Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Twitting
posted at 1:25 PM | Permalink | 4 comment(s)
I must admit that I quite like Twitter. It's used by some in perhaps silly ways and the occasional spam is annoying but easy to stop. I was sure it would be foolish and trivial - after all, how could anything useful or interesting be said in 140 characters? And yet, how much I like it.

It's quite like passing-by conversations, similar to something I also like where I work - passing many people during the day and exchanging observations and thoughts with them. I'd have thought it would be small talk but it's just quick, not necessarily small. That's the thing that's such a pleasant surprise in person at work and at Twitter. The world and one's awareness are both expanded a bit. And I'm not naïve and yes I know people can masquerade as people they're not and if a dog can type he could impersonate anyone but some voices ring true and there's a certain amount of trust required and you have to choose carefully but you have to do that in real life too. At work it's a function of where one works and who else works there, meaning someone else did the selection for you to some extent and at Twitter it's a question of who one's followers/ees are.

NTL, I think it's cool to become aware of things I might not otherwise know about and to get observations I might not have made on my own and to learn details about subjects I might not have got to on my own or at least not at that moment.

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Way too many
posted at 9:26 AM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
Too many people who have made the world an interesting and exciting place to live have died recently. Now I hear that Gale Storm and Kenny Rankin both are gone. The Gale Storm Show was one of the few shows my parents let me watch (in reruns of course or I'd be even older than my already ridiculously large number of years old). I'm pretty sure that allowance was part of my mother's determination to convince me that the world was a simple and sweet place where women were always pretty and agreeable, and men were always organized and in charge in the best possible way. The fact that her reality and the world's bore little resemblance to her or these shows' unreasonable facsimile thereof was apparently irrelevant. In any case, Gale Storm was wonderful in her show and, more to my own point, in several noir movies as well. As for Kenny Rankin, he was extremely popular with people who liked his style and he was always upbeat and wildly enthusiastic. His styles ranged from Dylan to Reddy which made him accessible although difficult to categorize.

It's been a sad week for us all. We'd be wise to keep well in mind how quickly we and those we love, as well as those we merely like and even those we don't like all that much, depart this mortal coil.

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Monday, June 29, 2009
Misc
posted at 9:07 AM | Permalink | 2 comment(s)
Haven't blogged in a few weeks due to confluence of work and other activities and sloth.  Okay, maybe not sloth.  Maybe just diminished energy after doing other things.  Anyway, apologies and (I hope) I'm back.

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Thursday, June 11, 2009
Hmm...
posted at 9:13 AM | Permalink | 3 comment(s)
David Letterman really should get his writers to put their and his verbal acuity and skills to funnier and ultimately more effective use. Bad taste and meanness are such a witless and lazy recourse. When one is ten and on the playground, it's mean but it's part of a social learning process to throw zingers out and laugh in that conspiratorial way at "them." But somewhere around fifteen or twenty or forty or fifty (how old is Letterman now?), most of us realize that nasty flippancies aren't all that funny and might backfire, particularly if, for example, you didn't marry your son's wife until your child was nearly six, stones and glass houses being what they are.

And this isn't about politics, by the way. I completely realize that the Palins are lightning rods and draw ridicule to themselves like flypaper draws flies. All the more reason that it isn't necessary to be tasteless and mean. For one thing it rallies their defenders. For another it overlooks so many others who are worthy of wry remarks. Besides, if Letterman had said anything even remotely like the A-Rod or Spitzer "jokes" about Dick Cheney's daughter or Amy Carter or Chelsea Clinton, for example, not to mention about Sotomayor or Hillary, it would be crystal clear how dreadful the taste and how just plain rude it was. Plus, Dave's trying to slink out of responsibility for the bad taste just added to the stupidity of it all. There's plenty to lambaste Palin (and Letterman) about without dragging either of their young children into it.

Obama's presidency seems to have restored a level of decorum to the public discourse. It would be beyond unfortunate if lazy so-called comedy writers dragged us down again.

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Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Easy Savers my eye
posted at 9:20 AM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
So there I was, casually checking on my checking account (heh), just to make sure everything was okay. I (foolishly) barely glanced at the numbers because nothing looked awry. Somehow a hold charge for 14.95, posted today to something called "Easy Saver" caught my eye and since I knew I hadn't bought anything at all today, I frowned. Then I opened another I.E. window and typed "Easy Saver" in the URL bar and found a slightly dizzying array of complaints and diatribes (here and here being just some examples).

It turns out that Easy Saver is a company that offers discounts on some dining, shopping and credit card services. I had never replied to any email from them nor consciously signed up for any service of theirs since I wouldn't be interested.

Pro-Flowers is a flower delivery service like FTD, if a little snazzier, and I have ordered flowers from Pro-Flowers many times - their arrangements are wonderful and what is delivered is often even lovelier than it seems onscreen.

Apparently Easy Saver is associated with Pro-Flowers. If you even *look* at the Easy Saver offer when you are checking out, apparently you more or less are (however inadvertently) signing up for their services.

Thanks to the Internet complaints, I did what you must do if you get snagged by this scheme: call 800-355-1837 (Easy Saver's). They must have had to do this over and over and over and over who knows how many times because all the nice woman did was ask my name and zip code before she confirmed my email address (scary to hear someone tell you your own address and phone number) and promise/agree to credit my account for the six months (yikes!) they'd charged me for so far. Scary. And remiss of me that I hadn't noticed the charge before but better late than never, right?!

Note to self: call or write Pro-flowers.com and complain about their highly questionable association with a company that is disingenuous at best, deliberately deceptive and a thief at worst. Since nearly five hundred people posted online that they were caught in this, heaven knows how many people it really has been. Does Pro-Flowers understand about ill-gotten gains, I wonder?

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Monday, June 8, 2009
Well said
posted at 9:03 AM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
French existential absurdist tragi-comedy rocks!!

In accurate fairness, the actual statement was, "I want to thank Manhattan theatre audiences for proving that French existential absurdist tragi-comedy rocks." It was Geoffrey Rush's brilliant remark upon winning a Tony Award last night for Best Actor in the play Exit the King. Who'd have thought Eugene Ionesco would appeal to large enough audiences that it would win a Tony. Rush is listed as one of the two translators so perhaps that explains his, shall we say, way with words. And he is an amazing actor. And Ionesco is wonderful (The Bald Soprano and Rhinoceros were almost required reading to those on a binge of exciting theatre). So congratulations to him on both the Tony and the witticism.

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Sunday, June 7, 2009
Pro-crastinating
posted at 11:26 AM | Permalink | 4 comment(s)
This is a somewhat personal post but I had an epiphany that amused me and might even help other procrastinators so it seems worth posting even if it's a bit more revelatory than I like to be out here on the big wide open exposed Internet.

To begin with, let me say that I often am in quandaries when making decisions. Which dress to wear? Which side to part my hair? Which shoes? Which toy to buy for one of T3CCITW? Which way to word that sentence? Which plant to buy? Which plant to place right there - one may look better than the other, grow higher, not grow higher, prefer sun, prefer shade, propagate a lot, a little....? Which phrase will be more apt and convey what I mean better? Which outfit is more appropriate? Which makes me look less ugly? Well, you see how this goes. (No psychoanalysis, please!)

Now to the present moment. Two or three weeks ago, the nice man who mows my lawn (and cleans my gutters, saint that he is) had dug up and turned over the soil in three places so I could plant flowers for the summer. I'd been feeling guilty that I hadn't put anything in - not because I didn't want to but it had rained a lot, been hot a lot and, well, which plants did I want to put in that would look great, last well, grow well, etc. (see above paragraph)). And then this morning he came to finish some mowing. I felt really bad that he'd think I wasn't appreciative or something so I ran to the store to buy flats of flowers and get back before he was done. I made quick and authoritative decisions, bought many nice things and came home to place and plant them without any trouble.

While driving home, sweaty from the rush of running out and running around the garden center picking things, I began to ask myself why I hadn't just done all this last weekend. I was mulling it over when, bingo!, I had a realization. By waiting to do what needed to be done until the last minute, I had avoided agonizing and second, third even tenth and twentieth guessing myself (yes, I do that if I have time). Instead, I did it quickly and made choices and everything is fine. Perhaps even better, actually, since editorializing doesn't always result in better choices.

This all sounds so logical and obvious of course and I have no idea why I didn't think of it before. There's so much wisdom in what one sees after a realization, isn't there?

So now let's see whether anything changes. . . .

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Saturday, June 6, 2009
D-Day
posted at 10:03 AM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
It's been sixty-five years since the extraordinary events of June 6, 1944 and many are honoring and celebrating that day. The pictures are so simple and so plain and so moving. The world leaders are dignified and calm, and moving. It is good to see and think and remember a moment when, as Obama quoted Lyndon Johnson as pointing out, a moment when history and circumstance converge to require something of us and we rise to meet it.

(By the way, kudos to C-Span and Fox for broadcasting the entire commemoration with no interruptions. CNN covered it but cut away for commercials the couple of times I checked. The major networks didn't cover it at all. Sad for them, good for C-Span and Fox - and us.)

It surprises me how emotionally powerful it is to see men receive the French Légion d'honneur and realize that they were there, really there, and have lived sixty-five years longer making them all over eighty. One of them is even wearing his uniform from then! And silly as it sounds to say this, they don't look any different from other people, you know?

Why isn't there a Russian head of state there? They were one of the Allies - or didn't they participate?
What are all the medals on Prince Charles's chest - did he fight in combat??
I didn't realize that Bob Dole had been part of the Normandy invasion. (Bad me.)

The slow rendition of taps was amazing. The speeches were wonderful. The fly-over was an extraordinarily moving moment. When that fourth plane pulled away, it was almost heart-breaking.

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Wednesday, June 3, 2009
L.C.
posted at 2:16 PM | Permalink | 1 comment(s)
Lovely paean to Leonard Cohen after attending his recent Boston concert (lucky, lucky woman).

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Book blogs
posted at 9:11 AM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
From Normblog to an article in the American Historical Association's newsmagazine to three terrific book(ish) blogs:
- Writers Read which doesn't post anywhere near often enough for how absorbing it is
- RConversation which is Rebecca MacKinnon's "ongoing conversation" with the internet
- Papercuts which is a relaxed and interesting blog about books, pure and simple
Actually, the AHA article mentions far more but these are the ones I want to recommend.

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Tuesday, June 2, 2009
5-second movie reviews
posted at 11:50 PM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
Cool new Facebook page (are they're called pages?): 5-Second Movie Reviews. Fun to read and quick opinions / reviews of movies and tv shows by someone who sees lots of both. The latest review is another rave for Up which may have received the most wildly enthusiastic reviews of any movie I've known about.

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