Thursday, April 17, 2008
Ralph Waldo Emerson: There is nothing wrong with having nothing to say --- unless you insist on saying it.
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The old title of this journal was "I Don't Understand". I changed it when I moved it. I shouldn't have. I still don't understand.
I don't understand why people use words with sexual connotations or meanings to express anger, or to demean or disparage something. I understand religious references better. Like, one is asking God to consign something to Hell on our behalf. That at least makes some twisted sense.
So, a woman is sitting next to a man who is watching sports on TV with his buddies, and he's yelling things at the teams, and it's f---ing this and f---ing that, and other words for other acts, as if DOING that kind of stuff is the nastiest thing ever, that no good person would ever do that, or allow it to be done to them, and then that evening he wants to do that very thing to her? Or wants her to do things that are (from all appearances, to hear him talk) even worse, to him? How can he both like it, and consider it the worst thing you can do to someone else?
There's a disconnect there. Either it's good, or it's bad.
Thinking about it today because of a reality show I've been watching, where the guys, mid- to late-twenties I guess, can't get out a sentence without using the f-word.
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I've been reading Michael J. Totten's dispatches from Iraq.
Another disconnect. What he is saying doesn't seem to jive with what we hear and read in the news. I have difficulty understanding how both versions can be true.
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More GPS-isms. It's confused as to where I live.
About ten years ago or so, much of the local area got new addresses for enhanced 911 service.
Prior to then, most of us had rural delivery addresses, like "RD #5 Box 38", where "38" was the number on the mailbox at the end of the driveway, and RD #5 might be 30 miles long. No one except the mailman could find your house given that address. It was handy, because you could give out your mailing address without worrying about some stranger showing up at your door.
It led to a slight schizophrenia. If you wanted the house found (friends, UPS, store deliveries, utility service, etc.) then you had to give the street address, like "38 Woodward Drive".
When they renumbered our street, my new address changed from RD #5 Box 38/38 Woodward Drive (not my real address) to just plain 86 Woodward Drive, both house address and mailing address. Some people got a street name for the first time ever, some got their street name changed. It was a mess for a while.
The idea was that when you call 911 from your home phone, the address shows up on the screen, and the ambulances and fire trucks use that address with GPS to locate the house. That's what we taxpayers were told, to justify the enormous cost associated with renumbering the entire county. Sounds good, except for two problems.
A lot of people don't have "home" phones any more. They are entirely cellular. The address doesn't show up.
Secondly, GPS is still using the old numbers! That blows my mind. If you ask Google maps, Mapquest, or any GPS device to show the location of my house, it points to the OLD box 86 on Woodward Drive, the location of 86 before renumbering. It's been at least ten years.
What has to be updated, and who is responsible for doing that?
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