Apropos of Nothing

I saw a series of photos of the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster and inside the nuclear reactor, a clock had stopped at the time of the meltdown. The caption said something like, “Time literally stopped at the moment of the meltdown.” No, the only thing that literally stopped was that clock. The flow of time still continued independently. Electric analogue clocks remain stopped until electric power is restored.

We are about halfway through House of Cards and I just hate Raymond Tusk. Can’t stand. He’s a billionaire who throws tantrums when he doesn’t get his way and stomps around like the world owes him a billion and one dollars. I can’t sympathize with someone who humiliates the vice president’s wife because the president won’t automatically do whatever he says. I assume the writers are setting Tusk up to be an asshole so his comeuppance will be satisfying.

It seems like the people at Malaysia Airlines need some customer service training. When passengers are presumed lost at sea, their relatives probably deserve more than a text message letting them know. I know, I know — everyone just hates talking on the phone. Having to talk to people is really a fate worse than death. The survivors probably also deserve more than $5,000 in compensation. People on that crap covered cruise ship probably got more.

It must be repeated: NBC is the worst. The woooorrrrssstttt! At 9 p.m. on Thursdays, they’re airing some celebrity game show, where famous people play games with Jane Lynch. This might be fun on an off night but they’re airing Charades in the former prestige time slot of Cheers. I know those Michael J. Fox and Sean Hayes sitcoms didn’t do well but NBC could have at least given them enough respect to finish out the season.

I’ve been trying to get into Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories but I just can’t. “Get Lucky” is fantastic but some of the other tracks are just boring, like “Giorgio by Moroder,” which has Moroder doing a voice over about his life and just sounds like something from the History Channel. I am not sure why this album won a Grammy. Except for “Get Lucky,” I don’t like much about these people. The only other Daft Punk song I like is “Daft Punk Is Playing at My House” and that isn’t even a Daft Punk song.

What is this new method of spelling where kids below a certain age are encouraged to spell everything phonetically and you’re not supposed to correct them even if they’re wrong? What purpose does that serve? I’m not an educator but it seems like kids might get confused once people do start correcting them. My teachers were consistent with spelling lessons and corrected me and you know what the result was? Now I know how to spell correctly.