Man Martin's Blog, page 151

The Boy Scouts of America and Our Nation's Little Old Ladies

As a Boy Scout of America, I am under government orders to assist little old ladies across the street.  Why is this?  I'm glad you asked.

To start with, China has over 500 million little old ladies, and while their infrastructure is not on par with ours, they are on a nationwide street-construction campaign that is simply dizzying.  At the same time, recruitment numbers for the all-volunteer BSA are down.  Way down.  Perhaps at some point Congress will institute a draft for boys 11-17, but in the meantime, we must make do with the numbers we have.  Simply put, if we wish to keep up, we're going to have to step up our game, helping-little-old-ladies-across-streets-wise.

Secondly, we have to be clear about what we're talking about here.  These are ladies.  They are not merely old, but also little.  They're standing at or near a street corner.  While we don't wish to blame the victim here, basically they're asking for it.

Some little old ladies, of course, don't want to cross the street.  Or if they do want to, they don't wish to be helped.  They resist.  In some cases, they fight back.  At these times a boy scout must be prepared to use force if necessary.  It might feel good to say, "Oh, she's just a little old lady, let her have her way."  Unfortunately, in these times, this sort of thinking is a luxury we can no longer afford.  We can't leave crucial decisions about crossing streets to the little old ladies themselves.  Many would dilly-dally and put off deciding.  A street must either be crossed or uncrossed; we don't have time for indecision.  There's just too much at stake.  Likewise, we can't take the risk of letting them cross unassisted, not if we wish to go on living in a free country.

Lastly, I want to say a few words on gays in the Boy Scouts.  Some of us here were frankly concerned about this new development.  There was even dissension in the ranks.  It was not pretty.  However, I believe this new era brings with it new and exciting possibilities.  In addition to little old ladies, we may now provide outreach to little old transvestites, little old queers, and little old transgenders.  Perhaps, one day in the not too distant future, America will be a place where no one will be permitted to cross a street without the assistance of a boy scout.

That is all.

What Do You Wear to Work?

Fighting the Trend

Spotting These Types Could Be Simplicity ItselfThe time has come to put a stop to these dang trendy phrases. Every year and a half or so, a new crop of them pops up: "fiscal cliff," "YOLO," "kick the can down the road," "spoiler alert," "bucket list."  These, of course, are already beginning to wither and die and a new ones are no doubt ready for harvest, so all the bubble-heads can ape sophistication and sparkling intelligence instead of appearing the dullards they truly are.

Incredible as it seems, there are actually people out there who mine other's conversations to glean the next trendy phrase, which they will then work into conversations of their own even if they have to twist the topic around like a pretzel.  Have you ever seen one of these people misuse a trendy word and become conscious of it?  His face will deflate a little, like a punctured soccer ball, his eyes lose their sheen.  He'd hoped to surprise and impress, and  instead his little mot juste fell flat.

The problem is, Trendy-Word Junkies camouflage themselves so effectively that you can't tell you've run across one until it's too late.  You might stray into the midst of a whole pack of them and become infected yourself!

What I propose is that we scientifically discover the source trendsetters, the bull moose, or alpha-dogs, or lead geese, or whatever you call it, the people who start these words rolling and have such influence that others follow them like clouds of gnats.  These individuals themselves probably do not know who they are but will have to be located using sophisticated observation, GPS systems, and infra-red goggles.  I will leave this part to the science boys.

Once we've got the ring-leaders, we deliberately infect them with bogus trend-phrases and if possible, convince them that for maximum effect, these phrases should be accompanied by stamping feet and an audible fart.  I think with hypnosis and psychotropic drugs, this would be easy to accomplish.  Finally we release them into the wild, where they go forth to infect their fellows.  Now spotting these types will be simplicity itself and one can escape before permanent damage.

BOB: Hi, Man.
MAN: Hey, Bob.
BOB: Say, did you see the  new series on Netflix.  It is totally rowzer-schnauzer.  (Stomp stomp.  Poot.)
MAN: Oops, got to go.  I'm expecting an urgent call from Lord Knows Who.

And an innocent person is saved.

McDonageddon

A Scientific Diagram of the Precise Moment That
The Combined Weight of Everything McDonald's
Causes It to Collapse In On Itself Like a Black HoleI ate at McDonald's last night, and, no, this blog will not criticize their food or their service, both of which were precisely what I expected.  Rather, I want to discuss my theory on the coming implosion of McDonald's everywhere.
Approaching the drive-thru, I passed a five-foot tall foam-core display of a chicken wrap, and three foam-core signs showing colorful fruit smoothies.  The windows were plastered over with pictures of food items I had not tried, asking if I'd like to try them.  For instance, did you know McDonald's serves hot wings?  As I placed my order I noticed a small electric box flashing to tell me I could order fried chicken nuggets and pancakes any time of day.  This, however, it advised me, is a limited time offer.  Waiting behind the car in front of me, I had time to study a collection box for the Ronald McDonald house.  A sign vowed that any pennies I gave were safely stored until donated.  (I searched my pockets and the console for spare change, but found none.)  Then as I came to the pick-up window, I drove under yet another display showing four different varieties of flavored coffee from the McCafe line.  Stickers on the window told me there was free Wi-Fi, although extra condiments were thirty cents apiece.
I ate en route to my destination, and when I arrived, I took time to study the bag.  "Made with WHITE MEAT" one legend informed me, referring I am sure not to the bag or my hamburger, but to chicken nuggets, although the accompanying illustration looks more like squashed lemons.  The bag tells me McDonald's supports renewable energy, that a portion of their energy comes from wind power.  (Really?  I hadn't noticed any windmills on top of the restaurant.  Maybe they were blocked by the chicken-wrap display.)  A little lower down, I get the interesting tidbit that in India, a favorite item is McAloo Tikki, a potato burger.  Below that, it tells me that McDonald's is the official restaurant of the Olympics.  On the other side, it says the bag itself is made entirely of recycled materials, and there is also a picture of Ronald dunking a wad of trash into a receptacle, asking me to please recycle if the bag is clean and dry.  Is there any thing else?  Oh yes, the bag helpfully suggests it's easier to say QPC than Quarter Pounder with Cheese.  I'll keep that in mind.  Oh, and there's also one of those little squares with the blobs inside you can scan with your smart phone in case you want to learn more, although I can't imagine anyone who'd want more information than the bag already provides. 
Dear Lord, has there ever been a corporation more eager to please?
All of which brings to my theory of the implosion of McDonald's or McDonageddon.  I don't know when it will happen, but the day cannot be far off.  The next menu item may be the breaking point: introducing McAloo Tikki in the States, perhaps.  Maybe it will be one more effort at corporate do-goodism, an announcement that they want to save the whales or that McDonald's is setting up a home for battered women.  Maybe it'll just be one more foam-core display.  Or when someone's putting wind-turbines or solar panels on the roof.  In any case, the combined mass of everything McDonald's will cause the entire chain to collapse in on itself like a black hole and sink out of space-time entirely.  When it's over there will be nothing left but dark craters where once the Golden Arches rose and not even french fries will be able to escape.
You heard it here first.

Organizational Flowchart for Organizational Flowcharts

Disturbing News

If this sort of thing is news, we must assume
Hollywood is a hotbed of nudism.My friend David Gardner sent me a news story that Iowa now permits gun sales to the legally blind.  After emailing my sister in Iowa City reminding her to wear very bright colors and if possible a bicycle horn, I sat down to write this blog.  Yes, this news is disturbing, but after all why not sell guns to the blind?  They already sell them to the dumb.  Besides a blind person has just as much right as anyone to protect himself or accidentally shoot the family pet mistaking it for a prowler.

The news I find more disturbing is clothing news.  Every time I open Yahoo, there's a banner of news items.  Often these are important international events like someone's caught this really gross mutant lobster or there's a video of a kitten and a baby chimp or something.  These are things Americans need to know.  But always one of the news items is that someone famous is wearing clothing.  Yesterday, for example, one headline said "Sandra Bullock Fearless in Red Dress."

I did not read the article to discover whether Bullock is fearless because of or in spite of her red dress, or whether her courage and clothing are an unrelated coincidence, but I find the implications of clothing news disturbing.  If this sort of thing is news, we can only assume that it is unusual and noteworthy for a Hollywood celebrity to wear clothes.  My God.  The entertainment capital must be a hotbed of nudism.  Is this what Yahoo is trying to tell us?

I know what you're thinking - women are imagining Brad Pitt strutting around in his birthday suit, while men (and some women) are imagining Sofia Vergara.  But think about it more closely.  Phillip Seymour Hoffman.  Kevin James.  John Goodman.  Naked.  Standing in line at Dunkin Donuts.  Sitting on furniture.

God bless you, Sandra Bullock, for fearlessly wearing your red dress in a land so shameless and probably unhygienic as to allow the likes of John Goodman to parade his bare and furry expanses to the world.  God bless you.

The Long-Chain Molecule of Desire

My friend Krista Seckinger posted a graph on Facebook showing the relative pay scales of various college majors.  Among other things, I discovered that Petrochemical Engineers make a whole lot more money than Theater and English Majors.

I was gob-smacked.  I realized how I'd wasted my life.

When I was in college, I was an English Major very active in the Theater Department.  What only my closest friends realized, was that I'd always secretly longed to be a Petrochemical Engineer.

Ah, I fondly remember as a child, my mother would say, "What's that stink?" and I'd say, "I'm applying catalysts to naptha to form a xylene isomer."  "Cut that out!" my mother would say.  "How many times have I told you to quit wasting your time with that tomfoolery!  Now get back to work on those metaphors in the kitchen!"

Like so many others, I put aside my dreams because others called them "impractical" and "foolish."  The friendliest advice I got was from a high school counselor.  I'd confided in her my fascination in steam cracking natural gas liquids to form olefins, which I know are a very common derivative, but I still find them just fascinating.  Even today, olefins are my favorite.  Anyway, my counselor smiled in an unfocused sort of way, and said, "That's nice.  But don't you think you ought to have something to fall back on in case the olefin thing doesn't work out?  Have you considered becoming an English Major?  You'll learn how to explicate poetry.  People will always have poems they need explicated."

And that was that.  I turned my back on my true desires to follow the trail of the Almighty Dollar.  I sat in class day after day discussing Melville and Hawthorne thinking, "at least there's money in this."  But inside my heart was breaking down, just like petroleum breaks down into olefins and aromatics.

Shelter

A Southern California company is building luxury survivalist bunkers complete with wide-screen TVs, plumbing, and bunk-beds. They start at about $65 thousand dollars and that doesn't include the cost of digging a big enough hole. - Associated Press

So what's it going to take to put you in a new bomb shelter this afternoon? Take a step inside our show room model, enjoy the soft Corinthian leather seats, switch on the flat screen tv and enjoy your DVDs of your favorite movies and tv shows. Relax in air-conditioned comfort and nibble on freeze-dried grapes. How long will the generators hold out? Well, I'll have to check with the manufacturer specs on that and get back to you.

I know what you're thinking. "I can't afford this kind of luxury." But thanks to our low, low prices and high-volume sales, I can get you into this baby for a mere sixty-five thousand dollars. That's right, sixty-five k and you can enjoy the kind of luxury and peace of mind already shared by presidents and Saudi oil sheikhs. And, hey, if you finance one of these beauties over thirty years, the last payment won't be until 2043. Do you really think we'll go that much longer without a nuclear war?

"But won't my neighbors think I'm snobbish," you say?  "Won't they think I'm 'putting on airs' when they're scratching with bleeding fingers at the bolted metal door (Look at the bolt on that bad boy. That's solid, drop-forged steel) pleading to be let in or at least to be put out of their misery?"

Well, maybe.

Remember, after the nuclear holocaust, the living will envy the dead, but we say why not be one of the living that the dead who are envied by the living envy? Am I right, or am I right?

So can we outfit you with one of our luxury bomb shelters today?

Excellent. Now just step over here to our financing department.

Modern Technology

Have we tried turning him off and then on again?You know you're going to be treated to a rare dose of old fogeyism when a blog is titled "modern" something-or-other.  Only us old farts bother pointing out when things are newer than we are.  In this case, it's our cornsarn dad-gum television set.  (Sound effect of vigorous and angry rocking chair noises.)

The other day it refused to work, so my wife called the handy 800 number and the service guy asked if she'd tried unplugging and plugging it back in, which she had.  Here commences my old fogey rant.  What kind of damn crazy nonsense is it to expect electronics to fix themselves just because we turn them off and on?  Yes, yes, I know, a lot of times this does work, and there's a sound scientific basis because when the power goes off, the little squirrel inside has a chance to reconsider his work ethic, and when it comes back on, he may get on his wheel and run in the opposite direction.  I'm just saying the procedure is damn silly, is all.  In the old days (here the rocking chair noise softens to a mellow squeak) when the tv went out, you'd give the side a swift bang with your fist.  In truth, this was a lot less effective at rousing the little squirrel from his slumber than switching the thing on and off, but you felt like you were doing something.  You were taking action.  You feel so pathetic watching a dead laptop or tv or whatever, hoping that when you plug it back in, it will deem you worthy of functioning for.

So to make a long story medium-sized, Nancy and the technician powered off and rebooted that sucker every way you could imagine.  Nancy rebooted it one component at a time, she rebooted it all at once, they rebooted it remotely from the factory.  Nothing.  Actually, less than nothing.  At first it would say, "Quit Client," as enigmatic a phrase as any Zen koan.  What am I supposed to quit, or has the device quit me?  If they've got the thing programmed with an error message, couldn't it say something more useful like, "Hey, I don't think I'm working.  Have you tried switching me off and on again?"  But after repeated attempts to reboot, the tv quit saying even that.  It just showed a red "x," which at least isn't as ambiguous as "quit client."

After over an hour trying the switching on-and-off method, and being disconnected twice - Nancy had also switched off the phone - tech support finally decided to send out a service guy.  But the only thing they'd tried was switching it on and off.  Oh, and by they way, in the first place, this was a new router or hub or gizmo which they'd sent us after the old one had refused to respond to being switched on and off.  I won't identify the company because I don't want to irritate the fine folks at AT&T U-verse on Independence Parkway in Ft Worth, Texas, but I miss the days when owners could take more tangible action that switching things on and off.

Here endeth the rant.

NSA Still Unable to Decipher Martin's "Handwriting"

Despite impressive and somewhat anxiety-provoking strides in cracking computer encryption software and various other code and cipher-systems, the NSA confesses itself "stumped" when it comes to interpreting enigmatic scribbles of Brookhaven, Georgia resident, Man Martin.

"Just look at this sample," cryptologist Terry LeFleur said, "I mean what is it?  It could be a grocery list or instructions for a nuclear bomb.  We really have no idea.  In any case, it's clear he's deranged."  LeFleur was put on the Martin case after successfully cracking the "Pig Latin" code used by some middle-schoolers for secret conversations.  "It turns out it's not Latin at all," LeFleur explains.  "You just transpose the first letter to the end, and add A. Y.  But figuring that out was a piece of cake compared to this Man Martin business.  It's just gibberish."

Alternative surveillance plans to monitor Martin's conversations on his cellphone have been foiled because Martin keeps losing it or forgetting to charge the battery.