WmWms

Upper left torso malfunction

Published at May 11, 2008 in Annoyances. 0 Comments

Just out of the shower this morning, I did something unbelievably unpleasant to my neck and left shoulder. Normal movement—reaching for my toothbrush or something—and sharp pain lit up the whole works there, severely and suddenly enough that I cried out. I’m getting it down my left arm once in a while. (Alarming symptom, but I’m not worried about it being anything cardiac; it was, and is, clearly tied to movement.)

I went to church, though the second half of the service or so was rather painful, and I’ve not done much but eat aspirin and lie on a heating pad all afternoon. Didn’t even feel like playing GTA IV, dammit.

Sitting at the computer quickly and reliably aggravates it (which must tell me something about the origin of the malfunction). Obviously making a living is going to have to trump blogging in my activity hierarchy, so I’ll need to maximize potential for the former at the expense of the latter.

Had some thoughts on technology and liberty tonight, but they’ll have to wait.

Hope to see you all tomorrow with something a bit more stimulating. Be safe and well.

Peking and Bombay

Published at May 10, 2008 in Current Events and Language. 4 Comments

Terrible thing that has happened in Burma. I assume the Red Cross will find a way into the country eventually, so we’ll make a donation.

And yes, I said Burma. A bunch of non-elected thugs with guns—the same thugs who would apparently rather their countrymen sicken, starve, and die than suffer the heinous indignity of allowing foreign planes to land—decided the country would be named Myanmar. Sorry; not playing.

We’ve been inundated with new names for old places recently. No such place as Peking anymore; we’re supposed to say Beijing. Bombay is Mumbai. Another flavor of it is changing a longstanding pronunciation. For example, right now it’s fashionable to pronounce Qatar as rhyming with gutter rather than guitar.

Guess what? When the place hasn’t legitimately changed names (like Leningrad back to Saint Petersburg), but has merely sprouted a new pronunciation of the same name, I use the old name.

My perception is that all too often, these things get traction because of chronically guilt-ridden intellectuals who slobber and trip over themselves trying to demonstrate the most sensitivity for other cultures. There’s an anti-American apologia about their motivations that I find highly distasteful. And I haven’t the least problem with pissing those people off just for sport.

Oh, my goodness! What an ugly American am I! How can I be so insensitive? I’m not in the least. I do recognize, though, that it says nothing of respect or lack thereof that a place may be pronounced differently in English from the way it is pronounced in its native language. Who says the integrity of English is less important? Can’t we just call the pronunciations “different” and move on?

Still, if you want to get into me for “Peking” and “Bombay,” that’s fine. I’ll get into you for “Paris,” “Rome,” or “Moscow.” (That’s pa-REE, RO-ma, and mosk-VAH to you. Or aren’t you sensitive to those cultures too, you knuckle-dragging neanderthal?)

I’m sure I’ll lose. This is just another arena of political correctness, a juggernaut for which ten liabilities seem to arrive with every asset. But fighting is free.

Tomorrow looks like this:

Published at May 9, 2008 in Current Events and Leisure. 4 Comments

It’s mine and Lea’s 11th anniversary. I love you, Lea.
We’ve got our Dark & Stormy broadcast in the morning. This time we read Enchantment, by Orson Scott Card. My thoughts on it are largely complimentary, though thoroughly detached. It’s a fine piece of work; just not my thing. As similar as Saintseester and I can be—and we can be eerily so—we’re never going to connect on the whole full-on wizards-and-demons fantasy thing. (This was her pick.)
Tomorrow afternoon I have volunteer concession stand duty at Palmer Park. Woohoo! I haven’t worked foodservice in almost 20 years. I’m going to take a couple of cases of beer and make some real money. Ha ha! Of course I won’t.
I need to work on the 20-year-reunion some more. We had an initial meeting last week at which we decided it would happen in the fall, but nothing since then. I need to get our web site together.
The grass still looks good from last weekend. Wash cars? Probably not. More rain tomorrow night and Sunday.

Finish her off

Published at May 8, 2008 in Annoyances, Current Events and Politics. 10 Comments

I’ve had enough of this shit.

I don’t have the stomach for President Hillary Clinton, okay? I’m going to have to move if it happens. New Zealand, Finland, and Iceland are leading my list of candidate destinations. (No wussy cries of “Canada!” here.) And it’s going to take me a hell of a long time to talk Lea into moving to New Zealand, Finland, or Iceland.

So—in the name of all that is holy—Barack Obama, will you please finish this tedious, babbling, soulless bitch off, already?

I’ve not called any of this correctly. I thought Obama’s insane preacher would be a major factor far longer than he was. Before that, I thought Hillary was done, before she roared back. I thought McCain was done a year ago. So I don’t want to say Hillary’s done. Fate, I didn’t say that.

Except I don’t believe in fate.

I don’t want any of these people to be President of the United States. They all suck. They’ll all grow the government, and as large and ineffective as huge swaths of it are right now, that’s itself enough to sustain the charge of suckdom.

But the positive about which I’ve allowed myself to fantasize that could realistically emerge from this cacophony is the political smackdown of the Clintons. I mean, if Obama pulls this nomination off, they’ll be done forever. She’ll just be an obnoxious senator from the Northeast, and he’ll just be groping the help or whatever.

Man. The Clintons have run the Democrats for 16 years. Wouldn’t it be great if they were suddenly just regular old run-of-the-mill assholes?

Barack, save me from this horrible vision. Save me from four years of that wooden and calculated smile.

Save me from the prospect of (retch) “First Gentleman Bill Clinton.”

Incidentally, as nothing I’ve said has come to pass, let me add that I believe Ron Paul will continue to be a non-factor in the 2008 presidential race.

A few smaller online shopping favorites

Published at May 7, 2008 in Consumption. 10 Comments

Are you an online shopper? Ooh, I sure am. I love it. In fact, I’ve little doubt that the massive antipathy I’ve built toward Wal-Mart, malls, and bricks-and-mortars in general is exacerbated by the ease of shopping online.

Amazon.com is my go-to. I’ve completed perhaps 300 transactions there over the past decade. On the rare occasion when something hasn’t gone smoothly, Amazon.com has always made it right quickly and satisfactorily. I remain impressed with their balance of size, scope, and service. I recommend Amazon Prime if you do a lot of business with them, by the way. It’s $79 annually for unlimited no-charge second-day shipping and $3.99 overnight.

As much as I love Amazon.com, I do enjoy some smaller online shops too. Here are some favorites. If I’m recommending them below, then I’ve done considerable business with them, and have never had anything less than an excellent experience:

If you clothe yourself in mainstream brands, then go to Denim Express. They have extensive selections of jeans, slacks, shirts, underwear, and socks, and they’ve begun dabbling a bit in accessories. A $70 order gets you free shipping.
Princeton Watches is a fine place for a new watch. They’re a good place for big brands like Seiko, Citizen, and Casio, and I’ve done business with them for several of those. But they’re also a great place for some of the smaller Swiss houses. I bought my Glycine Airman 2000 there. They’re not always the best at showing all of a manufacturer’s offerings on their site, so if you’re interested in something that you don’t see, call or email and ask for a quote.
I love Thomas Distributing for rechargeable batteries and chargers. I don’t know how any parent or gadget freak does without rechargeables. (And sheesh, I’m both.) Once you get a good NiMH setup inserted into your routine, you’ll be amazed at what it does for your quality of life.
RepairClinic.com is an outstanding site to keep your appliances running. Think you can’t fix your stuff when it breaks? Poke around this site and see if you don’t change your mind. Over the past several years, I’ve avoided repair bills on my washer, dryer, refrigerator, and stove, simply because I spent a little time with this site.

Those are some of my (perhaps) off-the-beaten-path favorites. What are yours?

Our purest oral tradition

Published at May 6, 2008 in Family, History, Language and Memories. 4 Comments

The data storage problem is almost solved. If you were born after, say, 1960, you will see a day on which the entire sum of human knowledge will fit on something portable and inexpensive. We’re mostly there now, actually. The next challenge is doing it inexpensively with no moving parts, and we’re way up that curve too.

As good as we’ve gotten at recording information, the other day I considered that we employ some centuries-old methods to pass it along as well. Some of our most old-fashioned oral historians are our children.

At some decision point or another recently, Nathan deployed “eeny meeny miny moe.” Tonight he wanted to show me a “new” game called Mercy. Last week he was singing some hilarious “new” lyrics to a familiar song: “Jingle Bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg…” It always throws him when Daddy already knows his “new” game or song. I think that with such moments, he’s realizing that Daddy really was a little boy once. It’s fun to watch him stop and think about it.

And so this stuff trickles, from year to year and grade to grade. I’m amazed at how purely it is transmitted. Nathan reproduces exactly what I said and did 30 years ago. Wouldn’t you think it would get screwed up? I mean, I know little variations creep in, but they do so far more slowly than I would guess. I expect that if a little girl lived at my house, I’d be hearing “Cross, down, when Billy Boy was one, he learned to suck his thumb…”

Makes me want to grab a lute and wander the countryside.