Manic Oppressive

… was amusing today. The WTF in general was kind of a catcher, even for the non tech-types among us. And some of the dialog that follows is hysterical, (what is the plural of “mice”?) so I figured I’d share it with y’all.

Heh. “y’all”. Minons.

There was an article in 1987 articulating The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race

This building I live in… It has 12 residential units, 2 retail units, and a floor of office space. There’s a (small) parking garage, maybe 20 spaces, and a recycling dumpster and a garbage dumpster. The garbage gets emptied weekly, and the recycling bin gets emptied…. well, who knows. Monthly I think, which should be sufficient for us.

But the problem is that people tend to overfill it almost as soon as it gets emptied. Today, as I staggered home from work, I saw that someone had tossed several cubic yards of shipping styrofoam and filled the recycling bin and filled the dumpster. Think: Big Screen T.V., entertainment center, and a shipping fulfillment center.

So now the rest of us will have to “hold it” until at least the garbage bin gets relieved, which will be a few days. I think this is pretty irritating to start with.

But I think that it’s indicative of a larger problem. People speak of the environment, and how we need to “keep it clean” and blah blah blah. But the enviornment is a much bigger thing then trees and ozone holes and Greenpeace. It starts on a macro level, and if people don’t have the respect of others, or respect for where they live, then all of a sudden the scale changes slightly.

Now I clearly see what Walt Kelly was talking about…

I was waiting in line at the market, and I noticed a magazine that had a headline on the cover, “The things in your fridge… are they safe to eat?” Because the lady in front of me was buying one of everything that the store had, and would have in the near future, I was tempted to read the article.

But today, cleaning out my fridge, I realized that I didn’t need the magazine to guide me on my journey. The answers are: No, No, Probably Not, No, Nope, and “I didn’t know mold could grow on plastic.”

It’s because I’ve been out of town so much recently, I think. I haven’t had time to give my apartment the normal love that it requires.

It was once suggested to me that the cure for cancer will be grown on sour cream in some bachelor’s apartment. I don’t think so… I think that if whatever is growing there will cure your ailment, then you have bigger problems then the ailment itself.

Overheard in the lobby of my apartment:

“If you ‘couldn’t miss me more’ then you could only miss me exactly the same”.

I assume he was speaking of “miss” in the romantic sense, not in the hand-grenades sense. But what do I know, I was just passing through.

This week I sent a message to a friend. “Happy Birthday,” I said.

“It’s really belated, but I forgive you” she replied. At which point I kind of freaked out, because I have a devil of a time with birthdays anyway,

“Is it not on the 13th?” I desprately asked.

“Yes, it is on the 13th. But today is the 14th…”

So it goes back to my inability to read a calendar. Once I showed up at an airport (LAX), and was surprised that I couldn’t get a ticket from the self-service kiosk. I talked to the lady behind the calendar, who said, “The flight was on Saturday…”

“I know.”

“Today’s Sunday…”

She, too, forgave me, and I was able to go home. But this seems like it could be a pretty serious condition for Yours Truley. One of these days someone won’t forgive me.

So Seattle has a radio station that even the most critical listeners will enjoy. It’s one of those “open” stations that play whatever the DJ wants instead of the random over-used playlists that the other stations play. Anyway, if you’re jaded with respect to commercial stations, check out KEXP. They can stream to you.

Oh, and they have a membership drive going on right now, so if you have some money that you would be willing to cough up so that you can listen to cool music…

I just got back from my “real” trip to Denver. Family. Food. Fun. Maybe in that order.

And then, on the return leg, I was misguided about when my flight was supposed to leave. The flight was at 6:00, so for some reason I thought that meant boarding at 6:00, so I got to the air port a little after 5:00. And since the self-checkin stations don’t work 45 minutes before the flight was leaving, (and the crazy lines to check in with a person) I was pretty screwed.

And then this guy cut in front of me to talk to the ticket lady, and he had the same problem. He was checking bags, though… Anyway, I got checked in around 5:30, and ran hero-style to the gate. I passed the idiot that cut in front of me in security. Heck, that 45 minute wait was reduced to rubble by me yelling “my plane’s boarding!” I got to the gate at 5:40, right as the boarding started.

Then there was a merry little flight, full of bumps and such as the pilots flew around a storm, and blah blah blah. Then we landed, and I grabbed my stuff and I could barely walk. I was freaked out, thinking I had torn an ACL or something stupid like that with by 20-pound backpack*, so I opted out of taking the bus home, and went for a cab instead. But there weren’t any cabs, and there was quite a line for a cab, so I took a limo instead, because even with tip they’re about the same price (!). The entire ride home I was thinking about what I said about the medical place in my building…

And now my knee feels ok, although I certainly won’t be running anywhere tomorrow. I don’t know what happened… Probably the aliens again or something

* 17.5 pounds when I flew out, and I came back with more stuff.

I don’t know a whole lot about history, and this attribute recently became kind of visible. So I purchased The Queen’s Slave Trader, which I am reading now. I don’t think I could’ve done it a year ago, due to my sensitive skin regarding non-fiction.

But after the Decameron, it seems like just another story.

But it suddenly hit me that a lot of the letters that he uses as a reference aren’t being produced as much; email is or already has replaced letters for a lot of correspondence, which makes me wonder what the historians of the future* will use.

My “new” apartment is in a building that was constructed during the summer of last year. I think that now all of the residential units are filled, but there are still a few commercial units that are empty, and have imposing “For Lease” signs on them.

Once, not too long ago, the corner unit lost it’s For Lease sign. “Swell,” I thought. “It will be a coffee shop with soft music, or a corner grocery” (Because the closest grocery is two blocks away and I’m getting lazy).

But, no; it turns out that it’s a medical supply store, and they recently filled their window fronts with wheelchairs. Which is mildly disappointing, I guess. But I can still wish for the other commercial units, right? Right?