When I was a kid………

My mother told me many times,

“Any baby can grow up to be the president”.

Sadly, my mother never knew how wide a net “Any” could cast.

Those 500 Cel Minutes You Paid For…

“Grab your ankles, y’all might feel some, eh… pressure”!

Hey, what’s that curly thing?

I now can see that the only way I’ll ever get even close to the 500 minutes for one flat rate that my cel provider has promised will be if I was to make one call and time it very carefully: Push SEND to start that call and talk for 499 minutes and 59 seconds, and then quickly push END.

This is a result of “rounding up”, a gift that the phone companies have given themselves, i.e. your 1 minute and 7 seconds call will show up as 2 minutes. Multiply that by almost every call you make and consider it to be your holiday all year round gift to Ma Bell or whoever you happen to be using (or more correctly, who is using you).

The more short calls you make the worse it gets for your total expenditure, as each call potentially offers the phone company another $ gift donation. You’d think that there could / would be a windfall profits tax in there somewhere, but you’d be wrong.

I’ve had mobile phone service since 1978, going through the permutations from MTS (mobile telephone service) and IMTS (improved mobile telephone service) in my car, then one of the first cel phones in the form of a 25 pound briefcase “mobile” (perhaps it’s mobile if you’re a weight lifter) phone.

It looked somewhat like this

True, it was better than the 60 pound trunk mount IMTS monster that preceded it, but with a very limited life span on operation from the enclosed batteries. Next came the Radio Shack 1.6 watt carry around that was about the size and shape of an old school lunch box, which begat the Motorola Brick, then (in the late 1980’s) things finally got lighter and smaller.

Hands free, the early days

As I recall from many years ago, the bill for my first cell phone had the charges shown in 6 second increments, so that call mentioned above with a duration of 67 seconds only cost me, even with rounding up, one minute and two tenths, not the two minutes it would be today. Again, do the math.

I suppose I could live with most of the thieving sort of crap associated with the communications industry, I just wish their customer service people could work on finding a way to get their accent of India filtered out.

Don’t like it? Don’t call me, I’ll call you, but it’ll be after 9 p.m., before 6 a.m., or sometime on the weekend when it’s free. That reminds me, did you know that cel calls used to be free after 6 p.m. and before 8 a.m.? However, some bean counter figured out that by pushing that time back an hour would generate x million dollars more income for,  eh… nothing during a given physical year, and so it went until how it is now when after 9 p.m. and before 6 a.m. are the “New Normal” off peak minutes for us lemmings. BOHICA indeed!

N.B., The ownership of any and all photos, opinions, and/ or quotes above (including those of mine) belong to the material’s creator(s). Credit is given when it’s known, but because success usually has a million parents and failure is an orphan, blame will not be so attributed. 

Feel free to ignore any ads that are shown below, I don’t choose them and (sadly) I don’t make a penny off any of them.

P.S., check back for occasional updates and rewrites….

FAIR USE NOTICE: THIS SITE CONTAINS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL THE USE OF WHICH HAS NOT ALWAYS BEEN SPECIFICALLY AUTHORIZED BY THE COPYRIGHT OWNER. I AM MAKING SUCH MATERIAL AVAILABLE IN MY EFFORT TO ADVANCE UNDERSTANDING OF ENVIRONMENTAL, POLITICAL, HUMAN RIGHTS, ECONOMIC, DEMOCRACY, SCIENTIFIC, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES, ETC. I BELIEVE THIS CONSTITUTES A ‘FAIR USE’ OF ANY SUCH COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL AS PROVIDED FOR IN SECTION 107 OF THE US COPYRIGHT LAW. IN ACCORDANCE WITH TITLE 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107, THE MATERIAL ON THIS SITE IS DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PROFIT TO THOSE WHO HAVE EXPRESSED A PRIOR INTEREST IN RECEIVING THE INCLUDED INFORMATION FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO: HTTP://WWW.LAW.CORNELL.EDU/USCODE/17/107.SHTML.  IF YOU WISH TO USE COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL FROM THIS SITE FOR PURPOSES OF YOUR OWN THAT GO BEYOND ‘FAIR USE’, YOU MUST OBTAIN PERMISSION FROM THE COPYRIGHT OWNER.  

Someone has to write it…

So politically incorrect, but so needing an airing……

Screw the writers guild, and all their pomposity.

And the horse they rode in on.

As a long time member of  I.A.T.S.E., I’m not happy that I’m now going to take an anti-union position, but then when my union was on strike, the WGA crossed our line with out hesitation. At the time they seemed to be saying “we’re in the boat, pull up the ladder.” to us, so I can only return the favor now.

In a previous career I was a still photographer, I was paid once and once only for the work I did, no residual payment when the photos were re-used. So you guys were screwed on a prior agreement? Get in line with the rest of us, and be more careful with your next contract and choice of leaders, it’s not like you’re signing a 99 year deal memo!

Fuck you all, get back to work and stop the self congratulatory back patting and whining already.

Stay Tuned!!

Something wicked funny this way comes…….

P.S., this isn’t it.

N.B., The ownership of any and all photos, opinions, and/ or quotes above (including those of my own) belong to the material’s creator(s). Credit is given when it’s known, but as always, success usually has a million parents and failure is an orphan.

Feel free to ignore any ads that are shown below this advisory, I don’t get to choose them and even more sadly, I don’t make a penny off any of them, so in the holy name of capitalism I rebuke and don’t endorse or support any of them, unless of course they’re made of funny stuff…..  

P.S., check back for occasional updates and rewrites….

FAIR USE NOTICE: THIS SITE CONTAINS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL THE USE OF WHICH HAS NOT ALWAYS BEEN SPECIFICALLY AUTHORIZED BY THE COPYRIGHT OWNER. I AM MAKING SUCH MATERIAL AVAILABLE IN MY EFFORT TO ADVANCE UNDERSTANDING OF ENVIRONMENTAL, POLITICAL, HUMAN RIGHTS, ECONOMIC, DEMOCRACY, SCIENTIFIC, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES, ETC. I BELIEVE THIS CONSTITUTES A ‘FAIR USE’ OF ANY SUCH COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL AS PROVIDED FOR IN SECTION 107 OF THE US COPYRIGHT LAW. IN ACCORDANCE WITH TITLE 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107, THE MATERIAL ON THIS SITE IS DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PROFIT TO THOSE WHO HAVE EXPRESSED A PRIOR INTEREST IN RECEIVING THE INCLUDED INFORMATION FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO: HTTP://WWW.LAW.CORNELL.EDU/USCODE/17/107.SHTML.  IF YOU WISH TO USE COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL FROM THIS SITE FOR PURPOSES OF YOUR OWN THAT GO BEYOND ‘FAIR USE’, YOU MUST OBTAIN PERMISSION FROM THE COPYRIGHT OWNER.  

And a gizmo shall lead them….

Today I welcome myself to the 21st century, albeit about 7 years late.

I finally dug up the cash to buy a GPS device. This came after working a few days (make that nights) at some strange locations around downtown L.A., and then trying to find my way to the freeway onramps to head for home a bit after 3am.

I was a bit concerned when the GPS devices first came out, what if a terrorist got hold of one? My plan to stall an invasion force by spray painting over the street signs went right out the window.

I was relieved at first by the long amount of time taken up in just trying to open the hard plastic bubble pack the thing came in, I was thinking that this will keep those bad guys from making much progress, “why, they’ll need a box cutter to get at this thing” I thought, but then I remembered that thing we swore to never forget, you know,  that thing we call 9-11!

Remember when all those evil folks from Afghanistan Pakistan Iraq Iran attacked our country, using only simple Box Cutters? Why, they must have as many of them as they have Silkworm missiles and those RPGs that Papa Bush provided to them, lo those many years ago.

I’m sure glad resident Bush spared no expense to try find, dead or alive, that 6’4″ guy who is tied to a dialysis machine, Osama bin Whatshisname, who thought up that plan…

Rest assured we will find him, most likely dead so there’s no worry about him spilling the beans (or chick peas) in court.