One thing I have in common with NFL quarterback Michael Vick
This is my self-reblog of the week, mainly because Michael Vick was signed by the New York Jets on Mar. 21, 2014. Yep. Can you believe it? From the NFL? I know! The NFL is just about the most American institution I can think of except, of course, when it comes to paying their fair share of tax. Oops. Now wrap me up in the flag. I gots some extra money burning a hole in my pocket. (Heh. Get it? Quarterback term FTW!)
I have found a tenuous shred of commonality between myself and
Michael Vick
:
… Vick [has] not served one minute in prison for animal cruelty …
Yep. It’s true. I’ve never been in prison for animal cruelty. And neither has Vick, the man that the NFL has seen fit to reinstate.
Of course, the commonalities end there. I’m a decent human being.
Some people think Vick did his time for “dogfighting” but I don’t know if they realize that the scope of his actions went a little beyond that.
In the words of one woman who responded to Vick’s property to assess and help 47 dogs:
The details that got to me then and stay with me today involve the swimming pool that was used to kill some of the dogs. Jumper cables were clipped onto the ears of underperforming dogs, then, just like with a car, the cables…
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Thar Be Trolls
I find myself still thinking about yesterday’s story about road rage and the trolling its spawned in comment sections galore. Mostly consisting of death threats and hate. That seems to be who we have become as a people.
I found a post I like on the topic of healthier responses to trolls. It offers three key points on how to view trolls in a different way. I think the points make sense although they might be a skosh overly optimistic on humanity itself.
It also includes an extremely disturbing example of religion-based extreme trolling that took my breath away. Wow.
This is my reblog of the week.
Jana Riess – Religion News: The care and feeding of Mormon trolls: A guest post by Stephanie Lauritzen
Baby You Can Drive My Truck
The batter is warmed up, in the on deck circle. I love spring. He even has his Nike batting glove on.
Everyone has a right to my opinion and I carry a toilet plunger to make sure it’s forced as deep as possible down your throat.
I’m talking about, of course, everyone on the internet. That’s pretty much what it has come down to, right?
Take, for example, a video posted two days ago on YouTube of a road rage incident described as “Redneck Road Rage” and “Instant Karma.” The video quickly went viral. As I write this post it already has over 5 million views. Wow.
Click here to be transported to a dream world of YouTube magic: Redneck Road Rage / Instant Karma
According to the description on the video, the woman was forced to disable comments after she was issued “umpteenth” death threats and called “a b!#$h/c$%t/whore/slut” a “billion” times.
Google Spay
I’ve got an idea. Let’s put Google in charge. Of, like, totally Everything. After all, what could possibly go wrong?
My wife and I have perfected the art of screaming at the TV while Google runs a new series of ads promoting something called Google Play. The ads seem tailor made for millennials, those wacky creatures with birthdays in early 1980s to the early 2000s.
Google loves millennials. Also grandmothers using AOL on Windows 95 who only know how to open emailed photos of grandchildren and stalk the entire family on Facebook. But it’s mostly the millennials.
Millennials are the people in your neighborhood who get run over by cars while texting, fall down open manholes when walking down a sidewalk while texting, running over other people while driving and texting, listening to lectures in college and texting, working mundane jobs and texting, and, if the rumors are true, even use their internet-powered smartphones while sitting on the toilet.
Whatever Google poops out millennials soak up like a sponge. How about Google in your wristwatch like George Jetson? Yes, please! How about Google in a computer you strap to your face? I’ll look so cool! How about Google you wear in a ring on your finger? Yes, I do.
These are people living enhanced reality sorts of lives. Why just look at a boring street when you can wear goggles that superimpose text (in the font of your choice) and describe what’s in view so you won’t have to hurt your brain? And it’s free, not counting the 20% of display real estate devoted to blinking advertisements.
Speaking of which, the ad campaign for Google Play is promoting the ability to watch Hollywood blockbuster movies like “Yankee! Look at me! I am the Captain now!”
Of course, with Google involved, it doesn’t quite stop there. In Google’s opinion, while watching the movie, you should be multitasking. Perhaps using some Google Docs to manage your money. Manage tomorrow’s expenditures and consumption. Let’s devote about 20% of the display to that.
Google is known for search (an admittedly archaic service they continue to offer for nostalgic reasons) so of course they recommend that while enjoying movies. In the commercial the clever viewer realizes, “Holy shit! That’s Tom Hanks. Click pause. Let’s google that sum bitch. I bet this isn’t his first movie. What else has this guy been in?”
With proper utilization of the myriad of services offered by Google, it’s possible to give less and less screen to the movie itself. If done properly, the movie can be shrunk to the size of a single twinkling pixel, much like a real star in Google NightSky.
Of course, at that size, the only part of the movie that can actually be enjoyed is the audio, and that is easily overwritten by Google Radio.
A good movie prompts a feeling of suspension of disbelief. It takes you out of the moment. Google doesn’t like people who are present in the moment. That’s why they launched Google Omnipresent Stimuli. Movies should never get your full attention. They should just be a tiny slice of the stimuli spectrum. With advertising, of course.
“Yankee! Look at Google! They are the Captain now.”
Top 10 List: Nerd Rage
Nerd Rage is not an exact science. There are no right or wrong answers. All approaches have their validity and pros and cons.
The following list is offered as a general guide only. It is not intended to be a road map. Your mileage may vary. The important thing is to be creative and make it your own. Play with it. Get crazy. Do things in a slightly different order.
Much like there are five generally accepted steps in the grieving process, this list attempts to make sense of nerd rage. I think I wrote it after spending eight hours trying to get music from iTunes to sync with my iPad. You know, that thing at which Apple is rumored to excel.
Nerd Rage List
in order of escalation
- Shrug and blame it on the cloud. Optimistically try to work the problem.
- Feel irritated.
- Feel more irritation.
- Say out loud (or tweet): “WTH”
- Say out loud (or tweet): “WTF”
- Yell, “G*ddammit!”
- Symbolically pound something causing no real damage.
- Throw something breakable and smash it to bits.
- Drive angry.
- Repeatedly shoot a gun in the air.
- Head asplode. (Bonus step.)
I’ll close with an ancient guru curse: May you always have plenty of technology.
What causes your nerd rage?
What’s The Points?
Guru hard at work.
The computer screen told the story. A weather system, shown as a menacing blob of glowing crimson on the screen, was bearing down on us and about to engulf the whole damn island. Isla Nublar was really in for it. Gale force winds, 40 foot swells, the whole nine yards.
Communications were already out.
The control room shook as horizontal rain punished the windows creating enough background noise to decidedly get on my nerves. I took a moment to glance out the window. The tropical trees were whipping in the wind like piñatas under a baseball bat.
It was up to me.
I realized a voice was coming out of the high-tech radio I held in my hand. “Sqwk! Say again, say again, we are pinned down. No way out. Request immediate EVAC. Do you copy? Over. Sqwk!”
Sending out the chopper in these conditions would almost certainly be suicide. Yet there stood the flight crew, having already volunteered, now impatiently awaiting my decision. Risk three lives to save eight? I could barely comprehend the mathematics that involved.
The weather display was blinking now. It has just been updated with the name of the storm which was now closer than ever. “Fiona” they were calling in. Wow, I thought. They named the storm. That’s extremely useful information.
“Clever girl,” I said without realizing I was saying out loud.
Time was growing short. It was do or die. This command decision had to be made so I could triage the next looming disaster only seconds away.
“Send ’em out,” I ordered. I keyed the mic. “Help is on the way. Out.”
Shouts from the Abyss 
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