I love it when two teenagers ring up and bag my groceries.

"Did you ever see that Nicolas Cage movie about 9/11? I watched that last night, and, like, it got me thinking about how bad that was."

"Yeah it was bad! I'll tell you how bad it was. I lived in Connecticut and we used to go down once a year to the Twin Towers and the Statue of Liberty. And now we can't."

"Yeah, but, like, think how many people were in that building."

"I guess going up to Connecticut's going to be pretty boring now."

"Yeah."

"I just don't get war. Like, why would you want to give your life for something? That's, like, so crappy."


Four Replies to World Trade, Like, Something

Lori Lancaster | August 24, 2007
[hidden by author request]

Tony Peters | August 25, 2007
another reason why mandatory service to country would be a good thing

Jackie Mason | August 26, 2007
[hidden by author request]

Anna Gregoline | August 27, 2007
I still can't get over a quote (I'll have to paraphrase) I saw in an article about kids and 9/11 - one kid said, "It wasn't until I saw the 9/11 movie that I felt it was at all real."

Dramatized things seeming more real than actual news coverage is a startling indictment of our media culture.


Logical Operator

The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »

What We Kept

One winter in the mid-1970s, my grandfather Donald was hospitalized with a serious infection in his foot. Being diabetic, he went out of his way for years to avoid any infections or other hazards, but his luck had run out. On Christmas Day, he was informed by the doctors that they would have to amputate his foot the next morning. Go »

Scott's Razor

Hanlon's Razor states:Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.That's cute, but aren't we all just a little quick to assume either explanation? Nobody trusts anybody else's judgment any more. Go »

21 Days

Any advice for what to do with my last three weeks of living single? Kelly will now move here on February 4, due to various factors. This, it goes without saying, rules. Go »

R.I.P. Bob

My friend and former co-worker Bob, who provided us with jerky at GooCon: Siesta Key, recently passed away of a sudden illness. He was a quirky dude, occasionally given to hostile pranks, but usually a delightful and friendly presence whenever he saw you. I don't know how much his service in Vietnam warped him, but he definitely wasn't like anyone else I knew, prone to making weird jokes and unexplained connections between ideas. Go »

Humbug 4 Life

This isn't a very popular opinion these days, but it's from the heart: I'm getting terribly fed up with Christmas all around me, and being wished a merry Christmas dozens of different ways every day both verbal and non-verbal. Normally I think political correctness is a joke and the word "offended" is a thoroughly dead horse of a cliché, but I have no other word for how I feel than offended. I'm not Christian and want nothing to do with the holiday of Christmas. Go »

Sarasota

Aaron Weiss likes taking pictures with his spiffy new camera – go figure – and yesterday he captured this beautiful panoramic shot of part of downtown Sarasota. This is why I live here. [I compressed his version for filesize, which caused the pixelization in the sky.] Go »