Franklin Is Messy.
Franklin Is Lost.
Franklin Is Bossy.
Franklin is a place to ‘enjoy’ rather than just ‘stay.’
Franklin is the fire, the wheels, the quick-throated,
rounded blossom, sizzling life of all the universes.
Franklin is echt niet leuk om te lezen. (This is on the Internet and I don’t understand it, so it must be doubly true!)
And finally…
FRANKLIN IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOU ARE.
…and the human visual system is no exception.
Good for an afternoon’s diversion…
Someone recently asked me, in a discussion on a mailing list, Would you rather be right, or would you rather be happy?
They say that the key to life is not in knowing all the answers, but rather in asking the right questions. Everybody assumes that means you can’t find the right answers if you don’t first ask the right questions, which is true; but there’s more to it than that.
The questions you ask reveal a great deal about your unspoken assumptions, about your preconceptions and the way you view the world.
“Would you rather be right, or would you rather be happy?” is one ofthose questions. It’s also the wrong question. It’s so completely wrong on so many different levels that I feel I can’t even rightly understand the misapprehension that gave rise to it.
On the face of it, it’s a facile question. It makes a false choice between two alternatives that are not directly related to each other. It’s like asking “Would you rather be driving, or would you rather be warm?” Or like asking, “Would you rather be a teacher, or would you rather be dry?” Being right does not logically imply being unhappy as a consequence; and conversely, being happy does not imply being wrong.
But the rot goes deeper than that.
The question assumes a false opposition between two ideals that are not in opposition at all; but worse, it implies that truth is somehow inimical to personal happiness, that ignorance truly is bliss, that having the one must mean giving up the other.
The question has as an unspoken assumption an entire philosophy: Reason is the enemy of Happiness; where one prevails, the other must give way.
If your happiness is predicated on some misapprehension, some fundamental flaw in your understanding of something about the world around you, then I submit that your happiness is a mirage. It’s a phantasm, a castle built on sand, awaiting only the revelation of the truth to bring the whole structure crashing down.
Happiness-real happiness, the kind that lasts a lifetime–must ultimately be built on bedrock, not sand. It must be stable and secure enough to withstand the revelations that life will necessarily bring to you from time to time. It must be solid enough to withstand change, from within and from without.
Enlightenment and inner peace are never attained through a policy of willful ignorance.
A wise man knows, of course, that he will not always be happy or right. But assuming that you must sacrifice one to attain the other is the height of foolishness.
Amusing news item: A judge has ruled that a Web site showing Barbie dolls in S&M outfits and sexually explicit poses mayhave a fair-use defense against Mattel’s attempt to seek copyright-infringement damages, and that “it appears that there is slim to no likelihood that Dungeon Dolls would serve as a market substitute for Barbie dolls.”
So maybe there is some hope for the world, after all.
In other news: After having been forced recently to sit trough an episodeof Sesame Street, which used to be cool but is now about as much fun as a trip to the dentist, I noticed something startling:
Mr. Noodle, a character on the ghastly “Elmo’s World,” is none other than Michael Jeter–the same actor who played the computer hacker in the movie “Drop Zone.”
In Sesame Street, he fumbles around in outrageous costumes and generally makes a fool out of himself. Good thing that’s only his day job. In Drop Zone, he hacks the DEA’s computer and sells information about undercover narcs to Columbian and Mexican drug lords, which I imagine pays rather better.
…the name ofthe song and artist behnd the most recent Pontiac Vibe commercial?
I’ve been searching for it for days with no success. It’s not the Vibe “DJ” commercial; it’s the most recent one, where the camera is looking in on a black man as he’s driving along; as the commerical progresses, you see the guy’s friends, girlfriend, wife, pregnant wife, little girl appear in succession on the seat next to him. The music itself is kind of trance/new age/something or other.
It’s a really well-done ad, and a really interesting piece of music. I’ve successfully found the name and artist behind every Pontiac Vibe ad except that one, and that’s the only one I’m interested in.
Updated: Success!
The song is “Breathe,” by the band Telepopmusik.
http://www.hollywoodandvine.com/telepopmusikplayer/tele_player.html
Sunday afternoon, kellyv and I were on our way to a friend’s house when a very large yellow-bellied slider turtle walked out in the road in front of us, missing another car by inches. She slammed on the brakes, and I darted out in traffic to snatch the turtle out of the road and toss it into the car, to be released somewhere safer.
Let me tell you some things that most people don’t know about turtles.
Turtles are fast. (The slow things aren’t turtles; they’re tortoises. Different animal altogether.)
They’re also aggressive. All the turtles indigenous to North America don’t eat lettuce; they eat meat. Fish, mostly; also, the occasional lizard, other reptiles and amphibians, and even unlucky ducks.
That’s right, boys and girls, adult slider turtles can take down a full-grown duck.
Anyway, this particular turtle–rather a large specimin–was not one bit happy at his sudden rescue. Turtles have very long claws, and did I mention they’re aggressive? He let me know he didn’t appreciate what I was doing, with his claws.
We took him to a protected wildlife preserve, fussing and scratching the whole way. And therein lies the rub.
You see, in spite of all the fussing he was doing, I was acting in his best interest. Had I not grabbed him, he’d have been splattered dead in about three-quarters of a second.
And that, it seems, is the way of things. You’d think by now the world would realize that I know what’s best, and just get the hell out of my way and let me do what I’m doing, instead of putting up a fuss all the time. 🙂
Just woke up from the evening’s activities…kellyv and I went to a Halloween party with my girlfriend M. I got completely blitzed and was given alcohol and massages from cute lesbian chicks.
Mmmmm…cute lesbian chicks.
(Whoops–screwed-up LJ Cut fixed)
Get up in the morning.
Go to the office.
Work.
Come home from the office.
Work.
Go to bed at 2:00 AM.
Repeat.
Two nights ago, kellyv and i were awakened out of a sound sleep by the smoke detector in our bedroom, which started chirping to complain that the battery was going dead.
The smoke detectors in our house are powered by line voltage and by batteries. They’re “smart” detectors–all of them are networked, so if any one smoke detector detects a fire, they all go off.
And if any one detector has a dead battery, they all start chirping.
This is really, really, really, really, really dumb.
The engineer who designed these smoke detectors, who obviously couldn’t catch a clue if he dressed up as a female clue, doused himself in clue musk, and went out during clue mating season, forgot one teensy-weensy little detail about the way people use technology:
If all the smoke detectors are chirping, you can’t tell which goddamn smoke detector has the dead battery!!
It was 3 AM. We have six smoke detectors, and had two replacement batteries. The onlt way to shut the things up, short of taking an hour to try replacing the battery in each one individually, was to rip ’em all off the walls and bury them under a pillow, which is what I did.
People who work in the field of consumer electronics and computer engineering really piss me off. They never think about how their technology is used.
Like the car stereo in my del Sol–whose controls are unlighted and labelled in six-point type. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Or PCs that have the USB ports and headphone jacks in the back. Stupid.
Or my cell phone, which makes me press six buttons (Menu, scroll, scroll, scroll, menu, menu) to access the phone directory. Phone numbers are seven digits long. Doesn’t really save you very much does it? Idiots.
And then, of course, there’s Microsoft, the undisputed reigning champions of idiotic design and poor user interface. Take, for example, this delightful little gem, an actual screen shot of an error from Microsoft DataLink:
Idiots.
Almost recovered from my state-hopping. Picked up a very nasty cold in Chicago, just in time for the inlaw’s wedding in Virginia.
Word to the wise: Whenever possible, don’t get on an airplane with clogged sinuses. Felt like someone was taking a chisel to my head.
This last week has been an exercise in restraint, and not the fun kind. Sometimes, life just seems to pile on. For example:
What the person running the booth next to ours said, to me and the owner of the company who is my client:
“I know this retired guy in Leeds who lives with his wife…and his girlfriend! And his wife knows about his girlfriend! Can you believe that? And they’ve all been together for twenty years! And…she knows about his girlfriend!”
What I said: “Well, it takes all kinds, doesn’t it?”
What I could have said: “It’s called ‘polyamory.’ If you’d like my own personal take on making it work, check out my Web site!”
What I definitely should not have even CONSIDERED saying: I can relate. Sometimes, my wife likes to watch my girlfriend whip me.
What my mother-in-law said: “You know, you’re every mother’s worst nightmare.”
What I said: “Good thing that changed, huh?”
What I could have said: “And you know what else? You’re every man’s nightmare of a mother-in-law.”
What I definitely should not have even CONSIDERED saying: “You don’t even know the half of it. Bet you don’t know I’ve fucked your daughter while she’s been on the phone with you…”
What my cousin-in-law said: “I don’t really understand why we’re going to invade Iraq. Still, the government must have a good reason to do it, or otherwise we wouldn’t.”
What I said: “It’s getting late. I think it’s time for me to head on out of here.”
What I could have said: “Sure, there’s a perfectly good reason–it’s the economy, stupid!”
What I definitely should not have even CONSIDERED saying: “Do they PAY you to be that naive? Because no human being, or even any organism advanced enough to have a thumb, could POSSIBLY be that naive naturally!”