Letters from North
America
I
consider computers to be
friendly things; you
know tools to be used as
we need them. Like
hammers… yes, that’s
it…just like hammers.
Oh, I realize we get
frustrated and
discouraged whenever
they lock up or send us
confusing messages that
are meaningless.
Messages such as …
‘warning…error #214…do
not attempt to press any
key for any reason.’
These messages tend to
raise our blood pressure
and to wonder why in the
world we ever strayed
from faxes and letters
in the mail, but soon
all is well and we are
back in the real world
once again, at least for
the time being.
This usually happens
only after you’ve either
called someone who has a
title with the words
‘technology’ in it or
your 12 year old child
or grandchild has
dropped over for a
visit. I’d rather pay
someone to come out than
to admit to one of my
children that I can’t
get anything to work. It
just doesn’t seem right
to me to go begging for
help with modern day
electronics. President
Obama may be a wonderful
person and all of that
and some might think he
deserved the Nobel Peace
Prize. However my vote
would go to the guy who
invented the atomic
clock that keeps our DVD
recorder on the correct
time rather than
blinking 12:00 from now
until eternity or until
one of the
aforementioned
individuals comes along
and fixes the thing.
I will give my children
credit, when they do fix
something in my house
that requires a degree
in computer engineering
or technology, they do
have the decency not to
smirk. I can’t stand
smirking; smirking gets
under my skin really
bad. How do you feel
about people who smirk?
I thought so.
Anyway, the use of
computers has pretty
much taken over our
lives. It’s hardly a day
goes by that we don’t
run across some
application involving
computers or the
internet. I’ve
personally been using
the internet for almost
twenty years. I first
started with a dial up
service which as I
recall was named
Prodigy. I believe this
was soon after Al Gore
invented the internet.
In any event, the
internet is truly an
amazing invention; I
suppose you could call
it an invention. I can’t
think of any other word
to describe it, outernet
just doesn’t sound right
to me.
I suppose with the
population of the world
standing at over six
billion it should come
as no surprise that
virtually anything you
want to know about
something is probably
already posted on some
website and is available
for anyone to review.
As an experiment I typed
in the words…..potato
sculptures and yes,
there is a web site
devoted to these as well
as one for bread
sculptures. Tasmanian
Devil Association?
There’s one listed. You
want the history of
pepper? There are over
22,000,000 references
for you to peruse,
should be enough to get
whatever you need. There
is a museum of bad art.
A vast collection of
…you guessed it ….bad
art. Their motto is….
‘Art Too Bad To Be
Ignored’. They’re having
an on-line auction for
one of their
paintings…..the price
thus far was over $150.
(US dollars only) The
piece was listed on
E-Bay, but had been
removed so I can’t tell
if it was sold or just
taken off the market
until a later time. The
piece was called…
“Studies in Digest” and
was a colored pencil
rendition of the human
digestive system as
interpreted by four
different artists. I use
the term artists
loosely.
I know you’re always
wondering where I obtain
these choice morsels of
information and as much
as I would like to tell
you, I find that I
cannot. I suggest you go
on line yourself and let
your fingers do the
walking. My final
internet topic this week
is what happens when you
Google the term… navel
lint or belly button
lint. I was surprised to
find there were over
81,000 references to
these terms. They range
from a belly button lint
collection (gross—this
guy started in 1984) to
a navel lint study
(government funded, no
doubt) to a couple of
papers on why belly
button lint is blue. The
results may surprise
you. I won’t reveal them
to you, and will just
let you go and see for
yourself. Let me just
add that ABC did a
survey of over 4,000
people and found that
older, hairy males with
an innie rather than an
outie are most likely
collectors of BBL (belly
button lint).
That’s enough for now….I
hope you have a good
week.
Comments go to
pperry@austin.rr.com
