Viewport

Friday, July 08, 2005

Useless things...

As I was walking in the rain from the bus to my office this morning, I passed a guy on the plaza with a gas powered leaf blower happily blowing crap around. It dawned on me that leaf blowers are a useless invention. What is the point of simply blowing crap from one spot to another (unless it is into your neighbor's yard)?

Life seems full of useless things:
  1. Making the bed.
  2. Fuzzy toilet seat covers. They prevent the lid from staying up at crucial moments.
  3. Wasps (the insects, not the White Anglo Saxton Protestants...though they could be on the list). They sting, bite and don't seem to contribute much to the environment (ironically like the White Anglo Saxton Protestants).
  4. Plumbers (all repair people for that matter). They get paid obscene amounts of money to turn minor repairs into major projects.
  5. Silent letters like the "b" in plumbers.
  6. Greeters at WalMart.
  7. Greeting cards. Come on. Do you really think it says how much you care to send someone a piece of cardboard with a verse written by a total stranger?
  8. E-Cards. They show that you are too cheap to even buy the piece of cardboard with a verse written by a total stranger.
  9. Vice Presidents.
  10. Spam. How many zero down mortgages can one person have?
  11. Personal Diary blogs. No one cares.
  12. Pierced noses (especially on fast food employees).
  13. Car air freshners shaped like pine trees.
  14. Semi colons.
  15. Many of my co-workers.
  16. Lists about useless things.
Funny how life works.

6 comments:

Naughti Biscotti said...

I've thought the same thing about greeting cards. And.. I hate to get the stupid E kind.
However, most of my loved ones will get quite angry if I don't send them one of those cardboard pieces of crap.
You should also mention e-mail chain letters. Worst crap ever passed over the internet.
Anyway, nice post!!!

Time said...

Hallmark would love us. "Reach out and touch someone with a carboard piece of crap from Hallmark!"

And yes, e-mail chain letters should go on the list.

BTW, please send a copy of this post to ten of your friends and ask each of them to send a copy to ten of their friends.

It will bring you good luck and me traffic.

Anonymous said...

It's a sign of progress. You see, the more advanced a civilization becomes the more useless junk it generates. We have so much more useles junk than our parents had. Just think how much useless crap our decendants will get to enjoy. (Or blog about)

Anonymous said...

lights in the wake:

I see things differently. To me a progressive society would have almost no waste and reap benefits and luxuries of modernity that we can't even imagine due to our self-limiting natures and the times we live in.

My parents were not raised to be unrestrained consumerists. My father still refers to the refrigerator as an "Ice Box." In turn my grandparents were greatly influenced by poverty and the necessities impressed upon them by economic depression, lack of birth control, world wars and the inevitable classist oppression.

I'd rather have a robot housemaid and so called "zero point energy" than another cheap plastic trinket with "Made in China" stamped on it. In my opinion the barriers to me posessing these things are societal not technological.

-R

Time said...

To response would be useless.

Time said...

Correction: To respond would be useless.