Quick Hits From My Cube

3/18/2005

1) This is a verbatim quote from my most recent Cable Vision bill:

Great news – we’ve simplified your bill! Our customers requested a bill that is easy to read and we heard you loud and clear.

How come they don’t hear “our requests loud and clear” for higher quality service and lower prices?

2) Do you think, during the filming of Mandingo (1975), James Mason turned to Ken Norton on the set and said, “You know, I’ve worked with Hitchcock?”

3)For that matter, did Ralph Bellamy mention that he worked with Cary Grant to his co-stars the 1980’s Brooklyn rap trio “The Fat Boys” on the set of Disorderlies (1987)?

4) From Mad Magazine:

In the 2004 election 79% of the voters who voted for George W voted for him because they “admired the way he kicked his alcohol and drug problem.”

That same 79% also said they voted for W because “He is the one I would rather have a beer with.”

5) A feedback I received on E-Bay read, and I quote,"It was a fantastic experience!” This guy thought our transaction was a “Fantastic experience?” What does he normally do for fun? Sit glassy eyed in a messy 10 x 10 room, slow turning fan on high, bead of sweat forming on his brow, staring at a 19” JVC color TV, looking forward to the Cannon/Mannix all day marathon on Nick at Night?

6) “Creationism” vs. “Evolution”:

One is derived from thought experiments, mathematical research, chemical experiments, intense physical and behavioral observation which leads to continuous alteration and revision as various “facts” and “theories” become revealed, learned and hypothesized.

The other is because “It is written….”

7) I am not sure who asked the following:

If God (Intelligent Designer) knows everything and all, how can Man (Designee) possess free will?

Whoever did was definitely on to something.

8) This was today’s WCBS (101.1 FM - a New York oldies station) mid day contest: What do these three songs have in common?

“I Am A Rock” – by Simon and Garfunkel
“Rock the Boat” – by The Hughes Corporation
“Rock You Baby” – by George McCray

9)

I know millions of people are wrestling fans but who would
read this cartoon and actually exclaim "Right on brother!"

10) Don’t you find it ridiculous that New York City and New York State, two of the last bastions of light and hope in the western hemisphere has a Republican Governor and Mayor? I know Bloomberg is really a “conservative democrat” and Pataki is just a political hatchet man who would “sell his back teeth if there was a profit in it,” but still they call themselves Republicans. Didn’t we, the people who are still holding on to a shred of hope and faith in the human spirit, have to suffer through the Nuremberg Rally last year? A grand celebration of ignorance and jingoism so repulsive that even Chris Mathews had to look away. A slight of hand magic show where tired old men told the American people that hate is a good thing and don’t pay any attention to the spiraling economy, the wholesale death and destruction of war and the overall erosion of our soul?
How was such a spectacle tolerated?

11) On judging art by the artist…

I’m a juvenile product of the working class
Whose best friend floats at the bottom of a glass

Written in 1973 and backed with a jamming hard guitar riff, this really strikes a solid statement of disaffected “realness,” which predates the angst of Johnny Rotton’s “Anarchy in the UK” (1976). The fact that a serious glam queen Elton John wrote it makes me ponder the ability of chameleons.

12) There seems to be a theme through many blog entries I have read. There is usually some arrogance aimed at some local group of people the blogger is feuding with. The writings are sometimes brutally sophomoric with no attempt at universality which only leads me to believe that their goals are purely petty and selfish with the base alloy of jealousy, fear and envy always lurking in the shadows. The irony is as our world grows larger our aspirations and thoughts seem to get smaller.

13) Whenever the subject of President John Kennedy comes up, I refer to my father’s recollection of the man. He was not a HUGE Kennedy fan (although he was a lifelong Democrat) but he said when Kennedy made that famous television speech (“Any missile launched from Cuba against ANY nation in the western hemisphere will be considered an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States.”) it was the greatest show of strength by a US president he ever witnessed. He did not back down and avoided the very REAL possibility of a nuclear holocaust. Our position in the world was reinforced with no bloodshed at all. Isn’t that the definition of great leadership?

Compare that to the “show of strength” this other pampered member of the aristocracy is pulling in 2005.


Sixth Army


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