Entries Tagged 'general' ↓

I don’t usually post these things, though I often enjoy reading them on others’ blogs. They are like the quizzes in women’s magazines, only interesting. So here’s a good one that I found on The State I’m In, and Brian in turn found it elsewhere:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that “cool” or “intellectual” book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.

“Let’s eat, drink, and be merry. You have cause for celebration.”
“What cause?” he argue. “We had a good relationship before.”
“But not on equal terms. From now on we live like friends, not master and servant.”

Samuel Selvon, Moses Ascending. (Heinemann Caribbean Writers Series, 1975), p.123.

Okay, see that’s why I usually don’t do them. Now I remember: it’s because the thing that comes out is never the interesting part.

But I still want to see yours. Go on! Make me happy!

Wow,

My password somehow got mucked up and it took me a few days to figure out how to get back in here again, thanks to the WordPress “forgotten password” function, which does not work. And which fails in not one but two fabulous ways: either giving you and error code and not sending you a new password, or sending you a new password which does not work.

That’s two very special, very different kinds of annoying.

I have to stop being such a ditz, right? Because ultimately, somewhere, I did something wrong. (I think.)

Anyway, it does not look like I have missed much.

Re: Sideways: spoiler alert! Do not read if you do not want to hear something about the ending of the movie. You have been warned.

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Okay.

I just saw it last night (after all, I could not blog). And I liked it, it was fun.

And then the Sicilian told me that when he saw it, he thought the ending was ambiguous: “VC, did you think the ending meant the guy got back together with Maya? I thought maybe it meant they were going to be friends.”

Hmmm. Yes. I did think that was the point. I mean, he got a phone call saying she had thought long and hard before calling him, and that she loved his writing, etc. etc. And then he got dressed nicely and got in the car to take a 252 mile drive to her door. (I checked mapquest for the driving distance from San Diego to Los Olivos.)

Is this ambiguous? If you had a falling out with someone and then reunited as friends, would you likely call them in advance of going to their house? This ending implied something more serious to me–him turning up at Maya’s doorstep and declaring undying love. Which, truthfully, he ought to–having found a woman who is lovely and smart and loves wine and puts up with him (which seems like a major factor for this chap).

Or do I, ever the hopeful romantic, just want to see the ending this way?

Something else bothered me–the theft of money from his mom’s Ajax can. That really spun him to a different level of loser-hood, in my opinion. Nothing wrong with being a nice, semi-depressive, anxious wine-lover who can’t get his masterpiece published, and who hangs around with his frat-boy-jock-womaniser freshman dorm roommate. But did they have to throw in “steals from 70-year-old mom” too?

Why do I keep saying “him”? Because less than 24 hours later, I cannot remember his name. I have not had any caffeine today, you see. I had better go and remedy that.

A very interesting analysis of blog humor from Pish Tosh, by way of Bitch PhD.

And then, for something completely different, The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, set to Dub, by the Genomic Dub Collective. Listen to mp3s here.
Wow. That leaves me speechless. Which as you know, Dear R., rarely happens. Enjoy!

When you set it to play songs randomly, does your iPod play certain songs or performers over and over, out of proportion to their presence in your music library?

The question of whether iPods choose songs in a truly random fashion, or not, has been much discussed of late. Though Apple engineers have claimed there is nothing but pure randomness at work, many iPod owners, like myself, are quite skeptical.

Even within a playlist, it seems to select certain songs over others. When I set the thing to shuffle my “five-star songs,” it comes back time and time again to “For the Benefit of Mr. Kite,” by the Beatles, “Bizarre Love Triangle,” by New Order, and Louis Armstrong’s “Mack the Knife.” On the other hand, it never, ever plays Lotte Lenya’s “Moritat von Mackie Messer,” from the same list. What’s with that? It loves “Sex and Candy” by Marcy Playground. (I never did hear another song by that band, so help me. But no girl with a Fender bass in her closet could resist that bass line.) All of these choices are ones I approve of–except I like the German “Mack the Knife” better. But it does make me wonder what this thing is up to.

I was thinking about posting this as I walked from the bus this morning, and I was going to say, “Damn, why won’t the thing play Linton Kwesi Johnson?!?” And then, like magic, LKJ came on, singing “Lorrain.”

I am not a techno-snob, or a materialistic person (just a Mac-junkie), so I did not mean to direct a posting at iPod owners. But if you do have one, or if you use iTunes to listen from your computer, I’m curious to hear what songs it wants you to listen to, when it’s doing the driving.

My cat loves to sit on a cliff next to a waterfall:

The Shoe Doctor / Computer Doctor shop on 33rd Street in Manhattan.

(In case you break a heel while carrying in your motherboard, I presume?)

This isn’t the first time shoppers at Ikea have come to blows.

It’s not pretty, people threatening each other with mallets at an Ikea opening. Four people were injured. But you know what? Ikea’s opening night special: a three-seat leather sofa for £45 (around $70), or a £30 double-bed frame, is insane. So 6,000 people surged through the doors at once to scoop up these deals. At those prices, it’s practically looting. No wonder people get excited.

We love us some Ikea here in the Tri-State area too. But maybe there should be non-violence training before they open the doors.

And then there was the huge cement mixer I saw twirling its cement down Queens Boulevard last week. It was white with enormous magenta, kelly, midnight, and red polka dots.

Like a dream.

Story number one:

So on Sunday I was waiting for the 7 train to Manhattan, and a woman and a man in their late 20s or early 30s came on to my platform. They were talking loudly in that confident way people do when life is pretty good. And she was giving him what one suspected might be a little well-deserved trouble: he said something she said something he said something and then she said, even more loudly, and in a very skeptical tone,

“Are you sure you aren’t sleeping with anybody else?”

He did some protesting, and then said, even more loudly,

“Alright, alright. Is everybody here? (looking around at those on my elevated platform and the one opposite). Okay. (He steps back away from her bench, to the edge of the platform.) Everybody needs to hear this. I love this woman. I say I love this woman. Did everybody get that? What more do you need, woman?”

At this point, everyone is laughing, and the dorky middle aged white guy across the platform, and dorky me, are clapping. He apologizes to us for the disturbance (nobody minded), and she is laughing.

It was a nice wee spectacle, but you know what? I thought afterwards that the same sentiment expressed another way might be more convincing. He never answered the question. Instead, he distracted her away from it. Instead of a nice little Valentine’s tableaux, I was left wondering if I’d seen a player getting away with something. But you know, that chick was so skeptical, I know she’ll be alright.

Story number two:

Tonight I was on the 7 again, but going in the opposite direction. Another woman who I don’t know and I were crammed in above a sitting woman, who was shuffling papers in a folder, including a local community college’s schedule. She settled in quickly to what was probably algebra homework due tonight, since she was heading in the direction of the community college in question.

The other woman and I were glancing down at her algebra work, and we smiled at each other, smiled at her, and she smiled back. I saw some problems I could remember how to do, and then some I would have had to work at, if this were the GRE all over again.

And then, as the sitting woman worked, the other standing woman leaned down and started giving her tips. She must have seen her make an error, because she pointed at the different parts of the equation (you know, all those parenthetical sets) and showed her something like “multiply this one by that one, then this one by that one, then add these” sort of thing.

The sitting woman was lit up with recognition for a moment, and then worked through the problem a little more enthusiastically. I couldn’t hear the advice she was getting, but the standing woman showed her a few more moves, explained a few more things, and then saig goodbye and jumped off the train and hurried down the platform.

You sometimes get these impromptu conversations on the subway, when someone has the same unusual bag as someone else, or when Michael Jackson’s noseless on the front of some paper and someone makes a snide joke which elicits more from another. (Not for nothing–I am not in the habit of mocking the noseless, but Jacko is a bit of an easy target.)

But I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone spontaneously tutor a stranger on the subway before. And the unsolicited tips were given so kindly and swiftly, and received so appreciatively, it was really something beautiful to behold.

There’s a new idea: set up a tutoring car on the subway. It may sound nutty, but then I read about 3-4 months ago about a local teacher who had set up a tutoring and read-to-me program for kids in an inner city laundromat. She did it because she saw kids spacing out, running wild, and playing expensive video games while their moms were occupied and tired. And she offered to read a kid a story and the kid loved it. She got a corner and a pile of books and read to kids, who were mesmerized.

Now several more stores in the chain have invited her to organize tutoring / reading there too. She’s got storybooks and now student teachers from Brooklyn College to help her at each laundromat. Each one teach one.

This song is completely offensive (inappropriate for children, prudish mums, and other sensitive types), hosted at a site with a suspicious URL (http:www.backingblair.co.uk) and worst of all is anti-worker.

It’s also darned funny, and appears to have been recorded for a charity. Check it out!

I have heard about this multiple times, including Radiohumper’s site. I have finally gone there and started reading some of the listings for units and what they need. Reading them is compelling–I had not realized before I did so that I’d heard so few stories directly from soldiers, of what it’s like over there.

And the soldiers’ needs are so sobering: they don’t have the basics of food, hygiene, clothing, let alone safety. Bring the Beef is doing a collection for kevlar blankets, which will save lives, by protecting the bottom of a Humvee from explosives and landmines. If you’re broke, write some letters, like Radiohumper is.

Yes, I am a pacifist. (For the confused, yes, that started about eight years after the time I shaved GI Joe in the bathroom.) What does a Quaker say to a soldier serving in Iraq or elsewhere? Well, for starters, I’m sorry you’re there, and I hope you all come home real safe and real soon. Here’s some Ramen, t-shirts, and tampons, which I hope help just a little, ’cause I heard you ladies were roughing it real bad.

And here’s what I probably won’t say: I believe we should not have gone to Iraq. I believe we should not be there now. But supporting the people my government has wrongly sent over, and giving them the most basic necessities for health, sanity, and safety? What kind of pacifist doesn’t believe in that?

I have now changed my commenting feature. Comments are no longer moderated–this means you should see them right away. I have installed a blacklist (which I previously had trouble with), and am hoping this will do the trick.

This is not a very exciting moment for you, to be sure, but since I have used up virtually all my blogging time on that today, this is it.

Would it make things better if I include a picture and a fun scientific article?

Here’s a mole that just can’t eat fast enough. Yes, that’s his nose.
I think I may once have dated this guy…

Not having told someone off last week, this week I ran into a fellow on 42nd Street with another creative panhandle: “Bad Advice, $1.99.” He was standing right next to a Verizon store, looking in, while holding the sign towards the sidewalk.

I wish I had photos of these signs, but something in me does not want to take a photo of someone without their permission, and I did not really want to negotiate a fee.

I think this bad advice service is slightly less useful than telling someone off is (at least you can let off some steam). But then we might expect someone who gives bad advice to devise a bad money-making plan.

I then came home and logged on, only to find a rather exciting Hasselhoff photo. Now, I am not a prude, but this was a tasteless photo to have hanging in a posting about even a fictitious soldier-kidnapping. (It was also quite nausea-inducing, because it was an animated photograph, and Hasselhoff’s crotch kept zooming in at an alarming speed.) I linked to the google cache here, because the photo was so funny, but it has gone down now.

Everyblog is doing this to death, so I will not comment at length, except to repeat the oft-repeated question: Why didn’t anyone at the AP think this photo looked a little funny?

It would help, of course, if they’d seen him in his original packaging. Or looked at the head close-up.

(Note: apology to readers who saw obscene David Hasselhoff picture in this location; I will not link to another site’s photo again–except the one from the legitimate news outlet above. I did not anticipate such a result. I take it this is a no-no. My Bad.)

When I was young, my brother handed-me-down one of those white GI Joes with the “real” hair buzzcut and beard. I added it to my doll collection, along with the other army guys, Aquaman, and various trucks. (Aquaman, now he was cool.) And when I got older, and did not play with them anymore, I thought it would be fun to try and shave his beard. It worked, if it was a bit of a rough job. But he was a butch guy, and I don’t think he minded looking rough.

In December, Bill Moyers, after receiving the Global Environment Citizen Award from Harvard Medical School, gave an amazing speech, which I’ve somehow not come across until now.

In it, he puts his finger right on the button, to mix an old Cold War metaphor, of what’s wrong with American policy today: the Rapture Index. Basically, the idea is this: an enormous number of Americans (some say 1/3) are living like there’s no tomorrow–because they believe there won’t be. The idea of the Rapture, when they believe Jesus will come and take the devout away with him, is a rationale for not giving a rat’s arse about the environment. Moyers describes the difficulty of working to solve our environmental problems in such a climate:

As difficult as it is, however, for journalists to fashion a readable narrative for complex issues without depressing our readers and viewers, there is an even harder challenge – to pierce the ideology that governs official policy today. One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the oval office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington. Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a world view despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.

Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre (the British writer George Monbiot recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for adding to my own understanding): once Israel has occupied the rest of its ‘biblical lands,’ legions of the anti-Christ will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts, and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow.

And from the George Monbiat article published in the Guardian on 20 April 2004:

By clicking on www.raptureready.com, you can discover how close you might be to flying out of your pyjamas. The infidels among us should take note that the Rapture Index currently stands at 144, just one point below the critical threshold, beyond which the sky will be filled with floating nudists. Beast Government, Wild Weather and Israel are all trading at the maximum five points (the EU is debating its constitution, there was a freak hurricane in the South Atlantic, Hamas has sworn to avenge the killing of its leaders), but the second coming is currently being delayed by an unfortunate decline in drug abuse among teenagers and a weak showing by the Antichrist (both of which score only two).

Actually, that was almost a year ago. The Rapture Index today is 154. Anything over 145 is described in the key as “fasten your seat belts.” (Odd, that, since the bumper sticker I refer to in my title implies that the Raptured will float upwards from their cars.)

Sometimes it is easy for us progressive folks to talk about how stupid fundamentalists can be. (Of course, it’s only really PC to diss Christian fundamentalists.) Harder than dismissing them, though, is trying to figure out how they got to their beliefs. And in the same world in which I got to mine, as a lefty Quaker, and you got to yours, as a liberal athiest, and how he got to his, as a progressive Muslim, and so on.

It’s easy to say, “what idiots.” Harder to figure out how to convince them to care about our agenda. Do we say, “Yes, I know you believe the Rapture will come and we (me and my ilk) will all be left behind, and who cares what happens to sinners. But do you mind taking out the garbage so those of us left on the planet to rot after you’re gone can survive a little longer?”

See, it’s hard. I could not think of what to say that wasn’t snotty.

You know, I want to ask how they believe their God would want them to ignore the destruction of earth. And what if the Rapture comes later rather than earlier? Do you want your kids to get asthma and skin cancer and live under global warming and never see a whale?

And then, I also get creeped out how the whole “legions of the anti-Christ will attack Israel…” prediction plays right into both Israel getting the rest of its Biblical lands back, as well as a middle eastern war that destroys the new Israelites. And then the Rapture. So anything we can do to hasten mayhem in the middle east is going to bring the Rapture all that much faster. (And, Hello, Israel, are you listening? Fund-y Republicans only want to help your land increase as they wait for your impending wars, after which you will have to become Jews for Jesus right quick, or be destroyed. Does that really fit in with your prophecies? Doesn’t that piss you off? Aren’t you starting to feel a little used?)

And you know, the more people that are looking forward to Armageddon, the more likely it is to happen. Nothing to do with God; it’s called a self-fulfilling prophecy. But then, I am dealing in cause and effect here. And you know where I learned about cause and effect? In science classes. And you know those ain’t popular with religious fundamentalists.

But there I go again. Fundamentalists are not evil, they’re just like you and me. They’re my cousins, in fact, and some of them are the salt of the friggin’ earth. But in this area, misguided. They’re reading something literally that we’re not. I am not surprised there aren’t more fundamentalist English professors, ’cause you have to be able to see language as figurative, not only literal, in my world.

Those guys in the Old Testament may well have lived, but they didn’t live to be literally hundreds and hundreds of years old. We may have descended from a bloke in a fig leaf, but he may in turn have descended from tadpoles. It doesn’t all have to be mentioned in the text. “And then there was light,” “and on the sixth day he…:” all of it can be figurative. There can be a God, but it probably ain’t an old man with a long beard. And his son did not look like Errol Flynn. You have to have some imagination. (I learned that from PBS, that hotbed of evil, as a kid.)

What’s figurative can be true. And words can be true without being literally true.

I can deal with this; did reading poetry and stories teach me that?

In today’s installment of Homophobia Today, the Concerned Women for America (CWA) are, um, concerned that PBS animated character Buster is making being gay look, um, normal. Found this link at Michael Bérubé’s site.

CWA Applauds Education Secretary Spellings for Busting ‘Buster’; Group Urges Constituents to Voice Support for Her Action Against PBS

“For years, PBS has been slipping pro-homosexual messages into its programming,” said Robert Knight, director of CWA’s Culture & Family Institute. “And the federal bureaucracy and their client, the education establishment, have done their share to destroy children’s innocence using the cover of ‘diversity.’ Along comes Secretary Spellings, who takes action as a servant of the people instead of a timid, go-along bureaucrat. Good for her.”

Yes, clearly we should go back to the good old days when Bert and Ernie lived together quietly and humbly, under a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

The yet-to-be-aired episode of Postcards from Buster, titled “Sugartime,” features an animated rabbit taking a tour of Vermont during the early spring. Along with farm life and maple sugaring, the episode explores Vermont’s same-sex “civil unions” by featuring two lesbian couples.

Sugartime, indeed.

“Congress’ and the Department’s purpose in funding this programming certainly was not to introduce this kind of subject matter to children, particularly through the powerful and intimate medium of television,” Spellings added, requesting that a funding grant be returned and that the Department of Education be removed as a backer of the segment.

“Parents don’t want their children homosexualized in the name of ‘education,’” Knight said. “Mrs. Spellings has given notice that left-wing lobbies will have to find other ways to peddle their pansexual propaganda. Let’s hope that other leaders in federal and state agencies find a backbone thanks to her courageous example.”

Children are being homosexualized, now? What exactly does that mean? It sounds like being pasteurized; our children are being subjected to a process by which they’re made to be homosexual? And how come I never get to see any of this Pansexual Propaganda? That sounds interesting.

How interesting, Concerned Women, since the vast majority of homosexuals in the world grew up with straight parents, watching straight television. They did not have PBS to encourage them. No one in the American media before 1990 suggested being gay might be fun, or even, for that matter, alright. And we still have all these gay people running around trying to get married. What’s that all about? Could it be that people who are gay do not catch it from cartoon characters?

I apologize to my non-homophobic readers, for I appear to be engaging in one of my favorite rants. But until these people get some sense, I am afraid I will have to keep at it from time to time. Bear with me.

In the great abyss which is the new reality television, producers are willing to sink lower and lower in order to gather our attention. Whereas reality TV was once an original concept (with an albeit absurd premise–that what we would see in the fishbowl on the screen would represent some kind of reality), it’s now been done to death.

The latest offerings from VH1 are the nadir (the Ralph Nadir, if you will):
Celebrities on a diet (Daniel Baldwin vs. the judge from Divorce Court), a burgeoning reality-romance featuring Brigitte Nielson and Flava Flav, and the new edition of the Surreal Life, featuring a whole lot of people I’ve never heard of, and Christopher Knight, AKA Peter Brady.

He looks as he did all those decades ago, that Peter Brady. He always was a hunk, even as a gawky teenager.

Tonight, I took a break from grovelling-for-money (aka fellowship applications with looming deadlines), and my current reality was pretty frustrating. In the offerings of the local cable service, frankly, I was fit for nothing more sophisticated than reality TV tonight.

And I saw clean-as-a-whistle Peter Brady (who’s gotta be 47 now) getting a lap dance in prime time on a Sunday night.

All my illusions are now shattered.

If this is reality, I’ll take some more fiction, please.

On the other hand, here’s some real reality: the Children of Iraq

I was at Times Square on Wednesday night, and saw a man sitting-crouching in one of those passages where you walk from one subway line to another. He was holding a cardboard sign that read, “Tell me off for $2.00.”

It was one of those creative variations on the panhandle–singing from people who are not musicians being the most popular one I’ve seen. And this was original; I’d never seen it before. I wondered if this was just the service contemporary urban dwellers needed.

Case in point: on Thursday night I was at the slum veterinarian’s office. That’s my pet name for the vet I’ve been going to for years. He is in a rough area in an outer borough. In that ‘hood, everyone who has a dog has both a tough dog and a frou-frou dog: a pit and a shih-tzu, a rottie and a poodle, that sort of thing. One for the lap, and one to scare the people you want to scare. (Most of the pits and rotties are sweet little mushes anyway, but their appearance does the trick.)

The slum veterinarian is kind and damn good at his job. He also charges half of what any other vet charges. As a student, I find this to be the winning combination: good and cheap. So even though I’ve long since moved out of that area, and it is way out of my way, I make the trek there when my pets need anything. They’re well-cared for there.

But the slum veterinarian’s low prices come at a cost: they’re always overcrowded. They take walk-ins after people with appointments, but even with an appointment, you’ll wait an hour. And pick-ups can be 45 minutes. Plus the waiting room is small, usually kind of dirty, and overcrowded. It’s like the public hospital ER, except more of the patients will try and lick your hand.

So the other night, there I was, waiting to pick up my little shaggy monster after he got his dental cleaning. (This may sound silly to those not in the know, but small dogs often need their teeth cleaned–and it requires general anaesthetic!) And I am waiting for a bit. And while I am waiting, a twenty-something couple with a pair of pugs in tiny human t-shirts are getting more and more agitated.

It becomes apparent that the receptionist is having trouble finding their file. And she has asked them a few times to spell their last name. And though his woman is trying to get him to calm down, saying, “let’s not have an argument here,” the man completely loses it, after spelling his name and the dogs’ a few more times, he jumps up and starts yelling. What-kind-of-a-place-are-you-people-running, etc., etc.

And he throws (yes throws) his little pug down on the floor, rather too roughly for my taste. And as the woman gathers the pugs and watches, the man waves his arms and tells off first the receptionist and then the good doctor, who has heard what’s going on and come out. More words are exchanged, and the exasperated-but-still-cool doctor asks the young man to leave and go to another animal hospital.

This makes the man even angrier, as he grabs what looks to be a laptop case, “What do I look like to you? Some trash off the street?” And as the woman is taking the dogs towards the door, the man comes in for a final approach, pointing at the doc’s sign-in sheet and saying, “You’re lucky. If my name wasn’t on this piece of paper, I’d bash your face in!”

Then the vet tells his good receptionist to call 911, and the man expresses more horror at this latest insult directed towards him. As the vet repeats the request, the man exits, and for several minutes can be heard raving in anger as he goes down the street.

The thing is, I think I know what he feels like. The place can be a pain–all that waiting after a long day. And didn’t I have my own frustration earlier this week when I thought the customer service in the physician’s office was exceptionally bad? Though I personnally did not go medieval on anyone’s ass, the leap from frustration to anger and threats seems to snowball these days: in the post office, the grocery store, at stoplights in cars, people are losing their cool left and right.

When the man was well gone and my dear mutt was being presented to me with his newly odor-free grin, I said to the vet, “You know, I always worry when someone goes off like that, what if he has a gun or a knife?”

The good vet took my left hand and held it to his hip. “That’s why I carry this.”

It isn’t often I touch a man’s loaded gun.

I wondered later if what the angry-pug-man needed was not a visit to our friend in Times Square. Tell him off for $2.00. Hell, it would be my treat.

Note to my readers: something funny was going on with my site this week. I could not log on for three days, though the site stayed up. I think it’s passed now. And to those who did not see comments appear for a while–comments are moderated. And usually up within a day. But this week, I could not moderate them while the site was down. They are up and running again. Comments do work, and I love them, so please keep ‘em coming!

I fear I have disappointed the people of the Seychelles.

I still have nothing to say.

It’s a blah time: school is in session, which means a harried workpace. I had flu and then bronchitis-or-something, so did not get enough research done in the intersession. The congestion is almost gone, except when I go outside in the cold, or move around, which means cabin fever and no exercise. And my usual way of dealing with stress and the doldrums is walking out and about, and going to the YMCA.

I know, I keep saying I have nothing to say, and then I say something. But you know what I mean: it isn’t very exciting. So to amuse you, or try to do so, I will add a nice phot-ey here:

There’s just so much in this photo, and yet, it renders me speechless.

If the Green Giant does not put things in perspective, what will?

I have nothing to say to you right now.

You didn’t do anything, honey. It’s me. I just have nothing to say. No, I’m not sad, I just have nothing to say.

Well, as usual, I have one thing to say, but I thought it might bore you. You want to hear it? Okay, but don’t say I did not warn you.

gmail, baby. What the heck? I got an invite, thanks Laura. And I kind of appreciate the vast improvements over hotmail and yahoo. But there is one glaring problem with gmail: you have to hit “More Options” before you get an option to “trash” (delete) a message.

In my world, I want to see a button while I am looking at the post, and I want to click the button, and email-be-gone. But no, gmail makes this into a two-step process. And honey, I do not have time for that.

And to make matters worse, there are oodles of keyboard shortcuts for composing, searching, etc. ad infinitum, but damnit, no shortcut for deleting. Why can’t I hit the ampersand key or control+d and delete something?

Hello! I know gmail is designed so you can archive everything, but you people obviously have no idea how much email the verbal chameleon gets. No idea. And you have no concept, obviously, that most of what passes through my email, like most of what passes through my mailbox, is just plan not archivable. By a long shot.

And you people obviously have no idea how quickly someone can use up 1000 MB from their main email account, if they use your silly archive feature to archive everything. I am a recovered pack-rat, man, and I do not need this kind of system to bring me back to the gutter. Like vodka to a drunk, your gmail is to a recovered archiver.

That’s all I had to say. I feel a bit better now.

Update (1/24): My, that was a pointless rant, I do apologize. It turns out I just needed to figure out what I was doing. “Show Options” yields a two-step-delete process. but “More Actions” drop-down menu just one drop-down to delete. What an idiot I can be, eh? Well, I am laying it all on the table for you folks. And the verbal chameleon is a big enough woman to say she was wrong. Maybe I was just too tired to deal with the tiniest learning curve the other day. Or maybe I needed a good rant. In any case, thanks for nodding patiently, and not telling me I was an eejit.