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.")
