SAST 11

Posted on 24 May 2018 by Casey Karp

Time for another Short Attention Span Theater. This one’s brought to you by the combined efforts of the local trees copulating furiously and the local felines all attempting to drape themselves across my body simultaneously. This is not a combination of events conducive to deep, restful sleep.

First up is your official notification that I’ll be taking two weeks’ vacation beginning Monday. There will be Friday posts continuing our current survey of toe beans. There will probably not, however, be any other posts. Enjoy the peace and quiet.

Let’s get the awkward item out of the way. If you’re sensitive to a certain four-letter expletive–the one beginning with “F”–I suggest you skip ahead to the next item.

Still here? Okay. This license plate and its handmade addendum were spotted in a mall parking lot.
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I’ll note that the mall in question contains–in addition to a supermarket–a martial arts school, a musical instrument store, and several restaurants that actively court families as patrons. Not, in other words, a venue where most people would consider such language appropriate.

That said, I have to wonder if the owner of the car was the one who amended the license plate, or if it was done by someone who was annoyed by the owner.

The car didn’t have the dinged-up look one expects on a vehicle that frequently behaves rudely in traffic, so I doubt the sign was contributed by someone who’d been cut off entering the lot.

Perhaps it’s an attempt to foil license plate cameras? But those usually target the rear plate.

Or maybe the owner is just an asshole. If so, I’ll just note that there are any number of sites offering information about license plate owners. A quick search turned up several which claim to provide names, contact information, arrest history, and more for as little as three dollars a plate. Something to consider next time you feel the need to insult someone from the supposed safety of your four-wheeled fortress.

I spotted this in a recovery room after a minor medical procedure.
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I have to say that the germ doesn’t look nearly evil enough, nor does it look sufficiently annoyed by the threat of handwashing. Maybe a few soap bubbles would help?

The real question, though, is how many people ask? Not just asking to be obnoxious, but because they’re seriously concerned that the person offering them a juice box might not have washed recently.

24-3 What in God’s name are we teaching our kids?

That it’s appropriate to wear a mask at the dinner table? That plagues are equivalent to super heroes?

I won’t even get into how difficult it would be to eat with some of those masks on. But shouldn’t the manufacturers have asked themselves whether there was any value in masks so non-representational they need to have identifying labels?

Apparently I’m not the only one questioning these things. This was in the remaindered/closeout aisle at the local supermarket a few days after Passover.

Which raises another question: Should religious education really be left in the hands of a commercial enterprise?

And finally…
24-4 What in God’s name are we teaching our kids?

That even multi-millionaire superheros have to get day jobs to live? That pole dancing is an aspirational career path*?

* No offense intended to those who choose pole dancing as a livelihood, whether or not they remove their clothing while dancing. But I suspect even those pursuing the option would admit that, in terms of long-term income potential and retirement savings, it’s down at the bottom of the list with working the counter at a fast food restaurant.

That one needs a fortune in technological wizardry to swing around a pole? Or is that point? Is there an epidemic of stripping on our nation’s playgrounds, and this is part of a discouragement campaign? If so, it’s a little bit better than cracking eggs in a frying pan.

Is it just me, or does anyone else think Bruce Wayne would be likely to earn more as a stripper than Batman? I mean, I’d find those boots, gloves, and utility belt a real turnoff.

Last Chance

Posted on 3 April 2018 by Casey Karp

Maggie and I spent way too much time and money at the Toys R Us going out of business sale.

I’m not glad to see them go. I’m certainly not looking forward to the near future day when our only retail choices are Amazon and Walmart. And dedicated toy stores are just plain fun, even if you’re not buying anything.

Without TRU, where are we going to buy loud toys with easy-to-step on sharp edges for our nephew? It’s just not the same buying a properly sibling-annoying Seussian instrument online. It’s hard to get a good sense for just how loud it will be and how many rooms of the house it’ll fill.

But I digress.

The sale is a wonderful experience in that “piles of stuff you never knew you needed at prices you’ll never see again” way that’s normally only found in bottom-of-the-line junk shops.

And I do mean piles. Nobody’s reshelving anything. Small items wander all over the store, and larger ones migrate three or four aisles away from their starting places before people decide they’re too heavy and dump them.

Don’t assume all the items on a hanging rack are the same, because they’re probably not. Check the back of the bottom shelf. Check between the shelves. Don’t bother looking for prices. Most of the shelf tags are missing; just assume whatever you grab is going to be cheap.

Like 2-inch Kawaii Cubes, normally $5, now $0.98 to $2.

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“Crossy Roads” Penguin–who doesn’t love a purple penguin?–and “Teen Titans Go!” Starfire make a nice couple, don’t they? (I was hoping for a Raven to go with Starfire, but no such luck. Pengy-san is a reasonably adequate Plan B.)

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How about a Star Trek trio: Lt. Uhura, Spock, and an Orion ~~Slave~~ Girl.

I got a matched set of six-inch Ren and Stimpy plushes for $3 each (normally $8). But I turned down a Powdered Toast Man. Which should concern me more: that one can buy a PTM plush or that all these years later, I still remember what “PTM” stands for?

The “SpacePOP: Not Your Average Princesses” board game, which I think I’ll use to horrify my friends at next month’s games night.

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More Powerpuff Girls and DC Super Hero Girls figurines than I should really admit to having–though I think the Wonder Woman poster from last year’s movie redeems my taste somewhat.

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I couldn’t resist Poison Ivy’s sly, cynical smirk.

And several other things I can only describe as “random shelf flotsam”.

So, if you’ve got a small, tchotchke-shaped empty space in your soul, hoof it on over to your local Toys R Us before the lock the doors later this week.

And if you find a cuddly, cubical Raven, grab it for me, would you? Thanks.

No. Just, No.

Posted on 5 January 2016 by Casey Karp

My apologies for starting the new year on a negative note, but there are dark clouds on the horizon*, and it’s best to buy umbrellas before the rain arrives. Bear with me while I point out a few things that need to be stopped before they become problems.

* That’s figuratively speaking. Literally, the clouds are here and so is the rain. California still needs water, but it’s nice to see the fill line moving up instead of down.

BBC America is about to start rerunning the latest season’s episodes of Doctor Who. I’ve got no problem with that at all. What I do take exception to is the plan to overlay the show with fan art, Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook posts (I presume the latter two will be heavily edited for length), and BBC-provided nuggets of information (or, my cynical side suggests, “blocks of text superficially resembling information”).

There’s a place for tweets and blog posts. That place is on their original services. If I need to find out which random people I’ve never heard of want a new sonic screwdriver–and yes, that is one of the examples in the promotional announcement–I’ll go to Twitter myself. Ditto for pen and ink drawings of the guest stars–another example.

Before you dismiss my concern by telling me to just not watch the reruns, consider (a) the desperate need for network executives to continually come up with new ways to “engage” viewers, and (b) the popularity of live tweeting TV shows. If BBC America’s little experiment is anything but an abject failure, how long will it be before every new episode has one or more designated live tweeters’ output overlaid on the broadcast? Hint: the new season won’t start for several months (anywhere from three to seven if recent history is any guide). That’s plenty of time for the BBC to choose their ~~torturers~~tweeters.

Please, don’t watch these so-called “Doctor’s Notes” and urge your friends not to watch them as well. Only a ratings disaster can save us from this potential scourge.

Moving on.

It’s probably too late to prevent this one. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is being remade for TV. And, lest you think this isn’t as stupid an idea as ever was thought, yes, it’s a remake of the movie, not a televised production of the stage musical. That latter might actually make some sense, in the spirit of the recent live TV productions of other musicals.

As I said, this one’s probably unstoppable. It’s been in the works long enough that the stars’ identities are being released. In fact, the first release was back in October. (Damned if I know how I missed that announcement.)

Let’s get real, here. Much of the appeal of Rocky Horror is its interactive nature. Even if the script is rewritten and updated (a repellent concept in itself), how is Fox going to encourage viewers to interact with the production? Are they taking notes on BBC America’s little experiment? Wouldn’t surprise me a bit.

If you think I’m being alarmist, consider how many people use pay-per-call 900 telephone numbers to vote on talent-based shows. Think Fox wouldn’t consider a “Text your joke to see it in a banner at the bottom of the screen” approach if they could charge 99 cents a message? Anyone think they haven’t already considered it?

End of civilization–to the extent that television is civilization–approaches.

Moving on again.

News out of CES is that Harman and Microsoft are collaborating to put Microsoft Office-based information in automobile information/entertainment systems.

Apparently we’re not talking spreadsheets and word processors here, fortunately. But the last thing the any driver needs is more distractions. I long ago gave up counting the days in which I wasn’t nearly killed by another driver doing something stupid: there just weren’t enough of them for me to keep track. Now I count how many times I’m nearly killed every day*. Give those drivers the opportunity to listen to e-mail, dictate replies, schedule meetings, and participate in Skype meetings and nobody will ever be safe on the road again.

* The current average is a smidge under one near-accident for every two miles driven.

I’m probably killing my chances of ever again finding gainful employment by saying this, but there is not a single job in which distracting drivers by sending them meeting reminders and requiring them to participate in the meeting while they’re on the road could possibly be important enough that they should be allowed to risk my life. Regardless of what passengers might do, for the person behind the wheel, the job has to stop until the car is parked with the engine off!

Let’s end this on a cheerier note.

Gizmodo–home of the reasoned response–is up in arms over an announcement by Fisher-Price that they’ll soon be selling a toy to teach preschoolers how to code.

Sounds horrid, doesn’t it?

The reality is rather less dreadful. The “Think & Learn Code-A-Pillar” is a motorized toy that can be programmed to travel different paths by rearranging its segments, i.e. a forward arrow segment will send it forward for a set distance, then control will pass to the next segment; if that’s a “turn left” piece, the critter will–surprise!–turn left.

According to Fisher-Price, this will teach kids “thinking skills, problem solving and sequencing”. Apparently, it will also teach them to omit commas, but I digress.

I’ve got news for Gizmodo: toys like this have been around since my long-vanished teen years. I haven’t seen any evidence that they’ve taught anyone “thinking skills”. My nephew is too old for the Code-A-Pillar (and not quite old enough to be interested in hacking one), but if he were several years younger, I wouldn’t hesitate to get him one–and see how long it took him to deliberately program it to fall down the stairs.

Frankly, from a “won’t somebody think of the children” perspective, I’m more concerned about Magis’ Me Too My First Office. Do we really need to turn pre-teens into cubicle dwellers?