A few things that aren’t exactly rare yet you don’t see every day but I’ve seen in the last 7 days:
These latter two will be added to the Bonus Anomalisms.Do you find it troublesome when you hear a radio advertisement and the audio is digitally compressed to what sounds like 10bps? It hurts my ears.
I was remarking to others recently about how our digital devices have saved us a lot of money but their audio quality is way down. My cordless phone demands that I turn the volume up if there is any sort of background noise because it’s so difficult to understand the digital audio. However, my 30 year old, avacado, roto-dial phone is easy to understand, even pleasant to use.
Jimmy Eat World’s Clarity: I know it’s a few years old (2000), but I just bought it a few months ago and I reckon I have played this album over and over more times than any other album I own. Even more than Bleed American (Jimmy Eat World-2002?) or Coldplay’s A Rush of Blood to the Head, although I probably like those more.
Due to the high gas prices, it’s time for a repeat of my view of “monopolies” or “trusts”. My view: there is no such creature. I may explain with a contemporary example. Some may attempt to blame high gas prices on price fixing. People also tend to think there is no alternative to using gasoline. But of course, think a little more and you’ll realize there are alternatives — but they cost more. Example: the horse and buggy, the electric car, walking, car-pooling.
So if gas prices got up to a certain level you’d start looking more seriously at those alternatives. Maybe at $2 a gallon, you’ll start car-pooling more, at $5 a gallon you’ll buy an electric car. When electricity gets too expensive, you’ll buy a horse. When you can’t buy oats at a reasonable price you’ll start walking.
In reality, petroleum vendors have plenty of competition and that competition keeps prices below a certain level. Consumers just haven’t felt the need to switch to the alternatives yet.
Word for the day (from my mom): aplomb.
Quotation of the day (from Mark Twain. The more I read of him, the more I love him): “…the weakest of all weak things is a virtue which has not been tested in the fire.”
It seems I’m getting sporadic flak for my comments about dreams. It could mean that we’re all deluded or that I’m all wrong. But let me sidestep the issue for the present by including a more complete quotation of Mary Darling. She said (my paraphrase), “Your father placed many of his dreams in a drawer in order to provide for his family. He takes them out from time to time to look at them.” She seems to imply that he hasn’t given up on them completely, he hasn’t forgotten them, indeed he might take them up again some day.
I still contend:
1. A man gives up his dreams in order to love his family. That’s what love is.
2. Chasing your dreams is not the chief end of life.
Perhaps a more accurate thing to say would be that when one gives up control of his life (to Jesus or perhaps to a wife), he is given a new set of dreams. Now his satisfaction is derived from serving others.
Let us see what has happened. We watched the new Peter Pan (live action) picture. I thought it was good and enjoyable in a general sense. No stars, plenty of special effects, intelligent writing. Example of note: Mary [Darling] related how George [Darling] had given up many of his dreams in order to provide a good life for his family. Recently a commenter on this movie said that this is wrongheaded, that you are not supposed to give up on your dreams, and that you are supposed to chase after them relentlessly, desire them endlessly. But this is your garden variety high school graduation speech pablum. So he must not have been a husband or a father. Hopefully this donkey will learn someday: when you are a husband or a father, parting with your dreams is precisely what you must do to make the dreams of your family come to pass. You always give up your desires to give the ones you love their desires.
And from the “oddball English” department, here are your non-words for the day: effectivity and functionality. In the information technology universe, you will commonly hear both of these words. dictionary.com calls functionality a ‘Waffle for “features” or “function”‘. Webster apparently knows about them, but use them and regular people will start with the puzzled looks.
Last night, we watched a great movie — Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. I thoroughly enjoyed it but C didn’t get it. I suppose it is a man’s movie. When the reviewers said it made you feel like you were present for the happenings, they were right. I felt like I was there. I wanted to be there.
I heard one of my top 5 bands — Switchfoot — on the radio Wednesday. I know the song has been in the rotation on MTV for a while, so if my prior estimation of local radio holds up, the song has been on the radio around the country for some time and we probably won’t hear it more than once or twice here.