A geek speaks
I went out for an after lunch walk in the NW industrial area near my work today and saw something that made me laugh out loud: An 18-wheeler rig with a great big Student Driver sign on the back. The sign was as wide as the truck and almost as tall and I could not help but think that the size of the sign was in proportion to the danger posed by a potential error by the new driver.
There is a package coming to me via Federal Express that I am eager to receive. I have been tracking it’s progress on the FedEx web site and was a bit surprised to log in this morning and read this:
May 18, 2004 4:17 am Held at Sort Facility INDIANAPOLIS IN
1:28 am Release for delivery INDIANAPOLIS IN
12:28 am Arrived at Sort Facility INDIANAPOLIS IN
May 17, 2004 8:53 pm Left FedEx Ramp SHANGHAI CN
2:46 pm Left FedEx Sort Facility ANCHORAGE AK
1:09 pm Arrived at Sort Facility ANCHORAGE AK
May 15, 2004 11:33 am Pickup status SHANGHAI CN
Package received after FedEx cutoff time
11:33 am Left FedEx Origin Location SHANGHAI CN
Now, I don’t know how you read this, but it looks to me like the package was shipped from Connecticut, sent by airfreight to Alaska and then back to Connecticut! From there it went to Indiana where I hope it will be shipped out to me in Oregon. Sometimes I have to wonder if FedEx knows what they are doing…
On my drive into work on Thursday morning I tuned my radio to the local radio station KNRK to listen to Daria’s local entertainment guide only to find neither of Daria nor her co-host Gustav on the air. I checked in from time to time hoping to hear what might be going on, another of the jocks was spinning records and audibly upset. Later in the day I did something I hardly ever do, tuned to KNRK for the evening show hoping to catch some news. The reason I never turn to that station in the evenings is the evening jock, Marconi, is revolting. What I got was the idiotic, misogynistic Marconi bragging about how Daria and Gustav had just been fired and he had been given the morning spot. The news so upset me that I felt sick for the rest of the day.
There are two reasons why this had such an impact:
#1. I like Gustav and I love Daria. I am not big on commercial radio; the KNRK morning show was actually the only commercial radio station I would listen to. The rest of my listening time in the car or hanging out around the house goes to NPR or the local public classical station. Daria and Gustav are different though; they are amusing, lively, fun to listen to and most importantly really great people. Both G&D are people I could relate to, people who were not afraid to just be themselves, have some fun and enjoy a good laugh with others. Daria, in specific has an incredible charisma that is irresistible. If you live in Portland you probably know her. I first ran across Daria when channel flipping past the WB back when she used to do their weather reports. I don’t think I have EVER watched the Warner Brothers network, but I for a while I would click into it at the top of the hour just to see what new wackiness Daria was up to. It was clear that they had abandoned her in a studio without so much as a cameraman to read the day’s weather and rather than let that get her down she knew how to just roll with it and have fun. I still remember one evening when she was using Elvis dolls to represent cold and warm weather fronts… That night I stayed up checking in every half an hour to see what else she would have Elvis do. When I found her on the morning radio (once again just clicking through to on my way to another station) I was immediately hooked. I actually changed my commute time so I would be in the car at 7:10 when her daily entertainment guides would start. I do take solace in knowing that Daria has such overwhelming charisma and star quality that it will not take long before she is on the air again, in TV, radio, back on the stage or who knows what medium. Here is hoping that whatever her next venue is, it includes Portland.
#2: I hate Marconi… as in despise, loathe. I understand the commercial appeal of shock radio. Act like a brute on the air, get people upset, upset people talk about you and you end up making bank. This guy however is not only offensive he is utterly uninteresting. This asshole spends his time talking about screwing ‘bitches and hoes’ and generally being as base and loathsome as possible. Marconi shows no signs of having any respect for anyone, including himself, and especially not for women. I could go on but he honestly does not deserve the attention.
On Friday and again yesterday I was sad driving in and knowing that I will not have Gustav and Daria to keep me company in the mornings anymore. I wish I had some way of knowing how G&D are holding up. I read on Mystical Chicken’s web site that Gustav got the goodbye kiss on his Birthday. He deserves better than that, they both do. I guess all I can do is keep my ears peeled for Daria’s next appearance, and until then:
I miss you Daria!
Space.com reports on a total lunar eclipse coming May 15-16. We on the West Coast will not get the full effect since the moon will be in mid-eclipse by the time moonrise comes along at 8:00PM. Here is an excerpt from the report:
The eclipse will begin rather undramatically when the Moon enters the faint outer portion, or penumbra, of the Earth’s shadow about an hour before it begins moving into the umbra. The penumbral portion of the event is all but invisible to the eye until the Moon becomes deeply immersed in it. Sharp-eyed viewers may get their first glimpse of the penumbra as a faint “smudge” on the left part of the Moon’s disk at or around 1:46 GMT (on May 16) which corresponds to 9:46 p.m. EDT on May 15, or 7:46 p.m. MDT.
The event becomes more remarkable when Moon begins to enter the Earth’s dark inner shadow (the umbra). A small scallop of darkness will begin to appear on the Moon’s left edge at 2:03 GMT (on May 16) corresponding to 10:03 p.m. EDT (on May 15) or 8:03 p.m. MDT.
Last night I walked past a pet shop on Woodstock Avenue. There was an aquarium cage full of rats displayed on the window. One of the rats was furiously digging at a corner of the cage trying to build a tunnel out of its entrapment. I stopped and watched the animal for a while. The effort was futile, but it attacked the corner floor and walls with relentless determination. The whole time I was there it did nothing but dig and dig. I am left wondering how long it had been at it, and how much longer it would try. Minutes? Hours? Days? Did it?s limited intellectual capacity prevent it from realizing it was not making any progress? Did it realize it and decide to keep digging anyway?
A few months ago I decided to retire my old and torn second hand sports jacket and get myself a nice new sports jacket. I knew that Nordstrom was the place to go so I went to see what they had. With prices starting at $800 and going up to $1,500 I shied away and decided to give The Men’s Warehouse a try. That was a mistake.
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I just launched a new writting project on the Film Talk side of the blog. I will make an effor to Try to review all films I watch in 2003 very much as I kept a list of all the movies I watched in 1999.
I blame it on the betamax. You see, when I was three or four years old and lived out in the country, my parents got a betamax machine. My sister and I were prohibited from touching the betamax. I think my parents were afraid we would break it. Of course I accosted it whenever my parents were gone. They kept a collection of National Geographic tapes recorded off the TV. I would put them in and watch them over and over operating the machine with as much grace as my little fingers could muster. I remember once when my dad put the Betamax on pause while he checked on the donkey we kept out in the field. The machine started playing again after being on pause for a few minutes. He could not understand why. I thought about it and figured that if the read-head kept moving over the same piece of tape for too long it would wear it out and eventually break it. I tried to explain this to my dad but he did not seem to understand me. I think I was too young to make myself understood.
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Or… Is it over yet?
Adventures in unemployment.
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