Signed, Sealed, Forgotten!

I mentioned Oprah's "No Phone Zone" Pledge the other day and it got me thinking about this whole business of signing pledges.  I'm of the viewpoint that getting people to sign pledges is, at its most benign, utterly useless, and at its worst, a form of blackmail. And, as I'll demonstrate, it's even more insidious than that.

In the case of Oprah's pledge, she apparently started by having her staff all sign on.  Signing was supposed to be voluntary, but, c'mon -- would you be comfortable being the one staffer who says, "Up yours, Oprah.  I ain't signin' shit!"  (Note: I can't say this with authority, but I'm pretty sure Oprah's Pledge has morphed a bit since she started it to acknowledge that some people might only be willing to go so far.)


Out of random curiosity, I Googled "Sign the Pledge" and came up with over six million results.  Hmm?  Just what the hell is everybody pledging out there?  A quick and totally unscientific perusal (is there any other kind?) shows that Liberals browbeat people into pledging shit a lot more often than Conservatives.  I guess there's nothing surprising about that since us Liberals are notoriously "touchy feeley" about this kind of stuff.


The Manhattan Borough President, Scott Stringer, wants me to sign a pledge to "...eat in a manner guided by the environmental, economic, and health consequences of my food consumption...".  Actually, I'm not sure he gives a rat's ass what I eat, since I'm in Brooklyn.


Leonardo DiCaprio wants me to pledge not to use plastic bags. 


Quite a few religious groups want you to pledge stuff about the environment.  There's Jews, Catholics,  Evangelicals, ... Hey, there's a whole big-ass Ecumenical group pledging to be Green.


You can pledge to go fur-free.  You can sign up to do (or not do?) a lot of stuff at California's Courage Campaign. You can pledge to buy only "Cruelty-Free" products. You can pledge an anti-bullying pledge. You can even pledge to "Blog with Integrity". (I'm not entirely sure what that means, but there has to be something ironic about the fact that you can sign on anonymously.)  


Lest you think this is all pansy-assed, pinko, liberal, "change the world" stuff, you'll find Conservative pledges if you look hard enough.  You can Pledge Allegiance to the Christian Flag. (You guys have a flag?  Who knew?). You can pledge to be a Born Again American (which seems to mostly be about being unemployed). The "Real Tea Party" has a pledge. (Is the Tea Party the going to be the next "Ray's Pizza - Famous Ray's Pizza - The Original Famous Ray's Pizza - Ray's Original Famous Pizza -- Famous Original Ray's Pizza" battleground.  It would be such a shame if such a cohesive splinter group got all...uh...splintered.)


There's a non-denominational, non-partisan drive asking you to pledge not to use "the R-Word".  I'm not sure how I feel about this one but I do know my own personal limitations.  I can't, in good conscience, take this pledge as long as there are cats in my house and talk shows on Fox.


Anyway, the whole thing seems like a huge waste of time (other than getting yourself placed on a mailing list). Are there Pledge-Police out there enforcing these things?  I mean, sure...if you get some celebrity to sign in a public forum, they'll be shamed into living up to their pledge, but I could run around signing all of those pledges willy-nilly and nobody would ever know or care if I lived up to my pledge. 


And before any of you get all, "But Pledges raise AWARENESS!" on me, I'd just like to say, "We've all been AWARE of the common cold for-ever, but does that do you any good when you're leaking stuff out of every hole in your head? I'm AWARE of space travel, but what are my chances of taking a vacation on Mars?  I'll bet you're AWARE of alchemy.  Any of you have a secret golden room hidden in your secret golden house full of tons and tons of solid gold chocolate bars?  Hmm?"




Pledging = Awareness = Hope = Disappointment.


Join me!  Take the Pledge to avoid Pledges. (Except for that dusting spray.  That stuff's pretty good.)

I Am Such A Child...Really.

Click on either hand. Go ahead.

It's F***ing HUGE!

Today, we did our part to revive the economy. Yup, we went and bought the new flat screen TV. It's a Sony 46" LCD. And when you look at it in the store with all the other TV's, you're thinking, "Ooh, maybe I need the bigger one."

Let me tell you. When you get it home, it is just fucking HUGE. I mean like, obscenely big. Like if you put on a tennis match, you'll have to wag your head back and forth to follow the ball. Like you feel the need to rent a bunch of Cinemascope movies. Like "That actress's head is twice the size of yours", huge.

The Burger King commercial makes you fear that eating a Whopper might prevent you from ever standing again. The baby in the Pampers commercial gives you a massive case of heebie-jeebies about what might be found in one of those diapers. And the bra commercial for the "full figured" women?...yup, HUGE!

I plan to sit here and just marvel at huge-osity for the rest of the day.

Update: I finished publishing this post, looked up at my new TV and noticed...It's Still Just Awesomely HUGE!

Update the Second: Two hours later and yup! STILL HUGE!

Update the Third: I just got back from the store, and I swear the thing grew some while I was out.

This one's for Vince.

Vince has no blog but he's got Kate on the radio
right now and I think he deserves an LolMoose.

I Love PicLens.

I know I babbled about Cool Iris before. It's a Firefox Add-On that allows you to hover your cursor over a link and have a kind-of window shade unfold to show you what's at the link without actually leaving the page you're on.

I downloaded PicLens a little while back and while I thought it might be kinda cool, it was still a little buggey. It seems they've worked out the bugs, and yay, I pronounce it awesome. The link will take you to the version for Firefox on mac, but there are links for other browsers and for Windows as well. There's also, apparently something for you WordPress bloggers that I didn't look at too closely, because, I'm not one of you, but I bet that's cool too.

Take the tour and download this immediately.

Update: One thing that still doesn't work when you're using PicLens...If you're searching GoogleImages for some generic picture to use on your blog...it's not very useful. If you're doing the normal search and just going through the pages of pictures, you can just drag the picture to your desktop (at least on a Mac) and bingo. If you're looking through them in PicLens, you can't drag it to your desktop and you have no idea what page it's on in the GoogleSearch. Technically, this probably doesn't count as a bug, just a missing feature that would be nice to have.

The Good Times Roll On Bulgarian Idol.

Watch it all the way through. You'll thank me.

Pratt Sculpture Garden

The Brooklyn Campus of Pratt Institute is only a few short blocks from my home, so I thought I'd give you guys a peek. There's at least twice as much as what I'm posting here, so if you ever find yourselves in Brooklyn, it's well worth a visit. In each case, I've posted the descriptive plaque and then a few shots of the piece. So, without further ado (and very little comment from yours truly), here's some culture for ya!


I wished I'd had an apple for this one.



This one reminds me of a badminton birdie. By the way, the building in the background is the library. The stacks there were done by Louis Comfort Tiffany and they're spectacular. They're made of glass block so the sun shines through the floors and the rest is intricate metal scrollwork. (I couldn't take pics inside without a student ID, or I'd have shown you.)










I especially like the texture on this one.



This one is really quite haunting.






And this is my favorite. The base is left mostly natural.




This one is missing its plaque, so I don't know who the artist is or anything about the piece. I almost didn't post it without being able to give the attribute, but I liked it, so it's in. If anyone knows anything about it, please let me know and I'll update this with proper attributes.




This is another of my favorites. It looks like it's about to go off or something.

Polybloggimous Goes Edumacational

If you're following our Sophie from Shinola saga or are just joining us, the beginning of the story and an explanation of WTF we're doing is here.
And Eric has now posted Part 20.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You guys are all big fans of words and language, so today were going to discuss animal group names. Some are obvious. Some are a little weird. And some are downright baffling.

What could be more apt than a Pride of Lions. Or an Intrusion of Cockroaches. An Ostentation of Peafowl makes sense. A Prickle of Porcupines works fine. A Murder of Crows, a Convocation of Eagles, a Charm of Finches, a Scold of Jays, and an Unkindness of Ravens all create the appropriate mental picture. And surely, more than one Skunk is a Surfeit.

Clams and Oysters congregate in Beds. Fish come in Schools, which some claim is a bastardization of Shoals, and therefore improper. A group of Sharks is a Shiver.

Then there's some odd ones. How about a Smack of Jellyfish? Or a Hover of Trout? Why are a bunch of Flies a Business? A Knot of Toads; a Bale of Frogs? A Fall of Woodcocks or a Building of Rooks? A Parliament of Owls is fitting, I guess, but still seems like a reach. What did the poor Lapwings do to be grouped in a Deceit? And where the hell did they get the Cete of Badgers.

Since I'm a firm believer in taking charge of one's own destiny, I now pronounce that whenever two or more UCFers (yes, that's now the proper plural), they will be called a Cacophony. Denizens of the PAL shall be a Gaggle (although I'm open to changing that one if you've got a better idea.

Have a happy Sunday!

I'm Just a Giver. I Really Can't Help Myself!

So yesterday over at Whatever, we played "What's your favorite Beatles song?" In that spirit, I'll ask what's your favorite "Post Beatles" song. This is open to solo careers, mashups like the Traveling Wilburys, etc. The only rule is that the ex-Beatle involved has to have been one of the writers.

I'm going for George Harrison's Wah Wah. I really don't know why. The lyrics don't make a lick of sense. I just like the sound of it. Here's two versions for you. The first is from The Concert for Bangladesh. The second is from The Concert for George. It doesn't sound quite as good as the George Harrison version, but just look at what a blast they're all having playing it. And Ringo Starr and some other guy I probably should recognize are just beating the living crap out of those two drum set. Enjoy. Oh, and you can't sync them up. I tried. (Woulda been cool tho, huh?)

I Was A Thespian.

I'll start by being off topic. Hey, its what I do. So, I comment on other peoples' blogs and you guys all convinced me to start my own blog, which means I talk a lot on line. Does anyone else have trouble remembering "Did I talk about that already"? I do. I'm absolutely sure I've never mentioned this one.

I went to Emerson College in Boston with the intention of being an actor. I think I was pretty good at it. I got most of the parts I auditioned for. Eventually, two things made me abandon the acting bug. First, I realized that success meant doing the same freakin' play 8 times a week. This did not appeal to me. Second, and how do I put this delicately, I thought all the other actors were a bunch of self-absorbed, necrotic assholes. I decided that this wasn't the world for me.

But anyway (we're back on topic now), toward the end of my freshman year, I was cast in a Noel Coward play. I have no memory of which one it was, but I was in it. I think we did a total of five performances. The last one was to be on a Saturday night and there'd be a wrap party afterwards. At the time, I'd had the hots for some girl for a few weeks and had never gotten up the nerve to say anything to her. I told a friend about it and he said, "Dude, you're in a show and there's a wrap party. You totally need to invite her to the show and the party. She'll totally think you're the coolest guy ever." (This is the same guy who harassed me endlessly to participate in the protest about Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant's opening. "It's a the most important issue there is. We need to stop this or they'll destroy the planet", he said. On the day of the protest, I ran into him when he was coming out of a bar in Kenmore Square. When I asked him why he wasn't at the protest, he said, "Well, its not worth getting my head beat in.")

Anyway, in my fevered 19-year-old brain inviting her to a wrap party seemed like a can't lose proposition. So, I invited her to the show. By inviting, I mean I kinda told her I was in a play and that going would be free and if she went, she'd get to see me act. I'm pretty sure I did everything possible to make sure that if she didn't want to see this as a date, I had let her off the hook.

CUT TO: The night of the play. I make my entrance at the end of Act 1. I'm in a fat suit and I have powder in my hair to make me look gray. I'm smoking a pipe. I deliver two lines and sit in a wicker rocking chair. My job, at this point is to sit in the rocking chair and rock. I need to make eye contact with my co-stars. I need to puff on my pipe meaningfully. I don't have any lines in Act 2. In Act 3, the final Act, I have a couple of killer lines. Steal the show, if I'm good, kind of lines. I killed in the first four performances.

So, anyway, I make my entrance, deliver my lines to a warm reception and sit in the wicker rocking chair. Two things happened at this point. First, I looked out into the audience and what did I see? The friend who'd advised me to invite the love of my life to the show is sitting with her in the front row! And they're not paying any attention to the show whatsoever. Why? Because he's got his tongue shoved so deep down her throat that he can tell me what her kidneys taste like. Of course, I find this distracting, but I've got all of Act 2 to get my shit together before I have to deliver another line. I puff on the pipe frantically.

But then, the true tragedy of the evening occurs. Remember, I've got a fat suit on. I'm shifting furiously in the wicker rocking chair. The backside of the fat suit is held together with safety pins. One of the safety pins comes loose and somehow, not only gets embedded in the wicker, but then stabs me in my actual skinny ass. It hurt. It hurt a lot. But I'm a thespian. The show must go on and all that crap. So for the next Act and a half, I'm puffing my pipe and making meaningful eye contact with the other actors and shifting around in an unsuccessful attempt to disengage my ass from a long sharp safety pin...while watching my ex-best friend make out with the girl of my dreams.

I bet you think this story has some totally triumphant ending. Sure you do. Not so much. When the play ended, I was still impaled on my safety pin. The rest of the cast lined up on the proscenium and took their bows. I scooted the rocking chair around to face the audience and rocked at them. I waited patiently for the audience to leave. My friend and the object of affection came up and said something I don't remember and left, groping each other the entire time.

When the room was finally empty I stood up, ripping the fat suit and pulling the safety pin out of my ass. Then I went to TGI Friday's where my roommate was a bartender and had a bunch of fruity drinks for free. My only revenge was that she broke his heart two weeks later. I totally refused to do anything to try to console him. Hah! Take that.

I'm pretty sure my existance never registered on her radar.

This is my inspirational Thursday post. You're welcome.

In Praise of Spellcheck.

Spellcheck dozen love me, know it dozen.
Eye tail it two look closer, ewes sum imagination
Butt it lest me make such egregious Miss Steaks.

Eye know Eye should bee care fuller
And proof reed righting myself.
Microsoft gave me spellcheck though
And aisle con tin ewe two deep end on it.

Ewe just cant beet technology.

This guy has a Homonym List. Only problem is that they're all Homophones, not homonyms. In fairness, click on his name it goes to another page and about half-way down, he acknowledges that his child has now taught him the difference, but for some reason, he doesn't want to change the title. Therefore, since everything on the internet is true, let's please arrange to have all the dictionaries changed.

Lastly, for your viewing pleasure. I ran across Stephen Hanson's site which I deem shiny and full of most excellent illustrations.

Like a Sailor!

Yesterday, a bunch of people were answering a really long quiz about themselves on their blogs. I didn't take part in that but I read all of yours with interest. Eric, who is apparently pathological chose to misunderstand the whole concept with wonderful results.

I thought one of the most interesting questions was, "Do you swear a lot". My first reaction was, "In its time and place." I mean that seems like the most obvious answer for most people. But I saw answers ranging from "Almost never" to "Yeah, but I'm trying to watch that."

I really like language. I love seeing people make really good use of it...and that includes swearing in its time and place. I hate it when I see an adult swearing in the company of a child, or even worse, at a child. I think that's a form of abuse. I hate it when someone is in public and swearing loudly, just because that's the way they talk all the time. (If you've just been in an accident or had your wallet stolen, you get a pass.)

I'm always keenly aware of my language when I'm working. My job calls for me to speak to a lot of people, usually introducing myself to them for the first time. I wouldn't consider swearing in the presence of these people until I get to know them better. Likewise, online, I like to think I take my cue from the host of any blogs I visit. If I don't know the host's preference, I err on the side of caution. I may be wrong, but I don't think I've ever even used "hell" or "damn" on Shawn's site. It would just seem unforgivably rude not to watch my language there.

Polybloggimous, is obviously a free-fire zone. Swearing here is just fine by me...especially if its creative. If anyone were to ever start getting personal here, especially swearing at other guests, I'd probably just delete their comments. Once again, its all about being aware of your surroundings.

Like I said, this all seems so obvious to me. And for those who don't behave with this basic obvious bit of civility? Well, they're just cretinous Fucktards!