iAssumptions

The new iPhone is coming out today, and I just watched the video tutorial on its features. Pretty amazing stuff. If I ever want to do something with a phone except use it as a phone, I would get the iPhone.

If I had nothing to write about but wanted the world to think otherwise, I would make my writing pretty by using different fonts.

If I couldn't really play an old fashioned piano, I would get an electronic keyboard and load up on preset sounds and music loops that were already created by actual musicians.

If I couldn't draw, I would use Photoshop filters to make my chicken scratches more interesting looking. If I didn't know how to compose and shoot a decent photograph, same thing. (Actually, I'm not very good at composing and shooting a decent photograph, but I refuse to use Photoshop filters anyway.)

If I was unable to engage my friends in thoughtful conversation that lasted more than 5 minutes, I would spend that time instead downloading and assigning each of them a distinctive ring tone.

When I was a kid, I spent an hour every day practicing piano. I spent another hour drawing. On weekends, I would take a break and spend the afternoons playing baseball or tennis with my friends. Nowadays, that time is spent checking e-mail, deleting spam, setting up new filters, downloading the latest software updates, surfing to find solutions to computer problems, setting my favorite channels on my cable TV, synchronizing my iPod with iTunes, and sifting through gigabytes of digital photos to find the 10 shots that I actually want to print and keep in a scrapbook.

Technology, instead of encouraging and enhancing my talents, seems tailored to assume that I have none.

Rights, Entitlements, and More Rights

After watching a documentary on how insulation works, I stopped to watch a talk show with Dr. Keith Ablow that discussed dating. Four single women and four single men were interviewed. All of them were frustrated at not finding a mate, even though they have been very active in trying. All of them are on the show to try and figure out what’s wrong with the world, or what they’re doing wrong, and what can be done about it. Dr. Ablow had just begun to give them advice as I was changing the channel.

Paris Hilton was returned to jail today, to serve the rest of her 45-day prison term. She doesn’t seem to think she deserves it. Other people seem to think she deserves it. The news people seem to think that we should know about it.

Two thousand five hundred years ago, there lived a man whose life’s goal was to have as many children as he could, with as many wives as he could find. Maybe he wanted, through his sons and daughters, to be immortalized, or at least remembered, long after he died. I don’t know who he is, but everyone has heard of Plato.

Around two thousand three hundred years ago, the Library of Alexandria, considered to be the place to go to if you wanted to know everything back then, burned down. From that point on, scholars have been trying to piece together the information that was lost, as well as adding whatever information had been compiled since then.

No matter what you want to do, there is a book written on how to do it right. Every five years, a new book is written on how to do that same thing right.

String Theory is a theory in quantum mechanics that says there are eleven different dimensions, and as far as we know we are aware of four of them: the three dimensions, plus time being the fourth dimension. That means there are seven other dimensions that are here, right now, that we aren’t aware of.

The Atomic Clock exists so everyone in the world will know exactly what time it is.

We are made up of atoms. Together with atomic nuclei, electrons make up atoms. The exact momentum and position of any electron cannot be simultaneously determined. Basically, we don’t really know where an electron is, and we don’t really know where it’s going. But our lives are often scheduled to the exact hour of each day for the next two months.

Whenever my mom sees a person flaunting his wealth, she would say, “I think he thinks that he’s gonna get a better seat in heaven with that.”

I am writing this entry on a laptop in the dining room. My dog has gotten used to me being in other parts of the house, except for the dining room. Because he is unfamiliar with the dining room, my dog will sometimes lose track of where I am, even though he can hear my voice. He will become confused and whimper a little, trying to figure out where I went. If he had only searched a little further, he would have seen me sitting at the dining room table. But my dog’s way of thinking doesn’t include the dining room. The house doesn’t seem that big to me, but may seem infinite, even mysterious, to my dog. He is a good dog, but sometimes he gets lost.

My Dog Has Fleas

From my observation, the income of a job in Southern California is directly proportional to the hours spent each day in rush hour traffic. It is proportional to the number of times the telephone rings, the number of times the blackberry goes off, the number of e-mails that have to be answered, and the number of lunches that have to be eaten with a person who is neither friend nor family.

Right now is four o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon. I am sitting up in bed, writing this entry. I can hear the gardener outside in the backyard, shaping a hedge with his electric trimmer, while his partner is at the front of the house, cutting equally into grass and concrete with his edger. It’s sunny and there’s a slight breeze. I am not making money at this moment. Except for the electricity bill, I am not spending money at this moment.

In order to maximize every opportunity of every day, one has to make one’s self constantly available. If one is eating, sleeping, bathing, or going to the bathroom, if the phone rings, one must answer it immediately or risk losing an opportunity. If a series of phone calls are missed, and a series of voicemails are waiting to be heard, one must listen to each voicemail, evaluate the importance and profitability of each message, and return calls accordingly.

My dog has been waiting for me to finish my morning work so that I can play with him. During the morning, my dog slept at my feet while I answered e-mails, made telephone calls, and worked on billable work. My dog would look at me and wonder what I’m doing. And then he would scratch himself, take a deep breath, and go back to sleep. My dog eats one and a half meals a day, plays with his squeaky toys, answers the call of nature, and sleeps. My dog seems happy.

The air conditioning system in any given office building is a complex series of heating units, cooling units, vents, filters, exhausts and time-controlled thermostats. In order to maximize efficiency while minimizing cost, careful monitoring and adjusting of what is considered “comfortable” must be made. Filtering units must be cleaned or changed regularly to avoid the spreading of germs from one area to another, but not too often as to be cost prohibitive.

I work at home and don’t drive in rush hour traffic, and am therefore taking a chance with the income-traffic proportional ratio. Since it doesn’t apply to me, I have no idea how I relate to the system. I rarely eat with anyone who is not a friend. I turn the phone off when I take a nap. I take a nap when I’m tired. I only drink coffee when my taste buds tell me they want to taste some coffee.

I am not making money at this moment. I am not spending money at this moment.

It was getting a bit warm, so I changed from my long pants and am now wearing shorts. My dog, who doesn’t wear clothing, drank some water and moved to a cooler part of the room.