Leader of the Banned

Push to restrict, ban fireworks fizzles in North Charleston

http://www.charleston.net/news/2007/aug/17/push_restrict_ban_fireworks_fizzles_nort13246/

City Council decided Wednesday not to ban or restrict the sale or use of fireworks. Two residents from different parts of the city had complained recently that they couldn't leave their homes during the Fourth of July because they were afraid their homes might catch fire from neighbors' fireworks.

State law allows the sale of fireworks in South Carolina and the city cannot pre-empt state law, Mayor Keith Summey said. "If we allow people to sell them, we have to allow people to use them," he said. [emphasis mine]

State law allows someone to erect a sign in his yard declaring it a fireworks-free zone…

So where the fuck was the mayor when this was going down:

Smoking ban starts today
Monday, Jul 23, 2007

http://www.wcbd.com/midatlantic/cbd/news.apx.-content-articles-CBD-2007-07-23-0004.html

The smoking ban applies to all indoor workplaces and that includes bars and restaurants…The ban prevents smoking inside, but allows smokers to smoke outside of the buildings, as long as the smoke doesn’t drift inside.

Isn’t that interesting? South Carolina state law allows people to sell cigarettes, but Charleston isn’t allowing people to use them. And why can’t a bar or restaurant owner erect a sign declaring their business a smoke-free or smoke-friendly zone? And what the hell is that about “as long as the smoke doesn’t drift inside”? Kiss my ass. When I smoke, I take care not to blow smoke in anyone’s face. Anything beyond that is not my problem. I’ve heard people complain that they had to walk past the smokers on the sidewalks outside of these businesses. I’m sorry that the outdoors isn’t big enough for both my smoke and your comfort. Who’s taking more than their fair share of the parts per million, here?

I was in Minneapolis recently, and they are quite anti-smoking there. Not as rabid about it as California, but getting there. You can’t smoke within fifty feet of entrances to public buildings. My flight had a layover in O’Hare, and there also isn’t any smoking area inside those buildings. If you want to smoke, you have to go outside, and then back through Security. How ridiculous. Even our teeny little airport at home has a smoking lounge.

IT’S A LEGAL PRODUCT, YOU BUSYBODY FUCKHEADS!

One of my favorite things to do in places like that is to walk around with an unlit cigarette in my mouth. It’s amusing to watch the faces of the nanny-staters as they realize that they are approaching one of the most lethal, inconsiderate, and smelliest weapons ever devised by man. Doesn’t matter that it isn’t lit, all that means is that it’s poised to unleash enough second-hand smoke to pollute the entire O’Hare airport, afflicting the happy, shiny travelers with all manner of disfiguring cancers and bulbous tumors, and turning each of the five terminals into superfund sites, as useless for commercial travel as your average leper colony. (That’s why I continue to smoke – it’s the power trip that gets me off.) You’d think I was walking around with an open canister of malaria or something. Actually, I’m pretty certain that the science-ignorant antis would be more comfortable with malaria than Marlboros. At least, they seem to equate smokers with that TB-infected douchebag that flew from Italy to Canada to the US.

I think that next time someone accosts me for smoking, I’ll just tell them that it’s a firecracker.

Current mood: Confused

Ever notice how freaky Dumbo’s drunk sequence is? Same with Pooh’s heffalumps and woozles number.

So I went to Hot Topic’s Sounds of the Underground tour this past weekend. It was the last day of the tour, and was being held at Waverly Hills Sanatarium. (Look it up if you don’t already know the history.) Thirty death-metal bands for thirty dollars. That ain’t bad. The thing that tickled me was when the lead singer would get up and address the audience: “Hey, guys! We really appreciate all of you coming out and standing around in the 95-degree heat just to see us. We do this because your support means a lot to us, and we want to thank all of you. We’re going to do a song off our new album. It hasn’t been released yet, but you’re going to hear it first because without you, we wouldn’t have come this far. Hope you like it. It’s called Rrrogrrlllwrrr!” If you’re familiar with death-metal, you’re probably L-ing your AO right now. If you aren’t, I just can’t explain it. One thing that I thought was really cool was when the groups would whip the crowd into doing circles, they’d always be sure to say some variation of “And if someone falls down, rescue ‘em!” Good times.

Out of the mouths of babes: My daughter was asking if I enjoyed the concert, and what kind of instruments the bands were playing. “Electric guitar, electric bass, some keyboards, and drums.” She digested this and then asked: “No accordions?”

If you write a book on how to be a failure, and it doesn’t sell any copies, are you?

I asked my wife to say those three little words that make me dance on air. She said “Go hang yourself.”

I think there’s a lot of unnecessary overcommunication these days, in that a lot of my day is spent giving different people the same information. Don’t they talk to each other? I dislike repeating myself.

I think there’s a lot of unnecessary overcommunication these days, in that a lot of my day is spent giving different people the same information. Don’t they talk to each other? I dislike repeating myself.

I don’t think you can fully appreciate Alice in Wonderland until you’ve made a serious study of logic – mathematical, grammatical, and philosophical.

I watch a lot of old movies – from the 30s and 40s kids, not the 80s – and a couple of things that I really have come to appreciate about them is the fact that there are usually only about three screens’ worth of credits, and no “secret scenes” at the end. When the first bonus scenes were introduced after the credits, it was kind of cool; a little “thanks for staying” to the audience. Any more, directors are doing it deliberately to try and force the crowd to sit through fifteen minutes of credits. I don’t give a fuck who the 2nd 2nd assistant director’s assistant was, or the set nurse. Why are these names in front of me? I’m sure that if you’re a good caterer, you’ll get recommendations from within the industry. It’s not bloody likely that an audience member is going to choose you because they really really liked Bring It on Again.

Rrrogrrlllwrrr.

Use Your Own Judgement

Judge rules it's too hot to play

http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/desoto/article/0,1426,MCA_451_5666728,00.html

In a move with wide-ranging implications, a North Mississippi judge Thursday banned outdoor school activities in DeSoto and five other counties in his district because of the searing heat.

And the pussification of America continues.

The order by Chancellor Mitchell Lundy of Grenada County -- a decision that a legal expert called unusual -- halted outdoor football practices as schools gear up for the start of the prep season the end of this month.

Also affected until the heat relents are volleyball and band practice, recesses for elementary school students and outdoor activities for community college students.

Some legal expert. “Unusual?” Try unconstitutional, you moron. Three branches, remember? It’s the Legislative branch that writes laws, and the Judicial branch interprets them. Now, I wonder if a Judge belongs to the Legislative branch or the Judicial branch.

"It is our duty to protect the minors from harm when at all possible," Lundy said in his two-page order banning outdoor activities between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. "We protect them from others as well as from themselves."

Anybody else get the chills over that last quote?

Lundy gave no other reason for the order, which was not requested, but some area educators surmised he might be reacting to the recent deaths of two Mississippi high school football players.

So he didn’t explain it, and it wasn’t requested by anyone. This power-mad black-robed asshole just starts issuing writs on his own, and everyone cowers and scrapes?

Here’s the order (with my comments):

"It is well settled in the State of Mississippi that the Chancery Court is the guardian, custodian and caretaker of all minors in the state (did you ask everyone?). It is our duty to protect the minors from harm when at all possible. (Socially, yes. Not Judicially.) We protect them from others as well as from themselves. (You do not enforce the laws, idiot.)

"It has come to the attention of this Chancellor ... that the National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory for Mississippi (and) that advisory states that strenuous outdoor activities are dangerous the next several days as temperatures climb above 100 degrees. (Everybody Panic! Al Gore was right!)The dangerous times are between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. (In a world where daylight brings danger, one judge stands alone.)

"It has also come to the attention of this Court that school (both public and private) activities are being held during these dangerous times. (It’s like he blinked suddenly and said “Hey…”) It is therefore this Chancellor's opinion that participation of these school-sponsored activities by minors is not in their best interest and is, in fact, dangerous to their health and welfare. (Your opinion does not a law make. Once you hook it onto “best interests’, there will be no stopping you.)

"Therefore, this Court hereby issues an immediate Temporary Restraining Order in the counties of DeSoto, Tate, Panola, Yalobusha. Montgomery and Grenada against any and all school-sponsored (i.e. sports-related activities) which include physical exertion and which are conducted outside between the hours of 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. (I wonder what name is on the TRO. “Everybody”?)

"This injunction is to take place immediately and be in full force and effect until further orders of this court." (Or so help me, I’ll turn this Constitution around!)

Does this s'more taste like a ficus to you?

Scouts banned from eating burgers and bangers - because of religious beliefs
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=472655&in_page_id=1770&in_page_id=1770&expand=true#StartComments

[A]t a jamboree to mark the centenary…there is no singing around the glowing embers of the camp fire - because there is no fire.

And you can't find a singed sausage for love nor money. However, there are veggie burgers aplenty.

And a large potted plant, around which the Scouts of 2007 can gather and write down thoughts on how to achieve world peace.

The location is Brownsea Island in Dorset, the starting point of Scouting where Lord Baden-Powell led the first expedition.

Why did they even bother? Is there now a merit badge in “Political Correctness”?

Some 300 modern-day Scouts (the word Boy was dropped in the 1960s) settled down to a meal prepared in a 'kitchen marquee' and consisting entirely of vegetarian food - so as not to offend any religious faiths.

Clare Haines, a spokesman for the Scout Association, said: "It was really to do with religion that we were not able to provide sausages and burgers and all that kind of food.

No, it was to do with the fact that you decided that only one type of food was going to be served; that there would be no choices offered.

"We have been very careful to make sure food is provided to everybody's tastes and beliefs, so no one feels left out.”

Except for those people whose tastes run to hot dogs and hamburgers. I’m pretty sure they felt left out. You weren’t careful, you were inept cowards.

She added that campfires had been banned on the National Trust-owned island after a massive woodland blaze 30 years ago.

Oh for God’s sake. Who was in charge of this disaster? If you’re not going to let the scouts cook hot dogs over a campfire, don’t have the damn jamboree. A fucking potted plant…

All they did at this “celebration” was show how far they’ve progressed in neutering Lord Baden-Powell’s organization. It’s taken them a hundred years, but they’ve managed to turn them into Girl Scouts.

Signs, signs, everywhere signs

Alorton sign is fine by town — but maybe not by ACLU
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/illinoisnews/story/C7767D918C4CE3268625732B00147B87?OpenDocument

ALORTON — The churches seem to turn up here often and randomly. In this town of 3,000 residents, there are at least 15 churches. Maybe 20…So you don't need to travel far to find the good Lord, as they say. In fact, visitors can't drive into town without a holy hello."Welcome to The Village of Alorton," say two green-and-white billboards with lights shining on them. "Where Jesus is Lord. Randy McCallum Mayor."

By all accounts, the longtime, city-owned signs have never seemed to stir anyone. As it turns out, though, they could be a problem.Attorneys with the Illinois office of the American Civil Liberties Union, the national civil rights group, said the signs might be unconstitutional.

So it’s a problem for those iconoclasts at the ACLU.

"If it's been put up by the city, then it definitely raises a constitutional issue," said Wendy Park, a staff attorney with the group. A city-funded sign with a specific religious message appears to violate the religious liberty guarantee of the Constitution, she said. That guarantee says no religion should be promoted over any other by a government.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;…”

Number one: the Alorton city council is not Congress.
Number two: these signs have no prohibitions against differing belief systems.

Number three: that Amendment refers specifically to the institution of a national church, with compulsory financial support and/or attendance. Interestingly, the individual states were allowed to create state churches, and some did.

And don’t give me that “wall of separation” bullshit, either. That’s from a letter by Thomas Jefferson, who was not an author of either the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. He was a smart man, but his opinions – presidential as they may have been – do not have the force of law.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in the past that a government cannot endorse religion or express a message that endorses religion because "it basically leads nonbelievers to feel that they are outside the political community and are not participants in the political community," she said.

The Constitution of the State of Illinois
Preamble:We, the People of the State of Illinois - grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political and religious liberty which He has permitted us to enjoy and seeking His blessing upon our endeavors…

I swear, you’d think the ACLU was staffed entirely by vampires, given their reactions to holy items. It’s all about the fucking feelings, isn’t it? Cry me a river. Nobody is precluded from participating in the political process based on belief or nonbelief. I thought that question was settled when Keith Ellison was elected to Congress.

The city erected and maintains the signs, Mayor Randy McCallum said…"They've been there at least 13 years. Maybe 14. They were put up before I was mayor."… "If the community didn't want that Jesus there, I'd take the signs down immediately," the mayor said.But the ACLU said it doesn't matter whether residents approve of the signs.

It doesn’t matter how long the signs have been there. It doesn’t matter if there have never been any complaints. Now the ACLU has noticed them, so they’re a problem, and who cares what you rubes in the sticks think?

"Even if the whole community is Christian, if someone is non-Christian and driving by Alorton or coming there to visit and sees that sign, they are led to think they are not full participants, or they are outsiders and don't belong in that community," Park said.

Guess what, chickie? If someone is just driving by, or coming to visit, they are outsiders; they aren’t full participants! We don’t allow visitors to our towns a say in the local council matters. They’re visitors! Are you really that stupid? Or do you think the rest of us are?

The ACLU hasn't determined what, if any, action it will pursue, she said.

I have a suggested action you can pursue: Go fuck yourselves. All in the spirit of Christian love and brotherhood, of course.

Better Living Through Animal Cruelty

Scientists breed world’s first mentally ill mouse

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2159295.ece

SCIENTISTS have created the world’s first schizophrenic mice in an attempt to gain a better understanding of the illness.

This reminds me of a joke:
“So, Mr. Mouse, you’re seeking a divorce from your wife, Minnie, because you claim she is insane?”
“I didn’t say she was insane. I said she’s fucking Goofy!”

It is believed to be the first time an animal has been genetically engineered to have a mental illness.

Apparently, this reporter has never seen the membership rolls of PETA.

It will allow researchers to study the disease and develop treatments using a limitless supply of laboratory animals.

I love the dig at the activists, here. “A limitless supply.” LOL

Animal rights campaigners have condemned the research, saying that it is morally repugnant to create an animal doomed to mental suffering.

But you don’t see the activists lining up to volunteer for testing, do you? You could also turn their argument against them, by stating that by blocking the treatment possibilities in the research, the activists will have doomed any future people born with schizophrenia to a lifetime of mental suffering. These are mice, you idiots, bred specifically for research purposes. It’s not like the scientists are kidnapping them off the street, tearing them away from their little mouse families in the dead of night in some Gattaca-inspired frenzy of Gestapo-like tactics.

I like animals, but if I had to put a bullet in my dog to make my family’s life better? Goodbye, Sparky. We’re at the top of the food chain, and it doesn’t matter if you take the religious view (we were given dominion over the animals), or the scientific one (survival of the fittest), animals are not equal to humans.

Animal Aid, a campaign group, said rodents were not a reliable way of modelling human disease.

How do they know? These are the world’s first schizoid mice, remember? Evidently, the scientists think that there is some use in doing this, and I’m guessing they probably know a little more about it than the activists. If this doesn’t pan out, they’ll move on to something more profitable. Remember, science is a business, too. They run on profit/loss statements instead of just their feelings.

I wrote that last sentence before I actually checked out Animal Aid’s website. The biggest page on there is their Shopping page. Seems there is pretty good money in the activist stance. One of their catchier bits is their “Animals Don’t” campaign. It states:

Animals don’t smoke
Animals don’t drive
Animals don’t wear make up
Animals don’t use paint
Animals don’t drink alcohol
Animals don’t drop bombs

Because we do, why should they suffer?

I put together my own much shorter list:

Animals don’t actively contribute to the forwarding of societal goals, nor do they have the potential to do so on their own

Because we do, why should we extend to them moral equivalence?

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y...Random!

Some of my favorite 80s tunes:
Don’t You (Forget About Me) – Simple Minds
Lay Your Hands on Me – Thompson Twins
One Night in Bangkok – Murray Head
How Soon is Now – The Smiths
The Promise – When in Rome
No More Words – Berlin
The Politics of Dancing – Re-Flex
Kids in America – Kim Wilde
Always Something There to Remind Me – Naked Eyes
Cry Little Sister – Lost Boys Soundtrack

I have this theory that every person has a song lodged in their brain that comes out when they’re not actively thinking of something. It doesn’t even matter if they hate the song. My wife is no Buffet fan, but hums or sings “Margaritaville” without realizing it. Similarly, when my mind shifts into neutral, I tend to whistle “Ode to Joy.” I’m not sure what purpose it serves. Maybe a mental screensaver to keep your brain booted up when it’s not otherwise engaged.

Favorite Video Game
Dragon’s Lair

Favorite Video Game quote
“Elf is about to die.”

Favorite Pinball Machine
Black Knight

I’d like to start a line of suede clothing, just so I could call it “Easily.”

Some of my favorite punchlines
Nice shot, Dad.
I didn’t know your father was a Pharmacist.
It’s the sound they make when they hit the bottom.
And as anyone with any sense could tell you, it also blew the Hell out of the meter.

A random picture from my collection


Last book I read
Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows. God, I’m such a sheep.

Last movie I watched
The Wicker Man with Nicholas Cage

Did it suck?
Why, yes. Yes it did.

Useless Eaters

HUD extends disaster vouchers nine more months
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4990750.html

The federal government will extend for 10 months its rental payments for about 11,400 families who lived in public housing or received federal housing vouchers before hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the U.S. housing secretary announced today.

Quick question: When did hurricanes Rita and Katrina hit?

A: August and September, 2005.

Yep, almost two full years ago. Think some of these folks might’ve been able to find jobs in two years? Especially given that unemployment currently is around 4.5%?

Another quick question: Why do you say 9 months in the headline, and 10 months in the lede?

HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson said he and President Bush have determined that many displaced residents still need help, and that ending the program now would be "absolutely horrendous."

Horrendous: syn. alarming, appalling, atrocious, deplorable, depressing, disgusting, distressing, dreadful, frightful, ghastly, gruesome, harrowing, hideous, horrible, horrific, horrifying, offensive, raunchy, repulsive

Maybe that’s a bit strong, Alphonso. Some of us find it “horrendous” that we’re still paying for this.

About 3,500 Houston-area households will be covered by the extension… The nine-month extension will cost about $105 million

So they’re paying each family $30,000 over these 9 months? That’s a $40,000/year salary. And they’re only paying for housing. By way of comparison, my housing costs are right at $10,000/year, including water and power.

Not to be outdone, FEMA is extending benefits through March 2009.

http://houstonhurricanerecovery.org/show_content_article.asp?id=4262007-10502&category=housing

Officials of HUD and FEMA said the extension of housing benefits will help insure that all evacuees will receive the kind of assistance that will enable them to make a successful transition back into the community.

I’m guessing if they haven’t “transitioned” within 3 ½ years, they ain’t gonna. What’s the official point where “transition” becomes “permanence”?

While there were no specific references to it in the conference, there also is expected to be regular recertification requirements for evacuees. These will make sure that the housing benefits are only going to those evacuees who genuinely need the aid.

I looked up the recertification form:
http://houstonhurricanerecovery.org/multimedia/2007_fema_recertification_form.pdf

One page. One. Fucking. Page. Tell me, faithful readers, how many pages are in your 1040?

Another new provision announced would enable evacuees now housed in FEMA travel trailers and mobile homes to buy those housing units at fair market value.

The trailers you’re being sued over? Why not just give them the damned things and be done with it? Quit dragging it out. You’re never going to get the value of those trailers, anyway. If they haven’t bothered to scrape up the cash to get a place of their own by now, what makes you think for one second that they’ll have the wherewithal to buy these trailers?

Officials estimated that the overall housing extension will cost more than $1 billion, to be paid for with FEMA funds.

How come it “only” costs $105 million for 9 months, but more than $1,000,000,000 for 17 months? That’s government math, that is. Well thank God FEMA is using its own money for this. Wait a minute...

Go here, read this:

http://members.cox.net/polincorr1/pol1.htm
Davy Crockett’s "Not Yours to Give" speech in Congress

Friday Night Randomness

Current Mood: Sedate

Current Musical Obsession: The Foiled album by Blue October, particularly Congratulations and Overweight

Current Current: 120 volts

Currant: the small, edible, acid, round fruit or berry of certain wild or cultivated shrubs of the genus Ribes

I have a lot of characters that I have developed for some writing groups I belong to. Most of them are female. It doesn't matter if they're a human assassin, a ghoul, a jilted lover, or a werewolf, they're all incredible badasses, able to take care of themselves and others with grace, style, and inner strength. This probably reflects how I feel about women in general. Then again, maybe I'm a heroine addict.

Ran across this picture online:

This is what I wrote:

Sometimes the perfect person to confess your innermost desires and fears to is a stranger on a train. No commitments, no judgments - just an ear in which to pour your dreams and fantasies. The night outside the coach window reaches in and cloaks you, and the rumble of the steel wheels masks your fevered murmurings.

We were heading for the same place. A city once built on dreams. But as happens so often with dreams, the joy had leaked out little by little, leaving only hollow shells behind. Gaping façades of blasted fulfillment stood mocking those that had dared to reach for the light. It was a place where you whispered your hopes, keeping them small and unnoticeable, hoping they would find a sheltered spot to grow.

Our rendezvous point: the old clocktower. Pole star for every desperate person anxious to create a small, sweaty pocket of connection with someone else. Rising high into the smoky skies, a phallic monument to the clumsy fumblings of cold numb hands desperately trying to maneuver past belt buckles and buttons. Sooty fingers staining delicate white satin and lace, driving towards the heat they hide away from the world.

The face of the clock mocks me. “You fool!” it chimes. “You believed her? The promise of a stranger on a train?”

“yes,” I whisper.

And I did believe her. I wanted so much to believe her. Her yearning was a great beacon in this grey world. Not just for satisfying lust, though that was a part of it. By design, that is always a part of it. She had spoken of the sound of boots dancing on cobblestones, and of spreading quicksilver wings of defiance, and flying away!…the two of us…flying…
together.

So I waited.

She had to come! She had to! She was a stranger on a train yes, but…

I looked at my watch, and the steam of my sigh was swallowed up by the dirty yellow tatters of fog that roamed the streets.

I couldn’t wait any longer. Soon the sun would rise, sweeping the protective shadows away into a corner, and illuminating the pain of false hope on my face. I crept away on my numbed feet, leaving behind the unfulfilled promise: a pile of broken breadcrumbs and a pool of shadow rapidly running down a nearby drain. This was my body, this was my blood.

I would have shared it with you.

The edge of the city is already awash with a cruelly delicate sunrise. A soft pink that only serves to emphasize the desolation it faces. A number of piers jut outwards, giant fingers grasping for a bit of the peace and beauty that surely is present just over the horizon. Surely all places can’t be like this, whistle stops for strangers on trains, rotting carcasses pretending to life. Surely somewhere people still dance on cobblestones. It can’t all be this…hopeless.

The call of a train whistle pierces me, and I turn to the sea to allow the wind to dry my tears. It is then that I notice. I still, not daring to believe, bracing against the culmination of a last cruel jest. But no. Her arms grasp the railing of the pier, holding herself down against the pull of the sky. And as I walk towards her, I can see quicksilver.

The World Needs More Loofs

A coworker described me as “quiet and aloof” the other day. I’m not sure what to do about it. Should I be noisy and chatter constantly? Then she’ll complain that I’m a distraction and am negatively impacting production.

I sit in a room with a group of people that I do not work directly with. I provide minor services to them on occasion, but our primary jobs do not intersect. Secondly, I am older than most of them by at least a decade, and there’s only one other that’s married with children.

Don’t get me wrong, I do like them. I’ve been social – going to lunches, movies and housewarming parties, getting the occasional drink after work, goofing around at breaks. On the whole, though, I have nothing to add, nor take away from, the majority of their conversations. I’m not involved in their work, so I can’t advise or offer opinions, and their social chatter revolves around subjects I have no stake in: movies I won’t see, music I don’t like, arguments with their boy/girlfriends that only hold historical interest for me. Conversely, they have no concern about the things that hook my mind. For example, one of them was recently talking about her favorite contestant on American Idol. At the same time, I was e-mailing a friend a link to a scholarly article about Aristophanes’ use of satire and meta in “The Clouds”.

Not a whole lot of middle ground, there.

I’m also quiet because I’m thinking. This runs counter to most office work, where if you aren’t striking the keyboard or on the phone, you are considered to be goofing off. I can easily sit with my eyes closed, listening to my headphones, and with all distractions thus blocked out, come up with enough material to allow me to complete two weeks’ worth of projects. What do you think the reaction is of any manager that comes across an employee sitting like that? Allow me to don my “misunderstood artist” hat for a moment, and submit the standard complaint that the “corporate stiffs just don’t get us creative types”. We need headspace, man, cuz, like, conceptualization has to evolve, you know?

Similarly, I jump from subject to subject like Pitfall Harry crossing crocodile-infested waters. I’ll latch on to some random trivia and run it to the ground, or I’ll go off on what seem to be unrelated tangents. It’s just how my mind works. It’s how I acquire background, context, and foundational information, which serves as a reservoir of knowledge. It may look like I’m digging up song lyrics, but I might just be trying to find a way to express a certain concept, and that song came to mind. If it hit the top 40 or got a Grammy, the songwriter obviously tapped into some universal feeling, and I want that kind of response. (To be fair, I might have just been curious as to what the singer was actually saying in the second verse, but it all goes into the same box. I’ll use it at some point.)

That’s the other reason I come across as aloof, I think. My job is mentally stimulating. I basically get to daydream, and codify the results into marketing materials. I don’t usually get bored, so I don’t feel any pressure to chat with my coworkers, who are trying to break the monotony or wake themselves up. More often than not, the inanity of their subjects is a distraction rather than an escape. Why would I participate in a process that keeps me from performing at my best? If that makes me aloof, so be it. I’m satisfied with the quality of the work I’m turning out, and isn’t that the true business measurement?

Not a Fan

Shortly after Father’s Day, my wife told me that it was always difficult to pick out a card for me. “You don’t play golf, you don’t fish or hunt, you don’t tinker with the cars or the yard, you don’t watch sports. All you do is read and write, and they don’t have any ‘To a well-read Dad’ cards.” Fortunately, I like goofy humor, so it’s not a total wash for her.

She’s right, though, I don’t do any of those things. I never got into hunting, I think fishing is the second most boring thing on the planet – after golf – and I never saw the point in watching other people play sports. If you like football, fine. Go play it. Spending a whole weekend watching one game after another is a pointless waste of time.

I really don’t understand the fascination with pre-game shows, either. Now you’re watching someone else talk about other people playing the game before it’s even been played. They’re not going to be revealing any secrets about the game, showing sneak previews or spoilers. They’re just offering their best guesses about how the players will perform. They’re doing exactly the same thing every sports fan does, only it’s being televised, and they get paid way too much money for it. It’s excruciating to watch them drag out maybe fifteen minutes’ worth of information over a two-hour show. And the interviews are so generic, they may as well be left out.

“Coach, you just hired Bobbie Chowder. How do you think he’s gonna do for you this season?”

What’s the coach going to say? That he thinks Bobbie is going to severely handicap the team and cost them the shot at the title? Of course not. He hired him because he thought Bobbie’d be an asset. Why else? Then they turn to the player.

“Bobbie, what are you going to do now that you’re here in Podunk?”

“Well, I’m just using the Podunk Ponies as a stepping stone to the better franchises. I needed some pro experience, and I figure I can run circles around everyone else here, so I stand a better chance at pumping up my stats without getting injured. Once I’ve moved up, I’ll use my popularity to land a couple of sneaker endorsements, release a rap album and try my hand at acting. Six years, tops, and I’m out.”

Wouldn’t that be refreshing? But no, we get the same “I’m just here to do my best for the team.” pabulum.

Maybe I’m overanalyzing this, but I’ve never understood the slavish dedication to one particular team. If it’s your Alma Mater, sure, I can appreciate that, but other than that, there’s no rationality behind it. People say they like the coach, but they don’t change teams to follow the coach’s career. Or they like particular players, but again, they’re still rooting for that team even after the entire roster has changed several times. I just don’t get it.

And the feuds. Good lord. The “traditional” enmity between teams is ridiculous. People pump it up to the level of clan warfare, particularly at the college level. When I lived in South Carolina, you were either a Clemson Tigers fan, or a Gamecocks fan. I was apathetic to both, but whenever I saw some Southern Belle wearing an “I Like the Cocks” shirt, it was sort of compelling. People insist that they “hate” the Pioneers, or the Fighting Cephalopods, or whomever it is that they take turns with in winning the Big Games, and the Pioneers say that they hate them right back, but the fact that both schools are still standing leads me to doubt everyone’s sincerity. “But it’s just a game,” you reply. Exactly my point, folks. Settle down.

I know people who have entire rooms in their homes dedicated to a particular team. Everything in the room has the team logo on it, and all the furnishings are in the team colors. That’s a bit obsessive, I think. I know one family that puts up a Christmas tree decorated solely with team ornaments. That’s more than a bit frightening.

I’m in a college town now, and every so often, we’ll have a Game Day in the office. People are encouraged to wear the school colors. Those few that don’t support the locals will show up in the opposing team’s colors, and there is much hearty ribbing amongst them. Meanwhile, I’m hoping that I don’t accidentally dress in the other team’s colors (I don’t keep track. Surprise.), because if I’m accosted by someone wearing an “I BLEED PURPLE” shirt, I’m likely to stab them to ascertain. Playoffs are the worst, because if “we” win, everybody is insufferably smug, and if “we” lose, everyone bitches the rest of the day.

I’ve thought about keeping up with some obscure (to the average American sports fan, anyway) sport like petanque, just so when people ask me if I saw the game on Saturday, I can inundate them with unfamiliar names, complaints about perplexing infractions of incomprehensible rules, overexcitement about narrow wins, or soul-crushing grievances about narrow losses. If they try to tell me that it’s not worth all of the drama, I’ll at least have them on record next time they want to try and attack me with player stats or Instant Replay glory days.

Then I’ll give them a carreau.

Godwin-ing My Own Blog

Bush like Hitler, says first Muslim in Congress

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/14/wbush114.xml

America's first Muslim congressman has provoked outrage by apparently comparing President George W Bush to Adolf Hitler and hinting that he might have been responsible for the September 11 attacks.

Addressing a gathering of atheists in his home state of Minnesota, Keith Ellison, a Democrat, compared the 9/11 atrocities to the destruction of the Reichstag, the German parliament, in 1933. This was probably burned down by the Nazis in order to justify Hitler's later seizure of emergency powers.

Can we please stop with the damned Hitler comparisons? They are so tiresome. Why does the Left try to paint Conservatives (and Bush) with this brush? That’s a rhetorical question, by the way. They’re counting on the general public’s total ignorance of history, and courting visceral reactions instead of reasoned argument.

Whenever I hear someone refer to a conservative as a Nazi, here is the argument I offer.

Here are some of the traits of Hitler and his Nazi party, which roughly translates as the ‘National Socialist Party.’

1. Believed all business should be run by the State, and all profits made by that business should be the property of the State.

2. Despised personal profit as greedy and against the good of the state.

3. Believed in a strong, state-run education system to instill the ideologies of “the party” counter to the teachings of parents and families.

4. Had full run of the media, and used it exclusively to propagandize the views of the party.

5. Sought to tighten regulations on business, and to absorb the economies of others to compensate when their economic system weakened.

6. Was anti-gun. Implemented and then enforced a national confiscation of firearms.

7. Was pro-abortion.

8. Was pro-euthanasia.

9. Was pro-eugenics.

10. Was an animal-rights activist.

11. Was vegetarian.

12. Believed personal sexual fetishes were fine and a private matter, especially for politicians.

13. Hated Christianity and was anti-religion in general, though tried to use the church for political support when needed.

14. Was a vehement anti-smoker, and wanted to ban all smoking nationally.

15. Believed in national healthcare as part of their platform.

16. Tried to enforce national exercise programs for both the physical and fiscal health of the State.

Does this sound more like today’s American Christian conservative, or the left wing of the Democrat party?

Oh the difference a preposition makes.

Yeah, I’m a geek. I get a thrill from grammatically-sweet sentence constructions. Go ahead and point and laugh, but there’s a place in this world for people that enjoy using language well. There’s a lot of money to be made by those whose communication talent rises above TXT messaging. Madison Avenue comes to mind. I’ve noticed that a lot of people tend to look down on ad writing, defining it as somewhat less pure than, say, their shitty poetry, but I don’t know of a single person that makes a living solely off of their poetry. They’re always teachers or counselors or something in addition. Never just a poet. There are a lot more people paying their bills solely by writing ads than odes.

Whether you’re writing a poem lovely as a tree, or pimping calling plans in a Sunday circular, the goal of any writer is to get read. So we all sweat over our dog-eared thesauri, beating back the blank pages one word at a time – trying to find the perfect resonance with our imagined audience. When we do manage to craft something worthwhile, we acknowledge it as the fragile, transitory thing that it is, for it will soon be lost in the pressure to create the new, the next, the now.

Fortunately, it looks like this blogging thing will be around a while, so we can at least keep a record of our fleeting victories, adding a small trumpet blast to the cacophony. It doesn’t matter if we’re the only ones to hear it.

I was cleaning up a press release for one of our divisions today, and cogitated long upon this sentence:

“We are achieving rapid growth to support multi-axis and one-hit machining on latest generation mill-turn machines.”

I didn’t like it. It was awkward and unclear. Were we expecting to be able to support these machines once we hit a certain growth target, or were we growing in our ability to support them? Either way, it sounded weak. Like we were playing catch-up with a certain segment of the industry.

I stood, hand on chin, chewing on my pipe stem and frowning in a wizened manner. I pondered. I weighed and discarded options. The stillness of my countenance belied the centuries of etymological pressure I brought to bear on the problem. With great care I reached out and made a tiny change. But as a master Go player can upset an opponent’s carefully-built strategy with the turn of one stone, so did I transform the entire conceptualization of the piece.

“We are achieving rapid growth by supporting multi-axis and one-hit machining on latest generation mill-turn machines.”

No longer were we thrashing about in the backfield of technological development, trying desperately to keep pace. Now, our explosive growth was instead fueled by that same advancement. The fact that we could and did support the latest machines was the reason people flocked to our banner. It implied that our competitors couldn’t offer the same service, and promised the customer that they could expand all they wanted without fear of being stuck with obsolete technology.

One different word. One world of difference.

Toot.

Pricks, Pricks, and Pricks

Swimming with the Sharks
I went strolling through the Yellow Pages recently, looking for an attorney. (Before my wife or coworkers start getting skittish, I have some questions on copyrights.) I must’ve gone through six or seven pages of ads for personal injury attorneys before I saw any listings for other legal services. Looking over those ads, with their promises of “Getting you the money you deserve!”, just made me tired. When did we become such whiners? How did we go from the Greatest Generation to the Paid Victimhood Generation? To hear the lawyers tell it, there are no accidents anymore, only malicious and gross negligence. Common sense has been drawn and quartered, and left hanging from the gibbet of instant gratification and no personal responsibility.

Life after the Knife
Yes, dear readers, your favorite feline had a quick surgery last Thursday. Not that kind. I had a small abdominal hernia that needed attention before it became a large abdominal hernia. Things got off to a somewhat shaky start when the anesthesiologist came in to go over the procedure. “Mr. Cat? How are you this morning? So…you’re here to get your gall bladder out?”

“Hope not.”

Once we got all that worked out, it was pretty straightforward stuff. I remember the cold heat of the anesthesia crawling up my arm, then I was back in the recovery room. The doc sent me home with a scrip for Percoset…and that’s where it gets interesting.

Now, this being my first surgery, I’ve never had occasion to take the really good narcotics before. I’ve had morphine once, and I took an occasional Flexeril for migraines back in the day, but this is the first time I’ve had a regular regimen of painkillers. It’s an interesting effect: the world gets wrapped in cotton batting, and all your reactions are dampened. You can still function, but you don’t really care. It really hits me when I’m drifting off to sleep. See, I’ve always been a particularly vivid dreamer. Always in color. Always in stereo. Sometimes with credits. I’ve even got about a half-dozen recurring dreams that have developed over the years that I instantly recognize as dreams when I’m in them. Now, those that know me know that I am fascinated with the macabre, so they won’t be surprised at all to learn that these Percoset-fueled phantasms display a bit of the grotesquerie. I once had a friend try and convince me to drop acid. Her main selling point was that it took what was in your head, and made it real. I reminded her of the stuff that was in my head, and she agreed that I should keep away from the LSD. I mean, when you’re standing in a crowded country dining parlor, and there’s a large Venus flytrap in the corner that keeps opening to reveal a creature about the size of a four-year-old, with an alligator head and skin made out of a night sky, and at a nearby table there’s a little girl wearing a floral print dress and two long braids, who would be cute if her teeth weren’t miniature skyscrapers, and the crowd around the fireplace nervously watches the cast iron pot hanging there, because every so often it rattles just slightly, well…you want that to be just a dream.

The corporate veil. And piercings.
I understand that some companies, particularly those in the Service sector, don’t want their employees wearing their various piercings when dealing with the customers, but sometimes it would actually be preferable. At least, it would for those of us with overactive imaginations. We went out to a restaurant recently, and the waitress that served us had a bright blue band-aid on the side of her nose. I would rather have seen a little diamond stud there than to wonder if she actually had some suppurating hole on the side of her skull where she was balancing our food tray. I once worked with a guy that has so many piercings, he would be pulled apart in an MRI. Once he took them out, you couldn’t even tell – except for the slight whistling sound when he moved fast. If management had demanded that he cover all the perforations, he’d’ve looked like the Mummy, which would have been just as distracting and off-putting. Setting a presentation standard is all well and good, but requiring some sort of obvious cover over an almost unnoticeable puncture is going a bit too far.

Dark Humor, Sweet Revenge, and Repetitious Redundancy

Report: 25 killed in China karaoke blast http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CHINA_KARAOKE_BLAST?SITE=CAANR&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

BEIJING (AP) -- A blast ripped through a karaoke parlor and bath house in northeast China, killing 25 people and injuring 33 others, state media reported Thursday.

Xinhua News Agency said the cause of the Wednesday night blast in Tianshifu township in Liaoning province was being investigated.

Several employees and the wife of the parlor owner, who was killed, were being questioned, it said, without saying if they were suspects.

Xinhua initially put the death toll at five, but said 25 bodies were found when rescuers had finished clearing away debris from the blast.

China has suffered a string of blasts, fires and accidents in shopping malls, movie theaters and other public places despite repeated government promises to improve safety. Many are blamed on lax safety procedures and negligence. In 2005, a fire in an illegally run bar in the southern city of Zhongshan killed 26 people. Local officials said the bar lacked fire extinguishers and its emergency exit was too narrow.

In China's worst recent nightclub disaster, a fire blamed on a welding accident tore through a disco in the central city of Luoyang in December 2000, killing 309 people. Local reports at the time said the building had failed 18 safety checks in two years.

If only they’d had some sort of fire drill in place.

I don’t know what to make of all the recent horror stories about China. Poisoned food, lead paint – why is the media painting this picture? What mindset are they trying to cultivate? Are we supposed to stop buying products from China? If this scrutiny is being instigated by the government, I would suspect that they are trying to engineer some sort of economic hammer in the hopes of slowing down China’s enormous growth (read: competition). If the media is doing it on its own, they’re probably just trying to kill Wal-Mart.


Coyote causes fatal motorcycle crash
http://www.wzzm13.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=77466

Sure, it's insensitive, but this was the first thing I thought of:




Detroit employee sues city over co-worker's perfume
http://www.wzzm13.com/news/watercooler/watercooler_article.aspx?storyid=77513

DETROIT - A Detroit planning department employee has sued the city because she claims a coworker's strong fragrance prohibits her from working.

Susan McBride's lawsuit was filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Detroit.

McBride claims she is severely sensitive to perfumes and other cosmetics. The lawsuit states the co-worker wore a strong scent and plugged in a scented room deodorizer which caused McBride to go home sick. The woman later agreed to stop using the room deodorizer but continued wearing perfume.

The suit says her work environment violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. McBride is asking for a ban on such scents at work and unspecified damages.

Okay, smokers. We have a precedent. At my signal…unleash lawsuit Hell.


Naked man walking near train tracks in Petaluma arrested
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_6288982

Police have arrested a man who was drunkenly walking naked along the railroad tracks on Monday night for indecent exposure, criminal trespassing, annoying children, resisting arrest and being under the influence.

“Annoying children” is now a crime? I’m in trouble; I annoy my kids all the time. I’m assuming that it’s a misdemeanor, so logically, annoying an adult would be a felony. This has possibilities.

FYI: Annoying me is a capital crime.


Pleonasm Party
“I used my PIN number to get cash out of the ATM machine. I had to get a book on CAD design for the CAT test. I looked it up by the ISBN number, because I couldn’t find the UPC code.”

“Let me see if I understand. You used your personal identification number number to get cash out of the automatic teller machine machine. You had to get a book on computer-aided design design for the California achievement test test. You looked it up by the international standard book number number, because you couldn’t find the universal product code code."

"Uh...yes."

“You talk too much.”

Vacuuming the Corners of My Brain

We just bought a new television. I would’ve gotten a plasma set, but I don’t like needles.

I’ve finally convinced my wife that I don’t like Italian restaurants. The truth is, I don’t like Frank Sinatra’s music.

Ever notice how mathematical logic is opposite of grammatical logic? It’s drilled into us that you can’t divide by zero. Zero is another way of saying nothing. If you have an apple, and divide it by nothing, that apple hasn’t been divided; you still have one whole apple. If you divide it by one – that is, with one cut – you have two pieces. Two cuts can give you three or four pieces. I think I’ll apply for a grant to reconcile this. Beats working.

I heard a news broadcast the other day that announced that the Bald Eagle had been dropped from the Endangered Species list. The only reference they made to any of the efforts to protect the bird was linking the comeback to the banning of DDT use. Does it matter to the environMENTALists that there has never…never…been an established link between DDT use and the fate of eagles? (http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.html#ref7) No it does not. They use the favorite tool of the Left – “A lie, repeated often enough, becomes truth.”

In a similar vein, Harry Reid stood on the steaming corpse of the Immigration bill, a bill that was rejected by over 80% of the American people, and whined that “Republican obstruction has gotten so bad that now they’re blocking bills that they actually support.” What a fucking idiot. No, Harry. It means that they listened to the people that pay them. You work for us, you serpent, not the other way around. Yes, it was obstructionism, but of a kind that exemplifies the way the system should work. The “GIVErnment” pissed us all off by ignoring our wishes, and we stopped you, both Republicans and Democrats. We don’t trust any of you. How else do you explain that the President’s approval number is around 32%, and Congress’s is 14%?

Is it too much to ask to have a work day devoid of drama? I have a coworker that has only two reactions: no problem, and apocalypse. It really isn’t a disaster of Biblical proportions if we’re out of envelopes. Take your Prozac, and go sit down.

My city recently called for suggestions on how to improve our infrastructure, and got replies from thousands of pissed-off motorists. My suggestion, to call a special Planning Council meeting, take them all out into the field, and shoot them, was apparently lost in the mail. Preliminary reports indicate that the Council is considering building roundabouts throughout the city. Oh yeah…that’ll be perfect. Instead of fixing the glaring problems we already have, let’s add a system of negotiation that no one is familiar with. I really shouldn’t be surprised. This is the same group that decided that putting stoplights on a bypass was a good idea, and thinks that if you have two lanes at an intersection, one of them should be a dedicated left-turn lane, while the other should do triple duty as a left turn, straight ahead, and right turn lane. The rules of the road that I learned state that you can turn right on red, while you have to wait for green to turn left or cross the intersection. Why in the hell wouldn’t you reserve the right lane for those that are turning right? Why make them wait behind someone going in the opposite direction? Morons.

I’ve heard a lot of talk lately about reviving the Fairness Doctrine. If you’re unfamiliar with this legislation, it required that broadcast licensees present issues of public importance in a balanced manner. The Left is all verklempt because they’re getting their asses handed to them over the internet and talk radio. They’re insisting that right-wing personalities are driving us mindless hordes to do their evil bidding, and that the only way to combat it is with government intervention. That’s standard operating procedure for these brain-damaged ideologues. They know in their heart-of-hearts that their mindset is rejected by anyone with a double-digit IQ, so they use the power of law to force people to tolerate them. Their doctrines and dogma wither away in the light of reasoned argument, so they hate the competition the Free Market engenders. Compare the numbers between Rush Limbaugh’s show and Air America, and it’s pretty evident which opinions the market favors. So the Liberals want to make sure that if a station carries Savage Nation, for example, they’ll have to balance it with three hours of Randi Rhodes. I don’t think the Left fully realizes what reviving this doctrine will do. For decades, Liberal ideology has been the primary mover in media, particularly in the area of newspapers and TV news. Conservative thought in those mediums is limited to FOX news, the Op-Ed columns in the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. Pretty much everything else is Left-Wing. There are already web sites devoted exclusively to exposing the bias in news broadcasts and AP/Reuters stories. Under the Fairness Doctrine, Ann Coulter would be within her rights to co-host CBS News with Katie Couric. Not only would it improve the ratings dramatically, it would be a delicious schadenfreude moment.

No one likes pop-ups. Who, then, over at Dictionary.com decided that opening an entire other site under my word search was a good idea? Red Orbit will never get any of my business, solely because of that. If you think that forcing your site to open in my browser is a good business strategy, not only are you probably a Liberal, but you haven’t read any basic marketing books.

I’m turning into a font snob. I suppose it was inevitable, given that part of my job entails my evaluating fonts to use for different marketing efforts. When I first encountered the Papyrus font about two years ago, I immediately adopted it as my e-mail font of choice. Now I’m seeing it everywhere, and it’s starting to annoy me. I’ve seen it used for banks, churches, banner ads, delivery services, and on food packaging. That’s too much to ask of any one font. Part of my annoyance I know is based on the fact that I like to be individualistic, and I had to give it up when it exploded into the mainstream. But I also expect others to show some individuality, and not follow the crowd. Sheep-like behavior does not impress me at all. I use a nice Art Deco-inspired font now, which I’m almost sure won’t be turning up on the boxes for frozen beef and broccoli meals anytime soon.

Hi, Fred. :)

Half Man – Half Machine

I’m inadvertently becoming a cyborg, and it’s not as cool as I thought it would be. I have too many useful gadgets, and they have fundamentally altered how I function.

For the longest time, I resisted getting a cell phone. I even wrote a blog entry about how much I hated them. Then Dad let me use one of his on our trip to Disney, and it turned out to be so damned handy. I managed to dredge up some remaining resistance, but when I started traveling more for work, I broke down and got a pre-paid phone. Of course, you end up spending as much money on one of those as you would to just go ahead and get a real service plan, so we went ahead and got a real service plan. Well, once you have all those capabilities, you’re wasting your money if you don’t use them, right? So I download new ringtones and agonize over my wallpapers, set up groups and voicemail options, and browse the accessories selections. I’m not sure I would know what to do with a plain old wall phone anymore. I find myself having slight panic attacks if I go somewhere without the cell phone, which is annoying. This thing we bought “only for emergencies” has successfully redefined “emergency” to “Can you get some milk on the way home?”. I’m obviously happy to get the milk, but I fear my cell phone is adversely affecting my ability to do advance planning.

Similarly, the media player on my computer lets me instantly choose whatever I want to hear out of hundreds of options. Whatever mood I’m in, I can augment it or change it with a click of the mouse. And if I have to travel, I have a portable player that can jack into my car’s system. Radio? Why suffer commercials or take the chance that they may play a song I don’t absolutely love? I sometimes enjoy the random factor, but I fear my media players are adversely affecting my spontaneity.

My DVD player lets me watch any movie I want, when I want. If the phone rings, or my kids need something, I just pause it. I never miss anything, can skip over the boring parts, and get all those cool extra features. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t enjoy going out to the actual theatre anymore. What if I have to pee? I’ll miss something. Establishing the backstory is taking too long. Can we skip to the explosions, already? I like the control, but I fear that my DVD player is adversely affecting my patience with the suspension of disbelief.

The computer sits in the middle of the den. This is partly a parental oversight thing, for when our eldest is using it, and it’s partly the fact that that’s the best place for the computer desk. Now, I am a trivia freak. Music, movies, TV shows, and other pop culture minutia occupy about 90% of my brain. I use probably 3% for social interaction, 2% for work-related stuff, and I’m guessing the remaining 5% handles autonomic functions like breathing and heartbeat, and keeps me from walking into closed doors or trying to put food in my ear. Consequently, if I can’t quite remember an actor’s name, or a song lyric, I go straight to the magic box. Where I would take the time to thoroughly memorize something in the past, I find that I don’t put as much effort into it anymore, because I know that I’ll be able to find it whenever I want to. I love the instant gratification, but I fear that my internet connection is adversely affecting my self-reliance.

My digital camera. It’s a good, solid, mid-range camera. I got one of the bigger cards with it, so we can take tons of pictures. (It’s ironic, because we don’t. It sends the family into apoplexy, because they’re many hours away, and would occasionally like to see pictures of the kids in between the holiday visits. Sorry, again, y’all.) We don’t have to worry about focus, cropping, lighting, positioning, framing, or any of those things that matter when you’re, you know, using a camera. Anyway, when we do take a picture, we get the image right there on the screen, and if by some miracle the picture is good, we can choose to save it. Yes, we keep it confined to the electrons on the card, never printing it out or e-mailing it, but that’s beside the point. I like knowing that every picture we’re hoarding is a “keeper”, but I fear that my digital camera is adversely affecting my sense of composition.

Speaking of pictures, I do love Photoshop. I get to play with it in the course of my job, so I’m always trying to expand my knowledge of it. The precise control it gives you is incredible, and in the hands of an expert, it can create scenes that cannot be distinguished from reality. I like to use it to put my friends into compromising tableaus. Probably not the most illustrious use for it, but it’s good for some easy laughs. I didn’t realize how deep I was into it until recently. I had gone outside to get some fresh air while I was mulling over a project, and I decided I didn’t like the color of the sky. I actually got annoyed that I didn’t have a slider switch to adjust the hue and contrast. It kind of frightened me, if you want to know the truth. I like being able to put my friends’ faces onto farm animals (don’t ask), but I fear that Photoshop is adversely affecting my comfort with my surroundings.

Well, that’s all I have for this post. I’ll put it up here on the internet, and save a copy to my flash drive in case my computer melts down. Then I’ll send a TXT message to some fans to let them know a new post is up. After that, I’ll do a quick ‘shop on one of our pictures and Bluetooth it to the cell phone so I can send it to the Family group. I may put that off until after I watch the latest Netflix delivery. We’ve had it here for a while, and we need to get it back so we can get the next one in.

I tell you, with all of these labor-saving devices, I don’t have time to just relax anymore.

Well this is annoying.

I’ve spent the last half-hour or so just staring at a blank page. It’s not that I have nothing to say, it’s just that it all seems to come out in small chewable-sized bits. Nothing like the fire hydrant torrent of opinion and invective that I can usually summon up at will.

Oh god…am I mellowing out? Surely not. Be better for my blood pressure, but there’s something so inherently satisfying about cranking up the volume and ripping off the damn knob. It’s my safety valve.

I still have the same pet peeves: tuneless whistling, arrhythmic tapping, people backing in to parking spaces. That one really drives me nuts. You follow someone into a parking lot, and they pass an open space. But before you can swing into it, their brake lights come on, followed by the back-up lights. Oh crap. Come on! You planning on robbing the place, Sparky? Then why do you feel it necessary to have your car parked head-out? Just pull in like a normal person instead of making me wait behind you while you take your Beemer through a 17-point turn. I could be digging into the complimentary breadsticks before you get your seat belt off. Not to mention the chain of us that all have to back up to give you the room to maneuver. And you have the balls to look at us with impatience? Bite me.

Another one that’s gained recent prominence in my forebrain is the ongoing substitution of “said” with “was like.” And she was like, oh no you dint. And he was like, uh-huh I did.

And I was like, shut the fuck up, you morons; you make my head hurt. Specifically, that part of my head that’s devoted to processing rudimentary English sentence structure! Listening to you jabber is like a chalkboard being dragged across a wall of broken-off fingernails.

Interruptions for stupid stuff. I’ve admitted that I’m in Marketing, so the majority of my day consists of writing. Newsletters, sales letters, postcards, ad copy, and press releases pour forth from my desk in a never-ending flood of creativity, swamping my coworkers in the ebb and flow of precise verbiage and the inverted pyramid style. The majestic waves of language build into a veritable hurricane of eloquent locution, in the face of which no customer can resist faxing us their credit card numbers.

*snort*

Bullshit aside, I do put a lot of effort into my writing. If you write, then you know the mental effort it takes to build something up word by word. Rearranging half-formed ideas or entire paragraphs over and over, digging through the thesaurus to find just the perfect expression. You’ve got the headphones cranked to block out the rest of the world. But then there’s the breakthrough. You hit the zone. Your fingers blur over the keyboard as you hurry to get it all down before it flies away again. Misspellings and grammatical mistakes abound as you frantically pound away at the helpless characters. We’ll let the DJ fix it in the mix – this stuff’s golden. Oh yeah. This is the sweet spot. This is what it’s all about.

Invariably…

*tap on shoulder* “Hey. Sorry to interrupt, but I need this (file, disc, golf ball, left shoe, etc.) from you right away. I’m taking it home with me tonight.”

My fingers get tangled over a tricky sub-clause, nearly breaking my wrists, and my words pile into each other like patrons trying to escape a Great White pyrotechnics show. I look at the clock. It’s 1:30 in the afternoon. This bitch just killed an entire morning’s work for something she doesn’t even need for another 3 ½ hours? Ever hear of e-mail, chickie? Sure hope that file doesn’t corrupt your hard drive. Now go away. I’ve got some coding to do.

School sales. We spend more money on Education in this country than we do our military. Why, then, am I constantly assaulted by bake sales, magazine drives, tubs of cookie dough, car washes, candy bars, candles, and all of the other assorted crap that our local schools try to pawn off on us so the band can get bus tickets to some podunk competition somewhere, or the cheerleaders can get new uniforms, or they can pay the hospital bills of that one really clumsy chemistry teacher? You’ve already gotten as much money out of me as you’re getting, Sunshine. It comes out of my paycheck without my consent. How would these people react if I came to their door at night, interrupting their dinner to try and sell them a coupon book to raise money so I could take my homeschooled kids to the zoo for a biology lesson? They’d probably be a tad upset, wouldn’t they? The way I see it, I’m being forced to pay for services I’m not using. Where’s that money going? Maybe if you stopped pissing it away with your top-heavy administration financing every fucking “feel good” program that comes down the pike, the Glee Club wouldn’t have to resort to selling shitty homemade T-shirts outside the Wal-Mart to get a new microphone.





Ah. I feel better.

Go Here. Read This.

I'm not feeling particularly inspired, so I'll lift a recent post from Jales. Hey, she stole it herself. Karma's a bitch, eh?

http://barelydressed.blogspot.com/2007/06/death-of-common-sense.html

Just Wondering

I want a bumper sticker that identifies me as a Bjørn again Scandinavian.

Speaking of reincarnation, why is it that everyone who “remembers their past lives” was always someone important or powerful? It would be refreshing to hear someone cop to being the assistant dung-scraper for a forgotten tradesman in Feudal England, or being a leprous quadriplegic begging outside of Fort William in Calcutta during the mid-18th century.

Further proof that environmentalists should be burned for fuel: the Spanish region of Navarre currently gets 70% of its energy from renewable resources – mainly solar and wind. Even so, there are those environmentalists that complain about the windmills spoiling the landscape and killing birds. “What they are doing is absolutely unsustainable and completely illegal,” says Antonio Munilla, of Gurelur, an environmental group. “We have taken this matter before the Congress and European Union.” http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article1873123.ece
Hey, Antonio – shut your agujero. Your argument is complete and total bullshit. The wind and the sun are totally sustainable (until the sun dies in about 5 billion years, and even that event will be about 4 billion years after it starts to expand and destroys all life on Earth). As for the legality of the enterprise, it seems that your group is mostly upset because the number of avifauna deaths was underreported in accordance with some whiny law. Boo hoo. I went to your web site. Where do you get the electricity to run your computers? Shut the fuck up. You bitch about the power generation while simultaneously availing yourself of that power. Hypocrite.

Bush is now desperately trying to get the GOP to back his amnes - oops - I mean, his immigration bill. Apparently, he doesn’t understand why we’re all pissed off about it. According to a Washington Times article, “[t]he president pleaded with senators to ‘show courage and resolve’ to withstand outrage from voters in their districts.” Uh, Jorge? Do you remember who works for whom, here? We don’t want this, and if those senators would like to be reelected, they’ll listen to us, not you. We stopped you on that stupid Miers nomination, remember? I both like and respect Tony Snow, but I sure wouldn’t want to be in his shoes right now. From the same article: “Tony Snow said the administration was trying to ‘lower the temperature and get people to talk about basic principles.’" Okay. Build the damn wall. Punish anyone that knowingly employs illegals. Deport the ones we catch. Basic, enough?

More whining from the Gay lobby, now they’re all a-twitter because e-Harmony doesn’t cater to them, and they’re bringing a lawsuit. Just stop it, okay? There are plenty of dating services and websites that you can go to in order to find a deeply meaningful relationship. Several a week, if that’s what you want. That’s what drives me up the damn wall about ideologues - on both sides. They won’t rest until everybody believes exactly as they do, and they’ll use every tool available to convert, sway, or force people to accept their views. If I own a business, and I think it’s worthwhile to court the “pink dollars”, or the pesos, or the Confederates, I will. Any market I deem to be a waste of time or have a negative ROI will not be pursued. Period.

My daughter came up to me and innocently asked: “Daddy? What are the strongest days of the week?” Huh? What an odd question. “I don’t know, Sweetheart.” “Saturday and Sunday,” she told me confidently. “The rest of them are weak days!” Groan. As a dedicated punster, I should’ve seen that one coming a mile away. I’m sure my friends are arranging an intervention for her as I type this. The scamp.

My littlest is enamored by the Teletubbies. The whole thing freaks me out, and I don’t even care if Tinky Winky is gay, or is just comfortable with his man-purse. The whole show smacks of social engineering, with dark Orwellian overtones. Every time the windmill starts up, the Tubbies are compelled to line up outside and see which of them will receive a transmission in their abdomen. And no matter where they go, one of those speaker trumpets pops up out of the ground and starts instructing them. It’s creepy. I much prefer the old Kroft shows, like H.R. Pufnstuf, which at least were powered by some really good LSD trips.

We went to the Disney store today, because our collective blood sugar was dropping. I was waiting for the girls to finish machete-ing their way through the princess stuff, hanging out by the Pirates display (because that’s the coolest place for a big manly tomcat), and was approached by one of the animatronic salespeople. She asked if there was anything she could help me find. I told her that I was a fan of older Disney efforts, and was it possible that they had any 20,000 Leagues or Song of the South merchandise? No on both counts, though she said that she thought there had been some talk about re-releasing Song of the South on DVD. This would absolutely thrill me, as I am a huge Br’er Rabbit fan. I am enough of a student of the modern, “feelings not facts” culture, though, that I am positive that some idiot like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton would oppose it on “racial” grounds. This would be truly unfortunate, as the Shakedown twins would be (once again) fomenting discontent and dissension where none exists. The Uncle Remus stories were faithfully collected by Joel Chandler Harris, and are accurate retellings of African trickster tales. (There is some overlap between Br’er Rabbit stories and Anansi the Spider stories.). His publishing them insured that those anecdotes took their place alongside Aesop’s fables and some of Chaucer’s animal tales. Instead of focusing on the positive aspects of the African contributions to the canon of the world’s great literature, the parasites that make their living off of racial strife would rather scream about perceived slights and reparations. Which is more of an honor? Making sure that a new generation is made aware of the history of these great narratives, or making sure they were never seen again? Would stories passed down by slaves prefer to be free…or kept chained up?

The new trailer for the Transformers is better than the whole of Spiderman 3. Behold, the power of editing.

The new Nessie footage from Scotland shows the new "slimline" model of the monster. Expect the Loch Ness Diet to hit the shelves soon. Of course, anyone that tries to live solely on Scottish food will lose weight anyway. It's called Involuntary Bulimia. (All right - That was a cheap shot against my ancestral clans. Sorry, guys. I actually like haggis, if it helps.)

What's with All the Corporate Shenanigans?

I work for a company that distributes products worldwide across three different industries. Consequently, we have three different divisions.

Recently, one of our divisions released some new training materials. I saw the pdf proofs of these, and I passed them on to a couple of managers that oversee training in our division (one internally, one externally). They asked me to get actual copies of the material when it was available. Simple, right?

Heh.

I start, logically enough, with an e-mail: "Hey, Training Guru for Other Division, can we get a couple of copies up here?"

A week goes by. Nothing.

I follow up with a phone call: "Hi, Training Guru. Where are we on this?"

TG: "Who is your manager?"

Me: (WTF?) "Well, my manager is so-and-so, and she happens to be in your office right now if you have to talk to her. Since she's not the one requesting the information, I'm not sure what difference it makes. It's actually for another manager."

Another week passes.

I e-mail again: "Hey, TG, my manager said she never spoke to you, what's going on?"

TG: "I'll take it up with the other manager directly."

Well excuse the fuck out of me. I didn't realize I needed a membership badge and a secret fucking handshake to get these things from you. It's not a pile of gold, you idiot; it's a corporate document, and it should be freely available to any employee that asks for one. I'm not selling them on E-Bay, you know. Just because you can't conceive of any possible reason we would want them doesn't mean that they are useless to us. And while you're bending your mind to come up with reasons to deny my request, how about you take a look at the top of your paycheck. What does it say, there? What a coincidence! It says the same fucking thing at the top of mine! We work for the same company! Rest assured that if you ever requested anything of my creation, you'd have it in your Inbox so fast you'd think I travel through time.

Remember that line in your employee agreement about anything you create becoming the property of the company? Yeah. They actually mean that. That implies that you don't have the power to deny me copies of these things because you're too stupid to figure out that it's only a small matter of editing to make them applicable across divisions. I don't care how long it took you to compile it. I have personally spent over 200 hours updating our division's technical manual, which I gave away to everyone, regardless of whether or not they requested it. I wanted everyone to see the work I'd put into it. Now, maybe you're shy, or you half-assed it and don't want anyone to find out, but we honestly don't care. We want that formatting, and we will get it.

I know your division has this enormous ego, despite how many times we show you up, but this isn't a pissing contest. I shouldn't have to file a fucking FOIA request to get these things. Suck it up, and take them to Shipping. They'll handle the hard part for you. You can then take as much time as you want complaining to the other sycophantic assholes there.

In the meantime, we'll be quietly surging ahead.

What does a Guy Have to Do?

So it’s Memorial Day weekend, and like a lot of lucky people, I have this Monday off. Also, like a lot of married people, I have a list of things to do that I have been putting off until I had a long weekend. Of course, now that the time is here, I just want to relax. I know I should be dusting the bookcase, straightening up the sun room closet, turning the mattresses and changing the batteries in the smoke alarms, but I’d rather finish my book, see a movie or two, and spend time with the offspring. I have six days’ worth of things to do, and three days to do it in.

All of which leads me to ask: What does a guy have to do to get a montage over here?

It’s my favorite part of “plucky underdog” movies. The director spends about 50 minutes – practically in real-time – getting the audience to sympathize with a likable-but-unpopular or “fish out of water” protagonist. At the end of the hour, the character makes some sort of pledge to:

get the popular boy/girl in school
win the fight/race/big game
land the promotion
write the novel
learn to dance

What follows is about five minutes of rapid jump cuts showing the character engaged in various efforts to better themselves. Sometimes humorous errors or painful setbacks are shown, because it ain’t always easy, but in general there is an upward trend towards progress as the goal is approached. These scenes are almost always accompanied by invigorating music in the style preferred by the target audience.

It’s been pointed out that the fastest way to travel in movies is by arrow. You know, when the image of the boat or plane is shown superimposed over a map with a moving arrow on it. Similarly, the fastest way to get through your “honey-do” list is with a montage. I can see it, now: Shots of me pulling books off of the shelf and my daughter stacking them on the table – maybe making doll houses out of them; a brief cut to me struggling with the King-sized mattress; a series of humorous slapstick escapades with the chair I’m using to reach a light bulb that needs changing; a quick shot of me closing the cover of my book and looking thoughtful; a clip of me and my boy feeding the ducks at the playground. And as the music winds down, I’d snuggle under my quilts and drift off into an untroubled sleep, ready to head back to work on Tuesday.

Fade to black.

We Don't Need No Education

Found a great blog here called Rate Your Students. http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/

I stumbled across this gem yesterday, and I really wish I had written it, because it nicely sums up my opinion about most people:

[excerpt]
Dear Students:
The collective attitude you have shown toward reading and writing during the past semester is neither new nor surprising. You are not well-suited to do either. To your credit, you hate ignorance, as I do. To your discredit, you really only hate being shown that you are ignorant, through encountering words and ideas that are foreign to you and your immediate experience. Rather than look them up and learn about them, as is moronically simple these days, you disdain them, and then complain that you do not understand them. This complaint is disingenuous because you show no interest in having them explained.
[end excerpt]

You really ought to go and read the rest, because it’s wonderful. It’s here: http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/2007/05/may-your-perfidy-ramify-through-your.html

I was hooked by the title, and was actually waving my lighter in the air by the time I finished.

Let me post the opening lines again:

“The collective attitude you have shown toward reading and writing during the past semester is neither new nor surprising. You are not well-suited to do either.”

I do this because I went to look at it today, and found this proof that God has a sense of humor:

[excerpt]
I gaurantee you Ms lecturer, i'll be one of those "stupid" people that write 4 pages worth of comments on your student assessment forms. Bare in mind i have never bothered to write one before. Thanks alot for the semester, a unit that no one will ever remember because you tried to force them too
[end excerpt]

http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/2007/05/i-just-had-whinge-and-i-feel-better.html

Someone didn’t need quote marks.

I really wish that comments were enabled on this blog, because I so wanted to correct all of the spelling, grammatical, and editorial mistakes in this entry and repost it. My fervent prayer is that this was written to the student’s English professor. I grouse at my coworkers enough about misusing their native language; I could easily go thermonuclear on a Brit for writing as horribly as any other MySpace TXT-addict.

A warning to all you students out there: Grammar counts. When I was in a position to hire people, I would throw away any résumé with spelling or grammatical errors. I simply didn’t want that person representing me or my company. I saw one cover letter where the applicant actually misspelled the name of his home town. If you can’t take the time to proof the document that supposedly best represents you, you will be a burden on the rest of us. Only when you have proven that you can write correctly will you be allowed to branch out into colloquialisms, dialects and slang.

You feel me?