I love this commercial.
October 2012
Orange.
There have been funny tweets floating around in my head all morning. Well, at least I found the tweets funny:
“I thought the Oompa Loompas were shorter.”
“I liked it better when the Oompa Loompas helped at the candy factory.”
“It was scarier when the Oompa Loompas showed that movie of the chicken during the boat ride.”
The Oompa Loompa I am referring to is, of course, Donald Trump.
Someone should tell Donald that as an autumn, he shouldn’t wear a winter color such as magenta on his lips. I am fully frightened that I even know what that means but not as frightened as I am by the image of a grown man looking like he should have Sunkist splayed across his forehead. I suspect a secret alliance with Anita Bryant.
Donald Trump has been crowing about some big October surprise that he was going spring onto the country at 12:00 ET today. This surprise was going to absolutely turn the direction of the election on its ear and today would mark the beginning of a new chapter of this election cycle that has already, quite frankly, dragged on way too long.
Internet reports are a little varied, but it is now after 12:00 ET and apparently Donald Trump is going to donate $5M to a charity of President Obama’s choice if the president shows his college papers. Loosely translated, it means, “you’re black and I can’t still get over it”, but that could just be my personal spin on the situation.
There was a rumor that Donald was going to reveal that President and Mrs. Obama had once considered divorce. Big friggin’ woo. I’m sure most couples have considered divorce once during a time of yelling and the like. Personally, I never have. Murder? Possibly. Divorce? Not an option. But anyways, big deal, they’re married today and quite frankly it’s not anyone’s damn business what goes on with their personal relationship.
I think someone needs to go back to rowing the boat down the scary river after laying off the magenta on the lips.
The truth of the matter is that there are two factors that can be squarely blamed for the absurdity of American politics today. First of all, reality television has trained the sheep that everything is now a mindless competition. Who can stuff the dead carcass fastest? Who can make the prettiest cupcake? Who can play ukelele through unfortunate gaseous incidents after a visit to Taco Bell? I’m surprised that the first Presidential debate didn’t involve eating bugs, jumping over an oak tree stump that’s floating down a fake river and then being dropped through a hole in the floor if the candidate’s response went over their time allotment. Why wasn’t Candy Crowley spinning a wheel of bonus rounds? The American populace has been trained to enjoy watching their brothers and sisters suffer. That’s what the sheep want. Screw Little Bo Peep. It’s not “who said the most intelligent things”, it’s “who beat the other one in the most demonstrative way possible.” I’d bet you that the debate viewing numbers would have skyrocketed if the sheep could have watched Obama get sprayed in the face with Rust-Oleum if he stumbled on too many words in a row or if there was a risk of fire around Romney whenever he smiled/grimaced in a creepy way. There’d even be prayer circles hoping for this sort of thing because it could be justified by Leviticus 76:5 part 3 paragraph B or whatever.
The second factor that contributes to this mess lies squarely with the internet. Fueled by reality shows and their ilk, people now think that because they can share their thoughts with the world via the tubes that carry information from one city to another, they’re relevant. Please. Most people, including me, are nothing. They just think they’re something because in school they received a trophy for remembering to breathe while chasing a ball in the wrong direction on a football field. What I write here is designed to do nothing but entertain myself. I rarely take myself seriously. But the fact of the matter is, I could write some pretty outlandish crap here, post a few links, throw up a few photos and then make myself look serious in a headshot and folks would take my writings as gospel. Throw up some ads, write a few sensationalist headlines and voila, rich man making money off the sheep. These are the same people that enjoy watching that Honey Boo Boo thing, give a damn about Snooki and get off watching Kirstie Alley swing herself around on a stage like she’s trying to close her own barn door. The internet has provided an unbridled vehicle of drek and self-importance and Donald Trump (the rich Oompa Loompa) is taking square advantage of it. People will lap it up. Cable news channels will repeat it over and over and over and then it will become a Big Thing™ when in fact it’s a Nothing™.
I’m hoping that nothing will come of this latest revelation from the one that clearly has way too much time on his hands. Let’s hope that my faith in the sheep will be restored in some small way.
In the meantime, stay away from the magenta.
Remember.
The radio edit of this track provides only a nibble of a beautiful electronic symphony. From 1996, here’s BT with “Remember”, from the album “ESCM”.
Obsolescence.
So today Apple announced a new version of their popular iPad, the iPad mini. As the “mini” name implies, this iPad is smaller in nature than the iPad that is near and dear to the consumer’s heart and is designed to compete with the Nexus 7, the Amazon Kindle Fire and the smattering of Windows 8 tablets coming out later this week.
During the announcement, Apple also announced the replacement of “the new iPad” (aka the iPad 3) with a bigger, better, bolder model. While the iPad 2 is still available on the Apple store, the new iPad (aka the iPad 3) has vanished without a trace and has moved to the halls of obscurity. Like those that carry the original iPad, those with the iPad 3, which was available for somewhere around six months this year, will get laughed at, mocked and sneered at by the Apple Elite.
Somewhere a man is already in line for the latest gadgets that don’t come out for a week or two. That’s what Apple people do.
I have to admit that the forced obsolescence of my new iPad kind of has me ticked off. It’s bad enough that my iPhone 4 has been deemed too slow to give me turn-by-turn navigation through that crappy iOS maps app that Apple sprung on everyone (even though several other apps can handle the task just fine) and that my iPhone 4 has been deemed too slow for Siri to tell me she can’t figure out what I mean, but it’s almost a given that in the fairly near future the new iPad will be deemed too slow to do things such as fling birds at pigs and play YouTube videos. This is how Apple operates now; they don’t even wait a year between product releases. We must move move move move move those old devices into landfills as quickly as possible so we can get the latest and greatest innovations such as Siri’s convenient response of “I’m sorry, but I can’t give you flight information.”
By the way, download the Google Search app and ask for flight information and you’ll get it, on an iPhone 4.
Not having the latest and greatest doesn’t hurt my ego in any way. I think my irkedness (is that a word?) is fueled by the fact that both Aperture and iPhoto were randomly crashing this morning while I was trying to export my photo library on my Mac Mini. What happened to, “It just works”? That motto applies less and less these days and that bothers me. Why pay a premium price for the same old subpar experience I could get from a crappy computer from Wal*mart (Always White Trash, Always)?
I could kind of see this forced obsolescence if Apple was announcing new features with these new devices, but they do the same old thing as the old devices but with just a better display and a new connector that is in no way compatible with any other iDevice we have in the house, unless we buy a special cable for $30.
Since I will eventually have to replace my iPhone 4 that can now barely hold a charge between meals and I’ll be forced to use all new accessories anyways, I’m seriously considering jumping out of the Walls of the Fruit Garden™ and into something else. I find Google Now to be a pretty nifty thing and it will segue beautifully into the upcoming Project Glass from Google.
Now that is innovation.
Sleep.
It’s probably not a good sign when you wake up on a Monday morning and look forward to going to bed on Monday night. When that’s the highlight of waking up, there’s something amiss. It’s not like I don’t have things to do or that I’m unhappy or anything like that. Quite the contrary; there’s plenty on my plate and I’m a very happy guy.
I just need a little more sleep. The transition from weekend to weekdays can sometimes be a tough one.
Waiting.
So today I’m sitting in the Jeep and enjoying the sun for my lunch hour. Yesterday I treated myself to an unsweetened iced tea from the Dunkin’ Donuts near home but today I have opted to not do such a thing. Bottled water is the beverage of necessity this lunch hour.
You can see in the picture above that I’m smiling. Observant people will also notice that I am wearing my Ubuntu shirt at work today. I love the feel of this shirt and it fits me well. I opted to wear my Ubuntu shirt today because at any moment, the latest version of Ubuntu, 12.10 or “Quantal Quetzal” will be released to the masses. For those unfamiliar with Ubuntu, it is a Linux distro, or a version of Linux. It’s actually one of the easiest distros to install and it gives the user all sorts of functionality at no cost. Web browsing, email, office applications, chat… all of it is free of cost. Heck, even the operating system can be downloaded at no-charge.
I have been wanting to switch back to Linux full-time for a while now. Some will roll their eyes and say “I thought you loved Apple!”, but over the past year or so, the things that are suppose to “just work” have required a lot more tinkering and futzing than something that “just works” should and I can’t really justify the extra cost of getting something that “just works” when it doesn’t. I’m tired of spending money on new version of software and the latest and greatest app. The thing that bothered me the most was that a monitor that was purchased in early 2012 was not compatible with a MacBook Pro that was purchased in 2010, even though the connectors look the same. The monitor plugs in, but there’s something in the magic tube there that doesn’t let the monitor work with that incarnation of MacBook Pro. That’s when I said, “enough is enough”.
I’m using quote marks a lot in this blog entry.
So I have opted to go back to Linux full-time and become a Linux crusader again. This makes me happy. And that is one of the reasons as to why I’m smiling today.
Planet Fitness.
So last night Earl and I joined the gym again. We are now card carrying members at Planet Fitness. A 24 hour, seven day a week gym is the only way to go. Can’t sleep? Go run on the treadmill. Need to relieve stress? Go run on the treadmill. Reality television blaring on the tube in the living room? Go run on the treadmill.
I was a little hesitant to join Planet Fitness again because we had a little bit of a falling out when their accounting system couldn’t handle two men sharing a checking account (only one membership would debit the account properly, the other one just accumulated late charges) and there was some yelling involved to get it all settled. I thought we might be banned for life. So I took the safe approach and signed up online where the website looked particularly flashy but not very technically savvy, figuring I could get my membership in without setting off the alarms. I was right! There was no one from the Planet Fitness security force ready to escort us out when we picked up our membership cards last night.
While I prefer to workout at the very least at home or better yet, riding my bike along over creation, the weather is getting to where it’s not going to be practical for much longer. So we need the gym to fill in for the snow-laden months, plus I can work on building up some muscle once I reach milestone 4. (I reached milestone #3 today and I’m quite happy).
Last night Earl and I walked side-by-side on treadmills and it was quite enjoyable. I am looking forward to heading back there again tonight.
Sensible Eating.
I found this article on Lifehacker to be quite interesting. I thought I would share with the class.
Monday Soul.
When we were growing up in the mobile home, Mom often watched “Soul Train” on the black and white television in the “dining room” (the original living room before the addition to the trailer) after we were done with the Saturday morning cartoons (and Shazam/Isis and ElectraWoman and DynaGirl). From an early episode of “Soul Train”, from 1972 here’s “I’ll Be Around” by The Spinners. It is still a very awesome track. You can hear samples of “I’ll Be Around” on Michael Moog’s “That Sound”, which was released in 2001.
Cozy.
So yesterday after Earl and I returned from our getaway weekend, the weather turned very warm. We woke up to nearly freezing temperatures, by 3:00 p.m. it was almost 70. It turned out to be a perfect day to get a bike ride in. I ended up riding just shy of 25 miles in about two hours.
I opted to take the “really hilly route”, as I like to think of it. It’d been a while since I’d ridden up a few of the hills I found along my route but it was a good workout for the arms and legs and I felt a good sense of accomplishment after the climbs.
When I go for a bike ride I tend to ride north and/or west, especially at this time of year. Riding up into the small villages of Holland Patent, Barneveld and Remsen seems like a natural for autumn; the leaves are gorgeous as they change to brilliant colors. The scent of fireplaces and wood stoves fill the air and there’s just a feeling of coziness as I ride by the historic, rural houses. It’s the same feeling I had when we lived in our first house together. That house was built in 1854 and had the fireplaces and the type of kitchen that just begged to be filled with the smells of baking cookies. It’s probably odd that one would feel cozy on a long-distance bike ride, but that’s exactly how I felt yesterday.
Yet another reason that this really is my favorite time of year.
