It used to be that alarms went off only in my head, and that was bad enough.
“Did I turn off the iron?”
“Oh no, I forgot to put out the garbage.”
And listening to those alarms go off in my head would have caused me to have something like a panic attack. Maybe two on a scale of one to ten. But nevertheless, those alarms kept me from sleepwalking through life.
But now days, there is an alarm going off every five minutes or so and most of them aren't in my head.
I was making a list of the things that beep, buzz, whistle, bong, sing, or ring at you and me. There are cell phones, Ipods, all kinds of proprietary machinery, washers, dryers, irons, toasters, ovens, alarm clocks, cars, computers, printers, GPS devices, timers, cameras, cash registers, gas pumps, fish finders… Many of those devices issue a variety of sounds in succession, in rhythm or in a pattern. Some of them play music and some of them blink at you too.
Every beep has a different message for you. “Almost empty, my battery is dying, you pushed the wrong button, add toner, cycle done, you've got mail, don't burn the cookies, don't burn the house down, out of focus, out of oil, use the flash, and on and on.
The trouble is I don't speak Droid very well. In fact I am usually looking around for a Droid interpreter. If I get myself in a room with a bunch of Droid-speaking devices and they all start beeping at once, there will be trouble. What happens is that when multiple alarms go off and I can't take care of all of them at once, the stresses start to add up and soon I am in a ten-out-of-ten condition. I start to suffer from deep beep overload which I demonstrate by two-stepping jerkily from one device to another while I try to understand which is saying what and how urgent the various messages are.
Sitting down to take a deep breath doesn't help much either. What is that other squeak-squeek” sound I hear? I can't tell where it is coming from. Wait, that's my desk chair creaking.
Driving out on the road presents a possibility of running into beep overload as well. Try interpreting and processing in a split second more than one beeping sound while driving through the turnabout.
“Eeeek! (You will notice that I have begun to utter droid-like sounds, but that doesn't mean I am fluent.) Should I answer the cell phone, study the dashboard, or get out of that Volkswagen's way?”
Perhaps some people could do all three, but not I. First I would have to find my cell phone which goes to show you what beep overload can do to me.
One of the most unhappy devices ever to speak Droid is the desktop computer. Some days it will issue complaining noises at a rate of every twenty keystrokes. What ensues is a condition closely related to beep overload in some ways.
However, this condition is characterized by an outburst of actual, spoken, English words—words words like -bleep-bleep-bleep-.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Just some of the hazards
I hate to have to tell you this, but living is hazardous to your health. The National Safety Council published findings showing that most accidents occur at home, at work or at play. If you think about it, that doesn't leave a whole lot of safe time or space left over.
I can think of church. You are probably safe from auto accidents, skiing fatalities, and drownings in church, although you could get thoroughly wet at a baptism. I think I heard once, though, of someone who died of a heart attack in church.
One prevailing notion holds that if you are accident prone or feeling like you are overdue, you should stay in bed; but as one of my favorite fictional characters said when his wife tried to put him to bed to get over pneumonia, “I ain't thet big a fool… Ain't you ever noticed? Folks die in bed.”
So I can't recommend bed or church without reservation.
You don't want to be caught in an automobile, bus, airplane, or storm with or without a seat belt. You want to stay away from smoking sections in restaurants—if they have those anymore—especially if they serve food.
And don't be poor. Poverty is associated with increased risk of fire death. Stay away from football games; there were three football fatalities in 2009.
Just in case you were wondering what it is about skiing that is dangerous, I will tell you that is is “excess speed and loss of control, especially if they are complicated by contact with stationary objects such as trees, or rocks, or lift towers.”
You have the NSC to thank for such documented factual knowledge.
Well, back to our dilemma. Where or when is it safe? As for when, it's not August. Don't be around in August. September is better.
Show up then. Where? Not at a rock concert, not at a water attraction, not at an educational institution. (Good luck with the educational institution part unless you are well over eighteen.) And don't frequent banks; bank robbers tend to do the same thing.
Stay away from hospitals and senior citizens' centers. They are too much like staying in bed. Don't be caught in the proximity of washing machines, ironing boards, electricity or bears. And sweaters, you could accidentally hang yourself with your sweater.
Those are just some of the common everyday things. You also have to be aware of the exotic hazards like chemical wastes, nondisposable substances, dirt and germs. There used to be a concern about acid rain. Perhaps rain is more alkaline, lately—I haven't heard—but that can't be good either. Anyway, those things tend to jump on you or fall on you.
It is just my personal opinion, but I think that treadmills and haunted houses are also dangerous.
And now, don't let any of those things cause undue stress; that's also dangerous.
You may as well just relax and enjoy life. Another statistic I once heard: you have a one hundred percent chance that something will get you sooner or later.
I can think of church. You are probably safe from auto accidents, skiing fatalities, and drownings in church, although you could get thoroughly wet at a baptism. I think I heard once, though, of someone who died of a heart attack in church.
One prevailing notion holds that if you are accident prone or feeling like you are overdue, you should stay in bed; but as one of my favorite fictional characters said when his wife tried to put him to bed to get over pneumonia, “I ain't thet big a fool… Ain't you ever noticed? Folks die in bed.”
So I can't recommend bed or church without reservation.
You don't want to be caught in an automobile, bus, airplane, or storm with or without a seat belt. You want to stay away from smoking sections in restaurants—if they have those anymore—especially if they serve food.
And don't be poor. Poverty is associated with increased risk of fire death. Stay away from football games; there were three football fatalities in 2009.
Just in case you were wondering what it is about skiing that is dangerous, I will tell you that is is “excess speed and loss of control, especially if they are complicated by contact with stationary objects such as trees, or rocks, or lift towers.”
You have the NSC to thank for such documented factual knowledge.
Well, back to our dilemma. Where or when is it safe? As for when, it's not August. Don't be around in August. September is better.
Show up then. Where? Not at a rock concert, not at a water attraction, not at an educational institution. (Good luck with the educational institution part unless you are well over eighteen.) And don't frequent banks; bank robbers tend to do the same thing.
Stay away from hospitals and senior citizens' centers. They are too much like staying in bed. Don't be caught in the proximity of washing machines, ironing boards, electricity or bears. And sweaters, you could accidentally hang yourself with your sweater.
Those are just some of the common everyday things. You also have to be aware of the exotic hazards like chemical wastes, nondisposable substances, dirt and germs. There used to be a concern about acid rain. Perhaps rain is more alkaline, lately—I haven't heard—but that can't be good either. Anyway, those things tend to jump on you or fall on you.
It is just my personal opinion, but I think that treadmills and haunted houses are also dangerous.
And now, don't let any of those things cause undue stress; that's also dangerous.
You may as well just relax and enjoy life. Another statistic I once heard: you have a one hundred percent chance that something will get you sooner or later.
Creative Taxes
Creative tax plans are ingenious
Our government has been getting pretty creative lately with finding new ways to impose taxes —only they don't call them that. (I did an article a few weeks ago pointing out that whether you call a cat a “cat” or a “feline,” it is still the same animal. It meows and eats cat food. It has baby cats and may or may not catch mice. But changing the name does not change the nature of the animal.)
So any method of collecting money from you or me and transferring it to a government entity is probably a tax. Whether it is called something else like “cap-and-trade” or a “medical device surcharge,” by my definition, it is a tax. So when congress passes a law which costs money but is going to be paid for from “other revenues,” you might smell a rat—not a cat—a rat.
And this may look like an article complaining about taxes, but it's not. It's an article complaining about tribute monies. By the way, you may have heard that people who complain about taxes can be divided into two classes: men and women.
The tax czar has my respect. There are some innovative plans being talked about, and those backdoor plans have to be tricky.
For instance, someone developed this idea and called it healthcare reform: Congress will tax health care to subsidize people to buy health care that new taxes and regulation will make more expensive. Whoever dreamed up that plan certainly has my admiration. I don't like it, but it is creative. I could think for a year and not come up with that.
My grandkids think I am creative. They think I can make anything. Well I ran into a brick wall when I tried to think of some tax programs that could equal that one in ingenuity. I tried not to disappoint my fans though.
By using the same logic, I came up with the short list of my own. (There never was a long list.) I assume that what happens in Vernal stays in Vernal and will not end up on the tax czar's list of Possibles. He doesn't need encouragement.
1. Impose a crop tax on sagebrush growers to help pay for zerascape projects.
2. Increase the use fees at national parks to pay for visit-your-national-parks advertising campaigns.
3. Collect a consumption tax on milk to pay for the cost of methane gas reduction research.
4. Tax cosmetic surgeries to help pay for Congressional health care insurance.
5. Collect revenues from pet owners to help pay for homeless animal shelters.
6. Tax automobile manufacturers to fund the down payments for new car buyers. Wait. Someone already thought of that.
Okay, I don't have what it takes. I wish I could say that that is because everything has already been thought of, but I expect to see innovations in the kinds and quantities of tribute monies increase at roughly the same rate as the national debt.
The problem is that I don't dream up tax schemes for a living. I just spend my living on tax schemes.
Our government has been getting pretty creative lately with finding new ways to impose taxes —only they don't call them that. (I did an article a few weeks ago pointing out that whether you call a cat a “cat” or a “feline,” it is still the same animal. It meows and eats cat food. It has baby cats and may or may not catch mice. But changing the name does not change the nature of the animal.)
So any method of collecting money from you or me and transferring it to a government entity is probably a tax. Whether it is called something else like “cap-and-trade” or a “medical device surcharge,” by my definition, it is a tax. So when congress passes a law which costs money but is going to be paid for from “other revenues,” you might smell a rat—not a cat—a rat.
And this may look like an article complaining about taxes, but it's not. It's an article complaining about tribute monies. By the way, you may have heard that people who complain about taxes can be divided into two classes: men and women.
The tax czar has my respect. There are some innovative plans being talked about, and those backdoor plans have to be tricky.
For instance, someone developed this idea and called it healthcare reform: Congress will tax health care to subsidize people to buy health care that new taxes and regulation will make more expensive. Whoever dreamed up that plan certainly has my admiration. I don't like it, but it is creative. I could think for a year and not come up with that.
My grandkids think I am creative. They think I can make anything. Well I ran into a brick wall when I tried to think of some tax programs that could equal that one in ingenuity. I tried not to disappoint my fans though.
By using the same logic, I came up with the short list of my own. (There never was a long list.) I assume that what happens in Vernal stays in Vernal and will not end up on the tax czar's list of Possibles. He doesn't need encouragement.
1. Impose a crop tax on sagebrush growers to help pay for zerascape projects.
2. Increase the use fees at national parks to pay for visit-your-national-parks advertising campaigns.
3. Collect a consumption tax on milk to pay for the cost of methane gas reduction research.
4. Tax cosmetic surgeries to help pay for Congressional health care insurance.
5. Collect revenues from pet owners to help pay for homeless animal shelters.
6. Tax automobile manufacturers to fund the down payments for new car buyers. Wait. Someone already thought of that.
Okay, I don't have what it takes. I wish I could say that that is because everything has already been thought of, but I expect to see innovations in the kinds and quantities of tribute monies increase at roughly the same rate as the national debt.
The problem is that I don't dream up tax schemes for a living. I just spend my living on tax schemes.
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