What's on Your List?

As the year draws to a close, the need is strong in the hearts of  pundits, bloviators and blogsters to offer their personal list of the Best, Worst, Funniest, Lamest ... You know how it goes.

I am not immune to such pressures, so here is my list of the most subtle pleasures I can think of in 30 seconds:

   A cold pint of IPA on draft
   The smell of Bacon sizzling in a pan
   The sound of wind in the tall pines
   Waves rhythmically crashing on shore on a warm sandy beach
   Heat lightning
   Warm Gingerbread
   Wes Montgomery on the radio
    Home-made gravy
    A Summer afternoon nap
    A Snowblower that starts on the first pull
    A clever retort

(Time's up)

What does your list look like?

Thanksgiving Memories

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. Growing up in Watertown, my memories of those family feasts are of happy times. The holiday began on Thanksgiving Eve when my mother would start preparing the stuffing. The house would be full of delicious odors as mounds of chopped onions and celery and Jimmy Dean sausage were sautéed,  then mixed with bread crumbs, seasoning, and "secret Irish spices" – which was our joking reference to plain salt and pepper.

Mom would be up at six the next morning, making the final preparations and getting the turkey into the oven. By the time we kids got out of bed, the house was already warm with the aroma of roasting turkey. Store-bought turkeys always came with a bag of bird parts, called "giblets." Mom would boil the giblets in a pan to feed them to the cats, so they could have Thanksgiving too.

I read somewhere that some of our most vivid memories are associated with odor.  To me, there is nothing that says "home" quite like the fragrance of a turkey cooking in the oven. The whole house smells like peace love and harmony.

I have happy memories of those days when we were all young and healthy. My grandparents came to our house for holiday feasts.  They lived in a tiny cottage near Revere Beach. They would drive 17 miles along winding Rte. 16 east to our house on Robbins Road. I still remember one time when they arrived at our house in the old maroon Plymouth sedan. Grandpa was a careful driver and he would frequently get honked-at for moving too slowly for some speed demons. He would respond with colorful curses picked up during his Navy days. We were very amused when we asked my grandmother about the traffic, she remarked, "Well, there sure were a lot of (expletive deleted)s on the road today!" She was of course quoting the words Grandpa had yelled out the window to anyone who honked at him.   

Usually we kids would go to the Watertown-Belmont football game. Dad might walk down with us if the weather was good. After the game we would return home, and the smell of the roasting turkey would hit us as we walked through the door. We had various chores. Mine was to peel and cut the turnip and squash for boiling. While the vegetables were boiling, Mom would serve hors d'oeuvres of cooked shrimp, nuts, celery and olives. For drinks there was always chilled cider and sodas for the young people and plenty of bubbly for the adults.    

Finally the dinner would be served and eight of us would gather around the table. We all stuffed ourselves on roast turkey with mashed potatoes, squash, turnip, green peas, cranberry jelly, dinner rolls. Everyone raved about Mom's gravy. She always said that it was because she used the same water that was used to boil the turnips and onions. I still do not know how mom got everything on the table while still piping hot. We didn't have microwaves back then.

A few years later my daughters would grow-up in Wellesley, but we celebrated Thanksgiving in a very similar manner. Thankfully, when the time came, my wife Judy took on the role of hostess and kept the same cherished recipes for stuffing, gravy, and all the rest: the traditional football game (against Needham), the dinner with all the fixin's – and then the visiting grandparents were our mom and dad.  

A few years ago, the Thanksgiving baton was passed to my eldest daughter, Erica. She has now assumed the role as holiday hostess and will be cooking the turkey this year.   

Now, We are the visiting grandparents. We will be driving over to Natick next Thursday afternoon. If you are going that way and you see a Dodge Caravan that seems to be going too slowly, please refrain from honking. I am just being a careful driver. It runs in the family.

A Non Pundit View

It seems every self-styled pundit is opinionating about the events in the world, I might as well toss my two cents into the pot.   

I must warn you in advance that I do not think of myself as a "pundit".  The amount of research and erudition for such a title is way beyond my intellectual energy. 

Plus, my aptitude for evangelism is nonexistent.

Most of the people I know who write blogs seem to think that they are possessed with a keener insight than the average citizen.  In fact, they often refer to those who might disagree with them as "low information voters"*.     

In addition, they feel a spiritual "calling" to try to bring the less-informed among us up-to-speed.  In case you have not been paying attention, the world is rapidly turning to shit.  And the single individual who is most responsible for the erosion of American values and the American Way of Life and the American Dream is none other than Barack Hussein Obama.  (Note that they like to remind you that his middle name is Hussein, in case you forgot that he is secretly a Muslim and a fascist).

After perusing many of these blogs, I find it difficult to believe that one person could be so flawed:
He takes too much vacation,  doesn't pay attention at security briefings, is considered a joke by other world leaders and much of the voting public,  squandered the treasury surplus that he inherited from his predecessor,  wasted trillions of dollars and thousands of lives on unnecessary military adventure... --oops forgive me, I was reading the Bush rap sheet by mistake.  

Sorry, I should have been sticking to the point.  Now where was I ,
....Fakes his birth certificate, hangs around with terrorists, hates white people, plays too much golf, can't speak without a teleprompter, was an affirmative action student, never published a piece in the Harvard law review, voted "present" as a Senator from Illinois, has no experience as an administration or manager, bows to foreign royalty,  lies to congress and the American people every day, is on the wrong side of any issue that you can think of (Climate change, pipeline construction, minimum wage, immigration, border control, taxation and income inequality, health care, and especially foreign policy.)

The aforementioned pundits seem to feel that cherry picking articles from fringe media  is sufficient research.  They have no problem articulating the things that should have been done. 

You are probably thinking, "Monday morning quarterbacking is no substitute for intelligent, balanced research."  But it's not as simple as that.  The psychological condition of many pundits is known as "confirmation bias. **"     

None of us is immune to confirmation bias.  It is natural for us to be attracted to people and ideas that agree with our strongly-held beliefs.  We literally tune-in to the programs and voices that preach the gospel we want to hear.  We tend to tune-out information that casts doubt on our sacred beliefs.   

It is nearly impossible for a lay person to decide which group of scientists is telling the truth when they talk about global warming.  The "evidence " is buried deep in the arcane source materials which ordinary people cannot understand - much less evaluate.  The Scientific majority say "Human activity is tied to Global Warming."  A small group of dissidents claim that the earth's temp has not risen in ten years. 

Even a casual student of history recognizes that over the eons scientific consensus has been wrong more that it has been right, so we tend to equate "consensus" with "opinion." 

Evangelists promote their beliefs as facts.  But we have to keep in mind that "fact" is just a word.  A fact is often just an opinion in disguise. 

========================================


*(Anyone who voted for Obama)  

**confirmation bias refers to the tendency to selectively search for and consider information that confirms one's beliefs.

election aftermath

The results  from yesterday's election are in.   Congratulations if your candidate won.

Most of us voters are just glad that it is over.  Now we can eat dinner without the phone ringing with yet another robocall message.  We will have less unwanted junk mail in our snail mailboxes (we have already blocked the senders of unwanted email).
We can watch a favorite program on TV without being besieged at every commercial break with attack ads showing the evil tendencies of the opponent.

Honestly, by the end of the election season, we have heard so much negative information (half-truths, innuendos, outright distortions) about every candidate that we don't want to vote for anyone.

Anyone with common sense realizes that the amount of money being spent in politics has effectively made a mockery out of the fundamental belief that you get the government that you (the majority) vote for.

I thought the Daily Show bit summarized it nicely:  click here for clip

I saw an interesting  video clip the other day, but can't find it at the moment.  It presented an argument that because of the influence of money, 10-12% of the richest people actually decide who gets nominated (funded), and subsequently who gets the most positive coverage -- resulting in election.  The little people get virtually no say in who runs the country.

Voting is merely a "feel-good" activity to give us the illusion that we have the government elected by the majority.  In reality it is just the opposite.

Pardon me if I sound cynical or pessimistic as I contemplate what the elections will accomplish.
But, I am not anticipating any of the major problems we face to be solved by the election of new rascals.   History has shown that money corrupts, and elected officials who were bought and paid for are not going to slap the hand that feeds.

Cleaning out the Garage

Lately I have been possessed by a rare desire to unclutter my surroundings.  Years of accumulated things have contributed to our basement and garage looking disturbingly like those homes of people on “The Hoarders” reality show.  (Don’t be judgie; we only have one cat.)

Yesterday, I was feeling particularly proud of myself for cleaning out the garage.  My goal was to clear enough space so one of our cars could be parked within.  As I was relating my trip to the dump with a carload of stuff, aunt Judy asked, "Where did you put Jen’s china?"

Me: Huh?

She: You know, the box of china that I told you about

Me: Were they blue?

She:  Yes.

Me: I looked at them and thought those were the ones that were chipped and worthless. 

She: No, I was saving them for Jen to look at.

Me: Oops

So the Good News is :  I finally got the garage cleaned out

The Not-so-good news:  The box of Limoge cups and dishes Judy was saving for our niece was being stored in the garage.  

 Unfortunately the (priceless) china has been inadvertently taken to the take-and-leave section of the Wellesley dump. 

(Incidentally I also took back some items I had previously found at the dump for example, an old oil painting of a young woman sitting at a harpsichord, a man playing a lute, and a woman who is singing. A nice piece but no frame, probably worthless.  Also,  an obviously faux “gold” chalice in a nice wooden box engraved with the words “Holy Grail.”)

Another Rental Car Rip-off Hertz and Platepass

Annoyance of the day: Another Rental Car rip-off - Hertz secret fees include and unholy alliance with a Company called Platepass.   Platepass is a transponder for automatic tolls.They don't tell you about it at the counter so you don't have the option to refuse it.  

If you go through a toll gate, they charge you an exorbitant "Administrative Fee" which they base on the # of days you rented the car, not on the day you actually used the transponder. 

My one and only trip through a toll booth was from Englewood CO to Denver Airport (30 miles). The tolls were $10 and the fee was and added $24. 

Hertz, you are dead to me from now on!  Don't ask for whom the bell Tolls,  it tills for you

I am not the only one who finds Platepass and Hertz compliance to be FRAUDULENT

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/travel/platepass-com.html   

New Ideas for Raising Money

The "Ice Bucket Challenge" has been the latest viral trend on social media and in the news.  Perhaps a million people have videoed themselves pouring icy water in their heads as an attention getting act to raise money and awareness for ALS.  Contributions have increased tenfold, according to ALS charity groups.

Such a successful fad cannot be ignored by fundraisers of other worthy causes.

I've been thinking about ways other charities could hijack the idea and make it work for them.  Here is a modest list. If you come up with other clever ideas write them as comments and maybe I'll publish them:

Shoot yourself in the Foot Challenge for Psoriasis

Show us your Tits for Breast Cancer

Group Moon challenge for hemorrhoids

Competitive bug eating for the Morbidly Obese

Shark baiting for Erectile Dysfunction

Playing "Chicken" on the railroad tracks for Deafness

Tasering for Tourettes

Politics is a Joke

In the WSJ today there was a review of "Politics is a Joke," a book about political humor and the relatively recent phenomenon, where serious candidates must appear on late night talk shows to assure the public that they have a sense of humor.

It was interesting to note that Bill Clinton was the first pol to appear on Johnny Carson's Tonight how.  But going back in time, I recall that  Presidential candidate Nixon did a "Sock it to me" cameo on the "Laugh-in" program back in 1968 (which he credited as one of the reasons he got elected.)

It is gratifying to consider that the US electorate prefers a leader who has a sense of humor.  I have always thought a sense of humor requires a having a sense of perspective.  The fundamental element of humor is the delight in the unexpected.  Humorless people hate surprises and unintended outcomes.

It was not surprising that Republican politicians are more likely to be the butt of the jokes than Democrats.   Claims that comedy shows and comedians tend to be liberal are true.  It follows that most of the mainstream media lean toward a "progressive" agenda.  It is a hallmark of the intellectually curious mind to dare to question the dogma of the past, to chuckle at irony, hypocrisy and paradox.

This is not to say that Conservatives lack a sense of humor.  They are big on fart jokes, puns, banana slips, ethnic jokes, and 3 stooges sight gags.  What they lack is the ability to laugh at themselves, to be silly, or to question their own fundamental beliefs.  Comedy is a world of color.  The Conservative sees things as chiaroscuro.

 (Look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls).

Beam us Home, Scotty

Returning home after traveling for ten days in the Rocky Mountains gives one a mixed sense of relief and regret.  The relief comes from a feeling of returning to the familiarity and safety of one's home.  The regret stems from the knowledge that the adventure is over.

Life is full of contradictions: I love being home; I love being in new places.

The problem with traveling is the actual process of traveling.  I enjoy seeing new places and meeting new people, but getting there is agony.   Planes, trains, automobiles are crowded, slow, and uncomfortable conveyances.  I look forward to the day when we can instantly "beam" ourselves to different places, like they do in the Star-trek movies.  

Public modes of transportation are the worst.  It seems like they allot fewer inches of seating space per person every year.  You would think that they would acknowledge the the fact that nearly 50% of the customers are XL.  Why do they want people to hate flying?

Southwest, which once boasted the most comfortable seating, has sacrificed the legroom so they could add a few more rows.  Their "open-seating" policy is  eroding.  Now you can jump the line for a few more bucks.  They don't feed you, anymore, and an adult beverage costs $7.   You elbow out a little old lady so you can beat her to the emergency exit row where you can get a precious extra few inches of legroom. The old hag glares at you as she passes down the aisle and mutters something about ungentlemanly behavior.  Hey, you say to yourself, this is what happens  -- when they treat you like cattle, you act like cattle. 

The journey started in Boston at 4 AM when our faithful friend George arrived to drive us to Logan Airport.  We have a complicated symbiotic relationship when it comes to air travel.  I always offer to drive friends and relatives to and from the airport and suggest that a quid pro quo on our next trip would be great.  This works out pretty well.  Since they built the Ted Williams tunnel, our trip to the airport is about 20 minutes during non-rush hour traffic.  For the record, our daughter was waiting to pick us up when we returned.  George and Jeanette had gone on their vacation to Azores.   I don't know how they go in, bit a few days after we returned we were back at Logan to pick them up.

Two of the best innovations of the century are the establishment of the Cell Phone Lot and airline flight tracker.  Now your driver knows how much your flight has been delayed, and can wait for your call or text to say "we have our bags."  Presto they are there at your terminal in a few minutes.  This makes it much easier than in the old days.   

One of my ideas for a retirement business was "Vacation Minders."  This would be a service where I offer to drive people to the airport and pick them up in their own vehicle and also check their houses, water the plants, etc. (No pet care).  I figured that some of the affluent families in the area would find that a useful service.  It would cost less than hiring a limo and having a trusted neighbor checking up on a daily basis would take some of the worries out of being away.  But as a procrastinator, I have never taken this idea off the drawing board. 

Maybe next year.  

A Quiet Day

It’s quiet around here this morning*.  No phones ringing from unwanted unidentified callers, no WiFi internet connection, no Cable TV.  None of the noise that we take for granted – SiriusXM music on the PC, no news, no Judge Judy, no fear-mongering about weather.  

FIOS is down.

We were able to call the Verizon Customer Service number on my wife’s I-phone.  A computer-generated woman’s voice wanted to have a dialog with me, but kept saying “I did not understand what you said.”  I guess we are in one of those near “dead” zones that Verizon never mentions in their TV ads when they are showing robust coverage to mobile phones in this area.  

We managed to get though the sequence of steps required to test the line.  Verizon assures me that their network is up and running, so the problem is with me.

I have performed all the tests and steps that the homeowner can do.  I have rebooted set-top boxes, reset the Wi-Fi router, unplugged and re-plugged the phone system.  

Nada, nada, nada.

The customer service line at Verizon is worse than a root canal.  You have to engage in an otherworldly dialog with the computer pretending to be a real woman.   "For security purposes" it asks you information that you cannot know unless you have your last month’s bill in hand.   I believe this is a stalling technique to make you get off the line and call back later, starting the whole process again.  It does not give you any alternative to answering the impossible questions "What is the three digit number on your phone bill?"  (since everyone knows they have to have their bill in hand to make this customer service call).  

Instead of hanging-up to go search through my bill drawer, I recalled the advice of a friend who, whenever she is confronted by an automated voice system, says “Agent!”  When I did this, the system responded with a clatter of beeps and boops>  Then I got the “We are experiencing a heavy volume of calls, all of our agents are busy with other customers, your call will be answered yadda yadda yadda. " 

Finally, after a 20 minute wait on hold (subjected to the worst quality of recorded noise/music ever heard by humans**) I got to talk to a live person.  She assured me that the problem was not with the Verizon Network (so why are you having a heavy volume of calls at 8am???) 

After making me check that everything is plugged-in, she finally agreed to send a technician sometime between now and Easter***.  I really didn’t have any choice but to hang-out here all day waiting. We've already been quiet here since about 8 PM last night.  

BTW, I missed the much anticipated season premiere of “Fargo” on F/X; since the DVR  didn’t work either!

My theory is that there are only two employees at Verizon; one answers the phones and the other does service calls.  This is the only explanation I can think of for the inordinate wait times.

=====   

The Tech arrived at 3pm.  He seemed to know what he was doing.  He determined that a power surge had fried the humma humma board.  He replaced the board, used my bathroom and then left for the next gig.

Voila, we were back on-line.  

In retrospect, we agreed that it was actually not so painful to be un-connected for a few hours.  We did not miss any news: There is still a missing airplane somewhere in the Ocean, there was a bombing last year at the Boston Marathon, they still have not found a cure for psoriasis.  I got a lot of paperwork filed away, backed-up my PC, did laundry, started writing my memoir (working title: “What I learned about Semicolons.”)

Last night, they repeated “Fargo” on F/X, so today, I do not have much to complain about. 

Have a nice day. 

Footnotes

* This was actually written yesterday, but could not be posted until I got my Internet connection back.

**Music sounds choppy when mobile signal strength is low.

*** OK, actually she said “sometime between now and 9pm.”

Emperical Thoughts

If I was the Emperor,  I would institute just and merciless punishment to anyone who carelessly or willfully impairs the free flow of traffic.  

There are several offenses that would draw long jail terms –  purposefully or accidentally causing traffic jams at peak hours, organizing or participating in any “Walk for [fill in the blanks with your favorite  cause], protesting for any cause in a way that disrupts traffic.  People who run out of gas or breakdown during rush hour would be ticketed and fined; repeat offenders would lose their licenses.

These royal edicts may seem Draconian to some folks but they enforce a basic tenet of civilization: roads are designed to improve the speed of travel from point A to point B.

I think "Thou shalt not willfully impede traffic" should have been one of the commandments,  or at least mentioned somewhere in the Constitution.

The Irony of St. Patrick’s Day

Yes, I plan to publish this poem every St Patricks Day... until I write a better one.

The Irony of St. Patrick’s Day

Fake Irishmen wearing silly green ties
Calling with bad brogues
For a wee dram of green beer
In bars festooned with shamrocks
Pipes and cartoon leprechauns they
Sing-a-long to a verse of Danny Boy
Like tone deaf drunken goats,
They set the dogs to barking
With their droning tura-lura-lura

Amateurs: they end-up
Puking on their Italian loafers
Waking-up late for work
The next day in a hangover fog

Grandsons of the famines
Endure this minstrel show
With a mirthless grin
We stay to ourselves
Washing shots of Bushmills
Down with a beer
Glad not to be thinking
About the days
When Irish need not apply.

Why Humans are Doomed

I have been a fan of  Arnold Shwarzenegger ever since his defining role in The Terminator in 1984.  The role of an emotionless cyborg (a machine designed to look human) was perfectly matched to his acting skills. 

In that role he was able to deliver memorable lines that betrayed no passion or caring only a haunting promise/threat "I'll be baack."  

In Terminator,  Skynet is created in 2029 because Humans, apparently realizing that they could not trust other humans, decided to give control of world communications to an artificial intelligence that would presumably watch over the world and keep humans from killing each other.  But, Skynet decides that humans are not to be trusted so the machines set about to kill-off the human race.  

A stubborn group of human rebels is led by John Connor.  The machines figure out that if you could go back in history to 1984, you could kill John Connors' mother before she gives birth, and that would eliminate the would-be leader of the resistance.  

When the rebels find out about the plan they send back their own guy to interfere with the terminator's relentless pursuit of Sarah.   Kyle (the good guy from the future) and Sarah have intercourse in the course of the escaping and hiding, so the plot becomes interesting when we realize that Sarah is pregnant by John's friend from the future.   

Unless you are a fan of science fiction where time travel is fairly common,  maybe it is a stretch to get your mind around the concepts, and the contradictions of theoretical time travel.  The machines should have known that sending the Terminator back was futile, because the present time for them was already the result of the past; thus you can't really change things.   

It's really much easier to just go with the flow of the story - as they say in poetry "the willing suspension of disbelief."
(some day it might be interesting to do an analysis of other time travel stories to compare different depictions about the way actions can effect the space time continuum.)

So, Why we are Doomed

Recently the US Air Force guys in charge fired or demoted dozens of high ranked officers whose jobs were to oversee nuclear safety.  It turns out that the job is boring.  These guys were sleeping on the job, partying to excess and cheating on exams that tested their knowledge of safety precautions.  

The breadth of the problem is shocking, especially in the face of so many worldwide terrorist groups who would do most anything to get their hands on some nuclear explosives.

It brought home the realization that humans cannot be trusted to do boring jobs.  This is why we design  machines that will do them without complaint.  

You see where I am going here, right?  It is only a matter of time that someone decides to turn on Skynet and we -- nasty brutish and short humans -- end up-being exterminated by our own Roombas.