How to Make a Kia Commercial

(With apologies to Shamus Young)

Shopping for a Delli Sandwich

If buying a sandwich were like shopping for a computer from Dell.
(Inspired by Shamus Young: "PC Hardware is 'Toast'".)

INT. "The Delli"

"Hi, how can I help you?"

"I'd like a ham sandwich on rye with swiss cheese."

"I'm sorry, we don't sell sandwiches like that."

"What, you don't sell ham sandwiches? Or on rye bread?"

"No, we have ham sandwiches and rye bread, but we don't sell them in that manner."

"You mean custom made to order?"

"No, we have custom-made sandwiches but—lemme just explain. We've determined that to serve our customers better, it's most efficient if we offer different lines of sandwiches, each tailored for a particular customer demographic's needs."

"Ok... tell me about your sandwich lines."

"Well, we have the Latitude line of sandwiches for our business user who need best-in-class sandwich reliability. Our Vostro line is popular with small business eaters who need a filling sandwich for not too much money. Our Inspiron sandwiches are great for home and home office eaters who need style and satisfaction from their lunches. And our Alienware line is best for power-eaters who want top-of-the-line sandwich performance."

Read more »

Delusions of Reality

Do you know what the definition of insanity is? No, it's not doing the same thing expecting different results. That's called practice. I do it every day with the piano and, sure enough, the results are slightly better each day.

No, insanity is when one's perception of reality is different from reality itself. For instance, a man who believes himself Theodore Roosevelt, or thinks himself a cat, or that he hears voices. In each case, the person's idea of what is real is different from what is really real. The man is not Theodore Roosevelt, or a cat, and the voices are mere hallucination.

Increasingly, I've been feeling that the whole world has gone, by this definition, completely insane. Totally loony. Off their rockers. Large swaths of the population seem to be totally given over to ideas that have no bearing in reality. It's like everyone is playing a children's game where we all pretend we're monkeys in the zoo, or astronauts in outer space, or cowboys and Indians. But when I don't play along, or return to reality and stop pretending, everyone gets mad and indignant with me because they really believe they are monkeys or astronauts or cowboys. It's really quite surreal.

What brought on this feeling most recently was an article my Google reader recommended items pointed me towards (it recommends weird things). Apparently a school in Michigan has refused to allow a girl to be homecoming king because she's a girl, not a boy. This is, apparently, a problem because the girl is playing a make-believe game in which she pretends she's a boy. But the weird part is that so many other people are playing along and pretending the same thing. The news item itself refers to her as a "him", despite the fact that it even mentions towards the end that she hasn't even had the cosmetic surgery to add boy-parts. So in no real, objective way is this girl a boy--only in her mind and the minds of those playing along with her. She has no Y-chromosome, or male genitalia, or a prostate, or any of the biological capabilities that set men and women apart, yet many people seem totally willing to give themselves into the fantasy that she is somehow a boy.

Read more »