Musical Interlude

In Canada did Cooper Can / A stately hockey rink decree

You can laugh all you want about the clothes and the hair, but this song just RAWKS!!!

Another One From Childhood

Time to Go to Work

Another Verse, Same as the First

The problem with having parents with liberal arts degrees is that you're exposed to niggling liberal artsy-fartsy things like literature, music, or history. Consequently, whenever you hear something on the "news" you get this creepy feeling that people are meandering down a well trodden path.

Saturday Random Top-10

Just Because

1. Perpetual Change - Yes
2. Jacob's Ladder - Rush
3. And You and I - Yes
4. The Chase - Queensryche
5. Jupiter: Bringer of Jolility - Holzt
6. Ghost of a Chance - Rush
7. An der schönen blauen Donau - Johann Strauss (younger)
8. Kanon - Pachelbel (as played by the Canadian Brass)
9. Joy to the World - Three Dog Night
10. Armageddon It - Def Leppard

And heres a cat pic:

And something that shaped me as a child:

5F

5F
Five degrees
Fahrenheit
465 Rankine
260-ish....Kelvin
Pretty
Damn
Cold
For a ride
Wish me luck

It's like I'm Reading a Book, From the Inside

Read this.

Now read this:

The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labour power without producing anything that can be consumed. A Floating Fortress, for example, has locked up in it the labour that would build several hundred cargo-ships. Ultimately it is scrapped as obsolete, never having brought any material benefit to anybody, and with further enormous labours another Floating Fortress is built. In principle the war effort is always so planned as to eat up any surplus that might exist after meeting the bare needs of the population.

Or this:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

What a waste.

A Message to All Team Members

Most of us are at least 21
We're all grown-ups here
(or under close adult supervision)
Goddamnit, someone out there
needs to start acting like one

NOW!

Be Afraid.....

I rarely let the things I worry about get in the way of being a normal, american, carbon-unit sleepwalking through life. But sometimes, when I read articles like this and this I get a queasy, nauseous feeling and I fear that I'll really be nostalgic for the these days when I could go about my daily sleepwalk as if it would always be that way.

I think I'll sleep with the lights on tonight.

Serendipity

I saw the following two headlines on the Freep today:

"Ford Sales Drop 19% in January"

and

"Toyota Sees Sales Climb 9.5%"

I also got this in my email today:

A Modern Parable

A Japanese company (Toyota) and an American company (Ford) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.

On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing.

Feeling a deeper study was in order, American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion. They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing.

Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager.

They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1 person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the "Rowing Team Quality First Program", with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rower. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year's racing team was out-sourced to India.

The End.