A Tale of Two Calculators, plus...

Oddly enough, I was given two calculators for Christmas; both are spectacular in their own special ways; but neither of them I can use.

The first one is from my grandmother, who bought one from Reader’s Digest. It’s embedded in wallet, and is therefore something I’ve dubbed the Calculet. Dreamed up by the kinds of minds that would put clocks in toasters and thermometers in hats, it’s technically (or at least according to the instruction sheet) called a Calcwallet. It’s even got a currency converter, so the next time you want to figure out what to tip in drachmas, you’re gravy. Just watch out for the stuff falling out of your wallet, as you hold it open sideways. And dig that new-plastic smell.

The second calculator is the official Dukes of Hazzard LCD calculator, still in the package from 1981,and bestowed up me by friend and ironic knick knack hunter Paul, who packaged it together with the previously blogged about Pee Wee Fun Pak. It still works, and as you can see, one can use it through the plastic, but it’s way too sweet to remove from it’s hermetic seal. Among its features are “Auto shutoff” (no it can’t stop a car from idling), “All metal cabinet” (like the General Lee itself!), and “Vinyle wallet type carrying case” (some calculators come in a “wallet type carrying case” and others in an actual wallet). I love the orange paint on it and the little picture of the General Lee jumping over two cop cars, which are smashing each other head-on. If I had to guess, I’d say this little beauty is best for calculating things like the amount of acceleration needed, given the wind speed and ramp angle, to jump over a washed-out bridge, or for determining the angle one needs to fire a flaming arrow at to hit an outhouse while hanging out the window of a vehicle traveling X mph.

Bummer that neither are really practical, ‘cause I could use a calculator – I still haven’t figured out how to make the one on my stupid cell phone work. If technology were a direct reflection of the user’s mastery over it, my cell would have a hand-crank.

And now three random bits of self-promotion.

1) I assume by now you’ve all seen chucknorrisfacts.com. I’m digging it; so much so that I submitted ten facts, four of which made it on there. Tony Danza interviewed Chuck Norris on his talk show the other day and read a bunch of the “facts” from the site out. Chuck Norris laughed… then killed Danza with a roundhouse, just to show him who the fucking boss really is.

My contributions to Norris lore:

“There is in fact an ‘I’ in Norris, but there is no ‘team’… not even close.”

“Science Fact: Roundhouse kicks are comprised primarily of an element called Chucktanium.”

“There’s an order to the universe: space, time, Chuck Norris.... Just kidding, Chuck Norris is first.”

“Chuck Norris’ favourite cut of meat is the roundhouse.”

2) I contributed to Eye Weekly’s annual critics’ poll for music, which you can read the parts of here and here. The rest isn’t online, including this blurb, which got used in the 2005 Industry Report:

“Despite the best sabotage of major label dinosaurs like Sony, which infected its customers’ CDs with a malicious root-kit, and Warner Bros., which pointlessly stopped website downloads of the Dean Gray American Edit album, online mash-ups and remixes were better than ever this year, particularly the searing post-Katrina George Bush Doesn’t Care About Black People re-mix of Kanye West’s Gold Digger. Meanwhile MuchMusic continued its decent in irrelevancy as the Nation’s Vapid Celebrity Gossip Station. Someone pull the plug… please.”

Always looking to take a jab at MushMuzak.

3) And lastly, I interviewed Wes Craven today, who was amicable and intelligent. Given his string of bad luck with studios monkeying around with his films, I asked him if he ever spit on a gypsy to bring such a curse upon himself. He agreed that he just might have.

Thanks for indulging my rollercoaster of useless pop-culture odds ‘n’ ends. Consider yourselves schooled on electronic abacuses (abaci?).