The Bleat.

Thursday, Sept. 10

While my daughter was in karate I decided to partake of the fortnightly burrito indulgence. Since I didn’t feel like paying for a burrito the size of a newborn human, I went with the taco. The burritos always fall apart the minute you pick them up, anyway; they have the cohesion of an Italian government, which is a testament to the quantity of items contained within. I was not surprised to see that the taco had the dimensions of the Sunday New York Times. With lettuce. I took a bite, and the force of one chomp was sufficient to destroy the structural integrity of the entire taco.

Not only did it fall apart, but the residual shards of taco shell evaporated the moment you pressed them into secondary duty, such as scooping up escaped meat. I realize this made the shell very authentic, because Real Tacos don’t have the reinforced starch-factor of your Taco Bell shells, but it made me realize I would now view the restaurant’s offerings in two groups: the seven-dollar pile of vaguely Mexican wreckage I would eat with a spork, or the five-dollar pile.

Then I wandered back to the karate school to observe the last few minutes of HI-YA and kicking and bowing. Read a book. A nice bit of relaxation in a day that was wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling. Everything screeched to a halt as usual at three, when the bus came – the duties of the day peel away, replaced by piano and math homework. This new regimen is insane, really, and it’s only going to get worse. I am turning into a TV reporter. It’s just the damndest thing. I find myself standing in a suburban front lawn holding a white-balance card, composing my remarks in my head, wondering if my fly’s all the way up, thinking: how the hell did THIS happen?

One thing is sure: time for a massive wardrobe upgrade. After all these years, I’m finally in uniform. Saturday: pants and ties and the thing I hate to spend money on, shoes. It seems apt that the most overpriced things in the world – eyeglasses and shoes – exist at the opposite polar ends of your body. Like it’s a plot to make you feel better about spending more than slightly necessary on a belt.

Hey, new Apple products! So now there’s an iPod nano with a video camera. But I I don’t want a camera in my iPod. I don’t want a video camera in my iPod. I also don’t want my camera camera to play music. I don’t want my smaller video camera to make phone calls. (I do want my phone to have a video camera, though.) I don’t want my really good videocamera to display tweets or a shopping list. What I do want is something that does everything. A few years ago, I though we – were – there! with an iPhone that had an iPod baked right in, and a camera! But I still took my good camera along, because it took much better pictures, and I didn’t use my iPhone for music much because a) I don’t listen to that much music when I’m out and about, and b) I was convinced it would drain my battery in 42 minutes. (Factory specs says 43 minutes, but that’s under ideal conditions when you have the volume turned to 1 and you’re playing 4’33” by John Cage.)

I was pleased to see the new iPhone get a video camera, because that meant I would no longer need my Flip, which my daughter took over anyway. But then Kodak comes out with a Flip-sized HD camera that looks good – why, I could ditch my good HD camera! No, of course not; it has lousy indoor lighting capabilities and responds poorly to “movement,” but at least I could shoot stuff and integrate it into the family movies without looking like I’d switched to YouTube mode. But the online reviews said it has a microphone that emits a high whine all the time, and as far as I can tell the company’s position on the matter is: “Kodak is aware of these concerns at this time, but prefers to stick its fingers in its ears and hum loudly until you go away.” So I’m still using the old HD camera.

Did another video for the paper today – I do believe I’ll be saying that every day until I collapse, or Friday. This one was about the 09/09/09 date; my producer found a psychic in Edina. She wanted to be called “a true psychic,” but I couldn’t say that, since it meant, well, that she WAS, at least by the standards of the paper. Sorry. No such thing. Not certified by a dispassionate accrediting body.    I spent the entire interview balanced on a large purple inflatable ball, for reasons that seem less clear as time goes on, but it was fun. I have a hard time, however,  believing numbers mean anything more than individual letters. OMG, your lucky letter is Q, and if you meet someone whose lucky number is a dipthong you will fall in love and have four – er, IV – children!

Here’s the video.

And now to write a column. No updates on the Tales of Tomorrow series – for all I know, they ironed out the bugs nicely, and everything else ran smoothly. Stay tuned.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 10th, 2009 at 12:06 am. It is filed under Computers, Domestic Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.