Category Archives: Original writing

This changes everything

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Here’s a little news item you probably missed. This Congressional resolution, issued just today, will change all our futures. We knew it had to happen eventually.

113th CONGRESS

2nd Session

H.R. 99

Initiating updates of names and labels for humans, pets, and all organizations and establishments to reflect the era of technological ubiquity in which the nation finds itself.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

October 22, 2014

Mr. BOEHNER (for himself and Mr. BROOKS) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology

RESOLUTION

That all names and labels currently in use as of passage of this bill shall forthwith be changed to reflect the era of technological ubiquity in which the nation finds itself. Names and labels yet to be assigned shall adhere to the same set of new “futuristic” names, giving preference to words such as “space”, “jet”, “planet”, and other names of that futuristic ilk.

Whereas it has been several millennia since the Stone Age ended and since the previous name shift when sobriquets favoring words such as “rock” and “stone” were deprecated;

Whereas we recognize that today’s technology-dominated culture should impact naming processes at all levels;

Whereas we all expect soon to be traveling in flying automobiles powered by quiet, unobtrusive little circles;

Whereas living in saucer-shaped homes supported by single posts reaching beyond cloud level will soon be commonplace;

Whereas robotic technology already exists in nearly every product we consume from automobiles to toasters, soon to perform all our errands, household chores, work, and recreation;

Whereas archaic names such as “Smith” and “Wright” referring to anachronistic professions will engender tremendous confusion and wreak havoc on the education of our children whose knowledge extends no further into the past than the advent of the DVD;

Whereas even words such as “sprocket”, though hardly high-tech, promote an engineering bias in keeping with our culture of innovation and will be acceptable;

Whereas the future has arrived and we have little time to spare before it overwhelms us with its strangeness: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives —

(1) shall enforce the renaming and relabeling of all existing entities whether living or inorganic through whatever means necessary, whether punitive or compensatory; and

(2) shall propose acceptable names for newly created entities, whether living or inorganic; and

(3) shall provide thorough guidelines for the new naming paradigm; and

(4) shall henceforth refuse to recognize names that do not meet the proposed criteria; and

(5) shall change the National Anthem to “Rocket Man”; and

(6) shall change even the name of our nation to “The United States of Astromerica”; and

(7) shall add an amendment to the Constitution, er, Cosmotution to further reinforce this critical need.

Cogressional update: Submitters henceforth to be known as Cogressmen Frederick LASER and Mo COMETS

jetsons

With your new space-name, you’ll be as happy as these folks.

Yanks to Fete Steinbrenner Next

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[This important sports item has just been released.]

The venerable New York Yankees, after the ultra-successful whirlwind retirement tours of Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter, have decided to follow up with a round-the-horn circuit by “The Boss”, the late George Steinbrenner.

“We want to maintain the momentum established in 2013 and 2014,” explained Yankee Director of Chutzpah, Steuben Lowe. “When we looked at our roster, however, we found a serious dearth in expected retirements for the next few years.” Mr. Steinbrenner, who passed away in 2010, was the next logical choice.

“He’s a legend,” claimed Lowe. “He singlehandedly transformed baseball from an athletic competition to a virtual meat market. To top off his regime, he transformed ‘The House that Ruth Built’ into ‘The House that George Demolished’. No other owner in baseball history can claim achievements of that significance.”

As the Yankees visit each ballpark during the 2015 season, honorary local volunteer pall-bearers will carry Steinbrenner’s coffin to home plate where he will receive the accolades due his reputation as fierce competitor and ruthless executive.

“Of course, he’ll have no use for the vehicles, artwork, and memorabilia of the type showered on Mariano and Derek,” Lowe told reporters. “But all those goods can be converted into cash to sign future retirees.” eBay has been contracted and is already gearing up to handle the expected bonanza. Donations to Mr. Steinbrenner’s favorite cause, the Yankee Free Agent Fund, will be accepted and welcome.

“Being honored in all those ballparks would have brought a genuine thrill to Mr. Steinbrenner, especially Fenway Park, which held a special place in his heart. I only wish Shea Stadium was still around for The Boss to occupy. It will be a bittersweet time, that’s for sure,” the Yankee executive said with a well-placed tear in his eye.

Lowe further explained that, what with the Yankees recently losing such stars as Robinson Cano and Andy Pettitte, the pipeline for “quality retirees” is dry. “The storied history of the Yankees demands higher profile pensioners than those currently available. Gone are the days when we could have filled an entire decade with Hall of Fame caliber players to drain the pockets of kowtowing competitors. Lou Gehrig in particular was a missed opportunity of exceptional proportions.” Lowe later added that the level of available plundering has not always been as rich as it is today. “With the advent of interleague play, the stakes are much higher. The amount we could have extorted before the interleague era pales in comparison to today’s potential take.

Depending on the outcome of his suspension and various appeals, Alex Rodriguez is generally regarded as the next viable tour candidate. Unfortunately, his availability will be in doubt for some time. A traveling Congressional inquiry with Rodriguez as the key witness has been discussed but the legalities involved could make such a tour prohibitive.

If A-Rod falls through, rumor has it that Jacoby Ellsbury, speedster centerfielder signed away from the rival Red Sox, will be asked to take early retirement after the 2016 season to fill the gap. “We signed Ellsbury not only for his baseball skills but for his estimable marketing potential,” declared the Yankee’s General Manager, the ironically named Brian Cashman. “He has nothing to lose taking early retirement. The Yankees’ severance package is, as you might imagine, generous to a fault. Additionally, Jacoby will be allowed to keep the cars, shoes, bling, and other offerings that are de rigueur for these tributes.”

Reaction to the announcement from around the league was mixed.

“This is not only good for the Yankees and for baseball, frankly, it’s good for the Tampa Bay Rays,” declared Rays Senior Vice President of Overachievement. Merry Chase. “We don’t draw flies here at the Trop unless one of the big money teams comes to town. These tributes boost our attendance tremendously as retired New Yorkers flock to the stadium to pay their respects to their returning heroes. That’s fine with us, as long as they put out for the proverbial peanuts and Cracker Jacks.”

Orioles brass were less enthusiastic. A source who wished to remain anonymous summed up their feelings, saying, “What a bunch of greedy bastards.”

Where, oh where did my money go?

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[As threatened, er, mentioned in my last post, the idea of losing ten mill a day is too funny to pass up without elaborating on. So, here I go, elaborating. It’s a lot like writing, but easier.]

losemoneyThe first day it happened, I thought, “What the heck, it’s only $10,000,000.” The second day, I was a little more concerned, but didn’t lose any sleep over it. After all, Stephen Drew makes $10M a year and he’s batting 21 points under the Mendoza line. How much can it be worth?

After a week of losing ten million bucks a day, though, I was beginning to think maybe I should give this issue some thought. You know, ten million here and ten million there and pretty soon your talking about real money. This was a situation to be taken seriously before it became a real problem.

After looking in all the obvious places – my pants’ pockets, those little car storage compartments, the washer and dryer, under the bed – I was still several tens of millions in the hole. I know what you’re thinking: “No big deal.” But it’s the principle of the thing. Besides, you never know when you might need a hundred million or so. It would be embarrassing to pull up to a toll booth and come up a few million short. After all, I don’t have E-ZPass.

Still, it’s only money. Did you ever balance your checkbook and it was off by a few million? Yeah, me too. It happens all the time, but I never pay it any mind. I figure it’ll all straighten out in the next statement or two. Then there was the time I tipped the waitress at Applebee’s and accidentally put an extra seven zeros after the amount. I could have kicked myself, but these things happen. Besides, the service was very good.

I’m not one of those crazy OCD types who has to know where every million bucks goes. Come on! My time is worth more than that. If I worried about every million dollars that passed through my hands, I’d never get anything else done.

Some people tried to convince me that members of my family were bilking me of my money. The thought never received even a moment’s consideration. Can you imagine suspecting my own family of trying to cheat me? Accusing them would irrevocably sever our ties. Money comes and goes, but family is one nonnegotiable constant in my life. I’d never imperil my relationship with my family for money, no matter what the amount.

No sane person would.

Lies we believe #5

Posted on by under Generic Rant, Original writing

[What? #5??? Where the heck did 1-4 go? I’ve had a running series of “Lies we believe” posts in my other blog, Limping in the Light. (This one, for example. You should read them all. Now.) It just seemed more appropriate to continue that series on this side of the blog wall.]

measureWe believe a lot of lies and, to paraphrase Cole from “The Sixth Sense”, we don’t even know we believe them. Yet they rule our lives in many ways. Does that make any sense (sixth or otherwise) at all? It’s not so much that we’re gullible as we fail to take the time to think about the assumptions on which we base our decisions. I’m very big on thinking. Some say I’m too big on it. I’ve already waxed eloquently on the topic a few times, including here.

Here’s one that drives me crazy:

If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.

This is the gospel according to bean counters. The truth is, if you can’t measure it… you can’t measure it. Nothing more can be inferred from the former conditional clause. Business lives and, more often, dies by this pseudo-maxim. Everything has to be measured, even if it can’t be. Some unmeasurables that come to mind:

  • Customer satisfaction
  • Employee satisfaction
  • Future results
  • Productivity (in some cases)

There are dozens more, but I have other stuff to do today.

So when business executives realize they can’t measure something, out of fear of not being able to control it – and control is everything to these posers – they make up a measurement and pretend it applies. My favorite example follows.

My last employer decided that customer satisfaction could be measured objectively and precisely by counting the number of unfixed (i.e. “open”) defects currently reported against a given product. Now this is blatant nonsense. I’m sure even IBM execs (oops! I mentioned the employer name) didn’t really believe the figure meant anything. They just winked at each other and agreed to the lie.

Since customer sat was bad at the time, they surmised that lowering the count of those defects would improve the situation. So they gave me the task of closing as many of those defects as possible. Not fixing them, mind you, just getting rid of them, usually by saying they had no plans to address the problems. After a few months, about half those defects had simply gone away and thus, magically, our customer sat numbers doubled.

The suits were happy, the bean counters were happy, and Wall Street was happy. The only people who weren’t happy were the ones this whole pointless exercise was intended for in the first place: the customers. It wasn’t just a lie, it was a counterproductive lie. Though there’s no way to know for sure (reread above), I’m willing to bet those customers were less satisfied than before.

By the way, Forbes agrees with me on this one.

So next time you hear an accepted truth, think about it. Take it from a child of the ’60’s: Question Authority.

Title, heading, name, label, legend, banner, headline

Posted on by under About writing, Original writing

badjailThis is a short [story, tale, saga, history, report, narrative] about an [event, happening, occurrence, incident] that never was. It’s just an [excuse, reason, pretext] for using a lot of synonyms of the type I’ve come to call “slangonyms”. Over the years, some words in the English language have spawned so many slang terms to refer to the same concepts, it seems there’s no [end, ceasing, hard stop, finality, culmination, last word].

≈

One [night, evening, after hours] I was at a [party, bash, soiree, affair, shebang, blowout, gala, shindig] with some [friends, buds, pals, mains, BFFs, amigos, homeys, chums, bro’s]. To be [honest, forthright, on the up-an-up, straight arrow, tell it like it is] I was feeling a bit [drunk, tipsy, faced, zonked, merked, high, wasted, totaled, three sheets to the wind, blitzed, corked, tanked, plastered, potted, sloshed, juiced, feeling no pain].

Suddenly the [police, cops, fuzz, flatfoot, pigs, heat, badge, copper, law] showed up and they hauled my [rear end, butt, tail, glutes, tush, fanny, keister, bottom, backside, derriere] off to court. I didn’t have any [money, cash, loot, bucks, lettuce, scrilla, greenbacks, bread, clams, simoleons, scratch, moola, coin, dough], so they slapped me in the [prison, jail, hoosegow, slammer, pen, joint, graybar hotel, up the river, big house, clink, pokey, cooler].

I was so mad, I could just [swear, cuss, curse, spew, be foul-mouthed, flame]. But there was nothing I could do, so I just [went to sleep, passed out, hit the hay, copped some Z’s, got some shut-eye, sawed some logs, crashed].

Other than that, the party was [great, awesome, wicked, fabuloso, slammin’, far out, boss, all that, groovy, hip, epic, cool, stellar, the bee’s knees, fierce].

The end, fini, ball game, end of the line, exuent, finito, done, no mas.

(Don’t you just love the English language? There’s no excuse to be boring!)