Retired Names/Numbers

You know how in baseball they retire the numbers of famous players after they retire? On the Yankees, the numbers of Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, and others are all retired, i.e. nobody else on that team will ever get to wear that number.* I think in India they should retire the name Gandhi. It's just weird to see that name on some minor actress. In fact, it always bugged me that Indira Gandhi had it because she was so un-Gandhiesque.

*Interesting sidelight: Mariano Rivera has the number 42. That number has been permanently retired throughout major league baseball because it belonged to Jackie Robinson. Mariano was grandfathered in, i.e. he had the number before they made the rule. So when he retires, nobody will ever wear that number. The odd thing is that he should certainly have his number retired but they can't really do that because the number is already retired. I wonder what they'll do.

Retired numbers/names

You know how in baseball they retire the numbers of famous players after they retire? On the Yankees, the numbers of Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, and others are all retired, i.e. nobody else on that team will ever get to wear that number.* I think in India they should retire the name Gandhi. It's just weird to see that name on some minor actress. In fact, it always bugged me that Indira Gandhi had it because she was so un-Gandhiesque.

*Interesting sidelight: Mariano Rivera has the number 42. That number has been permanently retired throughout major league baseball because it belonged to Jackie Robinson. Mariano was grandfathered in, i.e. he had the number before they made the rule. So when he retires, nobody will ever wear that number. The odd thing is that he should certainly have his number retired but they can't really do that because the number is already retired. I wonder what they'll do.

Commercials, part 2

Sex in Commercials

A wealthy man is eating dinner at his favorite restaurant when a heart-stoppingly gorgeous woman sits down a table by herself. The man calls the waiter over and tells him to bring the woman a bottle of the restaurant's most expensive wine with his compliments. He sees the waiter bring the bottle over to the woman. She writes a note and the waiter brings the bottle and the note over to the man's table. The note reads: "For me to accept a bottle of wine from a man, he would have to have 5 million his bank account, a Ferrari in his garage, and twelve inches in his pants." The man keeps the bottle and sends back a note that reads: "I have 20 million in my bank account, a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, a Rolls, and a Mercedes in my garage, but not even for a woman as beautiful as you would I cut six inches off my penis."

Perils of Pedestrianism

It's getting harder and harder to walk around the streets of New York City--or to be more accurate, the streets of Manhattan. Partly it's because more and more smaller buildings are being replaced by more and more larger buildings, which means there are more and more people occupying a static amount of space.

Adding to this is the seemingly exponential growth in the number of tourists. This is in large part due to the state of the US economy and the poor state of the US dollar vis-a-vis other currencies. This makes it more economical for furriners to come here than for us to go there. It also means that many Americans can't even afford trips overseas so they travel locally.

The influx of tour buses is so extreme that the city is considering building a huge parking garage for them just to get them off the streets. And there are areas of the city, particularly in lower Manhattan, where the width of the sidewalks has been increased to accommodate tourists entering and exiting the buses, which cuts into the flow of vehicular traffic.

Surgeon General

My choice for Surgeon General: Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Need I explain why?

Corporate Jets

I was reading an article in the Times today about the market for corporate and private jets. There are jets being sold for $40-$60 million, with an addition $8 million being spent on decorating the cabins to resemble hotel suites. And these aren't being sold at the rate of several per year. They're being cranked out at the rate of hundreds per year.

While the average traveler is being gouged by the airlines and provided with ever-decreasing levels of service, these corporate types, many of whom are probably airline executives, are roaming around in luxury. Aside from the incredible disparity in world wealth this represents, these people obviously no concern for the environment. While the average gnugny is worried about electric cars and recycling his garbage, these people are willing to spew billions of gallons worth of waste into the atmosphere, not to mention ginning up the price of oil. Ironically, this comes at a time when we're being treated to ads from communications companies showing how business can be conducted globally without actual travel. So the main transportation purposes of these corporate jets is to send their people on junkets, many I'm sure to visit their properties in places like New York City where they artificially jack up the price of real estate.

Descartes on breakfast

Cogito Eggo sum.
I think I am a waffle.

No wonder his hair looks so good

Click on the image to see it in action.

Lexicology

The Fahrenheit temperature scale is named after Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, a German physicist, who proposed it in 1724. However, the word fahrenheit, literally means "go-ness," from "fahren," meaning to go or to travel and "heit," meaning "-ness." For example, Gesundheit means "health-ness."

What this has to do with anything I have absolultely no idea, and actually, since it's not a complaint maybe it shouldn't even be on this blog.

Surgeon General

My choice for Surgeon General: Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Need I explain why?

Health Care

I received an email that asked me to participate in a survey and it contained the line "I'll bet you didn't wake up this morning thinking about paticipating in a survey." No. What I did wake up this morning thinking about was my ever-increasng list of things that would make a military dictatorship palatable. And as I took one of my $5 per capsule medications (let me repeat that: $5 per capsule!!!), I was reminded that fixing the health care system is number one on the list.

I guess I should clarify about the military dictatorship thing. It's just that there are so many problems that don't seem susceptible to voluntary solutions that sometimes it's tempting to think that solutions could somehow be imposed. Unfortunately, the military dictatorships don't always fix what they promise to and they create other problems that usually outweigh any good they do. So don't think I'm a Stalinist.

Back to health care: So there's the price of medications. I recently had a temporary lapse in my health care coverage and I had to pay full price for my prescriptions so I became painfully aware of their cost. OK, I know drug companies need money for research, and blah-de-blah, but there has to be a point at which they've recouped their costs and even have enough left over to pay doctors to recommend their products (which they do, by the way, though not directly). So after that point, the prices should be reduced.

Then there's the question of how complicated everything gets, the amount of paperwork, what's covered and what's not. I recently had surgery on my knee which ultimately involved getting a walker and a cane. These weren't covered--not expensive but still you'd think an indispensable part of the process. Then when the time came for the visiting nurse to remove my staples, the "kit," consisting of a staple puller and dressings, weren't covered. I suppose I might have known this in advance if I had read the telephone book-sized manual the HMO sent me. But shouldn't there be some determination of what's essential to procedure so the patient doesn't have to figure it out?

Youl'll notice that I'm just now getting to the universality of health care. If you had a roommate and he or she was sick and didn't have the resources to take care of him- or herself, wouldn't it occur to you that if that person continued to be sick it would affect you and that you should do something about it? Well guess what. The citizens of this country are our roommates. Wake-up up out there!

Just think how much work and time I could save by just saying Aaaargh! about 100 times.