Morons

Did you hear about the moron who:

Ran through a screen door, and strained himself?

Wrapped his watch in cellophane to keep the ticks out of his pocket?

Took his knees apart to see if there was any beer left in the joints?

Took a bottle of whiskey to bed so that he could sleep tight?

Cut off his fingers so that he could write shorthand?

Watered his garden with whiskey so that he could grow stewed tomatoes?

Took a ladder to a bar so that he could get as high as he wanted?

Thought a mushroom was a place to neck in?

Sewed his fingers together so that he could wear mitts?

Ate gunpowder so that his hair would grow in short bangs?

Sat at the corner with two pieces of bread, waiting for the traffic jam?

Cut a hole in his rug so that he could see the floor show?

Saluted the refrigerator because he heard it was General Electric?

Slept on his stomach so that the Japanese couldn’t bomb his naval base?

Takes a yardstick to bed to see how long he sleeps?

Took a bicycle to bed so that he wouldn’t walk in his sleep?

Moved into the city because he heard the country was at war?

Sat up all night studying for a blood test?

Went to a lumber yard looking for the draft board?

Put his head out the window so that the wind would blow his nose?

Stayed up all night wondering where the sun went when it went down? It finally dawned on him!

Met a girl in a revolving door and has been going around with her ever since?

Took milk and sugar to watch TV because he heard they were showing a serial?

Took his nose apart to see what made it run?

Was so modest he went into the closet to change his mind?

Cut off his hand so he could play the piano by ear?

Killed his mother and father so that he could go to the orphans’ picnic?

Went to the Navy Yard to see a blood vessel?

Backed out of the bus because he heard someone was going to pinch his seat?

Sent six kids to bed and set the alarm for 3 because only three wanted to get up?

Put crumbs in his shoes to feed his pigeon toes?

Wouldn’t talk about crude oil because it wasn’t refined?

Thought he was dying so he went into the living room?

Stayed up all night trying to put a diaper on a cigarette butt?

Went to the hospital and had a chair put beside his bed for rigor mortis to set in?

Was arrested for not having a little moron? (more on)

Jumped off a tall building to show the crowd he had guts?

Typed emails to his girlfriend slowly because he knew she couldn’t read fast?

Went to the Post Office to pick up a letter, and when asked for his name he said he didn’t have to give it because it was already on the envelope?

Went to the lumber yard to see the Board of Education?

Went to the closet to change his mind but couldn’t find a clean one?

Poked out his eyes when he went on a blind date?

Ate five pennies and then asked people if they saw any change in him?

Wanted to know how many wheels a football coach had?

Cut off his left arm so that he could be all right?

Put his chin on the curb so that he could keep his mind out of the gutter?

Didn’t pay when he boarded the bus because his name was Crime, and “Crime doesn’t pay”?

Went to bed on his wedding night with all his clothes on because he’d been told he’d be going to town by midnight?

**

The Italian Who Went to Detroit

(Please read with Italian accent)

One day Ima gonna Detroit to bigga hotel. Inna morning, I go down to eat breakfast. I tella di waitress I want two pissis toast. She brings me only one piss! I tella her I wanna two piss. She say go to the toilet. I say you no unnerstan, I wanna two piss on my plate. She say you better no piss onna plate, you sonna ma bitch. I don’t even know di lady, an she call me sonna ma bitch.

Later I go out to eat at the bigga restaurant. The waitress bring me a spoon anna knife, but no fock. I tella her I wanna fock. She say evvybody wanna fock. I tell her you no unnerstan, I wanna fock on di table. She say you better no fock onna table, you sonna ma bitch.

So I go back to my room inna hotel and there is no shits onna my bed. I call di manager an tell him I wanna shit. He tells me to go to the toilet. I say, you no unnerstan, I wanna shit on my bed. He say you better no shit onna bed, you sonna ma bitch.

I go to da checkout, an di man at di desk say “Peace on You.” I say piss on you too, you sonna ma bitch. I gonna back to Italy.

Flash Fiction – Part 3

If you want to try this, go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple blog, look at the weekly picture, and write a 100 word story about it.

Tentacles

I awoke with the sun in my eyes and covered in blood. I quickly rose and stared into the little woodlot.

Even with the gnarled stumps and trunks, it looked innocent, friendly, even inviting, so unlike last night when we had laughingly decided to take a shortcut to the party through Corpse Copse.

After what had seemed like – must have been – hours of tripping roots and grasping, slashing branches, I stumbled out, exhausted, and fell to the ground. What had happened to Bobbie?! Had she made it? What would I tell her parents? Worse, what would I tell the Police?

 

Minutia

Being another premium collection of Archon’s famous Rants and Rambles© – until I run out of breath.

Back when I was young and healthy, and working, chocolate milk and cheddar were occasional treats. Now that I am more subject to osteoporosis (bone weakening through loss of calcium), the wife ensures that brown cow juice and four or five types of cheese are available at all times.

A recent study proved that flavonoids in chocolate are good for you, the darker the chocolate, the better. Recently, locally, dark-chocolate milk has become available. MMMH, yummy! Now, if I could just get the folks who decaffeinate coffee, to decalorify all the food I like….

Because I’m compulsive, and have nothing better to do, we take receipts, and keep track of all the gasoline we put into the car. Last year’s total ran to just over $2200. We aren’t soccer moms, or run a taxi. I don’t know if that’s “normal” or not. Anybody got an opinion?

At the recent Detroit Gun and Knife show, they had a display of the two Tommy Guns, Thompson sub-machine guns, which were used in the Chicago, Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929. Somehow they migrated to the small town of St. Joseph, north of Detroit, and were later turned over to local police, whose taser-instructing Sheriff brought them down and stood guard over them.

Son, Shimoniac, has been at his current job as a plastic parts moulder for five years. Each year, he has applied for the position of Material Handler, and each year an opening has gone to an employee with less seniority. It just occurred for the fifth time. His supervisor is apologetic, and explained that it is because he quickly became indispensable.

He can make every part, on every machine, including 5 or 6 items like bagpipe mouthpieces and CPU anti-skid mats, which are only run once a year. He recently trained a new employee – who may not be there next year – to make the mats, and is usually the one chosen to train new temps. His part achieved shipping quantity the other night and, while they were changing the mould in his machine, he covered four other machines during breaks.

The most “Internet” of Internet sentences, is currently the incorrect, “Your an idiot.” It perfectly personifies the Wild West nature of the interwebz, although it may soon be replaced by, “It’s a hoax!”

As a language geek, I often wonder how we manage to communicate as well as we do. I recently saw a photo of a dog in the newspaper, with a caption declaring that it was a “Burmese mountain dog.” Ah yes, Burma, that low-land, coastal, swamp-infested country, not well-known for either mountains – or dogs, since that last restaurant opened. Perhaps they were thinking of the Swiss dogs, from the Alps Mountains, near the capital of Bern – Bernese mountain dogs? Nah, that requires thinking.

So many people just don’t concern themselves with the nuances and exactitudes of the language. The slang term “klicks” came into being from the American Army referring to kilometers, because they don’t speak Canadian. Since the one begins with a K, I would expect the other to do so also, yet 75% of the times I read it, even by professional writers, I see “clicks.”

A Canadian Army body transport team of eight male and two females, posed for a group photo around an aluminum casket. Two of the guys were wrestling, one was photo-bombing bunny ears on his buddy, and one was staring off into space and pointing, as if at a UFO. All the rest had cheesy grins. The female corporal posted it to her Facebook page, captioned, “Putting the FUN back in funeral.”

They were all off-duty, and there was no body in the casket, but the shit hit the fan. I say, you can’t be serious all the time, but what irked me, was the claim that this picture was a “selfie.” Selfies are spontaneous, self-taken photos. They have arms in them and the focus distance is two feet or less. Posed photos from 20 feet out, are not “selfies!”

I don’t ever pick up a book to read, with the intention of being a nit-picker, but posting a few recent book reviews has made me aware of the many things I notice, but used to just ignore, in the suspension of disbelief category.

I recently finished a Clive Cussler book where the only underwater action was the ten-page recovery of a locomotive which fell off a lake ferry in a storm. I question, but can’t prove, the impossibility of a 1906 Rolls-Royce in San Francisco.

I also read a non-Cussler book centered around an underwater base. The supply ship “hoved to.” It could have heaved to, or hove to, but not hoved! The crew shared a bottle of “saki.” Saki was the pen-name of writer, H.H.Munro, or is a current Japanese manga series. The rice liquor is sake. A pair of glasses swirling in a flooding airlock were called flotsam. If it don’t float, it ain’t flotsam.

They recovered gold ingots from a sunken wreck. A Scottish character gushed that they weighed 50 stone apiece, and were worth almost a half a million dollars each. 50 pounds apiece, perhaps. Stone is a British Imperial measure of weight of 14 pounds. 50 stone would be 700 pounds. Nobody a hundred years ago, without a forklift, would pour a 700 pound gold brick, and the tiny manipulator arms of a mini-sub could not grasp, or move one. If they did, each would be worth over fourteen million dollars.

Well, that cleared a bunch of bats out of this ding-dong’s belfry. I wonder if they’ll let me post when I’m in “The Home.”???

 

Flash Fiction – Part 2

You know the drill. Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site. Look at the weekly picture and write a 100 word story about it.

 

Ascendancy

Up and down, down and up, that’s all I’ve done almost since that Otis guy invented my older brother. It can be boring. There are those times when I just want to try sideways for a change.

OWW! Watch that thumb, fella. Push the button gently! You don’t have to mash it. I won’t move any more quickly. I’ve been to the fifth floor; it’s boring.

Oh no, here comes “The Kid.” You know, we don’t have to stop at every floor! Where’s your mother?

I think I’ll unhitch my cables, and just go lurk in the basement for a while.

 

We’re Not QUITE Hoarders

I previously published a post titled Something For Nothing, where I listed several of the things I do to conserve or make a little bit of money, to help us, and others, in our retirement.  This one shows another facet, with some ideas some of you might want to think about, and maybe try, for a couple of reasons.

Less garbage = more money!

Reduce, reuse, recycle — and reap rewards. Really!

Hoarding gets a bad rap from many.  Some are joking, but many are serious.  Some of my behaviour could raise eyebrows among the non-frugal.  I even prefer to use the word frugal, instead of cheap or miserly.

I save or scavenge things like egg cartons, coffee cans, plastic containers, cardboard boxes and large envelopes. The difference between me and a true hoarder is that I use them, instead of letting them pile up — and they save me “a significant amount of money.”  In fact, such tactics save money in several different, interrelated ways.

For example:

• The less waste  you generate, the fewer garbage bags you have to buy, and the lower your  disposal bills might be.
• Buying in bulk  to reduce packaging waste means you get a lower cost-per-unit price.
• Putting  leftovers into a pickle jar or bread bag reduces the need for foil,  plastic wrap or food-storage containers.

Repurposing used to be common. Outgrown clothes were cut down for younger siblings or reborn as quilt patches. Old buildings were torn down to provide lumber for new projects. My mother poured homemade jam into peanut-butter jars (which used to be made of glass) and sealed them with wax.

These tactics work

In a post on the Silent Springs blog, Vincent Smith suggests that “more thoughtful living” could greatly reduce waste. Why do we throw away an old shirt but buy cleaning rags?  Whether your motive is saving money or saving the planet, slashing waste is a giant step in the right direction.  We do things like buying in bulk to eliminate individual packaging, packing a lunch to cut down on fast-food waste, and bringing our own water and coffee containers.  You don’t need to contribute to that trash can outside Starbucks, overflowing with single-use paper cups.

I do many of these things myself and can attest to their cost-effectiveness. A roll of aluminum foil can last us a couple of years.  A used piece is often not “dirty.”  Wipe it with a damp cloth, to clean and flatten it, and fold it, ready to hold the next sandwich, or piece of pizza. Produce and bread bags get re-used until they shred.

We repurpose empty jars for storage, buying things like spaghetti sauce in Mason-mouthed glass jars, which later hold things like bulk cornmeal.  Wide-mouth plastic jars which held cheap crackers when we bought them, now hold bread crumbs and potato flakes, for cooking.  Not that we attend them anymore, but I have found Tupperware in the free-box at yard sales. A pile of reusable shopping bags lives in a plastic shopping basket in the car trunk.

We buy in bulk when we can, and choose large sizes the rest of the time. We make our own jam (sometimes using foraged fruit).  I’ve mentioned about buying condiments like ketchup and mustard in gallon cans or jugs, and repeatedly refilling the small squeeze bottles, for a fraction of the cost.

Adding less to the problem 

Not that I’m a green saint, mind you. For example, we drink a lot of Pepsi, and buy individual yogurts, both for the wife, who has a small eating limit, and for the son to pack in his work lunch. However, we do recycle the cartons and the plastic containers.

The municipal recycling committee recently complained about the cost of sending around a truck to pick up “air.”  I stomp flat, any plastic bottles or other containers.  As three adults, we often put out less than a Blue Box full of recycling.  The two adults, and two small children next door put out three, or even four boxes every week!

Recycling is not mandatory here in Kitchener, but I can feel it coming.  All allowable organic matter goes into our composters, but the Committee is also bitching that residents are not putting out enough in the City-issued Green Bins, to cover the cost of the disposal contract, so I guess I’m not the only cheapo in the city.  Compost includes tea-bags, coffee grounds and filters, citrus rinds and banana peels.

Bananas contain magnesium.  It’s good for you, and good for plants too.  The tea and coffee contain tannic acid, which also feeds plants, and breaks down the paper to produce good, rich loam to be used in the gardens.  We buy unpeeled shrimp (when we can afford a bit), for considerably less than pre-peeled.  The wife peels them and the casings also go into compost.  As the Indians taught the Pilgrims, seafood makes rich plant food.

We use cloth bags where we can, because local cities allow stores to charge five cents each, for plastic bags. We used to use those in the cupboard-door-mounted garbage container, but recently purchased a new model, and the wife prefers to use the ones specifically intended for it.  I save bags from trips to stores and vendors who do not charge, and use them for kitty litter waste, or carrying newspapers to the crazy cat lady for flooring in her kennels.

Clean ones are flattened and folded and given to our bookstore lady, to cut down on the number of new ones she must purchase.  Soiled or torn ones are accumulated and put out with the blue box, so that someone else can melt them down and re-use the plastic to produce new products.  One of our shopping bags has a little sign on it that says, “I used to be a milk jug.”

While I don’t kid myself about saving the planet single-handedly, there is a fair amount of satisfaction in not adding to the problem any more than we must. Also, it’s nice not to have to shell out cash for things like more aluminum foil, or sandwich bags, and reduced retirement income goes a little further.

An Apple A Day

Recently, we had a batch of tech-nerds/fanboys go door to door through the neighborhood, extolling the virtues of the Apple Corporation, and trying to convince people to buy Apple computers and gadgets.  They called themselves I-Witnesses.

They claimed that Apple was a great company to work for.  Employees still got paid after they lost their Jobs.

Steve had been concerned with childhood obesity, and had developed a pogo-stick-like device with a mini-computer which was supposed to urge kids to keep exercising.  The project had to be cancelled when it was found that they were promoting breakfast pastries instead.  Jobs had unfortunately named the device I-HOP.

Just when I thought the neighborhood was safe and sane, we had another batch of young ones go door to door, promoting healthy eating through pancakes.  They were Jemima’s Witnesses.

***

In my freshman year in high school, our class took a school trip to a small hobby farm.  Mrs. Olsen introduced us to her favorite cow, Landescog, and showed us how to milk her.  We added rennet to the milk to get it to separate into curds and whey, and pressed the curds into a cheese mold.

Near the end of our year, we were again allowed to visit the farm to see what had happened to our “cheese.”  Mrs. Olsen had made up a big batch of linguine, and most of us sprinkled our shredded cheese on it.  Since the farmhouse was crowded, I took my plate outside, and stood at the fence, under a tree.

Landescog, the cow, wandered over and, perhaps attracted by her contribution to lunch, stuck her head over the fence and mooed loudly, so I had Swedish meat bawl on my pasta.

***

Middle Managers’ Lament

Amtrak Style

 

I am not allowed to run the train.

The whistle, I can’t blow –

I am not allowed to say how far

The railroad cars can go –

I am not allowed to let off steam,

Nor even clang the bell –

But let it jump the goddamned track,

Then see who catches Hell!

***

The Farmer Learns Fast

A farmer bought a new car, after spending a lot of time pricing them.  By coincidence, a few days later, the dealer who sold him the car appeared at the farm, and said he would like to buy a cow for his small country place.  The farmer quickly wrote up the following, and handed it to the dealer:

Basic Cow  ………………………..  $200.00

Extra Stomach  ……………………..  75.00

Two-Tone Exterior  ……………….  45.00

Produce storage compartment.. 60.00

Dispensing Devices – four spigots

@ $10.00 each  …………………..    40.00

Genuine Cowhide Upholstery . 125.00

Automatic Flyswatter  …………    35.00

Dual Horns  ………………………..    15.00

Plus Taxes and Delivery  ………  595.00

 

Total Charge  ……………  $1,190.00

 

***

 

A Child’s View of Retirement in a Mobile Home Park

 

After a holiday break, the teacher asked her class how they spent the holidays.  One little boy’s reply went like this.

We always spend our holidays with Grandma and Grandpa.  They used to live here in a brick house, but Grandpa got retarded and moved to Florida.  Now they live in a place with lots of retarded people.

They live in tin huts.  They ride big three-wheel trikes.  They go to a big building they call a wrecked hall, but if it was wrecked, it is fixed now.

They play games and exercises, but they don’t do them very well.  There is a swimming pool, and when they go in it, they just stand in the water with their hats on.  I guess they don’t remember how to swim.

My Grandma used to bake cookies and things – guess she has forgotten how to bake.  Nobody cooks there; they all go somewhere to eat something they call an Early Bird.

When you come to the park, there is a doll house with a man sitting in it.  He watches all day so they can’t get out without him seeing them.  They wear badges with their names on.  I guess they don’t know who they are.

My Grandma said Grandpa worked all his life, and earned his retardment.  I wish they would move back home, but I guess the man in the doll house won’t let them out.

Flash Fiction – Part 1

That title is incredibly optimistic.  It implies ongoing capability and commitment.  I accepted BrainRants’ challenge to write a short-short story.  Go to Rochelle’s, Addicted to Purple blog.  Each week, she publishes a picture.  You are to use the photo as a prompt, and write a complete story about it, in only 100 words.  Below is my first attempt.

PENSIVE

She paused to reminisce.  She wrote to her mother regularly, but so many things had happened.

Those years ago, as a newlywed, leaving the safety of New York for the wilds of the Oklahoma Territory with an ambitious husband, had seemed both a wild risk, and a marvelous adventure.

His tenacity, intelligence and canny business sense had combined to make him the proprietor of the greatest and finest Dry Goods Emporium in the Territory.

Being his family had made her and their beloved children both safe, and well taken care of.  Civilization continued to sprout around them.  Mother would be pleased.

Change

I took the wife to a nice hotel for a change and a rest.  The bell-boy got all my change, and the hotel took the rest.

The reason I originally came here for a job, was that, for 150 years, this area has been known to be in the forefront of industry – insurance companies, breweries, distilleries, and all kinds of manufacturing jobs, often with companies that were on the cutting edge for their time.  While I bemoan the passing of the manufacturing jobs, the region continues to reinvent itself in the service, and technology theaters.

Despite over 80% public disapproval, the mayor and several councillors continue to midwife the birth of an ego/memorial, street railroad.  They want to be remembered as the visionaries who breathed life back into a downtown area which has been moribund for 30 years, although their project may be years too early.

Even though my taxes will go up, it seems to be working.  New, upscale restaurants and clubs are already opening, down the main street, and an old, ex-Sears store has been converted to apartments.  A block below my auto-parts plant, at a major intersection, the main plant and head office of my bankrupt shoe company has been converted to condo lofts.  Yuppie acceptance was so avid, that move-in dates were delayed for over a year, while they built two more stories on the old four-floor building.

Between the two buildings, a new bus/train/LRT station is going in.  Across the corner, a U-Haul office was torn out, and a ten-floor apartment is being built.  On the final corner, the Community College has erected their School of Optometry, and School of Pharmacy, where the chiropractor’s son is studying.

Up the hill behind them, and over the railroad tracks, across from my old workplace, the owner of the strip-mall property has just announced a complete rebuild.  Gone will be our tacky watering-hole bar, and a Tim Horton’s outlet which died after our plant closed, because of poor access and parking.  Built before drive-throughs, it moved two blocks up the street and took over a failed Wendy’s.

Research In Motion, also known as the RIM Corporation, was founded in our sister city to the north, and made BlackBerry Phones, until the company name finally changed to BlackBerry.  When they had almost as much money as Carlos Slim, or Oprah Winfrey, they endowed a think-tank known as CIGI, the Centre for International Governance Innovation, who try to show political entities all over the world, how to run their fiefs cheaper, smoother, fairer.

RIM Corp also created the Perimeter Institute, a collection of mathematicians, cosmologists, theoretical physicists and quantum mechanics experts, guys with really tiny wrenches.  Supported by BlackBerry, they’re busily trying to develop things like FTL space-drives, teleportation systems, and quantum computers.

It’s been visited by the likes of Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who is bringing Carl Sagan’s Cosmos back to TV.  Steven Hawking has stopped by to bless and anoint it, and is returning this spring.

After RIM/BlackBerry became rich and famous, the two inventive, innovative founders were eased out by the shareholders, and a bean-counter administrator was hired to run it.  Run it he did – almost into the ground.  While it was in its death spiral, he grabbed his $55 million Golden Parachute and bailed out.

The latest CEO seems to be turning it around.  A 3000 unit order by a major US police department is not enough alone to revive it, but is a vote of confidence which may have caused Ford Motors to decide to put BlackBerry technology in their cars.

When they were carving BlackBerry’s tombstone, Panasonic moved into my old auto plant.  Merely a marketing and R&D office at first, they soon made it clear that they were willing to purchase real estate that RIM was selling off and use it to manufacture Panasonic Smartphones locally.

A couple of years ago, Google opened an office in a rehabilitated tannery, a block beyond the new pharmacy school, sharing space with automation and robotics firms.  The area is so promising that they have decided to expand, moving up the street beside Panasonic, into a space where I used to make Jeep parts.

When I started working there, my favorite local radio station played good, solid, baby-boomer Rock and Roll.  Over the years it changed to Soft Rock, and then to Pop, and finally to Bubble-gum, not fit for anyone over 22 to listen to.

A young man at the plant introduced me to his station.  Coming from just at the edge of clear reception, 35/40 miles away, it loudly and proudly called itself The Hawk.  For years it played only Classic Rock!  Sadly, commerce and changing demographics forced it also to change to Soft Rock, and finally Pop, under the inspiring moniker, More Radio.

I don’t think I was exposed to Justin Bieber, but I heard his girlfriend, Selena Gomez, and the entitled and irritating Taylor Swift, who I never, never, ever want to have to listen to again.  One evening recently, the son wanted More information about the ex-Hawk station, so he accessed their website.  He came rushing out of his room and turned the stereo in the living room on.

Apparently, at 5 PM on a Friday evening, without any hoopla, or even a warning announcement, they quietly changed to All-Country, all the time.  I have become my father.  The radios in the house and car have gone silent.  It’s all right though.  If any of you have words of consolation for me, I can’t hear them.  I took a screwdriver and poked my eardrums out.

Some of it’s good.  Some of it’s….meh.  I’d settle for a lot less, “Plus Ça change,” and a bit more of “la même chose”!  Alas, woe is me!    😉

Ego And Insecurity – Episode 1

Brigham Young is quoted as saying, “He who takes offence when none is offered, is a fool!”  He then added that, “He who takes offence when offence is offered, is also a fool.”  Too many fools wed ego and insecurity to teleology, and not only get upset when it’s not their ox that’s being gored, but blame the wrong thing, or a non-existent thing for the goring.

Negros can refer to each other as niggers, and it’s all in good fun.  Women can refer to each other as bitches, and they’re just joking.  Let a white man refer to a black man as a nigger, even in the same joking manner, and there’s Hell to pay.  If a mere man calls a woman a bitch, a Government Agency will quickly be involved.  Should a white man call a black woman a nigger bitch, he’d better not do it in Utah.  They still have firing squads.

A nephew used to refer to his Negro, high school, best friend as “Nigger.”  I cautioned him against it one day.  “That’s okay.  He knows I’m joking.”  Maybe, but others may not.  My son’s Grade 2 teacher had a bad habit of smacking students in the back of the head with a pen if they didn’t measure up.  It’s not the kind of action that should have been acceptable against anyone.

She’d smacked almost every kid in the room, with no retribution, till the day she smacked the only black kid in class.  The next day, she and the principal were visited by six high-level Black Panthers, including a high-voltage lawyer.  Cease and desist was the least of the threats.

A politician in New York, with a broad vocabulary, bemoaned a low grant for his pet project by calling it a niggardly amount.  It’s not even spelled the same, and it has no connection to Negros, but he was forced to issue an apology.  “I’m sorry you black folks are so busy learning Ebonics, that you don’t speak English.”

An Ontario bureaucrat, referring to some of the Aboriginal problems I mentioned in my Attawapiskat post, said that many of them were caused by do-gooder Whites, and was called a racist by both Indians and other whites.  The comment is not racist.  It’s an acknowledgement of a social/cultural situation.

Oprah Winfrey went into a boutique store in Switzerland and wanted to buy a $38,000 purse.  The clerk shooed her out, saying she couldn’t afford it, not knowing that Oprah could buy the entire country.  Immediately the accusations of racism rang out.  Bullshit!  Classism maybe.

Used to the more sophisticated, urbane European upper-crust, to the clerk, Oprah must have seemed like the typical sweatshirt-and-flip-flops-wearing, ugly-American, “looker.”  She could have been white, black or green.

In Montreal, a young couple who were culturally, but not religiously, Jewish, did not wish to sign a religious document and be married by a rabbi.  Instead, they went to City Hall for a secular ceremony.  The clerk who served them was a headscarf-wearing female.  Not only had they been married by a “religious” person, but one from a religion which debases females, and discriminates against Jews.

The Quebec Premier tried to have an act passed which would prevent anyone serving the public from overtly displaying any religious symbol – and the camel-shit hit the fan.  The loudest howls are from Muslims, claiming that this is racism, ignoring the fact that Muslims come from around the world, and from many different races.  It might be claimed that it is religious discrimination, except that it applies uniformly, to Sikhs, Jews and Christians, as well.

One apparent Muslim, (Abdullah Ahmad – you decide) sent a letter to the Toronto Sun, bitching about, “the ban on religious clothing or gear.”  Again, no such animal!  There is no ban on what you wear, only on what you may or may not do, while being paid by the Province, serving the secular public, when you wear it.

On a discussion page I recently read, a 25-year-old female said that she gets moody and short-tempered from time to time, and takes it out on her live-in boyfriend.  She got in a bad mood, and he sat and tried to talk it out with her for a half an hour, but she snapped at him again.  He rose, pointed a finger at her, told her she was a high-maintenance, drama queen, said he’d had enough, and slammed the door on the way out.  What should she do about it??!

I was amazed that, not only did every commenter, female and male, take her side, but nine out of ten females urged her to dump him for being abusive.  This is not abusive!  There is a legal axiom which states that the truth is the perfect defense.

She may be upset to hear that she is a high-maintenance drama-queen.  If you don’t want to hear it, don’t be it.  The problem may solve itself if he finds somewhere else to live, and only comes back for his stuff.  She wanted, “The right to her own feelings.”  She may get it – alone.

One of the young fellows at the auto plant had a succession of short-term girlfriends.  After five or six months, they each, “Just went crazy.”  I told him one day, after the seventh or eighth time I’d heard this sad song, that the common factor wasn’t the gals going crazy, it was him, but he was too busy bumping into trees, to see the forest.

I’d try handing out some of those Free Thinkers cards, but it wouldn’t work.  People like these always “believe” that it’s somebody else’s fault.

What Time Is It Now?

I waited the other night till after the son had left for work, shortly before 10:30 PM, to have a bath.  I like to soak, and I took three books with me, but also wanted to see the Tonight Show. (Didn’t matter!  It was a rerun.)  That gave me just an hour, and three books can be quite a distraction, so I did as I usually do.  I took my old Timex work watch with me and placed it where I could keep an eye on the time.

As the water cooled, and I ate into the second book, I glanced at the watch – 11:10.  Seemed like it should be later than that, so I craned my head around the shower-wall (Which is why I take the watch with me.), and the clock above the door read 11:20.  Time to wash up and get out – or is it??  “Honey, what time is it?”  “Almost quarter after; the bathroom clock runs a bit fast.”

I had feared that the old Timex was running slow because I haven’t put a new battery in it since well before I quit work, over three years ago.  I have two wrist watches, the 20-year-old Timex which only follows me for a bath now, and a gold Rolex-look-alike which I only wear when I go out.  I’ll probably not bother to put another battery in old Digital Dan when he croaks.  The son wears exactly the same model, and I offered it to him, but he declined.

I never wear a watch in the house because I have All The Time In The World.  As I said, we have a clock on the wall in the bathroom.  I could adjust it to run a little slower, but it nudges the wife to be ready just a little earlier when we have a doctor’s appointment to get to.

You can’t get away from clocks these days.  They’re everywhere, they’re everywhere!  In the computer room, there’s one in the computer, one in the microwave that the wife uses to heat bead-bags for her arthritis, and one on the wall.

There are two digital alarm-clocks in the bedroom, as well as the ones available in the TV, and through it, the satellite box.  The same set-up in the rec-room, plus the ones staring at you from the DVD player and the Blu-Ray.

With both a DVD and a Blu-ray, we’ve got rid of our old VHS.  At least if you couldn’t set the clock on a VHS, all it did was sit there and flash 12:00, 12:00, 12:00, but it worked.  In the kitchen we have a clock in the microwave, a clock in the stove and a clock in the toaster oven.  If the power goes out for any reason, we have to go around and reset all these clocks, or the appliances won’t function.

We also have a wall clock in the kitchen, and a desk clock in the living room.  It is said that a man with one watch knows exactly what time it is.  A man with two watches is never sure.  With the exception of the wife-nudger in the bathroom, I try to make sure that every clock in the house is at least at the same minute.

I had an online discussion with Jim Wheeler about the number of gadgets in our houses which steadily eat our electricity.  The bathroom clock, the kitchen wall-clock and the desk clock all tick, even though they run on batteries.  All of the rest of them, whether I want, or use, the clock function, quietly, continuously, just keep sucking up the power.  At least the new 12-volt toys use far less electricity than the old 120 V units, but there’s so many more of them.

The first electric clock we had in my family home, was a 120V, plug-in model.  We placed it on the wall at a spot where it could be easily seen, and went to plug in the cord, only to find the receptacle about five inches too far to the right.  Oh well, says Dad, and firmly pulled the cord.  It plugged in but, for years, that clock hung on a 10 degree slant.  It lasted for decades, but, not meant to be on a slant, after about ten years it developed a noticeable grind-y whine, yet kept perfect time.

Towns used to set their time by the sun, and residents knew what time it was, vaguely, by town hall or church bells.  The development of railroads, in Europe, but especially in North America, created a need for some agreement on “What Time Is It?” over hundreds, or thousands, of miles.  Several others had proposed limited plans, but a Scottish-born Canadian, Sir Sanford Fleming, oversaw the birth of both a trans-Canada railroad, and the 24-hour, world-encompassing Standard Time Zone system.

The continued rise of, and finer division of, technology, has produced more and finer divisions of time.  This is important for both individual machines and systems, and co-ordination between/among numerous, far-flung operations.  GPS knows where you are, because it knows “exactly” when.  It’s just that I sometimes feel that I’m drowning in TIME.

They’re almost impossible to find, but I wish I had a microwave that just microwaved, a stove that just cooked, and a toaster oven that just heated.  I feel almost threatened in my own home when I roam around in the dark, with those red and blue eyes staring accusingly at me from the dark.  I’m sure I could make do with the wind-up timer the wife uses in the laundry room.

Good grief, you old Luddite!  Get with the 21^st Century!  What next?  You’ll want a cell phone that only makes and takes telephone calls?  I’ll use the reminder app. on my camera phone to send you a picture of one.