Creative Endeavors

MAY 2008, date, brief description and direct link to posts.
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I just walked into our TV Room (I told you I was Old School, nowadays that is called a Media Room) and found another round of channel changes and for the most part … Open Air. What a serendipitous moment in time that was!

If you elect me, I will …. Blah, blah, yadda-yadda. As I watch this nightly almost comical, farcical circus of performers on the television I am thinking about all these promises and all the voters who actually believe they mean what they say. And of course, UFO’s, Easter Bunnies, Big Foot and Waldon’s Pond.

Last night, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams allotted eighty seconds to yesterday’s momentous Supreme Court ruling that there’s nothing unconstitutional with Indiana’s law requiring a photo ID to vote. Meanwhile, during the same broadcast, it spent over two minutes on the concern caused by photos of teen star Miley Cyrus in Vanity Fair.

That would be embarrassing enough for a news organization purporting to be credible. But earlier in the day on the Nightly News blog The Daily Nightly, anchor and managing editor Brian Williams (in a post titled “What Time Is It?”) actually took The New York Times to task for publishing puff pieces.

Just made another contribution to the Oil Executives Retirement Fund. $75 and it still had fuel in it, when I stopped to fill up. Me and the Miss’us spent $135 on gasoline this month, how did you do?Here is the sad part, didn’t go anywhere but to the buffet and the grocery store. No trip to the beach, visit to Grandma’s, no trip out of town to an art show or festival.

When the United States is running huge budget deficits and Americans are experiencing considerable pain at the gasoline pump, does it make any sense to subsidize a country with a huge budget surplus and an estimated $70 billion windfall this year in oil exports? The short, and mostly correct, answer is no.

There seems to be no end in sight to this idiotic saga. I saw some dummy on television yesterday, some paid-for Petroleum Whore who said that gasoline motor fuel was eventually going to $10 per gallon. Now that really hacks me off, “who is going to be able to take me out for Saturday Morning Ice Cream?”

No one.

This is getting serious.

***

Well, smack my butt and call me Judy … I got it wrong again! I just picked up my personal copy of USA Today, The Nation’s Newspaper and right there on the front page …. “Bush says it is not his fault, he blames Congress.”

Man, how could I have missed that? Clearly I must have been living in a cavernous hole outside of Roswell, New Mexico, deep underground in a cold, dank cave, with rabid bats or something.

We didn’t go into Afghanistan on the Emergency Powers of the President; it was Congress that sent us over there looking for Ossama Been Forgotten. Maybe Paula Abdul ……. Okay got it.

We didn’t move on Iraq looking for weapons of mass destruction on our presidents authority, it was Congress that did that. The MayTag Repairman, nah? Okay got it.

Today NBC reports that the administration has again been rattling its’ military swords at the country of Iran, but the new Secretary of Home-Land Collective Reasoning, Flip Wilson, said that it wasn’t his fault …..”The Devil made me do it!”

Yeah ….. I got it.

A Texas oil man got appointed to a plush Washington DC administration job, and he showed up on the day his predecessor was leaving, as the guy picked up his stuff to leave, he handed the Texan three envelopes. “When you get in trouble you are going to need these, don’t open them until you get into trouble.”

He took the envelopes, stuck them in the drawer and forgot about it.

Not long afterwards, he gets called in to the big office, he is in trouble. He peers into the drawer, sees the envelopes, picks up number one and opens it. Inside there is a piece of paper and it says ….. “Blame it on the Economy.” So when he arrives at the office, he blames it all on the slack American workers and the economy, the big boss seems satisfied.

A little while longer, same deal, again he is in trouble.

The Lil Texan opens up the desk drawer, fishes out envelope number two and reads the piece of paper …… “Blame it on the Congress.” Again he heads up to the hill and once again, he says, “I tried to get them to see it YOUR way but they just would not listen. Lousy politicians.” The Big Boss smiles and waves him away.

A period of time transpires, again the dreaded call arrives, quickly he reaches down and fishes out the last envelope, ripping it apart, he opens it up and reads …… “Prepare three envelopes.”

Yeah, I got it.

Honey what time does Deal or No Deal come on …..

***

Okay, I load up in the family truckster and I go down to BestBuy and I find a computer expert that doesn’t have any pimples on his face, and he explains everything to me and I make a major decision and buy the thing.

Pre-Loaded with EVERYTHING THAT I NEED, yes I believe that was the exact quote, “pre-loaded with everything that I need.” I pay for it, load it in the truck, come home and really get into the assembly process and fire that sucker up! What a testosterone rush I get, everything works and on the first time. Like they say in ‘Vegas, “the boy is on a roll!”

My apparent exuberance is short lived. This is the point that I note that “some of it is there, and some of it is not.” Everything that I needed is woefully short a few items, it turns out that it was “partially” pre-loaded, I am now informed that if I want ALL OF IT I am required to purchase the whole program for an additional $105.00. This kind of hacks me off … As a matter of fact, “it really smacks of bait and switch” advertising. It should be illegal, but instead, it is or has turned into “standard operating practice in this country.”

Still not convinced?

How about this one. Latest wrinkle in the fabric of modern day business that seems to be unraveling with increasing frequency in a store or mall near you (check your Yellow Pages). I buy a cell phone, this modern marvel is supposed to do it all. I am an AT&T (Cingular) customer for EIGHT YEARS in good standing, and I am still required to sign a two year contract, in order to get a good price on this technological advanced piece of … well …. Never mind. (You spread it on your flowers and it makes them grow well)

It does it all. (sound familiar?) Text, Web Access, Photo’s at the touch, plays MP3, I can even download a recipe from Rachael Raye for cyrin’ out loud! I am tickled pink, a little light in the wallet, but still, I can do it all …….

Then I discover if I want to store or hold more than say “a hand-full of pictures” then it needs a bigger memory chip. I rush over to Staples, rustle up a salesman (which in this day and age is pretty easy, no one else in the store but employee’s and myself) and he directs me to memory chips. Another $26.

Stepping outside in the glorious sunshine, I breathe deep and think to myself …. I love life! Take a couple of quick shots of my truck in the parking lot, my only possession in life, I do not owe any payments on, it is a fifty-five model. Go home to download the pictures into the computer, and there is no USB cable provided with the phone. Frantically I check the box, I re-check the box, surely this is a mistake?

Back to Staples for a USB cable. $14 for this handy-dandy set up. That was easy.

Get back to the house, find the USB port, hook up the camera-slash-phone-slash coffee maker and nothing. I need a driver! Like the fool I am, I check the box looking for the disc with the driver on it. No soap. I locate a driver, $44

The phone works swell, the camera if you are outside, is practically useless; too much sunlight and you cannot see the screen. So like the fool I am, I run back to Best Buy and check out digital cameras, find one. Locked in, I am on a mission folks, and this is a target rich environment. It is $155 and some change, but I discover that I can get it at Sam’s $10 cheaper. I go to Sam’s. Pick up the _______ camera. Guess what? It only holds “4” pictures, it needs, are you ready? A NEW MEMORY CHIP in order to store a “decent amount of pictures.”

Ka-Ching! $30 and some change.

Perhaps it is ozone depletion or second-hand smoke, but I just don’t get it. Why can’t you buy something in this country, ANYTHING that works the way it is supposed to work, without having to buy two or three additional items in order to get the device to function in the fashion it is advertised?

Not to be deterred, I forge on. I go to save this document and I discover my thumb drive is full, I need a new one. Staples has been open for over twenty-five minutes, this is my lucky day! I load up in my old truck, which I recently filled up, and thus, doubled the apparent resell value of by oh I dunno … big bucks, and head on out.

I am sitting at the stop sign which is by the grade school in my neighborhood, and I watched more than twenty kids cross the street in front of my old truck. And they looked so good, so innocent, but I couldn’t help wondering which of those twenty kids would be the one who ended up standing in an AT&T or Best Buy store in the future screaming ……. “I don’t understand! Why doesn’t it do what it is supposed to do? It was so friendly at the store!”

And we wonder why our plants are closing and everyone around the globe is kickin’ our collective butts. Welcome to Retail America there Spanky, please have your expiration date and credit card number handy.

One of these days, one of my seven distinct personalities is going to venture into a store and purchase something that works just the way it is theoretically designed to work and I won’t have to buy several additional items for it to do this. I am going to get lucky, I mean, even a blind hog can find an acorn every now and then.

If and when this occurs, I will let you know, stand by.

****