On this the 1st day of Spring, Norooz, and our wedding anniversary I share a surprising bit of history to add to the record once and for all:
For the Record: A Message of Hope, Rhythm, and Accentuation
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Category Archives: Cartoon
At Your Service: Reinvention 7.0
Click here to see the extreme version of the Swiss Army Knife.
Windshield Wiper for iPad
If it’s already on the market, please don’t tell me. Something Ann said over the phone this evening made me think of the concept, but I can’t remember what. As I sketched it, I thought of my father and how he would routinely save a half a meatball in order to sop up the remaining spaghetti sauce on his plate. Invariably, as Spring follows Winter, one drop of spaghetti sauce would land on his tie or shirt. If he were still with us, he’d probably need one of these:
Related products: The iLighter.
Taking Everything Personally: Tic-Tac-Mitote
As much as I try to embrace Don Miguel Ángel Ruiz’s Four Agreements, my mitote place me in situations in which it seems like there’s no alternative but to take things personally.
Wrinkle-Free?
This actually happened, and I actually said that. I wasn’t mean or anything, but I did go into the store, Lowes, with the exact model numbers that I had obtained from Consumer Reports. I ordered the other, less expensive set…the set that comes with wrinkles. Lowes delivered it and installed it; and they’re both working fine. I can live with wrinkles.
(Prices may vary depending on location. Batteries not included.)
Your Call Is Important…
Update on this 02/26/2014 post, thanks to my wife, Annyth, who generously shared with me this sobering and infuriating June 29, 2025 piece from The Atlantic, click here for the gift article. It outlines how “Endless wait times and excessive procedural fuss” is “all part of a tactic called ‘sludge.’” The author, Chris Colin writes, “There was a time when the happiness of existing customers was a sacred metric. CEOs saw the long arc of loyalty as essential to a company’s success. That arc has snapped.” Colin continues, “One of sludge’s most insidious effects is our ever-diminishing trust in institutions…Once that skepticism sets in, it’s not hard for someone like Elon Musk to gut the government under the guise of efficiency (My emphasis).”
As it is with all those unattended checkout lanes that were initially installed at grocery stores and the like, a previous topic here at portfoliolongo.com, so it is, I’m guessing, with most call centers.
Bundlin’
Today’s the day we get hooked up. We went with complete bundling: cable TV, Internet, gas, electric, dark beer, and margaritas…oh, and they threw in nitrous oxide for laughs!
Weighing In
Here’s a possible partnership…
What if…
Somehow after routine cleanings and multiple moves an ancient jar of pepperoncinis manages to remain, except there are no pepperoncinis left, just the pickled pepperoncini brine. I’m guessing it’s from the early 1990s. What if I gargle with it?
Loyalty
This iPad drawing in Fifty Three Paper from a couple of months ago was animated by a fascination I’ve had with the notion of loyalty as the glue that bonds followers or subscribers to both a.) whatever and/or whoever they hold dear as well as b.) their like-minded, fellow followers. Who better than the Koch brothers using Elmer’s Glue with their own bare hands to assemble their followers, I thought, to illustrate this? When the unidimensional adhesive cures, you’ve got yourself something like solidarity, an exclusive affinity group, a virtual gated community of sorts; it’s the basis of culture without all the messy pluralism and diversity.
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