A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS

Ramblings about things done, seen, or remembered.

Do Not Delete

There were 120 e-mails waiting for me when I got to work this morning.  Some of these messages are so important I received literally dozens of duplicates.  Many people would callously delete them without so much as glancing at their content but that’s just plain rude.  If someone’s taken the time to compose a message for me I give it the respect it deserves.

The first one, for example, happily announces that Dr. Piero Nete, a responsible attorney, has been looking for me.  Turns out a distant relative died tragically three years ago leaving five million dollars (US) and I am the sole remaining next of kin.  In a panic I call my parents but they are both alive and well.  I forward their details to Dr. Nete because, after all, it should go to them first.

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ADHD TV

The TV guide had Star Trek listed, and that’s what I had wanted to watch.  Our heroes (okay, my heroes) were facing the impending doom of humanity, the universe, and the franchise as we know it, when without warning or permission a four-inch high man with crazy hair and wild eyes runs into view, slips and falls, pulls himself up on the “bottom” of my screen and looks at me for sympathy.  He only takes up the lower left hand corner of the TV but in case I want to see him perform such antics on all 27 inches of cathode ray, the date and time I can do so suddenly shoots across the screen (knocking him down again) and sits there for 20 seconds changing color. 

Overly large graphics during a program is one of TV’s answers to Tivo.  Because viewers can easily avoid promotions in the regular commercial breaks, stations play ads during the shows themselves.  And they are distracting enough that people have to take notice—by reflex more than choice.  Then repeat and repeat and repeat so the message breaks through all other distractions. 

I’d missed a chunk of my show and even though I rewound and replayed I couldn’t stop myself from glancing again at the midget whose upcoming show was, by all accounts, “all new.” 

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An Inconvenient Charge

Spin is everywhere and it’s wonderful.  I’m fascinated and entertained by advertising and communication, but I do have huge issues about a worrisome trend of labeling something the exact opposite of what it is so as to make it sellable.

This morning I went to order theater tickets online ($45) and got slapped with a $17 convenience charge.  Now, who’s that convenient for?  The “processing” charge I can understand, you pay to have it processed, but a charge just for convenience, which is anything but?  I found it so inconvenient I clicked away without purchasing.

Equally worrisome is the fact that we, the trusting purchasers of such services, seem to accept it as okay, partly I’m sure because it’s given a label that sounds okay.  Labeling the charge truthfully, “superfluous fee” or “cash-cow portion,” would cause uproar, but it’s okay when labeled the exact opposite.

“Why are you charging an additional 40 percent above the

 ticket price?”

“It’s an idiot charge sir; we’re taking you for all we can.”

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I Write Therefore I Am

I am a writer.  Sometimes.

I am sometimes a writer.  That is, I like to think I am.  Occasionally.

I occasionally like to think, that maybe one day, I might, in some small and possibly insignificant but nevertheless appreciated by my mother way, be a writer.  Of sorts. Though, perhaps I already am.

I’ve discovered that defining what a writer is is not straightforward.  Am I a writer just because I keep a journal, or do I have to be published?  What if I’m published but didn’t charge for it or it was a single piece in a local publication only?  Is a writer of many moderate sellers more of or less of a writer than an author of a single blockbuster book?  If I write user manuals for toasters and 100,000 are printed, can I say I’m a writer (and likely one that has been translated into in several languages)?

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Copyright © Lincoln Thomas