Why I Hate America, Pt. x, where x \in, uh, the countably infinite natural numbers (N?)

[fflo]

Before I could get an aspirin out of the new package last night, I had to

1. open the glued-shut box

2. take out the plastic bottle

3. remove the plastic "protective"¹ wrap around the cap

4. do the childproof² lining-up-arrow and popping lid opening

5. find a knife and pierce the "protective"³ foil seal

6. wedge my fingers in there and remove the little bits it breaks into, while
6a. steeling myself against potential personal phobic gross-out, cuz of which I was also
6b. trying to get all the little bits off of it while minimizing time spent on the job

7. reach fingertips into narrow opening and pull out protective⁴ cotton.

I won't even get into issues of wasted resources/work, trash, and culturally perpetuated paranoia.

---------
¹ Bullshit!
² yeah, right
³ Bullshit!
⁴ protects the aspirin from damage, for without it the pills would rattle around quite a lot, cuz, even before you've removed a one, they fill at most a third of the volume of the bottle

Comments

[disclaimerwill.livejournal.com]

That reminds me of an old SNL sketch: a talk show entitled Ruining It for Everyone, in which the host interviewed a bunch of assholes whose actions made life a whole lot more difficult for the rest of the world. The Tylenol Poisoner was one of them. (As I recall, Adam Sandler was pretty funny as the guy who was singlehandedly responsible for the proliferation of "Restrooms for customer use only" signs, but like most SNL sketches, it was funnier in theory than in practice.)

[fflo.livejournal.com]

One chronic SNL problem, which goes into remission now and then but persists doggedly, is the sketch that goes nowhere. At their best---and more during the earliest days---a bit has its premise joke and then, if it goes on more than a minute, mutates into something else. Or just does something surprising. I think the writers often underestimate how much, since one form of comedy is defying expectation, the opposite is sorta the opposite of comedy. Or of that sort.

But what the hell do I know.

Anyway, I do like the idea of the category of people who've ruined something for all of us. In seriousness of course we can blame the mass media for stirring up panic & at the same time spreading the idea of how to fuck things up---razor blades in apples! Wow! i hadn't thought of that!---so it's almost comforting to think, even in a comic suspension-of-disbelief positing, that if only some idiot(s) hadn't done x or y we could have been spared our this (at least tedious and at most much worse) cultural paranoia.

[disclaimerwill.livejournal.com]

Hee- "The opposite of comedy" would be a great slogan for a good, oh, 18 years of SNL's 29-year run!

On the Mr. Show DVD commentaries, Bob Odenkirk actually goes into some interesting rants about the SNL school of comedy (he used to write for them) and how they tried to avoid that on Mr. Show: giving each sketch some sort of surprising turn or having some sort of satirical kernel inside it, so that it isn't just a gimmicky premise that repeats itself over and over. I know it kind of kills comedy to analyze it, but I think it's great to hear smart, funny people talk about it.

Great amended footnote, by the way.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

I have to confess that I know not of Mr. Show---but it sounds like there's something else for me to request from the library.

My old buddy B. and I used to try to analyze comedy in a way that was in itself funny. Tricky. I guess Bobby Hill repeating aphoristic wisdom of the Catskills School is funny. B. & I would find ourselves laughing at something and then launch into "See, that's funny because..."---at first always giving an analysis; later laughing at the very compulsion. Or at the beginning of applying the analysis to something whose humor came from one of your more base, obvious forms (e.g., "toilet" humor).

(I, too, was twelve a lot longer than my pre-teen years.) (Still am sometimes.)

Speaking of SNL, did you see Latifah's last night? She had some good bits. I especially enjoyed the fake commercial for Excedrin Racial Tension Headache. The Robt Smigel cartoon having the ex-ex-presidents come back from the grave to take care of W was sweet, too---if not as astoundingly class-savvy and pointed as the mysterious short at the end of last week's show---listed as "A Night at Camp David" at http://snlarc.jt.org/, and was by someone called Alison, as I recall. A little nosing around has turned up nothing else.

Latifah

[vjsmom.livejournal.com]

We, too (B. & I--the other B.), especially liked the fake Excedrin commercial. We also liked the other fake commercial for the "Short & Curly" shampoo. I didn't think the opening sketch was quite as funny as last week's, however. But I just love the fact that they managed to find a spot for Benjamin Harrison in the cartoon!

a little more nosing around

[fflo.livejournal.com]

http://www.alisonjackson.com/ (tricky---appears to be a blank page at first; scroll down)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0%2C11710%2C911506%2C00.html

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1234190/posts (ha!)

[groovesinorbit]

One of the things I loved about Monty Python was that their sketches usually didn't end. They were masters of the mutation/strange twist and when all else fails throw some animation at it brand of comedy.

[rekraft.livejournal.com]

H'mmm, and I thought the Japanese were the masters of the impregnably-wrapped product.

[vjsmom.livejournal.com]

I find that going through all that usually exacerbates the headache that prompted me to seek out the medication in the first place. There has to be a better way.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

#3 should really say, "protects the company from having to worry about you noticing from the sound of the bottle that you're not really getting as much for your money as it looks like."

[fflo.livejournal.com]

(footnotes just altered, so now you mean footnote 4)

In a Similar Vein

[groovesinorbit]

I love trying to open cds that are not only shrink-wrapped, but then have that long label/sticker running along one edge. Gah!¹

1. Love the footnotes, by the way.

Re: In a Similar Vein

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Thank<sup>1

1</sup>you!

Re: In a Similar Vein

[groovesinorbit]

You're²

2. _welcome!

[paperkingdoms]

Yep - N. with a sort of strange typeface that makes the first vertial bar doubled up. \mathbb{N} ;^)

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Why, that would be "Blackboard Bold"---vs. plain ol' \bf, the standard (though we follow copy if consistent with the variant bold) at Math Reviews, where I work---likely known to you, I imagine, for MathSciNet more than the old orange print journals. Ever use our database?

[paperkingdoms]

Oh! yes. Sometimes. And probably more as my "stuff" shifts more from classes towards research.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Not to mention when we start reviewing YOUR stuff. We just added a feature for figuring out yer Erdos #. Well, you can figure out your anybody number---degrees of separation via copublication links. It's just a goofy thing, with no serious practical scholarly purpose (that I can think of), but (or should I say "and," knowing mathematicians) it's getting an awful lot of play so far.

[paperkingdoms]

Well, it's a toy¹, isn't it? We like toys. ;^)

[I'm gonna stick to the playful interpretation. Because there's also a good chunk of elitism involved in the way mathematicians love that stuff... but that's less fun to contemplate.]

¹gratuitous footnote

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Ha! I, too, choose the happy take on't just now.

(read to self monosyllabic first four words slowly, with strong, even accenting:)
You are all right, woman.

And now, a short poem:


gratuity
rhymes with ambiguity

[paperkingdoms]

::smiles::

Thank you. :^)