I listened to my first George Carlin album in 1972 when I was 16 years old.  I never knew comedy could be this funny.  From then on, I was hooked and followed the man’s career until his death of a heart attack on June 22^nd, 2008.   He was my old friend whom I never met.

Although raised in the Roman Catholic faith, Carlin often denounced the idea of God in interviews and performances.  “I worship the Sun, one reason being that I can actually see it!”  And, “The Catholic Church alone could wipe out the national debt if all you did was tax their real estate!”  Carlin did not vote and often criticized elections as an “illusion of choice”.  He once said that he last voted for George McGovern, who ran for President in 1972 against Richard Nixon.

George Carlin’s themes have also been known to cause considerable controversy.  His favorite topic was in his words, “Humanity’s B.S.”, which might include murder, genocide, war, rape, and corruption.  “I look at is this way…for centuries, man has done everything he can to destroy, defile and interfere with nature: clear-cutting forests, strip-mining mountains, poisoning the atmosphere, over-fishing the oceans, polluting the rivers and lakes, and destroying wetlands.  So when nature strikes back and smacks man on the head and kicks him in the b—s, I enjoy that!” 

In 1972, Carlin perfected what is perhaps his best-known routine, “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television”.  He was arrested and charged with violating obscenity laws after performing this routine. The U.S. Supreme Court voted 5 to 4, ruling the routine was “indecent but not obscene”; however the FCC had authority to prohibit such broadcasts during hours when children were likely to be among the audience.  The controversy only increased Carlin’s fame and was the first-ever host of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” on October 11^th, 1975.

“I can tell you everything you need to know about men and women…women are crazy and men are stupid.  And the reason why women are crazy is because men are stupid”.

George Carlin’s last stand-up special, “It’s Bad for Ya, aired live on March 1^st, 2008.  On June 18^th, four days before his death, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. announced that Carlin would be the 2008 honoree of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor to be awarded this November.  Carlin will still receive the award, making him its first posthumous recipient.

“I like Florida; everything is in the eighties.  The temperatures, the ages, an the I.Q.’s”  

A moment of silence, please, for the passing of the daily paper.

Silence — to dramatize the loss of the public voice, the tangible evidence of the First Amendment.  As newspapers across the country continue to downsize, I am among those mourning  the industry’s imminent demise.

“But you can read the News on the Internet,” say those who just don’t ‘get it’. They don’t ‘get’ the thrill of slinking outside at dawn  to grab the paper and dart back inside before the neighbors catch  you in your jammies.

Try doing that with your computer!  Try using your web pages for lining drawers and wrapping knick knacks!  I mourn for the multi-purposeful newspaper.

I grieve for the talented newspaper people who are losing their jobs to cutbacks.    For they have been the standard-bearers of Journalism.  During my career in radio news, I learned to admire newspaper reporters for their devotion to accuracy and to strict literary principles.

In radio, we got away with speaking conversationally, and often, pretty sloppily. In newspapers, they write properly, and often, artistically.

At any breaking news event you can spot them.    There are the scruffy radio reporters, rushing to meet hourly deadlines; there are the well-dressed TV reporters with their hard-working entourages; and then there are the newspaper reporters.   They’re the ones asking all of the intelligent questions and writing the answers down verbatim.

Broadcast reporters steal from them.   Ideas.  Leads.  Whole Stories.   Listen to any radio newscast and you’ll hear the newspaper re-written into headlines.

So here’s to the press who have toiled  unseen and unheard, in order to clearly, thoughtfully — and often downright beautifully– bring us (at least) a close approximation of the Truth.

And now, silence.

Another four years have quickly come and gone, and another Summer Olympics is over.

It really didn’t have a big impact on my life.  Oh, of course I knew that Michael Phelps won all those gold medals, which I think made Mark Spitz spitting mad.  I knew that Kara Lawson won the gold with the Women’s Basketball team, and, well, I admit to following the adventures of Kari and Misty.

But as for the rest of the affair in Beijing (wasn’t it called Peiping at one time?), I know more about the air pollution, the destruction of 700 year old neighborhoods, and displacement of hundreds of businesses than the sports themselves.  The parts of the Olympics I did see, I saw only by accident.

It’s not that I’m against sports.  I like them.  But watching men and women running, straining, working so hard to make it to some finish line seems too much like work, to me.  I have to say, the speed walking looks downright painful.

I much prefer the Winter Olympics.  Now, that’s fun to watch.  Careening down steep slopes on magical skis, speeding through tunnels of ice in a bullet of a sled, tilted parallel to the ground on skates while spinning in circles…that’s exhilarating.

The first Olympics I can remember were held in Helsinki, Finland in the summer, with the winter games in Oslo.  That was back in the days when the Winter and Summer Olympics were held in the same year.  My friend Chuck and I were sports-crazy high school students then, and we avidly followed every sport…even Roller Derby.

There were many memorable Olympics, made so by the location in many cases.  Exotic places like Tokyo, Mexico City and Barcelona.  My all time favorite was Los Angeles in 1984, capped by Lionel Richie with the final song of the celebratory night, All Night Long. What a night that was, and what a wonderful feeling.

It was quite different in Munich in 1972 when Palestinian terrorists brutally shot and killed 11 Israeli athletes.  That cast a pall over the Olympics that year, as did the bombing in Atlanta, and the boycott of the Moscow Olympics in 1980, replaced by a fractured event called the “Freedom Games”.

In 1976, the Olympics were held in Montreal, and in order to pay for them, The Canadians gave us something that could be an eternal legacy…The Lottery.  The Canadians finally fully paid off that debt in 2006.

But as I said, my all time favorite year was 1984, the last year they conducted the Winter and Summer Olympics in the same year.  The Winter Games were held in Sarajevo in what was then Yugoslavia.  And I was there.  It was a tremendous experience.  We had an entire broadcast suite in the new broadcast facilities, right next to the big boys of NBC and CBS.

Not only were the Games themselves fun, but so was soaking up the history of that city where an assassins gunshot started the First World War.

A few years later, it was sad to watch the market place in the center of town get raked with rockets and gun fire.  The historic streets I had walked were used as sight lines, and people who ventured into those lines were frequently shot dead.

They were buried in the “greens”, areas of grass between the groupings of apartment buildings originally built as the “Olympic Village” and later turned over to the citizens of the city.

So the 2008 Olympics are over, and according to reports, the closing ceremonies were an international hit.

Now, it’s on to Vancouver for the Winter Games in 2010.  I’m getting my toque and heading for Whistler. 

No matter who wins the election this November, history has been made.  The Democrats have nominated an African American to carry their banner into the Presidential election in November. 

However it played out this year, America was bound to reach a milestone, since the other viable contender for the nomination was a woman.   It had been 24 years since a woman was on the ticket for the top spot in the land.

Barack Obama is more than interesting.  He is not a product of big city black neighborhoods, like Bill Cosby or Spike Lee.  Nor does he come from the Jim Crow south like Jesse Jackson’s Greenville, SC and Clarence Thomas’ Pin Point, GA. Jesse Jackson’s Greenville neighborhood was a collection of homes built alongside dirt roads.  I know, because I delivered newspapers on my bike over those roads back in the ‘50’s.  Thomas’ Pin Point, is literally that…a pin point a mile wide and a mile and a half long.

Obama’s foundations were rather exotic.  He was raised for a time in Indonesia, and also in Hawaii.

Obama does not come from the traditional black church.  Although he may have joined one as a young adult, he missed the gospel-music fueled services that were home to Aretha Franklin and Al Sharpton, who was an ordained minister at age 9.

Obama’s religious education was practically non-existent.  His mother may have been an atheist, his parents were not involved in their Methodist and Baptist backgrounds.  His father was an atheist, although born a Muslim, and his Indonesian step-father, also a Muslim, found religion to be “not particularly useful”.

He does share something with Sharpton, Thomas and Jackson, however.  Like Sharpton and Thomas, Obama’s father abandoned him and his mother at a young age.  Jackson’s father was married to another woman, leaving his mother to raise him alone.

Furthermore, Barack Obama comes from another unique group, if only peripherally.  His father was an African immigrant to the United States, here primarily to take advantage of educational opportunities.  There is a sub-group of African Americans in this country who don’t share the slave background of the majority of African Americans.  These are immigrants who chose to come here.  Ironically, they are the most highly educated group of Americans there is, surpassing even those who came from Asian countries and while their collective incomes are not as high as Asian immigrants, they rank among highest income sub-group in the country.

Obama is not the first African American to run for President.  Jesse Jackson did this in 1984, and again in 1988.  Al Sharpton followed in 2004.  Senator Joe Biden, now Obama’s running mate, said last year, that …”you got the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice looking guy.”  He apologized a few days later. 

So history has been made, and in many ways, Spike Lee’s prediction that from now on everything will be referenced as BB and AB (Before Barack and After Barack) will probably be true.  For sure, the “barriers” will be coming down, if not this November, then surely in the years to come.  Names like Johnson and Kennedy, Bush and Carter, Clinton and Ford will be replaced by non-European names like Obama, or Jindal or Villagarosa.  And first names like Jimmy, George, Bill and John will certainly give way to Sarah, Hillary, Kaye and Caroline.

And that’s good.

There are the little things now, as a new dad, that make my day. Last night my 15-month-old son spoke his first phrase. What were these words?   “All Done!” As most of us know or have heard, children’s early words and actions mimic those of the adults they’re close to. So what does my boy hear all the time, other than “NO” (and it’s assorted variations)? He hears “No Touch” when he is CONSTANTLY touching things he shouldn’t be, and “All Done” when he is finished eating or playing with a particular toy. A nice little extra to the “All Done” is a little gesture that mommy taught him where he waves his hands together and smiles as big as the day itself!  Too Cool! Hearing these two simple words gave me the feeling of true elation. I never thought two little words could produce such a poignant reaction in me. The three of us were engulfed in brief but powerful laughter; that was truly a special moment.

I used to scoff or smile without any real understanding or interest when hearing these stories from others, though I’d always try my best to be polite. But now experiencing them for myself is something I wouldn’t change for the world.

If you are a parent and reading this, I don’t blame you for a scoff or half hearted smile. I’m not even sure that you’ve made it this far in the article. However, I do know that even if you are not feeling MY joy, if you think about a positively surprising experience with your child, you may be able to re-capture it in your mind even if only for a second. I hope it makes you smile.

And now to coin an old phrase that now has a new significance, “All Done!”

 Unless you’ve been hibernating, in a coma or simply don’t care about America’s politics, you are acutely aware that 2008 is an election year and the Democratic and Republican conventions are now heating up.

With all of the hype, I have to wonder what kind of security measures are put in place to protect the candidates, their families and present and former political figures.  After doing a bit of research I discovered that you and I are responsible for footing the bill!  That’s right, $100 million dollars in federal taxpayer money has transformed Denver and Minneapolis into a high-tech fortress. 

Both the Republican National Convention taking place in Minneapolis in early September and the Democratic National Convention already underway have been deemed “national special security events”, which means the Secret Service is responsible for planning and implementing the security measures. 24-hour operations centers have been set up to monitor the surrounding areas as well as the convention site.  Sixty-Two federal, state and local agencies are working together in Denver as I pen this piece.  Explosive-sniffing dogs, uniformed officers and undercover agents will be in position throughout the week, as well as mobile command vehicles.   Plus, the FBI is armed with a new system that allows instant communication between field offices enabling them to monitor any potential terror threats.   Other agencies involved in the security of delegates, media and all those involved with the convention include the Transportation Security Administration, Customs and Border Protection, The Federal Emergency Management Agency and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.  Wow!  And with all of that protection and muscle, the local police will still carry the responsibility for street-level security.

Personally, I don’t have a problem with all of this protection.  This country has seen way too much violence and far too many assassinations. If this is what it takes to keep our candidates and all those attending the conventions safe, it’s a small price to pay.

Long after the Closing Ceremony, the world may remember the

Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Olympics.    Unfortunately, the spectacle may be remembered more for China’s sleight of hand than for its perfectly synchronized showmanship.   The digitally enhanced fireworks.   The diaper-clad cast.   And most memorable of all, the masking of the little girl with the beautiful voice.  Judged not cute enough for camera work, 7-year-old Yang Peiyi was heard, but not seen.   Viewers were led to believe that the actual singer was a lip-syncing 9-year-old selected for her “flawless image”. 

Outraged?   Understandable.   

Shocked?    Only if you’ve been living under a discus since the Olympics of 1896. 

Increasingly over the past century, film and video technology have conditioned us to not only accept images of perfection, but also to expect them.   Thanks to the handsome stars of sitcoms and soap operas, we have come to insist that all people on television be totally telegenic. 

This includes even the people on so-called ‘Reality’ TV!  Anything less than blinding white teeth and tight young skin has, to the vast viewing public, become visually repulsive.  

There are many reasons why we should care.   Not the least of which is the harm done to the developing psyches of our children.    Those who are less than perfect-looking - say 95% - are left to feel unacceptable.   A minority of this unacceptable majority-say those with rich relatives– may find relief in plastic surgery.   The rest of our children are just plain stuck; forced to look, well… a lot like us. The world judges by appearance, and perhaps it has always been so.  However, as we teeter on the brink of ridiculousness with this, perhaps we should consider what it means to be a child with a great talent who is told to hide.

Do you enjoy biting into a crisp, juicy apple?  Or do you prefer a freshly-picked, sweet summertime peach?

If researchers do not get a handle on the alarming disappearance of the honeybee, your favorite fruits and vegetables may be a thing of the past!

Honeybees are disappearing all over the world, and no one is quite sure why. Beekeepers became aware of this strange phenomenon back in 2006.  Healthy bees, off in search of pollen and nectar are simply abandoning their hives, never to return.  Scientists are calling the mass disappearance “Colony Collapse Disorder“, but nobody has an answer.  They estimate that nearly one-third of all honey bee colonies have vanished in the United States.

Through pollination, honeybees play a central role in our food supply, but unfortunately, little is being done to protect them.  But why are they leaving?  Scientists believe it could be a combination of issues that could be making bees sick, including the exposure to pesticides, parasitic mites, an inadequate food supply or new viruses.  The bee loses are currently ranging from 30 to 60 percent on the West Coast, with some beekeepers on the East Coast reporting losses of more than 70%! Researchers say the bees are most probably dying in the fields, perhaps becoming exhausted or disoriented and eventually falling victim to the cold.

This phenomenon is of grave concern.  If the bees continue to disappear, so does a portion of our nation’s food supply.  What can you to help?  You can start by making your yard as colorful as possible, diverse and pesticide free.  Use local and native plants in your garden and provide a great source of fresh pollen and nectar for bees to eat.  And be aware of what you’re spraying in your yard! Use organic fertilizers and garden safe pest remedies.  For more information, click on the Haagen-Dazs “Help the Honey Bees“

As the Digital World continues to evolve, it’s revolutionizing the way companies do business as well as the way consumers purchase products and services. Advertisers need to constantly recreate themselves in order to keep up with the newest trends in digital media.  Successful marketers will have to embrace digital media as an essential component to their communication.  Digital media can be tracked and measured to the individual, Rich media (using a combination of text, still images, audio, video, animation, and interactivity) is replacing traditional media and is changing the way we view the world. 

For instance, an advertisement using an online video can capture the consumers’ attention for longer than a traditional text ad, and relay more relevant content, at the same time.  80% of internet users in key markets are spending significant amounts of time watching online video. In two years the total ad spend for online video advertising is expected to reach $3 billion.

As a marketing platform, online video tends to engage viewers longer than other types of digital media can.  Online video can facilitate and create a branding message that far exceeds the strength of other media forms.

Advertising inventory is increasingly accessible to brand advertisers, especially as ad networks continue to expand beyond the traditional portals.  Consumers will keep looking for the best way to find honesty in advertising and content.  They are also seeking ways to share information on products as well as receive feedback from other consumers. As the digital media advertising space morphs (according to what consumers are looking for), we’ll continue to see new possibilities open to us, as advertisers.

If you’ve read any of my previous blogs, you might recognize me…I’m the dude from SoCal!   However, I’ve spent over half my life in beautiful Northern California.  Truth be told, California should be divided into two separate states; I mean, who needs Los Angeles, right?    A great place to visit…but I wouldn’t want to live there again.

I live and work in a small, rural town in the Sierra Foothills about 25 miles east of Sacramento.  It’s quiet, simple, laid back and suits my easy-going personality to a tee; or at least I used to think so.

My wife and recently returned from a relaxing vacation in the gorgeous state of Oregon.  We visited a childhood friend of mine who lives in Eugene.  After spending a few days at his beautiful home in the woods and be-boppin’ around this hip college town, I thought to myself, “Hey, I could live here!”   Instead of 93 degree summer days in my ‘hood”, Eugene’s summers hover around 82.  The downtown area was crawling with people of all ages hangin’ in the coffee houses, listening to live music in the park, parading around campus and exercising on the famed track at U of O’s Hayward Field.  I was ready to put my house up for sale. “C’mon honey, pack up the kids, we’re moving to Orey-gone!”

We left Eugene for the Oregon coast and the fishing town of Newport.  My wife, Karen wasn’t too keen on the weather, a constant blanket of fog, which is typical summer weather for this time of year.  I, for one, was in heaven, gorging myself with the denizens of the sea.  Fish, mollusks, and crustaceans…you name the species, it was down my gullet, washed down by nice cold bottle of locally brewed Rogue Ale.  Karen, in a dedicated search for blue skies wanted to drive down the coast back into sunny California.  In our journey, I was surprised by all of the beautiful towns we passed along the way…Yachats, Florence, Reedsport, Coos Bay and Brookings.  Most are current or former fishing villages featuring vintage movie theaters, local restaurants and gorgeous turn-of-the-century homes.  Once again, I was ready to fly the coup. How incredibly cool would it be to live in a different town every few years?  Fishing with old timers, sharing a beer at the local tavern and living in a home built in the early1900’s?    

So, as I’ve ended all of my vacations, I drove into my garage, noticed my lawn was turning a nice shade of brown, in the 100 degree heat, allowed my two dachshunds to welcome me home (by jumping all over me) and slowly, but surely entered back into reality.  All in all, it had been a nice dream, hadn’t it? 

If you think you’d like to own a radio station, just wait a few years, and they might come cheap…

So says Michael Harrison.  Now, Harrison isn’t just some guy shooting off his mouth.  For almost 20 years he has been the Editor and Publisher of “Talkers Magazine”, a magazine devoted to talk radio specifically, and radio and “new media“, in general.

It is his assertion that the traditional way of delivering radio content, by means of that radio in your car or the tuner in your (soon-to-be-obsolete) entertainment center or that dusty old portable you carry around, will be a mere fond remembrance, very soon.

Harrison, by the way, includes all the other forms of “terrestrial” broadcasting, including TV stations, in his prediction of obsolescence. 

What Harrison is talking about is the new platform radio and TV will be using to disseminate content, and the appliances you and I will use to access that content.

And guess what?  That new platform is the internet!

And it makes sense.  Today’s younger generations are completely web oriented.  They use it like they use their right or left hand.  Just about anyone under 40 is completely conversant with web content and how to use it and manipulate it.

So how does this mean you can buy a radio station, or even a TV station on the cheap?  Simply put, it means that while radio station entities will still be providing content, they no longer will be dependent on radio frequencies, antenna towers and all that expensive equipment to deliver it.

Even now, radio stations are finding that many of their listeners are already accessing the web to hear their programming.  The shift may be swifter than we can imagine.

So what’s to become of the radio station?  Harrison thinks collectors will pick them up, and operate them as hobbies (albeit expensive ones), with all the nostalgia of radio listening past, including, perhaps, the static.

This brings me to Harrison’s concept of the “Media Station” which I will address next time.

 In my last two blogs, I talked about some of the new gadgets on the market, and some of the gadgets we “gotta have”.  Well “gotta have”, as in “I want”, is different from “important”.

Here: Important means devices I can’t live without.

My important devices do not resemble anyone else’s, and please feel free to tell me which ones are the most important to you.

Number Five -  is my computer with its internet connection.  I just found out yesterday how important it was.  At my house I have a broadband connection with a wireless system.   Well, yesterday we had a four hour power failure.  I was fully capable of handling the loss during the outage, but once power was restored, and my internet connection was still unavailable, I got nervous.  The fact that my two late-teen granddaughters were deprived as well almost had me breaking out in hives.  They were so devastated, they curled up on the couches and took a nap.

Number Four -  would be my cell phone.  In fact, I knew I must have the new iPhone.  So I put my Razr to rest and went with Apple.  But I had big problems retrieving all that the iPhone had to offer, because I simply didn’t know how to program it.  Thankfully, my granddaughters were visiting, so I woke them from their naps and had them help me.  I just don’t like their choice of music on the  iTunes element of the iPhone.

Number Three -  would be my Verizon AirCard.  Is this something else or what?  Just plug in that little USB connector and click a few keys, and my lap tops are connected to the internet just like that.  Just the perfect thing when on the road, at a coffee shop, in a hotel, etc. 

Whoops!  Now that hotel has free Wi-Fi and I don’t need my cell card anymore. But it’s still nice to know I have it.

My Runner-Up isn’t necessarily a device, but it is a gadget I can’t live without…it’s my DVD recorder.  I mean, how many “So you Think You’re a Dance” and “Go out with My Ex” type programs can you stand to watch?  That DVD allows me to record the good stuff, like “Dirtiest Jobs” and “Ice Truckers”.  Good, meaningful stuff…that I can watch when I want.

Finally, here is my favorite device…one that literally could save my life.  I subscribe to Dish Satellite Service, and Dish offers this nifty little tool called a “Pocket Dish”, something most people have never heard of.  The Pocket Dish has a seven inch screen, is very portable, and runs on its own internal battery for at least two hours.  I download programs from the aforementioned DVD recorder and then transfer them to “PD”, as I affectionately call it, and watch them while I’m on my treadmill.  After watching an hour of the “Naked Archaeologist” and working up a sweat, I’m ready for anything…but I’m usually MOST ready to take a nap.

I am, in no way, a techie, but I sure do like gizmos.  And I have spent a lot of money on such items that are now painfully, uselessly obsolete…like a portable mini-disc player from Sony.  Mini-discs are every bit as crystal clear as CD’s, they come covered in a case that protects the disc, unlike CD’s, and again, unlike CD’s they are completely editable and re-recordable.  And they are practically indestructible.  We’ve been using Mini-discs for almost 10 years, and out the of 500 or so we have used, we have only lost two or three.

Speaking of Sony, it was Sony which came out with the Beta video tape format, and, sure, I fell for that one, too.  After all, it produced a far better picture than VHS…didn’t it?

And there’s another one!  Who plays video tape any more?   So my many video tape playback units are all sitting in the closet, and I can’t give them away.  I tried once.  I gave one to my son-in-law for a birthday present.  He sent it back.  I should have known when they started selling them for $39. 

That only accounts for recent history.  I’m not including the 8 tracks I bought, or the cassette tapes, or the cassette decks I’ve spent lots of money on.

If I thought long and hard enough, I could come up with many more devices that are laughably obsolete.  But that’s the past.  The future is closer than you think.

I’m looking at a perfectly fine, soon to be discarded, VHS player in the wonderfully beautiful Plantation style Armoire that serves as an entertainment center in my family room.  The armoire cost a lot of money a few years ago from, Ethan Allen, no less.  In addition to my surround sound system with its woofers and tweeters, it also contains (barely) my hulking 36″ Sony Wega TV set with the 4 by 3 format.  Yep, in less than a year, that set will be old technology, and the picture on it will be the new 16 by 9 format.

But that’s not all.  The new plasma, thin screen TV set that I will most certainly buy very soon, won’t look very good hanging from that expensive armoire.  In the near future, the esteemed entertainment center will be a thing of quaint remembrance, kind of like the big, boxy, wooden radio sets that sat in the living rooms of the ‘30’s and ‘40’s.

I thought of this one day not long ago as I sat in line at an e-waste pickup center.  In the back of the pick-up I borrowed, packed and stacked as tight and high as safety permitted, I was about to dump thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of computers, monitors, fax machines and copiers that once were “state-of-the-art”.

I wept.

Up until two or three years ago, who would have thought you could play tennis in front of your TV, wielding a remote-control-like device like a tennis racquet?…Well, Nintendo did it with the Wii.

Not being a member of the Nintendo generation I didn’t see that one coming, although I’m sure N-genners probably did.  Frankly, I’ve never given much thought to getting a Wii, although, I have heard it is a fun way to get in some exercise, which I sorely need.

The Wii is one device listed in an article by Nick Parish in a local Sacramento area magazine called Comstock’s, in which he describes some of the “top tech tools” found in offices and homes.

Even I have heard of some of them. 

I actually know what the Garmin Nuvi is.  A Magellan navigation system was installed in my latest Hertz rental car.  That experience convinced me I had to have it.  But I couldn’t make up my mind between the various models available, from the Tom Tom to the Nuvi. 

My recent purchase of a new car, however, made that unnecessary.  For $6000 it came included in the new interactive gizmo on the dashboard.  And I could have had the Nuvi for under $400.

Then there is the Jawbone.  I didn’t know what a jawbone was until Tom, my associate and office-mate came walking in with one hanging from his ear the other day.  He swears by it, especially now that you can’t talk on your cell-phone while driving in California (keep the snickers down, please).  And unlike Blue-tooth headsets, it employs “noise-shield” technology, which means you can actually hear the conversation while driving with the top down.

There were a couple of things in Mr. Parish’s article that didn’t appeal to me.  The Amazon Kindle was one.  You can download books in a nifty new way, and read them at your leisure, like standing in line somewhere.  Ah. OK.

Another is the Cisco TelePresence, teleconferencing with “real time, across-the-table video clarity”…for $250,000.   Thanks, but no thanks.

Then there was the Nike + iPod.  It didn’t take me long to figure out that Nike’s involvement meant you could have iPod sounds while you are running.  I’ll pass.

There was something in the article that did catch my eye, though.  The V-Dimension Solar Bag.  This thing (it comes in three sizes, up to a back-pack) has a light collecting device, that converts to power for all your portable, powered gizmos, such as lap-tops, cell-phones, iPods, camera, PDA, or in my case, my Pocket Dish (more on that in my next blog).  Any kind of light, from fluorescent to sun-light, will power this bag and pass the power to my gizmos.

I gotta have it.

 ”Hey Jordan, that’s a bitchen Camaro you’re driving!”   “Thanks, Jacque, your wheels are groovy too.  Out of sight!”

Movin’ up two decades….

“Hey Jordan, that’s a rockin’ Camaro you’re driving?”  “Thanks, Jacque your wheels are phat too!  Awesome!

The adjectives in these two phrases were born in different decades; from the post-war 50’s through the turbulent and culture-changing 60’s all the way to the age of the iPod and “MySpace”.  What’s interesting is that these iconic words hold the same meaning regardless of time. They’re adjectives that denote excitement, greatness, and exhilaration!

This playful lexicon of the times has become a symbol of pop culture, spoken by Americans of all ages.  Want more?

Cool, radical, rad, far-out, out-of-sight, fresh, The bomb, sick, tight, hot, stoked, rockin’, right-on, boss, gnarly,  bad-ass, kick-ass, excellent and righteous! 

 If there are a few of these words you’ve never heard of, chances you’re a bit too young, or a tad too old.  But when it’s all said and done, all of these words have the same meaning.  Now isn’t that “righteous”?  And check this out!  All of these words can be followed or preceded by the word “dude”!   As in, “awesome dude!”, “that’s phat dude!” “Dude…I’m stoked!”

So, grab your hot board, shred that righteous wave, but always be excellent!.  Right-on dude!