MODERN PROBLEMS

SUNFUN Looks At Life As We Know It

Hello Again Modernists,
     Some people always seem to be ahead of the curve on the most
modern trends.  They have the latest cars, latest gadgets and
follow all of the most faddish trends.  Then there those among us
who continue to struggle on with the old ways of doing things. 
Which are you?  When someone mentions "channel surfing," do you
get that vision of someone trying to ride a surfboard on the tiny
waves of a channel?  When your daughter talks about getting a
piercing, do you instinctively look at her ears?  Do you
stubbornly cling to that old Beta recorder because it's "good
enough."  These are signs of righteous conservatism and
courageous resistance to the pull of terminal trendiness.
     That's one way to put it, anyway.  We'll ignore for now that
these may also be signs of creeping fogeyism and hardening of the
attitudes.  Not that this always a bad thing.  For one thing, it
saves tons of money.  Think of all the leisure suits we wouldn't
have bought if we'd had the sense to see that the three-piece
blue would be back even before disco died.
     Thanks this week - and every week, for that matter, to all
the friends and contributors who help to make this crazy thing
run no matter what changes are taking place in the world around
us.  Modern communications or not, it's you folks who make this
SUNFUN thing worth doing.  So Thanks this week to: Helen Yee &
Wayne Pokora, Jerry Taff, Candice St. Jacques, Kenn Venit, Jan
Michalski, Bruce Gonzo, Rosana Y Leung, Major & Judy McCallum,
Kerry Miller, Carol J. Becwar, Tim McChain, R.J. Tully, Charles
Beckman and Susan Will.
     In this modern world, there are some things that do remain
constant, like friendship, faith and family.  And even a few
survivors of old technology.  For example, even with Email, FAX
and the like, it is still possible to send a good old-fashioned
telegram via Western Union.  Good news for those of us who still
cling to the world as it used to be.
     Have A  --.  .-.  .  .-  - Week,


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NOT THINKING ABOUT THE TIMES
----------------------------
     Are You a Problem Thinker?
     Problem thinking is a serious dilemma these days.  I know. 
It happened to me.
     It started out innocently enough.  I began to think at
parties now and then to loosen up.  Inevitably though, one
thought led to another, and soon I was more than just a social
thinker.  I was concerned about problems I could never have.
     I began to think alone - "to relax," I told myself - but I
knew it wasn't true.  Thinking became more and more important to
me, and finally I was thinking all the time.  Then I began to
think on the job.  I knew that thinking and employment don't mix,
but I couldn't stop myself.
     I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read
Thoreau and Kafka.  I'd return to the office dizzied and
confused, asking, "What is it exactly we are doing here?"
     Things weren't going so great at home either.  One evening I
just turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of
life.  It frightened her so much she spent that night at her
mother's.
     Soon I developed a reputation as a heavy thinker.  One day
the boss called me in.  He said, "Skippy, I like you, and it
hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real
problem.  If you don't stop thinking on the job, you'll have to
find someplace else to work."  This gave me a lot to think about.
     I came home early after my conversation with the boss. 
"Honey," I confessed, "I've been thinking..."
     "I know you've been thinking," she said, "and I want a
divorce!"
     "But Honey, surely it's not that serious."
     "It is serious," she said, lower lip quivering.  "You think
as much as college professors, and college professors don't make
any money, so if you keep on thinking we won't have any money!"
     "That's a faulty syllogism," I said impatiently, and she
began to cry.  I'd had enough.  "I'm going to the library," I
snarled as I stomped out the door.
     I headed for the library, in the mood for some Nietzsche,
with NPR on the radio.  I roared into the parking lot and ran up
to the big glass doors... and they didn't open.  The library was
closed.
     To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking out
for me that night.  As I sank to the ground clawing at the
unfeeling glass, whimpering for Zarathustra, a poster caught my
eye.  "Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?" it asked. 
You probably recognize that line.  It comes from the standard
Thinker's Anonymous poster.
     Which is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker.  I
never miss a TA meeting.  At each meeting we watch a
non-educational video; last week it was "Freddie Got Fingered."  
Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the
last meeting.
     I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home. 
Being completely thoughtless makes the world easier to take. 
Life just seemed... simpler, somehow, as soon as I stopped
thinking. 
                            - from the Web

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THE FUTURE IS GARBAGE...
---------------------
     Looking for a job that's technology proof?  Well, such
positions are increasingly hard to find.  Now you can even
scratch out the decidedly low-tech-sounding job of garbage
collector.
     The city of Barcelona, Spain has been testing 18,000 litter
bins with built-in microchips.   The cyber cans can signal
computer-equipped rubbish collectors how full a bin may be, the
last time it was emptied and even whether it needs paint. 
They're working on smell detection, too.
     "The aim of the specially designed software is to optimize
cleaning services and litter collection routes," said a spokesman
for the town council. 
     The pilot project, said to be the first of its kind, cost
$113,000.
     And if that wasn't enough, soon the garbage trucks will be
going techno, as well.  The British waste management firm Onyx
will be spending about $100,000 to equip its trucks with global
positioning satellite transponders so they will always know where
their collection trucks are located.  The satellite-based GPS is
so sophisticated that it can even spot if the garbage collectors
of Teignmouth in western England stop too long outside a local
cafe.  Despite the obvious efficiency, not everyone was all that
enthused about the new space collection agency.
     "George Orwell would have had a field day with this one.  It
sounds as if the days of 1984 and Big Brother have arrived at
last," said town councilor Gordon Plahn.  (Reuters)


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GOING POSTAL...
------------
     Junk mail!  It's a bane of the modern age.  Whole rain
forests have been cut flat just to tell us that we "May Already
Have Won!"  There's no stopping it, or so it seems.
     On the other hand, here's a plan...  When you get those
pre-approved letters in the mail for everything from credit cards
to second mortgages, magazines to recipe clubs, most of them come
with postage-paid return envelopes, right?
     Well, why not put these cool little envelopes to work for
you and get rid of some of your other junk mail?  Send an ad for
your local chimney cleaner to American Express.  Or an unwanted 
pizza coupon to Citibank.  And I'm sure the folks at Publisher's
Clearinghouse would be interested in that sale at the local car
dealer.  Your mailbox is overflowing with all of this crap
anyway, isn't it?
     If you didn't get anything else that day, just send that
application back to them!  Just make sure your name isn't on
anything you send them.  Or, you can send the envelope back empty
if you want to keep 'em guessing.
     Let's turn this into a campaign.  Eventually, the banks and
credit card companies will begin getting all their crap back in
the mail at their own expense.  Best of all, they get to pay for
it twice while helping to hold down postal rates for the rest of
us.
          [ Now if that only worked with Spam... ]


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THE ROYAL TRADE...
---------------
     One feature of the modern world that makes some folks
uncomfortable is the internationalization of so many old name
businesses.  This produces some very weird circumstances, where
it gets increasingly hard to tell the players apart without a
scorecard.  Try to make sense out of a world in which RCA (which
was Radio Corporation of America) TV sets are made in Thailand by
a French company while General Electric sets come mostly from
Mexico.  Meanwhile, Sanyo TV's are made in Forrest City, Arkansas
and Sony builds their sets in San Diego.  It is a weird world.
     Now Britain has had a special blow to their own pride in
discovering that millions of the Union Jack flags being made for
Queen Elizabeth's Golden Jubilee this June are being made by - of
all places - Riethmueller GmbH of Kirchheim, Germany.
     "They're made out of paper and have been ordered by
wholesale buyers as well as retailers," the firm's owner Heinz
Riethmueller said.  (Reuters)
          [ So, how do you say, "By appointment to Her
          Royal Highness" in German? ]


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DO-IT-YOURSELF MUSIC ON HOLD...
----------------------------
     Few things are more boring than being stuck on hold for an
extended time.  You can't leave because, "Your call is very
important to us" and "Calls will be answered in the order
received."  The time drags and you think of all of the more
creative things you could be doing with the time.  And the music
they play on the hold lines generally stinks.  Why, you could
even do better yourself.
     Well, you can play music on your phone just by pressing the
buttons - if you know the notes, that is.  Use it to amaze your
friends, annoy your enemies and pass a little of that time more
creatively than by playing computer solitaire.  One caution
though - be sure you are already connected when you try this
little trick or you're likely to find yourself speaking directly
to Lars in Sweden.


Happy Birthday
112163
112196
11#9632
969363

London Bridge is Falling Down
6968786
145789
6968786
8604

Auld Lang Syne
11113212
321139#
#9331212
321##91

Frere Jacques
12311231
369369
9#9631,9#9631
191,191

Mary Had a Little Lamb
3212333
222,399
3212333
322321

Louie, Louie
111-66-999-66


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THE SLIPPING NEWS
-----------------

     ATHLETE WITHOUT COMPELLING
     PERSONAL DRAMA EXPELLED FROM OLYMPICS

     Skier Concealed Adversity-Free Past From Officials

     (NBC) A member of the U.S. Olympic ski team was disqualified
from competition when it was learned that he did not have a
sufficiently compelling human storyline to exploit on the NBC
telecast of the worldwide sporting event.
     Tom Bergen, the expelled skier, was not raised by a single
mother, never had a career-threatening injury, and did not
overcome a personal tragedy of any kind before making the Olympic
ski team, U.S. Olympic officials revealed.
     "Had Tom been involved in an organ donation, as either a
donor or a recipient, that would have been acceptable to us," ski
team spokesman Sandy Harrell told reporters.  "However, he was
not."
     According to sources close to the ski team, Bergen had
concealed the fact that he comes from an intact middle class
family who never lost their home to a flood, tornado, or typhoon.
     But what may have sealed Bergen's doom, sources said, was
his utter lack of a gravely ill family member to win a medal for.
     "Tom did his best to hide his background from team
officials," one source said.  "But when the truth came out, he
was finished."
     Speaking to reporters in Salt Lake City, NBC Sports Chairman
Dick Ebersol was even less charitable, terming Bergen's actions
"a reprehensible betrayal."
     "We do our best to check out all of the athletes to make
sure that their backgrounds are full of compelling human drama,
but we can't catch everything," Ebersol said.  "This is a case of
one really bad guy exploiting the system."


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MODERN PETS...
-----------
     People are so busy these days...  They need a pet that's
clean, quiet and sensible.  Sensing a market, especially in
crowded Japan, Sony came up with the AIBO series of robot dogs. 
Now available in an assortment of styles and models, the
cybercanines have been evolving rapidly, responding to ever more
complex commands, learning new tricks and even looking more and
more like real dogs.  And even acting like proper pooches.
     Despite their high price tag, they may even be cheaper that
the real thing, according to Beverly Cuddy, editor of "Dogs
Today" magazine.
     We may be reaching something like a doggy version of the
world described by science fiction writer Philip K Dick in his
1968 novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" (later filmed as
"Blade Runner"), where it will be difficult to tell whether a pet
is real or virtual.  So, for the more future-minded, here are a
few signs to check if you've brought home a virtual canine
companion:

   - Your dog shorts out every time he licks himself.

   - Even though you belong to Mensa, your dog routinely beats
     you at chess.

   - When you fake throwing a ball for him to fetch, you hear,
     "Projectile Analysis Module reports error: Division By Zero
     -- Abort!"

   - The dog not only chases cars, he catches them, drags them
     back, and buries them in the front yard.

   - When little Timmy falls down the old well, your dog now
     sends an Email for help.

   - Not only does the dog play with the kids, but he has taught
     them all integral calculus.

   - Your dog chased the mailman for 27 miles (43 km) last week
     at speeds of up to 60 miles-per-hour (100 km/h).

   - The dog occasionally presses his tail into a phone jack, and
     leaves you with an expensive long-distance phone bill to
     Japan.

   - Sometimes embarrasses you by dropping spent batteries on the
     carpet when left alone for a long time.

   - Your dog's run-in with the invisible fence made for the
     greatest Fourth of July spectacle the town's ever seen. 

   - Not only can your new dog type, he's posted embarrassing
     naked pictures of your cat on the Web.

   - You say, "Fetch!" and the dog responds, "I'm afraid I can't
     do that, Dave."


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WHEN FUNNY MEETS MONEY...
----------------------
     People will pay for laughs, we all know that.  Funny thing
is, the cost of laughing is going up much faster than the cost of
living.  According to the Cost of Laughing Index for 2002, the
price of chuckles, giggles, guffaws and outright hilarity rose
2.9 percent over the last 12 months.  The government's Consumer
Price Index rose only 1.1 percent over the comparable 12-month
period.
     Was scarcity a factor?  Is there a joke shortage?  Did the
demand for laughs outstrip supply in a time of war?
     Maybe the answer is that people are willing to pay more now
for higher quality humor.  One of America's leading humorists
agreed that his jokes had become a better value than before.
     One of the hottest humor books these days, Calvin Trillin's
"Tepper Isn't Going Out," is a novel exploring the connection
between a man and his parking space.  That book will set you back
a cool $22.95, up nearly 15 percent from the price of Trillin's
previous book, "Family Man," published in 1998.  But Trillin says
there is more to the wit inflation than meets the eye.
     "I want to say that this new book - a bargain at $22.95 -
has more jokes in it than the last book," the Kansas-born author
and long-time New Yorker writer said in an interview.  "So this
book, I would say, is actually cheaper than the last book.  It
depends how you measure."  (Reuters)


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