All You People using Blogger

Hey all you people using blogger! Most especially, those who require a gmail account to even look at your updates, please at least open up to the idea that maybe not everyone has gmail or needs gmail. The missus and I like having email acounts that are on different services, so that I don't have to sign out when she signs in and vice versa.

She's on yahoo and I'm on gmail.

Both services are good, I would go so far as to say they're probably the best options for anyone needing a permanent email address. It works out for her to have the yahoo account as well, since yahoo has the .au but gmail does not, and she's the Aussie in this relationship.

So what ends up happening, is that she has to sign in using my account to view those locked down blogger blogs, and that inevitably leads to confusion because readers of those comments will end up here.

The Octopus

I came up with a name for the new do that's everywhere now. It's the Octopus. Remember the 'reverse mullet'? This derogatory term is used for the wedge cut gone wrong, or sported by people who don't look good in it.

The Octopus is, in simple terms, the do sported by Carol Brady (from the Brady Bunch) for a while, in which the hair is cut short, almost a ball shape, and wisps are left at the bottom, which stick out. This name comes from the fact that hairs on the top of the scalp are cut short, forming a sort of ball or blob at the top, and then long strands of hair, which attach closer to the neck are left, sortof like tentacles.

A lot of attractive girls are sporting this look, at least the ones I see on the train, but to me it's layering gone horribly wrong, and doesn't look good!

Fertilizer

I should go into advertising, I care so much about it.

Today's rant is another lobby ad placed in the Metro. First, none of us are farmers, we don't care about fertilizer, and second, the ad was so smarmy and overbearing as to be irritating, who would actually believe anything that organization is saying?

The ad consisted of a large photo (the entire left half) of little girl eating pasta, very cute, and on the right in beautiful retro font 'Every recipe begins with the same essential ingredient,' then a blurb about fertilizer, and towards the bottom as large as can be 'Fertilizer.' Juxtaposing a word like fertilizer with the image of a cute little girl eating pasta was clearly intended to stick in the mind as a contradiction, but I found the whole ad grating, especially the slick expensive look of it, as though it were done by a very expensive firm charging expensive amounts of dollars.

There's no other information about who is pushing fertilizer, except in the blurb (the fine print, if you will) the web address nutrients(nospace)forlife.org. Not only is a .org listed, but we have no idea what org might be behind this ad, although one can instantly assume it's a lobby.

1) What a waste of money
2) What do they hope to gain?

I can only guess that the lobby has loads of cash it knows not what to do with, so it spends it on a slick ad campaign/website, per agreements with interested parties of course, but seriously, what do they hope to gain? If they were lucky, maybe one person riding the metro out of the thousands each day would have any influence on the fate of fertilizer. Is it in the hope that public opinion is swayed for when related issues are being voted on? I guess that's the whole point of PR, but I still think it's a waste of resources.

McDonald's

Don't worry, nothing happened in November. Nothing.

Today is a rant against McDonald's, and companies like it.

I might should consider myself lucky I can't remember the last time (before this recent time) that I got spam on my cell phone. I have received txt ads, but last week I got a spam voicemail. From McDonald's.

Most of the trash I see on the street, and the trash I saw yesterday in the Metro (where food and drink are not allowed) is McDonald's (not to be read as belonging to McDonald, but identified with the food chain (not that food chain)). You might say their doors are open to everyone, so they can't help what kind of litterbug people eat there, so I'm not sure why I exactly specifically mentioned that except that that particular rant has is close to the surface and burst out because the topic was either litter or McDonald's.

After I told my wife about the spam voicemail she said our neighbor had to change her cell phone number because somehow she was getting literally way too many spams on her phone. Did not clarify whether they were txt or voicemail.

The McDonald's voicemail was a computerish voice saying something like 'hold on for a message' and then a dude that sounded black came on, in conversational tone, starting with 'hey joe, i know you like a good deal..' blah blah for about 10 seconds.

I was mostly just surprised. I had to listen to the message again to understand it because I don't understand black people talk very well, being 1) hearing imparied and 2) Mormon. I got the gist of it and then deleted it, and at the same time wondered to myself why McDonald's would stoop so low? Why are they pushing so much, when clearly they could cease all advertising for a year and people would still flock to the red and yellow by the billions.

I have no conclusion exactly except this theory that while they are charging new franchises exorbitant amounts of cash just for the name, they're probably writing into the contract stuff like "it will be so worth it" and "we take care of the advertising." I'm assuming the estimated value of advertising goes up when applied across a larger spectrum (such as unsuspecting cell phones) and therefore the cash they can extort goes up.


On a totally unrelated note, I was on wikipedia, the front page, which one should never visit lest you actually start reading stuff that makes you read more stuff. I went from Roman Polanski to his rape trial to the Tate murders to the Family members that were convicted. Sickening.

Choice of Car

The car I want to get next is a Honda Civic 2006 or newer. Why? There are many reasons.

1) I am happy with the Civic I have now, it drives well, it feels good to drive, it is reliable, it looks good, it sounds good, and repairs are relatively affordable.

2) I assume that getting another Honda means I will get all the above benefits

3) I like the new styling both inside and out.

4) I also assume I'll never be able to afford a Ferrari.

Now. If I can fixate on a car that easily, why can't I fixate on a career as easily? Here I am in a job that is pleasant, but not exciting. If they stopped paying me I would definitely never come here again. I more or less found this job after lots of searching in tech type jobs, preferably as a network designer and installer. That would be much more interesting to me, and yet, all the entry level jobs for that kind of thing are in help desk for several years eventually graduating up the tiers until such time as I guess I would eventually have a right to design something.

I don't know if networking is my dream any more. It's pretty uncomplicated these days, unless one is a scientist coming up with really new ways to string people together, and yes there's more to be discovered. But on a basic working level, a person simply plugs everything in and turns it on. There is something to be said for someone who knows how to take off the shelf products and use them effectively, but that's not design, that's implementation and working knowledge. I think I found the idea of being a network engineer a viable and interesting career, but as a career, a job, not a life's passion.

I feel like, with my Civic, I could drive her every day and not be unhappy because I don't have a different car. With my job, I'm not unhappy per se, because while some jobs may seem more appealing than the one I presently have, all I can see is the learning curve. Not even a learning curve, but more of a time investment before actually being able to do that thing whatever it is. And I don't begrudge the time investment requirement like I used to . When I was younger, I used to believe that I could do anything I put my hand to, regardless of my experience. I have started to realize, as I have gotten older, that experience does matter in a huge way. Experience, and brains. Brains I have, and ability to learn, I have, but do I have the real desire to be.... whatever it is that I really want to be? What do I want to be? And why can't answering that question be as easy as answering what car I want to get next?

More about Advertising

Remember this post? It was about ads that ran supporting an extension of a tax break for wind powered energy companies. It was created by a lobby group. Big money.

Well big money is at it again, and once again, the motivation behind it is a little odd.

Remember when Phillip Morris, the company that owned Marlboro cigarettes (I'm not going to fact check, in order to represent my garbled understanding, or the way in which my memory remembers to the fullest), or some brands of cigarettes, had an entire ad campaign stating how bad smoking was for you? I assume it was a public relations thing, to say, we know there's a problem here, and we're not part of the problem, we just want your money.

Well Chevron is doing the same thing, there are ads in the metro, with Chevron's logo, with short, handwritten notes and pleasantly serious business types encouraging people to use less energy, to drive less, etc. Is the goal here to confuse? To introduce cognitive dissonance, so that people start to mix up who the bad guys are? It must be Shell or Citgo, I don't see them telling me to drive less.

My Poor Deluded Sister

I don't vote or anything silly like that, what with an entire state going either Red or Blue depending on how the electoral college decides to represent the voting populace, but I cannot dodge the onslaught of hungry mouths typing millions of words about the 'race' for the presidency.

Little did I know my sister, upon marrying a DemocratIndependent Obama supporter would also become an Obama supporter. Nothing would change her mind, I don't think, but that's pretty characteristic of Obama supporters, no matter how much is covered up, exposed, or just plain missing about the celebrity oreo man it doesn't matter, at least he's not Bush's successor, McCain.

I'm glad I have this glob

I'm glad I have this blog, because I can duck over here if I want to leave pictures of my newborn son at the top of the family blog.

Um, that's all, really. I have several things to write about, each will get its own entry.

R.E.M.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3CmXGKXOmk

Political

Is is me, or do I see a huge bias in the way mainstream newspapers present the presidential race?

The DNC would have been painted strong in the face of the hurricane, not off to a rough start because of the hurricane. The GOP convention is in Minnesota, for cryin' out loud.

Taronga

My latest reading as follows:

O-Zone by Paul Theroux

Taronga by Victor Kelleher

O-Zone was not a bad concept, but the writing was unpolished, repetitive, too wordy, and made me impatient. I was glad to be done with the book, and honestly felt no sense of accomplishment, no sense of learning something new, not even gladness at the characters' journey. The moral: Not all books by a good author are good.

Taronga is a little more engaging. A disaster has happened in Australia, and a boy who was in the bush decides to strike out on his own, and get back to Sydney. He makes it. A bunch of animals are still at Taronga zoo, incluing a tiger that hates the boy's guts. Some people are trying to get into the zoo and some people are trying to keep them out. It's not a very long book, only just under 200 pages. I'm almost through reading it.

Hair Straightener

In a prior post, I explained how much I love a good head of hair. I'm sure it's harder to achieve for some, and I'm certain I don't appreciate how much time an effort is required, since I have short hair.

However, there are a lot of women who don't seem to know what to do with curly hair. Hair dressers and hairstylists seem programmed to straighten it out first. Most of Nicole Kidman's movies have her in straight hair. If you saw her in Dead Calm you'd know how unnecessary that is. Another example is Keri Russell, of Felicity fame. First she cuts her hair, and then she does Waitress in hair that looks obviously straightened. What kind of example is Hollywood setting?

Related to my prior post, I just love Keri Russell's hair when she was younger.

Family Photo

I realized I had started doing something, and it was getting to be a pattern. I've started visualizing people in the metro and in the mall, and well, wherever, as part of their family photo. It's not anything one could possibly know just by looking at the person but it's as though I'm trying to visualize the rest of the family just looking at that person.

Sometimes they just seem to be from a large family. Sometimes they just seem to be the prettier one in the group. Sometimes they just seem to be the uglier one in the group. All of those assumptions are of course unfounded and baseless and subjective and mostly even you might say illogical.

Where did this guessing game come from? Not sure.

Cognitive Dissonance

Minor, but still, cognitive dissonance occurred. It was an ad about wind power, which I saw on the mentros on my way to the cubicle.

The ad was very well done, clear, crisp, eye catching, in a word, expensive looking.

It was styled as a cork board, perhaps the kind found in the employee break room, just to the side of a time clock. It was made to look like a big sign was thumbtacked to it, in bright yellow caution colors, saying: CAUTION: STOPPING WIND TURBINES WILL RESULT IN LOSS OF JOBS. 'Stuck' underneath the eye catching and large caution sign were a 'note' explaining more (which I was too far from to read) and a crisp beautiful snapshot of some wind turbines.

Why is this so odd, you might be wondering. It is odd because of the quality of the ad. One of two things is happening: 1) Big money is invested, or 2) Big talent believes in the cause. I would tend towards option 1, because of the message itself. Loss of jobs is usually the argument of government or political wranglers. It's inevitable jobs are lost if a company goes under or the flow of money is stopped, but loss of jobs is a symptom, and rarely the cause. I can only guess the small writing explained how I can prevent this disastrous joblessness from occurring. It would have made more sense to me to focus on the benefit rather than the non-benefit of non-doing. Because that wasn't the message, I feel that a good idea, wind power has been appropriated by big money, the people behind this political ad.

Similar, this is, in ways, to the appropriation of organic farming. The FDA simply must be in the middle of the whole process or it might find itself small and inconsequential, since organic farmers might potentially sidestep all the carefully constructed policies and procedures for the regular food. Thus, 'organic' eventually turned into simply another gimmick to market to consumers.

Book: Omega

Started a new book during my commute this morning. Yes it was during. The great thing about books, I have decided, is that:

• No batteries
• Relatively lightweight (when compared to laptop)
• Can be seen in direct sunlight
• Bookmarkable
• Does not break when dropped
• Borrowable from library

The new book is Omega by Jack McDevitt. So far I don't hate it. I even found a quotable paragraph, which I think a lot of people will relate to, whether they agree with it or not, it has touched their lives if they're part of a large organization. Will fill in the quote later.

Disturbing, Relatively New

Occasionally, I wonder to myself what my kids will face that's worse than what we have 'faced' to date. Occasionally, I get a glimpse of worse.

This, posted on Ace of Spades (a conservative blog with a lot of silly morons who post and comment regularly) which I found because it was a finalist or contestant for some award or something, is a post about people who cut off their own limbs.

It's not enough any more to just cut oneself and watch the beautiful red stuff flow down your extremities, there's now a disorder in which someone feels their body is too big, or too extended or something and must be cut back. I would hate to meet one of these people.

Also, not sure how this fits into the plan.

More Bastard

Still reading The Bastard of Istanbul, and it's slow going. I'm officially sucked in, but I keep pausing at jarring sentences, and savoring certain points.

I savor those parts that talk about how some people never talk about the past, as though it were a closed or even non existent part of their life. Not only have they had no chance to learn about their parents or ancestors, their own lives seem better without their youth recalled to memory.

One character, the clairvoyant sister, is so curious about the past, she must ask her evil djinni to tell her what really happened.

Only just now, towards the end of the book I am finding out who Asya's real father is. I noted at the beginning how she was described as having traits from her mother and each of her aunts, but no mention of traits from her father, as though her father made no appearance in her appearance or in her personality.

I'm in the habit of having an opinion about everything and this book is no exception. I find my opinion is that it has expanded my thinking and given me insight into Turkish and Armenian life, albeit fictionally and maybe inaccurately, but somehow I feel some thread of truth in the characterization and the issues facing them. I didn't enjoy the writing style at first, now I mind it less, and find myself drawn in.

Focus

This morning I found myself wishing I were one of those more focused people in the world, who do one thing and do it well, and appear to have no regrets about their lack of range.

I on the other hand, find myself having some regrets about the breadth of range I tend towards, since I have not found a way to make it useful to my life.

I should remind myself however that useful and money are two different things. Teachers are very useful and necessary but are not well compensated.

Bastard of Istanbul

I just started this book this morning.

The main character has gone to a clinic to have an abortion, she screams just as they're about to do it, and they actually don't. She goes home, she faces her family. There's a long part about how all the men in their family die or are killed randomly. Creative and entertaining so far and the main character is a 19 year old female with long flowing hair and long legs. What more could a reader want?

Invitation to a Beheading

Invitation to a Beheading is just as much fun to read stylistically as are Nabokov's other books.

It was a depressing book though, because one feels so sorry for the ugly person who's being made to wait for his beheading.

The magical, almost nonsensical events in the book make the other absurd events even more so, because the absurdity level is raised. While reading, one is struck by the actions of the people around Cin even when those actions might be reasonable to many people.

I thoroughly enjoyed Nabokov's characters other than Cincinnatus. He was not delightful or enjoyable, he was actually pretty depressing. However, I didn't like the other characters any more, I just enjoyed the fact that these were caricatures of people I've seen in mylife. Who have demands who have egos who have behavior they thing is right and normal, but in fact are obtrusive, abrasive, unwanted, and unnecessary.