Category Archives: Day-to-Day

Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

How To Mask Your True Emotions

Leave a comment

Mask True Emotions
Mask True Emotions
Mask True Emotions
Mask True EmotionsMask Your True Emotions. Please.

I just read a scientific article (without moving my lips too much) on what may have been the worst year ever — 536 CE. Or AD if you prefer that abbreviation. According to these scientists — Trump devotees by default excluded because facts are involved — 536 was the worst year ever! Volcanic eruptions, freezing winters, no sun, failed crops, and perhaps worse, no TV or Netflix to get through it. Neither chocolate nor cinnamon danish had been invented yet. Times were literally and figuratively dark. A mask of misery had covered the globe.

I can only presume with little or no scientific evidence, and even less research because it’s too damn hot today, that people back then must have been freaking out. (Kind of like now, except we have Netflix and danish of various sorts.) The superstitious and  uneducated masses, lacking any real guidance, must have run wild in the unpaved streets, begging for help, searching for any answers, and fearful of their neighbours (also, kind of like now).  The many simple and few enlightened folk must have hid in their homes and hoped for the best and some kind of miracle to free them. (Also, kind of like now. Is it just me or does anyone see a trend?)

2020 vs 536

Many have said that 2020 is the worst year ever! Virus, death, racism, riots, an American election with two old white guys, China spying and running rampant over democracy, millions unemployed. The usual. But people have become very angry and vocal of late. [Note to reader: I am not suggesting people don’t protest. Quite the opposite, they should stand up to the entrenched powers that be. Or kneel. Or whatever gets some good media attention. It gives me great material to work with for the blog.] But at times it might be a little too emotional. Too in your face. Too much fomite-soaked anger blowing in the wind.

We could all really use some emotional masks.

Emotional Masks

I am not talking metaphorically here. Some smart person (Trump devotees by default excluded) is going to come up with some kind of mask that inhibits or in some way tempers our emotions.

My design, which was rejected by the patent office for using too many swear words and containing a selfie of me wearing nothing but a moose hat and slippers, is simple. It will look like your regular everyday mask you can buy at any of the major mask outlets (such as Musk’s Masks, Masks-R-Us, Masks, Flasks and Basques).

The difference is it will come with a 12oz (355 ml) container of liquid emotional modifier (read: booze) of your choice. To start, four kinds would be available: Scotch Whisky for the upscale set, Beer for the blue collar audience, cherry-flavoured schnapps for the rustic crowd, and Vodka for those who wish to keep their consumption discreet, but still not give a crap. At the start of your day, soak your mask before you go out. Or talk to anyone in your household. Repeat at lunch, coffee breaks, dinner and bedtimes. I’m not saying you have to drink the booze, just inhale the vapours until you’re giddy and a little sleepy maybe.

While there are other ways to tame our emotions, such as therapy, weed, pills, yoga, archery, wood-working, setting small fires, or playing strip poker, I say give your mask a shot. Of schnapps preferably.

Manifestly mediocre,
Friar Druker of Snickerdoodle

What mask should you wear when being intimate?

Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

How to Drink COVID Away

1 Comment

Drunk CovidDrinking COVID Away

My daughter just read me a recent Twitter quote regarding the recent manned flight to space: “Congrats to the astronauts who just left earth. Good choice.”

At least they have escaped the misery of COVID,  the anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists, the riots resulting from the murder of yet another unarmed black person, and the rantings of Führer Trump for a while. What’s more, they did it without resorting what millions of Americans have done to cope with this misery — drinking vats of alcohol. To no one’s surprise, however, United Kingdom sales spiked to even higher liver-damaging levels. Just another excuse to get hammered.

Space Station Therapy

Let’s go back to those astronauts for a minute. Think about how desperate you have to be to risk life and limb, climbing aboard what is essentially a computer-guided roman candle to go live in a gravity-deprived, sterile, smelly space station where fresh baked chocolate danishes and artery-clogging burgers are difficult to come by unless you have good connections.

They could have easily drank themselves into a stupor to cope with this COVID conundrum. It’s way cheaper and less stressful than all of that astronaut training. Furthermore, drinking yourself stupid means you wouldn’t have to deal with that Elon Musk fellow crowing about his silly rocket that he claims is “so totally awesome.” I could build one of those rocket thingies with some duct tape, a ball of twine, a fork, peanut butter, pop-sickle sticks and paint thinner.

But no, they chose flight over fight. Actually, over drinking. Idiots.

Alternative Therapies

So if I am left with a choice between going into space, where the WiFi signal is crap and the Netflix subscription hasn’t been renewed, and staying here and drinking myself into oblivion like most of the world seems to be doing, I may be at a loss.

Don’t give me that “read a book” line either. Trump doesn’t read them. No, wait. He can’t read. And he’s a PUTZ. No, I meant POTUS.

But still, given my tremendous lack of knowledge about everything from aeronautics to zoology, I’d have to read like a zillion books, and that would mean spending all day and night at the library where the WiFi signal is crap.

Also, if one of you says “try meditation” again, I’ll tell you what I told that mouthy jerk of a police officer — drinking booze is a way easier method to relax and clear one’s mind. Or at least subdue it.

No Choice

Clearly I am lacking the mental faculties needed to make a decision on how best to handle this situation. So I will do what I always do when confronted with questions of great importance and moral significance. I’ll watch Bugs Bunny and the Simpsons.

Famously famished,
Arch Duke Druker of Suburbia

How you dealing with this insane world?

Crime, Day-to-Day, Meaning of Life

More Human Organs For Sale

3 Comments

More Human Organs For SaleBrevity Is the Organ of Wit

Did you know ginger contains a powerful enzyme called zingibain, which acts as a meat tenderizer? More importantly, do you even care? Of course not. It’s too hot and humid. How can anyone care about anything now except for lowering one’s body temperature to keep from snapping and killing a random passer-by, in order to sell his or her organs for cash so you can buy an air conditioner and some ice cream to bathe in?

This rant will likely be a little shorter than normal as I need to watch something to distract me from thinking of those things that trouble me. Oddly, that small-handed venal vendor Trump isn’t what’s keeping me up. I think watching baseball may be what the doctor, psychiatrist, parole officer and spiritual guide ordered to distract me.

Although I doubt the organ playing in the background at the baseball game will soothe and distract me. It’s meant to amp up the crowd with an ever escalating series of tones so the fans are frothing with anticipation at another player scratching his crotch. Why do they have organs at baseball and hockey games? Why not a live jazz orchestra? Or several mariachi bands? Tap-dancing harmonica players, maybe? Nope, someone chose organs as the musical instrument of choice to liven things up. At least it wasn’t a church organ.

If you haven’t clicked away by now, I stated previously that brevity is the organ of wit. Not the soul of wit, as the expression would have you believe. In the human body an organ is a group of tissues with similar functions, like a liver or kidneys or a brain.

Wit is roughly defined as being shrewd, perceptive, inventive, a natural aptitude for words. To be witty, you need some organs, like eyes, a brain, a tounge and most likely a heart. Basically something you can donate after you’re dead. Or if you’re enterprising, sell for a small profit on the internet to people with no morals or a soul.

Can you sell a soul? It’s hard as it doesn’t fit in any standard envelop or packaging that I know of. It also is fragile and bubble wrap doesn’t protect it well. Also, what are you going to do with a soul once you’ve bought it? Show it off at dinner parties? Brag about it at poker night? Wear it like jewellery? Organs are so much more tangible, and think of the points you’ll score at a singles mixer if you tell people you donated one recently. Make sure you have the scar AND the receipt to back it up if anyone asks. Trust me.

Now that I have consumed a mighty fine Dairy Queen sundae, it’s getting late. Good night.

Bartolomeo di Ebraico con Prosciutto

Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

Human Organs For Rent: Use Them For More Than Just Living!

6 Comments

Huamn Organs - Right to Be WrongHuman Organs for Sale – Is It Right?

Note to reader: The following few paragraphs are really quite absurd, which is normal. It's meant to set the tone. Foreshadowing, they call it.

Much has been written about the absurd and confusing nature and rules of English spelling. Silent letters, irregular conjugations, irregular pronunciations, and nasty homonyms like there, they’re and their, or the dreaded triumvirate of right, rite and write.

The fact that we need computer programs to correct authors from using the wrong word speaks to our poor education system and to the fact that people are stupid and too lazy to proofread their work. I never do.

But the one that gets me is why we spell wrong with a ‘w’ when ‘rong’ will do. What do we gain as a people, as a nation or even as a species by adding the damn ‘w’? It’s sheer waste to employ a letter that probably didn’t even want to be used, probably because the printers union sneaked it in there as part of backroom deal. Letter inflation is everywhere.

And how do we know there is letter inflation? How do we spell ‘write’? With a useless ‘w’ just like ‘wrong’. If that isn’t proof of a right-wing plot then I don’t know what is.

How simple would it be to spell write without the ‘w’ — you know — rite? Sure, there’s already a word with that spelling and it has a completely different meaning, but changing up the spelling would reduce dictionary entries by a full word and save spell-checker developers at least one line of code. While we are at it, let’s cull ‘right’ too. Rationalize and reduce. Do we really need the ‘gh’ in there?

Personally, I think it’s a plot by the Chinese or the Russians to confuse me. It’s working. And I ‘m right, so leave me alone.

Absurdity Is the Norm

What does any of this have to do with the wildly absurd idea of human organs being for rent? Because I came up with another absurd idea, that’s as equally bizarre as English spelling rules.

The idea for this episode came from an opinion piece in Wired magazine about every damn thing in the world being for rent so we can all make some spare cash. Clothes, houses, cars, scooters, nipple clips, beds, office spaces, hardware, software, sexual encounters, you name it.

So what’s to prevent us stupid humans from going one step further and renting out our organs to the highest bidder? Yes, I said organs. It’s clear we are morally neglectful for not having monetized those silly inner hunks of genetic materials to earn some spare cash to spend on yet another service/device we don’t need but really want.

Only a crafty, savvy business person can see the potential of renting his or her organs, and resulting income potential that it would generate. You have two eyes, right? Rent one out to a blind guy for a day, give the gift of sight – for a price. Once the blind guy is hooked on vision, then you have a long-term customer.

Same goes for you kidneys. Do you really need both of them all the time? Couldn’t you rent one for a day or so? Why be so selfish with your organs? Don’t you see you could pay for that trip to Europe with a week of rental time.

Just think of how many heavy drinkers would shell out real money for your  kidneys or liver for just a few hours of alcoholic debauchery? Lots, I say. And there you go – your retirement fund is set!

Let addicted smokers use your lungs for a few hours so they can have that last deep draw off a cigarette or cigar, knowing full well, you have given them joy and they have given you money. Really, it’s a form generosity.

And you’re driving the economy, too, not like some kind of lazy, socialist lay-about.

Driving Sales

Notice I didn’t say selling organs. That would be economically inefficient because you’re not getting any long-term revenue out of them. Bad business model.

And what’s worse, if you sell your organs as opposed to renting them, and someone wants to return them due to natural defects or they don’t color-match their other organs,  the seller may have died, so you’re left holding the bag, as it were. Too risky a business proposition. Renting is safer.

The entire global economy now is based on maximizing usage and efficiency, as well as being green. Reuse those organs, and put them to good use if you’re just sitting around. Contribute instead of consume.

Use your organs for more than just living.

Suspiciously coherent and awake,
Ayn Rand Druker

Crime, Day-to-Day, Meaning of Life

To Be Perfectly Honest About Honesty

2 Comments

Human Organ Rental

To Be Perfectly Honest About Honesty

More than once in the last week I have heard people say “Well, to be perfectly honest,…” and then some kind of backhanded insult telling me I shouldn’t wear stripes and polka dots together. Fashion fascists.

It was the first part of the sentence that got me thinking (mostly because I was on a chocolate danish sugar high). Why do we even say ‘to be perfectly honest’? The implications for human society are staggering. Ok, to be perfectly honest, that last sentence was hyperbole multiplied by a billion.

Honest Mayhem

It’s a curious turn of speech, “to be perfectly honest” since it implies most of the time we as gum-flapping, bi-pedal bags of genetic material are being dishonest. A lot. And that means there’s a whole lot of lying going on. Which leads to mayhem. As well as electing mentally ill leaders to our respective corrupted democracies.

Without any scientific proof, or even an online degree in scientific proofery (it’s a real degree, I swear) I honestly believe we like being lied to so we don’t have to deal with any more stress than we already do. Oh sure, we get upset when we find out we have been lied to, but we have built in many layers of psychological protection to deal with all the dishonesty that is daily life.

It’s not just humans who lie, animals do it too, but for different reasons, like not wanting to get eaten. Many an animal will change its skin color or pattern so the larger thing with teeth doesn’t eat it. But it’s a form of a lie, mostly for self-preservation.

Humans need self-preservation skills, and being perfectly honest is not one that is conducive to making money on the stock market, having a successful marriage or getting elected to any position from dog catcher to president. Being perfectly honest in marriage and politics especially is a recipe for disaster.

Can you imagine telling your significant other he/she/it/they/thy/them looks like a dishevelled sack of discarded toilet tissue when they show you that article of clothing they bought online thinking it would make them look younger/thinner/cooler/hipper when in reality they really look like a dishevelled sack of discarded toilet tissue? Me neither.

Lying & Human Organs

If you ask any random passers-by if they would be willing to commit an act of charity that would save a life, most of them would probably say yes, providing you didn’t ask the aforementioned passers-by while they were in the changing room at the Victoria’s Secret store (Yes, I am obeying the court order, all right!)

Now if you asked those same passers-by if they have signed their organ donor cards, most of them would say yes and be lying to you. The second they think they’d have to give up a brain, a kidney, or a nipple – posthumously – they’d hide their heads in shame knowing they want to keep their organs.

Same goes for money-making. If someone said you could earn millions of dollars selling your kidney, you’d say No way! But if the question were you could earn millions of dollars selling somebody ele’s kidney, particularly that of your boss, you’d say “where’s the scalpel?” Now that to me is being perfectly honest.

On a side note, I skilfully slid in the human organs reference because it’s in the comic that no one reads, and I have a pretty odd idea how to work it into the next issue. It’ll be a doozy. Trust me, I am being perfectly honest here.

Sincerely,

Dr. Mendacious Schopenhauer Druker

Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

Evolution and Ugliness

1 Comment

Evolution - Stanko & Tibor

Evolution & Killers

Now that I am through episode 6 of Blue Planet II, I am starting to notice several facts about evolution and the killers in the ocean. Here they are in no order of importance.

  1. First off, there are LOTS of killers in the ocean. Everybody is eating everybody else, provided they’re slightly lower on the food chain, or they just missed the class in skilled hiding. There aren’t many vegetarians in the sea, I noticed. Sure, some low-life organisms eat veggies, like the sea grass-eating sea turtles, or those lefty, kelp-nibbling fish who have to stay close to the coral reefs and shoals because they’ll get eaten 2 seconds after wandering away, since their parents never game them iPhones to stay in contact. But there’s a lot of carnivores down there.
  2. Fish evolution is not keeping up with today’s modern, fast-paced ocean life. Fish genetics are too slow to evolve to meet the crushing demands of basic survival AND being cast in yet another Sir David Attenborough-narrated documentary, where filming schedules are tight and budgets for krill limited.
  3. Education is failing today’s schools of fish. Too few learn the skills they need to succeed in the 21st century, like online banking, or self-promotion in social media, let alone wood working skills. (A  lack of opposable thumbs is not an excuse.)
  4. Many sea creatures actually use tools (not power tools, though – power cord isn’t long enough) to chase, hide, distract their prey or mate. Turns out that when we thought only humans, chimps and otters used tools to make their lives easier and justify the cost of a trip to the hardware store to buy a tool chest, we were incorrect. Ugly fish do it too.
  5. Sharks are the equivalent dumb male jocks who drive Jeeps. Totally possessive of their catch and they don’t share well. They have sycophantic, smaller fish attached to their skin. They scare off every other fish and are constantly looking for fight with lesser fish. Just like all sports jocks.
  6. Octopuses are exceptionally ugly and super intelligent. And significantly smarter than I be. Two, in fact, outscored me on standardized tests, and both are going to ivy league schools this fall if they can get funding. One octopus beat me at Scrabble AND Blackjack in the same day. Twice. There’s goes my lunch money.
  7. All ocean-dwelling creatures are so incredibly ugly that’s it’s clear there isn’t a mirror down there. Or a beauty salon or hair salon or even a barber. Clearly there is a business opportunity not being seized upon – plastic surgery for sea creatures! if there was plastic surgery for fish I’d think we’d kill fewer of them because they’d look more like characters from a Disney animated film and we’d grow emotionally attached instead of dumping trash in their waters and pouring pollutants like it was a giant toilet.

What lessons can we take away from this fact-rich list of aquatic knowledge? Stay above water if you can, stop polluting the oceans because it makes filming documentary films harder, and if you do eat fish, know that you, Mr. and Mrs. Human are at the top of the food chain, until the aliens land of course.

Fishing for meaning,
Jean-Jacques Cousteau Druker

Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

Go Insane, It’s OK

1 Comment

Insane Isn't So Bad

Go Insane – It’s OK

Why does insanity have such a bad reputation? Why do we treat it like an affliction that is to be cured or treated, when in reality, insanity is pretty much the norm every day we live our lives.

The USA has an insane president, plus a bunch of insane southern states who think the insanity they perpetrate every day is pretty normal. Trade wars are good for farmers. Bankruptcy only makes you stronger. Besides why would you want to cozy up to democracies when dictators are just so much more social and non-judgmental, and usually have a stable of fancy sports cars?

You can also label China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and let’s say Italy, as being insane. Collective governmental madness. Like a bad fungus, it’s spreading. And anti-biotics won’t fix it either. Insanity is the new norm.

Conspiracy Theory = Insanity

Chances are, if you have complete and utter faith in a theory about why the world/social media/banks/the dark state/movie reviewers are all out to keep you from greatness, chances are just as good that your family has an extra helix of DNA where the insanity gene is dominant.

Let me cite some recent examples:

  • You ever watch those TV shows on cable about extraterrestrials and how the government is covering it up? And the so called experts making their case? Insane.
  • Flat Earthers? Insane.
  • Anti-Vaxxers? Criminally insane and should be forced to live on Jupiter until they come to their senses.
  • People who strive to be popular on Instagram or TikTok or YouTube? Deeply and narcissistically insane.
  • People who prefer cinnamon danish to chocolate danish? The worst kind of insane.

Which all begs the question: is insanity native to the genetic code or do we learn this behavior from watching too much TV, drinking Kombucha and believing what’s on social media?

Technology to the Rescue

It turns out it doesn’t matter what the source is because we can’t cure it. The bigger question is how do we identify it and thus use it to my advantage.

Given all the bio-metric hardware and software out there, I say someone shiftless and smarter than me invents a fingerprint reader that can instantly detect insanity. Stick your fingers on the little scanner and within seconds you get an answer determining whether or not you should be the leader of a major country, or whether you should stay on reality TV shows and never be allowed to breed.

Something like a 1-5 scale with 1 being the lowest level of insanity, “the bookish accountant in the actuarial department” and 5 being the highest level, “Donald Trump.”

The only possible risk to a fingerprint insanity analyzer is that it gets hacked and you find a way to substitute your own fingerprints with those of the Queen of England, thus allowing you to pass without suspicion at cock fighting matches and porno theaters.

So what can you take away from this lengthy diatribe that — as well as being proof of a wobbly circadian rhythm and proof of  lead ingestion as a child — has been scientifically enlightening and not terribly entertaining?

When the crazies think everything is normal, that’s when you know it’s OK to be insane. And get some good meds and chocolate danish to handle the stress.

Loyally yours,
Aristotle Ventius Druker, Slayer of Logic, King of Nothing, Protector of the Afternoon  Nap

Day-to-Day, Meaning of Life

Exercise Cooperation Among Friends

3 Comments

Cooperation among friendsCooperation Among Friends & Enemies

Cooperation – a word often misunderstood in today’s day. So many people think cooperation is where two parties, be they friends or adversaries, find a method to achieve a desired outcome so that both parties don’t feel entirely ripped off. Basically, it’s how to get something without losing too much face.

But that is the incorrect interpretation of the term cooperation. If you look at the word construct, you can see it consists of two parts:

Coop and Ration – the ‘e’ is just in there because the language police liked how it sounded at parties, and it was also a way for the global cabal of  printers to goose their ‘per-letter’ profit margins when they printed all those dictionaries that no one uses anymore. Why do you think the words laugh, thought, philosophy, colleague, wrought and knock have all those extra letters?You’re telling me laf, thawt, filosofee, coleeg, rot and nok wouldn’t suffice?? It’s a scam, I tells ya.

But I digress.

Can’t Fly the Coop

Taking a deeper look at so called cooperation, we can dissect the part of it that involves a coop. A coop is where whickens or rabbits or ducks are kept, fed and treated like machines in man-made structures until we need them for a meal. Human life is not too far off from the life of chickens, what with all our time spent cooped up looking at screens, watching Game of Thrones, or surfing to buy something on Amazon you just have to have, stopping only for a snack or bathroom break. Oh, we are all cooped up all right.

The only major difference is that we mostly feed and bathe ourselves, whereas the chickens are fed. Then again, with Uber Eats, we are becoming more like chickens, just with credit cards. (Good thing we don’t lay eggs. What a mess that would be.)

Furthermore, the more time we spend in our respective coops staring at the proverbial heating lamp known as a screen, the easier it is for whoever owns our data (it’s not you, trust me) to snoop on us and then let us know what we should buy, read, eat, object to, and be visibly offended by.

K-Ration

Now that we are wilfully cooped up, we can look at the rations we have left to survive on.  Let’s call them K-rations, for knowledge rations. First of all, it prints well on a baseball cap or a t-shirt, and secondly, I am not that smart or creative to come up with something better on the spur of the moment. I write these rants extemporaneously, and sadly without the aid of a trusty, gooey, sticky chocolate danish to fuel the fires of creativity and early onset diabetes.

As we all know, knowledge is generally rationed out by a) income and b) education. The more you have of a, the more you can get of b, and then become rich and have a coop somewhere in the Bahamas or Switzerland with servants who don’t have much of either a or b.

So with knowledge being rationed and most of us being cooped up somewhere, then it’s easy to see how cooperation functions. Just stay where you are, eat some feed, and wait to be told what to do by either your phone, spouse, secret government snooping agency, or your stomach/bladder/bowels. My recommendation: listen to your stomach/bladder/bowels before you listen to your phone. Unless the government has your tax returns and asks you to come for a polite chat.

Just cooperate. Unless they try to take away your danish. Then rebellion shall ensue.

Affectedly effective,
Santiago Schopenhauer Druker

What's your favorite type of cooperation?

Day-to-Day, Meaning of Life

Technology Is A Vengeful God

4 Comments

Stanko & Tibor - CrisprTechnology Is A Vengeful God

It’s funny how we revere technology almost like a god. But we do that largely because it’s way easier to revere that than following an established religion where you often have to give cash gifts to large institutions, especially if you want to host a wedding there. What a racket that is. Weddings, I mean. Oh, and the Trump-eriffic Mueller Report.

Technology, like religion, was created by us humans so that we would have something explain why little Billy was run over by the motorized parade float featuring hairy, fire fighter drag queens at the Gay Pride parade, despite Billy’s utter innocence. Sure, his parents were mightily distracted and in a zombie-like trance watching season 8 of Game of Thrones or playing Fortnite til 3 AM on a caffeine high. But a vengeful technology god took Billy away to teach them a lesson. Or to teach Billy a lesson. I am not sure which one. I haven’t been sleeping well.

Let me be precise here when referring to technology as a god. I am not referring to the Miracle/Curse of CRISPR, the gene-editing technology that may one day alleviate the pain of disease, and help to create healthy populations, or potentially make a bunch of amoral Chinese super soldiers. No, it’s far more mundane than that.

Back to the technology-religion thing for a minute. It’s really simple to worship at the Altar of Bits and Bytes, at the Church of iPad, at the House of the 88-inch OLED Screen with 4K, because, let’s face it, you don’t have to get dressed up and show up at an place of worship on someone else’s schedule, where parking is difficult to come by.

No one asks you to pray or for donations at the Temple of Technology. They just ask for a credit card and a monthly subscription that over time equates to a king’s ransom of a small African nation. Which you are happy to fork over blindly because you get pretty immediate rewards and gratification as opposed to having to wait until the afterlife, which I am told by people who claim to have knowledge of such, is a hard place to find a decent Chinese food restaurant that isn’t overbooked.

Existential Threat

Now that technology is our new god, or is at least 85% of the way to replacing most major religions, we have new worries and fears.  I think it’s fair to say that humanity’s greatest existential threat is  when the WiFi goes down, or your smart phone goes on the fritz. That’s when the technology god wreaks his (yes, I used a masculine pronoun because that bloody profession of techies is about 99.9% male-dominated) revenge and puts you at the mercy of the evil minions who occupy the lower rungs of the Help Desk.

Minion #3,692,134 lords his (or her) power over you after you have waited 73 minutes on hold (a.k.a. purgatory), then gets you to give your most personal details like your blood type and the last time you picked your nose in order to verify your account before he (or she) explains that after “rebooting your device” (that always sounded vaguely sexual to me for some reason), you’re kind of screwed and they have to send a technician to your home, for a small fee. Kind of like buying an indulgence, no?

Yet, despite the ignominy of dealing with the Help Desk Minions, and the associated manager or Level 26 expert you had to wait an hour to get to just to tell you the problem is somehow your fault, once they miraculously re-establish the electronic connection and the flow of electrons and compressed data packets, you are elated to be able to continue streaming pretty much meaningless pictures of your cat or child that no one else wants to see. Unless it’s my cousin’s daughters who are super adorable.

Where does this discussion all lead to? What are you, dear reader, supposed to glean from this shaky piece of writing and ranting as the long weekend of Easter arrives? I don’t know, but I certainly did sucker you into spending more time on your electronic device reading this mess.

May the Technology Gods have mercy on your soul!

Love and sniffles,
Friar Augustino Druker

Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

Genes and Natural Stupidity

4 Comments

Genes and crisprSkinny Genes

It’s remarkable how there’s so much awfulness in the press, the TV, the Interwebs and social media, yet we never stop to appreciate the beauty that surrounds us. Humans crave watching misery and Schadenfreude. We seem incapable as a global society to see beauty in all its forms and are fixated on anything but. And there’s a reason for that. Actually two reasons: 1) poor genes and 2) the smart phone.

Before I make a series of tremendously weak and bizarrely tangential arguments to show the link between the aforementioned DNA bits and silicon bytes, there’s a crucial, dare I say, universal fact that needs to be stated.

I’m Walking Here

Ever notice that when you’re walking anywhere in any city, be it a mall, a building hallway, a store, a plaza, a hospital, a sidewalk, or even a street protest, there are three kinds of people:

  • People who walk too slowly who make you want to push them down and step right over them, while mumbling an insult and powering forward
  • People who are walking faster than you, and inevitably nudge you while pulling out to pass so they can get to whatever tryst they have planned, thus causing you to utter the phrase “where is that jerk going in such a hurry??”
  • People who walk at the same pace as you, which makes you suspicious about why they aren’t passing you, as they must be after your wallet / purse / backpack / fresh chocolate danish, which of course forces you to cross the street to make sure the goods stay safe

In essence, everyone but you is walking at the wrong pace, and why are they all so stupid and can’t figure it out? Maybe the answer is genetic. Or smart phones.

Genes – Not the Designer Kind

Here comes those bizarrely tangential arguments that are largely indisputable because there’s no science backing them up — just raw, angry opinion stemming from poor sleep habits and a steady diet of foods with over-processed sugars and edible mineral oils.

The first one, poor genes, is more complicated than you think. Poor genes are the result of multiple factors, many of them having to do with luck, diet, education, geography and parental proclivities (talking to your children vs. locking them in a dark closet and whispering through the door “I hope the closet snakes aren’t hungry tonight”).

Humans have been exposing themselves to DNA-damaging substances since we crawled out of those primordial caves somewhere near Disneyland, I think. I could be wrong. Regardless, think of all the pewter and lead cooking and drinking conveyances we have used in the millennia since we started metal-smithing. Very bad for the DNA. Humans have been ingesting stuff they shouldn’t have since who knows when and we are not about to stop. Especially when those Pop Tarts are on sale. Yay!!

Humans hang out in the sun too much, thus damaging our genetic material as we frolic at beaches, parties and open-air strip clubs. Humans are also big fans of genetic carnage through the use of alcohol and drugs, that, in more than moderate quantities, leads to wars, raping, pillaging and waking up the next day in the bath tub with one eyebrow shaved and the words “Room temperature IQ” written in indelible ink on one’s forehead.  I won’t even get into processed meats!

Now we have invented technology that lets us edit genetic material like you’d edit a Word document, except there’s no spell checker. Or user manual. It’s called Crispr, and if you haven’t heard about, it’s China’s fault. (We have been blaming them for over a decade for spying, pollution, lead paint poisoning and questionable fortune-telling accuracy in the form of a cookie. So why stop now?)

So as you can see, we actively screw with our genes and not in the good way, thus globally lowering our ability to discern beauty from Trump-ish stupidity.

I’ve Got You

The smart phone, part two of my argument, is much simpler to explain. Invented by the duo of fiendishly clever drug dealers who were looking to expand their product line beyond poppy syrup and coca leaf extract, and by spurned nerds with poor hygiene feeling the need for revenge after having their video game privileges revoked, they teamed up to make a device that would trap us in their evil claws forever. The smart phone.

Turns out they did a heck of a job. I know if you try to take away my smart phone, there will be some trepidation, cursory cursing, and eventually something akin to an aneurysm followed by intense yelling and scrambling to find said phone, another screen or even a picture of a computer. Same goes for approximately 100% of the humans who were lulled into buying this wonderfully sleek, conversation-destroying, neck-bending bundle of chips and glass.

In survey after survey, today’s youth have said they’d sooner give up having a car, fondling pomegranates and certain body parts than give up their smart phones. They must be “connected” to the world at any time (as opposed to their immediate family and friends).

So between poor genes that we humans do as much damage to as possible, thus lowering our collective global IQ to single digits, and the crazily addictive qualities of our smart phones, we will never be able to appreciate the beauty around us. Unless you’re really rich and you have a butler answer your phone for you.

Mostly sincerely,
Fangio Druker