Today's World

When we were kids - no concrete barriers around the city to practice our balance on. But we did have "duck and cover" drills. Okay everyone - let's pretend that an atomic bomb is going to hit the Empire State Building (that's what they said) - now quick - under your desk.

I used to think of the explosion - wondering how long it would take for the shockwave and cloud to get up to the Bronx.

Has anyone done a study about the psychological effects - or after shocks - when children come to believe that their world can be gone in a New York minute? Gives a new meaning to the term: baby boomers.

Also may be related to the fast food craze that began back then. "Sorry mate - no time to sit down and eat - I'll just pop by for a burger."

Did you ever read the interview with the man who invented instant coffee? "We need things quick now," he said. "We don't always have time to brew a pot."

Could he have had instant annihilation in mind?
in mind.

What will the results of growing up in today's world be? Annihilation is no longer instant - it's more random. Will a new cult that prays to the god of randomness emerge?

I leave those ideas to future historians - or to you.

Tasti-Di-Lite

Believe it or Not (Sikhs)

Oh, just give the city bureaucracy a chance to do something stupid and they'll come up with something. Always. This is their forte. The MTA (they run the subways and buses in New York) told five (5) Sikhs that they cannot wear their turbans on the job. Most of them work in token booths (punishment enough) and one runs a train. In fact, one of them has worked for the MTA for 20 years - wearing the turban.

Well that's what the MTA said at first - no turbans. The Sikhs then filed a protest. The MTA rethought (I use that word loosely) their position and said that they could wear the turbans, but would have to stick an MTA Button on the front of the turban.

So the turban is a religious symbol. Many religions have some sort of a sacred hat. But what in the world could the MTA have been thinking. Oh, I know - the turbans scare people who think that terrorists have taken over the token booths. That must be it.

Yes, their new strategy is to take over the token booths (which don't sell tokens anyway anymore) and hold the metro-cards for ransom.

I believe what's happening is that with the recent events - the MTA is beginning to believe that it is some kind of para-military operation and that the best way to get organized is to make sure that everyone wears the same uniform.

My own suggestion is that they get the announcements to be audible on the trains before they tackle the terrorists.

the 11th man

AG has written 15 chapters of the Eleventh Man. The idea of the book is to do a sort of satire / sci-fi / picture book. A lot of the story is based on images that I took but there will also be some new things to shoot. The feeling of the book is somewhere between an comic book for adults - and something from the old Sherlock Holmes Victorian era - such as were published in the old Strand Magazine.

We weren't sure when we started whether the images would drive the story - or the story would drive the images. Turned out to be the former.

My only role in the narrative so far has been to spitball ideas - and to try and offer an objective view of the thing. I have only read the first chapter so far. Tomorrow I'm planning to print out all the chapters and read it as a whole. I'm guessing there's another 15 chapters to go... (they are each very short).

My cat has also been writing a couple of chapters but so far they are just a lot of garbage (sorry Buddy).

The other constrainment - is that we came up with this idea that all the names, adjectives, and adverbs should be 11 characters in length. This is proving to be a real hardship but A.G. is up to the task being a former winner of the Des Moines Crossword competition. [composition = 11 characters, AG that might be useful to you)

Two Sisters

I'm still experimenting with blogger... a couple of nice touches that I couldn't do with radioland: I can set the time & date of the post. This means I can organize the order of posts a little better. Couldn't do that with RadioLand.

Can allow someone else access to write something while I remain the "administrator."

I don't think - at least at first glance - much of the ability to upload photos with their photo upload widget as I don't like the resizing - and the fact that if you click on it you get the original in a window - doesn't seem that great to me.

It allows you to save drafts so in essence you can save an image-based template as a draft and just use that when you want via copy and paste to put up new images.

Of course it's nice that you can do your posts while you're on the road - if I ever do get on the road. There might have been a way to do that with Radioland, I'm not sure.

And since they're now owned by Google - well - I expect more innovations.

Tippy Toes

"Their minds are filled with big ideas, images and distorted facts." - Dylan, Idiot Wind

It has been disclosed to this reporter that new disguises are being drawn up for certain Political Advisors.