My two dollars

I want them.

Happy Birthday to Me.

It being July, and this being Milt, I am due for a post. So, what's been goin' on?
Runnin, lots . . .
Really burned out at work, but the traditional Sergei & Mona mini-vacations are helping . . .
Had my 20th high school reunion recently; many fat and bald men, of which I am happily neither . . .
Still battling the wart on the bottom of my foot, though I finally seem to have the advantage . . .
Discovered Osamu Tezuka's Buddha series and absolutely love it . . .
Had stopped lifting weights to give my back time to properly heal; just started easing back in to it . . .
I've gone 2 1/2 years without drinking even a drop of beer, which is like a fish saying he's gone 2 1/2 years without a swim . . .
I had thought the feds were keeping our stimulus check as we pay quarterly taxes; was pleased to get a notice that the check is in fact on its way; was disappointed to realize we'll use check to pay quarterly taxes . . .
I'll be 38 in a week . . .

I am aware of all internet traditions as well.

Or rather, I am aware of all teh internet traditionz.

Delicious meme is delicious.

O rly?

Goin' jingle-ingle-ing

Mona's word for the day is "change." Rather than compose a proper post, I am more of a mood to list some free-flowing thoughts:

1. The Buddhist concept of impermanence is beautiful and sad, terrifying and liberating. Interestingly, of all the aspects of my life where I see impermanence reinforced, my hobby of genealogy brings it home most often. All of these people who lived hundreds of years ago led lives just as heartfelt and full of success, failure, love, anger, loss, and joy as we do; accomplishments large and small; politicians and millionaires, criminals (often all three at once), carpenters, sailors, rail-road workers, rich and poor. Virtually all of them, and everything they did, and possessed, and felt, is now washed away from our memories. Completely. But for the occasional bookworm like myself, they might never have existed at all, and we can never really know the full texture of those lives based on the paltry records that exist. It has always been this way and always will be this way. The second part of the lesson of impermanence (which I will not give you here) is the important part - if you figure it out, or even if you spend time trying to figure it out - tada! You're a buddhist!

2. My body changes all the time, but not in ways I want it to. The 70 pounds I lost more than two years ago has stayed off, through brutal and unforgiving will power. I haven't had a sip of beer in more than two years. I haven't had more than a 1/4 cup of cheese in the last year. I work out all the fucking time; too much, in that I keep messing up my back, my feet are a wreck, and I had to have surgery over this lifestyle change. And I'm certainly skinnier, I'm certainly in the absolute best physical shape I have ever been in in my life, and I'm closing in on 40. And I am entirely unsatisfied and unhappy with where it all is. I still have so very far to go, its almost soul crushing.

3. When I compare paragraph 2 with paragraph 1, I have to laugh at myself. I am in the middle of a fabulous book - After the Ecstasy, the Laundry, by Jack Kornfield. It explains why those two paragraphs work together.

4. You should be reading magazines along the line of Popular Mechanics and Popular Science right now. There is a theory that I think has a name, but I cannot remember it right now. The theory suggests that human beings have, historically, brought themselves to the brink of disaster many times, but that it requires such situations before we are collectively motivated to find a way out of them. Think of agriculture, germ theory, humanism, the industrial advances brought on by wars, etc. Regardless of one's political stance on global warming or climate change, there is a perception that we are all in peril, and sure enough, you can see some amazing potential solutions coming, if you look for them. If you are going to have faith in something, it might as well be science.

I'd prefer it be mindnumbing.

You have heard the ads for a website that sells you your otherwise-free credit report (I won't be linking to a commercial site, thank you very much). You know the ads - three guys singing a catchy ditty about how they should have gone to "free credit report dot com," and how for their failure to do so, their lives have gone horribly wrong.

These ads are driving me up the fucking wall.

The songs are genuinely catchy, but the message makes no fucking sense. I mean NO fucking sense. At least the "HeadOn" commercials do you the courtesy of never really saying what the product does (its true - pay attention next time). These damn credit-report ads are incoherent. "Illogic" doesn't do them justice.

The worst of them: musician in a pirate suit, while singing a catchy song, explains that due to being a victim of identity theft he must now serve fish sticks to tourists in a themed restaurant. That's like saying that because I had a hot dog for lunch I must now use a pen containing blue ink rather than black. Or because I took the highway today rather than local roads to get to my office, I'll have to use a 45-watt lightbulb instead of a 60-watt in my lamp. Or if it hadn't been for my horse, I never would have made through that year of college. Or any OTHER THING THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY FUCKING SENSE.

People who are the victims of identity theft become low-end waitstaff? Or is it that people who are the victims of identify theft are no longer eligible for certain jobs? Are they suggesting that those of us who are already educated and employable have those characteristics trumped if somebody steals our credit card? And how does knowing you have been the victim, after the fact, fix this? They aren't claiming to help you prevent or cure identity theft, just to become aware of it before you become a waiter. And isn't it true that one of the most common ways that our credit card numbers get stolen is by FUCKING WAITSTAFF AT LOW-END RESTAURANTS??

The more I think about it the more it hurts.

I'd go get some HeadOn, but I don't know what it does.