Random Thoughts

If I were a black man (and I know I start a lot of blogs off this way, so I apologize) I would always be concerned that I would be the reason that my white friends are able to tell jokes. They would always end them with "It's ok. I have a black friend."




I watched a stand-up special with Dane Cook recently where he mentioned X-Box and acquiring the "gatling gun." I have heard so much about the gatling gun that I looked it up. Surely it is something that is used in Bond movies, right? Wrong. It was the first working machine gun. It over-heated quite a bit and was put out of commission. Now the only ones that are used are major machines on war ships and planes. So, a hand-held one would be quite unusable, or at the very least, unreliable. Look it up on wikipedia.



Can you imagine going back in time only a few decades to tell the people of the early 80's that we would have mobile telephones? It would be nuts. We would tell them that nearly everyone on the planet would have their own phone in their pocket and could be contacted at any time. It would be like a giant walkie-talkie system with phones. Plus these phones would be able to take and send pictures and video. And not only that, you would be able to connect to the internet (which would also blow their mind... and probably have them investing in Apple and IBM earlier than most) right from a telephone.
Technology in general is scary. I was in a car last weekend that had a GPS device in it. I have heard of these and knew what they did (obviously) but, had never seen one working. It showed, to the intersection, where we were and what we needed to do to get to our destination. It was amazing and scary in the same sense. Granted, I know that no one out there is looking for me, but if they were, with one of these things - I can't imagine it would be too hard to track me down.
But, with cell phones, you can track anyone. If you have ever seen "24" or even "Prision Break" you know that there is a way that your cell phone can give away your location at any time. By judging the signal strength of your phone against three separate towers, your location can be "triangulated" very easily. Companies are already offering this feature so you can keep track of where your kids are at all time through your computer.
While Big Brother may not be watching, it is becoming much easier if he wanted to.

Speaking of cell phones, I used to work for one of the major carriers. I'm not sure if I ever told anyone who that was, but you begin to associate with those who have that particular cell carrier. I joking mentioned to my friend Luke (Who is still stuck in call center hell for that company) that a true friend has our carrier. All others must be eliminated as traitors. After a while of working for that company, they nearly brain wash you into believing that. I imagine nearly 90% of their employees have that type of cell service. Especially those who are weak-minded and would fall prey easily to the brain washing. Heaven forbid them associate with anyone who has a PrimeCo account. (I know that PrimeCo is dead, but for the sake of not getting sued by a major company, I used them.)

Speaking of PrimeCo, I always had a problem with them. Granted, when I used to sell cell phones, I sold a great deal of PrimeCo. Hell, I was even a customer of PrimeCo for a long time. This was back when you could fit your cell phone in your pocket, but that was about it. This was long before color screens and flip phones. The Motorola StarTac was a big seller because it was the "sea shell" design.
But, my problem with PrimeCo was it's mascot. That little pink alien was cute and all, but a thief none-the-less. He needed to get a PrimeCo phone to get back home to his family in outer space. (Because PrimeCo had such incredibly advanced technology that it must be from another planet) But, the phones were only $100. Surely he could have gotten a job for a week or less and saved up $100 to get a phone and be home-free. However, that lazy bastard decided to steal the phone instead of going out into the workforce. Now, I am against illegal aliens taking our jobs, but if it is only for $100, I might look the other way.
Instead this pink jerk-face was living off of the government and was a known criminal. I'm surprised that John Walsh never did a segment on him on America's Most Wanted.

Canada is our neighbor to the north and I know nothing about them other than the fact that they are north of us and that there is a maple leaf on their flag. Oh, and that it is cold there and they enjoy hockey. Do they have a president or prime minister? I don't really know. But, what I do know is that they know a great deal about us. They are always trying to top us - their big brother to the south. However, it seems that we don't even really notice. I really should learn more about Canada, but I have decided - what's the point?

I have an alarm clock that amazes the hell out of me. I don't know how it does it, but it knows what time it is at all times. Yes, I know - clocks have been doing that for many years. However, this one is electric and remembers what time it is when the power goes out. When the power comes back on it flips through the numbers like the counter on "Lost" and ends up on the correct time. It also knows what day and date it is. Plus it remembers what each of the two alarms were set at. Somehow when it is put to sleep with a power outage, it wakes up remembering everything. There are some mornings that I wake up that I have to remind myself stuff like "Today is Thursday. You don't have to go into work for a while. You have the option of sleeping later if you choose." Or if I'm in a hotel room it takes me about 30 seconds to remember where I am and why my surroundings don't look anything like my room.

When I was younger I watched a movie over and over again (we'll see who can guess what movie it was - you get 10 points if you do!) where the main characters get locked in a freezer and have to use a touch-tone phone to get a message across to their friends as to where they are. They used the phone to type songs into their friend's phone. They were eventually resuced and things were fine. So, it wasn't until recently that the fear of being locked in a freezer was something that I had. I went, for the first time on Tuesday, into the freezer in the restaurant. There is the main freezer and one just to the right that is even colder than the first. I went deep into the freezer the first time that I went in. As soon as I turned around to leave, I didn't see a handle on the door and (pardon the pun) froze in my tracks. I had a minor panic-attack when I thought that I didn't have any way out of there.
I pushed on the door and it opened for me. It must have been set up that way so if you are carrying something out of there, you don't have to use the handle to get out. However, for those of us who are concerned with freezers and tight places in general - not a great idea.
I hate bars that are crowded and that you have to hold your beer to your chest to get through the crowd. I don't feel that I have a fear of tight places because I've never wigged out in an elevator or anything. I think it's more of an annoyance with having to deal with so many people in my personal space.

That is the end of the Random Thoughts for this week. Join me next week, friends!!!