Nobrainer’s Think Tank

I’m happy. I’m not dead.

As I covered roughly 1200 miles over the last few days, I began to think that someone or something was trying to kill me. The amount of bad driving and near accidents I saw was inordinate.

I saw a pickup get run off the road right in front of me.

I saw a lady in a civic almost lose control right in front of me.

I saw 18 wheelers fighting for space and locking up their tires right in front of me.

But perhaps the most fun moment was last night. It was dark and rainy and someone decided the best way to hit their exit on the right was to come to a complete stop in the far left lane.

Everyone except for me should have their licenses revoked.

That is all.

Listen up folks. Apparently pennies are essential fundraising devices. And as we all know, Kevin Federline needs all the help he can get. His seed spreads like dandelions–his presence like kudzu. He won’t go away. He won’t die. He just keeps multiplying. And clearly he has no discernible talent with which he can earn a real income and support his brood. The guy needs charity. Get it?

So bring in Sir Richard Branson. Huh?

As anti-penny sentiment spreads on Capitol Hill, Virgin Mobile USA refuses to stand down and allow this historic coin to be abolished. To do their part to save the penny and renew its purpose, Virgin founder and chairman Sir Richard Branson, performer and rapper Kevin Federline and Americans for Common Cents Policy Director Matthew Eggers will band together to introduce Virgin Mobile’s Save the Penny campaign.

They called K-Fed a rapper. Isn’t that cute.

Excuse me while I clean up my vomit.

Experience: Those new mac commercials.

Discuss: Those commercials and macs with my mac-loving girlfriend.

Contemplate: Those new mac commercials. “Mac” seems rat-like and weasely to me. I don’t like rat-like, weasely people. I therefore do not like Mac.

Reinforce: Other writers agree:

My problem with these ads begins with the casting. As the Mac character, Justin Long (who was in the forgettable movie Dodgeball and the forgettabler TV show Ed) is just the sort of unshaven, hoodie-wearing, hands-in-pockets hipster we’ve always imagined when picturing a Mac enthusiast. He’s perfect. Too perfect. It’s like Apple is parodying its own image while also cementing it. If the idea was to reach out to new types of consumers (the kind who aren’t already evangelizing for Macs), they ought to have used a different type of actor.

Seth Stevenson, the writer of the above linked article in Slate, pretty much summarized my feelings on the commercials, going even beyond the unfortunate casting decision.

The commercials are simply too dishonest. “Everything just kind of works with a mac.” Or:

PC - “Yeah I had to restart there. You know how it is.”
Mac - “Actually I don’t.”

Perhaps I should take the first quote more literally, restating it just a bit: “everything works with a mac, only kind of.” I know the first quote is not true. I know the the second one is untrue. I also know that people who complain about the complexity of setting up a desktop PC (all those cords and cables!) generally suck at life.

(My 9th grade Spanish teacher would have people who claimed to be so helpless repeat after him: “I am too stupid to live”: unconventional but effective.)

Because I went to public school, and because my public school was cheap, I grew up using macs a lot. I always heard the same promises about their robustness, speed, superiority, and inability to crash. The IT guys were adamant. The IT guys were also full of shit. That’s a great part of the reason why I still loathe using Macs to this day. That’s a great part of the reason why these commercials fail to reach me.

During my recent trip, I read a copy of the first Harry Potter book that I recently purchased. And by “read” I mean listened to the audiobook, and by “recently” I mean it’s been in my possession for months, and by “purchased” I mean it was given to me.

I’m not so much saying that the book was bad. In fact, I rather enjoyed listening to it. Having long ago seen the movie (I always like to see the movie first because the books are always better), I pretty much knew what happened. At times while listening, I searched for small lessons or evidence of racism and intolerance upon which I could pontificate. I didn’t notice too much but there was enough that it should enrage uber-liberals, and the whole magic thing should probably upset the uber-conservatives.

The first problem is the same one I have with most books that are fantasy or science fiction. The magic/technology is arbitrarily and absurdly limited to make the story. The fantasy worlds are really always just minor deviations from what we know. Most of the time, there shouldn’t even be a story because the magic/technology would cancel itself out.

The whole house VS house competition is stupid. Points are given and taken almost arbitrarily. Remember when your big brother would suddenly make up a rule, and assign points, and delcare himself the winner? Yeah, it was ridiculous then. It’s ridiculous now. Why should the houses make an effort to compete when the people assigning points can operate almost purely on favoritism?

Also, think about the tasks to get to the stone. Put the dog to sleep with music. Defeat the plant with a little fire. Get past the goblin (someone else did that, thank you very much), catch a key, play some chess, drink some potion, then figure out the mirror. That sure sounds like a lot, but broken up most of these tasks are very much non-challenging and not worthy of being a difficult to breach security system. The mirror is the notable exception — and if you get past it, you’re not stealing the stone for bad reasons anyway.

The other problem is the story of the book itself. At the point when the stone was destroyed I decided I wanted my money back. I had just listened to a training exercise. The not-so-booksmart-but-bound-to-be-great-via-family-bloodline and wonderfully admirable George W. Bush, er, Harry Potter was practically lead by the hand through a meaningless exercise. Yippee.

Saturday night I spontaneously journeyed south to see the Korean. About an hour into the trip I saw a deer. Later I saw another deer. Later still I saw a third. At that point I was awake, and only barely so, thanks to copious amounts of the black blood AKA coffee. As the hours wore on, I started to hallucinate, seeing deer and maybe even flying squirrels trying to win at nature’s version of Frogger.

I was really becoming paranoid about getting a fresh serving of Bambi-Burgers at 80 miles-per-hour. Anyway, all those deer were alive.

At least for the moment.

On the way home I saw three of the otherwise delicious-deer decaying in ditches. (I also saw one hopping in the median, apparently searching for a sufficiently strong bumper and/or grill attached to a massive vehicle with little ability to stop quickly.)

Deer do not appear prone to Darwinism by car. No points for Darwin on that one. Also no points for the “intelligent” designers.

It seems to me that our country is desperately short of good-shooting, gun-toting, deer-killing rednecks. Ron White jokes aside, guns and bullets are much more efficient killing machines for the animals. I say this because after a kill with a gun, I don’t have take my firearm to the mechanic to have antlers and hooves removed from the radiator and new body work installed.

So do the world a favor, and shoot some deer. (And all those goddamned Canada geese.)

To the visitor from GE Power Systems in Schenectady, NY:

Yes, I do happen to be in the market for a job in power systems. Yes, I also happen to be aware of the bonus for GE employees to who recruit new team members. Help me out here.

Regards,

Nobrainer