Day 318: Extra, Extra, Read All About It...

At the time I snapped this photo I had some grand story in mind; a story regarding the dreams I often have of being a Pulitzer prize winning journalist. A tale of the wonders of the written word and how a headline can influence a generation. How the quote, "He who is a master of words is a master of men," is best fulfilled.

However, I believe that time is coming to an end. Not that people won't still read news, but I see electronic and visual media beginning to become a more significant force in news distribution.

Laziness is as much a factor in this shift of news distribution as the push for more a television/internet oriented delivery. People aren't as inlined to read as they once were. Why should they be? Instead of wasting energy going to the nearest newsstand, they can turn on a monitor. Instead of perusing an entire paper, they can click on any story that catches their eye. Instead of assimilating any number of words or ideas, they can lazily just watch images as they flicker in front of them as fast as an old tube or LCD screen can provide.

Maybe I'm just sounding old fashioned, but I see too depressing a shift. I wonder how long papers will remain as just that; paper. Even the most auspicious Citizen Patriot is soon becoming a largely electronic medium, only seeing three days of paper circulation a week.

Saddening really. As an avid fan of the art of writing and talking, I find this a serious blow to communication. Already communication has been stunted enough thanks to internet jargon and texting shortcuts. Grammar is being abandoned for convenience's sake. Vocabularies are decreasing as interest in reading decreases. Penmanship is suffering too, as the keyboard's relevance increases.

*sniff*

Day 317: Extra Lame!!

Even with the snow the previous day, I didn't have any frost build up. Several days after the snow I did, and as I recall the temp had even increased quite a bit from the couple days earlier. And no Rob, I'm not trying on this one....

Day 316: Gotta Love Her, Crazy Eye And All....

No major emotion or story to go along with this pic. Vernie vied for attention with my Kindle and I had to snap the pic while she remained there. Too cute in my opinion, even though her googly eye kinda tripped me out.

Perhaps she was just tryin' to stare at me and read at the same time. That's what I would call multitasking.

Day 315: Workin' the Line...

Nothing special, just that one Friday afternoon we completely emptied the line at work. A truly amazing feat since we rely on several workers that don't work worth shit. I won't go into that now, though I'd like to for blog purposes, but it'll put me in shitty mood so I'll pass for now.

Kinda funny how I love to bitch about that job, how much I hate that job, and how bitter I am that I even need that job. Not that it's the job itself I hate. Rather it's so many people in there that rely on having seniority and being union members to protect their positions. So many of the lazy fuckers I call co-workers would be finding themselves stalking the classifieds on a regular basis were it not for the damn union. Makes me hate unions even.

Day 314: The First Bit O' Snow....

It was gone within the day, but it still counts, right? Of more concern was the ice that accumulated after the snow melted and froze overnight. That was more shitty than anything.

Day 313: Ass Mongers...

Before I add any words to this blog, I want to start with sharing an earlier status/blog:

"My hope, wish, and prayer for the day: that the person, or persons, who broke into my home, stole the several thousand dollars worth of possessions, I hope you develop an intense intestinal infection; so bad that you end up shitting all of your livelihood, will to live, guts, and every last nutrient in your system out onto the floor because you're unable to reach the toilet in time.

Possessions can be replaced, money can be earned anew, and locks can be changed. The peace of mind, however, is much harder to replace. Fuck....this could be more easily handled if my entire past year wasn't one fuckin' negative after another. And to think, I'm the fucker my friends used to love and hate for being too positive.

I'm going to strip naked and go for a swim in my pool of pity. Be back in a while. People are welcome to join me, but all I really want is silence and a big fuckin' vat of beer spiked with even more beer."

In due time, goods were replaced though not all. Some money was set aside for other uses. The mental security is taking a bit longer in the rebuilding process. Too bad we couldn't sue UPS for not delivering that one.

The pic above was of the Blu-Ray player the thieves had left in my yard. One might say "left," but rather they dropped it to lie in the rain, more specifically. Why is what left I don't know. My guess is they heard me or heard someone and wanted to beat a hasty retreat. You can even see evidence of the fingerprinting performed by the officer. Pretty neat, in a sick way.

Day 312: She's A Grand Ole' Flag!

Patriotism is a good thing I s'pose. It can broaden your thought processes from the singular to the broad spectrum of the common good. Think of WW2 war efforts. People were united the nation over. Sustainable goods were rationed, goods were set aside for the soldiers; quote unquote..."everyone did their part."

Brings to mind a question: is it too odd to actually type "quote unquote?" *shrugs*

Taken to an extreme, however, patriotism can lead to a one sided superiority. Nazi Germany, for example. The people began embracing positive ideals given them by a single man. He gave them goals and a sense of post WW1 pride. He emboldened them to be the strong nation that they were already, however beaten down by the WW1 initiated depression.

Not that a history lesson was my point in this blog, but it gave me somewhere to start.

I took the shot with thoughts of flag respect in mind. I like seeing flags flowing in the wind. As free as possible without touching the ground or being wrapped around itself, or in this case the pole.