Monthly Archives: September 2010

A Rant About Stuff

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The audio cassette greatly increased the distr...Image via WikipediaWith all the hoopla about Apple’s latest iPhone problems, I’ve been thinking about things that get re-designed or “upgraded” and end up being less than satisfactory.  And what do we do with the old ones?  Okay, some of the stuff I’m going to talk about may not seem as fancy schmancy as the iPhone 4, but IT’S MY BLOG!  Dammit.  But I really did have to stifle a laugh when I saw the disaster that became the iPhone 4.  All of that hype, all of that excitement, and all it would do is drop calls.  Yeah, put all of your attention into the appearance and these things called “apps” and “oooh, it does this! and it does that!”.  And forget that it’s supposed to be a PHONE, you idiots.

First of all, why change something that works just fine the way it is?  I spent a long time looking for a bra the other day because all a person can find these days are these foam type cups that are supposed to “smooth” out the look of your bust, I guess.  But all they do for me is make me feel like I’m a massive, over-stuffed double D.  I hate them.  And since when are subtle traces of nipples on a person’s top so disgusting or unappealing?  I mean, they’re BREASTS for pete’s sake.  They’re supposed to have nipples!!  Personally, I believe that the truth is that young women simply want to look bigger.  Of course they do.  I guess I was exemplifying exactly that when as an 11-year-old, I got a bra from my Aunt in Denmark who had never seen me and didn’t know I was flat as a pancake.  I put it on and stuffed it with Kleenex, like any girl would do, excited to have her first bra.  Two boys asked me if they could come to my house after school.  I guess it worked.

But I’m 53 now, for crying out loud.  I have no desire to lure anyone with the size of my boobs anymore.  It would be disturbing if someone wanted to come to my house after seeing me in one of those foamy bra things.  I’d be calling 9-1-1.

Well, after hours of searching I finally found what I was looking for at Sears.  The real slap in the face was that the bras that I ended up buying actually cost three times as much as those foam-stuffed things.  Hopefully they’ll last three times as long.  Things are just not made to last anymore.

For awhile now we’ve been using a crappy old microwave that my husband inherited from work because our “new” one pooped out on us after only a couple of years.  The very first microwave we got was given to us as a wedding present 26 years ago.  It lasted almost 24 years.  Stoves and fridges and washers and dryers are lucky to last 10 years, if that, anymore. 

My father calls it “built in obsolescence“.    And it makes sense, doesn’t it?  Why would a company want to make ANYTHING that lasts 24 years?  That means it’s going to take 24 years for them to get any more money out of you.  That goes for anything electronic.  In this case, it’s not even that they can’t make something as good as they used to.  It’s that they don’t want to.  And I won’t even go into this madness for the next “great” technology that has taken over the universe.  Holy crap, how many 2- or 3-year-old cellphones are there out there lying around unused because their owners don’t actually even care to use them for their expected (short) life spans, because the next iPhone has come along?  Sheesh!

Okay, I’m calmer now.

But where do we put all of this stuff when it stops working or suddenly doesn’t suit us anymore?  For me, it’s in the basement.  There are a couple of old TVs down there, a gazillion cassette tapes (nobody uses those anymore!), some old books of my Dad’s, wires, boxes of boxes, two space heaters that barely lasted two years each, two fans, same thing, a dead coffeemaker, a couple of old computers and monitors, boxes of my daughter’s stuff (hopefully they going to take it with them when they move out?), some of my brother’s stuff, and the rest I can’t remember because it’s been so long since I’ve even looked through it all.  A few years ago, I convinced my husband to spend the money to hire one of those junk hauling companies to empty out the garage and some old stuff from the basement.  I was so relieved to get rid of it all.  And then, much to my horror, it seemed only months before the basement filled up again.  How did that happen?

Tomorrow I have to go to Richmond and pick up my mother’s secretary/desk, a beautiful piece of furniture that I always loved because it was hers.  And I have no idea where I’m going to put it.   Years ago I fantasized about having that piece of furniture, and now it’s just another (rather large) thing that I don’t have room for.  I guess when I was younger, it was all about acquiring stuff.  You moved out and took your stuff with you, and when you could afford it, you bought more stuff to fill your place with.  And you dreamed about the “big” stuff like a car or a house, until you could at least afford a car loan or a mortgage.  And then you filled your new house with more stuff, until your kids came along and you had to move into a bigger house to be able to fit them and their stuff…

Okay, that’s how it happens.

But I don’t want all of these things anymore.  And having to deal with my parents’ stuff because they are at the point where they can’t take care of it and don’t have room for it leaves me (and my siblings and many others I’m sure) with this enormous pile of someone else’s stuff that I’ve never even wanted. I guess my parents didn’t plan on being stuck with so many things either.  We don’t realize when we’re younger, that the things we think we want will eventually just become the things we have to find a way to get rid of.  I put that in bold so that when I read it again later, I will remember.

How did I get on this whole rant?  Oh yes, cellphones.  Well, the last several months I’ve been at the end of my contract with my cellphone company and had nothing but offers for the “newest” and “latest” new cellphone.  Complete with another 3-year contract of course.  My old cellphone works just fine, but like all other technology geeks I am tempted by these new offers.  Except, unlike younger geeks, every time I think about a new one, I can’t think of what to do with my old one.  Nobody in my house wants it and it’s such an old model that I know for sure it isn’t going to become one of those “refurbished” ones.  This particular cell provider talks about recycling your old phone…but what do they really do with it?  I have hellish visions of poor people in third world countries working for next to nothing taking these electronic things apart and breathing in and handling horrible toxins from their components.

I call it my old cellphone, but is it really?  After three years, oddly enough it hasn’t died on me.   Crap.

IJ

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An Otherwise Ordinary Day

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We’re having a bunch of friends over this Saturday for a barbecue.  Not a big deal, and certainly not something I’d report here necessarily except for the date.  When I announced the date, one of my daughters asked if it was such a good idea to have a barbecue on Sept.11th.  It’s certainly not that I am insensitive to that date being synonymous with such a horrible event, but sometimes I wish it had another name.  You know, like D-Day had a name.

But I guess we’re kind of stuck with it, and Sept.11th or 9/11 will likely never just become an ordinary date in the foreseeable future.  So it shouldn’t have come as a shock for us to hear that nutcase pastor Terry Jones is planning a burning of the Qur’an on Saturday…my first thought was that maybe someone should burn a few bibles on his lawn.  But that would be exactly the opposite of what really needs to be done.  He should be given no attention whatsoever.  He is simply ignorant.  Ignorance is more dangerous than hate;  if we weren’t so stupid, we wouldn’t hate at all.  If only we would take a moment to learn the facts and the truth;  Muslims didn’t take down those towers, some misdirected, uninformed and ignorant people did.  And that’s what Terry Jones and the 9/11 hijackers have in common.

I’m kidding myself.  The media (and remember, I am also indirectly a part of the media) loves this kind of stuff.  And the wackier, the better.  But you think that giving Terry Jones publicity is bad?  Here’s another example of using that date as a way to get some attention.  Only this time, it’s to sell a product.  And it’s from France (Americans will just love that fact): 

Can you believe it?  This courier company is promoting the idea of learning to “anticipate”, by building the twin towers shorter so the planes won’t hit them.  Not only is it not funny, it’s shocking.  This idea of tastelessly using real disastrous events like 9/11 to sell products has been branded “adploitation”.  And, I’m sad to say, it’s not the first ad agency using that date and/or exploiting those images.  Believe it or not the WWF was also presented with an ad by an agency in Brazil using manipulated 9/11-like images.  It was rejected, but the word got out and the WWF had to explain themselves.  The Moscow News had one too and it actually got past the approval process and into the public.

So there you are, the two extremes:  over-sensitive and not sensitive enough.  I hope in the next few years September 11th will become less of a target for adploitations and, at the same, not such a holy date that we can’t plan barbecues.  But I’m not holding my breath.  That date is just never going to be the same.

IJ

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God or No?

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NASA StarChild image of Stephen Hawking.Image via WikipediaI’m pretty sure Steven Hawking’s publisher or promotions people were the ones who decided to promote his new book “Grand Designs” by proclaiming “God Did Not Create the Universe!”  I mean, if anything is going to get attention, especially in these times of religious warring (has there ever NOT been a religious war going on?), it’s that phrase.

The predictable has happened…religious leaders are already up-in-arms (is that not an oxymoron?) fighting for headlines to dispute, refute and protest their outrage at any such notion.   And so it begins again, this age old “I am RIGHT and you are WRONG” argument.  Haven’t we, as human beings, figured this out yet?  Just because I prefer the red shirt, doesn’t mean you have to wear it too.

Years ago, I used to think that one day science might prove the existence of God in some way…maybe not the man in the beard God, sitting on some kind of throne or however you visualize it, but some evidence of a form of energy that was the beginning of our universe.  There is even something in physics called the Higgs boson, or the God Particle that is considered to be a singular elementary particle, possibly predating every other known particle.  What I visualized was a coming together of two very separate trains of thought, science and religion, eventually merging onto the same track.  Since then I have come to the conclusion that even if it was possible and there were people out there willing to explore this potential fusion in that way, it ain’t gonna happen anytime soon.  Too many people are threatened by anything outside of their belief to listen to something different.  And too many others are hell bent (sorry for the pun) on convincing the rest of the world to believe what they do.  Religion, and ironically also the lack of it, is killing us all!

There are many, many people of different religions, and atheists and agnostics in the world who are perfectly willing to peacefully accept those of other religions or non-religious thought, with no feeling of threat to their own beliefs.  But we don’t hear those stories because they aren’t tabloid enough I guess.  I personally know Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists who would not for a moment attempt to convert me or anyone else around them.  And I know there are regular meetings between religious heads, and even organizations like the World Council of Religious Leaders, who are trying to mend fences and work together to end all of this religious conflict.  But their calls for peace are like whispers in a thunderstorm.

There’s a point you reach when studying Buddhist teachings, when you realize that most people on this planet have as long a road to inner peace (never mind world peace) as you do.  Many have not even recognized their need for self examination yet, so how are we ever going to get “there”?  It’s overwhelming.

So as much as I admire Steven Hawking’s amazing knowledge and understanding of the workings of the universe, by reducing his book to a phrase that only adds fuel to an already blazing fire of disagreement, he is doing more to separate us than pull us together.  And that is truly a disappointment.

IJ

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