Tips Guides

When the final chapter in my life’s story has been written and work on the screenplay for the movie begins, someone will be faced with the difficult assignment of deciding who will play me on the big screen. It won’t be an easy task because it will take an actor of the first water to capture the true essence of me.

My life has had the same assortments of successes and failures, tears, both of joy and of sorrow, grand excitement and heart-rending disappointments as everyone else in this world. I can say though, in all honesty I’ve never been bored a day in my life!

I guess I’ve been thoroughly blessed to have survived in this world as long as I have without the benefit of a burning desire for anything, leaving me slightly out of step with all the movers and shakers of this world. Does that mean that I’ve been without dreams and goals to achieve them? No!

Having no great desire to save the world, cure cancer or control a corporate empire has worked well for me. With only a few exceptions there’s not a thing I would change if I had all this to do over again. There are enough surprises jumping out at us when we least expect it to overcome any thoughts of succumbing to boredom, which I believe is a sin!

Who then, if this epic of human survival were cast today, would I choose for that role of a lifetime? Not just anyone could carry off such an assignment. After much thought, I’ve narrowed the field down to just a few that could seriously portray me on the big screen.

As my younger self, would be the one I would definitely choose to play me, if for no other reason than he’s the only young actor I can think of at the moment. He’s obviously talented, for I’ve seen him in several movies, other than “Second Hand Lion,” with Robert Duvall and Michael Caine. Dye his hair a little darker and he could be me in my younger years.

Al Pacino would be a favorable choice for an older me. He lives the character and in just a few scenes you forget that he’s Al Pacino. That’s the kind of man who can capture the real Bob Alexander. I can see Al now, smiling as he says, “Say hello to my little friend!” Oops! Wrong movie!

Unfortunately I don’t believe this part is crying out for Mr. Pacino. This is the role every actor dreams about, but he seems a little too serious accurately portray me. I’ve never found a serious situation that couldn’t be improved by a little humor. Some believe this to be a flaw in my character but I believe it to be genetic and it’s not my fault! I was born with this affliction.

I think the ability to find humor in the most dire of situation has been passed down to my brother also. A case in point is a dilemma my family encountered when my mother passed away.

As befitting a good country song, it was raining on the day before her funeral and the weather outlook for the next day was more of the same. In addition, when my brothers and I were seated in the funeral home with the director, we found that the day was already booked. There were four interments already scheduled, but the gentleman said that he could squeeze us in at 8:00 a.m. We all determined that this was much too early for such an event.

My brother broke the silence that ensued with, “What’s the chance there will be a cancellation tomorrow?” The funeral director looked surprised and in a shocked voice replied, “I don’t think I’ve ever been asked that before.” We all had a good laugh that broke, for the moment, the somber mood that had been cast over the room. Mother would have been proud!

When it comes down to deciding just who will be the lucky fellow to play me, I’ll have to go with George Clooney. Not only is he a good actor, he has a wit about him that is reminiscent of my humor. Put that together with his good looks, and he would be the perfect choice to play the role of Bob Alexander.

Bob Alexander is well experienced in outdoor cooking, fishing and leisure living. Bob is also the author and owner of this article. Visit his sites at:
http://www.redfishbob.com
http://www.bluemarlinbob.com

The complicated process of changing an ink cartridge is something that has baffled scientists for many years. Despite developments of so-called ‘easy change’ ink cartridges, removal and replacement still leave even the most dextrous of us dumbfounded.

It also leaves us covered in ink. Not just a smudge of something that adds colour to your boring office attire and could look pass for a brooch if splashed in the right place but a great big, monstrous indelible ink stain that could pass more for a Rorschach ink block test.

Those who see the indicator come up on our printers to say the ink cartridge is getting low are the ones to ‘rush’ our printing in the hope that we can get it all done before the ink runs out entirely. This is a little like driving home quickly before we run out of fuel - entirely pointless.

The poor soul to get stuck with an inkless printer is the poor soul who will have to change it, providing he can find no alternative printer in the office to put the dreaded job into someone else’s hands. We take careful note of exactly how the old ink cartridge comes out but these things are designed to frustrate and infuriate.

Once extraction of the old ink cartridge has been accomplished, we are then distracted by a tactical shaking of the cartridge when we realise there is still some in it! We know there will be because manufacturers design things so that we have to replace them before we run out - it’s how they make so much money.

While we are crying the unfairness of this and reeling from the price of a new cartridge, ink cartridge imps enter play, emerging from the depths of the printer to re-arrange all components. If you unexpectedly halt the operation of ink cartridge replacement, you will hear them laughing at you. It doesn’t matter that it is only five minutes since you removed the last ink cartridge, this one is not going back the same way.

We get cocky, thinking we know better, that we can remember how the last one came out and with a smug look we approach the printer like we know what we’re doing. Ensuring everything is at right angles, we slot the ink cartridge into place and lo and behold, all internal workings of the printer have been reconfigured into an indistinguishable mass.

We adjust, slide, tap and wiggle but we are outwitted by one of the simplest looking lumps of black plastic known to mankind. We take it out, stretch our necks, breathe deeply and raise and lower the elbows - none of which makes an iota of difference.

Approaching again, we are sure we know what we are doing. We wait until no-one is around and then we try brute force. We even talk to it through gritted teeth but still to no avail. This ink cartridge will not fit, it doesn’t matter how many times we threaten it with a kick in, it ain’t going in.

This is when a man strolls by, takes in the dilemma unfolding in front of him, slots the ink cartridge into place and walks off tut tutting as if we’re complete imbeciles. This just goes to prove that it is still a man’s world and the imps in the printer are all male. Best leave it to them.

Office equipment expert Catherine Harvey looks at ink cartridge removal and some of the problems it induces.

Big Oil, the meat industry, chemical fertilizer manufacturers and queasy people everywhere are shaking in their boots due to recent scientific and agricultural innovations brought about by worm farming.

The buzz is: worms may well save the planet. Consider: worms are one of the easiest animals in the world to farm, and all you have to do to harvest 100% organic meat is to raise earthworms in organic soil.

Home worm farms are a breeze to set up; they compost your fruit and vegetable waste and your dog and cat’s poop; and their droppings diluted in a water solution to the color of a weak tea make the best fertilizer you’ll ever use in your garden.

And your fruit and vegetable crops won’t be the only bounty you can eat. Raw worms are not the most desirable food, but meat scientists are fascinated with the possibility of processed worm meat.

People will never know what they’re eating was ever worms by the time the processors get through with it. It will taste just like beef, chicken, fish, pork or turkey; and processed worms can be poured, mixed and molded to look exactly like those meats, too!

Processed worm meat, which will be branded as “Weat” by a very large agricultural conglomerate that you know very, very well, is coming soon to a store near you. Weat is nearly 100% fat, cholesterol free, low in calories, high in protein and high in fiber.

Having trouble losing weight? Experiments are still in early stages, but the Weat Diet is expected to be the most successful weight-loss and nutrition regimen in the history of dieting.

Worm counters offering battered and fried Weat, Wilk, Wice Cream, Wenderloin and Wurgers will be introduced in every Starbucks and McDonald’s in America.

Weat will be the end of world hunger. The State of Utah alone would be able to produce enough Weat to provide Weat for every person in the world, three meals a day, indefinitely!

The global-warming-causing methane and ecosystem-leveling solid toxic waste that’s produced by beef, pork and poultry farming will be a thing of the past.

Because worm farms can be packed with worms wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling, the farms will be easily designed and manufactured to capture, collect and ship the fertilizer and methane produced by worms for use in all facets of life, business and industry.

Methane is an ideal fuel for creating hydrogen, and the carbon by-product will be easily converted into carbon nanofibers, which are currently revolutionizing every manufacturing process in the world.

And the biggie: worm farms can and will flourish anywhere, and the hydrogen that’s produced will be plentiful enough to be piped and tanked short distances to gas stations all over the nation.

As Al Gore has said, “thanks to worms, the hydrogen economy is now finally becoming a reality, and global greenhouse emissions are expected to drop by 50% in a previously unfathomable space of 10 years or less - all due to the humble worm.”

Are you Weady for the Wevolution?

Mac Bartine writes Goofisms and philosophy for his blog, Ism Mania.

Reports have come in today of a product recall on a meat processing machine, model number 43OhNo. This is due to a malfunction where the computerised meat processing machine develops a mind of its own and has been taking matters into its own grinder.

After installation at a new butchers shop in Lancashire things had apparently been going well. That is until the butcher woke early one morning to begin the days sausage preparation. Meat was placed in the mixing section, along with spices and a little fat.

‘There’s been a shortage of piglets this year’, claims the butcher, ‘we have to make ingredients go further so sometimes we add tasty, wholesome pig parts that some might take for ears, eyes or hooves’.

It was when the butcher began adding the eye balls to the meat processing machine that things took a nasty turn. Apparently, there was a spare piece of metal sticking out and it was here that he caught his sleeve. For some unknown reason, the safety button failed when the butcher hit it and he was up to his elbow before help arrived.

The man was taken to hospital for emergency surgery and the contents of the meat processing machine were taken with him. Surgeons were able to reattach his fingers, albeit in the form of sausages. ‘I have to look below the surface’ says the butcher bravely. ‘They may look like sausages, but underneath, it’s all me. Besides, I think they look rather fitting, even though I won’t be going near that machine again!’

In other parts of the country, more mayhem has been caused by the wayward antics of the meat processing machine. In Wales, mutton was being ground to add to burgers and all was going well. It is believed some of the mutton was a little past it’s best, possibly due to the sheep grazing on grass that was subject to recent nuclear fallout from an accident at a nearby power plant.

It is reported that something became lodged in the grinder causing the machine to kick back and go into overdrive. Vibrations from the overloaded meat processing machine caused it to vibrate all around the cold room, trapping a butcher’s assistant against a wall until he cried.

After his rescue, the assistant emerged covered in blood (sheep’s blood not his own) looking pale and scared. He has now decided to take a job in IT deciding it would definitely be safer.

The 43OhNo meat processing machine has also been found to have malfunctions with its onboard computer. Phallic shaped sausages that cannot be put on the shelves have been widely reported as have square burgers and rolled joints that you would typically see in the hands of a backstreet teenager than on a butchers display!

All owners of the 43OhNo meat processing machine are being asked to report any faults on the emergency numbers below and to make arrangements to have their machine picked up and returned. A full refund is promised and customers are being asked to return the machines for their own safety.

Health and safety expert Catherine Harvey looks at what can go wrong with a meat processing machine and the risk to health.

There you have it and we admit we have thrown in the towel. We have lost interest in everything. That doesn’t mean we’re bored; it just means we have no interests. None. With no interests it’s harder to get bored, no?

At any rate, we have what the cowboys would say ‘gone out to pasture’. In other words, our useful and productive days on this planet have since passed. We don’t do anything; we just exist and speak a collective ‘we’.

If you are as young as you feel, what happens when you feel you are really old? Does your usefulness as marketing fodder diminish as you mentally prepare for your very own final check out time? If adult means the opposite of kid and kid means interested then adult means not interested? That’s us. We just aren’t interested in anything, like we have been telling you…

We have been there and done that. We have seen it all and done it all several times already and just aren’t interested in anything at the moment and that also includes the foreseeable future. We are what the medical researchers call the “flat lined living”; it might look like something is going on, but believe me, nobody is home. Not anyone that matters anyway…

We became this stupid through great effort and we resent those that demean and belittle our far reaching efforts. It’s in our spirit and in our blood…it’s what we do. We consume, go to the store, go to the clinic, and consume some more. It’s us. Again, it’s what we do. We like to do our fair share to make it all work out hunky-dory for everybody…isn’t this a great country?

Well, for most of us it is a great country. Except those that have to live here…ha, just kidding. We also dumbed down by not thinking very much and by not thinking about much of substance. That way we make certain we have nothing to discuss, especially with Dog off the air. Dog was the last truly intellectual informational TV series in our time. Dog was actually the last intellectual thing in our life period. We still talk about Dog.

We all want a dream job like Dog’s old job. Man, did he have it made. But alas, we get what we get, not what we think we deserve. Unfortunately our expectations are usually too high and we feel burned by any result that is less than spectacular, such as our work life. If there is one part of our lives that reeks or isn’t spectacular, it’s our work.

We work because we have to. That’s it. We put ourselves in this have-to box and we have no easy way out. So we sit in the trap year after year. Decade after decade. It makes us dumber by design.

That’s us…dumber by design. After so many years, we cease to function on a normal level and get this quizzical look. We don’t answer because we don’t hear the question, so we look puzzled because we have no idea what the heck you just said. We are so wrapped up in our own little microcosmic universe that we cease to register and record what is actually going on around us. Sorry, we’ve already checked out. Hence, we appear really thick but in reality, we just aren’t home.

But we do try to keep our spirits up, no thanks to others like you. They nag and gripe and complain at every twist and at times are simply unpredictable. And we seem always to get kneed by the unpredictable…

So what else is new? Actually not much. You see, once you have done it all there’s not much left to do. It all becomes a type of repetition and dance of futility. But all is not lost, no, not if we can help it. Our mantra, “I didn’t do it!” was, is and shall remain the statement of our faith, belief and hope. With zero expectations we’re just thankful for a continental breakfast in the morning. And lots of coffee…after that, what else can one realistically expect?

As that fixed glazed look settles somewhat permanently across our sunken eyeballs we know that it is not a matter of if but only a matter of when. We are in the first stages of our final chapter and are trying to go gracefully and if not gracefully, at least with some sort of low key whimper. And why not? It’s a long time lying in that cold, cold ground, no?

And maybe if we all close our eyes and wish real hard, we can make it all go nicely away at least until tomorrow. Life goes on. But lest we forget, it’s a long time lying in the cold, cold ground…

Jack Deal is fascinated by the dumb by design personality profile. Related articlesmay be found at http://www.jddeal.com/blog/business and http://www.freeandinquiringmind.typepad.com

You know who they are. They wear a tool belt for all their phones and gadgets. They look like a telephone line repairman. They waddle when they walk. They can speak but like all good children they only speak when spoken to. You might try texting them because it’s quicker. Besides, they will tell you they just don’t listen very well. They hear just fine, but don’t listen. It’s not what they do.

They have been called gadget addicts and worse. You know the argument, video games and virtual reality are the equivalent of drugs. However, drugs only affect the brain and do not actually become part of the neural network, unlike gadgets. Gadgets become part of the flow of the parsed bits and bytes and therefore become indispensable. Take out the gadget and the neural network crashes.

So with the New Techies, the gadgets have become part of the Extended Neural Network or ENN. Taking away these gadgets is like taking away whole sections of the ENN. It’s like surgically removing a chunk of brain; well, sort of.

As a consequence anything and everything that is connected with this gadget simply disappears when the gadget disappears. This can cause a problem since all data of significance run through this device’s chips. This data includes such non-essentials as family, school and other community and personal experiences not including friends.

Adults who don’t care about how they look often wear a dumbing down earphone headset and can be seen in public gesturing and talking to themselves. The question is, does this make them feel important or just look more stupid? It sure hurts any chances for finding a date; who wants their conversation played out to everyone in the fruit and veggie section at the local Trader Joe’s? Is this the type of behavior young people should emulate? Is this the type of behavior one should be exposed to while shopping for basil and artichokes?

Needless to say this New Techie withdrawal from the human race and real time relationships means that the New Techies will become even goofier than their nerdy and goofy predecessors. Staring at a terminal too long used to cause goofiness and now this syndrome has simply coded seamlessly over to cell phones and handhelds of all shapes and colors. How about a little pink one in the shape of a heart for someone you really despise?

It’s easier so subsequently there is little reason for the New Techie to become interested in things like hiking, surfing, football or even dancing. Dancing is especially worrisome as it sometimes creates relationships and relationships are clearly problematic for the permanently sanitized and wired.

As the Greeks said, beware excess. Unfortunately chronic usage of add on devices results in the New Techies’ mental circuitry becoming fried. Offshore research has shown the neurons en masse begin to fray and melt into a sort of soft goo paste. This goo or anti-brain matter causes dysfunctional withdrawal from the real world into the safer and less threatening virtual world where nobody gets punched, insulted or called nasty ethnic names. After all, like the Super Bowl, World Cup and Presidential Election, at the end of the day it’s still just a game.

We certainly make it harder on ourselves since we humans are messy creatures creating a lot of fuss and bother and then leaving a bunch of garbage. It’s so much easier just to wire directly into that Extended Neural Network ENN and not have to deal with all the other parts of human bodies that are quite frankly embarrassing to most New Techies. Part of the advantage of being wired is avoidance of physical contact. No icky germs…

But the question remains of just how is elevated art and culture to be transplanted from the worldly wise into a pea sized cerebrum that is constantly bombarded by low-end, sleaze ball digital stimuli? The short answer is it isn’t because it can’t. The wired brain is not free and inquiring; the wired brain is bored, boring and stuffed with spam. Mostly spam. All irrelevant input and no relevant output. That and gooey anti-brain matter.

But in the net net, it doesn’t matter. The inconvenient truth is we are what we think. Or put another way a bit more pessimistically, we are only what little we think. Does it matter that we plug and play into the only conscious freethinking organ we have? How many independently generated new ideas did your liver and kidneys come up with this week? But in the end, if you really think about it long and hard, who really needs those smelly, ugly old frontal lobes anyway?

BTW, did you get my text message about your text message?

Jack Deal is the owner of Deal Business Consulting and a technology advocate. Related articlesmay be found at http://www.jddeal.com/blog/business and http://www.freeandinquiringmind.typepad.com