Author Archives: Kyle Kimberlin

women are smarter

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Let me ask you ladies a question. If you had a cough, would you go to your medicine cabinet, take a swig of cough syrup, then check the label for the expiration date? No, a guy might do that but not a woman, because women are smarter.

Sorry guys, but it’s true. I even heard the Grateful Dead sing about it.

“It ain’t me it’s the people that say, men are leading women astray,I say, it’s the women today, smarter than the men in every way.”

Here are the full lyrics for you.

You are right my friend, that’s Bruce Hornsby of “The Range” fame, playing the accordion, starting at about 3:50. We saw him play keyboards with The Dead after Brent Midland died, but I never saw – or imagined I might – anybody play that instrument at a Dead show. Which is a good reason to love the internet, I guess. That’s pretty damn cool, if you ask me.

Anyway, I don’t feel totally stupid, I found a bag of Ricollas, so I’m OK. …And that exp. date? 01/2006. Yeah, I threw the bottle away.

we are absences

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2109_patton_street_f
A new poem to share, tinted by October consciousness.
Remembering lying awake in the early morning in my grandparents’
house in the San Joaquin Valley, knowing the creaking floorboards were
my family, up early making coffee and starting breakfast.

Creak

The floors in my condominium 
creak and squeak as the wood 
under the carpet gives way under me. 
The windows give out onto views 
of the ocean and the coastal hills 
and other dwellings, streets where 
countless clustered lights are coming on. 
I am not alone if I move about the place 
and listen to the floors. 
These noises bring back memories. 
I wonder if they creak in houses we 
have left behind, when we move through, 
remembering. I hope they sag 
under the weight of us who haunt,
and wake the living people, causing 
fear. I used to wake there knowing 
the sound was someone sleepless, 
whom I loved. But something 
has gone wrong and now we're gone. 
We move invisibly through rooms where 
we are absences and memories and dreams. 
We creak the floors and make the curtains 
drift, then settle into chairs in places 
where the lights are long since out. 
We sit and whisper about love, transparently.  
Windows give out onto nothing but 
the past, flat and endless, steeped in fog. 
 
Kyle Kimberlin 
10.10.2010

 

smokey weather

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Alright, this kind of excitement I do not need. So I’m going on record as being one accustomed to placid tedium and not at all unhappy that way.

A short time ago, a smoke detector started going off in a neighboring unit in my condo building. This happens from time to time. One goes off, but it stops in a minute – like a car alarm – when somebody discovers their carelessness in the kitchen and opens a window or two.

This time, it didn’t stop. After a couple of minutes, I got up and put on my shoes, grabbed my phone, and went out. I saw a neighbor woman – whom I’ve noticed has a few small children – going out of the laundry room downstairs. I headed down my stairs and around the building to her condo.

The front door was open, smoke coming from the windows and the living room and kitchen full of it, but no sign of flame. I pounded on the open door, yelling “Hello! Do you need any help!?”

She didn’t. The fire on the stove was out, and I guess the kids were OK. I suggested she get fresh air into the dwelling – open more windows being my point.

Hey, we’ve all done it, left food cooking and become distracted. But like I said, someone is there when the smoke alarm goes off, right? To me, it seems unwise to start dinner and leave the kids while you go off to do laundry. Can I get an Amen on that?

Let’s be careful out there, people. Because, in the words of Randy Hickey:

Being dead is definitely worse than being alive. When you’re dead you can’t do all the cool stuff you can do when you’re alive. You and I, we can do all kinds of cool stuff cuz we’re living, we’re not dead, we’re alive. If we were dead we wouldn’t be able to do all the cool stuff we can do, becuz we’re alive. Dead people can’t do cool stuff. Only people that are alive can do cool stuff, cuz they’re living, and you have to be living to be able to do cool stuff. You have to be alive. Yeah, ‘cept when you’re alive sometimes bad stuff happens too. Like sometimes you can get into a car wreck, or you can have a headache or twist your ankle or even stub your big toe… So being alive is kinda hard too, but I think it’s definitely better than being dead…

believe in yourself

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“Believe in yourself, formulate a plan of action, and follow through with it. … I will deminstrate by breaking this bored on my head.” It’s not that he wanted to give up. He endeavored to persevere until he was nearly unconscious.

a note on email privacy

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I hear all this talk about Facebook, social networking, and privacy, and it makes me chortle. Facebook might be a little bit evil, but we have been violating each other’s privacy like crazy, ever since Al Gore invented the Internets by funding the first tubes. And by we I don’t mean me: I learned better at about the same time I got my first disc from AOL, long long ago.

Spammers, scammers, virus spewers and hackers don’t care what you did over the weekend. They don’t want your recipe for rutabagas flambé. They just want your email address and your name. Facebook does not give that out. But we – not me – are happily sharing it with criminals by the ton, all day long. 

The truth is, I don’t mind getting a few funny or deep or generally trivial emails now and then. Internet banality kinda brightens my day. Or it makes me pause and ponder, whatever. I like to share it sometimes too. So I’m not saying stop, but there is a concern.


When you put more than one email address in the To field of your email and send it, everyone sees each other’s name and email address.
 
So if you send me a joke and also send it to your cousin Sally, I can see her name and address and she sees mine. But we’ve never met, and one or both of us might not appreciate that. We trusted you with our contact information.

If I forward that email to the guys in my Metaphysical Bungee Jump Club, they all get Sally’s name and email too. Did she tell you that it was OK for us to do that?

When that joke is then forwarded to more strangers, Sally’s email address gets spewed around the planet like crazy. See?

That’s why we receive emails with dozens or hundreds of names and email addresses in them. No wonder we get so much spam. We’re sending each others addresses to spammers, by the billions.

I think people should be able to decide who they want to have their email address.I think I should be able to give a friend my email address, or my phone number, shoe size, whatever, and expect and trust them not to broadcast it publically.

This is basic email etiquette, as much common knowledge as not openly sneezing on other citizens. You cover your mouth when you sneeze, and you hide multiple email addresses in the BCC field of the email form.

“We’ve all had this happen to us and it’s not O.K. Each day we receive messages or forwarded email from well intentioned onliners listing all those they are sending to in the To: field. And by doing so they are visibly displaying their contact’s email addresses to strangers!
If you do this and are thinking “no big deal” you are so wrong! If the only thing all the folks you are sending to have in common is you, you have breached your contact’s privacy by publicizing their emails to people they don’t know. Talk about showing a complete disregard for their privacy not to mention your lack of tech savvy!” [Link]

It’s easy to learn how to use BCC. Here’s a bunch of links on Google. Basically, you just put all the addresses in BCC instead of To.

One more thing.

If you get an email with a bunch of other people’s emails in it, clean it up before you forward it.
Just start the new email, highlight all the junk with your mouse, and press Delete, then send it.

If pressing Delete removes some or all of the good stuff you wanted to share, then the message is probably built in a table or a frame of some kind. That’s another topic, for another day in the new wild west.

reminder to email subscribers

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If you subscribe to Metaphor via email, that’s great. Much obliged.

But don’t forget the email is to serve as a reminder to read the blog, and a general idea of the post/s of the day. It is not a real substitute.

The blog as hosted here at http://kylekimberlin.blogspot.com is fully formatted html, surpassingly beautiful. An unwavering study of its sublime mnmlizt design and trenchant insights will bring more tears to the critical eye than a bucket of onions mashed flat by a truck.

Besides, the email won’t have the occasional videos.

Accept no substitutes, is my point.

Use the links in the email to come hither and behold.

another hole in my head

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I broke a tooth Thursday afternoon. I didn’t get in a fight with anybody, if that’s what you’re thinking. I was just minding my own business – a peaceable pilgrim passing through this worrisome land – when life said:

Tada! Here’s a reminder that you ain’t gettin’ any younger, Hooplehead.

I will spare you the grisly details. I went to the dentist yesterday and it’s hopeless, says he. The rest of the tooth will have to be pulled. And supposedly he has a great deal of experience doing so.

dentist elf 

After I recover from the extraction action – in 4 to 5 months – I can have either a plant …

NETA16_4

No, no. An implant. But trust me, there are no visual depictions of that concept, in all of Googledom, that are even slightly amusing.
 
… Or I can have a bridge.

F001210841C001

I guess a viaduct is out of the question. It used to be a staple of all your better waterworks, but maybe they don’t do that anymore. But you gotta admit, it looks a lot like a bridge.

viaduct-450

Don’t cry for me, Argentina. I had a root canal on the tooth that gave up the job, a few years back. So no pain. Just another hole in my head, now patched up temporarily with really cool space age composite goo.

… OK, OK, I know what you want. Here’s a canal.

85743067_ba2f022190_b

words fail us

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If you use Microsoft Word, I hope you will read this.

Background

Microsoft Word makes and saves documents in a file type called Doc. Every version of Word uses Doc just fine, including all the newest versions of Word.

Microsoft has added a new format, called DocX. For 99.9% of us, it’s not better, it’s just new. It’s an option for those who need it, but most people don’t. 

Now they have original Doc and new DocX, both just as good.

To make new money, Microsoft makes new versions of their software, right? People who don’t have the software they need will buy the new, especially when they get new computers.

But how to convince people who already have perfectly good software to buy the new stuff for $150 – $450?
By creating the illusion that their existing software is becoming obsolete.

Creating the Illusion

Being sorta evil, Microsoft programmed new Word to make the new DocX format by default. And it still makes good old Doc too. 

Microsoft could have made the new software to keep using good old Doc as the default, and everybody using any version of Word could keeping working together fine. But they didn’t.

When you make a document with the new Word, you can save is as either DocX or Doc. The option is there when you save the document. Piece of cake.

People with the newer Word don’t know this, so they’re out there making DocX files, and the people with older versions of Word can’t open them.

If you have new Word, you can change it to always make Doc files as the default. It’s really easy to change, only takes about a minute. 

People with older Word don’t know they can ask for a Doc file and that it’s easy to make. Instead, they’re buying new software they don’t need. New Money for Microsoft!
Why Not Just Upgrade?
What’s the big deal with buying the new stuff? 
  • A lot of people don’t like it. I got a fee trial version of Office 2010, I tried it and it’s OK. But it looks a lot different, so you have to learn some new ways of doing things. And it’s not more powerful, it’s just more cool. It’s got fancy ribbons instead of simple buttons and toolbars…. That’s just a matter of taste I guess.
  • Word 2003 and the rest of Office 2003 are still a powerhouse. It does everything I need and a thousand things I never will need.
  • It’s perpetuating Microsoft’s proprietary monopoly. They’re just going to keep making newer and cooler, and tempting us to stay on their hamster wheel.
  • Bill Gates has enough money. Do you? 
3 Solutions

1. Use a converter. Microsoft, being only sorta evil, makes a little piece of software you can download. People using older Word can use it to convert DocX into Doc. It’s free gratis.

Here is a link: http://bit.ly/aGA7KL
2. If you use original Word and someone sends you a DocX file, ask them to send it again, as Doc. All they have to do is open the document and do this:
File > Save As … > doc. It’s a 10 second job.
3. Stop sharing Word files. Word is for making documents, not sharing them. Sending someone a Word document is like handing someone a bowl of flour and sugar and claiming it’s a cake. 
Unless you really need someone to collaborate on your document, send them a PDF. I have previously posted how to do this. 
If you do need someone to work on a document or finish it, there is an etiquette involved. At least ask them what kind of software they use. Don’t assume. 
I’m not the only one who feels this way. There’s a movement sweeping the planet, to end Microsoft’s illusions of monopoly. Here’s a sample: 
We should all stop believing the myth that we need any version of Microsoft Office to make any documents, ever. There are many different programs for making documents, and many of them are free to all. And many don’t present the problem of others not being able to open your documents. 
Microsoft should compete by making the best stuff, not by creating the illusion that they have no competition and you have no choices. 
Microsoft Office is admittedly the biggest and arguably the best. But sometimes the biggest and best of something is like with cars and trucks – you aren’t going to need or notice the difference unless you’re in a race or going off road. 
Maybe you’re somebody who doesn’t need the Microsoft Monster Truck of computing and would be happier with a Honda, is my point.  
monster