matthearn.com

In which I hate technology, and technology hates me right back.(All up in my grill, yo.)

It’s heck of warm out today (low 60s), so, being a forward-thinking individual, I thought to myself yesterday “I should TOTALLY go running at work and try to eliminate the enormous amount of fat located between my crotch and my boobs,” and brought in running clothes and a towel to store in my locker downstairs in the poop room that has showers. And lo, I took an early lunch, went out, and ran 2.75 miles before the agonizing chest pain and developing foot blister made me stop.

Have I reached my point yet? Not even remotely.

So I came back in, showered, and grabbed lunch, which consisted of a Salisbury “Steak” made of, as far as I can tell, pressed gerbil cremains, along with green beans and cheesy potatoes au gratin (a quality side, to be sure). A few hours later, I realized I was still pretty hungry, so I said to myself, oh man, the SNACK machine will hook me up with FLAVOR.

So I wandered into the snack room, bought a bottle of Diet Coke, and then studied the snack machine for delectables. Sure enough, they had some kind of Apple/Cinnamon-flava’d Danish, all over which I desired to jump. I attempted to stick my dollar into the machine, but was foiled! It would accept no bills. And I had just used the bulk of my change on my drink. Bemused, I pressed a few buttons on the front of the machine, which showed no sign of even being powered on. Argh!

I wandered aimlessly around the halls, looking for another snack machine, and finally found one. Sadly, it had no Apple/Cinnamon-flava’d Danish. It did, however, have a three pack of chocolate cupcakes of the type I subsisted on in high school, so I inserted my dollar and pressed the proper buttons. The machine whirred for a moment, then beeped, and a small light appeared next to some words reading “Please make another selection.”

“What?” I replied. “But the other selections are not what I desire. Don’t mess with me, machine, I COLD RAN 2.75 MILES EARLIER AND AM NOT ONE WITH WHICH YOU SHOULD TRIFLE.” And I pressed the buttons again.

“Please make another selection.”

I tried to outwit the machine by requesting my dollar back, which came back in quarters, and inserting exact change, but I came to the conclusion that whoever inserted the latest supply of foodstuffs had improperly loaded the chocolate cupcakes. In the end I realized that the machines were involved in some kind of conspiracy not to sell me anything that might increase the amount of lipids bonded semi-permanently to my stern. I relented, bought a small package of peanut butter crackers, and went back to my desk to weep silently.

I enjoy me some fine pomp and circumstance, with the possible exception of the widely known Pomp and Circumstance March #1 by Edward Elgar, which over the course of my high school career I had to play roughly 483,384 times during graduation ceremonies. (I do like the fast part, which never gets played at graduations, that goes deet deet deedledeedledeedledeedle etc., you know what I mean I’m sure.) Thusly I set my Digital Video Recorder (it’s like Tivo, but not as well branded!) to record President Ford’s funeral proceedings yesterday, and sat down last night to watch them and enjoy me some egg drop soup and beef with broccoli.

Imagine my frustration: they’re showing the National Cathedral, and periodically showing the inside, which is filled to the brim with dignitaries, along with Cathedral officiants, the combined Cathedral choirs, and the Armed Forces Choir, which is singing a Copland anthem; meanwhile, Brian Williams refuses to Shut The F&$# Up. We’ve always been a bit of an NBC family; we usually watch the Today show, and on Thursday nights Sarah is most frequently found glued to the TV watching the usual prime-time fare. (I personally lost all interest in ER a few years ago when it stopped being a great show about an emergency room and became a left-wing political drama, but it does have its fun moments.) I assumed that NBC would do a nice job of delivering the funeral to me with a minimum of stupid discussion. I was wrong.

The various musicians inside played at least 20 minutes of music that I would really have enjoyed hearing, but unfortunately Williams, along with Tim Russert, Campbell Brown, and some other moron refused to Shut The F*#$ Up. They’re babbling about legacies and scandals and strength and blah blah I don’t care I want to hear the beautiful music please SHUT THE F@$# UP.

I nearly threw the remote at the TV. At least they did have the good sense not to inject silly little comments once the casket came out of the hearse, or else there’s a strong chance I would have driven to New York and kicked Brian Williams in his miniature gonads.

The moral, for any NBC executives who might be reading this, is: when televising a funeral, it is always important to Shut The F#$% Up. Thank you.

This cold is WEIRD, man. You may remember a few weeks ago when I noted that I was sick; that cold followed its normal course of a day of scratchy throat pain, followed by a day of complete sinus blockage, followed by a couple days of drippiness and general malaise. With the help of Zicam (remind me to tell you a story later about how apparently my father-in-law’s friends discovered that zinc cures colds), I got over it quickly and sang the Messiah concert the following weekend with great ease.

On Sunday, the cold came back, but it appears to be working in reverse. The past few days I’ve been clogged up and drippy, and then this morning I awoke with agonizing throat pain, but my sinuses are clear. It’s a mixed-up, mashed-up, cuhRAZY world, kids.

More annoying is the fact that Charles seems to be going through the same symptoms; he spent the last few days sniffly, and I think the throat pain hit late last night because he awoke screaming and we had a hard time calming him down. (He’s a jolly fellow, but like any baby, once he gets revved up the crying is more for the sake of continuity than actual pain or anguish.) He seems fine this morning, which was good because I was in no mood to deal with his anguish, because apparently Sarah spent the night pouring Comet into my mouth.

Anyway, the interesting story involving my father-in-law’s friends: apparently he worked with a couple of guys who were interested in what might kill regular rhinovirus, aka the cause of the common head-cold. Back in the 70s, Their lab had a storage closet where they kept leftover chemicals, so these guys would score some rhinovirus germs (I’m assuming they knew a guy on 32nd street) pour various chemicals on ’em, and watch.

Finally they hit upon something; they had a dirty jar of some kind of acid, I forget exactly what it was because it was a big word, poured it on the germs, and noted that they died in screaming agony. This was a good sign. So they organized a serious study, and one of the guys decided it would be best if they cleaned up the chemical to get the dirty gunk out of the jar, so they ran it through a filter. They ran their test, and nothing happened. The acid wasn’t killing anything.

They went back and grabbed the filter they’d used, scraped off some of the mung, put it in the germs, and watched with great glee. Unfortunately, they weren’t sure what the mung WAS. They ran a bunch of tests on it and discovered that it was mostly zinc, so they organized a study involving human subjects.

It was a bit of a failure; the sick folks would take a chewy zinc thing, and nothing would happen. The only person that seemed to consistently get better was a little girl who insisted that the tablet tasted really bad and refused to swallow it. She just kept chewing on it. (Personally, if something tastes bad, I want to get it AWAY from my tongue, but miniature females are even more stubborn and immune to logic than the full-size versions.) The scientists realized that folks had to keep the zinc in their mouths so that it would somehow get breathed up into their sinuses and kill the germs in there.

In the end, the company decided that since zinc was widely available (most vitamins contain it, for example), it wasn’t something they could patent, so they didn’t bother to market it. Still, it’s interesting to note that Science knew about the magical healing powers of zinc almost 30 years before Zicam started making their chewables/tablets/sprays/etc.

Picture this scene: you’ve just purchased a donut and a cup of coffee. You just hit the ATM, so you hand the clerk a twenty, pick up your joe and take a sip. The clerk presses the magic buttons on her register, and the till pops open; she puts your twenty in there and pulls out a ten, a five, three ones, a quarter, and a dime, totaling $18.35. You hold out your hand, and she puts the bills in it and sits the coins on top. You try to put the coins and cash in your pocket, but because she put the coins ATOP the cash, the quarter falls off and rolls under the table of a group of rowdy teenagers who laugh at you and say things like “Loser!” and “Vagrant!”

All of this could have been avoided. And not just by avoiding Dunkin’ Donuts, because that would be ridiculous; as we can all agree, donuts are delicious, and a hot cuppa ain’t bad neither. No, it could have been avoided if the clerk had simply put the coins in your hand FIRST, and then place the bills on top. The coins, being smaller, are easier to grasp with your palm flesh while you fold the bills up into your pocket. But no clerk does this. Seriously. NONE. EVER.

Why is this? I don’t know. I know when I worked at Dunkin’ Donuts, I did the same damn thing. Nobody told me to; it just seemed natural. It was as if God had designed my brain to do a thing that trebled the likelihood that the customer would be taunted by delinquents. Why, God, WHY?

Here is what I propose: let’s have an International Give Me The Coins First Please Day. We’ll print up shirts and bumper stickers! It’ll be great! And we’ll make the world a much better place for people who have a pathological fear of teenagers.

Two topics today: Politics (duh-UH), and Phillies baseball (Wha-UH?).

Topic one: looks like the Democrats are taking over the House, and possibly the Senate as well. I, for one, welcome our new Democrat blah blah blah. To be honest, I voted largely Democrat, and largely because I hate the Democratic Party slightly less than I hate the Republican Party. At the moment, anyway. This may be a cynical view, but I couldn’t be more thrilled (well, perhaps if the government shrank to about 1/10 of its current size, that would be more thrilling, but I do recognize reality on some level) to have a government set up to get absolutely nothing done for 2 years.

I find that the government that spends all its time fighting over stupid crap instead of legislating is the government that I like best.

On the other hand, having Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House is singularly terrifying. It’s like having the worst stage mother of all time directing a school play. Hopefully we won’t all go deaf. (She’s a screamer, I’m told.) Also on the other hand: apparently voters in a variety of states saw fit to enact bans on gay marriage. Good job, voters! Nothing like legalized discrimination. Really gets my hopes up that they might reenact Jim Crow.

Topic two: The Phightin’ Phils are apparently looking to land Alfonso Soriano, which is flat-out making me insane. Let’s look at the Phillies basic line-up:

• First base: A guy may well hit 800 home runs before he retires.
• Second base: The only guy who can be counted on to bat over .300 in any given year.
• Third base: A rotating gaggle of defensive “specialists” who seem to bobble the ball when it counts.
• Shortstop: A speedy defensive star who might hit .350 in a given month, and might hit .200. Who knows.
• Outfield: An extremely washed up guy in left who’s probably leaving and a bunch of medium-hitting young guys.

Soriano’s natural position is 2nd base, but he’s been playing outfield for the Nationals all year, so the Phils are hoping to put him in left to replace Burrell, which is a pretty damn good move, except that good ol’ Alfonso nearly got himself suspended because he refused to play left field. Ah! A character guy! Great times. Meanwhile, here’s what the pitching staff looks like:

• Three starters (Wolf, Myers, Lieber) who might combine for 50 wins next season; they might combine for 20. Who knows? It’s worth pointing out that Lieber is 347 years old. There are also 2 other starters, but they suck.
• A bunch of middle relievers, none of whose names I can recall, none of whom seem to be able to hold a close lead. One of them is really tall, though.
• A closer who is, like Lieber, 347 years old, and also like Lieber, a Yankees castoff. Great! The Phils have turned into the Yankees AAAA team, a position that had long been held by the Toronto Blue Jays.

While I admit that, from a fantasy perspective, Soriano is a HUGE player to sign, two things are important to note:

1. The Phillies don’t need that much hitting. They need more CONSISTENT hitting, which I think they’ll start getting as their young players mature. They need pitching, and a lot of it. One quality closer could be enough, if the starters can stay healthy.
2. Alfonso Soriano is a bit of a dick, and I don’t want him in the clubhouse doing dick things.

All I’m saying, is that I didn’t vote for the man, and you shouldn’t either. Wait, I got confused again. Oh well.