• My acceptance speech, modest delusions of grandeur, and a pinch of doom and gloom

    Well folks, it’s been a long night. Like many of the other candidates for elected office this evening, I’ve been sitting by the television sweating out the election results. But, after a long evening, after months of work and countless hours of effort, victory is mine. By a unanimous 1-0 vote (mine ultimately being the only vote that counts), I have won another term as speaker of the house. There are so many people out there to thank, it’s hard to pick a place to begin, but I think I should start with my opponents. First, my son Adam, God bless him; I’m sure he will make a wonderful speaker one day, but he’s clearly not ready for the job. My daughter Beth; she really came on strong this year, but she’s still a few years off. Then there’s Cheryl. What can I say about Cheryl? She’s been the glue for this family all year. Without her, half of us would not be here today. It was really a tough decision, but in the end it came down to a matter of good old-fashioned “know how” and she just doesn’t know how to update this site. Is it my fault she doesn’t know how? Sure, you could say I’ve withheld the proper instruction – and you would be right, so lets move on. I’d also like to thank the hard working, creative men and women of Apple Computer, without whose efforts this web site would still be possible, but not quite as much fun.

    I would thank my faithful readers, but there aren’t very many of you – and if I were doing this to garner the attention of scores of readers I’d have given up by now.

    If you detect a somber note to what should be a reason for celebration, then your perceptions are keen. As you know, there are other elections being decided tonight, and being a liberal is beginning to feel a little lonely. (Thank goodness my constituency as speaker is so small.) I’m a sore looser, so I won’t linger on the topic of the other elections right now.

    Pessimism and good humor don’t often go out for drinks together, and tonight is obviously no exception.

  • Give me one good reason why

    Today, more than ever, we rely on technology to sit atop the food chain, masters of our domain. We use computers to manage huge amounts of information. We use complex machinery to automate factories and mass produce everything from disposable plastic spoons, to the computers that manage the machines that make the disposable plastic spoons. We genetically engineer papayas to make them more virus resistant in Hawaii. Perhaps most importantly, we synchronize our watches with the U.S. Naval Observatory (Who’s Master Clock system now incorporates hydrogen masers, which in the short term are more stable than cesium beam atomic clocks, and mercury ion frequency standards, which are more stable in the long run), so that we “one up” our colleagues at work when the age old question “what time is it” comes up.

    So why can’t Stouffer’s make a pair of French bread pizzas with the same number of pieces of pepperoni? Are they making these things by hand? Is it cheaper to pay someone in Indonesia five cents an hour to top my pizzas by hand than mass-produce them in a factory?

    I just hope they’re washing their hands.

    On the other hand, maybe they are mass producing them, but they have the machines set up to fling the pepperoni unevenly on purpose – so as to make the unwitting consumer think their pizzas were being hand crafted with care, by someone in Indonesia making five cents an hour.

    Do you think they’re buying the good soap, or do you suppose they’re using a bargain brand?

    All I know is: a frozen French bread pizza is the best thing to come out of my oven since I figured out refrigerated cookie dough doesn’t fare nearly as well in the microwave. I just wish they employed the same exacting standards with their pizzas as I do with my yard. Have they no shame? What ever happened to the protestant work ethic?

    The dominant religion in Indonesia is Islam, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

    By the way, I’m proud to be protestant – but my yard looks like crap. So much for the protestant work ethic. Maybe it skips a generation sometimes. Maybe I got a rare double dose of the procrastinating protestant recessive gene. Maybe I should just eat my pizza and shut up.

  • Hark! A critter stirs in the nursery!

    There are times when my son makes the most unusual noises.

    When they say that all children are different, I would assume they all at least sound like mammals. You see, there is a time of night when Adam wakes from his newborn slumber. He’s not upset, well not exactly. He sounds like he’s trying to pull a grunt out of his arsenal of noises, but what comes out of his mouth instead sounds more like a cross between a human child and the rapid fire, staccato chirping of an eight pound rodent.

    It’s quite bizarre, and quite adorable all at the same time.

    I guess you had to be there.