Post  #2373.   All pau.      That's what they say in Hawaiian, means "all finished." Sounds better, I always thought, adds a touch of satisfaction to it. That's how I feel tonight, having finished the annual guardianship reports and the income taxes for brother and me. Only, it's after 10pm on the west coast and almost everybody else in the world is in bed. I can just see me waking Arlene and Fremont to tell them I'm done with my taxes. What a joke, huh? With a $6,500,000,000,000 budget, does my little contribution help? Do any of us matter? Of course not. And as for that number, you can make up any number you like; no one is paying attention.

The tv tried to explain a trillion tonight, with Anderson Cooper in the lead, employing all of his cleverest similes to bring wisdom to the morons out there/here. Sorry Andy, none of them worked. Nobody stacks money up in tall piles like that anyway. Trust me, they would fall over long before they reached a third of the way to the moon. Only the Chinese understand A Trillion.

Sister-in-law and I decided that by our age we should probably have an idea about our monthly budgets, especially with The Economy and all. Everything is "especially with The Economy and all" these days. She was working on hers, and I planned to do the same with mine. Her completely piles-of-papers non-mathematical way makes no sense to me, but somehow she comes up with a figure in no time. I am $9,000 off. How can someone have no idea what they did with $9,000? It's right there in the numbers, but it appears I no longer possess either the discipline or the acuity to figure it out. It's a lot of money, and I did give it two good hours. I'll just try and be a bit more thrifty this year. As for the sister-in-law, well, I'll have to express a desire for some financial privacy, be astonished about what things cost these days and blame especially the economy and all.

Oh, and my annual reminder for folks who don't scroll all the way to the bottom:

Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 10:18 PM

Post  #2372.   A sorry realization.    Sometimes I'll read back over the last few posts, just to see where I'm at. This time I discovered a recent odd preoccupation with superior intelligence, and not a good one. Lately, I've been meeting, running into, stopping to talk with .. a lot of sixty-somethings. Maybe we're all seeking one another out in some desperate attempt to reconnect with sentience, since one of the first questions one will ask the other is, "Are you forgetting things?" And the answer with invariably be a relieved, "Yes! You?" Then we compare notes, laugh and feel better, only the feel better doesn't last for very long. We're falling apart, and our minds seem to be going first. It's a peculiar affliction. I don't feel dumber, but I am. Just the other day at the grocery, a different one, I had to stand back for a few moments and study the checkout routine since it appeared to be all backwards from the Safeway. I was like, "Whoa .. if I push the cart in there like she did, where do I go then? She walked way around the other side. And that fat lady, is she my checker or is it the one facing the other way? Do I have too many items? And why is that bagboy staring at me so intently? Probably thinks I am casing the checkout to rob it."

That whole grocery trip was a trip. I already avoid shopping any day near payday or welfare-check day. Made that mistake once, and it was like being a refugee in some really awful country. I've now added Mondays, the day that Serious Women go out. Watch out. They have no patience for doddering, slowpoke old men.

Seattle is becoming insufferably Green, and we don't need to be. Our power comes from dams built decades ago, we have water up the yingyang, critters abound, trees grow anywhere there is an open patch for a week or so, and huge salmon swim in the road when it rains fergoshsakes. Still, our mayor wants to set the pace for a Green Urban Paradise across the world instead of filling potholes like he's supposed to. Just about everyone is jumping on the conservation trolley, and it's all completely phony. We all act as if we're the only ones thinking, "Yes! As soon as we get that transit in and all these other cars are off the road, I can run the Lexus up to 120 and there won't be another car in sight. Whoopee!"Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 9:29 PM

Post  #2371.   I wouldn't make it in New York.    Take Lev Grossman for instance. Now, you've got your Jason's, Justin's, Joshua's, Joel's, and I forget whatall, the young cutesy writers at TIME, then there's Lev. Since the powers-that-be seem to give Lev any page he wants, up to three in a row ferpetessakes, it sounds to me like he can pretty much write about whatever he wants. I don't think there is ever any, "Grossman, read this big book and give me 350 words by Friday." No, he chose to read a 581-page major biography of


Yeah, me too. Let me risk ridicule by coming right out and saying that I have never heard of Donald Berthelme, and I have nothing but wide-eyed admiration for anyone who could read a 581-page biography of him, to say nothing of the person who wrote it, Tracy Daugherty. "While some critics find Barthelme's "plotless marvels" both depressing and demandingly difficult, other readers find his explorations of postmodern sensibility oddly consoling." I probably never will read any Donald Berthelme.

Lev sez, speaking of Berthelme,

He confabulated his stories out of different strains of language--philosophy, psychology, scientific jargon, advertising, adventure stories--which he then crashed into one another, demolition-derby style, to demonstrate how hilariously inadequate they were for describing the world around us. ... He was restless and rebarbative, full of jittery, sarcastic energy and the kind of confidence that forms only around a tiny seed of insecurity.

Whoa. To be able to write stuff like that, and mean it, and not have to look up "rebarbative" because you already know the word and actually use it from time-to-time in just the right place, such as this one, well, that's all part of being New York.

My mother took 17th century English Lit in college and was given the option of writing a paper for an A or reciting 1,000 lines of Milton in four 250-line sessions. She chose the "easier" one, the memorization, and as late as her early eighties she could still reel off stretches of it. We've kept all our books, going back about a century, and my mother's Milton text is still downstairs. Once, I actually took it down to see if I could even read 1,000 lines of Milton. My record: 13.

No, I'm better off way out here in the forest, Seattle, a little wet and a little dumb.Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 10:30 PM

Post   #2370.   Dr. #88271.    There was a thing on about Ted Kaczynski. The fact that simply typing that name instantly identifies the person and his infamy illustrates one of my phobias: letting the names of bad people survive. I wish there was a way we could just go to a number after the individual is relegated to history. Ted could be #88271. Manson .. how about #87994? Anyway, 88271 wrote a Manifesto which has been repeatedly characterized as "genius." Furthermore, Wikipedia identifies all three of his names after "Dr." and reminds us he has a Ph.D. Okay, we'll go with #88721, Ph.D. Did you transpose on purpose? Hardly. I just decided not to correct it just to annoy him mathematically.

I read the Manifesto and soak up some genius. Ted had an I.Q. of 167 and while he wowed people with his math,

Writer Henry Holt notes that Kaczynski's writing, despite its irregular hyphenation, is virtually free of any spelling or grammatical error, in spite of its production on a manual typewriter without the benefit of a word processor or spell-checker.

I feel he should have stuck with numbers. The Manifesto reads like a term paper. Oh it's a smart one all right, but the most likely TA comment on it would have been Too Long!. That would have really made Ted mad. Probably would have blown him up too.

I read the Manifesto on Rahul Kumar's site. If you follow that link you will experience some of the "old days" of the web, that marvelous time before cute colors and graphics when we were just discovering Links.

Oh, and I don't want to get extra credit undeservedly for claiming to have read the Entire Manifesto. I only read far enough to realize it was entirely about William Ayers.

The lead-off story for the 11PM news tonight went:

RESIDENTS OF THIS NORMALLY QUIET NEIGHBORHOOD WERE RELIEVED WHEN THE ARREST OF A RELATIVE FOR THE MURDER MEANT THAT IT WAS NOT RANDOM.

Two more of my [word for things which drive me absolutely fracking nuts] in one sentence. There have been a lot of murders in our neighborhood, it isn't quiet here, and I intend to say so if I'm ever out in the street in my curlers while the tv crews are there filming the body bag loadup.Rick Macherat Lev Grossman

posted by Rick at 10:40 PM

Post  #2369.   A memory.    It occurred to me that since the visitor count has fallen off somewhat, probably due to the economy, I could write just for me tonight and no one would notice or care. It's about this house,


one which we were fortunate to live in for about a year a very, very long time ago. I'm pretty sure it is even still there, at least it appears so in a blurry Google Earth shot. When you're young, time passes slowly, so the three of us packed many memories into that year, like gathering frogs and tadpoles from the forest and raising them in a tub in the huge basement. We still had that tub, by the way, at least up until the 2005 rat disaster.

My room was the one with three windows in the middle, second floor, with all the ivy. We have ivy here too, though it is not benign like that shown in this placid photograph. Our current local ivy is malignant and invasive and has every apparent intention of taking the house and all the trees. My bed was right under those windows, and one night while I was awake late, looking out and thinking about all sorts of 8-year-old things, a burglar broke into our car. I was shocked: an actual crime in progress and I was witnessing it! I woke my dad who grabbed his .45 pistol and charged down the stairs. The perp escaped, and with him went a pair of my sneakers. Crime victim.

Brother had some developmental issues in that house, some funny (discovering that Mary's fanny goes all the way around, and others more disastrous (learning how to take things apart.) Memorable anyway. He still feels guilty about some of the destruction, so I remind him that he was seven and no one is mad anymore.

The house had two "go-arounds," a feature which placed several of our houses at the top of the long list. A go-around is when a number of rooms connect, forming a circle. The obvious use of such a feature was employed only when the Head of Our Household was not present, as he had a serious problem with noise.

A mysterous attic accessed by a separate set of stairs was fascinating to me. One small room next to the stairs had no evident function except to contain a closet under the stairs. My interest in architecture began there with that magical use of space and with the rooms which were contained brilliantly inside the roof!

I think our rent was $60 a month. What I wouldn't give for a couple of million now and a chance to buy that house and live there forever. Rick Macherat Kohlseeweg Buchschlag

posted by Rick at 10:43 PM

Post  #2368.   The wreck.    I still maintain that this song exists, and I more or less assert that it was written and performed by Ray Stevens. Perhaps they took it off because it was too violent. By "they" I mean the people who do anonymous things, and "took it off" refers to when things disappear. Great grammar. Hey, it's casual Friday. Anyway, the song describes a motorcycle rider, Charles, who goes very, very fast with his girlfriend, Baby, holding on for dear life. At some point she yells, I'm cold, Charles! and he tells her to put the motorcycle helmet on backwards. They wreck. Some small children, southern and black, are on the scene, hair, teeth and eyebrows all over the highway, when a cop arrives - cue sound of radio aerial going whoosh-whoosh as the police car screeches to a halt. Words, words .. then, Whap-whap! Don hit me no mo' officer, I'll tellya whut happen'd. Now, Mistah Charles, he were killed outright. But, Miss Baby, she was all right 'til Julia turned her head around. I did not make this up, but the Internet, which seems to have every thought ever written down listed somewhere, has no record of it. So, in the remote event somebody else goes a looking for the words, this will tell them they are not alone.

Locally,


in this photo by Mike Siegel, you see a very dangerous man. Yes, it's intended to scare you. As is evident by the restraints being employed for his latest trial, this character is a real-life Hannibal Lechter without the style. He's just mean and wild, a rapist and murderer. A jury let him out instead of sending him to the "special confinement facility" after his first 15 year sentence was up, and it was after that when he committed the most terrible crimes. He's had so many trials and so many sentences are pending that it's impossible to keep track. In the meantime, any single woman's most horrific nightmare just gets wheeled back and forth, scaring the crap out of everybody and loving every minute of it. The only person I believe is Not Frightened is the officer to his right in the photo, and we can only hope that at some time in the course of this legal fiasco he is left alone with her if only for a few moments. And how I would love watching her rip his arm off and beat him to death with it.

Further on the "special confinement facility." A number of states have some variation of this now, a place where hopeless sex offenders are committed after their criminal sentences are completed. Horrifically expensive, and one other thing: the residents still have rights, the principal one being free use of the telephone with no monitoring. Yes, you guessed it. They are calling women, threatening them, and even calling their former victims, and we can't do anything to stop it. Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 10:49 PM

Post  #2367.   I may have S.A.D.    For heaven's sake, don't tell anyone. I'd never live it down. It's just that nothing seems funny, or at least it doesn't stay funny long enough to type about it. My friend K, my email pal who I haven't seen since we were kids, sent me a zinger last night: a scan of the Valentine's Day card I gave her in, get this, 1953! I don't remember it. She does, of course. Awkward.

Big news on the prostate front. Right in tune with my mood. Seems they've found [oh go read it, it's in all the papers, search sarcosine] and nobody will die from prostate cancer anymore in almost no time if this pans out. Only, I could have written the second half of the article: more research is needed, greater funding, more tests, better sampling, vaccine, cure, three to five years ... horseshit. You will never hear another word on the subject. Oh, and just try and ask your urologist for a simple test for sarcosine in the blood. Any junior chem major should be able to do it. Number one, it won't make it into official lab protocols for years because [oh just insert government rant] and number two, doctors get real pissy when you read stuff in the papers that hasn't made it in the journals which they are months behind on anyway. I'm going to annoy my doctor about it on Friday. I'll let you know how that goes.

Lisa Lampanelli has a new HBO special, recorded at the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa. Now, I love Lisa and her extreme filthiness, but it just struck me funny thinking about the good people of lovely Santa Rosa and their gleaming Center for the Arts which I am sure has all kinds of artsy stuff year around and in and out to raise the cultural awareness of the community and contribute to the advancement and refinement and on and on and then someone goes and books Lisa Lampanelli.

There's a show on one of the 500's channels called Iconoclasts. I watched part of it one night when they had Tony Hawk on. Yeah, Tony Hawk, the coolest guy alive if you're between 9-14 or ever were, but an iconoclast? I can only imagine they never told Tony what the show is about. Whatever that is. This week they did Carmen Diaz. Folks, if you go on a show called Iconoclasts, then you aren't one.

Did I ever tell you that we have 3,000 body piercing businesses in this state? Can you imagine how much disfigurement that represents per day? There was a picture of a piercing client in the paper, and I noticed that the studs she was having inserted in the area between her upper lip and nose, itself full of hardware, set off her zits nicely. Her Pierceologist had Ubangi ears with black disks already the size of a lid on a can of soup. Come on up to Washington and watch our freaks as they age and sag.

Toys for Tots was a flop this Christmas because the Marines couldn't make it through the snow [Seattle snow by the way] to pick up the toys. Now, the guy at the toy storage made it there to observe that there were no Marines, and the television station made it there to take pictures of .. no Marines, so the Marines got blamed for the poor kids not getting any toys.

I was also going to write about the Cornholia County Jail and then pass on an incredible, gray story about a truck ramming and emptying a cement storage silo in a driving [Seattle] rain but, again, S.A.D. It's just plain awful, though I can at least recognize that those might have been pretty funny.Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 11:01 PM

Post  #2366.   Sorry, but Geithner scares me.    Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner had a very bad day today. He got it from the Left and Right. Strangely enough, even with his staggeringly lofty intellect, I suspect he went home completely oblivious to the reactions being shouted from everywhere. Side note: can you imagine a conversation between Geithner and Anderson Cooper? I can hardly wait for that. Stoners will think someone has f-fwd'd their tv's.

No, what bothers me is the Vulcan part, note the ears and eyebrows,


on Mr. Geithner as well as the face of the man seated behind Senator Graham,


who I believe is also an alien but perhaps not Vulcan. In any event, both of them certainly are on the same side of whatever is really is going on. Surely it isn't our money they really want. It has to be the water, air or .. us.

They're calling the woman who gave birth to all those babies Octumom, and more than one commentator (with O'Reilly wildly in the lead with pitchfork and torch) accuses her of channeling Angelina Jolie.

If you'll let me insert one cranky item - I watched the interview on 60 Minutes with the Coldplay guy. Chris Martin. He seemed unusually normal, hard to visualize him morphing into the wildman on stage that the audiences enjoy so. But he's a complex character indeed. His down home boy image doesn't jibe exactly with the trophy wife. As for the music, it made my heart throb to hear him insist that the words mean absolutely nothing at all. See, we of the fifties and sixties had silly music too, but the difference was we didn't take it seriously. Purple People Eaters do not exist. We knew that. Such a song today would induce gigastrokes of comment and sheer madness among fans seeking meaning. And if the band was smart, they'd hint it had something to do with Bush and win a Grammy for it. Rick Macherat geithner.jpg

posted by Rick at 11:00 PM

Post #2365. To be young again.   I happened upon a short new blog from another's blogroll. I'll probably never have Blogroll here. Anyway, here's what he wrote:

Corporate Life

Seattle as we all know is saturated with nothing but corporate companies. One being the biggest I happen to work for is Microsoft. Seems life no matter what corner you turn in Seattle you run into someone in a suit. It does not matter what time of day it is you will always see someone walking around Seattle in a suit. I think this has become a life style for most. They even go out in their work clothes. Well that’s just a random thought for you….

Isn't that wonderful? No, I was never that young, sadly. For copyright issues and just plain politeness, here is the source of that entry I lifted verbatim. A beautifully-designed page, by the way. I'd love to steal it if I only knew how.

Annoyment. Alice Park. Douglas Melton. Stem Cells That Kill. The TIME cover whispered it to me, Don't read this. It will just end with 'more research is needed' and annoy you. Like always. And, like always, of course I read it. Yeah yeah yeah - brilliant and driven researcher, personal angle, amazing, breakthrough, FDA, four years. It's always four years, isn't it? Blah blah. I love science and hate science. All this breaking through but nobody ever gets cured of anything. But that wasn't what annoyed me about the article; all-in-all it wasn't that bad, uplifting even for people who can still get uplifted I guess. No, it was one little cutesy part that just irritated me to the point of ... well, typing this two whole days later, that's how much. Inspiring researcher teaches at Hahvadddd, a class on medical ethics which is chock full of young eagers who want to hear how stupid and bad Bush was among other things. (We'll have about ten more years of that, so get used.) By the way, I'm completely pro stem cells and then some. They can put children up to age 18 in the blender if it will help science and it'd be okay by me. Anyway, Prof. Melton brings Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to class to present arguments against the field. Melton asked Doerflinger if he considered a day-old embryo and a 6-year-old to be moral equivalents; when Doerflinger responded yes, Melton countered by asking why society accepts the freezing of embryos but not the freezing of 6-year-olds.

I imagine the class loves it. "Buuurrrrnnnn," as Kelso would say. HA, you got nuthin against that do you, Mr. Catholic guy. Now, I'm extremely not Catholic either, but I'd like to think that a student, a Hahvadddd student especially with a hs-gpa in the low 4+ range and dazzling SAT's, OR wealth, would interject DONTCHA THINK WE DON'T BECAUSE WE CAN'T YET AND THERE'S NO REASON TO? Don't what? FREEZE 6-YEAR-OLDS. And, as soon as we CAN and there's A REASON TO, WE WILL?

No, no one will say that. Do that. You know how I know? I've already tried it out, the whole story, the logic, on three people, and all three stared back at me blankly. One said she didn't know I was a Reactionary.

Back to putting children in the blender. Just so the reader doesn't go screaming from the page, no, I don't think we should grind up children for science. Yet. I'll tell you something which you won't believe for about 35-45 more years: our position on "life" will be quite a bit different when there are 9 billion of us. I won't be here. That is, unless they find a cure for old age in which case I'll still be typing away in 2034 along with 13 billion other people, and we'll try almost anything to get that number down someway somehow. Whoopie. Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 9:28 PM

Post #2364. An interesting journey to this entry. I won't tell all of it, however. Simply, for a long time I believed that Chlorophyll and Hemoglobin were exactly the same except for one atom at the center of the molecule, magnesium vs. iron. It gets worse. Not only did I believe this, I was also under the impression that it was not widely known. So, before writing the blog entry which would reveal this amazing chemical miracle and speculate on the many possible chemical ramifications, scientific and sociological, it seemed a good idea to do a little research, you know, just to refresh my mind on details of the chemistry part. Well, it seems

A science project book claimed chlorophyll and hemoglobin each contain 137 atoms and replacing one atom changes hemoglobin into chlorophyll. That is not possible because chlorophyll a has a molecular weight of under 900 daltons, whereas one subunit of human hemoglobin has a molecular weight of 16,000 daltons. The grain of truth is that chlorophyll and hemoglobin both contain a similar ring structure with a different central ion: magnesium in chlorophyll and iron in hemoglobin.

Again with the Metric System and those dueling daltons. And another frail memory fragment dashed, one which enabled me to enjoy The Thing From Another World (1951) and even more so, Swamp Thing guilt free because, after all, there was Good Science behind them. So, back to the lab everyone, nothing to see here.Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 9:29 PM

Post  #2363.   From the other quotes.    "You know, most of those aphorisms I dreamed up were pretty much just a zillion ways of saying the same thing." - HENRY DAVID THOREAU Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 11:21 AM

Post  #2362.   The EMP.    I noticed that the trees are coming along nicely, and before too long the Experience Music Project


will be fairly well disguised, at least from street level. Now if we can just get some Giant Sequoias planted around the Main Library and City Hall. I don't know what these out-of-town architects had against Seattle, dropping giant turds like that upon our fair city.

Of course, to be fair about my criticism and put it in perspective, I still think the glass monstrosity they put in the middle of the Louvre is awful, while most other people have accepted it. Even some local people here dearly love the EMP and the Library, and of course newborns are growing up with them. As for me, well, at least they will eventually be great locations for low budget sci-fi pics. Rick Macherat


posted by Rick at 10:56 AM

Post  #2361.   March 28, 2009 at 8:30 p.m.    You know what day that is. No? It's another event by the enviroweenies. These are the people who are so thoroughly invested, careerwise or simply emotionally from being force fed through 12 years of public education, in the notion that we can do something about climate change. If they simply accept and admit the truth, that we're doomed, what are they supposed to do with the rest of their lives? That's the problem. So, they have "days," in this case: EARTH HOUR Day. I know, Awk, but it's their day, not mine. The plan is for everyone to turn off their lights for an hour to illustrate .. something, it was green, I remember that much anyway. Of course, I plan to have every light in the house blazing as a form of counter-protest. And yes, things will be frosty on the street for awhile, at least until Night Out for Crime Night Potluck and Chat, or whatever they call it.

This is Green Lake, a truly lovely part of Seattle.


Around the lake is what would be known elsewhere as a "path" or even an esplanade, but ours is multi-laned, enthusiastically policed, with lanes follows:

Lane 1 Baby Strollers, single occupancy
Lane 2 Baby Strollers, multiple and group
Lane 3 Walkers, start 'n stop, walk 'n gawk
Lane 4 Walkers, purposeful
Lane 5 Walkers, power and speedwalkers
Lane 6 Joggers
Lane 7 Runners
Lane 8 Cyclists, multi-tasking
Lane 9 Cyclists, business
Lane 10 Cyclists, serious
Lane 11 Skateboarders
Lane 12 Skate

This is all serious business. And as a caution to visitors: do not expect lane regulations to be relaxed during rainy episodes. Rain makes no difference in Seattle. Once a month, the City Council reviews the designations and takes input from any present or future impacted group. As a result, lanes are frequently changed and there is chaos. We live with that. 2030 hrs 28MAR09 also 3/28/2009 also Eurostyle 28/3/2009 Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 12:30 AM

Post  #2360.   Doctor.    Brother made an extraordinary comment today. I mentioned that Doctor is coming by later this month and he said, "I like him." The reason it is unusual is that he rarely volunteers anything, especially feelings. He has been interested in medicine all of his life and is uncommonly knowledgeable on the subject. Of course, no one knows that but me since he goes into clam-up mode whenever he's around other people. Sometimes, I'll go, "Ow!" expressing one of my frequent pains. He'll ask me what that was and I'll reply that it was just a sore vein or something. Then, just beneath my hearing he will mutter something. "What was that?" I'll demand. "Nothing." "No, I heard you say something. What was it?" "Acute promyelocytic leukemia," he'll say.

"Whuuut!? Then I'll get all George Costanza and off we'll go. With Doctor, however, they never get beyond the stethoscope and his using it to measure my BP, and invariably Brother will feedback to Doctor's kindnesses and act interested and happy to learn something new. When all along he could go into a lengthy history and description of the sphygmomanometer and stethoscope if he felt like it.

I can't say too much about Doctor since I may be obliged to reveal the location of this blog one day. Doctor-Patient, you know. He's a character too; he confessed once that he's a bit of a germ freak. I thought that was pretty funny.

And, under You Go, Girl, I wanted to mention the new mother in California and her production of Octuplets. In addition to her major accomplishment in the birth department itself, she has managed to unite both ends of the political spectrum: they're all mad at her. Conservatives are angry about her lack of responsibility and foisting the huge medical care expense and eight more mouths upon an overburdened taxpaying public. Liberals are aghast at the overpopulation implications and future consumption of resources, not to mention a missed opportunity to rack up eight abortions at once. Me, I think it's great. Not only that, she's going All American already in demanding $2 million for rights to the story. All just in time to tie in with the Superbowl. Are we the greatest, or what?
Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 8:53 PM

Post  #2359.   VP of what?    An article in the paper today about a Google Vice President of "search products and user experience" got me thinking about the world of work in general. And why I am so glad not to be remotely involved with it anymore. The business channel was running stock footage of employees in cubicles while voicing a report on some business thing. Just think about it: millions upon millions of people sitting in those things, typing away, with maybe a stuffed animal and some family pictures nearby to give some illusion of life to the experience. Each day that passes means fewer people like me who think this is all unnatural and more people like them who are quite comfortable with it. Just this weekend I was telling someone, a young someone, about traveling to the airport in the day. You know, how you drove up, parked at the curb, walked out to the gate, greeted your arrivee, picked up bags and left. Elapsed time: maybe 40 minutes, of course that included a stop for a drink at the bar where you could watch the planes for a bit. Oh, and everyone was well-dressed and not the least bit hurried or stressed, even though their chances of ending the day in a flaming plunge from six miles high was about 1,000 times more likely than it is today.

But we do have cable. And cell phones. Oh, and don't forget porno, plenty of porn 24/7, so there's that. Rick Macherat

posted by Rick at 10:47 AM