My personal details that are available on-line have experienced a small change. After nine-months of dating Agent Smith, I figured I would announce it to the world. (This means that–gasp–I have changed my Facebook status.)
There were a nay-sayer or two that warned me that he (Agent Smith) was to be considered an “anal-sex loving, latex fetishing anti-christ”, but this far into the game I have yet to see any signs that might make that sort of statement even vaguely true. Of course, this could only be because I am allergic to latex, but considering PVC substitutes nicely, it’s all good.
So what does this mean? Have I suddenly gone global? Am I about to die a horrible death after an 18 day binge of alcohol, drugs and sex? Does it signify my willingness to parade nekid in front of all my webcams?
Sadly none of these. I just figured I was being misleading with my old status of “whatever I can get”, as I’m very happy with my Agent Smith and am not seeking additional romantic assistance.
Now, if only this late breaking news would make my Italian stalker go away.
Sometimes at work I have to wait on a build and going off and starting something new isn’t a viable option because I’m already waiting on something else to finish. At such moments I will often read an RSS feed or two. Today was a bit different and I actually found a new feed that is all about old photographs and from that I did a bit of random surfing on the rootsweb.com site and was suddenly reminded that my grandfather (maternal) died 17 years ago today (now yesterday as I finish this post.)
My grandfather was a good man. He was married to my grandmother for 54 years. During his 82 years, he served in the U.S. Cavalary, worked as a machinist and provided for his small family. My fondest memories of my grandfather are two: first, when I was quite young my sister, who had received a shiny baton, wouldn’t let me play with it, so my grandfather went out into his workspace, took an old metal chair, sawed a leg off it, filed down the rough end and put a cap on it, and wah-la. I still have my baton. My second memory is less distinct–but I remember playing cribbage with my grandfather a lot as I got into my teen years. He was a good teacher and I still enjoy the game greatly. It is the one game I just cannot be competitive about as it is so steeped in fun and loving memories.
Other memories like the pepper on my corn, the garden and pond at my grandparents’ house, Christmas days spent with the roaring fire keeping the chill at bay, and sitting in the hospital with him as an EKG recorded his heart rhythms are all in me while the small items such as my baton, my bedroom furniture, and many items I use daily in the kitchen are in littered throughout my physical world.
I tend not to dwell on the past or those that have died, but tonight I shall let the soft memories filter in. I know that both my grandfathers loved me and both were very proud of all that they saw me accomplish.
We went to see Wall-e this past weekend and I enjoyed it. I did fear for the mortality of the robot through the entire movie, but I made myself relax a bit by reminding myself that “this is a Pixar movie, he’s not going to really die.”
So, anyway, when Agent Smith pointed me to a story on metafilter.com’s front page that given my current short amount of patience with people of questionable intelligence, nearly made my brain hurt.
So….for those outraged radical right people: would you be happier if the plot construct revolved around a nuclear winter, or perhaps a sudden climate change that made the earth inhospitable? Stop being literal and understand that it was an underpinning plot construct. They had to have a reason to have humans off the planet (they didn’t have to make it earth–they could have created an alien situation light years away, but considering the movie already asks less astute viewers to empathize and understand two characters that each have a vocabulary of just a few words, asking the dumber portion of the population to also accept an alien civilization may have been too much. (I’m postalizing here of course.)
As for children being bombarded with leftist propaganda about the evils of mankind, that sure is a soothing thought coming from the fingers of someone who served as a general consul to Dicky Chaney. I think her children need more leftist-ness in their lives, so she and Greg Pollowitz (who wishes to boycott the merchandising train) should do even more with their home lives and start supporting American manufacturing by limiting the number of non-domestically produced items they purchase each month. (wee….that was from left-field)
Lastly, Goldberg, a writer who enjoys enjoy picking out small fragmentary components of an entire work to try to make his weak points more palatable, is also an idiot who likes to try to use big words. Example: he doesn’t understand the correct meaning of Malthusian.
End result of reading all this: wow stupid people get paid a lot of money to try to tell other stupid people what to thing about really stupid things.
And in case you were wondering and you have seen the movie, you will understand how Goldberg used the wrong word, as humans do not leave because of a shortage of food and materials: they leave because there is too much garbage and refuse.
of or pertaining to the theories of T. R. Malthus, which state that population tends to increase faster, at a geometrical ratio, than the means of subsistence, which increases at an arithmetical ratio, and that this will result in an inadequate supply of the goods supporting life unless war, famine, or disease reduces the population or the increase of population is checked.
The last few years I quietly withdrew myself from life in the general world. I wasn’t actually exactly unhappy, but I chose to disengage. Some of it was the fall out from leaving a job I really enjoyed and the feelings of betrayal and hurt that accompanied that exodus. Some of it was my living situation in suburbia. Together the two were a bit toxic emotionally and the end result was quite a hole.
Now, I’ve never been a social butterfly and I’ve never been one to join clubs or social groups. Of late I’ve been quite happy in my wee group of two with the occasional outings into the world at large or the occasional doggles demanding attention. Yet I’m still trying to shake off the sense of ill-will and general grumpiness I have towards some aspects of being social. I think I may just be out of practice.
Shiny Shiny is an often amusing techo-gadget blog I read daily. I gave up on gizmodo about six months ago as the people there are too bent on getting their own name up in lights. Shiny Shiny tends to cover a lot of fun items and the authors don’t take themselves too seriously and any ego-greed* is pretty reserved. I do find it annoying that sometimes the product blurbs and articles are a short in terms of details, but considering the feed is very useful as a “hey this might be cool” subject source, I’m more than happy to scan the headlines each day and occasionally click a few stories.
URL: http://www.shinyshiny.tv/
*ego-greed: the desire of the writer or speaker to enhance their self importance outside of the realm or subject they are currently discussin.
Wouldn’t it be lovely if airlines setup a separate “people with children” seating section. A place where all the whining, snively nosed, seat kicking, crying critters could sit with their parents surrounded by other similarly behaved children and thus, leaving the rest of the plane’s passengers in relative peace? Insert a bulkhead structure and add a curtain or some plexi-glass and everyone would be happy–almost.
Now I’m not saying “all kids all the time”, but certainly those with small (under 5 years of age) should be kept together in a section and thus maintain a bit of sanity all around? Especially since dosing your children with drugs to get them to sleep on flights is now considered a no-no.
