2009 October

	2009, OCTOBER

October 31

Something to think about while I'm on vacation:

You can't have democracy in an area where the socio-political divisions are called "tribes."

October 26, already?

Some things are just wrong. Like:

Purple tennis courts.

Wine in a box.

Tofurkey.

Banana slicers. For $3.49 you can buy a plastic device that slices bananas. If you need a machine to slice a banana, you shouldn’t be allowed out by yourself.

Lots of other things in the supermarket are an offense against nature, too, including anything intended to be eaten that has “product” in the name. I saw something in the butcher case called “Cooked Ham with Water Product.” That’s grocery code for “similar to, but not actually.” “Food” has the same meaning in this context, as in “pasteurized processed cheese food.” If they have to tell you it’s food, it isn’t.

Seedless fruit and fruitless seeds are on my list, too. I like seedless fruit; I probably wouldn’t eat grapes at all if I had to deal with the seeds. But philosophically, why should fruit that can’t reproduce itself exist? God never made them that way, and maybe we shouldn’t either.

Even worse are the seeds that Monsanto sells to farmers these days. They produce beautiful, pest-resistant crops with one slight, cleverly engineered flaw: they’re sterile, so the farmer has to buy a new batch of seeds next year. That’s a crime against nature and a crime against man.

44 oz. “cups” of soda, even (especially) if they are “free with purchase.”

Designer water, in any size. Designer water?? People buy this? No wonder Coca-Cola is listed as a “strong buy.”

Commercials at the movies. Not at ten bucks a throw. Not even at six bucks on Senior Tuesdays.

Infomercials on TV. Also advertorials, if there’s any difference. I mean the things themselves, not the words. I like portmanteau words (of which “portmanteau” is one, incidentally) in general, though I would make an exception for combining anything with “-gate,” “-orama,”or “-athon.”

I had an English prof who deplored portmanteau words whose components derived from separate languages, like “cheeseburger,” but I don’t really think those are egregious enough to be condemned in a list of things with no right to exist.

What’s up with red hair dye? I have no objection to coloring your hair scarlet for fun, like my granddaughter has been known to do, but that orangutan orange that old ladies think looks natural ought to be outlawed. No matter how old you are.

Mag-Lites. In fact, all round flashlights. Why would you intentionally design a tool to roll off whatever surface you put it on?

Feel free to write in with your personal favorites…

October 20

Time for one last look through the Laxicon before the end of the year. Promise.

ADDJECTIVE: something you failed to include on your “To Do” list initially, but put it in later.

AGGRABATE: to make worse initially, and then better.

ALGORYTHM: a ponderous monotone.

STEEPLECHASTE: obeying the vow of celibacy while inside the church.

SPONTRANEOUS: catching the Amtrak on the spur of the moment.

TELEVERSION: the slant one gets from watching 30-second bites on network news.

THUMPTACK: the kind of tack that is dull enough that you can’t actually push it in with just your thumb.

UMINTELLIGIBLE: capable of being understood after a moment’s thought.

VIPSQUEAK: someone who is not as important as he thinks.

October 14

“This page intentionally left blank”?? What's up with that? A self-contradictory statement along the lines of “this statement is a lie.” You see it in legal documents all the time, but never anywhere else. After the first chuckle, I never know what to do with it when I encounter the phrase, but today it leads me to

Still More Headscratchers:

The ad says: “Sex For Life! Last 30-60 minutes!” So what is it, then: life or half an hour? Unless they intend “last” as an adjective, which is kind of a chilling thought. At my age, it just might be true….

Some fellow jumped off a rock in Laguna Beach and washed ashore the next day. He was in clear violation of the sign posted on the rock: “No diving or jumping.” And also in violation of the other sign: “No Landing In Water After Having Jumped.” I don’t make this stuff up, there really is such a sign: I saw it on the news broadcast. You might think it was intended for hang gliders, but I wouldn't think a rock low enough to dive from would have much appeal as a runway.

I saw this on TV, too: for $29.95 you can get (“Not Available In Stores!”) a product that you rub over your skin and it removes unwanted hair and exfoliates at the same time without shaving! Or you could go to Home Depot and buy sandpaper.

And in the business news: “Kimberly-Clark to acquire Lake Forest firm I-Flow.” Talk about a perfect merger: Pampers and I-Flow...

While getting ready to repaint the house, I noticed that all of the brands of paint I was considering came with a “lifetime guarantee.” That seemed unlikely, so I asked. It seems the life they refer to is not mine, but the paint’s. If, and only if, Valspar is applied properly over a properly applied primer, it is guaranteed to last for the life of the paint. If it doesn’t, they will give you another gallon.

The pig is one of the few mammals that doesn’t sweat like a pig. They have a few sweat glands, but not enough to be useful, which is why they keep cool by wallowing in water or mud. Nobody seems to know how the expression originated.

I note in passing that Applebee’s has a new menu item (or set of items) called “Realburgers: get real at first bite.” Realburgers include such remarkable concepts as the Surf ‘N’ Turf Burger (meat patty, shrimp, cheese, onions) and the Quesadilla Burger (meat, Mexi-sauce, cheese, and pico de gallo on a tortilla). Now, I haven’t tried them and offer no critical assessment of them as food, but in what alternate universe can either of those be designated a “Realburger”? Must be a universe that has “reality” shows on TV….

They announced that an air strike in Pakistan killed a Taliban leader who had been in charge of training suicide bombers. How much training does that take, anyway?

I was looking at a copy of the Bible, the Revised Standard Version. Did they revise the biblical standard when I wasn’t looking? Or just revise the version? If they revised the Standard Version, it wouldn’t be the standard any more, would it?

October 11

THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK

October 7

When the elevator doesn’t come fast enough to suit me, I push the button again. I don’t know why; maybe it didn’t hear me the first time. And when it finally comes and I get in and push the button for my floor, I may have to push it several times to get the door to close.

You do it, too; I’ve seen you.

You do the same thing at the street corner: you push the “Walk” button two or three times. If the light turns green but “Don’t Walk” stays lit, you go across anyway, don’t you? So why bother with the button at all?

If you flip a switch and the light doesn’t go on, what do you do? Turn it back to see if it works the other way. Why do we do that? If turning the switch doesn’t make the light go on, we turn it back to see if what was “off” before has suddenly become “on.” When that doesn’t work either, we flip it back and forth a few more times to see if we were mistaken or the switch has changed its mind. Or maybe the electrons were just sluggish. Now I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t pull the plug before sticking your hand down the garbage disposal, but chances are “off” is still going to be “off.”

Not always, though. I was taught not to change blades on a power saw without unplugging it first, but I always thought that was kind of silly—it’s turned off, after all. Then a veteran woodworker pointed out (he pointed with the next neighbor to his missing index finger, which was fairly attention-grabbing) that the weakest part on most power tools, the part most likely to fail, is the switch.

We do a lot of silly things. When you opened the back of your camera (remember cameras with backs that opened?) and discovered that the film (remember film?) hadn’t wound all the way up, did you quick slam the cover back? Did you manage to shut it before the light got to the film? I didn’t think so.

When the recipe calls for a cup of sugar (or Splenda, in my case), I used to put in the whole cup and then taste it? Why? If it’s too sweet, I’m not going to take the stuff back out. Jeanine has a more logical system: she puts in the sweetener and doesn’t taste it at all.

What other goofy things do you do?

October 3:

The economy being what it is, state and county governments are cutting wherever they can. Schools have eliminated such frills as physical education, music and art, and reading and writing. Did you read about the alleged molester accused of, among other things, licking the victim’s “naval area”? It wasn’t a misprint, they said it twice in the article in the paper. If it had happened in San Diego I could understand it, but I don’t believe the navy has any operations in the Santa Monica College library. I am assuming, as I have so many times, that the journalist and his editor (if cost-cutting has not done away with editors entirely) are both products of the California school system.

One sector that has apparently not suffered from budget constraints is the state Senate. In particular, the Senate Office of International Relations. Now you’re probably wondering why a state even needs an Office of International Relations. According to the seven senators who are about to jet off to Copenhagen, Madrid, Bilbao, and Barcelona they need to study Spain’s national water system and Denmark’s environmental programs. None of them, nor any of the six other senators heading to China to discuss “business issues” have heard that this is the age of communication. They get their phones, computers, and televisions from China, but it doesn’t occur to them to use them for state business. I guess you have to see a water pipe with your own eyes to understand.

Because a fifth of the senate will be out of town, a special session had to be postponed. The session was intended to deal with California’s water problem….

I don’t get to look at the state and county budgets, but I bet another area that they haven’t cut is the fund to pay for legal judgments. I’m not talking about idiotic lawsuits by families for “wrongful” death of some moron killed in a shootout with police, though God knows there are enough of those. I’m thinking more along the lines of the amount that will be collected by, for example, that guy I mentioned accused of licking a coed’s belly button. The victim got pretty close to her attacker in the library bathroom and was able to describe him in some detail: he was 5’10”, 175 pounds, dark brown eyes, clean shaven, and wearing a green button-down shirt and khaki pants. The police promptly arrested a man who is 5’7’’ and 140 pounds, with blue eyes and a beard. Surveillance cameras show him leaving the business school in a blue shirt and black pants 40 minutes before the attack, and the library’s security footage do not show him entering or leaving the building that day.

Yeah, that’s all very well, you say, but they had DNA evidence. They found DNA in the victim’s “naval area” and sent it off to the Department of Justice crime lab. The lab suggested it probably wasn’t his DNA, but results weren’t conclusive. So the District Attorney kept the guy in jail for five months until the County crime lab said it wasn’t him. They haven’t dropped the case, but decided it might be OK to let him out of prison until they decide on their next move. Which, I surmise, will be defending a multi-million dollar lawsuit.

Which you and I will pay for with the money that might have been used to replace the city’s crumbling water mains. Which means that the old pipes will continue to rupture at a rate of one every week, causing much flooding and damage. Which you and I will pay for….

The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect--well, yes, come to think of it, I guess they do.

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