Free Research

I've been thinking lately, and here are some topics that would make really good Master's theses or even PhD dissertations. I provide them free of charge, just mention my name when they award you the Nobel.

   What is the correlation between the rise of religious fundamentalism in US society as a whole and the rise of originalism in the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Constitution? Can both these things be traced back to a single source, be it social movement or world event?

   What is an electron, precisely? If you measure an electron one way it's a particle, if you measure it another way it's a wave, which means that an electron is actually neither of those things but something else entirely. What is that thing? Same goes for the other elementary particles. And don't tell me it's a vibrating string, that's just another barely-suitable model.

   Why do people become so eager for McRib sandwiches and Shamrock Shakes? The idea is that rarity breeds desire, no secret there, or the principle of intermittent reward. But neither of those things fully explains the fan base these horrible food items have. If you can unlock the secret to why people love these two things so much you'd go a long way towards predicting human behavior.

   Why are yawns contagious? Ignore for a moment the question of why we yawn at all, I want to know why yawns are contagious across species. If I yawn in front of my dog he's probably going to yawn too. Same thing if I had a monkey, which - God willing - I will one day. What's the deal? Why does it happen?

   To what extent does the media shape and inform political discourse? And I'm not just talking about drug addict right-wingers on AM radio, I mean broadcast television, the AP, Reuters, all of them. If the media doesn't tell us about it we don't care, so how does news coverage affect our impression of the political landscape?

   What are the ethics of complete sequencing of a person's genome? I don't mean the first time scientists finished the job, I mean what are the ethical implications for sequencing mine specifically? Or yours? Or the President's? We'll be able to tell a lot more about a person from their genes in the coming years, for instance if someone has a tendency towards being a serial killer. Do we pre-emptively treat someone for being a serial killer if they have shown absolutely no tendency towards that? What are the social stigmas attached to having a serial killer gene? And if we suppress that serial killer gene - we don't allow that person to breed - what are the implications for the human genome as a whole?

I swear, I should work for a think tank. Anybody have any idea how to go about getting hired by a think tank? Maybe creating one of my own? For that matter, how did they come up with the term 'think tank' in the first place?
   So many questions...

Jerry's Kids

Did you know the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon has been going for 45 years? I didn't either. Man... that's a long time. That's long enough to see eight Presidents, several energy crises, a few recessions, lots of military 'actions,' a moon landing and NASA's abandonment of that achievement, the construction and destruction of the World Trade Center, and the gradual replacement of the American family farm with big agribusiness. A long time.
   It's been on long enough that people take it for granted. Or ignore it. For my money, it hasn't been the same since Ed McMahon's been gone. I grew up listening to him calling out 'roll the timpani!' and pointing at the old analog number board. I remember it was a great big deal when they made it to $1 million. As the 24 hours progressed, Jerry went from the movie Jerry - wacky and loud and funny - to the fatigued, punchy, angry Jerry, who would look into the camera and dare you not to pledge a dollar. I always thought he would come to my house and shake me down if I didn't give any money. Good times, good times...
   I got to thinking, what else has been around for at least 45 years? No TV shows, except the nightly news. McDonald's, I suppose. IBM. The Rolling Stones. The military-industrial complex Eisenhower, of all people, warned us of. Chevy. Ford. Wal-Mart.
   Do you see how the things I can think of are large corporations, or things made possible by those corporations? That frightens me. The only permanent things are faceless entities run by anonymous bean-counters.
   Help me out here. There has to be something that's persisted for 45 years that isn't bound by corporations. Something pure and good and unstained by association with money-grubbing bastards. Right? Anybody got any ideas?

This is what I wrote last year on Labor Day. It still stands.

Pinstripes

I saw a group of guys in suits today - what is the collective noun for a bunch of guys in suits? a pretense? a pinstripe? a double-breast? I don't know. There were five or six of them, I couldn't get an exact count because they all looked the same.
   I heard a bit of their conversation, which I couldn't make heads or tails of because none of them were finishing sentences and they were all using nonsense corporate-speak works like 'paradigm' and 'monetize.' I'm sure they're all nice guys and I'm sure their families love them. But as I watched them do their thing, I had only one thought:
   If I ever turn into that just put a pistol to my head, pull the trigger and put me out of my misery.
   Seriously. I don't know what business they were in but that doesn't matter in the least. They were tools, knobs, corporate weasels, I'm sure you have your own term for this kind anonymously bland, identical sort of douchebag. I wonder what they think when they look in the mirror at night. Did they think they were fighting the good fight, doing a good job, making a difference? Or did they see what I saw, a grasping climber hanging out with people who look and sound exactly like him?
   Maybe I'm being too hard on them. Maybe they have to dress like they're training to be bouncers at a strip club (or at least what I hear bouncers at a strip club dress like). Maybe they have to talk like people who don't understand the words that are coming out of their mouths. Maybe they actually like the people they're turning into...
   Nah.

Bread And Circuses

Something's been bothering me lately. Okay, a LOT of things bother me, but one thing in particular has caught my attention. It's the way that modern careerism and corporate group-think is affecting our Republic.
   Let me 'splain. Any democratic form of government requires its citizens to participate. Actively. That means people should go to city council meetings, they should go to zoning board meetings and school board meetings. They need to know what's going on in their neighborhoods, their cities, their states, and in the nation. And they should vote.
   But let me ask you this: when was the last time you did any of that? If you answered 'just last week, Don,' I can almost guarantee that you do not hold a full-time job. You're retired, or a part-time worker, or a stay-at-home Mom or Dad. Or unemployed.
   Working a 9-to-5 job has over the last decade become working an 8-to-5 or an 8-to-6 or longer. And then there's the commute, people are willing - for some reason - to drive an hour or more to work somewhere they really would rather not be in the first place. We're spending over half our day Monday through Friday working, getting to work, or coming back from work. After that we have to make time for our families, and then all the stuff that needs doing anyway like the laundry or cooking or cleaning.
   After all the busy work that we do just to get by, are any of us inclined to trek to City Hall to listen to a zoning committee? After a very long day of corporate monkey-spank do we really want to hear about library funding or sewer improvements?
   Being good corporate drones is making us bad citizens. We're neglecting the things that make this country the incredible place it is, in favor of yet another TPS report or PowerPoint presentation.
   I don't know if this is by accident or by design. A corporation is just a legal fiction, after all, a piece of paper on file somewhere in Delaware. But corporations are run by human beings, some very poor human beings usually, and I wouldn't put it past them to have planned this all along. Get people hooked on corporate welfare, get them running the treadmill of the paycheck economy, and then slowly subvert the system from within, knowing that people are too tired and distracted to pay attention. All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men stand by and do nothing, after all. And what better 'nothing' to do than fail to participate in a participatory democracy?
   Maybe it's my impending old-man-ness showing, but this has to stop. We have to stand up and take charge of our work day. Just say no to another day working late, just tell them the report won't be ready on Friday because you have to go help keep America great. Let's see those weasels argue with that.

Tales From My Past - Hulk Smash

Back in the heady days of 2007, when the nation was just beginning to understand that the prosperity of the previous five years was a lie based on a false assumption driven by misguided optimism, at Countrywide the people in charge realized there was no hiding how bad the situation was from the rank and file.
   So, like any corporation trying to seem like it was doing something, we had a meeting.
   It was an all-hands HR meeting, and I got there late. The room had filled up from the back, and the only seat left - literally - was up front right next to our Chief Leadership Officer. The guy was a tool, a complete jackass from the word go, and I had to take the bullet nobody else would. I said 'hi' as I sat down, though of course he didn't respond. I don't want to put down the dipshit's real name, but it sounded like Bichael Binston.
   The meeting started and it was the head of HR demonstrating her lack of compassion at the same time she was betraying her ignorance of finance and the mortgage business the company was founded on. A whole lot of nothing. She asked if there were any questions and Mr. Winston - oh, sorry, Binston - actually raised his hand even though he and the head of HR were practically touching knees.
   "What does the next fiscal quarter portend?"
   Say what? Did he actually use the word 'portend' in a sentence? I wasn't certain I had heard properly, but my natural hatred for this poser kicked in right then. I felt my hand clenching into a fist.
   The head of HR gave her non-answer, and then Michael - sorry, Bichael - nodded sagely, as if he understood the nonsense she was spewing.
   "That augurs well."
   Ooooooh... I actually felt my blood boil. Augur and portend? Within a minute of each other? And sitting right next to me? You have got to be out of your mind...
   I had to stop myself from hitting him. It was one of those moments where someone you hate just pushes your buttons so thoroughly that there's no other response but the physical. I had to sit on my hands.
   Later, when the monkey-spank was well and done, some of my colleagues asked me how I managed to sit next to that walking turd without hulking out. I almost didn't.

COMMUTE - there - 75 minutes - seriously, it was insane today      back - 55 minutes, like I said, insane in the membrane
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 53 days

Jumpin' Anacondas!

I'm not at my contract gig today, it's a doctor visit/ car servicing day. They're not at the same place, in case you were wondering.
   However, only yesterday I was commenting on how things are going be changing with the world and the economy more than people realize. Well, my prediction is already coming true.
   I was gearing up to take my truck in for its 100,000 mile servicing - yet another post from a while back - to the dealer where I have been taking my truck since I moved out here to SoCal eight years ago. I got online to check for coupons, and when I clicked the dealer's link I saw a message from Chevrolet 'The Chevy dealer you selected is no longer in business.' Say what?
   Nah... can't be, I thought. I was just down on that part of Colorado Blvd. a month ago and the place was still open. Must be some sort of mistake, I've been going there for eight years. The service writers knew my name, the shuttle driver remembered me. That place couldn't be closed. No way. One of GM's IT guys must have been asleep at the switch and screwed up the web site. Yeah, that had to be it. Battling with my disbelief, I got in the truck and rolled East.
   Sure enough, the place is vacant. Empty. A tumbleweed factory. Blank. Uninhabited. Deserted. Abandoned. Locked up and swept up. Cleared the f**k out.
   Like I said, I know for a fact this business was open four weeks ago, all the banners, cars and activity I saw weren't illusions. This wasn't even one of the Chevy dealers who lost their franchise a year or so back. This was a going concern, at least it seemed to be. Although... I had been getting coupons in the mail for $12 oil changes, which has to be below cost considering you have to pay for mechanics, equipment, and supplies. It's always a sign of desperation when a business starts giving away the stuff it's trying to sell.
   The media and the government are trying to tell us that things are turning around, that recovery is just around the corner. I find that hard to believe when a major employer like a car dealership with at least 100 employees, maybe more, closes up shop overnight.
   To bring closure on this anecdote, I just continued a little further East, to the GMC dealer where I bought the hot rod, and I'm getting my truck taken care of there. It's all going to be okay...

COMMUTE: blissfully, none, no driving nowhere today
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 57 days

It's All Changing

As time goes on I'm beginning to realize that this economic downturn is going to change things all over. And I don't mean just for me, being 'between assignments.' Things are changing on a fundamental level, especially with regards to finance, which should always be a means to an end - a way to enable a real economy based on goods and services - and not the money-making end in itself. The 'bon temps' that used to 'roulez' for banks, brokerage houses, insurance companies, mortgage lenders and the like are soon to be 'fin,' even if the institutions themselves don't know it yet. Or the government for that matter. There's an ill wind a-blowin'.
   The crazy-ass Teaparty kooks are definitely the lunatic fringe, but that fringe just tends to be more radical and vocal about things that bother society as a whole. Rampant fiscal and fiduciary irresponsibility is going to lead to a new rise in populism, just like what happened over 100 years ago with political corruption, multiple depressions, robber barons and the like. The result of the business excesses of the 1890s was the election of that trust-busting Bull Moose, Teddy Roosevelt.
   And you thought you didn't have to pay attention in History class, didn't you? Well, you blew it off, and see what's happened? History has repeated itself. Again. Same trip down the same road, only it's 100 years later and we all have cell phones. There were pretty serious changes to business back then because of the idiocy of the corporate giants, and the same thing's bound to happen now. Mark my words.


COMMUTE: there - 47 minutes, I left late      back - 41 minutes
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 58 days

Things That Worry Me Which Probably Shouldn't

Disposable tissues worry me. I'm talking about the kind you use to blow your nose when you're under the weather, a familiar brand name starts with a 'Kleen' and ends with an 'ex.' I'm concerned that these tissues might actually spread viruses.
   I mean, think about it, who do you see using these tissues the most? Sick people. So, using Occam's razor in our reasoning, it only makes sense that these tissues cause the illnesses. Right? Just like the theory of spontaneous generation, like piles of grain creating mice. And knowing what we do about the conscience-less way major corporations operate I wouldn't put it past Kimberly Clark to infect their product with germs in order to increase consumption. I mean, if I were a corporate weasel that's probably a decision I'd make.
   This isn't the kind of thing you can keep a secret, once people suspected something scientists would do their tests, and eventually the truth would have to come out. And then the government agencies that are supposed to regulate this kind of thing would get in a day late and a dollar short and they'd shut down the entire disposable tissue industry, not only the brand names but your generics, your Kirklands, all of them. No more disposable paper tissues. So then what would we as a society do? We'd have to go back to the old-timey solutions.
   I'd have to carry around a hankie like my grandfather did. A silk or cotton square, stuffed into my pocket and staying there all day. I'd take it out to wipe at my nose or the corner of my mouth, and then jam it back into my coveralls, carrying my mucus around for hours. Keeping warm with my body heat. Staying mostly liquid. Festering. Man... talk about a foot-square bit of traveling infection. And back in the day everyone had them, men in their pockets, women in their purses. It's a wonder that my grandfather lived long enough to give my father a chance to come about.
   I'd really hate it if I had to carry one of those terrible things, so I'm hoping my concerns are unfounded. Maybe that's a money-making opportunity, some sort of permanent hankie soaked in antibiotic, so you could sneeze all you wanted and it might actually help make you better. Nobody steal that one, it's mine.

Whose Type Am I?

I was walking down Wilshire today to get Lotto tickets at the liquor store - you can't win if you don't play - and I noticed several different types of people walking with me. There are several medical plazas between my office and the liquor store, so there are patients on the sidewalks, people who obviously need some kind of medical attention. Because Variety, E!, G4, Comcast, and other entertainment companies have their headquarters on that stretch of the Miracle Mile there are young-ish LA hipster types in the entertainment biz, all with the same kind of sneakers, jeans, and t-shirts. Don't know when it became okay to wear jeans and a t-shirt to work, but evidently it is nowadays. Because a fairly rough part of LA is about two miles South there are some clearly indigent, possibly felonious types of many races and creeds. A melting pot, if you will. Oh, and speaking of pot, there's a medical marijuana store/dispensary/whatever on the way, so there are some stoner types out and about too.
   As I was classifying these people I got to wondering what type I was for them? While I'd prefer to think I was the 'rakishly handsome, put together guy in charge' type, I doubt that was really the case.
   I wear business clothes to work - slacks, an ironed shirt and dress shoes - and I'm a white guy of a certain age. What does that mean for, say, one of the stoners? And what does my wrist watch mean for the hipster entertainment people? Or my bathed condition for the indigent people?
   Do I represent The Man? Am I emblematic of that corporate America I so desperately want to escape? Am I thinking too much? Should I just shut up, keep my head down, and thank God that I have a job?
   Nah...


COMMUTE: there - 40 minutes, fire trucks     back - 36 minutes
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 73 days

The Ghost Of Things Undone

   It was dark when I woke, and a look at the clock let me know it was midnight. Moonbeams shone through the window, painting silver stripes on the dark comforter. And there was something else, a person - or an echo of a person - just beyond the foot of the bed.
   "You cannot rest, you must not rest," the phantom muttered in sepulchral tones, a whisper from beyond.
   "You again?" I said, falling back onto my pillows. "Jeez, what do you want from me?"
   The apparition stirred, floating back and forth slowly, carried on invisible currents. "Things remain. Things you cannot avoid. You must not avoid."
   "Yeah, you told me last night, and the night before, and the night before that," I said, rubbing my eyes and hoping the ghost would fade away soon. "If this is so important that you have to wake me up four nights in a row, why can't you tell me what these things are?"
   The wisp of a presence hovered there, insubstantial as a cobweb, a ghostly hand raised to its fading chin, thinking. "You have a point. Doesn't make much sense to haunt you about your earthly tasks if you have no idea what they might be."
   "You think?" I said wearily. "So tell me already. I have to avenge the death of a friend? I have to put right some grave injustice? No wait, I have to find a way to bring you final peace. That's it, isn't it?"
   "I don't really know," the ghost said.
   "Are you kidding me?" I said. "You don't even know what you're hounding me about?"
   The spirit leaned against the foot of my bed, thoroughly confused. "They don't really give us details at Central Office."
   I pulled my pillows up, determined to at least be comfortable if I couldn't be asleep. "So they just told you to come haunt some guy named Don and didn't tell you why?"
   "I'm sorry, what was that?" the ghost said. "Don? Your name is Don? Are you sure?"
   "Pretty sure," I said. "My wallet's on the dresser over there if you want to check for yourself."
   The ghost sighed, a small chuckle escaping its ectoplasmic lips. "You're not gonna believe this. I'm supposed to be haunting a guy named Dan. Man, I'm really sorry. The bureaucracy we ghosts have to put up with... well, you can imagine."
   "Does this mean we're done?" I said. "You're gonna leave and not come back tomorrow night?"
   "Scout's honor," the ghost said, holding up three fingers.
   I flipped over, pulling the covers up to my chin. The seconds ticked by and I still felt a spirit presence, the hair on the back of my neck raising painfully as the ghost continued to watch me.
   "What now?" I asked, sitting up.
   "You don't happen to know a guy named Dan, do you?"

For Your Convenience

Last night was sitting on the couch eating dinner, as I usually do since I don't have a dining table. What can I say? I'm a guy who lives alone, it never occurred to me that I should get a dining table. Still hasn't. Anyway, I tried to eat healthy, so I had some baby carrots, apple slices, dried cherries, walnuts, and a whole wheat English muffin with a little peanut butter on it. Proud of my dietary restraint, as I munched away I realized that I had spent a total of two or three minutes arranging my meal, because all of the food preparation had been done for me.
   The carrots came already peeled and washed and in a bag, the apple slices too, the cherries had the pits and stems removed and the walnuts were already shelled. The English muffin came pre-sliced. I did have to stir up the peanut butter - I get the kind that separates - but that was the only real effort I had to expend, aside from plugging the toaster in.
   Wasn't this a Twilight Zone episode? The one where modern man becomes so dependent on others to do menial tasks like peeling and slicing carrots that in the end he becomes irrelevant? When did I become so busy that I can't cut up an apple? Or slice my own English muffin?
   And what about the packages these things come in? When I slice my own apple the only thing left is the core, which could become compost. If I did that sort of thing. Carrots would leave tips and stems and peels. But when I'm done with my pre-sliced apples, and carrots, and cherries, and walnuts, I have four plastic bags. Thick sturdy things with zip-tops, that don't biodegrade in the least. I hope hermit crabs find a nice home in them when they wash back up on the beach.
   I'm not advocating a return to the 19th Century or anything - I'm not really down with the idea of eating what I kill - but, jeez, what is consuming all this convenience food freeing me up to do? Watch more TV? I do enough of that already, thank you very much.
   Time to make my own sourdough starter, churn my own butter, and smoke a ham. Or maybe I'll just hit Jack-in-the-Box, COPS is on tonight...

Gettin' A Little Punchy

What is it about American business - especially big corporations - that leads them to be increasingly blind to the consequences of their actions? I see things every day in the news that show the decision-makers in these companies believe themselves safe behind the faceless facade of a corporate logo and a high-priced legal team. For instance, in California Anthem is raising insurance rates 40%, Toyota has lied for years about the severity of its runaway cars, and banks that needed bailout money eight months ago are giving out the highest bonuses they've ever given, to men and women who failed utterly at their jobs.
   It's as if they think nobody will notice, or if somebody does notice, there's nothing anyone can do about it. There are human beings who made these decisions, people who've taken leave of their senses and let greed and apathy take over their more charitable virtues. They're secure in their anonymity, and that's dangerous. People will do all sorts of things when they think nobody else is looking or nobody else will ever find out. When there are no consequences people tend to let their baser instincts rule them. So let's make consequences.
   I say we create a Punch In The Nose Patrol, staffed with the biggest, meanest, most tattooed, punching-est ex-cons we can find. When Anthem decides to raise rates 40%, we send out the Punch In The Nose Patrol, who will find the person who made the decision - there's always somebody who gives the go-ahead - and punch them square in the puss. Maybe twice. Not enough to kill them, but more than enough to humiliate them and send a clear message.
   What better consequence is there than corporal punishment? When you can't reason with someone, when a person has proved again and again and again that they can't be trusted to do the right thing on their own, they need to have some negative incentive. I guarantee you, if the President of Toyota thought for one second that he might be visited by the Punch In The Nose Patrol, he would never have ignored concerns about his cars. If Wall Street brokers thought they might get a knuckle sandwich they'd think twice about their lying, theiving way of business. They might decide the risk isn't worth it and move to another career entirely.
   I'm no ex-con, not by a longshot, but I humbly volunteer to be on the first Punch In The Nose Patrol. And I'm guessing that the list of applicants would be long enough to keep the Patrol staffed up for some time to come.

Change The World Or Make A Profit

Something's been bothering me lately. Okay, a lot of things bother me, but I've been pondering one in particular.
   Why have Baby Boomers so completely abandoned the ideals of their youth for a few extra bucks?
   Tom Brokaw's Greatest Generation begat quite possibly the most worthless generation. And keep in mind that Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, and Robert MacNamara all served in WWII and were part of that Greatest Generation. So all the Baby Boomers had to do to be successful was not start a Red Scare, not be a criminal in office, and not engage in an unwinnable land war in Asia. The bar was set pretty low, is what I'm saying here. But they weren't up to the task.
   I'm old enough that I remember when work didn't used to suck. It was never theme-park fun - they call it work after all - but in the last ten years or so there's been a growing sentiment in corporate America that the people at the top should squeeze their workers for all they're worth, fire them when squeezing doesn't get results any more, and then take the money and run.
   You can track the beginning of this problem to the exact moment when the children of the 60's became the robber barons of the next millennium. When former hippies became CEOs.
   But why? That's what concerns me. How did an entire generation that aspired to so much fall so far into the mire? Was their naive idealism so fragile that when the real world came crashing in they went too far the other way? Did they never lose the sense of undeserved entitlement that all youth has? Did their parents, the Greatest Generation, completely fail to instill the same sense of duty and shared obligation they themselves had?
   Lying and thievery are rampant at the upper levels of corporate America, and the situation doesn't look to get better any time soon. These men (and a few women) are who they are, they're not going to suddenly find enlightenment, realize they've been bastards all along, and decide to mend their ways. We're stuck with them. For at least another ten years, probably longer.
   So what do we do? How do we fix this? I don't know. There's got to be something. Maybe I can go back to my schoolyard bully days, start giving out Indian burns, pink bellies, and Texas titty twisters to every thieving, lying bastard of a CEO I can find. You'd probably think twice about destroying an economy if you knew you were going to get a swirlie every day because of it. Right?

Y2 Crazy

A friend of mine reminded me that this past New Year's Eve marked ten years since the Y2K insanity. Ten years... how time flies. Seems like it was only yesterday.
   What was I doing? Glad you asked.
   I had started a new job in February of 1999. Being the new guy, and seeing as how shit flows downhill, I got to be our department's Y2K compliance guy. Wheeee!
   At the time the term Y2K hadn't quite taken hold, that really happened over the summer when clueless media finally got in on the panic. Since the company I worked for had mainframes, and since they knew five years before they were going to have a problem, they'd already come up with their own term, Change of Century. Y2K vs. CoC. You can see the reason Y2K won out.
   Anyway, I spent about half my time from March until December documenting in detail exactly why going to a 4-digit year wasn't going to have an effect on any of our systems. I talked to software vendors, I talked to hardware vendors, I talked to programmers, I talked to administrators, I got piles and piles of supporting documentation from everybody under the sun.
   I even spent quite a while devising my own tests and verifications for systems that other people had already tested and verified. Why? Because my manager wanted it. Why did he want it? Because his manager wanted it, and so on up the line. In an amazing spasm of incompetence and insecurity, our senior management decided not to accept the results of tests anyone else performed outside the company. We had to verify the operation ourselves. Twice. Several times I spent an 'executive hour' (fifty minutes) going over my test results with a VP who clearly had no idea what I was talking about. He just wanted to be able to tell his boss he'd heard it for himself, in person.
   Fast forward to New Year's Eve, 1999. I had to be at work. Yup, despite the three-foot stack of proof I had that there would be absolutely no problem with any system I or my team touched, used, or breathed on, I had to be in the building along with about 500 other unfortunates. 'Just in case.' Just in case what they never said.
   We counted down the minutes in a large meeting hall, where they plied us with candy and caffeine. When I say I would rather have been anywhere else I really mean it. It would have been less punishment to be snuggled up to a huge, hairy murderer in prison. But I don't have that kind of luck.
   Three... Two... One...
   Everybody waited, as if the carpet were going to roll up and the ceiling would collapse. Nothing happened. The lights didn't go out, no planes fell from the sky, there was no more panic or looting than is usual for New Year's Eve. A big, fat non-event. And I wasted it being at work. I went back to my desk, did about 45 minutes of tests to verify - AGAIN - that I hadn't been lying with all the other tests I did needlessly, and then I went home.

Later that night I got a call from a severely drunk friend of mine who needed a ride home. He was so intoxicated that he fell asleep against the windows of my new truck, leaving nose and eyelash prints on the glass. Even that was more fun than what I'd been doing.

From My Bookshelf

I grew up a minority. Really. Caucasians have been a minority in San Antonio for decades, since I was a kid. The city's mostly Hispanic - although try to find Hispanica on a map - but as far as I was concerned people were just people. Some spoke Spanish, some spoke Chinese, or Khmer, or German, whatever. It never occurred to me that my people - white folks - might have a culture outside of what I saw in the Brady Bunch or the Partridge Family. Live and learn.

Stuff White People Like by Christan Lander
   This is the definitive guide to white culture. Not to be confused with White Supremacist 'culture,' white culture is focused on self-satisfaction, appearances, and trying to make a difference without really changing anything you're doing in your own life.
   These are short essays about, well, stuff white people like. Such as Music Piracy, Hating Corporations, and Avoiding Confrontation. These are all cringe-inducing insights into the way privileged white folks like myself behave, and how they're perceived by non-white folks. They're the best kind of essays, funny and true, and liable to make some posers change the way they act.
   Mr. Lander is himself a white person, and better yet he's Canadian, which makes him extra, extra white. And thus more than qualified to write this book.

Quote: 'One of the more popular white-person activities of the past fifteen years has been attempting to educate others on the evils of multinational corporations. White people love nothing more than explaining to you how Wal-Mart, McDonald's, Microsoft, or Halliburton is destroying the Earth's cultures and resources.'

Maybe Next Year

A few weeks back I outlined what I wanted for Christmas this year. I didn't get a single thing from my list. Nothing. Nada. Bupkiss. Zilch. Zip. One of my nieces did give it the old college try with the leather shoelaces, but she had no better luck than I did. I did get a few questions about my list that I thought I should answer, though.
   Most questions came specifically about my desire for the still-beating heart of Bill Gates. Why would I want such a thing, and what had Bill Gates ever done to me that I thought the only way to even the score would be to subject him to an Aztec-style sacrificial death?
   Well, let me 'splain. What has Microsoft given the United States and the rest of the world time and time again, since the late 70's? One thing, above all.
   Mediocrity.
   Microsoft, and by extension Bill Gates, the man responsible for Microsoft, has given the world sub-standard software that works just well enough, but not really well at all.
   Because of Microsoft's half-assery, people have come to expect that kind of neglect and irresponsibility from everything in all aspects of their lives. It's the tragedy of just good enough. The software doesn't work like it should? Well, that's just the way those things go. The project didn't deliver what it was supposed to, on time and on budget? Eh, we'll fix it in the next go-round. The car seats don't meet Federal regulations? They rarely do. Overpaid jerkoffs blatantly steal, and abandon their fiduciary responsibility to the global financial system? Ah, well, that's the way of things. Local, state, and Federal governments are incompetent and corrupt? Of course they are, that's the nature of government.
   Don't you see? As a society we have grown used to things not living up to what they should be. We have come to expect shoddy workmanship instead of craftsmanship. We have come to expect prevarication and lies instead of straight talk and honesty. We have become so used to people trying to weasel out of obligations that we don't hold them to their word, and we're even a little embarrassed to mention it.
   And, yes, I'm blaming Bill Gates for all of that.
   He built his business not by focusing on what he was selling people NOW, he built it by focusing on what imagined he was going to sell people NEXT. That philosophy means that you couldn't give a rat's ass about making a good product today, because you're going to replace it anyway.
   The older I get, the more I realize that one bad decision today can screw up things decades later. Microsoft's history of bad products that don't work properly delivered years late only proves that point. Somebody's got to pay, someone has to be punished so that other people realize it's not okay, this is not the way things should be, and it's not what anyone should accept.
   Sorry, Bill, it's your mess and you have to clean it up. The Aztec way. Old-school.

Corporate Monkey-Spank

The more things change the more they stay the same. And just when you think corporate weasels would start to get the message they prove that they just don't get it.
   I worked out this morning, and as I was walking home I decided to stop in at the convenience store along the way for a soda and a lotto ticket, my only two vices if you don't count curling up in my robe on the couch Friday nights to read the latest vampire book while my hot rollers set my hair just-so.
   The place is closing.
   They have a half-off sale on most things, including beer, as they try to liquidate inventory before they close in ten days. So I doubled up on the diet soda - half off is essentially 'two for one' - and I asked the guy behind the counter why the place was closing. I expected to hear 'raising rent' or 'losing money' or 'lost the liquor license' something like that. Not even close.
   The corporate offices decided to close the store because it wasn't making enough money. Not that it wasn't making money - the manager assured me they had been turning a profit since the day they opened - but that they weren't making the kind of profits the corporate weasels wanted them to.
   This is why I hate, hate, hate MBAs. They don't know how to run a business, they know how to do algebra on a spreadsheet. Some jerkoff who's never actually operated any kind of store, web site, or even a cart at the mall sets a sales goal, a number he creates out of thin air according to his flawed analysis of whatever bogus metrics he can think up. Then when the store doesn't meet those artificial goals, he makes the 'command decision' to shut the place down because, after all, not meeting goals needs to have consequences. Ridiculous and short-sighted.
   'But Don,' you MBAs say, 'there are all sorts of considerations beyond profitability that might call for closure.' Bull and shit. If a place is profitable it should stay open, even if the profit is only $1. If it doesn't make enough cash to contribute to the middle-manager corporate bloat of do-nothing asswipes then the ranks of those weasels needs to be thinned.
   So for want of a few extra dollars to pay the salary of someone who shouldn't be working anyway, people lose their jobs, the neighborhood loses a store, and I get an excuse to go on my anti-MBA rant again.
   Oooh... it just angries up the blood...

From Me To You

I used to spend a lot of time at my grandfather's house. Not as a celebrated guest, as manual labor. I spent my formative years mowing, weeding, chopping, edging, sweeping, raking, tilling, picking, and once nearly cutting off my toe with a chain saw. Good times, good times. As I sweated and cursed under my breath, from time to time my grandfather would dispense bits of grandfatherly advice. Some of his advice was of the 'don't take any wooden nickels' variety, but other bits I discovered, years later, were actually useful. For instance, his admonition to 'pay a little extra, get good shoes,' has proved true time and time again.
   So I thought it was time that I dispense my advice. These pearls of wisdom come from hard-won experience, and all of them will prove useful to you someday, though it may not seem so at first.

Oreos and orange juice. Don't do it. You might think 'hey, I like Oreos, and I like orange juice too, let's have them at the same time.' That would be a mistake. Trust me on this one.
    If that homeless guy looks like he might want to hug you, he probably will.
Corporations don't think it's funny when you point out inconsistencies in their policies, even if you think it's hilarious.
    If you're driving down a very narrow lane and both sides are lined with twenty-foot fences with razor wire across the top, you're in the wrong place.
Robot monkeys will never replace you in the work force. No matter how much you want it to happen.
    When the officer tells you to keep your hands where he can see them, he really means it.
An extra slice of pie is never a bad idea.
    You're almost never the smartest person in the room. But chances are good you are the most ethical.
Little kids are far, far more observant than you think they are. They're also sneakier and faster. But they're just as sticky as they look.
    The dialectic always wins out, your success shall become your failure. Plan for it.
If it looks too good to be true it's a multi-level marketing scheme.
    Half-assed but done really is better than well-planned but never started. Well-planned and well-executed is always best.
Drunk rednecks and boats always leads to tragedy. Same with drunk rednecks and guns. Or drunk rednecks and deep-frying a turkey.
    Transvestite prostitutes do not appreciate being called 'buddy.'

There you go, from me to you. I hope my wisdom gets you out of more trouble than it causes.

Tales From My Past - Dot-Com Madness

Do you remember the good old days? 1999? Back when Y2K was making people dig holes in their back yards? When the Euro was new and worth less than a dollar? When Brandi Chastain stripped for America at the World Cup? When the dot-com bubble hadn't yet burst, when companies who made nothing and provided no service were trading for $50 a share? When people who had no business playing in the stock market got their own personal accounts and traded their salary like it was Monopoly money?
   Ahh.... good times.
   Back then I worked for a soul-less, privately-held corporation - which is different from a soul-less public corporation in that it's easier for the private corp to lie - that was spending money as if they printed their own. Which they may have been doing. They were just figuring out the power of the Internet to drive their business, and one of the projects I was working on was creating a centralized customer database. I used specific software to get this done, and that software company held a 'user's conference' every year, which was, as we all now know, just another sales call and an excuse to spend far too much money. But since I was overworked and underpaid I got to go. Score one for Don.
   The software company rented out Universal Studios in Orlando, FL. The entire place, just for four hundred or so conference attendees. They had plenty of food and performers in costume and all the rides were open. It was crazy and fun, and had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the software product. Even though I felt a little guilty about it, I did eat their food and ride their rides and talk to the guy dressed as Captain America.
   Our regional sales manager took us to a very expensive Italian restaurant and picked up the entire tab, liquor included, for seventy people. When they found out I used to work at an Italian restaurant they made me pick the wines, and when I balked at the $90 bottle - we'd have needed at least six bottles to cover everyone drinking, minimum $540 - they just laughed and told me to get what I thought was best. So I did. I'm sure the liquor tab alone was over $1000.
   We got tons of branded crap. Empty notebooks, scratch pads, pens, watches, spiral-bound ledgers, and acres of slick product marketing junk. All of it free to us, none of it free to produce.
   When I think of the money that one company wasted in just four days, and how much better their financial position would be right now if they hadn't spent it...
   Aww, who am I trying to kid? I want those old days back. The spendthrift, crazy dot-com days, when a simple analyst got treated like a king, on the off chance that he might tell the decision-makers at a company to keep using a product they'd already bought. Come on, people, whatever happened to irrational exuberance?

Cutting Off The Tail

Disclaimer: I have a bit of a cold today, and a fever, so if I'm less coherent I usually am please excuse me. And for those of you who say 'how can I tell the difference?' I say 'shut up, that's how.'

I've noticed a trend among the big retailers - Target, Wal-Mart, most grocery stores, department stores - of focusing on the bland middle. Shelf space is reserved for those products that sell the most, or that they can get the best profit margin on, or from manufacturers with whom they have a special deal. They're catering to the middle of the bell curve and ignoring the outliers, cutting off the tail.
   For instance, my nasal spray decongestant is well past its expiration date (two years!) so I went to the store to get some fresher spray. I couldn't find the brand I had in my drawer. Not there, they didn't carry it, even though it's still a national brand. They carried exactly 1 national brand name product - four different styles - and 1 store brand. I guess the kind I wanted didn't sell enough or generate enough of a profit on a per-SKU basis to make the analyst's cut.
   Same deal with deodorant. The kind I used for years back in Texas they don't carry here in SoCal, not any more. Retailers did stock it when I first moved out here, and then it became harder and harder to find, until now I can't find it at all, it's just not available. I stock up when I go home, like I do with fajitas and good bar-b-que.
   It's the same with most products, where before shoppers might find a good selection of different brands, now they find acres of shelf space given over to just one or two brands. The retail analysts have done a remarkably poor job of understanding their own business, and they assume that concentrating on the bland middle - where they get the most sales with the least amount of effort - is the best thing for their business. Retailers are focusing on just a few at the expense of others, the idea being that people will just buy what's there, rather than move on.
   Problem is, with people watching their pennies nowadays that assumption is just not true. People are more discerning than they were even six months ago, and tighter with the buck. If people don't find what they want in a store they're not going to settle for the crap lying around, they're going to go somewhere else.
   Like me and shoe laces. At the same store this morning, where I did not buy nasal decongestant, I was looking for laces for my boots. I found the little stand with laces, and after ten minutes of searching found laces that would work, but not exactly the laces that I wanted. So rather than settle for what they had, I decided to wait 24 hours and go to the little shoe store a few blocks from my house, where I will probably find exactly what I want. And if I don't find them there, I have at least three more little shops I can go to. I'll not only get exactly what I want, but I'll be giving my money to a local business.
   I think this is going to happen more and more, as people become dissatisfied with the big retailers they're going to go back to the smaller vendors, back to businesses more interested in listening to what people want instead of telling them what they're going to get.