electro smog

A cellular telephone has been developed that holds a charge stolen out of the ether, sort of like a self-winding watch that powers itself from the kinetic energy of the wearer walking about. This gadget is like an antenna for stray electric impulses and receives them like a radio. A few months earlier, researchers should that a light bulb could be coaxed to life, wirelessly, from domestic background radiation.
It's a pretty nifty idea, to be able to divine electricity out of its surroundings--but it does illustrate how already choked our households are with electro smog. I'd much rather see the realization of the Broadcast Energy Transmitter that G*I* Joe had. Remember that? It seems a lot cleaner and safer. Wind-up toys were pretty nifty, as well, and I think that sort of refined tinkering is an art lost to battery-power.

Dear Gentle Reader

H and I are just derevealing from our trip to Rome, and even though we were not away for very long, it was rejuvenating and it felt as if we were in the Eternal City for quite some time. In fact, though I had no issues of separation-anxiety with work and emails, I felt that I had been away for so long that I felt remiss with giving my readership, my followers, a much awaited update. I'm never certain what LonelyGal_Winnepeg wants to hear about first... Rome was breathtaking and I didn't realize beforehand that downtown was peopled was mammoth ruins like that. In the movies, one sees vespas circling the Colosseum but one cannot really imagine the entrenched excellent rubble. Years ago, a piece I read by Joan Dideon on the then new Getty museum--an apparent eye-sore in its day. She posited that there was a point in the age of any monument's life when it makes the transition from tacky to distinguished. The Baths of Caracalla and the Imperial Fori probably looked like audacious symphonies when brand-new, different than a modern shopping mall but not by much, and needed to reach a certain vintage to inspire awe and wonder.

SPQR

H and I are poised to escape from Frankonia--for the first time since County Kerry back in October. The chance to get away couldn't have come soon enough--the relief a vacation affords lingers. And it seems Rome is a rather popular destination this season. We've sat dreaming and scoping out sites and we're very excited.

CHF

Another casualty of the econo-lypse (real or imagined), I think, is the solvent secrecy of the Swiss banking system. Perhaps I was just a late-comer to the game or didn't insist that matters be handled delicately or perhaps, on opening the account, I was asked if I were famous, I ought to have said yes (that was the only question I was asked by the clerk who set up my account), but I received a strange, lenghty letter from Vaduz yesterday, regarding my status a "non-US person." Wanting to clarify this situation, the bank wanted me to confirm their suspicions that I "was possibly not a non-US person." Unless they received an answer soon, the bank would terminate my account, liquidate my holdings and keep it in their office as a cheque in Swiss francs for me to retrieve at my convenience. Of course, if I really was a non-US person, I should clear up this matter with my agent right away. I wish I really had that much money, non-liquid assets and an agent that this would even matter. It the event that I was not in fact a non-US person, I should complete an American IRS form that they sent and return it to them. What I found most amusing was that the form was an application for a social security number or ITIN (individual tax-payer identification number)--exactly what a non-US person would need to report taxes.

gluckwunsch

Last week, while patrolling my usual beat, I glanced a piece of rather ethereal trash tucked under some leaves of grass. I walked right past it but took a step back a second later, it having registered that it was the receipt for a lottery ticket. To find expired and canceled ballots is not unusual, but I noticed that this one was for an upcoming drawing, lost or accidentally discarded during a long holiday weekend. I pocketed it, and in the intervening hours before I could have it official checked at one of the kiosks, I indulged the weekly lotto-fantasies several fold. Right away, I resolved, that if I had really found the Golden Ticket, I'd author and devote a web-site to finding whoever it was who had managed to lose it--of course, there would be some impossible answers to riddle out, that would present to posteuring claimant a challange as unlikely as winning the actual jackpot (Name three series of numbers, besides the winner--which were surely randomly generated; Name the shop where it was purchased and the clerk's name). Once I was finally able to have it checked--which is never so much of a let down but does put of the fantasy and anticipation until next week, I found that I was only thirty euro or so ahead of the game. Not too shabby, but hardly worth the effort to establish a lost-and-found.