Seems lotsa folk come to CS without any sense of originality. Untold profiles contain the characters "4U" as if that were something clever: HornyGuy4U, SweetHoney4U, etc., etc., 4U. Say! Here's an idea: why not be different from all those other millions of people on the internet, and just write, "for you"?
And ladies, stop telling us how sweet you are in your names. C'mon, now. Let us be the judge of that. We will anyway.
Goddamn celphones, that's why. We're always hiring where I work. Always. It's not a great job, nor that bad either. But (staggering surprise!) it requires you to work while you're there. Untold times I've seen new hires, on their first day on the job, standing motionless, head down, that little gadget in their hands, reading text messages from their friends. Invariably such guys last no more than three weeks. Then they're unemployed again.
Ok, I'm from an earlier generation, when such contraptions didn't even exist. But even back then, we knew, you didn't take personal calls at work unless it was an emergency. I hate to sound like a grumpy oldster, but c'mon, if you're being paid to work, you should be working, not trading text messages all night with your sweetie and your pals and your cousins and who-the-hell-else you might know on Facebook.
Many may have heard the proverb that begins: "For want of a nail, a shoe was lost; for want of a shoe, a horse was lost; for want of a horse, a rider was lost..." (You can read several full versions, as well as interesting history of the proverb, here
).
So, Friday I finally had the surgery I've put off for, well, years. The surgery went fine, thank you, and easier than planned. But when I awoke, I looked at the bandage over the site and thought: gee, that doesn't look very secure. Couldn't they have used a bit more tape to fasten it down?
Predictably -- indeed, I did predict it -- the bandage came loose and slid off, resulting in bleeding. On Sunday. This was hardly critical, but I had no way to staunch it, and I had no supplies to re-dress it myself. With nothing else open and no other options, I had to hie myself down to the hospital emergency room. All for want of a little surgical tape.
Now, this surgery cost me some $1500, which I guess is not outrageous. (I don't wish to get involved in a debate about health-care costs here!) But the additional trip to the ER has cost me another $250, which should never have been neccessary. If only they'd used enough tape to secure the bandage in the first place!
I'm happy with the outcome of the surgery. I believe it went well and I don't mind having to pay a reasonable amount. But I am kinda disgruntled about this additional cost, not to mention the nuisance. And wouldn't the ER staff be better served, too, not having to deal with things like this that could so easily have been prevented, with just a bit more tape?
At least my car didn't get towed while I was in there. I couldn't pay the meter while using both hands to hold a dishtowel over the wound.
For want of a nail....
Year and a half ago, my brother sent me a present for my birthday. He chose it from my Amazon wish list: a six-volume set of Edward Gibbon's "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." And yeah, a terrific printing, I love it, it's great, it's fascinating, thanks very much. But a year and a half later, I still haven't got halfway through. (It was interrupted meanwhile by a couple other books.)
Now, he and his gf have sent me 3 DVDs off my Amazon wish list for the holiday gifting....despite me telling him I had about 20 DVDs piled up already, waiting to be watched.
Arrgh! I really am keen on the stuff, and I don't wanna seem unappreciative, but I work a lot of overtime and have to maintain my own single household. I just don't have so much time to read or watch movies. When am I gonna catch up?
Let's imagine that you have joined a site where singles connect, perhaps one with a name kinda like that, in hopes of possibly meeting a partner. Naturally then, you'd want to make sure you are as unattractive as possible, right?
So here's what you do: take every opportunity to demean and badmouth everyone and everything. Let no population or location go uninsulted. For all you know, your prospective partner is one of those people, or once lived in that location.
Also, complain about everything you can think of, particularly those things that no one can do anything about. This will help you to come across as whiney and depressing, two traits almost guaranteed to repel the one you seek. Should some well-meaning person offer advice that might actually help, simply reject it out of hand.
If asked for an opinion -- or especially, if not asked -- always state yours in the most rigid and strident terms possible. The best are those on subjects like politics or religion. Avoid subjects like sports or entertainment, where differences of opinion are more tolerated. Of course, it will help if you are totally ignorant of the subject at hand, but if not, at least try to get the facts wrong. You wouldn't want any potential mate to mistake you for someone thoughtful.
Finally -- this is the key -- to ensure you turn off the maximum number of potential mates, try to exercise all these behaviors in public. Private emails and such are fine for driving away individuals, but others may follow. So always choose the most public forums to display your unlikability.
Good luck!
Tori Amos, "Silent All These Years," "Leather," from Little Earthquakes, and "A Sorta Fairytale" from Scarlet's Walk. Piano-pop songstress Amos's work focuses on her voice and piano, with restrained, almost minimalist production otherwise. It's certainly not dance music. But it'd go well by candlelight with a glass of wine. At times, though, her piano style makes me wonder if she has a left hand? Doesn't seem to be much going on down in the lower octaves.
Megadeath, "Killing Is My Business...And Business Is Good." The title track from the metal group's 1985 debut captures both their hostile attitude and their emphasis on speed, speed, speed. The (quick) 2/4 time signature allows everything to be played in eighth notes, while the song's refrain consists of the title phrase repeated four times. And it runs only 3:05, tailor-made for radio airplay. It's easy to see how the group rose to prominence: in a sense, this stuff is very accessible. But composition-wise, it is a bit more advanced and interesting than a 3-chord groove. Metal fans I know respect these guys, but still prefer Metallica.
Steeleye Span, "Hard Times Of Olde England," from Below The Salt. A rollicking track from a very unusual group that focuses on extremely traditional folk music as rendered by a modern-rock combo, drums and electric guitars. One of my favorite groups, though little known outside folk-music circles. Still, here's some stuff that everybody can dance to, and the musicianship an albums like this and the follow-up Parcel Of Rogues was enough to attract Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson to produce their 6th album, and David Bowie to play saxophone on it. Fairly elite company for fokies. If you ever get bored with radio stations that just play the same stuff over & over, check out some Steeleye Span.
Antigone Rising, "Pretty Girl," from Say It! an-TIG-uh-nee. An awful lot of people got turned on to this all-fem pop/rock group thanks to their featured play in Starbuck's. Here though they come across much more true to their basic format, acoustic rock, rather than the country crossover that they became widely known for. Antigone Rising was and remains more of a touring/performing band, though, so their ealier albums like this are hard to come by. And that's a shame, because their stuff is pretty good.
Iron Maiden, "Powerslave." I'm not a big metal fan for starters, and I usually shy away from groups whose albums feature cover art that looks like something out of EC Comics' Tales From The Crypt, so that's two strikes. But I like Iron Maiden. This, the title track from the 1984 album, demonstrates why. These guys made modern heavy metal, even with all its shrieking, tonsil-wagging vocals and how-cast-can-you-shred lead guitar, seem like a natural outgrowth of the 'classic rock' era I grew up in. And their compositions and arrangements can be almost progressive-rock at times -- more familiar territory for an aging son of earlier times like myself. I dig 'em.
Peter Frampton, "Do You Feel Like We Do." Frampton Comes Alive was a huge seller, and catapulted the former member of Humble Pie to solo star status, as well as ushering in a whole new era of 'live' albums. But here's why: Frampton Comes Alive was the first to take full advantage of multitrack live recording, enabling the artist and production team to "sweeten" the original recordings in post-production. In other words, Frampton came alive, but then he had plenty of time to check his hair in the mirror before anyone saw his arrival.
Squeeze, "Mumbo Jumbo." English songsters Squeeze are best (and usually only) known in the US for their classic "Tempted," which appears on this album, East Side Story. But like that song, this and every other track is a gem of songwriting skill, too. (Although only "Tempted" was produced by Elvis Costello.)
Billy Joel, "Roberta." Streetlife Seranade is, in my opinion, the Piano Man's artistic high-water mark. It spawned only one very minor hit, "The Entertainer," yet it showcases both Joel's compositional skills (the album includes two instrumental tracks) and his lyrical affinity for his own blue-collar working-class roots, as in the autobiographical "Streetlife Serenader," or the inevitablity expressed in "The Great Suburban Showdown," or in this track, which at first glance seems a simple tale of unspoken longing, but is actually about the futility of romance with a Woman of Shady Means: "Roberta, how I've adored you/I'd ask you over, but I can't afford you/It's tough for me/It's tough for you." A far cry from the later smugness of "Uptown Girl."
The B-52s, "Hot Corner." 2008's reunion/comeback album Funplex is chock-full of danceability, and this track's a good example. The interplay of Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson's harmonies with Fred Schneider's half-spoken exclamations, always a hallmark of the group, is well executed. Gone, though, are the spastic arrangements that sometimes plagued the group in their earlier years, and here as elsewhere on the album, you get a steady groove that's hard to argue with. Or as Schneider puts it, "Hey, y'all! Last call! Last chance to dance!"
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