Drunken Pumpkin

The secretary of defense gave the president his daily briefing. He concluded by saying: “Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed.”

“Oh No!” the president exclaimed. “That’s Terrible!”

His staff was stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the president sat, his head in his hands.
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The new Discover card has me a little worried about the world.

Discover’s Motiva card makes me a little anxious about the state of the world, at least the state of the U.S. When you get a credit card you normally have to sign something saying that you’ll pay for the stuff you buy with it. We even talked about this concept via a Steve Martin SNL sketch some time ago, but it doesn’t seem to have sunk in to most of the populace. What the new Discover card does is pays you the interest on your card’s balance if you pay your bill on time for six months. I’m not sure why you should need an incentive to pay your bills, really. Just do what you said you would, is that too much to ask of the world? Seriously, if you got a job that said they would pay you so much a month, you wouldn’t expect to have to bribe them with free overtime just to get your check, would you?

The current state of society has me concerned for the future. As a teacher I get asked a lot of questions during the course of my classes, and these are normally followed by an apology for asking questions. It’s my job to make sure that people leave the class knowing how to do certain things, if they don’t then I haven’t held up my end of the deal. I don’t see this as a difficult equation: “I said I will do X, so I should do X”. Not hard.

What’s it gonna be like when I’m old and infirm? Will I have to bribe the nurses to come change my bed pan? “Hey, if you clean up after me, which is in your job description, I’ll give you half of my meds to sell on the street?” Just ridiculous.

Anyway, do what you agreed to and make more money, it’s the wave of the future.

Tune in next time when it becomes apparent I’ve been watching too much TV.

I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis

Died January 14, 1957

The last week has been incredibly bland. Not bad, just sort of there.

I think maybe this last week is a bit like the new neighborhood I’m moving to soon. It isn’t a great place where everybody is friends and the morning paper is delivered by little Billy. However, it isn’t somewhere that the loud noise you just heard might be someone firing a shotgun at your house over a drug dispute. (That’s more Jeff’s house, don’t worry, they got the house numbers wrong. Drug dealers aren’t typically scholars.)

My new hood is a strange concoction of those two extremes. Two blocks down one in four houses is condemned or should be. Turn the corner and go a couple of blocks and you have a Methodist church and a synagogue flanked by a building built for rich widows and their servants. I have actually seen people hopping out of dumpsters next to BMWs over there.

My last week has been like that neighborhood. Nothing alarming has taken place, but nothing particularly exciting has either. Actually, let me temper that, nothin exciting that I can talk about here has taken place. There were some surprise strip searches at the prisons I work in, but I can’t really go into detail on that.

Perhaps a sameness to the world is the most horrifying thing. Jeff and I have plans to liven up my little neighborhood. We’re going to feed the ducks with a siege weapon. I’m sure there will be pictures.

Tune in next time. Just do it without a reason for once, okay.

If so, then this little flash video romp will impress the socks off of you. Move your mouse to change the camera’s angle.

Seriously, speaking from a personal lack of socks here.