Ooh La La

Super Giant Killer has been obsessed with France ever since her french grandmother died six months ago. She could tell you Marie Antoinette didn't really say, "Let them eat cake." She wears a plastic pouch with a saint card of Joan Arc dangling from a lanyard around her neck. She winces when she tells how Charlotte Cordray stabbed Marat in his bathtub. She can speak a handful of phrases. She even knows about the bourgeoisie and the Third Estate. She also knows that on December 3, 2007 she will be going to France for a month because our neighbor told her Paris has the best New Year's celebration in the world. She wants to get there early so she doesn't miss any of it. But this all has to stop. I've been letting her grieve in her own magnificent way but that ends today. Today she came in and said, "Dad, look at my new baby." Not something any father wants to hear but there are enough dolls around that I didn't panic, but this new kid is it; she's gone too far. Here is the bouncing baby boy...















My grandson, the Eiffel Tower.

Well the pax didn't hold for long upon our return. YHWH has been struggling to get through to the latest crop of frosh who she claims are greatest proponents of dullardry since her institution was founded. So I happened to see that the latest Time magazine cover story is about the multitasking generation. Generation M. It talked about how they do homework, IM, burn CDs, and Google their friends simultaneously. Asked how can these kids' brains do this multitasking, the nation's leading neuroscientist says, "They can't." It's not multitasking it's sequential processing. They're simply prioritizing tasks and performing them in a way that seems like multitasking. The result is that the more things you do at once the less quality of output. They're also being trained by their gadgets to think in ways that make the gadgets more efficient rather than the other way around. Apparently this isn't Luddite thinking or reactionary parent-talk; there's nearly a hundred year body of literature based on studying factory workers and soldiers, etc. So I start telling YHWH about this and in about the time it takes to IM a zit-stricken multitasker The Self starts slamming doors, crashing dishes, muttering loudly, crying, you name it, before stomping off with a final door smash. So it was a nice week while it lasted. Back to the old grindstone. My new grandson will NEVER be a multitasker! I swear on Marat's grave!

TODAY BY THE NUMBERS
New grandchildren: 1
Cups of coffee: 2
Incense sticks burned: 3 (cedarwood, pine, Tibetan lotus)
Sinks unclogged: 1
Episodes of Sopranos watched: 1
Slices of pizza for lunch: 3
Comments on BananAppeal: 2
Shifts on desk: 2