Roadward Rants (actually from Thursday)

We are well on our way and my N key is mostly broken but I am trying to beat that out of it’s system. If you wonder why it’s important just scan the past 2 sentences and think about Wheel of Fortune. Speaking of old-timey talking box game shows from back when TV was less annoying, did anyone ever think of the name Jeopardy and what it actually means (Risk, danger etc.)? Makes Alec seem a little bit scarier eh? Or maybe we just didn’t have a good grasp of what danger really meant back when they named the show.

I am rocking out to Queen’s of the Stone Age thanks to EWal. It’s pouring through these crazy crappy earbuds that came from some airline according to the RQ. I typed earbugs the first time and that is what they remind me of anyways so if I refer to them again I will use that. I am beginning to think that it will be easier to just spell check this beast at the end ad quit worrying about the missing N’s as they come. I have been more or less worthless since I got back from Ct or such is my opinion of the general opinion. Part of this I am going to thank/blame EWal for. See he made 2 amazing fatal errors while I was hanging out.

1. He gave me copious amounts of music. This made my compy a little heavier than normal and a good deal more lethargic. So I burned some pounds off of her and on to CDs. Stuff that I never listen to and thus would not miss. But this took considerable time and I am still not done. I also need to copy some of this good new music into CD form so that it is more easily accessible whilst driving. I don’t know as Dad is going to let me drive at all tonight so it may not come to a point where it matters today.

2. He gave me books in excess. And it isn’t like crappy books that you sorta skim through. No these are good, pull you in, become your entire world books. It’s kinda painful. (See 5L’s page for a bit of a rant on book reading that more or less applies to me) I read one book while I was still in Ct sort of under cover when I was bored and when I mentioned how much I enjoyed myself I got a full stack of books. Oh by the way these are mostly by Kurt Vonnegut who is currently ranking up there with most enjoyed authors. The other is The Hitchhiker;s Guide to the Galaxy which is becoming more fascinating on more levels than I thought possible. Suffice it to say that since break started the world as we know it has ended three times and I am in the middle of 2 books because one was packed when I had a spare 5 minutes turned half hour. At this point it is too dark to read any more and I am very distraught.

Thank God for earbugs. My headphones met an untimely demise in the nether reaches of the rainforest up the Rio Las Piedras when they were trod upon by myself. Some loud and angry words ensued followed by some degree of mouring. I guess it wasn’t all that untimely. I just wasn’t ready for them to go yet. I had them for 3 years which is the longest I have ever managed to keep any pair alive. So the earbugs were an afterthought. After I thought of how miserable a trip listening to only their music would be and questioned the RQ on the location of headphones and a music playing device and after she though she could find a good pair. I can tell I am going deaf because these have to be dangerously close and dangerously loud to more or less block out the stream of commercial free middle aged country slipping in to the magical new box on the dashboard and out through the speakers. I don’t care. Dad got mom Sirius for Christmas and gave it to her early for the trip out. The HGG mentions Sirius (or something very like it anyways) in less than happy terms. My vote is still out and it has me thinking about consumption. Get ready it is about to get deep.

I have heard it said (and as I like the concept I have said) that when you drink in a bar you do not buy the beer, you only rent it. This is true to an extent. You pay to use it for a little while but usually you return the liquid in some form before exiting the bar (though you might wait until you get outside to project it or water your car tires), but as you damage the form of it to the point where it cannot be reused I don’t think it is actually renting. In general the same is true of food and I am finding Sirius Radio too. You purchase something for a price and it is prepared and consumed. If you don’t use it by a set time it becomes unusable garbage…unless you compost. So we have this little box on the dash feeding us music so that we can consume it. We take it in, fire some electrons, and maybe form a memory about something. The rest is lost forever in heat and brain electricity. Kinda like a toilet flush. Sept what you flush can be reprocessed to kill all the bad guys and then used to grow more corn and carrots that you aren’t going to really digest anyways. But what happens to the waste sound waves? And here is another thing, when you buy/rent food or beer you are trading money (granted this is often an imaginary idea stored in computer chips or in value placed on pretty colored pieces of paper but that is another rant I am not prepared for tonight) for a physical commodity. In theory you could trade this with someone else for other goods or services if you felt so inclined. You might even make a little extra imaginary money. When you buy a CD you get a physical object capable of creating music on demand indefinitely (if you take care of it anyways). When you buy the radio you get a stream of sound waves that pour out of a sound wave generating machine. A few bother in the direction of your ears and the rest skitter away to parts unknown. What are you actually purchasing? Can you break it down in to each wave length costs ~0.001 cents if you listen an hour a day? How can you tell if that is worth it? How do you place a value on noise from a box? And how arrogant is the bastard that says my happiness is worth X dollars a month, or an hour, or a minute? If I am one of those cheap and easy types… easily amused with little to no money invested…does that some how make me less valuable than mall worshiping, SUV driving, cable purchasing soccer mom? How does this work?

Y’all are going to find this painful if I actually decide to post this. It is beastly long…but less melancholy than the last…at least in my opinion.