Tag Humor

They isn’t right

Michael 4 Comments

I wish I could find in online so you know I didn’t make this up, but it doesn’t seem to be there. Last week on the local news they had a little throw-away story to fill up 15 seconds. The big news? Grammar mistakes. The line that stuck with me, and a couple of those in the studio also, was that of those surveyed, questioned, interviewed, or whatevered, the most common mistake they encounter is “when to use there, their, and they’re.” Well ain’t no wonder nobody can talk good English no more – that’s not grammar at all. That be spelling, you fools! And while we’re ranting over these three, you really need to be dumber than rocks to not know when to use witch, err, which.

Is it so bad that we now must include the misuse of grammar in our newscasts? Actually, [cue the groans] back when I was in school it would have been news to commit an error in grammar. What happened to the 3-Rs in grammar school. Oops, it’s elementary school now. No grammar required. If you ask me, and I know you didn’t just as well as you know I’m going to tell you anyway, 2+2=4, and you have to be dumber than a rock to not know when to use there, their, or they’re.

I wonder… Do you suppose this started when phones began to automatically correct and/or complete misspelled and partially entered words and phrases? We no longer need to know how to spell there. If we enter t-h-e-e-r, the computer in the phone, which one would think is smarter than your average rock, will correct it. Maybe. It can kind of go either way there. Their? Hmm. More significantly, if you enter t-h-e-r and stop right there, it might even think “hey, this here feller is wanting to type “there” so let me just put in the rest of it in there for you.” There now.

Or maybe… Do you suppose this started when Twitter popped on the scene with its original 140 character limit? (A limit which technically wasn’t a Twitter limit but was the most SMS could transmit which was how the initial Twitter messages were delivered which back then you might have known as twttr which also was an SMS limitation.) (But I digress.) Folks then were busy tryna make everything short. It was like reading vanity license plates. RU w me ther Spelling, grammar, and punctuation were superfluous to the message. Who knew that someday someone would be picky about word choice, spelling, and usage on say, a job application for a company other than twttr or Google.

(By the way, you should see what Word’s spell check and grammar checker are doing to this document. There are more red and blue lines than outside a polling place at election time!) (It was a struggle but I got politics into the discussion.)

Whatever is was to prompt people into thinking a spelling error is their most serious grammar error, it begs the question, how bad is their grammar – their real, actual grammar. How often are their nouns and verbs in agreement? (I’m going with “nouns” and “verbs” here because I’m not sure how they would react to “subject” and “predicate.”)  Have they ever met an infinitive they could not split? Do they know where they misplaced their modifiers? See, these are what I would cite if asked for the most common grammatical errors. Not a spelling issue! (Okay, so every now and then I don’t use a technically complete sentence when I write. Sue me.) And while I’m still thinking about those out there who are as dumb as rocks to be so concerned that they are misusing there, their, and they’re, why did nobody mention its and it’s? If they can grasp its versus it’s, what’s the big deal with there, their, and they’re? Too many to choose? Oh, or should that be two many, or maybe to many?

Rocks, I tell you. Dumb as gravel.

they is so wrong

I’ll have mine with coffee please

Michael 2 Comments

This is the day sweet toothed snackers and pastry enthusiasts wait for every year – Pi Day, or as probably a large percentage of those pie eaters would write it out, and for as much as they care of its significance – Pie Day. Now that opens a whole new line of thought. Exactly what does pi actually do in the real world? And while we’re at it, why pi?

That second question is easier to answer. Everybody, even those insisting on it being Pie Day, knows pi (without the ‘e’) has something to do with math and some of those everybodies might even know it’s most closely associated with circles. Pi is the relationship of a circle’s, any circle’s circumference to its diameter. There’s a great two-minute video here that demonstrates that with a touch of humor and extra pepperoni. Although the concept of pi (again, without the ‘e’) was first demonstrated in the third century B.C., it wasn’t until 1706 on this side of the Common Era dividing line that British mathematician William Jones decided the Greek letter and symbol would make a dandy stand in for 3.14 etc.etc.etc. in calculations. But Leonhard Euler (yes, the is THE Euler) made it popular in his textbooks and justified the Greek Pi, corresponding to P, because pi is all about the perimeter (or circumference) of a circle. (In case you’re wondering, pie (with the ‘e’) has been around since about 6,000 B.C..)

2022-03-13

Now the first question isn’t actually hard to answer. It is hard to pin it down to less than a few hundred dozen applications that are possible only because somebody, sometime, somewhere worked out the calculations to make whatever it is work, using pi. These include radio waves that not only make AM radio possible, but blue tooth that is powering those high priced ear buds you have sitting on your desk.  Not straying too far from there, the GPS function of your phone wouldn’t be possible today if some engineer hadn’t tossed pi into an equation or three. And just that you can talk to your phone or home assistant is possible because voice recognition schemes all use pi to calculate and translate vocal waveforms into computerese. But, you ask, what can you do with it?

If you so wanted to, you could use pi to calculate how much water it takes to fill the kid’s backyard swimming pool, how much stain you need to cover the floor of the gazebo, or how much frosting to make to adequately decorate the surprise party birthday cake. Even more practical is determining what size electrical conduit to buy for that remodel you’re DIY-ing, or how much pie filling you need for the deep dish apple pie the kids are expecting after dinner. Yes, I know, there are charts and recipes for all these things. But now you know you could calculate the answer if all the computers in the world suddenly stopped working or worse, decided to take over and not talk to us anymore. Not too far-fetched you know. Didn’t you ever see “Colossus: The Forbin Project?” (Or one not so evil, like EMARAC from “Desk Set.” If the computers are going to take over, that’s the one I want, as long as Ms. Warriner comes with it.)

So now, go off and eat your pie today, today being Pi Day, or Pie Day if you must. And remember, ask not what pi can do for you, ask if you get whipped cream with it!

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Things I was thinking about when I was thinking about the things I think, I think

Michael Leave a comment

It’s that time again when I have to get some things off my mind or I’ll go out of my mind, and that’s the first one. Going out of one’s mind (which admittedly falls trippingly off the tongue) is taken to mean losing it, going nuts, flipping your lip, and a half-bazillion other ways to say gone bonkers. “Don’t pay attention to him, he’s out of his mind.” “I need a day off or I’m going to go out of my mind.” But it’s actually possible to just go half out of one’s mind, “I was half out of my mind with worry” which usually conveys just a temporary inability to deal with a specific occurrence. That’s not to be confused with “having half a mind” which no less an authority than Merriam-Webster defines as “the feeling especially when angry and annoyed that one would like to do something while at the same time not really planning to do it.” It’s just all much too mindless for me.

This one gets a little politically incorrect (and if you ask me, all of politics is a little incorrect lately). Recently, I had the opportunity to read a magazine article that addressed a dispute between a person who wished to be addressed by the pronoun “they” and another person who was addressed as “she.” The columnist, clearly being a woke (and presumably politically correct) person that he/she/it is, honored the request. It was by far the most difficult piece of reporting I have ever read and I used to read military efficiency reports. I could never tell if the author was talking about one or both of the individuals at any given time. In one sentence the word “they” referred to both the individual and both individuals. Please can we stop with using “they” as a singular pronoun. As noted last week, the English language has over 600,000 words. If you don’t like the one people have been using, at least pick one of the more obscure ones. Or make up a new one. Clearly with over 600,000 words, English language users are not shy about doing that!

I don’t know if this is universal among anti-virus programs so maybe you can clear things up for me if you know. I run Norton-360 antivirus program and I swear, sometimes I wish I’d have opted for the virus. I can’t turn on any of my computers without having it pop up and remind me of some extra cost option I haven’t purchased, or pop up usually while I’m in the middle of entering a nice long string of something (data, words, pictures) to let me know it recently did its thing, all is well, and do I know there are extra cost options I haven’t purchased, or pop up while downloading a file, program, video, whatever and assure me that suchandsuch.somethingorother is safe and by the way, do I know there are still some extra cost options I haven’t yet purchased. If one of those options was a pop-up free version I’d write out the check today!

Another thing I don’t know if it is universal is that since I’ve had COVID, I cannot get warm. I can have the furnace on 68, 72, or 76 and I still want a hoodie (or two) on over my sweatshirt (or two). Oddly, or oddlier, it’s only my upper body. Throw an extra blanket on the bed and my legs get hot. I have got to get this in check before next winter because I refuse to be one of those over-testosteroned Neanderthals that walk around in blizzards with their flannel shirts, camo hats, Carhart jackets, and shorts! And I don’t even want a pick-up truck.

I seldom go on Facebook anymore and maybe this is why. On a recent rare excursion to the Land of Odds (odd balls!) I found a post that had great intentions, but, well, really now. You likely saw it or one of its cousins if you still visit there. It was titled(?) “Why Ukraine matters” and then went on for 1,000 words or so listing all of Ukraine’s attributes. How about. “Ukraine matters because Ukrainians live there. Ukrainians matter because they are people.”

Thank you for sticking around to the end. I know it’s a messy process when things just fall out of my head. I should be good for another couple months now.

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Change of plans

Michael Leave a comment

Remember those best laid plans from a couple weeks ago? Earlier this week I saw a news blurb on one of the local stations about plans. It seems all the rage among the over 30 crowd is to not make plans. In fact, according a majority of 30-somethings interviewed, they are most happy when plans that have been made are cancelled. I know you may find this hard to believe, but I’m going to disagree with that. I remember life in my 30s. I was thrilled when something got cancelled because there was so much else going on, when something fell through, maybe I’d actually be able to do the things I had planned!

Perhaps we should better define “plan.” You likely “planned” to read my blog Thursday morning yet here you are, seeing it for the first time on Friday. Was that really a plan or more an anticipation or expectation (depending on how disappointed you were upon not finding it Thursday morning). I thought you would be reading this Thursday morning. Was that the plan? Or was that an intention? Likely you speak to someone early in the day and may be asked “So, do you have any plans for today?” And perhaps you do but more likely you have aspirations of doing things if other things don’t prevent that from happening. And lastly, if you have a desire to remove yourself from your day to day activities, take a break, perhaps two weeks in a tropical paradise you have never seen and may never see again and you don’t want to miss the plane or would like somewhere to stay besides in the open on the beach, you may request time off, purchase plane tickets, book a hotel room, maybe even make reservations for a local attraction or two for those weeks in the sometime future. This is a plan and one nobody will be “most happy” with if it is cancelled.

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I think when the 30-somethings say they don’t make plans, they are speaking of the first three examples noted in the above paragraph. I am sure that somewhere, there is a 35 year old sitting with a couple tickets to Barbados, maybe pre-paid afternoon at the spa and reservations at the Salt Café in his (hers?, its?) phone’s wallet. It may think it a commitment (especially after the first few payments hit the Discover billing cycles) but it started out as a plan. Those other things like anticipating a blog post to hit your email or announcing a day’s probable agenda are possibly considered commitments by that unspecified 35 year old and it might not want to commit to lunch with the brother-in-law and then wash the car this Saturday afternoon and thus would prefer to “not make plans.”

I suppose it’s all in the words you use and even though the English  language gives us a bazillion from which to chose (over 600,000 per the Oxford English Dictionary, 39 for “plan”) we opt to use those that are most familiar to us and cause us to do the least amount of thinking to choose, while saying to everyone else “I know what I mean, figure it out yourself!”

I don’t know who decided that but I plan to look into it.

The monster under the bed

Michael Leave a comment

Think back. You were 5, maybe 6, possibly an overly protected 13, and you wouldn’t go to sleep, couldn’t go to sleep, until one of the adults in the house checked your room for the monster than lived in the closet, hid behind the dresser, or worst of all, stayed under the bed from where he would spring out in the middle of the night to devour innocent 5, maybe 6, or possibly overly protected 13 year olds. Night after night, first one adult, then the other, would scour your bedroom looking for a monster who was never there to be found. Well, I found that monster. He is living under my bed. But he is not interest in devouring 5, 6, or oven 13 year olds. No he eats  anything and everything that hits the bedroom floor during the night. Or at least tries.

Lately I have been experiencing a rather clumsy period. I manage to put myself to bed each night fairly well unscathed but once I am in there, nestled between the sheets, my natural grace falls asleep before I do and I am left an inelegant, clumsy fool. I roll over attempting to find a more comfortable position and my arms must flail about the room, knocking everything that once was on the bedside table onto the bedside floor. Oh but there it doesn’t remain. I spring from my bed as I hear the clatter and wonder with my head what could be the matter (sorry, Mr. Moore).

I know there used to be a water bottle, watch, phone, book, another book, tablet, e-reader, charger(s), tissues, reading glasses, and a lamp on the table when I got into bed yet nothing but the glasses remain. As I reach to the floor to begin repositioning the pieces, I run my hand over the carper but feel nothing but carper. Further out from the bed I reach, leaning precariously over the side and still feel nothing. Nothing at all. Not even things that began the night on the floor like the pair of slippers that should be there. Farther I reach, twisting my body, stretching my arm, leaning out into the dark void until little more than my lower legs are holding me up on top of the mattress lest I too join the missing articles that once cluttered the nightstand.

Cursing the darkness I remember the adage “better to light a candle than curse the darkness,” but there who in their right mind keeps candles in the bedroom in the 21st century. Cursing the lamp that seems to have magically returned to its customary place I switch it on and survey the bedroom floor. And there I see – no water bottle, no watch, no phone, no book, no other book, no tablet, no e-reader, and no tissues, although I do spy several chargers dangling off the nightstand from their cords still plugged into the power block still plugged into the wall. Where did they all go? I refocus my gaze farther away from the bed, toward the wall, farther still to the door, and just as I am about to attempt to peer around corners to see if they bounced all the way to the hall, I remembered the monster.

Yes, the monster. It must have been the monster, the monster who has returned from ages past to live again under my bed. The monster has sworn off eating children, adopting now a vegan diet – monster version. The monster for whom water bottles, watches, phones, books, other books, tablets, e-readers, and tissues would make a yummy meal. That monster. And I slowly lean all the way over, lift the bed skirt, and there, there, there is no monster but there are my water bottle, watch, phone, book, another book, tablet, e-reader, and tissues, all there where the monster had gathered them before leaving them uneaten as he ran for cover when he heard my begin my frantic search.

It had to have been the monster. How else could anything and everything I drop anywhere on that bedroom floor end up an arm’s length under the bed. Clearly, I have a monster under my bed. That and I have to stop kung pao chicken so close to bedtime.

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Oh so close!

Michael 2 Comments

It’s been a couple weeks now, I was reading the daily headlines and took note of one, “Ginny Mancini Dies.” Of all the thoughts I could have had, the one I had was, ”Wow, she must have been 100!” and not hyperbolically. I knew Henry Mancini would have been almost 100 because my father would be almost 100 and they went to school together. As I read the obituary, I discovered she was close, but not quite. The former Ginny O’Connor was 97 years, 3 months old at the time of her death.

Today’s post is not about Ginny Mancini, nor is it about Henry, not even my father. It’s about 97 year olds and other peri-centenarians.

Undoubtedly you remember some of my best posts have to do with obituaries. Well, not completely true, but I find them fascinating even if I wrote about them only twice, and one of those two times rather obliquely. It really doesn’t matter who is the subject of the obituary, (not to me, but I won’t speak for the family), it matters what is said in those first few phrases. Naturally you can’t get to the meat of the matter without getting past the name and age. We already talked about those names (What’s in a (Nick)Name), so now let’s look at those ages. For the last few weeks, I’ve been doing just that, looking at the ages of those memorialized in the daily obituary column. I’ve discovered a really popular age for people to move on to Phase II, at least for the last couple weeks, is 97.

20200430_164951On one single day I noted seven of the 15 death notices were for 97 year olds. One of the others was 95 and another 93. The following day featured obits at four more folks aged 97 and one 98. Over the course of that week, I counted fourteen 97 year olds, three at 96, five 95, two who were 91, and the lone 98 year old. (Yes, I did.) (Really.) (So don’t believe me, I know I did!!) That’s a bunch of almost centenarians. During that whole week I also noticed one news article noting the upcoming 104th birthday of a local citizen and of one other joining the ranks of the century-folks. These weren’t just your run of the mill, “John Doe Turns 100” fluff pieces. They were in-depth discussions on the secret to long living, happy lives, and what’s the most surprising thing you’ve seen in your century of roaming the earth. That’s important to me and it’s equally important to me that I get to 100. I find myself fascinating and deserve to be interviewed too.

The surest ways I’ve found for a non-athlete, non-politician, non-celebrity type person to be queried on the state of the world are to win a Nobel Prize or turn 100. In my case, turn 100. But in that one week I spotted only two hitting the hundred (or better) mark while twenty people had their famous 15 minutes distilled to three minutes or less reading time for just getting oh so close.

You know, even considering how old I feel on a lot of days, especially after rising but before coffee, getting to even “just” 97 seems like such a long way away. I wonder what Nobel categories I could sneak my way into.

It’s that time again

Michael Leave a comment

Once upon a time they lived happily ever after (2)Did you notice we shifted time last week? Most of us. If you didn’t notice then you probably picked up on it if you were on social media, read any newspaper editorials, and tuned into a television or radio talk show as we once again took part in the semi-annual “why do we have to change the clock let’s stay on daylight saving time all year long” debate. Apparently in the last five days, traffic accidents have gone up 13%, hearts attacks increased by more than 50%, and two more glaciers have disappeared. I don’t know about the glaciers but the other stuff indeed I’ve read with my own eyes. Personally, I don’t care about whether we do or don’t have daylight saving time (and yes, that is the correct nomenclature regardless of the bazillion people who say daylight savings time). What I don’t understand is why if all these people are invoking that it is not natural to shift time twice a year are not also invoking a steady diet of natural, AKA standard time. Apparently they don’t want to be bothered with changing time but enjoy the extra hour of daylight at the end of the day rather than the beginning. The other thing I don’t understand is that 19 states have legislature pending to adopt year round daylight savings time and one to adopt standard time as the, um, well, standard time. That, by my rudimentary grasp of mathematics equals 20, and 20 from 50 equals 30 states who don’t care. Thirty is greater than twenty so invoking the age old democratic dictum that majority rules, let’s just leave it all alone. (Of course, exceptions to old dicta are made for former Presidents who can’t count.)

It’s that time again doesn’t mean the only thing we have to discuss this week is time. No, that’s just the warm-up. The main event is that it’s that time again to clear the desk of all the little sticky notes of stuff that has to be mentioned before the weight of them buckles the left front desk leg. For instance, did you know:

Pennsylvania’s state senate just passed a bill, now to go to the state house for debate, eliminating the need for a permit to carry a weapon, either open or concealed. Actually firearms, not all weapons. Apparently somebody has been reading only part of the Second Amendment again. From a news article, proponents of the bill said, “law-abiding gun owners should not need the government’s permission to carry a firearm.” I’m writing my state senator tomorrow insisting he introduce legislation saying that law-abiding citizens should not need the government’s permission to drive a car, own a car, practice law, medicine or cosmetology, be a nurse, pharmacist or barber, bury people, cremate others, or drive school busses filled with our future bullies, er leaders. And we certainly don’t need the government’s permission to set our clocks twice a year.

Also in the news: Dixie State University is close to changing its name, one often associated with the Deep South and slavery, but not without local opposition. It seems the name has a lot of support because the region has no history of slavery but that “Dixie” references its attempt to become a major cotton growing area outside the Deep South in the late 1800s. So now you’re confused also. Well maybe this will clear things up. The proposed new name of the college is Utah Tech University. Who knew Utah was a big cotton grower?

Circling back to Pennsylvania: An attorney was having difficulty navigating his way through the metal detector at the Allegheny County Courthouse. After removing his coat and emptying his pockets of wallet, coins, and keys, and still setting off the detector he asked the guard to “wand” him because it was his suspenders that were causing the alert. He knew that because he almost always is stopped there because of his suspenders. Apparently the guard was not impressed with His Dapper-ness and instructed him to take off his suspenders which the now less than dapper lawyer did along with the trousers said suspenders were supporting, and passed through the metal detector in socks, shirt, underwear, and apparently a good measure of attitude. The attorney was charged with disorderly conduct. A newspaper article detailing the incident reported the lawyer stated, “(the) security guard “got in my personal space” and demanded that he take off his suspenders or leave. (The attorney) said he was frustrated and did not want to be late for his pro bono work representing people in the family court.” Perhaps the next time he is off to do his pro bono work for the people he may want to invest in a belt. No word on if he was already late because he incorrectly reset his watch earlier in the week.

Happy Veterans’ Day to me and many many many many many others. Every now and then I have to remind myself that I really am a veteran. I’m not permitted to claim protected veteran status thanks to an executive order dating back to the Obama administration conferring said status only to those having served during combat or awarded the Armed Services Medal which was established on June 1, 1992. I was separated in March 1992 with no combat duty.

I think that’s enough although I could mention how Prince Harry claims to have forewarned of the Capitol riots, that Dr. Oz, an Ohio Native and a current New Jersey resident is mulling a run in the Pennsylvania 2022 Senatorial race, or that a cow closed a major roadway in England for an hour, a morning rush hour, while 10 police officers attempted to, ahem, corral the bovine. I thought cows jumped over the moon, this one jumped over the fence. And if that cow was planning on a trip to the moon, or at least to the International Space Station, she would be doing it in a diaper, just like the returning astronauts had to wear on their eight hour trip home because the toilet in their SpaceX capsule was broken. Not to worry that we didn’t get to these. There will be more time again some other time again for more of that time again.

Press or Say…

Michael 5 Comments

I had such a variety of topics to pick this week, but to make a long story short, I had a killer phone call with an insurance company that deserves to be talked about. That’s right – an insurance company. Who  would have thought that anybody, anywhere, ever  would come away from a phone call with an insurance company and feel good about it

In general, insurance companies’ phone systems and auto-attendants are designed by the progeny of the Marquis de Sade. Everybody has gone through the drill at least once. Everybody who has insurance. You call the number and get a robotic message similar to this.

“Thank you for calling the Incredibly Misleading Insurance Company, your one stop for home, health, life, auto, renters, business, boat, builders, boat builders, long term care, after care, personal liability, personal property, and accident insurance. To continue un English, press one, para continuar en español presione dos, lietuviams stumti trečiąjį numerį, bizning o’zbekcha to’rtni bosing versiyasi uchun, moun ki pale kreyòl ayisyen peze nimewo senk lan, att höra dessa instruktioner i svensk press sex, aŭ se vi estas unu el la ĉirkaŭ tri homoj, kiuj efektive parolas Esperanton, elektu la numeron sep.”

Your make your selection and in a reasonable facsimile of the language you selected you get the following instructions

“To give you the absolute best in class service please make your selections from the following, but please listen to all options carefully because we changed this from the last time you called.
Press or say 1 to pay your bill
Press or say 2 to get your current balance due and pay your bill
Press or say 3 to hear outstanding claims and pay your bill
Press or say 4 to hear policy options and pay your bill
2 + 2 5 (3)          Press or say 5 to change add or change your policy or increase your policy limits and pay your bill
Press or say 6 to file a claim and pay the new higher premium we will assess you as soon as you press or say 6
Press or say 7 to request a copy of your policy or proof of coverage, pay the service charge for said copy and then pay your bill
Press or say 8 to hear these options again in a different order
Press or say 9 to (hehe) speak with a representative [chuckle]”

Naturally you need to speak to a representative or you would have used the website to conduct your business so you press or say 9, and you are told by the friendly cyborg:

“In order to serve you more efficiently please enter your 43 digit account number, 78 character alpha-numeric policy number, the last eight digits of your Social Security Number, your billing zip code, the number you are calling from, and the first three digits of your childhood pediatrician’s office street address.”

Surprisingly you manage to enter all the required information and the cheerful android tells you:

“In order that I transfer you to the representative to help you best, please tell me what type of assistance your need. Press or say 1 to pay your bill…”

…and on and on.

If you’re lucky, you remember that if you press 0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0 you will be immediately transferred to some unprepared service representative and you might get some satisfaction to the problem responsible for the call to begin with before they put you on “a brief hold” and you are cut off.

But today, I called my medical insurance carrier, specifically myMedicare supplement insurance carrier. And I got the following (the names are changed because I don’t want them to know I’m blabbing this all over the universe):

“Thank you for calling the We Really Do Care Insurance Company. I see you are calling from [repeats my number]. If this is [states my name], press 1, if not, press 2, en espanol, numero tres.”

I press 1.

“Thank you. How can we help you today? You can say “pay my bill,” “track a claim,” “ask a policy question,” or “speak to a representative.””

I said “Speak to a representative,” and in about 20 seconds a cheerful human voice answered. “Hi this is Friendly Frieda. The computer told me who you are but before I continue, please confirm your billing ZIP code.” I did that and in a little over 5 minutes I had all my business transacted. Whew!

That’s it. No drama. No rant. Maybe next week.

Shoot the messenger

Michael Leave a comment

You might think from the title of this post that I’m getting ready to set on a rant about those demonstrating for or against the gripe of the week, and sometimes both, but no, those aren’t the messengers who are annoying me this week even though their messages are annoying as anything. I’m getting ready to rant about messages more than messengers, text messages, and in particular, group text messages. Although…there are messengers who initiate those group messages so, yes, let’s rant about them too.

Do you remember when email was “new” and about once a week the office manager, HR VP, sometimes the company president, would send an email around that said, “Do not ‘Reply All’ when answering group emails,” which was particularly good advice if your reply was “what a bozo move that is!” to whatever directive the email contained.

Actually, that still goes on in the companies that communicate by email. But as the world has grown faster and more impatient to the point that many are finding email to be too slow. More and more messengers are turning to text messages. Everybody carries cell phones now. Nearly everybody’s cell phones are smart phones (many smarter than their owners) so sharing documents, spreadsheets, internet links, and images are no more difficult that doing so by email. And people look at their phones. Emailers are not unaware that the “efficient business experts” have long suggested that to not be tired to one’s email, establish email hours and check inboxes at specific and limited times. Immediate email responses are things of the past. Ah, but text messages. Everybody reads texts as soon as they pop in. They could be something important like a happy hour invitation or a link to a cat video.

Although it is possible to reply to just the sender of a group text message, that takes an extra step and only the most fastidious recipient turned responder might be willing to take the extra step, Otherwise, reply all is the default and the default routinely is taken. Back in the good old days of emails, although the occasional reply all snuck through, most recipients never had to bother taking care to choose the correct reply option because they didn’t intend to reply at all. It was an age when if you didn’t have anything to say, you didn’t have to say anything. But that doesn’t work with text messages. Oh no, if you get a text, you will send a text. It’s only right they must think. And so everybody knows who among them thinks “what a bozo move that is” and what everybody else thinks at 10 or 12 second intervals even if all they think is “OK” or “Thx!” or 👍.

So don’t be a bozo, or even just move like one. Keep your group responses to yourself. Or at least only to the sender. OK? Thx! 👍. 🙂

Once upon a time they lived happily ever after

The case against the chef knife

Michael 6 Comments

Yes, you read that title correctly. We are boycotting, rejecting, protesting the use of, and generally shunning chef’s knives, or just as appropriate, chef knives. Chef knives out, I say! Except for me, because like so many Americans, particularly the unvaccinated, unmasked, and uninformed of which I am none, I’m special.  Please keep in mind I have no formal culinary training, no background in knifeology, sliceology or dicematics, and no experience as a professional cutter. But like those who have no medical training and very little common sense who insist on making up their own facts while still believing the pandemic is a hoax designed to get microchips implanted in every human by way of the vaccine, not knowing anything about knives is no reason not to spread my truth about knives.

Chefs, particularly famous, celebrity chefs much more so than the relatively unknown celebrity chefs and definitely the ones who if they don’t sell knives at least use knives, all say if they were stranded on a desserted island, not to be confused with a deserted island, and they could have only one thing in all the world, they would want to please be allowed to keep their chef knives. Of course, if they were on a dessserted island they would need their knives to prepare something sweet. If they were on a deserted island the one thing they would want would be a ticket back home, price is no object. That’s what I would want too. Anyway, getting back to the desserted island, personally I believe I’d want a whisk because whipped cream goes best with sweets, and there is just no way you can slice or dice heavy cream fast enough to make it light and fluffy. Again, just my opinion.

Those who really know how to use a chef’s knife, the chef, can go ahead and use it to their heart’s content. They don’t tell you that they are big, heavy, sharp, and unwieldy to wield if you haven’t been trained in their use. They then compound it and say to get the most out of your chef knife you need a big one – a 12 incher, or at least 10 inches.  Even the girl chefs, hmm women chefs, umm, even the chefs who identify as anything other than male with male parts down there will argue that size does matter. They flash their foot long 4 billion dollar carbon steel machete on television where the camera angles deftly screen from view most of the blood, then when you try it at home where you don’t have a staff of twenty doing the real work, you find yourself plucking the tips of the fingers of your non-dominant hand out of the stir-fry ingredients.

Save yourself the embarrassment of yet again explaining to the EMTs where to find the cooler and zip top bags for ice for the trip to the emergency room and stick with a Homecook’s Knife, also just as appropriate, the Normal Knife. I think with a well balance, well sharpened, reasonably priced utility knife, you too can prepare meals your family will think are just dandy. If you happen to be exception at home cookery, like I am (again, just my opinion – no, that’s a fact), you could step into the world of responsibly chef knife ownership.

You see here my personal knife collection. That’s it and I make almost every meal I eat. No, seriously, really I do. So far this year I have eaten other people’s cooking about 24 times and it is September. That’s a bunch of meals prepped.

Knives

So then, this is my working cutlery. I use a short, 8 inch chef knife when I get all cheffy and decide to use it and then it is mostly for fine dicing, there’s nothing better than it for chopping green onions and chives, and I like mincing herbs and smushing cloves of garlic with it. Sometimes I put extra garlic in things just so I can pound the living daylights out of them with the side of the…. umm, but I digress. I’m sure somebody who owns 6 restaurants would laugh at it but then I actually know how vaccines work because I really did go to school for that. Below that is a 7 inch utility knife, the workhorse for my cutting and slicing, something you will never see on a televised food competition. Both of those are Vitorinox and they get honed after each use and sharpened only when needed. With the utility knife I can cut most anything from produce to poultry and with its thin blade I can even skin and filet fish. The paring knife is another frequent visitor to the cutting board and is an OXO product. The serrated knife is by El Cheapo and almost never comes out of the block but every now and then I need those teeth.  The whole kit and kaboodle, including a good honing steel and kitchen shears cost less than $150, about half of what the famous guys will spend on their one necessity for Dessert Island. Which reminds me, maybe next week we’ll talk about whips. Balloon whips for whipping eggs and cream for crying out loud! (Sheesh)

Now that we’re done with stuff I don’t know nothing about, on Tuesday I will be getting my vaccine booster shot because I am immunocompromised. If for some ridiculous, completely unscientific reason you are unvaccinated, and you don’t intend to ever at all vaccinate, would please be so kind as to wear a mask while you read my blog posts. Thank you very much. Big chef knives were sent here by aliens.