Tuesday, 28 Nov 2006

Did you ever realize that an anagram of ‘Television’ is ‘It’s one Evil’? I didn’t either. Warning: Bad seque coming up because the only link between the anagram and the anecdote below is television.
I saw my first gay ad yesterday. Not ‘gay’ in the common-usage ‘effeminate’ way, but gay as in ‘a homosexual couple’. It was a Lexus ad and featured the now familiar two people walking out to the driveway to see a bow on a new car. The dialog was similar to hetero couples in these ads, when one person has bought a car for another, but these two men were obviously sharing a home (one comments about needing to clean out the garage, the other says it’s already been done) and it appears that one man is buying the car for the other for xmas. No hugging or terms of endearment exchanged but even in these semi-enlightened times it was more overtly gay than any other ad I’ve seen. It will be interesting to see what the lunatic fringe makes of this - undoubtably it’s a plot by the communist Secular Left to undermine the Religious Right’s way of life, because God knows, it’s impossible to live a normal hetero lifestyle if the people next door to you are gay. I mean seriously, what if the hetero religious people catch the gay disease and turn gay themselves?

Tuesday, 28 Nov 2006

Working from home yesterday (tire repair) I saw some of Oprah’s show while multitasking (working, listening to the radio, watching TV).  It was one of her ‘results’ shows from her ‘pay it forward’ program.  [Premise: Oprah "gives" (with the help of some bank who kept getting product mentions which makes me think Oprah didn't really give anything, she just traded product mentions (advertisements) for $1000 debit cards which she gave to every member of the audience. Sounds good so far right? Then she tells the audience that they have to give the money away. Huh?  Each member has one week to give the money away to a stranger because she wants the audience to experience how great if feels to give to others. Audience members are given - no make that _loaned_ - with more prominent production mentions) a new digital videocamera to record the giving which will then be edited and shown on a later Oprah show. The very show I was now watching.]

When I first heard about the project, I thought a couple of things. ONE, Oprah has no idea how much money $1000 is to the average person. One year she gave new cars to her audience members. This year she gave $1000, except that she didn’t really give anything of her OWN, Bank of America provided the cash. TWO, it seemed an incredible act of hypocrisy to say how great the feeling of giving was and how she wanted everyone else to experience that but NOT to be actually giving the money out of her own pocket. THREE, it struck me as shameless self-promotion to have everyone videotape their good deeds. FOUR - The whole thing reeked of her patronizing her audience.

Watching the show only reinforced my initial impression. The show was laced with product mentions and condescending “see how good it feels to give?” comments and lots of patronizing and counter to the real spirit of doing something for someone else not for recognition or personal agrandizement lots of Oprah led cheers and applause breaks for the audience because they did a good thing in giving money away.

Some people found ways to use the $1000 to really make a change in another person’s life - one bought a used car for a single mother of 5 so her public transit commute to work could be reduced from 2+ hours a day to 15minutes. One used the money to get other sponsors and repair and furnish a poor family’s apartment. But some people really seemed to have no imagination whatsoever. One person drove to a local mall and just gave a few hundred dollars to several people apparently at random. In the category of people I am embarrassed to share a species with, one family just ordered Pizza several nights in a row and gave tips of between $200-$300.  But then again, to be fair the completely random ones at least fit into the general scheme of the universe better - or at least more consistently.

Saturday, 25 Nov 2006

At least it’s not…

1) Raining

2) Cold

3) Snowing

4) A bonus day (extra papers)

5) A Sunday (heaviest paper all week)

6) Thanksgiving Day ( heaviest paper all year and more to deliver than normal thursday)

Friday, 17 Nov 2006

Again I fall victim to the local videostore’s $1/movie going out of business/clearance sale. There is something about the lure of a movie for a dollar that makes my brain misfire. Even when I KNOW a movie is bad, and I would never rent it for a dollar the idea that I can _own_ this known-to-be-bad movie entices me.

My latest absurd purchases were “Raiders of Atlantis” and “Ice Pirates”. Of the two, Ice Pirates was the better film by far, absurd and as lame as it was it did have a plot. “Raiders of Atlantis” was almost as disjointed as your average sketch comedy show (e.g. Saturday Night Live) - in that most of the actors were the same from scene to scene, but there appeared only the loosest of connections between the different scenes. I do give RoA credit for not trying to hide their MadMax/RoadWarrior inspiration, though it appeared to be completely unrelated to the main plot and the RoadWarrior violent biker gangs only reason for being in the movie appeared to be to get rid of some of the superfluous cast and to be able to have some violence in the film.

Thursday, 16 Nov 2006

Leaving for job #2 Sunday morning at 3:20AM shortly after I left the house a police car came up behind me and after 1/2 mile and one traffic light and corner pulled me over. The officer said my license plate light was out and asked where I was going. Asked for license and registration and walked back to his car. I was feeling ok, because I knew the registration was current, I had notified the DMV of my address change a couple of years before, and my sticker was good. Officer came back and told me my license had expired. Crap. I’d never received a renewal notice from the registry so apparently the address change either didn’t take or wasn’t on file.

Officer said they had to tow the car. I asked if there was any way I could leave it parked on side of road (where cars frequently park) and have someone else pick it up. He said he was supposed to tow it but that he would go and check with his superior (”My boss REALLY wants to sell cars today!”) Came back and said no. Gave me a court appt, said because the infraction was NOT car related I didn’t need a release form for the vehicle. Told me I could just get license straightened out and pick up the car.
Inconvenience - walk home = minor, just a few blocks and the weather was nice and warm

Inconvenience - no way to get to work or deliver papers= Major

Couldn’t find job#2 phone# (it’s not in the book) so went back to bed to wait for them to call when I didn’t show up. They did and I explained.

Sunday later : looked up number and local phone# of towing service. Icalled towing service and got price to pick up car (let’s use X for price) if I could pick it up “in the next half hour” if I picked it up later it would be X + 1/5x. Asked about picking up tomorrow - price was X + 1/5.

Monday same routine - called towing service going to try a little fairly price difference for extra day I was told was < $10

Monday the registry is closed for Veteran’s Day. Work from home.

Tuesday 8:15AM: Drive to bank, deposit check get out as much cash I can.
Tuesday 8:25AM: Drive to registry, wait in short line have slight panic attack when I see sign that says renewing license REQUIRES existing driver’s license. Police guy never returned mine. Forunately ss card was enough. I ask about address in system since I never received my renewal notice. Am told address associated with registration is not the same as address for license.
Tuesday 8:45AM: Drive to address listed in the phone book for the garage in the next town over to pick up my car. Discover there is no garage there, just an obviously seldom used storage building with a sign propped up in the window with the name of the garage. find a pay phone to call garage from. got through and am told the car is in my town a couple of miles from my house, MUCH closer to home.

Drive to garage, go in to do paperwork on car and am told I need a release from the police force that towed my car. Explain citation wasn’t for vehicle. No matter. Asked if I could call police to check, they let me, police station said the same thing. I asked if they could think of any reason the police officer would specifically tell me that I DIDN’T need a release? They didn’t know.

Drive to police station, get release.

Drive back to garage, get car.

Find out cost for towing/storing car was $30 more than the price I was quoted yesterday. I ask about difference and say I was given x price yesterday. “Who did you talk to?” she asked. Sorry, I don’t usually ask who I am talking to when I call a garage to find out about towing costs.

The fun part? My license plate light wasn’t even out.

Stupid liar policeman. Stupid liar towing service phone answerer. Stupid registry database IT people for designing a system with no way to link the address in the registration with the license. Stupid me.