January 2010
Monthly Archive
Excellent…
My workplace has a series of plaques hanging up next to the lobby, two rows of six plaques, each plaque with maybe a dozen names on those little individual brass plates. The plaques are all titled “Excellence by Example.”
The plaques are all crooked, unevenly spaced, and not hung on the same level.
Guess the maintenance guy never got his name on a plaque…
Got Something on Your Shirt
Zabaduba 12 Jan 2010 | : Vagaries
So what exactly is in toothpaste that the instant you drop even a molecule of it onto your shirt, it immediately stains and won’t wash off? Seriously, what the hell are they putting in here? Oil-based paint?
Current Playlist: Old
Zabaduba 09 Jan 2010 | : Vagaries
It’s always a sad reminder of just how out of touch I am with popular culture when I hop into the iTunes Store and don’t recognize a single artist on the top sellers list. Actually, it’s getting to the point where I don’t even know how to pronounce them. Ke$ha. 3OH!3. Iyaz. Honestly, it looks like that time our cat jumped on my keyboard.
I know I’m lame and out of touch, Apple. Do you have to rub it in?
Look at It!
Zabaduba 07 Jan 2010 | : Television
Well, all the big news coming out of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) seems to revolve around the new 3D-compatible TVs everyone’s offering. And of course the new Blu-ray 3D specification. Yes, now you too can wear dorky glasses and get headaches in the comfort of your own living room! What is the deal with Hollywood’s insistence on pushing 3D these days? Was there a survey I missed where the entire country rose and spoke as one, demanding their TV shows and movies have an illusion of minor depth added to them?
Money Is No Object
Zabaduba 05 Jan 2010 | : Language
I’ve often heard it said that “money is no object.” Nonsense. Money is totally an object. It has mass, displaces matter, can be perceived by the senses… I don’t know. I guess if you get rich enough to say things like that, no one is going to dare point out that they don’t make sense.
Um… You, Too. I Guess.
Zabaduba 04 Jan 2010 | : Seattle, Vagaries
I was walking down to the grocery store yesterday, which takes me past a pretty busy intersection. There’s a homeless shelter just down the street and the bums like to work those corners, begging motorists for change while they’re waiting for the light to change. There was a guy there that day, standard hand-lettered cardboard sign in hand, bumming for coins, and he saw me and shouted, “Hey, man! Happy new year!”
I fired off a “You, too” and kept on walking. About five steps along it hit me: What possible happy new year could this guy have? Short of winning the lottery, I’m not sure there’s much that’s going to improve his current life status. What new year wishes could I offer him that wouldn’t be simply bitterly ironic? Here’s hoping you don’t lose a foot to frostbite? May no yuppie teenagers soak you in gasoline and set you on fire? To a year where you don’t finally succumb to psoriasis?
I need to find another route to the grocery store.
Must Be a Tax Reason
Zabaduba 03 Jan 2010 | : Seattle, Traffic
If you’ve never been to Seattle, the traffic system seems to have been laid out by drunken, blind squirrels. Roads come and go at random directions, loop around, cross over themselves. It’s not unusual to have five- or even seven-way intersections. And so, if someone does the traditional jackass thing in heavy traffic and pulls into the intersection knowing full well they won’t get through it before the light changes, they can block traffic in up to six different directions. To dissuade the practice, there are signs up informing you of the fine for being that kind of social douche. The cost for blocking an intersection? $101. Yes, one-hundred-and-one dollars.
I’m not sure what the thinking is there. Is that the magic price point people don’t want to go over, like the Nintendo Wii, where people say, “Hey, I’m willing to spend $199 on something, but over $200? Forget it!” Is it just to make it more inconvenient at the ATM when you go to get the money to pay the fine? “Aw, man… now I gotta take out $120, then find someplace to break the twenty…” Whatever the reason, all I can say, based on my observations of Seattle drivers, is that fine obviously ain’t nowhere near high enough to stop them. Maybe they should up it to $102.
Well, Here We Go Again
Zabaduba 01 Jan 2010 | : Vagaries
Welcomed in the new year with minimum fuss and fanfare. Although more than previous years when I looked up at the clock around 12:10 and muttered, “Oh, shoot… New Year’s. Right.” Still, going into the new year with a new wife, at a new job, in a new city. Frankly, that’s enough new stuff for a while. Fortunately, I’m still old, so I got that going for me.
And isn’t the year we’re supposed to make contact? Isn’t Roy Scheider supposed to living on Jupiter with a giant space domino or something? Well, it’s only January. We got time.
