the news remains behind the times

dear god, why are people being paid to write stuff like this? all of you nice people who read my blog...did you know that you aren't supposed to be out here, posting on the web? you're too old and it's unnatural for you. oh, likely for me too, since i turned 30 last june.

dear ill-informed human interest story writers: inhibition is not necessarily a factor of age. nor of generation. moreover, even if this were a subject worthy of an article, it was worthy, oh, 5, 10 years ago.

please repeat until it is knocked into your head: not every teen has a myspace page/live journal/blog. not every human has an iPod. not every human like text messages on their cell phone (not every human has a cell phone). not every adult is afraid of the internet.

stop writing this crap. it's irritating.

the first signs of spring

are, of course, spring training. first sox split-squad game is thursday. hooray! baseball!

i'm a happy boy.

more excercises in poor legislation

i may have posted about this elsewhere, before. or i just thought about writing this post. in anycase, i'm writing it now. forgive the lack of links; i don't feel like looking this stuff up again.

seems that some rep. in brooklyn wants to propose a bill making it illegal to cross the street while listening to an iPod. stop laughing, he was serious. why? it seems the reasoning behind this madness is that 3 people in brooklyn were killed crossing the street while listening to iPods, between september 2006 and january 2007. one even, apparently, did not heed the warning cries of onlookers, as the volume was apparently too loud.

this is a horrible, stupid idea. why, one might ask? it could save lives! the problem is, well, there are many problems with this sort of law. the first is, it is not the government's business to save people from their own stupidity. certainly not in a free country. freedom means you are free to make your own errors in judgement, even if they get you killed. but that opinion aside, 3 pedestrian deaths in approximately 4 months is, well, insignificant. i know, i know, every fucking life is precious, yadda, yadda. thing is, there are about 8 million people living in new york. the number of pedestrian deaths last year was, if i remember correctly, 252. and that was low. still, it works out to almost 5 people being run over every week. yet on the basis of 3 of those deaths, new legislation is called for, to fine a specific action that rarely increases the odds of someone getting killed? if you believe the hype, everysingleperson on the planet has an iPod by now. that only 3 of the teeming mass have gotten hit by cars in the pedestrian friendly streets of brooklyn is a minor miracle.

let's say this does get passed into law. how is it enforcable? do the earphones have to be out, or just the music off? how does one tell, if the later? if the problem is people not being able to hear oncoming traffic, should we also fine the deaf for crossing the street? why did we never have this problem with walkmans? and so on.

this sort of bill faces the same problems as those that ban cell phone use while driving. that is, they rely on anecdotal evidence and miss the point anyway. the root problem is that when a human performs a potentially dangerous activity (such as driving, or crossing a city street) whilst distracted by some other activity (such as talking on a phone, listening to music, talking to another person, eating, searching pockets for loose change, etc.) the chances of getting killed increase. what is causing the distraction is not relevant. the point is they are distracted. focusing on specific distractions might look, politically, like one is actually doing something "for the people". but really all one is doing is furthering one's career and furthering the gap twixt law and reason.

EDIT: hehe...keif, this is exactly what i'm talking about (well, in my comments, at least).

idle thoughts

amazon just sent me a recommendation for a book i already own. does this indicate their recommendation system is fairly accurate? i dunno. frankly, i tend to only use them when i have a specific book i want to purchase (usually from the scientific american book reviews). but i am a sucker for geology books, so perhaps amazon does know me well. not that it matters. i far prefer wandering the stacks at used book stores.

on a completely different topic, a new dollar coin is going into circulation. with it, the accompanying voice of doom, noting that people don't want a dollar coin, people won't use a dollar coin, look at how the others have failed, and so on. bullshit. people, even those polled and saying they do care, don't really care. the problems with getting people to use dollar coins is you can't fucking get them anywhere. last time they tried this, the only place i ever recieved a dollar coin in change was from the subway pass machines in NYC. you want people to use the coin? make them available. you want people to use a dollar coin over the paper bill? remove the fucking paper from circulation. this is one of those situations where the government shouldn't listen to the people on the matter. if dollar coins will save the government money, then switch to them. that people might "like" the bill marginally more really isn't a good reason to keep them. it's the same sort of mentality that has prevented a switch to the metric system.

get rid of the penny too, while you're at it. i hate those things.

why i cannot work in customer service

this article, sent me by my friend and yours, the elusive Please_Panic, sums it up nicely. simply put, i don't deal well with such blatant stupidity. read this again:

Atlantic Theatres in Atlantic Beach, Florida, received a complaint from a woman who'd seen the advertised title as she drove past with her niece. She said that it had made her niece ask her what a vagina was.

The theatre's Bryce Pfanenstiel commented: 'I'm on the phone and asked “What did you tell her?” She's like, “I'm offended I had to answer the question.”'

i'm sorry, but what sort of people are these? she had to explain to HER NIECE what a vagina is? shouldn't her niece already know? how does this woman stand the existence of commericals for yeast infection medications?

anyway, if i was in charge of this theater, i would have succumbed to the massive public pressure of one complaint as well. except, i would have changed the marquee to read either "The Cunt Monologues" or "The Twat Monologues". just to drive home the old proverb "be careful what you wish for".

also, "hoohaa" makes me think of that movie where the guy who isn't deniro plays a blind guy that says "hoo-aaaahhh" all the time.

EDIT: al pacino. why i cannot ever remember his name is just a mystery. plus, the movie is "scent of a woman" and that revalation about "hoohaa" just put a whole new, and dirty, spin on that film.

hey august

(and mszilla, but you are likely already aware of this)

check it out: expansion pack for oblivion. i'm filled with geeky anticipation, cause it looks fucking cool.