The Military

Beetle Bailey and Sgt. Bilko, in my humble opinion, perfecty capture our overblown military today. I certainly don't recall voting if we wanted them to be the world's police force, so they could remain a huge tax money sinkhole.

People seem to forget the fact that we went from nearly zero military to winning WW 2.

The military, composed of patriotic Americans and felons given the choice - go to jail or go to Afganistan (I am still at a loss to understand the difference) - persist in sucking your tax dollars away for absolutely no observable reason.

We've got the Coast Guard, the FBI, the CIA, TSA, and now the NSA.

If there is something actually named the "National Security Agency" I ask you - we need the others too?

Time to rethink, people.

Pontificators

Face it - each and every one of us knows one of these "people:" pontificators.

Rather than an intelligent conversation, there is this one-sided pontificating.  These self-important delusionals have no clue as to what is actually being discussed - they are too busy pontificating.

Bell Labs was full of these guys. Let's be real here, a PhD does NOT in any way, shape or form, confer knowledge outside of their well-designed thesis that they chose carefully so that NOBODY would understand what they were talking about, and the evaluators concluded he must be a smarty, so let's give him a PhD. (This is quite similar to political pundits).

On some of the really important projects I worked on, they were the jewels that set our stuff apart from the competition.

However, on other assignments, they seemed to be there to pontificate. If they were out of their comfort zone, they would revert to pontificating, sounding smart, saying nothing useful, and wasting our time.

Fine. I defunded him the next year.

Gigabits

I grew up in the computer world. Heck, my Engineering degree was not your typical "EE," it was in computer design. So I knew a thing or two about computers.

When I was first hired at Ma Bell, we had just started putting computer-controlled central telephone offices in. The piece of aluminum pictured, oh about 8" x 1 foot was one of the program memory cards. Each little square is a small magnet that was either a "one" or a "zero." You can't tell a computer much with such a memory system, so each central office had a lot of these things.  Let's say 1,000, giving the computer thee ability to recognize when one of 10,000 people went off hook, decide what to do with the number they dialed, and regularly check its own health.  Probably a one megabit (one million bit) operating system.

I have the smallest iPhone they sell. It has 16 Gigabits (16 billion bits), or in simpler terms, enough for 16,000 of the original computer-controlled telephone offices.

Small wonder abacabadabacaba (see 12/4/11) was needed.

Defrosting Refrigerators

Have any of you, dear readers, actually had to do this?  It really dates me since frost-free refrigerators were introduced in the late 50s and early 60s.

But our little undercounter "bar" fridge is a simple affair. When the ice buildup gets to the point you can't even open the freezer door, it is time to defrost. Not that we ever use the freezer compartment, it being the size of a paperback book, but frost buildup means inefficient operation and I simply cannot abide that.

Defrosting takes quite a while - there's no setting that turns on a little heater to speed things along - you just hang around watching water drip for a few hours.

So it's not exactly work, just annoying. I don't like things that annoy me.

"Active Discussions"

When you have been married for as long as I have, you have your fair share of what the Handbook calls (in Chapter 13) "active discussions." Mere mortals probably describe them as "arguments," but when you are a curmudgeon, you are ALWAYS right, so you are merely actively making your point. 

We were actively discussing basement storage. I may be a pack rat, but I am an Olympic grade pack rat. My Sainted wife? Not so much. In her thinking, "the basement" is an infinite cavity, not unlike on the Syfy show Warehouse 13: you tell the administrator (that would be me) what you need, and it magically appears. The requests include Christmas tree decorations, the odd lamp from her impressively - no check that - depressingly large collection of no longer used lamps, the "Lobster party box," the "I can't believe it isn't summer yet" party box, the saved framed pictures (why, you ask, as do I), the "supplemental" closets.

The newest request - "let's put some of this unused furniture down there!" Now, my man cave is already furnished - many would agree already over-furnished from previous "let's put this in the basement!" requests.

I calmly said, "Just throw it out." An active discussion ensued.

Sisters

What the heck is with these people called "sisters?"  Full disclosure: I have two. I can no more relate to them than I can to the two lobsters I'm about to plunge into boiling salted water. 

They are both successful in their careers (I'm speaking of the sisters, although the lobsters DID come through in a pinch), have families, appear to know how to run their lives, so what is the mystery? Must be hormones or something.

It is different with big brother Buzz - we think alike. We agree on tasks needing doing, but he thinks a tad more about actually DOING the things while I simply dial the telephone numbers of "people" who will do the stuff.

But sisters. My Sainted wife has two. When they come to visit, things intrude: I give up my perfectly set-up bathroom to them, while I try to divine what on God's green earth my wife was thinking when she organized hers. Toilet seats (for reasons that still escape me) must be down at all times. What evil lurks if they are too unobservant to put it down themselves? Then there is late-night popcorn involved. Popcorn?  Find one guy who eats that crap late at night. It's Doritos or starve. 

Buzz may be a royal pain in the "why are you just lying there on the hammock" type, but if I defer long enough, he does all the work.  

Life is sweet. So are sisters, however inscrutable.

Turducken

When I first heard about this, probably on the food network, I thought it was just a joke segment. A chicken wrapped inside a duck, all stuffed in a turtle. 

Hold on, I'm being told that the "tur" is a turkey, not a turtle. At least we're not dealing with endangered species now.

Regardless, who on earth would go to all the trouble to make such a revolting thing more than once? And, moreover, who would buy such an oddity?

Now that I've seen them for sale in the turkey-duck-chicken department of my local grocery store, I guess quite a few people.

If you, dear readers, or anyone you know has had one of these things - especially more than once - let me know. It sounds just plain wrong, but maybe I'm missing out on a culinary masterpiece.

Just Unplug It And Plug It Back In

Wen you're as old as I am, this highly technical crapola: PCs, webs, VCRs blinking 12:00, internets, pairing phones to cars, Bluetooth, and MORE can be pretty overwhelming. Most people my age simply turn it all over to their kids. Sort of a "Do me: don't tell me how - just do it."

Between having no kids for this essential convenience and being a curmudgeon, I won't put up with technology mystifying me. I know my Engineering Degree is 40 years old, but by gum I will NOT let it get to me. I will curse, go down many wrong paths and mostly Google how to fix things - which is pretty much what IT guys do, I am told. I am also not too proud to be seen at the Apple Genius Bar.

But the Universal rule to fixing a balky high-tech thingamabob is as simple as can be, and I look like a hero when I do this: unplug it and plug it back in. Heck, a 10-year old fixed a cable box problem my Sainted wife had with this high-tech trick. The kids on South Park fixed the Internet by doing this. 

My laptop just tried to pull a "I can't hear you" moment on me - the old "Control-Alt-Delete" even failed to get a rise out of it. 

You don't screw with a curmudgeon: I tore its battery out, plugged it back in, and voila! Back in business. 

The Who Does It Again

I happen to have a personal association with the Who's "I'm Free" from Tommy. After a particularly monumentally awful Spring Weekend date at Brown, including a disdainful throw-away dismissive comment "this is a roomful of toys," upon the creature's departure, I decided to play, naturally, "I'm Free."

At volumes that would impress the actual Who.  Cracks developed in century-old bell towers across campus. Jimi Hendrix paused in his on-campus concert for a moment.

These days, the only damage done is to (formerly) wall-mounted frou-frou plates and little else due to my quick thinking to catch things in mid fall as they bounce off the speakers (see certain late January adventures involving the Who).

One could argue there might - just might - have been some damage to my hearing. Honking car horns have always annoyed me - no more. Hell, I haven't heard a word Matlock - or better yet, my Sainted wife - has said in days. This is not hearing loss as much as selective hearing "tuning."

The Who rules. 

Sleeping on the Couch

An alert reader has often related how, after he rushed out and purchased an expensive, but essential stereo item, found himself sleeping on the couch until he returned it.

This is a bad thing.  Apparently, his devoted wife thought fixing roof leaks somehow took precedent over, say, a CD recorder. Just a sad situation for the music buffs among us.

I do the same thing - I come racing home with a programmable turntable or some such, and get the same treatment from my Sainted wife.  The difference here is that I merely point out what she spent on mulch (see recent article) or some new boxwoods (she is endlessly having "people" install these things).

Funny how the argument immediately resolves itself.  And boy, do I have some nifty stereo gear. She can boxwood and mulch the entire town for all I care, as long as that $900 subwoofer is safely lifting floorboards.

Comments on the Repor

I have been hearing from concerned - and sometimes rather annoyed - readers that they can't comment on some of my insightful blogs.

I have had the comment settings armed and ready since day one. I gave it a quick test tonight on both my iPad and the pc. Comment away. On the ipad, there is a "no comments" statement at the bottom of each article. That merely means noone has commented yet. Hit it and you're in the comment section (see my test comment in "Smoothies."

Having not used the pc for a couple years, I did what the IT guys at your company do - I googled the question and found the settings to be correct.

You don't have to "friend" me, and as a curmudgeon, that whole concept sort of makes my skin crawl, but feel free to comment away. My summary page tells me when a new one has arrived.

Vegans

"Oh, I'm a vegan!" I cringe every time I hear that. Historically speaking, back when mankind were primarily plant eaters, they had to have much larger stomachs, since it took so much more volume of plant material to get enough energy to live by.  As such, the body blood was racing around the stomach, trying to extract as much energy as it could.  With a finite amount of blood, very little was left to operate much of a brain.

Then mankind became meat eaters - much more concentrated energy, didn't need all that digestive power, the stomach shrank and the brain had a chance to grow into what it is today.

Now, this happened millenia ago, but every time someone brags "I'm a vegan," my mind cannot help envisioning a return to large-stomached pea brains.

Smoothies

My wife likes these things called smoothies.  As I understand the ingredients, they are composed of foodstuffs I would never be caught dead eating individually: pomegranites, olives, figs, a kumquat or two, low-cal orange juice (there are calories in orange juice? News to me) all bound together by the worst of all (see recent post) yogurt.

You load this disgusting collection of things together into a blender, blend it all into some sort of lumpy soup...and then drink it.

I can't even watch her do this without wanting to gag.

Engineering

I think I may have mentioned I was recruited right off my College Campus for my job. Ma Bell was desperate (to put things politely) for computer skills, and I had them in spades.  Getting a job offer that paid 1/3 higher than anybody else's was pretty compelling. 

Heck, my degree was in designing - at the circuit level - central control computers. No walk in the park.

So I got to my job: configuring computer-controlled central telephone switching offices based on a Bell Labs-designed piece parts. Not quite designing the next-generation computer, but they were paying A LOT. 

AND, as an engineer, I had my own phone. Engineering Associates (2-year degrees) had to share one phone per 4. Ma Bell really knew her perks.

Just to remind you, we were the phone industry, and they chintzed out on employee phones.

Oh yea, the French now own us. They find it much, much easier to downsize by getting rid of US employees since firing Frenchies is such a nosebleed. I got out while the getting was good.

Little People

What is with Hollywood's pre-occupation with "little people?" They comprise approximately .0001 percent of the population, but they are forever in movies and on TV shows.

I just don't get it. Not that there is anything wrong with it - Mickey on Seinfeld played off Kramer beautifully. The scene where they are wrestling who to sit next to at dinner is priceless.

But they just seem oddly ubiquitous in Hollywood, given the odds of encountering one in real life. All I'm saying.

Teenagers

I don't pretend to understand most adults, let alone teenagers. But Zits does - in spades. This one caught my eye because I AM from a different generation.

I know people who can hand-write a letter not only in legible penmanship, but thought through ahead of time such that corrections aren't even needed. Even I have lost that facility - I change the order of my words, correct spelling mistakes, and erase/insert entire sentences as I go. That is the joy of comuters.

Teenagers? They text simply because their handwriting is so horrible it's indecipherable. And they email, twitter and favebook so much, should they actually get together in person, there's nothing left to talk about.

Lobsters & Kids

I believe I've mentioned that as a kid, I HATED lobster. So when confronted with a situation as pictured, I would panic.

No matter How hard I wished for a burger and a shake, none would appear. I couldn't very well sneak the beast to the dog, having an exoskeleton and all, I would then wish a seagull would swoop down and carry it away.

All to no avail. So I would poke at it, crack a few bones, spread it around the plate to make it look like I really went at it, and wait for the ice cream for dessert.

Now THAT was worth waiting for.

Pulling on a Cat's Tail

Normally, if you are stupid, and you pull on a cat's tail it instantly turns around and shreds whatever skin you were foolish enough to leave exposed.

I always thought that was more or less the working rule.

Tiger, the Wonder cat, being from a different planet, plays by his own rules - he likes it. Pull on his tail, bat him around a bit - in a playful way, of course - and he turns around for Act. 2 of the same. Followed by Acts 3, 4, and often 5.

He then falls asleep either AT my feet, or ON them.

Paintings

We in the Societé are full of questions. One is why would anyone pay more than $3.50 for any painted picture whatsoever, painted whenever, by whoever.

Sadly, I have no ready answer other than "more money than brains."  People and museums with lots of money to spend on remarkably stupidly useless things seem to think otherwise.

You've all seen headlines like "valuable Renoir stolen" and such. Valuable to whom? Certainly not curmudgeons. Certainly not the average Joe who is busy trying to make ends meet for his family. Renoirs are the furthest thing from their minds, and if it had been properly priced at $3.50, the incentive to steal them would disappear. The fancy-dancy art world has done this to themselves.

The best bit is paintings become even more valuable when the artist dies.  Do you not miss motive here?

Interior Designers

We recently had a newly redone room painted (a long, tedious processing in and of itself, being forced to look at color swatches and complementary trim colors endlessly). Each time this happens, I am simply reminded of Mr. Blandings builds his Dream House and how his wife goes to great pains to describe the precise room colors to a painter who misses the entire thing.

This is promptly followed by hiring an "interior designer" (people who get paid to tell you in fancier terms what you actually suggested in the first place). These people clearly get paid by the clutter.  

Clutter comes in many dimensions: a few too many pieces of furniture "but they are perfect!" An excess lamp or two, three or four, or enough to then require you (moi) to install new outlets.

Then there are the decorative pillows (for convenience, priced by the hundred), decorative throws (what the hell are "decorative throws" and who knew they were needed?), vases never actually intended for plants, and throw rugs literally thrown thither and yon for the simple amusement of seeing husbands do face plants as they trip over them or slip on them.

I'm still not quite sure if they were the designer's idea or my loving wife's.

"Classic" Literature

Classic literature. I just don't get it. I didn't get it in high school and I dont get it even now. I find it absolutely useless. And who decided it was "classic?" Because it was classically dull? Or just old?

There are apparently supposed to be life experiences in this old crap - a belief held only by the teachers desperately trying to hold onto jobs that are slowly dying due to the complete disconnect of this stuff from today's life.

Shakespeare? Who cares what Romeo and Juliet did? Today they would be psychiatrically commited. Dickens? The most depressing writer ever without the entertainment value of Edgar Allen Poe. Old English writing is the worst of the lot.  High school time would be better spent on real-life stuff like do you buy or lease your new car. Tips on choosing the right contractor for an addition on your house, etc.

But no. Schools compel themselves to live in the past, and you don't get much more "in the past" than "classic" literature. Or much more useless.

Interested in that subject? Take it in college. Don't inflict it on the rest of us.

The FBI

I am sure the FBI does some good, here and there. Fingerprints of virtually all of us and all.

Regrettably, they are mostly known for:

1) Old J. Edgar, who spent as much time getting the goods on politicians to blackmail them into keeping him in power, as he did taking credit for the work his team did. Remember what he did to the national FBI hero who brought Dillinger down. Plus claiming the mafia didn't exist. Good going, J. Edgar.

2) Warnings on videos we have purchased. I don't know where this genius idea came from or what useless purpose it seves, but there probably isn't a sole alive who takes these warnings seriously. However annoying, pointless and laughable, they can at least be fast forwarded through.

Government in action. Sort of scary.

Clean Cats?

Cats are very clean. They clean themselves. A lot. That means they also lick their rears clean. That means eww.

They also find and eat mice brains and such.

Tiger, the Wonder cat loves to jump up on me and lick my nose, rear end and mouse brain spit no doubt involved.

Should I panic? 

Inscrutable Apps

Very few apps come with comprehensive explanations and directions. I come from the era where things came with instruction manuals, which we engineers actually read. My BMW has so many features, that by the time I get to page 65 of the 300 page manual, I've already forgotten what I read on pages 20-25.

With many apps, you're on your own. I still have no idea what Google + is and what I may need it for. And since I've loaded up on all manner of photography enhancing apps, I've actually forgotten what most do.

They were all downloaded for what seemed like good ideas at the time, but it seems sort of retarded to keep hand-written notes to remind me later. As with all things Apple, they are mostly intuitive, but I never know if there are a few nifty featues I haven't even found yet, much less know how to use.

I sometimes yearn for simpler days. And manuals.

The Downside of Matlock

As much as I like my Matlock and Murder, She Wrote reruns, there is a real downside. Appealing to a crowd even older than me, I have to endure all manner of old people ads.

Automatic stair systems, walk-in baths, portable oxygen tanks, Hoverounds, you name it. And not short ads, either. You ever seen how slow those stair riding machines are?

It can be excrutiating.

Facebook Test Results

I recently mentioned that the Curmudgeon Societé Executive Council asked me to look into this Facebook thing.  So I set up an account, got friended - mostly by the very friends and family I see in person or talk to reasonably often.

I would publish the Repor and such, but let's be honest - I don't need to take the time to publish it in two places, so that got old pretty quick. And I then simply lost interest.

So tonight I tried to cancel my account. They put you through hell to do that. They don't want to loose a very lucrative source of targeted advertising, built through your restaurant, store, product, etc. "likes" that companies wet their pants over.

It took 5 minutes to set up my acount last month - an hour and a half to figure out how to close it.

Will not be recommending it to the Council. I mean, a bunch of curmudgeons on a Social Network? Not bloody likely.

Real Tigers

My neice is quite the adventuress - traveling to Antarctica on purpose, no less - and working with deadly animals for a living.

I'm not actually sure she is related to my family, as "adventure" and tangling with wild animals is not exactly our strong suit.

This is a picture with her with a White Tiger, a very endangered species because poachers have nearly wiped the species out for their unique fur.

Tiger, the Wonder cat is about as wild as I can manage. My neice? Not even close.

Can Openers

Back in the, oh, I suspect the 50s or 60s, automatic can openers were the big new kitchen helper.

As it turns out, in those days, can manufacturers were idiots since they thought they had a virtual monopoly, and did not see the future of hand released tops coming, nor did they even have the intelligence to participate in their creation. Heck, I drive by one of their dead factories on the Pulaski Skyway, sort of a monument to their stupidity.

Fancy electric can openers are no longer needed.

Except, apparently, for baked beans. Will this torture never end?

Rush Hour

When I was working, I had to, of course, endure rush hour. We here in Northern NJ cannot compete with California in this department, but traffic was a tad more dense here during those two times a day.

Now, I can avoid it altogether. Except there is a new kind of rush hour - idiot mothers in SUVs the size of Battleships taking their kids to school (whatever happened to walking to school, I ask you?) and the repeating of the event at around 3 pm to pick them up.

So we now have 4 rush hours - honest workers plus lazy suburban kids.

Don't get me started.

Yogurt

I do not get yogurt. I do not get its popularity, I can't follow why Greek anything is superior, and most of all, I cannot stomach it.

But the yogurt section in my local grocery store is growing by leaps and bounds. People stand in front of it (blocking the aisle, of course) transfixed by the mind-boggling choices.

The only decent yogurt is the one in "Spaceballs," the movie.

Ear Hair

Where the hell did this stuff come from?

Bill Cosby predicted this on one of his comedy albums back in the 60s: as you age, hair will stop growing where you want it to (which, by the way it has) and grow where you don't.

I mean, shaving is one thing, but shaving your earlobes is really, really weird.

This aging thing is starting to piss me off.

PT Boats

PT boats were a critical addition to the navy in WW II. Since they were small, the navy desk brass - retarded, old, backward thinking military idiots all - dismissed them. Please remember, the navy brass actually battling the war thought they would come in pretty handy and were geniuses.

Outfitted with no less than three aircraft type engines, they moved very, very fast.

At the time, normal ships were slow and heavy, and you could actually converse with the engine room. In a PT, not so much. Picture yourself down below in these small boats going about 50 mph, with three 1200 horsepower engines going full blast. "The captain said what?"

You more or less just hoped for the best. And probably yelled a lot. These were guys saving the rest of us from the most evil civilization on earth, the Japanese. We curmudgeons remember, and don't forgive easily.

This was the greatest generation in action. And they delivered.

Construction

Tiger, the Wonder cat zipped out in the pitch black at 4:30 this morning. He popped back at 6 for breakfast (he's not stupid) and off he went once again.

There is major construction going on next door - they just delivered a truckload of foundation cement blocks. This is a rather noisy thing. 

Tiger may be sleeping in the pool shed or somewhere around the property, but he, being rather smart, is not going to move while all that noise is going on, even when called.

Mouse brains and such are (I absolutely fear to know) just a small amount of nourishment, so it is a virtual guarantee that at lunch, he will be clawing at the back door.

This is the power of the master (or more precisely his Chief-of-staff) having good food.

I do what I can. Can. Get it? I slay myself.