dianaschnuth

Yesterday was a moderately lazy day. We got up, ate lunch, looked for garage sales, did a little thrifting, and watched a matinee of Fahrenheit 9/11. Great movie—if you haven’t seen it, you should. I never considered myself a “swing” voter; more of an apathetic one. This year, though, I’m definitely going out to vote, no matter what I once said (oh, about four years ago) about the electoral college.

This afternoon, Aaron is over at Kris Heath’s apartment, helping him install Windows XP. See, Kris doesn’t believe in paying for antivirus protection, apparently, and his computer got royally screwed by various viruses and spyware programs. He managed to get it back up and running well enough to back up all his mp3’s, I think, but most of his applications are corrupted and too screwed up to function. So, Aaron’s over at Kris’s place, helping him install a new OS. *shakes head*

Meanwhile, I’m here at home, chillin’. About to clean out the cat box, and balance my checkbook, and maybe put some of my clothes away, and put some photos in the photo album.

Yeah… life is good.

I’m awfully prolific with the posts tonight.

Anyway, I just searched out and located a ZIP file with WAVs of the coverage of the Hindenburg crash of 1939. I’d never heard the whole thing through—just the reporter sobbing, “Oh, the humanity!” But, listening to the whole thing, it’s really fascinating to hear an example of radio reporters’ ability to convey what they saw verbally. The listener can almost see the majestic airship coming in and being tethered to the ground—then, after its grand transatlantic flight, suddenly bursting into flames.

The guy really loses it, too. I believe Aaron told me that journalists and reporters, especially back then, were expected to report factually and unemotionally, and that this particular man’s reaction to the scene lost him his job. Seriously, though—he’s almost sobbing uncontrollably and babbling by the end of the clip. I can see why they fired him, devastating though the scene was.

If you’re interested in hearing it yourself, you can download the ZIP here. Also interesting is the blurb that comes in the text file packed with the ZIP files: “This file contains WAV files of the most compelling moments of the famous Hindenburg Crash Radio broadcast of 1939.  They make for interesting Windows Startup sounds.”

What a fine disregard for history.

Do medical professionals really need a new invention for this? I thought Rabbi Tuckman did it fine with just his little guillotine…?

“Oh, I forgot—I already got one!”

Why does TV suck? Why can I not turn on the tele at night and find at least one decent program to watch? It’s all overdramatized gameshows or reality shows or home improvement / reality shows or makeovers or just crap. Have sitcoms always been completely stupid and I just didn’t notice? When did I become a fan of 20/20?

Add this to my distaste for popular music, and I’m completely rejecting American pop culture in general. Skinny hos, talentless hacks, and stupid bimbos just don’t keep my attention these days.

Like the Jeopardy category: snippets of random this-n-that I’m finding as I’m sifting through all my old Post-It® notes.

Quote from a 50-something woman in my old office to a 40-something: “You gotta get some old lady shorts! You can’t be bending over there on the golf course and everybody can see Christmas…!”

Really bad joke from the Sky intranet:
Q: How do you keep a skunk from smelling?
A: Hold its nose.

And then there’s this thought: I forget what class it was in, but I remember learning in college about the four levels of competence. First, you have Unconscious Incompetence: You don’t know how to do a given thing, but you have no knowledge of it whatsoever, so you don’t know that you don’t know. Then there’s Conscious Incompetence: You know what it is, but you also know that you don’t know how to do it. After that, you have Conscious Competence: You know how to do it now, but you still have to think about it. (This is me in my new job right now.) Finally, there’s Unconscious Competence: You know how to do the thing so well and thoroughly that you no longer have to think about it.  Learning my new job in Loan Corrections made me think of that.

Oh, and speaking of my new job, I was on phone duty for the second day today (my first day was Monday). I actually didn’t mind it today, although it got annoying around 2:00 when I got call after call after call for a half hour straight. I learned new things today, too: I learned how to cut a loan refund check, and how to fix the billing schedule on a screwed-up loan, and all sorts of other stuff that I didn’t know before (and would make you yawn). I actually felt like I had a good, enjoyable day… but that’s probably just because I’m going on vacation after tomorrow. Whee!

Speaking of, does anybody know of a good place to camp? I think Aaron and I were looking at Harrison Lake, Maumee Bay State Park, or Mohican. Neither of us have been camping in years, either (outside of Amy’s and my ill-fated October camp-out with the girls on our floor in Kohl). We have no outdoor cooking implements (well, I think we have metal skewers) and only a couple crappy flashlights. Of course, we do have our one sleeping bag (I don’t know where mine is, but we have Aaron’s), and our new-last-year-at-the-wedding tent, and our two folding camping chairs.

I think that pitching the tent will be a test of our ability to work together. 🙂