Things the Teenage Me Would Never Have Believed About the Future, #2

One of the most widely-played computer games is a farming simulation.

My Newspaper Revelation

I just remembered that there was an article I wanted to read in the newspaper.  But the newspaper is way over there on the table.  So I went to the paper's web site and read the article from here on the laptop.  What does this mean?

• I'm Lazy.  The paper is just on the other side of the room
• I'm techno-savy.  I'm not attached to the medium itself; It's all just information and it doesn't matter where it comes from.
• I'm a Luddite.  Why do I still have a subscription to a paper newspaper?
• I'm cheap.  Reading on a laptop?  Buy a tablet already.

Chalk Outline

Today, walking through the square in front of city hall, I found something written in chalk on the ground.  In rather neat printing, it said, "International Day Against Police Brutality."  I didn't hear about it, but apparently that was possibly today, or some day since the last time it rained. 

You could argue that was defacement of public property - though it's not permanent, it could be there a while (okay, I looked it up and it was nearly a week ago.)  But I thought it lacked creativity.  I would have written, "International Day Against Police Brutalit" followed by a big smear of shattered chalk.

March is Mostly Over and I'm Still Not Mad

Somehow the NCAA "March Madness" basketball tournament never seems to capture my attention.  I've never followed American college sports.  But still, somehow I manage to care about football's bowl season.  That's strange: arguably the teams in the lesser bowls are more pathetic than the worst basketball seeds.  But for some reason I can bring myself to care about Wheatman State University and their 6 and 6 record for three hours, and to actually feel like it matters whether or not they win the Speed Stick Canola Bowl.  And yet, I can't summon any enthusiasm for Soapstone College for two hours while they try to win the Midwestern 5 vs. 12 game.

In the past week, I have made an effort to watch some of the wall-to-wall basketball coverage.  Some upsets and close games made for entertaining viewing, but I still don't feel like putting in the effort to keep up with it.  This year, I couldn't even be bothered to look up Gonzaga on Wikipedia to remind myself where it is.

I guess one reason is the play-down, knock-out, everyone-loses-but-the-champs format.  Wheatman State may only have clinched a winning record, and the adulation of a half-full stadium of fans, but their reward is to feel like camps for a night.  Even if it was for beating-up on a mediocre team that merely had one more weakness than them.  But in the early March Madness rounds, teams are just playing for the honour of going one more round before being pummelled by a top seed, and their only reward is polite applause from fans who are only there because they couldn't get tickets for the Duke game tomorrow.

It doesn't help that the TV coverage bounces from one game to another every few minutes.  You start a relationship with a couple of teams, find a flimsy reason to favour one over the other, and then you're whisked off to another game.  But if these game fragments are going to dominate sports programming for the rest of the month, then maybe I'll make another effort to... Oooh, Women's curling!

Apparently, It's Not Easy Being Green

Walking around town today, I was surprised just how many people made an effort to wear green.  I didn't personally.  No, not as some sort of statement, but because if you're not Irish, nor do you drink, St. Patrick's Day doesn't impact on your life that much. 

Most of these people were making a special effort to wear green, since they were clearly straining the capabilities or their wardrobes to fit in.  I'm not sure why - the bars will serve you no matter what colour you're wearing.  Besides, the Irish flag has two more colours in it.  Why not wear orange and white and then act all superior?

Here are some clumsy efforts at St. Patty's wear, all of which I saw today:

• Teal
• Day-glo yellowy-green that seemed to be left over from 1990.
• A store that moved the only green items of clothing to the front window, which turned out to be cheap bathrobes.
• A green shirt which, upon closer inspection, turned out to be a Brazil shirt.

On that last note, bonus marks to the guy who was inexplicably wearing a Laos T-shirt.  Though he appeared to be both South-East Asian and rather confused, so I'm assuming that wasn't an ironic statement.  Speaking of which, imagine how bizarre this must seem to a new immigrant who sets up a restaurant based on their culture.  One Saturday, no one comes in, and you can't explain why.

Anyway, I was going to post a big rant about the phrase "luck of the Irish,"  since they don't seem to be particularly lucky people, so I'd just as soon have the luck of the Belgians, say.  But Mental_Floss has managed to explain how the phrase really came to be. 

Why I Have Five Times as Much Pasta Sauce as Spaghetti

For a start, I shop without a list, and usually without even looking around to see what I need.  I don't even use the other popular method: call someone at home and ask what to buy.

I've never had a problem with quickly-used products like bread.  But those intermittently-bought items are a problem.  I've noticed a cycle I go through:

1. In the grocery store, I see Item X, and can't remember whether I need it.
2. Reasoning that since Item X takes a long time to go bad, I decide to buy it anyway.
3. I get home and realise that I already had some of Item X, but figure that I'm better safe than sorry
4. This happens several times, until I have a comically large supply of Item X.
5. Now when I see Item X in the store, I don't buy it, thinking of the bursting cupboard full of Item X at home.
6. Again, this happens several times, and I get out of the habit of buying Item X.
7. I slowly use my supply of Item X, until I run out.  
8. In the grocery store, I see Item X, remember that I've run out, so I buy it.
9. Go to step #1

Spaghetti is the big weakness in all this, since both pasta and its sauce go through these cycles, and somehow, they're never in sync with each other.

Conform to My Stereotypes, Dammit!

Today I saw a guy driving one of those new electric mopeds, while smoking.  Which seemed odd.  Oh, I should explain, yes it was a cigarette.  Pot on an electric scooter I could see.  But tobacco, that's weird on so many levels.

• He's polluting more than the bike is.
• He's concerned about the well-being of the planet, but not himself or those around him.
• The bike had a warning buzzer so pedestrians could hear the otherwise silent vehicle coming.  So he is concerned about the safety of people around him, but only in front of him.

If he was on a Harley, say, then having a cigarette hanging off his lips would look a little more fitting.  And yes, I can see it's far safer to smoke on something electric than a gasoline-powered vehicle.  Which brings up the next paradox: he was wearing a helmet.  These things are legally bicycles, so he doesn't even have to be wearing it.  If he's smoking to look cool, he could do a lot more by dropping the helmet.  If he's wearing the helmet for safety, he could do a lot more by quitting smoking.

Corded Phones

I always wondered why the cell phones in stores are tethered down. It's not like they're actual phones - they're just worthless plastic mockups. And yet, someone does want to steal them, since you so often see them missing.

I figured it out today. I arrived at the elevator just as another person did. It was one of those awkward situations where I would have said hello, but the other person never did anything that could be construed as eye contact. So we're standing there waiting for the elevator in silence; I'm feeling stupid.

But not her - she pulls out her phone and begins... I don't know, doing something with it. It was right then that I would have given anything for a small flat piece of plastic to fiddle with, just as an excuse not to stand there doing nothing. Certainly the desire to avoid such social trauma in the future would easily give me the strength to snap that little spring-loaded cord.

Things the Teenage Me Would Never Have Believed About the Future

The product with the strangest ads on TV: Old Spice.

Here She Comes Now Sayin' Kony Kony

Likely by the time you read this, someone will have produced a spoof song with same the title as this post.  I'm actually surprised no one has done that yet, given the speed with which Konymania is sweeping the net.  But when I Googled "Kony Kony," no such Jankovician satires were found.

(I just made up that word.  Would "WeirdAlian" Sound better?)

If, however, you have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, Joseph Kony is a Ugandan warlord with a messiah complex and an army made up of abducted children, and Kony 2012 is a video condemning his actions.  Social media and celebrity endorsements have made the video and awareness of its issue spread fast.

Oh, and full disclosure:  I haven't seen the video.  All my information comes from reliable sources like Wikipedia and the mainstream media.

On the one hand, the issue is painfully predictable: There's a wave of awareness and righteous anger, followed by a wave of backlash.  No one in direct defence of Kony yet, but lots of you-haven't-heard-both-sides.  Yes, that's how stagnant public debate has become in our society: even in the case of a maniac enslaving children, a large enough group of contrarians will rise up to defend you, and nothing will get decided.  Society is just one big U.S. Congress.

But on the other hand, the issue is really odd in the way it's spreading.  I'm not hearing about it from my politically aware friends.  I'm not hearing about it from media outlets that I usually get world political information from.  Instead, it's mostly coming from friends that aren't politically active.  It's been endorsed by celebrities that aren't usually the activist types, and it's spreading by media that isn't usually the source of earth-shattering political discussion (meaning, Facebook.)

I'm left with a weird kind of mixed feelings.  I'm glad people are concerned about a major injustice, and that more people are caring about the state of our world.  But at the same time, um, what took you so long?  More to the point, didn't you know that there are monsters like this in the world?  See, I always assumed the reason everyone was so complacent about the world's injustice was because we just couldn't get passionate about the fate of people on the other side of the planet.  But apparently it was just because you hadn't heard about any of it.  What about Kim Jong Il?  He just died, you had to have seen it, it was on every channel.  Right next to Uganda is Rwanda.  Plenty of guilty people to bring to justice there.  How about Bashar Assad in Syria?  You don't have to wait for someone to pass you the link to the video, you just have to turn on the news.

So there you go: lots of terrible things in the world you can dedicate yourself to.  And if you used to be uninvolved because you were uninformed, now I've probably made you uninvolved because you're overwhelmed and burned out.  Sorry about that.  And welcome to my world.  And sorry to all of you who found this article because you were looking for the "Kony Kony" song and video, hope it's funny.

Limboot

Limboot - the seemingly infinite amount of time it takes your computer to reboot after crashing or freezing in a completely unprecedented manor.

Katy Perry doesn't get Demographics

Katy Perry's song, "The One That Got Away" the latest song I keep hearing in public whether I like it or not.  Fortunately, it's not quite catchy enough to stick in my head.  But unfortunately, one annoying and puzzling line is stuck in my head.  That line is, "We make out in your Mustang to Radiohead."  You might think I'd be questioning whether Katy Perry (or whoever wrote the song) knows who Radiohead is.  But no, I find that musicians often have surprising musical tastes, I can buy that.  If anything, the only surprising part is that Perry (or whoever runs her career) assumes that her fans know who Radiohead is.

What I'm really wondering is: has anyone ever made out in a Mustang to Radiohead?  That seems to be a rather rare intersection of cultures.  I'm about as close as anyone is going to be: fan of Radiohead, car guy who would choose the Mustang over the Camaro.  But I don't actually own a Mustang, nor have I made out in any car to Radiohead.  And as you've perhaps sensed, being a person strange enough to mix the "Mustang" and "Radiohead" aspects of the scene means that the "make out" part becomes significantly less likely.

But the second mystery is: whether it's in a Mustang, or another car, or anywhere else, what Radiohead song would people make out to?  Sure, "Paranoid Android" is long enough to have an entire relationship.  Or maybe "Fake Plastic Trees," as long as you don't listen to the lyrics.  So now the cultural coincidence is: Mustang fan, Radiohead fan, and turned on by unstructured expressions of ennui.  There can't be many people like that, but they are out there, and they're probably going to find this page when Googling their odd obsessions.  Hi guys!

Unsolicited Parenting Advice from the Childless

Today I found myself trapped in a waiting room with a screaming baby.  Well, I mean, its parents were there too, along with other waiting people suffering along with me.  It was another of those moments when you could see the parents trying hard not to give in to a big tantrum.  Not ignoring the kid totally, but intent on giving her no more attention than they would if she were perfectly well-behaved.

But as time went on, and the pitch of the screaming increased, it started to get harder and harder not to just buy the kid ice cream or whatever would stop it.  And that's the weakness of the don't-give-in strategy: once you've committed to it, you have to keep it up no matter what the kid does.  If you fold once your child reaches 120 decibels and F# above high C, you've trained her to take it to that level every time she wants your attention.

So here's how you do it:  Instead of just not giving in when they make an annoying noise, do the flip side too; when your child makes a relatively nice noise, slip them the candy/toys/whatever that they want.  Your child cries in an abnormally low-pitched way?  Reward them!  By the power of Pavlov, you'll have the least annoying child in the neighbourhood.

A Very Meta License Plate

In school, whenever we were given some sort of wide-open creative writing assignment, like writing a poem on a topic of our choice, I'd usually get past the writer's block by writing about writing the assignment. You know, write a poem called, The Blank Page or something.  I'm sure there's several students like that in every class, since it's such a convenient ploy:  I'd like to think that Charlie Kaufman's Oscar nomination for Adaptation represented all of us.

This all comes to mind because today I saw a personalised license plate that read, "VANITPL8" (geddit? "vanity plate?") Once again reminded me how tempting it is to fill a creative void with a mind-bending self-reference.  Of course, I used the technique to get out of writing assignments imposed on me;  I think if it was an assignment that I had chosen to spend $250 for the privilege of doing, I could conjure up something a little more original.

Final Thoughts on Angelina's Leg

The buzz over Angelina Jolie's leg-revealing dress from the Oscars has thankfully died down.  This helps me answer a question first raised when the public took note of Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino's abs:  If we each get 15 minutes of fame, how much should an individual body part get?  Thankfully, significantly less.

The question that's still unanswered is: why?  No, I don't mean the grand, soul-searching "why?" that I ask myself every time I deal with popular culture.  I mean, even accepting for a moment that the human race has bizarrely distorted priorities, I can't figure this out.

I had the same question a few years ago after Madonna and Britney's infamous kiss at the MTV awards.  Yes, there are lots of people who want to see that sort of thing.  But if you want to see women kissing (among other activities) it's also easy to find.  Even if it was specifically Madonna and Britney Spears that you wanted to see kissing (among other activities) there's probably a Photoshopped image of it out there somewhere.

Similarly, I can understand why many people would want to see a beautiful woman's leg, but it's simply not that hard to see in our society.  I just Googled "Angelina Jolie," and verified that yes, among the images you'll be shown, there will be pictures revealing one or more bare legs.  (The things I do for this blog!  No, seriously:  I mistakenly Googled it after I had logged in to Google to write this post.  Thanks to Google's new everything-is-shared security policy, they know who I am, and now think I have a celebrity leg fetish.)

My guess is that it's all part of the fragmentation of society.  With so little in common across society, the touchstones that form the bulk of water-cooler conversation and late-night monologues become rarer and more basic.  A few more decades and all we'll be able to talk about are colours:  "Did you see that?  She was wearing a red dress!"