The Eternal Baby

Human children exert an uncontrollable charm upon other human beings, especially their parents and other vulnerable adults.

It's been said that it's a good thing that kids are so cute, because otherwise we'd all want to strangle them in their less than charming attempts to learn about the world.

Kids, however, grow up. In the process, they lose that special baby beauty.

Nature, however, has connived to keep replacing toddlers with other younger and upcoming toddlers.

It's a kind of replaceable part with planned obsolescence.

Baby born.
Baby cute
Baby grows up
Baby no longer cute.
New baby born.
New baby cute..

and on and on until our species wears itself out.

The new replacements are eternally beautiful. They're nameless as they are wheeled past in a perambulator, carried by in some sort of baby sling, and just wobble along the sidewalk in search of novelty.

It's that child with no label that we all love. Just the mystery of where they come from, where they go, and why they are so incredibly appealing and beautiful.

Transformers 2

Any eleven year old boy who loves explosions should already have pitched a tent in the closest theater showing Transformers 2.

In the first two hours of this pyrotechnic epic, more things are blown up than have been immolated in the past century of motion picture history. It is almost inconceivable that this much dynamite could possibly exist to begin with.

And just when you think that no building or military vehicle or villain is still standing and operational, the filmmakers find dozens more things to blow up!

Creativity like this must be acknowledged. Our hat is (blown) off to them! Alfred Nobel would be proud, and, indeed, perhaps it is time for the Nobel Committee to recognize quantity of explosions as a new category of world accomplishment.

Summer Stuff: The Coming Golden Age of Stereoscopic 3D Movies: A Revolution, or "Oh Grandpa, I don't want to see those dumb "flat" movies!"

Summer Stuff: The Coming Golden Age of Stereoscopic 3D Movies: A Revolution, or "Oh Grandpa, I don't want to see those dumb "flat" movies!"Publish Post

Womb Graduates

One morning I woke up and actually remembered something I had dreamt.

It was the phrase "womb graduate."

Seems like a useful concept to me (unlike most dumb things I remember when I wake up).

Most people view "birth" as "the beginning." But it 'taint so.

After all, we spend about 9 months in a womb, swimming and churning and listening to inner body sounds. It is like a little in vitro nursery school. So, when we get born, it's like graduating from Pre-School to Kindergarten.

Womb is stage one. Getting born is stage two.

So, too, there are "egg graduates" including chickens and eagles. Baby amoeboe are 'fission' graduates, aren't they?

We ought to get diplomas for "womb graduation" instead of a slap on the ass.

Why do MacIntosh Owners Feel Obligated to Convert You

MacIntosh Computers are just fine.

I don' t own one, but I've used them and -- except for the fact that most of them still have a one-button mouse which is kind of like riding on a unicycle instead of a two-wheeler -- they work just the way they are supposed to, and I can get stuff done.

What I want to know is why people who own them are endlessly and incessently telling everyone who doesn't own one how wonderful they are? Or posit Mac vs (whatever other kind of computer)?

It's kind of like Episcopalians telling Presbyterians what's wrong with them.  Or trying to figure out if Hulk can beat Superman (or Spiderman take Batman) (Or Wonder Woman whup Red Sonja).

Which afternoon was it that owning a particular computer became an article of faith, a mode of getting into heaven or acheiving salvation and not a tool for getting letters written or drawing pictures?

I don't get this kind of conversation about Nokia cellphones: only about Iphones.  I've had IPhone users shove them in my face and show how cool the little video games it plays are. Well, they're right: they are cool.

But.

They don't help me to make phone calls. They don't make the other person's voice clearer. They don't do the things that I expect a telephone to do. They're not cute and cuddly like puppies or kittens either.

Now kittens. They purr! Puppies chase balls and wag their tails when they see you.

I haven't seen a MacIntosh Computer do that yet.

Oh crud. Now someone will invent a purring Mac and tell me what I'm missing out on by not buying one.

It will remind me with a cute voice or a text message every five minutes: "Vibrations sent by I-Purr."

Maybe I shouldn't have written this.

Just ignore the man behind the curtain.