You can't look cool...

Here is a partial list I have been working on. Most of these are geared toward men, but I would imagine some could cross over to women as well.

I am not saying you should not do any of the things on the list, just that please do not expect to convey coolness to others while taking part in such activities.

You can't look cool:

Eating cotton candy

Sitting three across in the front of a pickup truck (Gender of passengers does not matter!!)

Carrying any large case containing a brass, wind instrument such as a trombone

In the lingerie department of any store

Ordering any alcoholic drink that has whipped cream

Buying wrapping paper

Reading Redbook

Waiting for anyone outside a public restroom (male or female)

Having a Blog

This guy is nuts

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is one scary dude. Is anyone paying attention to what he is saying and doing?

Big Brother is Watching.

Look busy…

Your privacy is going away so you might as well deal with it. Me, I have no problem whatsoever with the Government tracking my movements or companies watching what I purchase. Who cares? If someone somewhere wants to actually sit down and monitor what I am up to, then I say, “Have a blast.”

I have a FastLane pass on my car for paying tolls. I use my ATM card for everything possible. I have a RFID key fob for buying gas and I buy as much stuff as I can online. I am an open book. If the powers-that-be really did sit down and analyze the “digital fingerprints” I leave around, they should be able to paint a very accurate picture of my life. And it would bore them to tears.

SETTING: A secret, underground, government bunker. In a vast “war room” hundreds of uniformed men busily work on computers. In the center, a large round desk where several military officials and undercover CIA operatives look at a briefing:

“It shows here that on Saturday afternoon he withdrew $100. That same Saturday, at 3am he used his credit card to buy $30 worth of Chinese food.”

“If you look at page seven, you will see that he bought several items at CVS, including some shampoo, a package of razors and some half-off Easter candy.”

“All intelligence indicates that I this could be a terrorist sleeper-cell.”

This type of information gathering is a joke. Why do I care if FastLane knows if I went through the Allston/Brighton tools at 5:15pm on day and at 4:45 the next? Why do I care if Star Market keeps a record of me buying a frozen chicken potpie and some Cheerios? Why should anyone care? I admit that medical and financial information should remain private, and that identity theft is real. But I am not so sure that tracking our everyday electronic transactions really is, in fact, giving up some of our privacy.

Try to imagine living “off the grid.” Try to provide yourself with food, clothing and shelter without opening any kind of account. How do you get a lease/mortgage? How do turn your water on? It would be impossible to be an active member of society. You could go live in the woods, cut off from the outside world, but what does that prove?

Once you accept the fact that you cannot really hide, the question becomes what people are doing with all of your information? I honestly do not think the government or corporations have the time and resources to data-mine down to individuals. No yet anyway.

Do they keep all of this data for some master Orwellian plan? Is it simply that they cannot throw anything away? Is your information being used to protect you from fraud? If so, who is watching the watchers? The Bush administration has been defending illegal wiretaps and using our vast intelligence gathering capabilities on American’s own citizens. I am on the fence on this one. It is time we woke up and realized that the enemy does not have a uniformed army with tanks and planes that we can spy and keep tabs on. We need to change. I am not sure how, but I am pretty sure that keeping a record of your video rentals does not matter in the grand scheme of things.

Hell Phones

"...Cellular phones soundin' a death tone/Corporations cold turn ya to stone before ya realize"
"Bullet in the Head" by Rage Against the Machine

I like having a cell phone. I find it very useful and convenient, but trying to get a new one without signing your life away is a huge hassle. I have T-Mobile cell service. Although Catherine Zeta Jones has never once stopped by to help me out, I have no problem with the area coverage or monthly costs. Recently however, I wanted to get new phones for me and my wife, ours were falling apart. T-Mobile wanted me to sign away my life and only offered me a junky phone that looked like it would last all of one phone call before crapping out.

Many people in this situation opt to switch carriers and get free phone when signing up. I really did not want to go down that road. I hate talking to cell phone people, which may or may not be ironic, I have to check. I decided to cut the cell companies out and blaze my own trail.

Ebay lists about 40 spagillion cell phones for cell at any given minute of the day. That is a lot. Most of these phones are "unlocked" which means that you can technically use them with any network. Our current phones have a little card installed in them called a SIM card. The card not only stores your phone book numbers, but it allows your network to recognize the phone. If you buy an unlocked phone you usually can just take your card and put it in the new phone and you are good to go. Your cell company will not know the difference and you will not have to re-up your plan for another 100 years. Unlocked phones on ebay are not super cheap, but you can get models that your particular cell company does not carry. Some networks use a different type of technology and do not have SIM cards.

Locked phones are a different story. Cell companies can "lock" a phone to an individual's SIM card, rendering the phone useless to anyone else. My sister-in-law gave me a Cingular phone she had and it would not work with my SIM card. After about thirty minutes with Google, I was able to find the unlock code and directions for getting the phone to work. So now I have a newer phone with a Cingular logo on it that says "Welcome to T-Mobile" on the screen. This is called tech-white trash.

So the next time you want a new phone and do not feel like singing a new contract, check out ebay or craigslist. You can find many phone models and most will work straight out of the box. If you get a locked phone, a little research online usually will fix the problem.

Things

Some things that you may or may not know. Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves.

1) The population of Italy is 58,103,033
2) The human body produces its own supply of alcohol naturally on a continuous basis, 24 hours a day, seven days a week
3) It's against the law to pawn your dentures in Las Vegas
4) The billionth digit of pi is 9
5) The airplane Buddy Holly died in was named "American Pie"
6) In 1659, it was illegal to celebrate Christmas in Massachusetts
7) The Nobel Peace Prize medal depicts 3 naked men with their hands on each others shoulders
8) The glue on Israeli stamps is certified kosher
9) The U.S. eastern seaboard consumes almost 50% of all ice cream sandwiches.
10) The U.S. Government spent $277,000 on pickle research in 1993
11) I could not come with anything better than this today.

Are you sirius?!

I just read that Howard Stern is mad because only 4 million of his fans have followed him to Satellite radio. Did he really expect the 120 million people who listened to him each morning to pay $12.95 a month to listen to the radio? I liked the show, but I never once thought about getting satellite radio.

The argument now that satellite radio is in its infancy and just as with cable TV, it will become the norm. I think that at this point it should be compared with HBO. Basic cable is a must-have, but HBO is an added expensive that I am alright with paying for. The shows that HBO puts out are great and not just because they can swear, they are well written and acted. Even if you did not want to pay the extra money for HBO, you can rent the shows at the video store or by Netflix. The Stern show is topical. It is daily. It only works because he can comment on events as they happen. If you can not get his content when it is fresh, why would you want it?

Stern's show also worked because it was free and pushed the boundaries of what was allowed on the air. The way in which he conducted NC17 conversations without actually using offensive language was clever and took imagination and creativity. I do not blame him for taking all of the money that Sirius offered him, but if he thought this move was going to instantaneously change the face of radio, he my have believed his own hype.

I do miss hearing his social commentaries on politics, entertainment, and celebrities, but I really do not think that his satellite show will ever live up to his past work.