Collect horse chestnuts. Sneak them into the grocery store, put them in a bag, and take them to the checkout. When asked what they are, reply 'horse chestnuts'.
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(3)
03:46:51 PM,
Sunday 12 November 2006
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There are three ways of thinking about cars:
1: Transformers. When you go on the road, you first transform into your automotive alter ego. Most common in SUV commercials, and how we view other cars.
2: Magic boxes. The car is a sort of small living room. You get in it, one person plays a sort of video game, and, once they beat it, you emerge somewhere else. This is how children see cars, and can be seen in minivan and some sedan commercials.
3: Mechanical devices: What they are: large self-propelled devices that allow you to move absurdly quickly on flat surfaces, carrying people and things. Seen in some roadster and motorcycle ads. Cycling past traffic jams changes your idea of cars from large predators to a lot of people in absurdly expensive machines. Also, driving older cars, which don't insulate you from reality quite so effectively. It's hard to remain aware of the reality of cars when you're driving, because it's just too much to take in: too much geography, too much speed and too many unpleasant things that could easily happen.
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03:11:53 PM,
Sunday 12 November 2006
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I like driving, but I dislike having a car. However, I am certain I would dislike not having a car. Today, we were leaving to go for a walk around the fells, when a landscaper working for a neighbor kindly informed us we had a flat tire. 4 hours later, I'm back from the tire place, with the last two original tires replaced, and the oil changed, and an estimate for getting the brakes done. But I would not have been going to the fells in the first place, if I didn't have a car.
Oh, and I may try to blog running thoughts on the Barack Obama book, to the great dismay of my apolitical readers. Or I may just continue pursuing pokemon on my Nintendo DS. I need to start putting together a Canon of Video Games.
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05:24:07 PM,
Saturday 11 November 2006
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I think this is more or less the only american election I can remember that has made me happy.
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03:03:50 PM,
Wednesday 8 November 2006
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Rumsfeld is out! Boy Scout Robert Gates taking over. Yay sense!
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(2)
01:16:19 PM,
Wednesday 8 November 2006
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I'd just like to hop on the 'blame the Greens' bandwagon now, to get a good seat.
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(5)
01:19:28 AM,
Wednesday 8 November 2006
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Shadenfreude! Santorum was the first real politician I saw speak in person, at the Hershey Lodge, to a convention of doctors, and I've never quite recovered.
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(4)
09:53:30 PM,
Tuesday 7 November 2006
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On the way home from the Public Health Conference, my thoughts cystallized into a bumper sticker... Nationalize the Federal Government. Turn the basic functions of government over to the government, using government labor. Pay competetive wages, and give agencies flexible budgets, the ability to downsize and fire, and have them do the work themselves, rather than farming it out to companies like mine, whose incentives are more or less entirely at odds with the common good. Currently the government simply doesn't have enough employees to even give the money away in a sensible manner. For a ha'porth of tar, government contractors make a fortune out of tax revenue, doing the work with half it's brain tied behind it's back, because we have no actual input into policy: when there's a dumb policy, we all gather around and cluck, oh what a dumb policy, and then go ahead and implement it*, and even if we did, an institutional bias against good government. There are no beneficial market forces here. The only competition comes in the proposal stage. There isn't even much financial insulation; if a contractor runs out of money, they tend to just flail about and whine until they're given more. The big dig contractors didn't go out of business, I don't believe. Low-balling is a profitable and feasible strategy.
*An example: The Medicare drug benefit was written so that enrollment went through Dec 31st, and benefits started January 1st. That is, someone could enroll one day and go the the pharmacy and try to buy drugs the next. Needless to say, it takes a bit longer than that for the data to get to your local Walgreens. But it isn't like everyone collectively slapped their foreheads, doh, on january 1st. People knew it would happen, but nothing was done. My own internal phrase for this is institutional stupidity, bloody-minded literalness on a grand scale.
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(1)
08:30:06 PM,
Monday 6 November 2006
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Truth in Advertising: We received one of those perfumed postcard thingies advertising 'Cashmere Mist', but it smells nothing at all like wet goats. Harumph.
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07:46:19 PM,
Saturday 4 November 2006
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There is a fascinating dynamic around elections: your own vote is trivial, and few of you will be voting in contested federal elections. But, particularly for the media, telling people to vote can have a dramatic impact. In that spirit, I point you to Kinsley's blessing to vote for the democrat, even if they take bribes, believe in (the UN/the Space Shuttle/Divine Right/Cthuthlu/Free Trade/Our Public School Teachers--circle whichever worries you most), or simply spend more time thinking about golf than government, because the vote for Speaker is the most important vote they'll cast. Meanwhile, I'm still voting against Ted Kennedy.
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(1)
05:28:36 PM,
Saturday 4 November 2006
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Charlie Pierce on the Kerry kerfuffle. The phrase Calculated Obtuseness pleases me. Does all this mean he won't run in '08? Please? Charlie Pierce isn't particularly insightful, and it's probably somehow immoral for me to enjoy his well-crafted vitriol as much as I do, but I can't help it.
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(1)
01:47:40 PM,
Thursday 2 November 2006
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A project I did a lot of the work for last winter is being presented at the American Public Health Association annual meeting on Monday.
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(1)
05:00:28 PM,
Tuesday 31 October 2006
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