Do You Care?

DO YOU CARE?

I was driving down the highway just when afternoon rush hour was letting up a bit. My exit was coming up and I maneuvered over to the right lane. I thought about putting on my headlights, but I also think about taking piano lessons, and numerous other things that I should do, all the time. Having my headlights on wouldn't have helped me see but it was that twilight time of day when oncoming and passing traffic is much more easily seen when they have their headlights on. But since I don't take piano lessons, I didn't have my headlights on. Anyway, as I was exiting off the ramp, I noticed that the guy in front of me was acting as if he were looking for a parking spot in the middle of the exit ramp. It really wasn't that astute of an observation seeing as if I didn't have a windshield I could have reached out and stolen his rear license plate, or if I would have turned on my windshield washer I would have sprayed his trunk, and I'm sure that I'm exaggerating to say that my wiper blade would have combed his hair (because he was wearing a hat). So I hope the picture of him going too slow is clear, and if it isn't let me just clarify it by saying that he was motoring at a insignificant fraction of the 45 M.P.H. speed limit posted. Though the ramp was wide enough for two cars it wasn't meant to be a two-lane ramp, just an extra wide one-lane ramp.

I decided to be a good citizen and not jam up traffic as this car was going to do if he kept at this pace. Did I mention that it was a blue Chevy? I'm not sure what year, because that is not one of my talents, and honestly the only way I even knew that it was a Chevy is because it have small, steel lettering above the keyhole to the trunk. I don't know why I mention the fact that the car ahead of me was a blue Chevy seeing as it has nothing to do with the story, and the outcome of the story would not be changed even if it had been a Ford. I think the only one who it would have mattered at all to was the owner. And since who the owner of that car, that could have just as well been a ford, but, in fact, was a Chevy, is doesn't matter I think I'll just forget about it. So, seeing as I am such a good citizen, I decided to pass this blue Chevy, whose owner isn't significant to the storyline, on the exit ramp that was wide enough for two cars, but probably made for one.

To make a long story short ... I hit a Beaver as I was passing another car. I saw its eyes look up at me seconds before I felt its furry body under my wheels. I'm sure that if you would consider one of those Bearskin rugs to be dead then you would second my opinion that this Beaver was dead. I knew it as soon as I looked in my rear view mirror.

After I felt my tires pass over him I slowed down a little but when traffic started catching up to me I put my foot to the gas and drove home. No, I didn't stop. I already own a bearskin rug…

I forgot about the incident at the next traffic light. The only reason I remember it now is because I needed something to write about. When my conscience asks me if I feel bad for killing a Beaver I shrug and say, "I don't care." Actually I don't say it aloud, I just think it so that no one thinks I'm weird for talking to myself. People might think me weird for shrugging for no reason, but not for talking to myself.

Now I admitted a situation I was involved in where I really didn't care about the outcome, where someone else might have. What I would like to know from you is if you care about things such as whether your next-door neighbor has a job or not?

Do you really care about the starving children of Hollywood or where ever? Don’t you leave food on your plate in a restaurant sometimes, and then afterward find that you're still hungry and pick up a snack somewhere else?

Do you give to charities? What a noble and forthright human being you are! I bet you also like the tax deductions. Would you still give the same amount to charities if it wasn't tax deductable?

Oh, I know you. You work for one of those Endangered Animal organizations, don't you? Do you really care when a species becomes extinct? Why does it seem you only crusading for the cute ones?

Are you one who fights to get the violence taken off T.V.? I bet you're also one of those gawkers who slow traffic to look at accidents to see if there is any blood. The violence in real life promotes the violence on the tube. When there is a bad accident I like to watch the passers by, safe in their cars. More people turn toward the accident, counting off bodies on their fingers, than people who turn away searching through their glove compartments for an old Burger King bag to show their inner feelings. And the networks know this! Violence sells -- it's clear and simple. The viewing public wants to see blood and gore, both in real life and on the screen. If enough people were turned off by it they would turn off their sets and the networks would get the message a lot faster than from the few hundred letters from the "weird" portion of the population. The rumor that T.V. sets explode if off for more than fifteen hours a day is not true! You can turn it off. T.V. withdrawal is not fatal, nor are the symptoms permanent.

Maybe T.V. is the best thing that has happened to the modern world. Maybe it keeps all the gooks minds blank so their warped minds can't function and find destructive things to do with their idle time. Maybe T.V. is beneficial. I hate to think of what the "Dukes of Hazards" fans might do if they had the extra time on their hands. We should be thankful that there is enough worthless broadcasting to keep these type of people busy sitting in front of their boxes day and night.

So do you really care about starving children, endangered animals, charities, auto accidents, and T.V. programming? Be honest now…

Honestly Yours,

èim  Uhr

P.S.   I care about all those things…

Oh yea, about the Beaver story,

I just made it up. I knew it would

be easier for me to get you to admit

 to all your faults if I pretended that

 I had one of my own.

This ALMOST looks like a setup

Another DO YOU CARE

Extremists and Other Extremities

Extremists and Other Extremities

                                                                                                     By Tim Uhr

            Follow your body… lose your mind. To lift weights -- or to read a book, my choice was as easy as the choice between a dumbbell and a scholar. My choices were clear, but my answers were opaque. As I wrestled the choice over in my mind, I grew weary and fell asleep.

Was my body seeking sleep as a form of rest, or was my mind searching to find new universes in the realms of sleep?

While I slept I dreamt of chocolate covered army ants. They were still alive. Helplessly struggling in waves of chocolate. They were almost cute, with their little blindfolds. You had to shoot them before eating. I didn’t have the heart, or a small enough riffle…

So much to do, and so much time. I only lack the energy to succeed at everything.

From networking to needlecraft, each stated phrase speaks to the coming phase that leads to a craze, which can only bring me more grays.

Which train do I board?

Any nice tunnels ahead?

With so many openly going on the wagon, while multitudes of others coming out of the closet, and still more standing for this, or sitting for that, it all makes me kind of dizzy. And with my head spinning will I miss my turn?

Right of Left? Sure we should all vote, but when I finally make my mind up—the light turns red. Leaving me faced, with red. And I’m not bluffing, just blushing.

But I try to fit in. I bought an exercise bike, a self hypnosis tape, a computer, went to karate class, bought a crystal, a fax machine, a gun, a pair of one hundred and fifty dollar tennis shoes, a cell phone, a case of Dove bars, three jazz records, a flower, and meditated in my spare time. That was last week.

Needless to sat I never actually got around to meditating, and my list wasn’t quite as long as I wanted because my sixteen charge cards were all over the limit.

I soon found out that you can’t have it all. I was getting close but I was robbed and left with nothing but the bills. When they say “You can’t take it with you” I hope there talking about the debts.

Life is full of little choices: You can exercise the biceps or the brain cells. There is no middle ground. One side detracts from the other. It’s like a balance scale where one side is physical and the other is mental. On this roller coaster we call life – hills abound and the scale is never balanced.

Physical fitness seems to be winning the war—every where you go there are muscle men and women. On the beach the muscles have become more important than the tans. I call it the “parade of chests.”

But is this fitness thing just a fad? Will it go the way of hula-hoops, pet rocks, and mood rings? One can never tell. Who would have ever thought that rock n’ roll would still be around after more than a quarter of a century? The Who indeed.

Staying in shape is an important goal, but anything taken to extremes scares me. Just as Hitler went to extremes in trying to rebuild Germany (rebuild it into the whole world????), as did Diane Witt of Worcester, Mass., by letting her hair grow for eighteen years. Her hair was measured at ten feet, nine inches in 1989.

I guess I never did believe in being an extremist. I have never allowed myself to get wrapped up in anything. I like to spread my interests around, this keeps me from succeeding at anything and thus I don’t have to focus my attention on any one area for too long, keeping me from ever growing bored. People well-rounded are like balls that bounce from one thing to another, never coming to rest in any one place long enough to be at the top.

Specialization is the modern way. If one puts their concentration in any one area, chances are they will become very good at it. It can be very gratifying to be able to say that at least you were good at one thing.

It used to be called “having a one-track mind,” but that was before it became “in.” Perhaps that’s why there are very few athletes who play more than one sport. It goes against the grain of specialization. Sometimes it amazes me that so many people are baffled when someone tries their hand at two different sports. You think that there aren’t a lot of baseball players that can’t play football, and visa-versa? But I like it. I think it’s healthy. I wish we could bring back a little of that “jack-of-all-trades” philosophy. There are exceptions. But most likely it will never become common. Try finding a handy man these days.

Nothing is permanent. Nothing lasts forever. Muscles turn to fat, which eventually turns to dust. Even taxes, which grow, eventually get so large they explode into the controlling government’s face. This isn’t what the government.

Health and fitness is slowly replacing the couch potato mentality. Don’t believe for a minute though that TV will suffer, because soon it will be that instead of eating potato chips and drinking beer in front of the tube, it will be lifting weights and exercising while watching your favorite TV show. TV is the base of all modern human life.

I once succumbed to the fitness frenzy. I bought weights. They were heavy. Hard to lift. Lifting them made me tired.

After lifting the dumbbells a few times, I actually felt weaker! So I immediately ran to a mirror and I swear I could see no difference in me. I didn’t think I looked at all like one of those body builders I see on the beach. When I’m with a girl and I come across a muscle man I always try to point out that I’m probably smarter than they are. Maybe.

So, if after lifting a weight, I don’t see any improvement in my physical stature, what is the sense?

After a week of depression from my failed foray into musclebound mania I came up with a solution. A plan. A blueprint of success. Thinking power to solve the mystery of the physical:

Instead of lifting these artificial weights, I decided the smart thing was to go natural. I found the environmentally sound solution. It starts with drinking beer and eating potato chips and ice cream. With this strict regiment I figure I could gain an extra twenty pounds around my mid-section within a month. Then, by lugging this extra twenty pounds around all day, instead of just a few minutes with those artificial weights I would get fitter more quickly. Naturally. (Isn’t he the shortstop?)

Life is what you make it. Adversity is how you take it. And to get to the top you sometimes have to fake it.

I have a problem with faking anything. The only one I can ever fool is myself. What fun is that? Probably rates right up there with exercising. And with this thought I finally hit upon my ultimate solution—I will fake exercising. Therefore killing two birds with one stoned. And everyone must get stone. Or is that rock?

Remember: A beer in the hand is worth two bushes…  Or is it buds?

No. No. No! “A dead bird in the bush is worth two hands.” Or is it, “A rolling bird gets stuck in the moss, and thus can’t fly.”

Anyway, you get the point. I hope.

I think it’s time to run (I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt to run around the block a few times to clear my head) before I start mixing metaphors or something equally as revolting. Because it is important to remember that when you mix a metaphor improperly the cake batter turns out lumpy.

End.

Did I just awaken my spirit?

Can it Dance?

Where am I now

that I am awake?

Let me know which of the above links you like the best...

Off Key

Off Key

                                                           By  Tim  Uhr

Watch your ‘puter!

Computers are evil… but for you young-ins, the damnation started even before these wicked devices were invented. Long before The Net captured us all and all that wicky leaking begun bloodletting our great corrupt system, maybe it was something simpler that led us down the path of destruction and deception. Before we Surfed and turfed, and faced books, and yittered and tweeted, and Fried our Space. Look no further than the keypad, or keyboard on your computer, laptop, smart phone, Pi-book, or whatever. This depravity started way way back to something not many people remember anymore, an ancient contraption called a typewriter.

I have made some marginal errors in my life. My typewriter doesn't always return to the same spot on the page when starting a new line. Speaking of typewriters, have you ever noticed, and wondered why, the keys on typewriters aren't in alphabetical order? The manufacturers say it's because it would be harder to type if they were arranged alphabetically. Supposedly it wasn't just a mistake they made when the machine was in the planning stages. But I don't believe it! I think that it only took one dyslexic person working in a factory to frustrate all future typists. They try to say that each letter was put in its place for a reason. Letters usually typed next to each other, like "t" and "h” are placed near each other to make it easy to type. If this were true the "t”, "i” and "m" would be all in a row so I could type my name quickly. Also, why aren't the numbers at the top arranged the same way, instead of their correct order? Certain combinations are used more frequently in numbers too, like the "2" and "0" to make dates easier to type. They didn't arrange the numbers in some cockamamie order to make it "easier to type."

Bullonie on their excuses! I am here to expose the truth about all of these typewriter companies who have been fooling a lot of innocent people for years. I am ready to take on the wrath of these powerful companies. In a brave example of investigative reporting in the likes of Watergate, I am here to expose the truth. Every now and then you have to buck heads with the big guys even when the odds are high. I am just the one to do it, And The Time Is Now!!!

McCarthy is turning over in his grave…

Through years of grueling research and interrogation of the most noble and trustworthy of sources I have come to the undeniable conclusion that these big, powerful typewriter companies made a slight mistake when they started production and they didn't want to recall the thousands of machines they had already sold before they caught the error. You watch, after they sell all the machines made with the mistaken alphabet they will suddenly announce that after years of research, they found that alphabetically correct keyboards are actually better to type on after-all and they will soon start making them that way. Then millions of people will be stuck with the old-fashioned ones that will be worthless once the truth is out. This mistake is actually going to make the typewriter companies money, it’s called planned obsolescence!

I figure, with the add of my pocket calculator (it's buttons are correctly in order), that by the year 2107 all the typewriters they made bearing the mistaken keyboards will be have been completely sold out. That is when they will announce that through years of research and through massive group studies it has been shown by their analysts that alphabetically arranged keyboards are best. As a public survive alphabetized typewriters will then flood the market, and to top it off these new typewriters will cost a good deal more, you will have to pay for the "innovation.” All the old typewriters will become conveniently out of date.

Remember you heard it here first! When in 2107 I say, "I told you so!!!", you will remember that I said I was going to say "I told you so," today.

Doubters!? There may be some unbalanced people out there disposed to have the audacity to question the validity of my well-researched scientific facts. You, the irrational, ask how they could have made electric typewriters and computers back when the mistake was first made when such things as electricity and ram chips weren't invented yet. Yes, it's true that these things didn't exist when the mistake was made and it was caught long before they were thought of, in fact they found the mistake on the first day, it's such an obvious one! The keys are all basically the same no matter the device, they fit the same into any typewriter. So while it's true that electric typewriters and computers weren't around yet, when the mistake was found, they had all those keys that they hadn't used up before they could stop the pressing of the mistaken keys. It's a well-known fact that the keys are made to fit on the keyboard only a certain way, like a jigsaw puzzle, and can't be switched around. Even though there is hardly a typewriter left in the world, still the computer companies bought all these keys that the typewriter companies had stored up, at a huge discount – I might add – that would also make it absolutely unfeasible for them to correct the original mistake. I think that some people call it the original sin – and we’re still paying for it.

Thank mass production. Just take a look up in the attic of any typewriter manufacturer… I mean Computer Company… and you will find boxes and boxes of typewriter keys that were printed up years ago. It would be financially foolish to admit to their mistake and have to throw out all those keys.

And now (a drum role is in order), to finally prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt that it as a mistake and not done on purpose… Take a look at the letters. "q,w,e,r,t,y,u,i,o,p,a,s,d,f,g,h,j,k,l, z,x,c,v,b,n,m." Now if they really meant to make the letters so that they are easier to type to form common words, then why did they stick, so obviously close to the alphabet?

The letter "v" is only one letter away from its regular position in the alphabet, if they were arranged correctly, and so is the letter “H". I could see if just one letter was close to where it should be it could be chalked up to coincidence, but twice? Both the "v" and the “H" are close to their normal positions! Sorry, but that is just a little to hard for me to believe that both these letters would happen to fall only one slot away from where they would be if the keyboard were arranged alphabetically. Coincidence? HAH! Who are these thieves trying to kid?

"Surely not I." said the wise man. Mr. Qwerty, I believe.

No wonder I have always been a two-finger typist! I spent all those years, struggling to learn the alphabet and I just can't forget it like that. I am sorry, but I just don't see why I should have to suffer and rack my brain to relearn the alphabet, just over a mistaken keyboard – which was the typewriter companies fault anyway, and will probably be corrected by 2107.

I can wait. I shouldn’t have to… but I can wait.

I think that we should all boycott any device with an incorrect keyboard on it until they fix the problem.

Maybe I’ll join an action group, or start a charity, or something…

Pfok! People for orderly keyboards!  

What is this world coming to?

                                                                          Orderly yours,                                                                                                                              .                                                                                              èim  Uhr

P.S: By the year 2107 I'll probably have the hang of these mistaken keyboards and will be up to three fingered typing, only to have them change it. 

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