It’s 4:40 a.m., and if I were an independently wealthy/retired, there are any number of recent topics I might write about. But I’m not. So some scattershot thoughts before they go totally cold.
Reclining seats on planes
I’ve long hated airline travel; it’s a flying bus. The recent spate of fights over someone trying to recline his/her seat, and was inhibited by the person behind, have gotten so bad that three flights were diverted in ten days. This is inevitable, given the fact that the space between seats is getting smaller as the passengers, collectively, are getting larger. Of course, this totally screws up not only the lives of the passengers on those flights but those on connecting flights as well.
Mark Evanier reminded me that airline passengers’ occasional schmuckiness is not just a recent occurrence.
Physical music
Part of the reason I’m strapped for time, actually, is that I switched around three pieces of furniture that hold my CDs. One extremely heavy piece moved, two others replaced, which meant reorganizing almost every disc I own. I am reminded that Jaquandor recently noted that he hadn’t purchased a physical CD in four years, and Alan David Doane said the other day that he listened to an album all the way through for the first time in a long time. Whereas I, obviously an old person, listen to albums, all the way through, all the time, and purchased, or was given, maybe two dozen CDs in the past four years. Yes, I know they may deteriorate over time. Did I mention my vinyl collection?
The moving of these CDs actually made me nostalgic. When I was a new blogger eight or so years ago, Lefty Brown and some of his online cohorts (Greg Burgas and Mike Sterling and Eddie Mitchell and Gordon Dymowski, among others) put together a mixed CD exchange; those discs now have their own section in the new furniture.
There’s some comedy routine that ends with “no one understands the Cloud.” And while technically untrue, I sometimes feel that way. I’ve never been all that comfortable having my music there, and good thing; the stuff I used to have on Amazon seems to have disappeared.
Nude photos in The Cloud
And speaking of the Cloud, intellectual property lawyer/drummer Paul Rapp explains the misrepresentations about pix of Jennifer Lawrence, et al being accessed. I discovered amazingly heated conversations about this topic.
My feeling is that the hackers were – I already used schmucks this post – twerps. Others criticized the (mostly) actresses who stored the pictures and fall into a couple of subcategories: those who thought it was not safe to rely on the Cloud to keep nude photos, and those who wanted to slut-shame those who HAD nude photos of themselves. I sort of understand the former – though this should have known better talk irritated me. But the Puritanical “outrage” left me shaking my head.
As usual, Dustbury has an interesting take on the issue.
CVS bans tobacco
A month earlier than previously announced, the pharmacy CVS decided to ban the sales of cigarettes. The reaction by some baffled me “I don’t smoke, but I think it’s ridiculous. We can’t legislate everything.” Well, no, it’s not being legislated, it’s a business decision, which, in the short term will cost the company millions of dollars in sales.
The major complaint is that they aren’t banning cookies and chips and candy, which can also be bad for you. Sure, but in moderation, it won’t give one diabetes and heart disease, while cigarettes can kill even second-hand smokers. Much of the thread seem to scream about a loss of “freedom”, as though Walgreens and the corner store and thousands of other venues have begun banning them as well.
Gillibrand redux
I’ve mentioned the less-than-tasteful comments made by members of the US Congress toward Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). There are shrill calls saying she should be naming names. I don’t. 1) She’s made her point and 2) she still has to work with these guys, and even if they weren’t always using Senate decorum doesn’t mean that she should abandon same.
***
Evanier pretty much nailed my feelings about Joan Rivers. Before she got nasty and spent too much time doing whatever schtick she did with her daughter, she was quite funny. The term pioneer is applicable.
Regarding the outrage over photos getting leaked, I think there are two things that have been skipped over in this whole discussion. 1- the photos were a red herring, whoever hacked these accounts could have taken anything they wanted – credit card information, for example. It isn’t “what” they took so much as the fact that they superseded security protocols and got something for it. And 2- What about all those teen girls who were tricked into taking topless pictures by their pleading boyfriend or from a mystery online “friend,” only to see those pictures spread all over the internet, causing those girls pain and abuse and shame and eventually suicide? Just because those girls didn’t star in Silver Linings Playbook doesn’t mean they should be slut-shamed as “you shouldn’t have taken them, this wouldn’t have happened.”
I still listen to those Mixed Bag Cd’s frequently. Met some good people through those swaps, including you!
The thing about the airline seats, especially the story from Mark Evanier, tells me that too many people have totally forgotten the Golden Rule or decided it doesn’t apply to them.
I haven’t flown in 15 years (!); I find for my travel needs these days Amtrak works pretty well. (I mostly travel overnight so I get a roomette, so I don’t know if awful behavior has leaked into the Coach section of Amtrak. But at least with trains, if someone’s being really awful, they WILL stop and put the person off the train, in some cases with the local constabulary waiting to escort them away; I’ve been on trains where they did it to someone.)
I don’t know. One person with a sense of “I don’t give a ****” can ruin the days of perhaps 300 more….that’s just, I don’t know. Makes me wish karma actually existed and was swift and doled out by a being with a dark sense of humor.
Talked about airline travel which I had a lot of trouble on my first trip so I decided to get on the train a second time.
Thanks for sharing informative information