneck.
Perhaps he was looking for a way to connect and was confused by the bewildering variety of hairstyles and fashions in the audience—from muffin-top tight jeans and bling, to cowboy hats and chaps, to eighties white trash.
It was cool watching people dressed as if their hairstyle became permanently affixed in one decade rock to a band whose chief hits were in another.
Big hair meets mullet.
Our group actually started playing a game kind of like slug bug. Except it was called “spot the mullet.”
The mullet is an amazingly enduring style in certain sectors. Even when folks lose the hair necessary to maintain it. Like when they’re bald on top with a mullet in the back.
What my friend called a skullet.
Unfortunately calling up an image of using the poor guy’s pate to fry an egg. Or maybe whip up a fried peanut butter sandwich.
At one point it had me singing, “I believe it’s time for me to fry.”
America, ya gotta love it
It started just a little late, as the band apparently thought it was a good idea to wait for the people in the Golden Circle to show up. They finally did, loaded with corn on the cob, curly fries and elephant ears.
Probably a safe precaution. Nothing worse than a hungry Golden Circle in Chehalis.
As the chairs in the Golden Circle were the folding type usually reserved for bad investment seminars and school assemblies, I was a little worried at first. Especially when I noted the ground upon which they were set covered with sawdust.
Suddenly I felt like a 4-H animal hoping to win first prize, thereby guaranteeing me at least one more year as a breeder before they led me to slaughter.
Concerts on sawdust usually mean two things—chaw spit and cowpies. Either way, my sandals were a bad choice.
The audience was, um, diverse. Apparently, the lead singer of REO Speedwagon thought so too. When he engaged the crowd in a long commentary, his voice shifted through about three dialects—from urban cool to bluesman slur to just a touch of drunken southern redneck.
Perhaps he was looking for a way to connect and was confused by the bewildering variety of hairstyles and fashions in the audience—from muffin-top tight jeans and bling, to cowboy hats and chaps, to eighties white trash.
It was cool watching people dressed as if their hairstyle became permanently affixed in one decade rock to a band whose chief hits were in another.
Big hair meets mullet.
Our group actually started playing a game kind of like slug bug. Except it was called “spot the mullet.”
The mullet is an amazingly enduring style in certain sectors. Even when folks lose the hair necessary to maintain it. Like when they’re bald on top with a mullet in the back.
What my friend called a skullet.
Unfortunately calling up an image of using the poor guy’s pate to fry an egg. Or maybe whip up a fried peanut butter sandwich.
At one point it had me singing, “I believe it’s time for me to fry.”
America, ya gotta love it
#590 Good Old People
Sometimes here in the good old USA we’re conflicted about old stuff, or maybe it’s just people.
The other day I saw this great old car from the forties. It was kind of boxy and looked like the cars they chopped in the fifties into roadsters. I was amazed by how this car looked almost exactly like a slightly bigger version of the P.T. Cruiser.
Definitely what I would call a P.T. Cruiser pre-cursor.
Nothing funny here. I just wanted the opportunity to say P.T. Cruiser pre-cursor.
It’s interesting how we keep our old cars around but not our old people. Out of sight out of mind. Assisted care facilities are a growth industry second only to tattoo removal in today’s American cultural landscape.
And old folks are being either minimally cared for in charitable facilities or literally pampered in posh condominium, resort-style assisted living retreats.
How are they Pampered? Depends...
The disparity is amazing and it’s left the yuppie social climbers in something of a dilemma. They are already strapped with larger-than-they-should-have-bought house bills. There’s that virtual mortgage on their new 45,000-dollar auto. Then there are the three revolving credit cards they keep revolving with each other to gradually try to payoff the back interest, their new flat panel TVs, and support their daily latté bill.
So they’ve resorted to sequestering their parents in new and cheap care facilities in, you guessed it, India.
That’s right, India.
They’re outsourcing their parents.
Indian care facilities are about a tenth the cost of domestic. And so they’ve shipped their doddering but still demanding old folks overseas to live out their remaining years in relative comfort.
“Hi Ma, how’s it going? No, sorry, I can’t visit, it’s, you know, eleven thousand miles.”
“I know sonny, I still hope... The breakfast curry was a little warm today—but that constipation problem’s cleared up. I just wish they didn’t let all those cows wander through the halls...”
“Cows, funny. (the old girl’s really losing it now) Well, gotta go Mom. I’m entering my P.T. Cruiser in the classic car show and I only have three hours to hand-wax it.”
America ya gotta love it
The other day I saw this great old car from the forties. It was kind of boxy and looked like the cars they chopped in the fifties into roadsters. I was amazed by how this car looked almost exactly like a slightly bigger version of the P.T. Cruiser.
Definitely what I would call a P.T. Cruiser pre-cursor.
Nothing funny here. I just wanted the opportunity to say P.T. Cruiser pre-cursor.
It’s interesting how we keep our old cars around but not our old people. Out of sight out of mind. Assisted care facilities are a growth industry second only to tattoo removal in today’s American cultural landscape.
And old folks are being either minimally cared for in charitable facilities or literally pampered in posh condominium, resort-style assisted living retreats.
How are they Pampered? Depends...
The disparity is amazing and it’s left the yuppie social climbers in something of a dilemma. They are already strapped with larger-than-they-should-have-bought house bills. There’s that virtual mortgage on their new 45,000-dollar auto. Then there are the three revolving credit cards they keep revolving with each other to gradually try to payoff the back interest, their new flat panel TVs, and support their daily latté bill.
So they’ve resorted to sequestering their parents in new and cheap care facilities in, you guessed it, India.
That’s right, India.
They’re outsourcing their parents.
Indian care facilities are about a tenth the cost of domestic. And so they’ve shipped their doddering but still demanding old folks overseas to live out their remaining years in relative comfort.
“Hi Ma, how’s it going? No, sorry, I can’t visit, it’s, you know, eleven thousand miles.”
“I know sonny, I still hope... The breakfast curry was a little warm today—but that constipation problem’s cleared up. I just wish they didn’t let all those cows wander through the halls...”
“Cows, funny. (the old girl’s really losing it now) Well, gotta go Mom. I’m entering my P.T. Cruiser in the classic car show and I only have three hours to hand-wax it.”
America ya gotta love it
#590 Good Old People
Sometimes here in the good old USA we’re conflicted about old stuff, or maybe it’s just people.
The other day I saw this great old car from the forties. It was kind of boxy and looked like the cars they chopped in the fifties into roadsters. I was amazed by how this car looked almost exactly like a slightly bigger version of the P.T. Cruiser.
Definitely what I would call a P.T. Cruiser pre-cursor.
Nothing funny here. I just wanted the opportunity to say P.T. Cruiser pre-cursor.
It’s interesting how we keep our old cars around but not our old people. Out of sight out of mind. Assisted care facilities are a growth industry second only to tattoo removal in today’s American cultural landscape.
And old folks are being either minimally cared for in charitable facilities or literally pampered in posh condominium, resort-style assisted living retreats.
How are they Pampered? Depends...
The disparity is amazing and it’s left the yuppie social climbers in something of a dilemma. They are already strapped with larger-than-they-should-have-bought house bills. There’s that virtual mortgage on their new 45,000-dollar auto. Then there are the three revolving credit cards they keep revolving with each other to gradually try to payoff the back interest, their new flat panel TVs, and support their daily latté bill.
So they’ve resorted to sequestering their parents in new and cheap care facilities in, you guessed it, India.
That’s right, India.
They’re outsourcing their parents.
Indian care facilities are about a tenth the cost of domestic. And so they’ve shipped their doddering but still demanding old folks overseas to live out their remaining years in relative comfort.
“Hi Ma, how’s it going? No, sorry, I can’t visit, it’s, you know, eleven thousand miles.”
“I know sonny, I still hope... The breakfast curry was a little warm today—but that constipation problem’s cleared up. I just wish they didn’t let all those cows wander through the halls...”
“Cows, funny. (the old girl’s really losing it now) Well, gotta go Mom. I’m entering my P.T. Cruiser in the classic car show and I only have three hours to hand-wax it.”
America ya gotta love it
The other day I saw this great old car from the forties. It was kind of boxy and looked like the cars they chopped in the fifties into roadsters. I was amazed by how this car looked almost exactly like a slightly bigger version of the P.T. Cruiser.
Definitely what I would call a P.T. Cruiser pre-cursor.
Nothing funny here. I just wanted the opportunity to say P.T. Cruiser pre-cursor.
It’s interesting how we keep our old cars around but not our old people. Out of sight out of mind. Assisted care facilities are a growth industry second only to tattoo removal in today’s American cultural landscape.
And old folks are being either minimally cared for in charitable facilities or literally pampered in posh condominium, resort-style assisted living retreats.
How are they Pampered? Depends...
The disparity is amazing and it’s left the yuppie social climbers in something of a dilemma. They are already strapped with larger-than-they-should-have-bought house bills. There’s that virtual mortgage on their new 45,000-dollar auto. Then there are the three revolving credit cards they keep revolving with each other to gradually try to payoff the back interest, their new flat panel TVs, and support their daily latté bill.
So they’ve resorted to sequestering their parents in new and cheap care facilities in, you guessed it, India.
That’s right, India.
They’re outsourcing their parents.
Indian care facilities are about a tenth the cost of domestic. And so they’ve shipped their doddering but still demanding old folks overseas to live out their remaining years in relative comfort.
“Hi Ma, how’s it going? No, sorry, I can’t visit, it’s, you know, eleven thousand miles.”
“I know sonny, I still hope... The breakfast curry was a little warm today—but that constipation problem’s cleared up. I just wish they didn’t let all those cows wander through the halls...”
“Cows, funny. (the old girl’s really losing it now) Well, gotta go Mom. I’m entering my P.T. Cruiser in the classic car show and I only have three hours to hand-wax it.”
America ya gotta love it
#589 Grunt
So I’m at my club—excuse me, “fitness center”—and I’m ruminating about the way they introduce ideas to guests.
You’ve seen two of the new advertising approaches to print media—busboards and temporary stick-up signs along the road. They’re intended to do for the print media what radio already does for electronic media.
Provide low cost ways to repeat your message redundantly over and over again.
Repetition builds recognition.
My club is trying a similar approach. They post these little signs all over the club in places where you are likely to see them. Bulletin boards, wall space, whatever.
Recently they’ve even installed little plastic sign holders...over the urinal.
Not too long ago, one sign that I couldn’t help but read as I stood there, um, contemplating world peace, was an admonition that it was polite—and required—for club users to use workout towels when using the club’s machines.
It didn’t specify whether it was to look cool with them draped around your neck, like the impossibly buff sample patrons in the poster’s picture, or to use them to wipe up the real pools of sweat the rest of us schleppers leave behind on said machines. The mini-poster then went on to say workout towels were available to purchase at the front desk.
How convenient.
I wondered at the time if the urinal qualified as a club machine.
Recently the peepee-poster said that my club was hiring friendly, reliable, and outgoing people.
I reflected that at that point I was indeed outgoing.
But what really caught my attention were the positions they were hoping to hire for. They were Fitness Host, Personal Trainer and Porter.
I thought it was cool they used a turn of the new century word, Fitness Host, with a turn of the last century word, Porter.
Is anyone a porter any more? What does a porter do? They carry stuff for people, right? Is there as lot of stuff to carry for people in a health club?
And if there is, wouldn’t it be a good, um, “work out” for them to carry it themselves?
I think they call that by another old-fashioned word—exercise.
America ya gotta love it
You’ve seen two of the new advertising approaches to print media—busboards and temporary stick-up signs along the road. They’re intended to do for the print media what radio already does for electronic media.
Provide low cost ways to repeat your message redundantly over and over again.
Repetition builds recognition.
My club is trying a similar approach. They post these little signs all over the club in places where you are likely to see them. Bulletin boards, wall space, whatever.
Recently they’ve even installed little plastic sign holders...over the urinal.
Not too long ago, one sign that I couldn’t help but read as I stood there, um, contemplating world peace, was an admonition that it was polite—and required—for club users to use workout towels when using the club’s machines.
It didn’t specify whether it was to look cool with them draped around your neck, like the impossibly buff sample patrons in the poster’s picture, or to use them to wipe up the real pools of sweat the rest of us schleppers leave behind on said machines. The mini-poster then went on to say workout towels were available to purchase at the front desk.
How convenient.
I wondered at the time if the urinal qualified as a club machine.
Recently the peepee-poster said that my club was hiring friendly, reliable, and outgoing people.
I reflected that at that point I was indeed outgoing.
But what really caught my attention were the positions they were hoping to hire for. They were Fitness Host, Personal Trainer and Porter.
I thought it was cool they used a turn of the new century word, Fitness Host, with a turn of the last century word, Porter.
Is anyone a porter any more? What does a porter do? They carry stuff for people, right? Is there as lot of stuff to carry for people in a health club?
And if there is, wouldn’t it be a good, um, “work out” for them to carry it themselves?
I think they call that by another old-fashioned word—exercise.
America ya gotta love it
#588 Gaining Members
So I’m at my club the other day. It sounds so cool when I say it that way.
Unfortunately, it is a club that is obviously run by far off corporate interests, who have more interest in the shrinking corporate bottom line than in any shrinking bottoms brought about by healthy exercise.
The “club” is getting pretty run down.
It’s more of an improvised bludgeon at this point.
In fact, since no new improvements other than signage seem to be coming down the corporate pipe, the staff, desperate for ideas to stanch the open wound of bleeding membership, have taken to rearranging the furniture.
That’s right, they’re doing what every strapped-budget American household unable to buy new things does; they’re shifting old stuff around for a new look.
There once was a racquetball court at this club. It was a challenge court with a glass wall and all. In one of the club’s spurts of rearrangement a while ago, they took out the glass wall, carpeted the expensive hardwood court floor and used what was now a very large alcove to create an semi-enclosed circuit of exercise equipment.
Recently, they removed all of that equipment and moved in and rearranged a bunch of treadmills in serried ranks. There are now six rows, each of them with five or six treadmills. It’s an impressive sight.
And when they are full of people it looks for all the world like a stationary marathon.
Runners of all shapes and sizes, some of them jogging, some running full out, and some just plodding along like it’s either the end of the race or the beginning of a long haul to shed a hundred pounds.
And none of them getting anywhere.
And none of them gaining on anyone.
It’s like the self esteem-preserving game of musical chairs they played in my kid’s preschool. Everyone got a seat.
This is a marathon where there are no winners or losers, only people toiling. This treadmill supplied by Sisyphus incorporated.
But judging by the smell in the enclosed, not designed by the original architect to be too well-ventilated alcove, if success is part inspiration and part perspiration, they got one part of it covered.
America ya gotta love it
Unfortunately, it is a club that is obviously run by far off corporate interests, who have more interest in the shrinking corporate bottom line than in any shrinking bottoms brought about by healthy exercise.
The “club” is getting pretty run down.
It’s more of an improvised bludgeon at this point.
In fact, since no new improvements other than signage seem to be coming down the corporate pipe, the staff, desperate for ideas to stanch the open wound of bleeding membership, have taken to rearranging the furniture.
That’s right, they’re doing what every strapped-budget American household unable to buy new things does; they’re shifting old stuff around for a new look.
There once was a racquetball court at this club. It was a challenge court with a glass wall and all. In one of the club’s spurts of rearrangement a while ago, they took out the glass wall, carpeted the expensive hardwood court floor and used what was now a very large alcove to create an semi-enclosed circuit of exercise equipment.
Recently, they removed all of that equipment and moved in and rearranged a bunch of treadmills in serried ranks. There are now six rows, each of them with five or six treadmills. It’s an impressive sight.
And when they are full of people it looks for all the world like a stationary marathon.
Runners of all shapes and sizes, some of them jogging, some running full out, and some just plodding along like it’s either the end of the race or the beginning of a long haul to shed a hundred pounds.
And none of them getting anywhere.
And none of them gaining on anyone.
It’s like the self esteem-preserving game of musical chairs they played in my kid’s preschool. Everyone got a seat.
This is a marathon where there are no winners or losers, only people toiling. This treadmill supplied by Sisyphus incorporated.
But judging by the smell in the enclosed, not designed by the original architect to be too well-ventilated alcove, if success is part inspiration and part perspiration, they got one part of it covered.
America ya gotta love it
#587 General Punishment
I look at the way parents parent today and I’m just a little glad mine used a tad bit of corporal punishment. I mean, a slap on the behind was certainly painful and all, but it got over early.
And my parents certainly weren’t off the deep end, with strops and cats-of-nine-tails and willow switches and stuff.
They just had a paddle, which they called the “board of education.”
I remember making one for my mom as my first woodworking endeavor. It was a 16-inch long by 3-inch wide piece of pine (oak would have just been sick.) It was a half-inch thick, and I sanded the edges and drilled hoes in it before I shellacked it.
The holes, I assumed, would make it look fiercer and raise blisters should I ever do something egregiously bad enough to get walloped by this club.
My mom’s earlier tool of discipline was a wimpy little ruler-like thing—perfectly intimidating for the younger kids, but well beyond my junior high capacity for pain.
As it turned out, she never used it. I think it scared her. And I never used any such thing on my kid. But in a way, I’m glad I didn’t have to be like today’s kids and be disciplined by being removed from the action.
The amount of times I got into trouble, I would have forfeited most of my childhood in “time out.”
I’d much rather get a quit swat and be on my way to the next envelope-bursting childhood act.
I was always ready to do things before my parents were ready for me to do them. And I got a cut and scrape or two along the way.
Which my parents would instantly disinfect by slathering on the mercurochrome. You remember mercurochrome. They don’t use it in the 21st century.
It killed germs all right.
Except it killed them with mercury.
Yep. The same society that is even now spending millions of dollars mitigating the environmental concerns of traces of mercury in school thermostats used to apply mercury directly to a kid’s open wound.
To help them.
Glad we took a “time out” on that.
Cause mercury makes you crazy. And crazy is not what the board of education likes...
America, ya gotta love it
And my parents certainly weren’t off the deep end, with strops and cats-of-nine-tails and willow switches and stuff.
They just had a paddle, which they called the “board of education.”
I remember making one for my mom as my first woodworking endeavor. It was a 16-inch long by 3-inch wide piece of pine (oak would have just been sick.) It was a half-inch thick, and I sanded the edges and drilled hoes in it before I shellacked it.
The holes, I assumed, would make it look fiercer and raise blisters should I ever do something egregiously bad enough to get walloped by this club.
My mom’s earlier tool of discipline was a wimpy little ruler-like thing—perfectly intimidating for the younger kids, but well beyond my junior high capacity for pain.
As it turned out, she never used it. I think it scared her. And I never used any such thing on my kid. But in a way, I’m glad I didn’t have to be like today’s kids and be disciplined by being removed from the action.
The amount of times I got into trouble, I would have forfeited most of my childhood in “time out.”
I’d much rather get a quit swat and be on my way to the next envelope-bursting childhood act.
I was always ready to do things before my parents were ready for me to do them. And I got a cut and scrape or two along the way.
Which my parents would instantly disinfect by slathering on the mercurochrome. You remember mercurochrome. They don’t use it in the 21st century.
It killed germs all right.
Except it killed them with mercury.
Yep. The same society that is even now spending millions of dollars mitigating the environmental concerns of traces of mercury in school thermostats used to apply mercury directly to a kid’s open wound.
To help them.
Glad we took a “time out” on that.
Cause mercury makes you crazy. And crazy is not what the board of education likes...
America, ya gotta love it
#586 Grift-wrapped
I’m getting sick and tired of bankcard company junkmail disguised as important stuff. You know—the outside of the envelope says, “Account Information Enclosed.”
You just got to open it.
Personally, I think bankcard junkmail is the scourge of advertising. I would be interested in someone computing the volume of paper, ink, etc involved in an average week in just bankcard company junkmailings alone.
How many extra gallons of gas are consumed by postal vehicles because of the sheer weight of bankcard company solicitations?
How many trees are killed just so you can be offered a special six-month low interest rate?
How many gallons of toxic ink are bled into the environment just so MegaBankCorp can entice you into using special checks? (Oh sure, there’s no interest on those checks but the fine-printed upfront advance fee is a 4 percent surcharge.)
Nevertheless, I’ll skip laying all that environmental havoc at the door of bankcard companies because I have another, bigger bitch to fry.
They lie.
They promise you’ll receive a special interest rate. Then any number of micro-cataclysms in the fine print will trigger a massive interest rate to kick in and come barreling down on your budget like a piano on a coyote.
Oh gee, we’re sorry Mr. Consumer, the fine print states very clearly that the first full moon after the vernal equinox suspends all promotional APRs still retaining a balance transfer for purchases made before the Perseid meteor shower in any year other than an odd numbered leap year.
So I guess you could say they don’t really lie.
They just obscure the full truth.
And they fail to mention that with the new law recently passed by congress, you the consumer, who they mercilessly bombarded with tantalizing offers, can not seek bankruptcy relief should you get in over your credit head because they keep chipping away at your resolve to budget more and borrow less.
Congress had to help the poor banks out because they were really hurting with all the defaults from high credit risk people they invited themselves to lend money to.
Funny, my bankcard junkmail has never eased up one bit.
America ya gotta love it
You just got to open it.
Personally, I think bankcard junkmail is the scourge of advertising. I would be interested in someone computing the volume of paper, ink, etc involved in an average week in just bankcard company junkmailings alone.
How many extra gallons of gas are consumed by postal vehicles because of the sheer weight of bankcard company solicitations?
How many trees are killed just so you can be offered a special six-month low interest rate?
How many gallons of toxic ink are bled into the environment just so MegaBankCorp can entice you into using special checks? (Oh sure, there’s no interest on those checks but the fine-printed upfront advance fee is a 4 percent surcharge.)
Nevertheless, I’ll skip laying all that environmental havoc at the door of bankcard companies because I have another, bigger bitch to fry.
They lie.
They promise you’ll receive a special interest rate. Then any number of micro-cataclysms in the fine print will trigger a massive interest rate to kick in and come barreling down on your budget like a piano on a coyote.
Oh gee, we’re sorry Mr. Consumer, the fine print states very clearly that the first full moon after the vernal equinox suspends all promotional APRs still retaining a balance transfer for purchases made before the Perseid meteor shower in any year other than an odd numbered leap year.
So I guess you could say they don’t really lie.
They just obscure the full truth.
And they fail to mention that with the new law recently passed by congress, you the consumer, who they mercilessly bombarded with tantalizing offers, can not seek bankruptcy relief should you get in over your credit head because they keep chipping away at your resolve to budget more and borrow less.
Congress had to help the poor banks out because they were really hurting with all the defaults from high credit risk people they invited themselves to lend money to.
Funny, my bankcard junkmail has never eased up one bit.
America ya gotta love it
#585 Gubers and Raison d’etre
Whatever happened to the Truth in Advertising law?
And does it apply to campaigning?
When you listen to some political campaigns, it sure doesn’t seem like it. The non-declared republican non-candidate for governor is the latest of many.
There have been democrats, republicans and independents doing it for years. Heck, George Washington was the first to “wait to be called” by his people.
Except in his case, it really was the people, not just his most partisan supporters.
The current non-candidate in Washington is making a big deal out of “not running” as he speaks to chambers and churches and gatherings across the state.
His supporters are loving every minute of it.
It’s kind of ironic in a way. This election he’s not running for a long time. Last election he was running for a longer time than most candidates would—throwing in his towel way past the time it took Al Gore to do something similar 4 years before for an even bigger office.
There’s many who will tell you the gubernatorial guy was robbed. There are millions more who’ll tell you the presidential guy was robbed—after all, he was putatively robbed nationally.
But the sad fact remains that if either one of them had had a clear majority, say 60 percent, neither of them would have lost.
When the decision is closest is when the tuning has to be the finest.
But our election system is like an old family doctor.
Cutting out a swollen appendix is a lot easier than brain surgery.
And when elections turn into brain surgery you know you’re headed for trouble—not least because most people vote with their heart, not their brains.
So it hurts that much more when you lose. And you carry the pain for a lot longer.
I want to reach out to those people and say, hey, get over it.
There’s another candidate out there who will be better for you. Maybe he or she will get 60 or even 65 percent. There’s lots of candidates in the sea. Why stay with someone who’s let you down? Don’t settle.
You deserve happiness.
America ya gotta love it
And does it apply to campaigning?
When you listen to some political campaigns, it sure doesn’t seem like it. The non-declared republican non-candidate for governor is the latest of many.
There have been democrats, republicans and independents doing it for years. Heck, George Washington was the first to “wait to be called” by his people.
Except in his case, it really was the people, not just his most partisan supporters.
The current non-candidate in Washington is making a big deal out of “not running” as he speaks to chambers and churches and gatherings across the state.
His supporters are loving every minute of it.
It’s kind of ironic in a way. This election he’s not running for a long time. Last election he was running for a longer time than most candidates would—throwing in his towel way past the time it took Al Gore to do something similar 4 years before for an even bigger office.
There’s many who will tell you the gubernatorial guy was robbed. There are millions more who’ll tell you the presidential guy was robbed—after all, he was putatively robbed nationally.
But the sad fact remains that if either one of them had had a clear majority, say 60 percent, neither of them would have lost.
When the decision is closest is when the tuning has to be the finest.
But our election system is like an old family doctor.
Cutting out a swollen appendix is a lot easier than brain surgery.
And when elections turn into brain surgery you know you’re headed for trouble—not least because most people vote with their heart, not their brains.
So it hurts that much more when you lose. And you carry the pain for a lot longer.
I want to reach out to those people and say, hey, get over it.
There’s another candidate out there who will be better for you. Maybe he or she will get 60 or even 65 percent. There’s lots of candidates in the sea. Why stay with someone who’s let you down? Don’t settle.
You deserve happiness.
America ya gotta love it
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