The Blog Equivalent of a Man Yelling in his Closet

Nobody

2011-11-17T16:05:00.004-06:00

I have been very fortunate in my life to meet and be friends with some amazing people. I have the misfortune -- whenever I see a few of these people out'n'about, in public -- of them simply acting as though they don't know me. Given, a lot of the times, I haven't been in contact with these individuals for maybe five years, so you're probably saying to yourselves, "they don't recognize you." Yes they do.

I was drinking and having a blast playing some PS3 and watching some late night programming buzzed over at a friend's apartment, and I swore a guy there, who was a friend of a friend of the person who's apartment we were intoxicated in, was the same person I had gone to high school with. It's late in the evening, getting close to midnight, and we had all been playing and finishing off a case, and someone asks the guy I recognize if he wouldn't like a ride home, since I suppose he hadn't driven to where we were at. He agreed, being nowhere near eligible to handle the road had he driven there, and the person offering him the lift home is disgruntled because they have to drive further into Hutch, yet it wasn't that big of deal to them, they would do it to see their friend arrive safely home. The guy I recognized says that getting to his house is actually a lot easier than his friend imagines because he's in South Hutch, and that there's no turn-offs, and strange back-roads, you could take the highway for forty-to-forty-five minutes and get off in South Hutch, and then it's less than a few minutes from there. The friend driving concluded that it still was a ways from where he lived, which was Lyons. He lived near Lyons if I remember correctly.

I chose to use this bit of information to ask the guy I recognized how long he had lived in South Hutch. He said around ten years, give or take, so I figured perhaps he went to school in South Hutch knowing he was a few years younger than myself. He said he went to Hutch. So I asked him what about high school, same district as Hutch, or did he choose to transfer? He said he went to Haven. Cool beans. I still believe he's the same kid I know from high school, and the more I thought of it, it made sense. Back to when I was in high school, a friend of mine and myself were asking where he had transferred from, him being a new member of the NHS concert band -- I believe I was either a junior or senior at the time -- and this individual had transferred from Haven to Nickerson, and, being as popular as I was, I knew a few people who went to Haven, and I had asked him if he knew of them as well, where he had said he did not. That was pristine and clear in my mind, after this guy I recognized in my friend's apartment said he had went to Haven.

It dawned on me what this guy's last name was, so I asked him, was his last name Blankiddiboo? Yes, it was. So I said the first name I had in my memory, and he said no, was not him. Then, did he have a relative, like a cousin perhaps or brother with that name? Nope, and from his answers now, my inquiries were starting to annoy him. I then went ahead and gave up, but still I knew it was him, I told him then that he looked an awful lot like this kid I knew. He shrugged it off, or maybe said something along the lines of, "I get that a lot," or, "I'm always being mistaken for someone else." I wanted to retort, "Maybe you should stick to going by your first name (insert guy I recognized-real name) instead of your middle name, (insert name guy I recognized is using) That might be why so many people claim they know you."

Was he in witness protection, or what the hell? Why lie to a stranger about your name? For that matter, he had my other mutual friends believing he was this other person, and a good friend of mine who was introduced to him that night believing he was Humperdink Blankiddiboo, when I knew the moment I spotted him, heard that raspy, obnoxious laugh of his, that he was Kenovassa Blankiddiboo.

I had once entered a successful national pizza chain in Minas Tirith, Middle-Earth; a fictional location obviously, so none of you fuckers can connect the dots on who I'm talking about in this ledger. A person I considered a friend unlike an acquaintance, or, a person you might run in to occasionally, was working tables and our eyes met. I smiled and waved, my friend however, ignored the gesture and continued cleaning. I ended up being sat in his section, and my hostess took my drink order, and since I already knew what I wanted without the assistance of a menu, I ordered my meal with the hostess as well. Refills should have went through my friend, or the asshole I recognized as a friend I used to know well, instead as I was watching him work, he had gone to the back and talked to a co-worker who happened to end up being my waitress who refilled my drink, brought me a plate before my pizza came, and delivered the pizza to my table once it had been prepared and removed from the oven. I waited a long time until he finally dropped by to bring me my receipt in the PRECIOUS receipt trapper-keeper. He placed it on the table quickly, with a, "pay up at the register when you're finished," acting as though he had to rush to get back to the kitchen in order to get his helmet and oxygen tank on over a heavy, flame-retardant uniform, and get to the inferno before the orphanage burned down. I stopped him. "Hold on, Gale, right? Gale Benningtonston..."
"Yeah..." You know that sounding yeah drawn out, cautious of how you know them.
"It's Austin. Smith." He knew who I was. "I worked with Fangora for like half a year. I used to party at your place..." I could've listed everything I did with this person, which was a pretty decent list, he reacted friendlier, but unlike someone who hadn't recognized you and this being the first time it clicked, he wasn't surprised. He was more concerned with ending this stop and chat to get back in the kitchen where he proceeded to bullshit around with his co-workers. He did nothing, but talk back there.

Let's talk about five years ago. I assume a lot of shit has happened in everyone else's life in those few years, but that also shows how overwhelming all the information and jargon -- two categories I'll stick with in comparing the information surge we don't necessarily notice about, oh I don't know, television programming, Internet searches, complications in every day life, to name a few -- has cluttered and replaced other memories. What am I trying to say? I feel like all the changes our lives have made just in the last half-decade or so, citing an example, how more of us carry cellphones now than we used to, we just simply forgot easier than we used to. Homeless people, surprisingly, carry around cellphones. Don't ask me why or how this is possible, I've witnessed it more than just one rare occurrence. And all that you can do with a cellphone anymore, it's no wonder people treat an electronic device like a personal assistant with all that's going on in their world. I feel like we bog our brains with shit, for what, to entertain ourselves, waste time. Maybe our priorities or what we perceive as our "priorities" contribute to a river of information entering one ear, that might be processed within our processor, or might just spill out the other ear, culminating in some people perceiving five years as more like ten, twenty years. Daily, we absorb a week's worth of information. This might be why Gale Benningtonston treated me like a stranger. Could I be that forgettable?

I can't account for other people's behavior. It seems awfully ignorant to play coy with something so commonly referred to as a courtesy to say hello to a person you recognize out in public. It's not like I'm a stock broker and he was a drum circle leader in an Occupy Wall Street protest. I like the whole "let's get out there and do something about it" attitude from these people. Having said that, I don't really buy the video of a protester getting his leg ran over by a police motorcycle-defense. Here's a guy screaming his head off, "they're running over my leg!" If you haven't seen the video, I'd search douche bag acts like he's hurt; from what I could tell, he was purposefully sticking his leg under a police motorcyclist who was trying to get through the crowd of people blocking a busy Oakland street? Was it NYC? So, he stuck his leg under the wheel of the motorcycle, started screaming and thrashing around, while someone with their cellphone camcorder recorded the whole ordeal, the police officer noted the guy's leg was gonna get smashed if he didn't move it, even stopped his motorcycle to help get the guy's leg out from under his vehicle, but persistently the guy continued to just lie there screaming bloody murder, continuing to stick his leg under the wheel of the bike. How about the morons who lock arms and chant, while a brigade of armored police officers charge them with trespassing, and try to break loose the chain-gang to hull most of the like to jail, and they're screaming, "You have no right to arrest me! Why are you cuffing me!? This iniquitous imprisonment is beyond convoluted!" You're blocking a public street. They don't want you there, and so you're trespassing, plus whatever other shit they want to slap you with for being a public nuisance. You're also, or at one time, were living in a park. Your next crib is the subway tunnels because winter is approaching, you hobos. Statistically maybe 1% of those working Wall Street embezzled. You realize you're preaching to grunts just trying to get to work, right? The real bad-guys just flip to cartoons when the news stations begin to show footage of your protest.

A.O. Baldist fuckin' Sports

2011-11-04T17:25:00.011-05:00

Alex Ovechkin is an unintelligent, hot-headed, dirty Russian! Somebody should skate up behind him and nail him in the head with a brick oven mitt! If I ever saw Alex Ovechkin in public, I'd stomp with full force on the back of his knee, and cripple his ass -- I may even wear a skate...alright, that's about enough. So he really doesn't deserve being crippled. Maybe just target a sling shot right to the back of his neck, pull back, and let fly a metal jackstone...

Why don't I like this guy? Probably because he's a dirty-ass Russian with missing teeth. I was watching his Washington "Capitalists" take on Carolina -- I guess a combination of North and South into a super-state called the Carolina that wears, like a trucker cap, the state of Virgina as a malformed Ushanka with a popular backwards bill, and stabs Buffalo Sabres fans up the butt hole with a penis shaped sabre every time that they meet up for a hockey match.

They say the keeper of the net has a hand-sewn in pocket in his jersey for a switchblade.

Another way Alex Ovechkin could be brutalized would be to beat him unmercifully with a goalie's mask. Huh? Hhuuhhhh? Instead of a quick skate-by stabbing, we just catch him off guard with a goalie's mask broken against his head.

Why shouldn't a hockey team like Washington be high in the standings? Boudreau is a premier coach, with a hell of a team just about every year. And boy did he send the right message on Thursday by benching Ovechkin's ass in the tail end of the game. Big Russian baby didn't like it either; flew an expletive towards his coach, and really, abandoned his team that night because he felt it was unfair towards him to be pulled from the ice. We get a serving of elitism -- I can do better than you do, stick your head in doo-doo -- head-case mentality with the Russia #1, but this is fantastic I get paid this much over seas for my lousy half-talent. He's so inconsistent. A Kobe Bryant mentality on less talent.

I was always disappointed with myself when I was benched, and boy was I benched! I recorded 45 seconds I was on the court in junior high basketball, then I sat out the rest of the game. Fuck you, Mr. Wetig! He was a bald loser. So fuckin' bald as a young person, man, before that I never knew men could go bald at such a rapid perplexity, like the hair was chanting, "gone, gone, gone, gone,-gone, gone, gone, gone," as it receded back. Good thing he married young. Turtle-wax for Christmas when he was nineteen, is not your way of strutting your shit. The "my-forehead-is-as-shiny-as-a-bowling-lane" "I-can't-go-to-the-beach-my-head-reflects-sunlight-in to-the-eyes-of-parasailers" "I-didn't-shave-my-head-like-this-on-purpose-although-some-might-have-thought-I-did-(ME!)-thought-it-was-for-a-joke, or-he-lost-a-bet, swore-the-Browns-would-beat-the-Titans-this-time-and-if-not, then-you-must-shave-your-head-to-look-like-a-ronin-samurai" forehead probably makes it a lot harder for his wife to orgasm during their pathetic love-making session every seven months he can get it up.

All Ovechkin could do was bitch to the press about sitting out, while the rest of his team pulled out a win.

You see, Alex doesn't realize this, and never will because he's so fucking stubborn, that he's inconsistent. The fucker was born to skate, and with phenomenally stellar puck handling, but because of his Russian-temper and a tendency to get sloppy the moment he's up to the goal, and with 3 guys on him and maybe 6 janitors with mops, with the soaked woolen ends frozen to resemble a hockey stick, yelling obscenities and maddened by their brains slowly ate away along with their livers from copious intake of moonshine in the janitor's closet, he crashes into the boards, and so he's forced to rocket the puck with a cannon of a slap-shot. Butterfly goalies love it for the saves they get off those bullets -- he's just a dufus and fuckers like the announcers aboot fall head over heals for essentially his skating skills and swing.

So that Russian sat on his hands, and cheered them on from the side-line, without the aid of his hands, I suppose, sitting on them and all. I should retract; he was there for his Capitals, just not their captain at this moment. His third-string helmsman did just fine, kept them alive to go on to an OT win where guess who scored? Ovechkin! So keep your trap shut about being pulled. It must have been the right decision, your team did win, and you came back for a final knock-in. It shows that you're too concerned for yourself. Or, you're a cold person, predatory, a change I've seen in other players, different sports, sometimes a whole team full of them, and yet still on the subject of hockey with that one, Vancouver; a lot of over-aggressive bullying as a part of winning from the whole team -- but also individual players, that simply get carried away. Heat of the moment, eh, from the world's fastest sport.

He seems, or as I perceive things, comes off as a really warm guy off the ice. I'm sure he's charitable with his money. You'd be a moron not to be, helping propel your soft image and hey, it makes you feel good, helping others, along with it being a tax right-off so you can launder through that legality your beyond millions-salary. Consider your future, Mr. Ovechkin, creepy-vibed Doc Brown on his time-traversing locomotive cast-off to the character "Jennifer" in Back to the Future III, if you're being sat now for a squad that you've built in Washington, and have contributed leadership to, why, it reminds me of another person milked dry and tired, who was also in Washington in his career; Michael Jordan. Decide which way you're gonna go. Jordan had an excuse, a tenured veteran with the Bulls in fantastic years of basketball, whereas you should be barely out of your prime, or was your 3-hat-trick a mere glimmer of another great hall of famer, Gretzky?

Do you like it that we have a comparison for every sport, be it basketball with Jordan, or hockey with Wayne, how we seek out the top of them all-player? It casts a shadow on current players who are still scoring, still rolling, damn I'm liking the way those Oilers are playing style on rolling along, kicking ass. Fuckin' right, I want them in contention. Give it time, if Washington isn't already numero uno in the standings, they certainly will be. Boudreau cannot afford to let them slide off the tracks a second year.

We've got some hockey going on here, and praise them clearing a path through NBA's lockout. Factions or no factions, what was with them releasing bullshit like that. So a few players agree with owner's on the subject, others choosing the league, sticking with them because they just might be a chairman, or player's rights activists who are head of the player's union, snapping a loose sliver from the pie.

Mr. President, I Think You're Doin' Just Fine!

2011-08-19T10:56:00.001-05:00

President	Vacation Days	Favorite Destinations
Barack Obama	90 in first two years	Martha's Vineyard, Mass.; Kailua, Hawaii
George W. Bush	1,020 in eight years	Crawford, Texas; Camp David, Md.
Bill Clinton	152 in eight years	Martha's Vineyard; the Hamptons, N.Y.
George H.W. Bush	543 in four years	Camp David, Md.; Kennebunkport, Maine
Ronald Reagan	335 in eight years	Santa Barbara, Calif.
Jimmy Carter	79 in four years	Plains, Ga.

The Equivalent of a Big Dump, Like Forcing a Midget Down a Toilet!

2011-08-04T13:27:00.004-05:00

There's a new movie coming out called Real Steel -- basically think rock'em sock'em robots with Hugh Jackman. His character sort of reminds me of Lincoln Hawk, Sylvester Stallone's character in the 80's arm-wrestling movie Over the Top, which was a perfect name for that movie because it was over-the-top. Jackman plays a promoter with a prize-fighter mentality who thinks he's got a good thing with a discarded robot he hopes he can train as a fighter in a near-future where humans make these giant, behemoth robots, programming them to fight in the ring for them why they hang back in a simulator. A lot like two kids who have just dusted off their old rock'em sock'em robots (let's face it, these aren't kids, they're more like adults reliving some old times with this discarded toy) -- one person controls the red robot, the other the blue one. Of course, that's not all this movie brings to the table. Jackman's character discovers he's got an 11-year-old kid, who's role in the film is to find out who his father is. Over the Top had a kid in it, as well, Lincoln Hawk's son, who also was looking for affection from his father.

What else is coming out at the theaters in the next few months, as if I already didn't have a plan to segue off into another tangent, oh that's right, a movie based off the seafaring strategy game Battleship, where humans are yet again fighting against an alien threat. Look it up, it's-a comin' down the pike.

Here's an idea for a movie. Four mice of differing ethnic backgrounds are forced to build an all-powerful machine (Ooooo!) whose designer is the ruler of a twisting and turning labyrinth of a world where the mice first meet each other, and are on a journey to find the missing pieces in order to finish the construction of this grand, menacing machine, and none of the talking mice-men have a clue as to what the machine will accomplish, or why it's being built in the first place, until the final cogs are in order, and the machine is functioning properly. The ruler of this world is a sinister brute, a real shit; most likely a scraggly looking older mouse who everyone fears because he's so mean and conniving (Boo! Hiss!)

The movie ends with the four mice defeating the older mouse and establishing rule over the kingdom, but not before the machine is completed by the parts they found in the labyrinth. The machine actually turns out to be a world annihilator, created to destroy their world once it has been completed, and the four mice were sent out to find the missing pieces to it, which were scattered throughout their world in nondescript locations, thus the mice thinking they were on a quest for good actually were the resulting factor in their world being destroyed, a lot like mice seeking out cheese and getting caught in...wait for it...a mouse-trap. Yes, you see this movie is also based off of a childhood board game called... (I'm so giddy) ...MOUSE TRAP! It's so fucking pathetic, can't anyone come up an original fucking thought, we've gotta make movies based off of FUCKING board games! Are you kidding me!? I know you aren't really kidding me because I've seen the FUCKING TRAILERS TO THESE GOD DAMN MOVIES, AND I DON'T FUCKING LIKE IT!!!

Young Minds

2011-07-15T09:34:00.003-05:00

I was reading my last post -- you know, the one about reviewers with egotistical mindsets in relation to Barbies, and then my ignorance out there in full-view on topic with what's going on in Washington. Those reviewers though; I just can't get the thought of Barbies out of my head. The female reviewer there at the last comparing the other parent's raising of her child with Barbies to What About Bob? when Dr. Leo Marvin played perfectly the hypertensive persona, by character-actor for most of his career, the one-the only Richard Dreyfus tries to communicate in the film with his 17-year-old daughter with a puppet that looks exactly like him -- this thread leader on the discussion board has a daughter who is maybe 6, 7, or 8 years of age, pretty vast difference between 17 and 6, oh fuck yeah, 17 with 8, my land, still a remarkable maturity differentiation. Don't try to rush your child's comprehension of the world by talking to them like they are adults, you don't want to scare your kids.

There is something to be said about the doll-method. You still put up a barrier, a mask if-you-will in having the dolls talk for you. You are still listening and wanting to crack the mind of your 6, 7, 8 year-old, right, like they'd rationally hold back anything had you raised them well enough to not feel like they couldn't tell you the world; that is what we do as functionally adult human beings, even if some of us aren't parents yet. There is effort in the "doll-method" to effortlessly talk openly with your sibling at a young age, maybe first teaching them the importance of being honest and trustworthy. That is the way to open a kid up, to let them know, make them feel that they are trustworthy, that they can trust you and that they learn and find value in becoming able to accept trust from others.

Which leads me to another point I wanted to make now that you know I'm here to point out things. Kids these days...
I'm starting to believe that perhaps they are growing up too quickly. Oh yeah, now that you've all lined up to go down the slide! Here we go. Elaboration. I feel like kids are talked to matter-of-factly, to put it the way that last woman put it, and it sort of makes me sick. I can remember witnessing a conversation that I, as a child, had a lot of questions about which led the conversation to teeter and eventually become awkward due to the questions I asked, and feeling like the adults in the situation were stammering to correctly relate to me, in a childish-way, what was happening in the adult situation. Like explaining Columbine to first-graders. Okay, by the way, these individuals who are referred to as adults were teachers, and they're paid to respond to kids, part of their pay comes from responding to kids, and I can't say it's an easy accomplishment given that I would've faltered in explaining what it was the adults were explaining to me in my scenario, and teachers explaining why Columbine happened and who would want to shoot students, and not even mentioning that students were killing other students and faculty. Try it matter-of-factly and you risk horrifying young minds. Judge me if you will, but I'm thinking that's a pretty risky parenting decision, given that adulthood in children pretty much leads to them finding out about sex with the opposite sex, the same sex, and they'll go about that by how much you taught them about it. You really think overstimulating a mind's growth and maturity by what information is accessible to your children right off the bat is the right way to go about it?

Nest Eggs (Our Economy)

2011-06-27T13:58:00.003-05:00

It seems cliched, but I've got good news and bad news on the economy, or at least that's how I've always imagined it feels like when something new and disastrous is in store. The bad news: no matter what the panelists say, it's only going to get worse, even if Fox News says your wrong if you think that way. The good news: as long as we run our proposals, in order to right this ship, through the parameters that money doesn't mean anything, how great the losses, we're gonna be out of this recession in 10 years. Just print all the beautiful paper with dead presidents on it you want without gold or basically any value backing it, or, how it's being done now, imagine you've already got the paper, just raise the rate of a number, and our national debt is fixed.

That's right, you see, the American government wants to raise the limit on our national debt in hopes that it will fix our financial problems. We spend too much, that's the problem. So, because we spend so much and made a "boo-boo," let's raise the national debt 1 trillion annually -- that'll cover our asses, or more so the asses of the people who led us into this mess, then we cut more departments, programs and promotions on the federal and state levels, for each state willing to cut their funding to their arts-programs or let's say education budgets, just hacking off huge chunks of money that once went to aid those departments, the more cut the more of a fraudulent write-off it becomes in hopes that the federal government will step in and possibly reward such behavior.

Now that tens of thousands of retirees have lost their social security that they were promised and collected up over the many years they labored for those in the private sector, let's do that same to the veterans who fought for this country's interests in foreign territories; those who might have been injured in the line of duty, let's take their nest eggs to fund this disturbing American greed, and then have the director of social security extend letters of apology out to those expecting a check in the mail, "Sorry, but your money is kinda on hold (not coming) and will be on hiatus (being transferred into another bank account)" Next words should be what are you going to do about it? We've elected leaders who have appointed crooks to the highest departments of the government, and they have in-turn robbed us as was the plan, so they could insure their own prosperity and leave us all holding our dicks, even the girls...with dicks.

See, they're not going to be in office for very long, so they need to assure they'll make money once they're out of office. Al Gore did it. He put his mouth to work advocating a healthy planet, which he received lobbyist kick-backs because that's what he essentially is, a big, green lobbyist -- he's got his nest egg, and it's ever-growing. Legislation enacted by the support of other advocates for a greener Earth, and boom, more money for Al. People aren't interested in bettering our planet, they're interested in bettering their nest eggs.

Egotistic Reviews, and later, Our Economy

2011-06-26T15:58:00.002-05:00

What's the point of always making a point of things? Having YOUR say with everything? Yep, I'm really going to start things like that, fuckin' hypocrite, but I'm tellin' ya, the barging in with your own opinion, or commanding, apprehending, or directly intruding on a topic to voice your own just doesn't settle right with me. Now I'm going to do something I've done in the past, where I've copy and pasted some actual reviews on this blog that don't belong to me -- they're just out there, ready to be plucked. The reviews from others will be in italics, and then I'll comment on why these are so irksome to myself. The topic that these reviews relate towards was Barbie's -- how many is too many for my daughter, considering I buy 6 Barbies for her for Christmas and her birthday, within 10 years that's 120 Barbies. That seems like a lot.

Well, yeah, sounds like you have it all planned out, but you may be forgetting one thing...whether your daughter actually likes Barbies...hehe =D

When I was growing up I got those dreadful things all the time, and hated them. My brother played with them more then me. I really loved stuffed animals, but my parents would always say I didn't need any more, but like clockwork every b-day or christmas I got at least one dang barbie doll, if not more.

My daughter, on the other hand loved Barbies, and she had lots of them and the clothes to go with them. And a lot of Barbies is like, 40! 100 seems like a lot to me, but hey if your daughter does in fact like them and want that many, go for it.

Also, as much as my daughter loved them, she out grew them at 8. She boxed them all up and gave them to a set of kindergarten twin who squealed with delight.

I'm not sure what kind of teaching you are talking about, but I do know that after about the age of 7 or 8 children just want you to talk to them straight up. At least that's how my kids are. My kids do have a much larger vocabulary then most of their peers, and I think it's because I explain things to them all the time and never use a "dumber" way of talking to them then I do adults...But of course, I'm not familiar with what exactly it is that you want to teach with the dolls, so it may work beautifully for you. Good luck! =D

Starts off alright, complimentary, which is positive in giving your 2 cents, but notice the next time she uses YOUR is like the third paragraph; everything else is ME, I, MY. What's even more ignorant, okay the woman's daughter must love Barbies if she's consistently asking for six of them for Christmas and Birthday's. Yes, that's the daughter ASKING for six, the mother didn't start that, and bullshit to those who don't agree. When I wanted to get a friend of mine's kid started on Legos I didn't up and buy him 5 or 6 fucking sets, tear open all the bags, and pour them into a tub and say, "Have at 'em, Johnny!" "Put as many of them in your mouth as you can fit!" I bought one medium-sized set with bigger pieces because he was still only a few years old -- having the toy kill him was not the idea I had in mind, I wanted that kid building and having as much fun with the Legos as I remember having as a child, but the off-chance he despised building shit out of blocks, I didn't waste a gob of money on something he wasn't going to tinker with no mo'. Why would this reviewer even question whether the girl actually liked Barbies, did she not understand the point of the original, she was commenting on how she wasn't enthused over buying so many Barbies, for a child I perceived who LOVED Barbies...Speaking of teaching, somebody should teach this bitch to be humble, and not be so domineering to direct the subject back to yourself all the time. That's being egotistical.

I'm also with Siddova - I HATED Barbies. They just sat on my shelf. My sweet Grandma gave me 2 and made a bunch of outfits for them. She even bought a child size suitcase to put them in! My stuffed animals on the other hand, I had "sleeping spots" for each of them. Now, I have lots of real animals instead of the stuffed ones. lol

My 8 yo daughter has not played with the few Barbies she has. She has got about 5 given to her from about age 5-8 and she's only played with the animals they've come with. The Barbies just sit on the shelf.

I also agree with talking to your kids matter-of-factly and using a larger vocab to teach them. I dunno, but this reminds me of a scene from "What about Bob" when Dr. Marvin is "talking" with his 17 yo dd, Anna, about their feelings, by using puppets that look just like them. LOL!

Good luck also!

I don't know if I agree with using a larger vocab to teach them. A kid is either going to understand the words you are using, or not, and let's hope you have the patience to translate each "new" word you decide to use with them, and that you yourself are intelligent enough to know the full meaning of the word(s) and when they are appropriately used in language. Another person who didn't pay attention to the topic when they were supposed to be reading and comprehending what it is they're READING. Her daughter likes Barbies. YOU didn't, that's why you intruded with your own little piece of life shit, and fuck you for doing so! For all purposes, I don't think I've met a person yet who would care to remember your dislike for Barbies as a kid, you dumb cunt. That wasn't the reply she was looking for! Now, relating that you have 200-300 Barbies yourself is sending the message, it's okay to have 120 Barbies in 10 years, I have this many Barbies (venereal diseases) so your kid won't be the first to reach 120 by 10, I've done better. Egotistical.

Our Economy....

Injuries

2011-04-21T14:59:00.007-05:00

My sciatica is kicking my ass again this year. The sciatic nerve being that pesky string like that of a yo-yo string that keeps my sitting position in check. Seriously, you move a leg wrong when it's acting up, and you get a sharp pain like the buzzing on the game-board for Operation! Fuck, didn't know I couldn't stretch my legs out anymore on the couch, or cross them for that matter while sitting upright. Ever get stuck hunched over drying your legs after taking a bath -- lower back, you'd much prefer to stay in this uncomfortable position than to let me straighten; I would think this would be worse (FOLD YOURSELF IN THE MIDDLE) I'll just go to work like this, bare ass naked and still partially wet.
This affliction is one I've weathered ever since I was too young to be incapacitated with a back-injury such as this; it comes and goes, either resulting in me finally biting the bullet and going to my fattist chiropractor for a treatment, or myself remaining so fucked and miserable. It occurred to me that being down in the back as I am is not necessarily the shittiest injury that pesters oneself, in fact, more than anything else in the world, this includes myself being tied and thrown over the Royal Gorge bridge, I would hate to be a basketball star whose excuse for not playing is a lousy finger, or a pitcher, let's call him Jorge De La Rosa, and let's say he plays for the Colorado Rockies, whose nagging pursuer, and rationalization for his lousy pitching that's not blamed on being left handed (Round up all these lefties and take them to concentration camps) is a blister that's bugged him. A blister.
So it's on his pitching hand, so what if it's even located on the joint of his middle finger, maybe even the tip, and arguably on the most important finger used in throwing a baseball, you remain partially on the DL because of a blister. Sorry I couldn't make it to jury duty yesterday, my earlobe was red. I had an ingrown hair on the inside of my ear.
What if Mike Tyson would've told Frank Bruno -- no question regarding Bruno as the best British fighter EVER -- but Mike had to cancel the fight at the last moment saying; "Ss'ary B'uno, but whilst I's workout 's'morning, I got'a ssscratch on my b'ssscep, and it bled for like three minutesss. I gotta bow out'f the fight." 1989 Mike Tyson in the clear peak of his game and he quits the match to Bruno giving up his Heavyweight title, and one of the best surges-to-a-knockout against a legend we'll probably ever witness all because of a fucking scratch; please! That's like finding out all along that Superman was wearing a silk teddy under his uniform.
And poor Kobe...honestly, you're a cheat if you have to wear a brace on your finger every game in order to straighten your shot -- oh, but it's a petulant finger sprain. Now I hear he's playing in game 5 after the foot injury he suffered last Sunday -- to what, make up for being a wuss, no clearly the man was faking. Jesus...

I end this quell of sports posts, two, by relating some stupidity. You can't say NO THANK YOU at the drive-thru. You can blatantly and bluntly say, "NO!" A 'no' which resides within it, "what are you, fuckin' stupid!?" Not even if you space the two phrases a great distance away from each other as in, "No... (three seconds) ...thank you." Whatever you have just declined you will get. I made the mistake of say, "No, I don't believe I will," when asked if I wanted sauce at a Taco Bueno. I should have known by a lengthy pause and the muttering of, "O-kay," from the drive-thru attendant that there was a miscommunication. I get my order, with a cup of brown sauce I've never seen or tasted in my life from a fast food chain. It was spicy and it had meat in it. They had given me a cup of grease. It was literally run-off from the pan, skillet, contraption they cooked the beef in. And I ate it.

I begin this curious story like I do all my regular posts. Just a moment ago, I received a call of inquisitiveness by a woman already enrolled in one of our computer workshops the library offers each month. She wanted to know the time, and whether the date on her calender was correct in regards to the class. The date I gave her, this Thursday, corresponded to the one circled or notated on her calender. Then she asked if the class were held still upstairs in the computer lab, or, "where exactly are we to go for this class," in which I told her the basement where we have a separate training-lab, that's the name of it, The Training Lab. She further reiterate whether it was the basement, and oh, how she had never been in the basement. It's a sub-level, not Disney World; not EPCOT. There's no free sub and soft drink with the purchase of a greater or equal sub involved here! I said yes, the basement.
"Well then, how do I get downstairs?"
"The elevator between adult fiction and the children's department, on the south wall will allow you access to the basement, and the training lab is maybe three feet and to your left, in front of you out of the elevator."
"Oh, so out a-ways from the bathrooms, and to my left; alright, well I'm glad I called and asked that."
Wait, how do you know the bathrooms are to the left from the elevator in the basement, didn't you just say you've never been in the basement?
So then I wondered, maybe she meant from her left in the elevator on the first floor, there's bathrooms located a little ways from the ones in the basement, on top of each other, but perhaps more askew. But then why out from the bathrooms and to the left, why not down away from the bathrooms, or perpendicular to the elevator. The way she said how it was from the bathrooms, the emphasis being "out", or "down" "away" from the bathrooms. There's something there. Why would she lie about being in our basement before?

Does it appear that restricted? I guess the employees do look a bit stealthy, conspicuous like spies when we flash our identity badges over the scanner-lock on the door, and slink down the steps to the break room located in the basement once cleared and given access. I'd feel uncomfortable pressing the letter B button in the elevator for basement, or at least a bit uneasy...no I wouldn't. Your just riding the elevator to the sub-level of the library for a free computer class.

More to Come Shortly

2011-03-24T14:57:00.003-05:00

I couldn't think of anything to write, and it had been a while since I wrote anything. I figured, why not a sports-post? I've done so in the past and it seemed to work, so without further a due, my two cents on the NBA.

Checking out the scores for the games last night on the ol' ESPN, I caught an editorial piece on who benefited the MELODRAMA, the Knicks or the Nuggets. The general consensus, which matches my belief as well, is that the Nuggets are rolling where as the Knicks are also rolling, down a fucking hill and into a swamp with a bullet in their gut.

The Nuggets have streaked, and immediately after acquiring Felton, Chandler, and Gallinari, 7 games right after the fact the trade cost them more than Melo, but their leader and spiritual, inspirational center, Chauncey Billups. Well, at least their franchise and the icing to their cookie-crunch; some people might argue their coach George Karl is their center. He's the fulcrum to their wins-and-losses teeter totter, just look at the Finals last year when Karl was absent due to a third round of chemo to battle throat cancer, where they bit it in the first round of the Western Conference Playoffs -- All in the past for a team who beat the San Antonio Spurs last night by 3 for the first time all season.

What's changed? Well, for starters, the Nuggets are second in the league in defense behind Chicago. Last night, Al Harrington was playing lights-out. If you guard Felton, and Lawson is in, the two play off each other, so you sacrifice ground by planting two guys on him, and a third watching the wing, but Nene or Harrington is going to take the inside. Go ahead and foul, they'll make up the points either way.

Manu Ginobili commented that the Nuggets are a deeper team that will give you a game until the end. I don't understand, San Antonio is the same way, perhaps Gregg Popovich isn't smart enough to give some of his bench warmers a chance on the floor because I've always considered the Spurs to be one of the deepest teams. You've got Anderson, Bonner, Blair, Neal, Tony Parker when he's playing, and Splitter. Then there's Duncan who is injured. I put Parker in the back-up bracket because of his increasing limited minutes on the court.

Side bar for a split second: I think you Spurs need to speed up your game. Just a bunch of old and slow basketball All-Stars waiting for their Centrum Complete to kick in, or that Aleeve they took before the game. This coming from a guy who still says the Spurs will be holding that trophy at the end of May, but you leave yourselves open for a loss to Denver like this now, and it's gonna be a uphill battle when you meet them in the second or third round of the playoffs, I'm just sayin'. Although, the way OKC is playing like a separated Siamese-twin of the Celtics with newly acclimated center Perkins, and Westbrook taking time in the off-season to enter boot camp with the same trainer MVP candidate, and let's face it, winner Derrick Rose has, shaping Russell into a more consistent, dominating player. Look out for that fuckin' Durantula to own your game -- I'm getting really excited for these playoffs, more so in the west than east, and that's saying something Lebron, Bosh, Wade, Howard, K.G., Allen, Carmelo, Billups, Rose. But hey, perhaps they're resting up.

Frustration

2011-01-06T14:15:00.005-06:00

I just got off the phone with a woman asking about computer classes for the month of January that my place of business offers to the public. Here's, word-for-word, the banter between myself and the caller:

Me: "Computer lab, how may I help you?"
Caller: "Are you offering any 'Basics' classes this month?"
Me: "No we are not. We usually have two sessions every month, the beginning of every month, but this month the instructor focused on classes relating to specific operating systems, and must have decided not to include a basics session or sessions for this month."
Caller: *pause* -- which, by the way, should have just been a long, drawn out sigh. Frustration should be the topic of this post, I'll add.
Caller: "Why aren't you doing the Basics class this month?"
Me: "The instructor must not have wanted to, I don't know. I don't make up what classes are offered, I only sign the people up for them. Plus, I've heard she (the instructor, for you readers) just had surgery, so that might have something to do with it."
Caller: "Oh." *another pause*
"Will you be offering a Basics class for February?"
Me: "I am not sure, but the Basics class is a staple of our workshops, whereas, we tend to hold it every month, usually around the beginning of each month."
Caller: "Can you tell me when those are?"
Me: "New schedules come out every third Wednesday. We won't know until then."
Caller: *longer pause then previous* "You don't know the days for those Basics classes?"
Me: "Nope. I won't see that schedule until you see that schedule when it is ran in the newspaper the third Wednesday in this month."
Caller: *pause* "I'll have to call back then I suppose?"
Me: "Yes, and in fact, let me tell you the exact date in which you can call back."
At this point I checked on a calender of when that schedule would be out.
"It'll be the 19th. On January 19th we will have the February schedule out."
Caller: *pause* "And I can't sign up for a Basics class for next month?"
Me: "I don't know when or if we will be holding a Basics class for next month, nor do I know the times for each session. That schedule hasn't even been made-up or printed. I would advise calling back on the 19th, when we can register you."
Caller: *pause* "O^-kay..."
Me: "You seem confused on the information I've just given you."
Caller: "I am confused. You're saying I 'can't' put my name down for a spot in next month's class?"
Me: "That class hasn't been created..."
Caller: "But you could take my name down and number, and once it's 'created' move me into the class."
Me: "So how are you supposed to know when to come in?"
Caller: *pause* "I give you my number..."
Me: "Fair enough, but that's not our policy. The sign-up policy for our classes states that you, the patron, must call us when the schedules are released to the public. Every third Wednesday of every month, a new schedule comes out. That is when you can call and schedule an appointment."
Caller: *pause* "I'll call back on the 19th. Thank you..."

What did she want me to say!? Christ, I fucking told you, Jan-UARY nine-teenth, the February classes are released to the public. I don't have that schedule in front of me, and I'm not aware of what is being offered February or the coming months in the future. If I could predict the future, I'd probably join President Obama and his strong-breath abilities, and we would go fight crime together. Call back January 19th, or after that date for the February classes. A lot like next month, if you were to show further interest in what we offer to the public, you'd call in around the middle of the month of February (just my assumption) j.m.a.
People like to hear yes, get their way, or walk all over whoever they are dealing with, most often because the chaos they create in their own lives embitters them or has pushed them over that brink between a sane person and a bat-shit crazy person.

Another load of crap! Are you the type of person who prints out an important document which lists your bank account number and social security number, along with other extremely viable personal information, then you wait to pick it up at the printer at a public place where anyone can print their documents retaining to some importance? Well, you're a moron.

Patron: "I just printed some statements from my bank, and it said it would be three pages, but looking at what's left at the printer, I only got two sheets, and I'm missing the first sheet...which has my social security number and bank account number on it."

Previous to her coming up to my desk, I watched her click her mouse on the print screen, and the printer ran off her copies, as it did copies for other patrons printing the same time as she did. Two patrons came up to the printer to retrieve their shit; I was answering a patron's question while also taking money for other people's prints. There was a fifteen minute delay wherein she could have picked up her papers. COULD + HAVE. I would have printed off such an important thing as a bank statement at home, but in a public place, let's say I didn't have a printer at home, I would have timed it where, once I hit print on the print screen at the public place, I'd get my ass out of my chair and over to the printer to avoid the dilemma she just put herself in.

Me: "Scheisse...is there any way you could print off the first page again?"
Remember, I was in the middle of doing shit, busy work, and her complaining was falling on deaf ears -- ears that were dead to the world around them on a head with a brain in it that was fed up at this point by other people's chaos.

Patron: "It has my personal information on it...and I don't know where that sheet went..."
Me: "I see your point...check the recycle just in case it was stuffed in there by someone else; matter of fact, check the trash cans as well. If whoever picked it up on accident realizes that wasn't one of their prints, they could have trashed it."
She checks. It doesn't seem to be in those two locations.

Patron: "You know, the guy on computer N picked up the sheets at the printer right before I went up there to get mine. I'll check with him."
Me: "Good idea. I was in the middle of something and couldn't tell who picked up what."
She checks with him, and he's oblivious to her request. She bugs me a third time.

Patron: "He says he doesn't have it, but I know he has to have it, he picked up the sheets that wore up at the printer."
Me: "Well, you did exactly what I would have done, which was ask him if he may have taken the page. I can't really do anything else. I can't search him -- that's not appropriate."
Oh course, by now she's pissed at me because I wouldn't do anything. I couldn't. I can't lay a finger on these people, or reach in their pockets, and really, what's the point of asking him to empty his pockets. It's a privacy issue nonetheless, he doesn't have to cooperate.

Again, to reiterate, what should she have done? After pressing print, and hearing the printer warm up and gather the essential materials, ink, strength to poop out said ink on the page, whip the gremlins to stir them around to work the moving parts, to feed the paper through the machine and get you your print, this brod should've gotten off her ass, and strolled on over to the printer. I mean, a bank statement -- important fucking shit!

What adds to my definition of frustration is that this person was not the only person who had a problem with retrieving their printouts after printing them. It's not my job to sit at my desk and monitor whether the correct person picks up their printouts, or simply walks out of here with someone else's. Be fucking responsible for your own things. Didn't Sesame Street do a segment on that vary topic? Not frustration because I'd bet Oscar the Grouch would have a thing or two to do with that, considering he lives in a dumpster, but responsibility for your property. Be responsible. Act like you have a brain. Use common sense...wait, THAT is what's missing, huh?

Insertion Points

2010-12-13T13:36:00.004-06:00

"Monetary stimulus doesn't create jobs or economic growth, but does increase government power and reduce individual freedom." -- James A. Dorn, Cato Vice President for Academic Affairs.

Just a little something I wanted to share, considering the passage of the Bush tax cut extension, and another year of the bullshit stimulus packages (fuckin' hand outs!) I'll be letting the business manager where I work know that I want to take that much more out for federal during this next year. You know, see how much we're supposed to "get" and marginalize how much a month should be deducted or sent back because I don't want anything to do with stimulus.

How does that even help anyway? Sure, you meet the 2% federal target for inflation, or I suppose you do, how are we informed about what happens in the High Castle without alternative media and anti-government conceal-and-carry card holder bloggers (insert chuckles from like-minded Americans) That was a joke, btw. And that inflation-thing, not always correct to what I've just illiterate, but a hell of a lot better than the 5.6% we saw in July 2008 or the 10% average in the year 1974. But enough of that soap-box rant, I want to talk about absurd abbreviations.

Ftw, rtfo; I bring this to light, as I have in a past blog because for the better part of this year, when these two phrases were synonymous to I'm so cool I keep up with Twitter lingo, I seriously thought these two expressions were some arbitrary purposeful misconfiguration of what the fuck (wtf) and rolling on the floor laughing (rotfl, or once more shortened to rotf) Ftw is short for For The Win.

It didn't make sense to me why someone would say fuck the what, and I'm guessing ? after that phrase, as if to say, "I'm going to fuck the what?" Maybe it's appropriate to sport one of these !? to emphasize shock-value. Rolling the floor on -- maybe cute if you were Superman's mirrored evil-doer Bizarro and you flew backwards and said hello when you left a room. I don't mind this expression considering it actually stands for Rocking the fuck out, which I do...rock the fuck out...I'm a rockin' stud...like a rock...with my cock out.. ... .... (laughing) somebody change the subject now, please, so I don't lose face.

Humility, lady and gentleman, my one reader or perhaps he's brought a girl to join us, not so much because we're gonna tag-team fuck her; I like to think I'm entertaining, I like to think he thinks I'm entertaining, maybe I'm so thought of as entertaining he's brought a friend to view my blog, maybe they're both chicks, dammit, I really need to end this sentence.

Does this sound familiar? I hope so. It's an almost complete word-for-word of my other abbreviation post. How do I know this? Patience, quality, humility, and calculation, with hope as the whip-topping, even though pie is better as pie, fuck that a la mode, x-times dessert preference, you've got pie, there's your dessert. Four pieces of a pie that I formulate makes us some cool-ass civil people. Patience, a huge word with many meanings, many things come into account when being patient. Quality, or care, forethought, stringing together with appreciation, and gratitude. That's correct, this shit's string-theory! It truly spreads out to more great and greater things. Humility because we have to accept short-comings (I have a dirty mind when it comes to short-comings) Sometimes, our flaws are pointed out to us, and we begin calculation, or review/inner-reflection (breaking ourselves down)

I say that last thing like everyone is so lethargic these days that that's what we do anymore instead of analysis; our mind's just tear ourselves down. It can't be that bad, right? I mean, it's not like we're losing interpersonal communication between one another due to popular social networks, that now when you want to mingle, it's a few clicks and you're on the internet with your buddies. Wanna socialize and interact with your buddies? Go to the newest installments of the Xbox or Playstation. Depending on who the person is to you, we don't actually care what happens to them. A friend you met while playing Call of Duty isn't going to be missed if they get killed in a car accident, just another person you use in order to play a certain map (get something you want) that again, because that person isn't there with you, personally, it's cool to go out driving and purposefully annoy the other people around you; cut them off in traffic because they got in your way, and there's no way they might try to retaliate, like that news story of the teenager who got shot in the head at a red light for looking at the driver beside him, supposedly the wrong way at looking toward that other individual. Unintentional wrong looks in traffic get you killed. Do we really care about one another anymore, most of us?

Listening to people. I might nod, perhaps look unenthusiastic, I might rub my eye, look off in another direction; I'm still listening. In fact, question me if you must -- what was I just fucking telling you? That velociraptor's make the best talk-show hosts. Why was that? Because unlike all the other theropod dinosaurs, the velociraptor looks the most like Johnny Carson without a sport coat, unless, of course, you dress the dinosaur up and give him a wig...

The Trickledown Effect

2010-11-22T14:23:00.003-06:00

I suppose that title is appropriate. I will be talking about urine again, as well as airport security.

I've been to a few airports myself. It has never been a big deal when approaching a security terminal for a "pat-down" -- isn't it a great day for a frisking, it's always a great day for a full-body scan! Some people invoke the awkward stares or the much dreaded temporary set back, such as being detained for wearing baggy black jean shorts that ride down to your ankles, with chains embedded in the fabric; also adding to the goth-trend, metal rings which line the hemmed lining of the pants. Dress down for the airport. Skin tight is preferred (I'm not serious)
Obviously don't wear something that's going to standout. Only a moron would be that absentminded to dress with metal sewn in to their clothes before undertaking a metal-detector walk-through.

These people at the terminals are trained members of a disorganized hierarchy. Why you were patted down? Something set them off. Get your fucking basket, start loading it with the required items that need scanning -- electronic devices, carry-ons, your shoes -- there's three right there. Do not loiter. Standing around like a baffoon, unless you're on the other side of that security station, stand around, walking around; you've been scanned, you are now labeled safe. Just keep moving down the line until you are finished. Ask questions if you must, but don't go in telling every official you see working in the airport that you:

a.) have a request
b.) have a problem with the rules provided
c.) complain that if you are touched in a certain spot on your body a bag of urine will burst (or that the seal on your urostomy bag can be dislodged easily while you endure a pat-down in progress)

Go in with everything you will need to present to the airport officials. Let's say my name is Tom Sawyer of Romulus, Michigan. I've got a urostomy bag strapped to the side of my hip that I know is going to be a problem. I mean let's narrow it down to it's general form, but not it's most general form, a plastic bag of waste, more so a bag of liquid. It's my understanding liquids and powders are prohibited. Best case scenario, I should have a medicinal postulation from my physician, proof that my word that I've had bladder cancer is not false, that I should further bring this to light of airport security before entering the terminal. I can remember my grandma being worried that she wouldn't be able to walk from her plane at one end of the airport, to her boarding terminal clear across the way, so what does she do, she asks for assistance. Liaisons amongst the sea of passengers are there to be guidance to the many novice travelers milling about the airport. Let them approach security officials to take the proper action.

Now to bring you all up to speed on what this post is about. A man from Michigan who had undergone radiation and survived the bladder cancer that afflicted him happened to be traveling this past weekend. His bladder, depleted by the deadly cancer and more than likely a surgery or two he had undergone, if that was his path in fighting his cancer, that route or radiation, and so nowadays he's got a bag he carries on his belt that holds his urine, acting as a replacement bladder. Now that the TSA standards in airport security have been heightened due to the terrorism scare with those transported packages let's say two months ago on the east coast, it's a bitch, sort of speak, to fly these days. Tom Sawyer, if I didn't already state his name above, I did, I remember using it in my little scenario...entered the security lanes in order to gain clearance to board his airplane. He walked up, stated he had a urostomy bag on his belt that the official should watch for, as they began patting him down for weapons, contraband, bags of urine...When the patting became rougher due to the airline official probably feeling as well as now fully aware something was bulging from the side of this individual's pants, Mr. Sawyer made it aware that if they continued knocking the bag on his hip around, the seal would break and he'd be covered in urine. He was whisked away to a detachment room, now soaked in his own urine because they did in fact break the seal.

I want it to be clear that the reason security officials at the airport come off as pricks is because they are a minority. They are trained by someone higher up than them on the regulations, they in turn enforce the regulations, it's really just a matter of better training protocols for such an event as another Mr. Sawyer coming in with another similar medical disability. The sooner these reporters at these media conglomerates realize that the better. Although, is that really the best solution?

Here's a thought: instead of tacking on more clauses and paragraphs to already confusing, shitty regulations, let's be practical. The safety of the passengers, the comfort felt by our passengers and air travelers alike should be the concern, not whether we are ignoring or allowing the next would-be terrorist to act on his or her motives. Do you have any medical conditions we should know about before you proceed to security? There's a starter question because we already have in-place signs that point out what you'll need ready while waiting. We're not fucking cattle! Treat us with respect and stop assuming. The only exercise some people get is jumping to conclusions, running down their friends, side-stepping responsibility, and pushing their luck! On the side of the officials, people need to exert common sense. As far as the side saying the TSA is at fault, take into consideration that these are people with jobs. The paranoia and anxiety of past events are going to take precedence in matters of security and what to look for. Body language says a lot. Get informed, ask for assistance, get on the side of those officials. It's a smoother transaction that way...

The Hundred Post

2010-11-09T13:19:00.004-06:00

I didn't want to make my 100th post anything, but a message I received loud and clear. That message was:

Manu: Hey, how would you fancy some new Gmail themes?Jake: Sure, I would love that! How usable are they?Manu: ...

Gibberish to you, perhaps dialogue in a teleplay or script if it at all resembles anything in your mind. I'm feeling inclined to explain why this sentence has touched me, while its beginnings aren't as important.

I was going to first check an online comic, but then I jumped to Gmail instead. Before signing in I happened to glance down on the page and noticed that sentence. Why it struck me the way it does to relate it to you in a blog -- to even bring the topic up at all.

Now I'm just going to jump into it. Let me first explain the origins of that sentence further. Manu Cornet is a software engineer for Google. They in turn just released new themes for Google blog, and the engineering team behind it created tutorials demonstrating how the themes could be used. He must have a friend named Jake.

I have a friend named Jake. I wrote a screenplay about his persona, mirroring him, but not necessarily his lifestyle, same first name, different and perhaps better last name (Lipshits) all set in the late 50's-early 60's, and on top of that, outrageously zany!

Now I'm completing a book, mirroring only slightly towards a parallel universe of my old newspaper comic Cecil and Jake, with two living humans Cecil and Wade, who live with a refugee robot named Showalter. Cecil Mamou and Wade (Jake) Ilgauskas. Again, mirroring a cartoon character nobody has ever heard of based on a friend of mine, but only merely his overall look and a tad of the demeanor -- they're major characters on a minor scale. That's beyond coincidental to have Jake and Manu close to Mamou in the same sentence, conversational as it is.

This has me remarkably absorbed in my work on that book and I'm hoping the next few weeks will yield some rewarding pages, out of such peculiar circumstances. Hell, might as well take advantage of fate ; ) yeah yeah, I'm not that impressionable.
I feel that if you can change the mood of a tale within a page, it keeps you on the edge as a reader. Page 147 and on!

Realism

2010-11-08T14:23:00.003-06:00

Have people turned against Barack Obama because he doesn't have super powers!? What if he had strong-breath -- not too warm of breath...on the back of your neck; not too cold of breath, for whatever reason, maybe he's an ice cream fanatic...again, on the back of your neck from out of the shadows of your darkened apartment whilst you fumble around for a light switch -- but strong-breath, that could push away and change the direction of the colliding winds of a hurricane (perhaps the next Katrina) or enough of a violently strong breath that could blow clear a rock slide that a commuter train is barreling at max speed towards. Barack Obama sails through the clouds on his breath-boost, his regular means of travel.

Maybe the American voters were assured he was a superhero, and when disaster struck as it did in the form of an oil-line blow out and leak that happened in those Haliburton-owned oil drills in the gulf, they figured, "Fuckin' piece of cake! We'll just get Obama to travel down to the gulf and blow that oil out of the water, hell, maybe his powers work in the reverse way, he'll suck all that oil up and spit it into the last of the H2 hummers to blast and burn it out in a competitive hummer drag-racing spectacle held in Alabamie!" "Fuckin' I'll get tanked on wood finish and a 24 cube a-DA-DE-DANGA-DUH-D-D-DY-ANG'L Bama gonna blow dar oyle out d'gulf, I'll tell you what!" Instead of being the savior we all thought he'd be, he did what any person in his power will do, and tried reassuring people and hugging and making the nice with the fishermen and women of the gulf by touring the coast and delivering solace speeches. The man had nothing for you. He wasn't a driller, or the head of BP who you placed in front of the firing squad. Nobody seemed to fathom the severity of it all.

So the Democrats rammed Health reform down our throats; we had expert Medicare defrauder assholes making a business off the cracks and seepage already rampant and exploited within the system; that's where I stop on the whole health care reform because it wasn't necessary and that's about all I care to know that was wrong there, and people thought the economy should have been first to bat. Think of that reform as your house after a party that got way out of hand, with hundreds of people in your house and outside your house, and you're finding red cups of God knows what in the tank of the toilet or smashed under a mattress or amongst your mother's fine china. There's more of a mess, and you've decided to draw all your house cleaning skills and attention towards finding all the weird hiding places with evidence of what happened that weekend stuffed in those benign locations like someone's car keys at the bottom of the fish tank lying next to a half-eaten Baby Ruth, and just you fucking wait until you find where someone puked. Then you realize the party extended way into the back yard and wooded area behind your house, oh fuck me more trash and cups and loads of vomit and which one of my dickhead friends started a fire! God damn! That's our economy compared to passing a health care reform bill.

That's it, two years in order to correct the catastrophe that was the Bush Administration, really? I saw a junk email that had been passed around more times then 4 bowls passed around a full room of stoners in a party-house's attic, depicting Obama standing in the forefront of mass destruction as if the end of the world just occurred, he had caused it, lived through it, and relished it, with a speech bubble stating, "Well, my job is done." I would have interpreted it a different way. One man standing, responsible for cleaning up a mess left for him. "This is fuckin' bullshit, for ALL THIS! This back here, this rubble, New York, Washington left to waste...this is New York, D.C., not Detroit or Los Angeles, my lord (not Allah) I get a broom and a bucket, while you all in the bicameral house and senate sit around thumbing each other off, name-calling, spit wads, blowing vuvuzelas whenever a rival party affiliate takes the podium."

My next post is the big 100. And I was amazed I reached 50.

Receipts; then "Projects" revisited

2010-11-03T12:35:00.004-05:00

Tell me what the significance is of receiving a receipt for print-offs you've made that convey garbage, essentially garbage -- nothing at all important on the pages. Important in your opinion; evidence of one of the many "projects" you start, to have meaning, I can't really speak on their behalf. How I'm starting this topic today is me trying to convey how people, for whatever worthy value it has to them, will begin these cretinous projects as busy-work so the dullness of their lives doesn't drive them insane, although usually they're beyond that point.

Projects include recipe boxes. I'll stop there. You have no idea how many times I've been to foodnetwork.com to collect recipes for my new recipe box! Or, how I want them to print like ordinary note cards without me having to cut each one to note card size with scissors, only my knowledge of a computer is very limited because I'm a moron that perhaps Microsoft Word and cut and paste aren't enough of a computer degree to get my sheets to print in the dimensions of a note card. Computer degree? I don't HAVE a computer degree, this is basic computer know-how. Yet showing and instructing a person on the simple commands needed to input on the computer what it is you want it to do (all mistakes are human-error in computers. The computers aren't stupid the operators are) you still end up doing it for them. It's like people aren't willing to learn, but they're still drawn to the computer. They still need it, be it social hour, to read, to research, to fuck around for them.

Projects include contacting manufacturers of a certain product through a hypertext link-to-Microsoft Outlook, yet you're on a public access computer which would not include your personal information on it or in it, but no body's because who sets up Microsoft Outlook in advanced for you, when we were programming these computer terminals. Given your limited knowledge I'm sure you're as useless with Outlook as you are the simplest of Office's software, Microsoft Word.

This isn't me reaming someone for their absurd behavior, the behavior is unnecessary. Before you can use a computer you should probably know how to use a computer. Why wouldn't that be the first steps in becoming familiar with a new computer system? I have Rosetta Stone installed on my computer at home so I can learn Spanish or Japanese. A learning-a-new-language based software suite already installed on my computer before I even began speaking these other languages. Preemptive, right? The intelligent way of doing things, what a concept!

Why is it so difficult for some people? Does it have something to do with how much harder they make things on themselves? I admit it, I'm scatterbrained. I'll stop typing to collect my thoughts and organize my ideas in my head while completing one of these blog posts, especially these long ones; you probably know what I'm talking about. When these sorts of people who start "projects" or demand a receipt for any printing they happen to do even if it's color-sheets for pre-schoolers begin to think up what it is they will do for the day instead of finding themselves a job, their decisions and actions following are as spontaneous as the ideas in their heads. It's no wonder I find these individuals grotesque, just bat-shit crazy instigators and troublemakers.

I would like a receipt for these. For what? A five page printout totaling fifty cents, uh, black and white prints at ten cents per page, you had five, here's your verbal receipt, what the fuck are you talking about a receipt print out, for what? I'm sorry we don't print receipts. So sad, it's something we won't be doing for you. Is that it, does that aggravate people now. That you aren't bending to their whim. Could it be they are so accustomed to being handed a receipt. Minute request or not, just accept a no for an answer.

Deciphering Harmful Discipline

2010-10-15T15:28:00.003-05:00

I was at a Wendy's recently, and in some instances, if I'm eating or listening to someone try and talk or tell me something important, which I was listening to a family member of mine while eating, my mind drifts off, and I start paying more attention to the things around me. I think they have a term for such people. They are usually diagnosed as having A.D.H.D. As my mind drifted off, I happened to be within earshot of the couple sitting a few feet from us, and their kids, two little, wee girls, I mean this to convey their ages, and a boy, around 5 or 6. The father, or, how I saw it, the kid-parent, was trying to make the boy mind. I noticed he had chili to eat and a few fries, and his teenaged father was pleading with him, "Eat your chili." And of course when he wasn't eating, he was playing with his younger, but not the youngest of the sisters. He chased her around and what not; what little kids are best known for, playing and running a muck. While this went on, the father continued to have to sit his son down and give him the spoon in order to finish his meal. "Eat your chili! C'mon, do you want it to get cold!?"

Juggling these events and what my mom was talking about, I couldn't help, but smile, and before I knew it, it was with this that I just burst out in laughter. The son publicly defying the young father and his inattentive mother who I believe was more interested in her cell phone. That's usually how it is with this young parents these days. Whatever's on that cell phone is vastly more important then keeping your kids at the table, and from trying to climb all over the place. Grabbing the receipt, and mind you, the son was 5 or 6, in that kindergarten age, but unaware of addition and subtraction, or for that matter, what money amounts to and what's the worth of certain items, the kid grabs the check, looks at the total probably being the biggest highlighted numbers on the slip of paper and read off the price. Then he says, and was what kept me in stitches, "You paid 25.46 for all this?!" as if that was a rip-off for a family of five, as though he were having to split the bill, as if he even knew what that meant.

It was the way he said it. Disappointed. Enraged that his father made so much to keep them fed, and this was what he spent his money on. Burgers and fries, and 25 dollars and 46 cents worth of Wendys. This is what you got for this!? I would've knocked him out, any parent who disliked sass and a little being like this telling them what's what would've bludgeoned that boy if someone would not have stepped forward and turned them in. What's with that? I'll turn you in. To whom? Do you really have social services on speed dial like that? What is this shit, more of that oversensitive cock mockery because someone took a Lifetime Television movie too seriously on child abuse that a little swat on the behind means call social services? Those same cowards who would rather text or tweet about unimportant shit on the Internet then actually observe the interaction between father and son. There's the dead giveaway. How was the swat, spanking intended? For one to mind, or to intentionally hurt? A bad, steer clear of the waters-type judgment call. And as far as most people tend to observe things, they're better to keep their mouths shut on how someone raises their kids. Let's say this, if that belt snakes its way out of its loop-restraints around that father's waist, there's your motion to call. A defenseless kid is getting slammed against the counter and slapped repeatedly, there's another call. A father flicks his kid in the back of the ear, the kid recoils, "owww" kicks him in the shin, the father mock-boxes with his little shit kicker kid, restraining his arms back in a wrestling lock that's just playing around and not rough at all. Probably not the best scenario to intervene. Let's face it, probably wasn't the best scenario to go with in trying to prove a point.

Austin Smith in: "S.H.E. kinda sucked"

2010-09-09T15:37:00.011-05:00

When I was in the first grade I was a huge fan of the movie Aladdin. That Disney film was the shit, and there was literally nothing cooler than having a genie at your disposal. They made a sequel to it the summer before, and I remember the second nine-weeks of that first grade year for me, both first grade classes got together to have a movie pizza party thing, which I was looking forward to because shit, it's a sequel to my favorite movie of all time in that point of my life. I just knew it was a new movie with Aladdin in it and I wanted so badly to see it and I was going to, pizza/movie party that Friday, whenever the hell it was we did that, second nine weeks whatever. It must have been later in the school year because before that we had an indoor recess because of rain, or maybe we were so far ahead with our learning that the teachers decided to have a fun day along with the movie/pizza thing, I've drank that memory away.

Here we were first grade, Mrs. Stoss' classroom, me, Brittany Caswell, Devin Maxwell, Cameron (don't remember his last name, maybe Green, or was it Devin) had just finished playing Sorry, and were about to start The Addams Family Reunion board game, which at the time was the sought after board game if you weren't playing Twister. We had to choose characters to be. I was a pudgy kid back then and Devin made a crack about my weight by suggesting I be Pugsley and I really should have like burst into tears or told the teacher that he was picking on my weight, but I wasn't one of those over-sensitive kids, I let him know that I didn't want to play as the fat kid from the movie, I wanted to be the "butler." And I said that. "I want to be the butler." Back in this time of my life and most of grade school I had what was commonly referred to as a speech impediment. I had trouble with L's and R's. I remember saying as clearly as I could with said speech impediment, "I want to be the butler." And everyone at the table gave me a blank stare. "Lurch the butler." Nobody handed me the player game piece for Lurch, Devin got up instead, and went over to the teacher, said something, and she came over to me. I was asked to stepped out into the hall, which I did, and she informed me that that kind of language was inappropriate and I was given in-school suspension.

I remember pleading my case. "But I didn't cuss."
"Devin told me you called him a butthole."
"What!? No. I said butler. Like Lurch the butler from The Addams Family."
"Austin, three other people heard you call him a...that word."
"I didn't. I swear. I said Lurch the butler."
"What are you even talking about? Forget it. I'm assigning you extra workbook work to do out in the hall for the remainder of the class period. That kind of language won't be tolerated around here."

Out in the hall I went with my workbook and of course I cried - I had no idea what was going on. A friend of mine had told on me for something I didn't do, the teacher was mad at me, and further more, I had to finish this workbook and I didn't get to have any fun like everyone else. People passed me in the hall and wouldn't look at me because I had obviously done something wrong in order to be sent out in to the hall.

Skip forward a week. The big movie/pizza party with Aladdin II on the big screen. Why did I say it that way? It wasn't even a big screen! It was a Sylvania television, probably a 30 incher wheeled in on a dolly. I couldn't wait until the movie started and OH MY GOD pepperoni pizza from Godfathers, fuckin A! I had been thinking about this and looking forward to it like it was a birthday. Godfathers pizza - you can see now how I got pudgy.

There was a kid in my first grade class that I didn't fuckin' like. He never socialized and when he did, it was a bullshit social convention, the other person would end up talking more, and I didn't like his name; I don't know if it was Jeff or Jiff, I fucking hated him and I always called him peanut butter or peanut-butt in order to haze him. To him I was a meany and yes I cursed at him, and not my friend Devin a week before. Out on the playground me and Brandon Royer and that Cameron-kid were thinking up ways to be mean to Jiff who had taken over the boy's club and that was our regular haunt and we wanted it back. I double-dared Brandon to punch him in the back, and Cameron double-dared me to, so I triple-doggy dared Cameron to, and then somehow somebody suggested I pee on him, so again, not wanting to do it, I double-dared Brandon to and they both triple-doggy dared me to. Drats! No more dares, I had to do it. Not wanting to, I stood behind Jiff who at this point had not turned around from his sitting position in the sand doing God knows what, he hadn't noticed us at all. So I act like I zipped down my pants, and I'm sheepishly grinning back at the two devils a few yards behind me and they're laughing, and that's when I realized, what the heck am I doing this for, I wouldn't want to get peed on. So I zipped up and mozied on back to Cameron and Brandon. They were on to me; I hadn't done anything.

"Bull you did it!"
"I couldn't do it!"
"Wuss!"
"I don't care. I'm a wuss."
"We're still gonna tell!"

I remember actually feeling taken aback - it's been so long since that happened, but I seriously was like TWIST! That's fuckin' treasonous. And they did. They ran back to the recess aide, and me not knowing what to do, I hid under the wooden draw bridge trying desperately to be out of sight. They didn't lie and say I did something else, I was accused of peeing on this kid.

This was always my favored line in the questioning I had with Mrs. Soldner(sp) the student councilor and the Principal at that time. When you're being accused of something that almost happened, but in fact didn't, you'll try to swing that pendulum in your direction, right. I tried reasoning, "But if I peed on that kid, why didn't he notice me, why hadn't he gotten up or simply spotted me coming up behind him?" And that was truth. He never got up. In fact it took the recess aide and those two little bastards who ratted on me getting his attention and marching him inside. Could it be that I hadn't peed on that kid's back?

In their defense, that kid's neck was wet...with perspiration. It was sweat. I hadn't peed on him. For one, supposedly acting out a near week ago with the whole "butler" "butthole" thing, and now this, two other kids testifying that I peed on the kid's back. It didn't look good.

Now the shit kicker. The sister of the kid I supposedly peed on started treating me bad. One of my "punishments" - surreal punishment at that; on our playground when they needed to pour new sand, they boarded along the grass, and well, as sprinting, unbridled and wild kids, we might trip and break something; there was a certainty we could do that, might hurt ourselves, yeah, but as punishment, walking along atop the wooden long-ass fucking girder, boundary what-have-you like we were in a Vietnamese POW camp standing on bottles barefoot, this was nothing. Out the window go your rights to a break. How many others have slipped through the cracks like this?

Five days of walking atop those girders, plus immediate in-school suspension possible out of school suspension if I did something again. Herein lies the shit kicker, consistently making fun of me because again, I was a pudgy kid, she hit me with weight insults. I told her she had a big nose and her and her friends were stupid girls. I was an innocent little kid, I didn't insult well. Things weren't as graphically verbal and nasty as the things that would have been said now on the playgrounds. Truly nasty and vulgar shit!

After awhile, it started to wear me down. Always, whenever I went by that certain grouping of trees there were the girls and their insults. How could I get them back? And it came to me after the fifth day. I acted as though I had to walk those wood blanks again. I came upon the tree and there they were as always. Right away they began with those hurting words. No matter what code there might be in place warning against striking girls, and going in to second grade the boys knew better to not hit girls. Other guys, it was okay. Never ladies.

I walked over there in a huff, and they started yelling, "Ummm, we're telling." And I replied, "Go ahead. I don't have to walk the track today." She just stood there unaware that I had the intent to knock her out and before I knew it my fist had made contact with the bridge of her nose, and I had her face-blood on my knuckles. Again, through the cafeteria entrance I was thrust by my held hand by some teacher, don't remember who. I faintly recall seeing the girl after I was permitted to use the restroom, and it must have hurt like hell to get your nose broken...stepping over that line. I didn't show her sympathy at the time. You run your mouth you deserve what you get. Sooner or later I probably would have learned that myself from Jiff or Geoff once he was fed up and slugged me back.
You don't pee on another person. I've read Shogun -- in feudal Japan that was the ultimate fuck you. At the time of the incident it struck me more as comical. Pee, piss, all funny words. I knew right from wrong, and knew it wasn't a normal thing to pee on someone or deface another person with piss.

When they informed my parents, both of them disbelieved what I was accused of, particularly noting that Jiff or Geoff knew nothing of me standing behind him, nor would they believe the absurdity of the whole situation. It was unlike me. Hitting a girl was a different story, and I told my side, and they agreed she should not have been picking on me. Over the years self defense has taken a different meaning with my parents, me realizing this later in high school. My dad has always been a pacifist when it comes to fights, but if you're threatened and need to defend yourself then do it. The girl was asking for it. In a way I was too picking on Jiff or Geoff. That's all retaliation on his sister's part and false accusation on mine when considering the did he pee, not pee. I would have admitted to it by now if it were true.

Just like it wasn't true I damaged a wood block in band practice. Similar situation, big, school-wide assembly with two movie showings, Jack Frost and Miracle on 34th Street for Christmas, I didn't get to sit on my shitty ass flat carpet square on a basketball gymnasium, poking fun at the movie, nope, I spent my time in the Principal's office quarantine, being nudged to confess I did something I didn't. A wood block for band practice is not much of an instrument. I had banged on it during the practice because it was one of those late in the year practices where ensembles were the ones practicing and I just sat in the back with the drum section members, dicking around. That wood block took constant abuse. It was stomped on, it was beaten in beyond acceptable strikes on the wood, it was misused. I noticed the ends of it were cracking, so I stripped those off. They were more or less wooden shavings from the amount of abuse it endured, now, as an excuse to replace the wood block by which to threaten legal action if I didn't sign off on replacing it, the wood block being property of the school, them in turn wanting a fiberglass one instead of wood, which the fiberglass cost almost twice as would replacing the wood block with another wooden one that I supposedly damaged to the point where it did not sound right. Yeah, I stripped off the edges. Did I bang on that son of a bitch to make it have damages wood edges? No. Was I exacerbating the damage of the wood block by picking at the wood? When you banged on it it made a noise the wood block would normally make. It was a bunch more shit, like the time in football practice I got accused along with two other friends and a person who wasn't even on the football player roster nor was he in the locker room that time after school I supposedly instigated a fist fight between Trent Brawner and Matt Collier, resulting in broken eyeglasses for Trent. I was staying out of all that male testosterone shit, let em fight it out if they must. Besides, just getting out of the shower relieved I didn't smell anymore after practice were my only concerns. I needed to dry off and get dressed. I didn't have time for a fight. Yet I spent one whole day in ISS.

It's that failure rate in the system and me not wanting to die from a few bullet wounds that keeps me from pursuing a life-long dream of being on the police force. That, and I'm fat, I wouldn't last the academy. It does make a guy wonder. How many others went through school like I did where you were based on association, whomever you were supposedly associated with, which led to the type of treatment you received. I was constantly questioned if something fowl came afoot; if property was stolen, me and a group of my friends were always top of the list. That's how felons are created is it not? Weeding them out, right. How many kids aren't given the breaks like normal kids are? Sociologically, how many grew up to be criminals because they weren't brought up right?

Grogginess and Abrasiveness

2010-08-19T18:03:00.007-05:00

HO-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HUM!

That's me yawning. I'm tired! I already wanna use a sick day, but I know that's not cool. To make another person work for me because I don't want to. Although you might not believe this, I've never taken a personal day. I have taken a lousy sick day, and by lousy sick day I mean that I either had a headache or body ache that limited me from wanting to do shit or I had eye pains or redness that limited my vision and it sucks cock to work at a computer when you're having trouble seeing shit. Then I'll call in. I'm not on my death bed, but I'm not singing, twirling around in a meadow in a dress, in the Alps either.

Which, doesn't it seem like those are the comparisons: you're either dying or 102% healthy, you can never be middle ground, and if you are, and enjoy your job, middle ground is still healthy, you pop a Benadryl and you make things so. When you're dying or wishing you were dead because you're unable to swallow and a mouth breather since your nostrils and head are stuffed and you're leaking snot and mucus all over yourself in a clinic waiting room and you've hoarded the tissue box, everyone considering it belonged to you, that you brought it in with you. No, it was once at the receptionist's desk. When it probably wasn't even safe for you to drive yourself to the clinic you're so miserable, leaving the pharmacy with like fifty little paper bags with instructions stapled to the outside of them, get yourself home and don't reconsider calling in, take some sick leave.

I, on the other hand, am alright. Never will I say I'm doing just fine it's always, oh, I could be better.

I think what's bothering me is how helpless everyone acts. If you aren't guiding them through everything by the hand, the most simple of tasks will always be so difficult for people. When Google couldn't list off any brain fart you had and was curious to search for on the Internet, you had to do a little research. What was at your disposal? An encyclopedia, journals, records, essentially books. You might even utilize a phone. Hohum, another yawn. I'm almost positive whatever quarry a person has about the computer is in regards to something irrelevant.

You want to know how you can get some revenue -- tax the Internet. You should also legalize marijuana around or near the time you decide to tax the Internet, you'll see an economic jump that's never been recorded before. Tax each person who uses the Internet, make it almost impossible to have free access anywhere. Hell, I can't get on open networks anymore because my neighbors have utilized placing a key phrase or password on their network. Remember when nobody did that and you could pick up a signal anywhere!? Then along the way someone mentioned most routers come with software to prohibit outsiders from stealing the net, and I think a movie or two was made, and someone became rich writing a book, no, an anthology on the practice, now everyone guards their backdoor. So tax 'em. There once was a shoe tax (repeat those words) there once was a shoe tax and a hat tax and a brick tax and a masturbation tax.

That's why there was not an economic crisis until our country was like a clown car and everybody was invited in. Or stole a seat. In a clown car? Okay okay. Everything had a tax. What freedoms we now have, huh! And we still can't get it to work. How spoiled we are, no one is holding anything over our heads. We don't have a king squeezing the inheritance out of us. We have a congress with the assistance of a stir crazy media using fear mongering against us.

And for crying out loud let the New Yorkers decide whether they want a mosque at ground zero. Obama opening his fucking mouth about it, Jesus, take a page from the Clinton book. You don't have to answer every question asked, you arrogant fuck! Cut his microphone! The federal government doesn't give a shit about ground zero. That's not hallowed ground to them. I'm still suspicious of the reasons why America was attacked. To stage a patriotic uprising in our own country; to boost the approval of nationalist power or to help fuel a holy war between Christians and Muslims? There's ulterior motives at hand. Communists used to stage events as propaganda to snag the opinion of their opponents, sort of like saying, tragedy was averted by the efforts of the Kremlin, this is what your country does for you, your country protects you, love your country. It's a thought. All I know is, what's the big deal whether you build in the location of an old Burlington Coat Factory where you can love the way you look, I guarantee it, two blocks down from supposed monument to the victims of 9/11, why the hell can't they have the mosque some place else. Are their other groups located around that neighborhood; a synagogue across the street, how about the nearest location of a Catholic church, where's that in vicinity of this Burlington Coat Factory? There's NOTHING! And it's to my knowledge that they can't even afford the renovations needed to turn the BCF, the KFC of clothes, into a mosque/community center, so where in the hell will they get their funding, overseas organizations or in-house? Shit like that makes my showers longer in the morning.

It's relaxing to stand under a sprayer hosing me down with warm water most of the time in the early morning right after I woke up. Being fully undressed helps. You don't want to be wearing a suit and taking a shower. Or maybe you do, I don't know your lifestyle. I have myself a plethora of shower-thoughts, most of them running down the drain with the soap and shampoo water because I'll be drying off trying to rethink what I was rambling about in my head in the shower and those thoughts are lost from grogginess.

Hunger. We just can't seem to live within our means. I get a new paycheck every month, the first thing I start doing towards the end of the month is figure up how much of that next check I can spend and how much needs to go away. They have a term for such practice - it's called budgeting. I need new headphones. I liked the cup-style of my old pair of headphones that snapped on me during my vacation in Wyoming and Montana. I've looked around and I don't think I like the way some of these manufactures are forming the earphone part of the speakers. Too much over the ear, I can guess I'll ear-sweat all over the inside of the cup. Not an important investment. Neither is a UK edition boxed set of the Harry Potter books or the HBO cowboy drama Deadwood for the first time on Blu ray. It worries me to think about how much money I've spent on useless shit; money that could have been building if I had only entrusted it to my bank account. I mean it's already paid for. I like cash, and if I make a card transaction, it's debit. I don't have to wait for a deduction at the end of the month or a bill for that matter. I've tried reasoning to myself, like Willie Nelson once said, what you earn you should spend. O nagging guilt.

HEAT AH HA!

2010-07-31T09:28:00.006-05:00

Summer weather is hot, naturally so because our hemisphere of the world is directed right at the Sun; our axis tilted toward the sun, staring it down, gettin the ol' interrogation...

Jesus, personally to Jesus, it's fuckin' hot out there! Hot like Vietnam. In points of the heat and humidity, there's no air. A dead zone of heat -- the sweat making your clothes cling soaked to your skin. That's uncomfortable. It makes you question when you are among friends, am I sweaty down there? Do I have a huge sweat stain on my lower back, when really it feels like my shirt's wet. Drenched in sweat. My ass crack has to be wet. I've felt the sweat travel. A stream to a swamp.

Pools are a splendid way to beat the heat. I always imagine an extra dressed in an awkwardly rotund and cartoonish Sun costume, getting punched in the head by Thor's fist, get it, beat the heat? I have never imagined that whenever I say beat the heat. I'm kidding. Yes, every day should start out with a joke, like that video of the college elitist screaming, "Hey, don't taze me, bro! Don't taze me bro!" He was asking for it. That always leaves me in stitches. Or a joke about religion that makes you audibly express a AH HA! before clamming up and going about your day, maybe you're in striped pajamas with your zoo animals printed sheets, a joke is told to you, and you wake up right at its closure and express an AH HA! It's immediately time to brush teeth and no more mention of the joke. That's why I'm glad I'm not Asian.

The Japanese are starting to Americanize even though it's still awkward to see police with batons who know karate and can wield their weapon surround you blowing whistles and pointing in your direction if you cause a disturbance, like out of nowhere firing a gun in public, and by firing I mean unloading the clip. Afterwards, you surrender your weapon lying it on the concrete pavement, showing you surrender it with your hands in the air, and then walk away, hands sliding to your pockets, whistles getting blown. Have you really done anything wrong? Nobody's dead it just stirred people up. Ah, but you shot in the air and what goes up comes down. Try it sometime. You have every right to. Awkward Asians are those worried about losing face, so they get strict instead of their intended stoic outward appearance. Never smiling or laughing, and say you did tell him an inappropriate joke. He'd break your arm and your back! Don't worry about the Japanese flipping out on you like that since Shintoism is quickly being replaced by Judaism. AH HA!

I'm an Angry Old Man

2010-05-21T10:02:00.008-05:00

I'm going to clarify something because in my last post I mentioned gardening, and how it's becoming a fad and not so much something you do as a hobby -- maybe your parents or somewhere down the line, a relative, convinced you to pursue gardening -- and it stuck. Whatever the reason, you like gardening because it's now a tradition and invokes lovely memories of your childhood with a favorite aunt or grandparent. That's sweet. Whatever it may be, you were raised on appreciating gardening.

Other things to consider before I move on. What is the difference between a fad and a hobby? A hobby is either an activity or an interest for the purpose of pleasure (HAPPINESS) or relaxation (TRANQUILITY) seemingly executed while a person wastes time. Truth be told, whenever you think, "I have nothing to do Saturday, I'll build a model ship," you are wasting time. Let me sneak in the definition of a fad, and then I'll come back to the topic of time. A fad is a practice or interest followed for a time with exaggerated zeal. Why gardening is not a trend? A trend is a movement. When there's a trend, there's a tendency to want to do it. A fad is an interest. You are interested in gardening, interested in learning to garden. Know the difference.

Wasting time is not a negative thing. I go to work to waste time, I eat lunch wasting time nourishing my body, I wash the bird shit off my car wasting time; wasting time meaning I bust into Time's home with a big gun while he's doing a fat line off the belly of a floozy and fondling a coked out, toothless, topless whore's sagging tits next to him, just a laughin' it up, and I waste that junkie. Time doesn't take what you do with it into consideration, every expired second is past-tense, so what you consider to do with time is irrelevant. And further more, our notion that what we see as time, actual time, is meaningless. We like to think we know time.

Now I might have just spoiled my opinion that gardening as a fad is a joke. If you have a spark of interest to do something, that's pure involvement. I say it's a fad like this new garage sale clothing fashion within the female culture. All this loose, cheap material for clothes that's not durable, that's a fad. You look like you just stepped out of the 70's. Clothes aren't designed to last anymore.

You're supposed to wear the item of clothing maybe a few times, and then go out and buy more shit, all made from cheap in quality distributors who make a killing buying cheap and selling loads more for a lot more. There's an example of a trend. This is the new thing because it works, we'll buy it regardless.

Fad deranged people will go out in their thin as tissue paper clothes that they've layered to match the other crap they wear, with their retro handbags, and they'll go out to Lowe's with a wikipedia intelligence on how to keep a potted plant alive, and buy more flowers than they know what to do with. They might live in a house or apartment with a terrace. If house, they've cleared ground for planting. Perhaps they have even gone as far as to ask the landlord if it's alright to grow some shit out on the roof of the apartment building, and since their apartment is next to the roof exit, they can go up there freely with a corner of the roof devoted to their plants. The reason why this notion is so appealing is they've seen a representation of such a venture and it strikes them that, "This is what I need in my life, let's make it happen." Gardening is a fad to these people because usually if they can't get it to work more than once, they abandon the notion all together. Right, to save money they spent on plants or seeds. Right. They don't have a green thumb. Right, right! Green thumb.

Are you positive you want to consume whatever it is you're growing in a cluttered and smog environment like, let's say an apartment complex rooftop in the heart of New York City? We're talking all the hazardous emissions from cars and automobiles all around you going into your food, how is it that your plants and vegetables aren't misshaped and not a natural color as the depiction on the packet of seeds? Instead of red ripe tomatoes, you get sickly yellow with dark tarnish spots on the skin tomatoes, that taste like an exhaust pipe. All speculation.

If you can't grow your stuff in a safe, clean environment, maybe you shouldn't be gardening. Yeah, tell that to those who treat gardening like it's a fad. Something they've picked up for god knows what reason, just to do it because everyone else is. And get this, I hate to garden. My reasoning because I have to get out in the sun, a big ball of hot in the sky that usually burns the shit out of me. Fuck putting on sun screen all the time, I've already got terribly bad oily skin, you don't have to go outside all the time, especially when it's way too fucking hot, I'll keep my white ass indoors thank you. But sure, for those who can't sit indoors to sit and relax or do something indoorsy you always have to be doing something because life as you know it is absentminded calamity, let's do this, now that, hey I've got an idea before you can enjoy what we were doing not twenty minutes ago...fuckin ssssllllllooooooooowwwww dddddddooooowwwwwwwnnnnnnnn. Not everything needs done right now at this second. You probably have way too much going on as it is.

Recap: if a garden has been a prospect of yours since before you owned your home, break some ground and grow some shit. If you sit around thinking up new ideas in order to stay in the loop and one is, "You can pretty much garden anywhere, why not outside on the terrace," or, "I'll ask Mr. Feefer when he wakes up at 3 p.m. if I can go on the roof to start an urban garden," you're a tool. I'm sure you loved Taylor Swift, then hated Taylor Swift for whatever reason someone else told you to hate her.

Most people with successful gardens have learned to do it right, and by learning from someone else, they have learned the trade and are good gardeners. They didn't just one day think an urban garden was cute, or read about a society of people who are die hard gardeners, and they just decided to plant some shit. Put some thought behind what you are doing.

Violent Candy, Shitty Luck, Lickers, Bathrooms, and Deplorable People

2010-05-11T18:09:00.009-05:00

Has it been that long since I've ate an atomic fireball that now they taste weak, or did they change how they make them? Maybe it's my taste buds (it's probably my taste buds) but I used to refuse to eat these because they would literally burn a hole in my tongue. Now it's the equivalent of Big Red gum. This was, from the very beginning, an uncomfortable candy. Imagine putting a real fireball in your mouth. Now measure its impact in the megatons. ATOMIC FIREBALL!!

A little over a year ago, the Japanese government officially recognized Tsutomu Yamaguchi as a double hibakusha, or the Japanese word for a person who survived a nuclear bombing. Tsutomu Yamaguchi was confirmed to be 3 kilometers from where "Little Boy" was detonated in Hiroshima while he was on a business trip.
"I remember one business trip to Okinawa, I was supposed to be comped in a five star hotel, and you'd think five star, best in the world. The mattress I was on was lumpy, I fuckin' hated it, there's no turn-down service, I had to make my own fuckin' bed, and some douche bag on the floor above me was having a disco that lasted ALL FUCKING NIGHT!" "Hey asshole! The city I was in while on a business trip was obliterated by an atomic bomb!"
He was seriously burnt on his left side and spent the night in Hiroshima. He got back to his home city of Nagasaki on August 8, A DAY, what shit luck, right, before "Fat Man" was dropped on the city, and he was exposed to residual radiation while searching for his relatives. He was the first officially recognized survivor of both bombings. Just imagine being in your house, relaxing, or trying to because the skin on your left side is peeling off and the pain makes it uncomfortable and downright excruciating, you're having to sleep on your right side or right in the middle of the damn bed the whole night and the whole morning and afternoon. You glance over out your window to the horizon, and be damned if there isn't a God damned mushroom cloud. "Fuck, not again..."
Some people believe they bring bad weather with them when they fly to visit relatives far away, and weeks before the climate where they're visiting was nothing but sunshine and cool breezes, then your aunt arrives, and it's nothing but rain and thunderstorms, and let's say she lives on the northern west coast where it's almost always cloudy. This guy brought an atomic bomb with him...

I thought it was bad when everyone in the NBA decided, "Hey, let's all act like a bunch of players with a peanut in our heads, and chew on our mouth guards like college players or high school players, like the mouth guard wasn't there to protect our teeth, and was really there for us to teeth on like a baby's teething ring." Then I noticed a new trend making its way through the NBA -- licking your lips.
Especially the Lakers. Odom whips that pink trout around his lips like he's eating out the fat Kardashian he's married to. And if he's not married to her and just engaged -- I don't rightly know if they're married, if they're not -- by this time in the relationship she's his wife. I just know showing your tongue, showing your teeth like Kobe did Game 4 of the semis in last year's playoffs, getting a gay, spikey bull-dyke haircut like Sasha Vujacic, is doing absolutely nothing to improve the look of the Lakers. And I boil it down to one man in particular...Pau Gasol. Is there anyone in the league as goofy and gawky as Pau Gasol? Perhaps I've stated that before. I know one thing for sure, to hear Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder admit his favorite player is Pau Gasol is beyond appalling! NOBODY should like that goofy mother fucker, and admitting you do should be like looking upon Medusa's gaze and being turned to stone, only you become a lumpish maladroit with a gay, sweaty curly cut hairstyle, and pasty ass skin.
Back to the topic of tongue-lashing, it's just as worse, even more so than showing your teeth, and speaking of Pau Gasol, every once and awhile he still does show his teeth! Kobe has now started to lick. Don't you know you look like a fucking dog. No! It has just come to me. They all look more like a couple of school children. I don't know about you, but when I was in the first grade, and subsequently going as far forward than that as third grade, there were certain kids in my class who would stick out their tongue, let's say, while concentrating hard, or completing a project, at some points even out of frustration. They couldn't refrain from doing it, it was always, "Doing a rough and complicated multiplication problem, gotta work it out," tongue sticking out the side of their mouth. These same kids I'll see out in public, I'll run in to them on the street or at a restaurant, when they decide to calculate up how much of a tip to leave behind for the wait-staff instead of throwing down a five and a few bills, which is a damn good tip by the way, they're not still sticking out their tongue crunching the numbers up in their noggin, nor do I ever see them with that tongue outside their mouth doing anything else other than going down on a chick. What the hell started them on that whole pretense, and further, what's stopping them from doing that now? Was it when they entered the fourth grade that they decided, "hey, you know what? I look like a dumb ass!! Why, if I refrain from sticking that half-portion of my tongue out the side of my lips, maybe people will start realizing I'm not a homo (in the unintelligent vernacular)
Put that fucking tongue back in your mouth! Jesus Christ, will it be like this every fucking year!?! I don't know if it started this year per say, but it's already a fad among players to dance in front of the camera during the shoot around. I can't really say anything against that because it is entertaining and I guess cool to see some of my favorite players strutting their stuff. Hell, years before it was cool to arch your arm after a shot, it seemed good luck to do a free throw attempt without the ball in your hand, to mimic the free throw before you took it as if to improve your stance. Steve Nash, Ray Allen, countless others, have all licked the tips of their fingers to improve, I'm guessing once again, traction on the ball. If you must greatly more so spread germs while the balls in your hands, so be it. Everybody wants your strep throat or stomach flu!
What will it be next year? Let's all bump our heads on the soft part of the goal moments after making a drive with the ball and performing a stellar power-play like Kevin Garnett. Let's all look like a bitch like Mike Bibby!

I'm not too big on talking while using the restroom. I am trying to piss, my back is turned to you, and if you're at the urinal next to me, I'm not going to make eye contact with you. Just forget it. Plus, are you absolutely going to have a stellar conversation with someone while peeing? Do you talk to people while they shit, as well? What if the person you are talking to is shitting while you're just standing there, flapping your gums at the stall door. Great! Enjoy the fierce smell of that person's fury.
It's too much.
If you want to communicate, wait for me outside, or simply meet me up at the sinks. I'll talk to you while washing my hands, in fact, when have you ever had a bad conversation when mirrors are involved? Every row of sinks in a bathroom has a mirror. You don't even have to turn towards the person you are having a conversation with, you just look at their reflexion in the mirror. Hell, you could be grooming yourself and still have a respectful conversation with a person in the mirror if you must talk in a bathroom. And for the other people around you using the bathroom it's discourteous. Who knows what the hell the topic of the conversation is between you and this other person. You could be talking about the discomfort of catheters, or pet food that tastes the best even though it's for animals. Nobody wants to listen in on a full conversation taking place in the men's room. Don't think for a second everybody is just ignoring what you people are talking about.
Another strange thing about this blog topic is when the bathroom is completely empty. Let's say, instead of a restroom full of men, it is just you and this other person. Seriously, you can't wait to have this conversation out in the open, you have to have it in the privacy of a restroom? Do your business and then talk, don't walk into a bathroom and start talking. In fact, once you are through the doors, just keep your mouth zipped for a while, at least until I'm through doing my business and I'm up by the sinks, and that's if you both walk to the restroom and go in together. How about stumbling in on someone washing up as you walk in, and then walk up to the urinal, and in these cases, that's the situation, I'm specifically talking about when you are using a urinal. I've used stalls before and commented on the things a friend of mine was talking about. Was it weird? Yes it was. But it's understandable, you're not out there. Nobody can see you in the stall, unless they want to see your feet.
I'm talking about when you walk in, unbeknownst that another individual is even in the restroom, the door swings open and you walk in, and there's someone you recognize, drying their hands. Talk about a surprise. What are you supposed to do, hold it, until they are done talking? I guess it really depends on who the other person is. For instance, a good friend is beyond the door, then I might be inclined to hold it, again depending on the situation. If it's diaherrea, there's no question. You rush in, ignore the friend, and take a shit. You might even apologize, but let's face it, that other person has rushed out of the bathroom hearing the explosiveness of your bomb in the stall. If it is a bladder expanded beyond the comfort zone and you're actually doing the potty dance holding it in, you might as well forget communicating. This calls for emergency action.
Maybe you feel the call, but it's not an emergency. Hey, then we might have a little small talk before I go relieve myself. But there's still something we aren't taking into account for, and that is, what if the person in the restroom, as you go in, is a conversationalist, or, a person who can't limit the amount of words that come out of their mouth. Maybe the person is a psychopath who will have a completely random conversation with pretty much anyone they come in contact with. How do we approach this? Well...you could suck it up, and have a lovely little chat with the person in the bathroom; I warn you, this could be lengthy. Or, you could do what I would do in the situation, and just walk out of the restroom, and find another place to do your business, like, another restroom. If they follow you to the other bathroom, then you can have a conversation with them about why they would first continue talking to you knowing full well you walked out on that conversation in that bathroom, to find some place more private, and two, this is their second visit to a restroom. The bathroom before -- that was where they were previously, and hadn't they already used the restroom? Now it seems perculiar that they would follow you to another restroom just to talk to you, and if I know psychopaths, they don't like to have you point out that they're nuts! So more times than usual, they will slink out of the situation knowing they are in the wrong, they might mutter to themselves, imbarrased, but more importantly, they leave you to your peace. Again, more times than usual, they won't be waiting for you outside the restroom to begin talking to you again. This is because they are still imbarrassed and want more than anything to halt all imbarrassment, and leave you alone today. If by chance they are waiting for you outside, it might be time to tell them that you don't like them, and they need to leave you alone. Obviously they know you already which is why they initiated a conversation in the first bathroom with you in the first place. This might be the best time for you to tell them they are harrassing you, and that you only talked to this person in the first place, way before you heard the call of nature, a year or so more before this blog was wrote, when you first talked with this person because you were at work, and you have to be friendly with the customer while at work.
The office relationship really screws you in the end. You have more of an opportunity while at work to meet unsavory people because you're a completely different person than you normally are because again, YOU ARE AT WORK. Most people will put up a front, masking how they normally treat complete strangers because it's written, usually within a code of conduct that they must be friendly to the customer. You have to be afforble. Why this is, I don't know. I don't know why employers do this. Every bad situation I can think of, where I'll be out in public, away from work, and a nutcase who recognizes me from work stops me and chats, maybe we're in a bathroom when this conversation takes place, or, speaking excusively of bad situations, every time a customer gets too friendly with a worker, usually begins stalking them because they feel there is a connection between the two because again, they have to be too nice -- it all could have been eliminated if the worker were able to tell those customers, “Look, I know you want companionship, but I don't like you, nor do I like acting like a fake person in order to please you. Please walk away.” No, we have to smile and make the nice.
Most of those people you make the nice with are those you wander unbeknownst upon in the bathroom, and they always want to chat with you. It could all be completely averted had you not had to make the nice with them while at work. That's why if you find yourself at a job where your employer could care less whether you were nice to the customer, that's a win in my book. Treat people like their a bunch of liars.

Don't you think some people need a good ass-kicking? Or really taking it to the ultimate extreme, don't you kind of not feel so bad when you hear on the news that a guy was shot to death in a junkyard? Sure, you should always give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but you never even knew what type a person that was. What if they were a fucking thief getting their just desserts, or had an abortion. Wouldn't that be like murdering someone? And the answer to that extreme is no, it isn't like murder, and a person getting shot to death in a junkyard is pretty messed up on our part, as humans I mean. We kill each other in anger sometimes. Other times out of jealousy. Screwed up, isn't it?
So, we choose to look at it like this: some people just need the shit kicked out of them, or if we could shoot to maim, yes!! What bothers me is, and I guess it still bothers me since I've stated this before, but people out there mess and harrass and meddle in other people's lives just for the hell of it. They get a rise out of it, like tormenting another person is amusement like some sort of game. Yeah, a game would be a great description for that. Doesn't it seem like some of the angst is done just because the other person thinks they're better than the person they are fucking with? Yeah that's awesome. Piss someone off for the fun of it. I'm the same person telling my readers (reader) to treat complete strangers like a bunch of liars.
Why is it a good idea to treat people all as equal liars, cheats, degenerate assholes who only care about their own personal gain? To instill humility? No, it probably has something to do with the majority of people being selfish assholes who will lie and cheat to get their way. And then there's other people who read into certain ideas a little too strongly, taking everything out of proportion. Most of these people are also very, very dumb, ignorant and brainless lemmings. They fall into believing all the latest fads and crazes, like those douche cunts who think gardening is so cool now most likely in an attempt to grow their own vegetables, thinking it's smart and productive, cost efficient in what they believe is a society scared out of spending because of the recession. Wrong. More like everything from video games/online gaming to the way we shop and purchase our groceries and goods has made a huge profit seeking capitalist switch in order to rob more money from the precious budgets set in action to prevent overspending by the same worker as discussed before who happens to hate his fucking job. He most likely smokes pot to self medicate because he doesn't fucking like the shift his world he once knew has made. Maybe he's an alcoholic, how about a pill-popper? Maybe he actually takes a hard drug in order to remain positive, but still suppressed. Or oppressed. But mostly subdued and caged because we wouldn't want Americans rioting would we, the likes of Greecians. Keep them civil and protesting, pacifistic and non-violent. Lashing out would just get them hurt. This brings us to another group of people. Pussies with an attitude and a loud mouth. People who won't actually do anything if provoked into a fight, but they won't prevent themselves from calling you a cock sucker and a faggot first.
Forget it, they all deserve to be talked down to and made to feel like idiots. If they prove to be wiser, perhaps cut them some slack. Be a little less condescending, maybe see how they digest a witty pun. Be funny. You never know. They could actually be cool.

Downers

2010-04-03T09:42:00.002-05:00

Who's bracket had Michigan St., Duke, West Virginia, and Butler all going to the Final Four? Who possibly had those picks in mind? I'm glad Calipari got beat out of it. Serves him right. Not even Cawipawee could last. KU might have become the laughing stock of the NCAA, but Kentucky also found out what it's like to go in to the most important game of their post-season and have an off game.

As much as everyone doesn't want to admit it, these kids ballin' in college are not the NBA. And even with that being said, the NBA has some inconsistency. Just look at the Lakers. Oklahoma beat them on the road. It would've been better to have defeated them at the Staples Center, but a team with Kobe and the greatest players in the league in other people's opinions, mainly Jack Nicholson, should have annihilated teams like the Nuggets and the Trailblazers. And boy, when the Lakers lost to those teams, Kobe reamed his fellow players, calling them useless and embarrassments. What a leader...

All I've heard are excuses from those who bleed red and blue, and who have the ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK chant as their ringtone. "They should've been given the breaks like Duke this year and UNC last year. KU was the best team in the country. Coach K didn't even deserve the bracket he was stuck in, going up against piddly teams the first 3 rounds of the tournament." "I'm still content with the allegation that the referees can't see every play out there, most of those old geezers popping Aleve just to keep up with the pace of the game. They're too tired and old to be out on the floor officiating." "Yeah, blame the officials! If that foul were called an offensive charge, we would've pulled through. One more pair of eyes should be on the court. 3 refs, 4 refs, the more the better to keep it fair." The fact of the matter is, everything KU put up didn't go in. Not even Collins or, for that matter, Henry could win this one for them. Aldrich fouled out. Farokhmanesh was a three-sinking maniac! The better team didn't win. The better team had a lousy night, and let UNI kick the tar out of them.

Also, K-State shouldn't have won against Xavier. Really? You force it to go into OT, and still can't nail the coffin shut? 2 OT's because you let Xavier tie with you, topple you, then tie with them again. These two weren't evenly matched. And what good did it do? You went in to the Butler game the next night with shot knees. You let Butler in! That's like surviving four hordes of zombies in a zombie apocalypse, finally closing the steel-enforced doors and sliding 3 crowbars through the door handles, then laughing with your blood-soaked buddies as you all walk back to you safe-room, and then realizing, "Shit the bed, we only secured one door in this abandoned elementary school, and was that just me, or did you also hear something break through the glass windows lining this hallway. We're ignorant! We focused all our attention on one area of this school..." Bad analogy.

I feel sorry for the female sex. You try and look your best, driving home or to your casual destination, that fucking green quickly turned red, and now your stuck at the light, minding your own business, and some ignorant fucker in an SUV peers over and thinks, "Jesus fucking Christ, that girl's got it goin on! Let me heckle her while she's waitin at the light, maybe she'll suck my dick!"

"HEEEEY!" Not yelling from inside his car, but across the way, at the gas pump at the gas station on the corner of the intersection. "HEEEEY! Girl what's goin on!?" Does he just stand there and yell at her? Not likely. Now he's making his way to your car window on the passenger's side. "Girl, roll down your window, let meh holla atchu!" And finally, you give the moron the finger and tell him to fuck off your car, and go back to pumping gas. He finally gets the message.

I like to go for walks. I happened to be standing at an intersection in my hometown, waiting for the orange-reddish hand to turn in to a whitish man indicating I had the right to cross the street. Thanks to a gold Buick something something stopping adjacent to me, the whitish man appeared on the cross guard quicker than expected, though, since the intersection had a car with the green arrow yield whatever the hell you know what I mean, the gold Buick had to sit at the intersection and wait. And that's when I heard, "HEEEY!"

At first, I thought, he probably knows that person in the car, he's saying hello. Why point out that you know another individual when they are waiting at a red light, in their car? If you recognize them, why not catch them in a better setting, you know, where you two can actually chat, and not where the other person will have to leave you in the dust once that light turns green. Better yet, if you think you might not see that person again, just wave. You don't have to ask them how they're doing. It was here that I noticed the female in the gold Buick was pretty and fairly young. She's either a short person, or fourteen with a learners permit. Then I was thinking, wow, what an age difference! The guy yelling HEEEY! is like 37 and this chick barely 15! Maybe they work together... Before too long I hear, "Girl what's goin on!? Roll down your window, girl." Cat-calls!? What the fuck!?! Are you expecting her to unlock the doors and let you jump in her ride? Weren't you pumping gas? Why don't you pay more attention to how much that tank of gas is going to cost you because you're driving a fuckin SUV!

And then the finger! Awesome, there's your answer, mate! Go back to your vehicle and stop calling girls out more than half your age. Retard. I wanted to bust up laughing at the jerk, pointing and calling him a dumb fuck. Dumb fucks usually carry knives, and I didn't feel like being stabbed, so instead, I blogged it. Happy tax-season y'all!

Bags Within Cereal Boxes and a Much Desired Victory

2010-02-01T09:56:00.008-06:00

Why is it that Frosted Flakes come in a wax-coated bag that tears down the middle every fucking time you try to rip it open? I've never opened a Frosted Flakes bag properly. Once it tears down the middle, that's it! Be prepared when you accidentally spill cereal all over your counter top when pouring it in to a bowl. Might as well remove it from the wax-coated sack and in to a Tupperware bin because now you have to worry about it spilling out of the bag and in to the bottom of the box when you get it down from the cupboard. I don't know about you, but I never eat any of the cereal that's not in the bag; once it has touched cardboard, it has strayed away from the safety zone. It's indefinably contaminated.

What a catastrophe! Honey Bunches of Oates doesn't come in a wax-coated bag, and get this - Honey Bunches of Oates with Almonds doesn't either, and the cereal has almonds in it! How about that Kashi cereal with the fucking berries in it - real, fresh -- well, not fresh -- but chewy fruit in WITH the cereal, and it's in a normal bag! Obviously, wax-coating isn't applied to lock in freshness. Damn you, Kelloggs, God should damn you to Haiti!

The Kansas University Jayhawks have defeated the Kansas State University Wildcats at the Wildcats' home court. This happened January 30th, and the Jayhawks survived the Wildcats with defeating them by 2 points. What I like most about this event: KU not only beat K-State on their home court by 2 points, but did it with a key player, Sherron Collins, injured, with both Morris' in foul trouble, Cole Aldrich in foul trouble, and Brady Morningstar and Tyrell Reed barely cutting the mustard, and after K-State's 7-hour pep rally/White Supremacist-resembling rally where people held up signs like I Hate KU Go Cats! while other students decided to dress up like chickens because somehow KU fans and players alike are afraid to play/attend games at the Bramlage Coliseum. Funny, and here I thought KU fans never stepped foot in Bramlage because K-State fans enjoy having sex with animals...

Unlike some people, I don't necessarily enjoy hundreds of screaming purple-people jumping up and down in the stands around me, waying a "we're number-one" finger up in the air (KSU is actually #13, which is a hard number to flash in the air with fingers, so they stick with one)

This is a very satisfying win for me. When K-State defeated KU in '08 at Bramlage, my local newspaper had power cat sprayed all over the sports section, convinced K-State and Michael Beasley were gods. Now that KU has trumped the Wildcats, our local newspaper ran instead highlights of some of the high school tourneys around the state. No front page cover story for the Jayhawks. I was infuriated when I heard K-State fans were talking up a rivalry between KU and itself after their '08 win. I realize Mississippi State and Ole Miss are big rivalries in their state, Texas and Texas A&M, Baylor, and Texas Tech don't get along, and NC State/Wake Forest and UNC are not what you would call the closest of pals, but come on - rivalries should be left to border-wars, not in-house feuding. It's a bunch of junk to talk trash! Especially against a team that is leagues better than another, like KU is over K-State.

I don't want it in my house! I'm not sure, but I can imagine KU fans in Lawrence are having a field-day with this win over K-State, but can you really blame them? All I've heard about since Frank Martin has taken up as head coach at Manhattan is how much K-State has improved, and Frank's connection with Huggins at West Virginia. Get over the Big East! The announcers last Saturday even had the nerve to bring up an entire conversation about baseball during the KU/K-State BASKETBALL game only because K-State point guard Denis Clemente is an offshoot relation of baseball hall of famer Roberto Clemente. And what do you imagine is discussed during mention of Sherron Collins in the past few KU games? How much better freshman John Wall of Kentucky is, and how Calipari has one hell of a starting team after dumping Memphis in the off-season. Why shouldn't he? He stole most of all his recruits and brought them with him to Kentucky, and now the Tigers are stuck nursing their wounds.

How about I take it upon myself to state how bad KU massacred K-State just because they beat 'em by 2 points in overtime!? Or how pathetic K-State is for losing a game they had won if only they could've watched the fouls against them, not attempted erroneous three-pointers that rolled off the rim, and if they would've stuck to the two-three zone defense. Mizzou rubbed it in every Jayhawkers' face that Demarre Carroll and his uncle/coach Mike Anderson toppled the powerhouse KU last year by a measly 2 points, even though KU was coming off four key players leaving for the NBA draft, and were only ranked so high nationally for winning the title the previous year.

Every newspaper in the KC-area had something to say about that game - how Mizzou had a better chance of going to the Final Four and could be the major threat to a UNC team that was the clear winner of the NCAA title from the get-go. What a bunch of smoke blown up our asses! I'll also state that it struck me a bit peculiar to see a smile on Martin's face the final minutes of regulation in one of his final timeouts, almost leaving me wondering, "Is that confidence coming off the revelation that while speaking to an official, that same official told Martin in confidence that the game was there's, that the officiating would see to the K-State win?" That's right, I'm saying the referees were paid off. And when Kansas was ahead by one, and Collins drove in for the lay-up/foul that resulted in a five-point lead in the final seconds of OT, it all rested on one man's shoulders and he bared the burden honorably, as he had a tough win to Cornell. Though in the back of every true fan of KU, we were hoping this wasn't history repeating itself with our only defeat to Tennessee.

So to conclude on this thought, KU was given the breaks by the officials, and when that got to be too much for the K-State bench and thundering crowd, the pendulum was swung in favor of K-State, the Morris' started fouling like last year, Cole Aldrich reverted back to his freshman year due to the referees believing a fair percentage of his blocks were swat fouls, and a deep seated team showed its true colors as a one-leading-star-carrying-the-game-team (What has happened to you, Xavier?)
EDITOR'S NOTE: Do you think I'm the one blowing smoke? Check out Cole Aldrich's stats for the Colorado game Feb. 3rd. I think the officials want to keep the game interesting. KU at one time had a lead of 16 points. I think once it gets beyond 10, the officials say, "We clearly can see how this game is going, let's mix it up." The Foul game. Statistically, KU was shooting free throws like they were blindfolded. A FT Made-Attempted of 18-38 (.474), and Colorado a 10-17 (.588). And what was Cole's 4th straight double-double consisted of? Blocks, which was exactly the killer of his game in K-State. Could he have practiced that? Absolutely not. And if they were practicing, it was drills. I'm sure a coach like Bill Self isn't sitting Cole down and telling him, "Tomorrow, Danny Manning is taking you and the Morris' to the hoop, and showing you how to block better. I've got video as well of previous match-ups where you've excelled at this..." I don't think so. Not to a junior all-American. They might've all looked at game footage, but I'm sure Cole knew what he had to do to correct that percentage. Be back home, or on a neutral court.

And still KU prevailed. Is Pullen overrated? I won't even go there. That's called integrity.

I had something else I was going to discuss, but I can't remember what it was. It was random, I know that much. And people tell me, why don't you get a notebook, and write down the idea as it comes to you. Well, then I get the pad of paper, and can never bring back the memories, and it's usually when I'm without a pad of paper that I get these ideas. Don't ask me why.

Fuck Rulers!

2010-01-07T20:07:00.003-06:00

I don't think anyone ever uses a ruler anymore. I sure don't, especially for its intended use. Why, just now, I used one as a back-scratcher. I've once even used one to hit a person with. And when I was 13, I measured my dick with one, but I never use it to measure anything else. That's where measuring tape comes to the rescue. 12 inches is just too fucking short for anything.

Now when a ruler is used as a straight edge, there I can see its practicality. I draw lines with a ruler/straight-edge. I draw diagrams, I draw differentiating shapes, I construct perspective portraits of skylines and city blocks, I jam up homeless people with the edge of a ruler, I make horse-noises and clippity-clop noises with my mouth, but I never find myself measuring anything with a ruler. Take that, Andy Rooney!

The Christmas Post

2009-12-18T16:36:00.003-06:00

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.

Uh Oh, Joe!

2009-09-16T09:23:00.005-05:00

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.

2009-09-09T11:00:00.006-05:00

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.

Cruise Control v2

2009-08-20T09:29:00.002-05:00

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.

Cruise Control

2009-08-15T14:24:00.003-05:00

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!

AL-CA-CA-CA-CA-KAA-TRAZ! More Happenings; Mostly Alcatraz... The End of "San Fran; Oh Man!"

2009-07-23T15:16:00.020-05:00

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.

The Wharf, Driving Aimlessly, and Charlie Brown; Part Four of "San Fran: Oh Man!"

2009-07-16T14:30:00.020-05:00

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)

Utter Disappointment, Utter Exuberence: Part Three of "San Fran: Oh Man!"

2009-07-14T13:29:00.010-05:00

After Yosemite, we was tired! And I was sweaty, due to one extremely easy hiking trail and perhaps myself being a snowman. This was part of the trip where we really didn't have anything in the way of refreshments and snacks, so heading back to Angel's Camp, we found a Safeway-type store, stocked up on bottled water and Triscuits and crackers and chips, all kinds of goodies for energy. I don't believe in power bars or gels full of sugar and starch. They taste awful. A handful of chips or Triscuits in this case was enough of a snack, and we were up to our pubic-areas in bottled water; a whole 24-pack stuffed in a Styrofoam cooler with ice. Triscuits and water didn't really hit the spot, but at least I was hydrated and something lined my stomach.

I had also procured some beer. Visions of myself sitting out on our deck back at the condo with a ice cold beer in hand with my legs propped up on the railing in total relaxation ran rampant through my daydreams like sugar plums. Nobody in my family except for maybe my grandma, or, while we're on the subject, perhaps my brother too, know what its like to deal with the good and the bad of customers peddling through our lives in the way of a full-time job, so I NEEDED this vacation, I NEEDED relaxation. Sure, I could have done it without the beer, but if I wanted mediocre-relaxation than whatever, but the beer just further makes you appreciate the little things that make you happy. I was in a lawn chair with my feet propped up on the railing watching a beautiful desert sunset, cool, slick condensation from the beer more of a delight, eyes closed, melting in laziness.

Big Trees State Park was a huge waste of time. It's like Hutchinson's Sand Dunes. You drive around, you can stop at one or two places and really just walk the whole thing. That's awesome because you experience it outside the car. The only problem is at Big Trees, you might see 3-4 officially large-as-fuck red woods, and that's it. You crawl in them, snap a few pictures of you in a hollowed out red wood, then its back to the car. But you'd walk 6 miles in length because it was inevitably clear you were gonna get lost. One map at the beginning of the trails, and then nothing else to point you to your destination.

The smallest trail is like 3-miles in length, but if you get lost, which again is inevitable, it loops you around another 3-miles, to the end of the longest trail, which is 8 miles up, 8 miles back. Or you loop around and walk 6-miles in total up, then back 6-miles. Your choice: 16 miles all-around, or 12 miles all-around. Here's the beginning:

That path in the background goes uphill, in a circular motion and then leads you to a jagged, uphill path to the parking lot. You cross this bridge, look at a map for guidance, and then you're on your own.

Me walking behind my mom and PHIL!

Bees and lady bugs for some odd reason were always buzzing around your head.

This tree should have been knocked down out of mercy. It was dead. And now an immobile zombie of its formal, fruitful-self.

I walked 4 miles, got to a huge crossroads from the trail I was on, stood around catching my bearings, and all of a sudden, there's a swarm of mosquitoes around my head, and something larger than a mosquito conducting the madness, and I freaked out a bit, I'm not gonna lie, and tried to run from the bloodsuckers. What the hell was that big enormous thing? Was it a mosquito-God, summoned from above by the colony of mosquitoes and a mesmerizing flight-formation that opened a channel between our world and the mosquito-God's world? Now they sacrifice small animals to the mosquito-God in repentance, and have blood orgies in the blood collected by human trespassers, to further expand upon their society. One day they might attack, and the mosquito-God will most likely be the size of a house at this point, and wear battle-armor, with a cape, and who shall even dare to take out the mosquito-God, with his rapier-sized straw and his never satisfied hunger for blood!?

I fled the scene, heading back to the car. I didn't want to walk any further, 9 more miles to go before I reached the car, I thought, 6 miles is enough, I'm tired of nature-shit!

On my way back to the car, I heard voices and soon a family emerged on the trail. They were oriental. The daughter was perhaps 19-years-old, and I was diggin' that. She asked me how much further until they started seeing the redwoods. I guesstimated 4 more miles. They sighed, tired already. I told them it was well worth it, "That you could stand in them, and feel insignificant, imagining the lifespan of such a thing. As a seedling, these trees could have been in a area not yet discovered by civilization." There eyes grew large and mingled chatter commenced in a different language. She said, "Neat, that was very beautifully described." Then this backpacked guy in a brownish-grey shirt with a dew-rag tied around his head and one of those Eco-Friendly Klean Kanteens clipped to his satchel came up, and I just knew by his flowery, all-natural scent that he was a modern hippie; only using all-natural deodorant and soaps. He probably caught the infomercial about the Klean Kanteen and jizzed his pants. "That'll be the new fad: a canteen that stays colder, and uses the condensation from the bottle to save you 30% more drinking water. Too cool. I can never have enough things that saves our environment." I would have loved to litter right in front of him.

He caught the words, "beautifully described," and pounced into action. "I've got pictures on my phone of the trees. They were really cool." Then he shot me a look like, I didn't see you up there. I went the distance, you gave up. I'm on to you. You didn't see those trees. I was like, "Cool. They're big, right?" He continued to show pictures to the Asian family, but when I would try to get a glimpse of the pictures on his phone, as he showed them individually to every single member of that family, I was snubbed. And I didn't like it. He didn't show me even one of his pictures. And then, slowly, I was ignored from all forms of their conversation, so I just fucking left. Five minutes after leaving the Asian family and that faggot with his PRECIOUS Blackberry, I started to here a steady march behind me. He was catching up. The path is too narrow for both of us to walk together beside each other, basically to allow him passing room. So we both come up to a place in the path where I could linger, while he passes me because he's right behind me at this point. I stop and allow him passing room, and he stops with me, and we're standing together. I look at him, and finally, I say, "Go ahead. Pass me. I'm taking a breather." I wasn't winded, I was fed up with him. He doesn't go by. He stands there, and then, so it's not awkward, he unclips his gay thermos and takes a swig. Fuck this! I go ahead and start walking again. Sure enough, a minute or two later, he's back behind me, walking a step or two from my heel. Who does this shit!? At last, I stopped again, and told him to keep walking. He finally passes, I'm thinking, "Do I have reason to deck this mother fucker in the mouth!? I think this is good enough reason. He followed right behind me for a few paces and then obliged to pass, he persists to walk with me, further being annoying.

Back at the rented Kia Tucson, I stretched it out, did a cool-down like stretching-exercise I learned from Cody, a former co-worker of mine who did Yoga and drank hot tea. Then I relaxed on the ground with the rest of my water. My parents soon followed, and I got the vehicle unlocked by my dad. I grabbed another water from the cooler, as well as a beer. Opened the bottle on a log. It was fine indeed!

Owen, being Owen, took the longest trail humanly possible, one that he made up himself. He walked the short-trail with us up, 6 miles, then walked the 8 mile trail back, but not before snapping off like 20 pictures of 3 trees, some pictures with him standing in the trees smiling because again, they're hollowed out so you can stand within them, it was his time, and he got the most out of it. The fam and I sat in the SUV for 3 hrs while he explored, and we got in to the crackers and snacks again; I even mixed a powder packet of Hawaiian Punch into one of the water bottles and had that to drink.

We made a decision to just have hamburgers and hot dogs at the condo for supper. That, or was it sandwiches. Any ways, that was Wednesday.

Thursday rolled along, and we drove from Angel's Camp to Winsor which is in Sonoma County, Sonoma being wine country. But first, we went through San Francisco. Beautiful time to be down there. I think it was 63 that afternoon, so a light jacket was all I needed. Our destination was Pier 33 down on Fisherman's Warf, the offshoot to Alcatraz Island where we'd take a boat across the bay to land upon and explore the prison. Here's the pier:

"This be a fine day to sail, YARR!" screeched this bird who does, along with his friends, utter destruction upon the pier with their pooping.

Before coming out to California, we had heard Gov. Schwartzenegger wanted to close Alcatraz Island to the public to save money for the state. We only assumed he would do this because the prison was ran down and nobody was visiting the island as much as they used to. That's not the case at all. We got to the Pier and the ticket counter for Alcatraz and were told the seating on all the boats for that afternoon were sold out...until SUNDAY. This was Thursday. To close the prison off from tourism would be assenine! At $27 a pop, and being as busy as they were, the state is cleaning up on tourism. Why close it!? The gasoline for the boat is paid for plus the upkeep on the prison is more than covered by their numbers. But then again, they could spend that money some place else if they didn't have burden of the island, then again, no money coming from it. California is stuck in a rut due to this poor economy, and it shows in the infrastructure and their inner-city housing projects, some left to become dilapidated in the proceeding years.

We paid for our tickets for Sunday, and walked the sidewalk closest to the warf. Towards Pier 39, we spotted an Aquarium. But I snapped off a few pictures before we got there.

A dock, sort of an offshoot from Pier 39. It was shiner than what it appears in this picture. I set it for the Sunset preset because I wanted to show the cloud coverage ahead. Out in the ocean, it was foggy, a staple of San Francisco weather. Almost every day it was foggy, which made an interesting crossing over the Golden Gate bridge. The top of the bridge wasn't visible at all.

This statue represents squid's tentacles, as it is a reminder of the attack in 1906 that a giant squid made on the city, the real reason for the 1906 earthquake. I don't know why the built that thing. Probably a bunch of fucked-up art students designed and crafted it, high on crystal meth.

That tower-thingy in the background is dedicated to the firemen of the city. Or so it is thought, due to how much it resembles a fireman's hose nozzle, but actually a plaque rests at one of the viewpoints of this monument, which states:

This 210 foot monument was built in 1933 with monies bequeathed by Lillie Hitchcock Coit to beautify The City she loved. Frescoes were painted in the interior of the newly built structure by local artists funded through the United States Government's Public Works of Art Project.

So actually the structure was an art project perceived as something different. And who knows what the intent of the project was, whether they had a fireman's hose nozzle in mind.

We finally made it to Pier 39 where the Aquarium rested.

We'd see fish and coral and sea weed and sharks and sting rays and an octopus that could maneuver his way through thin glass tubes to get to his dinner in a bigger basin, and crabs and little lobster-like creatures, but from this view, I got a very nippy wind that chilled my bones, and it felt oh so good.

Back to the present day, July 14th, I sat in my car listening to the new Wilco on the iPod. On about tracks 4, 5, or 6, I thought if only I could be back in San Francisco with the 60-65 degree weather off the coast, or the Pacific Ocean water lapping at the beautiful sand beaches of Santa Cruz. I snapped back to reality, the 105 degree heat, and a guitar solo from Wilco, put the iPod on pause, stepped out of my car, and went back inside to work.

In my next installment, I'll start with pictures and video of the Aquarium, followed by pictures in and around the San Francisco-area. Then, a short drive south to Santa Rosa to the Charles M. Shulz museum, and if time and space allows it, maybe even pictures of ALCATRAZ. Most likely that won't happen...

Beds and Bears and Foresty Things at Yosemite: Part Two of "San Fran: Oh Man!"

2009-07-12T14:07:00.023-05:00

Imagine being on vacation with my family, in a two-story condo; your brother took a bedroom, your parents got the other bedroom, and you are left with the bed that comes out from a closet - they have a name, these beds. I could open up Google, and refresh my memory, but I'm lazy. My bed folded down from a closet. People got tired of blowing up an air mattress, or the coroner got fed up with, "Could you come down to the Chateau? Yeah...another body in the fold-out....well, it's like a bear trap in that thing! He suffocated," and the inventors got together, hashing out what objects to put a bed in. One idea was to have it lift up from the floor, another idea was to stuff the air mattress in a cannon, and you pull the string and it shoots the mattress out, inflating it. The BBQ is spitting out comforters and pillows. Finally, they got it right with the couch. The couch made since. You're sitting on an empty frame with cushions, why not hide something in there? A ninja! And then naturally, we started hiding beds in closets. And the ninjas said fuck that hiding in couches-shit! Have you been to Japan, have you seen our hide-a-beds...no thank you! Just because we're nimble...if I'm gonna stalk someone and murder them in the shadows, at least give me some comfort!

I would like to hide a bed in everything. Boy, getting up and around in the morning is fucking hard! I keep wanting to go to sleep. I'm pouring milk all over the cupboard, its running over in my bowl of cereal because I fell asleep pouring again....Why not pull out the refrigerator, there's a bed! Open the dishwasher, and there's a pillow and a blanket. Brushing your teeth, with your head resting on the sink!? Open the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, and a tiny four-posted bed falls from one of the shelves. You couldn't sleep in it, but the sheets of the tiny bed are soaked in chloroform...

Awoke to coffee brewing, 7:53 a.m June 23. Never have I ever slept in while on vacation. Had a lovely shower. Ate something for breakfast. On the road by 8:40. On our way to Yosemite National Park. I'm thinking of Teddy Roosevelt while taking these pictures.

Here's ol' Half-Dome *snicker-snicker*

The reason why we wake so early is to beat the traffic. Ever hear your parents utter those words, beat the traffic!? We plan our lives around this philosophy! Always beating some random crowd out of a spot, either at the last open table of a restaurant, or before a line forms at the theater. Being first. My dad got us one of the last spots at this lookout. Most others had the same plan we did. Well it seemed that way, getting in for this view as another family left, then suddenly, more people showed up. Followed by a mini RV.

There was information on what these formations were called, but I wasn't reading anything.

This might be the obstructed view of Yosemite Falls (pronounced "Yos Mite") This is in the corner of the top picture. Yeah, I got two perspectives. Very brisk morning out that day; maybe 72. What was it back home, 90 something... ;)

Ooo, a tunnell!! I wonder what that's gonna be like.....

Oh.

If we would have had more than a week and a day, or two weeks as I summed up in the last post, we might have ventured up to the Redwood Forest. Why am I telling you this now? That tunnel picture up above my comment...imagine that a tree. You drive through trees in the Redwood Forest. Man, oh man!

I believe this is Bridal's Veil Falls. Many people were around me when I took this picture. You take an extremely easy hike up to these falls, and there's a pool of water for the kids to splash in and soak their clothes, young girls are basking on rocks sprayed down with waterfall mist; there was an enormous influx of Chinese and Japanese folks scattered among the crowd. It was amazing that I even got this shot without a head or two sticking out at the bottom edge of the picture. I'm also surprised this picture came out so clear. The mist coming off the rocks the water is cascading on is plentiful, and I should have had little droplets of water on my lens. The body of my camera did.

We were walking back from Bridal's Veil, and this was lying by the side of the trail. The rangers must of sawed through it after it blocked the walking trail due to its fall. I thought it looked cool through the viewfinder.

The best National Park I've been to would have to be Zion National Park in Utah, mainly due to how organized everything is. You park a ways out from the main lodge of the park, and they swing by and pick you up on a trolly. The trolly ride is maybe 5 minutes, and along the way to the lodge you see a nice view of Angel's Landing, which is one of the best attractions there. A trail follows a steep, narrow ridge with chains added to provide handholds to this one spire; on both sides of you would see quite a drop. You see this landform from a few miles out. You also pass right by the Watchman, a beautiful red rock mountain. Once at the lodge, you sort of pick-and-choose where you want to go. I'd say there are probably about 8-10 hiking trails you can take, depending on how strenuous they are. At Yosemite, you could walk the park if you've got free time. It would take you awhile, I'm not gonna lie. That one might be a good 20 mile or so. It's stupid to wanna walk the whole Yosemite site.

The majority of my pictures are from the backseat of a moving vehicle. I also didn't realize Yosemite loops around, so when this next picture came in to view, it stunned me.

El Capitan. Actually, I don't know if this is El Capitan or not. It looks like him.

Driving out of the park, we got caught in a traffic jam, due to some road work. So we pulled to the side of the road, and soon afterwards, we noticed several people gawking at something in the meadow. Down the road a ways from the picture above was a clearing with grass as green as pictured. Here's the little guy who was drawing all the attention.

It's most likely a female.

Me and my brother fought for pictures. While I snapped these, an Aussie came up to our car and replied, "Ah, I saw you had your cam'ra owt. May I inquire what you see out in that feeld!?" I told him there was a bear out there. "A baar! Where d'ya see a baar!?" I told him to look between the two trees, and that brown spot with ears was the bear. "I steel don't see it, mate..." I told him my finger that was extended was pointing right at her. "Look at the tree to the left of my finger," I told him, "Then look right of that by 5 degrees." Sure enough, she came within his sight. "Oh yeah! Hey kids," and his troop of girls around the same age came up to him with their mother, and watched the "baar" graze.

Here's Owen. Nothing like taking a picture of him taking a picture of the Yosemite park entrance sign.

The next day would find us wasting an afternoon at Big Trees State Forest, me being upstaged by a modern hippie and his camera phone, me eating handful after handful of Triscuits and opening my beer on forest-life, and finally, a day in San Francisco. But let's wait to discuss that later.

ICH - DN - SF, a day in San Jose: Part One of San Fran, Oh Man!

2009-07-11T09:41:00.022-05:00

Didn't I say something about a friendlier post up on this blog what should have been 2-days ago? Yeah, well it didn't happen, did it? Today, it happens!

The last two weeks of June, my family had planned to go to San Francisco for a week, starting Monday, June 22. We were there technically longer than the average work week by a day, so I'm going to round-up and say two-weeks. Earlier Monday morning, June 22, 4 a.m., I am awoken and told to get around. I had everything ready, I even took a shower the night before - all I needed by this point was my phone charger, iPod, iPod car-charger, and to grab my carry-on and luggage packed a night before.

Our flight out of Wichita to Denver was sometime around 6:45 (I'm not getting into specifics; this early in the morning, I'm not running on much, so I'm dragging ass, and am being told where to walk) We're flying Frontier Airlines on a small, twin-propeller-engined plane no bigger than a city bus. With a snow leopard on the tail; I perceived the feline as a bobcat because of its pointed-ears and pleased-with-itself-demeanor. The saving grace of that experience was the view from the window, and the out-of-this-world attractive hostesses we had pacing the aisles. I wanted to get friendly with them.

We land in Denver an hour and a half later, receiving our luggage from the belly of the plane, and soaking in the 65 degree temperature of the Rockies. Owen lingered on the plane, for he had folded an Origami elephant and dragon for the flight attendants. And he probably wanted them to touch his mustache.

Our next flight was American Airlines, a larger plane, and a longer flight to San Francisco. Before boarding, I was hunting a sports apparel shop. I was going to California; what a place! But I knew I wouldn't find too many Denver Nuggets fans in the area, but I would find a shit-load of Lakers fans in the vicinity. And since the two teams are rivals, I wanted a Denver Nuggets hat. Unforeseen was the SF Giants vs. Colorado Rockies game the night before; I rarely watch baseball, and I don't ever keep up with the scheduling of games. I was informed on the flight to San Francisco that the Giants had been crushed by the Rockies. It would've pissed more people off had I worn my Rockies hat. There was DirectTV service on the plane, and I watched Sports Center for the most of it, flipping to Mickelson's runner-up in the U.S. Open, losing to Lucas Glover. I sat by a cute baby who dropped his toys all the time. I retrieved his toys to be courteous. The young parents reminded me of a few people in my life. That flight was delayed for a short while because of maintenance work on one of the air-conditioning units, but still great.

We got in to San Fran around 11:40 a.m., got our rental car and was on our way to San Jose by close to around 12:15-12:30.

San Jose has its history. One of its most interesting residents was Sarah Winchester, heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune, the producers of the rifle that won the West. The south during the Civil War used many models of the Winchester rifle, so needless-to-say, they were well off, and Sarah was left with more money than she knew what to do with. On the advisement of a fortune teller, she was told she would be haunted by the ghosts of the men who died by the Winchester rifle, and further, she should move out west. She travelled from Connecticut to San Jose, California, and began construction on a extraordinary mansion, now known as the Winchester Mystery House. Thinking she could allude the ghosts from harming her, she drafted a unique style for her house. One with blue prints insisting some rooms have secret hiding places, as well as trap doors and the most interesting, a room with five entrances, but one exit. Once the doors shut behind you, you were locked in to the room, and a secret door hidden in the wall-panelling was your only exit. There were stairs that led to ceilings, doors in the ceiling, windows - large-ass bay windows...in the ceiling, that could open if you chose to open a ceiling glass-door; no reasoning behind it. PICTURES!

This is a staircase that leads to nowhere, well, except for a ceiling. Weird shit like this was frequent.

This is a video of us walking the easy-risers. Did anybody spot Owen in the video? If you did, you receive nothing. Those steps were maybe an inch-to-2 inches apart, and as many as we trekked in that video, we were only deposited on to the second floor of the home. Other points of interest were:

An example of these easy-riser stairs; my pops was in front of me, and there's my leg.

One of many organs she had in the house. A grand organ is located towards the center of the house, and is one of the last stops of the tour. The room the grand organ is located in also houses a magnificent silver chandelier, originally holding 12 candlesticks. Being so unique as she was, 12 wasn't enough, and she had the manufacturers add a 13th candle-holder. 13, a number she used adamantly in her designs for the house.

Here's the bed she died in. Gross.

This is one of many botany areas, and not a greenhouse. She loved plants. And windows. Within this room was a sprinkler system, plus a hose which she'd use or whoever was doing the actual work, and all the water that didn't make it to the plants drained out through the floor, and was reused on the plants outside. What a conservationist ahead of her time!

Sarah Winchester was very superstitious. Point in question. The infamous "Door-To-Nowhere" in the next shot.

Her acreage, which once consisted of pear, prune, and grapefruit orchards, was named Llanada Villa, with 13 palm trees lining the driveway up to the mansion. Those orchards don't exist anymore, neither the palm trees. The mansion was named Llanada Villa because Sarah Winchester knew 3-4 languages other than English, including Spanish. Everyone I've ever met who is fluent in Spanish have to somehow gloat the fact that they know Spanish, and Sarah Winchester was no different naming her estate the way she did. San Jose is heavily Mexican.

"Ah, you got any gum!?"

This should have been a living-statue.

Spiderweb pattern in the glass of some of the windows. She would've been pretty emo-goth in our time.

Here is a scaled-down replica of the house made of candy! No, it wasn't made of candy. I don't know what it was made out of; cereal? Here's the next shot of the replica.

I used my museum shot-setting to get this picture without all the glare. This was a part of the tour called the product museum. The Winchester Company, along with their line of fine fire arms, also developed and furbished flashlights, lamps, utensils, batteries, knives, and other household wares that I won't get specific with. I have more pictures of the inside of the Winchester Mystery House, but I'm not uploading them.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon around the premises before leaving for our condo at Angel's Camp, in Angel's Fire, CA. The drive from San Jose to Angel's Fire was roughly 120 miles, or 2 hours. It took us at least 3 or even 4, and that's because we ate as well as had a lovely and scary mountain excursion right after sunset. Angel's Fire to Angel's Camp to our condo is just about 20 minutes. It was 10 p.m. when we were settled in our condo.

The drive to Angel's Camp took us through pear and possibly pecan orchards, not to mention the many vineyards we passed, some erected on the hillside to allow the cold air from the coast to sweep through and chill the berries. The breathtaking scenery was further heightened due to it being sunset. Pictures of these beautiful landscapes don't exist on my camera.

Boy was I ready to sleep when we arrived at the condo! The next day would see us driving an hour to Yosemite to view the wonderful misty waterfalls of that National Park, as well as a bear sighting. This day also held my encounter with El Capitan. Please join me again for part 2!

Hasta Luego!

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Editor's Note: Download the video to see it much more clearer. Those dark areas are non-existent when I view it on my PC, and on the camera as well.

Pet-Peeved

2009-07-08T14:36:00.003-05:00

If a certain library were to offer you free use of 22 computers set up in a small corner of their 2nd floor landing, would you change one computer's account name to read your own, save all your researched information in a folder labeled your name, or add programming you want to utilize on to the hard drive of the computer you are on? Of course you wouldn't! Why should the library grant you permission to do that? They didn't set up 22 computers for you to treat as your own - they are possessions of the library, and you are there to use the computer for research, social websites, and emailing alone.

Did you put money down for that computer? It would be like going to your favorite restaurant and once you receive the menu, you opt out of that, and place on the table a bag of mini tacos, and you order your waiter to deep-fat fry those sons of bitches to a golden brown and that's what you'll have. Using the restaurants own property, their cookers in the kitchen, to get what you want, well, that's not going to happen! Don't expect it to!

Damn'it to hell! I had a spat with a patron today, and the argument ended with me saying: "We don't allow Limewire or any other site used to pirate music, movies, or pictures on our computers. That software is illegal, pirating copyright material is against the law, and if caught, we could be fined. It's not hard to get caught. Most ISP's frown upon such action, and we could lose our internet capabilities in this department if caught. So we don't allow it. Now, if you were to go out to Best Buy, Walmart, any place that sells computers, and you bought your own PC, do whatever floats your boat! That's your property. But while you are in here, you'll follow our rules. I should kick you out indefinitely for loading Limewire on the computer we have graciously lent out to you. That's not your computer! When did you start thinking you could change our settings on OUR computers? Oh, is buying your own computer too expensive!? Then you should be thanking your public library for allowing you a place like this, not abusing your privilege. What's the matter with you!?"

Every once and awhile you run into those such assholes who think we somehow owe them something, whether its through the tiring lines, "But I pay taxes to keep your doors open!" What a crock of shit! Your tax money is maybe going towards six fans that move the hot, stinky air around in the lab, or part of the budget money we use to keep our printers furnished. Maybe your hard earned money went to pay for the exterminators who had to spray for fleas in the lab - we had FUCKING FLEAS! I went home itchy!

Good point, asshat, let's just save what money we do get to provide computers for you, by moving them all down to the basement so you aren't allowed access to them. We could sell them off to employees and forget the general public; get rid of the lab altogether. Does your mother sew? Boom, have your mother sew that! Man, was I pissed off; what ignorance!

A more friendlier post will be up here tomorrow. One with pictures; do you like pictures!? And correspondance! I'm still making progress on the book. Hey, what excitement, huh!? A book!?! Stay tuned!

Charlie Brown Thermos

2009-07-01T10:26:00.004-05:00

My family is one of those units that travels every summer, usually planning some extravagant trip, in fact, the same time each year, the last week-to-2 weeks of June. I was fortunate enough to be able to travel along with them to San Francisco. I'll have pictures up at a later time for your eyes to wonder at.

I'm also thinking of disabling the RSS link I have up on my Facebook. It relays a copy of my posts to my Facebook, so friends of mine can read my posts there instead of here. Convenient, but also a nuisance - if you wanna read my shit, come to Blogger. But that remains a thought and not yet an action.

Caught Transformers 2 last night with a group of friends. Had a blast. I left without saying goodbye. I think I left without saying goodbye. I was driving down 11th, and thought, "Did I say goodbye, or anything along the lines of it was great seeing you all again, we should do this more often?" No, I don't remember doing that. I remember acting a tad socially awkward, the result of a complete mind-fuck seeing Traci and Steven for the first time in like 8 months! Christ be the Jesus! I was beginning to think I was uncool.

Today, for me anyway, is NEW COMIC BOOK DAY!!! I religiously read Cable and am currently following the Dark Reign story arc, as well as periodically re-reading The Messiah Complex. Geek. Math-elite. Wearer of suspenders. Actually, I'm none of these things. I don't even label myself geeky. I'm tech-savvy, but I can't do fucking math; I barely made it through my third attempt at Intermediary Algebra in college! I once had to write a newspaper article about some peoples in the dorms who hated being called nerds - they were associated with the Tech Department in Lochman Hall - and even the department heads would call them computer nerds and the article dealt with their discrimination; one of those unread columns for the Student Life section. I could have done so much more with it, but who would've wanted to? It was malarkey, a group of gamer college kids pissed that others around campus referred to them as nerds when they wanted to be called geeks. I didn't give a shit! In fact, to spite them, I could see people who had read the article going up to the Tech Department and yelling in their faces, "You're ALL A BUNCH OF NERDS! NNNEEEERRRDDDSSS!" Come to think of it, it was The Collegians misdoing: we had called them nerds in a previous article. HA!

Needless to say, I realized the article was a fun, easy assignment for the week, but I still found it bothersome to locate and talk with the tech-department, whether they were out on some mission to stop a terrorist from blowing up the sun, or setting the security much higher on the library computers because of an influx of porn. Plus, I never found that plain-of-genius I usually land upon when in a state-of-writing - there was nothing humorous about that article, and it should have been a breeze. I remember handing in that article to Todd, and him and Mr. M had this broad smirk on their faces waiting for this article to turn them inside-out and melt their skulls, and then they read it and they most likely sat in silence, Todd finally breaking that silence by saying, "Could you believe that crap Austin handed in for this week. That makes four terrible articles in a row. You know what happens if he does it again," and under the table, he cocks a gun. Just another reason why I got out of the biz. I guess you could say I was a bit jealous of the fact that most writers for that paper could take any topic and churn out a solid piece of journalism and I always botched it. Like watching a train wreck in slow motion, the more you read on the more a feeling of dread overwhelmed your senses.

This Week's Bargain Bag of Bullocks

2009-06-09T09:31:00.005-05:00

Not much in the form of a post, but a post all the same. Talked to my co-worker who makes our schedules about getting some time off in July. Hopefully it happens, she threatened it wouldn't. I don't give a shit all the same.

A big storm hit Sunday. Saw it roll in toward dusk with swirling cloud cover. Then it poured. The wind picked up soon after that. The rain got thicker, choking; you can drown in such weather. I couldn't see the house across the street. The thunder was like a loaded bowling alley, and each starter at each lane rolled their balls down the lane to crashed into the pins one by one. And then repeat. It quieted down twenty minutes later. The storm got sluggish trying to build momentum on expired fuel tanks. By the thirty minute-mark it was over. Sorry, no pictures.

South Hutch got a wind drop, or wind-bomb from the sound of things. I'll repeat how it was explained to me. Think of a water balloon dropping from out of the sky and as it impacts, the water explodes out. Now replace the word water with wind, and get rid of balloon. That's what happened. Once the wind current hit land, it branched out like nuclear fallout. Collins lost a building, and it left debris and crap strewn all over the place including some insulation and planks of wood and metal in the streets. Forget wind drop. I don't like this term wind drop. Cyclonic-winds took that building out, don't bullshit me!

Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King landed in stores the 2nd. Went at midnight to claim my copy. The door greeter tried to be nice and start up a conversation. I told him I had to get a CD now, and walked off. I picked up the fourth season of Weeds as well, and came back. The door greeter was still there, though who really needs a greeter at midnight? Again, he tried starting a conversation by asking, "Did you buy anything for me?" I wasn't having it. I said, "Nope, sorry. Looks like you get nothing again." He tried saying something else, but I was already on my way out the door.

Gran Torino would have been on sale last night at midnight. Late night shopping is convenient because nobody is pushing their way past you. Last night I did not get a copy of Gran Torino on the off-chance that guy was door greeter again. I didn't care for him. I guess I'm a mean person. I don't linger when I shop. I find what I need and I get out. It doesn't make sense not to have a game-plan before going shopping. I usually look on the store's website, and then go to the actual store. To have someone stop you right at the door to ask what you are getting, or to chit-chat when I don't know you and I've never seen you work days - they keep you primarily locked-away when the normal crowd is there, and then release you right when everybody else has fucking gone home. No, I don't like that. I know you're being nice, but...ah, thank you for helping me with the bags, but I just had the one, and it's...please don't observe my license-plate number or the make of my car for future reference...you really didn't need to follow me to my car...

There are a group of people who are constantly at the store late. Pretty much every night you would spot these assholes walking through the aisles, cracking jokes at merchandise:

Queers drink Snapple. 90% of the water I drink has Koolaid mixed in it. We could get one of these inflatable pools and get women to take their clothes off; women that don't wash regularly or shave. My mother. I don't understand The Office. Whoever thought Spongebob would last this long? A-gee-gee-gee (giggling) breast-pumps, gee-gee-gee! Swedish Fish!? What about American-Fish! What is it, gummy bears with fins?

Every time I go out to do Midnight-shopping I see that same group of people and it's aggravating! You know my friends and I used to go to iHop and dick around. But we ordered food. We didn't just sit there and crack jokes about the food or what was on the menu, and we rarely went to iHop every night. Find something better to do. I suggest blogging.

Lakers/Nuggets, Going on Holiday Soon, A Birthday, Best Friends, Scooters, and Horses

2009-05-28T13:17:00.003-05:00

I will be taking my very first flight in the next month, which seems pretty awful - 22 years old and I've never flown before. Probably a lot of people have never flown, so I guess I'm grateful I'm not that person, and who knows, maybe their afraid of flying. Ha, I laugh in the face of their fear!
You see, I'll be in San Francisco the last of June with the good ol' family. I'm gonna make funny faces at fish, eat fantastic seafood and walk into bars alone wearing Denver Nuggets attire. What a rabble-riser I yam! If you think about it, Lakers fans could be all over that fucking state. It would also be nice if the Nuggets would just bury the Lakers in the next 2 games of the playoffs. I really don't like those Los Angeles Lakers.

Speaking of 22, I celebrated a birthday on the eighteenth. It really wasn't much of a birthday. I went to work, and then I bought myself some beer. The hours I was at work really ruined the day. Every day that I work is a ruined-day...

I think I'm writing a book. It sounds like a book, it's expansive like a book, I've written a lot of words and it's expletive with many a detail like a book. Before, I had called it a writing project, but now, I'm confident in calling it a book. I've started many writing projects that have gone nowhere, so I won't be surprised if in three months I've torn up everything to do with this project. Let's not get any one's hopes up!

Just about every weekend now I've been stopping by the drive to talk to Jay. He's my best friend's dad. I like it that no matter how mature a person gets, when it comes to friends, that person isn't ashamed to admit he still refers to that one special friend as his/her best friend, and why should that person be ashamed! He's not my good friend, Jon is my best friend! And then follow that up with a and don't you forget it! That's just one thing I'll never let go from my childhood, the feudal system of the friends. The best friend is at the top, no one can trump his/her position. He/she is there for the long-haul, like the Pope. They've been with you the longest, you can tell that person literally anything. Below that person are your good friends. They might also be an acquaintance of your best friend. You hang out with them many a-time, and they might treat you like family. This top portion of the feudal system is your extended family more than likely. Below that are friends, or people you talk to a lot, maybe hang out with, and you all enjoy each other's company, but that's about it. Then acquaintances and so forth.

Like I stated, I've been visiting my best friend's dad on the weekends. Usually later in the night, for a good 2-3 hours, we stand out on the driveway of his home, and talk. It's been a lot of fun. And since his son has been out of the country, I think it's been rather helpful so Jay doesn't get lonely. Jon is the baby of the family and they're not used to him being away for so long. So I step in and do my part. And on most occasions, the weather is cooperative. Jay has a lot of entertaining stories, and I really like listening to the man talk.

A couple days ago, I busted out the scooter and went for a ride in Carey Park. I've noticed from time to time that motorcyclists will signal me, either with a peace sign or just their index finger out to the side of their ride. I flash a peace sign back, and never my index finger alone, I still don't get that. What is this some sort of commune? I'm riding a scooter, not a Hog. I'm not comfortable with the exchange. This isn't a gang, I just like riding a scooter...
If I was on a motorcycle myself, still, I don't want to have to signal everyone else on a motorcycle each time I pass them. What if I signal someone twice, or it's a group that ride, is one signal enough or am I being disrespectful? And why are a lot of them wearing leather and chaps!? You don't have to wear those clothes in order to ride a Harley. Hell's Angels my ass, the Hell's Angels would stab you if they saw you trying to act tough with your gloves and steel-toed boots. Shit, it's pretty hard to try and look cool riding a scooter, don't signal me! What are you trying to do, snub me!? Look at this jerk, I'll signal him as a joke, see if he does it back. He did it back! Oh my god, what an idiot! Can I start riding a horse around town? Maybe a group of us equestrians can ride up and down the road, maybe come up with our own signal.

Post.

2009-05-08T13:34:00.002-05:00

I don't understand why some people will ask you to guess a certain number of times something has happened to them, or, ask you to guess the price of a certain item. I'm never right in my guess; I'm not even close to the fucking number! "How much do you think my new sinks were?" "I don't know." "Take a guess." "60 dollars!" "...no...637 dollars!!" And I'm left saying to myself, 'I'm such a dumb fuck!' Because I don't know the street-cred of anything, I don't know the value of shit - what this or that costs - I don't have a fucking clue, and you know what, I like what you might be talking about or what has transpired for us to reach this point of the conversation, but I seriously don't give a fuck what the value is...of anything!

And who argues against a good deal!? It's half-priced burgers at Spangles, and my aunt is complaining that it's still too much money for food...tonight, if you choose to select one of five or more different variations (different toppings) of (on) hamburgers, you get the meal half-priced! And you argue about it!? I say, if you're at a restaurant, you order what you want and forget about price! If it's high, oh what the fuck, you treated yourself for once. You only live once. You Only Live Twice is a pretty good Bond flick, though it doesn't hold a candle to Dr. No, From Russia with Love, or Goldfinger.

I can't believe how out-of-the-ball park I am with guessing the price of shit or the value saved, I suck at reading minds. I'll have to add that to my list: I can't fly, I don't have X-Ray vision, I can't pass through objects, I can walk through fire and get burned severely - that's a draw-back, and I can't read any one's mind. It's a sad existence.

On my Break

2009-05-03T16:17:00.005-05:00

Today I took a 40 minute break and went for a drive. Driving can be fun. I like to think of it in the same respect as probably the pioneers would have if they went on a leisurely ride through hilly pastures, you know, maybe with their pioneer-wife, or whore they ran off with after a drunken visit to the mining-town saloons. If they were with the wife, the couple would gallantly gallop to a fresh Spring meadow, lay out the table cloth, and they might engage in a picnic. If the pioneer were with the whore, though, the two might engage in a forced-three way with a toothless backwoodsman.

My drive was 35 minutes, down Adams off 10th street, through a residential area past 30th street, then on to Thunderbird Lane, north to Kisiwa/Kansas Avenue, then out north on Plum Street as far as 82nd, and then I made a loop and came back to work. I was alone in this excursion, and I entertainment myself with the iPod. Sometimes I feel inclined to jet, or leave a certain place and drive around, then come back. I'm an advocate for driving.

As I came back, heading south on Adams, I made a left at 10th street. At the time, I was listening to Race Car Ya-Yas by Cake, full blast, of course, and with the windows down. A mom and her daughter were outside, the mom up by her house or shanty from the look of things, and the little daughter, about 5 or 6-years-of-age, riding her bike on the sidewalk. I completely forgot the lyrics for that song are:

The land of race car ya-yas. The land where you can't change lanes. The land where large, fuzzy dice Still hang proudly Like testicles from rear-view mirrors.

As I passed the little girl, I thought: you know, my music is just loud enough that she could probably hear it very clearly as I pass her. And then in the song, the words like testicles from rear-view mirrors were sung. And then I couldn't help, but think: did that little girl hear the word testicles as I passed her in my car? I took a glance in my rear view mirror, and it's kind of hard not to think she did hear the lyrics because when I looked back, her bike was on the ground, as though she threw it down as she fled to her mom, screaming, "Mommy! Mommy! Testicles!" She had ran from her bike on the ground and had ran to her mother, I'm oblivious to what apriority the girl expressed as she ran back to mom.

Thinking back on it, this isn't the first time a child has ran from me, or been frightened by me. I frighten kids. It's the reason why I don't like kids, that and screaming. I had to talk to a little kid one time visiting a co-worker's house. I didn't know what to talk to her about. I asked how she was doing, and she said fine. And I nodded my head, and looked off in the distance. Why did I look off in the distance? Maybe hoping out of the blue, somebody, another adult, would come up - definitely not another kid; one kid is enough, I don't need two to be awkward around. I then asked if the little girl had gotten any new clothes for the new school year; school was just around the corner, and it was only, at most, a week away. And I thought she'd be in to clothes; she was a second-grader, I think. She said she got a new dress and some shoes. I said FUN! I then commented on her dress she was wearing that day. It looked new, and I thought perhaps this was the new wardrobe she had gotten for school. I told her her outfit looked cute, thinking she'd like that. And then she ran away. And here I thought we were having an absolutely engaging conversation. Why do people make you meet their kids like the tykes are adults? And then to leave me alone with the little person...what the fuck are you expecting us to talk about!? Exit strategy? The plight of the newspaper business???

Questions and Or

2009-04-16T08:39:00.003-05:00

I am inside my head throughout a lot of shit. As I'm nearing a theater to go to a matinee with a friend, to waiting in line with a steamy plate in hand at a buffet, some times at the pump at a gas station...questions are firing off. Just a random assortment of questions. Was iced tea supposed to be an inside joke for us Yanks back in the states when we saw Brits inhaling that shit as a hot beverage? How did British people feel traveling the U.S. for the first time, and catching some guy out on his porch, putting cubes of ice in his tea instead of sugar and cream? Did they just laugh at us; were they appalled!? I don't really care to know the answer, but the question is still in my mind.

Does the Hockey profession have the best dental plan? Why don't smoke-shops sell designer smoking jackets or knock-offs - there's people out there that don't care whether they have a knock-off smoking jacket! You don't see a lot of weather-based films; I could maybe name off two right off the top of my head: Twister and Tornado. Wasn't there a Bruce Campbell film called Night of the Tornadoes??? There, that's possibly three off the top of my head. I'd like to make a hurricane movie, and I'd definitely watch a hurricane movie if it followed up the last of the Living Dead series by George A. Romero. Call it Hurricane of the Dead, or some shit. That's not a bad idea, folks.

I wanna know why it's considered a courtesy to call and remind a person about an event or an appointment the person had signed up for or got arranged for them. An implied incompetency is what I detect from that exchange, unless the person is elderly, or older than 35. I've had to make calls like that, reminding the person that they had signed up for a computer class, and reminding them what time and date that was. If you can't mark down on a calender when you are supposed to be somewhere at a certain time, or neglect to write it down or make a reminder for yourself of the event than obviously you didn't want to attend or arrive at your destination at that scheduled time. I would rather have a real person call you, if they insisted on calling you, instead of the automated courtesy-call because usually, if you ignore an automated courtesy-call, they have the courtesy to call you back...three minutes later, and so on, until you answer...

I received one of these automated courtesy calls as I was sitting down to dinner, did not answer it because I did not recognize the number - I do that frequently - and as I sat down at the table, and was cutting up a pork chop or stuffing a chunk of buttery, sour-creamy baked potato in to my mouth, the fucking phone rang once more. I answered, and the principal or superintendent for USD 308 gave me a lovely, recorded message about early education enrollment and pre-enrollment for grades 6 through 12. I...didn't fucking go to a USD 308 school in my past, nor did I have siblings younger than me. I don't have children of my own, so there is no possibility that they were trying to sway me in to transferring my kids from another district to there's; in fact, the only reason I can think of for why I'd receive a call like that is because my dad is a carpenter for 308 and his name is on a list. Grr, it's fucking hideous! If someone in the house has a doctor's appointment, it's like, "Let's call them and remind them of their appointment at...8 A.M.! They should be up, right!?" If I don't have to be up that early, I'm not, and to be woken up by the phone...you fucking cock suckers! I'd like to know their schedule, and personally call them at home to remind them when they have to be at work.

"This is a message from," the robot-voice changes to a recording of me saying, "an annoyed observer" back to the machine, "by our records, we've noticed that you have to be at work at 9 A.M. You have 4 hours and 37 minutes until your shift starts at 9 A.M. This is an automated recording, reminding you that your shift at your," and the electronic voice let's me interrupt by saying, "PRECIOUS," then immediately back to the automated voice, "job begins at 9 A.M. Thank you, and God bless Jesus." Then, an hour later, same call, same message, only, at the end of this message, we have an automated commercial for Hooters, that is overpoweringly loud for the other person's receiver, and causes them to pull the phone away from their ear. And if they opted out of answering the phone, it would give them 30 seconds to get back in their bed, and then call again. Makes my heart burst with joy!

Trailing Off

2009-03-25T10:36:00.006-05:00

Who doesn't like a double-post?

Recently, I had a person comment to me that they hated those Microsoft commercials where it shows the little 4-year-old downloading and emailing pictures. To them, this was Microsoft's way of snubbing all those people who can't work a computer.

The person commenting actually thought Microsoft was offending them by showing a little girl doing something this person couldn't.

Here's the deal: this commercial is only one of like a dozen like it, most are shown on the web. That little girl was the first -- a 4-year-old who was sending a picture she had taken of her fish to her mom. The other commercials consist of other kids doing easy picture and picture slideshow-projects using Windows Photo Gallery. The 4-year-old was to show how easy it is to use Windows Vista Photo Gallery because if a 4-year-old can do it and you can't, obviously, Windows is wanting to alienate you from its market so you will never want to buy one of their computers. Yeah right. This has nothing to do with the fact that the person commenting about the commercial was an idiot.

If you've seen all the commercials, one here or there/know anything about what I am rambling about, or, at least can figure out the gist of this latest commercial campaign, you will have then figured out that Windows is holding this benign contest where a 7-year-old goes up against a 70-year-old trying to do a task in Vista, an 8-year-old and her/his 72 years-older counterpart, and a 9 and 90-year-old, battling to the death.

The commenting person asked me, "Then why haven't I seen the older folks' commercials," where I said immediately after his comment, "because they probably died mid-way through their task." I don't know, and I don't care. So a little kid can do something on Vista that takes us incompetent people with computers 10x as much time to do. I have some pretty awesome (ossom, or l337) computer skills, and Windows Photo Gallery, I could most likely, work with in my sleep. It is what is expected of a person who has worked around various computer systems his whole junior high/high school/college/employed-life. And by person, I mean myself. Plus, I take the advice of friends, and what they've done with computers, and added that to my experience after learning said-skills through advice.

I'm really glad a 4-year-old can work a camera and computer in the same day/time-frame. I was beside myself after hearing that Japan once again beat the U.S. out of the World Baseball Classic. No I wasn't. I could care less, but I did theorize that Japan took the title for the second consecutive year because they play with honor, and most likely practice way more hours than we do. Hell, they go to school longer than we do, study more than we do - out-performing us academically each year - and to really kick us in the balls, their children can dismantle-then-rebuild a plane using no instructions. If you are 3 years-old, you can build a plane in Japan. So, to see Americans aged 4-9 working a computer like a pro makes me feel less depressed when I think of our country's standing in education. We're not even in the top 10 on that list.

Am I apart of any worthwhile causes? Absolutely not. So where do I get off commenting on our country's education-system? Let's see, the past couple of weeks, me and Nathan have been playing Resident Evil 5. I like to play as Sheva, the badass female mercenary. Check out these moves.

God, those are some shitty videos. So pixellated. Thanks youtube! You'll also notice not much action from Sheva - most of the time, the camera system is tracking Chris, the dude, but she's back there, and she's tough! Most of all, in my opinion, she's the best character in the game, maybe even the best protagonist in the whole series of games. The girl has some pretty fantastic knife-skills. A lot more versatility than Chris Redfield. Yep, that was a video of the chick hopping on the shoulders of the majini and crushing the infected-man's head into the ground.

Not to say Mr. Redfield doesn't have any game. The guy punches through heads!

So that game is a lot of fun, and so are the prequels I'm playing through again.

I'm starting a writing project. Don't know what it'll be yet - an idea I've been toying with for 2 years now, and I'm finding a medium in which to do it in, but I'm not sure what to classify it, so it's just a writing project.

My hands smell like chicken. It's hard for me to get behind a good-flavored grape pop. A lot of it tastes like Dimetapp back-in-the-day, and not to be confused with today's Dimetapp. Today's Dimetapp could be cherry or that disgusting yellow, with that I don't know what that flavor is, but I don't want it in, or near, my mouth-taste. Or the almost as dreadful orange. There used to be a sweet orange flavor, until people started drinking cough medicine for fun. Our day's Dimetapp was grape. And no matter how hard you convince me, no one can stand to drink grape pop all-the-time, even if it kicks ass and tastes like back-in-the-day Dimetapp. No sir, or madam.

I have found a grape pop that I can stand to sip on once and awhile, but not chug or depend on for the rest of my days. It's Welch's and it's a pop that tastes like juice. I will get it occasionally, and on that note, whenever I rarely drink soda. Spontaneously, I might prefer a Coke over all else, or even Dr. Pepper, diet or regular. I can stand to drink just water or ice tea all week, sometimes all month. That, and the occasional booze. Coincidentally, I am a grown-up.

It's sickening how some people have to depend so heavily on pop or sugar. Sometimes it's beneficiary especially with diabetics. Blood sugars low - what's this? - GUMMY BEARS! A couple minutes later, you're bending cars in half once more! Other times, a person isn't consciously thinking about how much sugar they ingest, and tis not good.

Night Vision Goggles

2009-03-22T13:48:00.005-05:00

You know you're a geek when someone catches you browsing night vision goggles on the internet, and you're actually serious about buying them. I fuckin' hate stubbing my toe late at night because I had to walk from the kitchen to my room in pitch black darkness, trying desperately to avoid obstacles and failing; I don't want to wake anyone up from their precious sleep by turning on lights. I do, however, end up waking everyone up when I stub my toe on the dishwasher, and exclaim, "FUCK" in the middle of the night.

These are called the NIGHT OWL

TACTICAL GOGGLES NOTG2

"The shit, in night vision-technology." - Stephen Hawking

The NOTG2 is one of the most advanced commercial night vision units around...and blah blah blah - what bothers me is the price of these goggles: 2,000 to 3,000 dollars!

Well, I guess I can't be too surprised. These look like what are issued to Splinter Cells.

And then there's these. Jesus - you'd look like the fuckin' Borg from Star Trek: TNG wearing these fuckin' things! I realize these are the kiddie-type night vision goggles, but Christ, I don't think I've ever laid eyes on something I could break easier; one misstep and oops, butterfingers, I've broken this headgear. I'd hold a contest where we'd see how long, or how short of time it takes to destroy these goggles. I reckon 10 seconds for me, in a room with a hardwood floor. $70 for goggles that take like 6-7 D-Cell batteries. Oh, sorry, 5 AA batteries, so these things can power up and be useful for an hour and a half. What a fantastic value!

No, I'm not going to buy Night Vision goggles. For one thing, I'd look like Buffalo Bill stalking Clarice Starling in Night Vision goggles. I'll save my $3,000 and try and lease a car! Show me a pair of night vision goggles that doubles-up as a vehicle I could drive to work in, for $3,000, and maybe we'd have a deal. I'll more or less rip off my pinkie-toe by stubbing it so many times than lay down that kind of money for something I'd maybe use for 5-10 minutes a night. And even then, I'd probably be stupid enough to flip on the kitchen or bathroom light wearing these fuckers and half-blind myself. I wonder if there is a way to make night vision contact lens???

A Snowball in Summer

2009-03-02T12:51:00.003-06:00

This guy sweats way too much. He's the men's college basketball coach for Marquette - Buzz Williams - and the reason why he's so down-dressed is because he sweats too much. At the start of the the Marquette/Louisville game yesterday where the Louisville Cardinals fought hard and won with a 58-62 victory over the Marquette Golden Eagles, Buzz Williams had a snazzy dark sport coat on. Then he threw it off, perhaps in a fit of rage. While his back was turned at the end of the 2nd half, with a minute or so left in the game, I noticed why he displaced his sport coat - his back was almost entirely covered with dampness; it was a sight I'll never forget! Just imagine a wet stain on your clothes, about the size of Asia...he had that on his back; it was unforeseeable and devastatingly noticeable.

I've come to realize there are some pretty wet-looking people out there, or, at the very least, some people with overactive sweat glands. I had a problem with this back in high school; I don't know if it was the lights in the old gymnasium or what - because that was usually when I'd be the sweatiest, or if it was because I was playing a musical instrument; again, it seemed like I would sweat more in the old gym while playing in a music recital, or just stand sweating it out under those fucking old gym lights. And maybe it was not a conscious thing. Maybe deep down, I would sweat more in the old gym because it was a gymnasium, where most people would go for P.E. class or to work out or have sex... Or, again, maybe it was the lights. They were suspended from the ceiling and looked as though one might fall at any moment. And the heat omitted from them could easily start a fire if the light were enclosed in a small room full of flammable material. Yes, I was a person who should have used clinical-strength deodorant - all over his body - in that old gym. Buzz Williams would've melted in that old gym, and would here-on-out have to coach from a glass his coaching assistants would have to pour him in. The glass would most likely have a tiny sport coat around it, complete with a tie, to look professional.

Humpdy Dumpdy

2009-02-11T14:57:00.004-06:00

We depend too much on technology. Way too fucking much! I feel sorry for those of us who aren't ready to take the leap in to the techno-emergent-multimedia and informational-universe known as computer science, and for those who really have no reason to do so, are being forced into such a dilemma because their medicare is organized and supplied online, or, like one shriveling, pruney-old man - Jesus, his credit card company was forcing him to pay his credit bill off online. Unemployment benefits are dealt with the same way - sure, they give you a number to call, but the person on the other line is just feeding these callers with bullshit, to force them to file through the internet. And to do so over such a fragile infrastructure like the internet...that's so awful.

I work around computers constantly, 22 to be exact, sometimes, at one time, and the internet times-out a good 3-4 times a day on a minimum...

I used to think it was malarkey when people would say, "One day, the internet will have so much bandwidth running through it at one time, it will clog the pipes, and you know what happens with clog pipes - no information goes through," but I've got to say, from the experience I've had with it, that days coming. Especially in this day-and-age where we depend too much on something that's not what would be described as a fail-safe. The internet is just as fragile as the world market, and look what's going on there...we've literally whored out the internet so much, she's cryin'...and we've just explored the first of many possibilities the internet has, and like most resources we get our greedy little fingers on, the internet will tap-out.

A Work Post

2009-01-27T09:16:00.002-06:00

All last week was staff training where I work. Basically, everyone in the Tech department were assigned 5 or so employees to train on the new database/security system we will be implementing within the first quarter of this year. So for a whole week, my department was scattered to all the other departments, and then the staff training portion took place up in the computer lab because we had the space. And computers. And a Rancor. But mostly computers and the space-thing.

Steve, my boss, thought five days would probably be sufficient enough time to train the employees. I got mine done in two. That's right, two. My boss got his done in four. Loser.

His training did consist of one or two days of setting up the computers so they'd run for his trainees. I just stepped in, trained my people, and left, leaving him and Gina to answer questions, while they phoned around, looking for me. I wasn't gonna sit around answering questions.

The first day of not doing work, I did work - I worked on a presentation for my group (in November, we had an all-staff day full of festivities...and work, and some exercise where we played with Legos and Play-Doh. We were put in "groups" and were given a problem that needed a solution)

This "problem/solution-thing" consisted of feedback from a survey we had given out to the public last summer. And the public bitched and complained, as usual, about the most ignorant shit you could possibly imagine. Your library should be open 24 hrs. Mainly the computer lab-area, not necessarily the library itself. Thanks for the feedback; okay everyone, the library will now be open 24 hours, 7 days a week, running up our utility bill, not to mention all the money we'd have to pay employees to be here that long, hiring more staff, cleaning up after selfish people who fuck up anything that's not their property. Not gonna happen. And yes, if the lab were open 24 hours as well, we'd have people here ALL NIGHT. And then it would be, well, since the library is open 24 hours, and the computer lab is opened 24 hours, then patrons of the computer lab shouldn't have a time period on the computer like they do now. Basically, I don't have a home, so I'll live in a library like FUCKING From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler only, in a fucking library because I'm homeless; I want hand-outs! I'll live on crackers and soda pop!

My "group's" problem was to come up with ways to make our library quiet because someone had wrote on their survey that libraries used to be quiet, and ours wasn't, and it needs to be quiet again; people who live in this town don't understand the word "advancement." The presentation I was working on that day included everything my group had discussed and debated in our meetings, plus my own ideas and data I had collected from other libraries; it was legit work, and it didn't take me very long to complete, either. That was the first day of not doing work, and the explanation of the work I was doing.

The second day was the 20th; Inauguration Day for President Obama. I talked to my supervisor for about thirty minutes and kidded around a bit, checked some email and some internets, then went to the business office, sifted through a desk drawer until I found a familiar-looking silver key, then walked across the library, unlocked one of the conference rooms, and played my Nintendo DS for twenty minutes. Then I remembered there was a television in the basement, that was never used, except for meetings. This is one of three down there, so if there happened to be people wanting a set for the Inauguration, there was one everyone was enjoying in the staff room, and one that had been moved to the auditorium (that one is a BEAST) with chairs outlined adjacent to it for the public to come in and watch the Inauguration. Not many people were in that room. With that in mind, I knew the last set was unoccupied, and so I commandeered a dolly, and went down in the elevator to retrieve it. Did so without any one asking me questions. By the way, my conference room was wired, most are, so I had limited cable. I trucked that set up to my conference room, shut the door, turned out the lights after plugging shit in, and tuned in C-SPAN for Inauguration coverage. After that was all said and done, and the Inauguration was winding down, it was 12:30ish, so said my clock in the conference room, so I unplugged everything, moved the television on a dolly to the auditorium; I DID NOT put it back where I found it because then it looked like someone had moved it in to the auditorium (because we have stupid people on staff who would do this) figuring that no one had taken the time to set up a television in the auditorium, which they had with THE BEAST, so that imaginary person, who our maintenance supervisor Kevin would assume worked in Reference, just decided to leave the television in the auditorium because they had done all the work to get it upstairs where it wasn't needed, and were too lazy to take it back downstairs. I know -- this clever, improvised scheme I had concocted sounds like it took a lot of thought, it didn't. I just know people. Kevin is against Reference, and the Reference department doesn't give a shit about anyone, so I played the two forces off each other. Office politics can work in your favor.

By 12:30ish, this meant I only had a half-hour left in my shift. And since I was still on the clock, technically working, I was entitled to a break. So I took mine. I went down to the staff room and one of my co-workers asked if I had gotten the message to talk to Gina. How could I have gotten that message, I was hiding out. I took a twenty minute break, eating leftover Chile from a Chile-cook off the staff had the previous week, and then I talked to Gina who wanted to know where I was at. I told her Children's had a security threat on their computer that I handled, then I went down to the Tech office for CD's, which, by the way, was a problem we had in the lab last week; one of the part-timers left a note saying we had run out of CD's in the lab, and I told Gina I thought we might have had some down there. After finding out we hadn't, I went up to the Business Office, where they informed me CD's had been ordered, then I helped Steve make cable (Steve wasn't actually there, I had told Gina, but I knew he needed to make some for the wiring-changes because of the new security system, so I volunteered)

That excuse covered my ass for about two hours, and it was bullshit! Steve needed wiring, but fuck, I wasn't gonna strip it. And I was out the door in 30 anyway, it didn't matter what I told her. Then I told her the rest of the time was spent on working on my presentation for my group, and then taking a break, and watching the Inauguration. She didn't take too kindly to me working on this "presentation" - apparently, they (she) had stuff I was supposed to be doing for them (her). I didn't like how she was ordering me around like her subordinate, so I went over her authority and talked to Steve. He told me to work on the presentation because I mentioned my "group" was holding a meeting that week Thursday afternoon, which they were.

And Steve also told me not to listen to Gina.

I walked out at 12:54, clocked out at 12:55 right as the time clock switched to the next hour, and went to my grandma's to take a nap, and watch some college basketball.

Editor's note*** Wednesday-Thursday I trained my people; yeah, you thought I had done that before the shit with the TV in the conference room...haha. That Friday, I was called in to work, which corresponds with my last post about talking with my boss about voicemail.

Something Discussed, Followed by Something Else with Sprinkles of Random Somethings in the Middle...like Nuget

2009-01-24T11:01:00.003-06:00

My supervisor was hacked off at me the other day because he tried to call me, to ask if I could work for another employee, and I didn't answer my phone. At the time, I was sleeping because that's what I do when I don't have to be at work in the morning...is sleep. It's a whole new concept; I wouldn't expect anyone else to know about sleeping in on days when you don't have to work...

His name is Steve. He has a mind much like my own, only, he actually enjoyed math back in high school, excelled at it, and now has a job where people who aren't as smart as he is bug him with questions all damn day. His hobbies include, but are not limited to, listening to an instruction one time, and fully understanding it, answering other people's stupid questions, drinking coffee out of a ceramic mug that says, "Monday Mug" on it -- when it's Thursday; re-wiring the building on a wobbly ladder that will one day split in half and most likely kill him or impale a sharpened bit of shrapnel through his abdomen, not killing him, but damaging his pancreas, which will later kill him. If he subscribed to social networks, that would be his description for his hobbies, not including others I have opted to not mention.

Steve wanted to know why I didn't have voicemail on my phone. He could've easily left a message and I could've gotten that later in the day. I told him I wasn't a big fan of voicemail because I hate getting the alert on my phone, punching in a code to get the message and then having that message be a "hang-up" where the person stayed on the line (God knows why!) I guess to listen to the lady feed him instructions on how to use voicemail, and then that person hung up when that ladies' voice wasn't followed by my own. I mean, what else do you expect -- you think I'm gonna magically answer, and be like, "Hello. I felt my phone vibrate; knew it was probably you!!" New rule: if you get to the voicemail options and the person hasn't answered, hang up, don't leave a hang-up voicemail. Or the, sigh, mumble a curse word, then hang-up-voicemail. Steve then said, "it's a lot easier to reach you if you have voicemail." Where I parried, "What's the point!? The odds are still against you that I would even reply to your voicemail message." Seriously, if I had voicemail on my phone, I still wouldn't answer it. No matter how annoying the alerts got, I wouldn't check my voicemail because I know that only my friends leave a voicemail, then follow it up with a text message; only work would leave a voicemail and leave it at that. Which I told my supervisor, so he'd say, "you purposefully ignore calls from work?" "Yes."

Steve would do that same thing if he had a more competent work staff, or a clone. Steve 2 would be assigned to the dirty work, and Steve 1 would smoke cigars and drink all day. And if he cloned Steve 2, Steve 3 With Avengence would clean shit up, and be responsible for Steve 1's girlfriend, except for encounters with her, of the intimate nature. Steve 3 houses the feminine-side of Steve 1, so he'd cook and clean to his heart's content and be able to express himself emotionally with Steve 1's girlfriend. Basically, the plot for the movie Multiplicity with Michael Keaton.

And with voicemail, and this is the funnest thing with all answering-machines, you get to come up with a message all your own. What sucks ass are the people who act like they answered the phone, so their message might be, "Hello?" and you say, "Hey, it's *so-and-so* what's up," and they're like, "Huh?" so you repeat, "It's *so-and-so*, how's it going..." and about this time, they say, "You reached my answering machine, I'm not actually here..." Son of a bitch! Why'd you trick me!? Those people never get called by me again. If that's your idea of creativity than here's my idea for excluding your creative upheaval -- I don't call your ass anymore!

I can't think of one thing I'd put as my answering-machine message. Just some dull salutation and a number in which you can call me back at. That's a true test of creative integrity, and those people who fake you out, have failed the test. And the punishment for such failure is the removal of that person's tongue. Since I don't "subscribe" to any type of voice-messaging service, I get to keep my tongue...and my dignity.

Babies and the Other Side of the Spectrum

2009-01-06T10:16:00.003-06:00

I hate the elderly and babies. My grandma is elderly...don't worry, I don't hate her. But old people are fucking helpless sometimes. Especially the elderly in front of computers. You pretty much have to lead them by the hand when they are on a computer. And they always use the same excuse. "I'm so used to a typewriter. That's how we typed anything, is with a typewriter." I used a typewriter before I used a computer. Before my parents got our Gateway with Windows ME loaded on it which was bullshit; I hated that fucking operating system! Before the parentals bought their Gateway machine, we had a Hewlett Packard because that's what it was known as before HP - we had a Hewlett Packard piece of shit with Windows 3.1. It would freeze up loading Minesweeper. And before that, we had an electric typewriter that was my mom's when she was in college in 1978.

I remember writing short stories and then typing them on that old typewriter. The type bars would always get stuck on the platen, and the ink ribbon, if this ever occurred, would smear and make a god-awful mess on the paper...it was ALL bullshit! That machine was frustrating, not a computer. To be honest with you, because I've worked with both, I prefer the computer over the typewriter, hands down! It's more convenient, and if you think about it, because I write all the time, and rarely print off, I've saved money with a computer compared to a typewriter. Try finding an ink ribbon for a typewriter NOW! Jesus Christ! Paper is so much cheaper than a new ink ribbon, or repairs to a sticking type bar(s). I just can't comprehend how it's so difficult for the elderly to get behind computers.

I guess there is too much of a generation gap, which again, is bullshit. The term generation gap was made up by the elderly as an excuse to be lazy and not learn technology. You've gotta keep up with the times, no matter how stubborn you are or how thick-headed your disposition is.

Here are your two tools when controlling a computer; your mouse and a keyboard -- which should be familiar to all those in allegiance to the typewriter. It's the same damn standard keyboard as before. I don't get it. How simple does it have to be for an elderly person to just get it? Windows Vista has a program for people who hate using their fingers or hands to manipulate the computer -- or for elderly people whose brains are covered in cobwebs -- where you speak a command and the computer complies. That is ridiculous! And you're cheating if you subscribe to it. What!? -- you have a hand wrapped around your cock when you're on a computer, and the other is holding a Kleenex -- you don't want to have to dismount to switch to another porn file, you'd rather speak to your computer and say, "Open Gushing Twats Gangbang!" And bam! A nice, quivering vagina leaking clemen in to a pool, and a loud, orgasmic scream of pleasure...fantastic!

I already know that if I live to be an elderly-person, I'm gonna be tech-savvy.

Babies. I don't get it. You might as well get a cat, preferably one that's sick and vomits too much, and howls for no reason, oh, and wears a diaper which is always filled with a huge load. Don't get me wrong, babies can be fun. You teach them everything you were taught -- there's a whole tradition-thing goin' on with babies and toddlers and adolescence and tweenies and teenagers -- with toddlers, when they first begin to talk, you can teach them bad things to say; I don't condone you do this because once they learn something, they say it, even when you don't want them to say it, and it spoils their minds, and usually these kids are assholes and you find yourself wanting to stab them. Babies are funny. They make noises like R2-D2, they like games -- it's like a little person high; they're always doing something silly and outrageous. I LOVE those babies. I hate babies who are tired, but their parents don't seem to get that they are tired, and drag them around all afternoon without a nap. I hate babies who cry for no reason. Oh, my juice spilled -- oh, I hit myself with a toy I shouldn't have been flinging around -- oh, my bath-water is scolding hot and I now have a third-degree burn -- waa, I'm being abducted! Those babies suck! I like babies who like to rub it in my face that they can get away with sucking on boob all day -- it pisses me off, but I'm relieved that the baby wasn't born gay. I don't think I've ever seen a gay baby. Damn gay-community and their myths...

So, with babies, the good outweighs the bad. With the elderly -- they are just a nuisance, all of them, except my Nana. She's too sweet to be rotten. And now I'm done rambling. Look forward to another post by me here in a month or so about nothing.

A Short Post About Winter Weather and Gloves

2008-12-22T09:40:00.003-06:00

This is one of my only personal posts I have on my blog. My life is uneventful, I've discussed this many many times before. But sometimes I'm just so content that I have nothing to argue or complain about....

Let me revoke that last statement because I still have things to complain about.

It is cold, and I mean cold!! It could be colder, and for the love of God let's hope it doesn't get any colder. This morning, the temperature was in the single digits. Now, let me just put this out there, the temperature could be in the negative single digits...this is not to jinx myself or the good folks of south-central Kansas. What I don't like about the cold is the cold. It hurts my face. My hands, when I step outside, freeze and contort into these talons and they stay in that grappling, claw-like position the rest of the day. I can't pick anything up - if I had a baby boy or girl, I would not be able to hold him or her in my arms, in fact, he or she would probably turn in to a block of ice and crumble in my palms. Damn these hooks!

We have too much moisture in the air. Every damn morning, I have to scrape off the windows of my car -- I have to maneuver my hands in such an unnatural way because they are talons at this point to open the driver's side door of my car. I don't know if anyone else has had this problem, but -- nylon gloves -- I don't really know if that is the material these gloves are made of, but to describe them, they are heavily-fibered, stiff-bear-traps for your hands with little-to-absolutely-no-mobility. Without them, my hands are talons, with them, my hands are stiff, mannequin's hands. My house is an obstacle course because if I have to open doors with these gloves, shit doesn't work. My grip just continues to slide on the surface of the doorknob. I would burn alive if their were a fire in my home and, for some unexplained reason, I was wearing these gloves. Just these gloves alone; no pants, no shoes, no shirt, no service!

For some of yous, yous is thinking I'm fucking nuts! Felted gloves are absolutely mobile, they don't transform your hands in to useless dead trout-hands or turn yous in to a mannequin -- they are comfy, they are all-around versatile, and if you're lucky, JC Penneys has them on sale for like $5. Ever tried brushing your car of snow caked on your hood and roof, not to mention, your windows with felted gloves? They're like a god damned sponge! Snow gets on them and melts, and the fabric absorbs the water, and stepping out in this kind of weather with wet gloves is 10x worse than no gloves-at-all. So your choices of hand-ware in temperatures as low as these are few and far between. If they could make a glove from the total opposite of the ShamWOW! material, that would be uber-bitchin'! You could pour a 24-cube of Mountain Dew on the carpet, and the ShamWOW! which is wizardry-all-in-its-own would absorb that shit up by you just placing the fabric over the wet area, no pressure applied whatsoever. If the glove I was speaking about earlier were to be made from the opposite material as the ShamWOW! not only could liquid not get in, but heat could not escape, which means once you start sweating in your gloves, your hands slick with sweat, the glove would become almost vacuum sealed, and now you always have gloves on your hands; never can they be removed or even cut from your hands because the fabric is indestructible. Obviously, because of these conditions, no such glove will ever be made, and I would never wear it.

*Side-note*
It is already duly-noted that some people in this world are so fucking cold, they have transformed themselves in to yetis, and that maybe I should be grateful that I don't have to experience that kind of hellish weather.

Barely Baring my Soul; Bare with Me!

2008-12-13T09:42:00.004-06:00

I need a vacation. A long, long, long sunny and not windy or cold or frosted, but not exactly snowing-vacation...near a beach with a wide assortment of alcoholic beverages, and maybe a thick book. Yes...some reading and drinking...and if a bikini-clad woman were to lounge next to me, I'd accept her company...with opened arms. It's been a while since I had a day off work. Here's how annoying it gets when you've worked as much as I have, with no relief, and bare with me - I realize my job isn't what most people might call hard or, in a better adjective, excruciating; I'd describe what I do as a walk in the park. But it's the attitude I get from the people who come in, or simply, the amount of the same people I have to see every day of my life, that gets me down. The same caliber of people I have to see every day...EVERY DAY, those same buffoons come in here, do the same thing on the computer as the day before...people, do you not have anything better to do with your time!? So again, as an example of how trite this job can be, last night I was supposed to chill with a few of my friends, and I didn't get to because I fell asleep at like 8:30-9 p.m. That is absurd! I couldn't keep my eyes open that early in the night, and so regardless of how many times my friends tried to get a hold of me, I was out! My one break away from work and doing nothing, and work, and coming back home and being so bored I just stare at a television to pass the time, was ruined because I was so, either exhausted from my mundane atmosphere or quiescent by the stupidity of these people. I think my mind was fried. I mentioned above in this somewhat-similar-to-all-my-posts-diatribe that I'd rather take a vacation, away from all this vexatious shit; I have plenty of stuff I'd rather do than babysit these adults! I need to explore my calming center...that sounded really gay.

TV Land has been rerunning episodes of The Cosby Show at about 10 or 11 o'clock at night. That's a fantastic show to fall asleep to. I caught it on the network about three days ago, and can't get enough of it. About a year or so ago, any time I just wanted to veg or chill to the television, while channel-surfing, I'd miraculously come across The Cosby Show on like Nick at Nite (I think it was Nick @ Nite) Aside from the ridiculous Cosby sweaters, and his goofy, shuffling dancing at the beginning of each episode, the show is just so chalk-full of heart! YAY! Actually, Bill Cosby is very funny in his role as Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable; this was still before he became embittered by the death of his only son, and became the douche bag he is today, demanding a lapse of violence and sexuality in all forms of media, particularly television and video games. I'm almost willing to go out and buy The Cosby Show on DVD, considering at Target I can get the entire series for like $70. Just depends if I want to spend $70 on something I can watch on cable for free.

What else? I never have anything good to talk about. Which is why I'm so quiet if I go out to dinner with people, or go over to someones house where people I know are at, chilling. Or, if I run in to someone out-and-about and we get to talking, I'm always the one shaking my head in agreement or going, "uh-huh...uh-huh...yeah, that's true....really!?" like I'm actually fucking shocked; "Really!? You don't say!" The bad that comes with that is I then sound like I'm uninterested in what the other person is talking about or I seem distracted. Folks, that's my A.D.D. kicking in, and my lack of social skills; I'm sociable, but I've also been flung bullshit all day while at work, and had to deal with some pretty crappy people, so bare with me if I don't speak up. Like, for instance, about a week ago, I went over to a friend's house and my friend's sister - my friend wasn't there at the time - her sister decided to color a 'Welcome Home' dangling banner, with the letters 'Welcome Home' or whatever the fuck it said, dangling and separate from one another. Good for her, right? Wrong. Everyone in the room had to color a letter, now, I don't know about you, but coloring or doing anything creative, being forced in to doing creative-things is not my favorite thing to do. Especially after I had to work. But there was no talking my way out of this one, and arguing seemed trivial, so I sucked it up, grabbed a letter, and went to town, as the saying goes. Only my way-to-town was through a briar patch, or in sensible-terms, I was thoroughly stumped on how I wanted to decorate my letter. In fact, my friend's mom even noted that I looked stumped. So, instead of coloring, I just drew a slack-jawed, whimsical character I refer to as "The Rambling Man" peeking over the letter 'O'. And that ended my participation in coloring letters for a banner. Again, not that I didn't care, I was inebriated and unable to be sparked by creativity. As we all attempted to start a conversation, our attempts were futile. I had nothing interesting to say, and it didn't seem right for the parents of my friend to carry all of the conversation - it got awkward.

I'm amazed I've been able to supply this blog with a post just about every month! I was thinking about how stupid people are any more. Like this morning, I had a guy come in who wanted headphones while he "worked"/played around on the computer. See, we rent out headphones as well. The only problem is, like everything you give other people, they break it, or in this sense, break the headphones. The funny thing is, we have a whole cabinet to the back of the room full of the headphones we use. I tell people whenever I run out of headphones that they will have to wait until someone returns a pair, when in fact, they could have a pair of headphones right now if I wasn't lazy and didn't want to walk over to the cabinet to grab a few pairs. What made this incident "stupid" was what the guy said to me when I told him I didn't have a pair of headphones for him to rent. He asked, how could I run out of headphones? And I told him I had a limited amount of headphones to give out, and all of my pairs are in use at the moment. He then said, that's dumb...you need to buy more headphones then..., where, upon him saying that, I thought, no, what you need to do is bring your own headphones with you if you are planning on using them with one of our computers. This fuck is so acclimated to using a pair of our headphones that, once we ran out of them like we did today, he wasn't satisfied without headphones. Let's do a little math to further ridicule this creature; each day he comes in and gives me a quarter for headphones. If he were to come in for seven days straight, or a full-week, he has spent a $1.75 on headphones alone. And he's a regular, so tally that up for a month, that's $7 a month. He could have bought his own headphones, headphones only he is using, headphones that will always be there and never taken by another person, we hope, and we need to buy more headphones...but I don't tell him that.

Some of our practices here in the lab, and by that I mean our list of rules we have compiled, have different variations in other fields of work, but otherwise, they are unique. We have a 60-70 page report just on people we've had to warn for unacceptable behavior. A lot of the people on that list are repeat offenders. We have an equally compromising not-paid list. There's a person in here now, no matter who you are, if he sees you coming up to him, he says hello. Doesn't matter that it's the fifth or sixth time I have had to come up to him, to either give him a pair of headphones that have just become available or to tell him his time is up, each time a person comes up to him, it's hello. And it's not because he's nice; he's just weird, but has a good attitude on life. A lot of these people who come in I know on a first and last name-basis; now that's sad, and it's all because they come in so often. Whenever we have a problem-patron come in, and our newest employee is unsure of who it is, they come to me. Because I've seen them all, dealt with them all, know how to deal with them, hate to deal with them, but don't have a choice in the matter. All it takes are a few haphazard descriptions from a co-worker of how the person acted or looked, and I'll instantly know who they are talking about. One time, it was simply one of my co-workers saying the person was incredibly loud, no matter what his demeanor was, meaning, even if he was being nice, he could not control the volume of his voice - that and the fact that he always carried around a neck pillow, and a large quilt. Instantly, I knew who my co-worker was referring to. I mean seriously, I could bring along a camcorder with me to work for 2 or so months, and have an interesting story to tell. From the assortment of posters we have tacked to the walls to make the place "homey"-to- the oddest part of this room; how, some days during the summer we are stuffy as hell and so damn hot up here, and then the next day, freezing cold...I can almost state that I like my job...

Results and Aftermath

2008-11-24T12:49:00.006-06:00

The United States Presidential Elections have been concluded for awhile now, and Sir Barack Obama is now president-elect; I don't like that term, one bit. President-elect -- I realize Bush still retains office, but people, stop saying President-elect - it's annoying. I'd rather have them say newly-elected president, or, better yet, all you news-sites, come up with your own term for a person who has been elected president, but does not hold office. Everyone uses president-elect, and if one news source uses it, all of them start using it. Fact: if you hear a news cast on one station, flip to all the others - they all repeat the same shit, only a few twist the facts to their liking (ahem, Fox News; anymore even MSNBC) And yes, President-elect might be the official term used, but Jesus, every sentence is the president-elect-this-and-this, and, oh, Mr. President-elect; you can't just refer to him as Barack Obama, or Obama? Hell, I remember when former-President Bill Clinton was referred to as Governor Clinton before he took command, why not Senator Obama? We fucking get it -- he's president! Great! I know I'm really scrounging for this one, but isn't it referred to as reverse racism if you constantly insist on drawing all your attention on one aspect of a different race, for instance, the fact that Obama is the first black president? Hear me out: it would be like the news stations constantly referring to Obama as, "In today's news, first-elected-black President Obama issued..." (I realize by saying President-elect you aren't acknowledging any ethnicity, but it seems like it's almost alluding to an assured uncertainty of whether or not the guy was actually elected president, like we are in some kind of dream) Personal story, I was riding in a car from Wichita, and a black Toyota pickup passed us, and I just happened to glance at its bumper and saw the words 'Kill Obama' in silver paint. That guy's life is a fucking nightmare now that Obama is president, and I say, fuck that slanderous, outrageously racist dick! - Bush might have left a bad taste in my mouth, but I never wanted to kill the guy (yes, that pun was intended)

I like newly-elected president; I also like president-in-waiting...I'm sure if I had the time, I'd have more terms for you. What I don't like is how this post-election has been treated. Obama is a normal person, and he hasn't even been in office yet, and he's donned already as this savior. I was walking through an aisle at Target the other day - the coloring book aisle or whatever, with all the children's books and puzzle books - one of the books there was a children's book on Obama. I imagine it was full of pictures of him beating up ruffians, and returning the purse of an elderly lady before flying off to his ice-palace on Antarctica, or using his power-breath to blow away the next Katrina back to the middle of the ocean, saving some coastal providence. An infomercial was on the other day, which was trying to persuade me to order a golden coin with the image of Obama etched on it, and some bullshit drawn on the back of it, all for only 19.95! On The Daily Show, on a segment they like to call Back in Black with comedian Lewis Black, I heard people are selling t-shirts, decorative plates depicting Obama, other shit that will linger in a storage closet here in the next ten years. Come on, really?!? My God, you're really exploiting the next president of the United States; shame on you! Marvin, you genius son of a bitch, you've done it again! First, it was the 'I Survived Katrina by Floating on my Drowned Neighbor's Body' t-shirts, and then the 'Earthquake! in Indonesia Electric Toothbrush' that, once vibrating and the picture of a tropical resort village shakes, the buildings begin to crack; now, the Obama commemorative plate, with stand. I could do this my whole fucking life!

So, since the president has been decided, who else has heard the claims of Sarah Palin throwing fits after reading each briefing every morning? It's fact -- actually, Fox News were the ones who ran the story. It appears she didn't know basic Civics, or many of the responsibilities of the vice-president. She actually threw -- what her staff referred-to-as -- tantrums. I FUCKING CALLED THAT! If you remember, or paid attention while reading my last post, or read it at all - because I don't have readers, I know that, it's a fact; nobody reads this garbage -- I stated that I believed Sarah Palin looked like the type of person who would start screaming uncontrollably if put in a compromising situation. And it's true! What integrity, indeed! Wow, three times, Mr. McCain, and still NOTHING!

I just realized, at work, when people are talking to me, I don't fucking listen. A girl asked me if she could get on a computer, just as someone else was getting off and exiting the lab, I asked her name (I was typing a sentence in here, my blog, at the time) I even had the girl repeat her name, separate, starting with first then last, and still, when I switched over to my Excel spreadsheet, I couldn't remember it. In fact, before she even gave me her name, she asked if she could get on a specific computer, one that just so happened to be next to her friend, and after taking her name and forgetting it instantly because I don't fucking listen to these people, I told her to pick whichever was open, a complete contradiction to me letting her know it was okay for her to sit next to her friend. To quote musician Phil Collins, "I don't care anymore... ..no'mo, no'more...no'mo...no'more...no'mo, no'more..."

I'll leave you all with one of my favorite poems:

Hey Tony,
I like the things you do.
HEY TONY!
If I could I would be you.
The one and only tiger
with the one and only taste.
You know how to take a breakfast and make it, mmmm'GREAT!

Frosted Flakes are more than good; THEY'RE GREAT!