Procedurally Generated Humans

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I am not completely convinced that life isn’t a simulation.  Now, I know that sounds a little bit tin foil hat flat earth turtles all the down conspiracy theory-ish, but hear me out. Have you ever looked at someone randomly and thought, “They look pretty familiar”?  Not that you mistook them for someone else, but that they could pass for an immediate blood relative.  I noticed this one day in the last couple of years.  It’s almost as if there is only a limited amount facial feature types and everyone is a derivative of those types.  Growing up, I used to play a game called Covert Action and part of the game relied on you identifying bad actors in a plot by watching a building to see if they appeared, then you bug their car or follow them to a new destination that revealed more of the plot. After a few cases, you would start to see the same similar features in the hair or mouth or even shape.  It’s like a game of Guess Who? 

Remember the gang members in GTA III?  Pedestrians in GTA IV and V?  You always saw the same ones walking about.  It would be hard for a video game to have a fully stocked universe of totally random characters that did not look like any other NPCs.  Same goes for Skyrim.  And, of course, No Man’s Sky.  Now, with the latest updates like NEXT and Atlas, we have even more diversity in the universe, but still there are only so many permutations of creatures and alien NPCs able to be conjured up in this procedurally generated game.  That means you see the same type of flora and fauna across the planets you visit.  And that’s where I start to lose the thread that life is not a simulation.

I went to school with this particular person and at the time, he was the only one who looked like him.  I would never have mistaken him for anyone, yet here, 25 years later, every time I see a particular Senator on television, I immediately think of him.  After Bailey’s maternal grandmother died, we were convinced on more than one occasion, that a person we saw in the store was, in fact, her.  Granted, our grief probably manifested in some conjuration of similarities between the two, but it is possible, they shared the same facial features.  Same goes for me.  My freshman year of college, there was a student directory of incoming freshmen and while I wasn’t in it, since I transferred in the Spring, my doppelganger was.  Clear as day, confirmed by more than one person.  Over the years, I’ve been compared to various celebrities, each vastly different in how they looked at the time I was associated to them, but still, I was compared to them all the same. 

And it’s almost like you can look at someone and see what they would have looked like as a young person, or even as an old one.  Same for less weight or more weight.  Hair or no hair.  I constantly see the same facial  types across the spectrum which could be the leading cause of déjà vu when it comes to thinking you know someone you’ve never met, even though you are sure you’ve seen them before.  I’ve even been told by people, after I had met them, that I reminded them of someone they knew all their life.  I suffer from the best friend displacement syndrome, I guess. Of course, that’s something I’ve entirely made up but the definition would be that someone you meet immediately becomes the best friend you lost years ago for whatever reason.

So, if in fact, we are trapped in some simulation, it would make total sense that there are only so many combinations of possible features in this world.  Now, there are celebrity look-a-likes that could fool forensic experts but even in those cases, but chances are, they made their career out of looking like someone by actually having work done to look more like someone.  But there is something to be said out of the idea that there are 7 people on Earth that look like you.  However, chances are, if there are that many, you probably aren’t too far apart geographically.  After all, given your own facial features, gender, race, etc. to find your doppelganger, you have to have similar features and while the US is a melting pot of different ethnicities, you’re probably not going to find a middle aged white man who looks like you living in Cambodia, unless they are an expatriate.

But let’s delve further.  Where I work, I have to park on the other side of the river, walk two blocks to a light rail station, ride that two stops, then walk another block and a half before I reach my destination.  In that time, I constantly see the same people at roughly 6:30 in the morning.  In fact, I can usually tell if I’m going to miss my train if I see the same woman walking, with her  lit cigarette, past me on the street or the older woman with dark shades on coming up the escalator before I reach the platform.  And there’s always the same group of students who pass me coming out of the station, and the same guy with his duffle bag and black trench coat, waiting for a bus near my building.  Also, there was a time when I was parking in an alternate location, and I would pass a gentlemen coming from the light rail station wearing a green shirt with a recycling shape on it.  We passed by on several occasions.  And in the afternoon, while standing at the window of my office, I saw him walking past my building, across the river from our usual passing spot.  It was strange.  It was almost as if I were walking through the streets of Whiterun and passing by Belethor or Brenuin on my way to Breezehome.  I began to suspect that maybe the people, who are always on the same path during my commute, were NPCs in my simulation… Or even more frightening, I was also an NPC in someone else’s simulation. 

Think about it.  I get up and do the same thing every day, drive the same route, go to the same job… have the same routine, I always eat the same foods.  That’s it.  

I’m an NPC.

I mean, I used to be an adventurer like you… but…

WUMF: February Edition

We are finally inching towards Spring, which amazingly we've had a week where it was 60 degrees, followed by six to ten inches of snow, followed by 60 degrees. This can only mean locusts and boils are coming, folks.  I admit I’ve been working on this post for over two weeks. Actually, it’s been more like I spent fifteen minutes and slacked for the rest of the two weeks. In any case, here’s a smattering of WUMF for ya.


1. The Lesser Man Project: Week OHHELLIDON’TKNOW
I haven’t given on update on this in a long while but here’s the lowdown. Still sticking to the game plan but there were days of weakness and I did indulge in the “Cake in the Break Room” practice. This is where I started my downward spiral before. I managed to curb that habit, real quick. I’ve been eating fish at least once a week. Yeah, it’s breaded but sooooo good.

Having gotten over a bad couple of weeks of reoccurring stomach flu, I managed to not gain any weight back, which is good. But, then again, I’ve been hovering around the 20 lbs. mark for a month now, which is bad. With the weather getting nicer, here, It’s in the high 60s and still February the chances for more exercise increased but the opportunities are less because I’m losing an hour in drive time which puts me at not getting home until almost 6pm some days. I’ll need to find more excuses to get into the pool this summer, if just to do circles to help clean it.

2. Happy Time, Peggy!
After eight years I have finally freed myself of the biggest albatross around my neck. I worded my Facebook status to sound as if I had become single or ended a bad relationship, which I have. Just not with my wife, that is. Granted, my wife was involved but it’s more complicated than that.

Right around the time I started thinking about buying a house I was sort of strong armed into doing something I had resisted for seven years. I managed to get buy in life with not having a credit card. I used my check card for everything and if I didn’t have the cash, I didn’t buy it. But in order to establish a good credit standing I needed to have a card. So, I got one. My then fiancée had one. Then I went and purchased something and put it on the card. Then my fiancée did. Soon, I had two cards and she had three. Every time I’d amass a little bit of debt, I’d see another offer for a card that could transfer a balance and not hit me with a finance charge if I paid it off in time. So, I’d card jump and then my fiancée, turned wife would piggy back. Then we found ourselves with a considerable amount of card debt. Then we bought a house, then a car, then had a kid, then another car, then Christmases and vacations followed.

The point is there was always this looming debt that stared me in the face. Now, with the help of some strict spending habits and the shirt shops, I have managed to whittle down that debt into nothing. I still have a mortgage and a car payment and my monthly utility bills but there is no huge stone of debt hanging over my head. As the credit card companies get whacked with regulations, only to come back and figure out new ways to weasel more charges out of you, it’s nice to know I don’t have to play that game, anymore. Now, I can start working on that other pile of debt I have. Parental loans. I owe my Dad some money for the balloon payment on my car. After I hit the five year financing wall, I had a considerable amount still left to pay off and he was nice enough to grab it. Unfortunately, I stopped giving him checks because I had to focus on the other stuff but I’m ready to resume giving him money. I also owe a small bit to my Father-in-law because he fronted the down payment on this year’s vacation house. I could give that to him, easily but he gets funny about it, so I might pay him out of our tax return. That way he won’t think we’re going to go broke from it.

3. WE WILL: Not Compete
The Suckos are back in Spring Training, going for that Grape Fruit League pennant. The stark comparison is the news that Albert Pujols wanted $300 million over 10 years. Can you imagine McCutcheon or Alvarez asking for a ten year commitment for $300 million dollars? Can you imagine Bob Nutting giving more than a tenth of that for the same amount of time? They certainly wouldn’t have put up near the amount that Jose Bautista, former Pirate, is getting from the Blue Jays.

I say it’s time to institute a limit on payrolls. The players union would never go for a salary cap, so don’t think I’m not talking about one. Yes, it would curb the Yankees spending. I’m talking about a limit on how little a player can be paid. That would force the organization to have fund a minimum amount into their players payroll and have to start using that slush fund of revenue sharing from the bigger market teams to do it.

Naysayers will point to the 2010 World Series as proof that you don’t need to have a big bankroll to win a championship. Fine. I’ll accept that you can win on talent grown, not bought. However, the Giants and the Texans were forced to compete to get to that level. The Pirates are not forced to compete as long as the profits outweigh the infrastructure. And if Nutting plans on waiting until the wheels fall off to sell at a profit then let’s beat him to the pass and initiate a hostile takeover of the team. Green Bay pretty much owns the Packers and they just won the Super Bowl. Pittsburgh’s the kind of town that could handle that kind of thing. But if Nutting claims that everything is above board, then open the books and let someone take a look.

The most current news is that Frank Coonley said that they could not, at present, sustain a $70 million payroll and that they could not without a significant rise in attendance. Everyone jumped on this and said, “He’s blaming the fans! They won’t spend money because we refuse to come out and support a crappy product! Eff him and eff Nutting, too.” Well, that’s not what he’s saying… exactly. He’s saying that given the current climate, the club could not put $70 million towards payroll. He’s also saying that in order to get that kind of money, attendance would have to increase. It’s a non issue. The fans are never going to come back just to increase the payroll. They will have to win a pennant in order for attendance to rise that much. He’s not blaming the fans as much as he’s putting the weight of the future of them paying for talent on their shoulders and he’s flat out saying that it isn’t a possibility. So, they either keep floundering and attendance continues to drop or the find the right combination of raw talent that will elevate them into a winning season.

Personally, there is no chance in hell they will ever be able to pay for talent to come here without getting at least one high profile player. Then again, no high profile player would come here. The only scenario I can paint is that the team finally starts to lose money so Nutting bails, still getting a huge profit. The new owners will preferably be willing to spend some money up front and secure a top name player with the promise that they will help bring up and comers around and attract more high profile players. Small incremental steps that will probably cause there to be a few instances of losing money yet fans will believe that the front office is trying, in earnest, to turn the ship around and will come back out. That drives up attendance and payroll and we can start winning again.

4.  Jobby Job.
The new job is going well. I’ve finally taken a huge step into the world of process flow diagrams and learned Visio. It’s like a snake eating its own tail or at the least like playing Sudoku. Once you think you’ve got it all figured out you find yourself having to go back and tweak an early step. For someone who used to spend his time doing the crossword puzzles in ink, as a rule, it sucks.

Now, I’ve gone into some kind of quasi overlay of how to set access levels and tag knowledge with permissions. The finished product gave me a headache and made me wonder if there was a sailboat hidden in the picture. If anything, I wanted to quit smoking and give a complete stranger $50. I don’t even smoke.

5.  Sport or Skills Competition?
As a part of that whole job thing, I am forced to sit in a lot of traffic to and from work.  With one hand on the wheel and one on the dial I am constantly looking for something to keep my mind from psychically blowing up the cars in front of me.  One of those things is usually, The Fan, which is the local sports talk radio station.  The great thing about it is that they do discuss Pittsburgh sports.  The bad thing is that they bait people into debates which drives up ratings and gets people to call in and text.  Something that plays into their numbers, I'm sure.  Anyway, the afternoon show fired a direct shot at Southwestern Pennsylvania, specifically my old homestead of Fayette Nam.   They claimed NASCAR was not a sport.

After switching to a substation for power because of the blackout from too many lights going on with the phones, they took callers who could try and defend the claim, that it is.   Sad to say, not a one was able to convince the hosts, or me for that matter that NASCAR was, indeed, a sport. 

The callers said, "They are the most gracious of people when it comes to their fans." 

So?  That says nothing for athletics or sports.

"They are the biggest attraction for people."

Again, so?

Look, it you want to make the claim then say that the drivers are the most athletically skilled persons, using hand to eye coordination and agility to navigate and make quick decisions.  That would be something along the lines of a positive claim.  Frankly, I have to agree that NASCAR is not a sport, in the definition of what I feel a sport is.  It is a skills competition.  Darts are skills competition.  Golf is a skills competition.  Any activity that does not require some kind of cardio activity is not a true sport.  Olympic Diving... skills competition.  Bowling... skills competition.   Curling... waste of time.

Can drivers burn a lot of calories?  Sure.  There is a lot of tension and muscle flexing that goes on inside the car.  But there is no workout on the level of say a sprint to the warning track to catch a fly ball or a breakaway in hockey.  That's not to say that drivers and golfers are not athletes but when you can count John Daly in your ranks, then you have to think about whether or not it's really a sport. 


That’s all for this edition of WUMF. Be well.

I've Got A Bad Feeling About This

Changing jobs is never easy. I don’t care whether you previously worked for The Empire, it isn’t an easy decision. Can you imagine coming up in the Imperial ranks and getting your first deployment orders?

“Gary, congratulations, you’re going to be stationed on the Death Star. Isn’t that awesome?”

“Gee, I don’t know. Frank was on the first one for a month and it blew up.”

“Yeah, but that’s all been fixed. No more exhaust port that’s two meters wide. You’ll be safe.”

“Well, that’s good. Then the Rebels can’t find a way in and blow it up. It’s all solid.”
“Well, not quite. There’s a lot of exterior structure that has to be put on the thing, but it’s completely safe for the time being.”

“Wait, you mean there’s big holes in the thing?”

“Yes, but it’s shielded. There’s this big moon and it has a shield generator on it. It will protect you for the two months it’s going to take to get the outside done.”
“Yeah, but could that shield fail?”

“What? No! Well, there is a small chance that the local natives will get a little antsy and attack, us but they don’t have any real weapons.”

“Could the Rebels join up with them and blow up the shield generator?"

“I don’t want to say, no. I mean the last time someone guaranteed victory was Moff Tarkin and well… Let’s just say it was a beautiful… closed casket… service.”

“I quit.“

I’m not equating my old job to working on the Death Star. I’m comparing, rather poorly I might add, the situation of working in an environment where there is a significant window for something to go wrong with the second Death Star. [crickets]

Still not getting it?

OK, from the day I started until the first of March, I have no medical benefits. Now, I could take Cobra for that time being but that would be a two month prepay of benefits, plus 20% more on any services I need. In March, I would end up having double coverage that would make Hines Ward ineffective. Granted, it’s a look back process. I would have to decide by 45 days after I was last covered, which will be March 1st. I would have to pay by February 20th. So, you’re betting against yourself.

But in the world of the Ewoks and the Empire, I’d take that bet. Since January 10th, my kid has had the stomach flu twice, had a double ear infection and pink eye, been to the doctors twice, and been on antibiotics. She hasn’t been to the doctors for a few months.

It’s Murphy’s Law or a band of Rebels with a bunch of teddy bears taking down your shield generator so that the invasion can commence, blowing up Death Star 2.0.

So, the lesson here is, “Get coverage from you old job to your new one, if you can, or seal yourself off in a giant bubble and wait it out.”

May the force be with you, with a reasonable deductible.

WUMF

Do you know what that means? I didn’t either before this week. It means, “What’s up, my friend?” One of the supervisors walked around and said this to me. It appears to be a tradition at my new job. Every so often, someone comes up to you and says WUMF? So, I thought I would use it to reopen the blog posts. I can’t promise I’ll be sticking to my three a week schedule. I’d like to think I could but I’ll be spending more time in traffic, so it’s harder to budget writing time when I’m sitting in my car for two hours a day. With that said, here’s my WUMF post for you, my friend(s).

So, as I stated in my last post, I started a new job. I’m not going into specifics but I am working for IT in an education setting. I’m trying to build them a knowledgebase that will work. I’ve done it before, right? That one was easy. The application did all the heavy lifting. Now, I’ve got to use one that isn’t up to date and has very little credibility to it. There is a lot of heavy lifting involved. But that is a challenge that I wanted to take on, right?

Along with the new job, I have a new drive. Instead of driving through the backwoods of Westmoreland County, I am hitting the four lanes and heading in and out of Pittsburgh. Instead of a 20 minute drive, I have an hour drive. Instead of just getting in the car and just going. I have a lot of start and stopping. I hit two areas of traffic in my drive. They both involve tunnels in Pittsburgh. Apparently, the tunnel monster demands tribute and people are afraid they are going to get eaten. So, I leave around 6:15 AM to beat the traffic, only to get stuck around Churchill and then right after the Fort Pitt Tunnels heading up to Carnegie.

Coming home, it’s the same thing in the same areas. The one real cool thing about my drive is emerging from the Fort Pitt Tunnels and taking in the sight of downtown Pittsburgh. The panoramic view of the city stretching from the Science Center and Casino, past Heinz Field and PNC Park and the Golden Triangle, down through town to the old Westinghouse Tower (Now, 11 Stanwix St.), Steel Tower, Highmark Building, PPG Place, and the rest is pretty awesome. Then I get to drive along the river back towards Oakland, my alma mater at Pitt, where I get stuck by Bates St., waiting for the Tunnel Monster to let us through. Now, this past Tuesday, I got stuck in traffic for two hours thanks to the impending snowdoom we were supposed to get. Don’t get me wrong, it was bad, but the roads weren’t especially slick. People just freak. I don’t know why. This is Pittsburgh. Even if you just moved here from the South, last year, you would have been around for Snowmageddon. It’s not like you had no idea that it snowed here.

Traffic and uncertainty on how to do my job aside, I like the environment. Everyone has been great and friendly, WUMF and all. In fact, there seems to be a collective acceptance of being a bit strange and goofy there. They even have a hazing ritual that shouldn’t piss anyone off, except the people who stock the kitchen. It’s called tea bagging and before you go all… “What the hell kind of place is this?”, understand that they only take tea bags from the kitchen and put them in your workspace. I’m not exactly sure of the rules but I seem to be exempt because I was a direct hire and not a contractor. The two people I’ve seen “tagged” shared that distinction, if I recall, correctly. The one was a guy who sits across from me and had one hanging from his name plate holder. The second was the same supervisor who came by on Friday, saying WUMF. He has an office and was subject to a little more tagging than others. To give you an idea, think back to that scene in Se7en where Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman enter the apartment of the guy who has been strapped to the bad for months. The entire room was filled with air fresheners, hanging from the ceiling. Imagine that scene with tea bags hanging from the ceiling tiles with push pins.

Well, that covers the WUMF edition. I may make this a regular thing, along with my Lesser Man Project posts. By the way, I am holding steady at having lost 18 pounds. I don’t have access to a real scale, like I did before. Mine is a bit older and probably biased. In fact, it shows me less ten pounds. I don’t figure it into my totals. I really have lost 18 pounds, not eight.

Take care all and here’s to the unknown. That’s WUMF.

Time To Face the Strange

The news I have to share is both scary and exciting.  After nine and a half years with the same company, I am moving on to a new adventure.  I don't want to be too specific about what I've done and where I am going.  I have spoke on occasion about my previous job and have even deleted some posts I felt were a bit too revealing or even inflammatory.  You can never be too sure.   Let's just say it was time to move on to something new.

Even with the new position, I don't want to paint a target on my back.  I haven't officially started yet.  LOL. 

With that being said, I wish my former coworkers all the luck in the world.   While I don't wish them to be there for a another ten years, I wish them to be there as long as they choose to.  It's been a bittersweet last few days as I have looked back at a quarter of my life dedicated to one company.  It's not the same as when I first walked in, green and dumb.   I won't say it's better.  I won't say it's worse.  I will say that I didn't pull any ripcords or pop any emergency slides.  I didn't go out like Jerry MaGuire and I didn't go out like Scarface from Half Baked.  I spent the better part of today digging up old emails for people who wanted to relive the glory days of when I would come up with a funny top ten list or photoshopped someone's head onto someone else's body. 

It's like cutting off my left arm.  It's not my predominant limb but it's still very important and special to me.  Even though I have the ability to grow it back, I don't know if it will work the same or be as good.   I know that analogy makes no sense, but you get the idea.   I'm stepping out of my comfort zone and taking a chance on doing something important with a risk of failure.   I did the same thing with my last job but even if I would have failed, I probably had a better chance to retain my tenure.   It's all new, now, and I have zero credibility. 

So, until I get a feel for how well things will work... I'm adding double the drive time I had before... I may be taking a little hiatus, for now.  If this is the end of my blog, so be it.  I've had a great run even if I never achieved rock star status.   I did this for me, no one else. 

Thank you and here's to new beginnings.

Parking Lot Dickery

As a self proclaimed prick I take pride in my acts of dickery. However, I at least try to do no harm. It’s all about the absurdity of a situation for me. What’s the one thing that could make an event turn completely on its axis and shoot off into another direction? Kind of like when Christ Pontius, on Jackass, would dress up like a Chippendale dancer and just show up somewhere. Most of my shenanigans are done for comedic effect and usually result in no one being hurt, especially me. And be relieved, no Speedos or thongs are involved. In any case, I was reminded of a particular stunt I pulled, soon after I began working at my current job, after a conversation with one of the people who witnessed it.

It was back in 2001 and our office was in the outskirts of Pittsburgh near the offices of WTAE Channel 4. It was a building that was used, not only by us, but by other companies so the parking lot was full of cars and parking was at a premium. Unfortunately, I was on a later shift since I had just started working there and since I didn’t have to be at work until 10:00 am, I was left with whatever parking space I could find. On the rare occasion that I had to come in for training or had the 11:30 to 8:00 shift, I was able to snag a nice space up front on the top level. I either was there before the rush of people or as those who went out for lunch had left. Parking on top was ideal because it was a short seven or eight steps from the ground while. Otherwise, I was forced to circle the lower level of the parking lot which was tight to maneuver. Luckily, I had a 97 Cavalier which didn’t take up too much space.

Pretty much everyone on my team was screwed because we handled West Coast customers and had that weird 10:00 AM to 6:30 PM shift. Our desks were right up against the window, so we could see all the lucky bastards who had earlier shifts leaving for the day. However, there was this one guy we couldn’t place. He must have worked for one of the other companies in the building because he was always leaving at 4:00. No one had those kind of hours where I was at. We didn’t care who he worked for, he was evil and needed to die for having a life. We sat our desks and when 4:00 hit we’d stare out at the parking lot and fire mind bullets at him.

It’s amazing how you can live vicariously through others just by watching the parking lot. There was the people who drove the big SUVs and we imagined they were upper middle class yuppies who had three kids in soccer and after school activities. This was all before 9-11 and life was different. People drove big cars and had big houses and didn’t think in ten years they’d be going through a recession and have to worry whether they still had a mortgage they could afford. Then there was the corvette that belonged to someone who didn’t have a job near important enough to actually own one. It was probably someone compensating for something or having a midlife crisis. But most intriguing was the person who parked far away from everyone else, usually towards the back of the parking lot. With everyone jockeying for prime parking spots, this person was bucking the trend and staying away from people. But why?

It wasn’t the soccer mom with the SUV. It wasn’t the corvette owner. It was a Pontiac Grand Am, for Pete’s sake. It didn’t even look brand new. It looked like a late 90s model. Who the hell owned this thing and felt it was so important that it had to be isolated from the possibility of being breathed on by other people? But all this speculation went away as 4:00 rolled around and our favorite mind bullet target appeared in the parking lot. Tall and skinny, he walked with a nerdy gait and carried a briefcase. Completing his look was a Member’s Only jacket that looked straight out of Burt Reynold’s 80’s collection. As he trotted up the steps he began to pass one row of cars. Then he passed another row. Oh my God! He’s the guy. He walked up to the Pontiac like he was approaching a King Cobra poised to strike. If he moved to fast, the slightest change in wind direction could cause it to age or something. That sealed it for me. In my best Jack Burton voice I said, “Son-of-a-bitch must pay!” [machine gun cock]

The next day I arrived at work to see my new best buddy, once again, parked at the back of the parking lot. I instantly made a bold move. I parked right next to him. There was even a real choice spot up in the front of the lot, next to the steps, but I didn’t care. I was going to be a dick for the sake of being a dick. This was one of my pet peeves. When someone thinks their car is so new and shiny and untouchable that they feel the need to park away from everyone I want to just key the damn thing. Worse yet is those who decide that they don’t want to park far away to prove their point so they take up two spots allowing for extra room on either side of their doors. I’ve always wanted to stop these people and say, “You know what? If you think your car is some inherent danger, you shouldn’t take it out of the garage.”

So, this situation was double jeopardy in that not only did this guy get to leave early, he feels his car is in danger and has to park far away. “Commence dickery,” I thought. I didn’t park right up against him, but close enough to his passenger’s side to give the illusion that I could ding his Pontiac, getting out. Of course, I was very careful in getting out of the car as to not actually hit it. Remember, no one gets hurt. It’s all about the illusion and absurdity. I do another little gag when I’m walking up towards our break room, which has all glass in the front that faces the hallway. When I see someone coming out and they aren’t paying attention to hall traffic, I slightly knock on the door and then hold my nose like I just got hit in the head. It usually gets a reaction of “OMG! I didn’t see you!” Which I let them believe they actually hurt me for like two more seconds then I let them in on the ruse. Like I said, I’m a dick but just for laughs.

After a long day of answering the phone I couldn’t wait until 4:00, even though, I had two and a half more hours to work. I had clued my coworkers into my dickery so we could all watch the show because while our mind bullet sniper sessions were great watching what happened next was priceless.

4:00 on the dot and ‘Member’s Only Man’ began his nerd walk. He made it up the steps and started towards the back of the lot and paused. The lot was half empty on top that day so there was no need to use the back row in the first place. But there my Cavalier was, snuggled up alongside his Grand Am. He took a few seconds and then approached the car. He seemed unsure as to what was happening but it was great to watch. We all laughed out loud at him when he stopped in his tracks. He got in his car and drove away and the joke was over. Or was it? Not by a long shot. He almost escaped. He almost got away unscathed but he made one fatal mistake.

The next day, when I arrived at work, I couldn’t help myself. Once again, the parking lot was half full and the perimeter spaces, along the wall of the lot, were all empty. As I made my way into the lot I saw Member’s Only Man parked on the opposite side, all alone. I couldn’t believe it. He moved. He actually moved because, the day before, I parked next to him. Unreal and opportunistic for me. Not only did I park next to him, again, I parked backwards so that my driver’s side door was facing his. Like before, I was careful not to hit his car, getting out.

4:00 rolled around and a larger crowd now gathered at the windows to watch the show. Nerd walk up to the lot. Pass by rows of cars. Stop dead in tracks. I could only imagine what was going through his mind. “Was this a trap? Is there someone with a camera watching? “ He started looking around the lot for someone, anyone watching from the bushes. He slowly walked up to his car. Now, usually, comedy comes in threes. But I was willing to end the joke right here and now to save on it becoming stale. However, you can’t write this stuff. Sometimes the jokes come right out of the situation and I was inspired to go at least one more day because he actually checked his door for dings. He was honestly afraid that I dinged his precious Pontiac. So, not only did I continue it one more day, I went the rest of the week.

I suspect that he was on to us because the next day he challenged me by not moving. He must have sensed that we would have to be watching him in order to continue carrying out the joke. Eventually, I got tired of parking far away and just ended it. But not before another co-worker joined in and parked on his other side on the third day. That was too funny. He tried to play off the reaction but it was obvious he was beginning to realize he was being made fun of for his parking choices. After that he started parking with everyone else and I felt satisfied in my attempt to be a dick for no reason.

I don’t know what happened to that guy and I’ve stopped doing things like that at work because I usually get in around 7:00 AM, which is before most people. I still see some, parking their shiny new status symbols far away from people, but we are also in a different building with only our company as tenants so it would be pretty easy to figure out who was doing the dickery. Still, it was fun while it lasted.

For those about to mock, we salute you.

The Slater Exit Strategy: Quitting With Style

Steven Slater did what most people only dream about. He quit his job. Not only did he quit his job. He did it with some dissident style. Of course, for all his service industry employee heroics, he was rewarded with a trip to jail.

In case you missed it, Steven is/was a flight attendant on JetBlue Airways. On a flight from Pittsburgh to JFK International he reached his breaking point. When a passenger decided to stand up and retrieve luggage from the overhead compartment, before the plane had stopped moving, Steven did what all flight attendants do, asked the passenger to please remain seated while the plane was moving. Varied accounts describe the following altercation but the high points are that the bag swung out of the compartment and hit Steven on the head. Whether it was accidental or on purpose is debatable. This was followed by the passenger allegedly telling Slater to ‘Eff off, when Slater asked for an apology.

Steve, who had been, by his own account, in the airline industry 28 years had finally had it with rude passengers, I guess. He returned to the front of the cabin, grabbed the microphone and gave everyone his two week, er two minute notice. He reportedly said, “To the Mother Effer who just told me to Eff Off, Eff You.” He then recounted his years of service, said, “I’m Out Bitches”, grabbed a couple of beers and left the plane. But the kicker to this story isn’t that he quit. It’s that he left by way of the emergency exit slide. He blew the hatch which inflated the slide and took one last ride to freedom. Later, at his home he was arrested.

You can get Later Slater on a shirt.
Check out my Store blog to find out how.

Now, I guess you could make a case for this being highly dangerous. It’s more than likely that he broke several FAA rules by taking the scenic way out. CBS news reported he was arraigned on charges of criminal mischief, reckless endangerment, and trespassing. Charges that could land him in jail for seven years. Not to mention, his stylish exit strategy could have injured someone from deploying the slide.

Should Steven go to jail? That’s a toughie. Unfortunately, we live in a post 9/11 world where the rules of air travel have gone beyond simply being slapped with a misdemeanor. If the courts want to continue to be effective at enforcing rules, he will probably be sentenced to some time. My thoughts are he should be given a fine and probation time and possibly barred from working in the industry, again. Just to set an example, that is. However, what I find irreprehensible is that the passenger was not cited or arrested for anything. By the same token as what Slater did, this was a violation of FAA rules governing the interference of flight crew duties by a passenger. Where is the justice in that? Did Slater’s escape trump the need to uphold those other rules?

Let’s face it, air travel, anymore, sucks. The airlines are grasping at straws to keep afloat, fees are outrageous, and flying generally is not a fun thing to do. Furthermore, because of all these factors, working in the industry is no longer enjoyable. Stricter rules, not that there shouldn’t be, cause more delays. The economy woes make passengers more surly when having to pay out more in fees and service charges which, in turn, creates more confrontational moments with staff. Flight attendants are imagined as these happy as all get out, smile while we ram the drink cart into you, carry-on luggage Nazis who take pride in being difficult and will go off on you at a moment’s notice for not having your seat all the way up. Really, they are just people in the service industry like everyone else. Customer Service can be a rewarding and all together exhausting experience, especially in what can be perceived as a hostile consumer culture, nowadays.

It seems, anymore, that consumers are frustrated with the quality and prices of everything. IPhones that drop calls, McNuggets that don’t get delivered at the drive through and banks that charge outrageous fees are just a few of the game changers that has pushed the norm from “buyer beware” to “seller lookout.” Litigious as we might have been, pre recession, it looks to be a more strained relationship between customers and vendors since everything on Wall Street went out the emergency exit. The atmosphere is thick with stress and heat and the powder keg is set to explode.

Yet, why is Steven Slater considered a hero? Is it because he voiced the plight of the common service industry worker? Is it because he told off a rude passenger? Is it because he defied convention and escaped in style? In this world model of consumer vs. seller, that I just explained, Slater should be the enemy. He works for the company that is causing the consumer issues. However, the manner in which this whole drama played out painted Slater as the victim. He was a guy just trying to do his job in a hostile environment and he had enough of it. Later Slater stood up for the blue collar worker and this passenger, no matter who they were was “The Man.” This wasn’t an issue where a service worker broke the law and caused an incident because they were harassed. This was a “rise up” moment where the beaten down service worker took flight out the exit of a job that they had finally reached their breaking point.

In this scenario, the worker trumped the consumer because he now represented the consumer. He represented those of us who would to tell our cable company to ‘eff off over the price of our service. The desire to stand up and say “Get bent” to the employers and services that oppress us is all rather Freudian. In fact, the Steven Slater Exit Strategy is a perfect example of the Id, Ego, and super-ego in Freud’s structural model. The Id is Steven Slater. He is the primal instinct in all of us to just flip the finger at the world. All of us observing Slater in the media represent the Ego or the part of us that wishes we could be like that but accept the reality of our position. I can’t tell my boss to eff off and then jump ship. I have a mortgage, bills, and a family. I need to keep my job. I have responsibilities. The Id is the twenty year old us and the Ego is the 30-40 year old us. The Super-ego represents the us that says that Slater should go to jail. It’s not a case of “I wish I could do what he did.” It’s a matter of “He was wrong and should be punished for breaking the law and endangering people.” The Super-ego is usually the voice that comes out of us when we are asked by superiors if we think Slater was in the right. The Super-ego comes forth from our psyche as the representative while the Ego wrestles to keep a hand over the id’s mouth.

As a 14 year veteran of the service industry, there have surely been one or two days where I wanted to stand up, give everyone my business finger and pop open a window and slide out to the parking lot. My Id is constantly plotting my exit strategy while my Ego looks as the realty of my situation. My Super-ego is the guy that sits in his chair, all smiles, saying he loves his job. But sometimes the Id can tie the Ego and Super-ego up with duct tape, grab a gun and go apeshit like Omar Thornton did in Manchester Connecticut. Fortunately, in this case, Slater did not go “postal.” He simply exited the plane in the same way most people would probably love to quit their jobs. He used the sentiment of The David Allen Coe, the language of Half Baked’s Scarface (Guillermo Diaz) and coupled it with the style of Carson Kressley. He is a modern day Howard Beale shouting over the in flight PA system, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore." Definitely, RAGE is the new black.

Frankly, barring the safety issues and Slater’s obscenity laden sign off, I think the Slater Exit Strategy could be applied to a lot of situations. So, if Steven does lose his job and have to switch careers I have a couple of ideas for him.

Of course, the most obvious choice for capitalizing on his new found fame would be to go on a reality show, say Survivor. Will he win? Don’t know. However, I think, in either case, he needs to go out with style at tribal council. After Jeff Probst extinguishes his torch he can turn to the rest of the council and tell them to ‘eff off before jumping on a huge inflatable water slide that takes him down to a splash lagoon. If that doesn’t work, I say hire him as a chief strategist in Afghanistan. He understands air travel and can relate to the struggles of having to be the bad guy in cases where he’s just trying to do his job. Of course, as the campaign winds down, he can offer up his exit strategy. Allied forces simply tell Al Qaeda and the Taliban to ‘eff off as we jump onto a huge slide that carries our troops safely into India.

So, thank you Steven Slater for giving all our Id’s a chance to dream. Now, I must get back to work.

Google Fiber Needs To Added To Pittsburgh's Tech Diet.

Short and sweet this Friday.  Google is looking to bring its latest project called Google Fiber to a handful of cities.  The idea is to make Internet speeds 100 times faster than they are now.  Pittsburgh has the opportunity to become one of those cities.   Go to Pittsburgh Google Fiber Project and vote for the Burgh.

What does it mean for Pittsburgh?  More companies coming to Pittsburgh, more jobs, faster Internet, better innovations in education, better entertainment choices, healthcare innovations.  

We are a city that has gone from an industrial giant to a tech up and comer.  We constantly reinvent ourselves to take advantage of opportunities.   And since Google already has offices here, it's a no brainer.   So, go and vote now, today is the deadline.

I Don't Know Is Not An Answer

Having worked in the customer service field a number of years in both the food industry and corporate office environment I can safely say that once in a while you kind of have to make shit up. I’m not talking total lie about something but you can recognize a foul up or potential issue and while it may be of little impact to fix, the perception by a customer that you’ve fouled up can be devastating.

Case in point. This weekend I spent both days helping my sister-in-law move. It was much my like my own disaster of moving from one place to the other. Limited time. Limited help. Multitude of stuff. I caught lunch on the fly from McDonald’s and ate it while driving on the turnpike from my place to hers.

Now, I already have a prepared sense of “This will get screwed up” with this particular location but what makes matters worse is the fact that it has a double drive thru. Of course I ended up embarrassing my wife during the whole process.

First off, when you get to the speaker to give your order they come on with this, “Thank you for blah blah, would you like to try a Filet O Fish value meal.” I just said, “No.” My wife looked at me like, “Prick, much?” I told her that it’s a prerecorded greeting and that I’m not responding to an actual person. They come on afterwards. Sure enough, the voice taking my order was different than the one asking me to buy a Fish sandwich. In fact, who knows if the real person I’m speaking to is even in this store?

Needless to say, we placed the order and then took turns with the other cars getting in line to pay. The first window took my money and had the right order. The second one was manned by some 15 year old kid who proceeded to hand me three bags. Now, I know we bought a lot of food but three bags full? I said, “Um, are you handing me one or all three?” He paused and then took the bags back in and slid the window shut. “Ok.” He opened back up after conferring with someone and said, “Do you want to just pull into the parking lot and we’ll bring your food out to you?” I said sure, but then felt a little impish and wanted to just joke with the kid, “What happened to my order?” He looked at me and said, “I don’t know. They just stuck me in this window.” My jovial spirit lessened, I looked at him, as he retreated from my minimum throttling distance, and said, “That’s not an answer.” By now my wife was getting peeved  and told me to. “Just park it.” I said, “Come on, that wasn’t an answer. At least he could have lied to me and said the Fryalator was down or the Hamburglar stole my quarter pounder. ‘I don’t know’ is a crap answer. “

“You’re embarrassing me I don’t want them spitting in my food.” My wife said. You have to remember, this is the same woman who worked in a job where she once told a customer to shove a turkey up his ass in front of her boss. This was after he complained about her not being sympathetic towards his plight. Meanwhile, she was doing more than humanly possible to find his Thanksgiving order and eventually figured it out where someone less committed to a job would just say, “I don’t know.” And call it a day. And again, this weekend, she was getting her boots ready to kick the ass of the people her sister were renting the house off of over all these problems to which I said, “They know that your sister has to move in, this weekend, and you are spoiling for a fight that could give them the inkling to say, ‘Fine, don’t live here.’” After a few minutes the manager (aka man with the key to the register) appeared and gave us our order. We were on our way, and I bit down on the tongue of frustration and waited until we were out of the parking lot to press the matter. “Look, you’ve worked in this kind of job. Did you act like that at 15?” She said no although she did have her share of moments where her thumb might have pressed a little hard on someone’s tomato. I said, “You took pride in what you did. If I would give that response to someone at my job, I’d have my ass working at McDonald’s next to numb nuts there.”

Let me clarify something. I am not meaning that my job is all that glamorous and above someone who works at McDonald’s. I am simply saying that if I chose to handle myself in such a fashion I would be in the drive thru hole along with that kid because they were willing to hire him with that level of discipline. I don’t care if you work at Walmart or Wall Street, when you work with customers or the public you conduct yourself in a way that doesn’t make them become a former customer. Saying “I don’t know” is the same as saying, “I don’t care. I’m just here for a paycheck.” You find out or at least you give a reason that satisfies the customer until you can rectify the problem. While I understand the value of having teenagers work in a job that can teach them discipline and respect I don’t think that the management of those companies takes a hard look at how those employees are actually obtaining those habits if they are at all.

It’s hard to have a teen comprehend the value of customer service since they are sometimes working a job because their parents want them to. I used to dread my old company because of the lack of good workers they hired over the need to throw bodies at the job. I would come in at 7:00 AM and do my work and fix their mistakes because they were too busy screwing around at night, more worried about going out to party then actually doing a good job. In fact, one instance where I had worked a 14 hour shift I nearly lost it. I had come in that morning, set up a lunch and took care of meetings, worked the lunch, turned over the lunch into a wedding and then bartended and served dinner for the wedding. After dinner I was supposed to be relieved to go home but couldn’t until a particular person came out to take my bar. Now, this guy was a bit of a slack so I knew exactly where to find him. He was back in the boiler room, in the dark, blazing up and I said, “You want to come take my bar so I can go home.” I then went to my boss and said, “You know why I’m still here? Because (blank) is back in the boiler room getting stoned.” She walked back but dismissed the smell of weed for cigarette smoke. I said, “If he was smoking a cigarette, then why was he hiding in the boiler room, in the dark, instead of going out into the courtyard like everyone else?” Guess what her answer was? “I don’t know.” Now you know why it was my former job.

If anyone under the age of 20 actually reads this stuff do yourself a favor, learn some discipline and some tact. I know it’s not cool to be a company man and play by the rules. I’ve been there. I refused to follow the ambiguous rules that left me open to interpret them because I didn’t want to be considered un-cool. You make more friends with the in crowd of kids if you act all “I don’t give a shit” but what does it really get you? Have you ever seen Falling Down? Exactly. Some people don’t like “I don’t know” as an answer and they’re willing to take their frustrations out on you. Is it worth it to you? Don’t answer that.

Rejection Is Not a Four Letter Word

This is a response to a great article from NPR. Rejection Is A Fact Of Life. Employers, Do It Right!

Quick summary. The author’s teenage son applied for an internship to which after he never received a rejection letter.

It’s hard to believe, but I’ve been rejected before. I know you must find it surprising to hear that with all this talent and charisma, someone like The Mongo, who, besides pretentiously referring to himself in the third person, has been rejected. It’s true. I’ve been rejected more times than I care to remember.

Now, that’s not to say that rejection is a bad thing. Quite the contrary, rejection is grist for the mill. The moment you accept rejection as a final answer is the moment you fail. Of course, I’m not telling you to keep asking for acceptance when rejected. It is certainly a case by case basis. Persistence can lie somewhere just below stalking. Sometimes you have to know when someone is rejecting you for the right reasons and move on with your life.

But back to me, because it’s all about me, right? Rejection is an old friend of mine and sometimes I wonder why he hasn’t called sometimes. I mean there have been countless times in the past when I have applied for some job and never received a response. Worse yet, when you get an interview and then you never hear from someone again, that can be a little worrisome. Was I supposed to call them? Did they try to call me and I missed them? If you become too self involved with the job hunting process you could end up being Jon Favreau in Swingers. You get a little glimmer of hope, like an interview, or even a second interview and then you begin calling and calling, leaving countless messages with the company that become more erratic with each instance. Soon, the company has blocked your number. If they would have just told you the moment your application became an afterthought you could have regrouped or applied somewhere else or even just decided to go in a different direction.

I can only begin to imagine the reasons for not contacting someone in regards to their application. It might be because they have to wait until the position is filled to contact those candidates that were not chosen. It might be an automated process within an HR recruiting application that spits out a list of tasks associated with applicants not being considered. There might be some underlying bureaucracy that hangs the position out to dry and until it is finalized they cannot contact all interested parties. Both cases offer a different reason for prolonging the inevitable but when a position hangs out in the HR aether for over a year because a suitable candidate has not yet been found, I think it should be safe to contact the “also ran” crowd and let them know they can exhale.

I have also been rejected as an artist. I’ve gone on countless tirades about how CafePress moves one of my images into pending status with either no explanation or one that is contradictory to why another, similar, design is considered allowable. Frankly, this is more about principle than about being right or wrong. I accept, wholeheartedly, that there are some designs that should be flagged, but at least be consistent about it. That’s all the page space I’ll devote to that abused expired equine.

I’ve certainly been rejected in love, many, many times. Yet I have come to accept that it only put me on a better path to where I am now. There’s no way to know what might have been had another woman accepted my affections, without the use of a DeLorean equipped with a flux capacitor and 1.21 gigawatts of power, but that could create a huge paradox and unravel the fabric of the space time continuum. Of course, but making that previous statement you have the answer as to why there is no need to wonder what might have been. Regardless, it wasn’t the right time or place for that to occur. There have been plenty of “Let’s Just Be Friends” moments in my life and a few cases of uncontrollable laughter that followed such declarations of feelings but one thing has always remained true. I’ve never found myself so distraught that I could not get up in the morning after being rejected. Rejection is a part of love as well as life and it should be embraced.

I’ve also been rejected as a writer, too. This must come as a complete shocker to you as part of the “reader elite” that makes up the average 20 hits I get per day. Just in case this isn’t coming across, this post is heavily laced with sarcasm. After all, I’m topical, humorous, grammatically proficient, and quite honestly engaging and worthy of a good read. But on four occasions I’ve had a screenplay rejected. The first one came in 1996. I submitted a screenplay directly to MGM. However, they sent it back unopened with a letter stating that they do not accept individually solicited screenplays. What did I know, I was 21 and thought I had a killer idea. I also believed that if I mailed myself a copy of the script, that was as good as a copyright. I was mostly wrong, on both parts.

The other three occasions came from the a screenplay I submitted three times as part of those Project Greenlight contests that happened back in the front five of this decade. In this case, a screenwriter submitted a piece of work and had to review and judge other pieces. Then a selection of the best pieces based on votes from other screenwriters would send a script to the next round where a panel of judges in the industry would narrow it down further. The winner would get their screenplay produced into a film with a budget of one million dollars. In the first two instances the winners came up shy of box office totals that exceeded their budget. According to my own suspicions I felt that the early judging process was a little slanted. In order to win, most people are going to trash other people’s work to give theirs a higher score. The actual percentage of objective critiquing going on there was probably small.

In my own house, I get rejected a lot, too. My gut feeling to do more work on leveling out the yard before putting up the pool was rejected in favor or getting the sucker up before the summer was over. Not that we’ve had a lot of great days to go swimming this last two months of summer. It’s been unseasonably cold and wet. However, there, in my yard stands a monstrosity that is 16 feet round and four feet deep…on one end. It’s also moving as the support pools are leaning to one side.

I’ve also been rejected on a lot of ideas I’ve had for how to get things done. My wife and I try to work together to accomplish goals like cleaning the house, running errands to the store, or general care of our two year old. Yet, we always seem to tackle these jobs together in the same space but with different approaches. I’ve constantly told her, “Let’s split up and tackle these simultaneously. I’ll go to the store, you stay here and give the baby a bath” or vice versa. Still, she feels compelled to go as a group into the fray and usually there is bickering and trampling of each other’s toes.

In every instance that I’ve ever been rejected it stings. A lot of times it pisses me right off to no end. But rejection is there to balance things out and keep you grounded. I’ve spoken before about how I detest the trend among community sponsored sports where there is no sense of failure. Soccer games that have no score and other sports where everyone gets to play and no one fails. Now, I can understand that to a three year old, failure is a rather moot concept and giving kids a sense of accomplishment is a good thing. So is a sense of reality for that matter. Kids need to know about failure. Kids need to understand that, in life, you can’t always get what you want. It’s going to get a lot tougher out there and the sooner they are able to process rejection and move on they will be able to not let it be a detriment to their character or persistence.

My kid fails on a regular basis. She falls down, clunks her head and cries. We kiss it and make it better and she goes on about her business. She constantly wants to take more stuffed animals in her crib with her at night and we tell her no. She gets a little upset and even goes into shut down mode which involves throwing herself on the floor in a crying heap. Eventually, she gets over it and goes to bed without further incident. She got rejected, processed it, and moved on to another thing.

So, the next time you get rejected think of it as a little more fuel for the engine in your spirit. Of course, I say that and I feel that my engine isn’t getting as good of mileage from rejection as it used to. Perhaps there is a program like Cash For Clunkers when it comes to rejection. If anyone actually read my work or shared it with others or even donated to the cause or bought a shirt that would be nice. Nope? Rejected again. Maybe next time.

Fill Your Lungs With Thought

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Blame this on a carb heavy lunch of fettuccini alfredo

It takes a moment to breathe and a lifetime to exhale. Sometimes you wonder if it will ever be enough to just exist in the space between disasters. We pride ourselves on our ability to organize and get things done in a timely manner but those seconds slip away when chaos rears her lovely head up into your world. We want things faster, smaller and cheaper but we don’t have the time to enjoy a good, night time read with our children. We worry ourselves over the most trivial of problems, not recognizing that poverty and illness do not just live outside our borders but on our streets and in our communities. Why is it never enough to get through the day with a sense of accomplishment over a job well done instead of worrying “Was today my last day?”

We live for sound bites and 280 characters when the expanded version of the written word can be so much more enlightening and enjoyable. Technology has done little to free up our time and instead enslaves us to a new gadget or format. We create bigger gaps in our physical interactions and rely on social networks and texting to communicate with abbreviations, acronyms, and slang.

We maintain and hardly correct or fix things.

We patch and upgrade when we should redesign and rethink.

We’ve filled in the edges of the map but haven’t gone back and looked at things we've already discovered from different perspectives.

We crave attention but hide behind anonymity.

There is a shoe somewhere, ready to drop. The sword is precariously dangled o’er heads.

We look down not up.

Efficiency is a sometimes a cleaner word for cheap and done by someone else.

We cannot enjoy. We selectively surrender.

We cannot expand. We must consolidate.

We cannot think. We must be told.

We cannot breathe. We must prepare.

We cannot move forward. We must go back.

We cannot forget. We must recall.

We cannot destroy. We must create.

We cannot threaten. We must encourage.

We cannot cut corners. We must explore.

We cannot close off. We must invite.

We can change. We cannot settle.

We can plan. We cannot assume.

We can assure. We cannot promise.

We can discover. We cannot discard.

We can recover. We cannot recondition.

We can relearn. We cannot cheat.

We can win. We cannot quit.

We can begin.

We can find the answers to any problem if we only share it with others. We can listen to what others have to say, no matter how hard it is to hear. We can open our eyes and see that we are all in this together. This is what it is supposed to be like if you let it. This can be some kind of wonderful. The times of thinking only of ourselves have got to stop, but the time to rely on others has just begun. This is our time…down here. This is to be our finest hour. This will only take a minute. This is not better than you. But you are better than this. Let in the fear for five seconds and then make a decision. It takes seconds to speak but a lifetime to regret.

This is today.

This is now.

Breathe.

Walkman Turns 30 and Makes Teen's Head Explode

That title makes it sound like this came out of the Weekly World News. You would almost expect to see the decimated skull of a teen wearing head phones in a picture next to an update on Bat Boy. And the title doesn’t really denote any physical harm to the little whipper snapper. He didn’t get rocked to death. In fact, the only thing harmed was the hope that the next generation will be able to take care of us old fogeys. All of this is over the 30th birthday of the Walkman and how a 13 year old couldn’t figure one out. Oh, how my generation gently weeps.

The basics of the story, which you can click on above to open in a new window, leaving your current reading enjoyment of my blog intact, is that a 13 year old was handed a Walkman and asked to try it out against the current technology or the iPod and other Portable Media Players. The youngster was first put off by the size of the Walkman compared to the iPod Nano or Shuffle. Secondly, that all too familiar squeaky sound from the rollers turning the tape and the push button functionality made him feel like the monolith standing before primitive man, motionless, but trying to nudge them towards picking up a bone with a thought. But that notion became reversed when it took him three days to realize that there was a Side B to the tape. Now, who is flinging pooh, junior? His retort was that it didn’t hold nearly enough music compared to the iPod. This is the biggest slap in the face of music and technology since Limp Bizkit used a Speak and Spell to cover The Who’s "Behind Blue Eyes". If that kid ever loses his ball in my yard, he’s not getting back. Go cry to Fred Durst about it.

The Walkman was from a different time than the iPod. For all you young readers out there…first of all I commend you for taking the time out of your busy schedule of texting to read this…you have to remember that until 2001, we had no choice but to listen to our music on physical media. Whether we rocked out to a minidisc, a compact disc, or a TDK 120 minute cassette tape with DNR, we still had to open the player and stick something in it. You can imagine my frustration the first time I got an iPod and wondered how to open the damn thing. Oh and by the way, TDK and DNR are not txtspeak, that’s the name of the company and Dolby Noise Reduction. Regardless of how new technology may appear to be cool, let’s take a trip down memory lane and see a real trendsetter, the 13 year old Mongo on his 10 speed.

In my youth, I had a paper route. Actually, I had two paper routes combined into one. Starting from my house, I went in one direction, travelling 2.1 miles in a loop around half of my neighborhood. Then, I returned home, grabbed a second set of papers and headed in the opposite direction, travelling 1.7 miles in a loop around the other the half. In total I had roughly 60 papers to deliver and it took about an hour and a half to complete. I did this every weekday afternoon and Saturday mornings at 6:30 AM for nearly six years. To date, it is my second longest tenured job, though I am not too quick to include it on my resume.

To put this into perspective, I had 90 minutes of banal peddling, stopping, dropping off a paper; peddling, dropping…you get the idea. So, what better way to pass the time than by putting together the most awesome mix tape ever for riding your bike to? I labored intensively night and day toggling record and play on my dual cassette deck boom box, my fingers synced better than a twelve year old texting his five best friends, simultaneously. I rifled through my brother’s tape and CD collection to find the right mix of peddle pushing, fist pumping, kick ass mullet rock and 80’s movie soundtrack pop songs that could fill my TDK tape. Then, the coup de grace, knowing that the clip on a Walkman was near useless, I MacGyvered a way to strap my it to my leg with some parts from a book bag, Velcro and a little help from Doug Masters in Iron Eagle.

With my tunes at the ready, I strolled out of my house like an astronaut taking that slow motion strut along the catwalk, heading for the space shuttle on my way to destroy the Earth threatening meteor. I mounted up, pushed play, and left my driveway in the dust along with my Walkman which had slipped its bonds and fell off my leg. Hoping for the best, I tossed the now scuffed tape player into my paper bag and went about my way. The soundtrack gems of Roger Daltrey from Quicksilver, Queen from the aforementioned Iron Eagle, and John Parr from St Elmo’s Fire kept time with my feet as I rode along my route, delivering the news.

When I became old enough to drive, laziness kicked in and I started to take the family car on my route. Now, I could ride in Oldsmobile style, utilizing the factory equipped AM/FM cassette radio, free from earphones. I could share my music with the rest of my hood and not get my legs nipped at by the neighbor’s dog. Once I began college, I then upgraded to a DiscMan because I still did not have a car with a CD player already installed. I had to use the adaptor tape plugged into my tape player and headphone jack. I still used the Iron Eagle method of strapping my player to my leg because at the time, the car did not have a suitable storage are for me to put my DiscMan in and the skipping made it impossible to enjoy music if I laid it on the seat.

How could this be considered inferior to the iPod? I ask you. What do these kids know? Who doesn’t like to jog around town with an 8 Track sized block of plastic and printed circuit boards strapped to their arm, the weight of the Walkman shifting your balance, causing a curvature of your spine? That’s what chiropractors are for after all.

So, the next time some adolescent eyes you eye up because you are toting a Walkman, clipped to your belt, take his iPod and toss it against the wall. Then laugh because if the same thing happened to you, all you need is a set of jeweler’s screwdrivers, a solder gun, and an eraser topped pencil to fix your Walkman and rewind your tape. Tech support in the 80’s consisted of three techniques, bang on it, blow in it, or buy a new one for less than 40 bucks. Try that with an iPod besides the shuffle. And while you’re at it, go smack Fred Durst.