The Good Life is Defined Ultimately by How Important Your Art Collection Is

"Today, the good life is defined by the assets you have," says Margaret Mager of Goldman Sachs, "It's your homes, your cars, how you look, what you wear, who you socialize with, what you eat and drink and ultimately, how important your art collection is." -- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117702825463476245.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Exactly. At the end of the day you can have health, family, and friends -- but if your art collection is insignificant, who the f**k cares?

Seldom has anyone delivered such a scathing attack on the empty meaninglessness of materialism in modern society. That it was done with a straight face and absolutely no trace of irony makes this truly special. WTF. Margarat.

On the flip side, if you reverse her argument it sounds like a quote from 'Fightclub':

"[Your] Life is [not] defined by the assets you have. [You are not] your homes, your cars, [or] how you look. [You aren't] what you wear, [or] who you socialize with. [You're not] what you eat and drink and ultimately, [no-one cares] how important your art collection is."

…or as the friend of mine who pointed this out to me put it:

"Those rich people don't even know the meaning of fun. To me, the good life is about breaking into abandoned buildings and playing loud music with people who see through materialism."

Outlook and Microsoft

This demonstrates why I hate Outlook with a fiery passion, and why Office 2007 is unlikely to improve my opinion.

As you are well aware, searching in Outlook is sub-optimal, to whit:

"A bunch of third party fixes appeared. My favorite was called Lookout … Microsoft did the only thing that made sense: they bought Lookout (the company) and took the product off the market.

Microsoft finally put Lookout back up for download, but they sure weren't happy about it. When Outlook 2007 runs, it checks to see if Lookout was running and disabled it if it was."
-- Joel from 'Joel on Software' (emphasis mine).

Nice.

A Kurt Vonnegut Primer

To experience the wonder that is Kurt Vonnegut I have some suggestions.

Let's start with some Vonnegut quotes:

• "True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country."
• "1492. As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America. Actually, people had been living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America for hundreds of years before that. 1492 was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them. "
• The only difference between [George W.] Bush and [Adolf] Hitler is that Hitler was elected.
• Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies -- 'God damn it, you've got to be kind.'

Onto the books!

If nothing else, read 'Slaughter House Five'

If you enjoy that, read 'Mother Night' or indeed, watch the movie.

If you're ready for something a little more… interesting -- try 'Breakfast of Champions' -- do NOT watch the movie.

Or for something a little more accessible there's always 'Player Piano' that's pretty much a straight sci-fi dystopia.

Frankly, everything he's ever written is gold, but if I have to list just one more I'd suggest 'Cat's Cradle', essential reading for sci-fi loving pacifist nerds...

M40 Street Party

On Easter Sunday Kris and I were headed up to the Cotswolds when a serious accident ahead of us shut down the M40 for the better part of an hour. When the medivac helicopter landed people decided it was probably safe to switch of their engines and stretch their legs.

M40 Street Party

There's something very surreal about getting out of your car while in the middle of the M40. It's even stranger when people are sun baking on their cars and having picnics on the grass bank on the side of the motorway.

I Want Me One of Those Belts!

Apparently our brains can learn to intuitively interpret new senses (like direction or spatial orientation) provided to them using existing interfaces (like touch or taste). Nice.

Alanis Morissette Covers "My Humps"

I'm not usually the sort to forward YouTube videos, but I gotta say -- this is some pretty funny sh**t.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W91sqAs-_-g

For more entertainment, the good folk at Metafilter had a spirited discussion of its relative merit yesterday:

http://www.metafilter.com/59945/Alanis-humps