POPCORN

BY JIM SZANTOR

Rhetorical questions, questionable rhetoric and whimsical observations about the absurdities of contemporary life:

• Why don't they just have Ohio vote for president and be done with it?
• I admire people who are good at chess, because I am beyond hopeless. Always have been. I mean, I used to open with the Heimlich Maneuver!
• There’s no denying it:  Due to a cruel quirk of nature, men were born without the curtain-shopping chromosome.
• Morning in America:  For two years, the nationwide BioWatch system, intended to protect Americans against a biological attack, operated with defective components that left it unable to detect lethal germs, according to scientists with knowledge of the matter. --Chicago Tribune, Oct. 23.
• I'm always a bit queasy about pitching those sweepstakes entry forms I always get in the mail.
• Congrats to the estimable Robert J. Samuelson of the Washington Post for crafting a variation of the  hokey "that sound you heard" lead that so many writers resort to when they can't think of anything else.
• In his Oct. 15 column headlined  "The BRIC rescue that wasn’t," he opened with:  "Just in case you didn’t hear it, that was the sound of the BRIC bubble popping. . . . "   (No, Mr. Samuelson, I didn't hear it;  nor, I trust, did anyone else.)
• Magazine renewal notices that say "Last Chance" really mean that there are five more coming.  Maybe more.
• Memo to all sports announcers (especially radio guys): No one has ever complained about a  play-by-play announcer giving the score too often.
• The most frustrating part about being “on hold” is when the music stops and you think your number is up . . .  and it’s just a recorded voice coming on to tell you “how important” your call is to them.  If you’re on hold for 10 minutes, you get that at least 10 times.
•  Memo to Corporate America: If our calls are so important to you, prove it by increasing your call-center staffing. Then and only then will we truly feel the importance you’re so fond of mentioning.  
• Don’t you also love it that whomever you’re dealing with will, even if pressed, give you only his or her first name . . . even though they have a full dossier on YOU?
• I'd pay a princely sum to see Newt Gingrich on "Dancing With the Stars."
• When is the last time you ordered--or made--French toast?  And what's so French about it anyway.  Did they invent the egg?
• It's only a matter of time before the absence of Steve Jobs is felt acutely and some other firm (or some other visionary) out-Apples Apple.
• Speaking of which, computers seem to me to be a highway that's always under construction.  Just when you think you're rolling . . . there's a detour or a breakdown or a "new release or update" . . . . Will they ever get these things fixed?
• I've never liked anyone who had "the III" after their name.
• Jim's Snack Food Find of the Week:  Larry the Cable Guy's Fried Dill Pickle Tater Chips.  
• (Full Disclosure:  Larry and I go way back.   Hell, I knew him when he was Larry the Over-the-Air Guy!)
• Jim's Book Pick of the Month:  "iDisorder/Understanding Our Obsession with Technology and Overcoming Its Hold On Us," by Larry Rosen,  Ph.D.
• I'll come right out and say it:  "60 Minutes" is a shadow of its former self without Mike Wallace and Andy Rooney.   
• Speaking of iconic shows, has "Saturday Night Live"  ever come close to replacing Gilda Radner and John Belushi?  It's only been 30 years now! 
• Another Media Word (a word you see or hear only in news reports and never hear a normal person use in real life):   "jejune," a particular favorite of the New York Times' Maureen Dowd.
• Speaking of Ms. Dowd, she can take credit for the jimjustsaying Quote of the Week:  "Republicans are geniuses at getting people to vote against their own self-interest. "  
• Ever wonder why some Red Lobsters aren't participating in whatever it is the rest of the Red Lobsters are participating in?
• Today's Latin lesson: Ego don't teneo ultum super professio tamen Ego teneo quis Ego amo.   ("I don't know much about art,  but I know what I like.")