Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Merchandising and the Modern Nomad

I was listening to this news item on NPR this morning about the troubles of the nomads in Mongolia.  Apparently they used to be taken care of by the communists and even had some sort of health insurance.  Then the reporters talked to this organization that was trying to help them out.  One of the things they were trying to do was teach them to "diversify their business."  I couldn't stop laughing all the way to work.  I just had this image of John Cleese wandering around on the steppe with a pack of brochures under his arm, trying to explain the benefits of multiple product lines to a bunch of grimy nomads herding... whatever they herd in Mongolia.

Monday, May 22, 2006

Ow

Note to self: head not to be bashed into hard wooden posts.  That is just not cool at all.  Happened last night and it now it's giving me a whole different kind of headache.  I wonder if I bruised my brain.

Also, I got no work at all done this weekend, unless putzing around with the cover layout counts.  So maybe I cracked myself on the head because deep down, I knew I deserved it.  Damn, I'm mean.

Sunday, May 21, 2006

I Got No Idea What's Goin' On

It can't be healthy taking two different antihistamines... one at double dose... It really can't. But that's what it took before I finally stopped sneezing. That's gotta be good for something. Hello? Well, I guess I better go slip into that coma now. Seeya later.

Saturday, May 20, 2006

And I Feel So Much Safer Now

Rough Summer Is On the Way for Air Travel
By JEFF BAILEY, May 21, 2006

CHICAGO, May 20 — Brace yourself for a summer of miserable air travel.

Planes are expected to be packed fuller than at anytime since World War II, when the airlines helped transport troops. Fares are rising. Service frills are disappearing.

Logjams at airport security checkpoints loom as the federal government strains to keep screener jobs filled. The usual violent summer storms are expected to send the air traffic control system into chaos at times, with flight delays and cancellations cascading across the country...

http://www.nytimes.com/...etc.

Well, that's just great. The one summer I have to fly because a car trip to my brother's wedding in San Francisco would be even more expensive, and shit like this is happening.

Friday, May 19, 2006

Futurist

"I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past."

Kind of a neat quote, huh?  It popped up on my random quote of the day thingie just after I emailed that last post in.  And isn't it cool, btw, that I can just email my blog posts in (with a password) and they get posted automatically?  That's one of the reasons I jumped to this site.  Anyway, you know whose quote that was?  John Lennon?  Jules Verne?  Think farther back.  It was actually my favorite "founding father," Thomas Jefferson.

History's interesting too, of course.  No denying that.

Tigers, Lambs, and Volcanoes

So I was looking at this picture.  It shows a big troupe of mostly African animals all walking along the savanna together.  I think it was meant to be sort of an idyllic scene, but there are really all kinds of animals - tigers, giraffes, lions, gazelles, etc. - just walking together, not eating each other or anything.  Every time I look at it, despite the pleasant-looking scene, I think of some horrible catastrophe.  Why would all those animals be moving in one herd unless they're running away from a volcano or a fire or something?

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Squirrels!

We were at the park today and I saw something I've never seen before: a black squirrel. It was cool. Turned out there were actually a bunch of them there. Of course, I'm hardly a squirrel expert. I hadn't seen red squirrels either until I moved to Cleveland. They're all red in the neighborhood where I live now. Before that, I thought they were all gray.

Okay, really. Future posts will be more interesting than this. Probably better written too, although I make no promises. It is a blog, after all.

Welcome

Yeah, I'm trying out yet another blog site. This one looks like the best yet... but I suppose the others did too. This is the first one so far that's not based on the "corrosive" theme from my home page, though. I figured after three "Corrosive Strangeness" blogs, that theme was getting a little tired. Look, this one's not even green! Maybe I'll actually stick around this time.