Monday, December 22, 2008

A Melange, If You Will.

I probably don't have anything Earth shatteringly new or unique to say on any of the following subjects, but since that's never stopped me before...

NBC sucks. Jay Leno, five nights a week at Ten O'Clock? Are you out of your minds? I find Jay mildly amusing, but the only time I turn on his show now is for his Headlines or Jaywalking features. Once those are over, I switch over to Letterman. So now the guy's going to be on every night at Ten. This means a whole bunch of people who used to work on the scripted shows that aired in that time slot are out of a job. It means one less channel to consider when I decide what to watch at Ten.

Caroline Kennedy wants Hillary's Senate seat. I'm a little conflicted on this one. One school of thought goes like this: What harm could it do to give her the seat? It's like a two-year tryout and then the voters can decide when she has to run for it. I think that's a really stupid school of thought. It presumes she'd be some kind of Intern-Senator and whatever she does for those two years somehow wouldn't count. That's just not the case. For better or worse, she'd be an honest-to-God-real-live Senator for those two years.

On the other hand, talk about a Senator with potential! First of all, she's already got Obama's ear. How many other Junior Senators can get the President on the phone whenever they feel the need? For that matter, how many people around the world aren't going to take Caroline Kennedy's call? And I don't buy the arguments that she doesn't have any record of public service. That's not supposed to be a prerequisite. Show me where it says differently in the Constitution. Jefferson wanted people to serve for brief periods and then return to life on the farm or wherever.

And none of the other names popping up get me overly excited.

And last...I may be a moron. In the last few weeks we've bought two different items that presume they'll be bought by people speaking a plethora of different languages. Instead of including directions in multiple languages, they make the directions in pictographs. These are supposed to be so simple that anyone can understand them. Well, I, for one, have no fucking idea what they say. The Dyson super-duper vacuum cleaner has multiple features that have not been used yet. Some of them, I can't even figure out how to get them off of their nifty storage positions. And that external hard drive I got so I could responsibly backup my computer? All I can get it to copy is all of my applications. None of the documents want to go there. The fact that it comes with a choice of Firewire, USB, mini-USB and some other connection I don't even recognize doesn't help matters either. I'm not one of those people who think we need a national language, but if you're going to sell me stuff in the U.S., can you please tell me how to work the damned things in English? Feel free to repeat the instructions in as many languages as you like.
(Disclaimer: No, I'm not missing the irony of the fact that when they do print instructions in English, I play with the product without reading them first anyway. It's in the chromosomes.)

Edited to add: I'm also eagerly awaiting January when the annual glut of incomprehensible perfume commercials will end. WTF?

9 comments:

mattw said...

No words in the instructions? Sounds like something you'd buy from Ikea.

Notice in the commerical that when she takes the scissors to her pant legs they are ragged cuts, but when she tears the rest of the pant leg away, they are perfectly straight, even cuts. They must be magic scissors.

John the Scientist said...

I want the fucking Kennedys out of American politics for good, so I vote no in the Senator / Intern thing.

Don't tell me any Senator from the States of New York or California can't get the President on the line pronto, no matter who they are or how junior they are. That argument would work for Idaho, not NY.

Unfortunately, I won't be a NY resident before the choice is made, so I've got no voice in the matter.

Jeff Hentosz said...

If you will, a melange:

Few perfume commercials here in the Buckeye State. Gwyneth P. in a field with a puppy...I think that's it. Oh, and Britney Spears overly madeup and canoodling -- that one might be for perfume, too. Maybe your glut is a NY/LA thing. WalMart commercials we got. McDonalds, Glade candles, and "The Five" cell phone idiots we got. Next year's sooper hybrid soybean seed we got. Not much perfume.

If the external hard drive is mounting, then you should be able to use Disk Utility (I always forget, you have a Mac, yes?) to reformat the thing. Purge the sucka back to the Iron Age* and it should work fine.

Kennedy, Kennedy. Political dynasties in America are just wrong. The 2000 election was a drag the minute it narrowed to Bush and Gore (I was hoping for a Bradley/McCain race). You're right: experience is (no pun) relative. I'd be more concerned that I hear she's declined to commit to supporting a Dem in the mayor's race, and has a meager record of even bothering to vote. If you're going to go with a NY celebrity for the Senate, I endorse tapping Sam Waterston.


*That's an Elements funny, see, because the disk is technically made of rust...HAH!...heh...hmm...

Nathan said...

John, I've got no voice in the matter either. Purely the Governor's call. And like I said I'm not really thrilled about any of the choices (I just don't have the visceral anti-Kennedy thing that you do). Actually, as far as Kennedy's go, you've got to admit that Caroline is the least embarrassing one in the clan these days.

And no offense but I doubt Obama is going to put Andrew Cuomo very high on his callback list.

Jeff, we don't have "The Five" cell phone idiots here. And you lost me on Elements humor. :D Do I have to hand in my NerdCard?

Jeff Hentosz said...

Magnetic media, from reel-to-reel tapes to your garden variety floppy and hard disks, are so because the coating on them is made with iron oxide -- rust. Keep the card, though, because my admittedly 10-20 year old knowledge on the matter could well be obsolete. ::grumble:: These kids and their new-fangled quantum holographic memory implants...

So, what about it? *Can* you just reformat the thing?

Nathan said...

I haven't gone back and played with it today. I'm busy with the current frustration of trying to get video off youtube and then manipulating it with iMovie. (I got it to my mac as a .mpg, but iMovie says it can't open it.)

Gah!

Jim Wright said...

WTF was that commercial for? Also, somebody needs to feed that girl a couple of sandwiches. Ew.

I'm with John, on the Kennedy bit. I'd like to go the rest of my life without hearing the word "Kennedy" again in relation to politics. Really.

Can't help you on the Mac Disk thing. Sorry.

Nathan said...

I forgot to address the "won't commit to supporting a Democrat in the next NYC Mayoral race" thing. First of all, I've got no problem with someone who won't commit to supporting a party without knowing who the party is running. I'm a lifelong Democrat, but I voted for Bloomberg when he was a Republican and when he ran as an Independent. The Dems ran losers both times.

I know this all sounds like I'm in favor of her getting the seat, but I'm really not taking a position. I just don't count the same things against her that I'm hearing most often.

Anonymous said...

I kind of like the incomprehensible Charlize Theron perfume ad. And I'm female. :)

The Gaultier ad reminds me of the underrated Tank Girl movie.