Pleasing Mr Gore

Dear Maggie,

Was yours and Mike's decision to keep your air conditioner set to 75 instead of lower influenced by Al Gore? Chris and I reluctantly installed ours last night, only after any chance of sleeping without it seemed impossible. With some things, I'm happy to lower my carbon footprint. For example, since seeing Al's movie I now put my computer to sleep at night and when I'm at work, where I used to leave it running 24/7. And drowning polar bears are a good excuse to use fewer lights (I prefer dim ambiance anyway). But other times, like with the air conditioner and other power-slurping appliances, I feel guilty choosing emissions over discomfort. But I guess there must be some balance struck between what is feasible and what's not. For example, the fridge must run and there's no way around it. But, of course, Al says that small lifestyle adjustments, multiplied by millions or billions of people, is all it takes. I think he would be happy with our efforts.

Environmentally yours,

Ben

PS: Plus, the financial conservative in me, who doesn't give a crap about the bears, will be thrilled by the low electric bills.

Honor Among Vagrants

"I'm a friend!" screeched one vagrant as he thew another vagrant to the ground. "I'm a friend!"

Yesterday when I was walking home from work I noticed these two beating the shit out of each other beside the Park Street fountain. I adjusted my path to take me around the opposite side from where this vagabrawl was going down.

"I'm a friend!" screamed the first vagrant again. Other vagrants standing around said "Let him up" in hushed throaty tones. But the first vagrant was having none of it. The other vagrant lay stiffly on the ground on his back, while the first vagrant jumped around on top of him. And finally we (we as in all the passersby), who had missed the beginning of this fight, got more information: The first vagrant screamed, "How could you think I'd mean anything by it!??!" He screamed this in agony, the agony of someone whose car has just cruelly been driven into a lake, and then he resumed slamming his buddy, his pal, against the concrete.

So this wasn't a dispute over the half-empty Starbucks cup some officeworker had left on the curb, or a stray nickel, or even an old mitten. This was about honor. Something had been said in jest, but not received that way.

I imagine it went a bit like this:

"Haha," the first vagrant laughs, pointing. "Look how shiny your baldino is."

"What?" retorts the other vagrant. "Why you talking about my baldino? You're a fucking asshole, talking about my baldino."

"I'm just kidding, I didn't mean anything by it."

"I thought you was a friend, but you're talking shit about my baldino."

"AAAAHHHH!!!!" The first vagrant erupts and lands a punch in the other vagrant's toothless kisser.

It was funny to me, at first, that these people would care so much about their reputation. But, on second thought, what else do they have?

The first vagrant is a friend, goddammit. And there's a puddle of blood on the sidewalk to prove it.

Hemingway's shortest story...

...consisted of six words. Here it is, in its glorious entirety:

For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.

Earth breath

One of the most interesting things pointed out in An Inconvenient Truth can be seen in this graph, which measures the growing amounts of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.



Disregard the overall increase (but don't disregard it too much, of course) and notice how the levels go up and down every year, like teeth on a saw. This is because each year green plants take in carbon dioxide when they're growing and give it off when they die in the fall. It's like every year the whole earth takes a giant breath. Ahhhhhh.

Isn't that cool?

On a related note, Stephen Hawking says we need to establish colonies in space soon to ensure the survival of the human race.

[I]f humans can avoid killing themselves in the next 100 years, [Hawking said,] they should have space settlements that can continue without support from Earth.

"It is important for the human race to spread out into space for the survival of the species," Hawking said. "Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of."

My bet? We don't make it in time. Thus my theory of time travel would work out perfectly. Mwuhahaha.

MySpace priorities

Have you ever bumped a real-live friend out of your Top 8 to make room for the profile of a fictional character?

I'm a little embarassed to admit that I've done just that. But hey, it's Superman!

I'm sure the bumpee will understand.

Hear ye? Hear ye?

Can you hear this ringtone?

According to the NY Times, this new ringtone, which only young people can hear,

is perfect for signaling the arrival of a text message without being detected by an elder of the species.

"When I heard about it I didn't believe it at first," said Donna Lewis, a technology teacher at the Trinity School in Manhattan. "But one of the kids gave me a copy, and I sent it to a colleague. She played it for her first graders. All of them could hear it, and neither she nor I could."

I can hear it. Thank god. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to. Guess I can push that quarter-life crisis off a little while.