Archive for the 'Irritations' Category

Published on February 22, 2007 in ..The Dude, Irritations, Life and The Ill-Literates. 3 Comments

I finally gave in and purchased a cell phone today. I did it mainly due to work and being an assistant manager (or Ass Man), but I also want to get some fun private usage out of this puppy so that I might continue to feel self important and popular in and out of work. So I’m encouraging all phone handy people to call me at 845 ******* even if they have nothing to say.

Even if you just want to talk dirty to me by all means call.* Even when I’m at work. Preferably when I’m at work. I want to put the ass into Ass Man and together we can do that at 845 *******. If you just want to call to celebrate me I won’t be offended and will celebrate right along with you.

Just want to hear my voice?

I don’t blame you. And I will let you hear it. Especially on weekends and after 9 p.m.

I’ll let you hear my voice m-f before 9 as well but I do have a regular phone at home and at work so lets not overdue it here since I’ve got something like 500 minutes during those weekday hours every month.

This brings me to my vow. I think there should be rules when it comes to cell phone usage. I got into some of my issues with this on a blog of mine that proved so wildly popular people were too entertained and intimidated to comment on it. Except dear Brandon of course who is not allowed to call me to talk dirty unless Lost or Battlestar Gallactica and Grace Park somehow tie into it.

But it touched on my first and most important rule. Which is to not have conversations so that everyone around me can hear me in public places.

Unless we’re talking dirty.

In which case I’ll be putting you on speaker phone you nasty, nasty girl you.

I promise not to become one of those people sitting in Barnes & Noble around others who are reading and sharing every detail of their lives as if there was no phone between them and the person on the other end and they feel they have to really belt it out.

I won’t walk up and down aisles in stores speaking so loudly everyone in the store, or even the aisle knows what I’m up to. They don’t care and I respect that about them.

The second rule that I promise to abide by is to not hold a finger up to anyone trying to talk to me while I’m on the phone. You know. Sticking up the index finger to signal they’ll be with you in a minute. Even though i’m deaf in the ear that will be exposed I won’t do that to people. This I promise.

I’m not making any promises about the middle finger though.

3rd Rule. No talking while on line or dealing with the public like at a counter at the supermarket. I won’t go through being being checked out while ignoring the person ringing up my purchase. This contemptuous crap is appalling and a breakdown of the rules of living in a society. I will not do this. No I will save my contempt for those in the public who have different political and religious views from me like our hominid founding fathers did when they settled this great land and did so without cell phones instead having to rely on witchcraft to communicate with each other.

4th Rule. I will not leave my ringer on when in a movie theater, restaurant, class, brothel, or any other place where people are trying to get a little privacy.

5. I will not spend my time when with people I know, like, or am attracted to, playing with my cell phone. This goes on far too much. People can’t keep their hands off these things in public. Stay home and play with your phone if that’s what you want to do. Don’t spend dinner with me or time at work playing with yourself. These things aren’t that fascinating. I kind of am. Get with the program. #

Rule 6. I pledge to not use the photo and video elements of my phone to take unsolicited photos of people, stick them under girls skirts, or ruin the careers of famous people with footage of them going on racists rants, dropping their babies, or any such salacious footage bound to excite the E Network.

This is all for now as far as rules. I believe these should be all be set into law. Perhaps at another time I’ll get into what the punishment should be for violating these rules.

Notice I didn’t put a rule in against talking while driving. This is because I did this on my way home an hour or so after buying it tonight. Otherwise this would have been a rule too. I’m not encouraging it. I’d prefer most of you don’t do it. I on the other hand have exceptional instincts, reflexes, and hand eye coordination and can handle this. I won’t do it in traffic though. Mainly open road. It gets boring driving you know. The cops may be able to ticket me but they can’t make you and me stop talking dirty to each other babies.*

Have a nice day.

* Women only on the dirty, dirty talk please.

#The phone is new to me so bear in mind I may play with it around you a little at first. Do not take offense. IF you are a women you may still talk to dirty to me at these times.

Published on January 13, 2007 in ..The Dude, Irritations, Life and The Ill-Literates. 0 Comments

European and Australian feminists want to make guys pee sitting down to equal the playing field. We have our early leader for most assinine and irrational group of 2007. (exempting Bush of course).

Townhall

Young women in Sweden, Germany and Australia have a new cause: They want men to sit down while urinating. This demand comes partly from concerns about hygiene — avoiding the splash factor — but, as Jasper Gerard reports in the English magazine The Spectator, “more crucially because a man standing up to urinate is deemed to be triumphing in his masculinity, and by extension, degrading women.” One argument is that if women can’t do it, then men shouldn’t either. Another is that standing upright while relieving oneself is “a nasty macho gesture,” suggestive of male violence.

A feminist group at Stockholm University is campaigning to ban all urinals from campus, and one Swedish elementary school has already removed them. In Australia, an Internet survey shows that 17 percent of those polled think men ought to sit, while 70 percent believe they should be allowed to stand. Some Swedish women are pressuring their men to take a stand, so to speak. Yola, a 25-year-old Swedish trainee psychiatrist, says she dumps boyfriends who insist on standing. “What else can I do?,” said her new boyfriend, Ingvar, who sits.

To sit or stand? Which is a right or a privelage? What makes a man a man?

Ahh timeless questions pondered by theologians and philosophers. I believe it was Plato and Socrates in thier dialogues that first raised the question of how best to relieve oneself. It was Plato who first struck that note for sitting, distancing himself from the Socratic method, peeing standing up, a position later championed by Aristotle who preferred distinguishing categorizations to help differentiate between all things. Including sexes.

You see Aristotle was a realist not as prone to the wild flights of fancy that Plato often got off to. Why should a man act like a woman? The Platonic peeing method insisted upon a universal Idea of peeing and equality. Aristotle knew this was bullshit. We are not all born equal. We have inherent advantages and disadvantages.

Some people have still not gotten over this.

Despite not having the science to tell them about the splash factor past generations, for all thier faults and ignorance, could tell the difference between someone with ability to do something someone else could not. Sure they didn’t know it was more genetic than divine punishment or reward. But they didn’t play tackle Football or Rugby, or whatever, with ladies. They didn’t force normally ambulated people to go slower to accomodate those with some kind of crippling disability (Yes this kind of thing has happened in our time). And they didn’t make men sit down and pee. Or women stand up and do it.

Seriously when I read the above blurb I thought it was April 1st for a moment and got pumped about the Mets opener with the Cards tonight. Then I remembered alot of people are still insane and realized it was true.

Really unless a guy is peeing standing up right in front of a woman, or pissing on her (unless they as a couple are into that–I’m talking to you Tracy), get a grip Swedish feminists. I’m as pro woman’s rights as most, but Nordic women must have it pretty good to get worked up over what guys are doing in the bathroom.

I do pee sitting on occasion. Alot of men do. There is a time and place. But a blanket standard is unacceptable. Indeed some men are concerned with splashback and the spread of germs. This is why I put the lid down when I flush and don’t keep my toothbrush near the toilet. BUt if I want to splash I want to be able to splash. And unless you’re hung like a whale your splashback is not likely to effect others in a public restroom.

As I indicated, flushing from uncovered urinals or toilets in public is more likely to be a problem. But even that is not going to hurt anyone but the flusher. A bigger problem is those who don’t flush after themselves. I hate having to pee in someone’s slop. That adds to splashback and it’s not all mine splashing back at me. It’s partly some other guys stagnantly sitting pee waiting to jump the side.

Thankfully alot of restrooms have those urinals that flush by themselves through some kind of omnicient motion sensoring technology or something.

I also find a bigger issue to be guys who miss. It seems like everytime I pee at Barnes & Nonble lately I have to spread my legs to avoid squishing through sticky liquid waste around the urinal.

I guess this would be a good reason to make everyone sit if you were going to make everyone do anything. But that’s not the primary reason the fems want to make men tuck their junk. It’s another form of emasculation in the ongoing effort of a few women to make men the kind of wusses most women don’t want. I suppose if hot Swedish femenists promised to date me even when i’m a whining, sensitive, caring, humble guy, it wouldn’t be so bad. But I’m here in Ulster County where women want guys to scare the shit of them on occasion. There are many reasons I don’t date much. This is one of them. I tend towards the caring nice guy thing. I used to tend to it alot more. THen I realized women weren’t fairy princesses anymore than we were the princes they so often lament not being out there.

They’re still wonderful and all. I love working with the ones I’ve worked with at times including the past few months. I sense some of them dig me. If they saw me peeing standing down with my maleness all Buffalo Billed between my thighs and the inside of the toilet bowl, I don’t think they’d dig me so much.

When I’m at home I do tend to sit down, only because the splashing noise can be a bit loud and embarrasing in the quiter home environment and there is some of that splashback factoring. (I certainly only flush with the lid down though). But in public I want a urinal. When I’m out I’m fully dressed and don’t want to have to be bothered with unbuttoning, pulling my pants down and reverse. I want that easy access that zippers and male genetalia provide. Especially in an envoronment where no one will be perturbed or embarrassed by my peeing noise. We’re all there for the same reason after all.

There are inherent advantages and disadvantages all of us must deal with as a gender as well as as individuals. I’m all for equality, but I’m also all for rationality. And thinking we can all do everything or are as equally capable is irrational denial. Easy access for public relief is one of the male of the species innate advantages and rights. Do the advantages balance out? I don’t know. I don’t care. I’m peeing standing up in public and if they take urinals away I’m still going to pee standing up as political protest, perhaps on bathroom walls in the shape of a V for victory, or vendetta. Maybe I’ll do it in the ladies room. This could actually be a good way to meet some new people. Feminism or no feminism, good or bad, most women I encounter want men to be men and are turned off by too much equality. They also like bad boys. So peeing on their bathroom walls should go over well outside of Sweden.

That’s ok, Swedish girls are out of my league anyway.

Published on January 10, 2007 in ..The Dude, Irritations and The Ill-Literates. 0 Comments

And the winner is….Time Magazine’s Man Of The Year. Gimmick’s over boys. No one cares what you have to say. Same goes for Sports Illustrated’s Sportman Of The Year. The following post touches on that along with many other half digested year end/beginning thoughts, as well as some best/worsts lists of my own.

We know about Time’s choice of me, er you…nay, us. But SI’s Sportman of the year was some Basketball player who had a good playoffs for the Heat. I don’t even know the guy. Steroids did more for sports the last year than this guy. Tony Larussa was runner up. A friggin manager. If he had beaten the Braves instead of the Mets to get to the Series SI would have probably ignored him completely. But oh gee whiz you kept a NY team from cellebrating! You’re our anti- NY hero. A god amongst us. Our champion against those arrogant New Yorkers.

Screw you SI.

Both these lists have become increasingly irrelevant in our information age. All that matters is People’s Sexiest Man Alive award and everyone knows it.

It summarizes our age better than any choice that actually cares about accomplishments. A recent poll of kids had them ranking being famous as their number 1 priority/best thing in life. God was 10. Good food was around 5. Looks was 2 or 3 as I remember it. The People choice takes care of two of the top 3 even if they didn’t name me, you, or us as being amongst the sexiest.

And to it’s credit it doesn’t pretend to have any insight into anything. In the info age we’re in Time and SI don’t have any broad scope of knowledge to dictate importance to anyone. And nobody reads magazines. THey’re like ancient papyrus. The Dead Sea Scrolls. Cave art.
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And speaking of caves I can’t get enough of that Geico caveman dude. He’s just cool. And he’s made me think twice about my past caveist comments. No longer will I compare anyone in the Bush administration to early hominids or say Bush is a troglodyte or looks like like a proto human with those narrowly spaced eyes. That’s just not fair to our hairy ancestors. Thank you Geico for educating as well as entertaining.

Rosie O’Donnel needs to get off Trump’s back over this whole Miss America thing. It’s escalated far beyond that now in the past few days with the back and forth verbal barrage between the two of them all over different talk shows. I’m coming down clearly on the side of the Donald here. Sure he has his faults. But compared to that talentless slug he’s my fracking messiah man.

How dare she suggest The Donald didn’t earn what he has. No Rosie it’s you who didn’t earn it. You’re famous for what? Your’e an unfunny lesbian. You were never funny. You’re less so now. Take away hanging out with Madonna back in the day and being a lesbian and you’re washing bathrooms for a living and no one lets you adopt a kid because you’re pathetic attempts at humor would come off as creepy if you weren’t a celebrity.

She is my Least Talented Person Who For Some Reason Is On TV And Having Her Comments Circulated Around Of The Year.
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Rocky Balboa rules! I think it’s on my top 5 of best movies of 06. Clerks 2 is on there along with V For Vendetta. I still need two more though. Everyone is putting The Departed on their lists but I was disappointed with it. It wasn’t bad at all. But it wasn’t special either. And I think it’s ending was trite and cliched and had nothing to really say that hasn’t been said. I wish i could put The Fountain on here. Maybe I will eventually. It needs another viewing. But it was one of the more memorable things I saw so maybe I’ll give it that 5 slot for now. I’ll list Syriana for now as well.

I think For Your Consideration was the worst thing I saw all year. Now keep in mind I don’t go to many bad movies. I know there was alot worse out there. But of the movies I spent money to see this thing was the worst pile of nasty humorless crap of them all. I love Christopher Guest and his flicks so I was hopeful and looking forward to him taking on Hollywood and award season. BUt nothing about this rang true and it came off as hatefull without any insight.
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The Bauer power hour returns this Sunday.

4 hours as a matter of fact between Sunday and Monday. That’s alot of power. It’s almost too much power in the way Antonio Banderas is too much sexy.

We are not worthy.

Or equipped to stare into the brightness that is Jack Bauer for that long in a short period of time.

Wear shades people.

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Just watched I Trust You To Kill Me. It’s a documentary about a band called Rocky DeLuca and the Burden touring Europe over two weeks led by tour manager Keifer Sutherland. Keifer’s got some issues that came through this thing but it only made me like him more. Even that whole Chistmas Tree thing that’s been all over the internet was forgivable in the face of a man who clearly was doing some soul searching and is just a cool laid back and unaffected guy with some issues.

I bring this up because that Keifer guy looks alot like that Jack Bauer.
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I think as a follow up to that whole deaths of 06 post I’m going to do one for those most likely to die in 07 and those I wish would die this year. Hopefully it will be embraced by people of all persuasions and backgrounds and become a holiday staple.

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Jesus Christ Oprah has had alot of plastic surgery. You ever look at a picture of her 20 years ago? That’s a whole new person there. Was ugly Oprah a philanthropist too? I shouldn’t say ugly. Not nice, I know. But hey we have to be honest about ourselves. I may be black, I may be poor, and I may even be ugly, but lord I’m here. I’m here!

BUt what gets me is Oprah going on and on about the materialism of American school kids and taking the educational fight to Africa instead. While I agree with her premise and think she does alot of good stuff, she’s being a bit of a hypocrite here. I mean she’s part of the machine that sells beauty and superficiality in America.

She gives away credit cards and nice cars, does shows about all the cool expensive stuff she wants to buy or has just brought, has done all that plastic surgery, and is always having experts on in fields aiming at making people look better.

And she said something about wanting these African kids to achieve the dream of more closet space.

I don’t think she was being ironic on purpose.

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Who does that Heather Mills woman think she is dissing Paul McCartney? THis isn’t Kevin Federline honey. THis is the guy who wrote Yesterday, I Want To Hold Your Hand, She Loves You, And I Love Her, and Here, There, And Everywhere. He’s bloody Sir Paul friggin Mccartney baby. He writes great silly love songs and was married to Linda forever. He doesn’t do bad relationships and he doesn’t need you. As for settlements…let’s see… how much of his fortune were you responsible for or did you assist in making in even a moderately helpful way? Hmmmm? Uhhhh, oh I know: NOTHING!

He’s a Beatle and you have one leg. Consider yourself lucky.

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I must make benefit for the glorious nation of Kazakhstan. I must make benefit for the glorious nation of Kazakhstan. I must make benefit for the glorious nation of Kazakhstan.
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I don’t think I’m going to see Apocalypto. The Jews had nothing to do with the collpase of Mayan civilization.

And seriously the movie sounds a bit harsh on Mayans who are one of the most prejudiced against peoples. Some Mayans are complaining. Mel is getting so politically uncorrect I’m wanting to like him again. But Jesus told me he was a dick so I can’t.

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Can’t we get something good out of all these damn cell phone cameras? I have to see stuff like Michael Richards ranting about blacks and crazy Arabs yelling “Muqtada,” at Sadaam before they hang him but I can’t get any footage of Cheney giving it to Satan up the ass? Start using this technology and off the cuff capturing of randomly interesting moments for important things like taking down the government or getting your boss arrested. Those of you sticking these things up women’s skirts are responsible for me feeling superior to people who own cell phones. Losers.

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Hopefully 2006 was the year we can we finally put and end to the 9-11 conspiracy bullshit? It’s been debunked beyond even the debunking of UFO’s or even vaginal trolls. It’s a secular political religion. A non religious form of Intelligent Design theory seeking to find a unifying principle behind all the chaos and meaninglesness of the world. They didn’t take out the towers because Bush wanted them to anymore than they did it because they hate freedom and democracy. THey hate us and Israel and have a decayed culture and religion that has not progressed in millenia as they’ve had to watch infidels get everything on earth they were promised in Heaven.

Duh.

Loose Change and 911Truth people had the psychotic nerve to boycott the Flight 93 movie they don’t think is based on reality. They actually demonstrated in the face of the families of victims attending the screening. Dudes. Face up to it. You’re destroying the credibility of legitimate criticisms of the Bush administration and government as a whole. You’re not helping. Go look for Sasquatch or something.

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Bush is going to announce further escalation in Iraq tonight.

Good to see he’s a man immune from all that New Years resolution crap.

What could go wrong? It’s not like this is yet another step we took in Vietnam being followed up in Iraq right?

Oh yeah it is. Go talk to Robert McNamara George and stop listening to Cheney or god, or whoever keeps telling you to do and say the things you do and say.

You’ve been Punk’d. It’s really Cheney or maybe Ashton Kutcher using the White House intercom pretending to be god. Or Laura’s ass troll.

Seriously how dare these fuckers continue to throw human lives around like pawns on a chessboard. THey are so disconnected from reality and the actual suffering of a class of people that don’t seem as real to them as CEO’s or oil barons. You think if there was a law that said the front line in any way had to be made up of the richest or their children, sort of like back when Lords, Barons, and Generals like Oliver Cromwell actually fought, that we’d be in Iraq at all, much less escalating?

And then these moral perverts go on about how you have to sacrifice in wartime and that no one ever said it was going to be easy.

BUt of course they are lying again because they did promise it would be easy. THey said it would be over in a few weeks and we’d be welcomed. They called those of us predicting quagmire and civil war terrorists. But now their ideology just does not allow them to admit they are wrong or see any other course of action. Like in Vietnam they have to save face, justify the original intent, and committ to the ideological prize that set them on their course. Because people with ideologies can’t change. That’s the problem with believing things too strongly. Americans are sold this bullshit that if a politician changes his mind or is inconsistent like Kerry, that he’s a waffler or weak.

It’s called adaptation. Evolution. Growth. Whatever. It’s about changing your mindset to jibe with the facts on the ground. But when you get ideological zeolots you only get one way of thinking and all contrary facts are ignored or twisted. GIve me a politician who can adjust to reality and knows how to alter course in accordance with new information any day over a guy who believes what he believes and won’t change.

American’s are so stupid.

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Some other quick bests and worsts of 06.

Worst Jesus Abandonment: Ben Rothlesberger. Poor Born again Ben had Jesus help him win an unikely Super Bowl just a year ago and then went out and crashed his cycle, got appendicitis right before opening day, and numerous injuries during the season. Oh what a fickle messiah you are Jesus.

2nd Worst: The Bush Administration. This includes all the Foley’s, preachers like Harding, Delay, and all the rest who used the J man to help them gain power over a stupid populace only to have Jesus expose them for incompetent frauds with no morality whatsoever.

3rd: Mel Gibson. The Passion of the Diss. Nuff said.

Biggest pickup by Jesus: Democrats. Jesus giveth and he taketh away.

2nd: The St Louis Cardinals. It seems Jesus liked that Missourian bible belt faith led by Cards pitcher Jeff Supan who during the playoffs had adds airing in Missouri supporting the incumbent in the midterm elections. In them the mediocre Suppan spoke out against stem cell research as he pitched lights out against my Mets and the Tigers. Way to go Jesus!

3rd: Whoever is dating that Pompei woman from Grey’s Anatomy. That is a blessed man. He’s tied with Patrick Dempsey who after years of oblivion post 80′s bad teen movies in which he played pizza delivery guys who get laid by hot older women (at least it seems this is all he played) is now America’s heartthrob.

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Best music of the year: Pearl Jam’s new album. The Red Hot Chilli Peppers Stadium Arcadium is a double album that actually it pretty good beginning to end. Beck’s The Information is Beck doing a little of everything he does well.

That My Chemical Romance album is a bit overrated. It’s been compared to Queen and Alice Cooper and that 70′s bombastic, full blown larger than life arena sound. Sounds to me like they’re trying to do The Wall and Green Day’s American Idiot and can’t quite muster up to either one. IT’s not all bad. Just not worthy of such hype. Plus I can’t make out more than a few words of it. I could understand Freddie Mercury and Alice Cooper. Alice and I may not have always seen eye to eye. But damnit I could understand him!

I like some of those radio songs being played from The Killers but their making alot of best lists as well and the songs sound like alot of things I’ve heard the past few years and will be forgotten as easily and quickly as those other bands and songs have been.

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Books: Freakonomics was a great and enlightening read. I’m rereading part 1 of Neil Stepehenson’s Barogue cycle called Quicksilver. I’m enjoying it alot more this time. I’m still not up to where I originally left off in this opos, part of 3 that are around 900 pages each. BUt it’s just sticking and a bettter ride this time. I read the first 2 of 4 of Tad Williams Otherland series. Reread the first actually. Not as good as Quicksilver but an entertaining look a plausible cyber future where we live and die, commerce and recreate online.

Al Franken’s latest Truth was good if not quite as funny and biting as his previous Liars….

The Assasins Gate is a nice look at Iraq and the mentality that led up to it.

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Happy Festivus everybody!

Published on November 10, 2006 in ..The Dude, Irritations, Life and The Ill-Literates. 7 Comments

Or Commondo. Angry Bob has been going Commando all these years and I didn’t know it. How does one go about resuming normalcy after a bomb like this gets dropped? Well I start by putting it on the internet.

Sure the hints were there. i’d seen this mans ass crack on more than a few occasions and it should have registered that I didn’t see underwear bands. But until tonight when he confessed to this dark dark secret, I hadn’t let myself think about it. And it’s not a dark, dark secret to him. To me this is a dark, dark secret. I just wished it had remained one.

I’ve stood right next to this man on hundreds of occasions!

For the love of god he’s ridden in my cars countless times!

Even my new one!

And all of this without the normal expected extra barrier between his boys and me or my car seat.

I myself made the switch from briefs a few years ago. Briefs are too tight. I want some extra room down there. I can understand that need. But holy dancing moses I don’t want them just swinging around all willy-nilly like paddle balls.

Someone could get hurt.

And you need a little something extra in the cold.

It’s not just water that produces shrinkage.

And what about zippers?

Do you really want to take that kind of a chance?

That’s like running with scissors.

Damn it Bob did Something About Mary teach us nothing?

Ok. Obviously this is a controversial subject. But despite the personal and societal implications of what I will objectivelly call “a choice,” we can not let these things divide us. I still love you Bob! Damn it I do!

I don’t care what anyone says.

No matter what the fallout I’m here for you.

I may not agree with your “choice,” but I’ll defend to the grave your right to make it.

You are

and forever will be

my friend.

Whatever they will say I’ll stand by you.

Well, not too closely.

Published on November 9, 2006 in ..The Dude, Irritations and The Ill-Literates. 0 Comments

Why must I take part in people’s cell phone conversations?

More and more i’m finding that cell phone usage has become so much the norm that all restraint and propriety is shed as people carry on in public like these things are an organic part of not only their own bodies but of societies norms.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in public places with these people carrying on with loud phone conversations that show not the least awareness of those around them. THis smacks of not only inconsideration, since often these conversations go on in places like the book store where I and others are reading while someone screams into thier hand about the inconsequential details of their lives like sharing them will somehow make them more valid.

It also seems highly egotistical. Not only is it all about them and not the least bit about anybody else there at the moment who doesn’t want to hear about what their person on the other end is making for dinner tonight or how much they really want to see Borat or enjoyed that recent indie film they saw and highly recommend because blah blah blah. THey just carry on as loud as they can without getting arrested as if it matters. To all of us. I can only speak for me but it doesn’t matter to me. I’m not there because I want an inside peak into the private lives of these amazingly complex and worldly blazing stars.

An example of the complete disregard and lack of awareness of these people is a woman at Barnes & Noble who was having this loud conversation in the cafe area while I and others were reading or engaged in normal conversation. She was carrying on about where she was, what she was going to do next, what she thought about so and so and this and that. But then she had the temerity to loudly complain to her friend, therapist, or parole officer on the phone about how loud the music was in the store and how it made it impossible for her to relax and read.

What the fuck!

And even when it’s not disturbing the peace I have to wonder about people who are just walking along having conversations, often with unseen phones or those mics that allow for free hands. Often they appear to be crazies talking to themselves. But slowly I find myself not assuming madness but instead when i hear someone talking to themselves I assume they must be wired and having some pointless conversation that couldnt wait until getting home because their egos demanded immediate airing of whatever was on their minds and the gratification of suggesting to passersby taht they are really cool and important people with alot of shit going on.

When I see someone truly talking to themself that’s the surprise.

But I never see that anymore.

Why?

Because all the damn loonies have cell phones now!

And there’s such an intensity and focus to these people’s conversations you’d think they were passing on launch codes. Unless you’re Jack Bauer talking to Chloe or a terrorist, stop carrying on in front of me with your cellphone or racing up and down store aisles going at your little phones with a gravitas born only of your self-inflated worth.

There was a study recently indicating that excessive cell phone usage thins sperm counts in men. I can only hope that is natures way of thinning the herd of loud, overbearing people who think their shit don’t stink and that I want to smell it too.

If you need to discuss something that urgently step outside or find a spot where people aren’t engaged in quieter pursuits. At least lower your voice. Those phones work pretty well now and you don’t have to yell into them. THis isn’t C.B. technology anymore and you’re not truckers good buddies.

I don’t care about you. You didn’t do anything that interesting. You are not interesting. You are not Jack Bauer. And you obviously don’t care about me though you wish me to hear about the tired minutiae of your life. So let’s respect our respective indifference of each other. You don’t yell play by play into your hand about what you’re doing at the moment and I won’t get closer to flipping the frack out and bashing your face in with that damn phone!

Can we make this happen?

Thank you for listening.

Published on August 30, 2006 in ..The Dude, Irritations, Life and The Ill-Literates. 0 Comments

There is a new field of psychology that’s finding it’s way into more college courses. It’s called happiness studies or positive psychology. What it seems to boil down to is that the key to being happy is either being stupid, having few choices, or being one of the few survivors of a nuclear fallout.

Ok that’s an oversimplification of matters. There’s more to it than that. I’ll get to that in a moment. First some of the most likely people to be happier according to polls and studies:

The religious. Ignorance is indeed bliss.

Married people seem to live longer and rate themselves as happier than the single. THis might have something to do with choices which I’ll get to later.

The flip side of that marriage thing though is that most of the studies done suggest that children don’t make parents happier. The guy who wrote a book that touches on the studies is quoted at the link below as saying, “It really violates our intuition,” he says. “Yet every bit of data says children are an extreme source of negative affect, a mild source of negative affect, or none at all. It’s hard to find a study where there’s one net positive.”

One piece of info that surprises me and seems counterintuitive to everything I’ve seen from the religious is that they are less likely to abuse drugs, commit crimes, or to kill themselves. This is attributed to the sense of community, structure, meaning, and heavenly reward.

From what I’ve seen it is often people with drug and alcohol problems who find religion to give them a false sense of superiority and esteem. While I’ve seen plenty of evidence to support this I’ll allow for my being off on a general basis. What the study doesn’t show though is how deceitful, manipulative, sleezy, loose moraled, and nuerotic many of the faithful tend to be. Unfortunately these qualities don’t qualify as crimes and aren’t considered addictions. Perhaps also a bit unfortunate is that as the above indicated, they don’t tend to kill themselves enough.

Other nuggets on happiness indicate that being smarter or more successful doesn’t make us any happier, moderation does, being attractive does as well, but not to a great extent, and older people seem more satisfied and happy than younger people with fewer darker moods. Women aren’t unhappier than men but tend to have more ups and downs. (Shocker there).

An important indication in all this concerns the lack of happiness of those who have alot of money compared to those who don’t. This phenomenon was partly due to something dubbed the, “hedonic treadmill.” This is defined as the unending hunger for the next acquisition.

As a general rule, human beings adapt quickly to their circumstances because all of us have natural hedonic “set points,” to which our bodies are likely to return, like our weight. This is true whether our experiences are marvelous—like winning the lottery—or shattering. Not only did Brickman and his colleagues look at lottery winners but also at 29 people who’d recently become paraplegic or quadriplegic. It turned out the victims of these accidents reported no more unhappy moments than a control group.

This could be one of the reasons New Yorkers are rated as the unhappiest people in the country. Not East European unhappy according to studies, but unhappy. Red staters appear to be alot happier. Canadians and Swedes top the list of the happiest countries. But what’s up with N.Y.?

Well the problem is attributed to the above hedonic treadmill and what Barry Schwartz calls the “paradox of choice”.

The idea is that too many choices make us unhappy. And New Yorkers have more choices.

“New Yorkers should probably be the most unhappy people on the planet,” says Schwartz, a psychology professor at Swarthmore. “On every block, there’s a lifetime’s worth of opportunities. And if I’m right, either they won’t be able to choose or they will choose, and they’ll be convinced they chose badly.”

The article talks about how economists call people who seek out the best and are generally ambitious “maximizers.” Studies indicate that maximizers are generally pretty miserable in comparison to those who make do with what they have, those called satisficers by economists.

“My suspicion,” says Schwartz, “is that all this choice creates maximizers.” If that’s the case, New York doesn’t just attract ambitious neurotics; it creates them. It also creates desires for things we don’t need—which, not coincidentally, is the business of Madison Avenue—and, as a corollary, pointless regrets, turning us all into a city of counterfactual historians, men and women who obsessively imagine different and better outcomes for ourselves.

Since the reach of Madison Avenue extends beyond N.Y. I’d guess that this phenomenon is at play nationally and contributing to alot people’s unhappiness. There’s just too much available to the average American and there’s always someone who’s got something you don’t have. And it’s human nature to covet what we see others partaking in, imagining that those things make them supremely happier than we are.

And the article does also mention that Economists and psychologists in the field agree it’s not money or lack thereof making people unhappy. It’s lacking it relative to others. We’re a consumerist, materialistic culture and I think it creates alot of stress feeding into the already present and probably genetic human desire to want more and desire what we don’t have. We probably wouldn’t be here without it. But we’re reaching overkill levels now where the things we covet are just silly, uneccessary, and pointless. Driving a car you can’t really afford because they’ve become status symbols is probably not contributing to the survival of the species.

I can certainly understand this as a person who’s always had a problem making choices. It’s pretty stressful. I always wonder what the other option will be like and what’s part of the imagination is naturally better than the ordinary reality of the paths taken. And it’s that human imagination that gets us in trouble. As the article quotes on its experts as saying, “Imagination is the poor man’s wormhole.”

Our imagination has an odd knack for Photoshopping things in and airbrushing things out, which is why we think that getting back together with our exes is a good idea; it also tends to mistake our present feelings for future ones, which is why, when we decide to marry the right person, we find it unthinkable we’ll ever be tempted to sleep with anyone else.

Of course there’s the whole argument about the relevence of being happy anyway. Who says we have a right to be? Contentment may be attainable and worthwhile but it’s not necessarily equatable with happiness. One of the Buddha’s rules was that desire causes unhappiness. While on to something he may have mistaken happiness for discontentment and drawn the conclusion that they are mutually inclusive. I think we can cut off that desire for what we don’t have but I’m not sure if we can be truly happy in a such a complex, interwoven society. I’ve often said that there is a tyranny of couples and the marital industrial complex in our society. I think all this touches on some of the reasons for and behind it. Mass marketing and the hypnotism of the culture make us want all these things that really aren’t making those that have them all that happy either despite how they reate themselves in polls. As I will get into momentarily, studies also indicate that people who find such states of happiness are often delusional or unrealistic.

Who says we’re supposed to be coupled up? Slice it how you will monogomay is not natural to the species. Those that can be satisfied looking at the same face and hearing those same voice utter the same pattern of ideas over a lifetime are rare indeed. Not to say there aren’t better matches than others and that some find the maturity coupled with the desire to make unity work as a partnership for the long term. Maybe it’s where we’re better off evolving too in the centuries ahead and these are uncomfortable steps we’re going through for the benefit of naturally selecting the attributes of loyalty and mating in domesticity for future generations. But they are not natural or inherently right.

“Happiness is fine as a side effect,” says Adam Phillips, the British psychoanalyst and lay philosopher whose latest work, Going Sane, examines functionality and well-being, but from a much more literary and ruminative perspective. “It’s something you may or may not acquire, in terms of luck. But I think it’s a cruel demand. It may even be a covert form of sadism. Everyone feels themselves prone to feelings and desires and thoughts that disturb them. And we’re being persuaded that by acts of choice, we can dispense with these thoughts. It’s a version of fundamentalism.”

And it is kind of religious. Not to mention the ties between religion and marriage, also deeply wedded to capitalism and property rights-protection. Good or bad I think there’s something for those of a non-comformist bent in the idea that departing from societies standards and embracing singlehood, isolation, mediocrity, lack of property (there’s alot of home owning propaganda out there as well), and just general. . . I want to say unhappiness, but maybe lack of happiness is a better term, is a valid choice leading towards a brand of contentment. Or less unhappiness.

Indeed, trying to be happy, and in fact thinking you are, or even feeling you are, may be a quality indicating not only conformity, but lack of intelligence.

Unlike Seligman, Phillips declares happiness “the most conformist of moral aims.” “For me,” he continues, “there’s a simple test here. Read a really good book on positive psychology, and read a great European novel. And the difference is evident in one thing—the complexity and subtlety of the moral and emotional life of the characters in the European novel are incomparable. Read a positive-psychology book, and what would a happy person look like? He’d look like a Moonie. He’d be empty of idiosyncrasy and the difficult passions.

Russian literature is depressing as all hell. But it’s smart, subtle, complex, and full of humanity. Self-help literature and feel-good populist stuff reads like a day at a day care clinic. The information basically concludes that happy people are delusional. Thus we have out ties to heavy religious areas reporting higher levels of happiness. Simple can be better. Lack of complexity also means less to choose from and brood over. Ignorance is truly bliss.
Hence happier red staters evoking the bible and voting for one of the most obviously incompetent and dishonest men to ever run for President. Twice! And hence smarter blue staters seeing through all this and still being too damn weak and miserable and self-conscious to overcome it and themselves. Twice!

I find it amusing that one of the quintessential New Yorker T.V. shows of recent times was Seinfeld which depicted basically miserable people. I don’t know how the show played in Peoria as far as ratings go, but certainly coastal areas got it and appreciated the wit and the magnification of the conversations, thoughts, and experiences they could relate to. I’ve always maintained there’s a little George Costanza in most of us (I have a bit of Jerry’s matter of fact aloofness and indifference as well), and despite the revolting nature of some of their characteristics many found it funny because it was in fact on some level more real. Certainly it was more so than your Cosby Shows or Everybody Loves Raymonds.

If you think about it that show was nonconformist is so many ways. Not only did it depart from normal sitcom formulas, there were no steady couples. Rather the characters were devoutly single, letting their selfishness and immaturity take its natural course. Sure they professed the desire to meet someone, well George and Elayne did, Gerry and Kramer were transcendently above caring about making relationships work or committing to anyone as remotely flawed as themselves, but they were unabashedly self-obsessed and caught up in the culture that never allows for real satisfaction. No one got married. No one really succeeded for long on the show. There were no lessons learned, mistakes and events made in prior episodes were never forgotten and could show up in the future, unlike most sitcoms. But the show was pleasantly free of morality tales or “very special episodes.” And as Phillips said in an above quote we’re all prone to feelings and thoughts that are disturbing. A certain fundamentalist streak stigmitizes them and would rather paint a rosy picture of humanity. Seinfeld just put all those thoughts out there giving alot of people a place to feel some relief they weren’t the only ones thinking those things.

Alot of it was pretty close to human nature. At least a more embarrasing aspect of that nature. Greatly exaggerated for most of us hopefully, but obviously alot of people related and still do. And this brings me back to being more realistic and how we undermine our attempts at happiness due to lack of realism about ourselves, or wallow in the false happiness of smily happy Stepford Mormons.

I’d always said (in perhaps half exaggerated tones), that depressive people tend to be that way because they are more realistic. Studies of some fo the greatest Presidents like Lincoln reveal they were probably manic depressive and indeed have linked that quality, along with it’s intendent negativity, with their insights and achievements. There’s a quote on our generator above, I forget who, it may have been Bernard Shaw, that says something along the lines of-what is commonly regarded as cynicism by many is really pragmatism or realism-and though I don’t believe this to be an across the board truth, more evidence supports the idea.

One of the most interesting bits of American research to surface—repeatedly—in books about happiness is a study that shows depressives are far more likely to be realists, while happy people are more likely to walk around in a mild state of delusion. The study itself was fairly simple: A group of undergraduates was given varying degrees of control over turning on a green light. Some members of the group had perfect control; others had none—the light went on and off of its own accord. The depressives accurately predicted, in each instance, whether they were in control of the situation or not. The nondepressives, on the other hand, thought they had control about 35 percent of the time over the situation in which they were, in fact, 100 percent helpless.

So take it from a depressive cynic: You are not happy and you will never be happy and if you say you are you are lying to me or yourself.*

N.Y. Magazine

*There are of course varying degrees of happiness and you may indeed have more along with more satisfaction that comes with variables like accomplishment and using your greatest talents to their and your best advantage, which studies indicate is a key towards contentment and or happiness. But in general most people won’t reach that level. I think a greater happiness is to be found in rising above the need to be happy and have that which we don’t have.

Published on June 23, 2006 in ..The Dude, Irritations and The Ill-Literates. 7 Comments

I don’t think I’m taking another prolonged vacation ever again.

Returned to work tonight. God I need a vacation.

So I’m off 2+ weeks and get an ear impaction, which, being half deaf due to disease in my other ear, left me almost deaf, light headed, and nauseus for a chunk of days in the middle of the vacation, or as I like to call it, the time of great offness. I also transfer to another program during that time excepting a straight evening shift that’s already leaving me feeling claustrphobic at a place somepone described tonight as Peyton Place. And I’ll be losing money in the transfer. Then the girl I’ve had a crush on the past year or so is serendipitously thrown in my path giving me opportunities to approach her socially and I’m summarilly rejected. Then on the day before I go back to work when the final rejection is rendered in no uncertain terms by said woman,, I’m sitting at a table at our beloved Angry Bob’s with a guy I saw the last girlfriend cavorting and holding hands with under deceptive circumstances last summer. I hold no hard feelings towards him, he was one of many undoubtedly and it was good to not get in deeper and have my concerns verifiied. But it was still a reminder of past failures on top of new ones. And I’ll be working with his brother at the new place, which is also an old place, and which has its fair share of lunacy and soap opera bullshit already. And Will, the kid I’ve done a part time gig through my old agency with is officially gone to Albaquerque for good and the aforementioned woman of rejection there talked me into to taking another kid by emotionally blackmailing me with faint praise from her and others that were in on this other kids annual team meeting featuring alot of people with degrees who see me as a tool to be manipulated to make their jobs easier. So now I feel stuck.

Bottom line is I need another vacation. I feel stressed out after all this time off. I know it could have been worse. There are far more dangerous things I could have been going to the emergency room for like one of Bob’s roommates just did. Or I could have been driving to and from Florida with a psychotic woman like I did 2 years ago on the vacation from Hell with the cavorting woman mentioned above. She who has been called she-beast and Tyrannosourus Sex on these very pages and who after the rejection of an apparently much better woman yesterday, seems semi appealing in a way she hadn’t while I courted hopes of someone better.

While this certainly says something about human psychology, it also makes me wonder why psychotic pathological liars dig me on at least a temporary basis, and why seemingly nice, intelligent, mature women have no interest. Is it an opposite appeal type thing? I mean both sides have referred to me as nice, mature, intelligent, blah blah blah, but the good ones just don’t want to hook up. Maybe its a desperation thing with the psychos. And then they go back to where they are comfortable and seem less psychotic in comparison. Maybe the good ones really are all taken and I’m just too late. Window of opportunity and all that. Story of my life. There are counter theories both supportive and contrarary to this based on past precedence but I’m not here to talk about women. This is about another stupid vacation.

Maybe I’ll never take another one, though as I said I feel a need for one already. I feel stressed by all the above. The shift is scaring me as is the loss of overtime and gas money the move will precipitate. It’s not like I have mucho social life now and the money issue makes it even harder to quit that part time thing where I will have to continue to encounter The Rejector. Not that she’s alone. I’ve had a lifetime of rejection. People wonder why I’m disinclined to approach women. Well.

Oh and my sciatic nerve thingie thing is acting up.

Fucking stupid vacation. Stupid stupid vacation. Stupidy stupid stupe stupe vacation.

And I’m going to miss a few of my current coworkers alot. But the people we serve are just too far gone or never were there. There’s no feedback, no social interaction that doesn’t make the public doubt their respective gods. While I gave up on their gods a long time ago I have clung to aspirations of more. But even that tenuous grasp seems to be fading and all that sustains me is a conscious decision to not go nuts and to be better than my genes want me to be, or than most people who are led by their selfish perceptions and self-serving rationalizations are. And while I’m at least a little proud of being able to do this a reasonable amount of the time it’s a long, lonely, and bitter road to travel.

And somehow vacations just put it in big neon lights. It’s like a mini dreamworld where I’m being paid to do what I want for over 2 weeks and while all the world may seem to be before me, I’m still constrained by my job, what it has made me, and the person who got himself into it. At least I started writing regularly the last few days of the vacation. That will be harder to maintain where I’m going to be working, but even if I can keep it up, how much different from religion is it in that it offers the false hope of something better?

I could use a vacation but I don’t trust them.

Sort of like women.

And the job really is tied in to that whole rejection thing too. The Mary Poppins parade and products of the feel-good culture and self-improvement books of the past couple of decades can go on all they want but deep down they know these things matter. They know about the dark and unspoken motivators underlying our desires, attractions, and needs. I don’t want to go on forever here, but I know just as surely as I know I used to eat too much because I was empty, ignored, and unloved, that if A hadn’t happened I wouldn’t be here railing about B, B being the lack of female opportunities that dwindle with each passing day, week, month, and year. A led to the getting out of going to college out of high school thing, which led to a temporary dropping out of society, and if you follow the line up until now, leads to pushing 40, single, with an appreciated but unappealing job, and all the physical, emotional, and mental scars that have been picked up along that trail.

I mean I believe we can do pretty cool and even occasionally amazing things but it just drives me crazy to hear people acting as if each one of us at any point in our lives can get anything we truly want.

Get off your up with people soapbox! That’s self-delusion that the world just doesn’t support unless you look for examples selectively. But that’s part of the problem. people are selective about what they notice. Whether about themselves, the world, or others in it, we tend to see what supports us and our station, and ignore all the evidence to the contrary. This includes the evidence of all the many horrible qualities so many of us possess. So we get these warped perceptions that make us feel good, and then project the stuff about us that makes us feel bad onto other people that we are socially allowed to hate.

It’s like this irrational woman at work who tonight is going on about how everything happens for a reason and there is no such thing as coincedence. This was brought on by the movie Signs. And when I point out that a couple of borderline vegatative retarded men don’t have any rational purpose for their disability such as the kid in the movie who’s asthma preserves him from alien venom, she acts as if I’m a hater and don’t get the simple truths of reincarnation.

This is the rationalization you see. Thses guys are given an impossible deal in this life because they screwed up so bad in the last. So its ok for her to hate on them and not feel sympathy. She basically said that. And because I feel sympathy and outrage over their horrible bad luck I’m a bad caregiver. Meanwhile everyone who woprks there acknowledges she’s just hateful towards everyone staff included.

Starving in Africa? Don’t worry about them they asked to be there after thier last life.

This is the thinking. And I think it plays in with all that self-serving we control our universes hippie bullshit. They don’t deserve to suffer the way they do. Not the retarded, not the starving, not the enslaved, not anyone who didn’t make their beds later in life.

But I semi-digress.

I need a vacation like a I need a hole in the head.

Stupid vacation. Stupid, stupider, stupidest, stupey stupe stupe stupidy stupididilly stupid vacation.

Right now I find all this very depressing. Not, I want to become the raging alcoholic of a past that never existed but some of my friends apparently thought I was the past few weeks, or a bullet in the head type depression. Part of me is actually relieved by the rejection thing and finding good in it. Which also scares me because maybe I’m becoming one of those self delusional people who need to find the religion in things in order to keep from turning into Munck’s Scream. Many, many years ago I was a suicidal lad but I got over it. But then I also got over alot of things in order to not work in a job that saps my dignity and soul, not be alone, not feel like a pariah and a monster, not feel unhealthy and not be blocked from writing. Yet all these many years later much of that seems to be happening all over again even though I changed the apparent causes of that time. That does make me wonder if we are biologically programmed to fulfill a certain destiny no matter how hard and how long we avoid it and if years from now I’ll get all fade to black again and go quietly into that dark night listening to the song of that title like I used to imagine i would.

So how do I avoid this? Well there’s the rub. More vacations? Less vacations? Quitting my job? Genetic transplants? Drugs? Insanity? Religion (The last 2 are redundant)? Back to school? Cosmetic surgery? Crucifixion? Deepak Chopra? Tim Robbins? Sex with your mother (you know she would)? Disappearing into overnight shifts? Politcal assassin?

Stupid Vacation.

Published on May 30, 2006 in ..The Dude, Irritations and The Ill-Literates. 4 Comments

Some thoughts because I care…

…about myself.

I see these tv commercials calling new cars the cars of the future or futuristic like a current Toyota add. I'm sorry but do they fly? Do the doors open upwards? Are they fueled by the screams of children? Well then it's not the future I was promised.

Technically no car is futuristc. Nothing is if its currently available. But as far as cars go it's not worthy of the 21st century unless it flys. I was led to believe this was possible as a child and I will except no less.

—————–

Speaking of commercials have you seen these new Heineken adds with the jingle singing, "Don't you wish your girlfriend looked good like me, don't you wish your girldfriend was fun like me…?" THey play this as they show images of the slender green bottle which is clearly cast in the role of subject of the tune. Isn't this really taking the whole beer as transference thing to new lows? Do I want my girlfriend to be shaped like a bottle, cold and hard to the touch, perspering with moisture and making me feel stupid and dizzy when I engage it?

Been there done that.

Put down the beer and talk to your girlfriend.

—————–

I'm just going to say this and I don't care what anyone thinks of me. When it comes to 2008 I want Al Gore to run and win the Presidency. Say what you will about him but he's the smartest, hippest, most ethical, and forward thinking politician I know of. Including both Clintons. For god's sake people hjis daughter wrote for Futurama! I think there would be a sense of poetic justice to it all. It'd also be the best way to send the world the messege that we're sorry, we made a big mistake allowing this to happen over the past few years, and we're setting it right and restoring things to where they should have been, but with an unfortunate and deeply shameful 8 year gap that we'll try to make up for.

THe only way to get people on our side again might be to give them a collective reason to believe we're politically admitting our mistake and casting it all on the Bush administration. THey will be the scapegoats, although for once that human habit of finding such an animal to bear the brunt of our problems will be much deserved.

Maybe we can all step oout of our showers as a nation and just pretend it never happened. That'll be easier with Gore. He is our political Patrick Duffy. We killed him off and we know we made a mistake. Let's make him President before he goes on to a bad sitcom with Suzanne Somers.

It's time Gore was a noun again, the name of our President, instead of being a verb describing our President's foreign policy.

——————

Met prospect Lastings milledge is up tonight because Xavier Nady had an emergency appendectomy. I'm looking forward to seeing the kid but I bring this up here to discuss such needless appendages as the the appendix and our tonsils. I guess Bob's hypotheses regarding the 4 toed statue on lost also got me thinking about this. But will our toes, tonsils, oor appendix be eliminated by evolution? I don't think this is really certain or a sign of a more evolved and selected for being.

If we continue to get our tonsils and appendixes removed are we in some way cutting elvolution off at the pass and artificially not allowing it to work its magic? DO we have to not let people with bad tonsils and appendixes breed, or let them die in order to eliminate these vestigial artifacts? Or would that just naturally select for the ones that dont get infected and cause problems?

If people with the weak tonsils and appendixes still breed why would natural selection eliminate them? Does it get rid of useless stuff or jsut harmful stuff. If they're not killing us it seems evolution dismisses the whole subject once we are born and set off in the world.

Same thing with that missing toe. If its just useless is that enough for natrual selection to get rid of it?

I mean if uselessness got rid of genetic lines would we have civil servants? People who stop for yellow traffic lights? Yankee fans? Mariah Carey?

Ok I guess I have to give it a thousand years or so. i'll get back to you.

———————-

Perceptions can be kind of useless too if they're not honed. I've ben way off in the past because I've let my poor self image effect the way I think others perceive me. Later I've found out otherwise. Usually its too late, especially with women. That got me to wondering about that thing with the woman in Hannaford a few weeks back.

One of the contributing bits of evidence was not only that but her recent coldness with a friend who is a manager in the agency where she works. THen I got to thinking. He's been in management meetings where he's really stood out and shined, clearly marking himself as a cut above those colleagues present. This includes that aforementioned woman.

So what if she feels intimidated by the both of us and that explains her behavior. She is reportedly introverted, therefore most probably has esteem issues. Many in her position have that psychological tendency to worry that they are not good enough to be in position of authority and that they will be exposed. What if my friend (who she knows is connected to me) has not felt her aloofness or distance because he has mentioned me to her and thinks he's trying to put the word in, as I thought, but in fact feels as if he's exposing her inadequacy. She has no reason to feel that way. She's very good at her job and a bright, well-spoken person, from what I've seen. But when you have the esteem issues and responsibility that stuff can go out the window. More than many of us are a bundle of issues coloring our views of ourselves and others.

And if that's true maybe she feels intimidated by me, my rugged good looks, and scintillating wit and charm.

Fuck you I do too sometimes have the wit and charm thing. Maybe not the good looks, but I'm no beast yet, and I can make the ladies dig me at times. Unfortunately I always find that out too late.

Anyway maybe I should be operating under the -shes feeling inferior and unworthy of my attentions and can't imagine I'd be interested-theory, rather than the-i suck and may get desperate enough to date a born again Christian again before my closing window of opportunity slams shut-theory.

I'd say its still 60-40 in favor of the latter theory but it could go either way. Does this mean I'm going to ask her out?

Probably not. But I may take more advantage of an opportunity
such as the Hannaford gig in the unlikely event one comes up again.

———-

I've been noticing alot that drivers behind me have been suddenly disappearing. I'm worried something strange could be happening or I may be making people go away who get too close to me.

They can't all be turning off as fast as they've been vanishing. I mean they are there one second and gone the next. Some of those times I'm pretty sure we weren't even passing a recent turnoff. And yet whoosh! Like magic I look ahead and a second or two later look back in the rearview and it's gone.

WHere are these people going. Is invisibility technology really that advanced. Maybe Lost is onto something. Are these cars cloaked in some kind of negative refraction index electromagnetic shield? Are they popping into cornfields because I don't like to be followed? Is there an evil force in the land abducting motorists, and will I be next?

Important questions all.

Published on April 11, 2006 in ..The Dude, Irritations, Sports and The Ill-Literates. 0 Comments

Dick Cheney threw out the first pitch at the Nationals home opener in D.C which just happened to be against my beloved Metsies. While avoiding hitting anyone in the face or later denying that he bounced the pitch to the catcher, Cheney did take part in a scary and yet to be reported on moment.

Cheney stayed to watch the game in a luxury box apparently evil-proofed to hold him, and at one point cameras cut to him bending from his chair to talk to a sweet looking little girl. Now I don’t know if this little sweety was a relative or another sacrifice just dropped off by a lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry, but I found myself yelling out, “Run little girl! Run!” I wanted to help this girl. The camera cut away and suspiciously never went back to that fear box. I don’t know what became of her.

I like to think Mets wunderkind and poster boy for all taht is good about baseball and humanity David Wright went up to the box when the Mets were hitting and saved that little girl just in time to return to drive in another run that helped the Mets kick the asses of what is now the official team of evil in our time.

Scary shite folks.

I knew I liked Carlos Delgado for his political stances and integrity, and yet here’s another reason: When players were posing with Cheney before the game he made sure he was not in the area and didn’t have to play make believe with the baby killer. Here’s what Delgado said after the game, “I was doing my routine,” Delgado said with a smile. “I happened to be somewhere else. Go figure.”

Tomorrow we get Pedro vs Guillen in the continuation of beanball hostilities. I want Petey to take him out on the first pitch. Guillen is trying to intinidate Pedro through the press so he’ll be afraid to throw inside and get better pitches to hit. Don’t give in Pedro. And while you’re at it hit Cheney in the face if he’s near the ballpark. Then disappear for a day. That would be sweet.

I commented on this elsewhere but I thought it important to mention that Keifer Sutherland signed a 3 year extension for 24. Let me say first that I love this show. I think this 5th season has been splendid. Top 3 of the 5 they’ve done. Has a chance to get to 2 depending on how it finishes these last 7 hours. Sure it has its implausibilities but its all coherent within the CTUniverse they’ve created. Alot of what Jack does is a wink to the audience. Kiefer himself puts “damn its,” in because he knows its part of college drinking games. Once he put 3 in a row to really toast people. According to a Rolling Stones article I just read it sounds like Kiefer is a bit of a drunk and has some issues. Let’s hope he doesn’t get himself killed before 3 years and a movie happen. If he does we can blame Julia Roberts. She broke his heart when she pretty much left him at the altar all those years ago.

Anyway, what I want to say is that if we are indeed getting 3 more years just get the hell out of L.A. and please no more moles at CTU. Although technically there was no mole there this year. Chloe’s bedfellow was working as an internal affairs guy for the government. Still let’s change the mix a bit next year and get threats beyond the Sentox nerve gas, deadly virus, nuclear weapon stuff.

But when last nights show ended with Jack saying we have to take down the president of the united states i got all tingly. I slipped into a cotton candy lollipop world where fiction and reality met and Jack was going after Bush. I still can slip there when i think of him saying those words and feel gooey and warm inside. Mmm justice.

I hoped early in the season Jack would find a reason to kill Logan. Now he has it. Just call him George, or at least Dick, when and if you do it Jack. Do it for America you morally ambiguous son of a bitch!

Seems as if a Simpsons movie is official fo July 2007. Don’t know how they can make a great show greater for the big screen but Matt Groenig can do what he wants at this point. Fortunately it sounds like some of the shows A team people are involved like not only Groenig as a writer but James Brooks, Al Jean, and Brian Scully, who were all around for the best seasons. And directing it is David Silverman who directed Simps eps in the past as well as co-directing the great Monster’s Inc for Pixar.

On the negative future movie side Rambo 4 is going ahead with its plot to try and revive the career of Sylvester Stallone. Rocky 6 and now this. Why do I think that he’ll be on FOX “News,” plugging this dreck when it comes out?

By the by: Cheney was roundly booed before he even threw out that first pitch or ate that little girl. I love Baseball.

Published on April 11, 2006 in ..The Dude, Films, Irritations, Politics and The Ill-Literates. 4 Comments

and more observations.

I just wrote a insightful review of the movie A History Of Violence in which I detailed how the movie succeeded on the level of parable much more than Crash in the way it was ultimately about mankinds genetic and cultural legacy of violence and how it’s been naturally selected for over millenia. Unfortunately my computer got bogged down with too many open windows and ultimately wiped them all along with the post I hadn’t bothered to save yet. You will have to guess at the levels of wisdom and perception that glowed from the liquid crystal pixels of my screen, and that would have come to dazzling light on yours as well because I don’t feel like trying to simulate the review again. Maybe at a later time a less passionate version will find it’s way on here stripped of novelty and the kind of clarity and moral and intellectual strength that might have changed the world.

Let me just say to those of you who saw it that if Viggo doesn’t have the genetic predisposition, and indeed we find its familial for him, he dies in that diner, and that violence was naturally selected for until the rise of civilizations and law and order. And who does he marry to escape it all and lead a civilized small town life? A lawyer. A lawyer whose intellectual callings war with her genetic tendency to favor the violent and dominating potential of a mate. Ultimately, as in society, she and Viggo form an unspoken alliance with underlying motivators that dare not speak their name.

Speaking of violence and male tendencies the ratio of female to male births in China is getting bigger. By this I mean there are alot more boys being born. I read something tonight about how ultrasound and similar technology in China has led to people aborting more females once they are given the heads up due to the patriarchal motivators we already knew existed there which made girls that were born less valuable. But what occured to me earlier was that with China already growing economically and with conflict with them seeming more inevitable, that could very well make the above fact a very dangerous factor that might more readily precipitate a major battle.

Think about it: You’re going to have a generation of men without sex as a release and vying ever harder to win the attention of the few women that exist. Traditionally in the genetic sense this means violent and aggressive behavior. And without that softer neutralizing female element, that yin to their yang there to temper or alleviate hostility, or to offer consolation, it seems to me that motivations to keep the peace are lessened. Plus war is a great stabilizer. The Chinese government is very concerned with these unbalanced factors and its future effects on their society. There is a feeling that it will lead to more crime, prostitution, and sex slave trade. It already appears heading in that direction. So what better way to thin the numbers of males and restore the balance than a big old fashioned war with all the modern amenities?

Scared of China yet?

On the subject of procreation, there is some reason to believe that humans are having less children despite growing population numbers. There is also some info out there to indicate the families that have not changed their procreating tendencies to accomodate an overpopulous, environmentally challenged, and less traditional-religious world, are conservative fundamentalist types. Indeed red states produce more often than blue states. Those with the most numbers win and even in the baby boomer era it was conservatives having the majority of children with a hefty proportion coming from families that had 4 or more kids, while blue staters and boomers tended to have 1 or 2 if any at all. And since the bigger teams and armies usually win and might makes right I worry a little that the liberal worldview will die out as the be fruitful and multiply folks dominate us by sheer numbers. And let’s not hide behind glorious tales of heroism and ideologies, it is the greater numbers that almost always win and write history.

This thought is at war with my more optimistic belief, or perhaps hope is a better word, that evolution works on a cultural level as well and that we are moving forward inevitably and inexorably. As technology expands exponentially I hope that it’s beneifits are negating some of the qualities and ignorance that allowed some older patterns to be perpetuated. These include societal patterns to grow more conservative and religiously fundamentalist as a nations power wanes, its people become more destitute, and a period of individualism and leaisure gives way to falling population numbers and a temporarily less patriarchal establishment.

Depending on which way you look at it the Bush administration becomes either a momentary perturbation on the graph of forward progress that from a distance decades from now will hardly be noticable or an early stage in a horrid Orwellian-Puritan nightmare of a nation very few thought possible here at one time.

As for Bush he leaked stuff too it seems. He said he’d punish all leakers. He hasn’t punished any including himself. He is a forgiving god as I’m sure the one he says he worships conveniently is at times like this. Not so much when he’s blasting Muslims and Hindus with Tsunamis though or striking down the WTC because we’re a nation of faggots and uppity women who aren’t bearing enough children.

If it all goes down its the medias fault. They could have changed it had they wanted to. They have always had the power to rile up the masses or sedate them. Under Bush they chose sedation. They knowingly aided him in gaining the presidency in 2000 though they had plenty of evidence he lost. They have it all on them. Including the blood of soldiers and civilians. Maybe even the 3000 from 9-11. If we truly had an independent media can you imagine what they’d already have done to Bush? Think Clinton and Nixon combined with Barry Bonds and Pete Rose. And he’d deserve it all and more.

Here’s a recent exchange between Bush and a questioner about military contractors in Iraq that serves to illustrate just how incompetent, out of touch, out of the loop, stupid, and negligent this executive turd really is:

Q Thank you, Mr. President. It’s an honor to have you here. I’m a first-year student in South Asia studies. My question is in regards to private military contractors. Uniform Code of Military Justice does not apply to these contractors in Iraq. I asked your Secretary of Defense a couple months ago what law governs their actions.

THE PRESIDENT: I was going to ask him. Go ahead. (Laughter.) Help. (Laughter.)

Q I was hoping your answer might be a little more specific. (Laughter.) Mr. Rumsfeld answered that Iraq has its own domestic laws which he assumed applied to those private military contractors. However, Iraq is clearly not currently capable of enforcing its laws, much less against — over our American military contractors. I would submit to you that in this case, this is one case that privatization is not a solution. And, Mr. President, how do you propose to bring private military contractors under a system of law?

THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that very much. I wasn’t kidding — (laughter.) I was going to — I pick up the phone and say, Mr. Secretary, I’ve got an interesting question. (Laughter.) This is what delegation — I don’t mean to be dodging the question, although it’s kind of convenient in this case, but never — (laughter.) I really will — I’m going to call the Secretary and say you brought up a very valid question, and what are we doing about it? That’s how I work. I’m — thanks. (Laughter.)

You think Clinton wouldn’t know the answer to this question? Dan Quayle may have even had this one covered. Well maybe not Quayle. God Quayle and Bush…Republicans are kind of stupid.

Oh and Delay is gone but still committing corrupt atrocities against his country. He was going to be stepping down all along but sent out a messege to supporters that he needed their help to fight and campaign for his reelection. What he really wanted their help and primarily their financial support for was to fund his legal defense. Some of those supporters now want their money back. They wont get it because this is actually legal for him to do. Ironic that his final act of greedy immorality and corruption turns out to be one of his few legal ones. Special place in hell is all I’m saying.

Angry Bob is right. She Wants Revenge sucks. Just saw a video. Sounded like the kind of stuff I hated in the 80′s. Pussy Rock they should call it. And all these Arctic Monkeys and Yeah Yeah Yeahs aren’t angry or talented enough to carry any kind of punk or garage rock mantle, or exist in the same general genre as Green Day. Very derivitave Strokes type of stuff which is also derivitave and unimaginative. Somehow I blame Courtney Love for this musical mess of the past 10 or so years. She is the anti-muse come to kill the music starting with Kurt. Her superficial, crackhead, starfucker, mentality was then free to grow with Kurt no longer there to stop it. That’s why she had to get close to him and take him out of the game early. Mark David Chapman may have been part of this back in 1980. I don’t know how deep this thing goes but it probably had its roots in the Nixon administration. Riddles wrapped in enigmas with a creamy white filling people. But whens the expiration date on treachery? When I ask.

On a related note: stay in school kids. I say this because I think not taking it more seriously and going to college back when was part of that iconoclastic and rebellious thing I have. The anti-authority thing. As a kid I saw school as the man. The hand of oppression wanting to teach me how to fit into the system. Now I realize that education is the tool to fight oppression and to give one choice. In a world where predation and physical violence is not so selected for anymore, though it will still get you laid alot and married as much as you’d like. . . just not to the kind of girls I’d want, and a world where I don’t really have those physical characteristics to allow me to dominate people physically anyway, education is vital. Sure you can get bainwashed. You can be a Yale or Harvard person and all that usually entails as far as ones political outlook and philosophies. But combined with a rebels heart and a bit of outside the box thinking a good and complete education gives everyone a shot at living with no chains. And with a world of possiblilities open to them.

But that practical part of me wonders if that less violent evolved growth of humanity, or at least of America, is in a real world sense, dangerous for survival. In light of some of the above, if Americans have less children, get smaller in size compared to competitors, take on less violent and more liberal tendencies, might it not make us a target? Weaker in a pragamatic sense.

This is one of the ways conservative ideologues think and its not necessarily wrong. But what pisses me off is that they pretend they’re about god and believing in values, when at their core they and their free market ideology believe in nothing and if anything are very much aligned with the principles of Darwin. They are social Darwinists and have cleverly managed to get alot of people to think they are the opposite even as they act in accordance with its principals.

And my computer hurt me. Blame it for this rant. You would have only had a another albeit elightening and profound movie review likely to alter your very conceptions of the nature of film. Instead you get scatological webslinging from topic to topic including my much maligned political ranting. But hey you got some personal stuff too and for those of you who liked only those personal parts of this post and not the political, bugger off because my political views are personal parts of who I am and to differentiate between the two or insinuate one is less honest than the other would bother me to the point of having to find less productive outlets. Just because the one is not based on my personal life makes it no less real, honest, and personal. It is not regurgitated from other sources or part of a liberal brainwashing campaign. I discern the differences and make it my own as much as I do with my interpretations of a movie or song. I have fought my own war of the worldviews and come to this place and will state my opinions and seek new information. I will incorporate it all and use it to destroy all who try and stop me.

I hope you understand the implications of this statement. I will fight you all if you want!

Come on! You know you want to. It’s in your genetic makeup. Fight me for the girl you sons of bitches! First one to procreate wins. Final showdown for all the marbles on the Galapagos Islands sometime near the end of the world.

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