CSotD: A sound basis for humor
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Candorville (WPWG) reminds me of how much I miss the Olden Days. Not the medieval olden days evoked here, but the Olden Days when most on-line conversation happened on Usenet and most people recognized both the futility of responding to trolls and the wisdom of ignoring them.
There was, in that bygone era, something called “Netiquette,” and “Don’t feed the trolls” was as universally known and accepted as “Don’t post in all caps.”
I suppose it was elitist, a time and place where the vast majority of people were of good will and genuinely wanted a conversation, not a fist fight, and where you gained prestige by making intelligent points, not simply by stirring up the most action.
Or maybe it was simply naive, in the same way we thought — for about 15 seconds — that distributing good vibes and flowers would persuade people to give up warfare.
I don’t suppose it matters anymore. We shouldn’t feed the trolls, but, then again, we shouldn’t let evil go unchallenged, particularly since we know that handing out flowers doesn’t work and that evil comes across as attractive strength to a lot of people.
It is a puzzlement.
Today’s Frazz (AMS) also sends me back, though in a different way.
Autumn is my favorite time of year, and, after nearly 20 years in exile, I was thrilled to move back to the Northeast where the season is so rich and full. This will be my 34th autumn since coming home and I’ve savored each one.
But it will be my 11th autumn living behind the post office, where, a couple of times a week, the groundskeepers seem convinced that just 15 more minutes with the leaf blower will get that final, pesky leaf, so there’s no point in just bending over and picking the damn thing up.
As it happens, I was driving to the park with the dog yesterday and indulging in that common fantasy of using a time machine to bring some 18th century person to the current time. Amid thoughts of explaining cars and airplanes and such, it occurred to me that perhaps the biggest shock to my visitor would be the constant noise in which we live.
A few years ago, I was in the Adirondacks for a reunion and, in a pleasantly idle moment, went back into the woods to a little lake I used to camp by. It’s far enough out there that you can’t hear distant trucks downshifting and there’s no air traffic overhead, and it also happened to be noon, so the birds were hunkered down to wait out the heat of the day.
It was like being in a sensory-deprivation chamber. Dead silence today is something known only to the deaf, and even they experience vibrations. This was bizarre, but it was also something that people in the 18th century would find perfectly normal.
Which leads to our first
Juxtaposition of the Day
I love the name “Dan Mumbleman,” because he seems to be in a lot of movies, mostly ones that also feature plenty of explosions, so that you have the choice of either not hearing the dialogue or being blown out of your chair by the sound effects. But, yes, streaming adds the effect Collins emphasizes, of never finding the sweet spot where he simply mumbles whatever you missed.
And it’s not just movies: Watching a half hour newscast on DVR can eat up at least 45 minutes if you keep trying to skip commercials and end up overshooting the start up, then, as he says, going back to the beginning.
As for that other source of annoyance, the young folks have something called “Tuners,” which are cheap-ass cars you can soup up, which requires mufflers that, paradoxically, amplify sound.
It makes me feel a little guilty to complain, because I remember with affection my buddies who worked on their cars Back in the Day, and I have always sneered at the pre-packaged Barracudas and other off-the-rack muscle cars rich kids drove in the 70s.
But what’s weird about Tuners is that they also remind me of a nickname for the old Citroën 2CV, which polite people affectionately called a “Deux Chevaux” (two horse), but less polite people referred to as “boîte à merde” (box of shit), because the Tuners look like nothing.
You could at least paint some flames on the wheel wells, and don’t tell me you’re trying not to let the cops know you have a hot car, because those damn mufflers are what inspired noise ordinances back in the Good Old Days.
And so is your stupid subwoofer sound system. All your bass are belong to you, and you can have it.
You little jerks are all gonna be deaf by the time you’re 40 and then you won’t be able to understand Dan Mumbleman either.
Juxtaposition of Editors on Vacation
It was Groucho.
And I doubt anyone ever nurtured a childhood dream of dropping into a huge kettle of boiling water.
I could be wrong about that last one, of course. As Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal suggests, even the classics hide a kink or two.
But it was definitely Groucho.
Juxtaposition of Lousy Jobs
It’s a lovely thought to have privileged policy makers work at minimum wage jobs and live on the resulting budget, but the flaw is that they’d know it was only a stunt that they could walk away from whenever they wanted.
Which is the precise opposite of what they need to understand and never will.
As for self-checkout, I’m convinced that all the never-use-them memes were planted by unions, though not many checkers are unionized.
Nor do I believe self-righteous people are also boycotting ATMs, self-serve gas stations or clothing not produced on foot-pedal looms.
Besides, as Maria Scrivan points out, those check stands aren’t really that self-operating, and there’s almost always some minimum-wage-slave monitoring and correcting them.
It’s really more like having an express lane staffed by a super-efficient checker.
Who still needs two jobs just to make rent.
And whose only benefits are found at home:
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