Weirdness

You know things are weird when you wake up thinking 'collateralized debt obligations'. And, about Microsoft Word's design. Not that I'm saying the two are connected, but.... yeah, in a way.

I'm late to the party on this, I know, and no where near as lucid as others, but I find that I'm quietly angry about what AIG and companies like it have pulled. Last night, I was watching the tube, and saw an animated display of where CDOs came from, and how they worked. I thought Geez, its gotten to the point now where everyone knows about them. Well, okay, not everyone, but still: its pretty common. You expect to see it pop up as a plot line on a Disney flick. Her dad issued CDOs and now she's not going to the prom! I almost, almost think that we're starting to just accept that this happened. I didn't like Obama going on the Leno program -- can't believe I'm saying this, but I didn't think that it was Presidential, at a time when we desperately need to believe in the power and effectiveness of the Presidency -- but one thing I did like was when Leno asked who's going to jail over this? We tend to think -- at least, this is the pushed image -- that we're beyond that sort of punitive action, we're too cool, too slick, too sophisticated, but in my heart, I'm thinking Yeah. Who's going to jail over this? Who's going to do hard time? I would bet, almost no one. It is so intertwined in the culture now, the expectation that this is what the smart boys do, that we're not going to be willing to bust them, send them to the slammer. AIG itself has already said that we can't be mean to them; we need them to unwind these commitments. What you want to do is take them out back and hit them with sticks, not be nice to them. I'm sure, relative to the lavish life that many of them have had, anything less is being mean to them, but I had something a little more vile and direct in mind.

I mentioned that yesterday I did not have a good time with Microsoft Vista, and at the end of the day, had a problem with Microsoft Word 2007. Word's a very powerful tool, but it's not a very smart tool. I don't know if there are any that have that combination -- easy to use but deep in its capabilities -- but MW doesn't. You have to figure it out. Last night, looking at something my daughter wrote, I hunted for about five minutes for the spell checker, and the best I could figure out what that its always on -- which is better than the opposite, I guess -- but still: multiple toolbars, multiple ribbons, multiple capabilities. I just want a damn word processor that takes the words and doesn't offer to translate them to Farsi in simulated intaglio script, then export them to my personal calendar, sorted by weight of the recipient and astrological sign. But no one seems to like the idea of putting out products that are small, tight, and effective. We go for big, lavish, blowsy. Slick.

Like CDOs.