The Vacuous Knowledge Gap Between Us and Us

Mankind flatters itself that it knows a lot. By assumption, you can comfort yourself in an egocentric way that our understanding is the template for the universe. We compare ourselves to dolphins, the second-smartest living being, and we figure as smart as they are, if that’s our biggest competition then we must be pretty darn smart. By default, we crown ourselves kings of the known universe, and just cross out that nagging ‘known’ part because we should be able to round off, in the absence of other participants who failed to show up when we called roll. We’ll just say whatever we can see is all there is and call it good. It makes for a much tidier equation, and it doesn’t confuse the computer simulations.

One constantly hears in every discipline of study that “we’re just beginning to understand blah-blah-blah…” Oh really? How would we know we’re just beginning to understand a particular thing if we don’t understand it yet? We don’t know how much of it is out there to understand. For all we know, we may be understanding only one one-thousandth of it, but we wouldn’t know how close we really are until there are signs that we’re close, which we might only recognize in retrospect, since we might not know that they’re signs. So to say that we’re just starting to understand a specific thing gives us no context to work with.

I could just be starting to walk over to my neighbor’s house. Or I could be starting to walk from Los Angeles to New York. The fact that a walk is being started tells us nothing about the length or content of the journey. Saying we’re starting to understand something may turn out to mean that we’re still several centuries away from understanding it, or it may mean that we’ll get to the point where we understand about one-tenth of it and then hit a dead end, so it’s a meaningless phrase strangely reminiscent of a sales pitch. And yet it’s so common, because it’s a feel-good phrase. We have this psychological need to desire progress. Whenever we recognize an achievement, it represents progress. Even if we’re moving on a treadmill, at least it feels good to be moving.

It’s curious how mankind always seems to be just on the cusp of these things. How long can you continually be on the cusp before the cusp becomes an illusion?

If we don’t recognize what our current limitations might be as a people, we may think we’ve done more than we actually have and thereby become complacent, settling for something less than we can do. So ironically we have to think less of ourselves so that we can notice that more needs to be done, otherwise we might do less after thinking we’ve done more. Capiche?

We’ve shown a lot of ingenuity, and we continue to amaze ourselves (though if we were smarter we might not be as apt to be amazed?), so it’s evident that people are trying, going in the direction of advancement. But we don’t often take thoughtful looks at the flipside. So I give you…

Things mankind has demonstrated it is lousy at:

Economics
Either we don’t understand global and national economics, or we’re too enticed to ignore what we know in order to apply it honestly. If life were the game of Monopoly, then we’ve lost every time we’ve played it. We ended up mortgaging all the railroads, even though on paper it was a decent strategy, but then where are the hotels? Way to go, people with stratospheric IQs. Economics is tied in to sociology, which is tied in with human psychology, which is where we come in, and there are no signs we’re anywhere near understanding any of these to an appreciable extent enough to where we can say with a straight face and no fingers crossed we have a handle on it.

Government
Why is it that power corrupts? Whatever the reason, we feed the machine by letting money dictate who is in power. We bemoan the lack of rationality in politicians, but most everyone that gets into the more important positions turns into that type of puppet, so it would appear to be the process that is faulty. It seems to be the monster mankind has created. I don’t know if there’s a way to get out of it short of catastrophic occurrences forcing us to, because we don’t seem to be able to change it to any noticeable degree.

Government is a mechanism that grows in a self-serving manner. Rights and property typically aren’t given back to the people once they’re taken away. Once they have a grab, what incentive do they have to give it back if they don’t have to? Altruism? Are you kidding? Government is run like a business and politicians tend to act to keep themselves in office. To stay in business you have to look out for number 1 first and foremost.

So we’re still failing in many respects at having a representative government. Maybe a C- which was saved by the Constitution being handed in as the term paper in the nick of time.

Parking
Before you feel too high and mighty about the intellect of humans, consider how parking has continued to perplex us. Ruminate on that for a moment. Maybe we just got lucky on going to the moon. We invented cars a hundred years ago, and yet we still have nowhere to put them. Wouldn’t solving the mysteries of the universe be at least a few levels above figuring out how to allow enough room for 6x12 hunks of metal?

Of course they say we put a man on the moon and so we should apparently be able to do other things, but it could be that putting a man on the moon was an anomalous accomplishment which makes it appear like we can do most anything. For every great feat such as that, there are hundreds of deficiencies on a lesser scale. Just because you hit a home run doesn’t mean you’re capable of doing it every time you’re up to bat. Just because you had a #1 song doesn’t mean you can do that whenever you go to the recording studio. We reach peaks in all sorts of endeavors. They shouldn’t fool us into thinking that a high level applies across the board.

Social Behavior
While most people behave respectfully and in a non-criminal way, there is enough of a criminal element which is allowed by the law-abiding to greatly impact how society operates.

There’s enough dishonesty to require locks, passwords, barriers, firewalls, computer virus protection, security cameras, barbed wire fences, surveillance operators, security guards, security tags, more highly technical currency bills, receipts, contracts, signatures, attorneys, and his orchestra. We have these things to protect ourselves from ourselves! We’ve gotten to the point that we need more and more to protect us from those of us who can’t be honest. And theft also raises the cost of every item you buy. You’re paying for thieves, because they don’t pay anything for their merchandise.

In my view, the nice people are letting the mean people take advantage of them. The bullies recognize that they can get away with bullying, and so they keep it up. I don’t think punishments for crimes are severe enough, dissuading enough. People who commit major felonies or violent crimes should lose more of their rights. If they can’t be responsible enough to use their rights, then some of them should be taken away. If they can’t live in a free society without willfully sapping its energy, then they should be sent somewhere where such freedoms aren’t available, a la a prison colony, where they can reap the consequences of their acts. As it is, we’re subsidizing them. And they’re using us.

Whatever disincentives are currently in place aren’t dissuading criminals from rampant criminal behavior. As sad as it is, we have to protect ourselves from our own species, because in our existence, it isn’t safe to be out at night in many places, or to go into many neighborhoods. It’s so commonplace that we don’t think much about it. We just accept it as the way it is. We live in two worlds, and we try to forget that one of them wants to eat away at the other.

And while we can’t make people behave well, we can give them consequences to remove their influence from our free society. It’s idealistic to think we should all be able to get along. The reality is there are enough bad influences to make this impossible. Some people have no desire to get along. If we can deal with those influences first, then maybe we can talk about the rest of us getting along.

Time
We’re using a timing system that is impractical. It might have been cutting edge when it was first created, but it’s way behind the advances of the last few centuries. The industrial and technological ages have a lot to be impressed with, but we’ve failed to integrate key elements into them. If we want technology to be successful, then it needs to effect the improvement of other areas as well.

The system of seconds, minutes and hours is cumbersome and impractical. Yet we can’t seem to improve on something that is millennia old. It’s not because we think it’s a great system, but that we don’t have the intelligence yet to improve upon it. All our machines are calibrated to 60, 60, 24, a.m., p.m., so maybe it is the that machines are ruling us already. And only a machine would keep us in the pattern of five weekdays and two weekend days.

Driving
Get in the car for 20 minutes and see how many people have no clue what they’re doing, or many of them who do just don’t have any concept of anyone else on the road. We’re the most advanced species on the planet, and yet we continue to have difficulties negotiating our transportation modules. Chalk it up to impatience and over-emoting. Regardless of the causes, there is a plethora of rotten drivers out there. If Henry Ford had foreseen this day, he might have chosen to invent something a little less self-destructive.

Sitcoms
We’ve tanked. Desperate Housewives notwithstanding.

Health
About 25% of all adults in the U.S. smoke cigarettes. This is an indication that their health is not of utmost concern. About 40% of all traffic fatalities are due to drunk driving, and yet we’re more keyed on whether someone is wearing a seatbelt or not. 15,000 people die a year in the U.S. in auto accidents involving alcohol. That’s about 5,000 more than the number of people who are shot by guns in homicides. We’re gung-ho about regulating weapons because they are so immediate. However, our priorities are clearly not with the health aspect.

Junk food is easier and often cheaper to prepare than nutritious food, so nutrition many times is losing out to convenience. The U.S. in recent generations has become more overweight. Maybe video games, computers and cell phones will reverse this trend. Or not.

Natural Sciences
Not to ignore the achievements of science, but if we’re to be realistically objective about it instead of clouded in a self-congratulatory view, we would also acknowledge the vastness of its deficiencies. It’s true that we know more factually than the people who went before us, but we’re still tomorrow’s fools. It’s hard to acknowledge that, because it’s more comforting to think that we’re at or near the pinnacle, that we’re on that cusp.

Science can’t even accurately forecast tomorrow’s weather. Medicine has made leaps and bounds, although doctors still have to guess a lot and conduct numerous tests.

Religion
We’re not real good at religion either, though religion seems to be the only discipline that doesn’t regard mankind as having superior and authoritative intellect, the only one that doesn’t wield a human arrogance. So in this sense, religion makes fewer presumptions in admitting the deficiencies of humans. This makes it in practice the most realistic and honest approach. Unfortunately, the social aspects of religion have left much to be desired, but doctrinally, religion takes a rather pragmatic outlook.

It’s quite refreshing to have a view which takes a step back and asks more questions without making too many presumptions.

Critics say that religion incorporates all sorts of magical scenarios in its lore, citing claims of miracles being performed, and that such things are outlandish. And yet is the planetary structure of the universe or that of systems within organisms any less ludicrous or far-fetched? Which miracle is more incredible than our immune system, or the digestive system, or the circulatory system, or eyesight?

Conclusion
With increased knowledge should come the recognition of the lack of knowledge present. The funny thing about knowing is that you can only know what you know, but not what you don’t know. So for whatever’s remaining, you can only guess. And we don’t know how much that is. We can paint various scenarios that in theory put us very close to solving the unknown, but there’s nothing that says those scenarios would be any more accurate than the rest.

The fact that we as humans are still collectively incompetent in several key areas would seem to offer a clue that we likely aren’t all that competent in any key area, even the ones where we pour billions of hours of human research. There’s no reason why any discipline should be magically exempt simply due to volume or extra effort. And that’s what religion is doing is making a recognition of this.

For those who would ask regarding the advancements of mankind, “Are we there yet?”, for all we know, we haven’t even gotten out of the garage. But be sure you’re strapped in for when we go over that cusp.

Same Old Similar New

What at first seemed to be the norm would later turn into the radical abnorm. But then it was time to stop putting off the inevitable, lumber out of bed, and go track down once and for all whoever invented mornings. It was a cruel joke, us being the punchline. They probably thought it a novel idea at the time of its inception, but the sorry morning was destined for failure from the start. Weighing the perks against the drawbacks, it seemed obvious. The time of the day they picked to have it was sorely doomed. And trying to follow the act of sleep is inviting trouble all around. Not to mention that sleep can be narcissistic to the point of asking for multiple encores. Whatever comes after would have to be anticlimactic. Add to that the fact that sleep comes with pillows — anybody just strive to top that, and go down in quicksand trying.

On this day of days, I would take on the role of covert operative, so secret that even I was unsure of my own title, but glad to be doing it. I always got up for those sort of gigs. As a child, I loved being clandestine even though I couldn’t spell the word, and now all that training of sneaking through the cupboards and hiding under beds was paying off. Even years later, it was still difficult to refrain from infiltrating the cupboards in whatever abode I might find myself in. Zorro had his mark, and me, I had to raid the cupboards before I would leave a place. People knew their Nilla Wafers were in jeopardy, and they’d lock them up if they thought I was on their trail. This eventually got me on the outdoor beat, where Nilla Wafers were nearly extinct, if not for picnics, from which I had my pick. Not quite cupboards, but beggars can’t tell people their sob stories when they’re dealing in espionage, and I was wallowing in it.

I was to frequent the midtown park and track down a supposed agent from stealth forces before he could identify his target, promising to be an apt challenge for my acumen. More details than this would complicate the issue past its relevant parts.

All I had or needed to go by was that he/she/it spoke an unusual Pidgin dialect, although since being fluent in four other languages and doing a mean impersonation of Jackie Gleason, it would be difficult to get him/her/it to show the aforementioned shortcoming.

Upon entering the park from the east side, I bumped into a fellow in a Gaelic trenchcoat and immediately asked him what he thought of the local transit system in general, as well as how he would summarize the concept of onomatopoeia. His response, though brusque and uncharacteristically non-committal, suggested a genuine unfamiliarity not replicable by most stealth agents. We exchanged business cards, tipped our caps, and went on our way.

I chose a strategic spot near the playground, since playgrounds are typically frenetic, replete with distractions, thus ripe for producing illusory effects. In short, it would be the ideal environment for my desired cover.

After polishing off three chapters of The Communist Manifesto without incident, I turned my attention to my picnic surroundings, trying to ascertain what, if anything, was out of place. One entity would carry with it unique traits that would differentiate it from the rest of those present. The cumulative flow of the crowd, the billowing leaves on the trees, the rhythm of the playground swings, the yapping of dogs of various and sundry breeds… these all came together into one whole. But one thing would be out of step, if I could just key into it. All that is natural flows, but that which is not natural is intermittent, haphazard, non-random, and thereby artificial, thus giving itself away despite its best efforts, by its very nature.

The best way to “see” is to block out whatever you don’t need to see. There was much around me I didn’t need to see. It was just noise, and I placed it into the backdrop. This left me four points of reference that were competing for most unlike themselves. Now reduced to a simple multiple choice question, the answer would soon become apparent.

A clown juggling on a unicycle thought he had me fooled, but I knew he was a plant. I didn’t know how I knew, but I did. Instinct doesn’t come with explanations, and if you wait for them to come, you’re gonna miss a lot of buses.

I anticipated the patterns to unfold as they always did. To the well-trained observer, these processes can be timed with the precision of a meticulously orchestrated sonata, where each instrument comes in on cue. Life plays in various rhythms, though few notice.

A conspicuously inconspicuous man at 6 o’clock had caught my peripheral attention. His blank stare betrayed his thought processes. He was looking nowhere and looking everywhere. Unlike everyone else, he appeared to be concocting his thoughts rather than merely living them.

I became further suspicious of him when I noticed he was talking intermittently into his umbrella. I thought it a peculiar conversation tool. I thought that, because I would’ve opted for a croquet mallet or an opera ticket. Perhaps it was all a matter of style, but nonetheless I thought it prudent to make a note of it. I regarded him closely from that point on. I made it a point to blink only when he did so that he wouldn’t see my eyes closed. I was in his grill and he didn’t even know it. Or if he did, he didn’t give any indication. He continued his pattern of glancing around at nothing in particular.

I turned slightly in his direction to point my cuff link camera his way. This was going to be my moment in the sun, where all the planets would converge on my behalf, the elements at my behest, the setting to become my stage, where I direct the cast to the finale.

In an instant, he turned into pixie dust, and I thought that was rather inconvenient for him. Only the umbrella remained. But I dare not touch it. After an awkward pause of about 18 minutes, which was followed up by another awkward pause of about 6 hours, and then a comfortable pause of 29 seconds, I walked over to the dust, which had already started forming very tiny dunes reminiscent of a miniature beach possibly frequented by really small people. I regarded him further. Once having been convinced he was no longer staring at me, I scrawled in his aftereffects the words “Lyle Was Here.” I didn’t know his name, but I took him for a Lyle. I thought if he wasn’t, the dunes would have to make the correction, because I wasn’t to be responsible.

Sure enough, the next day when I returned to that same spot, it now said, “Lyle Wasn’t Here.” The dunes had spoken, garnering from me a newfound respect. And the umbrella? It was long gone, possibly opened by a vagrant and caught up into the wind where it would be tossed like an ill-fated Caesar salad and then sold at an auction for a fraction of the original cost. But it was inconsequential. It was so inconsequential that nobody thought about it anymore. They thought instead about the absence of umbrellas. And the fact that anything but umbrellas could be seen. This was all that occupied anyone’s minds. It was as if brainwashing was going on just prior to the rinse cycle.

I wiped away the message, and then carved out, “Then what is his name?” From that point, I could think of little else to do to while away the time for that day, so I called it a day even though it had already been called one on the calendar. Not wishing to be redundant, I deferred to the calendar and thought of other things I could call it instead. Upon further reflection, it seemed rather pointless to be naming it something else, and I had no idea how I had gotten backed into that corner. I called for a recount and pleaded the fifth. And then I punted. To say I was desperate would have been like saying a monk was on fire, because it didn’t adequately describe the situation.

When I came back that next morning, the message had only been updated to say, “What’s whose name?” This was a rather quaint predicament we had here. I wiped it clean again, and scrawled, “Lyle’s. Duh…” I seemed to be dealing with amateurs here, but I stayed patient and focused on the task at hand. This would require perseverance of the most extreme kind.

As fate would have it but par for the course, I wasn’t able to return the next day because of my poorly planned double hernia operation. They were having a two-for-one offer and I couldn’t very well pass it up. So I sent a courier to the park to take a picture of the dirt. While I was reclining in the recovery room, the courier brought me an assortment of color prints to display across the table. Finding the picture I needed, I misread the caption the first time, but then I realized after clearing my eyes that it said, “jk, it actually was Lyle.”

I was growing a tad irritated, so I wrote to whoever it may have concerned, “This is getting somewhat tedious. Can I text you?” And of course, I had to wait until the next day to find out. The suspense was nearly unbearable. Nothing I did for the remainder of the day could compare to my anticipation for what might transpire on the next. Breathing was about all I could handle. I forced myself to breathe just out of curiosity.

So on Thursday, I sojourned down to the park once more, eager for the next revelation, only to find inscribed “Excuse me? You want to text a pile of dirt?” I could tell this was going to be challenging. I checked with my cell phone company, and they didn’t have any plans that seemed to fit my current needs.

I mused at the sudden lack of options I now had. The sands sifted through my fingers and became part of the destiny of the progressing wind. I was a sail being directed by its wiles. I gave it a little time to see if it wanted to change course. It didn’t. So I didn’t ask it to.

With nothing left to do and nowhere to do it in, and having looked around for missing as well as found clues, I decided it would be prudent to pack it all in. My mission had now completed in a most incomplete way, though I had accomplished the primary objective, which was to rid the world of arch enemies while still retaining all the other kinds of enemies.

My report would contain a synopsis of my encounters and the accompanying lessons learned. I would tell of the near fatal mistake of confusing my earpiece with a clam shell. Of the symbolism of the dunes as a horizontal passage through the hourglass, oddly making it more linear than its inherited chronology. Of the pastiche of obligatory dunes-as-life scenarios, of the will of the human spirit to carry on in the face of all obstacle, of the notion that nothing is cut-and-dried with the possible exception of beef jerky, of the simplistic nature of art which parrots an undersimplified lifestock, of how obfuscation keeps a lot of people in business and a lot of other people wondering what they overlooked, of umbrella as metaphor only to the extent that it isn’t already the center of all we attempt and capture within our few decades roaming around the planet like a horde of banshees late for a dinner appointment with the establishment, as if dining somehow had to be rushed into as well as being ubiquitous in the social arena (would you like parsley with that, madam?). Of mice and other minutiae. I would contain my report within those bounds, a soliloquy for half history. And then I would wriggle back into the woodwork, to not be seen, heard, or rumored until the delicate equilibrium of the universe was once again disturbed, for a call to have my services rendered, rescuing the elements back to stasis for a time, while ever-approaching the ideal. Which is why we can never return to a norm that doesn’t exist, the lesson now learned.

If Statements as Experiment

Well, now that you’ve started reading, I might as well humor you. Isn’t it funny that to humor someone has nothing to do with what’s funny, and to say it’s funny how something is has very little to do with humor. This language was really patched together like forming a castle out of a mudslinging contest. And this is what happens when you have a language by committee. So the fact that these ruminations come in English is a big strike against them. If only this were en Francais… If only.

The other day, I was trying to think of something. Talk about unlofty goals. A person can always think of something, unless your mind is a blank, in which case you’ve just filled your mind with the thought that it’s blank. Oh... the other day. That’s kind of a non-committal reference to a day that is specifically “the other day,” as if there were only one such day. No, not that other day, the other other day. Yeah, that one.

Also, in the interest of full disclosure so that you know where my devotions lie, I’m representing one side in a bitter discrimination suit. In Rodentia vs. Professional Sports Teams, I’m defending those sad little animals who never get used as mascots. Nobody ever calls their team the Rats, the Hamsters, the Varmints, or the Critters, etc. It has caused irreparable emotional harm to my clients. Their friends make fun of them, they can’t get high-profile jobs, and they’re discriminated all the way down to the very bottom of the food chain. If you thought getting picked last for kickball was bad, wait till you get picked last to eat. Slim pickins there at the end of the food chain line. You get morsels, and that’s about it. “But I don’t like morsels, Mommy.” “Tough! You eat your morsels and be grateful, Theodore. Those are delicious morsels.”

I wouldn’t bring this up, but enough people have asked about it to behoove me to comply. For the record, I would actually write on my blog more often, but opposable thumbs are nothing to be flaunting at the rest of the animal kingdom, so I want to be sensitive to that.

We take a lot of things for granted, simply assuming that things had to be a certain way, but not realizing that there could have been many various scenarios. Life doesn’t really have to be as simple and accommodating as it is. For instance, what if we had to relieve our bladder every five minutes? Think how inconvenient that would make living. Don McLean would’ve had to sing part of American Pie from the restroom. All sorts of logistical problems would arise. The next time you feel inconvenienced by something in life, just think how it could be worse. For one, our elbows could be attached to our knees. Think of all the great dance moves that would generate... And it would make it rather problematic to put on a sweater. Picture trying to dress a pretzel without upsetting its ecosystem. No fair pulling limbs off and then putting them back on.

Or what if gravity went away from the Earth instead of toward it? That would make things fun, wouldn’t it? If you dropped something, you’d be in a world of hurt without a paddle. With reverse gravity, things would be cleaner on average, but then if you lost something, it wouldn’t mysteriously pop up again later. I suppose unless you were looking in Aurora Borealis.

Type the word “hyphen” (without the quotes). (And don’t type in parentheses either) Wait a minute, they just used the quotes to tell us what we’re supposed to type, but we’re not allowed to? How exactly is that fair? In other words, do what I do, but just not literally. Only somewhat literally... That’s a direct translation, by the way. And you can quote me on those hyphens.

Or what if all the letters of the alphabet rhymed? Literacy rates in English-speaking countries would plummet. Become very suspicious if there’s a shift in pronunciation toward Farsi, I’m just sayin’. Do I need to wink to get the point across?

The funniest news story of last year was when the media kept pointing out that the people on a certain boat were pirates. They keyed on that word over and over as if it were aired up and being used in a volleyball match. Their fixation on the word was both telling and laughable. They had found a legitimate usage for a dramatic term from lore, and then they drilled it into the ground until it had become a fine dust. It underscores the apoplectic desperation of the media and their lack of shame in glorifying whatever they can find to plaster to the wall. They’re less interested in reporting the conditions than they are in packaging them to sound incredible, amazing, fantastic, wondrous, (insert superlative of choice here and deposit 25 cents).

People will say they’re having problems thinking straight, yet it’s much more interesting to have it meander. I figure why not take the scenic route? After all, the road less travelled has fewer potholes. Ponder that one at your next lemming convention.

Perspective can give you a lot to consider. Dr. Seuss taught us a lot of what-ifs, causing us to think what it might be like to have a stain that somehow transferred to everything throughout the house, and then out into the snow. Nothing could get that stain out. (This was before Tide came out with the new-improved whitening crystals) Frankly, I was a little stunned that Thing V and Thing W had difficulty with it, knowing their background in disaster recovery.

Or what if it took 14 months for the Earth to revolve around the Sun? Calendars would be heavier. That would surely alter everything. Not to mention the calendar industry would be more profitable. Cosmologists take note: there’s a great marketing opportunity here for a little fudging of the numbers after a surprise increase in sunspot activity. And we’d get older slower, so people would welcome the change. How would you like to be 48 instead of 56?

I wonder why is it exactly that people often dislike hypocrites more than those who are brazenly bad? (I ask you that in expectation that you’ll have the solution, even though it may have appeared to be an obvious rhetorical device. But now that I’ve had to explain my intent, it kind of ruins the mood. Next time, you’re on your own.) We don’t seem to like phonies, yet if someone doesn’t pretend to be good, then there’s some level of genuineness which receives acceptance. Hardened criminally defiant mobster? Well, at least you admit it. But claim to have done some magnanimous gesture like visited kids in hospitals, when it turns out you were glamorizing it for a photo op, you should be hanged at the stake and left for dead.

Or what if there was no green? For one thing, golfers would be in a quandary, with nothing to shoot for. But that would be the least of our worries. Vegetables would be an even tougher sell. Rainbows would have an empty spot on them. The flags of Nigeria and Saudi Arabia would be indistinguishable. There’d be little point to Green Tea, now wouldn’t there? All things we shouldn’t take for granted.

As such, I feel bad for the bird called the kite. They can’t be understood except within context. If I didn’t clarify the genus, you wouldn’t know to what I was referring. They have the complex of the bird formerly known as paper on a string. That’s good for two visits a week to a shrink. Although, it’s still probably not as bad as the swallow. Or the gulp. Now, those are birds in identity crisis. We think it’s bad being named Grenelda or Thaddeus, but it’s nothing compared to those inheriting fowl linguas.

Or what if Alex Trebek weren’t the host of Jeopardy! for 53 years running? I wonder what they’re gonna do if/when he retires. They better get somebody else named Alex, otherwise it’s going to sound very weird when a contestant says, “I’ll take Forensic Subterranean Albatross Migration Patterns for 500, Alex.”

Ultimately, as a child I was relieved that pink snow is only pretend, and later learned that green eggs only happen in college dorms, but it’s always fun to mull over how else it might be… with Thing Y and Thing Z.

Things What I Might Be Good at Or Not

Within the world of employment, there’s a wide array of available occupations to keep a person busy. The options can be dizzying, so narrowing it down seems to be the trick to finding one’s niche.

I’ve taken proficiency tests before, and the tests have strongly indicated that I’m very good at taking proficiency tests. In those, they say you would do well as a stamp collector, the host of Family Feud, lifting semi-heavy boxes without dropping them on your toes, a fedora expert, a welterweight boxing champion, a contestant on Family Feud, a ferris wheel operator, a coconut grower, the guy who waves the checkered flag in stock car races, and a situational ethics committee chairman. Afterward, you’re scratching your head wondering where you should focus your energies. You’re more confused than before you started.

Rather than fog up your mind with things that may or may not pertain to your special abilities, I prefer relying on my intuition to point me to areas I could consider. I’d probably test poorly on some of these things, but the test can’t see the intangibles of a person, or in other words know what rotten work habits and personality quirks you have. “Hey, it says I can be an effective plant manager for a distribution center despite the fact that all my communication is through whistling. Who knew?”

With that in mind, I’ve considered the types of things where I could at least potentially be proficient. If you have any connections in any of these areas, e-mail me with the specifics and I’ll take a look into it.

Consulting
I actually like the idea that people would need to come to another person to consult about something, all because that person knows more about it than they do. They would ask this person, “Am I doing it right?” “How would YOU do it differently?” and “What is your undeniably expert opinion on the subject?” A consultant is in a good position. By the very nature of their situation, people are admitting that they are inferior and the consultant knows more than they do. If there are disagreements, the consultant can say, “Hey, remember you had to come to me to consult about this. That means I’m more important.” If I had to do that, I think I could manage.

Employment Agency
My job would be to help people get jobs. It would be justified if only for the condition that other people didn’t have jobs. If everybody were adept enough at finding their own jobs, then I wouldn’t have this job, and then I’d need to find another job, and possibly have to go to the employment agency. So I guess that means we’ll always need one, thus it’s good job security. But yet I feel like an employment agent is seen as flaunting what they’ve got, i.e. - “So… let’s see if we can find for you what I already have. I don’t need me like you do.”

Woodworking
Hammers are trained to hit nails, and when they see them on a finger or a thumb, they say, “Cool!” If I were a carpenter, I’d have a plethora of bruises on my thumbnails. It’s not that my aim isn’t good with tools, but if I try to talk and think at the same time, for some odd reason my attention gets shifted about 5 degrees one direction or the other, and that’s all it takes. But take note that I don’t cuss when that happens. I go right past cussing and into existential wanderings about the necessity of my existence. After all, as we know, the truly great emotions have no sufficient words to accompany them.

Delivery
I wouldn’t mind being a UPS or FedEx driver. They take people’s autographs all day, engage in smalltalk about the same thing 62 times until they’ve perfected the obligatory snicker, and get to see people react like it’s Christmas again. I wonder how many consecutive times I could stomach “Oh, my package is here!”, but that just comes with the territory. The main reason I’d want to be a delivery driver is that they get to park right in the middle of the street. I wish I could do that whenever I felt like it. “No parking spaces available… No worries, I’ll just stop my truck right where I am. All you people behind me… adapt, okay? We’ve got packages to deliver here.” That is the true definition of power.

Window Washing
Are you kidding me? If all the windows were on the first floor, then fine. But when those guys get out there dangling from a skyscraper like a cheap wind chime, that’s a little post-apocalyptic for me. My heart just wouldn’t be in it to the degree it would need to. Besides, is it really that important to have clean windows anyway, that we need to have people doing high-wire acts with a squeegee to achieve this? I don’t think historians will look back on this period and conclude, “The post-modern homo sapien really kept its buildings looking shiny, a sign of a highly advanced civilization.” I’m just not on board with that. I would certainly be one of those undedicated window washers. I could see me up there, bringing along with me every possible suction cup I could find, and my whole body would resemble the lower left quartile tentacle of an octopus. They’d have to pry me off of that building with a crowbar. But I’d rather be stuck to it than hanging from a line that’s nothing more than a cadre of measly little wires rolled up together.

Dunking
In my prime, I had the qualifications for a top-notch dunker in pools. If not for the knee injury, I could’ve gone pro. It’s probably not something you can teach, because either you’ve got the technique or you don’t. I remember one time we were at a big pool at a youth conference in Monterey, and two of my cousins (who shall remain Ryan and Keith) were trying to dunk me two-on-one, and even together despite all their efforts, they couldn’t get me under. I even dunked them a few times for good measure. You know, it can get a little tedious just standing there loitering in a pool. Then they got the idea to go find a bigger, older teenager to come do it for them, and so they get this guy and he comes over and wrangles me, but he couldn’t get me under, so I dunked him too. They got a big kick out of that.

But my crowning achievement at the discipline was going toe-to-toe with Henry High. (Henry, if you’re still around, I’ll put you on my Christmas list) One day in the pool at P.E., Henry and I somehow got into the pre-dunk grip. Henry was a pretty big kid. It was said he weighed around 300 pounds. Myself, I was tipping the scales at 145 if I had brought enough quarters for lunch money that day, so tipping is a relative term. I could feel Henry’s strength as if it were a solid brick wall. Henry could sense that he had me where he wanted me. But as Henry tried to dunk me, I held my ground, and in one of the most spectacular displays of athleticism and grit, by some stroke of fate I ended up playing Henry to a draw. For weeks to come, I heard kids saying, “He’s the guy that Henry High couldn’t dunk.” And then they’d ‘ooo’ and ‘ahh’ as I sauntered past them in what must’ve seemed like slow motion. That was the period when I grew three inches taller within just a month. So now I’m anticipating eventual induction into the Dunkers Hall of Fame once my steroid scandal clears, but it’s really too bad I never made a career of it.

Beekeeping
I believe it would be enthralling to keep bees. To be the keeper of the bees. Keepers carry with them a lot of authority. Eventually I could work my way up to the keeper of a gate, though in the meantime I could possibly start with a stationary fence until I got more comfortable. Keepers of the fence don’t get a whole lot of credit, but it’s a noble line of work. If it weren’t for keepers of the fence, the gate wouldn’t serve much purpose. At any rate, history is likely going to show that a great deal of the influential people were catapulted to immortality through the prism of beekeeping, so I’m leaving this option open.

Auto Sales
Were I a car salesman, I’d most likely talk people out of buying cars instead of getting them to buy them. I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to talking up something I didn’t really believe in, and cars aren’t something I believe in. It’s just this thing I have about having a conscience. I’d say to the customer, “What do you want a new car for? They depreciate like cement blocks. What’s wrong with your other car anyway?” And on top of that, I’d be bringing seller’s remorse into the psychological spectrum, opening up a whole new field, causing chaos everywhere.

I wouldn’t be comfortable in general being associated with the whole auto salesman shtick. The car dealership hires someone to sell their cars for them. Fine. But then they don’t give them any authority to make the deal. “Let me go ask my mommy. She’ll tell us if it’s OK.” Then they come back and say, “After I told the oracle your offer and he inquired as to what level of gullibility you are, he said we can only go down this far. Remember, I’m only the messenger, and my boss had half his face burned and can’t talk to you face to face. They pay me $70,000 a year (i.e.-you pay me) to tell you which cars you want, and to convey hallowed information coming from on high. It’s a very complex set of skills I went to Harvard Auto School for. But be assured that we value your business, and we thank you for playing our game with us.” Sure, I could say those words, but I wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face, and that would kind of ruin the whole mood thing.

I like to go into car dealerships as the prospective buyer, and when they come back from their little powwow with the powwows that be and present their counter-offer, I tell them that I now need to go consult with my special mentor behind the curtain, who they’re not allowed to see. Then I get out my puppet stage, and have a few conversations between my hands, which are covered with different colored socks. When I’m done, I reveal to them what the other sock advised me to say. “Sock doesn’t like offer. No, no… He says you trying to bamboozle us. We can offer $14,500, but sock go no higher.” After we go back and forth with the whole process, eventually I hand them the sock and say, “Here… can you let my people talk to your people, and get this settled once and for all? Let your boss and the sock work it out. Besides, I’m missing Desperate Housewives as we speak, and it’s really cramping my style.”

Teaching
Being a teacher in grade school would surely be interesting. For a day or so. After that, how do teachers stay motivated? I’d be waiting for the field trips more eagerly than the students. I’d even base 95% of their grade on the field trip.

One thing I’d do to correct a hundred years of improper teaching is to not have a part of the grade based on attendance. As a student, if you know the material, you know the material. Showing up doesn’t really take any special skill related to the subject. Now you have to know it with style? Sure, you aced all the tests, but did you keep your seat warm in the process? That’s what we want to know.

Now, they could have a class just called Attendance 101. And they would see how well each of the students could show up. They’d have class every day, and the object would be to be there. Once they were all there, they would chant the mantra from Horton Hears a Who: “We’re here, we’re here!” As such, 100% of the grade would be based on attendance. They would actually celebrate as each child walked into the classroom, giving each other high fives. “You made it today! You didn’t get lost or abducted by aliens! You’re going places, I tell you.” They would have a big final at the end of the semester, where they would hold the class in some obscure undisclosed location, and the students would have to find it. For the student well-versed in attendance, it would be a piece of cake.

Pilot
I wouldn’t mind being a commercial airline pilot as long as they let me get off the plane before it took off. Other than the flying part, I really do like planes. I especially enjoy the whole integrated instrument panel layout, which is quite impressive. There’s nowhere to even hang an air freshener, because they don’t have rear-view mirrors, plus the cockpit is lined with wall-to-wall gadgets anyway. I wish I had a car that took ten minutes to turn on all the levers needed to start it up. It seems so much more important to commence driving than to simply put it in gear and go. While riding with me, if you hear me say “flaps down,” don’t be alarmed as I monkey a little with the visors. They’re precision instruments that must be accurately calibrated. Rear-view mirror checked, side mirrors checked, defrost on (always start on defrost so as not to upset the cabin pressure), flaps down, brake off, radio set to the proper station for the occasion (94.5 for driving over the Alps, for example), windows up, seatbelts securely buckled (there’s nothing worse than a partially-buckled seatbelt), doors locked, ashtrays in their upright position, and finally ready to leave the driveway. As a side note, I’m late for appointments quite a bit.

Lifeguard
A little too intimidating for me. If they instead called it something like Danger Guard, or Mishap Guard, I think I could handle that. But otherwise, that’s putting a tad too much pressure on someone sitting in his boxers with a whistle getting a tan. Oh, and you are the Saver of Lives, if you don’t mind. Try not to let that get to you. Want some lotion?

Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan
I would serve the people of Kyrgyzstan well. Following on the policies outlined in my campaign, I’d be able to maintain the aristocracy inherent within the system. I would become beloved throughout the land, and go down in the history books as the impetus for restoring civility to that region. If only I could get the proper financing. Won’t you consider donating $5, $10, even $11,000 to my campaign? Send in unmarked bills to the address at the bottom of the screen. (No, don’t look under your monitor, you dunderhead)

Law Enforcement
I think I could be a police officer. I went on a ride-along a few years back, and you get to zoom 80 miles an hour through the middle of town. I’ve driven through the city of Salem on my own, and normally it takes about 15 minutes from one side to another if you catch the lights right, but on this night we traversed most of it in under 3 minutes. Of course, we had to slow down to 40 at the major intersections. As the police, you can make cars pull over for you just by flashing a light and siren. Still, the biggest draw, of course, is that policemen can park their car in the middle of the street if they want. They’ll even block both lanes if they feel like it. Few things are cooler than that.

Radio Disc Jockey
“Hey there, kids! Welcome to another hour of non-stop music, where you guess the song, and we don’t tell you what it is.” I could do that. Say into the microphone that here comes a song. And then play the song. And then when it’s over, say that was a song. A disc jockey is another way of saying narrator, but narrator doesn’t sound as enticing. I don’t know what the utility of having a narrator for music is, but I guess it can serve like a pep talk, and it’s fun to think that someone else is listening to the music along with you. Although if they would say what the name of the song was, then I might be a little more convinced they were paying attention to it. Here’s what I think happens: They start a string of six uninterrupted songs (besides, I hate those interrupted ones like Lady GaGa’s pre-eminent “Wax On, Wax Off” which comes with a built-in commercial and separate jingle* from the sponsor) (*-isn’t it just a little odd to have a jingle inside of another song? Yeah, I thought so.), and then they take a catnap, setting their alarm for 20 minutes, and then they wake up just in time to say, “Some great stuff there from The Who.” That’s how The Who got their name, incidentally. The DJ’s didn’t know whose songs they were playing, so when a band came along that played right into that, they were an instant hit. They even called their album at the time “Who’s Next,” thus relieving DJ’s everywhere of any responsibility whatsoever, and that’s how Pete Townshend became a legend.

Bus Driver
Even a school bus driver would be quite a good gig. Primarily because of that stop sign on the side of the bus, which you can invoke on a moment’s notice and halt all the traffic in the world behind you. Not only do you block their right of way, but you can command them to stay where they are. That’s something even a FedEx driver can’t do. As a matter of fact, as a school bus driver I would be able to tell those FedEx drivers that they had to stop behind me! Oh, man… That would be several levels beyond awesome. Where do I sign up?

Modeling
It’s the classic case of, “I know he can get the job, but can he do the job? I’m not arguing that with you… I’m not arguing that with you… If I said that, I would be wrong. I know he can get the job, but can he do the job?” But yes, I can pose. I can be robotronic like a mannequin. It’s one of my fortes, in fact. I was born to not move. What’s the big deal?

Spy
Spies are so good as staying under the radar that you never hear about them. How many spies do you know or have you heard of in the news? It’s like they’re invisible. You could have three of them living in your house with you right now and you wouldn’t know it. They’re very careful to clean up their crumbs after meals, and they use hand signals to talk, so you typically wouldn’t notice them. And they’re cool with whatever it is you’re watching on TV too, so they’re adaptable. I think I could do that.

Exterminator
Take out the ‘ex’ part, and I’m there. It’s so close to being the ultimate job title. Or they could also call it “Warlords of the Termite” and get more response. Wouldn’t that be a hip business to have? You get to use flamethrowers, magic potions, hazardous chemicals… What’s not to like? It’s like you’re going to battle every day, to defend humanity against the evil kingdom of critters. You against the smarmy vermin. They may have the advantage of being a stealth operation, but you have all the secret weapons. They can retreat into the walls and under the house, while you have the ability to infiltrate their communities with toxic substances and render them powerless. It’s a very prestigious position, and one that is probably the main target of the insect world. When ants go to take over the world, they’re not going to flood the general theater as we might suspect, but they’re going to go after the exterminators and break down our power base first. When those guys start falling, we know we’re in trouble.

In Conclusion
People ought to put these kinds of things on their resumes. “I possess the necessary skills to be a great engineer, coal miner, stock broker, anthropologist, bartender, marketing representative, shoeshine boy, argyle sock repairman, car parking attendant, or cockroach trainer. This shows how versatile as well as desperate I am.”

Negotiate You For Lunch

We are philanthropic, humanistic, almost too much altruistic. We nod, shake hands, offer gratitude and bid our fellow citizens the warmest of well-wishes. All is well in urbania when nothing’s at stake, for words are free and we’ve got plenty. Smiles are even on sale while supplies last.

Yet when met with the prospect of transaction, the common man bristles, braces, grimaces, turns into a trace of his former self, a monetized bot ready to pounce on his prey. A veritable cha-ching waiting in the wings.

The rest of the time when out of the grimy clutches of capital gains, we uphold our integrity, look for the overall good, are concerned about otherman’s welfare. Ah, we bring elaborately decorated cookies to mark/mask the festive occasion, bestow cards, hand out compliments, give pats on the back, and tote an array of atta-boys, without a hint of counting the cost.

But lurking under that unassuming persona is another, more disinterested cause. With cold, hard cash on the line, we are no longer the same compassionate soul. We curiously transmogrify into a merchant who can ill afford to show any scintilla of mercy toward what has now become his and/or her inferior opponent. We must give no ground. We must take them for whatever we can, by whatever means necessary, for the greater good of the account de la banke. We must act the bear. We must squeeze out all that is available at our disposal, and wait till the last drop has paid dividends.

For if a bartering is to take place, the much too common man is compelled to make it his own personal triumph. When selling, it is beneficial for the benefactor to get everything it can, even ask a tad higher than comfortable in order to err on the side of swindle, and don’t come down any more than what would turn the sweetest profit for you.

Toy with them, tease them, use psychological warfare against them if necessary. Put on your best emotive suit to utilize those disingenuous aspects of comfort, reassurance, security which will be your allies. Use anything it takes to accomplish your aim of being victorious over your conquest. Morals go out the door whenever one’s treasure is at stake. It changes everything. The rules are now different, and it’s what you get out of it that matters, irrespective of how you got there.

Is it any wonder we put on the guise of magnanimity at gift-giving by removing the price tag? This should tell us something. We instinctively perceive that currency clutters up the social arena, which is kind of where we tend to live. As such, lending to acquaintances is only valuable if you both never expect and never want to see them again. You give a loaner to become one, yet such a strategy works only with enemies but fails with comrades.

Listen closely to the innocuous buzzwords: To achieve an illusory financial success, there must be one you have succeeded over. Money is therefore an achievement. And it denotes the embodiment of success. You have, after all, reached ultimate portfolio. Alas, it sadly tells you what you’ve become.

The brutal economic philosophy does not have to render a particular side in the battle powerless, but only the unsuspecting with a conscience. Indeed, you can parlay the strategy from either vantage point. As buyer, give no ground and provide no reward to the seller, who was once you. Grant no space to your nemesis. Talk them down, then down some more. Don’t be satisfied with anything reasonable to them. The goal, after all, is for you to win. And the bigger you win, all the better. Then later you can boast about how you mercilessly took someone and made a deal that puts others, or even yourself, to shame.

For every “I got a great deal,” there’s a countering inference to “I ripped them off good.” It’s no doubt win-win, because I got what I wanted, and they were tricked into thinking they got what they wanted after realizing, of course, that their wishes were too grandiose in the first place and I generously brought them back to a stark reality and put them in their rightful place. Hey, they didn’t have to agree to it. When you think about it, it’s actually rather incredible how I showed them. And I’d bet if we played Monopoly, I could whup them at that, too. This revenue exchange thing is quite the invigorating game.

The lack of morals from the story is to take no one else’s welfare into account, for as we go about conducting our greetings and salutations, we’re still in a man-eat-man world. The bottom line spells it all out, and defines the true nature of the beast. While everything else in our day merely speaks, it’s only money that so eloquently talks.

The Zen of Zed

Three lines. Two pianos. One oratory. Three gushes. Two pixels. One alibi.

The writing’s on the wall. It’s written in the stars. And there are yet other things to read between the lines. Your job as reader isn’t all that easy, though I’m not about to enable you. Where would the fun be in that?

I miss philosophy being at the forefront of rational thinking. I like the good ole’ days when Aristotle and Plato would direct traffic while chanting existential mantras to the passers-by. They’d hand out bumper stickers that said “Honk if your cerebral cortex is at least semi-functional.” People weren’t impinged upon at the prospect of hypothesis. Not so anymore.

The trouble today could be that we don’t ask enough questions. Our experience is so immediate that we perceive everything to be no further than our fingertips, and get disinterested when we have to extend a thought anywhere past that. Why would I want to bother when I can get seven camera shots on TV within a 3-second span? I’m getting fed machine gun images, sending a rash of stimuli to the hungered neurons. At that rate, who has time to ponder?

So the questions go unasked, let alone unanswered. This starts early. But let me backtrack before I reminisce. But before I do that, let me write whatever it is that I’m going to write. Thank you for not intervening. You scratch my back, and I agree to not write auto repair manuals in this space. The differential is astounding.

Where was I? Oh, it doesn’t matter. I can edit this later. But anyway, as a culture we should be closely examining what causes things to make sense, so that we can make more sense out of more things. A little utopian, I know.

We should be asking questions like “How many is any?” Well, maybe not start there, but work our way up to it by leaving ourselves breadcrumbs. But questions such as “Does logic solve all the important problems, and can that be answered without the use of logic?” or “Are 1- and 2-dimensional existences imaginary?” or “What’s the statute of limitations on clichés?” or “Why does the origin of species place all its focus on transition?” or “Is the bottom of the barrel all that bad?” or “What color do blue and purple make?” or “When they say a product is back, where did it go?” or “What comes after closure?” or “What does free will entail, and can it be legislated?” or “Are all Mexican dishes just a matter of different packaging?”

They could have at least one TV show about these things on network programming, with various perspectives being discussed. And our attention span changes the channel. OK, maybe throw in some exotic dancing competition, and then at the end, the audience gets to boo them off the stage. But it would need to be set on a remote island where civilization barely exists, and it would be done at night so the host could stand between two flaming torches to add credibility, and he'd speak with the distaste of a malcontent queen bee that's been let down by its underlings. Now I'm seeing real possibilities.

At least Steven Wright is trying. He wonders out loud, “What do batteries run on?” I’ve heard attempts at this before, and it typically spirals into a discourse on cellular activity, networking, and calling plans. And then beyond that, if cells are the building blocks of life, what makes cells operate? Show me the sub-cells. And then show me the sub-cells of those sub-cells. And if there are no more levels of sub-cells, what material makes up the lowest sub-cell? I know — porcelain.

We may need to establish some of the things that don’t exist before we can adequately examine things that do exist. Exhibit A as the most obvious example is the rumored number zero. We spend too much time giving it attention, and it hasn’t earned it yet. Essentially, it’s done nothing. I will argue that zero does not exist, and as such should be exiled into the netherworld. It has no value. It has unvalue. It is the anti-value. You can’t divide by it. The biggest red flag should be that your spreadsheet will snarl at you if you attempt such blasphemy.

With that in mind, my hand sanitizer claims to kill 99.99% of germs. This raises a couple questions that need to be addressed. Firstly, what exactly is that 0.01% of germs that it can’t kill? Should I be afraid of them? I want to know what those germs are that are so incredibly strong they can outmuscle a sanitizer whose sole intent is to kill them. It would also be useful to know precisely the identity of those germs so I can try other tactics to combat them, like Lava™ brand patented heavy duty pumice hand cleaner, or possibly other untested thermonuclear cleansing agents.

And then secondly, if they already know how to kill these 99.99% germs with the sanitizer, why don’t they just kill them before they get to my hands? I mean, think about it… Does it take a blogger to come up with these ideas? Shouldn’t we instead be trying to kill germs in advance of when they make contact with our skin? Why wait till the last possible moment to take action, right before they unleash their toxic damage? That’s a little overly dramatic for me. I like suspense in my movies, but not so much in my daily hygiene itinerary. Give no ground here. Be proactive about this. Go to the source and nip that sucker in the proverbial bud. The bottom line is we need pre-sanitizers, and if none of you invent one, I may give it a go at some point.

For a social application of our modern dilemma, I give you excess. Our mailman probably hates us since we only go to our mailbox about once every ten days. But it’s not really our fault, if you think about it. Who allows all that junk mail to be sent? Did we ask for any of it? No, in fact, we asked for less of it. Do you realize what brought down the Roman Empire? It was junk mail. They smothered themselves out of existence. Their papyrus backfired on them big time. Our governments today complain about garbage disposal problems, but yet they’re allowing the problem to fester with the mass production of flyers, envelopes, inserts, cards, what have you. (The what have you will likely be our downfall) Another question sans an answer.

As I was learning to read, I became rather disenchanted with the English language. After all, what business did Wednesday have being spelled that way? How was I expected to know that intuitively? If you had given me fifty chances, I would have spelled it fifty other ways than that. Wensday. Winsday. Windsday. Winzday. Qualadrapathia. (Every once in a while, it pays to throw in a wild card just in case, because you never know) In short, there was no discernable pattern for that spelling.

Here I am in the 1st grade, and they’re telling me that ‘shoulder’ is pronounced predictably enough — so far so good. That was just to get their foot in the door. But then good luck with ‘should’. Or ‘would’… or ‘could’. All of a sudden, the ‘L’ is now silent, and the ‘u’ acts like it wishes it was an ‘o’. By my way of thinking, if a letter is silent, then it ain’t doin’ anything in the word, so just take it out. Kind of like junk mail. Unless… unless they’re trying to fool us.

In Kindergarten, you start out with numbers on the first day. 1-2-3 is easy enough. Everything is peachy and you’re on top of the world with your newfound numbering system that you’re going to use to confiscate all your older brother’s money. They even make fun little songs about counting to make you feel good about it. But that’s how they indoctrinate you. Once they have you hooked on their numbering scheme, then later you find out that ‘2’ is mysteriously spelled ‘t-w-o’. Where the heck did the ‘w’ come from? That’s what I want to know. The ‘w’ has no right being there any more than an ‘x’ or the international symbol for choking, and as a young grade schooler, I’d like to be given an opportunity to challenge the linguistic establishment on a philosophical matter. That’s what would have expanded my academic horizons more.

But do they ever teach you why the ‘w’ is there, or do they just expect you to accept it at face value without questioning? Learning doesn’t really start until ‘why?’ is asked. (and don’t ask about the ‘h’ in why) You’re not allowed to question, only to answer pre-fabricated questions. Which is what led me to mathematics. It was the least threatening and most antiseptic of the disciplines.

To sum up (without the need to use the hapless zero), numbers have values, so zero, at the very most, is still an abstract concept. You can’t have zero of something. Rather, you simply don’t have it. In no way no how can you expect to be saved by zero. Otherwise, in my hand I’m currently holding zero marbles, zero barnacles, zero bubbles, zero dipsticks, zero Werther’s Originals, zero flashlights, zero pictures of Yeti monsters vacationing in Belize while drinking Mai-Tai’s, zero zeros, zero nothings, zero emptinesses, zero vacuums, zero anti-matters, zero Grey Poupons, zero gravity, zero copies of “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts” in Braille, zero gwoycyx’s, and the list could go on ad infinitum. It still hasn’t described the state of what’s in my hand. Zero lends nil to the equation. The most accurate statement is that I’m not holding anything in my hand. It’s a negative affirmation, if that doesn’t swallow itself in logic.

There are zero pink elephants in my living room. Yeah, so what? Leave me alone, zero. Go bug a quantum physicist.

Three fedoras. Two wallabies. One penchant. Three salutations. Two palindromes. One ricochet. Nope, certainly no room for zeroes here… I now hereby invoke my zero intolerance policy. So let it be spoken, so let it be done.

Cud-Chewing Visionaries

From the Hindu ritual of the honorable bovine master, a firm representation of the giving nature of life, and lastly a sign of mammalian nirvana, a salute to all the cows of the world. Despite centuries of foreign occupation and imperialistic attempts in India, the sacred cow remains highly venerated. Our lactating leathermaker ultimately represents the hallowed principle of motherhood. She symbolizes venerable charity and generosity due to the way she distributes her veritable dairy qualities, vital to the nourishment of the young.

Cattle are a symbol of the whole Earth, the providers of sustenance. These udder-endowed friends are ever generous, giving endlessly of milk — much as the liberated soul gives of spiritual knowledge — while taking nothing for themselves other than grass, grain, and water. The crucial beefer is thus the virtual life-sustainer, emblematic of abundance, grace, and fire-starting. The sacredness anointed to these beasts within some eastern realms is not without cause.

On the other critical end of the spectrum, the splotchy black-and-white vermin's biggest energy contribution is its holy dung. Livestock produce over a billion tons of righteous manure per year. Dung from mooers is distinctive from all other forms of compost, in that the pink-nosed Gateway model's, while not contaminating, possesses mystical antiseptic qualities. Not only is it devoid of all bacteria, it also acts to kill them.

Dung is thereby used for fertilizer for the farmer, and is also utilized for fuel, though often quite lethal. Unlike your basic load of muck, however, the heifer’s version is odorless and burns without scorching, giving a slow, even heat. Consequently, the primitive housewife can leave her pots unattended, returning to cook on a preheated griddle. This surely trumps the golden arches in a Calcutta world.

The vaunted frisbee indeed originated from the cow chip, and we symbolically toss it upward to the skies as a way to scale new levels of our existence, precariously flirting with our destiny via unassuming recreational pursuits. A continual theme whispering it’s not to be taken lightly.

The likes of Freud may have alluded that man would aspire for mechanical bull sessions in an attempt to attain the heights known only to these worshiped cheeseburgers-in-waiting, for we have to conquer that which we would aspire for, to prove we are its equal... if only for that fleeting eight seconds of glory. The bovine master’s gyrations are emulated, revealing where it is that we need to adjust in order to maintain congruence.

Essentially a crude yet serpentine way of addressing the oft-cited but rarely explored mystery of what constitutes rusted ruminations, and where such things are headed. And while it can’t rightly be conveyed ipso facto, let alone through any other Latin idiom, a continued attempt can be made to demonstrate contextually, because it avoids the paperwork. As we embark on this new decade because years come in tens, we’ll take with confidence the lessons of these moo-cows with us into the vast great unknown of yet more cryptic years beginning with the number ‘2’, and graze on what it is that we know.

As a consequence of said phenomena, every year devotees will drive their sanctified Taurus to the annual bovine rites at San Francisco’s Cow Palace, paying tribute to those splendid cream makers in the sky. And thus for the uninitiated, it bears repeating the posting found herein follows in the cattle-infested philosophies espoused by Mohandas Gandhi, demonstrating that fertilizer can be surprisingly effective when used properly.

Reporting on a Planet

Grbzak, what to make of this civilization? It’s almost a misnomer, because uncivilization would be more accurate in many cases. One scratches his head over the peculiarities of humanoids. They’re consistently inconsistent.

For one thing, they make animated movies they call PG specifically created for younger children, and then they put warning labels on these movies which say: “Parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.” What’s that all about? Are you seeing the disconnect here? Let’s rewind and try again. They make movies expressly for the kids… and then they say be careful letting kids watch them. Where’s a brick wall when you need one, Grbzak?

Likewise, the ‘may’ clause in there is since they don’t want to commit one way or the other, because after all they’re merely monitoring every single frame of the movie and categorizing it all down to the popcorn compatibility factor, and as a result they don’t know the appropriateness of the content other than rating it based on the contents that they don’t know whether they’re appropriate or not due to things they can’t determine while being in the business of recommending, which only makes sense because they’re only human, c’mon!

That explains a lot right there. It would be akin to the census coming to your house and interviewing you in the presence of your family, and then concluding on their report: ‘Someone may or may not be living there, but we don’t want to definitively state one way or the other. Although the content of the home is fundamentally organic in an undetermined manner — and governmental guidance is suggested for minors under 65’.

Grbzak, in case you’re thinking this may only be indicative of a minor defect in the human persona, also take note that they make commercials that ARE LOUDER THAN THE REST OF THE PROGRAMMING TO BE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN THAT NOBODY MISSES THEM! I don’t know about you, but it sure makes me want to go out and buy their product. The decibel level that they’re able to attain is nothing short of impressive. Give me more decibels, Grbzak! I can’t get enough of ‘em. It somehow hypnotizes me and causes me to walk to the store like a zombie to get their product. “Must… buy… more… Old Spice deodorant… Must fill shopping cart to the brim…”

Another area humans manifest their glaring flawed nature is in the comics page of a newspaper. Curiously, about three-fourths of the so-called comics are rather unfunny, to the point of mysterious bafflement. I’m pretty sure Sally Forth hasn’t had a funny strip since 1964. A more apt term for these offerings of blocked witticism would be the “Huhs.” When you read them, about the extent of what you think afterward is “huh.” And yes, Grbzak, it’s a salient point that a good deal of these comics aren’t trying to be funny in the first place. That’s the whole point! Even when they want to explore a horizon that exudes humor, they can’t usually bring themselves to do it. They’re comics, the funny papers, and yet they function as the opposite. How curious indeed. The advertised product takes a wide detour from its intended purpose, but at least the original intent was there, so they feel like they should be given credit for that. All you have to do is call it a rose and it becomes a rose. I think they have a saying like that, anyway.

What’s more, the truly funny comics are treated as anomalous. One is viewed as being on the far end of comedy, another gives the character a geeky name and draws him as an overly dweebish version of a geek just for grins. And yet another shows a curious child talking incessantly to his imaginary animal friend. And then another one depicts a neurotic adolescent who philosophizes all day with his friends who ridicule him and whose pet is smarter than them all and the adults have been cursed with a speech impediment which allows them to only converse in an ancient Wa-Wa dialect. Yes, these are the ones that are actually funny, but the underlying message is that these are almost too good for consumption and must therefore be packaged as outliers. Does that tell you something about the constituents? They want to have funny, but at the same time they feel obligated to apologize for it. And that’s where Blondie and Cathy and Heathcliff and Mowgli and Samsonite come in. They’re the neutralizers, just in case anyone was threatening something more than a guffaw.

A newspaper is also referred to as a rag. The primary purpose of a newspaper, Grbzak, seems to be that it makes a person look important when holding it, because it requires two hands. Have you ever seen someone holding a newspaper open with only one hand? It doesn’t happen, because that’s not cool. That’s why blogs aren’t really going anywhere, because you can’t hold them. But the newspaper allows you to look busy along with looking important, and you can cover your entire upper half while taking a nap, and no one’s any wiser.

The most observed part of the newspaper is the sports page where the results of simulated rituals are posted, and the human game seems to be that they want to hide the sports page to see if people can find it. Once the readers complete the scavenger hunt, then they can prey on their game and proceed. That’s why the front page has such big headlines. They’re trying to deter people from turning to the sports page. “No, don’t go there! Big monsoon sweeps through the Pyranees! Lots of people died in explosion! Hey, look — Paris Hilton’s kidney on display at museum!”

So Grbzak, the only logical being we’ve detected on this planet seems to be a man who goes by the name ‘Spock’, apparently in the mode of Sting, the two of them obviously not wanting to be known as Leonard or Gordon. We don’t know what to think of the rest who carry on like they purchased their brains with coupons at K-mart. To be truthful, the fact that there are even K-marts at all is an indictment of the entire race, so we’re not really off to a good start.

Speaking of movies, isn’t it interesting that anything at all can be said in a movie — that is, except for a real phone number, of course. We wouldn’t want to violate the sacred area of telecommunication, because it could compromise someone else’s right to caller euphoria. Some lady in Muncie, Indiana might get an overload of calls if they mentioned her number. And they’d confuse her for the psychotic Nicolas Cage character who was using that number in the movie. On a side note, if there’s one word that can be used to describe Nicolas Cage’s many portrayals, it would be ‘consternation’. He can consternate like nobody else. In fact, one might consider him to be the master of consternation. It wouldn’t surprise any of us to know that he has a black belt in it.

But even more peculiar about the hallowed cinematic phone numbers is that the prefixes must be stated succinctly as 555. Apparently we have to reserve 666 for other uses, and 444 might be needed for very important government business — you never know. Otherwise, in the movies anything else besides phone numbers that may resemble actual persons or events is purely coincidental, though it may be based on actual events, but just without resembling them. Thank you, lawyers, for getting your paws in the middle of a creative process to help formalize it. That’s like requiring painters to abstain from using Barbie pink because it’s eminent domain. Next thing you know, Billy Joel’s™ name will become trademarked. Accept no imitations. Only use the authentic Billy Joel™. When I stop and think of all the upstanding Billys, like Billy Ray Cyrus, Billy Bob Thornton, Billy Mays, Billy Martin, Billy Barty, Billy Idol, Billy the Kid, et al, I wonder why Mr. Joel™ would care to be associated with their ilk. There are lots of other names with much better ilk than that. Which makes the humanitarian work done by Billy Crystal and Billy Graham to uphold the integrity of the Billy name even more commendable.

So, what do we make of all of this, Grbzak? Should we just leave them to their own devices? When we really get down to it, I think you may be right — they may be crazy. But then again, it just may be a lunatic we’re looking for.

Ode to Inertia

Thinking of something. Breaking the ice. Tolerating the air. Sifting through the data. Buttering some toast. Melting into the psyche. Spiking the punch bowl. Pondering the expanse. Taking it all in. Clutching at straws. Making the grade. Living on the inside. Seeing the light. Keeping it under wraps. Speaking in tongues. Waiting on a friend. Smiling up the frown. Thinking outside the box. Lapping it up. Matching the ideas. Dancing madly backwards. Writhing in pain. Fixing the pipes. Beating a dead horse. Standing on the edge. Ringing the bell. Walking in Memphis. Looking for space. Sticking my neck out. Counting blue cars. Talking to the wall. Lifting shadows off dreams. Falling for anything. Walking on the moon. Shaking the tree. Jumping the shark. Swimming against the tide. Running on a treadmill. Crawling in the dark. Waiting for the sun. Jockeying for position. Taking somebody with me. Romancing the stone. Living in the past. Keeping my cool. Watching the wheels. Killing the golden goose. Standing in the light. Hanging by a moment.

Pausing for effect.

Selling the drama. Lamenting the fall. Burning down the house. Working for the weekend. Rolling with the punches. Building a mystery. Hanging by a thread. Racing against time. Staring at the sun. Learning to fly. Leaving on a jet plane. Talking in my sleep. Losing my religion. Playing for keeps. Climbing up the walls. Dragging the line. Moving in stereo. Taking it for granted. Singing the blues. Holding back the years. Picking my poison. Watching paint dry. Calling the shots. Walking the dog. Living in another world. Paying my dues. Gardening at night. Coming up close. Looking over my shoulder. Writing to reach you. Crying over spilled milk. Waiting in the wings. Living for the city. Making plans for Nigel. Going for the one. Genuflecting with style. Waxing wildly nostalgic. Leaving for Rio. Surfing with the alien. Circling the wagons. Hunting high and low. Leaving well enough alone. Gallivanting around town. Standing outside the fire. Raising the bar. Venting my spleen. Watching the detectives. Being alone together. Twisting by the pool. Walking on sunshine. Thinking in reverse. Dancing in Berlin. Expecting to fly. Throwing it all away. Killing yourself to live. Begging for mercy. Pushing up daisies. Cutting my losses. Biting my tongue. Crying in the rain. Running up that hill. Dying to know. Borrowing a line. Grazing in the grass. Leveling the field. Heading for nowhere.

Taking a deep breath.

Coming around the mountain. Mixing it up. Evening the score. Lightening the load. Basking in the limelight. Circumventing the process. Licking my chops. Creating a nuisance. Unearthing the evidence. Getting into trouble. Excavating for a mine. Blaming the system. Choosing style over substance. Testing the hypothesis. Flirting with disaster. Ordering it to go. Chewing the fat. Flavoring with salt. Curbing my appetite. Appeasing the masses. Baking a cake. Living with the law. Caring for the poor. Running on empty. Casting a vote. Supporting my case. Finishing the job. Reacting with fear. Biding my time. Accentuating the positive. Staving off the wolves. Embarking on an odyssey. Maximizing my profits. Throwing in the towel. Wearing out my welcome. Relaxing the rules. Lurking in the shadows. Gritting my teeth. Setting the record straight. Egging them on. Understanding the effects. Allocating the goods. Wasting away in Margaritaville. Following my dreams. Needing a miracle. Working out the kinks. Shooting the messenger. Aiding and abetting. Engaging in dialogue. Slipping on ice. Jumping off a ledge. Trying to love two. Nixing the algorithm. Abandoning all rationale. Turning it upside down. Packing it all in. Faxing my resume’. Striking a chord. Battling the enemy. Arguing a point. Settling for less. Fighting for a cause. Breaking the habit.

Going for popcorn.

Estimating the outcome. Sticking to my guns. Counting the cost. Giving it all away. Sleeping with the enemy. Begging the question. Drowning in my sorrows. Furthering the effort. Needing my space. Swatting at flies. Exposing a flaw. Repeating past mistakes. Leading the witness. Nearing the end. Playing my hand. Bracing for impact. Forgetting the past. Building a portfolio. Harboring restless fugitives. Spending the night. Inciting a riot. Fostering good will. Preaching to the choir. Licking my wounds. Exacerbating the issue. Pounding the pavement. Going for broke. Shouting for joy. Grinning ear to ear. Smelling like roses. Floating on air. Renovating the attic. Granting a wish. Foaming at the mouth. Beating the odds. Thinking out loud. Entertaining the possibility. Bucking the system. Burning the midnight oil. Earning a living. Developing a reputation. Getting my way. Waking the neighbors. Marking my calendar. Burying the hatchet. Missing the point. Staying with it. Playing to win. Reaping the rewards. Enjoying the spoils. Mailing it in. Running in the family. Agreeing to disagree. Sparing the rod. Bursting at the seams. Gearing up for winter. Acting on instinct. Panning for gold. Forging a path. Serving my time. Building the perfect beast. Flying off the handle. Running into the ground. Grinding to a halt. Exorcising my demons. Softening the blow. Garnishing my wages. Saving my face. Wincing the night away. Sifting through the sands.

Stalling for time.

Keeping the faith. Expecting the worst. Clinging to hope. Betting the farm. Holding all the aces. Delivering the goods. Riding the wave. Minding the store. Taking out the garbage. Milking the clock. Sowing the seeds. Wondering what everyone knows. Facing the music. Getting a second wind. Turning the tables. Having a blast. Breaking the law. Reading between the lines. Sleeping like a baby. Hitting the mark. Sailing to paradise. Flying high again. Going down to Liverpool. Fixing the problem. Catching the butterfly. Working in a goldmine. Upping the ante. Living in a box. Praying for time. Running the gauntlet. Waiting for the rapture. Wishing you were here. Living on a thin line. Catching some rays. Barking at the moon. Raining cats and dogs. Getting over it. Counting my blessings. Sweeping under the rug. Looking for clues. Zeroing in on nothing. Reeling in the years. Comparing apples and oranges. Saving the world. Making a statement. Stumbling over terrain. Walking in your footsteps. Living in a fantasy. Coming full circle. Flying without wings. Hitting the ceiling. Crashing by design. Whispering your name. Crossing the Rubicon. Believing in myself. Calling all angels...

Heading To Or From Entropy

We figure chaos comes into the equation somewhere, even if we can’t tell with precision whether we’re regressing away from it or progressing toward it. But I’d like to think that we’re in the perfect maelstrom for either scenario. What better portal for disorder than the humanistic element?

Insanitize is that process of gradually going bonkers. And if the term is not yet accepted by the linguistic community, it’s just a matter of time. Three million years from now, every possible combination of letters will probably be a word. At that point, playing Scrabble would be rather pointless. In fact, you would have no advantage over a small child wearing blindfolds. This could actually be the juncture where babies finally take over the world and exact their revenge on us after all this time. I think it would be poetic justice, after we’ve been pushing binkies on them and talking to them like they’re imbeciles. Just you wait in another three million years. Another bold prediction you can hold me to.

Shilo Inns trumpets that it offers “free amenities.” But, but… Hmm. OK, well, isn’t it all part of the package? You could call anything free if you wanted to. I suppose I got the steering wheel and rear seat free in my car, even though the overall cost was absorbed exponentially into the windshield wipers. I hate those $14,000 wipers. They’ll get you every time.

Within a 7-year period, all our cells have regenerated and been replaced, so we’re basically a different physical specimen than we were 7 years prior. And yet we still have pretty much all our same traits and features. Plus our memory goes back a lot farther than 7 years. What is it we’re hanging onto apart from our cells? Are cells just passing information on to other cells before moving on? If so, then what pray tell is “information”? Callin’ it your job, ole hoss, sure don’t make it right. As they say on a popular kids show, “A clue! A clue!”

A closet is a place to hide things you don’t want to see. It’s historically been a smaller room that you wouldn’t allow yourself to walk into. More recently, we’ve fudged a little and decided there was a need for us to enter these areas and share that space with our abandoned belongings in an effort to become one with them again. But they are still hidden from view for a reason. What’s in the closet stays in the closet.

Essentially, humans hibernate. But it’s just that we come out of it very quickly. In contrast, when a bear sleeps in, he makes the best of it. “Honey bear, I’m gonna set my alarm clock for February 24th. If I don’t wake to it, let me sleep about another three days.” “Sure thing, honey bunches. You need your beastly rest.” The nature shows never report this, but I’m betting it’s not too far off.

So then what does “all-new” mean? I don’t believe we need that term, because I’ve never come across anything that was only partially new. It’s kind of all-redundant to restate the all-obvious. TV episodes are advertised incessantly in the all-new tack. If they didn’t say that, I would’ve thought the next airing of Desperate Housewives was only 98% new, that the last minute was somehow a rerun which snuck in there by mistake. Knowing that an upcoming episode is going to be completely all-100%-new relieves me of that irksome anxiety. Thank you, media, for assuaging a frail public’s fears.

I’m not sure about this, but I don’t know if I’ve ever been crestfallen or not. It’s never been one of the choices on my mood rings either, so I get no help there. And yes, I’ve used all the toothpaste brands, but to no avail. I’ll bet if you surveyed a thousand people, the better portion of them wouldn’t know whether they’ve ever been crestfallen before or not. And that’s a shame.

The goal of merchants is clearly to obfuscate. I went to a Toyota dealership the other day, and the sticker on a Camry was posted “4 for $93,000.” I had to get out my calculator to see if that was a good deal or not. Turns out it would save me quite a bit, although later I discovered that a dealer across town had a “6 for $127,000” sale going on, but it was too late as I’d already gone for the first one. Live and learn, as they say. And just my luck they don’t take trade-ins, either… Consequently, our driveway is filled to the brim, another two cars are on the curb, and the last two we just keep in constant motion, rotating with the rest. We’ll have to change our strategy before these $7000 a month gas expenses start adding up. I guess that $400 rebate doesn’t sound all that enticing anymore.

This entire notion of getting us in the frame of mind to buy in bulk is a little different from something like, oh, tires. I saw a deal that advertised “Buy 3 tires and get one free.” How fortuitous! My car just so happens to use 4 tires, so this is the perfect deal for me. I feel like Navin Johnson who just got his name in the phone book.

The auto industry itself is slightly off center anyway. Auto parts stores have historically bordered on the pathological, and we’d be wise to keep a close eye on them for any telltale signs that society is on its final gasp. The people who work in these stores have just a little too much fun playing with their merchandise. They systematically line up cans and containers in their windows like they’re peacocks strutting their wares. One has to ask what they are trying to prove or accomplish. (I’d do it, but I have a bout of 24-minute laryngitis) We already know they sell motor oil there. That much has been clearly established. They don’t have to build a virtual fortress to the plastic container gods in order to get that point across. After the third container, I noticed the pattern quite nicely, thank you. That would have sufficed. The rest was just overkill.

It turns out that as kids these auto parts people were the ones who lined up their blocks all in a neat row. And curiously enough, this is the very thing that made them qualified to work at an auto parts store. I’m just shakin’ my head here at the serendipity.

Tire shops do the same thing by stacking their tires. I guess they want us to drive by and say to ourselves, “Wow, look at all those tires! I’m so impressed by this plethora of tires. They’ve probably got 94% of the world’s tires right there, and not only that, but they know how to stack them twelve high, not unlike building blocks. You know, it kind of makes me all nostalgic for my childhood. Marge, we have to go buy some of them and become a part of this tire village.” And why is it that I’ve never actually known a Marge, and yet there are thousands of depictions of such people? Pure deception, I tell you.

And then what does “powered by” mean? It has at least forty-two different meanings on the internet. And none of them involve actual power or energy, interestingly enough. Some are very loose definitions. They’ll say powered by when all it does is borrow some code from another system. And like magic, the site receives power. Our grandkids are going to be all confused with this barrage of power references, and will grow up thinking that electricity is found in everything. As a result, physics in the mid-21st century is going to go right down the tubes. The whole powered-by nonsense will be the primary contributing factor to the downfall of modern society. They won’t be able to trace it back to this concept until it’s way past the point of no return. But they will take note on the hieroglyphics in the cave walls that I foresaw it in my blog on this date, and I’ll win some posthumous Nobel Prize and they’ll make a donation to a literary foundation in my name, so I got that going for me.

If you’re like a lot of people, you probably get gifts on your birthday. But I get free gifts. Mine don’t cost me anything. I don’t even have to pay shipping. I know what you’re saying… Why is he so privileged? Well, it’s because when I was six years old, I got a get out of jail free card in Monopoly and I never used it. If you don’t use those, a Monopoly pixie visits you and exchanges it for a ‘free gift for life’ card. I’ve since learned not to exhaust my resources in Monopoly, by the way. You can get a lot of nifty perks by being frugal in that game. One time I didn’t use any of my 20s all game, and it was good for a three-night stay in Mazatlan. I can’t reveal much more because then my overall strategy for the game would be uncovered, and I’d never be able to defeat any of my kids again. Then it would spiral into losing my parental authority over them, and discipline would go out the door and down the street into the gutter with the rest of society’s pitiful woes.

When someone says they're dating themselves, I can’t decide whether they’re being narcissistic or not. Regardless, if you give indications of your age, why does that need to be softened with a disclaimer? Why apologize for a universal process? “I’m sorry that I’m this old, and I promise not to let it happen again.” You’re as old as you are. Everybody is. All it means is when you showed up for the party. There’s no shame in being at the party for a long time. We should be celebrating that, in fact. “Wow, you’ve been to 53 parties? That’s great!” And this is the extent to which old people get philosophical about it all, when they’re consigned to the reality of their own age. You see, young people don’t really need to get philosophical about it yet.

In any event, happy birthday to us all! We’ll all be back here again in 12 months, and I predict we’ll all add another year. I’m even willing to go out on a limb on this one, although there are lots of other limbs below that one, so it’s not as precarious as it sounds.

I’m afraid of anything in the fridge that I don’t recognize from before yesterday. Having seen fossilized items in there, I’ve become a tad apprehensive. It could be half food storage, half anthropological findings. My first clue that I would need to clean it out is that festering outgrowth of donut-sized mold spores cascading across the crisper. After that, it’s mostly speculation.

Four-color pens are strategically placed throughout the house. It’s a deliberate military deployment exercise to accomplish a specific objective. The rationale is that if I have a four-color pen stolen from me by one of the household approximately every 3.2 days* (*-according to independent tests conducted by House & Driver magazine), I can stay ahead of the curve by having at least 30 of the pens strewn throughout the house where they cannot all remain hidden for any length of time. I bring three of them to church sometimes, because kids like to draw with them, and while they are usually very good at returning them, it’s just that they seem to return them somewhere other than to me.

These have been my pen of choice for well over twenty-three years. Indeed, I consider them no less than the penultimate writing instrument, appreciating the ability to color-code what I’m writing, or even drawing. I like to morph writing and drawing. It worked for the hieroglyphs, and I’m no less demanding.

Ringtones are nature’s way of announcing to the world: “I have no concept of my surroundings and it’s all about me!” That, and neon leotards worn out in public. If each of us thinks about it long enough, it is all about the me — my me, your me, their me, everybody’s me. Admittedly, it has to start with me, although I still don’t see where ringtones helps matters at all. “Everybody, over here! Listen to my cheesy music and behold how I fumble to press two buttons in a feverish attempt to catch that important call that makes me important because an important person considers me important enough to call me and not you. I do this all the time, by the way. The call thing.”

In the NFL last season, only 6 extra points were missed — by all the teams combined. Out of 1,176 snaps. That’s the most efficient process in all of athletics. That’s 99.49%. Those are better odds than shooting a layup. Or even a dunk, for that matter. So then the question is: why even bother with the extra point? It would make more sense to dunk the ball over the crossbars after a touchdown. And let two defenders try to block it. None of this pooch the ball and watch it, oh!, do the same thing every single time. The only thing extra points are good for now is to mention one of the sponsors — who are often very proud to be so. The fact that they are proud to be doing what they’re doing brings much more credibility to their cause. If they were merely pensive sponsors, we wouldn’t be all that impressed.

If I could do something to effect a change on computers, it would be to have them use something other than 0’s and 1’s for the data. None of this primitive binary stuff. 10010111. It’s a little unsettling to me to think that’s all anything on the computer is. 010110101100010. If we’ve encrypted all meaning here, are we sure we’ve sufficiently decrypted it? How would we know? We just accept that however it comes out is the way it must’ve gone in. We sure act a lot on faith, don’t we? Those are the inscriptions leaving other advanced civilizations in a quandary. 1101000101001101100101110. So the challenge is here: you judge which way we’re going…