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Christmas on Venus and Mars

A woman wrote “Ask Amy” for advice concerning her husband. The wife complains that she does all the preparations for Christmas and her husband does nothing. She wants to quit and let her husband suffer the consequences.

I find it hilarious that men are supposed to know that men and women view things differently, but women expect men to view things the exact same way they do.

Let’s imagine if this woman carries out her threat. You know what will happen? Nothing.

The wife will complain that if she doesn’t do the baking, there will be no Christmas cookies and crumpets. However, if her husband really wanted Christmas baked goods, he’d simply buy some.

I’m sure the wife will complain that the Christmas cards wouldn’t get sent out if her husband was in charge. And she’s absolutely right. But the thing is, we don’t give a fuck about cards. If we want to wish someone holiday cheer, we’ll wish them that cheer when we see them, in a phone call, or a text, or whatever. We see no need to send out a bunch of cards.

And speaking of cards, I’m sure the wife will complain that the thank you cards wouldn’t be mailed out. Once again, she’d be right. But also once again, the husband wouldn’t give a fuck. You know who came up with the byzantine rules of etiquette such as sending thank you cards? Those rules were created back in the 1800s by wealthy women who didn’t work and had servants, so they spent their free time making up stupid rules.

If a man wants to thank someone for giving him a gift, he’ll say, “Thanks.” If it was mailed to him, the next time he sees or texts him he’ll say, “Thanks.”

And of course the wife will complain that unless she does it, the Christmas decorations will never be put up or taken down. Once again, she’s probably right. But men don’t care about the vast majority of stuff the woman put up. Other than the tree, men want their house just like it is the rest of the year. And we only want a tree if there are young kids in the house.

And saving the best for last, the wife will complain that without her, the presents will not get bought. Note to women. You’ve turned gift giving into a spectator sport. The act of buying gifts and creating a presentation with the gift is more important than the giving. If men want to buy someone something, “Oh, dad would really like this,” we’ll just buy it for him. We might pay to get it wrapped, if it’s for a chick, otherwise we’ll just give it unwrapped. It’s about giving someone you love something they’ll love. Not about outdoing what everyone else is doing.

And sure the gift list will be a lot smaller with the husband in charge, but ladies, we simply have no desire to buy presents just because. Especially for people we never see or don’t give a fuck about.

In a nutshell, the real reason the wife spends so much time preparing for Christmas is because she wants to. She likes looking for “just the right Christmas card.” Spending time looking for “just the right family picture” to include the the card. Spending time baking “just the right cookies” for the holidays. Spending time shopping to get “just the right gift” for someone she has not actually seen in years.

She’s deluding herself by thinking she’s doing it for her husband’s benefit. She’s doing it for herself. And if she no longer enjoys doing it, stop. It’s really that simple.

Sure we sit around a lot in the winter and watch a lot of football or basketball. But there’s a good reason for it, that’s what we like to do. As I said, you guys like going to shop. We like staying in and watching TV.

Furthermore, it’s not like men sit on their asses all winter. We’re the ones who shoveled the driveway, started up the wife’s car to get it warm, and scraped all the car’s windows so the wife could get her car out of the driveway to do her Christmas shopping. Of course we do have an ulterior motive other than keeping her safe: Keeping her out of our hair while we watch sports.

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When I was a kid…

When I was a kid, musicians were arrested on stage for inciting riots or for exposing themselves. Nowadays they’re arrested for not paying child support.

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Public conversations are not private

A bunch of people are complaining that lawyers are able to access and use “private” facebook content in lawsuits.

The people who are complaining have a complete misunderstanding of what private means. If you tell someone, even one person, something private, it’s no longer private. Unless the person you told has some sort of legal duty to keep it private.

So if you talk to your physician (or wife, or lawyer, etc.) about something private, it’s against the law for the physician to tell anyone else about it. Accordingly, a court cannot order the physician to tell anyone else about it.

However, if you tell your physician something private in room full of people who overheard you, you’ve waived the privilege. To put it simply: the second you tell someone without privilege something private, it’s no longer private.

As I noted before, facebook is full of “people who want to be able to reveal all — but don’t want for anyone else to violate their ‘privacy.’”

To the facebook generation: If you want your privacy, simply stop divulging it. If you want to divulge every detail of your life with your friends, accept the consequences of your actions.

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Why does Charter make it so difficult to shop and buy?

Would you buy a clothes, a book, an automobile without knowing exactly what you’re buying. Imagine going to buy a new outfit at Amazon and being offered mere “clothing” without any specific information about what you’re getting. No color, no size, no quantity, no indication of whether you’re getting a shirt, pants, underwear, etc…

For some strange reason that’s how Charter operates. As you’re probably aware, we’re now in the high definition age. Every so often I get the HD itch and think about upgrading my Charter cable service to digital with more HD programing. (Right now I’m only getting a handful of local QAM channels.)

I go to Charter’s website to see what sort of offers they have and I get no information. I click on the Cable option, then the HD option. Then the digital HD option. I see a “build a bundle” option so I click that. I put in my address of course, so technically, they should know exactly who I am because they send me a bill to that very same address every month. However, for some reason they don’t recognize that I already have an account with them at that very same address.

Regardless, the “build a bundle” option brings up a non-working page.

I go back and click the “Cable Packages and Channels” link. It says I can “choose the channels and features” I want. Great, right?

Nope, it brings up yet another link where I can check out “offers.” There’s no option for me to pick what channels I get. Still, I go forward. This time there’s an option to enter my phone number. They finally figure out that I’m a customer. I have no idea what my username and password are, but it allows me to go forward without them. For some reason it warns me that the pricing may be inaccurate. They know my address, they know exactly what they offer at my address, and I assume they know what they charge for those services, so why would the pricing information be inaccurate?

This is one of the many offers I receive:

It says I get Sports, movies and more in Hi-Def, but what channels do I get in HD? It says I get local channels, but are they in HD?

Ah, I know what you’re thinking, click the “learn more” link and all your questions will be answered… yeah fricken right.

I do click the link and learn the price after the first six months is 70 bucks. I also learn that I only receive ten channels in HD, but they are “the top rated networks.” What does that mean? The most popular networks? The most highly rated networks? The most highly regarded by critics networks?!

Right now I’m pay $52 a month for basic analog cable, so I don’t need any converter box and can use my PC based Media Center as a DVR. Right now I’m getting ABC, Fox, NBC, and CBS in HD.

For $216 more per year I get 6 additional HD channels. I have no idea if I want them because I have no idea what they are. I will be required to use a converter set-top box, so my TV and computers, that work as DVRs, will no longer work.

Needless to say, I don’t see any value in that. Now maybe if I was able to pick the exact channels I wanted in HD, it might be worth it. However, they won’t even tell me what channels I’m getting. What if it’s all home and gardening crap? What if it’s Spike, TNT, FX, USA or any of the other craptacular 24 hours-a-day of advertising channels?

So, needless to say, my HD itch goes away very quickly. You’d think Charter would make it easy for me to upgrade to an HD service. But they don’t. I can’t help but wonder who are buying these services without first knowing what they’re getting.

If there are actually people in the world who buy stuff without knowing what they’re getting, maybe Amazon should start selling “clothing.”

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Thoughts While Camping

I just got back from camping in the the Upper Peninsula. I have a few thoughts.

Anyone who smokes should not be given an oxygen tank and an Amigo to ride around on. Smoking or oxygen, it’s your choice. Maybe death panels would be a good thing.

I hate diesel trucks. Not semis. It’s those ginormous and deafening trucks guys with small penises drive.

Speaking of vehicles I hate, I hate those ginormous RVs. You know, they’re about the size of most houses were from the ’50s except they’re on wheels. At least I found one that was aptly named. It was called the Intruder. It was definitely intrusive. If you loving living in a house so much, stay at home.

The U.P. is one of the few places on earth you can walk around in public with a water stain on the butt-crack of your shorts and not feel self-conscious about it.

Convenience stores in the U.P. have stuff you can’t find anywhere else.

It is possible to spend a week without the internet.

Five miles is long fucking way to walk when the terrain is rough.

Despite all visual evidence to the contrary, the Tahquamenon River does not taste like root beer.

Pumping gas then going into the store to pay is sort of cool.

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Some things never change

Way back in the 70s and 80s the seniors in my high school participated in what was called a “senior skip day.” It was one day in the last month of the school semester where all the seniors would skip classes.

Kids today are using Facebook to organize such skip days. But instead of blaming the kids, the schools and parents are blaming Facebook. It’s such a compelling and devastating problem that a judge has even ordered Facebook to stop students from organizing skip days.

It’s amazing we accomplished such an amazing feat as skipping class without the use of social networking or smart phones back when I was a kid. Of course driving around with bald feet was a huge downside.

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When going green means it’s someone else’s problem

Someone recently dropped off a bunch of old magazines to my work so the public could read them while they wait. He was very proud of himself for not throwing these magazines away. No use filling up the landfills, right?

Does this guy seriously think that shifting his garbage to someone else to throw away actually solves anything? Certainly these magazines will not stay here forever. Eventually someone will throw them away. (Me, actually.) So it’s only a matter of time before they get tossed in a landfill.

I see this sort of BS directed to kids. You know, the whole recycle, reduce and reuse mantra. I see nothing wrong with recycling and reducing. But reusing is merely delaying the inevitable. Kids are told for example, instead of throwing away a jar, use it to store your coins. That works if you need a jar to store your coins. If you don’t, you’re only delaying the inevitable. Heck, come to think of it, even if you do need a jar to store coins, you’re still only delaying the inevitable. Someone somewhere is going to throw that jar away.

And what about the next jar? Or the jar after that? How many fricken coins do kids have nowadays? Don’t they buy candy anymore?

Sure we could recycle those jars and the magazines that get dumped on us by rude fucktards who thought they were saving the planet by delaying the inevitable. But why didn’t they do that in the first place? Why should it suddenly be my responsibility merely because they’re too fucking lazy to do it themselves?!

To me anyone who dumps his garbage on someone else under the pretense of “reusing” is at best being a prick. At worst being an idiot.

“Look at me I’m saving the planet by forcing someone else to do my recycling for me!”

La de fucking da!

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How can people afford cell phones II

I thought about getting my wife an iPhone for Mother’s Day. I researched getting a smart phone when the Droid was released. So I was sort of prepared for the cost, but even so I was still shocked.

The 16gb iPhone costs 200 bucks. That doesn’t sound too bad. But you also need a voice/data plan. That’s about $70 per month. Despite the fact that texting is nothing but data, you also need a separate texting plan for about $20 per month.

So adding it all up you’re paying about 100 bucks per month for nearly $2,400 in total over the two year plan.

I realize I’m an old fart. I realize this post makes me look completely out of touch. But I used to pay less than 100 bucks a month for rent back in the 90s.

I remember back in the bad old days when AT&T was a pure monopoly. Back then you paid a nominal amount for local calls. However, you were utterly reamed to call long distance.

AT&T’s monopoly was broken up and suddenly it became real cheap to make long distance calls. VoIP made it even cheaper.

Yet after deregulation AT&T is still reaming us. In the bad old days you could always lower your bill by making fewer long distant call. You can’t do that any more. You’re paying a ton each month even if you leave your phone turned off and never use it. And the worst part is that people are lining up to be reamed. It simply makes no sense to me.

I think a good definition of “being old” is when you’re utterly perplexed by the activities of the young. That fits me perfectly.

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How can people afford cell phones?

I was considering getting the hot new smart-phone the Droid. Apparently, it’s quite awesome. But whenever a company is selling a service along with a product, the price of that service seems to never enter polite conversation. “Don’t look behind the curtain, just admire its awesomeness.”

Well, to use the phone you have to pay $300 up front and hope you get back $100 via a rebate. To me rebates are synonymous with lotteries. Heck, at least with a lottery you know your exact probability of winning. With a rebate you’re never quite sure until the check mysteriously turns up months later or until you’re denied because you forgot to cross an “i” and dot a “t”.

I’d also have to sign up for a voice plan. Right now I’m paying no more than 9 bucks per month on my TracFone. With Verizon’s cheapest plan I’d be paying $40 per month for 450 minutes, which are not actual minutes but mere subjective and mutable units of measurement (yes I realize that’s a contradiction of terms). Still, it’d be a enough for me a month. I use less than that for 6 months.

Regardless, even though that’s well over four times more than I’m paying now, the Droid is awesome. You can check email, write documents with Google apps, check out videos on YouTube, use it as a GPS… fricken wow man!

But wait, to use all of those cool features I’ll also need a data plan. That’s another $40 per month. I know this next statement will date me, but I remember when car payments were about $80 per month.

Who are these people that can afford this crap each month? I know I’m neither rich nor wealthy, but I see people with much less income than me using such phones and I cannot understand how they can afford them.

Update – Nov. 13, 2009: If I need more evidence to confirm my choice, there’s this story from Slashdot:

“If you buy a smartphone through Verizon, be prepared for an increase in the early termination fee. Verizon is doubling the phone-subsidy to $350. What’s more, is that Verizon also actively charges customers for accidental data transmissions of as little as 0.02kb. ‘They configure the phones to have multiple easily hit keystrokes to launch ‘Get it now’ or ‘Mobile Web’—usually a single key like an arrow key. [...] The instant you call the function, they charge you the data fee. We cancel these unintended requests as fast as we can hit the End key, but it doesn’t matter; they’ve told me that ANY data–even one kilobyte–is billed as 1MB. The damage is done.’”

It looks like I’ll be sticking with my 1100 Nokia for a long time.

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