Ah, you’ve got to feel sorry for the ladies...

...the average self-flagellating female, swimsuit shopping is as pleasurable as paying taxes and getting a root canal. Most styles are designed for porn stars or nymphets...

I’m indulging myself today (so please your pardons). I have finally installed Tiger on the two main machines - after much procrastination. Now, I am enjoying playing around with Safari and finally getting a chance to use all those cool things previously denied me because of my stubborn reliance on old software.

Now just to get all the other software installed and running properly!

My life as furniture...



I was at a function over the weekend where I was asked ‘what I was doing,’ to which I replied, ‘nothing.’ That’s not entirely true when I pause and give it some thought. I’ve found a new career as furniture for the cat - it would appear there’s nothing better than using me as a warm place to sleep.

Finally there is proof!

...or is there?

Came across this today and the first thing which struck me was maybe it’s not so much the drug as the condition that results from taking it:

Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it had 38 reports of blindness caused by a a condition called NAION or non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy among users of Viagra.

Memories of another childhood hero...

Passed along to me by The Beck was the sad news regarding the passing of Paul Winchell:

At 82 Paul was still active and was working on streaming video that would showcase full half hour children shows from the 50’s and 60’s. Not just his shows, but as many performers as he could get that had wholesome children's programming. He wanted it all to be free to the public.



Clicking on the link or image above will take you to the man’s site - he lead an amazing life.

In 1963, he patented an artificial heart that he said was a collaboration with Henry J. Heimlich, inventor of the maneuver for choking victims. Mr. Winchell’s device was considered the prototype for the one designed by Robert K. Jarvik that was successfully implanted in a human in 1982.

Heimlich later said: “I saw the heart, I saw the patent and I saw the letters. The basic principle used in Winchell’s heart and Jarvik’s heart is exactly the same.”

Picking up speed...

So, it’s official - I’m over the hill. Along the road of life, I climbed, crested and now am on the downward slope. I don’t feel that way personally but, I have heard from someone recently I was ‘too old.’

It was shocking really.

After having been ‘too young’ for things, I never realized I had progressed into that age bracket where I was ‘just right.’ I guess I blinked and I missed it.

Now, I’m too old.

I don’t think you’re ever too old myself. I don’t feel any different mind you. I don’t feel as if some bridge has been crossed. Certainly there are ways in which my body reminds me of the passage of time.

- Things don’t heal quite as fast as they might have years ago.

- My energy level (which was never something to brag about to begin with) hasn’t noticeably diminished but, I do notice a fatigue on those days after I’ve done something like walked a few miles around the city on a hot day lugging around the city with the always too heavy bag full of stuff (people wonder what’s in that bag, wouldn’t you all like to know).

- And of course, there’s the seemingly growing array of various noises and aches my body subjects me to over the course of the day.

These are the only ways I would have acknowledged that the years have gone by.

Oh, and of course whenever I see one of those ‘candid’ pictures someone snaps of you (when you really don’t want them to take your picture). I see a person who I almost don’t recognize. Some lines on the face, some gray in the hair, a bit of paunchiness and some bags under the eyes - who is that person anyway?!?! Yes, it’s the person masquerading as me.

Like I said, inside the house that hosts my consciousness - nothing feels like it’s changed - only the image staring back from the mirror each day is different.

So, I was told I’m ‘too old,’ what to do, what to do?

Of course, the person who told me this is someone who is considerably my junior. This is something which I found a little ironic. Over a decade separates me from the arbiter of my fate. Strangely enough, these kinds of judgments are never made by someone who is older than you, only by someone who is younger.

I know our society emphasizes youth but, as I lap years I can’t help but look back on the past with a certain wry appreciation of my own naivety. I imagine each generation suffers from the same plight - that certainty they’ve seen it all, done it all and are that much more tuned in to the world than those who have come before.

So, after my initial indignation, my next thought was: hee, hee, hee... boy, if you aren’t in for a surprise.

So, my youthful judge you’ll have excuse me if I don’t go out and buy the plot just yet.

This weekend...



Yes, it’s that time of year again!



The Mermaid Parade is this weekend. A group of people is going and if you’d like to join us drop me an email.

The return of Mac clones?

Or cheaper Macs? Interesting article about the implications of Apple’s switch over to the Intel Processor:

Apple also could eventually feel financial and consumer pressure to license the Mac OS after the Intel switch because consumers will be better able to compare Windows-based PCs with Macintosh computers and determine the premium paid for the Mac OS and the computers’ design. That transparency could well force Apple to bring computer prices more in line with those of its PC rivals, which, unlike Apple, typically sell their machines at thin profit margins.

A revised opinion...

The Yankees don’t play in Flushing and
The Mets are in the toilet.

Just a painful June. The Astros came to town and the Mets went south it seems.

There are four guys I am hoping the Mets will pursue - I doubt they’ll get them but I certainly hope they do.

The players are:

__________

Sean Casey

__________

Alfonso Soriano

__________

Eric Milton

__________

Mark Redman

Casey is a first baseman from Cincinnati who apparently can “be had” and should combined in a trade to allow Cincinnati to get out from under the contract for Eric Milton (which they must be having second thoughts about).

The Pirates are always trade partners and rumors are that Redman is available for the right package.

Soriano is too keen on his sojourn in Texas (according to the rumblings) and a change of scenery could only benefit Kaz Matsui - plus with the abundance of starters currently it would be very possible for the Mets to package Zambrano or Ishi to get a decent second baseman.

We’ll see.

What better remedy for the first day of summer...

...than to put up a link to a Christmas card gallery.

Below is the infamous and unforgettable “Reindeer by Committee” holiday card by my friend Mark Favreau. Nothing has ever captured the lunacy of working in the industry quite like this card. The gallery of his various holiday cards is worth a look (Mark’s a terrific artist) and Mark’s a multi talented guy having done everything from a CD ROM game (back when it was a trailblazing thing to do) to all kinds of design work.



1989. Furthering the point, this card was picked up by bunches of folks and organizations who, apparently feeling neglected that they were not consulted during its creation, wanted copies, permission to reproduce it, claim it as their own, rip it off, improve it, revise it, and otherwise participate in the creative process after the fact.

Check out his site. Better still hire him for some work!

Pardon me, my mouth went off and I didn’t know it was loaded...

Blog Sensei is feeling remorse. She wrote something which apparently got someone else in trouble and now she feels terrible about it:

Because of flippant, arrogant comments I made someone is else is being made to pay a very high price, which is worse to me than if I was fired because of something I said.

Working from the assumption (as I do), I manage to piss off most of the world at any given time I find myself unencumbered by the pangs of conscious.

Most of the time that is...

I still write what I want but, you’ll see those little apologetic after words if I think I might have stepped over the line and offended someone else’s delicate sensibilities. Which is surprising, I never get the sense there’s this great movement out there going on sacrificing for the sake of my feelings but, living in a politically correct society as we do all language has become somewhat akin to walking amidst a minefield. You never know when what you say will set a bomb off.

Of course, I have to say that I take great pleasure in reading the musings of my Blog Sensei. While it hasn’t made us grow any closer as two people, I find her to be an intelligent, thoughtful, sensitive and graceful person. There aren’t a lot of people who I would proscribe those qualities to but in essence, I think that goes to show you what a special person I believe her to be.

Consequently, anything that would stifle her from voicing her thoughts really is bothersome and angers me. It angers me in the futile way men get angry, that stupid yell at the sky kind of rage that just makes a person look foolish and is usually unwelcome.

All I’m getting at is Blog Sensei is a pretty quiet person for the most part, quashing her beautiful means of expression is a crime. Probably one of the reasons I like and respect her so much is that I know she really is sorry for whatever did happen which is probably a lot more than can be said about the person or persons making an issue of the whole thing.

At the end of the day, it’s all just speculation on my part. Just another instance probably of me sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong but for those of you that do know her, I hope you’ll take it as a cue to do something nice for her if only to make her feel a little better.

Stupidity observed...

Dumbass! If you’re going to order the Triple, Gigante, Mucha Mocha, Crappucino having them make it with skim really isn’t going to make much of a difference to your thighs.

The next big thing?

I remember back in ancient days ('94?) reading about technologies that would replace SCSI. Things like USB and Firewire where you wouldn’t be limited to a seven device chain. People forget about the SCSI limitation nowadays but, it’s one of a number of tech standards that have come and gone over the last decade and a half (floppies, Bernoullis, Syquest, Zip, Jaz, CDs - anyone? anyone?). Well, I was doing my morning reading and came across this article and thought I would pass it along - the clincher in this case of course is the thing about the tech being on the market by ’06 pr ’07. Imagine 25 DVDs on a stamp!

One of IBM’s more promising near-term technologies is its Millipede data storage technology. The device — which works on a principle similar to those old data punch cards that those of us who are 40 or older used in the 1970s — employs atomic-sized tips to create pits about 10 nanometers wide that are then read as bits of data. This technique will allow a device the size of a postage stamp to hold the equivalent of 25 DVDs. If IBM can bring the technology to market in 2006 or 2007, as expected, it could represent a new way to store massive amounts of data and fuel wide-scale use in next-generation cell phones, digital cameras, and PDAs.

More on the Wal-Mart virus...

The thing that got me looking into this was Frontline’s excellent program on Wal-Mart’s impact on America. If you haven’t seen it, it is really worth trying to catch. Frontline has a lot of the video and related materials up on their website but, you’ll need a big pipe for the streaming video.

Last year we imported $36 billion of goods from China. We exported only $3 billion and most of what we sent out was raw materials to service China’s production boom. “We export cotton; we bring in clothing,” Smith explained. “We export hides; we bring in shoes. We export scrap metal; we bring back machinery.”

Add it all up and you get a record trade deficit with China that will likely exceed $150 billion this year. “You definitely see the imbalance in trade when you come down to the port,” says Smith.

The virus sweeping the nation...

I saw something on PBS last night (more on that later) which caused me to do some looking around and I came across this Pulitzer winning series from the Los Angeles Times - it’s really worth a read:

Wal-Mart gives. And Wal-Mart takes away.

From a small-town five-and-dime, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has grown over 50 years to become the world’s largest corporation and a global economic force.

It posted $245 billion in sales in its most recent fiscal year — nearly twice as much as General Electric Co. and almost eight times as much as Microsoft Corp. It is the nation’s largest seller of toys, furniture, jewelry, dog food and scores of other consumer products. It is the largest grocer in the United States.

Wal-Mart’s decisions influence wages and working conditions across a wide swath of the world economy, from the shopping centers of Las Vegas to the factories of Honduras and South Asia. Its business is so vital to developing countries that some send emissaries to the corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., almost as if Wal-Mart were a sovereign nation.

The company has prospered by elevating one goal above all others: cutting prices relentlessly. U.S. economists say its tightfistedness has not only boosted its own bottom line, but also helped hold down the inflation rate for the entire country. Consumers reap the benefits every time they push a cart through Wal-Mart’s checkout lines.

Yet Wal-Mart’s astonishing success exacts a heavy price.

By squeezing suppliers to cut wholesale costs, the company has hastened the flight of U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas. By scouring the globe for the cheapest goods, it has driven factory jobs from one poor nation to another.

Wal-Mart’s penny-pinching extends to its own 1.2 million U.S. employees, none of them unionized. By the company’s own admission, a full-time worker might not be able to support a family on a Wal-Mart paycheck.

I look to the heavens and I scream...

Each and every day is a precious gift and I have squandered much of my treasure.

Reflections on business past...

The first of them arrived at 3 a.m. By daybreak some 4,000 were huddled in the deep January freeze. By 7:30, 10,000 men had gathered at the entrance to the Highland Park, Mich., factory, hoping for a job at a wage that sounded too good to be true.

But it was true. The previous morning, Henry Ford had lingered near a window while his treasurer read a statement to reporters: “At one stroke, [Ford] will reduce the hours of labor from nine to eight” and offer its workers “five dollars per day”—more than twice the prevailing wage of $2.34.

The 1914 announcement hit America like a thunderclap. The Wall Street Journal accused Ford of “an economic blunder if not crimes.” But Ford’s motives were neither socialist nor utopian. Ever since his assembly lines had lurched into motion the year before, he simply could not keep workers. Turnover of 370% required hiring almost 50,000 people a year just to maintain a workforce of 14,000. Putting $5 in a worker’s pocket, Ford hoped, would do more than reward him for grueling and mind-numbing work.

Seems to me that this is a lesson which American businesses would be wise to relearn.

An interesting article on the Fortune website on the best and worst calls in business history.

Poetry corner...

Some beautiful words on a site with humanistic text including words from some of the San People:

The wind does thus when we die, our (own) wind blows; for we, who are human beings, we possess wind; we make clouds, when we die. Therefore, the wind does thus when we die, the wind makes dust, because it intends to blow, taking away our footprints, with which we had walked about while we still had nothing the matter with us. And our footprints, which the wind intends to blow away, would otherwise still lie plainly visible. For, the thing would seem as if we still lived. Therefore, the winds intends to blow, taking away our footprints.

Dia!kwain, San People

Look for this...

Saw this documentary on PBS last night (channel 13 here in New York) which is being rerun on Saturday morning at 7:30am. Even if you can’t get up it’s worth taping (or Tivo-ing as I imagine I’m dating myself).

By collecting blood samples from thousands of men living in isolated tribes around the world and analyzing their DNA, 34-year-old geneticist Spencer Wells and his colleagues discovered that all humans alive today can be traced back to a small tribe of hunter-gatherers who lived in Africa 60,000 years ago.

Well, as I said the documentary was fascinating and it sparked a great story idea for me which I spent some time last night doing some research online for. During my browsing, I came across a something which struck me as so horrific in scope, it was sickening. If you ever wonder why there are problems in regard to race relations take a look at this jewel of history and make your own decision:

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SARA BAARTMAN is the fascinating story of this Khoi Khoi woman who was taken from South Africa, and then exhibited as a freak across Britain. The image and idea of “The Hottentot Venus” swept through British popular culture. A court battle waged by abolitionists to free her from her exhibitors failed.

In 1814 she was taken to France, and became the object of scientific and medical research that formed the bedrock of European ideas about black female sexuality. She died the next year. But even after her death, Sara Baartman remained an object of imperialist scientific investigation. In the name of Science, her sexual organs and brain were displayed in the Musee de l'Homme in Paris until as recently as 1985.

Some fun for you...

I came across this strip and thought I would pass along the link to the artist’s website - it’s definitely worth a look and the strip is lots of fun: Danielle Corsetto’s Girls With Slingshots