American Borg

[btorocco]

That's why I usually avoid any bar that has the word 'sports' in its name. It almost always can be translated to mean 'low IQ'. Last time I was in one three patrons were ogling one of the couple dozen framed and signed NFL team (forget which team and whose signature) jerseys, you know, the kind they sell by the bushel on TV when one of them says to the other two "wow, do you have any idea how much that's gonna be worth someday"? Being that this particular Einstein was sitting right next to me I said "I hate to interrupt but I think I can tell you. It's my guess that this shirt is but one of maybe 100,000 identical copies extant which would make it worth (maybe) whatever the owner paid for it and never more than that". Then (over all three faces) came that familiar quizzical look, as if to say, 'could that be right'? They left shortly thereafter.

[JDC]

Wow: "Quizzical" and "Extant" used twice and once (no, make that thrice and twice) in one day. No Borg here! =) Correction: Four and Three times respectively. If I'm not careful here it will be like looking into a mirror pointed at another mirror so I'll quit counting.

I had a student once who was really getting heavily into The Mysteries of The Bible. You know, the real obscure ones. The prophecy parts. Mostly Old Testament prophecy. He was particularly intrigued by the parts about Signs in the Heavens and so forth.

I asked him once what career he wanted to pursue later in life (this was a Carpentry class and he wasn't exactly cut out for Carpentry: All those little lines on a tape measure were a bit much to deal with (and no, he wasn't "learning disabled" . . . just lazy and unfocused except for the Bible Prophecy interest. Even reminding him that Jesus' dad was a carpenter didn't produce any notable improvments in his participation).

He said he wanted to be a meteorologist.

I asked him why that was.

He said he wanted to study meteors so he could better understand the Signs and Wonders in the Heavens.

(I promise that was a true story. Again: Can't make stuff like that up.)

BTW: The Google Sponsor Ads that appeared between the second copy of your last post and mine were "Cheap Wholesale Jerseys" . . . "Who is the Antichrist" . . . and "Mary's End Time Messages". I guess the mothership is hovering nearby, but I didn't click any of the links. (Look for a gigantic cube in the sky.)

[Cap'n Billy]

Jesus' dad was a carpenter

Pardon the intrusion, JDC et al, but I have to interject this little story. Jesus, Joseph & Mary were having a quiet evening at home. Jesus was playing on the floor, Mary was doing some cooking, and Joseph was out in the yard doing some carpentry work. All of a sudden Jesus heard Joseph loudly cry out his name and he rushed out into the yard to see what was the matter. Joseph said never mind, I just hit my finger with this hammer.

(Heard that on a radio show that JDC and I used to listen to a lot)

[JDC]

. . . And I imagine that young Jesus was more that a little peeved about being pulled away from Guitar Hero for a false alarm like that. Yet quick to forgive and forget.

Guitar Hero: Now THERE is nearly the ultimate example of how vapid "CyberReality" can be.
All of the music with none of the actual talent.

You know what the difference is between Guitar Hero, Harmonica Hero, Saxaphone Hero and Recorder Hero (besides the fact that only the first one exists)? There IS no difference: They ALL blow.

[btorocco]

You know what the difference is between Guitar Hero, Harmonica Hero, Saxaphone Hero and Recorder Hero (besides the fact that only the first one exists)? There IS no difference: They ALL blow.

Agreed. BTW I loved the 'meteorologist' story. Anyhow I'm just letting you all know that my landlord has two sons and (due the great Obama recovery) both recently lost their jobs. One son has a wife and two kids and she has to move them back into the house so I'll be posting a little less the next few weeks as I look for new digs.

[JDC]

Click the link, then scroll down on the page to the stories entitiled:

"Skies Become Friendlier For In-Flight Wi-Fi" (about 4 min.)
and
"Researcher Dispels Notion Music Can Get Kids High" (also about 4 min.)

http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=2&prgDate=07-14-2010

If I were a better Proto-Borg, I'd probably know how to link more directly to the actual audio segments.

But I'm not . . .
Even though Resistance is Futile.

[btorocco]

Click the link, then scroll down on the page to the stories entitiled:"Skies Become Friendlier For In-Flight Wi-Fi" (about 4 min.)and"Researcher Dispels Notion Music Can Get Kids High" (also about 4 min.)http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=2&prgDate=07-14-2010If I were a better Proto-Borg, I'd probably know how to link more directly to the actual audio segments.But I'm not . . .
Even though Resistance is Futile.

JD, it would be a pleasure to close a few bars with a guy like you. Couldn't get over the idiot trying to book a kayak trip on the flight, as if it were SOOO important she couldn't wait at least 'till she got home. They just HAVE to be doing 5 things at the same time. Now let me tell you something for your own safety. As you know I play in traffic for a living. 80% of the people I see driving (young, old, middle aged, doesn't matter anymore) are either talking, texting, or doing something with a borg device in their right hand. They all have numerous wires hanging from their heads. Very few of them are actually looking at the road. Many of them are holding their stupidity-inducing GPS units in their hands, although why one needs to do that is beyond me. Despite the fact that we know they're using these devices we can't stop them unless they have the thing up to their ear or their mouth and they know it, so our hands are tied. Until the law is changed to say that we can summons them if we just see the device in their hand while driving, my advice to everyone is to be very, very careful on the road these days. As for the other story-- I have a buddy with two kids, a boy of around 10 and a girl of 8. The boy is hopelessly addicted to a hand held POKEMON video thing, you NEVER see him without it in his hand and it's all he wants to play with all day long. If he plays outside for as little as 15 minutes he tells his mom he's tired and goes inside to stare at his vidiot box. Every time I see him he's a little bit fatter. His sister, on the other hand, has NO interest in electronics, plays the way kids used to play and is a lean machine. Bloomberg and his ilk will tell us it's the cupcakes making her brother fat.

[JDC]

But Maaaaaaaaaaaahm . . . I'm too tired to "play" . . .

I apologize, in advance, If you are "offended" by any reference to "South Park."
(Not really . . . =)

Here is an [annotated], Neo-Guttenbergian, clip that is "The illustration" from a Communion Meditation that I shared with a group of wonderful people, in a Church meeting, several years ago. It is a glimpse of how I see people, Today, who walk around with their Electronic Umbilical Cords To The Hive Mind attached to their heads. People who are technically absent from the physical space occupied by their actual bodies. The most annoying--and dangerous--examples of these types are the ones that hold me/you/us up in traffic (regardless of Party or Political Philosophy =). You know, the ones that sit at a left turn arrow until it goes off, then turn in front of oncoming traffic, because they are so busy talking or texting to someone else, somewhere else and leave you there at the light--in a law-abiding manner, vis-a-vis traffic rules--thinking "bad thoughts" involving felonies or at least misdemeanors. I sure wish that The Police and Those Who Manage Them were at least as concerned about accident PREVENTION as they seem to be about accident SURVIVAL (e.g. "buckle up or die"--or at least get an annoying ticket. Really: How many traffic deaths have been CAUSED by not wearing a seat belt? Is Zero pretty close? The second most dangerous examples are Cyber-Addicted Big-Box Store "Managers".

Thank you for the opportunity to vent a little here. =).

=====
“Hey Mr. C. Check it out,” the student said as I climbed back into the truck.

I had brought the young man into Guthrie [Note: a small--"historically significant"--town in central Oklahoma] to put the finishing touches on a community service project on which my Carpentry Class had been working. I had left him in the "Company Truck" while I went into an office to pick up a key. [Note: No, he didn't run the air conditioner with the engine off. =)]

My student, Mark, was referring to a man squatting next to a retaining wall near the place we had parked. A man having what seemed to be an animated conversation with someone . . . Someone who wasn’t there.

“I’ve been watching him since you left,” my protégé commented, indicating with a roll of the eyes and a finger twirled at the temple that he sensed that there was something, shall we say . . . “out of the ordinary” about the person he had been observing.

Having previously encountered the individual indicated, I responded, “Yeah . . . Well . . . He’s just a little more into his own universe that the rest of us.” I backed out of the parking space and we went on about our business . . . leaving the stranger still talking and gesturing to the companion or companions only he could see.
=======

We used to call people who walked around--apparently talking to themselves--"nuts" (to use one of the kinder, gentler terms for this social abberation).

Now we accept that sort of behavior without a second thought.
(Or at least some of us do. =)

Do you remember the episode of The Office in which Michael Scott drives a rental car into a lake because he thought he was following what the GPS was telling him to do?

Do you recall the first film version of the H.G. Wells Classic, "The Time Machine" (c. 1964, with Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimeux) in which the Eloi hypnotically march underground to "have/be lunch" with the Morlocks at the sounding of the sirens?

People seem to be getting as addled as someone suffering from Altzheimer's Disease due to their addictions to information overload and "[anti]-social networking.". (There was an interesting story on NPR recently on exactly that topic. I think the name of the piece--or the book plugging session on which it was based--was Hamlet's Blackberry.)

Someday, in the relatively near future, people will be so 'brain-bleached" by these devices--and those yet to come--that when "The Powers That Be" ask them to do "The Lemming Thing" resistance really WILL be futile: The Common Sense centers of their brains will have been completely liquified.

I think that the tentative date for this event will be 12/21/12.
(But I'm not sure which calendar to use. =)

One thing about it . . . This issue of texting while steering (most people can't really "drive" in the first place, as you, btorocco, well know =) gave me a renewed respect for Oprah Winfrey. No . . . Let me rephrase that: It gave me something for which to respect Oprah Winfrey for the first time. Why, it almost makes up for her tantrum at that upscale fashion store in Paris a while back. I think The Great And Almighty Google probably gave her or someone in her entourage bad info about the business hours of the location.

(P.S.: The bar thing sounds great! But the odds of me ever visiting New York (City) are about the same as BP actually stopping the leak in the bottom of the Gulf. Besides that, I know from watching Law and Order for years that every time you leave a bar at closing time in New York City you end up as the pattern for a chalk drawing on the sidewalk.=)

[tim.ned@gmail.com]

Guys, I swear this is a true story.

A few years ago during a Minnesota snowstorm I was on a freeway. In front of me a SUV was merging from a entrance ramp and I recall seeing the backend of the SUV go airborne in a cloud of snow as it rolled a couple of times and landed on its roof. The person was merging and didn't see the car to the left and pulled right which flipped it.

As myself and a couple of others approached the SUV a lady crawled out of the driver window with the Cell Phone to her ear locked in conversation. Since she was speaking spanish I could not make out the conversation. As we approached her to make sure she was OK she simple turned her back on us walked several steps away to continue her private conversation. We all looked at each other like "What the H...?" and we stood there totally dumbfounded. The police arrived about 5 minutes later and this lady was still locked in conversation but by this time a good 30 feet from the rest of us chatting away. The officer asked where the driver was and we pointed to the lady in which he gave us the "What the H..?" look and all we could do is return the look.

Finally the officer was able to convince her to get off the phone. A guy who was behind her on the entrance ramp said she was on her cell as he was following her. After one of the officers finished questioning the lady he came to take our contact information and said she admitted that she was still on the same call after the accident as before the accident.

Unbelievable!

[JDC]

Thanks Tim!
(For externally validating, by your un-shy contribution to the free and open discussion contained, herein, and with large appreciation to the CommonSenseKindness of Bernie Goldberg), the simple fact that Common Sense (Anti-Borg-ism) has Value in The Age of CyberBS for all of us.

Having said that, I have to admit that I am somewhat non-plussed (for lack of a better, snooty, maybe latin? instead of French term) by the fact that the vehicle-exiting-person was speaking Spanish rather than H'mong and by the fact that you used the Whut the Heck word rather than the whut-th'-F word in your excellent description of the REAL LIFE EVENT witnessed.

(BTW: From an OkiePerspective: Minnesota Freeway Drivers--regardless of Race, Creed, Color or Weather--are only surpassed in Lack of Driving Skill by Dallas and Houston. Probably because of a lot of "Transplants"....Like from "Atlanta")

[tim.ned@gmail.com]

Thanks Tim!
(For externally validating, by your un-shy contribution to the free and open discussion contained, herein, and with large appreciation to the CommonSenseKindness of Bernie Goldberg), the simple fact that Common Sense (Anti-Borg-ism) has Value in The Age of CyberBS for all of us.

Well your welcome, I think?

Having said that, I have to admit that I am somewhat non-plussed (for lack of a better, snooty, maybe latin? instead of French term) by the fact that the vehicle-exiting-person was speaking Spanish rather than H'mong and by the fact that you used the Whut the Heck word rather than the whut-th'-F word in your excellent description of the REAL LIFE EVENT witnessed.

Couldn't identify H'mong if my life depended on it. 4 daughters and a diligent wife of 35 years have me saying Whut the H, not what the F.

(BTW: From an OkiePerspective: Minnesota Freeway Drivers--regardless of Race, Creed, Color or Weather--are only surpassed in Lack of Driving Skill by Dallas and Houston. Probably because of a lot of "Transplants"....Like from "Atlanta")

Apparently you have never driven in Chicago?

[philipandrews1]

Guys, I swear this is a true story.

A few years ago during a Minnesota snowstorm I was on a freeway. In front of me a SUV was merging from a entrance ramp and I recall seeing the backend of the SUV go airborne in a cloud of snow as it rolled a couple of times and landed on its roof. The person was merging and didn't see the car to the left and pulled right which flipped it.

As myself and a couple of others approached the SUV a lady crawled out of the driver window with the Cell Phone to her ear locked in conversation. Since she was speaking spanish I could not make out the conversation. As we approached her to make sure she was OK she simple turned her back on us walked several steps away to continue her private conversation. We all looked at each other like "What the H...?" and we stood there totally dumbfounded. The police arrived about 5 minutes later and this lady was still locked in conversation but by this time a good 30 feet from the rest of us chatting away. The officer asked where the driver was and we pointed to the lady in which he gave us the "What the H..?" look and all we could do is return the look.

Finally the officer was able to convince her to get off the phone. A guy who was behind her on the entrance ramp said she was on her cell as he was following her. After one of the officers finished questioning the lady he came to take our contact information and said she admitted that she was still on the same call after the accident as before the accident.

Unbelievable!

lol. i find this funny. but i guess, the lady was talking to her girlfriends at the end of the line, conversing about why justin beiber got slammed by a revolving door. lol.

[Media Rookie]

(BTW: From an OkiePerspective: Minnesota Freeway Drivers--regardless of Race, Creed, Color or Weather--are only surpassed in Lack of Driving Skill by Dallas and Houston. Probably because of a lot of "Transplants"....Like from "Atlanta")

As an Atlantan, I am highly offended. Whether you are wrong or not!

[JDC]

Note to Self:
In the Future, remember that, in addition to being bad drivers, people from Atlanta are very sensitive. This is probably a result of the sinking of their ancestral homeland, sometime back in pre-history, and is only aggravated by loading some of Plato's writings on their Kindles and that tune by Donovan on their iPods. Consider nipping this sort of unintentional insult in the bud and text a reminder to yourself to do so. =)

Note to BTORocco:
One of my Pet [so-called "original"] Sayings is: "There are no 'New' thoughts . . . We are all Compilers.

Here is something that I just stumbled-on-to that I think proves my point:
http://blog.glennf.com/archives/003436.html
(Although the [replacement] Coast-To-Coast Noori Dude would probably say: "There is no such thing as 'just stumbled-on-to' . . . 'just stumbled onto,' maybe, but not the other thing.")

So . . . How did it feel when The Mothership beamed down the title of this thread to you?
Was it sort of scary? =)

Note to Tim:
Re: "Your Welcome": Thank You! I appreciate that. (Nearly as much as I appreciate your contribution to this thread!}
Re: "I think(?)": No Doubt. (And far, far deeper thoughts than some of the thoughts exhibited by others of "us"--specifically Me--on this particular thread, I might add, BTW. )
Re: "H'mong": The "H'mong are A'mong us. Coincidence? I dont' think so. They look sort of Laotian . . . For lack of a better hard-working, honest and legal stereotype. Not to mention being pretty darn good soldiers when they aren't focused on managing convenience stores.
Re: The H Word ACT The F [Bomb] : Wisdom, Kindness and Consideration: They never grow out of style. Except for texting them at left turn signals.
Re: Chicago : Nope . . . Never been there. Not particularly interested in visiting "The Hog Butcher to The World" (and Former Home of The Fossil Playboy of The Western World Currently Moldering Away in LA). Probably a very slippery place, I would imagine.

Note to Phillip:
Re: lol. i find this funny. but i guess, the lady was talking to her girlfriends at the end of the line, conversing about why justin beiber got slammed by a revolving door. lol.: LOL Back'atcha: 50 Bonus Points for the Justin Beiber reference. But who's keeping score? =)

[At this point, I should probably post a link to "The People of Walmart" site, but that could be construed--or, perhaps, accurately labeled--as "trite/forced/rude/overkill/etc. ad infinitum (vis-a-vis Where American Borg hang out) . . . So I won't. I hope that not posting said link doesn't make me appear to be "elitist" because exactly the opposite is true. =)]

[btorocco]

Guys, I swear this is a true story.A few years ago during a Minnesota snowstorm I was on a freeway. In front of me a SUV was merging from a entrance ramp and I recall seeing the backend of the SUV go airborne in a cloud of snow as it rolled a couple of times and landed on its roof. The person was merging and didn't see the car to the left and pulled right which flipped it.As myself and a couple of others approached the SUV a lady crawled out of the driver window with the Cell Phone to her ear locked in conversation. Since she was speaking spanish I could not make out the conversation. As we approached her to make sure she was OK she simple turned her back on us walked several steps away to continue her private conversation. We all looked at each other like "What the H...?" and we stood there totally dumbfounded. The police arrived about 5 minutes later and this lady was still locked in conversation but by this time a good 30 feet from the rest of us chatting away. The officer asked where the driver was and we pointed to the lady in which he gave us the "What the H..?" look and all we could do is return the look.Finally the officer was able to convince her to get off the phone. A guy who was behind her on the entrance ramp said she was on her cell as he was following her. After one of the officers finished questioning the lady he came to take our contact information and said she admitted that she was still on the same call after the accident as before the accident.Unbelievable!

The really sad part is there was a time when I would have regarded this as an extraordinary event, now it's just another ho-hum.