July 13, 2004

The principle of ATMsa

I went looking yesterday for a co-op network ATM near my work, in the hopes of evading transaction fees from my jealous and inconvenient credit union. This led me to a mini-mart containing some kind of leased ATM thing affiliated with a financial institution I'd never heard of before.

As I was putting in my card, I noticed that the label on the machine said samsarATM. What, really? The endless cycle of death and rebirth, from a banking machine?

It charged me a transaction fee anyway. I'm not sure what that means. Perhaps it's a symbolic (or financial) death, which requires me to be reborn as a customer at a different ATM next time.

Posted by dianna at July 13, 2004 12:01 PM
Comments

I think Wikipedia is down right now, so you'll have to look it up yourself or wait until it's working again. Sorry about that.

Posted by: Dianna at July 13, 2004 12:02 PM

holy crap! bizarre! i'd never heard of wikipedia or wiktionary before today, but just this morning i found wiktionary and the definition of 'astroturfing' and emailed it to jolie. and now this with you too. wacky. much like a cyclical karmic event. not at all.

Posted by: michele at July 13, 2004 12:22 PM

If the campaign is well executed, the planners hope that the public at large will believe that "all those independent viewpoints (OR orgasms) could not have been faked."

i don't really know where i was going with this. really i just wanted to tie orgasms into astroturfing. perhaps i could have done it in a more logical fashion.

Posted by: michele at July 13, 2004 12:30 PM

maybe you could come back as the ATM. or maybe you'll come back as the future progeny of someone who ends up having the cash you got out of the ATM. that could change a lot of hands. check out wheresgeorge.com, it's kind of cool. i entered one that i got at the store because it had a red stamp on it with the website address. it was last entered in henderson, nv. jason!, i said! but, no, it was some dood named engineer scott.

Posted by: michele at July 13, 2004 02:08 PM

I just posted a reply to one of your threads from way back in May...about your grandfather who taught at Carpenter Elementary. Just in case you don't read your old posts :) how is he doing? I was in his class in 1988-1989. He was a great teacher.

Posted by: Beverly at July 14, 2004 11:02 AM

I do in fact read my old posts when people comment to them, because the main Cementhorizon page very helpfully displays recent comments even if they're buried in old threads. And I replied! Hooray for the march of technology. Grampa would be appalled that we're not all using pencils and paper and the postal service to communicate.

Posted by: Dianna at July 14, 2004 11:35 AM

You know you can just have MovableType email you whenever a new comment is posted? Viva la revolucion.

Posted by: Chris at July 14, 2004 12:33 PM

but then we would get soooo many emails. whereas CH will just tell us.

Posted by: michele at July 14, 2004 12:50 PM

Yeah, I don't need that many emails. Screw that shit.

I note that you, Chris, have set up your blog to display a "recent comments" list also. Ha. Welcome to the occupation.

Posted by: Dianna at July 14, 2004 01:02 PM

I did that quite a while ago. Then again, I'm always tweaking and futzing with my templates.

My favorite site.

Posted by: Chris at July 14, 2004 03:06 PM
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