I Am Not The Smartest Person In The World, Alas
For the longest time, I thought I was the smartest person in the world.
It turns out, however, that Cecil Adams
is. He has been "Fighting Ignorance Since 1973 (It's taking longer than we
thought)". Cecil will answer any question that you ask him. Like,
"Can you tan through glass?" and "Why don't we ever see pictures of the floating island of garbage?"
and "Why do Europe and Asia count as two continents?" and "If I had super strength, could I squeeze coal into diamonds?".
Sure, I could answer most of those questions, but not "Why is fecal matter
always brown?"
~~~
I stopped at this rather run-down gas station today on my way back from mailing
a gift package to my buddy Alejandro in Málaga. Well, actually in Alhaurin de la Torre,
but it's just outside of Málaga. Alejandro is the sweetest human I know
outside of Sweet Junie, and sent me a beautiful still life in oil last month,
just because he wanted to. Naturally, Junie and I wanted to reciprocate,
so we rustled up a number of Western-themed items and I packed them up and went
to www.usps.com and filled out the customs
stuff online and slapped them into a FedEx clear sticky envelope and Bob's your
uncle. But, I digress. I was at this run-down gas station and walked
into their "convenience store". It was the damndest thing, no more than 6
feet by 12 feet inside, housing a checkout counter in front of a cigarette rack.
Behind me (as I stood at the counter) were two walls with pegboard and a zillion
items for sale, hanging from clips. They had even squeezed a drinks cooler
and an ATM in there, as well as two shelves above them and a multi-level shelf
system at the checkout. And what did they sell in this 72 square feet
besides Coke and cigarettes? Here's what I saw with a single 15-second
sweep of the eye: pain relievers; Jumbo condoms; Indian joss sticks; a set
of drill bits; ashtrays with a couple in various positions from the Kama Sutra;
a water buffalo carved in some exotic wood; motor oil; ten kinds of jerky;
composition books like you used in grade school (well, I did); a wide variety of
Magic Markers; the largest collection of car air fresheners I've seen in a
while; a fold-out driving map for Missouri. Mind, you, that was with a
single slow scan of the place.
~~~
I've always liked McDonald's Filet-O-Fish because it's delicious, even though
it's probably a terrible allocation of calories.
Looks like the actual fish in it (the hoki) is getting harder to find.
~~~
Yes, I loved O's speech. Yes, I know it doesn't solve everything.
Yes, I know that he refuses to call the right out for the rascals they are.
If there's anything Junie's taught me, it's that slow and steady really does
sometimes win the race.
~~~
Paris: two week away. We're down to details now, like how do I
activate worldwide roaming on my Android G1 (yes) and do I have to dial a
country code to the US when I'm in France (no). And, do I have a European
power cord to pack for my laptop adapter (yes, plenty of them). And should
I pack the 7-in-1 SD/MMC/whatever reader so that Junie can download the pix from
her camera (yes). And how many bags should I bring? Northwest, our
carrier to NY, charges an arm and a leg, but OpenSkies gives us three bags for
free. (answer: 2, both modest). Should I bring a jacket and
tie? (yes, might just want to go someplace really special).
~~~
Work: we're porting Linux and getting Android working on a Freescale
processor and writing programs that demonstrate the usefulness of touchscreens
and fixing a manufacturing application and quoting on various projects to write
systems software on various processors. Yesterday, I wrote a program that
simulated a wheel of fortune. If you moved your mouse (or finger if you
had a touchscreen) while you had the button down, and let up while you were
moving the mouse (or your finger), the wheel would spin and decelerate in a very
natural way that was also cool to watch (especially if you're partial to
roulette). Sometime, I am amazed that I get paid to do this stuff.
~~~
I now have 21,556 comments, of which 99.99% are spam. I need to log into
my MySQL server and clean them out. Maybe tomorrow.