The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Archives for June 2008

More Cleaning Out The Archives

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Been dusting off more stuff around here. Here are some more old posts that are getting the chance to breathe clean air again. Boy, is some of this cheesy.

Love Makes You Feel Alive
Besheret- The Concept of Meeting the Perfect Mate
Life is Precious- Live it Well
The Music Played While You are On “Hold”
Random Quotes
The Frustration of being Good but not Good Enough
A Graphic Message- It Stinks
Love Makes You Feel like a Fool

I stumbled onto these quotes and decided to share them too:

Casablanca
Rick: Don’t you sometimes wonder if it’s worth all this? I mean what you’re fighting for.
Victor Laszlo: You might as well question why we breathe. If we stop breathing, we’ll die. If we stop fighting our enemies, the world will die.
Rick: Well, what of it? It’ll be out of its misery.
Victor Laszlo: You know how you sound, Mr. Blaine? Like a man who’s trying to convince himself of something he doesn’t believe in his heart.

Captain Renault: What in heaven’s name brought you to Casablanca?
Rick: My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.
Captain Renault: The waters? What waters? We’re in the desert.
Rick: I was misinformed.

Rick: Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.

Rick: Last night we said a great many things. You said I was to do the thinking for both of us. Well, I’ve done a lot of it since then, and it all adds up to one thing: you’re getting on that plane with Victor where you belong.
Ilsa: But, Richard, no, I… I…
Rick: Now, you’ve got to listen to me! You have any idea what you’d have to look forward to if you stayed here? Nine chances out of ten, we’d both wind up in a concentration camp. Isn’t that true, Louie?
Captan Renault: I’m afraid Major Strasser would insist.
Ilsa: You’re saying this only to make me go.
Rick: I’m saying it because it’s true. Inside of us, we both know you belong with Victor. You’re part of his work, the thing that keeps him going. If that plane leaves the ground and you’re not with him, you’ll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.
Ilsa: But what about us?
Rick: We’ll always have Paris. We didn’t have, we, we lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night.
Ilsa: When I said I would never leave you.
Rick: And you never will. But I’ve got a job to do, too. Where I’m going, you can’t follow. What I’ve got to do, you can’t be any part of. Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you’ll understand that. Now, now… Here’s looking at you kid.

Dirty Harry
Clint Eastwood (Harry Callahan): I know what you’re thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I’ve kinda lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk?

Clint Eastwood (Harry Callahan): Well, when an adult male is chasing a female with intent to commit rape, I shoot the bastard. That’s my policy.
John Vernon (The Mayor): Intent? How did you establish that?
Clint Eastwood (Harry Callahan): : When a man is chasing a woman through an alley with a butcher’s knife and a hard-on, I figure he isn’t out collecting for the Red Cross!

My Theme Song

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(This post originally appeared here but I felt like bringing it back and adding to it.)

Someone once suggested that life would be far more fun if we could walk around with a theme song. I kind of like the idea. If I could do it than I would want to have a rotation of songs to use.

Granted some of these are a bit long, but what the hell.

  1. O Fortuna– Orff
  2. Hurt– Johnny Cash version
  3. Raiders Of The Lost Ark: The Raiders’ March– John Williams
  4. Jaws Theme– John Williams
  5. The Empire Strikes Back: The Imperial March– John Williams
  6. Requiem for a Tower, Movement 4
  9. Bolero-Ravel
  10. Hate me [Blue October]

Emailing Your Way Through The Friendly Skies

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I have been eagerly waiting for the day when we are able to use the Internet while enjoying a plane ride. Just in case any airline execs happen to read this let me be clear that my comment about enjoying air travel is intended to be sarcastic.

Air travel has quickly deteriorated into something that used to be quite fun into a major pain in the ass. We pay more and receive less for the privilege of being locked inside a flying tin can. Since this post is not designed to be a rant about flying I’ll wrap up this section.

But before I do let me express a few more thoughts. It is more than a little irritating to see the numerous ways you ding us for a few bucks more, especially the latest trend of charging for luggage. I’d rather you raise your fares so that you can resume offering food and other services as part of the flight.

Even though I know that I am still being charged $5 bucks for a stale bagel I’ll feel better not having to shell it out on board. Anyway, enough on this and now on to the story.

“DALLAS, Texas (AP) — American Airlines says customers will be able to test in-flight Internet access on two flights beginning Wednesday, with broader service expected to begin in the following couple of weeks.

Facing record high fuel prices, airlines are looking at entertainment and information services as ways to make a few more bucks per passenger.

American plans to charge $9.95 to $12.95 for Internet service, depending on flight length.

The test with technology partner Aircell LLC will begin on one flight from New York’s Kennedy Airport to Los Angeles and one return flight, said Doug Backelin, American’s manager of in-flight technology. The test service will be free, he said.

The airline would not say on which flights it would conduct the test.

American is among several companies preparing to offer in-air Internet service.

Aircell is also working with Virgin America, and JetBlue Airways Corp. started testing free e-mail, instant-messaging and some Amazon.com services aboard one of its planes in December.

The airline will begin charging for Internet service soon on its Boeing 767-200 jets that fly from New York to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Miami.

Passengers will be able to use e-mail and instant messaging and to download video and connect to secure networks on notebook computers or other wireless devices such as smart phones through three wireless access points on the plane, said Dave Bijur, an Aircell executive.”

One more thing. I’d prefer not to allow cellphone use during the flight as I shudder to think of being forced to listen to that sort of noise for six hours.

In The Weeds

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There was a time when they reveled in their secret world. It was their happy place. It didn’t matter what was going on in the outside world because they could always find solace and comfort in each other and their world.

For a long time Johnny held a secret fear that this island of hope was a figment of his imagination and that even if it was real, it wouldn’t last. His prior experience had taught him that you couldn’t rely upon that overwhelming feeling of being in love to last.

Sooner or later it would fade and reality would hit and the bright hues would be replaced by more somber and serious colors. Occasionally those happier shades would reappear, but just for brief moments in time.

For a long while Johnny waited for that moment to come, but it never did. Each day he woke up with a smile knowing that June was going to be there smiling back at him. After a while he began to relax and he bought into the possibility that maybe that this time really was different.

For a long while things were really good and life went swimmingly along and then it happened that Johnny and June found themselves in the weeds. At least that is how Johnny saw it. Inside his mind instead of holding hands and walking through lush, verdant green hills they were in the weeds.

A host of little things had crept up and tarnished some of their shine. June apologized over and over for it. She told him that she hoped that she wasn’t a disappointment and said that she was in a funk and she wasn’t sure when it would pass.

Johnny knew what it meant to be in a funk. Truth is that June had helped to pull him out of an extended funk. So he figured that he would do what he could to stand by her and help pull her out. And he tried, oh yes, he tried.

But being in a funk was new to June and she pulled back from him. Where she had always looked to him for help, now she found herself holding him at arm’s length and refusing to let him in to her heart. To be clear, she hadn’t really banished him. Her feelings for him hadn’t changed, she just couldn’t quite figure out how to deal with her funk.

And so Johnny found he and June wandering through the weeds. Those lush green hills were now pockmarked with brown patches and the path to the top of the hill no longer went straight up. Instead it snaked around and was peppered with rocks and thorny bushes.

Still, this wasn’t enough to make Johnny walk away. He wasn’t afraid of being cut and bruised. He didn’t fear having to work a little bit harder for her. He had long since decided that she was a part of his life that he never wanted to say goodbye to.
Inside a small office Johnny stared at a computer screen that was decorated in small yellow post-it notes. He was a technical writer who spent large chunks of his day translating the words of engineers into terms that laypeople could understand and then apply courtesy of the user manuals he wrote.

The work wasn’t especially exciting. There weren’t too many ways that you could describe how to correctly insert a widget into the skeezit without over-torqing the solenoid valve.

The thought made him snort out loud. Every now and then he considered ways to make it more interesting. He used to wonder if people would take the directions literally and whether he could use the manual to make them play Twister. A couple of words to encourage them to do their best to imitate the people in figure one and who knows what could happen.

Maybe, just maybe he could adapt the positions from the Kama Sutra and adjust them a bit. Some people were so gullible he was sure that it would work. The hardest part was not being able to film the end users because unless you did you’d never really know if they correctly followed the directions given in the guide.

Even that could be overcome. Thanks to the wonders of technology he could install nano-cameras in each guide that would automatically turn on and record all that happened around them.

The thought made him giggle, even though it was ridiculously impossible to execute. Ignore the creepy peeping Tom aspect of the cameras and the gazillion dollar lawsuit that would inevitably follow it, there was just no way not to laugh at the idea.

A loud knock on the door interrupted his daydream. His boss was standing in the doorway. He tried not to roll his eyes. As her short stubby legs propelled her forward into his office Johnny hoped that she hadn’t magically gained the ability to read minds or any other sort of psychic gifts.

Shelly was 45 years-old and in desperate need of a fashion makeover. Someone needed to tell her that tight jeans were the province of teenagers and women who were not more than 40 pounds overweight.

Ok, that wasn’t entirely fair. Some women could get away with that, but usually they were taller than her. At 5’4 she just didn’t have the height or the long legs to disguise the extra luggage she was hauling around.

Nor did it help to have a hairstyle that could be best described as resembling something a rat would live in.

Add the sweet scent of 30 packs a day and a guarantee that she’d wear a top that looked like a refugee from the kitchen curtain factory and you had a recipe for disaster.