Google Chrome - Palin - and Thumbeye Jake - A New Week
Long, comfortable weekend. Not much time spent writing, though I DID get a little done. I’ll get to that. There’s a lot going on that I want to catch up on , so I’ll do that first and then get back to the heart of the matter – so to speak.
First I want to hit very quickly on all of the things that captivated the world this weekend as quickly as possible. Bear with me.
Google Chrome: I will download and try the new browser. Of course I will. Still – it’s based on Firefox. It’s Open Source. Do we really need a “new” browser to cause new, unknown pain for all involved, or would we be better served if all the Internet giants would quit trying to own the whole damned thing and just make the browsers, standards, languages, and applications we already have work? It’s like anything else…by the time a company starts getting the bugs worked out of a program, they have some great new idea they just HAVE to implement, and an entire new world of pain begins for the users at the other end of the fiasco.
The minute I signed onto Twitter I was bombarded by posts about this or that site – “is it the new Twitter?” and literally thousands of posts saying “rush over and do this instead because support here is awful” – only to hear support is no better over THERE once the floodgates open and everyone signs on. Here’s today’s tip for all you gurus of Social Media. It’s not a social network if you have to move it every five days to a new service, and it’s not a useful marketing tool if the only other people using it are marketing their own stuff.
Anyway, I got off topic. Google Chrome – unless it’s got some remarkable thing I can’t think of, won’t it just become one more browser that may, or may not work with every new technology that comes along? There are – at the base – only two problems with browsers. One is the refusal of Browser Developers to just cave in and make their browsers compliant with no proprietary nonsense built in that requires people to access some sites using their software. The other side of the shoe is application and web developers who come out with new buggy versions of things on an almost daily basis, finding new ways to break the browsers and then screaming about how crappy the browser is because it won’t decipher their crapware.
Both sides claim to want compliance and operability while at the same time they fight for sneaky back doors that will make their product work and some other product not work. It’s very much like the presidential race – first and foremost, they want to WIN. Guess what that means for end users? There’s only two sides to a coin, after all.
And speaking of presidents…is anyone surprised that the world has decided to jump all over Palin for her daughter and the tiny little maybe-scandal they’ve dredged up, rather than trying to see if she’d be a good vice president? Not a person on either side – Republican or Democrat – that doesn’t have skeletons in their closets, and I don’t find this nonsense relevant at ALL to the race. It IS relevant that McCain seems not to have vetted his choice for VP very well (or at all?) and gone for the “shake it up” political strategy. We’ll see how that works out for him. For me, the fact that Palin doesn’t know exactly how things work in Washington is a major PLUS – because things DON’T WORK in Washington…isn’t that the problem? Lack of experience with the same ol’ same ol’ goes in the plus column.
I wish I could draw caricatures better. I want a political cartoon with a bunch of past Vice Presidents sitting around a television set, watching intently…fists clenched. On the screen, Palin is asking “What does the Vice President do all day?” and they are all DESPERATE for that answer. Until Cheney, the only VP of note (that I recall, anyway) was Bush Senior, and his involvement with the CIA and the United Nations pretty much assured that he’d be in the thick of things. Other than that, Doonsebury captured it best showing the VP as an invisible person with a voice.
I ran on longer than intended. I’ll leave you with a short scene from my screenplay in progress – Redneck Dragon. We wrote this in the car on the way to the zoo…and I typed it out when we got home. Made me chuckle…might make the trailer if I sell the film.
EXT. SHACK FRONT PORCH - DAY
BOBBY LEE and HIS MENTOR (named later) push through the brush and approaches the front porch of a rickety shack. On the porch, an old man sits staring off into the trees.
BOBBY LEE
Who is that?
MENTOR
Don’t rile him. Just move slowly and carefully, and maybe no one gets hurt.
BOBBY LEE
But…
MENTOR moves forward and BOBBY LEE follows a bit more slowly.
MENTOR
Ray? You awake?
BOBBY LEE
Ray? His name’s Ray?
The man on the porch continues to stare into the trees as if he’s heard nothing.
MENTOR
His name is Thumbeye Ray. I done told you to shut up and let me handle this.
Bobby Lee smirks. He sets his bags down in the dust and climbs up onto the steps, standing close beside the man on the porch.
BOBBY LEE
Hey Ray, I’m Bobby Lee. My friend MENTOR here tells me maybe you can teach me something about fighting.
The man still doesn’t move, and BOBBY LEE frowns. MENTOR steps up and grabs BOBBY LEE by the arm, but Bobby Lee shakes him off.
MENTOR
Let him be, boy.
BOBBY LEE
(ignoring Mentor) Mentor tells me they call you ‘Thumbeye” Jake. Kind of a funny name.
MENTOR
It aint’ funny.
BOBBY LEE
Why they call you Thumbeye?
Mentor dives off the porch. At the same time, moving quickly, Ray rises and jabs his thumb into BOBBY LEE’s eye, sending him reeling off the steps and onto his ass, screaming in pain.
MENTOR
(spits) Done told you to keep your mouth shut.
THUMBEYE
(glaring down at Bobby Lee)
Ain’t too bright.
MENTOR
Nope.
THUMBEYE
You think he can fight?
MENTOR
Maybe. Now it kind of depends on if he can see…
-DNW
