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Random Babbling

It has been a little too long since I actually made a contribution to this little project. Of course, I am simply full of excuses. Such as the fact that today is the first day off I have had in ten days. And that I have just started a new job and most of my brain power has been dedicated to trying to keep myself from doing it too poorly.

Yeah, like you care. You just crave some hot Max action. Well here it is.

It did strike me this week just how different the world has become since the early 90's. It used to be if I wanted to by movie or concert tickets, I had to go to the venue, or at least some authorized outlet, in order to get them. Now, in the past week, I have bought tickets for both a Rush concert and the upcoming Star Wars flick online. I didn't even have to leave my house. Well, I guess I'll have to leave my house when it comes time to go to the show. But until then, I can be a total couch potato. Or in the case of this computer, a plastic chair bought at the Salvation Army potato.

Well I still think it is pretty damn neat.

I have been striving to have a bit of a life outside of work. I have been reading a book called Math Smart, which is sort of a Algebra, Geometry and Trig book for Dummies kind of deal. I have always been interested in Math. But I have also always sucked at it. I'm usually good about remembering formulas. But when I am working through problems, my mis-wired brain insists on giving me answers like 7*7=14, or 2-(-2)=0. Stupid things like that were what required me to take College Algebra 3 times before I got a decent grade.

It has been going okay. I am still making some of the same stupid mistakes. But without the pressure of worrying about making a grade, I can take it a little slower and try to be careful.

Outside of that, though, it seems like it my life has pretty much been work. I even see my wife more at work (she works there too) than I do at home.

That is about all the hot Max action I can managed right now. I will try to come by here a little more often though. After all, where else can I bitch without being interrupted by my wife.

Just kidding. My wife is even interrupting me here. Gotta go.

Post-Thirty

   I don't want to ge old.

   And don't tell me that no one else wants to, either, because it's just wrong! As I grew up I met plenty of people who wanted to look older, act older, be older. Not me! I have never wanted to be my age, much less act it!

   What's brought this on? A few things. I have already been suffering from PTTD (Post-Thirty Traumatic Disorder), my thirtieth birthday hit me pretty hard. Recently I've noticed my hair is really starting to leave in droves. Well, that's the hair on my head - the hair in my ears and nose is starting to fight back. I nearly lost a finger tip and my favorite pair of tweezers the other day!

   Speaking of hair, the first bits of grey have appeared in my beard. This sucks, but my beard is already multicolored, a little grey might be pretty! Nope - I can't believe I wrote that either ...

   I've always hated doing things I'm forced to do. I've always swam upstream. Being told that I'm going to get old and die and there is nothing I can do about it didn't make me sad, it made me angry. Now, at thirty, that anger has turned to frustration and regret.

   I'm also worried. I don't want to fade away - I don't want to burn out, either. I want to be bright enough to read by for many years to come - almost litterally. Fading away sounds like tapering off, doing less, making less of a dent in the world. Burning out sounds like a furious time of lots of noise and light and then *pop!* - gone ... I don't want either of those. I want to linger. I want to always be there. I think there were times in my life that I wanted to burn out, go out in a blaze of glory, but not anymore. I just want to be a pillar, a mountain, always there, eternal.

   You can't take a pill for this. There is no treatment. I will simply need to keep working at this, for the rest of my life.

Posted by: Jericho - 5/8/02 - 5:34 pm -

Stupid is as stupid does.

   Why must the world be populated by Stupids?

   I realize that this isn't the most scholarly way to start an entry - but it just seemed like this week kept showing new Stupids to me. The two illustrations of Stupids at work below are not related, which simply indicates that they are everywhere.

   Let's start with a moment out of my week. I am always looking for new ways to improve and expose IWDC. We've had a lot of luck with seach engines - okay, make that singular: Google. Google is putting out the word on the street that IWDC is here to party! So, I have tried to get us listed on other engines as well. Ever heard of Ask Jeeves? I checked out their site. They have an interesting idea. They want people to subscribe to their site - pay to have themselves listed in the Ask Jeeves search engine.

   In these tight times for the internet, this almost seems like a good idea. However, as a small, tiny, nearly insignificant part of the internet, there is no way IWDC can pay to be listed on a search engine. Further, why would we pay? Google is doing it for free. Besides, why should I pay so that they can make money off listing my site? I'm missing the logic there.

   Per usual, this just goes downhill from here. I spied another link for adding Ask Jeeves to the site. Great! I thought. We had a search engine window when we first started, about a week later Netscape cancelled the service. I like the idea of bringing tools to our readers. So, I have a look, they have terms and conditions like you would expect, but the first condition went as follows: ...site does not contain violent, abusive, misleading, bigoted, hate-oriented, tobacco-related or adult content.

   So, in other words, horrible places like CNN.com couldn't list Ask Jeeves on their site and neither can IWDC. Why? Do you remember my little diatribe on tobacco? Well, that would be tobacco related - now wouldn't it? Having read this and feeling pissy, I asked Jeeves "What do you mean by 'tobacco related' content?" I know this was a dumb thing to do, but I was frustrated. However, a dumb thing that brings results was not a dumb thing. To my shock, I got back several hits from Jeeves, not only on "The Tobacco Issue" but on the history of tobacco, who uses tobacco and product reviews of cigars. So, turns out that Ask Jeeves doesn't really have a problem with tobacco content after-all. They just have a problem with others talking about it. Are they afraid I won't have their sense of tact - considering they list product reviews for cigars right under "baby products", "car seats", "child monitors" and "children's toys"? Oy!

   This next bit is yet more of the same from our country's lagging and sagging educational institutions. Read this article from CNN. Folks, in my day, a few arrows in the heads of teachers was nothing. I remember a vivid image of the rock band KISS drawn by a fellow third grader. If I remember correctly, Paul Stanly was dancing on the body of one teacher as Gene Simmons was ripping another apart with his bare hands, all the while, the band played on!

   The point here is that there is no death threat involved. Getting KISS to kill our teachers was a pretty remote possibility. If they had a video tape of this 11 year old girl (!) shooting arrows at pictures of teachers, that would be different. But if these teachers can't tell the difference between Osama and Becca, why are they teaching? Max has a great CD in his collection - one of the songs is titled "If you're scared - stay home!" This applies here. Not every kid is bound to go Columbine - but if you treat every kid this way and turn their minor frustrations into national news - they are at least bound to do more drawings!

Posted by: Jericho - 5/5/02 - 10:34 pm -

© 2002 by the Gentlemen known as Max and Jericho