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Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

Month: December 2005

  • The Holiday Party Blues. Or, Jazz.

    The annual company holiday party is something of a necessary social occasion, from my point of view. It gives me a chance to rub elbows with my coworkers in a situation that doesn’t involve phrases like, “The Internet’s broken, can you fix it?” I like (the majority of) my fellow employees, really.

    Mind you, this year’s party sent me packing in fairly short order. Let’s see… Loud, crowded venue? Check. Not a non-alcoholic drop to drink other than water? Check. Food selections consisting almost entirely of bread-based snacks? Check. (Anything meat-based was carried around by a server and doled out piecemeal, so gods forbid you wanted another one of those yummy coconut shrimp.) Jazz band in the corner contributing to the decibel levels so I can’t possibly hear what anyone’s saying? Check and mate.

    Nevermind that on a day when, early in the morning, I was assured by the weather service that it wouldn’t be raining for about a week so I left my umbrella home, it started sprinkling just as I was leaving the office to walk over to the venue… well, it was just better for all involved if I left after a nice, brief turn around the tables, you know?

  • A waste of a perfectly good Sunday.

    I’d probably have had a better day, today, had I not: a) climbed out of bed at 7:16am, and b) wrenched my shoulder, badly, shortly after getting to work. Argh.

    My shoulder still hurts like hell, a half-dozen ibuprofen later, or I’d tell you more about my day, such as it was. I hope you had a good weekend, friends, and I’ll see you tomorrow. Stay tuned for the company holiday party recap, won’t you?

  • A Note to Spike TV

    Dear Spike TV:

    When, in the future, you want to air a two-hour video game awards show, please feel free not to include musical numbers by artists who bear no relevance whatsoever to any video game ever made. I understood your including of Four Bits, or Two Quarters, or whatever that rapper’s name is who has a game out with his name on it. I don’t like rap, but at least that made sense.

    Def Leppard, however, looked truly pathetic and had absolutely no business being there. Wow. Their performance served only as a bitter reminder that those of us who grew up with rock bands of that vintage are getting along in years.

    The less said about Missy Elliot and her dancers, the better. Trust me.

    So please, in the future, consider the tortured psyches of the audience you’re trying to reach with a shindig like the one you put on a while ago (and later televised). Your parade of (generally) relevant presenters was about as good as one would expect. The overall quality of the show was good, albeit appropriately cheesy given that it was an awards show, let alone one about video games. The music sucked, though. There’s no two ways about it.

    Won’t someone please think of the gamers? Thank you.

  • Mineral (Not Animal Or Vegetable) Magnetism

    The Magnetic North Pole is, apparently, stranger than I ever imagined. I knew about the periodic polarity flips, and I vaguely recall something about the magnetic poles drifting slightly on a fairly constant basis, but there’s more to it than just those two oddities. Like anything else, I suppose, the more you dig into a subject the more detail you find. For instance:

    Reversals take a few thousand years to complete, and during that time—contrary to popular belief—the magnetic field does not vanish. […] Magnetic lines of force near Earth’s surface become twisted and tangled, and magnetic poles pop up in unaccustomed places. A south magnetic pole might emerge over Africa, for instance, or a north pole over Tahiti.

    And all of a sudden the Boy Scouts stop equipping themselves with hand compasses and switch to GPS or some other satellite-based navigation device. Hoo boy. Even now, using just a compass to get to the Magnetic North Pole of the planet isn’t really a straight-line affair:

    Contrary to popular belief, a compass needle does not point directly at the North Magnetic Pole. However, if a traveller sets out from some location and proceeds in the direction in which his or her compass needle points, he or she will eventually reach the North Magnetic Pole, but by a route that will not be direct. […] Although the direct path to the Magnetic Pole requires a traveller setting out from southern Europe, at the edge of the map, to head 8 degrees west of north, a compass will lead the traveller almost 3 degrees east of north. By the time the traveller reaches Scandinavia he or she is over 18 degrees off course, and at 80 N, almost 46 degrees of course. [sic]

    At times like this I wish I was a smarter, more studious sort of fellow, because I could very easily see myself as a geophysicist. Unfortunately a lot of this stuff very nearly goes over my head, and what I’m reading now is a digest version of things, distilled for the masses. That shouldn’t prevent you from checking out the following links, however. Hey, there are pictures and stuff!

    Earth’s Inconstant Magnetic Field
    Geomagnetism – The Arctic Regions

  • “Happy Holidays” means more than one holiday, you nitwits.

    I first read about the apparent backlash against the greeting, “Happy Holidays,” on This Modern World a while ago. I figured it to be a stupid talk-radio thing that would go away in a matter of days, if not hours. But no, apparently people are still talking about it.

    I’m the sort of guy who gets incensed at the kneejerk political correctness we’re inundated with nowadays. It’s not as though colloquial language can’t use a touch of sensitivity, but as with any good idea there are bound to be nutjobs who take it as their moral duty to carry that idea to extremes. (I’m reminded of a tagline: “Death to all fanatics!”) If you want to come after me for not saying “Merry Christmas,” however, there are a couple of things you must first consider.

    First, I say “Happy holidays” because during this stretch of time we have a variety of holidays which stem from a number of religious and/or spiritual traditions, from the ancient rites of Solstice and Yule all the way down to Gregorian-calendar excuses-for-partying like New Year’s Day. When you don’t know which specific holiday or combination of holidays a person is going to celebrate, the sensible thing to do is convey one’s well-wishes in broad enough terms that they can interpret it in the best possible light. I’m not about to say “Happy Kwanzaa” to a devout Catholic, but there aren’t very many people whose religious affiliation I know well enough to make that sort of judgement call…. and anyone I know that well already knows the second thing I’m asking you to consider.

    I’m not religious. I’m not going to put Christmas forth as the centerpiece of the so-called “holiday season” because it’s not something I celebrate in my heart as a spiritually meaningful event. I don’t celebrate any of the others, either, so don’t think I’m specifically anti-Christmas. I simply do not attach significance to the date other than as a day on which I have an excuse to buy my kids and other loved ones nifty presents. (Mind you, this year and last saw most of the gift-giving take place in late November, to coincide with Dawn’s availability to visit and, thus, enjoy watching people open presents. It’s the giving, not the getting, dammit.) If that makes me a filthy godless materialist bastard, so be it, although I’m pretty sure my parents were in fact married when I was born. Oh, and I bathe daily. The “godless materialist” part, though, I’ll cop to.

    And lest you think I’m a bitter old fart, let me now wish you all, on the left-wing and the right-wing, Christian and Pagan and what-have-you-else, a very happy holiday season. May the weeks ahead be filled with naught but joy and love.

    Happy holidays!

  • OMGFunnySnowBlogEntry

    I wrote about the local TV stations’ frenzy over a complete lack of snow last week. Well, RadicalBender posted a much funnier riff about what happens when the white stuff really does come down. Enjoy, won’t you? And tell him I sent you.

    RadicalBender: OMGSnowIce

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