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?

You, Again!

You’re my biggest fan, my partner, my best critic.

You let me rant when I need to, but never let me feel sorry for myself.

You give me room to be goofy.

You give great advice, even if I’m being stubborn.

You tolerate my sledgehammer wit.

You gave me two awesome kids, and you are an awesome mom.

You watch my favorite movies with me over and over.

You are a fantastic cook. Even those few dishes that didn’t turn out the way you’d planned were creative and entertaining.

I love waking up next to you in the morning.

15 years is nothing when every day is a new adventure.

It’s you and me against the world.

Let’s attack.

Happy Anniversary, Sweetheart.

State of the Union

I’m not a fan of Unions. I think they were a good idea once upon a time, but I believe that their necessity has passed. All they do now is interfere with the Free Market by jacking costs and obstructing timely progress. People are forced to pay too much for not enough.

My company has a big trade show every year, and for the past few years, I’ve been tapped to go down early to help set up. I got to see how Unions operate up close and personal.

They’re shakedown artists.

Here’s the way it works: You are required to hire at least two Union workers to help construct your booth. Doesn’t matter if the whole thing unfolds from a bag and snaps in place, those two workers will do the unfolding and the snapping for you. You are not allowed to use any sort of hand truck or dolly to move your merchandise in from the loading bays – that’s Union territory. We were even stopped as we were bringing in cases of water for our own consumption to be told that a certain Union had sole concessionary rights to the show. I saw the Union Steward screaming at a man who had brought his own pallet jack, threatening to “shove that jack up your ass!” One of our hired hands even boasted that his brothers and he had completely surrounded a booth that had neglected to obtain their Union workers. They wouldn’t let anyone in or out of the space until the exhibitors filled out the paperwork. I’m sure the two women trapped inside this ring of testosterone cowboys enjoyed that experience.

What assholes.

The thing is, they’ve convinced themselves (or at least the only answer we ever got) is that it’s all for “safety reasons.” Like only the highly-trained Union workers know how to use a drill. In fact, we were oh-so-gently threatened by one obersteward who cruised up in his little golf cart while one of our guys was on a ladder. “Where are your workers?” he demanded. “At lunch.” “Well why don’t you let them take care of that when they get back. We don’t want any (brief pause) accidents.” What a con.

I realize that these people need the work, but you’re screwing with free enterprise, here, boys. Make the talent pool available, and we’ll pick what we need. You have an electrician? That’s great. Me and electricity have an agreement: I don’t mess with it, it doesn’t kill me. I’ll be happy to have him come down and run the splices. But to get in my face because I dared…dared…to use a hand truck to bring in a couple of cases of water? Piss off, Chico.

Our booth was built for us by a company in the UK, and we had a couple of their guys in to put it together for us. They told us that the UK has done away with unions, and the “safety issues” are handled by a number of event inspectors that cruise around and make sure none of the exhibitors are doing stupid things during construction. These inspectors have the power to shut down an exhibitor if necessary. That’s it. No extra expenses, no intimidation tactics, no confusion.

It would be slightly more tolerable if there was just one contact for all of it, but that’s not how it works. You have to see seventeen different stewards for power, concession, construction, loading, carpeting, etc. We even had to stop work at one point because we had two different Union reps arguing about which of them had the sub-clause in our secondary contract to use the left-handed pliers on the upper tier of our auxiliary light post.

I’m only slightly exaggerating, here, but it really was ridiculous. At one point, my coworkers and I were wondering aloud which Union rep we’d have to drag along to the bathroom to hold our dicks for us after drinking all that water. (Not too loudly, understand, since we were surrounded by none-too-bright gorillas sporting prison tats and power tools.) That naturally led to much juvenile, Y-chromosome influenced humor about “heavy lifting” and “pipe wrenches,” which I’ll spare you.

I really enjoyed it when the forklift drivers would get pissed at us because our crates were sticking out into the aisles. “Hmmm,” I would muse. “I wonder who put this 1000-pound crate here? I’m fairly certain it wasn’t one of us, because #1, we’re not allowed to move anything ourselves, and #2, even if we did want to move it, we don’t have a fucking forklift!”

To give credit where credit is due, two of our workers were very good. They did everything we asked, did it quickly, professionally, and well. We enjoyed working with them and talking to them. I understand that they work for the Union because there is no other choice, but I’d like to think that they could have done better in the private markets, where they wouldn’t have to pay dues into the big Ponzi scheme that is the Union hierarchy.

I’m fairly certain that introspection is not big at the glorious worker gatherings, but you have to wonder if any of them have ever contemplated: “If we are having to force people to use our services, perhaps we represent an outdated business paradigm.” Maybe the designated Thinker for the hive mind missed that meeting.

In other news of “Unions Gone Wild,” I notice that every music lover’s favorite wet blanket, the RIAA, is now considering charging radio stations for playing their songs.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/business/la-fi-radio21may21,1,1028211.story?coll=la-headlines-business-enter

I love how the RIAA blames collapsing sales entirely on downloading, and not the CDs containing one good song and 11 crappy ones. I stopped buying CDs when I found out that they cost less to make than a cassette, but cost me more than twice as much to purchase. I was making my own CDs and cassettes until I discovered that the Audio Home Recording Act mandated that the price of recorders and blank media include royalties to be paid directly to the record industry. Thank you, George H. W. Bush. You asshole.

Now I eschew the RIAA-controlled sales centers completely, and copy music off the web with some freeware I downloaded. It has a feature that lets me record anything played through my speakers. I can watch a music video online and record the song if I want. If I find a groovy new band, I’ll see them in concert or buy the album directly from their web site. I think most people know that the artists make most of their money by touring rather than through record sales. (Remember records, kids?).

This may be the final push to get radio stations to switch to an all-talk format, and if those public serpents in Congress restore the “Fairness Doctrine,” we’ll have nothing but dead air. But that’s another rant for another day.

I just hope that the radio stations respond to this by charging the RIAA advertising rates for promoting their product. It would be good if those rates equaled the royalty payments. It would be better if they were higher.

For much fun, go here: http://www.dontdownloadthissong.com/

Are Your Papers in Order?

Today is the beginning of the National “Click It or Ticket” campaign, which runs until June 3. Police everywhere will be targeting motorists that fail to wear their seatbelt, especially night drivers.

We’ve all heard the statistics: 2/3 of all traffic fatalities are from not wearing seatbelts; 9,500 lives were saved with seatbelts last year; blah blah blah.

One disclaimer before I begin the rant: Kids should be in car seats. They cannot make their own choice, as they cannot foresee consequences. Parents that don’t secure their kids should lose their car.

Now…


This isn’t about safety. This is about police departments filling their coffers. Don’t think so? Think about this: A motorcyclist wearing only a helmet, but otherwise unconstrained from flying through the air in the event of a collision, is a perfectly legal rider, whereas an unseatbelted driver completely enclosed within a metal cage is illegal. A 200-pound passenger in a vehicle will be breaking the law by not wearing a seatbelt, but a 200-pound mannequin in the passenger seat is not required to be belted.

Look, I always wear my seatbelt, because I enjoy walking upright and breathing unassisted, which may no longer be an option if I go through a windshield. My kids are strapped in to the point of near immobility, mainly so they can’t spill anything on the seats. But I don’t need the nanny-state making laws about it.

For those that argue that traffic injuries raise everyone’s insurance rates, here’s a simple solution: If you get injured in an accident because you were not wearing your seatbelt, you are not entitled to insurance payouts. It’s not a mandatory, nagging law, it’s a simple statement of consequences for personal choice. Rates stay down, people can choose, and Darwin weeds out the losers of the highway crapshoot.

I got into a (very genteel) argument with a trooper that had stopped me for a burnt-out brakelight. (Side rant: Why do they always ask if you know your brakelights are out? Can anyone you know simultaneously depress the brakes and check the lights? It’s not like I carry a masonry block in the car to hold the pedal down while I do a walkabout.) He came up to the window to tell me about it, and mentioned that he would have to add a fine for my not wearing my seatbelt. I told him that I had removed it to get to my wallet and glove compartment to have my papers ready (he didn’t catch that inference, luckily). He adopted an “Oh, yeah?” demeanor, and asked what I would do if I’d been hit while pulled over. I replied that I would happily file a claim with that driver’s insurance company, since it would automatically be their fault, and furthermore, the fact that they’d have to go through the trooper’s car to get to me pretty much put me at ease.

But the whole point of that story is to illustrate how it’s all about money (fortunately, you can’t be ticketed for being a smartass…yet). Cops stop you on a pretext, then rack up the fines. “Sir, I stopped you because you were doing 68 in a 65 zone. I need to see your license, registration, proof of insurance, emissions test results, the contents of your ashtray, whatever you’ve got in the glove compartment, and that empty bottle in the back seat. I also need you to empty your pockets, walk this line, recite the alphabet backwards, breathe into this tube, let my dog sniff you, and stand with your feet apart. Oh, and you’ll need to pop the trunk, too.”

Ja, mein Kapitän

And to my next door neighbors (both of whom are cops), I’m not talking about you guys; you’re cool. :)

Current Mood: Stabby – OR – The Chippendales Go to War – OR – I’m in ur Phalanx, Killin’ ur Persians

Finally got around to seeing 300, and OMG, how gorgeous is this movie? The lighting, colors, and cinematography were just amazing. The director did a great job in capturing Frank Miller’s artistic style, and the cast was superb.

The structure of the storyline was extremely well-done, with the same narrator bracketing the three key arcs. This is something I think a lot of people missed, especially the idiots in Iran that bitched about it being mere propaganda. The story is told from the point of view of the Spartans, so naturally they would exaggerate the attributes of their enemy. That’s been the prerogative of soldiers ever since the first rock-throwing incident in Olduvai Gorge. Plus, when President Ahmadinnerjacket leaves his Holocaust-denial conference to opine about propaganda, he kind of loses some credibility, you know?

I’m a fan of grotesqueries, so I particularly enjoyed the Persian characters of the giant and the executioner. Mrs. Cat doesn’t get into the freaks as much, but I did have to wipe up the drool during the slow-motion battle scenes. She’s a huge proponent of righteous ass-kickings, so chiseled men in leather loincloths taking a principled stand and dispensing damage with sword and spear pushes her buttons. There are only two prominent female characters in the show, but they’re both beautiful women, so there’s something for the het crowd to ogle, too. I’ve heard the term “warnography” applied to this movie, and that’s a great term. I didn’t read the article, so I don’t know if the author was disparaging the focus on physiques, or the “glorification of war,” but it’s still a cool label. It wasn’t nearly as violent as I expected, and the various blood splatters and decapitations were shot so stylistically, you can’t really say they were graphic. There were worse depictions in Saw and Hostel. Their very realism makes them harder to watch.

I personally don’t see anything wrong with the glorification of war, but within limits. War just for war’s sake is a path to tyranny. Getting satisfaction from your military prowess, and being able to finish whatever fight gets started is a matter of national pride. Call it arrogance if you want, but when the shit hits the fan, you want people that excel in wholesale slaughter fighting for you, rather than against you. That was Sparta’s raison d’être, and it’s one reason we still know the story of the 300 today. Yes, the story was simplified, but it’s a movie based on a comic book, not a historical recreation. People that attack the movie on those grounds are missing the point. PETA may as well complain about the way the digital rhinoceros was treated (and I’m confident that some of those losers have).

I’m going to add Troy and Alexander to my Netflix queue to see why those movies tanked, and 300 and Gladiator did so well.

If you haven’t seen 300 yet, try and catch it on the “big screen.” It’ll lose too much impact on a television screen. One tip: pee first. You won’t want to miss anything.

Just Wondering

Saw a sign that gleefully informed me that 1/20/09 would be Bush’s last day in office. What will happen to the Democrats when the target of their vitriol leaves? Will they turn on each other at that point? Isn’t this the same tension that keeps the Dark Knight and the Joker in lockstep?

A sign on a restaurant told me that they were serving Ice Coffee. It’s Iced Coffee, you morons, same as Iced Tea. The first word is an adjective that modifies the noun behind it. “Ice” is not an adjective. I know that a lot of people say “Ice Water,” but unless you’re serving actual meltwater, that’s incorrect. When did grammar become so difficult?

Speaking of grammatical challenges, a coworker that gets way too much ego gratification from MySpace came up to me recently. “Know who I was talking to last night?” He leaned forward and paused, building the drama. “Nikki. Hilton.” Then he stepped back with this smug “Who’s the man?” look on his face. I asked him what rigorous identification verification procedures he had to endure to create his MySpace account, and was he aware that on my blog, I was personified by a talking cat?

I absolutely despise the current sartorial trend of placing logos and catchphrases on the rear of tight sweatpants sold to young girls. I am a compulsive reader, having been conditioned by evil marketing agents to seek out their messages. I am also of an age and moral character where I do not wish to be seen staring at a 12-year-old’s ass. In this Megan’s Law “for the children” era, where we stop just short of the death penalty for child molesters, and the merest hint of opprobrium can ruin a man’s life forever, who decided that this was a good idea?

Surely I can’t be the first to think of how much more work we could get done if we’d stop having meetings about how much work we’re getting done.

I really don’t ask for much out of life. A healthy, happy family, a small circle of excellent friends, a satisfying career, my own submarine, and an island fortress. That’s not too much, is it?

It’s been said that the lottery is a tax on idiots. Looking at the current crop of Presidential candidates, I’m beginning to suspect that our elections are, too. There are none of them who wouldn’t benefit from a road trip to Emerald City. The dispensation of a few brains, hearts, and some courage would improve the selection immensely.

Compassionate Conservatism is no way to win a war. Particularly the war against Islamic fanaticism. My humble suggestion is to get biblical on the terrorists. In II Samuel, Sheba, a Benjamite that revolted against King David, is holed up in the stronghold city of Abel. Joab, the commander of the king’s army, attacks the city. A woman asks him why he is trying to kill her, and he tells her that he is looking for Sheba. This woman goes and convinces the people to cut off Sheba’s head and throw it over the wall. Joab then calls off the attack. Similarly, we should line up our bombers, missiles, and tanks, and make it clear that unless the terrorists are delivered to us, we’ll turn their cities into dust. We know where these folks are, we just don’t know who they are. If the rest of the inhabitants want to be martyrs about it, we can help them with that, too. If II Samuel isn’t to your liking, how about Samuel L. Jackson? “And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger!” It always amuses me that the same people that sit in the theatre going “Yeah! Get him!” recoil in horror when it’s instituted as official Foreign policy.

Why do airline pilots feel compelled to chatter away on the intercom? Do they think that enhances customer service? Don’t you have a button to push, or traffic to monitor or something? I’m trying to read, here. I’ll consider your customer service obligation fulfilled if I get there on time, and can walk away from the plane. I don’t need a guided tour from 30,000 feet.

There’s a guy in our office that enjoys being annoying. You don’t dare ask him to stop doing something, because then he knows that it bothers you, and he does it more. My solution to this is to fuck with his OCD. When he targets me, I just knock his paper clip holder onto the floor. If he keeps it up, I rearrange his desk. He’s learning.

Some phrases just stick with you. Currently, I have the echo of some dialogue from Dark Passage stuck in my head. Bogart asks Bacall “So you like Swing music?” Her answer, “Yes. Legitimate Swing.” intrigues me. Was the market being flooded with cheap foreign imitators? Was there some epic battle in the music industry in the 40s to determine what was going to be labeled as Swing music? I’m sure the answer would add all sorts of nuances to Bacall’s character, but I’ve not been able to track anything down.

10 Days in a Genial Hell

A series of observations, ruminations, and generalizations from Las Vegas

French women have the prettiest clothes. French men also have pretty clothes, and appear to be competing with their women, rather than complementing them.

The homeless man singing along with the aria out front of the Bellagio’s dancing fountains? Yeah…there’s a story there.

The Luxor and the Excalibur casinos are apparently reserved for the trailer trash Mullet heads that are tired of Gatlinburg.

Italian women have the most self-assurance. Italian men are friendly, but they’re also too laid back about everything.

Used to be that Vegas was known for cheap food…not so much, anymore. Not only is it expensive, it’s tasteless. On the other hand, it takes real talent to blend the flavors of filet mignon, asparagus tips, sautéed mushrooms, shallots, and red wine so that they completely cancel each other out. That kind of chef doesn’t come cheap, I suppose.

New York New York is a great place to shop, and the walkway between there and the MGM is the best place to take pictures of the strip.

Mexican women seem to go from stunning young nightclub-fantasy chica to squat peasant grandmother without passing through any intermediate stage. Mexican men all strut around like bantam roosters. Even the short ones. Especially the short ones.

I understand that casinos want you to stay as long as possible, but hiding the exits only pisses me off. I’m not interested in your slot machines or your poker rooms; all I want is the most direct route from the monorail platform to your front door. The show I’m going to see is in the hotel across the street. You want me to stay? Maybe you shouldn’t have Carrot Top as your headliner.

The Wynn, the Paris, and the Venetian are all beautiful hotels. Easily my favorites. Good clubs, good shows, good food.

German women are either very cold, or very gregarious. German men are cocky assholes with really bad taste in clothes.

In general, Vegas is a city filled with those desperate to impress, or desperate to be impressed. It amused me that there were cruisers along the strip on Friday and Saturday nights. It doesn’t matter how shiny the rims are on your Eclipse, you’re not going to get noticed. It just won’t happen.

The Sirens show at Treasure Island is the best of the free shows. Pirate chicks and pyrotechnics – life is good.

Oriental women are generally beautiful, but only as long as they’re quiet. For whatever reason, those dialects are incredibly jarring to me. Oriental men usually look lost, verging on overwhelmed.

It tickled me that the Legends show lineup included Bette Midler, Prince, Tom Jones, and Elton John, since all of those actual people are appearing in Vegas.

I saw the Stomp Out Loud show at the Planet Hollywood hotel. As I looked over the audience, there was a lot less sympathetic jamming than I would have expected. Seeing as it takes at least rudimentary rhythm to procreate, how have white people managed to be the majority so long?

Americans may be derided by the rest of the world for our excessiveness, but I didn’t see any ads for the strip clubs and escort services that featured anything but American girls. We may not recycle as much as France thinks we should, but we own the field when it comes to pole dancing. American men tend to be drunk, loud, and obnoxious at the clubs featuring the American women.

I was stunned by the number of people I saw in the casinos with children. Who the hell brings their 8-year-old daughter to Vegas? Is she going to read the free escort guides while you’re gambling away the house payment? Fucking idiots.

The Frontier had a great big marquee out front reading “Free Paris!” Since they are located about two blocks from the Hilton, I thought it was hysterical.

Everyone should go to Las Vegas once. For about four days. Anything longer is excessive and depressing. See a couple of shows, do some shopping, gamble a little if that’s your thing, then get the hell out. But do your homework. If you don’t have at least a general idea of what you want to do when, the town will mug you. It dazzles you with false choices, distracts you with painted smiles, and slowly suffocates you while you’re convinced you’re having fun.

Stuck On You

Have you ever almost gotten into a wreck because the car in front of you had too many bumper stickers, and you got distracted reading them?

I was following some beat-up Datsun home today, and by the time I almost ran over him, I knew just about every aspect of his personal ideologies. Now, my default opinion is that if you can fit your philosophy on a bumper sticker, you probably haven’t given it enough thought, and you’re certainly not providing enough context. (Ironically, my general attitude towards others – Fuck off – fits exceptionally well on a bumper sticker, but I don’t have one, mainly so I don’t have to try and explain it to my daughter.)

Ever notice that you can just about peg someone’s belief structure from a distance just from the colors of their bumper stickers? Green, Yellow, and Rainbows? That’s a Liberal. Red, White, and Blue? Conservative. It’s also amusing to me when folks from both sides leave on the campaign stickers from the races their candidate lost. It’s as if their car is their own little bubble of reality that they drive around in defiance of actual events.

And I absolutely adore the little self-stick icons wars. You just thought about the Fish vs. Darwin squabble, didn’t you? Watching them evolve makes me appreciate the clever wit involved in their creation.

(Okay – I was going to let that go without comment, but if I can’t self-congratulate on my own blog, where else can I? I worked in the key words to both sides of the argument in one sentence. Go me!)

My personal favorite is the Cthulhu fish, because I’m that much of a geek.



I suggested to a buddy once, half-seriously, that we should open up a store that specialized in that sort of thing. We would call it Counter Culture. (Work it out, I’m not going to explain everything.)

Back to the Datsun, then. I’m pretty sure that the car was being held together by the stickers, much as the ideas on them held together this young man’s self-worth. He had the standard declaration “War is not the Answer,” but evidently had not considered that the question might be: “What song is Edwin Starr best known for?” or “What does the Greek god Ares personify?” or even “What’s the best way to stop a murderous dictator hellbent on slaughtering people?” Here’s a fun thing to do, if you’re so inclined: Next time you get the opportunity to talk to someone who has that sticker on their car, ask them if they’re willing to fight for that belief. You can’t lose.

He also had the requisite “Animals are our Friends” sticker. Like we should all take Bruce’s pledge from Finding Nemo: “Fish are friends, not food.” Right. Let’s all swear off eating animals. That won’t upset the natural order of things at all. I seem to recall a popular theory that says something along the lines of “eat or be eaten.” Can’t quite remember which theory that is, though. Ev…evo…something.

There was a short science-fiction story some many moons ago whose protagonist developed super hearing. As he heard more and more expansively, he started to go insane. What drove him over the edge was the long, mournful groan of an oak tree as an axe bit into it. Great story. Makes me want to whip up a video of carrots screaming as they’re being pulled from the earth and post it on YouTube.

Q: How many environmentalists would starve to death after watching it?
A: Who cares?

A friend of mine has a great line. She says that vegetables are what food eats.

“No Blood for Oil.” One of my favorites. Anyone who possesses this sticker on their car obviously hasn’t done even a cursory search about where we get our oil from. Iraq is number six on the list. Our top two suppliers are Canada and Mexico, respectively. In fact, we get more than eight hundred percent more oil from those two countries than we do from Iraq. If we wanted to kill for our oil, we could do it a lot more easily and a hell of a lot closer to home. Canada would fall in a three-day weekend, and since Mexico has already exported their entire population here, we could just stroll over the border and take theirs.

“The Blood of New Orleans is on Republican Hands!” This was a new one on me. I hadn’t realized that Ray Nagin and Kathleen Blanco had switched parties.

“Earth First.” A classic. Damn right, Earth first. We’ll strip-mine the other planets later.

“Thou Shalt not Kill.” It’s so cute when Liberals try and quote the Bible. If they were really keeping up with theology, they’d’ve heard that the correct translation is “Thou Shalt not Murder.” That is, you shall not take innocent life. This being plastered next to the “Pro-Abortion” sticker was really delicious.

“Another Free Thinker for Peace.” Just like all of the other free thinkers that have that exact same bumper sticker?

“Apathy is Deadly.” So what?

“Celebrate Diversity” and “Stop Hate Radio.” Make up your damn mind.

“Stop Animal Testing.” Jeez. Teach Koko to use sign language, and you get all snippy. It’s not like it was an essay question or anything. Hope you’re not an insulin-dependent diabetic, pal, like the chick that heads up PETA.

He also had something about making proper environmental choices, but it was obscured by the oil residue blowing out of his muffler. That was the one I was trying to make out when he hit the brakes. Luckily, I stopped before I creased his “Forget Bush” sticker to read “For Bush.”

I’m sure it would have killed him.