Membership drive

All right, I’m officially beginning the movement for a new party, the Luddite Party. I’d say I’m about to above average in the “tech-savvy” department. Hell, being a guy I love all things with electrons running through their silicon and copper veins.

But I just saw something that’s making me rethink this whole “information superhighway” thingy.

Not only have I been in meetings where the attendees spend more time with their noses in their Crackberries than paying attention to the person running the meeting, I’ve been the person running the meeting. That shit's just rude. And, just today, in the lobby of my building, I saw a woman standing dead, stock still as she scrolled through whateverthehellitwas on her dealer device getting her electron fix.

I’ll even personally admit to maybe, just maybe, checking a score or two while sitting in what an old roommate called “the Reading Room.”

But all of these examples of electron dependence fall so far short of what I just saw. In fact, I’m having a hard time believing I actually saw what I saw.

A short while ago, during a journey to the men’s, the guy two pissers over (leaving the obligatory vacant space) looked up from his biz and greeted me with a “Hey man.” Despite this shocking breech of bathroom etiquette, I gave an upward nod of the head in return. And then saw what I saw.

Dude had his dick in one hand and his electron crack pipe in the other checking his email. There is nothing in the world delivered via email that’s so, so very important it can’t wait 37 seconds. I'm guessing you'd probably get to it even faster and with fewer chances of an "accident" if you waited those seconds, finished, shook and zipped before scrolling.

Even if illicit North Korean nukes are screaming toward the West Coast at 25 times the speed of sound (about 19,000 mph) I’m sure the Prez, who’s famous for his Crackberry addiction, would put it aside for a moment to take a leak in peace. Yanno, before showing Kim Jong-il what a real nuke looks like.

As much as I’d want an iPhone or Crackberry myself, it’s scenes like these keeping me on the straight and narrow and away from the electron dealers.

The worst pain…ever

I’m feeling a bit of a ranty mood coming on today. You’ve been warned.

Folks, when the traffic is jammed up like on, say, I-395 going past the Pentagon toward the 14th Street bridge at just about any hour of the day, is it really necessary to pull up as close to the car in front of you to prevent people (me) from merging from the on-ramps? It’s a shitty interchange. I know it, you know it, everyone knows it.

Funny, this is the picture I got when I Googled "Mixing Bowl"

The road goes up a hill, down a hill, bends to the right, then the left around the Pentagon then back to the right again before crossing the 14th Street bridge and then bending to the right, left and right again. There are on and off-ramps coming and going every which way as they please and, seriously, whatthefuck were they thinking? Whoever designed this thing should be flogged within an inch of their professional lives with their T-square. Or, rather, I’d think, their compass since there are so many bends in this road.

But that doesn’t mean you, as a driver, have to do everything in your power short of using a particle accelerator to join your bumper to the car in front of yours to stop me from getting on the highway.

Those a bit crunchier-than-thou among us would say, “Well, if you were riding a bike you wouldn’t have to worry about all of that.” True, but that’s not the point of this rant, so shutthefuckup. (Those of you who know me, know I have a bike, love riding it and will, if properly outraged by rude drivers, not hesitate a whit to use my fist on the fenders of offending cars. U-locks work really well too.)

Seriously, you’re not going to get to where you’re headed any faster by cutting me off from merging. All you’re going to do is up your already dangerously high blood pressure and risk blowing out that artery twitching in your forehead long before you can tap into your depleted 401k.

So, it’s called the “zipper.” If you’re crawling along in rush hour traffic in the right lane it’s your responsibility, nay, your duty, to allow a car on the on-ramp to merge in front of you.

Learn it. Love it. Live it.

Second verse, same as the first
Oh my god! Everyone run for the hills with your duct tape and antibiotics, the swine flu is gonna get ya. (Note: Neither of these items will actually help you when it comes to swine flu, just wanted to mention that. Yanno, for legal purposes.)

Or, at least that’s what you’d be thinking if you watched the news in the past two days. CNN this morning was like the Swine Flu News Channel (SFNC). I heard news about it on Elliot in the Morning on the drive in. Apparently, according to the report I heard on the radio, the Israeli health minister doesn’t like the idea of “swine flu” because it’s not kosher, and from hence forth, it will be called “Mexican flu” because, yanno, that’s so much less offensive.

But would you like to guess how many people the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are, as of this morning, reporting have come down with the dreaded malady?

Three million? (1 percent of the U.S. population.) No.

Thirty thousand? (1/10,000 of the U.S. population.) No.

Three hundred? (1/1,000,000 of the U.S. population.) No.

The answer? Forty, yes, 40. Four-zero. Just slightly more than one ten-millionth of the American population (13 millionths). Let’s say that number again: ONE TEN-MILLIONTH. (This number should rise significantly, numbers speaking, in the next day or so as tests are completed, but c’mon.)

According to M. Webster, a pandemic is an outbreak occurring over a wide geographic area and affecting an exceptionally high proportion of the population. What does this mean?

According to CDC, malaria is prevalent in areas of the world where about half the population live (3.2 billion). Each year 350 million to 500 million cases of malaria are diagnosed (5.8 percent to 8.3 percent of the world population). One million of these people die, 80 percent living in sub-Saharan Africa.

Funny, CNN isn’t giving this any air time, but let a couple of people in NYC or SoCal get the sniffles? You’ve got yourself a national story of the utmost importance.

Swine flu is the friggin’ flu people. Cover your mouths when you sneeze or cough, keep your fingers out of your nose and eyes and, if you feel like shit?

Don’t. Go. To. Work.

Stay home on the couch, keep a bucket handy and watch some Sports Center and TNT’s “Primetime in the Daytime,” drink lots of fluids and get better. If you don’t feel better, call your doctor. Here’s some more helpful advice from the really, really smart people at CDC.

The pain! The pain!
It starts slow, but spreads quickly. Like a lightning flash, every nerve ending in your body is on fire. It is a pain that can never, ever be equaled.

Guys, you know what I’m talking about.

It’s the pain caused by not being able to play with a new electronic toy because, say, it’s missing the right friggin’ monitor cable.

Making matters worse, the Apple store doesn’t have one in stock.

Ya know what? I’ve been looking forward to my new computer for days. Yesterday, after I saw FedEx had delivered it, I had to hold myself back from leaving work early to go home and play with it.

But when I figured out I couldn’t play with it last night, well, that was like Steve Jobs kicking me in the jimmy.

The pain is almost too much to endure.