Hm, well, this is a new experience. I’ve been “tagged,” meaning someone — that would be you, Jen — has specifically requested that I do a particular blogging meme. It’s a good thing I didn’t live during the period when dueling was still legal, because I seem to be incapable of turning down this kind of a direct challenge! So, Jen, just for you, here’s my response to “Five Random/Strange/Weird Things.”
Our guide warned us that we’d likely encounter bison on the road to Old Faithful, but there’s a big difference between hearing something like that, understanding it intellectually, and actually coming around a bend to find your path blocked by an animal the size of a Volkswagen.
Okay, this still isn’t my long-promised travelogue, but I found it interesting enough to share. Andrew Sullivan on what we ought to be hearing from the minority party:
I’m not a Democrat and don’t think I ever could be, but here’s what I’d say if I were in opposition right now. These guys [the Republicans currently in charge of things] are corrupt and incompetent. They have screwed up the Iraq war, turned FEMA into a joke and landed the next generation with a mountain of debt. We’re for making the homeland safer, winning back our allies, and taking on the Iranian dictatorship. We’re for energy independence, universal healthcare and balancing the budget again. Now, let [Karl] Rove do his worst. Hey, we need Democrats who relish the fight, not timid ones who cower at the prospect. Bring back the happy warriors. Please.
Say hallelujah. I am so frustrated at the inability of the Dems to say or do anything effective. It’s not like the other side doesn’t have any genuine vulnerabilities to exploit. Come on, guys, get a frickin’ clue! I could go on, but I need to devote my energies to writing about Yellowstone…
In case anyone is wondering — and you’re probably not, but I feel like telling you anyhow — I found the missing part of my Yellowstone entry this morning. Somehow, no doubt due to the unforseen side-effects of my superhuman PC powers, I ended up with two copies of the thing on my work machine, one in a folder where I keep my blogs-in-progress and one on the desktop. The desktop version was the one I was working on yesterday, but the incomplete folder version is what I mailed to myself before I left the office. D’oh! Stupid mistake, but ultimately no harm done.
I’m hoping to find a moment to finish it today and, if I do, it’ll be up this evening. Hope you’ll come back for it, as it’s going to be, in the immortal words of Ed Sullivan, a rillly big shew.
Hey again, kids. Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted. Hope you haven’t missed my sterling prose too much. I’ve been working on a nice long recap of Anne’s and my Yellowstone snowmobiling adventure, and I was planning to post it tonight, but…
There’s always a “but” when computers are involved, isn’t there? In this case, the “but” refers to the way I somehow lost three-quarters of the entry when I tried to e-mail the part I wrote at work this afternoon to myself so I could finish it tonight here at home. I’m hoping I can recover it tomorrow when I get into the office. If I can’t, I’m going to be a very unhappy blogger, because I thought what I’d done was quite good. For a change. I haven’t been terribly proud of my recent writing here at Simple Tricks; this entry, however, seemed to be going very well.
In any event, I’m long overdue to give you guys something — I’m surprised my three loyal readers aren’t banging their tin cups against the bars by this time — but about all I have to give you tonight is another of those e-mail survey thingies that occasionally makes a circle of the ‘net. You know, those long lists of random questions that try to elicit trivial responses. It’s kind of lame, I know, but it’s quick content, and you may learn something interesting about moi. Hopefully, I’ll find my travel piece waiting for me tomorrow and I’ll be able to finish it and get it up to you before tomorrow night. In the meantime, enjoy the trivia…
Hey, kids, just thought I’d drop by and let my three loyal readers know that I did not end up as moose-fodder last weekend, as you may be imagining based on the lack of activity here. Anne and I returned safely from Yellowstone on Sunday night, following two days of driving on snow-packed roads in a mid-size four-door and one day of zipping through a snow-packed forest wonderland on a snowmobile. Since I got home, however, my employers have done their best to discourage me from ever taking another day off by chaining me to my desk, fitting me with a catheter and a feeding tube, and burying me in paper. (I think I prefer the nice, peaceful drifts of snow I saw in Montana to the drifts of former tree-pulp that are accumulating around my desk…)
I do have traveler’s tales to tell, it’s just a matter of how soon I’ll be able to escape from the office and put them down on paper. Er, on screen. Whatever… just keep checking back, I’ll have something about the trip soon…
By the time my three loyal readers see this entry, The Girlfriend and I should be well on our way to West Yellowstone, Montana, where a quick weekend adventure awaits. It’s a long story, but basically, she had some business dealings with a place up there that offered to give her and a guest (that would be me) complimentary lodgings and a snowmobile tour of the park. Neither of us are exactly what you’d call outdoorsy types, but the lure of a virtually free weekend away from the wintertime smog of Salt Lake was too tempting to resist. We said yes about a month ago, we bought ourselves some long underwear a couple weeks ago, and by tomorrow we’ll be looking for moose in America’s first National Park.
However, I didn’t want to leave all you folks in InternetLand with nothing to look at on the dull final Friday of January, so in the spirit of last week’s post — that is, in an effort to clean out one of my bookmark folders — here are a few links you may find interesting. I know I did…
If the proofreading gig doesn’t pan out, I’m thinking I can always fall back on the Full Monty scenario…
Your Stipper Song Is |
 Closer by Nine Inch Nails“You let me violate you, you let me desecrate you You let me penetrate you, you let me complicate you Help me I broke apart my insides, help me I’ve got no Soul to tell” When you dance, it’s a little scary – and a lot sexy. |
Curiously, I took the test twice, entering the same answers both times, but got two different results. The first time, my song was “Dirrrty” by Cristina Aguillera. I’ve never heard either of these tunes that I can remember. I’m so unhip…
Lileks on modern movie-going:
I haven’t stood in line for a ticket in a long time – I get them from the kiosk in the lobby well in advance, because I hate lines of any sort. On the other hand, it moves us towards the depopulation of the theater staff; I still remember ticket booths, not counters – some poor soul locked in a capsule under the marquee, doling out tickets from a great spool. Then there’s the fellow who rips the ticket in half – not exactly a demanding job, but it always seemed to have authority. Only I can rip the ticket. Should you rip the ticket, it is useless. By destroying it, I fulfill its value. Hail me, for I am the Head Usher. These will be anachronisms soon enough, and one more human interaction, heretofore ubiquitous, will replaced with a beep and a green light.
Wow: from techno-glee to rueful nostalgic regret in one paragraph. That’s a record.
As a former movie-theater usher, and one who isn’t ashamed to admit that I quite enjoyed the job, I have to give props to ol’ Jimmy. He perfectly captures the banal self-importance of those who control public access to the cinematic inner sanctum. He also paints, for me, a grim view of a very-near future in which movie-goers shuffle efficiently and mirthlessly past automated ticketing kiosks and snack-dispensing cubicles and barcode-scanning gateways. Hell, that future is already here in some places. Personal anecdote: a few months back, I happened to be in Los Angeles, where I went to see a movie at a place called The Grove It’s a beautiful theater in many respects, but one which is suspiciously lacking in the human touch. I bought my tickets from an ATM-style dispenser, and then I ordered my concessions with a touch-screen panel and paid by swiping my debit card. When my number was called, a concessionaire handed me a sack of corn and an empty cup, which I filled myself at a self-service soda fountain. It was all very quick and efficient, no doubt a boon for the place’s managers, who only have to schedule a minimal staff and who don’t have to deal with queues of impatient people. But it just felt… cold. A little too much like something out of THX-1138.
I happen to like the personal interaction with other organic beings when I’m out in the world. And I worry about the kids of the future; I wonder what they’ll do for their first jobs if all those minimum-wage customer service positions we old-timers used to fill get automated. (I also wonder where today’s kids are going to go drink beer and make out when the time comes for them, because all the fields and canyons I used for those purposes now have houses sitting on them. But kids are clever, and I suppose they’ll find their own ways.)
We’ve got some degree of automation at the theaters around here, but I myself rarely use those automated ticket kiosks. Nope, not me. I’d rather have a couple seconds of face-time with the pretty teenaged girl at the counter. Call me crazy…
Just a few thoughts I had while watching tonight’s exciting episode of 24: