facebook

Have you any idea how much time you are actually wasting looking at facebook?  Me neither.

So I scrolled down the homepage just for fun, counting the posts and noting the number of them that were actually personal in nature, you know, something someone wrote or family pictures and the like.

I stopped counting at sixty-eight (even I have only so much time to burn).  At sixty-eight, exactly seven of them were of the type I described in the previous paragraph.  The rest of them were memes or links to "The ten worst fails,"  or the "Twenty best---" (whatevers, you name them)

Barely ten percent of the items were anything I would remotely like to see.  And imagine how much more time is frittered away if one actually follows any of the links.

Like all technologies, it is not the thing in itself but the uses to which it is put.

Is There Any Hope?

Members of the media at the DNC in Charlotte outnumber the delegates three-to-one. (Milbank, WaPo 5 Sep 2012)

What does this mean?

News Flash

Just heard this on Valley Central News 4

The Mission/McAllen/Edinburg metroplex is the fattest city in the country.

Jaw dropping? Maybe, maybe not. Just look around. I believe they went on to say that 38% of the populace is overweight.

Well, they continued, there are a lot of good places to eat in the area!

Music in the 21st Century

"Oh, please shut that off." said Mrs. Warr. "He makes Johnny Cash sound like a melodic wonder."

Yes. She was right. Where do these people get off, placing their fingers across the frets, whacking the thing like a drum, atonally accompanying the noise with caterwaulering, and calling it "music"?

Joy to the World!

In the spirit of the season of "peace and goodwill," I won't be offended if you wish me "Happy Holidays!" Please don't be offended when I wish you a "Merry Christmas!" Thank you.

Addressing Responsibility

Bruce Wydick, Professor of Economics at San Francisco University wrote,

"Like most protests, the Occupy Wall Street folks are better at identifying something that is wrong than identifying a way forward that is right.

"The Occupy Wall Street movement shares more than it would like to admit with the Tea Party, its populist complement on the right. Rather than taking the approach of self-reflection and personal ownership of sin that Jesus imparts to his followers, each of these movements seeks to externalize blame onto a culpable Other. It is Immigrants or Muslims or Obamacare or Greedy Corporations or Corrupt Wall Street Financiers who are to blame for our problems. But obviously not … Us."

The article from which I extracted these quotes appeared here and it is a bit long, but well worth the time it takes to read it. Only serious-minded people need apply.

OWS Update

Chicago: Oers angry with Mayor Emanuel and city police for arresting demonstrators.¹
"I mean, all we were doing was breaking the law, ya know?"

Seattle: Protester carrying sign

"College loan repayment--
Indentured servitude."²

"I mean, you owe it to me, ya know?"

Uh, yeah. We know.
¹WGN-TV Chicago, 10/24/11
²Any left-of-center press recently, e.g., Huffington Post.

A Bridge Too Far

Your car is a rolling wifi hotspot!

Toyota: Internet while you drive!

Axiom One: You can't stop progress.
Axiom Two: You can't fix stupid.

Dozed off the Colts were leading 24-14. But they managed to wrest defeat from the beast of victory once again.

TV. You've Got To Be Kidding!

Thursday used to be a TV night, but with the advent of the new season, we find that every dramatic or comedic program now offered is written by male 13-year old seventh graders.

This actually drove me to HGTV which was offering a program called "Selling New York." Inside nine minutes, I was literally in hate with every person portrayed. Who are these twits? Nevermind. I don't give a crap.

Thank God for boardgames.

Be Happy

Being rich is life's greatest booby prize. --Jim Koch

(One wonders, though, if it might be easier for the rich to say such things.)

Memoirs

Everybody who thinks he is anybody writes a memoir, some even though they are not possibly old enough to have lived a sufficient time in which to accrue wisdom and/or knowledge in large enough store to provide material for a memoir. But on to my point.

Certain recent memoirists seem to believe that they can make themselves bigger by cutting their peers off at the knees.

Curses!

School starts today in the hometown. The state has decreed that "cursive writing" is no longer required to be taught in schools. I suppose that at some point in the past it was decreed that cuneiform would no longer be taught; and look where that got us.

One Nation, Indivisible

Remember when you were a kid you would roll a drop of mercury out onto the sidewalk, then hit it with a hammer?

. . . . . .

. ..

From O to . . . . . .

. . .

instantly. Some force has hit our nation with a hammer. Liberal progressivism? Progressive liberalism? Hardheadedness? Unwillingness or inability to be reasonable?

(I know what you are thinking. He played with mercury? Addled his brain, it did. Oh, yeah? We collected scrap lead, melted it down and made our own sinkers, too. Know how to make shot?)

Learning from TV

A possible problem with watching "House" is not that the characters aren't believable, but rather that people might get the idea that they represent the practice of medicine as it really is.

An even bigger problem is the chilling realization that that may be the case.

Energy Drinks

Your Monster^TM and your Rockstar^TM will do what for you? Make your thumbs faster for your egames?