Give them a Hand

"You never take me dancing," Mrs. Cat says.

"Who would you like to permanently alienate by asking them to watch the litter for a few hours?"

"Good point. Hmmm...we could dance here."

We look around at the swath of assorted kitty gear lurking on the floor, and envision crushed toys, twisted ankles, and broken furniture. "No," we say in unison.

"I have an idea," I offer.

I AM the law

I embodied an Internet Law today. No…not Rule 34, Poe’s Law.

Poe’s Law states: “Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing.”

While the use of the term ‘fundamentalism’ usually implies the far Right (Poe originally formulated this law while trolling Christian usenet boards), an older and somewhat broader definition of the term is: “strict adherence to any set of basic ideas or principles,” which covers all ideologies.

And it’s true. The availability and anonymity of the internet has allowed every crazy bastard who thinks he knows THE TRUTH to hose down comment sections with his overheated brain drippings.

When Swift published A Modest Proposal in 1729, many readers failed to recognize the satirical intent because – one could argue – they did not have access to vast amounts of information with which to compare ideas, paper and books being too expensive for the common man until the Industrial Revolution a century later. I find it ironic that in today’s “Information Age,” where you can find links to most libraries, any number of magazines and newspapers, museums, encyclopedias, all kinds of video, as well as scientific and governmental data, you still cannot recognize satire, because for every idea you think is just way-out-there wacky, someone’s turned it into a .com and is plastering up huge walls of text and links.

The Letters to the Editor in my local paper is actually what got me started on all this today. This was one of them:

Free to breathe

Hallelujah!! I have never been so happy as to see that North Carolina will be enacting a smoking ban as of Jan. 1! It will be so refreshing to not have to breathe polluted air and see innocent children subjected to the noxious second hand smoke of irresponsible parents or caregivers in restaurants. The next law I would like to see would be one that charges adults with child abuse for smoking around their children.I am so proud of our state government for protecting its citizens from this disgusting habit!

— Robin

This was my comment:

I'm with you, Robin! My child has asthma, which is exacerbated by strong odors, so I'm lobbying Governor Perdue to enact a ban on people wearing perfume or aftershave in public. If people want to use a completely legal product like Old Spice, they are free to do it within their own home where I don't have to smell it. I'm especially looking forward to forcing department stores to dismantle their perfume counters, because we're too stupid to avoid them when we go out. Besides, perfume contains benzyl acetate, which is a known cancer-causing agent, and as it volatizes off the wearer's skin, it can affect everybody nearby. I think you're limiting yourself with the child abuse law, though; violators of my Perfume Law will be charged with attempted murder.

I thought it was a pretty obvious parody, but I apparently overestimated the comprehension skills of the local townsfolk. This is what I got back:

· you are one freakin idiot!

· there are lots of Socialist countries in the world that might be more to your liking. Please don't let the door hit you on your way out of the U.S of A. Let Freedom Ring!

· Wow....I am all for smoke free restaurants. If you must smoke, you can smoke outside and not indoors for the rest of us to sit through. However, a ban on perfume and cologne?? Are you kidding??? I would die without my perfume!

· I think you're a whack job.

I can’t decide whether to feel superior or sad, so I’ll leave you with the words of The Waco Kid:

“You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons.”

Except for a mouse

A dominant theme in the blogs lately has been people complaining (yet again) about retailers moving Christmas promotions up to Hallowe'en, and even before 10/31 in some cases.

I don't know what they're complaining about. We've been seeing Yuletide references ever since Subway rolled out their commercial with Michael Phelps back in the early summer.

I think I've mentioned before that we watch all our television with the Closed Captioning on. Not only does it help Cub with his reading, we don't wake anybody up at night by blasting the gunfire, explosions, or cursing that make up the majority of the movies we like.

In any case, I've become aware that, just like in any editing field, there are varying levels of competence when it comes to transcription services. Live feeds get a pass because that's very fast-paced. However, when it comes to filmed entertainment, where a script has already been nailed down, there are no excuses.

So Subway brings Phelps out, presumably to make the "munchies" connection, and the background music is Sly & the Family Stone's Thank You for Letting Me Be Myself Again. Subway splurged to include the lyrics of the song in the transcription, but evidently skimped on a proofreader. The lyrics on our screen were "Thank you/for lettin' me/ be mice elf/ again."

What Drives Volvo?

Have you seen Volvo's latest ad campaign? It's a tie-in to the Twilight series and it's called "What Drives Edward?" or "What Would Edward Drive?" or "Why Hasn't Anyone Driven A Stake Through Edward?" or something like that.

Two questions arise from seeing their commercials, the first being: Why have they added the male circle/arrow symbol to their logo? Am I supposed to get an erection upon seeing the car or, more disturbingly, Edward?

Second, and a little more fundamental: Who the hell is this campaign aimed at? The primary market for the Twilight dreck is tween girls. Last I checked, tweens aren't old enough to have a driver's license. And the primary market for Volvos is middle-aged white guys that don't feel safe on the highway. The viewers of the movie don't care about the car, and the potential car buyers aren't seeing the movie. What did they think would happen to their sales figures?

The other terrible tie-in is the game on their web site. It involves answering trivia questions over a period of successive days. Again, the stodgy old white guys won't know the trivia, and the tweens won't invest the dedicated time.

One of the reasons tween girls fantasize about a vampire boyfriend is because tween boys are boring, bland, and unoriginal. Vampires are exciting and dangerous. Now, hasn't Volvo spent the last several decades extolling their safety record? Isn't that the complete opposite of why a girl might date a vampire? And if they're wanting to tap into the idea that Bella feels safe with Edward, then the campaign should have been "What Drives Bella?".

Was any rational thought put into this multi-million dollar campaign at all? Do the car giveaway, of course, but beyond that, there are plenty of other ways to promote the brand that make more sense: Passes to the premiere with a chauffeured Volvo dropping the winners off at the red carpet; a drive around the filming locations in a new Volvo with members of the cast; a remote-controlled Volvo for the Barbie editions of the characters. If you wanted to try and get really "wacky" and "hip", you could even do a commercial along the lines of "Why Edward sucks. A: He's a vampire; that's what they do. Why Volvo doesn't suck. A: (the list)." Needs polishing, sure, but that's off the top of my head, and I still think it establishes a better tie-in to the material.

I've been in meetings where everyone's all excited about landing the big account, but surely someone must have had a moment of clarity at some point. I'm all for extending the brand into new markets, but not at the expense of your central positioning statement.

Someone doesn't watch the Discovery Channel

Now that I'm working at a sign company, I've become hyperaware of the signage different businesses use, particularly on their vehicles. I saw a truck the other day that had a zebra stripe pattern printed down the sides. On the back was their company motto: We Stand Out.

Nevermind the fact that the stripes on zebras help them blend together into one amorphous mass to confuse predators, which is the diametrical opposite of "standing out."

In a perfect world, I could go to these people and tell them exactly where they went wrong between concept and execution, at which point they'd smack their forehead comically, say "Oh my gosh you're right!", and give me a big check.

I don't expect that to happen anytime soon.

All aboard. But is it all above board?

If you run a kiddie coaster in a traveling carnival, don't encourage the stereotypes by naming it the "Lolita Express."

Boys and their toys

Every so often, I see a complaint from an administrative-type person – usually in a school setting – about how children should be treated equally. On the surface, that seems fine, but then they usually blow it by trying to create curriculums or play activities that don’t differentiate between boys and girls, and that’s stupid.

I always wonder how these people could forget their own childhoods. I’m fairly certain that administrative types aren’t hatched out of some big pod farm in Iowa (though that would explain a lot), so you’d assume they’d remember that between 6th grade and graduating from high school, they developed at a different rate than everybody else. It’s called puberty.

With so many physical differences becoming evident during those turbulent years, is it really that much of a stretch to think that perhaps boys and girls are different mentally, as well? Girls are more nurturing, while boys are more destructive; girls are more patient, while boys are more destructive; girls are more engaging, while boys are…you get the idea.

This occurred to me recently when we went to the store. I distracted Cub by taking him over to the toy aisles so Mrs. Cat could shop in peace, and he headed straight for the weapons. Usually he goes for the toy cars and trucks (which is pretty standard for autistic kids), but this time, he wanted to be armed. I guess he read my last few posts.

See, none of his favorite shows are military in nature; everybody gets along and talks out their problems, so it can only be some deep-seated brainstem function tied into the Y-chromosome that drove him to take a weapon to hand. It satisfied some primal urge.

We ended up getting him a small foam sword, and he’s had a hell of a good time assaulting us all with it. He’s even got a pretty decent technique – at least a +2 for attack and +1 for defense. I’m currently trying to teach him Conan’s mantra:

“To defeat your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.”

Should make preschool more interesting.

Apocalypso

Apocalyptic stories are always popular. I think the reason for their popularity is that people want to think they’d be a survivor. Talking about the purely fictional stories, here. The religious ones are usually more depressing – whether it’s the Hell on Earth immediately following the Christian Rapture, or the total destruction of everything as foretold by the Norse Ragnarok. I’d like to note the whole 2012 thing from the Mayans, but researchers (and crackpots) disagree as to whether it will be a good or bad thing.

I’ve noticed that a lot of post-apocalypse stories have a very industrial feel to them, which is kind of ironic considering we’d lose our industrial base immediately. It always annoys me when a writer sets the story far enough in the future that modern-day technologies are puzzled over when the remnants are found (It says ”Pan…a…son…ic.” What does it mean?), but people are still driving around in gasoline-powered automobiles.

Another cliché is that we’d return to a feudal/agrarian society. The agrarian I’ll grant, but I have doubts about the feudal system taking root in America, even after everything falls over and goes squick. I figure cities will become No Man’s lands – the refuge of scattered groups protecting their rooftop gardens and rain barrels, while small rural towns will dynamite their bridges or otherwise barricade themselves in. Bartering will become the norm, and xenophobia will be seen as a rational worldview.

The Postman, The Stand, The Road Warrior, Jericho – they all use the end of civilization as their starting point, and they all approach it differently. Brin’s Postman brings hope to suspicious, insular townspeople, while King allowed his survivors to restore the power grids before Good fought Evil. The Road Warrior didn’t even try to be anything other than a popcorn romp. I enjoyed Jericho because the writers did a good job exploring the problems (technical, social, and otherwise) involved with a town suddenly cut off from their entire support structure (i.e. everyone else).

One of my favorite books on the subject is Lucifer’s Hammer, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Two scenes that stand out in my mind: the diabetic scientist who collects (and hides) engineering books and Chilton manuals to increase his worth, so he can convince a township to let him have a valuable pig or goat every month in order to make the insulin he needs; the Boy Scouts that become guerrilla fighters who prefer to stay in the mountains rather than join any of the towns.

Sometimes, when I’m mowing the lawn or washing dishes or doing some other repetitive, brain-neutral task, I think of the different types of people you might run into in a post-apocalyptic world. The military would probably be the only governmental agency to come through fairly intact, because they already have the infrastructure in place to function in other-than-first-world conditions.

Then you’d have the paranoid survivalists who have been preparing for just such an occasion, and have stockpiled food, water, medicine and toilet paper. I think we’d probably lose about 5% of them in the first week because they’d be picked off while they were gloating.

If, for whatever reason, we did end up as a feudal society, expect the D&D and SCA nerds to rise to the top, because they’re already used to working within that framework. The Scadians in particular have studied the Dark Ages closely, and have developed skills that aren’t dependent on electricity.

Similar to the diabetic scientist mentioned above, I imagine reference librarians would be in demand, just for their knowledge base. Similarly, chemists and medical personnel would be sought after. On the opposite end of the spectrum, gossip columnists and American Idol “celebrities” would become food.

Farmers would find themselves targeted by desperate, short-sighted people, and we’d probably lose most of them to mob action.

That’s all just off the top of my head. It would take a much larger canvas than this blog to explore all of the ramifications.

Of course, you have to wonder how you would fare in “Year Zero.” A friend who read my comment a few days ago about snaring birds and rabbits called to chortle at me, because she thought I had no skills in that area. I assured her that I had plenty of dental floss.

If you understand that last comment, you’ll probably be among the survivors. For the rest of you, I’ll explain.

Dental floss is one of the most useful filaments in the world because of its high tensile strength. It can replace a shoelace, slice cheese, serve as heavy-duty thread, and replace Teflon plumbing tape. You can braid it into an extremely strong rope (a few years ago, a Washington prisoner escaped by scaling the prison wall on a dental floss rope), hang pictures with it, replace a broken zipper pull, or even clean your teeth with it.

In addition to all of the everyday uses, dental floss is also a vital part to any post-apocalyptic survival kit, as it makes a great fishing line, suture thread, tripwire, garrote, or small animal snare.

My Scout troop once went on a “Shoebox Campout.” As the name implies, all of the gear we carried (apart from food) had to fit inside one shoebox. That will prioritize you in a hurry, and force you to think creatively. It also serves as a pretty good model for an emergency kit in case the bombs go off or the zombies arise.

There are a metric buttload of sites that offer survival packs, ranging from the outdoor enthusiast sites to the oh-my-god-we’re-all-doomed-dig-a-bunker sites. They’re all fun to browse through, though. This site

http://www.survival-gear.com/

is pretty good because they offer pre-made kits, as well as the individual pieces to build your own custom kit.

Whether it’s nukular war, alien invasion, zombie uprising, plague, or you’re just hiking in the backcountry, these kits don’t do a bit of good if you don’t know how to use them. Throw a Boy Scout manual in there, too.

Or you can just come get me.

Another Million-Dollar Idea

It's one of those doggie-door or paper clip ideas; the kind that seems so obvious once someone has put it out there.

Wouldn't it be handy if your cooking pots had liquid measurements inscribed on their interior? That way, you could fill it directly at the sink, or pour your milk into the pot without having to mess up a separate measuring cup.

If anyone is already doing this, don't tell me. I'd like to think I was first.

Thanks.

Wipe Out

Our local grocery store has a dispenser stand next to the carts. On the stand is a tub and this sign:

Complimentary Sanitizing Wipes

Wipe down the handle of your cart to kill germs, which may cause disease.

May cause disease? Pasteur pretty much put that one to rest in the 50s. The 1850s.

The Finding of the Snark

The internet is awesome. While there are vast hordes of single-minded, ideologically-driven morons out there, there are those who take great delight in sniping at them. Since everybody knows that arguing online is futile, your only option is to highlight idiocy, hypocrisy, and just plain annoying-as-shit behavior with the spotlight of sarcasm. It's even better if you can work in a pop culture reference or two. This is so much faster than trying to present well-reasoned arguments, list copious links, or just automatically gainsaying whatever the other person posts.

Like most internet junkies, I've been taken in by trolls. I've even been a troll once or twice (but the novelty of that soon wears off). I've learned to hold off on hitting the "Reply" button until I've seen several posts by the same person carrying their ideas further. Then I look for the weak or inconsistent spot and retrieve one of my carefully-horded LOLcats or mocking pics and let it do all the work.

I've been known to bemoan the fact that the Left in general is better at rapidly coming up with mocking or demeaning nicknames that undercut an opponent's position or gravitas. I guess when that's your only style of argument you tend to get good at it. (Ha!) However, I did see this humorous post today from someone on the Right, addressing the "torture" at Gitmo:

You can't argue with Blazing Saddles. You just can't.

Naturally

From time to time, I run across someone – usually a flavor of environmentalist – that, for whatever reason, places native people and third-world tribes on a pedestal. Usually, the reason has something to do with those people living closer to the land or in some sort of idyllic “balance” with Nature. Nevermind the fact that Native Americans practiced land-management techniques consisting of clear-cutting, massive burning, and aggressive animal culling. And let’s forget that for the most part, third-world denizens are trying like hell to grab hold of whatever amenities they can to drag themselves out of their situation. Little things like clean water, reliable power grids, and food for the day. Stuff we take for granted.

When I lived on the Cherokee reservation, I convinced the owner of the shop I worked at to stock an herbal collection, because I knew that we’d sell out every month (we did). It’s the same romanticized utopian vision at work in that case. Granted, there are herbal medicines that have been used for thousands of years, but people in clean white lab coats have studied those roots and leaves, determined which compounds were the effective ones, then extracted, purified, and synthesized them. If you have a headache, what would you rather do: chew on a willow branch (which will most likely make your headache worse), or take an aspirin? Despite what the rabid vegetarians claim, neither our dentition nor our digestive system is suited for processing raw cellulose. We are perfectly adapted, however, to working a child-safety cap (it’s the opposable thumbs that make the difference!).

See…I’m an unrepentant first-worlder, because I know that without the great strides we’ve made (particularly in the medical fields), Kitten would be a flat-footed, cross-eyed mouth-breather who, when not falling over while standing still, would be walking into walls. That’s the difference between living in a mud shack somewhere “in natural harmony,” and living in a country where you can take your child into a doctor’s office to get orthotics, eye surgery, allergy treatments, tubes in their ears, and glasses. Now, instead of knocking down the thatched roof every time she misses the door, she’ll be able to be a productive member of society.

Maybe even the one that finds that perfect balance between industrialization and Nature.

Isn’t that just the glass house calling the stone black

I got a call from a client today. It seems that even though I did some pro bono work for him, he still needed an invoice to file with his board of directors. As I was filling it out, it occurred to me that my invoices didn’t match my fee schedule sheet, which didn’t match my letterhead, which didn’t match…you get the point.

I just found it ironic that after yesterday’s post, I hadn’t even taken the time to do the basic design work to make sure all of my business documents looked like part of the same set. They were close, but...

Rest assured, that oversight has been corrected. All of the documents now have the same four fonts (deliberately and rationally chosen, thank you very much), the same layout, and the same design elements. The only exception is my brochure, which is getting updated soon, anyway, so I'll wait on that.

It's just crazy enough to work!

This floated through my e-mail today. I liked it. Unfortunately, no one in Government would actually do something this sensible.

The Patriotic Retirement Plan:

There are about 40 million people over the age of 50 in the work force today. The Patriotic Retirement Plan would pay each of them $1 million, tax free, with the following stipulations:

1) They immediately leave/retire from or otherwise exit their current jobs. Forty million job openings - Result: Unemployment Fixed.

2) They each buy one NEW American car (GM, Ford or Chrysler - ONLY) and give (i.e.: no money) their current car to a child, relative or a charity. Forty million new American cars ordered and Used Car Market hurt but stable - Result: Auto Industry Fixed.

3) They either buy a house (if they are current renters) OR pay off their Mortgage, Home Equity Lines of Credit and any other Personal Debt (Credit Cards, etc.) with the goal of being totally Debt Free at the end of the day - Result: Housing Crisis AND Personal Financial Distress Fixed.

4) Take what is left and put it into a tax sheltered IRA anunity or similar to provide many years of payments for personal need for the rest of their lives, all tax free from the get go - Result: Retirement Crisis Fixed.

***

This just in: Our local Humane Society is holding a fundraiser tomorrow. They're having a barbecue.

God I love the South.