In Memoriam

"Where the hell are the singing cats?"

- Paul Newman, 1925-2008

Pregunta Del Día

¿Quién estaba buscando para mi blog de Peru? Creo que no conozco a nadie en eso país. Tal vez tengo fanáticos allí.

Gee, I Hope We Don't Die on Wednesday

You know, when the Large Hadron Collider starts up for the first time.

Yeah, I know, everyone involved with the project claims that it won't cause anything to happen that hasn't already happened thousands of times as our little ball of dirt flies through the universe. And I know that similar fears of catastrophe have accompanied the atomic bomb, breaking the sound barrier and landing on and returning from the surface of the moon. And one would hope that scientific curiosity wouldn't override self-preservation in those who have worked on this for so long.

But...

Hey, I'm not one to pass up a good opportunity to panic, though as recent months have shown me, life can be taken away by something far more mundane than a massive science experiment gone horribly, horribly wrong. There's also a part of me that frankly has trouble understanding the point of such research - while the origins of the universe are certainly interesting to those who get into that sort of thing, there are many other questions and problems which could provide real positive impacts on much of humanity yet which apparently don't get devoted the same amount of funding or brainpower. Cancer, anyone? AIDS? A useful substitute for petroleum? A way to clean up the shit we've been dumping on the world for the last few hundred years?

Oh, Yeah

I still have this blog, don't I?

Uh... I had a dream the other night about a cookbook with cauliflower recipes, which was really thin because, in the dream, I said "Why do you need recipes for cauliflower? You want to make curried cauliflower? Make curry, add cauliflower. You want to make spaghetti with cauliflower? Make spaghetti, add cauliflower." And the cookbook had dried cauliflower on the cover which apparently you could use in your recipes. Then there was the whole thing about Star Trek and the Smithsonian, but I won't go into that now.

In Memoriam

"Who's the black private dick who's a sex machine with all the chicks? SHAFT!"

- Isaac Hayes, 1942-2008

(And now he'll never record the version I always wanted to hear.)

Pinheads

Reading over the comments in a story about this whole Obama tire inflation hubbub, a few things have struck me.

Once it's pointed out that yes, he's correct that proper car maintenance could save significant amounts of fuel, some counter with the idea that such ideas were proposed as far back as the gas crisis of the '70s. Rush Limbaugh mocked that "Avoid jackrabbit starts, keep your tires properly inflated, there’s a list of about ten or twelve these things. I said if I follow each one of these things I’ll have to stop the car every five miles, siphon some fuel out, for all the fuel I’m going to be saving." (Huh? Since when did anyone suggest that conservation techniques would cause fuel to spontaneously generate in your gas tank?) Other commenters point out that these techniques are harped on by AAA, mechanics and so forth and are neither new and revolutionary nor have they made any impact on solving the gas problem.

My counter-argument is this: Yes, fuel-saving techniques like proper tire inflation and regular maintenance and planning car trips for maximum efficiency and carpooling and the like have been pushed for a good 30-something years now, and we're still facing high prices and potentially tapping out our reserves. On the other hand, we've also been told for a long time to stop smoking, eat better, get regular exercise and a lot of other health-promoting platitudes and yet we still have a flabby, out-of-shape population (and I, sadly, must place myself in that category right now). Just because someone knows the "right thing" and it's repeated over and over doesn't mean that people will do it. With all the stories of how people are being hit by the high gas prices, I hear plenty about how some are foregoing a night on the town or being forced to choose between gasoline and other expenses - but I hear little about people making sure their cars are tuned up or taking more public transportation or planning carpools with colleagues and friends (carpools don't just have to be for commuting, then can also be for shopping or recreation and so forth).

So instead of encouraging people to seek their own solutions in their own habits and in joining together in their communities, it sounds like the McCain campaign is asking people to - wait for it - rely on the government to provide a solution to high gas prices and far too many "regular folks" are buying into it. There's a lot of lip service paid to small-town values and old-fashioned self-reliance, but too many of those same people can't be arsed to step outside their comfort zone to initiate the kind of slow, long-term change that can make a real difference. That difference may be incremental, and it might not even make that much of a direct difference in their lives, but if they put a moment's thought to it they'd see how their little bit plus the little bit of their neighbors can add up to a whole lot.

That sounds like hippie-dippy feel-good platitudes, but it's simple math. In some of the changes I've been trying to make for myself, one thing that holds me back is how little difference things seem to make for what feels like a large effort. If I walk an hour each day, it'll be a year before I'm at my ideal weight, meanwhile I'm giving up an hour of free time and tiring myself out. But if I don't do it, that year will go by anyway and I'll still have this spare tire (which has no problem with under-inflation). Look at the World War II scrap drives and bond drives - no one said, "Eh, don't bother saving one tin can. It's not going to make a difference." The message then was every bit counts, and it wasn't being proffered by Al Gore in a tie-die and a ponytail.

I suppose I see it in myself sometimes, but it's amazing how much disconnect there is between the so-called values of Middle America and their actions. Taxes are too high, government wastes money - except when it's spent in my district. The law is paramount, and people who break the law should be prepared to face the consequences - except when I'm in a hurry and go over the speed limit. Free market is the core of our society and government shouldn't interfere with it - except when Janet Jackson's breast flops out on TV. And of course no one should expect the government to step in and solve their problems - except when a natural disaster strikes my town or when a little effort on my part might save some fuel or energy. We get exactly the government - and the world - that we deserve.

Overused but Oddly Appropriate Joke Department

Hey, looks like the guys who brought us Scary Movie, Date Movie and Epic Movie have a new film in the pipe called Disaster Movie. I liked this movie a lot better the first time I saw it, when it was fucking called Airplane! You know, the original genre parody film that unfortunately launched a slew of craptastic imitators, of which you (Friedberg and Seltzer) are among the worst example.

And on a tangent, I rented an Airport/Airport '75 DVD and it's incredible, watching the latter, how much of it is directly parodied in Airplane!