User Agreement
Posted on August 9, 2013 by CHC   ᐃ ᐁ

By continuing to read this blog, YOU (THE USER) agree to the following:

1) This is just about the best damn blog you’ve ever read.  In fact, if we call you in the middle of the night and ask you, what is the best damn blog you’ve ever read, you will think of this one before you hang up.

2) You agree not to carry concealed weapons while reading this blog, even if they are legal in the backwater state in which you live.

3) You agree not to make comparisons between this blog and, say, The Huffington Post.  Really, I mean they have billions at their disposal.  All I have is a disposal, and it’s noisy.

4) Readers of The 100 Billionth Person agree to read between the lines, since the author is notorious for not quite saying what he is not quite convinced of saying, lest he be accused of taking a stance and then being put in the position of having to defend the same.

5) You agree not to be pedantic and quibble over word choices made by the author, nor to question the use of split infinitives or sentences that end in prepositions such as of.

6) You agree that homemade potato salad is only slightly better than store-bought.  There are only so many permutations of potatoes, mayonnaise and paprika.

7) You agree not to sue me if you don’t like something.  You agree not to steal the idea from me if you do like something.  You agree not to ask me to be your Facebook friend if we like the same bluish-green color that isn’t really teal.

8) You agree that my voice, though you may never have heard it, is decidedly less nasal than those of NPR icons Ira Glass, Peter Sagal, Michael Feldman and Ira Flatow.

9) Finally, you agree not to hack into my website, steal all the information it contains, fly to Hong Kong, stop shaving, have a few martinis, fly to Moscow, plunder the duty-free shops and then ask for asylum.  Violate this agreement and I’m coming to get you, comrade.

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The P is for Punishment
Posted on July 25, 2013 by CHC   ᐃ ᐁ

Today, the Pittsburgh Pirates had a four-run inning in the top of the ninth to erase the Washington Nationals’ lead and tie the score, 7-7.   This was one of the rare times I was able to find a Pirates game on television here, and the rally was fun to watch.  Sadly,  the Nationals proceeded to hit a two-out home run in the bottom of the ninth to win the game. So much for that.

It takes a certain kind of fortitude to follow a baseball team all season long.  For one thing, even if your team is having by all definitions a great year, you are certain to watch them lose at least 60 times.*

I will be attending a Pirates game in person this year for the first time in over twenty years.  I can’t wait, but I hope I can stand the pain until then.

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* A baseball team plays 162 games a year.  A team has an outstanding year if it wins 5 of every 8 games it plays.  A team has a terrible year if it only wins 3 out of 8.  Squirrels would make great baseball fans.  Even if a squirrel finds seed in your bird feeder only 3 times out of 8, it will be sure to visit every day.
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Thoughts at Large: 15
Posted on July 21, 2013 by CHC   ᐃ ᐁ

• The next time you watch a lecture on television, observe closely when the speaker takes a sip from his or her water bottle.  Invariably, the person will start screwing the cap back onto the bottle before he or she has even finished swallowing.  Are people afraid that the contents will evaporate or be spilled?  Or are they worried about things falling out of the sky (or maybe their hair) and into their drink?  You don’t see such compulsive behavior when a glass of water is involved.  This is such an automatic and universal response, you have to wonder where it comes from.

• Every time a U.S. city or county government goes bankrupt (most recently, Detroit), one hears the usual Tea Party refrain, “If government were run like a business, this wouldn’t happen.”  Of course.  When businesses are run like businesses, what happens is Enron (bankrupt in 2001), Worldcom (2002), NHL Buffalo Sabres (2003), Trump Hotels (2004), Delta Airlines (2005), Silicon Graphics (2006), American Home Mortgage (2007), Lehman Brothers (2008), Chrysler (2009), Blockbuster (2010), American Airlines (2011), and Eastman Kodak (2012).  There have been 30 municipal bankruptcies since 2001, out of roughly 39,000 municipalities in the United States — a rate of 1 bankruptcy per year for every 17,000 cities, counties and townships.  For comparison, 40,075 businesses filed for bankruptcy in 2012 alone, out of some 5.7 million business entities, a rate of 1 bankruptcy for every 143 businesses.  The Tea Party places the blame for this on labor unions and government interference, never on poor management decisions or reckless activity.

• For a nostalgic reminder of what the web once was, look no further than this website by a music lightshow outfit.  The site has every animation and effect that was possible (tasteful or not) in the HTML 1.0 days.  Quaintly enough, the site also belongs to a web ring, a group of like-themed sites who agreed to link to each other, a faint promise of eye-traffic in those pre-Google years.

• One of the early-web sites that I hope does not disappear is this collection of analyses of all the Beatles songs by musicologist Alan W. Pollack.  Mr. Pollack wrote his essays over a 12-year period from 1989 to 2000.  I like them because (a) I am a Beatles enthusiast and (b) Mr. Pollack is very analytical and (c) I am also analytical but have no background in music theory.  So I find Mr. Pollack’s deconstructions both entertaining and educational.  There may have been rock composers as deserving as the Beatles of such exhaustive analysis, but please go ahead and name one.

• The image at right was taken by Scott Stewart, staff photographer for the Chicago Sun-Times, to illustrate its March 18, 2013 story on how the federal budget sequester is affecting housing for low-income families in Illinois.  One of Mr. Stewart’s specialties is fire photography, as seen in this video collage.

On May 30 of this year, the Sun-Times laid off its entire photography staff in order to “evolve with our digitally savvy customers” as the Sun-Times put it.  The shot at left, by Sun-Times reporter Sam Charles, accompanied its July 20 article on the recent deadly shootings in the Chicago area.  Are you savvy enough to notice a difference in photo quality?  I thought so.

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