Gas Guzzler
Hello World,
Well, we all knew that it was just a matter of time and had to happen eventually, and sure enough, there's obviously been some sort of serious mix-up at the Kremlin, because the weather and the date are certainly not in sync at least in our little corner of Paradise, and that's for sure. I don't know if it was Comrade Mischka and his infernal weather machine, or Comrade Sergei and his infernal date machine, but there's no escaping the fact that the time and temperature are way off-kilter. Here it is, almost the second week of September, and instead of those crisp, cool fall days of lore and legend, it's back to being 90 degrees with 90% humidity, just like the middle of the summer. If only we had someone like Dwight Eisenhower around to stare down these darned Russkies, and make them straighten up and fly right. People can complain about the Cold War all they want, but at least the weather back then wasn't all screwed up like it is now, so you don't know what to expect next. We may have beaten them in the arms race, and the space race, but we're definitely on the losing side of the temperature race, and it looks like the spirit of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is going to have the last laugh after all, da?
While we're on the subject (almost) of the fabled lumpenproletariat, let's not forget Labor Day this past Monday, a great boon for the working class in this land of the free and home of the brave, when the rank and file can toss off their yoke of oppression and rest from their labors, and deservedly so. Well, except for those people who had to work on Monday, that is. After all, the spirit of Samuel L. Gompers can't begin to compete with the spirit of rampant commercialism in this country, and if millions of businesses are going to be open for sales on a holiday, it means that tens of millions of people are going to have to be working in those businesses. But for those of us lucky enough to have the day off, it was a treat, and as short weeks go at work, this one wasn't bad at all. For three days, the weather was spectacularly glorious, and I can't remember the last time there was a three-day weekend with such perfect weather the whole time. The flag brigade did an admirable job on Monday, not only hoisting the colors upstairs and downstairs, but remembering to take them back inside later, which is in no way a foregone conclusion around these parts, and I ought to know. So as long weekends go, this one scored high marks in a variety of categories. And the best part about having a day off from work when the whole office is closed, as opposed to just taking a day off when everyone else is still there, is that nothing happens in your absence, so you don't come back in to find a whole day's work piled up on yoru desk, which effectively defeats the purpose of takng a day off in the first place. This was way better.
Speaking of better things, we don't want to overlook gas prices, which through a subliminal program of mass hypnosis, have somehow managed to seem reasonable at $3/gallon, which would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. One of our alert readers (thanks, Rich!) sends along his insights on the topic:
============================
...and speaking of gas, I filled my tank yesterday @ $2.69 / gal. A bargain, to be sure, but nothing compared to New Jersey, which is selling it's finest for $2.40 / gal ! Now, if I were a shrewd man, I would take that trip to the western shores of the US, and purchase a tankful. Lets see, locally the average is @ $2.80 - so I'll use that as a baseline. At a savings of .40 / gal, and roughly 20 gallons - thats a savings of $8.00. Figure the round trip of 80 miles, at 20 mpg, thats 4 gallons. 2 at $2.80 & 2 at $2.40 - for a total of $10.40 - if my math is correct (and don't dare check). Tolls. $8.00, Lunch at McBurger's $6.00, Lost time at work $60.00. Lets add it all up now. Hmm - the savings should be - well, howdy do, I've lost $76.40 ! So much for shrewd.
I'll take that .60 cent savings of yore!
============================
Well, I'm sure there's a lesson in there for all of us. Well, not the math-challenged among us perhaps, but there are some things that just can't be helped. Speaking of help (even for the math-challenged) you don't want to miss the opportunity for Great Courses Taught by Great Professors, so please feel free to go right ahead and visit their web site at http://www.thegreatcourses.com/ and see for yourself. They offer audio CD as well as DVD recordings of lecture series on a wide variety of subjects by renowned professors at prestigious universities all over the country. Packages range from a set of 8 audio lectures on Elements of Jazz at $19.95, all the way up to 96 lectures of An Introduction to Astronomy for a whopping $189.95 on DVD. Subjects run the gamut from science, mathematics, art, music, literature, language, history, philosophy, economics and religion, across the ages and around the world, not to mention, outside of the world. Now, it's true that I'm a well-known Luddite, and I would expect a course called "Consciousness and Its Implications" to leave me in the dust with lectures such as "Mental Causation and Physicalism Refined" or "Ontological Argument and Phenomenology." My grasp of history is tenuous at best, whether it be ancient Rome, Greece or Egypt, the Renaissance, the Middle Ages, England or even the American Civil War, so I'm not surprised to find bewildering titles in those lectures that mean nothing to me. But I admit that in the dusty boredom of arithmetic, I certainly don't expect to find a course called "The Beauty and Power of Classical Mathematical Ideas" with lectures such as "The Sexiest Rectangle," "Hunting for a Sixth Platonic Solid," and "Sizing up the Fibonacci Numbers." (That last one sounds like it should be in the course "The History of the Mafia," but as we all well know, there is no such thing as the Mafia, so there couldn't possibly be a lecture course about it.) Heaven knows I don't have time to fritter away, but if I had an extra $60, I'd be tempted to spring for their "Calculus Made Clear," just for the sake of proving them wrong, in spite of their claims that "calculus is a crowning intellectual achievement of humanity that all intelligent people can appreciate, enjoy and understand." I'm sorry, that would be just plain impossible, and please step out of the booth. In fact, my favorite part of the whole thing is what they call their "Lifetime Satisfaction Guarantee," and while I'm not exactly sure how this works, I figure they would lose their shirts with me, because I've been finding my lifetime to be full of a tremendous amount of dis-satisfaction, and I certainly feel entitled to a refund, either in years or happiness that should have been rightfully mine. I don't need to hear a lecture on "Transcendental Relativism in an Intentionalist Paradigm" to know the short end of the stick when I see it.
Meanwhile in local news, and you can't get much more local than this, we received a notice from the president of our neighborhood association about a film crew that will be working at a neighbor's house down the block on the 12th, 13th and 14th, and we should be prepared for disruptions. They tell us that this is going to be a Coen Brothers movie about a CIA agent, starring George Clooney, or should I say, "Be still, my heart!" While it's true that I've been living for over 20 years in this somewhat exclusive neighborhood full of the rich and (at least semi-) famous, the prospect of having George Clooney down the street for three days can in no way be considered a "ho-hum" idea in my life. Although I will say that this would be my second brush with celebrity, as they filmed "The Hot Rock" with Robert Redford in 1972 across the street from my high school, and to say that academic life was brought to a complete standstill would be an understatement of epic proportions. So it should be interesting times ahead in the old stomping grounds, what with the film crews, technical equipment, trailers, supply trucks, production staff, actors and miscellaneous personnel that are invariably attracted to the bright lights and big city. I was thinking that I might even get into the movie as an extra, except for the fact that it's about the CIA, and everyone knows that I can't keep a secret.
In other local news, readers of The Journal News (please feel free to visit their web site at www.LoHud.com and see for yourself) might have been surprised (but probably weren't) to see in the Travel section, a tantalizing picture of a young and beautiful fraulein holding two enormous beer steins, while the caption informed us: "An employee of Munich's tourism office holds beer steins with the official logo for Oktoberfest 2007, which begins September 22." Okay, NOW tell me that Comrade Sergei with his infernal date machine hasn't been out there playing fast and loose with the day and date, when even a festival named after the month it's in can't seem to get started on time anymore. I'd ask the CIA to look into it, but I hear that they're out hunting for a Sixth Platonic Solid, and heaven knows, that should keep them busy for a while. In fact, I can practically guarantee it, but only if your lifetime has been completely satisfactory.
Well, we all knew that it was just a matter of time and had to happen eventually, and sure enough, there's obviously been some sort of serious mix-up at the Kremlin, because the weather and the date are certainly not in sync at least in our little corner of Paradise, and that's for sure. I don't know if it was Comrade Mischka and his infernal weather machine, or Comrade Sergei and his infernal date machine, but there's no escaping the fact that the time and temperature are way off-kilter. Here it is, almost the second week of September, and instead of those crisp, cool fall days of lore and legend, it's back to being 90 degrees with 90% humidity, just like the middle of the summer. If only we had someone like Dwight Eisenhower around to stare down these darned Russkies, and make them straighten up and fly right. People can complain about the Cold War all they want, but at least the weather back then wasn't all screwed up like it is now, so you don't know what to expect next. We may have beaten them in the arms race, and the space race, but we're definitely on the losing side of the temperature race, and it looks like the spirit of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is going to have the last laugh after all, da?
While we're on the subject (almost) of the fabled lumpenproletariat, let's not forget Labor Day this past Monday, a great boon for the working class in this land of the free and home of the brave, when the rank and file can toss off their yoke of oppression and rest from their labors, and deservedly so. Well, except for those people who had to work on Monday, that is. After all, the spirit of Samuel L. Gompers can't begin to compete with the spirit of rampant commercialism in this country, and if millions of businesses are going to be open for sales on a holiday, it means that tens of millions of people are going to have to be working in those businesses. But for those of us lucky enough to have the day off, it was a treat, and as short weeks go at work, this one wasn't bad at all. For three days, the weather was spectacularly glorious, and I can't remember the last time there was a three-day weekend with such perfect weather the whole time. The flag brigade did an admirable job on Monday, not only hoisting the colors upstairs and downstairs, but remembering to take them back inside later, which is in no way a foregone conclusion around these parts, and I ought to know. So as long weekends go, this one scored high marks in a variety of categories. And the best part about having a day off from work when the whole office is closed, as opposed to just taking a day off when everyone else is still there, is that nothing happens in your absence, so you don't come back in to find a whole day's work piled up on yoru desk, which effectively defeats the purpose of takng a day off in the first place. This was way better.
Speaking of better things, we don't want to overlook gas prices, which through a subliminal program of mass hypnosis, have somehow managed to seem reasonable at $3/gallon, which would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. One of our alert readers (thanks, Rich!) sends along his insights on the topic:
============================
...and speaking of gas, I filled my tank yesterday @ $2.69 / gal. A bargain, to be sure, but nothing compared to New Jersey, which is selling it's finest for $2.40 / gal ! Now, if I were a shrewd man, I would take that trip to the western shores of the US, and purchase a tankful. Lets see, locally the average is @ $2.80 - so I'll use that as a baseline. At a savings of .40 / gal, and roughly 20 gallons - thats a savings of $8.00. Figure the round trip of 80 miles, at 20 mpg, thats 4 gallons. 2 at $2.80 & 2 at $2.40 - for a total of $10.40 - if my math is correct (and don't dare check). Tolls. $8.00, Lunch at McBurger's $6.00, Lost time at work $60.00. Lets add it all up now. Hmm - the savings should be - well, howdy do, I've lost $76.40 ! So much for shrewd.
I'll take that .60 cent savings of yore!
============================
Well, I'm sure there's a lesson in there for all of us. Well, not the math-challenged among us perhaps, but there are some things that just can't be helped. Speaking of help (even for the math-challenged) you don't want to miss the opportunity for Great Courses Taught by Great Professors, so please feel free to go right ahead and visit their web site at http://www.thegreatcourses.com/ and see for yourself. They offer audio CD as well as DVD recordings of lecture series on a wide variety of subjects by renowned professors at prestigious universities all over the country. Packages range from a set of 8 audio lectures on Elements of Jazz at $19.95, all the way up to 96 lectures of An Introduction to Astronomy for a whopping $189.95 on DVD. Subjects run the gamut from science, mathematics, art, music, literature, language, history, philosophy, economics and religion, across the ages and around the world, not to mention, outside of the world. Now, it's true that I'm a well-known Luddite, and I would expect a course called "Consciousness and Its Implications" to leave me in the dust with lectures such as "Mental Causation and Physicalism Refined" or "Ontological Argument and Phenomenology." My grasp of history is tenuous at best, whether it be ancient Rome, Greece or Egypt, the Renaissance, the Middle Ages, England or even the American Civil War, so I'm not surprised to find bewildering titles in those lectures that mean nothing to me. But I admit that in the dusty boredom of arithmetic, I certainly don't expect to find a course called "The Beauty and Power of Classical Mathematical Ideas" with lectures such as "The Sexiest Rectangle," "Hunting for a Sixth Platonic Solid," and "Sizing up the Fibonacci Numbers." (That last one sounds like it should be in the course "The History of the Mafia," but as we all well know, there is no such thing as the Mafia, so there couldn't possibly be a lecture course about it.) Heaven knows I don't have time to fritter away, but if I had an extra $60, I'd be tempted to spring for their "Calculus Made Clear," just for the sake of proving them wrong, in spite of their claims that "calculus is a crowning intellectual achievement of humanity that all intelligent people can appreciate, enjoy and understand." I'm sorry, that would be just plain impossible, and please step out of the booth. In fact, my favorite part of the whole thing is what they call their "Lifetime Satisfaction Guarantee," and while I'm not exactly sure how this works, I figure they would lose their shirts with me, because I've been finding my lifetime to be full of a tremendous amount of dis-satisfaction, and I certainly feel entitled to a refund, either in years or happiness that should have been rightfully mine. I don't need to hear a lecture on "Transcendental Relativism in an Intentionalist Paradigm" to know the short end of the stick when I see it.
Meanwhile in local news, and you can't get much more local than this, we received a notice from the president of our neighborhood association about a film crew that will be working at a neighbor's house down the block on the 12th, 13th and 14th, and we should be prepared for disruptions. They tell us that this is going to be a Coen Brothers movie about a CIA agent, starring George Clooney, or should I say, "Be still, my heart!" While it's true that I've been living for over 20 years in this somewhat exclusive neighborhood full of the rich and (at least semi-) famous, the prospect of having George Clooney down the street for three days can in no way be considered a "ho-hum" idea in my life. Although I will say that this would be my second brush with celebrity, as they filmed "The Hot Rock" with Robert Redford in 1972 across the street from my high school, and to say that academic life was brought to a complete standstill would be an understatement of epic proportions. So it should be interesting times ahead in the old stomping grounds, what with the film crews, technical equipment, trailers, supply trucks, production staff, actors and miscellaneous personnel that are invariably attracted to the bright lights and big city. I was thinking that I might even get into the movie as an extra, except for the fact that it's about the CIA, and everyone knows that I can't keep a secret.
In other local news, readers of The Journal News (please feel free to visit their web site at www.LoHud.com and see for yourself) might have been surprised (but probably weren't) to see in the Travel section, a tantalizing picture of a young and beautiful fraulein holding two enormous beer steins, while the caption informed us: "An employee of Munich's tourism office holds beer steins with the official logo for Oktoberfest 2007, which begins September 22." Okay, NOW tell me that Comrade Sergei with his infernal date machine hasn't been out there playing fast and loose with the day and date, when even a festival named after the month it's in can't seem to get started on time anymore. I'd ask the CIA to look into it, but I hear that they're out hunting for a Sixth Platonic Solid, and heaven knows, that should keep them busy for a while. In fact, I can practically guarantee it, but only if your lifetime has been completely satisfactory.
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 5:26 AM
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