TV or not TV
Hello World,
Happy October! I know people would think I was just making it up if I said that we had been enjoying some glorious fall weather in these here parts, but it's the honest truth, and that's no applesauce. In fact, this morning, we very nearly had frost on the pumpkins, which would technically be an exaggeration on several points, but the heat did come on in the house so that by the time I went to work, all the radiators were covered with cats, and they were just as happy as clams. Well, they would have been, if clams were happy being warm and toasty, I suppose.
There's no getting around the fact that the new month is upon us, only more proof, if any was needed, that the year is charging headlong to the finish, with reckless abandon and not sparing the horses. I recently heard from a cyber-friend who was less than pleased about the way things are playing out --
====================================
I don't know where you find the time, but I have my own theory. For most of us who never seem to have enough time in the day to think straight, I believe that time, at least according to Einstein, is not only relative, but it's usually your relatives who have plenty of it, and you never seem to have enough. Thats how black holes also work - by robbing your time & distributing it to some worthless relative, who probably has a government job, and already has too much time on his hands. Kind of like Cosmic Socialism. Karl Marx has the last laugh after all. Of course the Russians have cornered the market now, and they are doling it out piecemeal to the third world, where all the relatives have plenty of time to protest & gather in million man demonstrations.
Please send me the URL of the Russian website where you get your time, Thanks!
====================================
You know the scary part is when things like that start to make perfect sense to me!
In other news, we were at Mom's last Saturday to celebrate her 83rd birthday, and I can say without fear of contradiction, that a fine time was had by all. We brought Mom to Friendly's for lunch, and they all made a big fuss over her, and not because she was wearing her sparkly Birthday Girl tiara, since we inadvertently left that at home. Then we all went back to enjoy presents and Italian pastries, which were wonderful and/or delicious, not to mention having many fine therapeutic qualities as well. Mom got some beautiful new pajamas by Oscar de la Renta, which we pointed out, was probably a whole lot better than Oscar de la Hoya, the fighter. She also got some music CDs, DVDs and assorted chocolates, which she announced, she was not obligated to share, and we had to agree with her on that one, as it was her birthday. You know I always say that it's hard to improve upon a day that has eating out as well as presents, so I would consider this a red-letter day all around.
Not everything is good news, unfortunately, because in quick succession, we have bid our sad farewells to a pair of TV icons, Bob Denver of "Gilligan's Island" and Don Adams from "Get Smart." I admit that I don't know what's been going on around here lately, but I can tell you this, if I was Bob Newhart, I'd be looking over my shoulder, and then some.
So here we are, officially in the season of autumn and hoping for better weather ahead, and if nothing else, at least a respite from the unrelenting parade of hurricanes that have been wreaking havoc on an unsuspecting public since the first ones in June. In fact, there were so many hurricanes this summer that I was starting to wonder what they would do if we got all the way up to Z for Zelda, and then another one came along, what would they call it? Would they start all over again at A? Call it Zelda II, the Sequel? Invent a whole new letter to follow Z so we could have that extra mythical 27th hurricane? Actually, they're not fooling me anymore with these hurricane names, like they used to. Back in the day, when they began naming hurricanes, there were only girl names like Agnes, Camille or Belle. Then lately they started giving them boy and girl names, alternating each letter, so you would have Alice, Bob, Carol, Dave, etc. And back when weather was normal, and you only had 8 or 10 hurricanes in a season of any note, you only got up to Hugo or Jacqueline before you were finished with them. Now, suddenly we were getting up into the Rs and Ss in the beginning of September, and no end in sight. But then I looked at this more closely, and realized that something was rotten in the state of Denmark, and I didn't like the smell of it. If they alternate boy and girl names, then what happened in between Ophelia and Rita? If Peter was the boy, does that make Quinton a hermaphrodite? Or are they trying to convince me that either Ophelia or Rita was really a boy? Or do they just leave out poor Q altogether, and if so, what other unsung letters are they also leaving out? I see now, all too clearly, that the hurricane naming people have been playing fast and loose with things, and the rest of us none the wiser.
While we're on the topic of wise people, Bill loves this story from the AOL Welcome Screen --
================================
Don't Be a Slave to Technology In more than 80 clinical trials, Dr. Glenn Wilson, a psychiatrist at King’s College London University, found that workers distracted by phone calls, e-mails and text messages suffer a greater loss of IQ than if they’d smoked marijuana. The IQ of those juggling messages and work fell by an average of 10 points -- equivalent to missing a whole night’s sleep and more than double the four-point fall seen after smoking pot. The drop in IQ was even more significant in men.
================================
Well, I'll be the first to admit that I'm easily amused, but I thought that was the most hysterical thing about technology making people stupid. I said to Bill, if that's not a rousing endorsement to have your workers smoke pot, then I don't know what is. "Try new Staff-Dope! It makes your employees less stupid than using email!" I tell you, you just can't make this stuff up.
Here's something else that you couldn't make up. I recently received a new version of a credit card that I already had (it's one of those cool new "see-through" models) and needed to call their 800# to activate it, so they would know that I was the right person who received the new card. The nice young lady that I spoke to was happy to provide me with all sorts of information about rebates, low-interest rates and other reward programs that I was eligible for, and she was keen to impress upon me the many advantages of using my card to buy gas with. She explained that the rebate was a certain percentage up to $1,500 gas purchases in a year, a different percentage from there to $3,000 a year, yet another percentage up to $25,000 per year and so on. I had to laugh and tell her I thought that was all very nice, but I hoped to God that I would never actually spend $25,000 on gas in a year! Of course, the way things are going with these hurricanes, you never can tell. As a matter of fact, if hurricanes were a TV show, you can believe that I would have long since canceled their sorry backsides and given away their time slot to someone a whole lot more deserving. Quick, someone call Bob Newhart before it's too late!
Happy October! I know people would think I was just making it up if I said that we had been enjoying some glorious fall weather in these here parts, but it's the honest truth, and that's no applesauce. In fact, this morning, we very nearly had frost on the pumpkins, which would technically be an exaggeration on several points, but the heat did come on in the house so that by the time I went to work, all the radiators were covered with cats, and they were just as happy as clams. Well, they would have been, if clams were happy being warm and toasty, I suppose.
There's no getting around the fact that the new month is upon us, only more proof, if any was needed, that the year is charging headlong to the finish, with reckless abandon and not sparing the horses. I recently heard from a cyber-friend who was less than pleased about the way things are playing out --
====================================
I don't know where you find the time, but I have my own theory. For most of us who never seem to have enough time in the day to think straight, I believe that time, at least according to Einstein, is not only relative, but it's usually your relatives who have plenty of it, and you never seem to have enough. Thats how black holes also work - by robbing your time & distributing it to some worthless relative, who probably has a government job, and already has too much time on his hands. Kind of like Cosmic Socialism. Karl Marx has the last laugh after all. Of course the Russians have cornered the market now, and they are doling it out piecemeal to the third world, where all the relatives have plenty of time to protest & gather in million man demonstrations.
Please send me the URL of the Russian website where you get your time, Thanks!
====================================
You know the scary part is when things like that start to make perfect sense to me!
In other news, we were at Mom's last Saturday to celebrate her 83rd birthday, and I can say without fear of contradiction, that a fine time was had by all. We brought Mom to Friendly's for lunch, and they all made a big fuss over her, and not because she was wearing her sparkly Birthday Girl tiara, since we inadvertently left that at home. Then we all went back to enjoy presents and Italian pastries, which were wonderful and/or delicious, not to mention having many fine therapeutic qualities as well. Mom got some beautiful new pajamas by Oscar de la Renta, which we pointed out, was probably a whole lot better than Oscar de la Hoya, the fighter. She also got some music CDs, DVDs and assorted chocolates, which she announced, she was not obligated to share, and we had to agree with her on that one, as it was her birthday. You know I always say that it's hard to improve upon a day that has eating out as well as presents, so I would consider this a red-letter day all around.
Not everything is good news, unfortunately, because in quick succession, we have bid our sad farewells to a pair of TV icons, Bob Denver of "Gilligan's Island" and Don Adams from "Get Smart." I admit that I don't know what's been going on around here lately, but I can tell you this, if I was Bob Newhart, I'd be looking over my shoulder, and then some.
So here we are, officially in the season of autumn and hoping for better weather ahead, and if nothing else, at least a respite from the unrelenting parade of hurricanes that have been wreaking havoc on an unsuspecting public since the first ones in June. In fact, there were so many hurricanes this summer that I was starting to wonder what they would do if we got all the way up to Z for Zelda, and then another one came along, what would they call it? Would they start all over again at A? Call it Zelda II, the Sequel? Invent a whole new letter to follow Z so we could have that extra mythical 27th hurricane? Actually, they're not fooling me anymore with these hurricane names, like they used to. Back in the day, when they began naming hurricanes, there were only girl names like Agnes, Camille or Belle. Then lately they started giving them boy and girl names, alternating each letter, so you would have Alice, Bob, Carol, Dave, etc. And back when weather was normal, and you only had 8 or 10 hurricanes in a season of any note, you only got up to Hugo or Jacqueline before you were finished with them. Now, suddenly we were getting up into the Rs and Ss in the beginning of September, and no end in sight. But then I looked at this more closely, and realized that something was rotten in the state of Denmark, and I didn't like the smell of it. If they alternate boy and girl names, then what happened in between Ophelia and Rita? If Peter was the boy, does that make Quinton a hermaphrodite? Or are they trying to convince me that either Ophelia or Rita was really a boy? Or do they just leave out poor Q altogether, and if so, what other unsung letters are they also leaving out? I see now, all too clearly, that the hurricane naming people have been playing fast and loose with things, and the rest of us none the wiser.
While we're on the topic of wise people, Bill loves this story from the AOL Welcome Screen --
================================
Don't Be a Slave to Technology In more than 80 clinical trials, Dr. Glenn Wilson, a psychiatrist at King’s College London University, found that workers distracted by phone calls, e-mails and text messages suffer a greater loss of IQ than if they’d smoked marijuana. The IQ of those juggling messages and work fell by an average of 10 points -- equivalent to missing a whole night’s sleep and more than double the four-point fall seen after smoking pot. The drop in IQ was even more significant in men.
================================
Well, I'll be the first to admit that I'm easily amused, but I thought that was the most hysterical thing about technology making people stupid. I said to Bill, if that's not a rousing endorsement to have your workers smoke pot, then I don't know what is. "Try new Staff-Dope! It makes your employees less stupid than using email!" I tell you, you just can't make this stuff up.
Here's something else that you couldn't make up. I recently received a new version of a credit card that I already had (it's one of those cool new "see-through" models) and needed to call their 800# to activate it, so they would know that I was the right person who received the new card. The nice young lady that I spoke to was happy to provide me with all sorts of information about rebates, low-interest rates and other reward programs that I was eligible for, and she was keen to impress upon me the many advantages of using my card to buy gas with. She explained that the rebate was a certain percentage up to $1,500 gas purchases in a year, a different percentage from there to $3,000 a year, yet another percentage up to $25,000 per year and so on. I had to laugh and tell her I thought that was all very nice, but I hoped to God that I would never actually spend $25,000 on gas in a year! Of course, the way things are going with these hurricanes, you never can tell. As a matter of fact, if hurricanes were a TV show, you can believe that I would have long since canceled their sorry backsides and given away their time slot to someone a whole lot more deserving. Quick, someone call Bob Newhart before it's too late!
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 8:18 PM
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