·:[ Jason On A Shtick ]:·
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Here we have a gentleman that decided to bring his iPad to a children’s ice skating show.  It was a real treat for all of us to get to watch him play some stupid game while our kids performed.

As a technology person, this really bothers me.  Our culture has become so addicted to the instant on, instant info, instant entertainment provided by mobile devices that we have developed some serious attention deficit issues.  I can’t get through a meeting without a handful of people tuned into their phones and of course we have people killing each other on the roads while texting.  As a result of seeing things like this, I’ve made an effort to not be checking my phone for messages so often – it is not respectful to people that I’m with, even if we’re just sitting around doing nothing.

What does it say that this guy decided ahead of time “you know, I’m not going to watch any of the other stuff, I’ll just take my iPad and play games until my kid is up”?  And then he held the dang thing up and used it like a camera to record his kid’s show!  Here’s a tip – the iPad might be great, but it is a little large and unwieldy for use as a video camera, pal.

I think I’ve stumbled on a loophole that quickly gets you off a telemarketer’s calling list.  A few months ago, when asked after the telltale long pause Could I speak to Jason please?, on a whim I answered with Uh… he doesn’t live here anymore.  This response must trigger a rule to remove the number because not only have I noticed that some of our regular callers haven’t rung us in a while, tonight I actually got an Oh, sorry we’ll remove you from the list response.

It seems to work especially well if a man is saying a woman no longer lives there or vice versa.  One caller was really apologetic when I said that Jenny no longer lived here – must smell like a divorce or something to them, so they cut bait.

The right side says TRASH, the left side says DISHES AND SILVERWARE.  Am I supposed to bus my own table?  Am I supposed to scrape the leftovers into this teeny, tiny food hole?  I have no problem with doing either of these things, but I would appreciate clear instructions and a much bigger hole.  Details, people!

I made a quick trip into downtown Louisville today and received a parking ticket.  I put change in the meter, but it was broken.  Their website says that a broken meter is not a valid reason for an appeal.  So, I mailed in a check for the citation and included this note:

I hope someone gets a giggle out of it.  Of course in today’s litigious society, they will probably charge me with terroristic threatening and send me to Gitmo because the envelope says “do not enclose appeals or correspondence”…

Lexington throws a mean Fourth of July bash downtown and puts on a decent parade.  There were some spacing issues during the parade at times (blame should be laid squarely on the parade marshal – he was riding back and forth in a golf cart, so there was no excuse) and there were some groups that I’m not sure who they were (again, the marshal should make sure that everyone has a banner, flag or some other means of identifying who they are), but the big disappointment was the lack of a proper marching band.

Yes, there was the pipes and drums squad up front and they were great, and yes they had that crazy March Madness Marching Band that dresses in wild costumes and puts on a good show.  But every respectable Fourth of July parade needs a fully uniformed, military style marching band bringing up the rear.

I was a percussionist in my high school days.  We all took marching band very seriously and we lived for parades!  We were outfitted in full, old school military style uniforms with cross belts, tails, etc and we loved it!  There is just something regal about a uniformed band marching in crisp lines, bringing up the end of the parade and stopping at attention to close it out right with a Sousa march.

I’d suggest any of the John Philip Sousa classics such as Semper Fidelis (listen), Stars and Stripes Forever (listen) or my personal favorite The Washington Post (listen).  Follow the links and listen to one of these right now and I guarantee that it will get your patriotic juices flowing!