Personal Musings category archive

Or maybe is was my low-key socially conservative Southern upbringing . . .

I do not understand the urge to have something new, not because I need it or not because I want what it can do or not because it looks like it might be fun or entertaining or useful, but, well, just because it’s new.

Yet, whole segments of our economy seem to be founded on new simply for the sake of new.

Gap Inc.’s upscale Banana Republic chain, struggling with declining sales, plans to open a test store selling limited-edition accessories mostly below $100 to lure ever-more discriminating shoppers seeking both style and value.

Edition by Banana Republic — featuring limited-edition handbags and jewelry, along with some shoes, sunglasses and personal-care products from Banana Republic — will open exclusively in Gap’s hometown Westfield San Francisco Centre in May. A Gap spokeswoman declined to comment on whether the company has plans to open more of the stores, but said that Gap plans to incorporate lessons from the test shop.

Limited edition over-priced unnecessary junk is still over-priced unnecessary junk.

I restrict my shopping to cheap, necessary junk, thank you very much.

It is really difficult to disagree with this.

Bad stuff doesn’t just happen. Well, some bad stuff just happens. If you’re standing under a tree when a branch breaks off and lands on your head, you could argue that that “just happened.”

My pastor recently said that, when persons ask him, “Why did God do [this or that bad thing]?” he responds with, “God did not [take your child from you/lead your husband to drive off the road/whatever}. Some things just happen because we live in a physical world. And some things happen because God gave humanity free will, and, with free will comes the the ability to make the wrong choices.”

Whether or not you or I agree with him theologically is no matter. Here’s the crux:

These folks made wrong choices. They made wrong choices to pay for their multiple McMansions, their Bentleys, their private clubs, their gold-encrusted Dixie cups. They sold financial good sense and personal integrity for pieces of silver.

And they do not realize it. They still think they are Masters of the Universe–victims, not victimizers.

Let their wrong choices confront them in every airline first class lounge, on every street corner, in every dream.

I have one, so the last show I would want to watch is The Secret Life of the American Teenager.

I hate the coinage, “Octo-Mom.” It is not cute, it is not clever, it is not funny.

Please make it go away.

Ed at Instaputz, that is, discussing the move to retroactively tax AIG’s and others’ stupid, empty-headed, take it while we can and to-hell-with-morality-and-ethics bonuses:

While the bonuses are unethical and justifiably causing outrage, we can’t make up new rules everytime we see something we don’t like. We’re not Republicans.

The issues here are not to be addressed under civil law.

There is nothing wrong with ignorance. Ignorance can be cured.

Bullish on beer. From MarketWatch:

I’m starting to regret that at one time I was a Dodd guy because of his stand on Bushie spying on American citizens.

Addendum:

Delaware Liberal has information that seems to indicate Dodd was set up.

“Yes, but . . . .” always means “No.”

A. The eight inches from the sink to the dishwasher.

(Aside: It was Second Son’s poker night last night.)

It is difficult to type with a cat on your lap.

I commend the Telemarketing Firm whose CallerID says “Telemarketer.”

I’m still not answering the call, but I appreciate the honesty.

Somehow, “Willis Tower” just doesn’t have any ring to it.

Having worked in a complaint department, I have nothing against using standard replies to common complaints. There really are only so many ways to say that “We’re sorry that the train was [late, broken, crowded, going north instead of south–it was awfully hard not to send the “why didn’t you listen to the announcements bozo?” letter to those folks].”

The form letter, though, should match the letter to which it responds. Don’t send the broken air conditioning letter to the I-didn’t-like-the-mustard guy.

So when I notify eBay of a phishing attempt with the subject line, “phishing attempt,” they should respond with something more on point than this:

Thanks for forwarding the suspicious message you received. The email you reported did not come from PayPal or eBay. It was a fake, often called a “spoof” or “phishing” email. (That’s “phishing,” as in “fishing” for personal information.) Our security teams are working to disable any websites it links to.

I knew it was a phishing attempt, for Pete’s sake. That’s why I sent it to you. A simple “thanks for your report” would have been fine. Actually, nothing would have been fine. But a tutorial in elementary how-to-spot-a-phishing-attempt was a bit–er–under the top.

(Ebay’s lame automated responses to the contrary, it’s a good idea to forward such stuff to them at spoof@ebay.com. They do compile the reports and try to get the sources shut down.)

The dogs bark to go out.

I open the door.

I say, “Don’t come back.”

They go out and they always come back.

What am I doing wrong?

I love numbers that end in three zeroes.

I hope that this is merely the first cohort.

The hotel I’m at, in a small town in the country, has 52 rooms. And six rooms rented. I have a wing to myself.

Granting that it’s the off season (most of their business are vacation travellers breaking their trips to Myrtle Beach and points south) and a competitor (Holiday Inn Express, yecchh) has opened down the street, making two hotels in a one-half-hotel town, but even so . . . .

Read more »

How can I watch my Law and Order reruns when the location of the network port in this hotel makes it almost impossible to see the tee vee?

This means that historians and journalists will have to do work the old fashioned way: by actually talking to carbon-based life forms, going to archives and libraries, and looking at stuff that they can touch and feel and hold. Because there is a world outside of Google:

The problem, researchers discovered, was that Google has had trouble reformatting the newspaper images and gaining rights to display some of the older publications. It has, at least, temporarily removed some of the archives from public view.

There is an idealized view of the Web that sees it as a storehouse of human knowledge, and in the sense of the breadth of what I can find with a random Google search, this is true.

But for all its openness, the Web has proven to be a leaky vessel for historical preservation, with much of its treasure trove lost in a maze of altered Web pages, broken links and deleted sites.

As much as I appreciate and enjoy the richness of the inner tubes, from email to Usenet to the World Wide Web, and as much fun as I have had messing about in that world, I try to remember that there once was and still is a world that exists outside of an ethernet cable.

Anyone whose horizon stops at the edge of a screen lives a small life indeed.