CSotD: Your father’s hip, and I don’t mean the replaced one
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Nothing heavy or deeply meaningful today as we begin preparations for Valentine's Day, which is neither.
I've never looked at it with the anticipation/dread of Agnes or, for that matter, Charlie Brown. It always just seemed a festival of cheap candy and impenetrable cards, or, in the case of those hearts, cheap, impenetrable candy.
I can't remember ever being old enough to read but still young enough to do more than ponder the slogans on candy hearts and think a young, more innocent version of "WTF?"
I guess I thought they would make sense when I was older, but didn't realize I'd have had to be about 50 years older right then.
Looking back, I think it's probably fair, at six years old, to have been puzzled by slang expressions that were out of date when my parents were six years old.
And now I'm old enough that I have no idea where this tacky spoof Valentine came from, but I'm pretty sure there was no Onion yet.
Which brings us to our …
Old Folks Juxtaposition of the Day
Like Susan, I've reached an age where the Generation Gap has become so wide that there are adults standing on the further edge, but at least, in her case, they are very young adults.
My elder son commented recently that Madden has become so complex now that even digital natives who grew up with a game controller in their hands can't play it unless they have completely and totally kept up their skills.
These two guys not only have the lightning reflexes of professional athletes but — at 25 and 23 respectively when this was shot last year — are only a few years older than his daughter, and there's nobody his age in pro sports anymore except coaches.
Which leaves those of us in the "Wait, what does the green one do?" demographic not just on the bench but barely even in the stands.
A classmate of mine became a defensive coordinator in the NFL, but he retired seven years ago, and the oldest head coach in the NFL is now nearly two years younger than either of us.
The days of "It's a young man's game" are so far in our rearview mirrors that they've dipped below the horizon.
Which is okay. I'm resigned to being an Old Fart, and I fight the urge to be a Wise Old Clueless Fart like Sigmund Freud in this Existential Comics which you should go read the rest of.
I'm at least hip enough to know that not only do emojis have no deeper meaning but that having no deeper meaning is kind of their point.
This classic Arlo & Janis sums it all up for me.
When it ran in the papers in 1998, Odell Beckham Jr. was six years old, and Charles James II had just turned eight.
So it wasn't that long ago.
Oh, Hush*
Meanwhile, over at Six Chix, Margaret Shulock offers something to make us all feel better.
*(Note to young people: "Oh Hush" is how your grandmother said "STFU".)
Do Your Job, Part II
I particularly liked this Bug Martini because I recently bought a new laptop which we were going to use in a presentation in Denver last week until we discovered — as we were setting up — that it didn't have a traditional pin-based HDMI port and we didn't have the right patch cord.
Fortunately, the boss had her laptop in the car, and it was old enough to do the job we needed it to do.
I already knew my new computer didn't have a cupholder, but that was okay because I have an external drive and so was able to install my ancient InDesign, Quark and Photoshop programs from DVD rather than having to submit to the outrageous on-line extortion their creators currently operate under.
My next step is to track down and slaughter all the pesterware it came loaded with.
I don't know if pesterware is an actual term, but it's what I call Windows 10's internal pop-ups that urge you to purchase rent Office 360 and activate whatever random gamer crap and user-friendly useless bloatware they've decided nobody should live without.
Do Your Job, Part III
And, as long as I'm ranting, here's an old man rant aimed at web designers:
When your site screws up, I don't want "Oh, Snap!" or "Whoops!" on the message.
You're not five years old. Or maybe you are.
But, in any case, failure stops being cute when you start getting paid.
So finish cleaning up your room; let's see that dust fly with that broom!
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