(Dis)Connected

Sometimes you just need to aimlessly, carelessly, curiously, bravely, light spiritly, undoggedly, imaginatively roam. This is one of those times. When and where I grew up, if you lived above the drugstore, you were poor. Well now they are building these retro-downtown, pedestrian friendly communities, I think pretty much everywhere. And, the hotspot to live if you can afford it? Above the drugstore. Go figure.

Now with the TVs most of us still have , if you had something shot in a rectangular fashion (Cinemescope), sometimes you have to live with the top and bottom of your screen exposed. That I'm told now applies to some things shot and edited in the HDTV format. So then when we all get our HDTV sets I have to assume that we're going to have to put up with a lot of square shaped movies trying  to get into a rectangular box. The dead spots will now be on the side.   I'd hate to be at a TV station taking the phone calls. I have a defense mechanism for handling angry calls by the way.  I've shared it with a lot of people, so now that I'm telling you, its probably going to lose its effectiveness. But here goes.  When you pick up the receiver, or how ever you answer the phone these days?  Just say, "Custodian." It's a sad reality, but nobody wants to talk to the custodian. Nobody thinks the custodian can handle  their problem. Nobody believes the custodian will be sympathetic. Nobody believes there is an incovenience in their life that would outweigh the burden of being a custodian. They hang up. Try it. But if too many of you try someone's going to catch on and it will lose its punch.

The Taureg is not a Volkswagen. I'm sorry. Everyone my age has to agree. There is nothing about it that says Volkswagen. Nothing about it says "THE practical car for the MASSES" Give the Taureg to Audi.  If you are a mechanic, or just a technician at Grease Monkey, and you want customers to trust what you're doing under the hood? Get your teeth fixed. I'm sure Grease Monkey provides Dental, don't they?

My Photographer friend Jim Weis and I started something we didn't finish just before I retired. We were gathering generic sound bites that would fit almost any story. Here's a few examples.

. "I just can believe it happened here!"

. "He seemed like such a nice person."

. "We did everything we could think of to get ready for this."

. "I don't think he had to do it that way."

If you are a news nut, you'll hear and see these all the time. Well I turned  them into a revealing parlor game for class where one player is the live reporter who introduces his story something like this:.

"Thanks Mary, I'm here in front of the State Capital where the Governor, despondent over the veto over ride of the cat leash law bill, is standing outside his first floor window. He is threatening to jump. We talked to the Governor's wife:" (that's the reporter's toss to any one of the generic soundbites.) "He seemed like such a nice person."  I think that's what my wife might have uttered.  (She says I dried her new clothes on warm and shrunk them, forcing her to go on  diet. I don't make these things up) Have a couple of Soda Pops before you play, and I think you can tell where it will go.

Why can't milk chocolate be good for you, and dark chocolate not. There is no justice in nutrition.

I figured out why we have to live in these new tightly condensed, downtown, pedestrian friendly, above the drug store lofts, with traffic circles?  It's to make sure there is enough land available for these auto cities, where bright lights illuminate every brand and model of locomotion known to man. That includes the Taureg in the wrong lot. You know I don't think we share notes enough? 

"Give me land, lots of land, where they don't build fences." Fat chance.   

We'll do this again sometime. Afterall, "Roam" wasn't built in a day.