You know what is always terrible on television? Anything on a Spanish network. Even if it's a soccer game. Wouldn't the game be more enjoyable if the commentary were in English? I realize Spaniards get very into the games/freak out during scored goals. It's only funny the first few times, than who gives a shit, a guy is yelling in another language. You know a show is terrible when they have to throw eye-candy in your direction, that of scantily-clad chicas shaking their cans and grinning like an idiot.
Why do people get so annoyed at the simplest things? A man sighs because he lost at an online poker game application on his Facebook. Is that business to you, important business that poker game!? Do you consider computer usage as a hobby because I've gotta say the only time I'd consider that is while I'm writing. For the most part if I'm on the computer I'm doing a task I want completed, it's not for leisure. Be it copying a CD, maybe even over to my iPod, converting files and that kinda jazz. That's why my fish are constantly sick in Happy Aquarium on Facebook, and next week I won't even be on a computer. Those fish will all be dead! A happy aquarium, no sir, a bowl of water and bloated, upside-down, floating to the surface, lifeless medley of sea creatures, and all they wanted were their little dry flakes of food. Is it insane to get myself someone to watch my fish at my Facebook site when I'm gone? That's not a real question, in fact I'd point and laugh at whoever would actually ask another person to do that, which is why I don't care what happens in an online game.
If you don't turn right on a red quick enough, or wait too long at a roundabout, people will berate you with hunks annoyed and pissed. Take too long ordering food and people are on your ass. In general if you are indecisive, get the fuck out of line that's how these fucks are, that's their problem.
I could complain all day about people. I've also noticed that there's a change in the freshness of your food depending on how the "interview" went beforehand, by interview I mean how well you ordered at the speaker box. You fuck up there, you can forget about your food being edible. It'll either be too cold or bland and lava-hot; they think they've got you fooled when all your food has done is sit under a heating lamp too long. This is downright gross when you consider breakfast foods; eggs or bacon that has sat out for hours. Gravy. On occasion a restaurant buffet can be just as bad. Where did you go wrong there, did you not hand the counter person your money right!? This place could get shutdown, persons could get sick, food poisoning, leading to a law suit, you'd wanna risk that!?
Is it healthy to have headaches sometimes days at a time? The day before yesterday, yesterday, not this morning, but so far this afternoon, I've had a headache, or do I mean headaches since I am talking about one major headache and the start of a second potentially major headache. Is it crazy to think you might have a brain tumor during frequent headaches? It really shows how much of a hypochondriac a person is if they think a string of hiccups might be everlasting like the guy who started hiccuping one day, and didn't stop for seventeen years. How is that even possible - that means that guy didn't sleep. You'd die if you couldn't sleep. What if you were achy and running a fever and vomiting and delirious, would you question the possibility of you contracting swine flu? I hate to say it, but my mind would be worried.
I don't like other people worrying, it makes them irrational, but hell I'd be fibbing if I said life was easy. There's always shit to worry about. You're always in debt somehow. That money you think you earn from a job, it's only loaned out to you. That money collecting at the bank, it's the bank's money, in your name. You can do whatever with it, but it's not your money. There's a girl that comes in sometimes to the place I work. I want to walk up to her and ask her number, but I worry about rejection, or if she'll say she's flattered, but she's gay. How old will I be when I die, and if it were to happen soon, was my life worthy? Worrying just fucks with you, doesn't it? You venture down that road, and goodbye optimism! Once your a pessimist like me, it starts to show in your face and your behavior. I'm looking forward to living a life spent losing. It feels that way if you can't get through shit. No matter what, if you can suppress it, at least you aren't letting it destroy you. No matter what, if you can deny it, even accept it, and forget it, you can look at the bright side. Maybe you have a close knit relationship with friends that helps you avoid thinking that way. Keep them close.
I respect the work coming out of THE WALKING DEAD, a monthly comic book where the dead are reanimated and devouring the living, and a group of survivors make the best of it. If that were to ever occur, emotionally, people couldn't handle it, or would deal with it drastically. Every character of that comic is taking this differently. It's truly amazing from a psychological sense.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Uh Oh, Joe!
Arguing is fun! That's the shortest way of expressing a love for verbally battling another person - well - I guess you could just yell ARGUING! and maybe people would understand that you get really enthused over arguing, and that perhaps you love doing it, I don't know. I know one thing, I got involved in an argument yesterday over something I care nothing about in this point of my life: politics. The downside of this was I wasn't the center of the argument, I was kind of an observer while two other people argued. It could be construed that the two were just chatting, but one of the persons involved spoke at length, while the other made his point and outright opposed the other. Now that I think of it, perhaps the two were merely debating, and I'm stating that they argued to blur the lines between arguing and debating. I've always characterized debating with two persons either standing at a podium speaking their minds on a high school theater stage, or in some type of auditorium, or, sitting by a lamp in winged-back leather upholstered chairs sharing finger sandwiches and periodically stopping their banter to sip hot tea.
A brother to one of my friends brought to my attention an article about South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson shouting "You lie!" at President Obama during Barack's speech to congress on health care, I believe last Wednesday; I've placed a link to the article on here, so why retell it, eh? You can fuckin' read!
Rep. Wilson was then called a racist by some of his constituents and others who weighed in on his outburst. Back to the argument, it started out like this - Clayton posted the link to the article, I read the article, then replied this:
"Many watched the rancor at last month's town hall meetings with suspicion that the intense anger among some participants -- including signs calling for Obama's death and a movement questioning his citizenship -- was fueled by the fact that a black man sits in the Oval Office." (Quoted from the article) (My reply) I understand how that could be taken as racism. A republican calling the president a liar...ya, not so much.
Calling Wilson a racist for shouting "You lie!" just because he's calling a black person a liar is not racist. I have a feeling most of the people constantly pulling the race card don't understand the definition of the term racism. Stating that Wilson only interrupted the president because he had witnessed similar outcry at the town hall meetings where numerous signs were thrust in the air with hateful-to-outright derogatory statements about the president written on them, doesn't make Congressman Wilson a racist. The fact that he spoke out against a black man who happens to be our commander-in chief, and that he's white, makes him a racist.
Whoa! WHAT!? Yeah I fuckin' said it! Obama is our white-knight, apparently - well, black-knight, I guess, considering he's a black male...and he can't do anything wrong. A white male criticizing him can only mean, to some folk, that the white guy is a racist, and doesn't like Obama. Barack Obama reforming health care, treading dangerous ground by changing the way that system works, maybe altering it for the good or bad, those opposing him, mostly made up of the other party, Republicans, Congressman Wilson being a REPUBLICAN from South Carolina -- that's the reason why he's unhappy with Obama and calling him a liar, not the fact that the person he is calling a liar is of a different race than him. It would be different if Congressman Wilson played the town crier in Charleston, walked up and down Amherst Street with a megaphone, shouting, "All you niggers better get outta my town!" If he had prior history of racism - yeah, there's a good chance he's a racist. Remember this because I'm gonna bring it full circle a little later.
After I made my comment about the argument, some Star Wars fan made a Rancor joke - rancor in the sense of the Star Wars-beasty and not unflinchingly, deep-seated ill will as is the definition of the noun. The joke was brought up because the article has the word rancor in it, and not because the person has a recurring sexual fantasy regarding a Rancor from Star Wars eating his mother singing La Vie Boheme from the musical RENT, while a dominatrix pours hot wax on his nipples while stepping on his genitals.
The brother of my friend stated this after the rancor-comment:
"This is like forcing people to fear criticizing the government or they'll be damned as a racist. In my opinion that's going down a dangerous road."
This was when battle commenced! A guy by the name of, oh, let's call him Jam because I'm not comfortable with using a person's real name on here, Jam decided to put in his two cents, saying:
"In this case, a sanction is not a violation of the Congressman's free speech. The rules of decorum on the floor are considered highly important, and involve both acting in a manner befitting a member of the Congress and not speaking when you are not recognized by the Chair. He broke the rules by shouting angrily at the President of the United States during an address while he did not have the floor. Technically, if this offense were considered severe enough, he could be removed from office for it.
That part has nothing to do with racism or party or the content of his message, and everything to do with the functioning of Congress. He broke the rules, and he is being duly punished for breaking the rules.
Anything more than that is public discourse, protected by the First Amendment."
Way ta go, Sam, I mean Jam! I agree, the only punishment Congressman Wilson should receive should be for interrupting the president while he had the floor. That's not fuckin' cool, man! They got strict rules as to when you can speak at those hearings, and he just decided, fuck that shit, I'm speaking out! forgetting all entirely that he was at a congressional meeting. But a racist!? I don't see any racism in that.
That was a short argument, right? Well, it didn't end there. Here's what the brother of my friend had to say:
"I'm not defending the Congressman's actions, what bothers me is that they want to turn those actions into a race issue."
...oh no he di'n't! This is gonna end in blood! Jam countered:
"They can say that he's a racist for disagreeing with the President. It's protected under the First Amendment. Similarly, you can call them weak-willed sheep that ought to just open a church already and quit dragging their feet. That's also protected. :) See how this works? Everybody's unhappy!"
You mother fucker! Everybody's NOT FUCKING happy! Mr. Sunshine-on-my-fuckin'-shoulders, you think this shit's over! You wanna dance the fightin' dance!? Circlin' and circlin' with our switchblades out - this is not endin' well..for you! Let's turn back to my friend's brother; see what he has to say about it.
"lol, good way of looking at it"
...
I told you to remember something; do you know what that was? Well, it was me saying if Congressman Wilson had a history with racist remarks, or, even just outbursts on the floor or in interviews prior, we might have ourselves a problem.
In 2002 during a live broadcast of the C-SPAN talk show Washington Journal, Joe Wilson (hey I know that guy!) alongside Democratic Congressman Bob Filner were discussing Iraqi WMD's. When Filner said that the US "gave" Iraq "chemical and biological weapons" in the 1980s, Wilson said this idea was "made up" and replied, "This hatred of America by some people is just outrageous. And you need to get over that." Wilson ended up apologizing for that little fiasco as well.
In 2003, a woman by the name of Essie Mae Washington-Williams revealed that she was the daughter of Senator Strom Thurman who Wilson worked under, and that Thurman had a child with his black maid, Essie being the product of that affair. Joe was one of the first to deny the claim, which there again, he called a black person a liar, and stated that Thurman would never have a child out of wedlock. After Thurman's family acknowledged the truth of Williams' claim, Joe Wilson had to apologize once again, but still retained his opinion that the woman should have kept her mouth shut because it smeared Thurman's name and legacy.
What might you say is my opinion of Joe Wilson? Well, to be frank, he's kind of a loud mouth, and in the words of Sarah Palin, a tad bit gungho! He's quick to spout his opinion, be it right or wrong, in most cases wrong, without all the facts to his knowledge. I'd say if you are a Republican against Obama's health care plan, or a nay-sayer to health care reform in general, shut your fucking mouth and open your ears. Hear all the opinions, all the information about it, before you blow your horn. And remember, your president is a figurehead. I'm sure Pelosi and the majority of the House and Senate are really whose behind health care reform, considering Obama's proposal was totally fucking different from what is planned for health care NOW. I think he found out that just because he's president doesn't mean he can propose something, and it'll be the word of God, sort of say, or written in stone. He could have flat out resisted, and done a Bush signing something in to law that hasn't been fully analyzed, but I'm sure he was given an ultimatum nonetheless and told to play ball, and the fact of the matter is, Barack Obama isn't George W. Bush. He's willing to listen.
A brother to one of my friends brought to my attention an article about South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson shouting "You lie!" at President Obama during Barack's speech to congress on health care, I believe last Wednesday; I've placed a link to the article on here, so why retell it, eh? You can fuckin' read!
Rep. Wilson was then called a racist by some of his constituents and others who weighed in on his outburst. Back to the argument, it started out like this - Clayton posted the link to the article, I read the article, then replied this:
"Many watched the rancor at last month's town hall meetings with suspicion that the intense anger among some participants -- including signs calling for Obama's death and a movement questioning his citizenship -- was fueled by the fact that a black man sits in the Oval Office." (Quoted from the article) (My reply) I understand how that could be taken as racism. A republican calling the president a liar...ya, not so much.
Calling Wilson a racist for shouting "You lie!" just because he's calling a black person a liar is not racist. I have a feeling most of the people constantly pulling the race card don't understand the definition of the term racism. Stating that Wilson only interrupted the president because he had witnessed similar outcry at the town hall meetings where numerous signs were thrust in the air with hateful-to-outright derogatory statements about the president written on them, doesn't make Congressman Wilson a racist. The fact that he spoke out against a black man who happens to be our commander-in chief, and that he's white, makes him a racist.
Whoa! WHAT!? Yeah I fuckin' said it! Obama is our white-knight, apparently - well, black-knight, I guess, considering he's a black male...and he can't do anything wrong. A white male criticizing him can only mean, to some folk, that the white guy is a racist, and doesn't like Obama. Barack Obama reforming health care, treading dangerous ground by changing the way that system works, maybe altering it for the good or bad, those opposing him, mostly made up of the other party, Republicans, Congressman Wilson being a REPUBLICAN from South Carolina -- that's the reason why he's unhappy with Obama and calling him a liar, not the fact that the person he is calling a liar is of a different race than him. It would be different if Congressman Wilson played the town crier in Charleston, walked up and down Amherst Street with a megaphone, shouting, "All you niggers better get outta my town!" If he had prior history of racism - yeah, there's a good chance he's a racist. Remember this because I'm gonna bring it full circle a little later.
After I made my comment about the argument, some Star Wars fan made a Rancor joke - rancor in the sense of the Star Wars-beasty and not unflinchingly, deep-seated ill will as is the definition of the noun. The joke was brought up because the article has the word rancor in it, and not because the person has a recurring sexual fantasy regarding a Rancor from Star Wars eating his mother singing La Vie Boheme from the musical RENT, while a dominatrix pours hot wax on his nipples while stepping on his genitals.
The brother of my friend stated this after the rancor-comment:
"This is like forcing people to fear criticizing the government or they'll be damned as a racist. In my opinion that's going down a dangerous road."
This was when battle commenced! A guy by the name of, oh, let's call him Jam because I'm not comfortable with using a person's real name on here, Jam decided to put in his two cents, saying:
"In this case, a sanction is not a violation of the Congressman's free speech. The rules of decorum on the floor are considered highly important, and involve both acting in a manner befitting a member of the Congress and not speaking when you are not recognized by the Chair. He broke the rules by shouting angrily at the President of the United States during an address while he did not have the floor. Technically, if this offense were considered severe enough, he could be removed from office for it.
That part has nothing to do with racism or party or the content of his message, and everything to do with the functioning of Congress. He broke the rules, and he is being duly punished for breaking the rules.
Anything more than that is public discourse, protected by the First Amendment."
Way ta go, Sam, I mean Jam! I agree, the only punishment Congressman Wilson should receive should be for interrupting the president while he had the floor. That's not fuckin' cool, man! They got strict rules as to when you can speak at those hearings, and he just decided, fuck that shit, I'm speaking out! forgetting all entirely that he was at a congressional meeting. But a racist!? I don't see any racism in that.
That was a short argument, right? Well, it didn't end there. Here's what the brother of my friend had to say:
"I'm not defending the Congressman's actions, what bothers me is that they want to turn those actions into a race issue."
...oh no he di'n't! This is gonna end in blood! Jam countered:
"They can say that he's a racist for disagreeing with the President. It's protected under the First Amendment. Similarly, you can call them weak-willed sheep that ought to just open a church already and quit dragging their feet. That's also protected. :) See how this works? Everybody's unhappy!"
You mother fucker! Everybody's NOT FUCKING happy! Mr. Sunshine-on-my-fuckin'-shoulders, you think this shit's over! You wanna dance the fightin' dance!? Circlin' and circlin' with our switchblades out - this is not endin' well..for you! Let's turn back to my friend's brother; see what he has to say about it.
"lol, good way of looking at it"
...
I told you to remember something; do you know what that was? Well, it was me saying if Congressman Wilson had a history with racist remarks, or, even just outbursts on the floor or in interviews prior, we might have ourselves a problem.
In 2002 during a live broadcast of the C-SPAN talk show Washington Journal, Joe Wilson (hey I know that guy!) alongside Democratic Congressman Bob Filner were discussing Iraqi WMD's. When Filner said that the US "gave" Iraq "chemical and biological weapons" in the 1980s, Wilson said this idea was "made up" and replied, "This hatred of America by some people is just outrageous. And you need to get over that." Wilson ended up apologizing for that little fiasco as well.
In 2003, a woman by the name of Essie Mae Washington-Williams revealed that she was the daughter of Senator Strom Thurman who Wilson worked under, and that Thurman had a child with his black maid, Essie being the product of that affair. Joe was one of the first to deny the claim, which there again, he called a black person a liar, and stated that Thurman would never have a child out of wedlock. After Thurman's family acknowledged the truth of Williams' claim, Joe Wilson had to apologize once again, but still retained his opinion that the woman should have kept her mouth shut because it smeared Thurman's name and legacy.
What might you say is my opinion of Joe Wilson? Well, to be frank, he's kind of a loud mouth, and in the words of Sarah Palin, a tad bit gungho! He's quick to spout his opinion, be it right or wrong, in most cases wrong, without all the facts to his knowledge. I'd say if you are a Republican against Obama's health care plan, or a nay-sayer to health care reform in general, shut your fucking mouth and open your ears. Hear all the opinions, all the information about it, before you blow your horn. And remember, your president is a figurehead. I'm sure Pelosi and the majority of the House and Senate are really whose behind health care reform, considering Obama's proposal was totally fucking different from what is planned for health care NOW. I think he found out that just because he's president doesn't mean he can propose something, and it'll be the word of God, sort of say, or written in stone. He could have flat out resisted, and done a Bush signing something in to law that hasn't been fully analyzed, but I'm sure he was given an ultimatum nonetheless and told to play ball, and the fact of the matter is, Barack Obama isn't George W. Bush. He's willing to listen.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
To a psychiatrist, I might sound negative because of my consistent use of the word hate, but I hate house flies, I hate double-sided DVDs, I hate men with spiky, teen-hair wearing light-and-"sunny" colored dress shirts, I hate the fact that you can get everything relatively cheaper shopping online, and I hate mustaches.
MORTAL KOMBAT!!!
House Flies: is it just me or are house flies harder to kill? You get one buzzing around in the blinds of your windows, and you might say to yourself, "well, well, well, you little winged cunt, I've got you now," as you use the environment against the fly by slamming a fist into the blinds nearly severing the annoying piece of shit in half, but relatively only smashing the bugger into the glass. He had it coming. Moments later, he's seemingly returned from the dead, this time lingering around the ceiling so you are forced to get up from whatever comfortable position you were in on the couch, and the next thing you know, you're chasing that little bastard all around the room, cursing each time he narrowly escapes the fly-swatter. Speaking of fly-swatters, they just don't cut the mustard anymore unless you're an ex-ball player, or have a death strike of a cobra. I have a feeling flies have learned how to harness our armor-technology.
Double-sided DVDs: it's bad enough one of my discs in the first season box set of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia got scratched because it wasn't properly inserted into the protective casing or came loose while being shipped, but fuck me with a lit cigar, it's worse when both surfaces of the disc are readable; I'm talking about dual-sided DVDs. They just warrant the disc unplayable within a year of use. Hell, all the seasons of Quantum Leap on DVD are double sided, and the first time watching the first disc on season three, sure enough the son of a bitch skipped during the whole episode of Black on White on Fire, in which Sam leaps into a black medical student during the Watts riots of 1965. That's a very emotional episode, and Sam barely manages to live through it. Do you think I was able to follow the plot when Sam was at a barbeque and then the disc skipped to a scene where a car was on fire, and Sam was getting ruffed up by policemen? Mother fucker. It's like handling plutonium when you are trying desperately not to smudge or scratch or smear the surface of a double-sided DVD. You have to hold the edges, but be cautious - if you get a fingerprint on either slick surface, be prepared to start the movie, and then stop it almost immediately because the DVD is skipping. And is Universal that much of a whore - on each disc or "side" of the DVDs for Quantum Leap I first get the trademark music and world globe sequence credited to Universal before the disc menu, I get it before each episode, I get it before playing certain special features. What in the hell?
Men with spiky, teen-hair wearing light-and-"sunny" colored dress shirts: this look is not impressive. Don't ever gel your hair and spike it up. You're not an adult. And to dress up, choosing a mango-colored or pineapple yellow buttoned-down shirt to "catch the eye" - what are you thirteen and a pussy? How are the World Championship Croquet - Semi-finals going this year? Why so sad - did Smoothie King run out of Yerba Mate - Pomegranate mix?
A guy came in to my work sporting this look. Also, I had a handicapped man who was stuck in one of our chairs - each time he tried lifting himself from the computer chair, he fell backwards in it, frustrated. I could've helped him, emphasis on could've, but I wasn't going to. He just kept falling down, and I kept ignoring him. Finally, the man who had come in earlier with the spiky hair and "sunny" colored buttoned down dress shirt shuffled over and helped pull the man out of the chair, then gave him a quick once over to see if he was okay, patted him on the shoulder and said, "There you are, sir!" Your flashy dress shirt wasn't enough, you had to save a man from being stuck in a chair!? Fuckin' boy scout, return the shirt to Banana Republic and start wearing a fuckin' cape, or better yet, a man's shirt!
Shopping online: I think credit card companies want people to stay in credit card debt. Those cheap, flashy prices online can distort a non-smart person's view, and that person could blow large quantities of moneys on a few items because of a drop in price from in-store inventory. Everything online is relatively cheaper than what it's marked in the stores. I'll cite Walmart.com as an example. On Walmart.com, the box sets of House M.D. are mostly $20, or a little higher for seasons 1-4; season 5 was just released, so it still has a hefty price tag. Universal (fucking UNIVERSAL) has collected the first five seasons in a convenient, legitimately low-priced boxed set, which at first I thought was a little contrived. The series will soon run its coarse in the next four years, so a full boxed set of the series will come out after the final season. And of course right as I speak, fans of the show could simply download all the seasons from a torrent site and save the cash. In a way this is absolutely brilliant, but I'm the kind of person (moron) who, sure, downloads all the episodes and has them stored on my computer, and also buys the DVDs. There's nothing wrong with doing that for your favorite shows.
Who wants to be on their computer that long?
Don't you try something out before you buy it!? I'm not gonna blow $50 on release day for season one of something just to see what the show is like. Forget the hype. 24 sucks, people. Lost sucks. If I wouldn't have known about the torrents, I might have said, "Oh, what the hell, let's get this one," rented it or bought, and if purchased it, I'd be having a bonfire right now, or making $20 less reselling it.
If I have friends who appreciate the show, I don't want to tell them to go and illegally download the content, I'll share my DVDs so they can watch episodes they've missed or get as hooked to the show as I am. The same with movies. Let me jump off that soap box for a bit, back to the markets. So, researching different prices at varying sites, Walmart.com had the cheapest price, but herein lies the deceit. On regularly priced DVDs of House (the in-store prices of 33-something a piece) you are given the option to site-to-store, shipping it to your location. Not bad considering no postage. Or, get the discounted seasons without the option of site-to-store, and you pay shipping - if you are doing what I wanted, which was to buy all 5 seasons, that alone would be upwards of a hundred some odd dollars, plus the interest rate from your credit card, plus tax and a charge from the store to your bill for the exchange being a credit purchase, all-in-all you're pretty much paying full price. Now, I went to my local Target store because I live in Kansas, and not in Wichita, Lawrence, or any other relatively large city within Kansas - Target, Walmart, and Hastings are my three locations to choose from. Target at one time had the 5 season House boxed set aforementioned, most likely the week of the release. But now they've opted out of that exchange, for you see Walmart now carries House in individual DVDs and have been since the release of the show's first season. After talking with an Associate, they didn't even order the 5 season boxed set, the reasoning, if I even have to say it, was because they could make more money selling the seasons individually. Target followed shortly after, pulled the 5 season boxed set, and is now selling the individual seasons, which they only have two, three, four, and five. Season Four was short due to the Writer's Strike, so it's priced $30, the rest are still $45 a piece. Going to the Walmart store in my town, they sell seasons one, three, four, and the fifth; the fifth season being the priciest, the rest $34. Hastings last had the seasons for $35 a piece, but only had one, four, and five. Obviously, if I wanted these seasons, it was going to cost some green, and I'd have to run around to get the best deal. Screw deals! And some of the shit you can get online for insanely low prices, some are awesome, in fact, a lot of those deals are awesome, but online shopping just pisses me off. Convenient, but slow. Great deals, but figure in the whole cost and it's only a few dollars less than on sight. For me, quality is a big deal. I ordered Quantum Leap and It's Always Sunny on DVD a couple months back. Because it was shipped, some of the DVDs are scratched. Quantum Leap again is a doubled-sided DVD release - scratching those fuckers is both easy to do, and ultimately damaging to the playback of the DVDs. I'll end up having to rip them to blank DVD-R's. It's Always Sunny had a scratched disc, and who the fuck knows, they were discounted. I wonder if they were previously viewed, though I'll never know, it was supposedly a "good deal" online...
I hate mustaches: Lip-ferrets are unsanitary. I don't know about you, but I sure as hell don't ever want to have to check my mustache for dangling nose-trolls, food particles, liquids, or for that matter, untamed renegade whiskers that can turn a primped, glorious 'stache into "OH FUCK, WHAT'S THAT ON YOUR FACE!?!!" Male news anchors from the 70's could pull off the 'stache, Joe Namath at one point of his career had a handle bar mustache that tickled a lot of women's nether-regions; that is fact! He didn't look great with it, and it was probably littered with unspeakable filth, but he sported it non the less. I can't grow a full mustache. That embitters me, I am left embittered and sour due to that fact. I can grow a weak mustache that pokes my mouth with whittled stinger, what I like to call, spider-fang hairs; it's way too itchy and uncomfortable - not a good fit at all, frankly. So maybe that's why I hate it that other people can grow a Magnum P.I. soup-strainer, or a Frank Zappa Imperial cookie-duster, the fact that I can't do it myself. Regardless, I despise the mustache. I want them hunted down and killed.
MORTAL KOMBAT!!!
House Flies: is it just me or are house flies harder to kill? You get one buzzing around in the blinds of your windows, and you might say to yourself, "well, well, well, you little winged cunt, I've got you now," as you use the environment against the fly by slamming a fist into the blinds nearly severing the annoying piece of shit in half, but relatively only smashing the bugger into the glass. He had it coming. Moments later, he's seemingly returned from the dead, this time lingering around the ceiling so you are forced to get up from whatever comfortable position you were in on the couch, and the next thing you know, you're chasing that little bastard all around the room, cursing each time he narrowly escapes the fly-swatter. Speaking of fly-swatters, they just don't cut the mustard anymore unless you're an ex-ball player, or have a death strike of a cobra. I have a feeling flies have learned how to harness our armor-technology.
Double-sided DVDs: it's bad enough one of my discs in the first season box set of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia got scratched because it wasn't properly inserted into the protective casing or came loose while being shipped, but fuck me with a lit cigar, it's worse when both surfaces of the disc are readable; I'm talking about dual-sided DVDs. They just warrant the disc unplayable within a year of use. Hell, all the seasons of Quantum Leap on DVD are double sided, and the first time watching the first disc on season three, sure enough the son of a bitch skipped during the whole episode of Black on White on Fire, in which Sam leaps into a black medical student during the Watts riots of 1965. That's a very emotional episode, and Sam barely manages to live through it. Do you think I was able to follow the plot when Sam was at a barbeque and then the disc skipped to a scene where a car was on fire, and Sam was getting ruffed up by policemen? Mother fucker. It's like handling plutonium when you are trying desperately not to smudge or scratch or smear the surface of a double-sided DVD. You have to hold the edges, but be cautious - if you get a fingerprint on either slick surface, be prepared to start the movie, and then stop it almost immediately because the DVD is skipping. And is Universal that much of a whore - on each disc or "side" of the DVDs for Quantum Leap I first get the trademark music and world globe sequence credited to Universal before the disc menu, I get it before each episode, I get it before playing certain special features. What in the hell?
Men with spiky, teen-hair wearing light-and-"sunny" colored dress shirts: this look is not impressive. Don't ever gel your hair and spike it up. You're not an adult. And to dress up, choosing a mango-colored or pineapple yellow buttoned-down shirt to "catch the eye" - what are you thirteen and a pussy? How are the World Championship Croquet - Semi-finals going this year? Why so sad - did Smoothie King run out of Yerba Mate - Pomegranate mix?
A guy came in to my work sporting this look. Also, I had a handicapped man who was stuck in one of our chairs - each time he tried lifting himself from the computer chair, he fell backwards in it, frustrated. I could've helped him, emphasis on could've, but I wasn't going to. He just kept falling down, and I kept ignoring him. Finally, the man who had come in earlier with the spiky hair and "sunny" colored buttoned down dress shirt shuffled over and helped pull the man out of the chair, then gave him a quick once over to see if he was okay, patted him on the shoulder and said, "There you are, sir!" Your flashy dress shirt wasn't enough, you had to save a man from being stuck in a chair!? Fuckin' boy scout, return the shirt to Banana Republic and start wearing a fuckin' cape, or better yet, a man's shirt!
Shopping online: I think credit card companies want people to stay in credit card debt. Those cheap, flashy prices online can distort a non-smart person's view, and that person could blow large quantities of moneys on a few items because of a drop in price from in-store inventory. Everything online is relatively cheaper than what it's marked in the stores. I'll cite Walmart.com as an example. On Walmart.com, the box sets of House M.D. are mostly $20, or a little higher for seasons 1-4; season 5 was just released, so it still has a hefty price tag. Universal (fucking UNIVERSAL) has collected the first five seasons in a convenient, legitimately low-priced boxed set, which at first I thought was a little contrived. The series will soon run its coarse in the next four years, so a full boxed set of the series will come out after the final season. And of course right as I speak, fans of the show could simply download all the seasons from a torrent site and save the cash. In a way this is absolutely brilliant, but I'm the kind of person (moron) who, sure, downloads all the episodes and has them stored on my computer, and also buys the DVDs. There's nothing wrong with doing that for your favorite shows.
Who wants to be on their computer that long?
Don't you try something out before you buy it!? I'm not gonna blow $50 on release day for season one of something just to see what the show is like. Forget the hype. 24 sucks, people. Lost sucks. If I wouldn't have known about the torrents, I might have said, "Oh, what the hell, let's get this one," rented it or bought, and if purchased it, I'd be having a bonfire right now, or making $20 less reselling it.
If I have friends who appreciate the show, I don't want to tell them to go and illegally download the content, I'll share my DVDs so they can watch episodes they've missed or get as hooked to the show as I am. The same with movies. Let me jump off that soap box for a bit, back to the markets. So, researching different prices at varying sites, Walmart.com had the cheapest price, but herein lies the deceit. On regularly priced DVDs of House (the in-store prices of 33-something a piece) you are given the option to site-to-store, shipping it to your location. Not bad considering no postage. Or, get the discounted seasons without the option of site-to-store, and you pay shipping - if you are doing what I wanted, which was to buy all 5 seasons, that alone would be upwards of a hundred some odd dollars, plus the interest rate from your credit card, plus tax and a charge from the store to your bill for the exchange being a credit purchase, all-in-all you're pretty much paying full price. Now, I went to my local Target store because I live in Kansas, and not in Wichita, Lawrence, or any other relatively large city within Kansas - Target, Walmart, and Hastings are my three locations to choose from. Target at one time had the 5 season House boxed set aforementioned, most likely the week of the release. But now they've opted out of that exchange, for you see Walmart now carries House in individual DVDs and have been since the release of the show's first season. After talking with an Associate, they didn't even order the 5 season boxed set, the reasoning, if I even have to say it, was because they could make more money selling the seasons individually. Target followed shortly after, pulled the 5 season boxed set, and is now selling the individual seasons, which they only have two, three, four, and five. Season Four was short due to the Writer's Strike, so it's priced $30, the rest are still $45 a piece. Going to the Walmart store in my town, they sell seasons one, three, four, and the fifth; the fifth season being the priciest, the rest $34. Hastings last had the seasons for $35 a piece, but only had one, four, and five. Obviously, if I wanted these seasons, it was going to cost some green, and I'd have to run around to get the best deal. Screw deals! And some of the shit you can get online for insanely low prices, some are awesome, in fact, a lot of those deals are awesome, but online shopping just pisses me off. Convenient, but slow. Great deals, but figure in the whole cost and it's only a few dollars less than on sight. For me, quality is a big deal. I ordered Quantum Leap and It's Always Sunny on DVD a couple months back. Because it was shipped, some of the DVDs are scratched. Quantum Leap again is a doubled-sided DVD release - scratching those fuckers is both easy to do, and ultimately damaging to the playback of the DVDs. I'll end up having to rip them to blank DVD-R's. It's Always Sunny had a scratched disc, and who the fuck knows, they were discounted. I wonder if they were previously viewed, though I'll never know, it was supposedly a "good deal" online...
I hate mustaches: Lip-ferrets are unsanitary. I don't know about you, but I sure as hell don't ever want to have to check my mustache for dangling nose-trolls, food particles, liquids, or for that matter, untamed renegade whiskers that can turn a primped, glorious 'stache into "OH FUCK, WHAT'S THAT ON YOUR FACE!?!!" Male news anchors from the 70's could pull off the 'stache, Joe Namath at one point of his career had a handle bar mustache that tickled a lot of women's nether-regions; that is fact! He didn't look great with it, and it was probably littered with unspeakable filth, but he sported it non the less. I can't grow a full mustache. That embitters me, I am left embittered and sour due to that fact. I can grow a weak mustache that pokes my mouth with whittled stinger, what I like to call, spider-fang hairs; it's way too itchy and uncomfortable - not a good fit at all, frankly. So maybe that's why I hate it that other people can grow a Magnum P.I. soup-strainer, or a Frank Zappa Imperial cookie-duster, the fact that I can't do it myself. Regardless, I despise the mustache. I want them hunted down and killed.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Cruise Control v2
I wrote a post about cruise control a couple days ago, and within that post I talked about how spoiled I was of the cruise capabilities of my mom's car, and pretty much every car that has come out since forever, except for my late-model car which has the feature, only it now doesn't work. What this all boils down to is that I like cruise control - there's something about eating a taco while driving with your knees that just does it for me.
Or let's say you've got cruise control set, and the CD you're listening to playing in the stereo has finished and is now playing track one again, so you ask the person sitting shotgun to hold the wheel and watch for pedestrians if you are driving through a school zone at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, or order the only person in the vehicle not drunk to hold the wheel making sure you don't swerve off the highway so you can change that facocta CD. I like that feature in a car as well.
Cruise is great because I could be receiving a blow job in the car - which I know, right, when that girl starts doing some shit with her tongue only an ice cream cone would experience, your legs might start kicking and that wouldn't be safe if you had your foot on the gas; so setting cruise is oh so choice. Tying off before injecting heroin into your system is done with ease when you don't have to worry about maintaining a constant speed with your foot on the gas, and then again, I could repost this thought and call it Driving With Your Knees, but once again, you'd wanna set the cruise control.
Or let's say you've got cruise control set, and the CD you're listening to playing in the stereo has finished and is now playing track one again, so you ask the person sitting shotgun to hold the wheel and watch for pedestrians if you are driving through a school zone at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, or order the only person in the vehicle not drunk to hold the wheel making sure you don't swerve off the highway so you can change that facocta CD. I like that feature in a car as well.
Cruise is great because I could be receiving a blow job in the car - which I know, right, when that girl starts doing some shit with her tongue only an ice cream cone would experience, your legs might start kicking and that wouldn't be safe if you had your foot on the gas; so setting cruise is oh so choice. Tying off before injecting heroin into your system is done with ease when you don't have to worry about maintaining a constant speed with your foot on the gas, and then again, I could repost this thought and call it Driving With Your Knees, but once again, you'd wanna set the cruise control.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Cruise Control
I own a 1988 Ford Thunderbird and she's a real piece of shit. On the other hand she does get me to where I need to go. Picture me tallying a list on my fingers starting with my left thumb. On my index finger I have tallied along with she's a real piece, that she also is ready to die. On my right hand I'm tallying her air conditioning still works. Now picture that we've been talking for awhile, I'm now on the very last finger of my left hand, the nay hand as it is, and I've tallied that my car doesn't have cruise control.
For this weekend alone I'm driving my mom's PT Cruiser for the hell of it. And I'm spoiled on her cruise control. I'll flip on cruise control in town. I could cause an auto collision doing so. But why should I have to always have my foot on the gas when I can alleviate that aggravation by pressing in a button on one of the control doohickeys located on the steering wheel? My addiction typed that sentence. How am I so enthralled with such a minute mechanism? Maybe it has something to do with my car not having a working cruise control and by car I mean that beat-up hunk of shit T-Bird. I sleep now!
For this weekend alone I'm driving my mom's PT Cruiser for the hell of it. And I'm spoiled on her cruise control. I'll flip on cruise control in town. I could cause an auto collision doing so. But why should I have to always have my foot on the gas when I can alleviate that aggravation by pressing in a button on one of the control doohickeys located on the steering wheel? My addiction typed that sentence. How am I so enthralled with such a minute mechanism? Maybe it has something to do with my car not having a working cruise control and by car I mean that beat-up hunk of shit T-Bird. I sleep now!
Thursday, July 23, 2009
AL-CA-CA-CA-CA-KAA-TRAZ! More Happenings; Mostly Alcatraz... The End of "San Fran; Oh Man!"
This will have to do for an end to my vacation in San Francisco. I hope loose ends are tied by the time I'm done.
Santa Cruz on Friday whatever the fuckin' date was, saw us walking along the ocean while a Kansas State Fair-like crowd was bumping into each other like zombies on the boardwalk. A few members from Santana, one from Journey, and some person I had never heard before played on a stage set up on the boardwalk. They attempted to play Evil Ways.
This beach wasn't your picturesque waterfront, and I've gotta say I've never in my life seen a clean beach. Kelp was everywhere, some broken glass, cans; essentially garbage. People had written useless things in the sand like other people gave a shit whether Becca loves Leroy. As long as the dogs that walked with their owners along the beach continued to take massive shits in the sand, Becca loves Leroy in Santa Cruz is like writing Becca loves Leroy in the dirt at the dump.
No pictures. I didn't want to walk to the beach at Santa Cruz. I would have been much more happy in the water at Monterrey. We traveled up the sidewalk away from the boardwalk to enter a bodega to get milk, donuts, and bananas since the hotel we were staying at for the night had a refrigerator. Saturday we embarked on an expedition to Monterrey full of many cinematic seacapes, and of course Pebble Beach. And here's that.
That lighthouse in the background houses the oldest glass lens for any lighthouse in North America. Not the light bulb, the lens. We drove around to see the lighthouse closer, but I didn't take pictures then. I take that back, I did take a picture...
Surrounding Monterrey...
Here's these fuckin' birds again. Seagulls are pigeons; pigeons of the sea. They shat all over this rock!
OH MY GOD IT'S MY DAD'S HAIRY ARM!!!
My mom said get a picture of these flowers. Sighing, I switched to my macro-function and took the picture. It's not a bad flower-picture!
Sunday, we had a blast at Alcatraz, first taking a ferry over to the island - a 10 minute sea voyage in all. Here's pictures of that.
Those are pelicans flying over the pier. Pelicans.
Approaching The Rock.
The Jeremiah O'Brien was in port. I could easily find out what the significance of this vessel is, but I won't on the off chance it isn't significant.
Next, the island itself. This is what it looks like when you are resting at the dock on-board the ferry to the island.
From the dock, you stick around for an orientation. I guess they've had problems in the past with people going off to areas of the island they're not supposed to. Uh-oh Spagettioes! A guy with a microphone that had one of the longest cables to the microphone I've ever seen asked the audience if they had ever heard any history of the island being a prison, or seen a Hollywood movie depiction of the prison. A lot of people raised their hands. He then asked if we had seen a Hollywood depiction of the Native American tribe that was camped here by the government. Nobody raised their hands. He then replied, "You would have had you learned anything about the island before you came to it. But maybe our information will lead you to wanna read up on the island and its past-inhabitants." Wrong. Again, another fucking person out there who thinks they are so enlightened to know more than anyone else about one topic. So I didn't delve into more useless information about Native Americans. Nowhere on Alcatraz is it evident that Native Americans occupied the island. It is the dilapidated remains of the most infamous prison in America that draws in the tourists.
Back to the topic, this was the old officer's quarters.
The main building of the prison is located up a spiraling road on top of a hill in the middle of the island. Inside, you take an audio tour through the prison.
You got your clothes here once you came to the prison.
Here's your shower.
And depending on what your sentence was, this could be your room. A-block.
All the lovely furnishings of a jail cell.
D-block, or, the cell block Al Capone was confined to.
Below D-block was solitary. Nice! This would be the part of the prison you'd wanna stay out of if you were scared of inmates. And if you were in solitary, you weren't a good person.
The gun gallery. I picture two guards walking this hall overlooking the prisoners, with rifles in hand, as well as a side arm. The key hanging from the rod actually unlocked each cell. I don't want to spoil the bedtime story, but an inmate did attack a guard opening his cell, the inmate got out, climbed up to that key, yanked it off the rod, took a bar splitter, got into the gun gallery, incapacitated the guard walking the hall, took his gun as well as his keys, made his way back to the cells to release his friends from their cells, as well as every cellmate on the block, all this leading to what was described as The Battle of Alcatraz. Other guards on the block were locked in a cell, and guns in their faces, were told to hand over their keys because even though that one key did unlock a few cells, it didn't unlock the door leading outside the prison. The prisoners were out, but they were still locked in a building. The guards didn't cooperate, and were executed. Searching the bodies of the guards, the prisoners found out that the men had hidden the key to the outside, so executing them was worthless. The National Guard was called in to handle the situation on the island, and to this day, blast marks left behind from grenades hurled into the prison from guardsmen on the roof are still visible on the floors.
This is of the view just outside the warden's office. On the tour this is your last stop. The city looks close doesn't it?
Here's the mess hall. Sit down, have a bowl of cereal or eat miscellaneous critters and debris from the floor; have a gay-ol' time!
From here, we returned our audio tour devices, then walked to port to catch the next ferry. The boats were in 30 min. intervals, so we missed the next departing ferry by ten minutes. It was cool. We just stood in line for twenty so we'd definitely be on the next one. It wasn't long, twenty minutes or so, and we were on the ferry again. Here's another shot of the harbor.
All in all, San Francisco was illuminating. We did what a normal family might have done in two weeks in that week and one day, or two-weeks if you rounded up and even then it's still just a week because wouldn't it have to be a few days into the week for you to round it up to two-weeks and not just one day?
The flight back to Kansas was uneventful, but it was 117 in Phoenix when we landed. Fuck Phoenix! The last pictures speak for themselves. That's the amazing thing about pictures. Without communicating the message, it still can capture a moment. Like a mime.
Santa Cruz on Friday whatever the fuckin' date was, saw us walking along the ocean while a Kansas State Fair-like crowd was bumping into each other like zombies on the boardwalk. A few members from Santana, one from Journey, and some person I had never heard before played on a stage set up on the boardwalk. They attempted to play Evil Ways.
This beach wasn't your picturesque waterfront, and I've gotta say I've never in my life seen a clean beach. Kelp was everywhere, some broken glass, cans; essentially garbage. People had written useless things in the sand like other people gave a shit whether Becca loves Leroy. As long as the dogs that walked with their owners along the beach continued to take massive shits in the sand, Becca loves Leroy in Santa Cruz is like writing Becca loves Leroy in the dirt at the dump.
No pictures. I didn't want to walk to the beach at Santa Cruz. I would have been much more happy in the water at Monterrey. We traveled up the sidewalk away from the boardwalk to enter a bodega to get milk, donuts, and bananas since the hotel we were staying at for the night had a refrigerator. Saturday we embarked on an expedition to Monterrey full of many cinematic seacapes, and of course Pebble Beach. And here's that.
That lighthouse in the background houses the oldest glass lens for any lighthouse in North America. Not the light bulb, the lens. We drove around to see the lighthouse closer, but I didn't take pictures then. I take that back, I did take a picture...
Surrounding Monterrey...
Here's these fuckin' birds again. Seagulls are pigeons; pigeons of the sea. They shat all over this rock!
OH MY GOD IT'S MY DAD'S HAIRY ARM!!!
My mom said get a picture of these flowers. Sighing, I switched to my macro-function and took the picture. It's not a bad flower-picture!
Sunday, we had a blast at Alcatraz, first taking a ferry over to the island - a 10 minute sea voyage in all. Here's pictures of that.
Those are pelicans flying over the pier. Pelicans.
Approaching The Rock.
The Jeremiah O'Brien was in port. I could easily find out what the significance of this vessel is, but I won't on the off chance it isn't significant.
Next, the island itself. This is what it looks like when you are resting at the dock on-board the ferry to the island.
From the dock, you stick around for an orientation. I guess they've had problems in the past with people going off to areas of the island they're not supposed to. Uh-oh Spagettioes! A guy with a microphone that had one of the longest cables to the microphone I've ever seen asked the audience if they had ever heard any history of the island being a prison, or seen a Hollywood movie depiction of the prison. A lot of people raised their hands. He then asked if we had seen a Hollywood depiction of the Native American tribe that was camped here by the government. Nobody raised their hands. He then replied, "You would have had you learned anything about the island before you came to it. But maybe our information will lead you to wanna read up on the island and its past-inhabitants." Wrong. Again, another fucking person out there who thinks they are so enlightened to know more than anyone else about one topic. So I didn't delve into more useless information about Native Americans. Nowhere on Alcatraz is it evident that Native Americans occupied the island. It is the dilapidated remains of the most infamous prison in America that draws in the tourists.
Back to the topic, this was the old officer's quarters.
The main building of the prison is located up a spiraling road on top of a hill in the middle of the island. Inside, you take an audio tour through the prison.
You got your clothes here once you came to the prison.
Here's your shower.
And depending on what your sentence was, this could be your room. A-block.
All the lovely furnishings of a jail cell.
D-block, or, the cell block Al Capone was confined to.
Below D-block was solitary. Nice! This would be the part of the prison you'd wanna stay out of if you were scared of inmates. And if you were in solitary, you weren't a good person.
The gun gallery. I picture two guards walking this hall overlooking the prisoners, with rifles in hand, as well as a side arm. The key hanging from the rod actually unlocked each cell. I don't want to spoil the bedtime story, but an inmate did attack a guard opening his cell, the inmate got out, climbed up to that key, yanked it off the rod, took a bar splitter, got into the gun gallery, incapacitated the guard walking the hall, took his gun as well as his keys, made his way back to the cells to release his friends from their cells, as well as every cellmate on the block, all this leading to what was described as The Battle of Alcatraz. Other guards on the block were locked in a cell, and guns in their faces, were told to hand over their keys because even though that one key did unlock a few cells, it didn't unlock the door leading outside the prison. The prisoners were out, but they were still locked in a building. The guards didn't cooperate, and were executed. Searching the bodies of the guards, the prisoners found out that the men had hidden the key to the outside, so executing them was worthless. The National Guard was called in to handle the situation on the island, and to this day, blast marks left behind from grenades hurled into the prison from guardsmen on the roof are still visible on the floors.
This is of the view just outside the warden's office. On the tour this is your last stop. The city looks close doesn't it?
Here's the mess hall. Sit down, have a bowl of cereal or eat miscellaneous critters and debris from the floor; have a gay-ol' time!
From here, we returned our audio tour devices, then walked to port to catch the next ferry. The boats were in 30 min. intervals, so we missed the next departing ferry by ten minutes. It was cool. We just stood in line for twenty so we'd definitely be on the next one. It wasn't long, twenty minutes or so, and we were on the ferry again. Here's another shot of the harbor.
All in all, San Francisco was illuminating. We did what a normal family might have done in two weeks in that week and one day, or two-weeks if you rounded up and even then it's still just a week because wouldn't it have to be a few days into the week for you to round it up to two-weeks and not just one day?
The flight back to Kansas was uneventful, but it was 117 in Phoenix when we landed. Fuck Phoenix! The last pictures speak for themselves. That's the amazing thing about pictures. Without communicating the message, it still can capture a moment. Like a mime.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
The Wharf, Driving Aimlessly, and Charlie Brown; Part Four of "San Fran: Oh Man!"
This was a pretty fantastic aquarium on Fisherman's Wharf, as you will see in the next couple of pictures. This was Thursday, June 25th. How this place was set up was, first, you go in; it's right there, on the ocean, you get your tickets, and the first room on the first level, are these sea urchins in a tank, and then a tank of stuff found in the ocean, kind of an introduction. The tank with stuff found in the ocean was disgusting. There was a frisbee, I think, a toddler's trike, an old television set from the 50's - just your normal ocean-junk of course all safe and incorporated in to coral by now, but it was just awful treating the ocean like a dump. I'm sure they've found weirder shit out there; that's just despicable.
Once you are out of the area with the sea urchins and that sort of thing, you take a brief trip outside, before entering an elevator with an elevator-attendant awaiting you and your party. Elevator-attendant is not exactly the right vernacular for these people; they were ecological something or other, but their main focus was operating an elevator...I didn't get that. Okay, I go work for the Smithsonian, but all I do is raise and lower you on the elevator, so my title obviously is, HEAD OF MUSEUM-EXHIBIT RESTORATION. I have no prior education in history or theatrics, I was brought aboard to work an elevator...I don't know, maybe she DOES have a degree in oceanography, but mainly studied the importance of keeping our oceans clean, which is how she got in to ecology, beats the hell out of me, but it just amazed me that she was stuck in an elevator most of the day, and not doing something important.
She took us down to the bottom level, and that's when you start entering the tubes. These were glass enclosed hallways where you walked under the ocean and sea-life drifted on the sides of you or above you, their choice. Obviously, the picture-quality is gonna be pretty bad. Not only did I have to worry about reflection and low-light, but reflection, low-lighting, and subjects constantly on the move. I played around with settings, and finally decided that it was okay if a few things blurred. Case in point:
But see, I like that picture because those fish are one fish, to them any way - they follow the flock, and to have it blurred was bordering expressionism. Having that glare on the glass, though, ruined the shot.
Don't ask me how big these "tubes" are, I suck at dimensions, but let me tell you this, it was quiet easy to pass people not going my speed. Problem was, we were on tour ahead of a classroom of Spanish-speaking students and a group of mentally challenged individuals. A lot of yelps, cries of joy and exuberance, and then Spanish-gibberish which I could barely make out, although a semester of Spanish my junior year of high school should have more than qualified me for translation.
This big guy just wants a friend.
Now comes the best part, a video. And it starts out with the face of a very displeased soul.
Did he get a ticket outside!? Did he lose his wife in a shark attack!? If so, why would he come to an aquarium, if not to get over his fear of the ocean, and his hatred for sharks? What a sour-puss, YOU'RE UNDER THE OCEAN!!! Any who, you see him for a second, and then my mom got in the way, and then the fish, so enjoy. Maybe that guy should've used Preparation H...you might have to scroll to the beginning of the video to see him.
These fish were passing my view every couple of minutes, so each time I tried to get a different perspective of them. This one worked out the best.
They had video of an octopus catching crabs in a glass vase. Why they didn't have an actual octopus instead of the video was beyond me. It would lure the crabs over to its tentacle, like a fishing line, dangling it there like, "You know you wanna..." For crabs, they were smart enough to know not to touch that octopus' tentacle. The crabs knew the opening to the vase was too small for a big animal, like this octopus, to squeeze through. What the crabs don't know, and will never know because of their tiny brains, is that the octopus is a cephalopod, which in lamest terms means he can fit anywhere he wishes to. Needless to say, those crabs were shit out of luck, and that octopus got 'em.
A perfect little mid-meal snack for an octopus. These guys glowed! They look like shrimps...
The place with the octopus video and the glowing shrimps was in an offshoot from the underwater tubes. The next set of tubes we entered had us greeted by this gentleman.
More "exotic" ocean-life.
We made it out of the aquarium in one piece. Upstairs from the bottom level was more of a land-aquatic life, with a wading pool of different coral uchins and fish, as well as multicolored star fish. In glassed exhibits, they had tree frogs, turtles, and a pink-toed tarantula. She had just killed her mate, as he hung lifeless in a hammock of webs in the corner of the display, most likely expired from their wedding night. That was chilling.
Our next stop on the wharf was for lunch. Where to go for lunch? Hard Rock Cafe, fancy shellfish diners...oh wait, there's a Bubba Gump's Shrimpin' Company!! Yes, a restaurant themed off of the 1994 classic Forrest Gump. There were flat screens all over that seafood place playing the movie 24/7; it looped. Amazing! I would have loved to have played some ping pong with my FLEX-O LITE ping pong paddle! I still think Jenny II should have been in harbour...
After the aquarium and Bubba Gump's where I had a steaming Bubba's Bucket of Boat Trash, with lobster claws, shrimp, and fried snapper, we went for a drive around San Francisco, and here's all the pictures I could take from the backseat of a moving vehicle.
Here's a bookstore, with flapping, flying books suspended up on electrical lines.
If only I were cool enough to get in to this Segway Education Class...headgear, a device that prevents you from ever having to walk again, and AND a caution, reflective smock...SIGN ME UP! I want in this gang, fo sho! They all look like a bunch of rabble-rousers.
This is not made-up. Best thift store in San Francisco.
The men in this picture were walking down the street while we were driving, and traffic was dense for this neighborhood, so we were going pretty slow, enough where these two were in view constantly. Once they got to this building, where we were stopped, waiting at a light, the red-shirt went up the fire escape, followed by his jacketed friend. They climbed to the top, pictured above, and notice the red-shirt is climbing on the wrong side of the ladder. Eventually he realized this, climbed back down to that top landing, then reversed sides, and then they went out of view do to our car moving again at the green. I don't have the slightest clue what they were up to.
China Beach was our next destination. What's China Beach you ask? Here, come read all about it!
The view from China Beach:
The fisherman.
There's two other beach-shots, but I'm tired of posting pictures now. It's okay if I don't have them all.
We jettisoned back to the condo for our last night at Winsor. I got me the grossest thing I think I eat. It's not gross to me; why in the hell would I eat it if it were? They are little fish that you eat from a can. They are sardines, and I enjoy them. Preferably in Louisiana Hot Sauce. I had to get me at least two cans of sardines while I was down in California because the brand I eat come from San Jose. These were the freshest of the fresh. And they weren't hard on the wallet, either. I say this like they are fucking expensive; in Kansas, they're like two bucks a can, here, they're fifty cents a can. Huh-huh? A dollar fifty saved!
We woke up the next morning, packed everything of value and said goodbye to luxury. Today, we traveled to Santa Rosa, CA for a museum. A whole museum devoted to the cartoon strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz. Here ya go!
This is of the lobby-area only. Photography wasn't allowed in the museum exhibit areas.
Even the bathrooms. It was great! The outside of the men's room, the figure on the door labeling it a men's room had a Charlie Brown shirt on. The little things...
Up Next: ALCATRAZ!! (Key thunderbolts and lightning)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)