Senior Center Gig

I was watching some show with my kids (Disney or Nickelodeon, I don't recall which) where the main character and crew went to a senior center to sing. While there they were asked again and again to sing the same song, Way Down Upon the Suwanee River.

It got me to thinking about what we gen Xers might be like when we're in our 90s rolling around the old folks home. Do you reckon we'll be demanding the high school choir sing Beat It for us? Or Thriller? Or some other 1980s hit? Or is there some magic point in life where a soul gives up the music of its past and seeks only to hear Stephen Foster melodies?

I like to think I'd choose Beat It. Suwanee River has had it's turn.

Now the question is will the kids know it?

Smells

I don't know if this is even possible, but...

The entire floor of my office smells like someone sprinkled butter and body odor on their popcorn before they tossed in the microwave and left it to burn.

Cheap cheapness

It's time for me to get crotchety and old.
Ok, I'm not going to make any patriotic comments on what our country does and what other countries do, or draw any conclusions on what is better now. You can probably interpret my feelings from what I will say. And here is where I will sound like an old man.

They don't make crap like they used to.

Even pencils. Actually, it's the pencils that bother me the most! I'm an artist and so I use a lot of pencils and I spend a lot of time sharpening said pencils. And it bothers the crap out of me that the above can happen.

I bought my son 2 24 packs of pencils for school. The teacher asked that they come to their first day with all pencils sharpened. So I broke out our newish pencil sharpener and opened the box of 24 pencils.

Of the 24 pencils 6 were defective. By that I mean that they will never sharpen fully. Up and down the pencil graphite is a series of small breaks, so after you sharpen it for a few seconds the graphite tip breaks off and you have to start all over. You never get to use it. Of the 18 that were not defective in that way, the wood was so chewed up that actually taxed the electric sharpener to sharpen them.

After sharpening 30 pencils the motor burned out on this sharpener.

Ordinarily I am for technology replacing mundane manual tasks like using a crank pencil sharpener. But only if the technology can actually do as good a job or better. Here is my vote for going back to crank pencil sharpeners. Oh, and quality pencils that you can actually use would be nice too.