Just a thought Archives
So you’re familiar with the story of the sheep and the goats, rights? It’s one of Jesus’ parables in which he talks about the end times, when the righteous and unrighteous are seperated from each other. At the end, the judge turns to the righteous and lists the good things they’ve done, to which they reply, basically, “Hey, when did we do that?”
I’m reading the story the other day and this thought occurs to me: Maybe it says something about which side I’d end up on, but I’m thinking that if I was standing with the good guys and somebody started saying “when did we feed you? When did we clothe you?” I’d elbow them in the stomach and say something like, “Oh, yeah, I remember. Uhh, that one time, in …. uh … yeah, that place. Yeah, right.” Of course, doing so would no doubt get me instantly goatafied, but still — it’s hard to see the percentage in trying to argue that you’re not supposed to be on the sheep side.
I moved into a new office yesterday, an event that I’m portraying as a promotion, but is no doubt nothing more than the latest round of MWAH. The move forced me to spend half an hour rearranging furniture, after I spent the morning exercising my neck muscles by twitching everytime somebody walked by the door. See, I’m sitting at an L-shaped — or, more accurately, J-shaped — desk, with the computer plunked down on the curve, meaning I’m facing almost directly away from the door.
And this freaks me out. I can’t explain it. I didn’t grow up in a Mafia family; I was never involved in a shoot-out in a saloon; I’ve never even thought about working for the CIA. Nevertheless, I get as twitchy as all get out when my back is to an open door — and in this case, since I could just see the hallway out of the corner of my eye, was even worse. Every time I heard footsteps or saw movement, I’d neck spasm my head leftward to see who was passing by.
It’s a strange type of paranoia, similar to my prohibition on talking in restaurants. It’s not a total gag rule — but I refuse to talk about anything remotely personal or mention anybody’s name while having a conversation in a public place. Maybe I’ve been a reporter too long; all I know is that whenever a waiter walks by the table, I just assume that they’ll know whoever it is I’m talking about and the conversation will get back to them. It might be genetic, since my brother has the same tic: the last time we went out to eat together, we ended up sitting by the waiters’ station, and the way we stopped talking everytime a server walked by probably had them convinced we were plotting to rob the place or something.
So we did.
It’s too bad they weren’t facing the door. Then they would have seen us coming.
People usually laugh when I tell them of my hobo adventures and mention that modern knights of the road communicate with each other through Hotmail accounts. Hey, they’re free, you can access them at public libraries and they shut down if you don’t use them for a while, automatically letting people know you’re in jail. What more could you want?
Nevertheless, even I found it a little weird to discover that terrorists use the service as well. According to the New York Times, in an article about messages received from the kidnappers of journalist Daniel Peark: “The e-mail message arrived early today at various in-boxes at The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times, and at news organizations in Pakistan. It was sent under the name “kidnapperguy” via Hotmail, Microsoft’s free e-mail service.”
So, that’s kidnapperguy@hotmail.com, right? I wonder how much spam those people are getting?
I didn’t really mind having my Hotmail (or HoTMaiL, as they were known before selling out to the minions of Microsoft) account shut down for a couple days after exceeding the memory limits. Heck, I only use the thing as a spam catcher, it being my email account of choice when I sign in at sites that I never want to hear from but require an address.
But spam is one thing. Four hundred messages telling me “Your diploma is ready” is really going overboard …
It’s not like the messages — which filled up six pages in my junk mail folder — were even good advertising:
Obtain a prosperous future, money earning power, and the admiration of all.
Yeah, a fake diploma is going to earn me the “admiration of all.” I don’t think my real degrees have done that. And I didn’t realize it was quite common, during salary negotiations, to have an employer say, “hey, you have a degree from a school I’ve never heard of. Let me give you lots more money.”
Diplomas from prestigious non-accredited universities based on your present knowledge and life experience.
Ah, they’re prestigious non-accredited universities. As far as fake schools go, these are the top of heap.
No required tests, classes, books, or interviews.
I’m glad they made that clear. I was worried that I’d have to do some of that thar book-learnin’ or maybe take a test based on my life experience and present knowledge. Hey, that’d be fun: It’d just be one question: What do you know now? I’m sure some people would still fail.
Bachelors, masters, MBA, and doctorate (PhD) diplomas available in the field of your choice.
I wonder how far you could go with that “field of your choice.” I want an MBA in stapling. Hey, it’s a business skill!
I haven’t gotten a diploma message in a few days; maybe the bounces that occured after they shut down my account got me off their list. Of course, my inbox is still filling up with junk mail: several offers for something that lets me burn DVDs — hardly useful since I don’t have a DVD player; a variety of ads targeted at stupid people, who obviously open anything with a “re:” in the subject line (hey, I don’t remember writing to xlybg@hotmail — but I must have, since it says it’s a reply …); and porno ads that make me really wonder about the mental health of the country. Pregnant and horny? Farm animals? Britney Spears vidoes? I don’t know which is scarier …
Somebody told me about this the other day, and I was forced to go online and check it out. The story goes that this picture of Bert and Osama “Ernie” Bin Laden was displayed at an anti-American rally in Bangladesh. The photo, it turns out, was found on one of the various “Bert is Evil!” websites, most of which have now shut down in the light of adverse publicity.
What I’m wondering is what, exactly, was going through the protestor’s mind when he decided to put the Muppet on the poster? Look, even Bert, that symbol of America, stands with Bin Laden! Won’t Oscar the Grouch or the Count make better allies? Would it surprise anyone if Oscar had anthrax in that garbage can of his?
In retaliation, I think we should send Snuffleuppagus in with the troops. Heck, he’s big, he’s got a furry coat (the Afghan winter won’t bother him) — and he never seemed to like Bert. He could be our secret weapon.
And I must say, it’s an interesting feeling to be laid up with a bad cold for a week, and then discover, upon venturing out of my apartment, that anthrax is spreading. Where’s that symptom list again …
An interesting note about German cold medicine: instructions only come in one language (uh, that’d be German). So in case you can’t read the little leaflet, and are wondering how much to take, here’s some advice: if you’re trying to take care of blocked sinuses, one pill should probably do you. If, on the other hand, you’re interested in seeing what flying is like, go ahead, take three. It’s bunches of fun.
Remember, Ubik is safe when taken according to directions. (Hey, there’s an allusion that, what, three of you will get …)
“Pope Urges Peace” … it’s one of those journalism jokes you see on lists of the world’s most boring headlines. I mean, of course he wants peace; he’s the Pope, for goodness’ (literally) sake.
So when I opened the paper yesterday to see the hed “Pope Sees Need for U.S. Force, Aide Declares”, well, I was a bit surprised. It’s one thing to have NATA and the EU backing America; I was somewhat shocked when nations like Cuba and people like Arafat offered their sympathies. But for the pope to say war’s OK … that’s a new one.
Today was the first day of fall. Maybe not literally (I’m not sure what the German word for autumn is, so I can’t even look at a calender to see when the first official day is). But the snap in the air, that certain smell that means summer is over … it’s all here.
Fall has always been my favorite season, and as I walked to work today — chosing to enjoy the weather rather than take the U-Bahn — I tried to figure out, as I do every year, exactly why. Part of it is a process of elimination: Summer is too hot, and Winter too cold, so they’re right out. And though I love Spring weather, I think I enjoy Fall more because of its sense of self-containment. Spring is nice — but only because we’re leaving Winter behind and inching toward Summer. Fall is a wonderful time of year just on its own.
So what’s your favorite season?
If I ever become a serial killer (not terribly likely — all the good firms have hiring freezes), I think I’ll target construction workers. This was a decision arrived at after long and careful thought. Or, to put it another way, in the 12 seconds this morning after I was awoken by a buzzing power saw.
I got to bed around 4:30 a.m., after working half the night on the J-School yearbook (another story in itself; I wandered in around 9 p.m. to see if they needed help and stumbled out seven hours laters with the title of Production Editor). It seemed my head had scarcely hit the pillow when I was shocked into consciouness by the whirrling blades of a whining saw, sounding like they were about to enter my skull.
Falling from the bed, I dragged myself to the window, where I see a bearded, potbellied man humming to himself as he chopped up two-by-fours. The construction scaffolding has been around my building for months; the workers usually content themselves with pounding arhythmically on the walls. This time, though, they felt it necessary to chop away at their lumber supply at 7 a.m., jolting me from a sound sleep and coating my room with sawdust.
The saw guy was standing directly behind my bed, with only the cardboard-thin walls (and some bricks) saving me from sudden, gruesome death. It was only my grogginess that saved the construction worker from a similar fate.
Why do the bunny’s ears taste best?
I’m one of those people who, when confronted by a chocolate rabbit, immediately gnaw off the ears. I know some folks start at the bottom and work their way up, but that, quite frankly, is wrong. The ears must be eaten first.
Not that I’m sure why. I think part of it might be the expression on the animal’s face, a sort of stoic acceptance that being chomped upon is its lot in life. Even with that, though, there’s something cruel about the idea of taking a chunk out of the rabbit’s flanks while it sits there. (A way of eating which could also be against Jewish dietary laws — not that they really come into play with Easter bunnies, but still …)
The correct way to eat a rabbit is to attack the ears and then move right onto to the head. This, I believe, puts the creature out of its misery, and the rest of the body can be enjoyed in peace.
What’s with all the freakin’ birds?
After working for far too long on a huge (and well-written!) profile, I wander out into the rainy, pre-dawn city streets only to be greeted by an avian cacophony the likes of which I have never heard. Perhaps they were on hand to greet the Times delivery man — or the guy setting up the coffee cart.
Either way, shouldn’t they have been huddled under little bird umbrella somewhere? Or in bed?
Or maybe I’m just projecting …
Happy Cthulhu week! Watch out for mad Arabs …
Q: How many Lovecraftian protagonists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Just one - but are you sure he should turn it on?
One of the unexpected delights of living in New York: the opportunity to have my hair cut by people who don’t speak my language.
I’m not exactly sure how I got into the habit. My first few haircuts in the city were done, even if they were foreigners, by people who spoke English. Soon, though, I began frequenting Spanish barbershops, an experience that always includes a certain amount of apprehension. Each time I go to the shop, we carry on this mime routine, in which the barber waves at my head and says something in Spanish, I wave back and say something in English, and then he does whatever the heck he wants. Two haircuts ago I walked out looking radically different than when I went in. Last time, I got my beard trimmed — and yes, I was a bit nervous when we finished the waving routine and he pulled out a straight razor. I thought for a moment I’d insulted his mother or something.
Of course, not being able to speak with my hair cutter does allow me to skip the part of the barbering experience I loathe the most: having to carry on a banal conversation when I just want shorter hair. I mean, it’s not like I have somebody who’s “my barber”; I’ve rarely see the same person twice in a row — which is good, because I’m certain all conversational possibilities have been exhausted once the first cutting is halfway completed. And not being able to communicate exactly what I’m looking for in a haircut hasn’t seemed to change the process at all. I’m still getting whatever the scissor guy was planning on doing.
The problem now is I’m beginning to pick up a little bit of Spanish. If the day comes when I understand what the barber’s asking when he waves at my head, I’m going to have to leave. I hear there’s a group of Russian barbers downtown …
I’ve been on Spring Break the past week — hence the dirth of postings — and have been spending the time driving hither and yon in the Southeast, checking up on old friends (they’re all good), taking the pulse of the American newspaper economy (it’s all bad) and getting my forehead horribly sunburnt.
Whilst driving, I’ve had some odd thoughts cross my mind, the side effect, no doubt, of driving into the sun for many hours. Among them:
- Why can’t the Chik-Fil-A cows spell better? They’ve gotten to the point where they can read — and they have enough coordination to, apparently, take over a fair number of the nation’s billboards. Isn’t there some cow who looks back as the herd is sneaking away and says, “hey, wait, we spelled ‘chiken’ wrong”?
- The ratio between residents of North Carolina and country music stations is approaching parity. Is there really a need for each individual to have their own country station?
- And speaking of music … The FCC or somebody should step in and start regulating the airtime new pop songs receive. Everytime I go on a long-distance car ride, I end up hearing the same songs over and over as I go from one station’s coverage area to another’s. The big offender this time was a little ditty named “Yellow,” which I hadn’t heard before. It was pretty catchy the first time or two I heard it and really began to grow on me the third and fourth times; by the eighth airing of it, though, my head began pounding — and when, a few minutes later, Cold Play’s ducal tones came out of the radio three times in a row as I was scanning, I began looking for a tractor trailer to pull in front of.
- The phrase “Satan is working overtime” is much beloved by radio evangelists. Strange, but I always thought of the devil as more of a salaried employee. Of course, if anyone is going to be monkeying with FLRB guidelines, it would be the Prince of Lies … but shouldn’t he be more subtle about it?
In Michel Foucault’s book Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, he relates the tale of a man convicted of regicide who is drawn, quarter, burned with hot coals and, generally, tortured to death. One of the most gruesome parts involves the quartering, in which horses drag the poor unfortunate in four directions in an attempt to pull him apart. Because the horses are inexperienced, it ends up being more painful than even the punishers had intended it to be.
I related all of that to say this: Whoever decided to show movies on long-distance bus rides should turned over to horses that are rank amateurs, who will clumsily and agonizingly tear the person limb from limb.
I took a Martz bus (Martz is a Pennsylvania-based Greyhound-knockoff) from the city to Pa. the other day, getting on the vehicle around nine in the evening. The last time I had such an unpleasant trip a boxcar was involved.
This time, I was forced to sit next to a hugely fat man who elbowed me evertime he moved and, once, knocked my glasses off. Combined with no sleep the night before, a driver who took his license test on bumper cars and the general unpleasantness always offered by bus travel, I hit high levels of irritation quite quickly. When the driver flipped on some movie about African basketball players (I kid you not) and native drum music began ringing down the aisles, I checked my bag to see if I brought a baseball bat. If I had, those TV sets would have been coming down.
It wasn’t even that bad of a movie, just absolutely out of place. Showing a film on a bus is like having the guy next to you on the subway eat fried chicken. There’s nothing wrong with it per se; it just doesn’t fit in the context. I mean, are there people who, around 10 p.m. (when the movie came on) didn’t want to either sleep or read, who really wanted to see just the beginning of a B movie before disembarking? If so, what’s wrong with those people?
I spent the three-hour trip passing in and out of consciousness, waking every time the music hit a high note, the man next to me hit me, or the driver hit a bump. It’s a miracle I didn’t hit anybody.
“I’m afraid. I’m afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I’m a…fraid.”
Wow. 01.01.01. Welcome to the new millennium.
Now, I want a personal jet pack. I was promised a personal jet pack.
Heck, we already have Captain Kirk’s communicator and robot dogs. So somebody had darn well better get me a jet pack and — oh, yeah — a treadmill leading to my flying car. And I wouldn’t mind a time machine that looks like a phone booth or a guide to touring the galaxy on five Altarian dollars a day, either.
I haven’t seen snowdrifts like this since I was a kid, heading down to the end of the school parking lot after classes to romp in the mountains of snow created by the plows. It really came down last night.
New York is a different city in the snow. This morning, around 10 o’clock, the streets were still pristine and silent, covered in a blanket of cold. That stillness prevailed throughout the day; 12 hours later, although the snow was a little more dirty and the streets a little more clean, few souls had ventured out, abandoning the alleys of Gotham to police cars, buses and a few hardy types desperately trying to hail cabs.
What a great way to ring in the new year.
The wishes for a happy holiday, delivered with actual warmth and good cheer, surprised me.
I stopped by Macy’s yesterday The madhouse scene confronting me was amazing, as frantic shoppers clogged the aisles, snatching up sale items like they were Santa’s understudies. The employees, though, were shockingly cheerful in the face of the onslaught.
I’ve served in the holiday retail trenches before and can, as much as anyone, keep a plastic smile glued to my face while dealing with people who obviously have trouble with the entire concept of shopping: The woman in line with me yesterday, for example, who wanted to find a “Regis” tie to match the shirt she was holding. It took the clerk four tries to make her understand where the ties were — just off to the right, under the freakin’ huge sign that said “Regis ties.”
But to say “Have a Merry Christmas” and mean it … well, that’s nothing short of amazing. The combination of cheerful clerks and last night’s snow-covered trees has actually put me in the Christmas spirit before Christmas Eve. Shocking.
Note to people who think they can sing or, possibly, dance: Simply knowing the words to “New York, New York” does not mean you’re the “king of the hill, top of the heap.” Secondly, you should at least consider the possibility that if you can’t make it here, you probably can’t make it anywhere — and then act accordingly. Thank you.
Maybe I’m watching too much election coverage …
I’m walking by the television — which is obsessivly tuned to (drumroll) Decision 2000 stuff — this morning, when the anchor starts talking about a lawyer having “four days to appeal the decision to the Russian Supreme Court.”
It turns out the story was about a man just judged guility (in Russia) of spying for the United States — but for just a second I wondered if that was the next step: Florida Supreme Court, U.S. Supreme Court and then, heck, toss it to the Russkies.
The scary thing is that, at this point, that almost makes sense.
The freakiest thing about the entire election situation: seeing Dave Byron quoted in the New York Times.
Not that there’s anything wrong with Byron, the spokesman for Volusia County, Fla., where I used to work. It’s just weird to see somebody I interviewed now showing up in articles of such national importance. I got another little momen of frission when I picked up the paper this morning and recognized the Volusia County courthouse in a picture on the front page.
I picked a great time to leave Florida, eh?
When did “so stupid that you punched your ballot twice” come to equal “disenfranchised”? I mean, do people realize that if the oldsters who screwed up lived anywhere else in the Union, they wouldn’t have been the deciding vote, and no one would care that they couldn’t understand which end of the arrow is pointy? It’s not like I’m suggesting we have a national education test for voters — but if you’re confused by the ballot, maybe your vote shouldn’t count …
A large rat just isn’t as cute as a squirrel of comparable size. Strange but true.
Maybe it’s the disparity of tails …
“News of the Weird has occasionally reported technological and architectural advances in bathrooms, from full-service toilets (1988) to Singapore’s (1996) and South Korea’s (1999) national pride in having the world’s cleanest or fanciest public restrooms.
“A July 2000 Wall Street Journal survey on the state of restroom design mentioned the one at the China Grill (Miami), inside which users can order drinks, and the one at the Mandalay Bay casino (Las Vegas), where patrons can use 11 glass cabanas that house televisions playing music videos. At a Royalton Hotel (New York City) restroom, a lavish waterfall is triggered when a patron enters, and at Bar 89 (New York City), the stalls have clear glass doors that become liquid-crystal-activated, non-see-through only when the door is tightly closed.”
I’ve been to the last one on this list .. and when I went into the bathroom, I wondered exactly how many drunk people forget to lock the door. The follow-up question which occured to me soon after: what type of eating establishment bases its claim-to-fame on its bathrooms?
The island sounds started several subway stops before the parade. A young man, barely in his teens, began drumming on a railing, using his palms and fingers like he knew what he was doing. He only lasted for a few minutes, but he provided a taste of what was to come.
New York’s West Indian Day Parade. One of the largest such gatherings in the world. A day where reggae ruled the streets and flags of a dozen island nations snapped in the breeze. A day when meat smokers made of large cans perfumed the air. A day when everyone, even a white guy who wouldn’t touch the goat curry could maybe, just maybe, have a little bit of rhythm.
Happy birthday, Susan!