Further...

South Park, bless their satyric hearts, gave us a cutting and spot on, if not quite accurate, episode about the dangers of not reading legal agreements you electronically sign for things like Gmail, or in this case -- iTunes.

In the episode our plucky heroes all want to download the latest update of iTunes. And why not, the design is sleeker, somehow. Possibly there are more options of how to configure your hard purchased songs and whatnot. I know I like to update iTunes.*

When we update, we click the "agree" box and I am yet to find one nerd who has read all they agree to. South Park posits that everyone does, and your a total dummy for not doing so -- which is just to point out how dumb we all are, because we all just click Agree, and all just assume that others have read it and no harm has come to them...

Then harm comes to one of our heroes.

I won't go into details, but rest assured, it's horrible.

The point here is not about South Park, nor iTunes, but rather the sleeping giant.

Google.

For long ages past, a small altar has been erected in the heart of Kiddo, in honor of the geeks who run Google. They are geeks and they rule the world by giving people exactly what they want exactly when they demand it. The only thing they enforce through law, is their little Agree button which decrees:

     When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. 

The favorite part is their conversational tone which speaks to our fairly-well-educated generation without any condescension or cluttering legalese.

The worst part is how they claim everything you squirrel away digitally -- and not just for their use but also for "those we work with".

Why is this so frightening? Because Kiddo says many things she considers original, witty, intelligent -- marketable -- on this here blogspot. And, since they great loss of digital files 2012, has started putting all the little acorns of poetry, screenplays, essays, diary entries, and collected quotes into the digital knot-hole of gmail.

How they exercise this policy of ownership I must find out. Is it simply for serachability issues? Is it for a hostile takeover of the universe? Have there been lawsuits yet? Where is cyber law defining what belongs to you and what belongs to the creator? Who owns what? Even white collar jail does not work well with Kiddo's pixie dreamgirl status.

No conclusion today. No learning moment. Just fear.



*Version 10.0, however, fell from the tree Jobs had spent his life nurturing, just like everything else that's bloomed since his death. All the tool bars can dissapear now, so you're left with just the pretty pretty album covers, but those album covers are stuck in whatever size the window configures, and the background is stuck in a glaring white.  

Carrie vs. Hippy

If we learn anything about Carrie in Sex and the City, it's that she is special and she has special taste in clothes.

Today I was affronted in the office in the breakroom at the empty air pot of coffee that was not going to make itself by two women who care far more about clothes than I do.

"Kiddo," one started, "I love that you are just so you. You can take so many patterns and colors and just make them work for you!"

"Yea, you're so hippy," the other piped up.

It should be know that I am not a hippy. I am fiscally conservative to the point of being misconstrued as a Depression Baby with dollars sewn into my mattress. If I had a worthwhile mattress I planned on keeping around, and worth more than $50, I totally would sewn bills into it. I can't keep plants alive, crave violence, and prefer contraception to no contraception.

Dear Reader, you should also know that in this instance -- lacking coffee and dignity -- I was wearing no fewer than two types of plaid. One in grey tones, one in blue, orange and brown tones. Also a popped collar polo, black leather choker, a pink embroidered A-Line skirt, and river rafter shoes with reflective strips. My hair has not been brushed in 5 days owing to having lost my brush. Instead it is wet, in a knot and a pink polka-dot scarf ties it down.

So, maybe somethings, but gracious. 

I do not look anything like a hippy. I do not present myself anything like a hippy.

But, so much for self-perception.

Lastly, it just irked me that "hippy" is now an adjective. Really?

"No, hip," said the first woman, apparently taking in my expression of incredulous rage, "do you mean hip? You're totally hip, Kiddo."

"No, hippy. You  know, you like flowers and stuff."

Now, I clearly just didn't know what she was talking about. Now I'm a hippy and I'm stupidly unaware of what a hippy is.

"I can't keep flowers alive--" I turn to look for the coffee. It's not made. I came here for coffee, these people were standing right next to it, and not turning on the damned machine.

"Oh, I can do that."

Can you? Cus if so, why is it not done?

A stupid hippy with no coffee.

Or, if you're being kind, I am a more corporate Carrie. Carrie if she were in DC instead of Manhattan.

On a good day. With shoes donated by co-workers. Thanks!

Zinch

This website is a perfect website at first exploration. It's scope is succinct enough they complete exactly what they wanna do with a minimum of page usage. The visual presentation reflects the scope. blah blah blah...

But the most amazing thing is their weekly scholarship competition. Every week (Monday - Monday) Zinch.com gives away $1K for a 280 character essay. They provide prompt. You provide three sentences. Boom.

Here is my entry for today:

If you were to create a time capsule to be opened in the year 2099, what three items would you include to represent contemporary culture? Explain your selections.

Self-respecting time capsules are compact and cover the full scope of culture:  A can of Coca-Cola (food, chemicals, advertising and the #1 understood word in the world). iPhone – still in the box with its accoutrements. Obama bumper sticker: politics, self-expression, transportation & the year in one tiny package!

I worry I'm not hitting total culture here, but these three things are pervasive enough in every country that no matter what yurt you live in, you're going to encounter at least one of them. 

You'll now be viewing my hyper-speed thoughts every week, and when I finally win one of these things, we shall rejoice. 

I'm reading the terms and conditions now so I can see if they count spaces as characters. Also, it appears you have to already be enrolled to get the dough. So, I'll limber up with the blogging and hit hard core in a couple months. 

My Last Meal: Ikea

I'm more glad that you can know that this photo exists. 

Over the years, you've heard me love on Ikea. Ikea is so great I'll have my wedding (should such a crazy thing happen) will take place there. Then I can get sponsorship to pay for it. And it will be beautiful. And everyone will be comfy. And catering will be ideal and tasty. 

Those days are gone. 

And Hunter may call me an Absolutist from time to time, and perhaps he is right, but some things are just inherently great. Ikea was. 

My last trip there, however, was less than. 

As I have told Awesome Boss Who's Awesome (ABWA), there are few things in life I have faith in. Here is the list: 

1. ABWA

2. IKEA

3. Disney Corp.

These three things have always had the potential to let me down, to give up their integrity, to stop what makes them unique in a world of mediocrity. But they don't. Every time I feel the little Kiddo phloem break down, and the photosynthesis not quite keep up with where my leaves have reached, I shelter under the greenhouse of these three wonder-full entities. 

Well, that's all folks. 

Ikea 

a. no longer offers children sized meals to whomever

b. no longer adheres to their own aisle/bin organization

Though these may seem slight offences, they are only so because you, dear reader, live in a world used to such mediocrity. Such corner cutting in process and integrity is the reason we lay lack lustre in our stinkbug-filled homes. 

So we have to wander a bit more, gather a bit more, ask a bit more. It's only an hour or two on any weekend of our whole stinkbug-filled lives. Well, dear reader, the tree of liberty is watered with the blood of patriots, and I will no longer be shopping at Ikea. I now have faith in only two things in this greater world. Maybe whiskey will fill that gap. 

But the dispute of such a precedent is for another rant on another day. 

All my Friends are Waiters

This was a title for a blog I dreamed in July last year. My oldest friends were stale and gone, and my current friends were so vital and wholly unaware of the world they exuded with every frustrated breath it hurt my little ribs to look at them, they were agitating in their neighborhoods amongst each other and throwing punches when one tottered too close to another.

Now even those friends are gone, and their agitations no longer worry me. The ripples they cause are spaced. The chop isn't all around. Life is their ocean, and never their oyster, small and never up to even under-statured expectations.

I love them, and you can too: http://travelwhateveretc.blogspot.com/2013/04/41013-erikas-apartment-447-am.html#comment-form

Why is Teamwork UnCool?

Somewhere between third grade field day, and your first leadership class in college, people lose interest in working together for a common goal.

Is it the lack of sight into the profitability of the larger goal?

World War 2 was a larger goal, and everyone was behind it, and totally into doing tiny tasks, each individual a cog, in order to get behind our government and win their war. The goal there was pretty obvious. Nazis were bad guys, they were doing easily understandable bad things.

When CEO wants the leaders of our company to cooperate, though, working collaboratively, is uncool -- When asked, cajoled, nudged, dictated to do so... nothing happens. All they have to do is tell one another what they're doing, and ask each other to do a thing or two. This thing or two will then be taken off the first party's plate. Working together actually makes their workloads lighter.

This leads me to believe they are masochists.

If they are not simple masochists, then obvious motivators are just not applicable. Being paid is not enough of a motivator. Nor pride in work. Nor good-natured helpery. Nor fear of unemployment.

Even in this job market.

At least, these are the things that spur me into overdrive, anyway. But sticking electrical rods into these ports of the brains of these employees is no good. Invoking things like your swollen pay check, the current job market, the happiness of others as a positive, self-pride, these things don't spark anything.

If the happiness of others as a positive is the opposite motivator, they must be sadists. Don't we jail sadists in this country?

Perhaps their ports, like the left side USB on my laptop, is bruised enough they no longer accept signals?  So, what is it that motivates them?

Kiddo, personally, does not want to stoop to threatening children. It is not the fault of the child the parent or grandparent is useless.

Maybe these people are nihilists.

How do you cajole a nihilist into caring? Are they aware they're nihilists? To conciously care about nothing, and conciously do nothing would be more admirable, certainly, but then they should go the Lebowski route and date porn stars, not work for the US Government.

This begs the obvious question: Are we finally decadent enough to open state-sponsored vomitoriums? It may cut down on the research needed into obesity.

Even before you realize they may be nihilists, though, you gotta wonder where the hell all these nihilists came from? How did they meet and decide to confer here?

I sure don't know, but I'm sure that just my sparky, spunky little email, and CEO's sparky, reassuring encouragement sure ain't going to solve it.

Compartmentalization

In taking the federally required training in how to be ethical I have learned that people do no naturally see their lives as touching other larger things.

When a fish swims through a river, does it see the rocks and feel the eddy pools as distinct entities or does it just swim normally and not see or feel them as different experiences from a stagnant pool?

Work is a part of your life. When you're a workaholic it's a substantially larger part, but still only a part. Within work are other sections -- HR vs. Finance for example, and so on. Each part is a rock or pool in the river while you swim, and each demands a different sort of behavior or set of speech patterns, places to sign signatures and how much energy you want to put into finding out what you're signing.

State and National Politics are usually  separate parts of your life. So why would it suddenly occur to people-- to such an extent that I have to waste time learning about it-- that work money, the money your office and engine of industry creates is ok for you to spend on your own State and National Politics section of life.

Granted, my fish metaphor falls apart here, but it is no more cool to donate to this or that party with company dollars than it is to buy a hooker with them or buy your goldfish a castle? The company has, by its nature, already allocated you a pocket of money to do these things. Why is my time being wasted because of other people's very silly mistakes?

Is this another sign that Kiddo is falling into Curdmugeon zone? Curdmudgeon-o just doesn't have the same ring to it. What's a girl to do?

Dissolution / Disillusion

Warning: declarative statements from the overly emphatic ahead.

The difference between writers and the forgotten observers of the world is the physical discipline of making your thoughts appear in the real world.

Pro-longed readers of Kiddo will notice, then, that she is not at all a writer, for she has very little of this discipline. 

Take a survey of writers and you'll find there are actually as many types of writers as there are people so described. Little declarative statements like the one above often turning into the small graspings of a small person trying to drive a little spike into the world on which to hang a flag and claim something for their own existential fulfillment. 

In which case, Kiddo could very well be a writer, but a very bad one. 

Here is drawn another line in the mind dunes: Is it preferable to be a bad thing or not to be the thing at all? 

The lack of response that will surely deafen me will not convince me one way or the other, but will cerainly reaffirm both points of view of Kiddo's status as writer. Which fact of bothness negates the whole thing. 

Home

Three distilleries and one entire day's length of driving, and we're home cat sitting for Mamagaard and Papagaard. Luckily for mis-fortune accounting, Hunter pressed us to get home a day early (work does not suck, but is rather demanding) because a flat tire caused us to use this, Washington's Birthday, as a time to celebrate middle-class American's in a way other than tippling our own personal sacred nectar: replacing tires at Costco.

Totally worth it.

Travel Makes Thoughts Bullet Points

- Hotels in Hollows: They don't exist. Didn't see one between routes 81 and 75.

- But what was really perplexing to me was Louisville itself. I have the impression it's a fantastic city, but right when it should be most beautiful, it chokes.

- Pappy Van Winkle. Disappointing? What's the deal?

- A good bartender makes all the difference. Especially for extroverts.

- lack of coffee shops. vice Michigan, what causes that? what is the attitude difference?

- So much time with Hunter is fun and nice.

Time will come for following up. For now, we're going to explore Frankfort (not named for the German town, so Hunter's idea bout eating frankfurters a la Lady and the Tramp is just not in theme), and drink at Buffalo Trace today. We may see the super rich Hong Kong residents we met yesterday.

:)

Drive, and Bardstown

Lists of annoyances and petty reviews aren't really worth anyone's time, so here is a list of things that have gone right so far:

Lunch with Curly

Sighting of frolicking lambs!

Sighting of bison (?!)

Cumberland Gap

Prettiness of snow, if it cannot be considered a road trip aid...

Skyfall in HD on an iPad. 

Today, I was determined to have a "really good day" of vacation, then realized determining that fact was pointless. So, if I don't see all I have come here to see, and do all I have come here to Kentucky to do, then, well, it's a wasted vacation no matter how I look at it. I might as well just like the two things I can see and do. 

Hunter could not be a better traveling companion because he euphemizes all my quivering lips and warbling-voiced agitations. This is all epic. 

Also, I think we're sleeping in a renovated jail tonight. 

Tomorrow

I've done the basic packing for a little trip. Back pack. lots of under, lots of socks, some inter-changeable shirts, one pair jeans, one pair sleepy pants.

I'll bring one pair of ostentatious earrings. Probably no pretty shoes or necklace. A first aid kit. Mascara.

It's almost tempting to pack more than one bag. Hunter and I are taking an entire car. We'll have all the room in the world. This affords me one basket of dried goods. It also means I can't plug Dido, my iphone, in. hrm. I've re-structured the music scene lately. Thanks to getting this sweet new Dell lap top, courtesy of IT at The Company, I've had to restructure just about everything. It, for the first time, was not fun.

Anyway, Music. I've found old files from various places and four distinct external hardrives (none held the poetry backlog of Kiddo's juvenile genius). They are all consolidated in an iTunes folder outside The Company server.

Then I bought some Johnny Flynn. Look to the Gelatin Hour for a review at some point.

Kiddo's brain starts to wonder at the proliferation of names dropped in daily life. How separate are we from
A) village life
B) the suburb norm of America circa the last generation

Anyway, Music. Johnny Flynn is blowing my blonde little mind, and I'm super excited -- I just bought blank CDs from the CVS on my corner mid-commute, and can burn some for drive. 

Loss

Perhaps this is conceit, and perhaps it is "a sign," but great men were not often so humble, so defeatist to allow great loss of work to stop them recreating it.

There is, somewhere in the world, a thumb drive or external hard drive that still holds every poem, essay, novel chapter, dialogue, monologue, travelogue and diary entry I have written. It is just not resident under my  super sweet roof.

Except the Bourbon Book, which is still in a simple 10k word dribble on this particular computer. Which is fortunate, because that trip is scheduled to embark this Wednesday. That's four days away. I had better get that freaking structured, and fast!

Fat Tire's Silver Linings

Infuriated at personal shortcomings, Kiddo chugged 22 ounces of Fat Tire and took out enough food three Kiddos to the movies to while away the two hours it would take for her 12 copies of a 91 page board presentation to be comb bound, from the stack of paper so fat it was in an old printer box, and wrapped in a plaid, linen scarf to keep it from wetting in the flash flood warning.

It had taken an hour for them to print, back in the office behind some heavy fake cherry doors--all of which only opened with a badge swipe. Traffic, even at 6:30pm, stood to make me cry at the wheel.

That's when life becomes crucial again. There are no adorable children faces to look at you with hope. There are no teenagers on the line, ready to drop themselves into your enlightened hands. There are no adults thanking you and praising your black president, who shines with the fire of 40 saints.

There is no where to hitch hike without being an underpaid hooker, and no where you can drink beer all day and not feel anything but joy at all the dirt in your heels.

I've been back from Moldova for a year an a half. I haven't talked to any of my Moldovan friends. I love them, and think of them more often than they would believe if I told them.

But I was alone. I was alone and in the world, and doing something more terrifying. The people I'm dependent upon now, are dependent on me. We are living the capitalist dream, together. We are gleaning money from the hands of investors to defend the greatest country currently on earth.  We are a smalll company burgeoning with ambition and desire to do good.

It's not how I wanted to do good, but I've drunk the kool aid of CEO: we are only here to pay mortgages and do good and interesting work.

Because, really, what else is there?

Parking Lot of Mis-Matched Time Cards

Preface

People in Maryland are, in my experience, wimps about weather and driving. Or, at least, they are lazy and eager for an excuse to stay home. Can we really blame them for taking a chance to stay home? No. Or course not. Hunter is in the midst of convincing me to play hooky one day this week himself. Hunter is one of the hardest workers I've ever witnessed. 

Can we blame them for thinking a bit of slush, or, heavens-to-betsy, 1/4 inch of snow is quite enough to keep us all at home for the sake of children's safety? 

um. Well. We can judge them harshly. 

Chapter 1. 

My parking lot at work is probably typical. Exactly 10 more spots than there are workers who can potentially park on a given day to work in out building. They fill up closest to the door first. By 7:15 am the rock star spots are gone. I can only imagine these are held in high regard by those who park there. 

If you troll in around 10 am, you're off in the spots cordoned off for piles of salt meant to save the Winter Wimps. 

Chapter 2. 

I park just beyond the crazy ambitious. I gauge myself to have above average ambition. I will probably end up just above average in money-raking and recognition. I drive in rain, shine, slush, ice, hurricane, crazy beautiful hula-hooping sun, flu, tension head ache, terrible hang-over. 

Chapter 3. 

I work for 11 hours. This is almost impressive. However, my hero, the CEO works for 12. No matter how many things I do, she does more. 

There are, of course, reasons for this. She has been doing this since she was my age, and she's the age of my mother. 

Chapter 4. 

When I finally leave, there is much left undone, and I think "Fuck damn, I'll just have to finish that tomorrow." I put my laptop into its big, padded case. Coil it's power cord up and shove it down the sleeve adjacent. "shit burn, there's that whole project for IT I promised." I pick up a black leather folio full of my drafts and drafts and drafts of my To Do lists. "Yep. All I need's some beer to help me do that!" 

Chapter 5. 

Zipped, tripped down the stairs (four flights), and out five sets of doors. The salt they put down is not even scattered. It's in weird, congealed piles of half-melted white. Sparks of magenta or blue make me remember just how artificial they are. Just before I look up and resent the empty spaces that represent people already at home, I wonder just what idiots dropped slop bowls of fake salt-substance on my ground. My heels grind in the white as the spread of cars come into focus. 

A few of the front-liners are still here (CEO's Subaru included). A fewer number are in the big dumping areas off in the deer-ridden distance. 

The majority are in that no-man's land of average. However, there aren't many. Not even average has much of bell-curve. 

Epilogue. 

I drink three bottles of beer, fold two loads of laundry and eat only one side of fish. I save the other side for Hunter, who doesn't come, and put it in a box to take to work at 6:30 am tomorrow.

M.C. Kiddo

Another faux pas, another day.

It turns out my super sleek system of uploading my old mix CDs onto  iTunes, and then mixing up my stash into sweet playlists and given as presents is one of many things. None of them cool.

To the ultra geeks (see Papagaard's old blog on Macs,or Hunter's articles in The Motley Fool) I am so late nineties. To the True Hipsters, I am a hipster. To the music studios, and very probably my federal government, I am a thief. To outcast friends (many of them either hipsters or True Hipsters) I am just not as good as them.

My mixes are pretty darn neato. While in my cubicle I think Optimistic thoughts, or I think some hard core gospel thoughts about there not being a god. I think them and have no ready way to express myself! I must express myself! It's a work day! I cannot blog! I cannot go and tell my love all the love that wells in my breast! The sturm! The drang! So while I admin away at the unruly world, I sort files and songs.

Files are alphabetical or chronological or by VIP. Songs are by Anais, Homicide, Oaf, Realism, and Sirena Mica. One is by the world as logic shapes it, and one is by how art organically grows it.

When I was in Moldova, I had two whole winters in which to sort my musical library. I could testify to every genre and spelling. I could verify every year of every album and write little blurbs about every band, their being -- Oh! glorious depression it was. I had the world's most organized iTunes library, and a very few other things to do.

With this idea of settling, can I have it all? Can I be productive, not depressed, and have an organized iTunes library?

Maybe if I ever get a TV. 

The Devil's Whiskers

I had a new drink last night. It didn't have bourbon in it, but it was delicious.

It starts, in Lady's head as a perfect Manhattan. Liking the sounds of it (vermouth nerd, all about the bourbon) and always wanting to try new things, and always looking for a way to stay in touch with my beloved Alcoholics, "yes" was the only answer possible.

Lady suggested it first, of course, she is the responsible mother of our merry band. Skinny Dancer starts with a glass, 1792, bitters and pops open a tiny can of grapfruit juice. I have enough faith in my friends that, sure, those ingredients could... could work.

Pho Poet catapults down the stairs to arrest misguided mixing.

Phew.

Nope. Not bourbon. Gin. Use gin.

While this is a bit dissapointing for my sweet life theme just a the moment, it does make more sense with the bitter citrus.

So, mix this:

1 part gin
1 part grapefruit juice
1/2 part dry vermouth
1/2 part sweet vermouth
1/2 part grand marnier
several dashes bitters to taste.

Serve shaken or stirred, neat or on the rocks. I had mine on rocks in a high ball glass with a little stirring straw to get through the ice. It was divine. Smoky with the sweet vermouth, bright with the citrus. Sweet orange and dry vermouth to hold it all together over a floral and tangy base.

It's a great drink to exemplify why I wish, often, that alcoholic drinks were not alcoholic. I could drink something flavored like this all the time, except that Bonbay Sapphire puts me $11 out and I weight 120 pounds... three of these things buts me pretty out of clean mind.

After learning about liquors themselves, I intend to find very good, dry drinks that will not dull my brain.