This weekend I saw a mesclun salad listed on a menu as a mescaline salad. I recall a friend's mentioning having seen the same error a while ago. I chalk it up to over-reliance on computerized spell-checking.
Five dollars is a very good deal for a mescaline salad, provided the wait-staff are not a group of reptilian Illuminati sleeper-agents intent on removing and preserving your brain to harness its nefarious hydrokinetic power. Unfortunately your fork just informed you they were. Now quickly, slip out the back and purge yourself in the alley before you are lost in the infinitely repeating fractal visages of Mao and Carrottop coating the walls.
The measurements of the costs of health impairing pollution depends on the foregone earnings from increased morbidity and mortality. From this point of view a given amount of health impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost, which will be the country with the lowest wages. I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.
A water cooler conversation with a coworker from the Ukraine:
A: You look sick.
M: I am sick. Are you feeling any better?
A: A little, but I've given up hope of getting entirely well this winter.
M: Yes, our office has no ventilation - it's a germ colony.
A: It reminds me of the old Soviet trains. You would ride for hours in cramped overcrowded cars and you could not open the windows. If you rode the trains in the winter, you would get sick.
M: Are you saying we're no better off here than in a Soviet-era rail car?
A: It's... [long, thoughtful pause]... a little better.
This is not the first time I have been amused by his deadpan and cynical of humor:
A: In the Ukraine, they used to have rolling blackouts because we could not produce enough electricity to meet our needs. In most of the housing complexes, you could not depend on the elevators to run. It was a problem, because many of the buildings were 20 stories tall.
M: What about the people on the upper floors?
A: They were in good shape.
M: What about the elderly?
A: They were in very good shape.
Tom has weathered the rare tropical parasite and proposed to his girlfriend. This comes mere days after learning that Matt has done the same.
That's five weddings of friends this year starting in May. Going forward please clear further proposals with me first and don't be surprised when my broke ass opts for the pewter measuring cup from your registry instead of that chafing dish you really wanted, because I just dropped a couple grand flying around the country to watch you do the electric slide and bite my tongue in front of your parents.
Seriously when I get married I will have my army of hover-robots abduct you from your homes in the middle of the night and transport you to a remote island sweatshop where you will be forced to spend a long weekend fabricating my bride's wedding dress from plantain peels and coconut husks, which will irritate your skin. Each workstation will include a little calligraphic card with your name on it (yours to keep).
One benefit amidst the many drawbacks of having to withdraw cash at local convenience stores instead of bank branch ATMs is the abundance of eye candy which varies greatly based on the particular location. Along the route to a preferred lunchtime destination is a newsstand / tobacco shop with low withdrawal fees that houses its more risque publications directly across from the machine where I get my bills. Those bills will undergo a magical journey, ultimately winding up as evidence in a global counterfeiting case, tucked snugly in the satchel of a Peruvian mule as he begins his ascent from mere courier to narcotics kingpin, or lining the side of a bus-stop.
My idle eyes wander while the money box is authorizing the transaction, and I've seen an interesting gamut of printed filth. Mothers-In-Law magazine (shown - click to enlarge) is remarkable for two reasons: 1) being the most self-evidently disgusting and 2) targeting a niche of questionable size. Persons lusting after more mature women have no shortage of fodder, with no less than four relevant magazines ("40+", "Over 40", "50+", "Over 50") immediately surrounding MIL on the rack, so I must assume that it is the added thrill of toying with a subversive, quasi-Oedipal taboo and not mere age which drives sales (@ $8.49 per). That or maybe those other four just aren't trashy enough.
:: On the politics of academia, a vigilante in paradise, and micro-patronage
I've been batting around a few things that don't call for full entries by themselves, so I'm going to bundle them here.
Everybody chill out a little about Lawrence Summers' being virulently misogynistic and otherwise incompetent. If he's a repeat offender - and alienating Cornel West (no small matter) seems to support that - then axe him, but keep in mind that the man saw fit to mention his own past "research [featuring] an influential report demonstrating the very high return on investing in educating girls in developing countries" in his official bio. The mention was included prior to his January speech which ignited the fervor.
I recently saw the two-part pilot episode of Magnum, P.I. As a child I couldn't get beyond its kitsch factor and I hadn't seen it since, so I was surprised to find it highly enjoyable on a few additional levels. While saying it exceeds the confines of a television action series is going a bit far, I was impressed with how well it managed not just to carry on the traditions of classic film noir (a private detective with a tortured past working outside the letter of the law but well within its spirit, voice-over narration), but modernize them as well (ample self-aware humor/parody, Magnum's tortured past comes in the form of Vietnam service). The tension between Magnum and the stiff-shirted Higgins - something previously reduced in my memory to an old codger wanting to stop a young rapscallion from having a good time - is multi-layered; it's at once generational (Higgans is old enough to be Magnum's father), occupational (each is competing for the favor of a common, unseen, boss), methodological (by the book vs. loose cannon), and cultural (UK vs. US) - all despite the two being war veterans working more or less towards a common end. Even the original theme song hints at the show's broad and ambitious intentions (the one you're probably more familiar with is here).
I can't believe I just wrote a film-school term-paper thesis paragraph about Magnum, P.I., but I'm not surprised to find out a movie is in the works.
High-tech business "incubators" were all the rage during the go-go late 90's, and even though the concept had been around for a while (the NBIA was founded in 1985) their association with the unstoppable NASDAQ, billion-dollar IPOs, and - most importantly - cute little deal toys finally elevated them to the level of en vogue geek chic (also the sun was always shining and Madonna's accent wasn't fully English yet). Startups could devote more resources to their products instead of worrying about facilities and HR and while suffering ultimately from being so closely tied to flame-outs, most of the nests fared decently.
There's another kind of startup incubator, also related to the fact that most new business ventures are strapped for cash: the mini-CDC that is an over-packed low-rent office. Cold winters and closed windows already contribute to germ exchanges throughout corporate America, but throw in a lack of external HVAC and an average employee proximity of about three feet and you have yourselves a nice little Andromeda Strain in the making. Unrelated to the perils of cheap office space proper is the tendency of an above-average percentage of the workforce to be 30 +/- 3 years of age: child-bearing years. Thus the diseases of neighborhood pre-schools and kindergartens are transmitted from one dense host colony to another, running rampant through each and ultimately felling yours truly.
I can offer nothing less banal at the moment then these meager pictures of a work outing yesterday to a pool hall. While not otherwise noteworthy or interesting, they serve as the only extant photographic evidence of my being in a pool hall.
From the "Reasons New York is an extraordinarily comfortable and convenient place to live if you're a billionaire" dept, NYC drivers are further abandoning their cars because of the prohibitive cost.
The pricey ride doesn't stop there. The city and state are fleecing automobile owners like never before--partly in an effort to encourage the use of mass transit. The city's Department of Finance collected $537 million in parking violation fines last year, a 30% increase over 2003, by issuing roughly 10 million tickets, or 20% more tickets than the previous year.
Drivers with multiple traffic violations face an additional $300 or more in penalties, thanks to the New York Driver Responsibility Assessment enacted by the state in November.
Yes, I know this all too well, but how was the average cost of tickets last year somewhere in the neighborhood of $53 (according to the figures above $537m / 10m violations) when the minimum fine is $60?
Some men have been turning to proposal consultants for ideas and help. Paul Alden, who runs the Web site 2propose.com, charges $9.99 for access to more than 100 proposal concepts, and, for a considerably larger sum, professional proposal coordinators who will carry out the plan with precision and flair.
"A lot of guys are consumed by the idea of the knight in shining armor whisking away the fair maiden," Mr. Alden said. "Sometimes they need help keeping up with the Joneses."
"$9.99 is really a drop in the bucket. If they bomb, there's no use crying over spilt milk," Alden continued, "at the end of the day, when all is said and done, when push comes to shove, some guys feel like they've been voted off the island." Closing his "Cultural Cliche to English" dictionary and placing it in his leather coat pocket he then announced, "If you'll excuse me, I must away to my native Federated States of Metaphoria and my Fortress of Straight-Talkitude. Who let the dogs out?"
On 8th street between avenues B and C, there's an old synagogue being renovated for residential occupancy - note the brand-new windows alongside the star o' David glasswork. You could say it used to be Jewish, but it converted. Like C.S. Lewis' wife.
I'm man enough to admit I took the picture for the pun, which hit me as I walked by. Later I realized it wasn't the belly-shaker I'd thought, but I had the picture and I hadn't posted in a few days so... whatever. Did you lose weight?
I have issues with the following email subject line:
"[Name]: As per [topic]"
e.g.
"Morland: As per your backside, which is not unlike granite in its firmness"
1) Please trust the recipient's wondrous ability to infer from being sent the message that it's directed at them. That's why he or she was included in the To, CC, or BCC fields.
2) Using "as per" to establish the subject of the email is redundant since there's already a Subject field.
Stop cluttering up my subject field! You debase us both.
:: He knew that the weblogging would be a stone's cold gas
I made a note during my blogiatus to link to Mike Sacks' very amusing parody of older writers trying too hard to capture youth culture, right down to their overexerted attempts to co-opt a cool vernacular and drop pop culture references.
It was a few hours later and Kyle, Larry, and Janet were walking down the main avenue of Fort Lauderdale, searching for the fraternity house they had read about on the AOL.com.
"I'm so high that I could fly," said Kyle sarcastically, taking a puff from the marijuana cigarette he had just lit up. "The world is all about colors and love and freedom."
:: When Rufus said that Wild Stallyns' music would align the planets and allow meaningful communication with all forms of life, terrestrial and extra-terrestrial, he was lying and I can prove it because my tapeworm is a prophet.
My tapeworm isn't very bright. In fact, it doesn't even have much of a cerebral cortex, at least not in any recognizable form. To say it did would debase much of the animal kingdom. Coiled up, its entire body could rest within the cranium of an average human. Yet it is clairvoyant.
My tapeworm does not have much of a fashion sense. If I counted on it for advice I would not be the dapper man making all the best-dressed lists that I am. Were I to allow my tapeworm to pick out my neckties, I would not have been described as "effusing an almost regal aura... a banana-nut bunt cake in a world of stylistic saltines." But that little* worm tips me off to some important goings-on, and it's always accurate.
My tapeworm cannot fight forest fires. My tapeworm's table manners are best described as boorish. My tapeworm is remarkably inept at Euclidian geometry. My tapeworm has no rhythm. My tapeworm has never found a cartoon from the New Yorker to be "droll", owing partly to the cognitive deficiencies I touched upon above, and also because it has no eyes.
My tapeworm, however, has correctly predicted every winner of the Kentucky state lottery, Fields medal, and Ultimate Fighting Championship since it was but a larva. It perceives the nigh-infinitely complex chain of causality driving forward the course of events as simply as if it were a morsel of food floating through my intestine. Tapey knows the future and the future does not include universal tranquility catalyzed by ass-tastic soft rock.
When Rufus said that Wild Stallyns' music would align the planets and allow meaningful communication with all forms of life, terrestrial and extra-terrestrial, he was lying and I have proved it because my tapeworm is a prophet.
Q.E.D.
*My use of the term "little" here is entirely one of endearment, for in actuality it spans over five yards.
I'm going to take a break from my normal irrelevance (which is to say I'm going to focus on a different kind of irrelevance, not become relevant) to talk shop for a bit, but I'll keep it very, very brief.
You may have seen one or more television advertisements during the Super Bowl for Verizon Wireless' new VCAST service, which is simply their brand name for a content package utilizing a faster connection protocol called CDMA2000 EV-DO on three initial handsets. EV-DO is just another step in a long march towards ubiquitous wireless broadband, albeit a big one. For the first time, consumers in the US have access to mobile phones with data speeds capable of streaming multimedia and browsing the web at near-desktop broadband rates (Verizon has offered a PC data card for a while now, but has targeted it exclusively at business users). Of course the phones are still restricted to walled gardens and suffer from other limitations imposed by the carrier (e.g. no Bluetooth), and several European and Asian countries have had such technology in place for years, but the launch of a consumer-targeted nation-wide wireless broadband network is an important milestone for the mobile phone industry.
I'm sure it's old hat to San Franciscans, but a coworker of mine, drummer for the band Dirty Lenin, just brought Adolph Gasser Inc. to my attention accompanied by the question, "worst business name ever?". I might be inclined to agree, and after a little more examination I'd say they were also making a sporting go at worst website ever.
In the idyll of youth: "Hey, that cloud looks like a zebra!"
In the cynical brine of young adulthood: "Hey, that ambulance siren sounds like 'Flight of the Bumblebee'!"
Trying to recognize a familiar melody from a frenetically random police/ambulance/fire truck siren is the new trying to recognize shapes in clouds.
Something I forgot to add to the catch-all post a few days ago: Doktor Glasses and I have taken over the weekly Tale of Two Cities Friday OMF list. Being a Friday presently, do check it out.
The move is a radical departure for Adelphia, the largest cable provider in Southern California and the nation's fifth biggest. Five years ago, Adelphia stirred a local controversy by dropping Spice — a popular soft-porn channel — from newly acquired cable systems here because Adelphia founder John Rigas considered X-rated programming immoral.
Today, the 80-year-old Rigas and one of his sons are facing prison terms after being convicted last summer for looting the company and engaging in fraudulent accounting.
The second paragraph works much better if you imagine it being read by Robert Stack of Unsolved Mysteries. I wonder if Mr. Rigas considers forced sodomy in a penitentiary bathroom immoral. 'Cause I know people would pay good money to see that.
Now that the SteeleBot and Kutting Kru both have full-time topicblogs, mayhaps it is time to resurrect the Krucoff Vs. Steele blog, but with a more polished, professional bent - a kind of insider newsletter if you will (you will!).
Is this how bloggers mature, by moving their personal grudges to the corporate battlefield? It's just like 50 and Ja taking their beef to the clothes racks and letting fans vote with fashion.
My 156 RSS feeds are my morning paper, afternoon novel, and evening news. When I don't get to read them, I become disoriented and cranky. When I don't get to read them, I have no raw materials to process into blog bullion. And so this space languishes until I am a free man, for a moment or two, once again.
And to everyone who thought Man Man was less than impressive last night, ecce Zebra.
A US jury has ordered food giant Nestle to pay $15.6m (£8.3m) to a former model whose image was used for years without his permission on coffee jar labels.
Russell Christoff, 58, from California, came across his likeness on a Taster's Choice jar while out shopping in 2002.
A Los Angeles court heard he had posed for a two-hour photo shoot for Nestle in 1986 but had heard nothing since.
Two comments:
1) Nestle, seriously, that's the scariest corporate logo ever devised by man. Either you're threatening that you'll one day be pushing us out of the nest to see if we can fly or insinuating that your products taste like regurgitated earthworms. You make baking chocolate and crappy coffee, ditch the Norman Rockwell avian still-life theme.
