by Scott Carpenter
I received a mailing from my phone company with an extraordinary offer:
Five years of high-speed internet for $19.95 a month.
Well, maybe not that amazing. Experience tells me this would be for the slowest speed. I’d be willing to pay more for real high-speed, to escape from a cable-company-that-won’t-be-named, but experience also suggests faster DSL speeds aren’t available in my area.
But! This isn’t about my internet options. It’s about the fine print on the $19.95 offer:
“When you bundle with Unlimited Nationwide Calling.”
I laughed. It’s like they can’t let go, these phone companies. The flyer has pictures of smiling young people, and all I can think is, who under the age of 60 still has or wants a long-distance calling plan?
But then, I’m the kind of dinosaur that still has a landline. Maybe they can be forgiven for thinking this might appeal to me. They have all this data that says we haven’t had long distance in, like, forever. They must be scratching their head and saying, “How do these people stay in touch with people outside of his area code? I bet they’ll jump at this opportunity.”
Update, a couple of days later:
It was pointed out to me that not everybody lives in a major metropolitan area with good cell coverage, and that some of these people may reasonably be expected to desire long distance calling plans.
Point taken.
I still think it’s an odd bundling juxtaposition.
Ezra Klein pointed me to a blog, “This Is a Blog Post. It Is Not a ‘Blog.’”, quoting from the blog, “Trust me. I’m a blogger. I blog blogs all the time.”
The blog snippet entertained me, even though I disagree with the premise of the blog itself. My own preference is likewise to call these things “blog posts,” and yes, I flinched the first few times I ran across “blog” for a blog post.
But I quickly got over it. Language evolves, and who are we to set into stone so quickly all of these new words and concepts?
Then again, I’m all in favor of arguing about language and complaining about language misdeeds. I persist in my own hopeless campaign of railing against the over-utilization of the word, “utilize.” …
Sam and her friends were talking about Justin Bieber, so I informed them that he’s a robot.
As might be expected from a group of seven-year-olds, there was a desire to believe, but also skepticism. They’ve been tricked before.
They’re smart enough to know that this would have to be confirmed on Google. I entered the search exactly as they specified:
is justin bieber a robot
And look at the top two results:
Is Justin Bieber a Robot or Cyborg? ? JUSTIN BIEBER ZONE …
www.justinbieberzone.com ? Weird
Justin Bieber is Actually a Robot – RobotShop Blog
www.robotshop.com/blog/en/justin-bieber-is-actually-a-robot-1509
Google totally backed me up!
I said, “Well there you go. It’s on the internet so it must be true.”
(Postscript: As I wrote this post, I showed them the image above from Wikipedia, and told them it was an early Justin Bieber prototype.)
And it never will be, as I mentioned last month.
The job’s going…
Okay?
That new job I have. You may have heard about it when I was in the early euphoric phase of finally moving on to something new.
Now I’m going through a bit of a rocky transitional phase.
I’d really hate to miss a month. Remember May 2008? The empty box of shame.
NEVER AGAIN.
I’m going to keep blogging FOREVER.
I started this new job and it’s going well. I’m keeping busy with learning new stuff, and enjoying learning new stuff. My cup runneth over.
I still want to write.
I think.
Dear Friend, Family Member, or Complete Stranger:
I’m unfollowing you for any number of reasons. Complicated reasons that surely have more to do with me than you. I’m notifying you of the unfollowing/unfriending in case your “interest” in me was reciprocal or contingent in any way upon a mutual connection, so that you can likewise unfriend or unfollow me. (I’m probably even more irritating than you are.)
If you require examples of why I’m breaking this social bond, well, let’s see…
The pendulum swings again. I applied for a new job last month, a technical job, and just like that, my brain started its descent to the other side, thinking about software development and how I do like mucking about with computers and code, and that perhaps this should be my focus. I love programming and making things that go.
This will be the year when I find answers, small and large. Perhaps the ultimate answer, to “the great Question of Life, the Universe and everything.”
Except… I forget the answer is simple. It’s the question we don’t know.
Winter is too long, making spring a revelation. Life beginning again. Grass greening up and trees sprouting leaves and flowers popping out of the ground. All that stuff. Warmer temperatures, where a 40 degree day promises that summer is coming.
