In his May 12th blog, my Internet friend Dick Summer tells a story he’s told before about how his wife bought him a new pair of swim trunks because she didn’t want to be seen in public with him anymore when he wore the Speedo he has had most of his life. It reminded me that I got a Speedo when I was 17. It was navy blue when I got it. It was kind of sun-faded brown when it disappeared from the pool locker room when I was 34. Did my wife, Saint Karen (who has to be a saint to put up with me) take matters into her own hands at the pool on that awful day that my Speedo disappeared?
We’ve only met once, but I consider Dick a kindred spirit because each of us has an off-beat sense of humor, each of us is very well aware that we’ve married above our station in life, and each of us is unabashedly in love with his wife.
I recommend that right-handed people buy sleeping bags with the zipper on the left and vice versa. I’m right handed and it’s easier for me to zip a bag whose zipper is on the left. I own four bags, not because I lose them but because I use them for different purposes. This past weekend, I used the only one I have with its zipper on the right and was reminded again of how much better I’d like it if I remembered my recommendation when I bought it.
Among life’s frustrations, I’ve never used the Blockbuster Video app on my Android phone, I can’t delete it, and now it’s bugging me every day because it needs an update.
Speaking of which, if you buy a new computer, and it comes loaded with bloatware, you can delete it. With an Android phone, it’s not a question of “if.” Android phones do come loaded with bloatware, a lot of which you cannot delete. Bad. For the uninitiated, bloatware is software you don’t want, and didn’t order that comes loaded on your new computer from the factory. It’s there because the software publishers pay the computer manufacturers to put it there as a form of advertising.
I don’t know or care whether the actor John Travolta is gay. Having said that, a lot of the reporting surrounding a lawsuit claiming damages because Travolta allegedly harassed men sexually while they provided massage services is deeply disturbing for its ignorance of proper English usage. Attention copy editors everywhere (professional writers too): There’s no such thing as a male masseuse and the phrase “male masseur” is redundant. By definition, a masseuse is female, a masseur is male. Plus, in either case, I believe the preferred phrase these days is massage therapist.
I don’t think President Obama’s position on gay marriage has evolved over his presidency. He favored it as a State Senator. When he ran for President four years ago I believe he held off on saying so because he didn’t want to alienate those people against gay marriage who would otherwise vote for him. I also believe that his recent announcement that he now favors gay marriage is a deliberate distraction from what should be the main issue. Let’s face it: The 2012 presidential election should hinge on the same issue the 1992 presidential election did: “It”s the economy stupid,” or maybe that should be, it’s the stupid economy.
Just for the record, I think all governments should stay out of everyone’s bedroom as long as what’s going on in there is consensual. If two gay people want to get married, it doesn’t bother me in the least.
Sometimes I just don’t understand Amazon.com’s search function. I am considering purchasing a new laptop computer because a couple of keys on the one I have now have become unreliable. Even if I fix the keyboard, my current laptop’s hard drive is nearly full, and it only has 1 GB of RAM. I searched Amazon’s category “computers & accessories” for the word “laptop.” When sorted for average customer review, the first laptop computer was listed on page seven of the search results.
Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan got married over the weekend. They’ve been together a long time, but last week, she became a doctor, and he became a multi-billionaire, so I guess they waited to get married until they were sure they could afford it.
