Adventures in Anachronistic Consumerism # 42,984

It’s my own fault. I don’t need much from my computer, email, a word processor (all I want is just a fancy electronic typewriter, really), and access to the internet. Which I had, except that my arthritic HP was pushing eight years old (I think) and getting slower and slower …

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Pop goes the thought stream

Sure, we all complain about commercials. I channel surf away and still can’t escape them — this evening while I fiddled around online a rum commercial came on in the background that made me turn the TV off.

But not because I disliked it. Rather, I heard it through for the background music, Iggy Pop’s The Passenger, which made me want to hear that song again.

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The British riots and a vote for more candid camera

Amidst all of the chaos in the street riots in London, there’s something I really appreciate. 

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Mirrors, Archimedes, & Mythbusters

Last week, during our dawn dog walk at at the old naval air station, I noticed chalk lines and a long line of sawhorses set up on the paved pathway. They were covered with wooden planks, and poles had been set in the ground between the pathway and the shore near the boat ramp. There were two boats in the water. One was a wooden sailboat with an eye painted near its prow, and the other a smaller, white boat with two seats—perhaps fiberglass. 

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Media, media, me media, mine!

I’ve got the Giants/Dodgers game on TV. But it’s not our usual local television announcers (Jon Miller and Dave Fleming), it’s some national guys, Kenny Albert and ex-Dodger Eric Karros, whom I don’t care for. So I’ve got the local radio team on KNBR (Mike Krukow, Duane Kuiper, with Jon Miller visiting!) with the sound turned down on the TV.

I’m amazed at how un-synchronized they are. The radio is about two pitches ahead of the TV! Which could be dis-orienting, but actually it’s okay, because:

I’ve got my computer on, too. Can’t you tell? I’m writing to you, after all. So I can bang away here at my keyboard, listen to the radio and, when something good happens, glance up and have plenty of time to see it on TV.

And hey, presto — there it is! Pat Burrell just hit a two-run home run to put the Giants ahead 2-1 in the bottom of the 8th.  I love all my media!

I’m going to have to hit publish and go use another appliance, the microwave, to warm my tea before the ninth inning begins.

Here I go!

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What’s News

This spring, one of my local PBS stations has begun carrying the Japanese news:  NHK “Newsline.” I rather like it.

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Lance Baxter, Ex-Geico Pitchman

 Hurray for Lance Baxter! I was never a big fan of a gecko with a cockney accent selling insurance (wtf?), but my mother-in-law laughs whenever she sees it, so I figure the lizard had his own demographic. 

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Plutocracy and the Ides of March

 “Beware the Ides of March …  

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The Lie of the So-Called Liberal Media

For a couple decades now, but especially during the rise to power of  Limbaugh, Gingrich, et al., we’ve heard how liberal the “mainstream media” supposedly is. It’s probably the most devastatingly successful con job of the last two decades, if not in journalism history.

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Glimpses of the Magic Kingdom

If you remember when the Wonderful World of Disney was on ABC on Sunday nights, then you also remember their wonderful world of “color! color! color!” and this first picture is for you:

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