Repetition Makes The Heart Grow Weary

Well, with a new year, and a new decade, I decided that this was the time to make some changes. I can feel it happening. I've started to get back into shape after years of sloth and indolence. I've even managed to complete almost a whole month of a new exercise regime that will enable me to finally get into that leopard print Speedo (stay calm ladies, I'm happily married!). I've even decided to go back to school and complete my education degree (assuming that I get in of course). But even with these changes and decisions, sometimes I just like to sit (by which, I really mean lay) on the couch and watch a couple of hours of mindless television every once in a while.

I know we've all been there, those evenings when you finally get to plant your bottom in a comfortable chair or on the couch and you think, "If I never move from this spot again I could be perfectly happy." About a week or so ago, I was enjoying a moment of blissful, mindless, television viewing. Just sitting there. Absorbing. Amoeba like (I think there was even a little drool involved, but I'm not sure). The latest greatest episode of whatever show was on, was winding it's way to the predictable foregone conclusion, when I noticed something strange. Usually during this time of sloth, I have the remote for the TV firmly planted on my chest and all I have to do is move one teeny tiny finger to either change the channel or mute the sound. I do this to avoid commercials, especially those loud annoying ones. This particular evening however, the remote was on the coffee table three feet away (it might as well have been on the other side of the Solar System) and so I had no way to protect myself from the onslaught. It was then that I noticed that there was one particular commercial that kept repeating over and over during every break. Sometimes it would even play two times, back to back, during the same commercial block.

Now, I know that commercials are a necessary part of commercial television, but why the same commercial over and over again? Is there not enough advertising to fill the spaces available? I can see the same commercial running several times over the course of an evening, maybe even a couple of times in an hour, but five or six times an hour? I remember when I saw the ad in question for the very first time. It had a neat hook and was well produced. It was very simple, but I watched because it was different. After that evening, I now hate that commercial. I now also make sure that the remote is close at hand before I sit down. I guess at least one good thing came of the whole repetitive commercial evening. My reaction time with the remote has become lightening fast. Wonder if there is a way to work that into my exercise log?

Worst. Job. Ever.

You know, there are a lot of jobs that could be in the running for the title Worst Job Ever. Some might think garbage man or sewage and septic sucking, or even customer service rep at Air Canada. There is even a show on the Discovery Channel called Dirty Jobs. Basically the host takes on jobs that seem bad or dirty in some way (strictly PG of course!), and we get to watch his antics as he tries to do the job as well as the professionals he is working with. All of us, without exception, have a list of what we would consider the worst job. I now have a new one that tops my list.

That new job to take over the top spot on my worst job ever list is the person who now has to sit and watch the images from the new full body scanners at the airport. In case you haven't heard, because of the threat of terrorism, almost every major airport will now be installing a new type of full body scanner which actually 'sees' through clothing in an attempt to detect explosives or other dangerous items that people might try to sneak onboard an airplane. Results from these scanners are mixed at best. Yes they 'see' through clothing. Yes, they can detect some hidden objects and materials. But they do not work every time. Some test have shown that depending on where the items are hidden, the scanners will not detect said item. I leave it up to you to determine where these places might be.

There have been many comments about these scanners. About how they intrude on our privacy and infringe on our ability to be private. My concern is over the people who have to sit for hours on end and watch these scanner images flash on a screen. Take a minute and think about all of the different body types you see on the street every day. Now take a minute and think about being able to see through all of these people's clothes and what that might do to your mental health. Ugh! I will be the first to admit that the list of people who might like to see through my clothing would be pretty small. I know that the list of people whose clothing I might like to see through is even smaller. These poor people looking at these images! Worst. Job. Ever.

Oh, the second worst job ever? Anything that ends up with my being labelled with the moniker 'Underwear Bomber".

Enter A New Year

Well here we are, the start of a new year! If you listen to the media it is also apparently the start of a new decade. So what is in store for us in this first year of the second decade of the 21^st century? It would probably be easier to determine what is not likely to happen than to predict all kinds of new things. I know that may sound pessimistic but let's look at what we were supposed to have by now and don't.

Way back when I was in elementary school, I can remember the first computer lab we got. It was full of giant, clunky computers that basically had an operating system and not much else. You had to actually type in the code for the program you wanted and then we all sat amazed while a few tiny pixels on the screen flashed on and off in sequence. WOW! I remember the guy who was the computer tec genius back then saying that these machines would change the way we worked and that they would make offices paperless. Well computers certainly changed the way we work… but paperless offices? Nope. Not even close. I don't know about you but there is more paper around my house and home office, and every other office I've been in or seen or heard about, than ever before. So much for that prediction.

I also wonder where my flying car is. Weren't we supposed to be travelling around in hover cars by now? I can remember seeing an ad in a magazine when I was about 10 years old, showing a dramatic representation of a person flying to work in his hover car. Can't say I've seen many of those about. I had visions in my ten year old brain of flying to school in my cool hover car and being the envy of the guys and the sought after companion of all the girls. You can guess how that turned out. While I'm on the subject, I also want to know where my bubble house under the ocean is. Why do I not look out the window every morning and see tropical fish everywhere?

And what about those Space movies? 2001: A Space Odyssey. 2010: The Year We Make Contact. Where is my HAL 9000 super computer? O.k. Maybe things didn't turn out well with the whole HAL thing, ('Just what do you think you are doing Dave?') but why aren't we travelling to other planets and exploring new worlds? In 2010 we were supposed to be exploring Jupiter. We barely still have the technology to get to the moon anymore. And what about the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman? Why can't I jump over buildings and run as fast as a car?

I can tell you one thing – the next ten years better show me some of these fantastic leaps of technology or I'm going to ask for a refund of my television and movie ticket costs!