Personal Musings category archive

There is no such thing.

There is only “Republican Derangement Syndrome.”

If Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene were Democratic President and First Lady, Republicans would react to them precisely as they reacted to the Clintons, and, currently, to the Obamas.

I like to ride my bicycle, I like to ride my bike.

And where I live is a good place to ride: the traffic is light inside the development, the streets are wide and level, and the drivers for the most part courteous.

Not so the pedestrians and the joggers, who seem to get stupider every year.

I can understand a jogger’s choosing to run on asphalt, rather than the concrete sidewalk. If you’ve ever gone running, you know that asphalt is a damned sight softer than concrete.

Nevertheless, all those heel-strikes seem to be having detrimental effects on their brain stems. Rather than running on the right side of the road–that is, the left, facing on-coming traffic, more and more of them seen to prefer the wrong side of the road–that is, the right–with the traffic. Heck, more than a few of them take their side of the road in the middle.

With their heads buried in their iJunk machines listening to God knows what or why, they don’t hear me coming up behind them on my silent hit-and-run machine bicycle. (I wouldn’t listen to something via headphones on a bet when I’m bicycling–I want to hear the cars coming up behind me.)

One of these days, one of them is going to veer right in front of me at the last minute despite my shouting “Passing” in my loudest voice, and I’ll have it all recorded on my handle-bar cam.

Does anyone still read Time Magazine and, if so, why?

I didn’t watch the X-Files the first time around and intend to maintain that record.

A “peace-loving” society does not routinely refer to members and veterans of its armed forces as “warriors.”

Soldiers, pilots, sailors, veterans, even fighters, maybe, but not “warriors.”

My local rag reports that Norfolk’s “Virginia Zoo” has not been a good place for wallabies to be.

(If you wonder why I have a print subscription to my local rag, this story illustrates why. We need local newspapers, and local newspapers need our support. Plus, my local rag is a good local rag. It’s not perfect, but it’s still my local rag.)

Full Disclosure:

I have not visited Norfolk’s “Virginia Zoo.” The older I get, the less I am fascinated by animals in cages.

Whoever came up with the idea for those little change pockets on the inside of the front pockets of men’s trousers, which serve only to make change inaccessible to the wearer, deserves swift and merciless retribution.

. . . and there is no good time for a washing machine to overflow.

Yesterday was interesting.

When I was a young ‘un, back in the olden days, the typical house had few clocks. There was the kitchen clock, the living room mantle clock, and a bedroom alarm clock or two. Grown-ups usually had watches.

I counted the clocks in the kitchen last night. There is one on the wall, one on the stove, one on the coffee-maker, and one on the microwave; if we had a mixmaster, I’m sure that, these days, there would be one on the damn mixmaster. I’m mildly surprised there’s not one on the slotted spoon.

In the living room, there is one on the cable box and one on the weather gadget. This does not include the clocks on the three computers (his and hers personal laptops and my friend’s work laptop for the VPN to her office computer).

I no longer wear a watch, as there is a clock on the cellphone in my pocket (I sometimes carry the pocketwatch my mother gave me for high school graduation when I want to be pretentious formal, but that’s another thing).

Once not all that long ago, when I was on a gig to design some training materials, several of us were looking to schedule a demonstration so I could collect some information. When we went to set a time for the demo, all three of us pulled cellphones from our pockets to check the time. Not one of us wore a watch.

Time is no longer a river. It’s a flood.

We have too damn many clocks.

Still under 300k.

Jobless claims decreased by 4,000 to 294,000 in the week ended Jan. 3, the Labor Department said today in Washington.

(snip)

The four-week average of claims, a less-volatile measure than the weekly figure, declined to 290,500 from 290,750 the week before.

The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits climbed by 101,000 to 2.45 million in the week ended Dec. 27. The unemployment rate among people eligible for benefits held at 1.8 percent. These data are reported with a one-week lag.

In other news, Bloomberg’s experts were on target. I think I’ll run out and buy that lottery ticket . . . .

The factors of “9” are “factorials.” Are the factors of “4” “tutorials”?

Read more »

Rockers (as opposed to “rock-n-rollers”) should not try to do Christmas songs. Too much back-beat.

Based on what I saw at Toys R Us, board games are going the way of T. Rex.

Will the time come when industrial designers realize that users would like control buttons and knobs that can be read without a flashlight? Eight-point light grey letters on black doesn’t cut it.

Also, get off my lawn.

In the Charlie Brown comic in today’s local rag, Snoopy is trying to get into the Winter Olympics in Grenoble. They took place in 1968.

Please make it stop.

Don’t go shopping.

Uber and Lyft are nothing more than gypsy cabs with a front office.