greyduck.net

Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

  • Signs of Impending Fogeyness

    There I was, trudging home from work at the end of another fun-filled day. I was really trudging, this time. Drained of energy and willpower, I made my way past That Rusting Mexican-style Food Establishment and… the craving hit.

    “I must have a bacon double cheeseburger, plain!”

    So I crossed the street to the Masculine Royalty-named Food Establishment and made my way inside. Upon coming into reading distance of the menu board, I halted and perused the items looking for what I wanted. It wasn’t there, however. What to do?

    I asked the guy behind the counter, “Can I still get a double cheeseburger, even though it’s not up there?” He assured me that yes, indeed, I could do that very thing. I promptly rattled off my order for a double cheeseburger, plain, with bacon, and followed that up with a large order of fries and the traditional family french-fry dipping sauce. (That would be a chocolate milkshake, if you didn’t know.)

    Here’s the fogey-stogey part of the tale: While I waited for my order, I pondered the fact that when I was Alexander’s age I could just order a “bacon double cheeseburger, plain” without anyone on either side of the counter batting an eyelash, and the fact that neither the “bacon double cheeseburger” or even the regular “double cheeseburger” was on the posted menu peeved me just a little.

    You know your mind is getting older when you not only look back wistfully to the way things were, but tend to resent the way things are because they’ve changed. Bah! Humbug!

    Still… it was a yummy little burger, just the way I remember it. Ahhh, bliss.

  • A post before sleeping

    Hey, I did something good today! I finally stopped by that table set up outside my favorite morning deli and put in my change of address voter registration sheet! This means I’ll actually get my ballot!

    Yes, I’m a lazy sod who put it off until mere days before the deadline. This surprises how many of you, exactly?

    Anyway. The workday was sporadic and occasionally frustrating, but I was buoyed by memories of time spent in delightful company the night before and a whole lot of nifty anime and anime-related goodness throughout the day. (Look for a flurry of posts over at yonder anime site this week. Oh yeah.)

    All in all, not a bad day. Sleep well, my friends.

  • Measure 36

    I spent a few minutes in the KRSK studio this morning doing some work on their computer, and during that time I was treated to one of the “Yes on 36” spots we’re running. Oh, my. I think my visible revulsion gave away my opinion on that piece of dreck…

    I have all sorts of generally unhappy thoughts about the absurdity that is Measure 36. Luckily you, the reader, won’t have to deal with my shoddy rantage. Instead, I direct you to the incomparable Mari’s four part primer!

    Part 1: General Info

    Part 2: What bothers me about it

    Part 3: Arguments…

    Part 4: What can we do?

    And if you’re on the fence about the subject, remember: If you vote no, the worst thing that happens is that the Oregon constitution remains unchanged. When in doubt, don’t try to “fix” what ain’t broken…

  • Memo To Managers

    Here’s a hot tip, guys:

    If you want to avoid making yourself and indeed the entire company look incompetent, why don’t you try making sure you get the new hire’s name right so that their network, email, and software logins don’t all consist of something they’ll find it unnatural to type?

    Yours, etc,
    The Guy Who Creates All Those Logins.

    ps, Thank you.

    (Note that I address this to “guys”. I have yet to see one of the female managers bungle a new hire’s name spelling. I have yet to see a male manager, however, who hasn’t botched at least two of these cases. I am not kidding.)

  • Blowing Off Steam

    Mount St. Helens is, literally, just blowing off some steam. This should cover our local volcanic activity requirements for, oh, about another decade or three.

    It’s nothing to get excited about, move along now…

  • And I thought he was just a greedy but ineffective dolt.

    From, of all things, a Rolling Stone article on Dick Cheney that paints him as a sort of political bad-luck charm:

    In 1973, while Nixon was self-destructing, Cheney, then thirty-two, got a job at the investment firm of Bradley, Woods and Company. “Dick needed to make some money,” Bruce Bradley explained. “He and Lynne and their girls lived in a modest house, and he drove a used Volkswagen Beetle.” Both Bradley and Cheney were Republicans, but they differed on Watergate. Bradley recognized that Nixon had violated fundamental American values; Cheney saw Watergate as a power struggle. They even debated each other, in a forum arranged for Bradley’s clients.

    “He claimed it was just a political ploy by the president’s enemies,” says Bradley. “Cheney saw politics as a game where you never stop pushing. He said the presidency was like one of those giant medicine balls. If you get ahold of it, what you do is, you keep pushing that ball and you never let the other team push back.”

    And there you have it, folks. Who needs the spirit of compromise that typified the actions of our Founding Fathers when you can instead play a zero-sum game of greed for power?

    Can we please get people like this out of our White House, now?

Calendar

February 2026
S M T W T F S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728

My Links