My Sick Mind

There is a lot of junk on television. I'm not talking about the programs, although there are enough of them to qualify. The junk is the stuff going on around the programs - icons, crawls, shrunken screens - all sorts of things designed to distract us from the program and make us pay attention to what else is on, rather than what is on now. Several years ago, I purchased a 32-inch television to replace the 21-inch one that I had. Partly out of rebellion to a failed marriage, and partly because I wanted a bigger TV. (OK, mostly because I wanted a bigger TV) I could do what I wanted, and I wanted a big TV. Sure, it's not big by today's standards, but it was big then. Little did I know that the 32-inch screen would soon become 21 inches, with the advent of modern technology that does little but make me yearn for the good old days - not the married part - just the TV part. I'm trying to watch the news on CNN Headline News (the middle 'N' stands for News ) but ...

Imagine two of the four basic food groups in one fantastic product. Beer and ice cream - well, not real beer, but the next best thing - beer flavored Black & Tan ice cream. The mad scientists in Waterbury, Vermont have done it again! They have combined two of the greatest treats into one compact container. So, grab a pint of ice cream and a pint of Yuengling and get fat and happy at the same time. While it sounds too good to be true, it is available at fine food stores nationwide. Go Here: http://www.benandjerrys.com/our_products/flavorWorld.cfm

While I was watching the LPGA tournament last Sunday (yes, I know - geek) one of the announcers mentioned that Michelle Wie was still only 16, and a junior in high school, although it seems as though she has been around the game forever. Meanwhile, she was carrying around schoolwork and struggling with some novel or another. My first thought was, if I was "Mr. Wie," I'd be writing an excuse note to whatever school (or tutor) she was attending that said something like: Dear School, Michelle cannot attend today. She is busy working on her golf game, which will earn her much more than any silly high school diploma. Any worldly knowledge she wishes to absorb will be done while touring the world playing golf. Did I mention that she is a professional golfer? So, while you may miss her and her witty remarks, I assure you that the world is better off having her persue her professional golfing career than it is having her persue her high school diploma. Here's a wake-up call f...

Solitude is getting harder to come by. Our lives are so complicated that we have less time for quiet contemplation than we used to have. The major culprit in our noise-invaded lives is the cellular phone. No doubt it is one of the greatest innovations in the last 20 years, but can't we live without it for five minutes? I see more people doing mindless babbling than anything, and I wonder how empty our lives were before we had such a thing? We seem to be so attached to these devices that they are invading activities that used to be done in peaceful silence. I see cell phones at the gym, the library, movies, concerts and of course, the automobile. Do we really need to be constantly talking to someone? The thing I hear from most people is a kind of babbling nonsense. One end of the conversation would go like this: "really ... yeah ... uh-huh ... sure ... OK ... OK ... well ... see ya." Boy, it doesn't get much more stimulating that that, does it? Mostly it seems like peo...

Now that I've unburdened myself with a rant against storage bins, let's take on trash. What doesn't go in the storage bin goes in the trash can. We live in a disposable society, and it is likely that we throw away more than we actually use. Bath soap, for instance. It comes in a package - a box sometimes, or a plastic wrapper. The container gets thrown away and eventually the soap goes down the drain. It's an extreme example, but it is odd to me that we have to wrap soap in a container. It's soap, what are we afraid of ... that it's going to get dirty? Tons of disposable packaging, most of which has little or no use other than providing business for the Waste Management Corporation. It seems to have gotten worse, since the mysterious Tylenol cyanide poisionings in 1982. Since then, products have an inordinate amount of packaging. Pill bottles come sealed in a box, and the bottle has a plastic ring with a paper seal inside and a child-proof cap that only children...

Think of all the things we have added to our lives recently: The microwave oven, cellular phone, DVD recorder, satellite radio (more on that later) and digital cable television to name some. But, p erhaps no other modern device speaks to the advent of modern society more than the external storage area. There are two such properties being erected now, one in Woodbury Heights and another in Mantua. There is one near the Route 55 interchange in Sewell, and another on Route 322 in Monroe Township. We need these things so badly, that there are four within 10 miles of each other. The point is, we are collecting so much stuff that we do not have room in our larger and larger homes to store it all, so we have to build places to put things. Why is it necessary to have these things now, when 15 or 20 years ago, they didn't exist? Did we need them and not have them then, or is this desire for storage a product of our cluttered 21st Century lives? I'm thinking the latter. People collect s...