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Where Is Everyone? Is It July Already?

Hey, folks. If my ghost town of an office today — not to mention the server logs for this site — are any indication, then most of you (in the U.S., at least) have taken advantage of the upcoming long holiday weekend to get the hell out of the house, away from the computer, and hopefully into something more interesting. To you, I say, ‘kudos’. Knock yourselves out.

As for me, I’m stuck at work. And might be back tomorrow, or even on Monday, when all good and upstanding Americans are supposed to be out getting sunburns, lighting fires under various gunpowder-containing objects, and consuming barbecued meat products.

(Man, that got sort of a Coneheads feel at the end, there, didn’t it? Weird.)

Anyway, in the spirit of weekend laziness, I’m not planning on working too hard here today — either at the office, or the weblog. And luckily for me, it’s the first of the month, so I’m off the hook. It’s time for the next Zoiks! issue, and we both know the drill by now, right?

No? Fine. But I’m only explaining this one more time, dammit. Write it down or something, would you?

So, here’s the scoop: every 1st and 15th on the calendar, a new issue of the Zoiks! e-zine arrives. Well, virtually arrives. On the web. You understand. It doesn’t come in a nice little plastic newspaper bag or anything, but it’s legit, just the same.

Now, in these issues of Zoiks!, you’ll find a half-dozen or so funny little ditties — including one from yours truly. And, since Zoiks! doesn’t keep online archives, I’ve decided to do it for them. Well, for them, for me, I guess, since I’m only archiving my stuff. It’s not like I’m being completely altruistic and shit, see?

So, here we go, then. Below, you’ll find my piece from the last issue of Zoiks! And if you want to read the current one — well, just head over to Zoiks! to check it out. And if, for some oddly disturbing reason, you’d like to see earlier pieces, then feel free to rummage through the archives. You might want to focus on the 1st and 15th posts — but I don’t have to tell you that, right? You’re a smart little cookie.

All right, then — let’s get this weekend kicked off, puppies. It’s par-tay time. Sayonara.

They Don’t Make the Old Days Like They Used To

I yearn for a simpler time. Life in this modern age can be frustrating and scary, with the global warming and bad cholesterol and high-definition reruns of ‘The Nanny’. I long for a more peaceful existence, free of the complications of the twenty-first century lifestyle. I’m ready to re-adopt a few of our long-forgotten traditions, to recapture the halcyon days of yore. Yesteryore, even. I’m not fooling around here.

First, I’d like to go back to using surnames to describe peoples’ professions. So, if I meet a Shoemaker, I’ll know he can help me patch the hole in my sneaker. If I run into a Baker, I can ask for a ‘doughnut hole’, without worrying how exactly he’ll interpret the request. And if a Parker happens to be around — well, maybe he can finally get my car into my garage spot. Plus, he might be turn out to be Spider-Man. That would be sweet.

While we’re at it, how about if we go back to riding horses to get around? Gas prices are high, pollution is terrible, and I for one have had it up to here with that big-eared ‘zoom zoom’ brat. Much better that we should saunter around the natural way, atop large domesticated hairy animals. We can ride twelve wide down the highway, trotting and cantering our way to the office. Sure, we’ll all need stables — and salt licks, and hay bales, and the amount of poop in the streets would escalate, just a touch — but it’s a small price to pay to be rid of our mobile metal monsters. And just think of all the glue and Big Macs we’ll be able to make with the ‘leftovers’.

It doesn’t end there, though. I think we should settle all of our differences the old-fashioned way, with a nice pistol duel. If it was good enough for the founding fathers’ generation, then why not us? Put away the fancy Glocks and rifles — those things won’t help you much, anyway, once we convert back to horseback travel. Have you ever heard of a ‘gallop-by shooting’? Me, neither. We’ll nip an awful lot of violence in the bud, if the would-be perps were forced to use ancient flint-lock piece to do their dirty deeds. Those things are more likely to blow off your fingers than to take out your opponent. I’d think twice before stepping off ten paces against the guy who dissed my baby’s mama, that’s for sure.

I suppose the Internet is out, too — if there’s anything that screams ‘modern technology’, it’s the internet. So we’ll have to get our porn somewhere else, obviously. But also our communications — email goes out the window. Maybe we can Pony Express parchments to each other, or learn to send ‘leetspeak’ instant messages via smoke signal. Of course, if the spammers get their grubby paws on that technology, they’ll fill the skies with soot, selling their snake oil and combination butter churns/penis enlargers. And you thought pop-up ads were bad; at least nobody ever got black lung from one of those.

Finally, let’s start talking like the old-timers — sorry, I mean, ‘olde-timers’. All the fancy new lingo and technical jargon around today — let’s throw it all away, and replace it with words like ‘forsooth’ and ”verily’. Sure, nobody knows what the hell those things mean any more, but is that really any different than technoweenie talk like ‘phishing’ or ’emoticon’? If we’re going to be unintelligible, at least we can sound Shakespearean. That’s my attitude.

Would any of these measures make our lives easier? Perhaps. Maybe we should ask the Amish, before we go to all the trouble. They certainly seem happy, raising barns and riding in buggies and not smoking or drinking or dancing or… wow. If we’re really serious about going ‘retro’, I suppose we have to fall in line with all of that uber-observant religious mumbo-jumbo, too. I never thought about that. And there’s no way I’m getting up before noon on Sundays. So, never mind. Maybe the modern life isn’t quite so bad, after all. Verily.