Geoff Gunkler

Dangers Inherent in Exercise

2008-05-07T16:46:00.005-05:00

Ok, so one of the selling points for my apartment complex is that it is connected to a series of trails that, according to the manager, run all the way around the lake. So in one of my fits of crazy, I decided that I was going to start making a habit out of exercising (a concept so foreign to me that I literally just had to use the spell check function in Outlook in order to type the word properly).

My plan was to find the pair of rollerblades that I had purchased from (and I’m not making this up) the very first store in the world to ever carry rollerblades (it’s in Uptown near lake Calhoun where they were invented), and take a leisurely skate around the lake.

Now, remember, I’ve been on rollerblades once before in my life. It was on the day that I bought them, 8 years ago. I took them straight from the store to a parking lot by Lake Calhoun, tied them on, and proceeded to endure the most excruciating 45 minute long quarter mile of rollerblading in the history of shoes or wheels. Upon returning to my car, I tied the laces together, and promptly took them straight home to be stored in a closet where, like a naughty pet, they haven’t been allowed out since.

But none-the-less, THIS was a good idea.

So, with my blades in tow, I walked downstairs in my socks to find the entrance to this path. I sat down on the curb in front of my apartment and laced up (yes, my rollerblades had laces, unlike any model made after the Carter administration which now all have those snappy strap thingies – technical term, try to keep up).

And off I go, like a giraffe on an ice rink, legs all a-wobbly, knees pressed together, arms out, terror in my eyes, and head around the corner toward the path. Unfortunately, between the front door and the path’s beginning there's a hill. Well, I use the word “hill” here pretty loosely. It’s, at best, a slight downcline. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if you put a superball down on it, it wouldn’t roll. Put a 225 pound moron on deathskates on it, however, and he can break the sound barrier within 7 seconds.

This is where I took my first digger.

Realizing that I was picking up speed at an alarming rate, and simultaneously that I had no idea how to stop, or even slow down, I had to choose between making a controlled exit on to the grass on my right, or in to the thicket of pine trees in front of me. I chose the grass, though the caravan full of teenagers driving by seemed to find either option equally funny.

So there I sat, literally 35 feet from my front door, re-examining my decision making process. “This is clearly a bad idea,” I thought, wisely, “I should just pack up and go home.” But no, I was determined. I have given up on everything, and a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and all that crap that you read on posters with pictures of eagles and whatnot, so F it, I got back up, turned my skates sideways, and side-stepped down this “hill” 4 inches at a time. At the bottom, thankfully, it flattened out for the foreseeable future, and I felt confident that I had made the right decision. So I pressed my knees back together and, with all the confidence of a teenage boy at his first formal dance, I began down the path.

From there things got better…for a while. I made it about 300 yards without spilling or screaming, and felt as though I was beginning to regain all of the expertise that I had developed eight years ago on the banks of the Calhoun. Then obstacle number two presented itself – a cute girl with her dog were walking along up ahead of me (truth is, I don’t know if she was cute or not, but for the sake of the story and to express the degree of embarrassment that I am about to admit to, let’s assume she’s Cindy Crawford). Now, my particular skating style is not one that is forgiving of sharing a path. With all of the muscle control of a newborn baby calf, I would amble back and forth across the path three or four times for every foot I moved forward. Add to that my arms, spread wide for balance, and I could easily have taken up a whole second path, had one been presented to me.

Nevertheless, I was moving faster than Cindy and her Golden Retriever, so a passing event was imminent. I timed my sways perfectly so that I could be moving right to left as I came up on her, then back from left to right as I passed her, and I DO IT!!! OMG!!! I’M THE BEST ROLLERBLADER EVAR!!!

So happy, I am, with my perfectly executed pass that I forget what I’m doing, stub a skate, and take my second digger in to the weeds between the path and the lake. Cindy, very concerned, rushed up to help me, which posed a WHOLE new set of problems. I mean, if she got ahead of me again, I’d have to pass again, and since it was purely due to pure, dumb luck that I was able to get by her in the first place, I decided a hasty exit with a vague “I’m ok thank you…..” whispered in to the wind would better serve us both.

The next quarter of a mile went by relatively without incident (there was a flashing danger light as I passed a man walking while simultaneously turning off the concrete path on to a rickety, Indiana Jones style wooden rope bridge, but I was able to do it without falling or having my still beating heart torn from my chest by an Incan shaman (Kali Mah!!!).

The story begins again on the far side of the lake, just as my legs – which haven’t been asked to do anything more strenuous than lift my fat ass off a couch in roughly 6 years – are about to give out. There, returned with a vengeance, is the “hill” that I descended on my out of my apartment building except this time it goes up at what I can conservatively estimate was an 85 degree angle. Sherpas and rope ties are required to ascend this mountain, I swear to god. I have no chance. I have no momentum (it’s hard to generate momentum when 90% of your energy is spent staying upright and swaying from side to side) and even a good rollerblader would have to have prepared to round the corner and climb K-2. So I sit for a while and contemplate my options. Again, my wording here is generous – “options” indicate that I had more than one. So, one more time, I turn my skates sideways and begin to inch up toward the peak one tiny baby step at a time.

At the top, I notice that the terrain has changed. I’m no longer on a path. I’m in a residential neighborhood without so much as a sidewalk. I look back down the hill, and knowing that there’s no way to retrace my steps, I opt instead to lose my fucking mind. I start screaming at the top of my lungs, angry at God himself for allowing me to have lived all the way to age 29 without enough good sense to know that if he wanted us to have wheels on our feet he would have damn well put them there himself.

But again, I find myself without many choices. I plod on.

Down the street, around a corner, turning in directions that I have to hope lead back, generally toward my apartment. After a half mile of this, with every muscle in my body screaming at me (did you know that you had muscles below your ribs? And that they are vital to the act of rollerblading? Neither did I), I give up.

I collapse on to the front yard of some random person’s house and lay there, chest heaving, eyes staring blankly up at an unforgiving blue sky, and pray for death. The owner of the house, a nice middle aged white woman, comes running in to her front yard, sure that I’ve died on her lawn. “Oh my god are you ok!?!” she screams? Slowly, I turn up on on my side, favoring my lower rib muscles.

“I will pay you an obscene amount of money to drive me back to the Lake Susan Apartment building” I say. “I will write you a check, you will merely need to fill in any amount you desire.”

“Oh! Lake Susan?” she cheerily replies, “You’re almost there, it’s just right around the corner! You can cut through my lawn if you like!”

I didn’t have the heart to explain to her that even if it was “just around the corner,” as she had said, that I still didn’t have the strength to make it. But I’m a man, and I’m lying in a stranger’s lawn, and I am bound by the laws of ManLawnLayersLocal #438, of which I am a dues paying member, to get up and accept her courtesy.

So I cross her lawn, head over a patch of twigs that took no small amount of skill to navigate, down yet another hill, and on to highway 101, which I finally recognize as the patch of highway a good mile PAST my goddamned apartment building. At this point I’m wondering if one can die from rib-muscle trauma.

But no! My dominating spirit resumes, and I skate up the highway like a champion heading down the final stretch toward home. Until the sidewalk ends, and is replaced by 2000 feet of mud and rock, combined in a pattern designed specifically to break the ankles of would be rollerbladers.

Finally defeated, I sit down again and look out at the stretch of ground that represents my final defeat. It has won. I have nothing left.

With a sigh, I bend over to unlace my skates. One by one, I take them off, and like before, 8 years ago in the back of my Honda, I tie the laces together. But this time no such enviable fate as closet storage awaits these instruments of medieval torture. No. No more. I get up, socks pulled high in defiance of the Lord, and drop my rollerblades on to the ground next to the mailbox of whatever house’s lawn I was now standing on, and proceeded to walk myself home, in the mud, free of the burden of ever wanting to exercise ever again.

And there they sit, to this day as far as I know, and the muddy footprints in my closet will forever serve as a reminder – never again.

Fiction

2008-04-27T15:08:00.001-05:00

I’ve decided to open a new thread here entitled “fiction”. It will consist of stories that, while often based on actual events, are embellished significantly for the sake of entertainment. If anyone who I mention in some of these stories happens to run across this blog, please don’t be offended if the events described differ wildly from your memories or (as is more often the case) are purely inventions of my own. They are supposed to be fiction. Anyway, I hope you enjoy them.

The Well Planned Heist of Alycia Silverstone

2008-04-27T14:49:00.003-05:00

So I had a friend in high school (Shea Chwialkowski…not that that matters, but I just wanted to type his name so I could imagine you trying to pronounce it in your head….it’s “Shay Fill-kowski if you’re curious…goddamned Poles and their crazy names…) and he was OBSESSED with Alicia Silverstone (from the movie Clueless). He had all the celebrity magazines with her, owned every movie she was in, watched her every time she came on anywhere, etc.

Well one day I get a page from him with “911 911 911” at the end. Yes, I had a pager in high school. No, I wasn’t a doctor…so no, I can’t justify it. Anyway, three 911s indicated a MAJOR emergency, so I stopped whatever I was doing and called him back immediately. Turns out that he and another friend of ours (Adam) were at the Ridgedale Mall where they had spotted a life-sized cardboard cutout of Alicia at the Sam Goodie, and they were planning to steal it.

Problem was, they had developed a plan, but it required 3 more people. So my job was to round up 2 more of our friends (John and Grant) and proceed immediately to Ridgedale to act as accomplices to this magnificent heist.

So here was the plan:

Sam Goodie had 3 employees working that afternoon. These three employees tended to congregate near the front of the store where the cash register and (unfortunately for our would-be criminals) one life-sized cardboard cutout of Alicia Silverstone was. However, in a brief period of reconnaissance, Shea and Adam discovered that it wasn’t too hard to distract the staff of Sam Goodie, all one needed was to ask for help finding a CD.

So Shea and Adam had already done the homework for us by the time we got there, and have found 6 CDs, two per accomplice, all of which are housed near the back of the store.

So Grant goes in first, grabbing one employee and asking her to find one of the predetermined, ingeniously placed, faux CDs. Johnny is second, and I’m third. Shea is waiting, like a ninja in the night; pressed up against the wall in the entryway to the Sears around the corner…making it obvious to anyone who was watching that he was up to no good.

But, like the seasoned veteran leader of a team of mastermind criminal geniuses, Shea waited the prescribed 45 seconds after I entered the store (30 would have been too little time, we decided…I mean, what if small talk carries over?) and then stormed in to the store, grabbed Alicia under his right arm and, without so much as a look back to make sure that we had done our jobs and that there were no employees near the entrance, took off like a bat out of hell, sprinting through the food court toward the nearest exit and in to Adam’s waiting pickup truck. Alicia got stored in the bed, according to the story.

My employee looks at me, and then at the front of the store, then back at me.

“Did you see that?” he asks.
“Yeah, what the hell was that all about?” I reply.
“Not sure” he says. “So, do you want to buy this Seal album?”
“No,” I say, “I don’t think I’m ready to pull the trigger on that just yet. Thanks for your help.”

We leave as we came, separated by a few seconds so as to not appear together, and meet in the food court.

And off we go, back to my blue 1969 Volkswagen Beetle with the broken muffler to make our very noisy get-away.

What's Wrong With Republicans?

2008-04-07T14:57:00.001-05:00

So I think I’ve figured it out. I think I know why the Republican platform has become so distasteful to me.

It seems as though the party has made the conscious decision to play on the worst parts of the American consciousness.

Think about the things that you associate with “conservatism”. Defense, Border Patrol and Immigration, the "Moral Majority," and a Non-Interventionist Economic Policy.

Now let’s really look at what’s appealing about each of those positions.

Defense: plays on our fears.

They scare us in to believing that, even though our Military is larger than the militaries of all of the industrialized countries of the world combined, we need to increase spending because we are constantly under threat. And what’s worse, I think at this point it should be clear to everyone with an IQ over 50 that it’s the very fact that our military presence is so great that fosters the animosity in the world that is threatening us.

You know those guys who are always out looking for a fight? Well, they always seem to find them. I prefer to be nice to people, and as a result, have never been in a fight in my life. What the Republican position on defense breaks down to for me is a nation wide policy of buying a bigger gun to make up for a tiny penis. It’s a lack of courage or maybe self-esteem made up for by a bigger stick. So they appeal to all the people who are constantly fearful by promising them that they don’t need courage or true personal strength, because we have the biggest stick.

Border Patrol and Immigration: plays on xenophobia and racism.

Let’s be honest: there’s absolutely no evidence that foreign nationals are taking our jobs. In fact, in another article that I plan to write, the exact opposite is true: nationalizing foreign workers is creating jobs in the most important fields – industrial innovation and R&D. Every time I hear a Republican talking about Border Patrol or Immigration what I hear is “gotta keep those damned darkies out of our country!” But there is no basis for their dislike of foreigners, except that they are foreign, and the weak minded tend to fear what is foreign.

Now, I’m not against a reasonable immigration policy. I do believe that we should be selective in who we allow to become citizens here – in my opinion we have enough idiots running around already without taking the rejects from other countries too - but being smart about who we nationalize is different from trying to build a fence along our border, closing our eyes and covering our ears to the world and yelling LA-LA-LA-LA at the top of our lungs until everyone goes away.

The Moral Majority: appeals to the worst in everyone as far as I can tell.

I don’t even know where to start with this one. Let’s take Gay Marriage. The claim is that sanctioning Gay Marriage will devalue Straight Marriage. Huh? How? How does anything that someone else says or does affect your marriage at all? Do you think that because two men down the street get married that all of a sudden your wife won’t love you any more? Or that the institution of marriage will become meaningless just because it’s available to everyone? Like “Honey, I still love you more than ever, and I want to be with you for the rest of my life, but those two homos got married and now we have to get divorced.”

I should say that I don’t understand it, but I do. It’s homophobia – nothing more. I accept that homophobia is the new racism, and I can see that for the racists and homophobes of the world, legitimizing something like marriage threatens you because it grants an acceptability to the people that you irrationally hate.

Fine. You’re a douche bag. Just admit it. Stop trying to dress it as something that it isn’t, and please please please stop pretending that you are taking the “moral” high ground. You aren’t. You’re being a racist and a homophobe. I bet that the people who pushed for the mysogenation laws of the 1930s (in which Blacks and Whites weren’t allowed to marry) toed the same line as the Gay Marriage folks. Are you comfortable with that? Would you also be comfortable passing a constitutional amendment in which people of different races, or religions, weren’t allowed to marry? If not, why not? What’s the difference?

Non-Interventionist Economic Policy: plays to our greed.

This is a sticky issue, because greed is always going to drive economic policy in one way or another. But look at what happens when we allow corporations free reign without any oversight: lead in toys, rotten, diseased food, Enron and corporate scandal, mortgage crises, Blackwater and Haliburton with no-bid contracts worth billions of dollars.

I can accept the fact that I’m not an economist, and that I can’t prove that giving tax breaks to corporations doesn’t create more jobs (though the evidence seems to back me up). For the sake of argument, if you wish, we can assume that the best way to get money in to the hands of poor people is by giving it to rich people. But look at what happens when you don’t impose strict regulation on business. Look at what happens when the almighty dollar becomes the only goal. Companies cut every corner, put out toxic and dangerous products, are caught, consumer confidence drops, people stop buying, and the economy tanks. What’s the end result? The Almighty Dollar suffers.

But all that aside, the Republican Policy on Economics always sounds too much like a 4 year old with a new toy. “You can’t have that, it’s MINE!” I get it, you worked for your money. Guess what? Someone helped you along the way. Be it a professor, or a boss, or a friend, or your parent’s trust fund. Some people don’t have those weapons in their arsenal yet, and so we, as a society, determine that what is good for all of us is good for each of us. We want to have fewer poor people, because fewer poor people means more people making things, more people selling things, and more money for everyone. Hiding your money in an ivory tower and going swimming Scrooge McDuck style doesn’t accomplish that. Admit it, you want to vote Republican because you’re greedy. What I believe, but can’t prove, is that you’re an idiot as well, as all your greed is actually holding you back.

So Republicans, know this. Starting now I am not going to hide it any more. I’m going to tell you what I hear when you talk about your policies. I hear “I’m weak, and therefore I’m afraid all the time…I’m a racist and a xenophobe and I don’t want any more darkies in my country….I’m a douche bag homophobe and I’m so ashamed of my beliefs that I’ve become the modern day equivalent of a high priest in the Spanish Inquisition imposing my morality on others to justify my own existence…and on top of it all, I’m a greedy bastard.

There's Something I Just Don't Understand

2008-03-23T16:37:00.003-05:00

Someone’s got to explain Dick Cheney to me.

And Karl Rove.

Well, this whole administration, I guess.

I mean, President Clinton got a blowjob and I had to sit through six months of impeachment hearings.

President Bush sends at least 4,000 American boys and girls to die in the desert based on a lie, and not peep one about impeachment (well, at least not until the advent of www.wexlerwantshearings.com , but that only popped up in the last few months.)

On top of that, the economy has been destroyed; veterans hospitals aren’t taking care of the sick; homes are being foreclosed all over this great nation; and our national debt – if coined and printed, bundled up, and launched in to space – would be the 4^th largest planet in our solar system.

I guess I have to admit the possibility that I’m just young and naïve and every generation has a president who they find to be utterly incompetent. But this smells of a different flower, methinks.

Am I wrong? Is this the kind of utter disregard for the will of the nation that we are to expect from an administration? Or is the level of destruction wrought by Bush and his cronies something extraordinary?

So, assuming that this administration does, in fact, represent something beyond the norm, I have to wonder: how have they gotten away with this?

How have they convinced the nation to sit idly by as they condemned our children to irrevocable debt and a world that hates them? How have our country’s parents allowed themselves to stand stoically as our soldiers were sent to die in a war that has no justification? How have they convinced the voices of good reason to stay silent as our homes were taken, our jobs were lost, and our economy spiraled down to a point where realistic people don’t foresee us ever rebounding?

Does Dick Cheney have some sort of power that we are unaware of?

Does he have naked pictures of every congressperson with 8 year old Filipino boys?

I mean, that’s about the only scenario that makes sense to me: that somehow Dick Cheney and the Bush Administration has such powerful, career crushing evidence against every possible voice of dissention that to speak out against them would be tantamount to suicide.

So what is it going to take? Do we just need (gasp) 60 senators who put the good of the nation above their own careers?

Or is it worse than I imagine? Are the interests that dictate the actions of the office of the president (oil, Halliburton, Northrop Grumman, Satan himself I think) the same as the interests that dictate the actions of the House and the Senate? Are the families who run the most powerful lobbies in Washington SO powerful that no one is immune to them?

In an episode of The Unit last year, a line of dialogue indicated that there were “about 14 families that run this country”. At the time of viewing it, of course, I dismissed it as a silly bit in a TV show. But I’m starting to wonder if there isn’t some truth to that. I mean, somebody’s interests have to be being served by the idiocy that we have endured these past eight years. The CEO of Halliburton certainly hasn’t been missing his mortgage payments, for instance.

So is that what we’re seeing? Have the interests of these “14 families” finally become so disparate from the interests of the nation that they cannot be hidden any more? During the cold war I could imagine the people not noticing (or caring) that the false war against the Soviets actually existed to feed the pockets and power base of the Military Industrial Complex that President Eisenhower warned us so strongly against in his farewell speech in 1961.

But this new war is a different kind of war. Planes and Tanks and Submarines aren’t as necessary any more. So that money still needs to be spent, but it needs to be spent in different areas. I don’t doubt for a minute that it isn’t ending up in the same pockets – it’s just that it gets filtered through different companies on its way there than it used to.

So Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld foresee these developments in the late 80s when they first tried to get the US in to war with Iraq. And when Bush the Second becomes president he hires on Rumsfeld under the oh-so-laudable goal of privatizing the military (yikes). The point, Rumsfeld argues to Congress, is that privatizing the military leads to competition which will drive down prices, and save the country money during war time. Then war starts (odd) and Halliburton, Blackwater, and a number of other companies are awarded multi-billion dollar contracts on a NO BID BASIS. How, Mr. Rumsfeld, is competition supposed to drive prices down when you DON’T ALLOW ANYONE TO COMPETE FOR THE FUCKING CONTRACTS? Instead, we have a war that will end up costing this country upwards of 4 Trillion Dollars. To compare, the whole Vietnam War cost the US just over $133 billion dollars. This war is costing us TWICE that, PER MONTH.

So someone explain this to me.

Explain where this money is going. Explain how there are no checks anymore on the power of the President. Explain how our constitution is being spit upon and no one is saying boo. Explain how our liberties are being one by one dismantled by a single man, and we are allowing it to happen.

Explain it, because it just doesn’t make sense.

If You Don't Vote for Barack Obama You're an Idiot

2008-03-22T16:53:00.004-05:00

It’s time to come out and say it:

If you don’t plan on voting for Barack Obama this November, you’re an idiot.

What’s your excuse?

He’s too inexperienced? Prove that. In the 4 years he’s been in office he’s passed through more legislation that most of his colleagues, garnered bi-partisan support, and has picked all the right fights.

His inexperience also (and this is not based on any facts I can provide – just intuition) means that he hasn’t accrued the long list of debts that more “experienced” candidates bring to the office. My feeling is that Washington works on the basis of favors. Special Interest Group A provides support / votes / money for Elected Official B at some point, and in return, Elected Official B enters in to a tacit agreement to provide support for that Special Interest Group at a later date. It’s not that Elected Official B necessarily gets put in the pocket of Special Interest Group A, but I would assume that to not return the favor would get you labeled as a “favor not returner” (elegant, huh?) and in the future could mean that Special Interest Groups C, D, and E wont be as willing to provide that Official with support / votes / money.

So I don’t worry about experience. I understand that it’s a concern, but given the choice between the wrong man and a man with limited (but not limiting) experience? I’ll take the latter all day.

More important than his actual experience is the approach that he takes to dealing with the issues. One of my favorite professors in college once said “You can always tell an argument from a discussion because in a discussion you are trying to learn from the other person, while in an argument you are trying to teach them something.” I carry that quote in my head at all times now, and use it to change my tone any time I find myself trying to teach someone something in an argument. Sure, sometimes the other person continues along that track, but there isn’t much I can do about that. However, when I switch from teacher to student, you’d be amazed how much better the conversation goes.

So it was with that in mind that I read this article, written by a self-proclaimed avid conservative, and (like so many of the articles about Obama) it almost brought tears of hope to my eyes. The gist of it says “Sen. Obama believed something, but knew that many people disagreed. So he called me because I’m one of those who believes the opposite of the Senator, and asked me to explain everything about my position.” Now, that SHOULD be commonplace amongst politicians. They represent a huge number of people, all of whom have slightly to drastically different opinions on issues. It would just make sense that their leader would want to know what all those positions were. It should be common, but do you really feel that it is?

In the 2004 election, the term “Flip-Flopper” became a common talking point to degrade the Kerry campaign. At the time I thought, “So? He thought something, he was wrong, he learned better, he changed his opinion…what’s so wrong with that?” It certainly beats the alternative: “I believe this, I don’t care what you say, I believe it, I don’t want to hear any evidence against it, shut up, fuck you.” If you want a leader who won’t listen to advice, well, you’ve got that. How’s that working out for you?

Then there’s the argument that he’s too good of an orator.

Really? That’s a concern? He’s TOO good at the primary skill of a politician?

Ok, there’s the chance that he’s all rhetoric, no substance. But I think we can already clearly see that that isn’t true. There’s nothing concerning to me that a man who eloquently states his position. I guess I just don’t understand how that’s a bad thing. If a man can say something in such a way that you believe him, there’s two possibilities: One, he’s really good at oratory and you got duped or Two: he’s right about it, and you finally see the light. Every speech I’ve heard Barack Obama give was an example of the latter. Add to that the point I made earlier (that he’s a man genuinely interesting in having the right positions, even when they differ from his established positions) I am confident that when he speaks, and speaks eloquently, that he’s more than just words.

I guess there is some concern about his ethnicity. His middle name is Hussein after all. Just stop right there. If you are actually worried about that you’re a racist and a xenophobe, and therefore an idiot. Kill yourself.

Most recently, we’ve had this debacle involving his Pastor and his commentary on race relations in this country. This isn’t breaking news or anything, but here’s The Daily Show’s quick recap of the events:

Everyone should do themselves the favor of watching the full speech, but it is thirty seven minutes long so grab some popcorn and a Dr. Pepper first.

However, if after having viewed it you don’t believe that this is the right man to be president, you’re an idiot.

Imagine: an honest discussion of race in this country. Black men and women still remember the shame and cruelty of the 1960s and earlier. White men and women harbor resentment about having to “pay” for injustices of earlier generations. Let’s not sugar coat it; let’s not judge the feelings; let’s just accept them as facts. Now what? Well, we’ll see. But to open it up honestly is something that we’ve never seen before from a major politician…and most certainly not one before his job was secured.

So here’s what I propose:

Let’s stop hiding.

Let’s stop pretending that we don’t look down on the idiots of this nation who hold irrational opinions. Let’s stop giving credence to racists and homophobes. Let’s make the wrong opinion the unpopular one, for once. Lets make “Conservative” the dirty word. I’m so tired of “Liberal” being slopped about as an insult. What? It’s wrong to want to make things better? It’s wrong to accept that change is part of life? No. No more. People who doggedly hold on to old, malfunctioning beliefs should be the ones who we ridicule. You should be ashamed to be a conservative. You should be ashamed to vote for what does best for your own, selfish pocketbook. You should be ashamed to think that you have the authority to dictate morality to others. You should be ashamed of your fear mongering. You should be ashamed to be a Republican.

To that end, I propose a new direction for the intelligent, liberal voters of the world.

A T-Shirt

http://www.zazzle.com/republican_quiz_shirt-235167695595331340

OMG!! A DATE!! (PANIC!!!!)

2008-03-18T17:43:00.003-05:00

A few days back I wrote that I was going to try a new tack in dealing with women. Well it worked. Well, that’s kind of cheating – guys if you think I’m suggesting that you can go from being a douche bag to being yourself around women and meet someone in a week you’re probably going to be disappointed in your results.

Instead what this is is the culmination of the anecdotal facts that led me to the conclusion that I am much more successful dealing with women when I’m simply myself. That conclusion came from my long, long history of miserable failures at bars trying to impress “chicks” compared to the numerous times in the past that I have known a woman for a long time (lived across the building in a dorm, went to school with, worked with) and never tried to “pick them up”, but instead was just my normal old idiotic goofy self around them with no pretense. Apparently that me is pretty damned adorable. Yay!

So there’s this girl I work with who, as it turns out, really likes me – which is awesome ‘cause she’s cute and funny and cool as shit. So anyway, we’ve worked together for a year, and she had a boyfriend, and I didn’t try to hit on her or anything. I was just me and she liked it! Weird, right? So it was based on that that I developed this new life plan. I suppose being conscious of it helped some, because the other night when we were out with some colleagues the old me would have been aware of the fact that she liked me, gotten all weird and nervous, tried to hard to say the “right things”, to play the “right games” and ended up fucking it up. Instead, I just kept on being me. I didn’t let the prospect of sex ruin me. Yay again!

But now I’m screwed. Now I have to take her on a date.

I’ve never been on a date. Swear to god. I’ve had a fair bit of sex; even had a “steady girlfriend” or two, but never “dated”. I’m philosophically aware that dating is what grown-ups do, and despite my ever-present immaturity, it’s time to admit that I’m supposed to be a grown-up now. However, the actual prospect of taking a girl on a date is daunting as hell. Where do we go? What do we do? How do I act? (Ok, I’m supposed to have that last one answered already – see above – but it’s a lot easier to write about it in a blog no one reads than it is to put in to practice.)

Enter the Internet; the nerd’s solution to everything.

What you seem to want in a first date is a place where the date is the focus – not the place or the event. Movies are bad, because you are both watching the movie, not each other. Concerts are bad because you can’t really talk – noisy bars with live bands probably fall under the same category, to a lesser degree.

You want something that says “hey, I like this sort of thing!” or, even better “hey, I bet that YOU really like this sort of thing!”

It’s seems option A would be easier to find. I mean, this is your first date, it’s not easy to know what she would really like.

Or maybe it is.

Maybe I should work that in to it.

The only problem is that you have to find a way to have the “what do YOU want to do?” conversation while not coming off as an insecure, indecisive moron (which, let’s be honest, I am…it’s just that that’s one of the pieces of crazy I want to hide for a while).

You should probably avoid things that are going to make you look like an idiot, unless you think you can pull off the “spectacular disaster” theory of first dates, like taking a girl to a charity event in which you volunteer to be repeatedly pelted with pies for children’s cancer research. However, aside from intense, intentional personal humiliation (for you, now, not for her), it seems prudent to avoid things like pasta bars where you have to make that slurping motion to get the last strand of spaghetti in to your mouth. That’s just not hot, I don’t care who you are.

So common wisdom seems to point towards the dreaded Dinner Date.

Upsides: free and open conversation, focus on the person not the event, chance to show off both your conversational skills and your coolness factor by picking a trendy, fun, out of the way spot.

Downsides: It’s too traditional, I’m broke, and besides it’s been years since I knew where a trendy, fun, out of the way spot was. Enter the internet again?

Other options (thanks to http://onlinedatingmatches.com/why-guys-need-to-get-creative-when-taking-a-girl-out-on-a-date/44/ ):

1. Take a walk on the beach/strand/outdoorsy area.

No. I’m not outdoorsy. I live in Minnesota. It’s cold. No. However, I get the point – it certainly hits some of the upside requirements.

2. Go to Starbucks and then take a walk around the immediate shops and area.

Alright if you remove the Starbucks requirement. There are thousands of decent coffee shops in metro areas that aren’t Starbucks, and I’d much rather go to a place that, you know, has a soul. However, the idea is sound. You can start with a little caffeine so you can stay alert and interesting (careful not to go overboard and get too talky), and then wander the city finding weird stuff. That’s good. Not formal, no constraints, just wander around learning about her.

3. Art museum.

Ok, it’s kinda cool, and I do like going there. You can wander around and talk about whatever, and the stuff you see you can talk about later. Besides, it’s one of the options that Will Smith suggests in Hitch, and Will Smith, as we all know, is never wrong.

Downsides: it’s clichéd. It has a definite “meh” factor. I doubt that many girls would brag to their friends about a first date at an art museum. I can imagine this conversation:

“So, where’d he take you?’

“The art museum.”

”Oh…”

Besides, you risk the “omg, what a fag” reaction if she turns out to be an adolescent cunt. Well, that’s not really a downside, because if she is an adolescent cunt what do you really want to be dating her for?

I guess instead of phrasing it that way, I should just say that you have to accept the possibility that she could just be bored at a museum without other judgment. That’s a risk. I guess that would have to depend on the girl. I think the only time I would take that chance would be in the case where there was an event planned at a local museum that I was really interested in going to see (or it seemed that she was really interested in going to see). Let’s say they did a surrealist color nature photography show, I could get in to that.

Anyway, we’ll call the art museum a situational possibility.

4. Local charity event (eg: pick up trash in a marshland area or the beach…just make sure it is some sort of sponsored event, lest you ruin the romance by asking her to grab that hypodermic needle sitting off to the side).

Wow. I wish I was that guy. I’m not. Still, there are always little events that you get invited to for charity. If one pops up and she seems interested in it, I can see how this would make you look like a king. It just seems so unlikely that there would be something in the near future AND you knew that it was something she was interested IF you didn’t really know her yet. On the other hand, the upside is huge, so I’ll keep it in mind.

5. Shopping !!! Every girl loves shopping, even if it is window shopping (this is a quote from the website, not from me).

This one is probably a good idea. Much like the Starbucks (shudder) plan, it’s good because it’s amorphous. I do have some reservations about asking a girl out to “the mall.” I mean, that’s just not romantic.

“So, what do you have in mind for us tonight?”

“Well, I figured we’d start at Baby Gap and just see where we end up!”

6. Cooking dinner together. This is a lot different than going out to dinner, as it involves interactive activities and is a really fun thing to do.

Great idea. Only you have to be a good (or at least a passable) cook, so this isn’t for everyone. Luckily, I am. I can thank my mother for that – she trained me well. However, doesn’t it seem a little forward for a first date? Third date, sure – even second if the first goes really really well. But do just open with “I figured we’d skip all that other stuff and you’d just come right over to my place” seems to have a higher “no” risk than some of the others.

However, I think that this is a great idea for some point. You could do the shopping together first. Wandering through the isles, learning a little about what she likes, talking about things you like, trying not to look too much like a nancy boy.

7. Riding bikes/rollerskates on the beach or trail.

Again, no. Have you ever seen me on rollerskates? I look like a giraffe would look if you put him on a hockey rink and removed his kneecaps. I think in general its best to avoid activities that could result in a dislocated shoulder on the first date.

8. Something she has never done before, but always wanted to do.

Sounds great. What is that? Maybe if you were set up with her by one of her friends, you could mine this sort of data. Otherwise, you’d just be guessing. Maybe I don’t have a ton of faith in my investigative skills, but “I’ve always wished a boy would take me ‘here’ on a date” has never slipped its way in to our conversations. I guess I could snoop around a bit, lead conversations a certain way, etc. but that seems difficult in the time granted while leading up to a first date. Again, this may be one of those ideas that is more appropriate for a third or fourth date. Better yet, a first anniversary. Start where you started your very first date, and then take her to the place she’s always wanted to go. That would be money.

9. Animals. Nothing softens a girl up more than being around cute fuzzy little animals. Try going to a pet store or maybe take her out horseback riding.

I’ll keep this idea noted as a part of one of the other plans – like the coffee shop wandering or the shopping plan – try to incorporate a pet store in to it. But “hey baby, meet me at Petco” just isn’t the kind of thing I’m comfortable with as a whole date plan. Maybe if you knew a restaurant that was right next to a pet store, and you also knew that it always had a long wait, you could hit the pet store instead of the bar. But let’s be honest – that bar is gonna look tempting.

10. DANGER !!! It is a well-known fact that some women are turned on by danger. Try suggesting bungee jumping or skydiving or something of that nature. Just don’t bring your 9mm along (with Snoop Dogg in tow) and go rob a 7-11 with your date still in the car and lead the cops on a wild police chase…..Keep it safe and keep it sane. Perceived danger is the best kind of danger because no one gets hurt (unless your parachute fails to open while you are sky diving….)

This one has some real possibilities. However, it has some practical constraints. Here in the suburbs of Minneapolis, danger is, for a rule, kept to a minimum. I have been skydiving, but I had to drive 50 miles out of the city to get there. Now that may be a good or a bad thing. On the one hand, the drive itself gives you time to chat about whatever, and that fulfills one of the requirements for a good date. On the other hand, in my mind the destination of a first date is generally kept to be a secret, particularly if it’s something big like sky-diving or bungee jumping – and 50 miles is a long drive not to reveal that secret.

An amusement park might be a good middle ground here. Roller-coasters have that element of danger. There’s the aspect of walking around and talking. It has the feel of wandering from shop to shop checking out weird stuff. It’s got a nature-y kind of vibe, without actually forcing you in to the back woods. Also, there’s usually one pretty close to you. Hell, sometimes there are animals there. I think we may have a winner. Except its March and none of them are open yet. Shit.

Roommates

2008-03-15T17:51:00.002-05:00

A new solution to my rental issues has presented itself: The Dreaded Roommate.

Faithful readers (or people who can scroll down about 50 lines to read yesterdays post) know that I’m being forced to move due to a ridiculous non-smoking policy and on top of that they are going to be raising my rent. Bastards.

So my options are A: take it in the keyster, B: find a new place to live that’s cheaper and isn’t run by Nazis, or C: find myself a roommate.

Now, Option C is something that I’ve been considering for a while. I mean, I make ok money, but I’m certainly not lighting Cuban Cigars with $100 bills. And while I suppose I could find a place that saves me $100-$200 a month and it would help, it doesn’t seem to be the kind of long term financial solution that I need. But, if I could add a roommate to split costs, that could potentially be $500-$700 a month that I could save. That’s a lot of money. Just one month buys me that IKEA dresser so I don’t have to have piles of clothing on the floor. Two months and I’ve got that new computer I’ve been dreaming about.

However, with a roommate comes the very real “douche bag” risk factor. I mean, I have no idea how to even find a roommate.

I can’t live with friends. Not only do I not have any friends who need places to live, but moreover, in my experience, living with friends leads to them not being friends any more. It’s not that I hate them or they hate me, but we already know everything about each other. We already have little things that annoy each other and living together only acerbates them.

So what do you do? Can you trust the people you find on www.roommates.com ? I suppose you have to. Besides, there’s no reason that they necessarily have to be psychopaths just because they posted on a website. Maybe all they need is an effective screening process. I think I have a place that would be in demand – great building, lots of space, 60” TV, etc. – so finding someone that wants to live with me shouldn’t be a problem. But finding someone that I want to live with? There’s the rub.

Maybe if I required that they meet me for drinks at a bar before we made any sort of commitment. I have to imagine that one night with cocktails would tell me pretty accurately if I’d be able to stand someone for 12 months. I mean, there’s the chance that they do an excellent job of hiding their crazy that first night. And there’s always the chance that even if things start out well, they end up badly after a year – but there’s also the other possibility, right? That this weird process would end up with me finding a new best friend? Who knows? Maybe he will have a hot, smart, funny, single sister.

I think it’s worth the adventure. How bad could it be? Don’t answer that. At least if I end up chopped up in to tiny little bits in the closet of my now shared apartment, I’d do it with a new dresser and a kick-ass computer.

Bah! Inflation!

2008-03-14T17:09:00.002-05:00

Damn it Damn it Damn it.

I told myself when I found this apartment that that was it – I was never moving again. I HATE moving. Hate it. I’d rather continue to live in hell than go through the hassle of moving out.

But my apartment building isn’t making it easy. First, they designated my building as a “non-smoking building,” which would be fine by me if they were being rational about it. But of course they aren’t. “Non-smoking” doesn’t just mean inside apartments or common areas. Nope. It also means on balconies. What the fuck? You can’t smoke on your own balcony? Outside? Are you serious? How will they prove that I’ve been out there?

I understand that smoking is a disgusting habit, and I genuinely don’t want my habit to detract from someone else’s existence in any way, but fuck me if people don’t have a serious entitlement disorder when it comes to shit like this. I mean, in the very worst case scenario I would be out on my balcony smoking when the neighbor who lived directly next to me on the downwind side had their window open and was in their living room on a day where the pressure outside was greater than the pressure inside. In that once a month scenario, that neighbor COULD potentially notice a wisp of smoke coming in to their apartment. Now, for that neighbor I can see how this could be mildly unpleasant. But when you compare every instance of that mild discomfort to the one time HUGE, GAPING, PAINFUL HOLE IN THE CHEST type of discomfort that I will have to go through to move, it’s the equivalent of a paper cut.

But I was going to deal with that. I could see myself moving across the parking lot. It would just require a few cases of beer for my friends. But on top of that they are going to raise my monthly rent. Sigh. So it’s painful admission time – I thought I could afford $1,100 a month by myself. I can’t. Every other part of my existence has to suffer because of it – most notably my credit score as I tend to scrimp on making those payments on time when I simply have no money.

But now they want me to move across the parking lot AND expect me to pay an extra $100 a month…oh hell no.

Thank god for www.rentometer.com

The Trouble With Women

2008-03-13T12:20:00.004-05:00

It's not like I have "trouble" with women. It's just that I don't know what to do with them.

I mean, I think I'm an attractive enough guy. Sure the hair is thinning a little bit as I get closer to 30 than 20 (or 29 for that matter), and I could afford to lose 20 or 30 (or 50) pounds, but somehow or another I still pretty regularly get compliments on my looks.

Also, I think people generally find me fun to be around. People laugh at my jokes, listen to my stories, use me for a sympathetic ear, and I think I've got a pretty good sense of how to put people at ease.

So what could the problem be?

Maybe it's that though I can say all those things, I still think that I need to pretend to be someone else when I'm "hitting on" a girl. It's like somehow I've been convinced that I need to put on some sort of a show in order to get women to like me - and I'm miserable at that show. Cutesy little games, being "suave," being the one that every woman instantly wants - yeah, none of that works for me. I try. I do. It's just that when I'm trying to be that guy, I can never think of anything interesting that he would say. Truth be told, I kinda think that that guy is a douche bag.

So why do I still think that I need to be that guy to meet girls? I can accept that there's a certain amount of crazy that needs to be hidden in the opening stages of any relationship. I mean, I'm not going to open a conversation with my WoW stats. "Hey baby, I have 5 level 70 characters." Nope. But should I be similarly ashamed of the rest of me? Clearly the answer is no. You can only hide so much of yourself successfully.

Maybe the George Costanza is the best plan - just go against every instinct I have. "Hi, my name is George. I'm unemployed and live with my parents." What would my version of that be? "Hi, my name is Geoff. I've failed at every job I've ever had because I can't bring myself to do things that are even mildly unpleasant, and I masturbate to video game characters." (That last part isn't true. Odd, I wonder what it means that even here, amidst a conversation about being honest, I still have to make shit up to seem witty?)

It doesn't help that I'm a smart man, and am genuinely arrogant about it. I just can't stand being around stupid people. I'm not sure where the line is - but it definitely exists. Below a certain IQ, I just can't hold a conversation with you. I have a great friend who can just have sex with cute, dumb girls. That would drive me crazy. There's the guy that meets a cute, dumb girl at a party and takes her in to a back bedroom and just have some fun, but I'm not that guy. Maybe it's that guy that I'm trying to be. To say that I wouldn't like to be that guy would be a lie, I guess. At the very least, it would make for some funny stories (Tucker Max, anyone?), but at this point I'm pretty sure that I lack that instinct.

So this is my declaration; my Thursday March 13th resolution: from now on I'm just going to be me. No more trying to be cool around women. No more trying to be cutesy with little cryptic text messages and games. No more trying to be impressive when I meet them. Just be me, and be confident in that me.

I'll tell you how it works out.

The WoW Dilemma

2008-03-10T17:17:00.001-05:00

I wonder if I have something in common with heroin addicts. You have to think that some, if not many, of the worlds heroin users really enjoy their heroin. When confronted about it, they probably say things like “you know, in its pure form heroin isn’t addictive at all” or “it was originally created as a medicine!”, which is all a bunch of crap to non-heroin users who all probably share the same condescending attitude toward the justifications of an addict.

But, my opinion of the product itself aside, I think it’s safe to assume that at some point, some where in the world, a heroin addict has looked at a good friend (and non-heroin user) and said “you really should try this – it’s awesome.”

So, today at lunch I’m taking a friend from work to pick up a copy of World of Warcraft, and I can’t help but wonder if there aren’t parallels that can be drawn.

Now don’t get me wrong. I LOVE my Warcraft. When asked, I will regurgitate a litany of reasons why it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I have saved thousands of dollars by having an alternative to spending my leisure time at the bar. I have met hundreds of interesting people from all over the world, made some good friends, learned things about myself, and experienced real joy and feelings of accomplishment. I have something to do and a place to go at almost all times of every day, meaning I never want for entertainment. And, much like my experiences with marijuana in high school, my WoW addiction has broken down interpersonal barriers with all sorts of people who I normally wouldn’t have had anything in common with. When I first started my current job, for instance, there was a pretty well defined clique of veteran employees that I, as a rookie member of the team, naturally wanted to be a part of. When I learned that one of these veteran members was also a WoWer, I had an immediate in.

But there have been excesses. In fact, to say that “there have been excesses” indicates that those excesses were isolated incidents punctuated by long periods of responsible usage. That’s really not the case, I’m afraid. Truth be told, it’s probably more accurate to describe my entire WoW career as one long, never ending excess. More than once have their been back to back to back 18 hour a day sessions. Then there was the day that four guild mates and I spent the 10 straight hours between 10:00pm and 8:00am in Stratholme trying to get me a new chest-piece (and before you newbies laugh, remember that I’ve been playing this game A LOT longer than you – back in the day Stratholme was a 40 man raid instance, but in order to complete the quests in there you needed to 5 man it. Hide your snickers behind the idea that what we did was the equivalent of 5 manning the Black Temple).

For most people, those numbers may not mean anything. Maybe this will help you to understand what I mean when I say that I may play the game a bit too much: since I purchased the game on January 5^th of 2005, I have logged just over 7000 hours of game play. That’s more than 291 full days. From January 5^th of 2005 until the time of this writing, exactly 1,165 days have passed (for those who plan on doing the math along with me, that’s 27960 hours). That means of every 4 minutes that have existed since I bought this game, 1 of them has been spent playing WoW. If you assume 8 hours a day for sleep and another 8 for work, that means of the 9320 hours that I had to myself, only 2320 weren’t spent playing WoW.

Now, that isn’t totally accurate, because I don’t work on weekends and I did spend a short portion of that time unemployed, but you get the point. I play a lot of goddamned WoW.

I can be argued that the time I’ve enjoyed in Azeroth could have been more productively used in finding a girlfriend, writing the screenplay I’ve had in my head, going to school to get a degree in something that matters, or, you know, just not playing WoW.

So now I have to wonder, is encouraging my friend to pick up this game really an ethical move? Or am I the heroin addict saying “dude, you should really get in to this!” I know that she’ll love this game. From one perspective, I’m giving her hours and hours of joy. But I guess what I don’t know is: at what cost? Somewhere in the future, an event probably exists where she could be at a bar and meet the man she’s destined to fall in love with. She could be on her way to or from a concert and stop for gas and decide “oh what the hell” and buy the winning lottery ticket. Hell, she may even, presumably, plan on seeing the sun sometime in the next 3 years. All that is now gone. Those futures no longer exist. They have been taken from her by this short car ride up to Target.

So what do I do? Do I ignore these doubts and toss her the needle?

I think we all know the answer.

Mind Numbing Schlock

2008-03-09T19:03:00.002-05:00

I feel bad. A girl who I barely know sits near to me and watches “Rock of Love” every day on VH1. Today I decided to make fun of it because, well, I’m a jerk.

It didn’t go well.

She seemed genuinely upset that someone could find her program to be so…how do I put this delicately?….filled with the kind of mind numbing drivel that is ruining America.

Really, though…it’s a terrible show.

At what point did we decide that TV has two functions: to tell us how much we suck for not being millionaires; and to show us that we shouldn’t be upset because we suck for not being millionaires because millionaires are miserable too.

I feel as though far too many Americans use television to validate their existences by showing us examples of people who have it worse than us. It started with Jerry Springer and the day-time talk show syndicate, where they would take the dregs of society and parade them for us to ridicule. When they ran out of the genuinely miserable, they started to fabricate that misery. I have a good friend who still tells a story about the time her and her friend were slated to appear on an episode of Jenny Jones under the heading “My Boyfriend Cheated on me with my Best Friend.” Unfortunately, the guy that was supposed to be the boyfriend of one of the other couples couldn’t make it, so one of the producers asked them if they could do “Lesbian Love Triangles” instead. They happily complied.

However, our obsession with the misfortune of others has evolved in to a wholly different and (if possible) scarier entity with the onset of shows like “Flavor of Love” and the like, in which we get to witness people so corrupted by greed, false standards of beauty, and celebrity worship that they will debase themselves almost limitlessly.

The scary part is that greed, false standards of beauty, and celebrity worship have, for so long, been the very ideals that TV has set as the pinnacle of American existence. “Get skinny, get rich, meet an actor, live happily ever after.” My co-worker accused me of thinking like an old man and maybe she’s right. Maybe I just remember all too well being encouraged to pursue those ideals, and thinking at the time “man, this is not going to end well.” So maybe my problem with shows like “Rock of Love” is that they prove me right: these are the sad results of the kinds of people who followed those shallow dreams.

But what do you do? Television remains the true opiate of the masses, providing short-cuts for babysitting, teaching, and moral, ethical, and political guidance. When my co-worker exclaims “it’s entertaining!” she can’t be wrong – this schlock obviously entertains her – but I guess that’s what upsets me the most. Maybe my problem isn’t that TV panders to idiots, it’s that there are so many idiots that need to be pandered to. Maybe I am repulsed by “Rock of Love” not because it’s terrible, but because it’s popular. I mean, no one bothers to rail against the White Power candidate, because no one’s going to vote for him. When he carries South Carolina in the primary, you start to get worried. If he carries Texas and California, you start a blog.

To be fair, it’s not just crappy talk shows and reality TV that’s the problem. The nightly news appeals to the same demographic. I screamed a newswoman off the grounds of the dormitory I lived in in college because her and her carnivorous ilk were all over us about a student who had died there due to an alcohol related incident. “Where were you, you fucking vulture,” I yelled “two weeks ago when one of our students became the first woman in this university’s history to be awarded the Rhodes Scholarship to go study at Oxford? Off trying to find a crying face to stick a camera in, I’ll wager.” They are attracted to suffering like maggots to rotting flesh, and rightfully (?) so, because that’s what their audience demands. So who should I be mad at? The vendor or the consumer that clamors for it?

So maybe she’s right to be offended. Maybe she knew what I did not – that by saying “your show sucks,” what I’m really saying is “it upsets me that you’re such an idiot that you enjoy this crap.”

Speeding Ticket

2008-03-09T15:17:00.003-05:00

Speeding tickets are dumb.

I can’t be alone here.

I figure there was a time when a speed limit of 55 mph on the highway made sense. Before the onset of power steering or anti-lock breaks, before the advancements in aero-dynamics or traction control, before aluminum frames, before highway designers got smart and angled curves or improved the quality of the asphalt, I can imagine that 55 was about as fast as people could go while still feeling safe and in control.

But that’s not the case any more. I drive a crappy Mazda hatchback, and I can see speeds upwards of 90 mph before I start feeling like I’m pushing the edge of being unsafe. So a measly 73 mph surely shouldn’t warrant a ticket, right?

But that makes two in as many months for me. I still haven’t even paid the first one ‘cause, well, I’m broke. So now I owe the state $240.00 for driving safely over some made up, antiquated limit that hasn’t been re-examined since the Carter Administration.

So there I was, sitting in my car for eleven precious minutes while the peace officer was, presumably, felling the lumber with which to pulp the paper he would eventually use to write my ticket on. Those eleven minutes gave me ample time to envision what I was going to do after I got fired for coming in late to work one more time and also to entertain some ridiculous fantasies of civil disobedience.

Am I the only one that has these sorts of fantasies? You know the ones where you end up as the savior of all humanity because you were the first person to point out that gas costs too much? Like the guy that drives up to the end of eight miles of stopped traffic and honks his horn – like he was simply the first to remind us that we could all just move forward. I wonder if in his head he sees a newspaper headline in big bold print Alert Driver Saves Many. Underneath there would be testimonials from the other drivers. “Oh thank God for that man. I had been sitting there for hours. I had ice cream melting in the back seat! Luckily, someone had the presence of mind to remind us all that we could simply apply pressure to the gas pedal and remove ourselves from our self-induced automotive prisons.”

So in my mind I was sitting before a federal grand jury with a team of sharply dressed lawyers displaying a mountain of physical evidence that prove that 55 is dumb. The judge would be nodding solemnly because he, too, understands that roads and cars have evolved beyond the need for such restrictive limits. Of course, then it would go in to effect, and people like my ex-girlfriend (who once admitted to me that she never changes lanes to allow traffic to merge in from the onramps because she has “enough trouble paying attention to her own lane” and that she “doesn’t feel comfortable trying to watch the other lanes”) would get out there and kill 18 people in a multi-car pile up. Sigh.

Cris, if you’re reading this by the way STAY OFF THE ROADS. You’re a danger to yourself and others.

But I won’t do any of that. I’ll eventually pay the $240.00 and continue to speed just like everyone else. I think, in the end, speeding tickets really exist as a form of income to our state governments cause it’s easier to sell that than it is increased taxes. I wonder if the nice gentlemen in our Police forces know that, however, that they are just glorified IRS agents?

Hung Over

2008-03-08T15:18:00.004-06:00

At what age does one gain will-power? Or facial hair?

I mean, I’m 29 now, and on the morning of this past birthday, like all other birthdays before it, I woke up and wondered to myself “Is this the year? Is this the year I finally grow up? That’d be neato. That or a beard – god I’m so tired of this patchy bullshit that I’ve been futilely trying to turn in to an Abe Lincoln style chin-strap since I was 16.”

But alas, year 30 of my existence is shaping up to be little different than any of the previous 29. I still spend way too much time playing video games (damn you WoW), I still have crippling commitment issues, I still run a razor over my face every day while crying softly to myself, and I still can’t manage to find a way to not go out and get absolutely schnookered on school nights. I mean, how many gut wrenchingly awful days do I need to spend under these flickering fluorescent lights here in this taupe cubicle, with ice-picks sticking in to my temples answering phone calls from idiots who I have to pretend to be nice to before I learn that drinking is for young people and weekends?

The sunglassed ride in to work is always dreadful. As I pass by other cars on a deeply overcast day, I have to imagine their drivers know…just…know…that beneath these $10.00 convenience store shades lay the eyes of an idiot.

Here at work my co-workers love every minute of it – except the ones that were out with me – they’re wrapped in fleece blankets sipping soup out of Tupperware bowls. I walk very slowly and wince at everything, hamming it up a bit for sympathy that never comes. But I’ll take ridicule instead…it’s a worthy substitute and, hopefully, enough of it will remind me that beneath its playful exterior, that criticism bears the truth – that I’m a moron.

To make things worse I work in an inbound call center selling communications products to the general public…meaning every 45 seconds or so there’s a beep in my ear and an automated voice that announces “in call” with the same level of enthusiasm that I currently feel about taking that call. It might as well say “BEEEP!! – This is gonna suck.”

That beeping – made especially excruciating by my current medical condition – is invariably followed by six to eight minutes of some slovenly Neanderthal explaining to me all about the problems with his cable TV, which of course means nothing to me, because I work in the sales department. It's a constant source of amazement to me that gems like that gentleman can continually manage to end up choosing the third option, the one for a transfer of high speed internet service, even though the automated leader says quite clearly “for trouble with your service press one”.

Seriously, is anyone surprised that your TV isn’t doing what you want it to when you can’t even “press 1 for trouble with your service” when you are having trouble with your service? I mean, your phone has a 1 button right? And she said “for trouble with your service, press 1”? And you’re having trouble with your service? And you have ears? THEN HOW THE FUCK DID YOU END UP IN THE SALES DEPARTMENT?

I wondered when I got this job why so many of my co-workers were callous towards the people who called in. Now I wonder how they’re still sane. I mean…it’s simply mind boggling the level of idiocy that is allowed to walk around out there without supervision. But I digress.

So my first call today was from just about the most obnoxious kind of caller – one that I have affectionately dubbed “The Snuffleupagus”. You probably know one or two of these people – they are characterized by unnaturally low voices and the ability to make a 4 word sentence last five fucking minutes.

“Hey ……………………… I ……………… called ……… to ask …………………………. if you knew ………………………. um …………………………. anything about ……………………………. well …………………………. hold on …………………… my account number …………………….. you probably need that …………… first ………………….. um …………………….. it’s …………… uh ……………… hold on ………………………………..”

To ice this delicious cake, this particular Snuffleupagus had a Parakeet that was, I have to assume, living inside his phone’s mouthpiece. Every so often this disease ridden avian would utter a screech so loud that it would burst pixels on my LCD screen.

So with half closed eyes and a headache generally reserved for Joe Pesci victims, I get

“So ………………………………………. I ……………… um ……………. SQUAAAACK!! ……………. I have ……………………………. two TVS ………………………… SQUAAACK! ……………… are you there? ....................................... SQUAAAACK! …………. and the second TV ……………………………………………….. has ……………………………………. well ……………………………. the first TV …………………………. has one of those …………………………………. what do you call them ……………………… SQUAAAACK ………………… MARGE? ................................... WHAT DO YOU CALL THOSE THINGS? ............................... (what things?) …………………. SQUAAAA--AAACK ………………… YOU KNOW ………………………. THOSE THINGS UNDER THE ……… SQUAACK!!! …………….. THE TV THERE? .................................. THE BOX? ............................................ (you mean the cable box?) ……………… SQUAACK!!! ……………………. YEAH THE BOX FOR THE TV? .................................. (I don’t know honey, I think it’s just called a cable box) ………………………… is that right? .................... SQUAACK!!! ..................... Sir? ...............................”

At this point, as a defense mechanism, I have drifted off in to pleasant fantasies of suicide.

At some point, the prospect of dealing with those types of phone calls with a hang over will overcome my desire to use liquor to drown out the memories of those types of phone calls, but as you can see, it’s a difficult circle of misery to break free from.

So here I sit, huddled over a cup of coffee weighed down with about half a pound of non-dairy cream powder, cringing over the prospect of what particular tortures the next six to eight minute conversation my enthusiastic automated friend will bring me, and wishing I had a fleece blanket to wrap around myself and some soup to sip on.

The Dreaded Cold

2008-03-07T15:42:00.005-06:00

Though I could probably think of something interesting to write about today, I think I’d prefer to just kinda ramble on about whatever comes to mind. This is, after all, more of an exercise in dedication than any actual attempt to create crap that people want to read.

As such I’m going to talk about my cold.

I don’t generally get sick. Not sure if that’s just luck, or genetics, or what. It can’t be from good, clean living, because I treat my body with the contempt generally reserved for child molesters. I mean, I eat crap, drink, smoke, pick up food off the floor – no matter which floor, I don’t exercise, I try to eat vegetables but I usually fall back on the olde stand-by of a cheese burger or a tortilla wrapped around something greasy. So it’s something of a medical mystery about why I manage to avoid most illnesses. Maybe I just come from good stock. Who knows?

However, having said all that: I’m sick.

So dealing with illness is something kinda new to me. That’s not to say that I haven’t done it before, just that I don’t have set strategy that I know works. It’s odd to deal with something where no proven methods exist. Sure, doctors and quacks alike will have all sorts of ideas for you. Starve it, feed it, drink lots of fluids, take lots of drugs. It all seems to be guess work and distractions from the real solution – let your body deal with it.

But letting your body deal with it isn’t good enough when you have nasty symptoms and have to be at work. So I figured I’d gather a bunch of theories from the internet and give a few a try.

They aren’t working.

Theory One: Starve a cold.

Apparently Mark Twain chronicled that he would fast any time he got a cold and it would resolve itself. So I considered that. It seems dumb. I mean – doesn’t your body need nourishment to enact its many processes? Don’t white blood cells get made from something? Besides, I’m fat and I want food. So Theory One is out.

Theory Two: Feed a cold.

So, if starving is dumb, maybe feeding is the alternative. This seems more palatable, though I will give this to the “starve it” theorists: digestion and food processing take resources in the body, so it would seem to make sense that gorging yourself would over-tax those processes and detract from the body’s ability to work on the cold. If all your enzymes or whatever are busy breaking down that delicious double cheeseburger, they can’t be killing the cold.

So feeding a cold seems to be a good idea, but done in moderation. And you have to eat the right things. Fluids seem to be good – soups and whatnot. Someone once told me that your first urination of the day should have color, and the rest should be as close to clear as possible. The theory is that water adds nothing to your body, but instead acts as kind of a flush – rinsing out your insides. As it passes through you it’s basically washing your pipes – taking whatever crap has been accumulated with it. So, good! Lots of brothy soups and water.

Also, everyone seems to agree that Vitamin C is good. Doctors seem to agree that it bolsters your immune system. I also read somewhere that cayenne pepper is good for the immune system, which I guess I can believe, though I have to admit that the website I found that information on was a little too vegany to be taken seriously. They recommended making lemonade from fresh squeezed lemons, water, a sprinkle of cayenne pepper, and maple syrup (don’t ask me why – maybe maple syrup isn’t as processed or filled with impurities at granulated sugar?). It’s not terrible, actually, but fresh squeezing lemons is something for weirdoes so I don’t plan on making a habit of it. I wonder if you could add cayenne to orange juice? I should try that tonight.

The end result of this theory has been good, I think (I still have doubts of the “there’s no verifiable way to prove that this crap is doing anything more than my body would have been doing on its own” variety), but this cold seems less severe for me than it has been for friends and co-workers who have been down with similar strains.

Theory Three: Take lots of drugs.

Now, in general I am against the “take lots of drugs” theory. My logic is simply that human beings managed to survive for 40,000 years or more without Sudafed, so there’s no reason why we shouldn’t continue to survive without it.

Of course, everything about that logic is stupid.

I mean, the average lifespan has almost quadrupled since our species came to be, with most of that growth (almost 50%) in the last 150 years. You have to imagine that a fair portion of that increase is due to drugs. Sure, most of it is probably diet, exercise, the fact that we’re less likely to get eaten, etc. but drugs certainly play a role. So why am I so willing to hold on to my aversion to drugs? I don’t know. A licensed psychological professional might suggest that it has something to do with my stubborn, self-reliant nature borne of my upbringing as an only child…sort of an “I aint need nobody fo nothin’” attitude (which is similarly stupid, but hey – what can you do – that’s me).

But I took the drugs anyway. Not because I think they are doing anything to cure the illness – I’m pretty sure they aren’t – but because they do seem to alleviate some of the symptoms, making it possible for me to stifle my snot and come back to work, where I’m typing this obnoxiously long blog entry about a cold.

First Thoughts on the Election

2008-03-06T11:24:00.003-06:00

It's finally happened. I care about politics.

Well, sorta.

I'm still not going to be volunteering for anyone's campaign, I'm not going to give any money, I'm not going to throw myself behind anyone as the savior of all humanity, but I am going to vote, which is a big step forward for me.

See, for years I was terribly disillusioned with the whole process. At 29 years old it takes a particular kind of temperament to be disillusioned with anything, but clearly I am of that temperament.

My rationale for not voting was based around the belief that it's nearly impossible to know who you are voting for. As low an opinion as I have of self-proclaimed "red staters", I have to believe that if they knew in 1999 what they know now about the policies of George W. Bush, not even they would have elected him to lead. (I'm a little more confused about 2003, but that's a topic for another post)

The problem is, there's no way of knowing what kind of a President a Candidate will make during the campaign. A Candidate, by necessity, must pretend to be something he/she is not while trying to win our votes. They have to lie to us. They have to tell us what we want to hear. They have to pretend that our issues are the most important issues in the world, and they have to promise us that, if elected, they will make the sagging cotton economy in southwestern Ohio (or whatever) is the number one issue that they will address.

It's bullshit, but it's necessary bullshit.

Unfortunately, we as a species lack true empathy. Our decisions are dictated by our experiences, and our experiences are, by definition, ours - they are specific to each individual. As such, a candidate running on a platform of, let's say, universal health care, must make universal health care important to each and every one of his or her constituents. The problem is, universal health care doesn't mean anything to me. Philosophically, I'm behind it, but I get health care through my employer. So why should I give a shit if some random dude who I'll never meet gets taken care of?

I know, I know, there are all sorts of arguments for why I should give a shit, but since my mother will never read this I can comfortably admit that I still don't. Go ahead, preach the "human right" aspect. Go ahead with the "it saves us all money" pitch. I don't care. Well, I kinda don't care...more to the point, I don't care at the moment because I'm trying to make a larger point.

Now that is not to say that universal health care isn't a very important issue for some, or even many, of a certain candidate's constituents, it is just to say that it isn't an issue for me. So to speak to me, the candidate will have to find another issue. For what it's worth, my hot button issue is the economy. I need a candidate to promise me that under their leadership Americas economy will be strong. Fancy new TVs will be cheap, innovative new products will be falling out of the sky, and I will be able to make a better than decent living so I can afford all the ridiculous crap that I, at one point, promised myself would never be important to me.

So how does a candidate get my vote? If he or she comes to me preaching universal health care I'm going to go back to playing my PSP. So instead they come to me promising me the world in terms of economic growth. Problem is, I - like a jilted lover - know that they were just down the street whispering sweet nothings in some old woman's ear about how her prescriptions will be cheaper come November.

Well, which candidate is the real one? There's only one thing they can do first, and they have now promised both me and Betty down the street that our agenda will be it. Truth is, probably neither one was true.

So I never voted. I always believed that I couldn't vote - that it would be irresponsible for me to vote - because I genuinely had no idea who I was voting for. Any candidate that I voted for would be some sham, some pretty mock up designed to appeal to the voter in me. The Candidate could have little or nothing to do with the actual President I was helping to put in to power.

And then we got President Bush.

I mean...Jesus.

Quick: name 5 good things he's done in eight years. Eight Fucking Years. Eight years, and nothing to show for it. No Child Left Behind? Huge failure by any standard. Prescription Drug Reform? Written by the Pharmaceutical Companies? Nope - failure. War on Terror! Yeah! That's gotta be the one! Oh...wait...Al Qaeda is actually STRONGER now than it was before?

All it seems this man has done is to significantly expand the powers of the office of the President, while not using those powers to accomplish anything for the country. If I weren't secretly hiding an optimist underneath this angry, angry pessimistic shell I might accuse President Bush of pursuing power for power's sake. As is, I'll just fall back on the old "incompetence" excuse. However, that's not much of a choice when it comes to the Legacy Department. "Hey George, would you like my to title your biography The Most Incompetent President Ever, or How Evil People Use Power to Create More Power For Themselves?"

So anyway, I vote now. Well, I voted in the mid-term elections and I plan on voting in the Presidential election come November.

Sure, I still have some issues. I do live in Minnesota, which means that my particular vote plus two cents will be worth about two cents.

You remember that South Park episode where they forced the kids to choose a new mascot, and the choices were a Giant Douche and a Turd Sandwich, and Kyle wouldn't do it so they exiled him? Vote or Die, Motherfucker...Vote or I will Motherfucking Kill You. In the end, he decided he'd come back to participate, and he cast his vote for Turd Sandwich, and they counted the votes and Giant Douche won 1410 to 36?

Well it's hard not to feel that way - particularly in a Representative Democracy where so long as one more person in any given district votes for one candidate over the other, all their representatives go accordingly - meaning anyone else who voted beyond that one was just wasting a perfectly good Tuesday afternoon.

However, at the very least by voting I can pull a Homer from the Citizen Kang sketch in Treehouse of Horrors VII. You remember, the one where aliens Kang and Kodos take over the bodies of Bill Clinton and Bob Dole and use the election to take over earth?

Anyway, Kang wins and dystopia ensues. As the episode ends, we see the Simpson family slaving away carrying massive stones for their new alien overlords, and Homer says "Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos".

(If you're wondering, by the way, the answer is "yes" - a fair bit of my political, ethical, and personal philosophy will be drawn using examples from prime-time cartoons. )

Luckily, this time around I don't believe that we have a George Bush in the running. Sure Obama's experience is questionable, and I have my doubts about Sen. Clinton's ability to work on both sides of the aisle to actually get anything accomplished, and Sen. McCain is starting to worry me with all this talk of "10,000 years in Iraq" - well, and besides, he's a Republican which has become pretty synonymous with "evil" in my mind. But even with their downsides, I don't think any of them could manage to fuck up the country as badly as it has been for the past two terms.

So I'll cast my vote, and hope for the best. If not, at the very least I'll be able to say "don't blame me, I voted for Kodos."

Test

2008-03-06T02:30:00.002-06:00

So apparently, and I must admit this is pretty cool - not to mention damned handy when you want to post from work but you're afraid your network administrator hates you and is tracking every website you seem to have any minuscule level of interest in and blocking it, not just for you but, because you work for a cable company, the entire web-browsing world - you can post stuff to your blog via email.

So, if it works, this should be posted to my site.

Also, it should be searchable from google under "ridiculous run on sentences".

First!

2008-03-06T01:30:00.003-06:00

Alright, so I'm gonna give this a try. If you happen upon this early, I implore you: have low hopes.

The whole point of this exercise will be to see if I can dedicate myself to writing something every day, regardless of quality (which, I repeat, will be low).

Topics will naturally focus on the crap that I'm interested in. There will probably be something about politics from time to time - most of it halfway reasoned and impulsive responses to current events. There may also be genuinely interesting observations about technology, as I'm a huge nerd. Unfortunately, because I'm going to try to do this daily, I have to imagine that most of it is going to take the form of "so...I got up, played WoW, went to work, came home...seriously, kill me" type posts.

Anyway, to the two of you who will eventually find this Blog; welcome. As you can see, I promise little. Rest assured, I will still find a way to disappoint.

Thank you.