Matt McHugh.com - Blog - February 2009

In church today, I got a good half-hour earful on the "so-called" (a tedious attempt at rhetorical insult that's used far too often nowadays) Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). Obviously, the priest -- Catholic, of course -- had to toe the party line on this, and chose to do so with gusto. Now, I don't begrudge him or his employer their right to proselytize (though I was glad the wife was still away for the weekend), but I sure didn't take any of the little cards they passed out to send to my congressman. That strikes me as freedom in perfect balance.

Freedom is tolerating a tax-exempt, multi-national, private corporation's attempt to influence U.S. public policy. Freedom is recognizing that organization's right to assert -- no matter how historically indefensible -- that its position on this, and indeed all issues, rests on a bedrock of unerring and divinely bestowed moral authority. Freedom is gritting your teeth when someone employs unfettered hyperbole and distortion with an impervious sense of justification. Freedom is permitting others the opportunity to curtail your freedom.

I really don't care about pro sports at all, but I have to say that was one hell of a Super Bowl. I watched the first half at a party attended by a bunch of middle-aged ex-actor/musician types (my kind of peeps), so I was one of the few people actually watching attentively. I was kind of rooting for Arizona as general underdogs, but after Roethlisberger got robbed on that end zone keeper ("his knee was down" my ass), I was pulling for Pittsburgh. I figured it was in the Steeler's bag after Harrison's 100-yard interception, which even had two dozen disinterested theater dorks pounding the walls. We watched Springsteen and left to go home and put the kids to bed.

I missed the third and most of the fourth quarter giving baths and reading stories. The wife had the game on when I came down, so I asked how much the Steelers were blowing them out by. Imagine my surprise. I think the final five of minutes of Super Bowl XXLII remains the most exciting football I've ever watched (remember, I live in north Jersey), but this came a damn close second. Not likely that anything will ever equal the Manning-Tyree helmet catch, but the Roethlisberger-Holmes foot dragger* was close. I could never have imagined anything that could make me actually wish to be in a divy lounge-bar in depressed, ex-steel town Ambridge, Pennsylvania -- but I wish I could have drunk the vibe of that moment from such a source.

* - My apologies for that second link being a Disney commercial, but it was the best clip of the play I could find on YouTube. NFL Films seems pretty diligent about zapping these.

I mentioned Ambridge, Pennsylvania, as this depressed ex-steel town on the outskirts of Pittsburgh. The wife's parents are from there, and I've only been there a few times myself -- most notably for her father's funeral -- but it's a place I feel like I know the sad gestalt of all too well. Like Allentown or Bethlehem, PA, places much closer to where I grew up, it's a classic blue-color town founded on the turn-of-the century steel boom, reaching its zenith around WWII, and suffering slow, inexorable decline in the following decades. Unlike Bethlehem or Allentown, Ambridge lacks a romantic name of the fame of a Billy Joel song and is just one more unremarkable spot on the map that will most likely never see prosperity again.

I think of it, perhaps, with some unfair skewing. My longest visit was for a funeral over a suitably grey March weekend. I can't envision the place in spring or summer, with any color of life to it. But the crumbling brick downtown, the grid of undifferentiated suburban duplexes, and the monstrous shadows of inactive mills were not a trick of the season -- nor were the hangdog looks of old men in the corner lounge (local parlance for "bar"... which somehow makes it seem seedier) as they drank Pisswater Lite from plastic cups and watched rabbit-ear TVs.

It's to that scenario that I imagined a 100-yard-interception as a lightning bolt of glory. Or the pandemonium of an impossible touchdown catch in the final minute of a record-book game... what those old men, and equally if not more desperate young ones, must have felt for an instant. As I've said, I've never much care about pro sports, but sometimes I can understand why some people do. True exultation is a rare thing in any place, but in a place where the American Dream has moved on like a traveling carnival, it's a particularly precious gift. This one's for you, Ambridge and environs.

So in my usual slow and stingy way, I got around to choosing two more songs to spend some iTunes gifts on. These were some unusal ones for me:

I do actually like plenty of female artists, and even sometimes click with women songwriters. They tend to be more raw with emotions, while male songwriters like to intellectualize feelings into metaphors. Six of one, really, and all depends on mood. For some reason, I was in the mood for some chick music.

"The Fear" I happened to catch on video the other night while flipping channels. The intro caught my ear -- thought I heard a hint of "Cousin Kevin" from "Tommy" -- and the song itself seemed like a nicely cheeky bit of social satire, taking broad swipes at consumerism and media obsession. After listenting to it a few times, I like it even more. It's a perfect pop confection, with a thick synth bass that invokes the best of post new-wave Brit techno -- and the lyrics are a little sharper than I picked up at first. Not a bad change of pace on the iPod.

The Nelly Furtado song, though, is a little disappointing. It was a huge hit, and the chorus seemed to rattle in my head for years, so I decided to get it. It's not a bad pop ballad, but it strikes me as little over-produced, with her voice layered over itself conspicuously. Speaking of her voice, it's actually kind of annoying. At it's worst, it has this nasally baby-doll quality that's grating. Overall, it's an OK song and I don't hate the arrangement, but I think it's going to drop out of heavy play rotation pretty quickly.

It may, or may not, surprise you to realize that I, after having received umpteen dollars in iTunes Gift Cards for Christmas, I've only purchased four songs. Oh, and one game (Nanosaur 2... on sale for $0.99). So what's the deal, you ask?

Well, first off -- and don't underestimate the importance of this: I'm cheap. I am frugal, practical, cautious, and thrifty, yes... but I am also, plain and simple, cheap. I find spending money an almost painful experience. I get no pleasure out of buying myself things and skimp on luxuries and necessities alike. One look at the two-year-old Payless shoes I wear to work daily would convince you of that. I'm a cheap bastard, and pretty proud of it.

However, when it comes to music, I'm also obsessive. Not acquisitive, per se, but fixated. I have artists and songs I have long liked, and there are new ones that catch my ear from time to time. I either case, when I'm in the mood to listen to something, I will listen to it over and over -- more or less until I become sick of it and move on. Why? Not sure. I like to pick over the details and minutiae of everything, and a song is no different, I guess. What's more, songs are emotions to me, and I tend to get stuck in moods for extended periods. Music just lets me perpetuate that.

Beyond that, though, there's a simpler truth: I like predictable things. Some people who know me a little, might think me an adventurous type based on the way I broadly experiment with different hobbies that catch my fancy. But, anyone who's known me for any length of time knows I'm very much a staid person. I don't like my world shaken up. I've got too much on my mind to endure the distractions of reality patiently. So, I like my world, my life, my music to be established and predictable.

I was talking to a friend the other night who has a friend who works at Lehman Brothers, after Goldman-Sachs, the second major financial firm to collapse in the current financial crisis. Lehman filed for bankruptcy -- the largest in U.S. history (so says Wikipedia) -- before the government bailout got into swing. Anyway, this guy, this friend-of-a-friend, was a mid-level manager before the collapse and is one of the few remaining employees still around, working to clean things up.

The hearsay I got on this was, first off, how bitter this guy was that Lehman -- where he'd worked for 20 years -- didn't make it long enough to receive any bailout assistance. The second, and more disturbing thing, was hearing how a big part of this guy's compensation (bonuses, pension, even IRA and 529 college savings) was all paid to him in Lehman stock he wasn't allowed to touch until he reached a minimum retirement age. And it is all gone. Every cent. He once stood to get a few million by age 55. Now, after twenty years, he's starting his life savings over again at zero. Ze-RO.

That terrifies me. Lord knows I'm no financial wizard, and part of me does gladly partake of the schadenfreude of seeing greedy banker assholes (yes... they are... you know it, I know it, the American people know it) get reamed -- but, this friend-of-a-friend put a virtual face on the phenomenon that really gets to me. This guy is no different from me. Mid-40's, couple of kids, his whole working life spent at a company that seemed as stable as granite. Only difference between him and me is he lucked into a job that made him a lot more money than me. Hard to blame him for taking it. I mean, if I have had the chance, I would have gladly become a greedy banker asshole -- and anybody who says they wouldn't is simply lying. And now the cookie crumbled as he's in worse shape than I am. Just strange and frightening how it all flows. I'm crossing my fingers, I can tell you that much.

Here's what worries me most about the current financial meltdown. It reveals that our entire economy -- from the global to the national to the institutional to the personal -- is entirely based on overextended borrowing. This all went south because people bought houses they couldn't afford with mortgages from brokers who borrowed money from banks against their presumed increasing value and the banks sold those loans to investment firms who repackaged them into portfolios of ridiculously inflated value they sold to investors who bought them on credit. At every stage, you have people borrowing money to buy something perceived to go up in value faster than the interest on the loans taken out to buy them. All that has to happen is that somebody in the chain gets caught holding something of less value than what they borrowed to get it... and, boom, we all fall down.

There's a myth in there, a dangerous and pervasive myth that's been perpetrated on the country for decades, that lies at the root of the problem: the myth of limitless growth. It's all right to continuously borrow to buy (especially real estate) because everything will always go up in value. You can't lose! That mindset is what caused these current woes.

All growth has limits. Economically, socially, ecologically, and populationally (just made that word up) nothing can expand forever... at least until we have a reliable means of moving off this planet en masse. I don't believe this current depression represents the final limits of economic growth. I'm sure we'll rebound in a few years and most people (certainly not all) will emerge intact and unwise enough to get drunk again on endless credit. But I'm sure we'd all be better off in the long run if we assumed the good times were over and returned to the days of moderation (not prohibition, mind you). But, we won't. Mark my words.

I had to kill a few hours today with the kids, so I took them to the library in town. They've been there many, many times with the wife and routinely take out books and videos. I, on the other hand, in the ten odd-years I've lived in this town have only been inside the library a handful of times -- each time with my kids. I don't even have a library card.

Fascinating to think that I have no real connection whatsoever with my local library. In my defense, I have more books stacked up on my nightstand in my ever-growing reading queue than I am ever going to get through (full-time job, two kids, short commute, and a string of semi-professional hobbies... reading for pleasure is real low on the list), and any actual reference information of any substance is available online. (I can feel you Old-School Blue-Haired Library Luddites grit your teeth at that, but it's true. Been true for a decade. Just accept it.) That said, a good old public library is still an institution of real community value, and I'm happy to support it.

So, I went to the desk and got me a library card. Took out a couple books for the kids, but stopped short of borrowing the DVD of The Incredible Hulk*. Somehow, it just feels wrong to get a big-budget, dumbass action movie for free from the library. No... one should have to pay for such vices.

* P.S. - Rented it on digital cable instead. Yep. It's a big-budget, dumbass action movie... and not even a very satisfying one. I'm glad to offer up $4.99 in penance for it. Hopefully, I think twice before subjecting myself to another big-budget, dumbass action movie (though I suspect not).

I had to sit through a conference call today and listen to half a dozen people go out about how "we need to do more social network marketing." I generally keep my mouth shut now (thus hath long experience chastened my tongue) but I always want to ask, "And what, exactly, do you think you mean by that?"

Do you want to buy keyword-targeted ads on Facebook or MySpace? Do you want to start a viral buzz campaign on Twitter? Do you want all our sales reps to have LinkedIn profiles and invite clients? Do you want to create a Flickr account to post company event photos? Do you want us to suss out sites popular with different regions, demographics, professions, or hobbies and join them to seed relevant product information? Do you want to set up a virtual store on Second Life? Do you want to set up a special group on Facebook for a new product or brand launch? Do you want us to join certain other groups on Facebook? Do you want us to all write on each other's Facebook walls? Do you even have a freaking Facebook profile of your own or the slightest idea what a social network is, technologically or philosophically, you buzzword-spouting dinosaur?

Amazon announced the launch of the Kindle 2 yesterday. From what I can gather, it's a pretty modest attempt at updating the layout of the device -- mainly, modified keyboard and navigation buttons -- and a few mysterious software changes, like the ability to view purchased books on multiple devices... though that seems like vaporware at the moment.

Having kind of thrown in a bit with the iPhone as a platform, I'm bit skeptical that the Kindle represents the future of handheld reading. I've only held one once or twice in passing, but it seems like a decent device for what it's designed for -- that is, lengthy text-heavy reading -- but far from a "to touch it is to want it" supertoy that changes everything in the way the first generation iPod did for music players.

I'm still waiting. Still waiting for the mythical "iPod-for-text" that will make paper books as quaint and superfluous as 12-inch LP records. It's coming. I can feel it. I can imagine exactly what that device will need to be. If I had an electrical engineering background, or at least some industry contacts and deep-pocketed investors, I'd design it myself. But, alas, I continue to wait for someone else to slice the bread and bottle the lightning.

In reading various bits online about the Kindle 2, I came across this at pcworld.com: "Five Reasons the iPhone Trumps the Kindle." It's a little piece of fluff controversy, designed get reader attention and prompt some spirited debate. You know, the kind of thing magazines -- online or otherwise -- generally aspire to do. I posted my own two bits on the discussion board, noting I thought neither device was an ideal ebook reader and speculating on what I thought the ideal would be. Pretty tame stuff.

However, as tends to happen when you stir up nerderatti dander, some of the posts bordered on rabid. This is what you get when guys (it's always guys) with Internet connections and no girlfriends get their geek on over something close to their gadget-loving, but otherwise arrested, hearts. Usually, I don't much notice such chatter, but it seems when you register for PCWorld's message boards, they e-mail you every new comment on an article you've commented upon. So, I've got an inbox full of slavering gibberish railing against a one-page op-ed about dueling technotoys.

Sometimes, you just have these moments where you realize what energy we waste on pointless things... what passions we misdirect toward matters of no consequence. Guilty as anyone here, I suppose -- but still it bugs me.

Today, February 12, is the 5-year anniversary of when I started this blog. Some years, I've done daily entries. Some years, less than monthly. But, five years after my first entry, I still have an active blog site at the same URL. That's pretty rare in this wwwhimsical wwweb wwworld.

I don't view this as a milestone or accomplishment of any real significance. Keeping a public diary of random thoughts is not something of great social value -- though I could argue it has its place -- and it's only been intermittently useful to me personally, but having a sounding board to examine the workings of one's own mind is certainly worthwhile. I did learn a few things about myself during this enterprise -- mostly about how I dwell on similar topics over and over. I don't chide myself for that. I take it as an indicator of what matters to me, and a caution about where I am likely to get stuck in rut. Both are aspects I would not have recognized as clearly if I didn't have five years worth of scattered ruminations archived.

So, I forge onward with this, sans aims or hopes. This is only me talking to myself, allowing others to eavesdrop. It seems a lot less crazy than when I talk to myself in public (which I have been known to do). Beyond that, I don't expect any tangible benefits from it.

Oh, one other small benefit of this. I'm the number one "Matt McHugh" in Google again. All because I type more words than the others. Simple as that.

I was obliged to buy some kind of candy for the kids to give out at school for Valentine's Day (the "St." long dropped). As much as I hate token gifts for manufactured holidays, it is one of those fleeting things in young children's lives that goes by all too quickly (my 8-year old, second-grade boy will certainly be too cool for such things in a year), so I went with the flow.

What, exactly, to pick was another issue. Chocolate is right out, given the paranoia over allergies that reigns nowadays. Personally, I hate those message heart candies, and heart-shaped lollipops are only worth the effort if they're well made, which none are anymore, judging by the bags of ruby shards with sticks I saw on the shelves. Interestingly enough, up and down the Valentine's aisle in Rite-Aid, all the non-chocolate, heart-themed candy -- be it from no-name brands or familiar ones like Hershey or Wonka -- is all manufactured in Mexico, Brazil, or (horror of horrors!) China. Bad enough I have to perpetuate this pseudo-holiday with gifts of pure sugar, but I draw the line at giving my neighbors' children edibles that come from places where quality and health inspections are performed only when bidding for overseas contracts. (Note: Not that I don't think corner-cutting exists in U.S. confections manufacturing. It's just that we have lawsuits to help keep folks on their toes.) Turns out, the only non-chocolate, color-correct candy I could find made within these borders were Twizzlers, Mfd. in Hershey, Pennsylvania. I'm OK with that, so I picked up the endless 180-piece bucket for ten bucks.

But a puzzlement: how to present those red twisty whips in any manner consistent with the day's decor? I immediately thought of threading them through cut paper hearts, like a Cupid's arrow. That seemed fine, but later, in playing around with them (you have to experiment with your media to discover the true potential), I came up with the idea of bending them into a tear-drop shape, then joining the sides of two with a little tape. Voilà! A perfect cartoon heart shape from two individually wrapped Twizzlers!

Unfortunately, the tensile strength of whatever-the-hell Twizzlers are made of just isn't up to being bent like that and after 15 minutes, they crack at the stress points. My dozen or so prototype hearts ended looking like a flock of brokeback butterflies.

I even tried warming the Twizzlers first in front of a space heater, figuring they might become pliant and then cool solidly into the new shape. No go on that either -- though I did discover that warm Twizzlers taste absolutely horrible. Don't use them to stir your tea, folks. Anyway, I had to abandon the idea and go back to threading them through paper hearts. I used two in an X pattern, which kind of looked like a cool Heart-n-Crossbones thing, so it wasn't a total wash creatively.

Yes. This is the kind of stuff I do when I have an idea and a free evening. What? You spend yours any better?

Got into a car accident today. Pulled into a parking lot, and the car in front took the spot I was eyeballing. As I was passing them, I spotted an open spot just next to the original. I pulled in, but was a bit off-angle because I turned late. I hate people who park off-angle in marked slots, so I backed up a few feet, intending to pull forward and correct it. Bunk. Bumped into someone backing out of a slot on the opposite row.

I've been in, oh, maybe half-a-dozen car accidents in my life -- only one other where I was driving. They were all just fender benders, and this was perhaps the most minor of all. The rear-mounted spare tire of my RAV4 hit the rear quarter panel of some lady's SUV. I suffered no damage, save for the spare mount got bent a tiny degree off parallel. The SUV had a dent and paint scratch just above the left rear wheel. We called the cops, filed a report, exchanged numbers, and went on. I'm certainly not claiming anything on my insurance, though the woman likely will, as she leases the SUV. I don't expect anything bad out of this, but you can never be sure when insurance companies get involved.

When you have an accident, or any unexpected bit of misfortune, you have this "Oh crap..." moment, then this deep gut-wish that you could roll back a few seconds and simply prevent the bad thing. I've felt that many times in my life and I think I have become the wiser for it. Still there are things that just happen like this. To date, I have not experienced any swift and terrible tragedies in my life, and I recognize how fortunate I am for that. But, that can not last. Someday, somewhere, something unforeseeable and irrevocable will happen to me or someone I love. The harmless little bumps we experience have this way of comforting us, of making us feel like we've had our allotment of mishap and will be spared a greater visitation. While, of course, I like to toy with such superstitions, I know the cosmos minds no such accounting and doles out tragedy randomly. Prepare or pray as you will, shit will happen. Anyone who thinks different has just been lucky to date.

Took the kids to see Coraline yesterday. I actually read the book -- a slim, Young Adult paperback passed to me by a colleague -- a few years ago. It was fine for what it was, but for the movie, I was much more attracted to the elaborate stop-motion cinematography. The fact anybody is still doing this old-school, moving-dolls-frame-by-frame technique to make a feature-length film fascinates me. I think they should get a freakin' Oscar just for the attempt.

The movie was surprisingly good. The story was coherent and the visuals were impressive in every detail. Technically, the best stop-motion I've ever seen, though Chicken Run will forever be my favorite film in the genre (the two rats having the "chicken-or-egg" debate over the closing credits is pure comic genius). Anyway, what was most fun about it was the reactions of the kids (5 and 8, girl and boy, in case you've forgotten). They laughed and oohed at the silliness and beauty, and were abjectly terrified by the scary parts (it's a kids movie... so "scary" is relative). The best was their reaction to the "false ending," the moment well-familiar to anyone who's seen a few scary movies where things seem resolved -- then suddenly the villain pops out again. They both starting objecting instantly, "NO! The movie's over! I want the movie to be over!"

Being grown up and knowing how these things go, you can forget how children invest themselves in fiction. They need that happy outcome. They don't appreciate having that toyed with (actually, I know lots of adults who react that way), and they certainly couldn't accept any story where the hero loses. Interestingly, I kind of like it when the hero loses. Not when the villain wins, mind you. That's unjust. But, when the hero has to sacrifice something of such value that the victory is almost nullified... that's a drama that rings true to me.

What does that say about me, and the loss of innocence I've experienced since childhood?

Caught the movie Idiocracy on ComedyCentral last night. I'd been curious to see it since hearing about it a few years ago. It's from Mike Judge, creator of Beavis and Butt-Head, King of the Hill, and the incomparable Office Space. The finished film supposedly languished for nearly two years before being released, the buzz on it was that its mockery of big chains like Starbucks and Costco made studio executives lawsuit-shy. The basic story involves a mediocre Army corporal, played by Luke Wilson, who volunteers for a hibernation experiment and awakens 500 years in the future to find he is the smartest person on earth, human intelligence having devolved catastrophically due to consumerism and lowbrow entertainment.

As a film, Idiocracy is a pretty flimsy creation, though some of the satire is brutally hilarious. I particularly enjoyed how every time Wilson's character spoke with any sophistication, the hordes of future morons either laughed or assaulted him because he "talked like a fag." That is classic Judge... canny and brutal. The movie's surprisingly grandiose visuals depict a devastated world strewn with mountains of garbage and plastered with corporate advertising -- a cinematic vision eerily similar to what would be widely praised three years later as shocking and unique in WALL-E.

Mike Judge is a sly humorist in that his work can at once be incredibly broad and subtle. Having a world where the number one TV show -- "Ow! My Balls!" -- consists of nothing but a guy getting hit in the crotch is broad. Having characters argue that a sports drink must be good for plants because it has electrolytes, with no idea what electrolytes are, is subtle. In the movie, one of the reasons for the decline of intelligence is that all the best scientific minds for generations were exclusively focused on curing baldness and prolonging erections. Broad and subtle.

At work recently, I discovered someone had made dozens of copies of an Internet article claiming honey and cinnamon could cure any disease, including but not limited to hepatitis, acne, depression, and advanced colon cancer. I'd express my trepidation at that discovery, but they'd probably just make fun of me for "talking like a fag."

Browsing around the U.S. News and World Report site, I came across an op-ed piece criticizing a proponent of Intelligent Design (ID). Said proponent took the opportunity to post a response defending his position. Essentially, he says ID is a scientifically derived theory because investigators found biological agents that contain degrees of "complex and specified information (CSI)" too high to exist unless deliberately created. I couldn't resist plunking down my two bits on the thread. Here it is:

Casey Luskin's explanation of the scientific underpinnings of Intelligent Design basically says: "Biology is too complicated for us to understand, therefore it must have come from a Supreme Being."

That is not science. That's mythology. When you answer any question with any form of "It came from an Invisible Man in the Sky," you have abandoned the scientific method. Period.

The most fascinating, and controversial, aspect of the Invisible-Man-in-the-Sky theory is THAT IT MIGHT BE RIGHT. We certainly don't know everything about the natural world, and as any intellectually honest scientist will tell you, there are confounding gaps in evolutionary studies. But real scientists don't permit themselves the luxury of retreating to the "IMitS" theory. They're obliged to press on with matters too complicated to be immediately understood. Purveyors of ID can bail out on the scientific method at any moment they choose because they already know the answer.

And, again, they might be right. But they sure ain't scientists.

I just want to point out that I can come up with cool acronyms, too. Heh. "IMitS."

Every year, I try to build at least one decent snowman. Trouble was, this year, though we had a stretch of brutally cold weather in Northern New Jersey and a fair degree of assorted frozen precipitation, we never really got a nice layer of packable snow. Now, in mid-February, I fear we might not get a suitable dusting this winter, so here's this season's snowman...such as he is:

This was, obviously, from a mid-December snow. It was too fluffy to roll and pack, so I stacked up a mound with a shovel and carved it into the easiest shape I could think of. You may notice bits of red spattered here and there. That's red food coloring in corn syrup. Moron that I am, I thought it would be it more pure to sculpt a Santa hat from snow dyed red and that seemed like a nice, sticky, non-toxic compound to work with -- sort of like a snow cone, you know?

As you can see, it kind of got all over the place, and before I put on the felt hat, it basically looked like Santa had a horrific head wound. I scraped the drippings off best as I could... and there he stands.

The guy blew it. It should of course be "Prey IV Reign" to complete the triple pun.

In the cafeteria in my office building, there's a snack machine. You know the kind, with the glass front and inside are rows of big metal spirals with candy bars or bags of chips resting between the loops. You put in your money, punch the alpha-numeric coordinates of the row you want, and the spiral turns, corkscrewing out a particular item which drops down to the vending door. Simple, effective design.

Anyway, the one at the office doesn't seem to be stocked with the greatest of care. Sometimes there are gaps in the loops, so your selection may turn but not come far enough out to fall. It's happened to me. Other times, there is more than one item in a single loop--or one item has slipped forward to the cusp of the preceeding loop--so that two items fall on a single turn. That's happened to me also. I'd estimate I've experienced a pretty even balance over the years between the "Nada" and the "Twofer" scenarios... maybe three or four times each. Perfectly fair bit of cosmic give and take, in my view.

Though, today... a miracle happened. Three. That's right THREE candy bars fell on a single 75¢. They were Whatchamacallits. Whatchamacallits are tall and thin rectangular things, and apparently two had been accidentally loaded into one slot... and a third had inched forward from behind enough to slip out. O, that tiny moment of jubilation! The almost vindictive fist-pump "Yes!" that went all but unnoticed by but a few late-afternoon coffee bar stragglers was my barbaric yawp over the cube walls of the world! The candy gods smiled upon me today and for one paltry, three-quartered turn of the screw, I was gifted with three Whatchamacallits.

Of course, the downside was that I ate three Whatchamacallits, and now I feel like crap. Call it karma. Crispy, chocolate-flavored, peanut-butter and caramel-coated karma.

Friday night: Blue-and-Gold Cub Scout Dinner. Two-and-a-half unfettered hours of noisy irritation punctuated by moments of utter chaos, stuffed with crappy, donated fast food.

Saturday morning: Girl Scouts' Thinking Day. Two-and-a-Half hours of Daisies-through-Cadets performing dances from different countries around the world in a badly-lit auditorium while troop mothers held feedbacky microphones to old boom boxes with skippy tapes. Then, a jam-packed basement cafeteria display with food from said countries, all prepared by said Daisies-through-Cadets, served cold in foil trays because the fire marshall wouldn't let anyone light sterno cans.

I can, have, and will continue to endure all kinds of things for the sake of my kids' activities, but I don't have to like them. Noise, chaos, crowded spaces, bad theatrics, and lousy food all add up to an unpleasant time for me in any arena. I can recognize the social importance of such events. I applaud those who put in time and effort to wrangle several hundred kids and their parents into church basements, let alone rustle up any semblance of entertainment or repast for the $150 annual budget grudgingly allowed them (seriously, hats off to you all... I wouldn't do it), but I can't pretend they're not mainly migraine-inducing torments for me. I suppose some would say I'm just being a grouch. Of course I am. I'm a dad, and it's a dad's right to be grouchy. A time-honored tradition, I'd go so far as to say. I'm just starting to realize this and, in my own way, starting to enjoy it. Back-to-back scouting outings certainly provide ample opportunity to savor grumpy daditude.

Don't care. Not hostile to them. Just don't care. Kinda use to, a little. Don't now at all. So it goes.

I had a big flash of nostalgia last evening. The wife bought a box of Red Rose Decaffeinated English Breakfast Tea which contained a single ceramic figurine (from the new Calendar Series). I remember these things from my childhood. It's a vague recollection, but I can recall nagging my mother to buy boxes of tea that had those little figurines in them. Each figure was about two inches high and glazed with a single color that soaked unevenly into the crevices of the details, creating distinctive gradations. I can see a few of them on the spice rack beside the stove. Maybe a couple more scattered in the china closet. My mother was not an avid collector of anything, but for whatever reason, she had a handful of these kicking around. I guess she just liked the tea... but I always found the figures--small and tough enough to be handled by a child--compelling little treasures.

Strange that such a fragmentary recollection was so powerful for me. I immediately had to look up the history of these. Turns out they were launched in 1967 by Canadian company Red Rose, in partnership with UK-based Wade Ceramics "Whimsies" collectibles, as in-box promotional giveaways. As they became more popular, they were rolled out over larger geographic areas and different series were introduced. I have dimmest recollection of the "Noah's Ark" series--where you got the figures in the tea then sent in box tops or something to get the ark. We certainly didn't have it, but I'd seen it... somewhere. So familiar, yet I can't place it.

I need more knickknacks to collect like I need a third testicle. Yet, I can see myself nagging the wife to buy Red Rose Tea from now on. I can even imagine plunking down $25 (a $45 value! For a limited time!) for the complete Noah's Ark - with FREE figurines set for sale on redrosetea.com. Why? Don't know. I think I may have a problem. I may need to go to a KKA (KnickKnacks Anonymous) meeting.

That's a joke, of course... but I'll bet there are addiction support groups for collectibles fiends. If there aren't, there ought to be. I know lots of Hummell/Department56/BeanieBaby junkies who need serious help. Yeah. That's right. You know who you are.

My son's school had their 2nd and 3rd Grade Spring Concert tonight (and, yes, it's about 25 degrees fahrenheit 'round these parts this time of year... so no accounting for the name). It went perfectly well. My son did his bit, standing on the risers with 70 other kids, and sang and hand-gestured on the proper cues. He even read a line introducing a song -- only about a dozen kids get to do that -- and he did it just fine.

Interestingly, right after he read his line without incident, I noticed my heart was thundering. I was so keyed up that my boy would goof off inappropriately (something he's done many, many times in many venues) that my pulse was pounding as if someone woke me from a nap with a airhorn. Made me think about how anxious that boy makes me, how little faith I have that he won't screw up and embarrass me publicly. Believe me, that's not without good reason, but still, it's wrong of me to harbor such sentiments. Makes me a worse parent, I know. I have to work on letting that go, on trusting him more, and not wishing so hard he did not have the foibles he has.

Stimulate lending. Cut taxes. Increase other taxes. Invest in the future. Cut wasteful spending, but retain and expand essential programs. Reform healthcare. Cut the deficit. I know the guy's riding high at the moment, but seriously, that's off the charts.

I fear there are dark, dark days ahead aplenty to take the glint out of even the most that bright-eyed optimism. I'm not wishing for them, but I find it hard to imagine any way to avoid them.

You know what I think about the current financial crisis? It's not a recession or depression or adjustment; it's a reckoning. We -- the world, and most conspicuously America -- have lived irresponsibly beyond our means and reached the limits of our lifestyle. Seriously. I don't think we can borrow or spend or grow or adapt our way out of this. I think our way of life, our way of assuming limitless wealth always be available, has got to end.

I don't want it to. I like stuff and comfort as much as the next person. I've had my fill of it and crave more just like all the Joneses I keep pace with. But when I contemplate the flow of wealth, the constant stream of money and resources, needed to keep my relatively modest middle-class suburban American existence afloat, I am aghast. Folks, we have climbed a mountain, stacked a dozen boxes at the summit, stood tiptoe on top, and we're surprised when we fall. Worse than that... we're indignant over it. How dare gravity still presume to have a hold on us. That's for commoners. We are a bold and special people who have moved beyond it's pull.

That's what we think of ourselves. We are children, spoiled brats, who think because we sit still for eight hours a day, we should be unconditionally rewarded. And if there's a problem, we think a parental government should bail us out unconditionally, without imposing restrictions. Give us money, but don't tell us what to do.

So, do I really think America is a nation of spoiled brats, accustomed to unjustifiable levels of wealth and indulgence? Yes. I do. Absolutely no question about it.

I can point out many, many examples--but less I sound like a crank, I'll stick to one: myself. I believe I am entitled to a home, food, healthcare, and education and opportunity for my children. I do not simply desire these things, but I honestly believe my mere status as an American citizen (specifically one willing and, for the moment, capable of holding a job) should guarantee them to me. You do, too. Serioulsy. Think about it. You do.

That's pretty astounding. In the course of human history, we have reached such a point where we honestly believe our basic welfare is a given. Hunger. Poverty. Homelessness. These are not things you believe you should ever have to endure. Not just because they're unpleasant or unjust... but because it is your birthright as an American to be spared these. Never mind that vast, vast numbers of Americans suffer those indignities daily -- YOU and I believe at our cores that such things have no right to happen to us. And, if we suffered some kind of unavoidable misfortune, our nation is obliged to care for us.

Think about it. That's what we think. We're a nation of cocky 20-somethings who think we can always move back in with Mom and Dad if the bottom drops out. But guess what, folks? Mom and Dad might default on their mortgage, if we're not careful.

Yeah, so I'm a crank. A grumpy curmudgeon who thinks economic collapse is our comeuppance.

As I said, I like stuff... bright, shiny, interesting, unnecessary stuff. I like security and comfort and the pleasantries that come with prosperity and the peace of mind to enjoy them without guilt. Self-preservation and selfishness are both innate animal instinct and learned human behavior. I can't rightly condemn myself or my culture for having been fortunate enough to get to indulge in a little acquisitive greed when -- let's be honest -- anyone would, given such a chance. There are no altruists in mansions (lots of hypocrites, though).

But, dammit, wisdom and prudence should prevail sometimes. When you throw away food while others starve -- literally or metaphorically, and often both -- you've got to realize that's a fluke of fate that, in a just universe, should be corrected. When you borrow from Peter, year in and year out, to buy a whole bunch of bright, shiny shit you really don't need from Paul, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that's a bad habit that is likely bite you on the ass at some point. We've been bitten... and bitten hard. Let's hope the bite's not poisonous and tread carefully.

You know what will get us out of economic crisis? Fundamentals. Spend cautiously. Invest wisely. Lend judiciously. Build up business models that maximize available resources with an eye toward long-term sustainability. And, yes, we may have to sacrifice some things. I know that's hard after so many years of getting everything we wanted, but it's time to grow up, kids. Maybe lay off the junk bonds and try a nice cup of T-bills. There. That's not so bad.

Matt McHugh.com - Blog - February 2009

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