Post  #2691.   I wondered about television in the future.  Say 2016. Geez, would we even still be here, as this bit of wondering was a very long time ago. Well, of course we are! Better than ever. In fact, I was just watching the news, "... today's terrorist attack is brought to you by Coors ..." it began, and it went on to show a marginally effective video of the explosion and the usual screams and running, voiced over with the stats: peaceful demonstration, 60 dead, hundreds injured. I thought it was interesting that the anchor pointed out that while the video was disturbing, his producers judged it was okay to show. As far as I can tell, the "standard" today is dead bodies - yes; missing parts, faces, kids - no. See, life marches on. Or maybe I should say death, because we have a LOT of it these days.Rick Macherat Rick M. In the day.
posted by Rick at 1:55 AM

Post  #2690.   Hooray, hooray .. for the 8th of May!  He sez, "Dude, what's that all about?" I explain. Then he explains, patiently, "Dude," it's always 'dude' with this kid, "Dude, we don't need that sort of foolishness anymore. They live right here. It's just down the hall and a soft, 'Knock-knock.'"

Really?

Suppose I'm the only one left alive who even remembers?

Silence.

Oh my.Rick Macherat Rick M. In the day.
posted by Rick at 11:18 PM

Post  #2689.   Dipswitch, WV.  What a mess of a town that was. It sat in a scruffy West Virginia Valley with no police, no fire department, spotty utilities and a population I would describe as skinny, hairy and dimwitted. The only reason Dipswitch existed was its location where a bunch of rail lines came together. You'd probably think they made a living servicing the crews, you know, restaurants, bars, a general store. Nope. It was there because of the frequent train wrecks and the great looting since it took so long for help to arrive.

Almost overnight near the turn of the century, everything changed. A new railroad consolidated the various freight lines, straightened up the tracks and actually followed a schedule. No more wrecks. I remember seeing those lovely, speeding locomotives tear through town with 100-odd cars in tow, never even slowing down. Nice logo on the side, big letter: "USB," United States Busses, I think. Something about a bus anyway.

Not to many of us old timers left who remember any of that, the crazy wild days. One thing I do miss is when something broke, there were people around who knew how to fix it. Them days are long gone, that's for sure.Rick Macherat Rick M. In the day.
posted by Rick at 1:33 AM

Post  #2688.   Lordy .. has it been that long? The word "allele" popped into my head today, leading me to yet another advice column: How to go to College. Now, at one time, I knew all about alleles and also glacial moraines, neurasthenia, pinnate venation, 1812, gerunds, anomie, x y and z; even, really, hujambo bibi vezuri sana? I knew the ins and outs of all that stuff for exactly one hour. The thing is, unless you're attending college for some actual reason, like pre-med or bizness, don't take it too seriously. My advice would be to pay attention in your first English class to pick up a little grammer and comp, but other than that just enjoy the rest of the classes like you would a movie or play. And for pete's sake, don't study to learn! Studying is for passing tests. Either way, you won't remember anything but the gist of the class later. Test-taking is the most valuable lesson to come away from college with. That, and how to compose a sentence not ending with a preposition. As you know by now, there are two kinds of prof philosophies on tests. The first wants to know what you got out of the course and will be more essay-oriented. Give the prof back all his emphasized points, but in your own words. Write enthusiastically, like you got really inspired. The other type of talker just wants volumes of facts, more likely to be multiple-choice and T/F. This takes more cramming. Do some research on the prof. Find out if he's the kind of prick who does questions on captions under pictures in the text. Also, does he test on notes, the book, or both? If you have a little time before an exam, don't cram up to the last minute. Bad move. Ready or not, close your books an hour or two before and do something else. Write as legibly as you can. Take a moment to organize your answer in your head before you start writing. On multiple choice, try and get inside the head of the T.A. who wrote it. Chances are, he will have avoided C,C,C,C,C. By the third C it has to be something else. If it looks like a trick-question, go with your first impulse. The second one is designed to put doubts in your head. Above all, be confident. You know it, and if you don't know it you're smart enough to fake it. Believe that. Panic is the enemy.

I would advise not to cut class often. Even if it's crap, it's crap you're paying for. Besides, one trick they use is to slip in something innocuous that doesn't make it into anyone's notes (that you borrow later) but which does make it on the exam. I had an Econ prof who did that on a 25% essay question on the final. It had come from a poorly-attended Friday class before break.

A note on a previous subject: people who have cable on all day vs. people who don't. Remember that flight attendant who thwarted the shoe-bomber, Richard Reeves? Well, the first video of her was taken as she got out of an aid car after what must have been hours of debriefing. She took a few steps, then she reached in her pocket, retrieved and lit a cigarette and took a good long toke. Ahhhhhh. I saw that, but you didn't. All the subsequent reruns of that sequence are cut just before she reaches into her pocket. Those are the kinds of things where you see an editor's heavy hand. "This woman is a hero. We can't show her smoking!" I see a lot of stuff like that.

I was thinking about the 70's last night and this morning. It may go down in history as the most fun decade in U.S. history, but almost no one remembers anything about it! Relatively speaking, nothing exceedingly bad happened (well, you had Watergate and the Oil Shock - seem bland now). Everyone was into that magical confluence at the apex of sex, drugs and rock-and-roll. Par-deee! I will confess to my loyal readers that I did a little of one of those and a lot of the other two. OK, so the clothes and hair are a big yuk now, but it was very serious business at the time. I didn't go with the hair, though. Glad about that since there aren't any embarrassing pictures to live down. Rick Macherat Rick M. In the day.
posted by Rick at 1:16 AM

Post  #2687.   The rain MMXVI. I just ventured out to the front porch for a minute. It's raining. Since this time last evening, around midnight, it hasn't stopped. It rained all night, plinking occasionally on the wind chimes. It rained all day in a perpetual gray you'd have to see to believe, on another type of planet somewhere, one without a sun. Come dinnertime, it was still raining as I opened a window to cool off the kitchen. After dinner, the rain set off the mood nicely, what with the fire and all. It's strange, I know, but I love the smell of a thousand wet wood fires. You wouldn't think smoke could be wet, but it can.

It has continued to rain all evening. I suppose there was a sunset because it's dark now. How dark? As dark as Seattle can get when you might ask, "Was there ever light around here anyway?"

So, mark this one down. Rain. Tomorrow, I'll look at the back page of the second section of the paper, weather facts, yesterday's stats, and it will say .. Seattle - tr.

Can you imagine how many days of raining all morning, then raining all day, followed by raining all evening and finally raining all night and still only manage a trace? What's more, imagine how many days like that it takes to get 38 inches in a year (supposedly.)

I do love it so.Rick Macherat Rick M. In the day.
posted by Rick at 12:59 AM

Post  #2686.   The Freud Class.  I took it, back in 1965. Psych 311, I think. It went all over the place, but the central theme was Freud's Five Stages of Psychosexual Development:

Oral
Anal
Phallic
Latent
Genital

Take two Bluebooks and remember Original American People Lost Ground. You could write for days. Easy A.Rick Macherat Rick M. In the day.
posted by Rick at 12:52 AM

Post  #2695.   Pretty slow tonight, so I'll type some. I wrote this.

on Monday, she wrapped the bug tenderly
tossed it out the window
on Tuesday she stomped one in a fury
scraped it off her shoe
this was the same little girl!
different bugs though

Where I left off

I walked over to Larry's yesterday and rang the bell. No answer, so I went around back. Arlene was out there by the pool, with a monkey! Hi, Rick, come on in the gate and let me show you what the monkey can do.

I went in the yard and sat down, and Arlene shouted, Go on, little money, do your trick, whereupon the money climbed up the pool slide and went sailing into the water. Gee, Arlene, I wouldn't have thought a monkey would like the water, I said. Me either, but he loves it. Hold on, I'll go and get you a drink, she replied as she left

No sooner had she gotten into the house did the monkey come over to me. Cute little monkey, one of those tiny ones they cut up for research. He says, You want to see what else I can do? I didn't answer. He picked up her drink and downed a good slug of it. Then, he went over and got the garden hose, turned on the faucet, refilled the glass and put it back where it had been.

HA! Silly monkey, I laughed, She's a vodka drinker and would miss evaporation! That monkey looked at me quizzically; at least it appeared quizzical, how can you tell with monkeys, and went back to his screeching and bounding about. I called out to him, Say, monkey ... do they know you can talk? Nope, he replied. Suppose I tell them? He laughed long and hard, and I can tell you that a monkey-laugh is spooky, especially from this one who not only talked but seemed to have an odd sense of humor. He replied, Who'd believe a story like that, Rick?

He's right, of course. This recounting is about an episode which very probably happened yesterday afternoon. I feel I may meet this monkey again.

Some notes for industry. To Hewlitt-Packard: You should either (1) put a note on your printers: Not recommended for use by old people; or, (2) hire some geriatric folk to work in the ergonomics department. Once you observe that it takes two of them, one to help the other to the floor and back up and hold the flashlight, and the other to crawl in with the magnifying glass, just to read the model number, you'll see why. And for you, Nokia, and other makers of cell phones, are you ashamed of your model numbers? Probably so, since they become extinct before the "Plan" even runs out. Which brings us to AT&T Wireless, and I know you were just acquired by Cingular, but I fully expect your "Plan" nonsense to migrate over there. Would it be too much trouble to keep some old time (beyond two years) employees around awhile, so there is someone on staff who has at least heard of a few of the legacy "Plans?" Mine has almost gotten to the point where I can finally cancel it without a penalty, but it seems no longer to exist. Oh, and by the way, Cingular, you know where is says to call AT&T customer service to convert our "Plans" to you guys? They never heard of you.

La maison mauvaise de la famille. Or something to that effect. I have to turn the sound down on French films because I pick up just enough of the dialog to realize the subtitles are being translated too freely. This one is about skeletons in the closet with a lot of love tension. Uh oh, they just did it, so the die is cast. See, her father and his mother died in a car crash, then the remaining spouses married each other. Besides, the fathers were brothers. That makes them already cousins, but wait. He remembers his stepmother telling his father in an argument that he might not be the son's father. Soooooooo, either the new lovers are not related at all or they are really brother and sister, which might account for the distress at home when the aunt tells the parents that they've gone off to La maison mauvaise for a three-day getaway. Too late now.

The girl is pretty and has the kind of face that will stay pretty even into middle-age when the lines set in. However, the boy who is also pretty now, well, his face is the kind of French face which will morph into a beaked, pea-eyed, chinless miscreation just like his father's, whoever he was.

Why am I watching a French film, again? Have you seen television today? Don't turn it on, just don't even turn it on today.

It's only money. Some people, mainly economists, believe it is simplistic to compare a national economy to the finances of the average household. Simple, yes, but not simplistic. You make and you spend, then you borrow the difference. (Or save it, theoretically.) When you've borrowed too much, you just sign up for a new credit card! That's what the government does. Some day, they'll make an announcement that a "computer glitch" accidentally erased the Treasury's records of Bills, Notes and such. That was the bad news; the good news is that the National Debt is gone.

How could that be!!? Easy. They don't actually print up notes and bills anymore. It's all just booked electronically. While they still issue U.S. Savings Bonds, they make up only a tiny fraction of the debt. Sure, a lot of furrin countries will be pissed, along with the drug lords, but what recourse do they have? Repossess the country? The United States is the world's savings account, and as soon as they think we'll be paying interest again we can start borrowing some more. Not to worry.

Incidentally, while the debt is largely electronic now, there are still some actual instruments in circulation, held by collectors and old people mainly. So, if you run across a $500,000,000.00 Treasury Note, make sure it has McKinley's picture on it. Otherwise, don't take it.

In aviation news, Middle Eastern startup carrier, Jazeera Airlines, has postponed plans for direct service to several destinations in the United States. Company officials could not be reached for comment. In a related story, startup U.S. carrier, Bombing-you-and-stealing-your-oil Airlines also had no comment on their cutback to plans for service to a number of Middle Eastern locations.

While pouring (about half a million pieces of) Instant Rice last night, I was reminded about that Free Rice website. So tonight, with The Season and all, I went over there. First, I missed couple of words to see what the penalty would be. Seems there is none, except you get no rice. Bummer. Then I went on to score an impressive string of correct answers, raised my Vocab score to a 10 and sent 680 grains of rice to somebody starving. Cool. Then I lost interest in it.

Am I cynical about this too? You bet. See, we'll give, give til it hurts, but only if we're amused. If the concert sucks .. well let somebody else cure that disease, whatever it was. Sad thing is, very little would be given to charity without some kind of hook. I learned that when I got volunteered (decades ago) as the company representative for United Way. We'd have our little meetings and presentations - sometimes a good-looking fireman would come by and join in, and I guess they're all good-looking if you're a hotel maid who has already cleaned 15 toilets today and it's 3:15 and you get an unexpected 25 minute break before the 16th. And then our progress charts, and was it all ever gawdawful. We sent our money in and it got added to the pot and the city totaled it all up to $25 million or $250 million or whatever, and all those organizations survived for another year. And that night we got ripped and went to a concert and I think we gave some more money to something else and felt really, really good and warm about it as we sang along sort of and tried to light something to wave. It was a very boozy cause, I remember that. Did I say boozy? I meant worthy, a very worthy cause.Rick Macherat Rick M. In the day.
posted by Rick at 12:09 AM

Post  #2694.   A miserable crank.  I'm going to be 71 years old this week. There, that should clear out 70% of people browsing about. They hate the idea of old people on the Internet. In their place, I would too. I don't smoke, drink or do sex anymore. Not by choice, I assure you. That leaves sitting in my chair, watching television, eating and then sleeping. No no no ... don't feel sorry for me; I'm perfectly content. Was.

Comcast changed the cable box for a newer model, and my lamp finally broke, cruelly, on the same day. I've rigged some substitute illumination, but it isn't good. Light has to be Just Right, and this isn't. As for the cable box remote control .. there are no words. As I explained earlier, one of the benefits of turning 70, the only one actually, is that you don't have to give a shit anymore. That in mind, I can type that only the Chinese could royally fuck up something as miraculous as a cable remote device. And get this, my sweet great-grandniece can't watch the Disney Channel during my nap because it's in Spanish now!

If all of that wasn't bad enough, once you do get the television on and find a channel, it's all about the election. Can you believe this mess? What happens if it's ultimately Trump vs. that Commie? Well, the old people won't vote at all for once, and that leaves the choice to the 70%. God help us already.Rick Macherat Rick M. In the day.
posted by Rick at 12:44 AM

Post  #2693.   Science has found evidence of previous life on Mars.  You would think news like this would be rockin' all over the world. So, that's how blasé we've become. (Maybe. I'd put us quite a few notches below that.) Now if something was exploding ... make that a big explosion, or drooling over a lifeless corpse, then it might make CNN. If they have time. Not Fox News though. No bare legs or titties.

Maybe it's because of the fossil they found: a piece of cauliflower. I thought it was perfect actually. Suppose Joel Edward McHale checks the Internet for his name? Of course he does.
posted by Rick at 11:57 PM

Post  #2692.   Oh, What a Night.  Despite all the revisionist history, I still insist that this song was indeed written in 1963 and features Frankie Valli on lead vocals. It is my perpetual #1 pick-me-up song, and I relate. My similar adventure was early April, 1965, incidentally, close enough.

Anyway, I was reading through tidbits, headlines, tonight and came across these three:

The Internet Had Some Great Reactions To The Panthers Blowing Out The Seahawks

Strangers Show Kindness to Dog Who Refuses to Leave the Spot Where He Was Abandoned

20 Words Americans Use That Foreigners Do Not Like

I read two of them. The first one was about something I choose to believe never happened, so I didn't read it.Rick Macherat Rick M. In the day.
posted by Rick at 1:19 AM

Post  #2691.   Small town.      Only a few people were in the coffee shop that day. It was a bit early, but the place would fill up shortly with the usual lunch crowd. Jessica had decided on an early lunch for her mother’s birthday. Mrs. Elaine Davis was 79 and had insisted that any celebration be modest, in favor of a big vacation or cruise next year.

Just about the last thing anyone would have expected was for the door to bang open loudly and a young, scruffy, zitty man to rush in, shouting, “Everybody get down and give it up!” or some variation of that as remembered by the several witnesses. The very last thing anyone would have expected was for Mrs. Davis to pull out her Smith and Wesson BODYGUARD® 38 Special handgun and put a hole right between his squinty eyes.

At least one other person in the coffee shop was not all that shocked. Everett Knuth had been a young assistant in his father’s mortuary many, many years earlier when he accompanied him to a job out on Long Drive. He remembered the sheriff saying, “Yup. Too bad. Looks like a massive heart attack all right,” as they all .. the sheriff, the deputy, Mrs. Davis, Jessica and the two ambulance guys .. looked down at the extremely dead Mr. Davis and his extremely prominent middle-of-the-forehead bullet hole. As it turned out, that put an end to his brief unfortunate habit of sneaking into Jessica’s room late at night and molesting her. Rick Macherat Rick M. In the day. RMacherat
posted by Rick at 12:49 AM

Post  #2690.   What debate?  When I casually started this thing around 2700 posts and almost thirteen years ago, I never imagined I would be still doing it. Getting to these numbers. Ultimately not even caring about the numbers being screwed up, because I'm 70 now and the really, seriously best thing about being 70 is you DO NOT have to care about things anymore. I had heard about it but never imagined ...

Fourteen years? Almost fourteen years. Really?Rick Macherat Rick M. In the day.
posted by Rick at 12:37 AM

Post  #2689.   Our distinguished passenger.  It was the Captain ...

"Ladies and Gentleman, we hope everyone has come down from Light Speed comfortably, as we are now crossing the Bullock Expanse prior to a careful passage through the Oort Cloud ..."

I was especially looking forward to seeing Professor James Steven Bullock as his presence on this cruise was the reason most people took it - for the lectures. And yes, in case you were wondering, he is STILL HOT, in a centenarian way, even at the age of 259!Professor James Steven Bullock Rick Macherat Rick M. In the day.
posted by Rick at 1:10 AM