Things

Day to day life is a reminder that some things that would be almighty useful haven't been invented yet.

Self-cleaning laundry hampers - think how nice that would be for those of us responsible for the 'magical cleaning' of the clothing, towels and assorted baskets of things that are washed, folded and repeated until you are either sick of the item or it wears out, whichever comes first.

Self-replenishing pantry - buying groceries is an instructional manual on the definition of insanity. We take a can of vegetables from the shelf, put it in the buggy and give it a loving ride through the store as if it was a preserved toddler. Then, we scan the funky little striped label that lets the store know what we got and then we put the can into a bag (paper, plastic or cloth - don't go all P.C. on me!) for a restful ride home in our vehicle where that same can which previously lived on a shelf at a store comes to our house to live on one of our shelves until we decide to open and consume it. Can't we cut out the middle steps?? This is where both beaming technology and replicator technology would be most useful. We would have the choice of beaming in the fresh goods based on our "Star Trek" order or we could simply rearrange the molecules of stuff we threw away to make something new from them. Need asparagus? Turn your old running shoes into spears of green with a tasty hollandaise sauce atop them. Want an ice cream sundae that has been especially prepared to taste decent but which has taken into consideration your mandated by the doc calorie count? Let the replicator make one from those broken crayons and the used birthday candles that otherwise would fill the landfill of the overfull planet Earth.

Self-cleaning bathroom - this isn't a new concept for me but I lack the technical expertise to make this one work. By now, we should have had a team of engineers create a bathroom with a special panel that allowed you to select from "light clean-up" to "grandma clean". With the touch of a button, the tub/shower would be cleaned and santized and any furballs from washing off the dog would be stowed in the aformentioned replicator for reassignment into something useful later on. The automatic setting would be programmable to clean once a week at some odd hour so that no hapless person was showering or on the toilet when the cleaning cycle kicked in.

Self-organizing closet - this one would make people happy the world over. A closet would scan your body and create your look for each day from the contents held within. No more mismatched colors or garish designs paired together for eye-popping contrast. You could leave the house each day confident in your appearance. A secondary feature would be a scanner that could be employed to actually create new clothing when you either gained or lost a few pounds, thus avoiding that dreaded ill fitting look.

I know all of that is based on sci-fi fantasy of the most exciting kind, but don't you wish there was some kind of reality in the scene?

Personally, I wouldn't mind having a self landscaping lawn either. You could plug in the dimensions and existing plants and rearrange the lawn and new planting beds seasonally. It would even put out holiday and party decorations and take them up again in a timely manner. No shame in having those Christmas lights out in June... I just have to ask, are they out early or did you just forget to take them down?

Since most of the dinner cooking is in my basket and I enjoy cooking, I would enjoy having the ability to dial up selections that we don't normally have the ingredients to prepare. I still want to cook the food for the most part, but having the flexibility of a unit like the Jetson's had would just be cool. Frankly, I wouldn't mind having Rosie the Robot in our home either!

Oh well, the laundry is buzzing and it isn't folding itself, dang it!

Politically Correct Olympics

I can't stand to see grown people cry.

First, the BCS whiners who didn't win and/or felt they were cheated of their chance at the Crystal Football Coaches Trophy... now the world competition whining about their Gold Medals at the Olympics.

Sickening.

We can't be happy for anyone else's success. After all, they didn't really deserve it because we should have won. Right?

There is even some jackass out there posting a 'real medal count' for the Olympics which says that events should only count for medals if there are no judges. Sure, and only calories that taste good should add up around your hips so if you eat food you hate you'd be thin as a rail.

Grow the hell up people!

We can't all win every event! And to offer 'feel good trophies' is to cheapen the accomplishments that others have made to even get to the big show.

When everyone is made to feel good instead of basking in the warm glow of actual achievement, we turn real skill into something to be scorned instead of celebrated.

I'm not spending a whole lot of time crying in my beer when someone else's national champ walks away with the medal in a sport in which the American team didn't win, place or show. The reality of it is, no matter how good you were yesterday, or how exemplary your performance will be tomorrow, in the Olympics and in all of life, the only day that matters is the day that the competition is actually held.

Sure, we might be able to whip your ass with our exceptional skill on Monday, but on Tuesday your team may very well have your best day and send mine home in tears. It's called LIFE. Competition isn't about how well you did in rehearsal, but how well you do when it's time to throw down for the Gold (or crystal).


Frankly, I don't care if your quarterback, speed skater or electric waffle iron is better than sliced bread 9 times out of 10. The only thing I care about is that 10/10 shot where the one I'm rooting for triumphs. That's all that it takes when the chips are down anyway. That one perfect moment when the big "W" is chalked up in the column. And for whiners, there is another unpleasant truth - IT DOESN'T MATTER IF THE WIN IS BY ONE POINT OR A FRACTION OF A SECOND. IF YOU LOSE, YOU LOSE.

If all this is about is the never ending satiating of whiners, then the Olympic Committee and the BCS, and indeed every organization that awards anything from a pencil with a feather on it to multinational contracts for billions of dollars should be more 'feel good' oriented and let everyone win.

Imagine the chaos in the record books if everyone is the winner. Talk about wars and rumors of wars in diverse places!

It has been said that history is written by the winners from their particular point of view. While that in large measure is true, the fact is that those who stand atop the heap of successful endeavor are to be lauded, they got there on the mangled dreams of the losers.

In order to have a "W" there must, by default, be an "L".

Opposition in all things is a dandy concept when we are applying it to SOMEONE ELSE. When it's applied to us personally, it's an inconvenient truth that hurts. We should have won. But we didn't. And it sucks to be the loser of anything from a game of jacks to the Olympics.

But poor sportsmanship just makes us look more and more like losers with that big old "L" stamped on our foreheads and less and less like the loyal opposition that offered a competition through effort and sacrifice.

I'm not sorry that people lose. I'm sorry we don't learn from losing. The fact of the matter is most of us lose more than we win. It's the nature of life on earth. If all we see in our lives is and unmitigated string of "W" in our totals column, then we can't say we understand how the other guy lives. Because in the world I inhabit, the other guy is usually on the bench wiping tears away with a sweaty, dirty towel and wondering why they couldn't manage to pull it all together.

I'm not sorry that the best team or individual collects the medals and trophies. Those who win SHOULD get to be recognized in a tangible or intangible way for what they have done and for what they have sacrificed to get there.

To the degree that we decide that everyone is a winner without real effort and sacrifice and toil on their part is a racket.

Can you imagine riding in a car where everyone was a winner on the production line? Just how safe would you feel knowing that the car wasn't made to any standard of professional effort but rather a 'feel good' mentality that let unskilled hands and minds determine what you rode around in?

I'm not sure I'm interested in the kind of world where "feel good" takes over "performing well". I don't care how good my surgeon feels about his class attendance before he slices into me... I'm far more interested in whether or not he has had real training and application of that training instead of whether or not he feels like he has been rewarded for just trying!!

If our world is devolving into the 'feel good' show for politically correct purposes, please count me out.

While I am not a happy loser in the games and events of life, I do hope I have learned enough during this free ride around the sun to be gracious in those ever present moments of loss to those for whom this is a victory lap event.

And another thing... if the athletes representing my nation cannot manage to even sing the national anthem's words, they shouldn't be on the podium accepting the award for my nation! I don't care if they can't carry a tune. This isn't about them making a personal political statement. This is about them representing the weekend warriors, the third graders, the happy homemakers and the down and out bum on the corner of 5th and Market.

To those of us who watch them and support them emotionally, if in no other way, they owe us the courtesy of acting like what they have done matters to us all. Because whatever the outcome of an event, we DO care about our national pride.

Stand up and sing the Banner, O Canada, God Save the Queen or whatever song is the one your nation celebrates with on the big stage! I applaud the efforts of all who make it to the top - to be king of the hill for at least one moment.

The people I loathe are the ones on the sidelines giving soundbytes to the press about how they have been cheated by not getting the win.

Suck it up, people.

Some gotta win, some gotta lose...

Today may just not be your day. So try not to ruin it all for those who DID win.