Lost and Found

Okay, so I’ve decided to not even look at the new iPad. I mean I haven’t really heard or seen how people’s lives have been changed by it, so I’ve decided not to get it. At least not until the price drops and I can get it without having to switch to AT&T in order to get service on the road. Plus with all the stuff that I carry now I’m starting to look like one of those homeless bag ladies that trudge along with all their worldly goods in tow and last thing I need is more stuff to lose.

Yesterday I was on the bus in Northeast Philly, the first time that I’ve ever been there, when a young woman picked up a cell phone from the seat in front of me and walked over to the driver. She had him open up the door as she called over to one of the men who had just left the bus. Apparently the phone didn’t belong to him and she turned and went back to her seat where she started to flip through the information stored on the phone. Why do women do that?

Now if that was me and I had the slightest bit of interest in even getting up, I would have given the phone to the driver where he would have turned it in to Lost and Found or pocketed the thing for himself. There would be no fuss and I would no longer be involved. But she on the other hand was trying to figure out how she was going to lay that trap and I say that because it happened to me once.

About 2 cell phones ago I left cell phone on the train and I didn’t realize it until the next day when I was at work. After trying to figure out where I could have left it and calling around to the different places that I could have left it I finally decided to call my phone and see what would happen. A woman answered and said that she had picked up the cell the previous night and that we could meet at lunchtime the next day where she could give it back to me. I wondered to myself why we couldn’t just meet after work and get it done with, but I let it go. Instead I just called up Verizon and had the shit cut off, no point having unexpected calls to Guam being listed on my next phone bill.

The next day I went to the train station at 8th and Market and approached her. I could tell that it wasn’t me that she was expecting. I guess I didn’t look like the picture I was using for a screen saver that month. No dreads here. But she squared her shoulders back, gave me the phone and started to give me the mini-bio of herself. She told me that she and a girlfriend had received comp tickets to spend a night in Atlantic City but the girlfriend had dropped out; would I be interested? The girl was on the hunt for a man.

Now it’s true that I have preferences and those have never stopped me before, but this time I had to take a stand. After all it may seem at times that I’m somebody’s piece, but only because I’ve allowed it. I’ve set too many targets and traps myself not to know when it’s being done to me. So I said that I would get back to her and excused myself as I praised God silently that the she didn’t accept the $20, or was it $10 that I had offered her?

Yesterday on the bus I made sure my wallet was in my pocket and I checked my bag to see if both of my cameras and my 2 week old HTC Droid cell phone with the 2 naked white men for a screen saver was there and I felt secure. I may already have too much stuff to lose.

What was I thinking of?

I don’t really know what I was thinking of when I went last week to the Apple Store at the Cherry Hill Mall. I had wanted to see what the iPad looked like and how it worked. Even though I know that it is just a glorified, oversized iPod, I wanted to know if I could seduce myself into getting it. I wanted to see if I could be one of the first people I know who would have it. I wanted others to say ooh or ah and I would be the focus of attention and people would look at me with awe and fascination. Which is really strange because I don’t think I like being the center of attention, it allows people to see my flaws which I take serious efforts in hiding.

That’s probably why I don’t like taking pictures of myself. It’s true that I can look at myself 2 or 3 years after a shot has been taken and say, “that wasn’t so bad,” but to look at photo of me taken today or last week or a few months ago will make me shudder as I see how this sags here or how those poke out there and I will run for shelter, denial or destruction of the evidence. I need my privacy, my anonymity while I pretend to look like something that I’m not. However, for some reason I don’t seem to respect the fact the others may feel about themselves the same way as I do.

Take the picture above for example. When I found out that Apple wouldn’t have the iPad until this weekend, I sat outside the store wondering what I should do. So I took a picture of the store and made sure that I had the mother and her baby in the frame so that I could put a human aspect to the picture. I didn’t ask her if I could take the picture and in fact I did my best to conceal that I was photographing her. Now suppose she was on the run from her wife-beating husband and didn’t want her location known, I’ve just jeopardized her security. Or take the picture below that I took last year. Supposing Papa from the old country sees his beloved daughter out in public with a man and no hijab or mask bringing shame to him and his family. Next you’ll be reading about her and her ritual punishment in the papers and I will be responsible. Will I care? Yes I will, but then life goes on.

I will care unlike the bastard who took a picture of me and an Ex all those years ago while we wearing matching thongs at the July 4th event at the beach in Malibu and published it in the gay magazine, Frontier.  Did he care that he had exposed me to ridicule in front of friends and family and possible job loss? Probably not. It's a good thing that no one I knew read this magazine.

I wonder if they still have that event on July 4th?

Matching thongs? What the hell was I thinking of?

The Wrong Gift

Christmas is coming but then you’ve probably heard that already.

This year much like last year and the year before, I won’t have to find or even think about a present for that special someone. I won’t have to rack my brains trying to figure out what is going to be the best thing that will bring joy to other half and yet represent me in such a way that would make me proud. I don’t have to think about getting jewelry or designer clothing or exclusive cologne made by nuns in hills of Spain. Although, when I did get those things for my partner, they were never really appreciated anyway. I think I’ve said this before; he would give me a list of things that he wanted and asked for a list from me. I always thought it took the spirit of gift giving for me but it was what he wanted so I went along with it. When I think back though, having a list from someone sometimes avoids you from getting the wrong gift.

I’m not sure it was around Christmas, but I remember one year when there wasn’t a list of things that I wanted he gave me a vibrating bullet. It wasn’t the one that pictured here, but one made out of that cheap white plastic that your mother’s Tupperware used to be made from and I thought to myself, “What the hell am I supposed to do with this?” But I said nothing and took it home with me.

Later that week I sat naked on my bed and decided to try the bullet out. After turning the thing on and rubbing it up and down my penis and not really getting anything from it, I figured perhaps that wasn’t the way it was supposed to be used. So I put some lube on it and shoved it part way up my anus. I turned it on again and “schloop”, that thing went all the way up my ass like it had found a special home for itself.

So there I was sitting, holding onto an electrical cord coming out from between my cheeks with one hand and stroking my special friend with the other wondering how, if something happened, I would explain this to people and what was the point of it all? Feeling like a fool, I also wondered why didn’t any instructions come with the bullet and why didn’t it come in a box or a plastic bag? ...And then it came to me. I wasn’t the only ass this little bitch had been in but I knew then that unless someone was to go through the garbage, I would certainly be the last.

That was the wrong gift.

Manners and the Cell Phone

Years and years ago, when Trailways was still in business or at least ran out of Philadelphia, I had gotten back from London and after noticing that everyone there seemed to have one, I decided to get a cell phone for myself.

I remember the Trailways thing because one of my first calls was done on the bus trip back from Boston to Philadelphia. The trip was one of those promotional deals done in order to save the company, $25 round trip for the Memorial Day weekend. I didn’t really want to go to Boston, but it was a hell of lot cheaper than the $500 plus that the airlines wanted to take me to Miami with a one-day advance purchase. Yes as usual I had left everything to the last minute and decided that I had had enough of the DC Memorial Day trips. No one told me at the time the trip to Bean Town would take 6 hours each way and have 2 sever cases of leg cramps.

Anyway, it was the Monday and I remember calling Larry and telling him that I would be arriving in Philly at around whatever time it was and that we should hang out and go to a club when I got there. When I hung up, a little girl who had been watching me came over and said that her mother, sitting behind me to my left would like to know if she could use my phone. I looked at the mother and thought the nerve of some people, doesn’t know me from a sack of shit but wants me to pay for her roaming charges, long distance charges and maybe even international charges if she calls Haiti or wherever she was from, (I’m bigoted that way sometimes, I don’t mean to be, but that’s how it is.) I shook my head and said “no” openly and “bitch” silently.

I bring this up only because I read earlier this week on MSNBC.com an article about the etiquette of cell phone use and how it has degraded the social interaction between many and left the rest of us angered or at least frustrated by the seeming lack of concern by the cell phone user for the privacy and comfort of those not engaged in their conversations.

Curtis is like that. If we are leaving the gym together and in the elevator, he will get on his phone and almost shout into it. Regardless of how many people are in there with us, he will talk, kee-kee and guffaw so loudly that I swear one time I felt the glass walls of the thing start to vibrate.

There was another time when a man on the Speedline, my commuter train, started to call his friend and tell him about his “I”-talian meal that he just had and had washed it down with a nice Chianti. He must have also caught an old movie too. He spoke of how he enjoyed himself until his friend on the other end must have told him that he was going to bed, it was about 9pm and they hung up. Then he called another friend and got to same point in the story when this one said that his wife was calling him and they hung up. And this continued and continued until he got to his station.

I would have felt sorry for this man’s friends having to put up with him, but they got to end their conversations. I and the rest of the passengers in the car heard the same story over and over again for at least 6 times word for word, and each time as clear as a bell even though we were about 20 feet apart. Everyone was starting to get annoyed. I guess like me they just wanted to get 20 minutes or so of peace and quiet after a long day and this bozo was intruding in it.

Speaking of peace and quiet, have you ever travelled on Amtrak along the Northeastern Corridor? Some trains now have a quiet car at the end where conversations and cell phones are forbidden and all electronics must be in the mute mode in order to enhance the ride and joy of their fellow passengers. I love it and try to find it whenever I am on Amtrak.

As for the movies, I won’t even get into the amount of times that I used to hear cells phones ring and conversations start when I was at there. Although now, I have learned to avoid certain places and stay away from those elements that exasperate me. That’s code for me being “Bougie” even though I’m not sure bougie is what really describes me.

A few years ago I was on my cell phone and telling, well he never reads this, Lamont my plans for the weekend.
“I think that I will come up to Neeeew …..York,” a loud release of breath and a pause, “this weekend.”
“Are you alright?” asks Lamont.
“Yeah. I was just stretching,” I said trying to remember not to flush the toilet until after I hung up with him.

Truth be told, I think that wasn’t the only time that I’ve gone through that, nor was Lamont the only person that I’ve done it to. But if someone were to do that to me and show so much disrespect I would try to reach through that phone and I would, I would…

Well, who among us is perfect?

Winter Lights on Broad St.

This isn’t a piece on marketing but if I can remember correctly, there are four or five types of people who are responsible for new technology or the diffusion of a new product into the market place.

There are the Innovators who will go out and buy the latest gadget at no matter what the cost because they need to be the first on the block to have it. They are daring and will be the ones who will buy a flat screen TV for $12,000 and think of it as money well spent, mainly because they have it like that or are at least willing to make others think they have it like that.

Then there are the Early Adopters who are eager to explore new options and embrace new technology but will wait a little for the price to drop and for others to experience whatever problems there are with the product. Then only after the manufacturer has ironed out most of the kinks, an Early Adopter will make his or her purchase.

After that there is the Early Majority who will obtain items when they believe everyone else is buying them and the Late Majority who will buy it once it’s reached the clearance shelf because a newer and better model has come out. There are of course the Laggards who really have no interest in new technology for one reason or another and only make a purchase only because they have to.

I fall on the border between Early Adopter and Early Majority. I like to have the newest little electronic gadget with as many bells and whistles on it as possible but I don’t want to put up the first born for adoption in order to pay for it; that is if I had a first born. So if, like Bob Barker used to say, the price is right I’ll be there with money in hand and a childish glee in my eye. If not, I will wait until the regular price has dropped to as low as possible and get it or add $50 and get the newer and improved version. This is what I did to get my new pocket high definition camcorder.

I had lost my regular digital point and shoot camera that I shot short videos with the day after Labor Day and I replaced it with an SLR (single lens reflex) camera that only shot stills. Thus I needed to get a camcorder but a good one would cost over $800 and even more for the even better ones, although they’ve dropped to $600 now. But Cecil B. DeMille is not my middle name; there would be no grand sweeping epics on screen done by me. I couldn’t justify spending that much money for something that I would hardly use and when I did it would be for, let’s face it, shit shots.

So I found the Vado HD that fellow Blogger Alfii purchased last month and after he posted a video that he had shot. I thought well that’s not bad a looking video for under $200, and in fact it really isn’t. It’s not true HD, the pixels are too low, and there is no image stabilizer so you will never see anything you shoot on Public TV getting some sort of prize or award. But it’s good enough for YouTube and other video online sites where you want to show what happend at aunt Berth's last barbeque.

Here is my first test video that I shot last night. True I copied the theme from someone else, but like I said, I’m not Cecil B. DeMille and this ain’t The Ten Commandments. Come to think of it even the title is a misnomer, because these lights have been up since the middle of summer. Oh well, like I said it's just a test, it is only a test.

I Want New Stuff

Growing up I always figured that if you had the latest technology, you would always be ahead of the economy. I don't know where that came from, or how that makes any sense, maybe my father, maybe the kids that I went to school with, but that's how I thought.

So I'm not sure how long ago it was that I decided to get a new iPod, but I'm sure that it wasn't that long ago. I got the 16GB version instead of 32GB even though that was the one that I really wanted, but I never really ever had more than 18GB on the old iPod and I didn't want to spend the extra $100 on something that I didn't need. You see I have somewhere around 800 songs on the player and listen to about 10 or 11. The rest of the device's memory is taken up by videos and podcasts. I love podcasts. They can be so interesting and informative. I actually learned how the sub-prime home lending fiasco went south and how it affected the world economy from reports from the BBC and NPR. Also I'm starting to learn to speak Italian now listening to 2 podcasts that I get weekly for free.


It was because I had bought an iPod this year that I didn't I didn't switch to AT&T for cell phone service this year. I had wanted an iPhone and since my contract with Verizon was up this year, it would have been my chance to bail and leave a company that I have no love for. But I thought the purchase of an iPhone would have just invalidated the earlier purchase of the iPod.

Well this week Apple sends me, I'm sure they sent everyone and not just me, an email about the new version of the iPod that you can shake rattle and roll for effect. It has a larger screen and speakers which the earlier versions don't have. And what makes it even worse is that now you can get more for less and I'm pissed. My device is not even a year old and already it's out of date. Old news. Yesterday's technology.

When will I ever learn? I know that I will never be able to stay up on the latest gadgets with the most bells and the loudest whistles, but you know of course that I'm thinking about replacing the iPod. I think there is some sort of psycho name that professionals use for this kind of behavior but since I try not do drugs, legitimate or otherwise, I don't know what else to do.

Maybe with the economy as it is, I should just forget about silly entertainment gadgets and just put as much money as I can into gold, get a rifle and wait for the revolution. I'm sure that by that time, iPods will be the least of my worries.

Globalization

I remember years ago when Ross Perot told us what his thoughts on NAFTA, (the North American Free Trade Agreement), were. It went something like,” That giant sucking sound that you hear is the sound of Jobs flowing to Mexico.” Well something like that. Now I don’t know about anyone else’s job, but my job, even though it just begging for foreign placement, has not left. Apparently, someone isn’t sucking hard enough. I would give tips, but that’s a different story. What I’m trying to say is that I believe in Globalization, and for a reason.

I believe that artificial protectionism and forced mercantilism are the millstones around our necks that keep us and the world from truly benefiting from all of the resources that are out there and need to be dismantled both here and abroad. I believe that the import duties that we pay for products just because they are cheaper than the ones made domestically hurt the poor and prop up industries that are in need of overhauling or at least revitalization. I believe that subsidies given to farmers so that they can make their crops cheaper for export help hurt famers in Africa and elsewhere by undercutting their prices and so force peoples of poverty stricken nations to remain poor and hungry and not develop their own farms and rely more and more on American grain that they will soon no longer be able to afford.

I believe in the attempts in Doha of the WTO (World Trade Organization) to have the United States, the European states and other nations drop tariffs and taxes and other trade barriers that nations put up to protect their own industries so that everyone could gain from lower prices and increased competition and the possible development of industries in the less developed nations.

Why do I believe in all of this? Because I just ordered a new laptop for almost a third of what I paid for one 4 or 5 years ago with a hell of a lot more bells and whistles than I have now. Designed by some people in California and made with parts that were constructed in Malaysia by some woman making some ridiculously low salary, but still high for her neck of the woods. And then it was assembled in Mexico for pesos on the dollar. Who knows what the thing would have cost if it were all done in New Hampshire. Progress? Perhaps. World trade and globalization? Definitely, and I’m loving it.

If all of us can can create wealth then all of us should share the wealth. And so I say in the spirit of the Olympics, One World! One Dream!

Men and their Toys

What is it about electronics that that turn men on so? Why do men always have to have the latest gadget out there with the most bells and whistles to make them feel fulfilled? Why are men so easily led into the trap of wanting something with a few blinking lights more than the last thing and really not needing it only to find out later on that’s really not good enough? Okay, maybe that’s a generalization that may not be true. It just may be something that I use to justify my own impulse purchases, to satisfy my own vanity. But they are questions that I do ask of myself, ususally only after I’ve bought something and realized that the reason and justification that I gave for buying it was as bogus as a $3 bill. Take for example the cell phone I bought yesterday.

From since the beginning of the year my cell phone has been acting up. The phone can no longer hold a charge for more than 2 days, and if I use it for more than 30 minutes it starts to beep and blink low battery for the next 2 hours which usually drives me crazy until I turn it off. My contract with Verizon had been up since February I think but I was eligible for a new phone at no cost to me. I would just have to renew the contract.

Since I have never been one to talk that much on the phone, I have always opted for minimum plan just above where you don’t have to pay for each call. So I don’t really need a fancy phone just one that will do the job. But looking at the list of phones that would work with my plan, I noticed there were Blackberrys listed (or is it Blackberries) from $50 to $150 with my discount that I could get.

Now I have seen many members of my gym use their Blackberrys , on the floor, on the elevators and in the lockers rooms. They would read their email, send text messages, do stuff that I didn’t know about. Actually, they were probably just doing shit. I mean, the courts are closed after 5pm, so they weren’t doing legal stuff. I can’t believe that they were summoned for medical emergencies by email, so they aren’t doctors and if they are trading stocks in Sydney or Hong Kong whatever stock exchange is open 5pm EDT, I’ve never seen them pull out the charts or reports that people use for trading. So that leaves just one thing. Shit. They must be doing shit. Texting “Honey” that they are on their way home. Or reading a message that “Honey” has left telling them to make sure they bring home that gallon of milk for the kids. I will sometimes laugh at them silently at their fake ass attempts to seem important.


So of course I ordered one online. It should come in about 2 business days.

The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble

I don’t have that many songs on my iPod as compared to what other people have on theirs. I have about 800 or so, a few videos to make me even more blind, podcasts and some pictures. Out of the 800 songs, I listen to maybe 200 of those now and again and maybe 50 on a regular basis. Today as I was flipping through the device and I came across an album by The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble. Who? And I remembered.

Last year around September or October I went to see my man, Paul Smith in NYC. For some people, their man is Armani or Dolce and his friend Gabbana, but my man has been Paul for at least the last 12 years. He’s always sexy and different and sometimes I can find something that I can actually afford. That day, I was going to replace the Gap wallet that I had lost previously with one with a purple lining and my friends’ name stamped on the front.

So like George Bush, once the mission was accomplished, I tried to figure out what else I could do with my friend Larry. That was Larry, not Curtis. Curtis said he would read my blog if I mentioned his name; so once again, Curtis.

Larry and I headed over to Union Square which is only a block away from the Paul Smith store and sat on one of the benches. Outside of the square on the sidewalk was this group. There was about 7 or 8 young men playing brass instruments. Trombones, trumpets and Sousaphone and I noticed they were drawing a big crowd around them. We walked over and listened to them for a while. Now brass bands are not my kind of thing, it is the type of music you listen to just as you are marching off to war, but these young brothers were starting to interest me and the people around.

A few minutes later they took a break and explained that they were from Chicago and they were on there way to London I think, but they needed to hawk their CD before they left. It was $20 and Larry and decided to split the cost and I would make a copy for myself. I’m all for supporting your own kind, but giving $20 to people I don’t know for a disc that I wasn’t even sure had anything on it wasn’t something that I was going to fall for by myself. So we purchased the disc and listened to their next set.

Afterwards we walked away as they were doing the sales pitch and one of the band said to the crowd, “Come on and buy a CD. Don’t look at us as if we were gold fish in bowl.”
And Larry turned and with that effeminate way of his said, “Hmm, and then what fish would you be?”
Oh God. Oh God I thought. It’s amazing how an agnostic or even an atheist can find religion in the strangest of places. The brother turned and said pointing accusingly at Larry,”You don’t want to find out what kind of fish I could be.”

At this point, I’m thinking that since I’m the bigger of the two, I would have to defend Larry when the young man lunged for him. I knew with my size that once I hit him, he would hit the ground hard and maybe it would over quickly. But since he also seemed like he was 20 years younger than I was, he would probably be 20 years quicker, and by the time I would be able to think about hitting him he would have already struck me 5 or 6 times. I decided to do the honorable thing. I turned and walked away.

Larry followed.

Since then I have only listened to their album once. They’re not bad, but they are still not my thing. They are just another reason to take up more of my memory space.

Like Columbo Used to Say

I was lying in bed last night sort of minding my own business when quicker than you could sing a rousing chorus of “chestnuts roasting on an open fire,” I suddenly realized, my nuts were aflame. Let me explain.

Last night was one of those nights where I couldn’t fall asleep. Earlier I had taken a nap in front of the TV and had woken up just in time to see the ending credits of Nightline. If I had just gotten up and went straight to bed I might have been able to fall back to sleep right away. Instead, I watched TV for about 20 minutes they were doing some story on looking for a Turkish fleet that was sunk by the Spanish in the 16th century on PBS, the regular stuff on cable and the talk shows on the networks. There was really no reason that I should stay up any longer so I went to bed.

I knew that I wasn’t tired, I was too alert, but if I didn’t fall asleep soon I also knew that I would suffer for it the next day. I thought about visiting Mary Palmer for some relief. Do the five finger shuffle. Choke the chicken or spank the monkey. Funny, I’ve never known anyone to have used those phrases except in the movies, but masturbation didn’t really seem like it would help anyway.

I decided to lie in bed and surf the web instead. Look up shit that I wasn’t really interested in, porn I guess. I downloaded stuff from iTunes, read blogs and made comments or replied to those comments that needed replies. But after about an hour, I was seized by this searing pain in between my legs. I reached down under the comforter, blanket and sheet only to feel this great heat surrounded my privates. It was a heat so great that you would have believed someone had set the iron to cotton and slapped it on my genitalia for 10 minutes without even having the decency of at least allowing the steam function to work. My laptop was burning my unborn spawn.

Now like everyone, I know that computers generate a certain amount of heat, but isn’t the whole reason for calling a laptop a laptop the idea that you can rest it on your lap without jeopardizing yourself or your future children? So I have a question, I don’t usually ask anyone anything, but my computer is 4 years old this September. Does it threaten one of the few pleasures in life that I don’t have to pay for because it’s old or will getting a new computer not make any difference to my level of discomfort?

Anyone who has an answer please, feel free to help me out.

I Touch You Touch

Rest assured your jobs are now secure. You can sleep easy now with the thought that the value for your homes will no longer decrease as the economy is revived. And dare I say there will be peace in Iraq. Yes, I have done my bit for Bush and country. The economy stimulus check has been spent. It’s true I don’t actually know if the money has been deposited in my account yet, but they said it would be on the news and you know the networks are never wrong.

Anyway, I’ve been having troubles with my iPod recently; I was only getting sound out of one side of the headphones. I had thought that it was a headphone problem but after replacing them at least 3 times in the last 6 months, I figured it must be the iPod itself. This evening I went to the new Apple Store at the Cherry Hill Mall to see if I could get it repaired. Obviously it would be some sort of short that needed fixing or headphone contacts that needed realigning. Real simple.


Well they didn’t fix it there, but if I went on line and googled iPod repair, I could find someone who might fix it for about $50 to $75. Or the store could replace it with a similar model, which they don’t even make any more for $120. My third choice was to trade in the iPod Classic I had and upgrade to something else with 10% off. I turned and looked at what they had in the store and I actually felt my nipples start to harden. I was surrounded by that sweet smell of new technology and I couldn’t resist.

So the iTouch is being charged and I’m sitting back figuring I will have about $180 which I will buy a money order with and send it to my cousin courtesy of Chet from a previous post. I would send a check but the bitch used to steal from me when we were younger. I doubt that he’s changed since. But I’m happy, at least for today knowing that I’ve done my part for the economy by purchasing parts that were made in China and assembled in Mexico. I’ve helped with global warming by purchasing a leather case for iTouch and thereby preventing another cow by belching and farting methane gas into the atmosphere. And I know that George is still in the White House.

It brings a tear to the eye.