One of these days we’ll figure out what kind of look we want for the blog as well as a format that doesn’t make your eyes cross looking at code. My Tokyo friend Paul changed the look sometime between now and last night. I like it. I will have to see now if I can navigate within it.
Say what?
Like all large and lucrative industries, the television industry doesn’t like to be told what do by government regulators. So industry officials have agreed to set standards for themselves which would soften loud TV commercials.
The TV bigwigs announced their pledge to self-regulate at a recent hearing concerning legislation by California Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo (Bless you!) which would have required the FCC to set volume levels for commercials.
Currently, the level for TV ads should be no louder during commercials than the peak volume within the show being broadcast. But these ads are often placed next to very quiet moments during the show, or so the explanation goes.
Since it was hotter than blue blazes this past weekend where I live — in Southeast Texas — I decided the healthy thing to do was stay inside read and watch TV if something decent was on the tube. I had read recently about this proposed law and I thought it was a good idea if it would make a difference in lowering ad volumes. My thoughts on this matter surfaced more than once this weekend when commercials by Time-Warner cable almost jarred me from my chair.
I am sure that if the TV industry (including Time-Warner) actually does something to soften the loudness, they’ll find other ways to annoy their customers. And, I am talking about something more than leaving callers on hold indefinitely or giving the viewer poor customer service.
What a week. What another week.
It’s been kind of a heavy week what with the death of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. So I thought I would lighten my thoughts as they are portrayed out there on the dubya, dubya, dubya, dot, thing. Oh, this is “Jokerman” type from the Open Office word package in case you thought you were having some kind of an eye affliction.
Plenty has already been said about Jackson and more is sure to come in the days ahead. We probably would have heard more about Farrah had she not had the misfortune of dying just prior to that of the “King of Pop.” One of my best friends also died of anal cancer, by the way, not at all a pleasant affliction.
So here our society has turned another corner in its culture of celebrity, showing presumably an already dead Jackson being bagged by paramedics on the way to the hospital.
In the meantime, life goes on. The ships go sailing in and out of the harbor. A never-ending stream of cars and tractor-trailers buzz by on the interstate while some guy without a shirt and a bandanna around his head holds up a cardboard sign saying “New Orleans” in his left hand while he sticks out his right thumb.
It’s another scorcher and worker bees do the work while way up somewhere in the high floors of the office tower a young woman looks out the windows and thinks of that margarita she is going to have at the bar after work.
Bo and Tyrone are fishing off the jetty. They’ve not caught a thing and don’t much like the 100-degree heat, but they sure are glad to be where they are and with who they are hanging out.
So ends another sad week in America. The funny thing about it, it seems just almost like any week, doesn’t it?
Walk in, get your money and walk out
The police here in Beaumont, Texas, are looking for the guy pictured in the surveillance camera. Yep, he robbed a bank. He doesn’t look much like a bank robber, does he? Although, I am not sure how your typical bank robber should look. If fact, except for the fact that he has acne that I’m sure you can’t see, our holdup guy could be just about anyone. Well, not anyone. I am being literal here. But, that he does look like he could be about any slightly overweight, balding white guy and that he makes no attempt to hide his face are among the quirks of the case that make it somewhat unusual, the police have told local media. Another odd aspect was his demand for the loot.
- Low-key balding dude walks off with purloined cash.
The robber walked into the Capitol One Bank in downtown Beaumont Monday afternoon and handed a note to a teller demanding $3,000 in cash, according to a report by KFDM-TV Channel 6. Later news reports by other local media and in information released by the local Crime Stoppers organization did not mention a specific amount. That is not unusual as police are hesitant to give out to the media what they consider to be specific “facts” of the case. In the event that such facts might only be known to the suspect then that is understandable. However, after the cat is out of bag and the police say they don’t want that information used and news media do not report it is a crock. I’m not saying that happened here, I am just speaking from past experience.
The real “fact” is that cops sometimes don’t want to give anymore information than they have to, often to their detriment. The reasons vary.
There is, the aforementioned, reason of not wanting to give out facts in which only the perp or those involved somehow in the case know. Then reasons vary from the fear of pissing off a boss to just being a control freak. I think part of this whole sordid mess of how police information makes it to the public has for years been driven into the nation’s psyche through scores of novels, movies and television shows. It is a shame because I think it undermines the responsibility all parties have in making our system of crime and punishment tick. When I was working as a reporter, I had editors who have said: “It’s not our job to help the cops.” But, in a specific way — that role of being a citizen — we have a duty to society which we occupy long before we become reporter or cop. And if we are lucky, will possess long after we no longer do those jobs. Okay, enough civics lesson for one day, but what else was I going to write about?
Back to Mr. Everyman Bank Robber, the $3,000 seems in the end to appear as a significant aspect in this crime. Even if someone doesn’t know who this guy is, they might know the back story of specific amount of do-re-mi. It might be what gets this otherwise normal-looking fellow arrested if he doesn’t turn himself in, get caught trying to pull off another robbery, or whatever.
It will be interesting to find out what this man’s story is and it is likely we will. People don’t get away with bank robbery by leaps and bounds these day. Don’t spend your money all in one place, dude.
The blessing and curse of coolness
Sitting here trying to cool off from what I hope is my final trip outside today, I can’t help but notice how my little Weather Bug icon is blinking between its little bug and an ominously red 103. Actually, the temperature down the street at the Catholic school is 102 with a heat index of 109 degrees.
It occurred to me just in the few minutes inside, and out of the scorching day, that I have learned some truths about extrme heat in my half-century plus of mostly living in climates subject at times to hot temperatures. Those truths:
- In the old days before air conditioning young women spent their spare time coming up with new meals to cook on concrete walls.
1. If it’s hot, get out of the heat.
2. Nothing, not anything at all, beats a glass of ice water when it’s really hot.
3. Air conditioning is both a blessing and a curse.
It is tempting to feel sorry for the guys I see working on the street construction project downtown in which they are tearing up the sidewalk with a jackhammer to replace it with something to give downtown an old-time feel.
However, these guys are getting paid to do what they are doing. They may or may not have air conditioning in their homes and/or cars. The places they came from in Mexico or Central America may or may not have air conditioning. These men will probably make enough to buy all the air conditioners they need for when they get to be my age.
When I was a young sailor exploring the wares of Magsaysay Drive in Olangapo, in the Philippines, I once thought I discovered the absolute cure for those miserably hot and humid days in which the only way a shower can be soothing is to stay under it the entire day. That cure, I thought was the local San Miguel beer, pulled dripping in ice from a chest in a dark bar. But that is kind of like something else I discovered: Staying in the water is great for soothing a bad sunburn. Getting out of the water isn’t so great and you eventually will have to leave the water unless you can somehow turn into a merman or mermaid.
I could survive this day without air conditioning. It would be miserable, at first, but eventually I could acclimate myself to where it would be barely bearable. I never lived in a place with air conditioning until I joined the Navy. Once I left the Navy, I did not stay completely immersed in air conditioning until I graduated from college. I worked as a fireman during most of that time period and survived some hot times but also suffered from heat exhaustion. But once I started having employment in which I didn’t want to look like one big mass of sweat, I became more and more a creature of A/C.
So to paraphrase TV’s “Defective Detective” Adrian Monk — the Tony Shalhoub character in the series “Monk” — in his amusing catch phrase: air conditioning truly is a “blessing and a curse.”
Those magic waves of cool air make life more comfortable. Why should we sweat and suffer prickly heat when we can sit back and, you know, be cool? But A/C is addicting. You start out, you might only use it at home and in the car and at work. Eventually, you’ll be spending every moment of your life inside because you can’t get enough of that coolness.
It’s truly a monkey on one’s back. But damn, if it isn’t soooo cool!