rants

Rants

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Ranting. "There's a time for keeping quiet, and there's a time for speaking out!"
Except that's my line for Activism, which this isn't.

Album

Do I date myself so unforgivably? I would no sooner call a volume of music a "disc" or a "tape" than I would describe To Kill a Mockingbird a "paperback" or a "hardcover" before I'd name it a book. The medium affects the work (album lengths have increased since CDs overtook LPs, since the former plays longer than the "long-playing" record) but does not name it. Imperial Bedroom is an album by Elvis Costello and the Attractions of which I unfortunately own only a cassette and need a disc. Quibbling about "album" or "record" (which, remember, was short for "recording" before it was short for "long-playing vinyl disk recording") or "disc" is silly anyway. We have failed, in English, to invent interesting new words for our later inventions. "Answering machine" shows the depths of banality we've reached.

Cats

Specifically, domestic cats that hunt. They're well fed at home and have no need to hunt unless you go and buy them mice to set loose in your house for their amusement. Do you know how much the domestic cat has contributed to the population losses of songbirds? We've banned DDT; can't we ban hunting cats?
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Glasses

Glasses. On your face, in your way, obscuring the noble lines of your skull, fogging up between cold and hot, not having little mini-wipers on then in the rain (or near geysers), precluding peripheral vision, necessitating your turning your head instead of your eyes, falling off when you run. Being one more thing on your head, such that glasses + earrings look stupid and you should wear either one or the other. Having to be removed when you wish to apply some moisturizer. Getting cockatiel dust on them. Needing to be augmented with shades or an entirely different pair of glasses in the sun. Reflecting light off in twin glares so no one can see your eyes. Glasses suck. Laser-PRK or at least contact lenses, please. I would rather give up tampons than glasses: only 25% of my life inconvenienced instead of my every waking moment.
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Homophobia

(It's not trivial, but this incident is.)

A left-handed former acquaintance of mine once began to rant about a psychology professor who asserted that homosexuality was not abnormal. Mike (a contraction of "my acquaintance" if you believe that) talked the professor down (this was his story), saying that homosexuality might be many things but nothing that affects 10% of the population can be called normal. "Kind of like how being a southpaw is similarly abnormal, Mike?" How quiet he became, how unfortunate that the professor had never noticed what hand Mike held his pen in. Too bad Mike held being "normal" so sacred. Please don't assume I mean that being left-handed means you're gay. Or vice versa.

Feeding wild animals

Why do people think that everything is dependent on humans and should be relegated to the role of "pet"? Is it the power rush? Is it thinking that this one little bit, like this one little vote, one little voice, can't make any difference? Is it just ignorance?

Microsoft

If Apple had won the lawsuit when Microsoft stole Apple's look and feel for Windows, Bill Gates wouldn't own the world right now. Why can't MSWord for Windows 7 allow symbols and other odd characters in its search and replace? Why does Windows treat its users like idiots? Is it because most people are idiots, that they didn't recognize a superior operating system when they saw it?

Pantyhose vs. stockings or thigh-highs

I have received so many stares in public locker rooms for wearing thigh highs, particularly from older women. But it's these older women who should remember that what, 35 years ago, the only option was stockings with garters, right? Which is another thing: how did you pee while wearing a girdle? How difficult was it to peel one on and off? Maybe it was like the tight designer jeans fad of the early eighties? Anyway, as I have not found a comfortable garter belt for all day wear and as they tend to be too short anyway, thigh-highs have been my salvation. You don't have to peel them off to pee, if you run one side the pair isn't ruined, and you have gentle elastic at your thigh instead of a binding waistband, and they don't run as much because they don't undergo as much wear and tear. Tights I don't mind as much as they're sturdy enough on their own not to need to be tight. Which makes the name illogical, I guess.

What's in the briefcase

It's pulp fiction, folks, and nothing matters unless it stimulates the action. What's in the briefcase? A plot device.

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Last modified 20 November 1997

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