Surrender

I just heard this exchange on an NPR program:

Speaker A (a think-tanker): You want to surrender to every country in the region.
Speaker B (a general): It's not a surrender, it's a strategic withdrawal.
Speaker A: [Derisive laughter.] Oh, I apologize then.

Who just lost the argument? I'm not sure.

In reality I'm peeved at A for callously dismissing the distinction between the two terms, which have a world of difference to a military man like B.

But if B had said what he said in, say, a movie, it would definitely be used to show how foolish he is, willing to niggle semantically around the plain fact of his army's defeat, and A's laughter would have echoed the audience's.

I suppose that you could say "Well, jmac, this isn't a movie." And I would say, "Isn't it?" Then there'd be a beat where we looked at each other in silence, and then you'd slap me. And I'd go Ooooh! like Curly and start crying.

Jarhead on the lam

I went to the same barber again today with specific instructions as to length. She got that bit right, but then proceeded to go all military on the sides, shaving straight up all around my head and leaving a disc of longer hair on top. So now it looks like I've been AWOL for a month.

Maybe it's time to try Supercuts or something.

Actually what I should do is draw a picture and just hand it to the barber. "Do this." It will be like when I am buying shoes and I say "Sell me these, except new."

Another Grim Milestone

13,001 13,002 spams in search of a home called Earth.

I heard an interesting "On Point" last week that today's spam largely comes not from misguided entrepreneurs but organized criminal groups, many in Eastern Europe. I was not aware of this.

A slime draws near (and tries to sell you an extended warranty)

Penny Arcade nails most of why I have stopped visiting video game specialty stores.

The remaining reason is specific to the EB Games at the Cambridgeside Galleria, though I dunno, maybe they're all like this now. It used to be a nice place to go, with a laid-back staff. But ever since time time of the GameStop buyout (correlation-not-causation, but still), the clerks there have been all about the hard sale, taking every opportunity to encourage pre-orders for highly anticipated games, even upon customers who didn't ask about them.

The last time I was in there was to buy Clubhouse Games for my DS, and the clerk tried really hard to get me to pay on the spot for Final Fantasy III as well. (The first is a collection of casual card and board games. The second is an enormous single-player RPG.) Uh? And the time before that I bought Tetris DS and the guy worked up a sweat pushing New Super Mario Bros. on me. I think at the time I wrote it off an an over-eager attempt to pitch at an obvious Gen-X game-nostalgia victim, but now it's just ridiculous.

Whatev; I'm done with those guys.