I got a call from United American Technologies the other day. They said they were from the “campaign to restore morals and values”. Then they went on to tell me that they could provide me with a list of all the sexual predators in the area including pictures. Which is one of my pet peeves. I feel like we either need to lock up those with sexual crimes for life or leave them alone. This vigilante justice nonsense really sickens me.

But anyway, I pushed 1 to talk to their representative. I asked how they got my name and asked to be taken off their list and they hung up on me. I called them back using my caller id, and got the same message. I finally got a representative. They took my phone number, and hung up on me.

Julie went to book club that night and one of the mothers recounted that her 4 year old had answered the phone to that message. Kids shouldn’t have to listen to this sort of vigilante hate speech. Now if this was a political message I’d just chalk it up to the usual conservative a-holes, but it turns out this is actually to sell phone service! They say that all the other phone carriers support pornography and they’re the only phone service for people who care about their children.

Absolutely, disgusting. You can call them at 877-266-6277 if you would like to be taken off of their list preemptively.

The Austinist yet again used the phrase “Calling Shenanigans” This irks me for some reason. Perhaps because I have some French blood and cannot abide the incorrect use of words. I don’t know.

Looking at the Wikipedia entry for “Schenanigans” it appears that we have Trey Parker and Matt Stone to thank for this bizarre mangling of a word.

Proper use of shenanigans from literature.

“I’ve put up with all your shenanigan I’m goin’ to.” – The Valley of the Moon by Jack London

“consider them all (and their owners) guilty (of “shenanigan”) until they are proved innocent” – Complete Letters of Mark Twain

“There’s some sort of shenanigan brewing, or my first name’s Peter” – The Days of Days by Louis Vance

You know you love my crazy, grumpy rants.

So I was wondering why so many Cure audience members were Grade-A a*holes, while you go to a Morrisey concert and the audience is better behaved than at the symphony. You’d think they would be basically the same audience. And I think by and large they are. But this ven diagram might help explain.

The Cure fans in the left hand column are able to make the whole experience pretty horrible. Also there seemed to be lots of what I call – “Flying Dutchman Concert-goers”. These are concert-goers who are generally under 5′ (although not always), who will spend the entire concert wandering through the crowd. Looking for the magical paradise where people under 5′ can see the stage. This is not all short people. In fact there were really only 3 groups like this I saw at the concert on Saturday. It’s just that they passed by me at least 6 times per party.

I’ve read a lot of blogs about the Cure and seen a lot of unkind words about us tall people. Most of us do stay towards the back. The problem is that we often go to concerts with people who aren’t as tall as us who want to see. So we try to find some middle balance where our friends can see, and so can the majority of the audience. We actually provide a service to short people. Next time you’re at a concert find a tall person. You’ll find that generally there will be a small pocket behind them where people are not standing. Position yourself about 1′ behind the tall person to the right or the left (directly behind is a dead end). Based on your height you may then be able to see the stage. See drawing:

Of course the only danger with doing this is that tall people attract concert trolls. Concert trolls are unable to see tall people. They will elbow, step on feet, and always insist on walking between tall person and any person directly next to them. Regardless of how close tall person is to their friend and how much free space is around tall person (see diagram above). I had a short woman standing next to me drafting a line of sight on Sunday night. She could see just fine. The problem was that the concert trolls would stand on my feet and throw an elbow in her face. Or they would stand directly in front of her while standing on my foot. And then there was the woman who got on her boyfriend’s shoulders directly in front of said short woman. Threating to topple and crush her. Apparently standing near a tall person confers blindness upon you too by the concert trolls.

That said, I didn’t enjoy the concert too much. It was ok, but it was long, hot, and there were far too many irritating people. Reminds me why I go to SXSW. Say what you will about that, but it’s cool and by and large the audiences are pretty laid back.

UPDATE: So after reading and talking to people I’ve decided I’ll vote for Galindo. Morrison is too much in the neighborhood associations pocket, and one thing we don’t need are a few neighborhood associations deciding what’s best for Austin as a whole. Not that anyone votes based on my opinion. But just thought I’d put it out there. Still pissed off about so many people’s reaction to the “visibility” and “green home tax” issues.

We just got a mailer for Cid Galindo. It has me irritated. Especially to be sending it out in Austin. It basically says that his opponent – Laura Morrison is for the “Green Home Tax”. This refers to a proposed idea to have homes be required to brought up to current energy efficient standards when they are sold. The group working on a proposal to bring before city council has not indicated whether this would be paid for by the seller or buyer. Of course, that hasn’t stopped the Austin Board of Realtors and talk radio from deciding that it would be the seller and making political hay.

If the buyer pays it’s an inconvenience, and realtors won’t like it since it might lead to lower home prices once the price of repairs is factored in. But if you’re a buyer buying a house from 1980, chances are that you already knew you were going to have to get a new AC, and rolling it into your mortgage wouldn’t be too bad a way to go.

Of course if the seller has to pay that would be a lot of money out of a seller’s pocket before they could put their home on the market. A lot of people couldn’t do it easily. Of course, more than likely the city would have Austin Energy provide more of their 0% interest loans for energy upgrades to make this simple to do without out of pocket expenses for the seller, but this isn’t keeping the issue off of talk radio.

And really I don’t care which side has to pay. Everyone in town says they want a green city, but no one seems to want to make the changes or pay for it. Pisses me off. If you can afford a 180k+ house (which is median in this city), you can afford to get your AC fixed so that it’s not screwing up the atmosphere and wasting huge amounts of energy.

And I’m not voting for Cid anymore, from point 2 of his Building the Greenest City in America plan:

2. Energy consumption matters. Per capita energy consumption should be at the heart of every major policy decision that we make as a city, from the light bulbs we use, to the grass that we grow, to the cars that we drive.

Austin – we want to be the greenest city, as long as we don’t have to sacrifice to get there.