June 5th, 2005 — Flashbacks
It’s been three decades since a piece of plastic just like this one woke me up every morning. I still remember the audio track word for word, which included the voices of Burt Ward and Adam West:
(sound of vrooming Batmobile coming to a screeching halt)
Robin: “JUMPING JEHOSOPHAT, BATMAN! WE’RE NEEDED AGAIN!”
Batman: “Right, Robin. We have to wake our friends.”
Robin: “TIME TO GET UP AND OUT OF BED!”
Batman: “Good boy, Robin. Very well said.”
(sound of vrooming Batmobile screeching away)
Over, and over, and over again. It would loop until you turned it off. Didn’t even have a snooze button.
Now that I think about it, I never really liked Robin. What kind of guy calls himself “Boy Wonder” anyway?
June 5th, 2005 — Flashbacks
Remember Licorice Pizza? The record store back in the 70s.
Licorice Pizza. Not only did it spark the visual of a round pizza made of black licorice, but it also served to represent what “LP” stood for.
An awesomely perfect name.
June 5th, 2005 — Flashbacks
Doing some spring cleaning. Came across a Denon amp/receiver and cassette tape deck, both of which I purchased with a pair of floor-standing wood-cased Infinity speakers just before college. I paid 800 bucks out the door from an electronics store called “The Federated Group” in Southern California.
This small chain of stores launched a strategic television advertising campaign in the 80s, which had Shadoe Stevens playing a lunatic named Fred Rated. Using an endless collection of sledge hammers, chainsaws, and small wrecking balls, Fred would have his way with televisions, stereos, and VCRs in order to illustrate how The Federated Group utterly destroys the competition.
Anyway, I have no idea where and why I will ever use this Denon cassette tape deck again.
June 5th, 2005 — Various
Good morning.
I had a really weird dream last night. I was at my brother’s surprise 30th birthday party, held at a sports bar. The details are a bit fuzzy, but from what I remember, I was doing Master Of Puppets on karaoke.
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June 5th, 2005 — Rants
“I couldn’t care less.”
What an eloquent way of putting it. When you use this phrase, what you’re telling me is that you care so little about something that it would be technically impossible to care less than you already do. The expression effectively tells me that your level of caring is as low as it could possibly go, and, well, you simply couldn’t care less than you do right now.
So why do so many people constantly mangle this phrase and say:
“I could care less.”
?
Amazing.
When you tell me that you could care less, you’re basically telling me that, at the very least, you kinda care. In other words, your telling me that your level of caring has a cushion below it; if you were to measure how much you care right now, it would be technically possible to bump it down a notch or two on the caring scale.
But when it’s all said and done, you haven’t really told me anything at all.
“I could care less”.
OK. You do that. I really couldn’t care less.
I just did some research on the phrase. According to one source, the phrase apparently originated in Great Britain in 1940, and invariably used “couldn’t”. By about 1960, “could” was occasionally (and incorrectly) substituted, and today both versions are used with approximately equal frequency, despite their being antonyms. And despite half of the population being wrong.
This is yet another example of how an error in English, if commited often enough by enough people, can achieve widespread acceptance. It becomes a blind leading the blind type of situation.
Am I the only one who has a problem with this?
June 5th, 2005 — Art, Portfolio
June 5th, 2005 — Art, Portfolio
