We get home delivery of the Boston Globe every day. And Adeilson, our former delivery guy was relentless in his consistency.
Once, while getting ready for an early morning flight, I got to see Adeilson in action. He didn’t get out of his car or even pull into the driveway. He actually threw the paper, wrapped in a rubber band, about 60 feet across our lawn and landed the thing within two or three feet of our doormat every time. And I mean every time.
Sadly, Adeilson left a note for us a few months back informing us that he was returning to Brazil to be with his family. We sent him a nice check and told him he would be missed.
And he is.
The new guy is good enough I guess, but he doesn’t hit the doormat like Adeilson did. He usually lands the paper at the top of our driveway which means I have to make a barefoot dash to retrieve it.
And now that the weather of October is here and the driveway is freezing cold I miss Adeilson more and more!
But that’s not the worst part about getting the paper. As a guy in the job market, it’s the front page news of the last month that has been making my Cheerios considerably less cheery.
Every day there’s more bad news about the financial and economic crisis. Usually, I don’t pay too much attention to this kind of thing but I guess that I’m like everyone else in that my savings has been reduced to rubble and I’m not nearly sophisticated enough to understand why.
I mean, I know that financial companies were lending money to people who they shouldn’t have been in the form of sub-prime mortgages and I know that once the housing market declined, the negative value of the defaulted mortgages caused those financial companies to crater. And I also get that the crisis spread across other financial sectors.
What I don’t understand is why they made such huge loans to such high risk borrowers in the first place. And I don’t know why they assumed that the housing market would just go up and up and up forever. I don’t know anything about finance but I know full well that kind of thing is unsustainable.
So if I knew…wtf?
Clearly, a lot of stuff is happening that I don’t understand. And I haven’t found a news source able to take all of the craziness and complexity and explain it very well.
Until now. And in the most unlikely of places.
You are surely aware of This American Life , a long form radio show produced by Chicago Public Radio and hosted by Ira Glass. It’s a really great program and is now available on free podcasts every week.
Back in May, they did a show called The Giant Pool of Money which did a fantastic job of explaining just what the subprime mortgage crisis was all about.
And just last week they did a follow up show called Another Frightening Show About the Economy that attempts to explain all of the crazy financial shit that’s been going on since.
Both programs are excellent. I highly recommend them if you need help getting your mind around all of this.
But be forewarned. You‘ll probably understand things a bit more, but you won’t feel any better about it.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
The $730 Glass of Ice Water
Regular readers, both of you, are well aware of my quest for ice. The drama began way back at the beginning of August and continued in fits and starts through September and October.
To bring you up to speed, we have a refrigerator that has a built-in ice and water dispenser that we never bothered to connect because we’re not big ice people. However, after four years of taunts and insults from our family and friends who do enjoy ice, we decided to call a plumber to connect the fridge to a water supply. Which he did.
When the plumber left, we discovered that the ice dispenser was broken so we had an appliance guy come over to fix it. Which he did.
After waiting in vain for the machine to start making ice we discovered that the ice maker itself - not the dispenser but the maker - was also broken.
Cue the existential crisis music.
Well, as you can see in the video above, we finally have the convenience of automatic ice and water. And the glorious thing is that we don’t have to walk the additional two feet to the sink to get a glass of water! Who can guess how much time this is going to save?
And now, the final numbers:
$245 Plumbing and installation of water source
$100 Deposit for the purchase of new pfetzer unit for dispenser
$160 Balance due on pfetzer unit
$125 Appliance guy labor to install pfetzer unit
$100 New ice making unit
Mercifully, the appliance guy took pity on me and sold the new ice making unit at his cost. He also installed it for free.
So I’ve got myself a $730 glass of ice water and an appliance repairman with a heart of gold.
Nothing can stop me now.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Breaking news...HEADS UP!
I've mentioned Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy blog before and he just posted some news that I want to share/rip-off.
Turns out that that an object a couple of meters across will enter the Earth’s atmosphere at about 10:46pm eastern time tonight.
With a diameter of two meters, the object poses no real danger to anyone because it will break up in the atmosphere. Worst case scenario is that a few small rocks will make it to Earth's surface and while it would be an incredible bummer to be hit on the head by one, the odds are very small.
It is predicted to burn up over Africa, northern Sudan to be specific.
It will be an amazing shooting star because most shooting stars that you see are about the size of a grain of sand. As Plait puts it, "Something as big as a grape would make a very bright fireball. A rock two meters across will be incredible."
Plait will post updates as he gets them so check out his site for more info.
You nerd.
(Oh, and if you want to read some scary shit about asteroid impacts with Earth, The Atlantic published a fascinating article by Gregg Easterbrook which can be found here.)
Turns out that that an object a couple of meters across will enter the Earth’s atmosphere at about 10:46pm eastern time tonight.
With a diameter of two meters, the object poses no real danger to anyone because it will break up in the atmosphere. Worst case scenario is that a few small rocks will make it to Earth's surface and while it would be an incredible bummer to be hit on the head by one, the odds are very small.
It is predicted to burn up over Africa, northern Sudan to be specific.
It will be an amazing shooting star because most shooting stars that you see are about the size of a grain of sand. As Plait puts it, "Something as big as a grape would make a very bright fireball. A rock two meters across will be incredible."
Plait will post updates as he gets them so check out his site for more info.
You nerd.
(Oh, and if you want to read some scary shit about asteroid impacts with Earth, The Atlantic published a fascinating article by Gregg Easterbrook which can be found here.)
Two videos about folding...
Having once worked at a company chock full of engineers, this first clip has a special resonance for me. But I have to admit, when I saw how well it worked I considered, just for a few seconds, making one myself.
Then I snapped out of it.
This next one is a clip from Philip Morrison's 1987 PBS program "The Ring of Truth: Atoms" featuring chef Kin Jing Mark making noodles to demonstrate the principle of halving.
It's a great example of using metaphor to explain esoteric scientific concepts that are, let's face it, becoming so specialized and counter-intuitive that it's hard for a regular guy to keep up.
I just love how proud Chef Mark is at the end. That expression on his face is, I think, what pure joy looks like.
Then I snapped out of it.
This next one is a clip from Philip Morrison's 1987 PBS program "The Ring of Truth: Atoms" featuring chef Kin Jing Mark making noodles to demonstrate the principle of halving.
It's a great example of using metaphor to explain esoteric scientific concepts that are, let's face it, becoming so specialized and counter-intuitive that it's hard for a regular guy to keep up.
I just love how proud Chef Mark is at the end. That expression on his face is, I think, what pure joy looks like.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Never mind the butter...
"Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols" came out in October of 1977 - 31 years ago this month.
Just imagine how John Lydon might have reacted if an ad agency approached him three decades ago.
But today, it doesn't matter at all does it? It doesn't even seem weird. I was all set to get my dander up but...nothing. Who cares?
Just another TV moment, a blip in the blizzard of media of which even this blog is a part.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Now that we have that out the way….
Ye gads. Now that I am no longer a fugitive from unscrupulous sealcoaters, I want to share with you just what the hell I was thinking.
And here is where I bloviate about experimenting with narrative within the confines of the blog form while using written, visual and audio elements typical to the medium.
And here is where you roll your eyes and click away….
Actually, the idea was born partly out of my desire to keep the posts coming and partly because I wanted to come up with some inventive ways to incorporate video into TMUOTF.
The business card was real as was the hand written note on the back. I found it funny that the message on the back was so cryptic and that started my mind to wandering.
By chance I had to go to Toronto for work so I saw an opportunity to add the word “international” to the word “intrigue.” The role of the guy following me was played, unwittingly, by my boss.
I didn’t have an ending in mind. Or a middle for that matter. I just kept unfolding the story as I went along until I found myself holed up in the seedy motel. And then I started trying to figure out how to end it.
Meanwhile, I had lots of other things that I wanted to post but I felt that I had to see this story to its conclusion without interruption. I thought that breaking away to post something else would destroy my “alternate reality." I mean, why on earth would a guy on the lam take the time to blog about the financial bailout bill?
Anyway, my post-mortem on the entire episode is basically that in the beginning it was fun and interesting (for me I mean, not necessarily for you) but that it became tiresome and confining towards the end. It was probably a valuable exercise for me as a novice blogger and I won’t promise that something like that won’t appear on TMUOTF again. (Notice that I didn’t not use a double negative there…)
That said, it’s a bit of a relief to be moving on.
And here is where I bloviate about experimenting with narrative within the confines of the blog form while using written, visual and audio elements typical to the medium.
And here is where you roll your eyes and click away….
Actually, the idea was born partly out of my desire to keep the posts coming and partly because I wanted to come up with some inventive ways to incorporate video into TMUOTF.
The business card was real as was the hand written note on the back. I found it funny that the message on the back was so cryptic and that started my mind to wandering.
By chance I had to go to Toronto for work so I saw an opportunity to add the word “international” to the word “intrigue.” The role of the guy following me was played, unwittingly, by my boss.
I didn’t have an ending in mind. Or a middle for that matter. I just kept unfolding the story as I went along until I found myself holed up in the seedy motel. And then I started trying to figure out how to end it.
Meanwhile, I had lots of other things that I wanted to post but I felt that I had to see this story to its conclusion without interruption. I thought that breaking away to post something else would destroy my “alternate reality." I mean, why on earth would a guy on the lam take the time to blog about the financial bailout bill?
Anyway, my post-mortem on the entire episode is basically that in the beginning it was fun and interesting (for me I mean, not necessarily for you) but that it became tiresome and confining towards the end. It was probably a valuable exercise for me as a novice blogger and I won’t promise that something like that won’t appear on TMUOTF again. (Notice that I didn’t not use a double negative there…)
That said, it’s a bit of a relief to be moving on.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
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