When your children are sick, don't share the joy.
Apr 05, 2004
Working at an event this weekend, I was manning the table when a mom came up to see what was being offered, two drippy coughy snotting kids in tow. One child, in the stroller, looks a bit red. Neither child looks especially happy.
“Are your children not feeling well?” I inquire.
“Oh, they’re both sick,” says the mindless matron. “They’ve both been sick the last six weeks.”
And you brought them here to share the joy and bliss and germs with us, la. O how fucking wonderful.
Here’s a tip:
When your kids are sick, keep them at home. Let them sleep. Feed them well. Don’t bring them out until they are well again. Or at least noncontagious (ie, not dripping and snotting all over the place)
I don’t love kids; but I really dislike ignorant, thoughtless parents.
Keywords: | work | rude people |
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Everyone has one, ya know.
Mar 29, 2004
There’s so much talk about how this is happening, that is happening, this country is doing this, that government is doing that other thing to those people, yadata yadata ya. It’s ubiquitous in blog circles. This past weekend I got an email asking me why I didn’t talk more about the rotten sociopolitical situation in the Mediterranean, or the marginalizing of homosexuals who want to get married in the United States, or the presidential race, or the latest salvos in the separation-of-church-and-state disputes that are going on all over the place.
People. I have a section of my site where I discuss my personal opinions and convictions. It’s here. I don’t dissect or discuss the daily news. And you want to know why? I’d become a complete utter fucking miserable wreck in about 15 minutes. I’d start turning bitter and pissy. I’d start attacking others who didn’t hold the same viewpoint as myself. And, largely, because I can’t do a damn thing about any of it. I can’t do anything to directly affect the various and sundry problems going on in Israel, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, or even in San Francisco California (which is just a few hours’; north of me.)
All that I can do is live my life as the type of person that I admire. Vote with my dollars and buy from companies whose overall conduct aligns with mine. Don’t waste copiously, stay involved in my communities, be a good human being to those with whom I come into direct contact.
Do not ask me to keep bleeding for people and situations that I can’t effect. And definitely don’t ask me to keep butting my head against the anger, hatred, and fear that runs rampant through everyone else. I can effect my friends, my associates, random people with whom I interact. I can’t change the opinions of the radical government in a country half a world away. Never mind the distance scenario. They don’t know who I am, they don’t care who I am, they just want to maintain their status quo. They won’t listen to my opinion any more than I would listen to their opinion about what I choose to wear on any given day.
You heard me. All those of you who think I’m chickenshit wimptastic socially lazy do-nothing bitchcunt who should be taken out and shot for not trying to convince everyone of the rightness of my opinion, you may leave now and find a site whose content is more to your liking. Please don’t come back, as the content of this site hasn’t been overtly sociopolitical in the several years’ of its existence and it’s not all that likely to change.
Or — hey. Here’s a thought. Go start your own site.
Keywords: | philosophy | communication |
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And bring the reading glasses, as well.
Mar 02, 2004
The past two days, news stories have been popping up about how antibacterial soaps don’t protect consumers against diseases. People who use antibacterial soaps are still getting the sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever sickies in the same numbers as those who use regular soaps. There’s a wee catch, however. See if you can spot it in this next paragraph:
The study, published in Tuesday’s edition of the Annals of Internal Medicine, concluded that the [antibacterial soap] products did not reduce the risk for symptoms of the viral infections that are among the most common causes of colds, coughs and stomach aches.
Look again.
...antibacterial soap...viral infections…
People. The products are not designed to block viral infections. Viruses can’t be blocked, alleviated, or cured using the same kinds of tools as bacterium. They’re different animals (literally). Different approaches have to be used, even if the ways that the germs are transmitted is very similar (viral and bacterial colds and flu can both be spread by touch and by inhalation.)
I can’t figure out what’s worse: that these studies were run at all; that the results of these studies were published as if it’s some surprising piece of information; or that more of these studies will likely be run, rerun, and published to the general public. Then, the articles are published with titles like “Anti-bacterial soaps lack punch” instead of the more accurate “Anti-bacterial soaps don’t fight viruses”.
Next: Ice Is, Indeed, Cold Hard Water and Cannot Be Effectively Used to Produce Heat. Brought to you by the Institute of The Strangely Obvious, published by Professor Duh G. Rilly.
(Here’s a very good page on how antibacterial soaps work. Basically, hot water and soap will get rid of most bacterium; and if you’re not leaving the soap on your skin for 2 minutes or longer you’re not getting the antibacterial benefits...which can be a double-edged sword, as we do need a certain amount of bacteria on our skin and in our systems.)
I just like the screaming orange colour, myself.
Keywords: | language |
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Because what's DIY remodeling without the termite poo?
Feb 17, 2004
I’ve been steadily working on the house. I’m not touching the kitchen cabinetry, because that requires major effort: things have to be stripped down to the bare wood (which was never sealed, BTW...how bloody lazy can some peoples’ children get?!??). The bathroom’s been repainted with semigloss, and the kitchen’s been given its first coat of white paint, so the back half of the place is now visually liveable. My landlord now gets to do termite treatments. Lucky them. Lucky me, for getting to live with it.
I found the evidence when painting the window trim. I lightly sanded the current coat of paint so that my chosen color would actually adhere, and not just pull away in strips (like much of the current paint has done. Piss poor prepwork on -=someone’s=- part. That’s all I’m saying.) So far, so good...until the wood dissolved under the sanding stroke, and a whole bunch of itty bitty brownish granules spilled out. Ah, joy.
Then again, what’s a little remodelling without the termite poo?
The entire right side of the window, and a good portion of the bottom, had been eaten away by termites. I made (yet another) trip to O*SH and got a tube of wood putty / repair stuff to fill up the gaping holes. (Not strictly the best practice, I know, but...NME.) It did not squeeze nicely out of the tube. I had to Schwartzenegger that sucker, and still I couldn’t evenly get the pink goop from tube to miniature-chasm-in-woodwork. I finally ended up slitting the tube open and scooping it out with the putty knife. I finally got those large gaps all filled in and evened out, then sealed them and painted over the whole thing. It looked decent, so I went to do the living-room window trim. I wasn’t finding active infestations, so I hadn’t notified the landlord. I was, however, going through quite a few tubes of this wood putty. Two more were needed for the living room windows. Still, all seemed to go well until I saw little bugs pushing little brown pellets out of a new hole in the top bar of the bedroom window woodwork.
...yes. And for this I’m paying more than $700 a month.
Keywords: | pests | home | building codes |
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Blogs are not cutting edge. They're just a new paint job.
Sep 13, 2002
Blogs, or web logs, became the most prevalent type of personal web site around 1999 with the advent of personal publishing tools that made things one-click simple. People didn’t have to know any HTML any more to create personal sites. They didn’t even need to have their own domain. They just needed a web browser, an Internet connection, and some way to hit the keys.
After the attacks on the Pentagon and New York City’s World Trade Center on 11 September 2001, blogs were increasingly scrutinised, both individually and as a phenomenon. The media had paid attention before this event — but this event, with myriad personalised reports and op-ed pieces, kicked up the interest and the focus. Blogs were suddenly not merely “hip”, but “a vital force in personal journalism that can no longer be ignored.”
Dateline: 13 September 2002. The Los Angeles Times (which has a nasty habit of losing its news pieces days after publication) does a piece called “Crashing the Blog Party” where it makes a case for the mundanisation of blogging. Berkeley’s School of Journalism offered classes in blogging as a journalistic form, beginning with the Fall 2002 semester. The Oxford English Dictionary is seriously pondering adding the word “blog” to its next edition. The article included quotes from bloggers decrying the end of so-called real blogs, and the co-opting of the form by the academia and the establishment.
Oh, puh-leeze.
The Internet started out as the playground of the United States Military. It was created to be an unbreakable means of communication should there be a nuclear disaster. Then academia began using the fledgling Internet. It grew and grew (or some might say “metastised”) to include online shopping, news, political sites, personal sites, the whole gamut. This latest whinging is nothing but the carpings of the elite who now see their Sekrit Klub being invaded.
Blogs have never been especially groundbreaking, except that they give more people the opportunity to speak, and more people the opportunity to listen (or ignore). Just as online shopping (or porn) did not completely take over the Internet, journalists will never completely overtake the Internet. There will be an initial flurry of attention, speculation, attempts, failures, and finally,
equilibrium. It?s a new way to reach people. Journalists are just as welcome to use the Internet as anyone else. It’s not as if we’re being forced to read them...and look at it this way: it will be that much more easy, and amusing, to ridicule the dumb ones who type before they think. The ones who write well, the ones who entertain, the ones who make us think...they’re welcome to join in. Always were.
So shut up and go back to blogging already.
Keywords: | communication | blogosphere |
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What next? Patenting certain series of keystrokes? (Maybe I shouldn't give them ideas...)
Feb 11, 2002
Did I read this right? BTexact, the research arm of UK company BTInternet, has claimed to have a patent on — wait for it — hyperlinks.
There’s no story on this over at the Register, and they’re fairly equal-opportunity when it comes to laughing at Stupid Tech Company Tricks. Still, I’d love to know more about this. ZDNet is likely telling just enough to start some kind of grassroots movement. I find it a little scary to believe that amateur webmasters would have to pay for creating hyperlinks on their sites. Perhaps BT is hoping to milk money out of the companies that create and/or market HTML authoring tools.
If that’s the case, let’s hear it for hand-coding.
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