Second Gen (2003-2016, 2016- )
There must be someone I can blame for this and its inevitable application here in Canada:
A gradual rise in the state pension age to 68 has been put forward as part of a major proposed shake-up of UK pensions. In return, the basic state pension would be increased and rise in line with earnings rather than inflation.
When I am still at the desk at 71 trying to explain something to a boss 50 years younger than me I really will need to know who I can blame…other than me, of course.
Jay has been noting events at the disasterously bad idea of Pajama Media – great evidence in itself that the A-list idea of 2003 never was – and I repeat the noting of this quotation below from the discussion board at “pajamasmedia.isfullofcrap.com” just for its sheer 1998-ish-ness:
When the only evident sign of investment is in the party you throw to announce an organization with an illegal name offering a service that no one understands and that you yourself aren’t entirely able to define, you’ve got a real problem.
Interesting to note that the URL for the thing is “osm.org”, still referencing that allegedly “illegal” name “Open Source Media” – illegal in that it was owned by some other media called “Open Source”, a fairly well known US public radio show. Nutty.
…but maybe now is the time to try to sell dog food over the internet.
Have I been a nag? I have, haven’t I. Well, today is the last day. Round One of the Canadian Blogging Awards is over at midnight tonight and then we will see if the place and the beer blog get a top five ranking in any of the categories. You know, fourth is not bad. I am not demanding a first and – secret secret – it was I who nominated the Flea for best blog as I think he simply is the best one going.
So do vote. Incessantly. All that soft stuff above is nothing but a veiled attempt to make me come off as reasonable when all I want is the shower of praise and the spotlight and the prizes. There are prizes, right?
Ian has been on a bit of a roll lately. Today he raises the question of standardization and homogenization of commercial culture on the road:
But on a long road trip, the understanding that you are never more than fifty miles from a Wendy’s chili (low fat, kids!) or the 100% positivity that the Starbucks in Barstow has hazelnut syrup can be… oddly comforting. I’ve railed against predictability and ninnyism my whole life, and yet I am given succor that there are 12,804 places to get a large fries with McDonalds’ bizarrely tasty hot mustard sauce. Omnitopia offers sanitation, can always provide a bathroom in moments of desperation. But it also means you will never try that fascinating-looking Mexican place three miles off the freeway. You will stop frequenting that indie bookstore, but why bother when Barnes & Noble lets you read on the couch in the aisle? Holding a Starbucks latté, for that matter?
While that attraction to the familiar is there my reaction to travel is the opposite. I want to find that Mexican place and add it to my own set of stepping stones as I travel across the river. The more I travel often through the same places the more I find the places I don’t expect to find there. So now I know there is a guy making “Syrians” in the centre of New Hampshire, that Di Pietros in South Portland, Maine is a little friendlier than the pizza is good, that there is such a thing as a chocolate Boston there, too, and salt potatoes in Syracuse and Cambodian diners here in Kingston. That is one reason why I have come to dislike the train or the plane as well. The car comes with brakes you get to use yourself. I plan to use them, too. I have to head into the Big Smoke overnight Thursday and I may stop, oh, about fifty kilometres off the 401 at an old church in the country for six small bottles of the finest pale ale in Ontario.
Sometimes it does not work out. Like the bad bathrooms. Like the roads you shouldn’t have taken. Like this summer’s side trip to the Connecticut shore where we had a hard time finding the spot until we found Mystic and the Sea Swirl. It is all about the hunt and it just takes time.
Micheal is putting the boogie curse on my one share of Google. I suppose that the collapse of Google in itself would trigger the end of this bubble economy. But what of the small investor who puts just enough in to get the annual report and little else? What of me that person? Shouldn’t that investor be able to trust in a system that allows irrationality to provide a 3000% annual return and a few decent share splits on an information product that can’t even assure you that the answer provided is the authoritative one on the topic?
Just as with the child whose non-meal time symptoms passed within a day and a half, so it has come to pass with me. I credit the chanting and the placement of the gerbil statutettes. So it is Friday and it is a day off booked far in advance to coincide with an teachers’ in-service day and as we monitor the route south, it is interesting to note how useful the New York State road condition web pages are. One would be content to wait until tomorrow were Ithaca not the sort of place where you can curl with rutabagas…rutabagi?
So it is sunny and clear here, we have new winter tires and are likely wise to stay put and chat. Topics?:
I need a coffee to consider other topics. But that one above is a winner. Go with that for a while.
Update: I took a look south and you can see Watertown. We are making a run. If we are stuck in Watertown, we will find a high school basketball game to watch tonight. You could even see a laker:
Click for a bigger view. I don’t know why it is blue. I must have had the camera set on something other than auto. The wall of cloud behind the laker in the big picture is the lake effect show machine.
Nice to see Arsenal move up the ranks with its win over second place Wigan. Who knew Wigan would be so strong? Now we are hoping that teams like Newcastle and Charlton have big days to tighten the top of the table and keep Arsenal third.
In bigger sporting news, Morton v. Cowdenbeath has been postponed due to a frosty field. Jumpin’ Jimminy! When I were a lad I recall slide tackling through thick ice on the muck-puddled fields of East Hants high.
I linked to this yesterday over at the sideblog (that’s what that is called by the way) but the list of people making fun of the concept of Web 2.0 is one of the best anti-tech-hype things I have read for a long time. Any you might add? My favorite is
Web 2.0 is made of … Segway spare parts
By the way, speaking of the counter culture, have you seen that iPod add where everyone is walking around in the street in their own exclusionary poddy bubbles but singing the same Christmas carol. Oddly, none of them seem to get hit by cars and, laughingly, they all carry the tune. Has no one broken the news to these people that people singing with headphones in their ears sound like scalded but urgently amorous cats?
I have asked you all before who you are and where you might be. Now you can show it on a map of the GX40 Nation from Frappr! Click on the “Ad Yourself” link to the right of the Frappr screen. I’ll figure out how to run an updating version of this map sooner or later.
Let me know where you are or if there are any other widgets we could add to this space.
It turned out to be much colder that I would have expected yesterday given the sunshine. There seems always to be something in the weather on Remembrance Day. We stopped at the Naval memorial downtown and I watched this vet read the plaque as he waited for the ceremony to begin. Click below for a larger image. Another cheery chatty gent, now small and stooped in a dark great coat, wore the black cloth officers cap with a small badge at the front I had seen in black and white films on the wavy navy, those guiding and protecting corvettes of the North Atlantic.
You might wonder why the there is a naval memorial here in Ontario but Kingston was a key naval port of the Empire as this plaque references – and which let to our martello towers.
