Random Neuron Firings

1. Ya know…I just don’t see the attraction. Tepid at best.

2. Remember that “New in Box” or “New With Tags” item you bought on eBay last week?  There’s a 50% chance it’s hot.

3. BoomR (and other iPhoners out there), have you heard about the big flap between AT & T, Apple and iPhone users? And of course, now they tell me, after I get my Storm (which I adore, btw, but I did want an iPhone first). Anyway, what’s your take on the whole thing? Seems I remember you liked the reception from AT & T, especially since you live and work in urban areas.

4. I don’t know how I got this, but I was going through some papers in my classroom, and found something that someone printed out for the fun of it. The title of it was “Things You Would Never Know Without the Movie Industry.” I thought it was rather amusing. Behold the truths that stretch our suspension of disbelief:

In the movies…

• Large, loft-style apartments in New York City are well within the price range of most people, whether they are employed or not.
• Even if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts, your enemies will wait patiently to attack you one by one by dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessors.
• All grocery bags contain at least one loaf of French bread.
• You’re likely to survive any battle in any war, unless you show someone a picture of your sweetheart waiting for you back home.
• The ventilation system of any building is the perfect hiding place. No one will ever look for you there.
• All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts, so you know exactly when they’re going to go off.
• Any person waking from a nightmare bolts upright and screams. (Don’t we all?)

And my favorite of the lot:

• A man will show no pain while taking a ferocious beating, but will wince and make a fuss while a woman tries to clean the wounds.

Ha.

I’ll bet we could come up with some more. There were more on that list, but I didn’t include them all. You know, the standard ones having to do with lipstick that never comes off, panes of glass that shatter into a million pieces when bodies are thrown through them, never saying goodbye when you hang up the phone, etc.

I guess they call the movies & television an “escape” for a reason. And speakina…

We watched The Wrestler the other night. Interesting. Depressing. Great performance by uber-ghoul Mickey Rourke though. Very nice. Tonight’s NetFlix menu: The Other Boleyn Girl. I look forward to it. I like this NetFlix thing, btw. At least until fall gets here…but we won’t discuss that right now.

Have a great…um…what day is it anyway?

FO

Yeah, so enough about my three-hanky doctorate drama. Back to cool stuff. How about I lay some Schott’s on ya? (Thanks for the book, Helen! You are a goddess.)

The Mafia’s (Fifteen — *cRAsH* — I mean) Ten Commandments

From page 76: This document was found in a 2007 raid of the home of a Mafia boss in Sicily.

1. No one can present himself directly to another of our friends. There must be a third person to do it.
2. Never look at the wives of friends.
3. Never be seen with cops.
4. Don’t go to pubs and clubs.
5. Always being available to Cosa Nostra is a duty — even if your wife is about to give birth.
6. Appointments must absolutely be respected.
7. Wives must be treated with respect. (Then there’s that pesky #5…)
8. When asked for any information, the answer must be the truth. (Which, I suspect, is why #3 is in effect.)
9. Money cannot be appropriated if it belongs to other families.
10. People who cannot be part of Cosa Nostra: anyone who has a close relative in the police, anyone with a two-timing relative, and anyone who behaves badly and doesn’t hold to moral values.

Of course, racketeering, murder, prostitution…feh. Po-po get so worked up over little things.

Page 95: According to the 2000 Census, the most common surnames in America are:

1. Smith
2. Johnson
3. Williams
4. Brown
5. Jones
6. Miller
7. Davis
8. Garcia
9. Rodriguez
10. Wilson

*arms akimbo* Where’s Jackson on this list?

Page 103: Utah is the most (clinically/psychologically) “depressed state” in America, followed by West Virginia, Kentucky, Rhode Island and Nevada.

OK, I’m tired of reading now. I’ve been up since 3…*yawn*…I think I’ll take a nap.

FinkzZzzZZZZ

Source: Schott, Ben. Schott’s Miscellany 2009: An Almanac. Bloomsbury: New York, NY (2008).

kar·ma n. The total effect of a person’s actions and conduct during the successive phases of the person’s existence, regarded as determining the person’s destiny. ~American Heritage Dictionary

It may come as no surprise to you that I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately — and on several different levels. I’m coming to realize the effect of what I do on the people around me. One has to be very careful. Do you believe in the power of karma? I mean, how many of us have rattled off at one time or another the old adage, What goes around comes around ? The old pebble-in-the-pond thing. Or it could be a flavor of comeuppance: the bank robber who makes off with the cash, but later has it all stolen from him by another thief. That kind of stuff. Do you believe in it?

Regardless, if karma has anything to do with my recent travails, then I’m a believer. The steps I’ve taken, the series of events I’ve put in motion…they have all — while largely unbeknownst to me — pointed towards Thursday night’s landmark decision. What the “karmatic” effect will be of that, and of the future decisions I make, for that matter, remains to be seen.

Funny thing, though. The very top headline in Yahoo News this morning read, CEOs Without College Degrees. HA. Do I need a PhD to be a good high school choral director? Of course not; I knew that before. But this was like an affirmation of sorts. Karmic. I like that. I think I’ll keep looking for those signs.

OK, here’s your Unbelievably Cute Picture of the Day (I know, biased Grammie here). Justin, taking a nap yesterday, outside on the grass, under a tree in the warm breeze. It was a good day all around.

Happy weekend, all.

Finkarma

Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun…