A couple of weeks ago, the landscaping wonks for my work building ripped out all the hedges in the parking-lot divider islands and heavily mulched the ground. They didn’t put anything new in until the middle of last week, when I noticed a slew of newly-planted birds of paradise on the exit side as we were driving out on Thursday night. This morning, the islands on the entrance side were stocked with nursery pots awaiting transplant. I’m wondering if I should start being even more suspicious of the lawyers in the building, or if I should wait to see if the thermostat starts creeping up…..
Category: Life
Different definitions
The ingredients list for what my calendar calls SPICY GUACAMOLE DIP:
1/2 c mayonnaise
1 lg avocado, peeled and mashed
1 tomato, chopped
1/4 c minced onion
1/4 c green chiles, drained and chopped
1 T lemon juice
1/2 t salt
This reminds me of the Gallery of Regrettable Food recipe for Hot ‘n’ Spicy Tex-Mex Chicken, which involves removing an atom of chili powder from its lead casing and waving it carefully over the casserole. Then I recall with thank-God-it’s-over nostalgia the time I asked our waiter how spicy the dressing on the spinach salad with rare ahi tuna was, received the answer “just a little spicy,” and subsequently spent half an hour attempting to extinguish my taste buds. (This was made worse by the fact that I was on Weight Watchers pretty hardcore at the time and couldn’t make myself eat bread to get rid of the burn.) I guess there must be people who think Ortega canned chiles are spicy, but I’ve never met any. Still, it’s oddly comforting knowing somebody out there has a more tender tongue. Maybe I’m not such a hopeless white girl after all.
Wolf Cry
More “You sent a virus!” garbage going around. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t even look at most delivery failure notices, which means I could easily miss errors about mail I really did send.
I got ticked off enough this time that I wrote back to the return address on the warning, matching the tone and structure of their message as closely as possible:
An invalid virus notice was found in an Email message you sent. Your Email scanner recognized a virus as W32/MyDoom-O but did not take into account the fact that this virus always uses a fake sender address.
Please update your virus scanner or contact your IT support personnel as soon as possible as you are sending bogus virus warnings to third parties whose systems are not infected with the virus. This runs the risk of causing unnecessary concern among the less tech-savvy (and extra calls to tech support about the nonexistant virus they fear they have). I would recommend reading up on the phrase “crying wolf” as well.
Pining for the Fnords
I’m about halfway through The Illuminatus! Trilogy, and the most apt description is, if you’ll pardon the language, a mindfuck. Once the writing settles into a coherent structure (or perhaps once the reader is attuned to it), the mind starts noticing connections. Everywhere. It’s as if it was written specifically to induce apophenia.
The most insidious part of the book(s) is the frequent use of historical or other authors’ fictional sources. “Oh, there’s Emperor Norton.” “OK, we’re back to Buckminster Fuller again.” “Hey, that’s right, ‘Tekeli-li!’ does show up in both Lovecraft and Poe.” And this constant mixing of fact with fiction, familiar with strange, and things known to be true with things which seem implausible does make you wonder: how much of this did they make up on their own, and how much did they stitch together out of real events, prior works, and creative synthesis?
After all, if you had never heard of Joshua Norton, and one day heard the story of a man who declared himself Emperor of the United States, Continue reading
The Bathroom Manifesto
Here are a few additions I would make to the building code for public restrooms:
- All restroom doors must open outward. If the restroom is large enough to contain stalls, it must be possible to open the outer door simply by pushing with the toe of one’s foot. Sharply-turning doorless corridors that block sightlines are acceptable.
- If it is necessary for a restroom door to lock (as is the case with single-person restrooms), handles are to be used rather than doorknobs. Additionally, attempting to open the door from the inside must automatically disengage the lock.
- If a restroom displays a sign asking people to wash their hands before leaving, it must be directed at all users of the restroom, not only at employees.
- If the outer door can be opened without the use of one’s hands, choice of paper towels, air dryers, etc. is left to the discretion of management. In the event that opening the door does require hands, drying methods provided must include paper towels.
- At least one trash receptacle must be within casual tossing distance of the outer door.
Of course, these are mostly ways to mitigate the fact that a disturbing number of people won’t take an extra 30 seconds to clean up on the way out. A better solution might be a device I saw in The Far Side: an alarm which went off whenever someone left the restroom in a less-than-sanitary state, with a blazing sign proclaiming “Didn’t wash hands!”
Politically Dead Words
When I was in elementary school, we were given a list of “dead words.” These were words that had been so overused that they had lost their meaning or impact, and we were told to use them as little as possible in our writing.
In that spirit, here is a short list of political terms that have become useless by provoking knee-jerk reactions that prevent any rational discussion:
- Liberal
- Somehow a lot of people over on the right have decided that liberal = communist. It’s gotten to the point that even liberals don’t like to use the word anymore.
- Ultra-conservative
- I don’t know what conservatives usually call the types that want to turn America into a theocracy or oligarchy, but one whiff of this phrase and they assume you’re a rabid left-wing nutjob. (I’ve seen this happen on articles about something as unrelated as the origins of Linux.)
- Special-Interest Groups
- Everyone loves to accuse their opponents of being beholden to special interest groups. The problem is, any group with a political agenda is a special interest group. That includes, for example, both the logging industry and the Sierra Club.
- Environment
- Some people immediately think of “tree-hugging hippies” instead of an effort to keep the world around us livable. I’ve actually heard people claim that environmentalism is nothing more than a modern interpretation of pagan earth-worship.
- Intellectual Property
- Are you talking about patents, copyrights, or trademarks? They’re all different concepts, and subject to different laws. Just say what you mean, don’t confuse the issue.
- Elitism
- I’ve heard this term a lot from conservatives discounting the views of liberals in academia and the entertainment industry. Often, it’s used by conservatives in academia and the entertainment industry.
- Christian
- Unfortunately, there are a lot of vocal nutjobs who give Christianity a bad name. To some on the left, it’s become associated more with religious intolerance and inflexibility than with the actual religion. (Hmm, kind of like the word “Muslim.”)
- Balanced
- How often have you heard someone ask for a “more balanced” portrayal of some issue? Are they really looking for something that presents both sides of a controversy equally, or are they generally looking for something that presents their side more favorably?
- Comparisons to World War II
- OK, this is one I’m tired of hearing. It seems like WW2 has become the template for interpreting every war (or pending war) for the past 60 years, whether or not the situation is actually comparable. While you can certainly find similarities between 1930s Germany and pre-invasion Iraq, post-9/11 USA, your local mall security guards, ancient Sparta, or whatever society or organization you’re concerned about, invoking images of Nazis only distracts from the real issue. (For example: Is so-and-so a threat, and what can we justifiably do about it?) It’s nothing but Godwin’s Law in action in the real world.
Comic-Con Photos (2004)
Photos from San Diego and Comic-Con are up!