Sunday, September 25, 2005
Music -- friend or enemy?
Ever notice how music can be your friend or your enemy? Most of the time, for me at least, it's a friend. It can cheer me up, pick up my energy level, or help me relax and unwind after some unexpected stress falls in my lap. Researchers have even shown that belting out a tune on your morning commute or just listening to music in the car can help lower stress levels and help prevent or alleviate road rage. But on occasion an evil, evil song will get stuck in my head. Not just for minutes or hours, but often for days at a time. Could be some tune from the 80s. Could be a song I heard just a snippet of, but I know just enough of it to want to hear more, so my mind will latch onto it and keep repeating it endlessly. Just a couple of weeks ago I got "The Saga Begins" by Weird Al Yankovic stuck in my head for at least three days (I lost count) after hearing it at a garage sale. The worst, however, is when my mind gloms onto a tune I absolutely abhor. WHY DOES IT DO THAT??!!! Why would the powers that be want to punish me by hermetically sealing a horrible, pointless, fluffy song inside my head for days on end? And why can't I control this phenomenon? We all "know" that the way to get a song that's stuck in your head out of there is to listen to it. Well, sorry friends, but sometimes it just doesn't work that way for me. Sure, sometimes the old standby works, but other times listening to it, even several times in a row, only seems to serve to cement it more solidly amongst my synapses. What the hell? Probably the absolute worst case scenario, though, with respect to this mind-numbing phenomenon is when I get a song stuck in my head that I just can't get hold of a real copy of. Then I can't even test the theory that listening to it will help me shake it! Back in the good ol' days of Napster, I rarely had this problem. Nowadays, I have a paid subscription to MusicMatch that lets me listen, on-demand, to any of their thousands of available tunes. But sometimes, just sometimes, not only do I not have the CD, but it isn't even available via MusicMatch. Then, ladies and gents, I am quite sincerely screwed. I'm happy to say that right now is not one of those times. I'm happily streaming some more eclectic selections from MusicMatch such as cuts by Gotan Project, dZihan & Kamien, and Wally Brill (if you really want a bone-chilling cut, check out his "A Typical Day"). But man, when those malignant song-bites strike, I'd give anything to know how to get them to go away. Anybody got any suggestions?
Sunday, September 11, 2005
Gads, my feet are bigger than I thought!
I took this enlightening little quiz about my ecological footprint today: www.myfootprint.org
According to it, if everyone on earth lived like me, we would need the products of two earths to sustain them. Of course, they didn't have selections for "I live in a warehouse without A/C" or "I live on a boat with no electricity," but I doubt that really mattered much. I know the two biggest things that pushed my score up over the acceptable limit of 4.5 acres per person were my driving habits (although I drive very little for myself, my weekly excursions to purchase books helped to put me in the 200-300 mi/wk category) and my eating habits (the fact that I've been really lazy lately, and living primarily off of prepackaged foods. It's one of Jeff's practices that I am neither proud nor happy to have adopted, and my body is none too pleased about it either).
Although there isn't much of a way around the driving I do for inventory acquisition, I know that I could cut back by riding my bike to the gym (although I often combine gym and post office or gym and inventory acquisition trips to help cut back on gas consumption), and, ideally, by riding our bikes back and forth to Mom's house (well, except that she has a habit of sending stuff home with us that wouldn't fit too well on a bike...and the fact that we'd be riding home after dark...eek!), but for the most part, we only drive to support ourselves. Maybe I'll go back and re-take the quiz, and see just how big of an impact living on fresh, local produce (scary as it is with its pesticides!) would have on my consumption. I encourage you to take the quiz yourself...it's an eye opener!
According to it, if everyone on earth lived like me, we would need the products of two earths to sustain them. Of course, they didn't have selections for "I live in a warehouse without A/C" or "I live on a boat with no electricity," but I doubt that really mattered much. I know the two biggest things that pushed my score up over the acceptable limit of 4.5 acres per person were my driving habits (although I drive very little for myself, my weekly excursions to purchase books helped to put me in the 200-300 mi/wk category) and my eating habits (the fact that I've been really lazy lately, and living primarily off of prepackaged foods. It's one of Jeff's practices that I am neither proud nor happy to have adopted, and my body is none too pleased about it either).
Although there isn't much of a way around the driving I do for inventory acquisition, I know that I could cut back by riding my bike to the gym (although I often combine gym and post office or gym and inventory acquisition trips to help cut back on gas consumption), and, ideally, by riding our bikes back and forth to Mom's house (well, except that she has a habit of sending stuff home with us that wouldn't fit too well on a bike...and the fact that we'd be riding home after dark...eek!), but for the most part, we only drive to support ourselves. Maybe I'll go back and re-take the quiz, and see just how big of an impact living on fresh, local produce (scary as it is with its pesticides!) would have on my consumption. I encourage you to take the quiz yourself...it's an eye opener!
Questions, questions...here are the answers!
I ran across a new (to me) phenomenon today. It's kind of like chain mail for bloggers. And I like it a whole lot better than the standard "OK, everybody answer these same 50 questions in your blog" sort of thing.
First off, to give credit where credit is due, I got the idea from the Twenty Sided Life blog.
Here's how it works:
Want to play the question game?
The Interview Me Game Rules.
1. If you want to participate, leave a comment below saying, “interview me.”
2. I will respond by asking you five questions - each person’s will be different.
3. You will update your journal/blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
So, I'll say, in advance, if you read this and want to play, just comment & say so! Now, here are the questions I got, and, of course, my answers:
1. What as the first pet you had?
My first pets were fish. Boring, I know, but my allergies early in life would permit nothing else. The first "real" pet I had was a kitten named Frisky. We wound up having to give him back to his original owners, though, as dad seemed allergic; i.e. he would sneeze (and frighten the poor kitten half to death -- and all the way to the other side of the house) any time it sat on his lap. :(
2. Who would want to play you, in a movie about your life?
Oooh, this is a toughie. If I wanted to be portrayed as beautiful, graceful and elegant, I'd say Nicole Kidman. Since I'm none of those things in real life, though, I'd say Sandra Bullock. She's cute, spunky, and doesn't seem like she takes crap from much of anybody, yet seems sweet and caring as well...a lot like me.
3. You have to give up one of the following things, which one do you
chose? Books, movie, or music? MOVIES! I probably see a dozen a year (if that), and mostly on DVDs as they pass through our hands when we sell them. There's no way I could live without books OR music, so this is a no-brainer for me.
4. Do you think you will be blogging in a year? Two?
Probably. I've actually blogged on and off since 1998 or 9...back before it was even called blogging. So chances are good the trend will continue.
5. What is your biggest fear?
Pain. Especially a slow, painful death. That's why I've become pretty gung-ho lately about getting back into shape. I watched my father suffer terribly because he had abused his body for many years with too much food and not enough exercise (and don't get me wrong...he was no fat lazy slob...only maybe 50 lbs overweight, and worked hard for a living -- you'd think that would be enough, but it just wasn't) and was apparently saddled with unfortunate genes (which undoubtedly got passed on to me, at least in part), so I have a lot of motivation to avoid the same fate. It's the day-to-day, moment-to-moment part of eating & exercise I don't quite have down yet...but that's the topic for a whole 'nother blog post...or 10.
Many thanks to Aden for the idea and the questions! Post a comment if you'd like to play along, and I'll conjure up some queries for you!
First off, to give credit where credit is due, I got the idea from the Twenty Sided Life blog.
Here's how it works:
Want to play the question game?
The Interview Me Game Rules.
1. If you want to participate, leave a comment below saying, “interview me.”
2. I will respond by asking you five questions - each person’s will be different.
3. You will update your journal/blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.
So, I'll say, in advance, if you read this and want to play, just comment & say so! Now, here are the questions I got, and, of course, my answers:
1. What as the first pet you had?
My first pets were fish. Boring, I know, but my allergies early in life would permit nothing else. The first "real" pet I had was a kitten named Frisky. We wound up having to give him back to his original owners, though, as dad seemed allergic; i.e. he would sneeze (and frighten the poor kitten half to death -- and all the way to the other side of the house) any time it sat on his lap. :(
2. Who would want to play you, in a movie about your life?
Oooh, this is a toughie. If I wanted to be portrayed as beautiful, graceful and elegant, I'd say Nicole Kidman. Since I'm none of those things in real life, though, I'd say Sandra Bullock. She's cute, spunky, and doesn't seem like she takes crap from much of anybody, yet seems sweet and caring as well...a lot like me.
3. You have to give up one of the following things, which one do you
chose? Books, movie, or music? MOVIES! I probably see a dozen a year (if that), and mostly on DVDs as they pass through our hands when we sell them. There's no way I could live without books OR music, so this is a no-brainer for me.
4. Do you think you will be blogging in a year? Two?
Probably. I've actually blogged on and off since 1998 or 9...back before it was even called blogging. So chances are good the trend will continue.
5. What is your biggest fear?
Pain. Especially a slow, painful death. That's why I've become pretty gung-ho lately about getting back into shape. I watched my father suffer terribly because he had abused his body for many years with too much food and not enough exercise (and don't get me wrong...he was no fat lazy slob...only maybe 50 lbs overweight, and worked hard for a living -- you'd think that would be enough, but it just wasn't) and was apparently saddled with unfortunate genes (which undoubtedly got passed on to me, at least in part), so I have a lot of motivation to avoid the same fate. It's the day-to-day, moment-to-moment part of eating & exercise I don't quite have down yet...but that's the topic for a whole 'nother blog post...or 10.
Many thanks to Aden for the idea and the questions! Post a comment if you'd like to play along, and I'll conjure up some queries for you!
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Rampant Consumerism
Rather than rant about it (which most would probably expect from me) I've been spending some of my mental energy trying to dissect it. I think, If I were to ever write a doctoral dissertation, I would try to establish the lineage of rampant consumerism in the USA. Of course, I'll never have the chance, as I haven't even the inclination to complete a baccalaureate degree, but I can fantasize. And write about it here.
Going back as far as the early 1800s, when a great deal of immigration was occurring into this "New World," we can read about how a great many of the immigrants from the "old country" (whichever that was) would seek out goods and services made and done "the old way." This is most likely true for almost anyone who actually immigrated. Their children, born here or who were brought over so young as to not remember the old country, were probably raised learning and appreciating the old ways too. For the most part, they undoubtedly had their parents' tongue as their primary language and, only if they were exceptionally "fortunate," (I use the word loosely, given the worker-bee mentality the school system has, over time, devolved into churning out) had any kind of formal education (need to research here when the indoctrination -- I mean, school system began to spread in earnest in this country).
Basically, I just wonder how many generations it took to go from wanting homemade & handmade to wanting shiny, plastic & trendy-ad-campaign-driven. when I look at the sort of ads they had, it seems to me the real push for the latter began in the 50s, and that that also seems to be when the psychology of making people think they need what they actually only want began to be used in the ad industry in a big way. But more research is needed on these assertions as well. I look at very old ads (e.g. turn of the previous century), and they seem to push how great a product is. I'm just keen to know when the concept got turned around to instead imply how great YOU would be if you had a product.
I suppose these thoughts will, with time, fade into oblivion, though, much as my musings and research on mob mentality did (that was an obsession I had in my college days - I couldn't for the life of me understand why so blessed many people would do such incredibly stupid things -- the LA riots after the Rodney King verdict for example, with people destroying their own neighborhoods and whatnot, or, my personal favorite, the KKK; what sort of nutjobs are those guys? -- when part of a larger group) after college, or my obsession with the evils of TV (which I covered extensively in my senior thesis for my Radio/Television production class -- great way to impress the teacher with all I've learned, no?) during high school.
Whew, that was some sentence! In any event, I'm pondering these things now, until the next imponderable (or the next Harry Potter book -- I find these to be an excellent distraction from reality) comes along, and thought I'd share, in the hopes that maybe someone who was actually alive back in the 50s (analyses of even earlier eras are welcome as well!) can shed some light on it for me. All I know now is that we're so far beyond hopeless as a consumer culture, that I'm really wishing I could move to another country. This was all driven home to me quite forcibly when I was in Europe this spring. The lack of advertising, particularly of the large billboard sort, was quite noticeable. I even remember seeing a television story on how people felt about the newly-permitted advertising at bus stops. Naturally, given that it was in Swedish, I couldn't understand it all, but I could tell that there was a varied reaction, with some rather vehement opponents.
It's amazing what an eye-opening experience it can be to visit a totally foreign culture. Sure, they may be first-world, and even speak our language fluently. But it could not have been more clear to me just how much more refined, centered, and well-rounded the Swedes and Norwegians were compared to my American compatriots. Not to mention the culture shock of watching a European newscast (BBC -- so I could actually understand it). It covers so much more of the world's news than our own. I'll grant you, we're a huge country, so we generate a lot of information in the course of the day. But it seems we reduce the rest of the world's news (which is, naturally, considerably greater in quantity) to, maybe 5 minutes on Iraq and 2 more about the latest natural disaster in India/Indonesia/Rwanda/insert your favorite third-world country with bad luck here. The BBC, by contrast, covered news from so many different countries and areas it made my head spin. Granted, they were able to give accordingly less time to each, but it was certainly a more even-handed approach to any given country than what you see here.
Ah well, I guess that's just one of many reasons why I travel...to be reminded that, no matter how many times I hear it said that "this country's a damn sight better than any other," it's just not true. Every country has its strengths and weaknesses, and for Americans to take such a haughty line and assume that we can learn nothing from anyone will undoubtedly be a huge portion of why we meet our demise. And oh yes, we will meet our demise. But I'll save my ponderings & predictions on the how and why of that for another day...
Going back as far as the early 1800s, when a great deal of immigration was occurring into this "New World," we can read about how a great many of the immigrants from the "old country" (whichever that was) would seek out goods and services made and done "the old way." This is most likely true for almost anyone who actually immigrated. Their children, born here or who were brought over so young as to not remember the old country, were probably raised learning and appreciating the old ways too. For the most part, they undoubtedly had their parents' tongue as their primary language and, only if they were exceptionally "fortunate," (I use the word loosely, given the worker-bee mentality the school system has, over time, devolved into churning out) had any kind of formal education (need to research here when the indoctrination -- I mean, school system began to spread in earnest in this country).
Basically, I just wonder how many generations it took to go from wanting homemade & handmade to wanting shiny, plastic & trendy-ad-campaign-driven. when I look at the sort of ads they had, it seems to me the real push for the latter began in the 50s, and that that also seems to be when the psychology of making people think they need what they actually only want began to be used in the ad industry in a big way. But more research is needed on these assertions as well. I look at very old ads (e.g. turn of the previous century), and they seem to push how great a product is. I'm just keen to know when the concept got turned around to instead imply how great YOU would be if you had a product.
I suppose these thoughts will, with time, fade into oblivion, though, much as my musings and research on mob mentality did (that was an obsession I had in my college days - I couldn't for the life of me understand why so blessed many people would do such incredibly stupid things -- the LA riots after the Rodney King verdict for example, with people destroying their own neighborhoods and whatnot, or, my personal favorite, the KKK; what sort of nutjobs are those guys? -- when part of a larger group) after college, or my obsession with the evils of TV (which I covered extensively in my senior thesis for my Radio/Television production class -- great way to impress the teacher with all I've learned, no?) during high school.
Whew, that was some sentence! In any event, I'm pondering these things now, until the next imponderable (or the next Harry Potter book -- I find these to be an excellent distraction from reality) comes along, and thought I'd share, in the hopes that maybe someone who was actually alive back in the 50s (analyses of even earlier eras are welcome as well!) can shed some light on it for me. All I know now is that we're so far beyond hopeless as a consumer culture, that I'm really wishing I could move to another country. This was all driven home to me quite forcibly when I was in Europe this spring. The lack of advertising, particularly of the large billboard sort, was quite noticeable. I even remember seeing a television story on how people felt about the newly-permitted advertising at bus stops. Naturally, given that it was in Swedish, I couldn't understand it all, but I could tell that there was a varied reaction, with some rather vehement opponents.
It's amazing what an eye-opening experience it can be to visit a totally foreign culture. Sure, they may be first-world, and even speak our language fluently. But it could not have been more clear to me just how much more refined, centered, and well-rounded the Swedes and Norwegians were compared to my American compatriots. Not to mention the culture shock of watching a European newscast (BBC -- so I could actually understand it). It covers so much more of the world's news than our own. I'll grant you, we're a huge country, so we generate a lot of information in the course of the day. But it seems we reduce the rest of the world's news (which is, naturally, considerably greater in quantity) to, maybe 5 minutes on Iraq and 2 more about the latest natural disaster in India/Indonesia/Rwanda/insert your favorite third-world country with bad luck here. The BBC, by contrast, covered news from so many different countries and areas it made my head spin. Granted, they were able to give accordingly less time to each, but it was certainly a more even-handed approach to any given country than what you see here.
Ah well, I guess that's just one of many reasons why I travel...to be reminded that, no matter how many times I hear it said that "this country's a damn sight better than any other," it's just not true. Every country has its strengths and weaknesses, and for Americans to take such a haughty line and assume that we can learn nothing from anyone will undoubtedly be a huge portion of why we meet our demise. And oh yes, we will meet our demise. But I'll save my ponderings & predictions on the how and why of that for another day...
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Road rage, &c.
I've been mulling over driving styles lately, as there are several that catch my eye on a fairly regular basis. Now that my only "daily commute" is to the post office, I don't drive as much as I used to, but I still do so enough to see quite a range of on-road behaviours. I remember when I was a teenager, young and invulnerable, my driving style pretty closely resembled much of what I see these days. Yet, more often than not, when I see someone in their enormous S Moo V whipping in and out of traffic trying to get ahead, it's not some punk kid. It's usually a full-grown adult (occasionally with blissfully unaware kids strapped in the back, but more often than not, they have the entire egregious vehicle to themselves). Sure, I still see the twerps in their sporty rice burners (nowadays equipped with "mufflers" and tailpipes that make them sound more like 747s) zipping around me and the other unsuspecting law-abiders like we're sitting still, but, I'm often out at a time of day while they're still in school, so the assoholism of youth can't possibly explain all of what I see.
I guess I'm getting to be an old fuddy-duddy, but I really don't see the draw of rushing to the next red light, or trying to one-up myself by cutting more cars off on each successive outing. It just doesn't make sense to me on any level, although to keep it practical, I'll just say this: I can't afford the kind of hit I'd be taking on my gas mileage. Five miles over the speed limit is plenty for me, and it seems more and more often, I'm not even bothering to do that. And don't even get me started on all the red lights I've seen run lately. What is causing us all to be in such a gawdawful hurry? I know that Americans in general have become consumers extraordinaire, and that in order to support such lifestyles have to cram more and more into each day, but can this possibly be the only cause? Why is everyone so incredibly harried that they would rather risk their and their passengers' lives than stop when a light turns red?
Another theory I have is that the culture has so indoctrinated us into the competitive mindset that we actually NEED the thrill of being first in line at the stoplight in order to feel competent. Oddly enough, being the last one through the red light also seems to offer this sense of achievement. Somehow, even if we're stuck at the light directly ahead of the car we whizzed by at 80 MPH half a mile ago, we feel like a winner. Not just a winner, even, but THE winner. I won that race! Ha! Look at that loser in their pathetic little car that can't even keep me from passing it!
But all this ranting and pondering has left me with no answers, and not even any good theories, so now I'm trying to do what I probably should have done long ago -- just drive my car, and not worry what the numerous idjits around me are doing with their gas mileage or their children's lives. Believe me, this is FAR more easily said than done. My father always preferred riding in the car when I was driving to when my mother was driving, because she had a tendency to tell all the other drivers exactly what she thought of them. I occasionally found myself expressing shock or anger at other drivers, but not nearly so often. It seems these days, though, Dad probably wouldn't appreciate riding with me all that much, as the marked increase in idiotic maneuvers has left me with no other way to vent my awe than to talk back. I'm not the gun-toting, break-in-your-window-and-shoot-you-because-you-cut-me-off-five-miles-ago type, so my lack of understanding and sympathy for these nutjobs just builds behind my calm facade until it finally spews forth in an always outraged, occasionally unsavory outburst.
So I'm trying to cut back on this behavior. Such anger can't be healthy. But it is no easy matter trying to break a habit so ingrained. Even if I haven't always been given to screaming at other people, I have been wont to take exception to being cut off since before it was me driving. I try mantras, I try counting to ten, I try thinking of something completely non sequitur. Sometimes these things work, sometimes not. Overall, I just hope I can stick to it and practice until ignoring the inane contention surrounding me and my vehicle becomes second nature. In truth, I'm not sure I'm capable of such placidity; but I can hope.
I guess I'm getting to be an old fuddy-duddy, but I really don't see the draw of rushing to the next red light, or trying to one-up myself by cutting more cars off on each successive outing. It just doesn't make sense to me on any level, although to keep it practical, I'll just say this: I can't afford the kind of hit I'd be taking on my gas mileage. Five miles over the speed limit is plenty for me, and it seems more and more often, I'm not even bothering to do that. And don't even get me started on all the red lights I've seen run lately. What is causing us all to be in such a gawdawful hurry? I know that Americans in general have become consumers extraordinaire, and that in order to support such lifestyles have to cram more and more into each day, but can this possibly be the only cause? Why is everyone so incredibly harried that they would rather risk their and their passengers' lives than stop when a light turns red?
Another theory I have is that the culture has so indoctrinated us into the competitive mindset that we actually NEED the thrill of being first in line at the stoplight in order to feel competent. Oddly enough, being the last one through the red light also seems to offer this sense of achievement. Somehow, even if we're stuck at the light directly ahead of the car we whizzed by at 80 MPH half a mile ago, we feel like a winner. Not just a winner, even, but THE winner. I won that race! Ha! Look at that loser in their pathetic little car that can't even keep me from passing it!
But all this ranting and pondering has left me with no answers, and not even any good theories, so now I'm trying to do what I probably should have done long ago -- just drive my car, and not worry what the numerous idjits around me are doing with their gas mileage or their children's lives. Believe me, this is FAR more easily said than done. My father always preferred riding in the car when I was driving to when my mother was driving, because she had a tendency to tell all the other drivers exactly what she thought of them. I occasionally found myself expressing shock or anger at other drivers, but not nearly so often. It seems these days, though, Dad probably wouldn't appreciate riding with me all that much, as the marked increase in idiotic maneuvers has left me with no other way to vent my awe than to talk back. I'm not the gun-toting, break-in-your-window-and-shoot-you-because-you-cut-me-off-five-miles-ago type, so my lack of understanding and sympathy for these nutjobs just builds behind my calm facade until it finally spews forth in an always outraged, occasionally unsavory outburst.
So I'm trying to cut back on this behavior. Such anger can't be healthy. But it is no easy matter trying to break a habit so ingrained. Even if I haven't always been given to screaming at other people, I have been wont to take exception to being cut off since before it was me driving. I try mantras, I try counting to ten, I try thinking of something completely non sequitur. Sometimes these things work, sometimes not. Overall, I just hope I can stick to it and practice until ignoring the inane contention surrounding me and my vehicle becomes second nature. In truth, I'm not sure I'm capable of such placidity; but I can hope.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)