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.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
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.
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