Half-Assed Opinions

Bringing Up the Next Generation

2011-12-31T18:42:00.000-08:00

Wow, it has been a while…like a long while. I’m not sure if I’m going to keep this up, but who knows? Maybe this will be a rebirth of more half-assed revelations, rambling half-assed diatribes and, of course, half-assed innovations that no one asked for or needs.

Let me get some basics out of the way. It has been four years since my last post. I am now the father of a very precocious three year old girl, husband to a cute/crafty budget analyst and owner of the world’s dumbest, yet somehow endearing pit-bull. I have become a home owner. I am a salaried archaeologist and I have finally become financially stable. Ok, enough of that, let’s move onto something else.

Last week my daughter was looking through the game closet and found our old Nerf guns way in the back. Yes, my wife and I have Nerf guns. Moving forward, Nevada exclaims “I want dis, I want dis.” Now I want to assure you that as a parent I had some compunction about letting my daughter play with these particular toys…for like three seconds. Before you knew it my daughter was ducking incoming nerf fire and running tactical ops on mommy at the end of the hallway. I must admit after the initial shock of having her parents chasing her with play firearms she fell in quite quickly.

I would like to point out that a day before this episode she came running into the kitchen with an improved lego gun, of her own design, and shot up the joint like a scene from any Tarantino film. She has never shied away from violence. In her Supergirl costume she will run up and, with sound effects, pummel us into submission. I swear the most violent thing we watch with her is Blue’s Clues and she has never seen me in my Superhero costume. So, here is a clear-cut case of nature vs. nurture.

Back to our game of “guns”, as it was coined by Nevada; she had so much fun that she didn’t want to stop for a nap and after she woke up it was the first word from her mouth. The game evolved and we each took on personas. Nevada became an old west deputy with a cowgirl hat, badge and sidearm. I became a leather jacketed renegade cop with a bad attitude and, coincidentally, a three day beard. And LJ was…um…a ragged mother on the edge? Well, it was fun. While I may have had reservations about shooting my little girl with nerf guns at first I must admit it came with some small satisfaction very quickly. Especially when after the game was in a temporary lull and she we would be gathering up stray ammo, she would come running up and exclaim “You got me Daddy! Right here (pointing to her belly),” always with a big smile on her face.

My father forbid play guns in our house because he didn’t want us thinking guns were toys. I was banned from watching G.I. Joe or owning any of the action figures. Yet still my brother and I would use any and everything that may even resemble a gun to shoot each other. So, maybe this is some ingrained behavior. Well, at least when she starts playing with the other neighborhood kids she will dominate.

No Credentials

2009-09-15T14:29:00.000-07:00

I talked to my sister today and the subject of her writing came up. For those of you who don’t know my sister: for her, discussion on the noble art of literature and pros comes as naturally to conversation as the subject of beer and sports does to a group of homophobic frat-boys. She told me about how she is gearing up to write two articles to send off for possible publication in a magazine or two. Ballsy, I thought. Especially considering how terrified of public forums my sister seems to be.

My sister “Ace” is an English major with the hopes to one day toil in the field of…journalism…editing…something to do with the written word. She was telling me this just off the back of a short discourse on my job hunt (which is coming along, but nothing solid yet) and it seemed that she was relating to my ambitions with some of her own. I may be reading the situation incorrectly, as I have been known to do that one time, but she seems terrified of the reactions people might have. Maybe due to content, but I feel much more likely that she is worried about bad reviews.

So, what did I say in response to her fears in regards to a serious attempt at publication? I try and relate using, of all things, this blog; oh the shame. I tell her not to take herself too seriously because a majority of my writing experience is based on poo (yes, literally). I tell her to just put herself out there and not to worry about what people think, even though the only people ever to read my work are relatives, close friends, people who were looking for legitimate medical advice and Segway enthusiasts from Germany. I am sure I came off as an arrogant ass who is way to into his little off-again on-again hobby, and who’s only criteria for publication is a computer with an internet hookup and the delusion that you have something to say. Well Ace, it’s called Half-Assed for a reason. Sorry.

For years she has been writing on her own and for assignments. In that time she has always had some reason to not show me her work. I guess I was just too curious. Honestly, I just want to see how she writes and what she has to say. Hell, it has to be more insightful than a diatribe about turd angling. My brother was the same way about his comedy. He wouldn’t let us come and see him do any stand-up until he was somewhat established. I suppose I need to just lay-off, be patient and then ravenously eat up whatever tidbit she throws my way when she’s ready.

FREEDOM!

2009-09-01T16:04:00.000-07:00

Sorry to all. I haven’t blogged in a while and that is due in large part to my old job. Yes, you read correctly “Old Job”. “Old”, taken from the Latin meaning not receiving paychecks from, and Job meaning place where one dies slowly. No, the deterioration of my marriage, coupled with the terrified wails from my infant daughter who had no recollection of me every time I returned home. Not to mention the fact that I went to bed one evening in a crappy hotel in Battle Mountain Nevada, the armpit of America, and realized that I was spending my precious life living out of a suitcase, have convinced me that it was definitely time to be moseying on.

Of course before taking this huge leap I had a long discussion with LJ and we decided that the income was just not worth the time lost with those I love and the monetary loss. So, I gave my two weeks and haven’t heard from my last employer since. Well, except for them wanting their keys and credit card back…touchy.

Now here I sit at home, mid-day, typing up a post for a blog that has done little more than gather virtual dust since I started working out of town. I will admit I feel like a man walking out of a fog. Everything is getting clearer and better. I can see the horizon…whatever that means. It’s just that for so long I was on this cycle of going out for eight days and coming back for six that I started putting things off. What that boils down to is that I was putting my life off.

It turns out that my dream job wasn’t really my dream job. I just kept with it because I was good at it and everyone had expectations. I’m sure my parents will be somewhat disappointed, but that doesn’t really bother me. I was miserable I just never stopped to see it. The job caused my marriage to get distant and even bitter, my parents can attest to that as they came out recently and were witness to more than a little of it. I mean the fact was that I was never salaried (those that find salaried positions in archaeology are damned lucky), I was always gone, I had to work crazy hours, and I had little dignity or working rights. Hell, I even fooled myself into thinking I was just paying my dues. What I was actually doing was setting up shop at a dead-end road.

Let me just dispel some myths for all you young up and coming Anthro/Arch majors. Your degree has no market value. While I know that most of you don’t realize what that means, as you probably chose this major due to its lack of math course requirements, fear not for I shall spell it out for you. All of you will go through the hell of graduating and have a degree that while tough to earn translates into no real money. So, you can do one of two things. Buy a higher level degree that may get you a better chance at finding a paying gig (though it will hardly be worth the loans you’ll be paying off for said education as most archaeologists never break 60K a year), or you can wise up and get employment with a job that has some kind of demand. It basically comes down to this, the only reason archaeologists have jobs is because of a law or to perpetuate the field (i.e. Professors). This is a career for very few and a hobby for the rest of the market driven world.

I sound bitter. Let me digress for a moment. I’m happy, my marriage is back on track, my daughter loves me and smiles whenever she sees me, and I have started to have energy for things that I used to love. I’m cooking great, fancy meals with my wife again. I can start thinking about camping and climbing and backpacking. I might take my SCUBA gear up to Lake Tahoe. It is just that with the prospect of being in town I feel like I can do all the things that I love to do without being exhausted or resting up and dreading the next upcoming session. Seriously, I have done hardly any of things that make me, me. Now I can.

Yes, I need to find a job, but honestly I’m not too concerned about that. I have never had a hard time getting employment and I feel like I can come off as one professional SOB in most any job market. I typed this while on a break from applying for some local and even international jobs. Well anyway, I am hopeful for the future and even for this blog. Now that I have some time I will probably do more posting. Wish me luck, I’ll keep you informed.

Let There Be Science

2009-04-20T14:01:00.000-07:00

This will be a long one…

I heard a news story recently about how Texas was going to be ordering new science text books for their public schools. What caught my attention was that due to printing costs the publishers of the textbooks only use the ones sold to Texas as the format for the rest of the country. So, what the schools board of Texas tells them they want included or excluded will be what the rest of the nation gets. The conflict for me is that the Texas school board is asking that Creationism and Intelligent Design be included and that the Theory of Evolution be downplayed. They will do this by turn of phrase and disclaimers like the stickers placed in Cobb county school books.

And here we go again. You know I have had this conversation with several people since hearing about it and I always get the same series of points. “Our founding fathers were religious and never intended to take God out of the public forum”, and “Well, if God shouldn’t be in schools why is it printed on our money?” and the old standby “Why shouldn’t children be taught all sides of the issue and allowed to make up their own minds?” I can’t tell you how tired I am of that bullshit.

First: The United States Constitution at no point even mentions the word God, Deity, or Higher Power. Not in the preamble or in the articles or in the ratification. The only part that has anything to do with spirituality is the first amendment which states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. “
Now, though some might interpret this as a blank check to start infusing government with religion (especially the Christian religion ) lets look at the original wording so you can see what the thought process of the founding fathers was. "The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretence, infringed.'' - James Madison (Original wording of the First Amendment; Annals of Congress 434 (June 8, 1789).) Let me just emphasize that; No one group gets any more say than another, no national religion, no ones rights infringed. That means everyone who isn’t a Christian should have equal representation.
I’m sure some of you might argue that our founding fathers were Christians so it can be easily inferred that they meant the Judeo-Christian ethic should be put first as that is the basis of our American society. Alright, lets just pound this home for you all. "As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion; …” - (Treaty of Tripoli, 1797 - signed by President John Adams.) There it is, clearly stated by a founding father that America is not founded solely on the Christian faith.

Second: The whole “In God We Trust” on our money and the “Under God” in the pledge. Ok, the phrase “In God We Trust” was added to our currency and adopted as the “national motto” during the red scare of the 1950’s spearheaded by the rightwing religious organization The Knights of Columbus and fueled by McCarthyism. The phrase was added to freaking everything and religious texts and wording were put into schools and public buildings across the nation much like the mandatory display of swastikas in Germany during the previous decade. It basically put out the notion that If you aren’t with us, then you aren’t American. Kinda like the fervor in the beginning of the Iraq war. The original U.S. motto was “E Pluribus Unum” (from many, one), a much more fitting phrase to describe our nation if you ask me. “Under God” has much the same story and was added to the pledge. The pledge of course was made mandatory in 1940 and then later repealed on the basis of the first amendment. Summation; “In God We Trust” was not the American motto laid down by our forefathers and is actually quite counter to their ideals and linked very strongly to a disturbing time in our past.

Third: Tyranny of the majority, is an idea that if unchecked a simple majority will ruin this country by making unfair, unbalanced, and unequal. James Madison wrote in Federalist Paper 51: "It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure." It may be overwhelmingly popular to do something that the people want but, the freedoms of others and the separation of church and state must come first. Yes, Christianity is the largest religion in the country and it is for that reason we must work all the harder to make sure that its tenants don’t start tainting everything or soon we won’t have a democracy it will be a country like Iran. Public schools especially should be free from any political, social and religious agendas due to the diverse nature of the families that attend them.

In conclusion it is right that Intelligent Design and Creationism be taught in places where these beliefs can be shared by the group that wishes them taught. Places like private schools that are not funded by the state or federal government and in Sunday Schools. However, due to the nature of these ideas it is wholly improper for them to be taught in science classes. A science class is a place where theories are gathered from unbiased sources and where they can be changed and challenged. Religion on the other hand is doctrine and must remain unchallenged. The only basis for these ideas is a belief in God and the evidence stemming from one source, the Bible. Further, the ideas of some are not the ideas of all and if the classroom must play host to one religion’s ideas on creation they would have to play host to all. For these reasons it is imperative that religion not play a part in our public education programs. Benjamin Franklin once said "When a Religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its Professors are obliged to call for help of the Civil Power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."

Whoooo are You?

2009-02-22T15:43:00.000-08:00

Alright! Jeeze, don’t you people understand writer’s block/laziness/boardom/14 hour work days? Fine, filling in for the last nine months…

So, nine months ago LJ was getting to be pretty pregnant, not just a little, but like really pregnant. Then everything just kinda shifted. It’s a hard thing to express, but it was one of those life-changing moments like when you have sex for the first time. You lay there next to whoever and think back to all the health classes, church sermons and after school specials and you say to yourself “Wow…that’s it? That was what all the hype was over? I mean damn it was fun-n-all, but really that’s all there is to it? Did I do it right or is everyone else just too high-strung?”

I guess what I mean to say is that with everyone coming at me with the monumental moment it was supposed to be, all the Hallmark bullshit, all the “Oh your lives are going to change so much now”, or “How does it feel?” You’d think you were supposed to be instantly a changed man. Right?

This is my blog and on this blog I have always felt that I should cut away any artful double-speak and flowered lies. On this blog from me to you, the reader, it’s truth time. Well, I can tell you definitively. Right here and now that I feel exactly the same as I did the minute before LJ asked me “Do you remember when I had my last period?” I still have a passion for guns and action movies. My xbox time remains unchanged. And I still drop the F-bomb* on occasion.

While my life has changed to some degree, my opinions, attitudes, and lust for adventure and all things new remains unaltered. This, however, is not to suggest that I was not excited to see my child for the first time or that I am only self interested. I love my Daughter and all the things she represents. I am merely stating (mostly to the men out there, except those emotional types who think Fall-Out Boy is cool and own at least one pastel polo shirt) that having a child is not this cornerstone event in a dude’s life. Now, for a woman…yeah, probably and for many good reasons. But, for a guy, eh not from what I can see yet. It is only one moment in a long chain of life’s moments.

As an example: This Christmas my parents and grandparents went in on a big gift for me. They told me it was going to take a while due to some shipping issues, but that I should be on the lookout for a large box on my patio. As the weeks passed I grew more and more anxious. Then finally one day, between sessions, there was a knock at the door. The UPS guy had this enormous box by his feet. I quickly signed the ledger and yanked the package inside. As I did I noticed a Land’s End logo on the side. “Eh”, I thought. “Probably just the largest box they could find. My dad orders a lot of stuff from Land’s End after all.” So, with LJ on the couch I rip into the box with all sorts of anxiety. What could it be? It was kinda heavy, and I could feel the contents shifting inside. My stomach was in a knot.

Button-down shirts, slacks. My mind is racing, “This can’t be right.” I said to LJ, noticing a slightly pitying expression on her face. I go back to the box. Another button-down shirt (this one yellow, Yellow?!). I check the delivery address. “Oh my God.” I say, looking up to LJ. “It was sent to the correct address. (back to the box) My family bought me a…blazer.” I held it up for Laura to see. “Oh, I’m sorry sweetie” she says, as though to a child who is hoping for a cool ray-gun from his distant relatives and instead gets socks. Not even cool socks, but argyle.

While I appreciated the gesture. Truly I did. I am just not the kinda guy who will ever, EVER, wear that kinda stuff. But, I feel this illustrates how people get when a child is brought into your life. “Well, you’re a father now. Time to shave your Mohawk, wear douchey clothing, and eat Cinabon’s at the mall.” Let me tell you. No sir! NO! Being a good father and role model, at least in my mind, has nothing to do with how you choose to look. After all, screw everyone else. I let them dress the way they want; let them do the things they want to do and don’t judge them for it. I should get the same deference. Here is the bottom line. I have a good job where I am respected by my peers and clients. I spend as much time with my family as I can and I am a good influence (well, as far as I can tell). So, don’t think I’m a different person. I’m not. Having a baby was one of the best things that ever happened to me and I don’t want her to know anyone other than who her father really is. So, having a baby is a big life event, however it is not a life changing one. Unless you mean it in regards to the comparative amounts of dirty diapers I changed then as compared to now of course.

And to my family. I want you to understand that I know the Christmas gift was sent out of love. I am not ungrateful. I just didn’t want to have a bunch of clothes in the back of the closet gathering dust. So, I returned them and got something a little more likely to see some use; a little more me. I got a bitch’n Snowboard, and I love it! Thank you so much. I love you all.

*Fuck. Yeah, you were probably wondering if I had forgotten. How could I ever forget a hanging profanity? Don’t you people know me at all?

Testing

2009-02-21T17:59:00.000-08:00

This is a test, Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

Girls, Girls, Girls

2008-06-26T19:36:00.001-07:00

I found out a week ago, but I was out on session in very remote Nevada. The baby is a girl. I am very happy. Before you all get worked up into a pink and frilly lather though, let me be quite clear. My baby is going to be a tom-boy and awesome to boot. So, no little bonnets and lacey dresses; No pink teddy bears and Barbi dolls. This girl is going to kick ass just like her old man. Not to say that she won’t be a drop dead knock out, who can be just as feminine as any other chick. Think of a cross between Lara Croft, Joan Jett, and Katharine Hepburn.

I’m totally stoked to meet her. I have so much to show her. The only real problems I can think of are the lame, misogynistic activities that are crammed down girl’s throats nowadays. I mean from my limited experience with the girl scouts, it is damn near impossible to go hiking or repelling and don’t even think about not selling cookies. Hell, you can’t even be a dude and be involved as an adult leader. She’ll have to deal with guys always thinking she can’t drive stick (which she will by age five) or that she won’t know anything about cars. The attitudes surrounding all sorts of “this is for boys”, “that is for girls” bullshit.

Still, I won’t get too concerned about it yet. Besides if she is anything like LJ and I she won’t really care about or tolerate people like that. I just can’t wait to have this kid. Man, what a trip. Me…a dad.

I have some pictures. Now, the orange one looks a bit weird because it’s a 3D imaging software that they use, not an actual image from inside the uterus. I also cropped out the umbilical chord for you queasy wusses.

The hand one, I was told by a reliable source, was taken just after my little girl was making another gesture. From the description, and my genetic influences I can only assume it was something like this.

Finally, we are trying to come up with baby names. My personal favorite thus far is Autumn Rose, but LJ isn’t a fan. We have heard suggestions ranging from Carson to Nicollet (ewww). So, if you have any ideas be sure to shoot ‘em our way. I’ll try and keep you updated.

Cold Steel & Hot Lead

2008-04-04T16:51:00.000-07:00

*written about five months ago

Well it finally came. My Schofield is here and it is beautiful! I went to pick it up the day after I got back from my last session and I was amazed. This is the first real gun I have ever owned and I must admit that the feeling is a little weird. It came in an unremarkable cardboard box and was wrapped in an, oil soaked, plastic bag. I was astounded at how heavy it was. The thing is a hand-cannon. When I got it home I realized that I needed to not only get a case for it (so I wouldn’t have to keep it wrapped in a rag), but also a trigger lock and an actual gun safe. So, I headed back out to a local hunting store to get all this. It all cost me less than I thought (the remains of my per diem from last session) and I had it all installed before LJ got home.

I bought some ammo as well. Now, this is no peashooter, the thing is a .45 colt; the second largest caliber to be had for any normal hand gun (the shells themselves are actually bigger than any 50 caliber like the Desert Eagle) and it aint cheap. A pack of 50 cost me thirty bucks. Have I gone out and fired it? No, not as yet. Why? Well, let me be honest. I haven’t fired a real gun in years. The last one I did fire was somewhat smaller than this one and I was at a range when I did. Not to mention the gun and the ammo are both expensive as hell. So maybe I’m a little gun shy, not really a pun in this case. I will fire it though, but before I do I want to get eye, and ear protection. Again this is a very big gun and it is going to make a very loud bang, so I just want to be ready.

I did purchase snap-caps. Snap-caps are little mockup bullets that allow you to repeatedly dry fire your gun without damaging it. I got these for the purpose of getting the feel for thumbing and fanning the trigger for practice. However, this particular gun is a “top-break” which means that the barrel and revolver lever forward if a latch is pulled from the top. The latch unfortunately is released by the same motion as fanning your hand back and over the hammer. This could lead to ejecting all your rounds and looking like a complete dumb-ass in front of all the other cowboys. So, I’ve decided that fanning will either take way more control than I currently possess or it is just not the way this gun can be operated. Not that it really matters right now though; as I will be treating the thing like a rattlesnake with another head on it’s ass.

I haven’t, as yet, come up with a good name for it, but I am working on one. I think a gun and a cowboy have to have some history first before a name can come forth. You can’t just slap any old name on your trusty sidearm. It has to be sentimental, hence the whole cowboy romanticism thing. I think LJ would probably resent me using her name and my dog Zeus’ name is just too ostentatious. Maybe I could use my grandmother’s name. She’s tough as nails and I’m sure she packs a hell of a punch. I dunno. It’s still a work in progress.

Further, I don’t need any tired old, clichéd, movie reference jokes about shooting my eye out. I’m not one to be superstitious, and it was cute when I had a BB gun, but the thought of a ricocheting .45 slug hitting me in the eye is an idea I want far from my consciousness. If anything tell me I’ll get hamburgers thrown at me or I’ll sit on a tack. You know something unpleasant, yet non-lethal. Plus, I’ll be incredibly careful with it, so try not to worry.

On a completely different note, LJ wants me to grow a beard. Is that out of the blue or what? So I am currently twelve days into “Beard Growth ‘07”. I’ll see where this leads, but so far it is pretty unremarkable.

Epilogue:

I have fired it now, a few times. The fist time I fired it a piece of gun metal dislodged from somewhere and hit me in the cheek (this hasn’t happened since). What you have to realize about guns like this is that they are very open. Automatics, like the kind you see on TV where the magazine is slammed into the grip, are very closed. This is because they use all extra gas and force to chamber the next round. My gun is an exact replica of the ones used almost 140 years ago. The technology was much more rudimentary. So, you have to expect some debris when fired. Anyway, I pulled the metal shard out when I got home with some tweezers and an exacto-knife. Results? I am a piss poor shot, but to quote Hell Boy, “I’m not a very good shot, but this gun uses really big bullets.” Also, my parents got me a training gun that is a .22 colt replica, so I’ll be able to practice more often at way less the cost.

Stand by

2008-04-02T13:43:00.000-07:00

Wow, it has really been a while since I posted anything. Why? I dunno, I guess I just haven’t had the motivation. Maybe laziness or apathy. You know, I was sitting up last night and flicking through some old word files on lappy and I came across like three posts that I had written and then never posted. I sat there wondering why I hadn’t. My conclusion was that I had held myself to too high a standard. When I quit writing I had become frustrated with my posts. I felt like the words didn’t flow and that the subjects weren’t that good and that maybe I was getting stale. So, I re-read some of my old posts and realized that I was being too hard on myself. It isn’t like I had any fans, and I wasn’t going to be winning any blog awards. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I will start posting again. I may even post some of the ones that I never published.

That said; in the next couple of days I will post an old one about my schofield, with an epilogue so as to keep everyone up to date. Then I’ll finish up one I wrote about substitute teaching that I need to add a bit more to. After that I hope to start one about the band I’m in. Then…well…we’ll just see. I do feel a bit rusty. All this time not writing has had a serious toll on my style and candor on “paper”. I am somewhat eager to get going again too. Maybe to even revamp my page a bit, but let’s not get too crazy just yet. I would like to chronicle some stuff about my experiences leading up to the birth of my first kid. So, here I am throwing myself back in. Maybe this time for real.

Darth Mark

2007-11-05T19:22:00.001-08:00

LJ and I threw a Halloween party last weekend. Too bad it was the weekend after Halloween, so the turn out wasn’t great, but that wasn’t the reason we threw it after all. Some of you may already know this, but for like the last year LJ has been working on a costume for me. “A year!?” you might exclaim. Yes, well perfection takes a while.

You see last year LJ made a Mary Poppins outfit that was bang-on perfect. She sewed together a skirt and a jacket. She knitted a scarf and even went to thrift stores to find just the right hat to then craft into looking exactly like the one Julie Andrews wore in the movie. It looked so good that she even got herself a parrot head umbrella to complete the ensemble. After her success with that she asked if I wanted a costume.

Seeing her prowess behind a sewing machine I knew that I could ask for damn near anything and it would be brilliant, so I asked for the best costume ever…Darth Maul. This turned out to be no easy feat. Not only did this costume require watching Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (the worst of all the Star Wars movies) over and over, it also required gathering little bits of costume data from across the net. You see while Mary Poppins was tricky to make there is about a zero percent chance that a fat, acne scared, virgin Poppins fanatic would pick apart her costume until she snapped. While Star Wars on the other hand is serious nerd territory and if I dawned this costume at any “Con” ever, or just walked past someone who knows what a Con is I would be subject to the strictest reticule. This really put the pressure on to make it exact.

Not to mention the different disciplines this costume required. There was fabric that had to look and flow a certain way. No patterns to go off of and a fair amount of leather work. Not to mention that I would have to wear full head prosthetics and make-up. LJ had to make a body mold of me to work on all the various robes while I was on my sessions. She actually got the whole thing finished the day of the party and I had a friend come over to do my make-up. We started at about 5pm and got done right at 8 (party time). The results? Spectacular. I was photographed all night and people kept asking about my costume. LJ and Nate (the friend) took great pride in this and rightfully so. For my part, I was able to sit still for three hours while having make-up applied, have the right body type, look menacing and kill people with the force.

Oh, I may have neglected to mention but my eyes weren’t photo shopped I am wearing prescription yellow and red contacts. They are great. I can drive or fight Jedi with them in. Since LJ was making the costume so precisely I felt a desire to help complete it with a perfect prop light saber. I had a guy make it for me out of condensed aluminum. Yes, it cost a lot, but damn it, if you are going to go through all the trouble of getting the make-up on, wearing special contacts and having the perfect costume why would you ruin it with some crappy knock-off, plastic toy? This beauty will be mounted on my wall next to all my other swords. Hell, the clasp on my belt is even movie correct.

So anyway, here are some of the pictures taken early on that night because we were worried about my paint coming off; it didn’t by the way.

Merry Halloween!

2007-10-08T16:47:00.000-07:00

I am disgusted; there I said it. The feeling has been mounting year after year, until now it has come to a head. As with most things I was able to bottle up my growing rage inside so that I could release it at an appropriate moment like at a girl scout selling cookies or at the teenager handing my food over at the drive through. Yet, now I feel it’s my duty to address the problem strait on.

Christmas has crossed the line! In years past Christmas was held firmly in the later weeks of November and into December. Now though, when LJ and I went to check out the Halloween display at Target we were greeted with massive displays of tacky Santa Clauses in glittering lights situated just behind the paltry Halloween display. Like the loud drunk at a holiday party begging for your attention just behind your friend that you haven’t seen in a while. It is unbelievable to me that Christmas decorations were put on the shelves in the late weeks of September and will remain there slowly engulfing other holiday displays, like a growing cancer, until December is over. That’s over three months! More than a quarter of the year!

I can’t speak for everyone, but I love every holiday individually. Halloween is probably my favorite though. So, this is a call to arms to all my fellow Halloween’ers (that didn’t sound right). Maybe we should call ourselves something else…like…pumpkin fuckers; I’ll keep working on it. Anyway, we need to send a message to Christmas by kidnapping Santa, tying him up and taking over his holiday. Hmmm, sounds like a Tim Burton movie plot. Maybe instead we should just spray paint all the tacky decorations black and hang little jack-o-lanterns from the fake trees. We can beat the store managers with large sacks of candy or dead cats and do the thriller dance in the parking lots of all major retailers, before the cops show up.

I like that way better. Screw Christmas! We need more holidays with a tinge of the macabre. Maybe we should start hanging decorations for other holidays that have a slight morbidity. Like nooses around the necks of leprechauns or an evil looking bunny carrying severed heads in its basket. Christmas is pretty good already, though we’d have to use nailed up on a cross Jesus, instead of baby Jesus. Now that’s grisly.

The Tap’s Run Dry

2007-09-27T12:08:00.000-07:00

My mother keeps bugging me to write more in my blog. I must confess that I would like to as well, yet every time I sit down to do it I hit a block. A writer’s block. LJ thinks I’m just out of practice and maybe she’s right. She says that when I was writing every week I was brimming with creative juices. That from putting my brain in a regular creative flow kept the ideas poring from my fingers and onto the page.

I don’t really know what got me out of the routine. Maybe I got bored. Maybe my life got too hectic. Still, I can remember coming up with terrific ideas and actually being eager to sit down and type it up. I would be chilling with friends or riding in the car and I’d think, “Holy jeeze, that would make a great post.” Now though, I don’t even think about it. I might start a blog and then decide it’s not a very good subject or that I am not giving it justice on paper. So, hopefully this might start some new flow of creative inspiration.

There are just so many things going on right now. I am still saving for the gun I want. I did a civil war reenactment; as a private in the CSA. I quit my old job and went to work with my old employer and I’m getting all sorts of job offers from other archaeological firms. I started smoking again (hold your indignant harrumphing). I had TMJ and went to the hospital. And I got all my friends here into paintball. See? Lots of stuff going on.

Not to mention all the stuff going on in our country and the world. The candidates for president (pretty much all of whom I have contempt for). The housing market. Our sinking relations with the rest of the world. I mean there is some fantastic literary fodder to be talking about and still nothing.

Hell, even now as I sit here typing this up I can’t wait to be done with it. What the hell? Ya know, about once a year I sit down and flick through some of my old posts. Yeah, yeah I know; sounds a bit narcissistic doesn’t it? Honestly though, I do it to get inspiration or to see how I typed things up. It’s kinda like rereading an old diary. It gives you a feel for the time. Maybe I need to be less concerned with quality and just focus on getting a complete thought out. So, here is my promise to you, the eager reader. I will try and post something once a week until I get my mojo back. You’ll have to excuse any poor writing or not so clever posts as I’m sure it may take a while to get back into the swing, but I’ll try. So, next week…new post.

Oh, and if you guys got some good ideas on subjects then leave ‘em in a comment. I won’t promise to use them, but maybe it’ll help.

Freakin' Causes

2007-08-16T22:10:00.000-07:00

I was listening to NPR recently when I heard a story that made me think about “causes”. It seems that Green Peace in their patchouli smelling and eco-addled brains decided to beat their heads against a wall by building a re-creation of Noah’s Ark on top of Mt. Ararat (the supposed landing zone of the “real” Noah’s Ark). Like, ya know, to like totally raise awareness of like global warming ‘n stuff…man. I just love it when groups decide they need to “raise awareness”. It’s like listening to someone telling you something everyone already knows while jerking their protester comrade off. “Hey man, did you know that like running your car burns gas. Hey, don’t get any in my dreads bro!” Nobody wants to hear it and really nobody wants to have to see it.

Kinda like how PETA has decided to spin its wheels by holding a public protest outside a f ur farm in Texas. “Well, what’s so bad about that”, you might be asking; the simple fact that all of them will be naked and covered in red paint. “Again, what’s so bad about that?” Think about it. It’ll be a bunch of malnourished, aging, hairy (because as you know they are pro-fur not anti-fur), angry protesters. Probably with a good amount of dudes in there too, and no one needs to see that.

Remember “Hands Across America”? It was that nationwide stunt that sparked our country into dramatic and everlasting action to fight hunger and homelessness. Yeah, remember hunger and homelessness? Whew, sure glad that we stomped those two things out; now lets all go out for free ice cream. The whole event did about as much good as pissing into the wind.

I just feel that all these groups don’t get it. We all fucking know about “Global Warming”. You doing some stupid, ill-conceived stunt isn’t going to hammer it home anymore. We all know that you morons hate fur. But what you want is for people to join your bandwagon and not just decide that being naked and covered in paint is the surest way to have all your friends thinking you’re “special”. Finally, some notion that you are going to end something (hunger) that has been around since the earth started to spin, just by holding fucking hands is about as nuts as thinking you can slow down time by spinning. I tried that when I was like eight and let me tell you from experience, it will only work for couple of seconds at best.

Still, I felt like there was probably a buck to be made here. I mean how much do you think those Prius’s and Patagonia shirts cost? It’s expensive to be a sanctimonious hippy. So, I handed the job over to my Half-Assed Innovations crew, remember them, to see what they could come up with; and I have to admit they really surprised me.

Let me introduce “The Exercise in Futility: Exercycle”. For the angry protester who wants to fight the causes (to as much effect) from the comfort of their own home. The Futility-Exercycle comes complete with “wheels to spin” to no practical result. Other than maybe the repetitive and possibly brain damaging movement of the plate that will give you the very real sensation of repeatedly “beating your head against a wall”. And lastly, the pedal motion turns a tiny generator that will operate a small, but powerful, electric fan; so that one might bask in the spraying droplets of your very own urine whilst “pissing into the wind”! All components of the Futility-Exercylce are made from recycled nothing. That’s right none of it is recycled at all. The best part of all though is that all of the proceeds go to fighting need. My need! Of stuff like video games and guns and like sports cars.

Clint Eastwood, Eat Your Heart Out

2007-08-04T14:30:00.000-07:00

I have been saving my pennies for a while now; ever since last year in fact. Right now I have around $600 at my disposal. That is enough to buy a Play Station 3 (the nice one) or maybe a good tattoo and even a spiffy new snowboard. However, I have fallen head over heals with the idea of getting a gun.

Not just any gun mind you. What I want is a Schofield, model 3, top-break, .45 colt pistol. This was one of the first guns to ever be manufactured to fire cartridges. Before that revolvers had to be arduously loaded one cylinder at a time with powder, wadding and shot. This gun (the model 3) was modified by General Schofield to break forward while simultaneously ejecting all spent shells to allow for a faster reload and greater access to all cylinders at the same time. Wild Bill Hickock had one; Jesse James carried two and it’s said the Wyatt Earp used one in the shootout at the O.K. Coral. Hell, my hero Indian Jones packed one in “The last Crusade”. It is an amazing gun. Enough of me blathering on though.

So, cognizant of the fact that I have never purchased a gun and that I had no ideas of what the laws were in regards to where I could carry and fire it, I decided to do a little research. Now, anyone reading this from the east coast or California needs to prepare for a shock. There are almost no laws in Nevada for guns in general. Not just hand guns, but any guns. You could buy a Tommy gun an M16 or an Uzi if you so desired. “Well maybe but you can’t carry those nasty guns anywhere” you might be thinking. Not so! I can buy the .45 caliber hand-cannon I was just talking about, load it, then strap it to my hip and go to the mall to get a smoothie! Let me tell you there is nothing as satisfying as sippin’ down a “Berry Blast with energy boost” and packing iron at the same time. Where can I fire it? Anywhere, as long as I’m a mile from any buildings and so forth.

The only stipulations on the laws that I could find was that you couldn’t carry your gun into any building that is governmental, has metal detectors, a school, or has a sign that says no guns allowed (of which I have seen none). That said; you can strap on your favorite piece, march right into Barnes and Nobel and head strait to the harlequin western novels. Oh, almost forgot. You don’t need to wait to buy a gun. If I’m out getting bed sheets at Target and decide “Shit, you know I think I should get a 50 caliber Desert Eagle at the corner gun store on the way back home”, I can. No waiting periods! God bless Nevada. I may have even enticed LJ into getting a gun for herself. She may want a colt pistol and a lever action rifle. I love that girl.

We went to In-N-Out to get a milk shake the other day and this kid sitting at the table next to us was talking to his brother. I wasn’t really paying attention until I heard him proclaim loudly “I’m the sheriff!” At this point LJ and I locked eyes for a moment. It was plain that we were both thinking the same thing so I vocalized it. I uttered softly “I’m the Sheriff.” Well maybe not yet but soon…soon.

Kill Yourself

2007-06-17T23:26:00.000-07:00

‘Cause No One Else is Gonna Do it for Ya

Don’t think you can handle one more pointless office meeting? Co-workers really, really, getting on your nerves? Someone ate your lunch, again! Time to do yourself a favor…and die.

LJ and I were web surfing today when we came across this fun game on [adult swim] dotcom. I love the premise. You have to find a way of killing yourself before time runs out and you have to go to another office meeting. Brilliant! We spent a good thirty minutes playing. I managed to off myself in only two trys. Method? Lets just say impaled with an umbrella. Give it a quick try and see. We loved it.

Five Minutes to Kill (Yourself)

Watch Cho’ Mouth

2007-06-06T21:47:00.000-07:00

Now, I don’t know if you would consider me an experienced husband. I’ve only been married for about four years. Still, I feel I have seen just about everything when it comes to causes, and possible escapes from, arguments with my spouse. Even with all of my vast experience, whit and charm I still find myself tripping over an awkwardly phrased statement once in a while. Oh yes, I have enough foresight to stay away from certain “hot subjects”, unless I’m actually looking for a fight that is. However, every once in a while my internal diplomat takes leave and my personality and my mouth are left to ride roughshod over any conversational topics. I make mention of this because I got into trouble a few days ago over something as innocent as cookies.
LJ, at my insisting, made some delicious oatmeal raisin cookies. It was the first time she had ever made these particular kinds of cookies so she was a bit nervous over how they would come out.

*Note: all that follows is my uneducated, stupid, and tasteless opinion. It should not reflect on the actual yumminess of the cookies in question. I am a dumb ol’ guy with dumb ol’ guy opinions.

The first batch tasted awesome, yet they were still kinda soft (think of half baked cookie dough). She added some flour and tried again. This batch was pretty much the right consistency, if a little “bready”, but the spices were now off due to the extra flour. The third batch was adjusted to have more spices and ended up being a little overpowering. When LJ asked how they tasted I said something like “Great! I love them. Thanks for making them”. To my almost immediate sorrow this simple assertion, while well intentioned, was spoken with just a hint of falsehood.
I, like most men, can sense when I’ve fucked up before a word is spoken. It is similar to the sensation you get on a trampoline. You are headed up and everything is great, but then gravity takes hold and you start heading down, down, down. You can just feel it in your gut. I imagine ‘Scooter’ Libby felt much the same way when he was told he had to go back to court to explain some inconsistencies in his former testimony.
“What was that supposed to mean?” “What was ‘what’ supposed to mean?” I asked in the most futile of male time-buying statements. “That tone.” At this point I knew I was busted. It was time for damage assessment and control. There was just one problem though, my god damned internal diplomat was AWOL and I was on my own. “Well, the cookies are good. They really are. They’re just not the best I’ve ever had.”
Don’t start. I already know. I knew as the words were coming out of my mouth like dripping napalm. I just couldn’t stop. It was like watching a car with no brakes barreling down a hill. You know it won’t end well, but you’re on the edge of your seat to see just how bad it will be. The answer; bad. I don’t need to go into the rest. You all know. There was screaming, heartfelt reassurances, veiled and not so veiled threats concluding with an uncomfortable cease fire.
The resolution reads like a declaration of surrender. 1) I had to take all the remaining cookies to work to pass out and then report on all the compliments they received. 2) I may never get oatmeal raisin cookies again. 3) I have to be “on top” for the foreseeable future and maybe longer. All things considered I feel like I got off easy. I could be eating Ramen Noodles right now in a cheap motel room. It is just remarkable how a simple tone and then a thoughtless chain of words can lead to a total breakdown in communication. After that phrase was uttered it was Armageddon. Thing is, I’m not so sure that this will ever end. I can easily see my dad and my grandfather enduring the same reprimands to much the same effect. LJ will get pissed at me for using the wrong tone when referring to her cooking at age, like, eighty and I’ll never have stuffed manicotti again. Oh well, at least she’ll still be cooking.

Bye Bye Iraq

2007-05-26T09:58:00.000-07:00

Ok, I didn’t wanna get into this. Really, I was trying to avoid this subject on my blog for the last, like, four years. However, with the inevitable folding of the democrats and the mountain of money they have begrudgingly handed over to our president, I feel I have to vent. Yeah I must once again shout into the wind only to have my voice met with a few sardonic replies and then be cast into the vacuous nothing that is the blog-asphere.

Well here it is anyway; the war in Iraq is stupid. It’s dumb on so many different levels that I will surely miss some points, but I will strive to hit the big ones. Also, realize that any argument you may hear on FOX NEWS (the leader in US propaganda) about why we need to be there is based on Rupert Murdock’s perverted sense of blood lust.

9/11 was one of the worst days in American history. Many people died in a horrible attack which was carried out with guerilla style tactics that we were, honestly, just not prepared for. I don’t even blame Bush for sitting in that classroom and continuing to read to those children. None of us would have wanted to be that man, at that time, on that day. But action had to be taken, and the American people wanted retribution. The president had to do something. Unfortunately, for most of the rest of the world and especially for us, he chose to rally the troops and run strait at Iraq in a huge hurry.

Here’s where it gets weird. He had video tapped confessions (hell, boasts) from this asshole named Osama bin laden who was implicated by the previous administration and who had been in the terrorist game for a while. Yet, the president had to carefully construct evidence in the form of yellow cake, WMD’s, aluminum tubes, and an asshole dictator to coerce a war on a country that either was only loosely involved or not involved at all with the whole thing. Why? I don’t speak for everybody, and I wouldn’t presume to, but I think most everyone would have been happy to go after Osama bin laden rather than topple Iraq. Frankly, I was a bit confused when the president said we were going to war in Iraq. Didn’t we just get hit with airplanes flown by terrorists? We didn’t get shot at with WMD’s. So, after all the other trumped up crap gets defunked what was the reason for going into Iraq?

“Iraq harbors and promotes terrorists.” Well what country doesn’t? Ireland has the I.R.A., Sri Lanka has the Tamil Tigers, Libya has Muammar Qadaffi, and the list goes on. Now, before you start thinking that we are any better realize that America has been using the Special Forces to train foreign nationals to use guerrilla warfare for years. We have been the most active nation in the world for aiding and sponsoring global terrorism and we have been doing it long before Al Qaeda. “Oh, but we do it for the good of blah, blah, blah…” yeah, let Sheppard Smith read you another bedtime story. What this boils down to is that we are trying to pull the strings of other governments and in the process we are killing innocent people. It doesn’t make it any less our responsibility just because someone else is pulling the trigger. I won’t even get into the whole thing with Posada. Yes America, you are as guilty if not guiltier as Iraq was supposed to be.

“Well, Leaving Sadam in charge of Iraq? That would have been a better option?” (Sigh) Ok, Sadam was a fucker, but there are a lot of fuckers out there. Have we invaded North Korea, Sudan, or any other country that has some fucker dictator? No! We made Iraq that lucky country. Now, I think we may have lost sight here. Sadam killed a lot of people and he needed to come to some sort of justice. However, now there are daily bombings in the streets. Militias are running the cities with their own brand of thug-law and death squads roam around unchecked torturing and murdering hundreds. Then there are all the atrocities our poor soldiers have committed. I’m not saying they’re all bad, but I am saying that given a crazy lawless situation where there is no infrastructure to administer any reciprocity and some bad apples are going to do some bad things. In the process they are going to make us look bad. Bam! You have just lost the high ground America. I won’t go into the humanitarian abuses at the prisons.

“Well what should we do? Stop fighting over there so they can attack us back here in The States?” I love this argument. The complete lack of logic with a sweet luster of irrationality and followed with just a hint of denial…ahhhh, like fine wine. What the hell idiot? Let me make an analogy for you. You love your back porch. It is a comfortable, pleasant place to be. Then one day you get bitten by a mosquito and it welts up and itches. Now, what would most people do? Would they buy a citronella candle or maybe put up some screens to lessen the likelihood of getting bitten again? Well no, apparently they hire some high school kids from down the street to stand around in the backyard swatting at the little bastards day and night. Oh, and best of all, you get the local retard to manage the whole operation from beside you on the porch. Never mind it is costing a freakin’ fortune and all the kids are managing to do is get tired, sweaty, homesick and lose blood. You should defiantly just keep doing it. I mean, it should work…some day…right?

Here’s the thing. England was fighting with us and they got bombed by extremists. Spain was bombed too, and I guarantee to you right here and now that some day we will be bombed again. So, there is no way that by fighting a war somewhere else, the people you are fighting against will be less pissed at you. Try and understand that when people get pissed, they are more likely to bomb you.

So, now that we are there and haven’t found WMD’s and toppled a government, are we safe? Fuck no; Bin laden is still out there Al Qaeda is still operating (stronger than ever I might add) and most of the Middle East is emboldened to fight against the western occupiers. All we have achieved is to make ourselves look dumb and arrogant to the rest of the world. Oh, and we know, for sure, that Iran and North Korea are making nuclear weapons. So, are we going to run after them now? Most of our supporters are gone and we as Americans have the “Patriot Act” to show for it. Yippy! So, in the effort to protect ourselves from some obscure group of terrorists we have metaphorically shot our selves in the foot. Now we can enjoy even less freedoms than we had before.

If you haven’t guessed it already, I support a troop withdrawal. We have to face the facts that there is already a civil war going on over there and we caused it. All that is going to happen now is that our presence is going to ensure that the war drags on and that Americans will get killed. It’s as much a meat grinder as Vietnam was. Yup, we lost. But don’t beat yourselves up about it too much. The war was lost the second our president declared it on an ideal (terrorism), especially an ideal that gets stronger with the more martyrs you create. Here’s a tip for the future. You wanna win a war, then set reachable goals. Not some nebulous idea that frankly will require you killing non-combatants and maintaining a force in a foreign nation forever. I just want to hear one reason as to why we should stay. Still, there will be fifty more reasons to leave.

Don’t Tread on Me

2007-05-13T12:57:00.000-07:00

More and more I have noticed that our rights are being eroded away with seemingly endless litigation, new laws, or local ordinances. I guess this struck me one day while I was listening to the radio and it just leapt out at me as to how many stories involved some fundamental freedom that is, was or will soon be taken away. It kind of astounded me that we can express that America is the land of the free when there are so many laws that take those freedoms away. Now, bear with me here. I am not talking about laws that protect us from each other. Such as speed limits, and littering laws, and of course murder, arson, theft etc. What I am enraged about is the government taking away free will. It really all boils down to fear.

For instance: Same sex marriage. Now, here you have two people who love each other and want to be with each other and want the same classification, title and rights applied to a straight couple. A marriage between these two people will have no bearing on anyone but them, so why should the neighbor across the street have a say in what they can and can’t do? This legal debacle is as insane as if you wanted to try and apply the same laws to mixed race couples. Fucking ridiculous. The foundation argument I have heard against people having this right is that it would erode the sanctity of, what they consider to be, real marriage (between two straight people), as though a staggering divorce rate wasn’t doing that already. All else aside; who the fuck gave someone, not in this relationship, the right to tell them what they can and can’t do? Why shouldn’t they have the same rights as others? When did the government get the ability to restrict who we can love?

I’ve read the arguments on both sides of the issue and overwhelmingly the disinters arguments always boil down to fear. They are afraid of something they don’t understand or can’t abide. They mask this cowardice in social arguments about how it will hurt community values and the roles of family. “How might it affect children?” is a common argument. Well, I’m sure that a child being raised in a home with two parents, regardless of sex, is better off than one being raised by the state. Yes, homosexual couples should be allowed to adopt.

I believe that a government is needed to protect the rights of its citizens, even from one another. A government should only enact laws that punish those who stand in the way of someone’s freedom of choice. I’m not saying that one shouldn’t be able to effect change in laws if it conflicts with their beliefs. Yet, at the same time that person’s moral compass should not be enforced on others who may not share his view. If we really want to say that we have freedom of religion in this country then you must be willing to accept and defend all philosophies not only your own view.

OK, here it is; there is no argument anywhere that is righteous enough or defendable enough to logically give reason as to why any two people should not be together in the same way as anyone else. That goes for any couple of age disparity (accepting minors), race, socioeconomic classes, or sex. The government should never have a say in what two consenting adults can do as long as it doesn’t directly hurt anyone else… ever. If you want a moral high ground then you have to be willing to live with something that you may not like. Otherwise you aren’t really an American patriot; you are truly yearning to live in a theocracy; one that aligns with your own moral idealism. America was founded on the concept of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If you can’t live with what that may mean for your neighbor then move to a country that was set up to restrict people’s rights.

On a completely different subject…

I was googling the other day when I came across this picture of Robert DeNiro from Taxi Driver. Weird huh?

At Long, Long Last

2007-05-10T21:42:00.000-07:00

For months I had been looking forward to the trip LJ and I would take back to Pensacola for my graduation ceremony. Was it weird to finally walk across the stage? Hmmm, it was kinda like the first time I had sex. There was all this build up for years, I felt like I was the last guy on earth to finally get it, and when it was happening I was too worried about screwing it up to enjoy it… not to mention all the spectators. It was good to have everything finalized though, if not for me then for all my fans out there (you know who you are). The expectations I had, for gatherings and lodgings, activities etc., were a bit high. Still, everything surpassed what I had imagined.

It’s kinda weird how some people can make you feel like you never left. My friend group down there (my crew as I refer to them) are just that sort. LJ has the propensity to worry and fret over every little thing. It’s not her fault; it’s just how she is. She was concerned that there would be a bit of a rift between us and our old crew, but as soon as we got there it was like old times. We couldn’t have felt more welcome.

Hell, everyone reading this was there so let me just take a step back and before I make this an epic novel, let me instead just say thank you. I had a great time. When I was a child my parents quickly discovered that I didn’t do too well with big groups of kids at my birthday parties. I would get upset and run away to be alone or I would be visibly stressed, however I must feel close enough to everyone down there that I don’t have those issues. Everyone who knows me also knows that I have a problem with crowds. Still, even on the night when everyone was at our hotel and there was barely enough room to sit I was completely comfortable. That is really saying something for me. You guys are totally my BFF’s and I won’t forget it when I conquer the world.

Now its time for some thank you’s…

Let me again say thank you to Mike and Ryan (and anyone else involved) with my cartoon portrait. I don’t have it here in Reno yet, but it’s on the way. I already have a place chosen to hang it. You guys rock… (sniff)…you rock really hard…really.

And…

Though I know she’ll never read this, I wanted to thank my sister-in-law for the champagne she got LJ and I at Jackson’s. That was really classy. LJ and I were completely surprised. It also acted as a de-stresser for us. We were kinda pent up about the whole thing, but that really loosened us up.

Also…

Thanks Nana and Pa for the fancy watch you got me and have been holding for two years. Glad you could finally get rid of it and I love it. I haven’t gotten it fitted yet; however the weekend is rapidly approaching. I hope to check my watch as ostentatiously as possible, and as frequently as etiquette permits the next time LJ and I go out.

Last but certainly not least…

I wanted to thank my parents for the sword. My father had told me years before that he would get me a sword for graduating college; he made good on that promise with a real work of art. The sword is an authentic, hand made, replica of an 18^th century naval cutlass. Let me just say that I have handled swords for sparring and replicas of all varieties and at all expenses not to mention more than a handful of the real deal. I won’t go too much into it, but this sword is really quality. I couldn’t have been more pleased. The inscription on the blade reads, “Life is good, Mark, and why shouldn’t it be? You’re a pirate after all.” Truer words were never spoken. I pick it up everyday, I go to Krispy Kreme with it, I check the mail with it, I have my co-workers through my lunch at me so I can slice stuff in half with it! I love it!

Thanks again to everybody, for the parties, the hangin’ out and everything else. If you feel like you didn’t get enough me time then just send an RSVP and come to Reno! Seriously, LJ and I miss all of you. Plus, I can wow you with my incredible snowboarding abilities (or falling as some would call it).

100 Posts and still going…strong?

2007-04-03T13:34:00.000-07:00

Well, here it is my 100^th post. Wow, let me just soak this up for a second (pause). Whew, what a moment. I would just like to take some time to thank everyone who kept this thing going…namely myself. I would also like to promise that this blog will continue for as long as I care to keep posting and that it will be as random as ever, if not more so. Also, I vow that you the four people who regularly read this drivel will constantly be spoon-fed my outrageous notions, poor grammar, and ridiculous conclusions as a courtesy for your readership; good for you. Now on to the post.

Robots…Giant Robots!

Robo 1: I was reading through some yahoo headlines the other day when I saw that the trailer for the upcoming Transformers movie that actually showed what the autobots and decepticons would actually look like…cool. So I checked it out and I gotta tell you I was a little disappointed. Watch the trailer and you tell me. I guess, that to me, they look kinda too wired. By this I mean they don’t really have that definite exo-body like the original toys or cartoon. They look too much like a Disney auto matron without its skin. There are wires and hydraulics totally visible that compose most of their form. So, there is very little in the way of metal body components to let you identify what robot is what. I couldn’t pick out a single character besides Optimus Prime and that was only because I saw him as a big rig first.

Secondly, I am wondering how they are going to handle Megatron, the villainous leader of the decepticons. If you remember from the cartoon series his transformation would turn him from a menacing badass giant robot with an enormous laser cannon on his arm into a tiny laser pistol that would have to be fired by one of his subordinates.

VS.

A bit lack luster for such a cool bad guy. Not to mention the obvious physical issues like going from the size from a giant robot to the mass of a relatively tiny gun. So what are they going to do with him? Maybe turn him into a futuristic tank or something, that would be pretty cool.

Robo 2: LJ and I were driving some place when on the side of the road my nerd-eyes detected an old friend. Who was it? Why R2-D2.

Although now, apparently, he has gotten work as a postage box. Lucas must have cut his ass out of any character rights or post movie marketing deals so he is spending his days on the streets collecting mail for a living. Not too big a stretch if you consider his main roll in Star Wars: A New Hope was to deliver a message to Obi Wan Kenobi. The US postal service is running a pretty big add campaign right now to determine the choice for a new Star Wars stamp. This promises to be a bigger deal than the whole young or fat Elvis controversy (I voted young Elvis). Still, I encourage you guys to become a part of Star Wars history and cast a vote. I did. Also, look closely around town you may see R2 on some lonely sidewalk.

Robo 3: I saved the best for last. I was surfing some news blogs when a rather funny and unbelievable title hit me. “Jacko looks for a jackpot in Vegas with 50-ft. robot”. What the hell?! Let me summarize if you aren’t going to follow the convenient link I put up. Michael Jackson is currently in negotiations and planning stages of building an actual 50ft robot of himself that will wander the Nevada desert firing lasers and…I dunno…moonwalking I guess. I have one word to say about this, AWESOME! I would contribute to this project if I could. Hell, Rhodes had a colossus; New York has a giant statue in the bay and Vegas needs to have a fifty foot MJ that shoots lasers and is capable of molesting entire orphanages with a single robo-thrust. Seriously this is a really cool idea and if they could get it to work then I think they should. Japan, eat your heart out. You guys thought you had the whole giant mech market cornered; well think again.

Spoonfuls of Sugar

2007-03-24T10:51:00.000-07:00

Mary Poppins once said “In every chore there is an element of fun. If you find the fun then snap (snap), the job becomes a game.” I have always felt that taking my dog on his afternoon walk was a bit of a chore. We have to chris-cross the apartment complex with him pulling and sniffing everywhere. The crowning moment though is his poo. He usually waits until…well forever to do his business. That is until I discovered something.

I have found that if I put a little resistance on his lease, you know just sort of pull back, his poo will start to push out. Sorry, I don’t know a better, more euphemistic or poetic way of phrasing it. I pull, he pushes. Now, bearing this in mind, picture his lease. It is one of those retracting deals with the thumb button that allows it to lock; similar to a fishing reel. There you have all the elements; and what makes this nastiness so fun you ask?

Well, it requires some skill, those poo’s don’t just line up and jump out like army parachuter’s out of a plane…no, no. It’s like fishing. You know, he’ll pull and I’ll give some resistance, he’ll turn in another direction and I’ll give him some line. Pull-give, stop-reel in, and so forth until I have caught a brown trout. I consider myself a rather accomplished Turd Angler. It is like watching one of those fishing shows on ESPN 8 (the ocho), except way more fucked up. The weirdest thing; you can tell if its gonna be a big one on the line. LJ was quite amazed when I showed her. She will stand there with the net (dog-bag) and I will yell directions. “Get ready! Whoa! This one’s a fighter” and she will reply with “Keep it down.” She’s like my assistant. Now, if I could just find a taxidermist with a sense of humor.

Retirement might just KILL me!

2007-03-22T22:31:00.001-07:00

Admit it. Most of you are staying in some crap job, that you hate, or are striving to attain some job with a good pension or 401K for that one shining prize…retirement. This last week I have had nothing to do. What can I say, archaeology is slow right now. I have been sitting at home, watching unhealthy amounts of Net TV and sleeping. It is MADDENING! I am going slowly insane, and honestly that’s a pretty short trip for some of us. The real kicker; its only been a week. I don’t know what I’m going to do come, like what, eighty I guess; that’s when retirement will be for my generation right? If this week has been any indicator I will be full-on nuts within a month. You want a somewhat accurate glimpse at what that will be like; just watch The Shining with Jack Nicholson. I mean I may even still be writing this freakin’ novel, only it won’t be as coherent and as well versed as ol’ Jack’s.

You know, I used to have this neighbor at the end of my street. This dude was an old man that scared all the little kids to death. I swear to you that he sat by his front door windows, in the shadows, and waited for someone to set a misplaced toe on one blade of his grass. He would run out of his house screaming like you had taken liberties with his wife while shitting in his cereal. This guy threatened to take my bike away and crush it in the garbage truck one day; I was terrified. Now though, I realize that this guy merely had nothing else to do. The poor bastard probably had to choose between daytime TV and waiting to scare the souls out of little defenseless children. Not much of a choice really. After this week I have to almost admire the guy’s dedication to his unwilling past time.

I just don’t know how some people do it. Honestly, I look at the situation with my distant Uncle. The guy got up every morning and went down to the Y and did laps in the pool. Then he went to work at his gear manufacturing company (think Spacely Sprockets, only he was Mr. Spacely). He would work ‘till like noon when he would go do executive lunches and meetings. Yet, he would still have time to get ripped like an Irish sailor with my then young adult dad at night, before driving home and passing out in his mansion. The next day the cycle would repeat. Now, he turned his company over to his board of directors at the age of eighty-five and died two days later. Some would look at that like my uncle worked himself to death. Personally, I think work may have been making life worthwhile enough to keep on going.

I might enjoy retirement if I could find something cool to do with myself. My wife had an uncle who raced stock cars on the weekends. Well, one weekend he wins this really big race. On his victory lap, after he has crossed the finish line, he has a massive heart attack and dies in his moment of sweet glory. Hands down the best death I have ever heard of. My wife thinks it was horrible because he was still relatively young. My opinion, what if the rest of that guys life was nothing but a gentle downhill slide into senility and regret? I like the whole idea of going out on top.

I guess the role model I should really be looking at is my grandfather. The guy retires from the air force and what does he do? (Throat clearing) He builds a house, gets a masters in education, studies to take the BAR exam, gets a real-estate license, goes on virtually pro-level seniors golf tours, learns about computers and the internet, takes piano lessons and is still finding more and more things to occupy himself. The guy is squeezing more life into what most would consider the finale days than some people ever do…ever. Inspiring stuff.

Still, I don’t know if I’m that much of a self-starter. Maybe…naw. No, I think, if this week has been any kind of indicator. I am going to have to find myself a good comfortable chair to sit in while keeping watch out my window, and waiting for some little bastard to set foot on my property. Only there will be less bluster and more actual bike smashing I think. People hate empty threats.

TV and Ice-Cream

2007-03-22T12:17:00.000-07:00

It’s been a while since my last post. I’ve been saving creative energies for the book I’m writing. Yeah, I decided that turning an idea directly into a screenplay might be harder than developing the plot, characters, and clever dialog in an honest to God novel. I don’t have any grand desires though; I think this will be a short story…maybe a full-on novel by the time I’m done. Not to mention that being my first effort it may stink on wheels. It takes for freakin’ ever to get the dialog right and convey what is going on through action and descriptive narrative without repeating yourself. Anyway, I hope to be done with the first chapter by May. Also, I have decided not to publish it online without any copyright protection. I will let any interested friends read it when I’m a little further along, if they so desire.

On to the post…

I was watching the HBO series “Carnival” the other night with LJ when I started getting a little pissed-off. I started feeling like I was being strung along (if you haven’t seen this show then think of the show “Lost”, same basic idea). The thing about both of these shows is that they want to keep their mystery, and that’s fine. Yet, in doing so they never answer any fundamental questions or situations they pose.

For example (and I’ll use Lost since it’s a network show and more people are likely to be familiar with it) at the beginning of Lost’s season one the audience was shown the activities and aftermath of some unseen monster. At the end of season one you still had no idea what the monster was, why it was doing what it was doing, or what its origins were; hell, you never even saw a good long glimpse of it. The writers revealed nothing. There was never a resolution to any of the fundamental mysteries only some resolutions to the mini-dramas that the characters brought about themselves. This actually caused a bit of a backlash in the form of outraged emails and letters from fans. So, in season two they tried to have more resolved while preserving some of the mystery.

My friends this is crap. The writers or producers will throw their characters in to wild situations that may or may not lead to someone getting killed while only lightly touching on the paramount concerns that originally lit your interest. I hear that season three is basically just a hostage situation. What about the “Dharma Initiative”? What about the monster? What happened with that static discharge at the end of season two? The series Carnival is much the same. The lead character goes on some winding path that could go on for as long as they need it to while never making any tangible headway towards the original goal.

Then it came to me, just as it did the night that I waited in shaking anticipation to catch the first episode of Beverly Hills 90210, this is a God damned soap opera! Oh, the window dressing is better, but still there it is. These shows could go on forever and never have any resolutions. This is why I am a big believer in limited run series. Think about it. If the writers, producers, studios, etc. knew that they only had three or four seasons to develop the characters and get the plot wrapped up the stories would be way more cohesive; the shows that much better. As it is you see more and more zany situations and characters sliding in and out of cheesy soap-opray romances and affairs. C’mon we’re too smart for that…right?

I know I am sounding like a broken record, but honestly some of the best shows I have ever seen were the ones whose production team didn’t think they were coming back next season (almost any show on [Adult Swim]). The stories are so much better and progressive. Anyway, I guess America isn’t ready for that. We are a nation that has allowed SNL to stay on the air WAY longer than it should have. Should I throw The Simpsons in there? Yeah, I think I have to. I guess the only point I can make here is don’t get too involved with any one show for too long. After all isn’t getting that one great ice-cream flavor for a short time, way better than always getting the same flavor all the time?

I’m a Quitter

2007-03-06T17:43:00.000-08:00

Well, it’s been a year and I did it. I have not touched a cigarette, cigar, pipe (of any description), joint, bong, hookah, etc. for one whole year. Thus proving, once and for all, that I could quit any time I felt like. Now I will be able to enjoy as many cigarettes as I wish without any feelings of dependency because I never really had an addiction. I can blow smoke in the face of any mother giving me the evil eye while shepparding her precious baby away. I can flick ashes on any up-tight Californian with a sanctimonious attitude. I can finally hold my cigarette high and pronounce to the world that though I enjoy the smooth refreshing feeling of my first morning drag I am not an addict. Take that Rob Reiner.

Seriously though, I feel good about it. I had been a smoker for a while and while I may not been as heavy a user as some or for as long as others, it was still very hard to give up. I think the most difficult thing wasn’t any kind of real addiction, but the association I made with everything over the course of smoking. I got into routines like; between shifts at work, or after dinner, or during sex. It was more habit forming due to my own mental associations with smoking than any nicotine fix I needed. I kinda think that the patch or the nicotine pills are placebos. I just don’t see how someone could really develop a dependency on something so gentle. Maybe hardcore drugs, but I think smoking can be as habit forming as McDonald’s food, alcohol and network television.

So now I’m trying to decide what to do with all the fat cash I am saving every month. I am in the process of saving for a PS3 and I’m almost there. Maybe I can mail it to the poor tobacco execs who seem to always be shilling out money to an overbearing government or some whinny ex-smoker with “cancer”. Or maybe I can put it into my newest fixation…chewing gum. Yup, I’m already a pack-a-day man with that habbit.

Fine, Die.

2007-03-03T12:44:00.000-08:00

A little while back I got into a discussion with LJ about how we might do things differently if we were running our own Airline. Her position was that she would design airplanes with more amenities and comfortable seating. I said that if people knew that these planes were way safer that tickets would sell better. Things got tense; we can really get into it over these hypothetical situations. Anyway, the conversation got pretty heated and its times like that that I need vindication. Most of you already know this, but for those who don’t, when I can’t convince someone all on my own I call my buddy Courtney and if that doesn’t work then I start to call everyone.

The question we posed? If you had to buy an airline ticket and you could only choose between airline A and airline B which would you purchase. A is offering roomier seats and more leg room; while B has the same seat configurations as now, yet it also has a safety feature that would make your chances of surviving any mid-air catastrophe greater than 50%. What was the consensus? Most of you would rather be comfortable than have less the chance of dieing. So, with LJ’s agreement I decided to up the percentage in my favor to a 90% chance of living. This didn’t affect the outcome in the slightest.

A lot of you wanted to add caveats or addendums to the question like “How long is the flight?”, or “Well, flying is already the safest way to travel” and “How would I know that this safety feature would work?” To that I say, how many of you people wear seatbelts or expect that cars should have airbags? The planes that you fly in are pretty damn safe, yes, however why do a flight-check every single time before it takes off? I mean that only increases the safety by a small fraction right? These planes are still REALLY safe without a flight check every time. To me it seamed that people don’t really care about safety until it is imposed on them or available without the cost of comfort. Maybe I’m just sour grapes. Still, I think Darwin would have something to say about this. In fact, the only people who sided with me were those with little children or a fear of flying.

My Opinion:

What this tells me is that people have a complete disregard for personal safety as long as they feel safe. I have done a lot of hobbies that some would consider thrill seeking or inherently dangerous, yet in doing these hobbies one has to take a lot of measures to prevent disastrous outcomes because if anything goes wrong there is little to no redundancy to ensure survival. You know, an ounce of prevention…To me it seems like a car has all sorts of safety measures that go from crumple zones, seatbelts, airbags, safety glass, and antilock brakes. Not to mention that a car never really exceeds 100 mph. Most collisions occur below 50 mph. Oh yeah, and if a problem occurs you can always pull over and stop, in lieu of falling out of the sky. An airplane, on the other hand, is an incredibly complex device that can be in a lot of trouble if there is any kind of mechanical or human error. Where does an airplane go when it has trouble? Strait down, man. Eh, you can’t win ‘em all though so I’ll concede this victory to LJ. Until, that is, she dies in horrible fiery and completely pointless plane crash. Then I win by default.

The Greatest Movie Ever

2007-03-02T10:31:00.000-08:00

I just got back from another out of town job so that’s why I haven’t posted in a while. So, in the last exciting episode I issued a personal challenge to write a screenplay that was better than the crap in theaters now and for like the last year or so (with some exceptions of course). At first I was thinking I needed to keep any ideas I might have on this as hush-hush as possible, yet I reconsidered for a couple of reasons. First being that I want this to be as original a concept as possible and I don’t want any of my vast archival memory of movies slipping into this through my subconscious. That said, I also want everyone who reads this to understand that some basic principals of story telling still apply. There must be a protagonist and an antagonist. There will be familiar story concepts and motivations. However, I don’t want it to be a blatant copy of another movie, vis-à-vis Little Miss Sunshine. I want to throw every part of my working story ideas up on the net so that as I go people can critique or make suggestions etc.

Second, I really don’t want to spend like the next year working on something in my free time to find out that it sucked worse than what I was ripping on. So, please feel free to blast any shitty ideas. For the sake of not ruining the ending I may withhold some of the climax stuff, but we are a long ways off from that.

There is a great literary quote I took to heart before starting this that goes “Write what you know.” With that in mind I thought about what my favorite movies were and how I might write given the opportunity and my overriding personality. I think for these reasons my movie would be an action/adventure (duh). So, let me just give you a really bare bones plot concept I came up with and you tell me if you think its any good.

The story would start in the American past and follow a guy or small group who finds or is led to a valuable item that he or they decides he must protect or steal for some reason of ethics or greed. I’m thinking a train robbery where the loot is a little too valuable to leave in the hands of whoever it is in possession of or something like that. So it is stolen and the guy or group makes a spectacular getaway.

Flash forward to modern times where a mixed group of (you guessed it) archaeologists, out in some remote area, stumble across an item or journal that convinces all or some of them that this item is hidden somewhere they could find it.

The truly interesting concept that I liked was that there would be a flip-flop between the two times so that you could see the adventures and struggles of both groups as they go on their own yet connected adventures. A problem for one may present similar or completely different struggles for another. For example hiding or traversing something in the past may present certain logistical, geographical or time related problems for those in the future. Also, the story would be shown in such a way that though you may be stumped as to how either group may proceed or escape the previous story clip from the opposite time would guide the audience as to what may happen next. Yet the story won’t be completely obvious as to everything that will happen.

Of course as with any story there will be a love interest and some characters you will hate and some you will like. I was thinking that there needed to be a somewhat obvious similarity between two of the main characters, one in the past and one in the present. As far as the conclusion goes; I have some pretty good ideas so far, but I need to flesh out the rest of the story first.

So, there you have it, a very basic plot outline. Now, tell me what you think. I promise I will be open to any constructive criticisms and recommendations. I will start working on actual story and post that at some point in the next few months as a downloadable word file or something.

Hollywoooood!!!!

2007-02-16T18:08:00.000-08:00

...You've screwed with the wrong dude.

I went to see Ghost Rider today with a buddy. The movie was a flaming pile, but that isn’t the point of this post. I was watching the previews when a romantic comedy trailer came on. Halfway through I recognized something that seemed rather familiar…

Check out the trailer then read on (anyone without high-speed Internet, too bad. I told you to get it and that it was cheaper than the dial-up you have now)

Did you see it? About two thirds of the way through? He’s sitting in the playhouse and playing fetch with the children. Now, where o’ where could I have seen that before? Hmmmmmm, perhaps right friggin’ here a few years back! I swear to God if they had been swinging Boxaboo's© at the begining, I would have the right to sue. Hollywood, you thieving unoriginal assholes! If there is one thing I’ve learned from the past couple of weeks its that I can do it better…and I’ve decided I will. That’s right you fat cat jerks, I’m gonna write my own screen play and its gonna be great. I mean it too, no jokes. I am pissed as hell that crap factories like Ghost Rider and Little Miss Sunshine get all sorts of praise while other great movies like Sin City and Foxy Brown get snubbed by the Academy. Incidentally both those directors got together and are coming out with Grindhouse; I can’t wait.

So there you go. Do I know what the story is gonna be about? Not really. Do I have a premise, plot or budget? No. Will it ever hit a major studio? Well only if it is flung from my car as I am driving by screaming obscenities. Still, that is the way Evil Dead was made and many others and by God I can do it too. So if you want a part you better start sending me head shots and bio’s cause I got a feeling the roles are gonna fill up fast.

Little Miss Sunshine

2007-02-05T18:36:00.000-08:00

This morning I was at work listening to NPR when a story came on about the up coming Academy Awards and one of the nominees for best picture Little Miss Sunshine. The interview was full of softball questions and arrogant comments made by the writer/directors. During the entire interview something was nagging me at the back of my consciousness. It finally came to me around the time one of the co-directors was likening the scenes with the family pushing the car to a start to a big Hollywood dance number; this movie has been done before.

I then began to recount through my mind the plot and individual characters and scenes in the movie National Lampoon’s Vacation. Tell me this plot summary couldn’t be for either film.

The _____ family embarks on a hilarious cross-country trek in their broken down vehicle. Along the way the grandparent dies, the father comes to grips with his life and the mother tries to keep the family together. There are run-ins with cops, several life lessons and colorful characters. Finally, the family makes it to their destination only to find it isn’t what they expected and that only by coming together as a family can they salvage the trip.

I thought best picture was supposed to be about originality and so on. It is unbelievable that this movie was accepted as a nominee. Now, I will admit that the characters are darker (the suicidal uncle, overly angsted teen, and the drug using grandfather), but damn it, those are new modern day stock characters. The mothers even dressed virtually the same in both films.

If you don’t believe me then rent both and tell me they aren’t the same picture just separated by a generation and rewritten by some preening ass, who would pass off a work of comedy as his own “art”. Son of a bitch. Personally, I felt that national lampoon did a better job of making the film entertaining.

There you have it kids. Great things can be accomplished through plagiarism. Don’t bother writing your own reports just change some words around, dress it up differently. You never know you may just win a prestigious award someday off of someone else’s back.

*This post not plagiarized. Not even the picture, though I know it looks totally awesome.

And Then...

2007-01-25T22:25:00.000-08:00

Now that I’ve officially graduated I have found myself at the center of a torrent of activity surrounding the day of the, long awaited, graduation ceremony. From the very morning I found out LJ called me five times from her cubical to get my input on airline tickets. Calls were made; people informed and out of it all an avalanche of bluster. It is kinda weird; for so long now getting gradated seemed like this nebulous thing floating somewhere just out of reach. When the time actually came the moment was sort of a non-event. Yet, now I find myself having to make to-do lists to keep up with it all.

Let me share:

· Arrange for lodging

· Get Cap and Gown

· Frame Diploma

· Rewrite my falsified Resume

· Write derogatory and hate filled letter to High School Science teacher who said you’d never get a degree

· Call friends to arrange good times and drinking

· Make reservations for the swanky restaurant that I always promised myself I would eat at for graduation

· Come up with brilliant last prank to pull on my now alma mater

The thing is though that for years and years the top of my big “Life’s To-Do List” was dominated by graduating from college. Now that I’ve done that it just doesn’t seem right replacing it with the next thing down, winning a pie fight. So I’m struggling to figure out what my next big thing should be.

When I was 12, and I went to my fist SCUBA class, there was a poster on the wall. It showed the progression one could take in the many certifications of diving. At the pinnacle of the list was SCUBA Instructor. Most of my teen years were spent in motivation from that poster. I always imagined working up toward the next level and dreamed of someday reaching the top. Then, at age eighteen I achieved it. I never did teach any classes, but it did help me get into the field school at my university which led me here. Long story short; I am wondering what the next big thing is going to be.

Of course there is always graduate school; however it seems sort of dumb to finally get out of school just to jump right back in. Plus, it also feels like delaying the real decision. You know, what do I really want to do with my life, decision. Yeah, I like my job ok, yet there are and always will be things about it that I don’t like. Paramount among those things being that I am not using all of my potential. So, what now? I made a new years resolution to make twice as much as I am now, but maybe that isn’t the rout I should go. I dunno. Maybe an elected office, I know there is some sort of primary coming up next year.

Education Smeducation

2007-01-17T10:50:00.000-08:00

For like the past year I have been playing this strange cat and mouse / telephone tag game with my University in Florida. I have been slowly, yet steadily, been making progress toward graduation. Well, the day finally came and it was a lot more unceremonious than I figured it would be. Some office peon just asked me for my social before she could talk to me further, probably to look at my GPA to see if she should be rude or not, when she got back on the line her exact words were “Oh, you’ve graduated”. “What?! Seriously?” I inquired. “Yep, you’re done”. As simple as that. LJ and I were on our way to work when I made the call; I guess it didn’t really sink in till later. So, now I am in the throws of planning for the graduation ceremony.

I must say this has been a looooooong time coming. Yeah, it has taken just under a decade to for me to do, but what can I say? Life, to me, has never been about competing against others as far as timeframes go. I had a really hard time with…well everything when it comes to school. I look at this more like me topping Everest rather than me coming in last in some “race”. Besides, I know a lot of people in my program who are waiting tables or doing other jobs that frankly are beneath their talents, who graduated on time and with a good GPA, yet I’m the one working in my field. Anyway, my diploma is on its way as well as my transcripts. Inconsequently, my middle name on the diploma will say “Danger” so that everyone will know how I live my life…Dangeresque.

On a completely different subject, someone from my old high school class just contacted me through myspace to send me an invite to our ten year reunion. Now, my question is, who really goes to those things and why? LJ and I talked about it and I came to the understanding that if you were raised in a small town where you literally knew everyone it would kinda make sense to go. However, I felt that the people you met in collage or in other places might be more important to you. The only reason I could figure people would go would be to measure themselves against others from the same origins. So, like if you became a celebrity or really successful you might want to go. Or maybe if you wanted to get one last shot at that girl (or guy) you always wanted to sleep with, then I could see that. Otherwise it kinda just seems like masturbation. I dunno, you tell me what you think.

Also, give me kudos on graduating…you ignorant plebs.

Dumber Days

2007-01-10T22:14:00.001-08:00

LJ and I watched a movie tonight that set forth a series of events that led to this very post. The movie was Idiocracy, written by Mike Judge. It was one of the most horrific and terrifying movies I’ve ever seen. The premise is based on a man of totally average intelligence from our time getting frozen and reanimated in the distant future. Normally this wouldn’t be so bad, normally, but in this future everyone is an idiot. The reason is, intelligent people get bread out of existence while idiots of every creed, race, and socioeconomic class breed like jackrabbits. In 500 years the entire population is somewhere within the realm of 60 to 80 on the IQ charts.

After watching it LJ and I embroiled ourselves in our favorite pastime…arguing the same point but at different degrees. She believed that the population was probably doomed to such a fate while I believed that people will probably keep on as they have for thousands of years with equal numbers of intelligent and not so intelligent people roaming the Earth. At the end of the debate I decided that I needed to take an IQ test*.

Let me just sandbag for a moment. I took an IQ test at the age of like eleven and scored 111. It was explained to me that the average IQ fell somewhere between 90 and 110, putting me juuuuuust above average. So, I took an internet test to get a quick gauge and scored 131. “Hurray”, I thought before reading the next line down. Average has moved apparently, as the graph indicated that average falls anywhere between 70 and 130. “Crap”, I thought again, statistically sucker punched. At least I am still one point above average though.

So, I asked LJ what her IQ was and was answered with somewhere between 140 to 147. I also remember my brother taking an IQ test and getting like 138 or something. Let me put down my usual cloak of total intellectual superiority for just one moment and tell you all something serious. I have always felt that any friends worth my time were as smart as or smarter than me. There are a lot of people out there that I could never befriend due to the imbalance of conversational intelligence. I’m not trying to come off as pompous, but according to a free internet test that consisted of 50 questions and took less than 30min to complete, I am smarter than most of you out there…seriously. I admit that I feel that most of my friends are smarter than me, (revel in this moment it may be erased the next time you read this post) but that is what makes it fun for me. I feel that I can converse with those that can digest what I say and form a well thought out and concise reply. There I said it, ‘course how many of you think you are what I would consider a friend…let that roll around in your head for a while.

Back to topic: there are a lot of things out there that annoy people. For some its how people dress, for others it’s what region others may be from. Me, I get annoyed with stupidity. I hate it like a militant lesbian hates men. I look at so many things in our society that are just dumb. And I’m not just talking about what everyone considers dumb like Paris Hilton. No, things like organic food markets, ear candeling, the acceptance by Webster’s of the word irregardless, sending more troops to Iraq, network television, and so many others. Thomas Gray was right “Ignorance is bliss”, because if you’re halfway intellectual you live in a world of dumb-asses.

*I do NOT believe that the results of an IQ test does a smart person make. IQ tests are merely a standardized test that gauges how quickly one may learn something or the aptitude for learning. It isn’t even proven to be totally and completely accurate. At best it’s a ball park figure.

Myspace Must Die

2007-01-07T11:14:00.000-08:00

…so that my intelligence may live.

Maybe a year ago I begrudgingly signed up for a myspace account. It didn’t really work for me at the time due to my slow-ass internet connection. The reason I even signed up was due to a huge shift in my actual friend network. You see all of us had what I consider actual blogs through blogger or other providers. Then everyone went to myspace. The question on my mind is why?

As far as I can tell myspace is a fancy, template based, way of posting stupid pictures linking dumb-ass youtube videos and sending ridiculous amounts of chain mail. Everyone who knows me knows that this particular post has been a long time coming. So, here we go.

I want you all to know that I intended on keeping my very blank myspace account, but that it will remain blank for freakin’ ever. I am doing this only so that I can read the two posts that my friends write a year and so that they can send me useless crap that I will not read or even open. I would now like to share with you some of the dumber chain-letter crap that I have received.

From my brother and sister:

THiS IS SO SAD...

I BET THAT 97% OF U WONT REPOST THIS!!!

When Jesus died on the cross he was thinking of you!

If you are one of the 3% who will stand up for him then repost this w/the title:

I LOVE U AND IM SORRY!!!

If you know me, you know that I have a complete disregard for the words "love", "sorry", and "repost". I'm also sure that Jesus is pleased as punch that all of you are remembering him through a crappy virtual hands across myspace, instead of going out and doing actual "good works" or whatever.

From my friend Beth

(random questions taken from one of like ten questionnaires she’s sent me)

Ever punch someone in the face?

Have you ever wished someone dead?

Ever seen a corpse?

Again, anyone who knows me knows that the answer to all of these questions are yes and if more of these things get sent to me the answer will become an emphatic yes.

Now, lets talk about the friggin’ pictures. Do I really need to see the picture of Johnny Cash flicking off the camera? What does that picture have to do with you? How about all the pictures of God damned Bam Margera. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’ll spell it out for you. Bam is a tool. A tool used to sell deodorant and other such items to stupid young morons. He is only famous for the same reasons as Tom Green. Hold up, I’m getting off track; this could be a whole nother post. You aren't clever for putting these pictures up, you are a tool like Bam is a tool. It adds nothing to your image and says nothing about who you are.

All I’m saying is if you want to keep in touch with your friends then the technology has been around since the advent of the cell phone. The cell phone market has allowed losers to use such things as text messaging (which is also a huge waist of time and energy), and ring-back tones so that everyone will know that you love the show Knight Rider…or Ludacris...or whoever no one really cares to hear. Also email allows you to send stupid messages to everyone at the click of a button. So why waist time on a psudo webpage if you could do it just as easily through email. Finally, IM. IM was and is the basis for all of this crap. When some genius decided he could make funny looking smiley emoticons he opened the friggin’ flood gates. From smiley’s to pictures of Bam it was a process that took less than five years (a single tear rolls down my cheek). I’m not saying IM was bad. I’m only saying that the invention of fully colored and moving emoticons changed everything.

Now, to the point. I just want you all to know that I literally check my myspace account once every week, sometimes less, and I rarely if ever check anyone elses account unless prompted to by email or cellphone conversation. I will NEVER respond to anything that even resembles a chain-letter. And finally, my myspace account will be the blandest and most void area in all of the myspace…space. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If you want a website then have a reason to have it. Put something out there. Be interesting; don’t just slap the equivalent of virtual bumper stickers all over it. Quality over content people, quality over content.

Jelly Stains & Farts

2007-01-04T18:14:00.001-08:00

I was out surveying at work today when I noticed that my fingers were sticky. I did the inevitable look down and saw that during lunch I had dripped some delicious blackberry jelly all down the side of my shirt. I had then subsequently gotten it all over my trusty GPS (no, not my new sporty personal one; the $3,000 one from my office). As I was using my fingers as a squeegee and savoring the sweet, slightly gritty leavings of my lunch I came to a revelation.

When I have kids I could totally blame shit like that on them! “Hey buddy, you’ve got some brown stuff on your shirt.” “Oh, yeah that’s chocolate. My kid was eating a Snak-Pak and some must have gotten away from him… (sigh)…kids.” Or better yet; “Honey we need more Snak-Paks, it seems Billy went through all of them.” “In only three days?!” “Yup, that little sucker loves pudding. Heh, like father like son I guess… (sigh)…kids.”

Then I really got to thinking about it. A few years ago I got really bad heartburn while LJ’s parents were over one night. Her mom suggested that I mix some water and baking soda and that that would take care of it. I skeptically gave her home remody a shot and it worked, it actually worked. Unfortunately though, much like a fourth grader’s papier-mâché volcano science project, my stomach acids reacted to the baking soda with all sorts of fizzy fury. I started laying down some incredibly foul belches. They were so heinous in fact that at one point my mother-in-law commented that my completely innocent dog must have been the culprit of the horrific odors. In my awkwardness I immediately joined in and blamed him as well (sorry Zeus). Well, thinking about this I immediately came to the conclusion that I could easily lay the blame for any nasty belches or errant farts on dirty diapers. Brilliant.

I’m in no way saying that I won’t love my children. I just think they will be a rather convenient scapegoat until the age they can rebuff my accusations with a well formulated and concise counter argument. So, ostensibly never. I can see it now. There we all are in the family room. LJ wrinkles her nose in disgust and asks who disrespected her house. At that point I quickly chime in with “Billy must have. You remember how he was as a kid.” “Dad please stop doing that. I’m 26 now and have full control of all my bodily functions. Besides it was never me growing up it was always you. Don’t you think its time you started taking responsibility for your own farts?” At which point I respond, “Your argument is flawed from here to next Tuesday. Let me just break it down point by point…” Until, everyone is too tired and confused to assign blame. God, I’m going to love having kids.

The Happiest Holiday

2007-01-02T19:17:00.000-08:00

Hello all. LJ and I just got back from our trip to Atlanta for the holidays. “Was it fun?” Yes, faithful reader it was fun, but then LJ and I are fun people. We could have fun at a sponge museum. “Was it stressful?” Yes, again inquisitive reader. As most holidays are and as it is when time is a limiting factor it was stressful. I felt that LJ and I did rather well though. She was even brought tears at the thought of leaving.

So what did we get, well there were so many great gifts that I am only going to list a few. First I got Karaoke revolution for the PS2 from LJ. So, now instead of just busting my mad dancing grooves with DDR, I can bust my even awesomer vocal grooves to such classic hits as Everybody Wants to Rule the World, (She’s a) Brick House, Sweet Caroline, and much much more! (upstairs neighbors beware). My parents got me a super sweet GPS. We all went geocaching for the last few days; a new outdoor hobby I am getting into and whole heartedly endorse. It’s like getting to find buried treasure everywhere…I love it. My grandparents got me the first four Dark Tower novels by Stephen King. I have wanted those for like forever. Oh, and LJ got me those rubber band-gun armatures. I can’t wait to start designing my rubber band weapons (upstairs neighbors beware). My sister got me a pirate shirt that I have been wearing since I got it. My Brother gave me like the best and most thoughtful gift he has ever given me, The fourth season of Futurama (a show LJ and I just love), but unfortunately we already had it. So, I exchanged it today for two movies I have wanted for years but could never justify the expense. So Yay!

But Christmas isn’t about just getting awesome gifts despite what any eight year old may tell you. Some of the gifts that we gave that I am most proud of include a “Noseometer” a set of ceramic noses cast from LJ’s and my own perfect beaks. It’s going to be too hard to explain this one so we’ll just leave it there. An “E-ticket” from the olden days of Disney World that we gave to my grandparents.

The best though, or most sacrilegious…depending on how you’re counting, was my gift to Mike and Courtney. Now, when I give a gift I don’t just like to give some bauble you can fawn over for the requisite minute or two before tossing it into the back of your closet never to be seen unless re-gifted some day. No, I like to give powers also. This year I bestowed the power of the clergy to my unsuspecting friends. Through the looseness of our laws, the freedom of religion, and the ease of the internet I was able to ordain my buddies. Now, with their beginners clergy packs including an ID card, an embossed frame able certificate, and a blank marriage certificate that is legal in 45 states (FU Arkansas) they have all rights and privileges of a man of the clothe. They also have the right to use clergy parking at any facility that has such. Like hospitals, religious institutes, and the Republican Party’s national headquarters. Now that is one hell of a gift.

We had a great time though, and can’t wait to go back. So, did you guys have a good Christmas too?

My Fondest Christmas wishes II

2006-11-29T20:03:00.000-08:00

Here we are at the end of yet another wonderful year and yet another wish-list post. So, that those out there who just stumbled onto my blog understand; I do this because my family brow beats me three or four times a week about twelve days before Thanksgiving until I have supplied them with an ample list of material desires that they feel they can chose from to make their Christmas stress that much easier to manage.

“Oh, that just isn’t what Christmas is about. (tsk-tsk)”, some of you glassy-eyed idealists may be thinking as you wrap the hastily put together Christmas ornaments that your untalented 5 year olds made in a half hour for no one in particular. Then you will present them to some poor bastard of a family member who spent hours standing in lines at the crowded malls to buy you the high ticket…whatever, and who will be thoroughly disappointed with your gift even though you won’t notice because you are stuffing your face with all the free food while complaining about how Christmas is just too commercial. Assholes.

Hmmm, that was a bit of a rant. Sorry, back on subject. Yes, I have found that making a virtual list that consists of helpful links, pictures and in a convenient place for all to see is the best solution. This way my family can just make a simple run through and see what I’m interested in this year. But, I digress.

So, without further ado…The list

A set of plans and armatures for the construction of a personally manufactured, rubber-band gun. Construction to begin soon after January 5^th ’07. This one is essential, since the military wants a prototype ASAP with deals set for many European nations as well as local law enforcement branches and children across the U.S.

The CD/DVD album just put out by Gorillaz. Rockin’
Any of the collection of Dark Tower series on CD: Numbers 1, 2, 3, or 4 (I have the rest)
EFA-Linker II (1G) Flash Set. A must for any self respecting handheld gamer with a Gameboy Advance SP. With this little baby I can play all those great old NES games that are currently stuck on my computer and will be that much more entertained in places such as waiting rooms, elevators, funerals, and of course while talking to old friends on the phone.
Since it will be ski season here in snowy Nevada soon, any gift cards for REI will be gratefully accepted. Also, because gift card are easy to take back on an airplane.
A cool vintage cowboy shirt would look extra cool to all the kids at the skate park. Not to mention I could finally fit in at all the country western bars I go to.
Honestly, just walking through Best Buy is a great way to find the right thing.

So there you have it. Another awesomely awesome Christmas list. If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment or call.

The Story of My Life…

2006-11-16T20:27:00.000-08:00

…in four easy steps.

I was talking to LJ the other day and she reminded me that my mom’s birthday was a few days away (really, what would I do without this woman?). So, I procrastinated for the requisite day and then I called my family. I was in the middle of telling my dad that I was going to send a belated birthday card to my mom, per my usual lateness, with a Target gift card in it; that was when my dad informed me that sending money to my parents is completely inappropriate (really, what would I do without my dad?). So, I was talking to him about what would be appropriate to send.

At that point my mother chimed in like a ghostly voice from someone else’s phone call, “Write a blog about me!” “Didja here that?” my dad asked. “Yeah, but I don’t think you guys quite understand the dry spell I’m on. I mean I haven’t been writing regularly and it really isn’t flowing, etc.” Well, you know how it ended I guess. Let me just say that it takes me a while to write these things usually. I have to either be fired up about something (see last post), or I have to have a really cool idea that may take some massaging before it’s ready for full blog-dum (yes, I just made that word up. Up yours Webster). So, I had to do some prep for this and in doing so I actually had a pretty cool revelation. First, however, let me just say that writing about someone else’s motivations or personal characteristics is pretty much impossible unless fiction is the goal, so I decided to write about what I knew for sure…myself.

It is interesting how someone who is involved in your life can actually direct the paths you take, even if you think you are making the choices for yourself. This may seem like an obvious statement, but I have to admit it shook me a bit when I realized it for myself. Let me set the stage. It is the summer of 1990, I’m 12, and my mom is tired of seeing my ass in front of the TV. I remember she is driving me back from some place and gives me an ultimatum, as only parents can. She tells me that I can take acting lessons, photography lessons, or SCUBA diving lessons. I chose SCUBA because I thought it was outrageous to think that my parents would actually pay for it and I could get back to watching Transformers and playing whatever Nintendo game I was on at that time. Three weeks later I was four feet underwater in a local pool and finishing homework assignments that taught me about Boil’s law, pneumatic breathing systems, and human biology as it is affected by submersion in water.

Jump ahead five years; I’m now 17 and I am ankle deep in some nasty muck inside an ivy and weed covered spring house on the outskirts of a plantation house where my mother docents. She has some how convinced me that this would be a way better project than blazing a trail near the cool river at the rock cliffs where I literally spend all of my spare time rock climbing. No, here I am dredging old crap out of this 150 year old refrigerator, while mosquitoes are slowly draining not just my blood but my will to live. I have to admit to myself though, I am curious as hell to see what the next handful of slimy mud will uncover. I proudly line up my 1945 Coke bottle, a twirling baton, some old ceramics I can’t identify, and some iron fragments on the bank of the rivulet of the stream coming out of the stone door.

A year later, my mom tells me that after I graduate from high school I should think about taking a trip. I spend some time thinking about it but my best idea was going to Florida for yet another diving trip. She tells me I should think bigger. I came back with a backpacking trip or something when she suggested that I go west with some friends, way west. A few weeks later my bags are packed and I have a meticulously assembled black plastic binder with every hotel I should stay at as well as awesome sights to see and a minivan fully packed with two buddies in tow. I made my way west through Texas and up through The Great Basin, seeing sights that I had never dreamed I would see in person and especially not with the freedom of just myself. It is an amazing thing for a kid to see just how big the world really is and just how unprepared you are for it. I came back with a lust for adventure and exploration.

Before I left for the west, my mother suggested that I take all of my outdoor skills and apply to work at a high adventure camp, some place where I would be comfortable. She and I walked through some applications for an internship in Antarctica and more for some dream jobs at high adventure camps across the U.S. I didn’t hold my breath for any. But about a week after I got back from my trip, I was on my way to the Florida Keys. I’d gotten a job at the high adventure camp “Sea Base”. There I lead groups of kids snorkeling over pristine coral reefs, deep sea fishing, and other awesome activities that were really probably more fun for me than them.

One average humid and hot evening I was talking to my mom from a payphone near my base camp when she told me I needed to start thinking about college because I would be getting back soon. She had already sent me something that might help. For the next month, I was brow beat to read through this book that listed just about every job that has anything to do with SCUBA diving. I came across one that I thought was pretty cool, “Marine Archaeologist”. So eventually, I got into one of the five schools in the country that actually offered it as major.

Let me just wrap this up from here. Those who know me know that I am now employed at a commercial archaeology firm in Reno Nevada. They have heard all about my harrowing tales of adventure, high jinks, and discovery as I have explored through the most remote parts of the “high desert”. I won’t bore you with all sorts of deep emotional revelations, nor will I wax poetic about how life is funny, blah, blah, blah. What I will say is that it is pretty clear, at least to me, that I wouldn’t be here, doing this if those events hadn’t happened when and how they did. I’m also not going to say that other events didn’t contribute. Yet, when I thought about those pretty major and overall good events in my life they were all due to my mom (really, what would I do without her?).

Mark vs. Servers

2006-10-28T16:21:00.000-07:00

The Title Match…ding ding

I went to a crappy truck-stop restaurant a few days back and the service was terrible. It was so bad that I left no tip. The people I was with had a bit of a problem with that until I explained my position on the matter. Then only half of them had a problem with it.

I was so incensed by the reprimand I received that I decided to take a poll from everyone I knew on what they felt the average gratuity should be. I then took the data and compiled a statistical model and found that the average tip that any server would receive on any given night would be somewhere around 17% of the total meal costs, this includes some really bad tips and some, of what I would consider, overly generous tips. The interesting thing when I took this poll was all the different philosophies I heard about tipping.

At this point I want to establish to you the reader that though I am an opinionated jerk, I have worked in the service industry most of my life and, yes, I have waited tables. I don’t feel that this gives me the right to never tip on some sort of misguided justifications, however it does give me the right to say that I do know what it is like to wait tables and how hard the work really is and how much I made at the job. Now, that said, the gratuity industry is not full of starving, poor, struggling, proletariats. This industry is just like any other. The laborers just have to contend with a more direct relationship to the capitalistic market place than most. In my research for this post I came across some web pages and opinions that gave what they considered to be undefeatable reasons as to why you should tip well. Now let me defeat those notions for you all.

1) Hourly wages are typically significantly less in the service industry, because tips are considered part of the servers’ income.

The reason that the wages are lower is not just to differ the operating costs of the restaurant but, to ensure that the service is actually good. The whole point of gratuity is that if you do a bad job you get tipped less. This should motivate you to do a good job. It should not be sympathy for the server’s income that makes you tip well, it is meant to be the quality of the service. I can tell you that in the restaurant that I worked in consistently poor service would have meant that that person would have been fired.

2) Your server does pay income taxes. In absence of proper documentation of tips, the government will look at the servers’ food and beverage sales and base their taxable tip income on a percent of it. So if you do not tip the server, it has actually cost the server money to serve you.

Let me just say BULLSHIT! Yes, they are taxed. However, let me put some perspective on the previous statement. Let’s say that Sally is a waitress and that she pays taxes like a good little citizen. Let’s also assume that she makes close to 30,000 a year (figure taken from my sister’s old job). Now, the government will assume that she makes a 15% tip on every meal. If she made a 15% tip on a thirty dollar meal she would get $4.50, out of that she would pay 0.68 cents to Uncle Sam making her take home $3.82. If you tip 10% on the same thirty dollar meal because Sally wasn’t doing a great job then she would make $3.00 of which she should be taxed 0.45 cents instead of the 0.68 cents the government will get. Does this mean that poor Sally won’t make rent? Hell no! She still takes home $2.32. She is still turning a profit people. Now, if Sally was really doing a shit-ass job and received no tip from a table she was serving on that same thirty dollar meal then yes she did pay 0.68 cents to serve you. However, as I stated earlier the average tip is 17% meaning that on average she is making $5.10 on that meal. So, even if you don’t tip her Sally still has a damn good surplus of tips that she probably isn’t reporting in her taxes that that money is coming out of. And one more time I want to emphasize that we are talking about less money than a cup of coffee would cost at the very restaurant she is working at. If you receive atrociously horrible service do you feel that maybe Sally should buy you that cup of coffee for ruining your meal? It isn’t like you’re not paying for the food, which may have been cold, late, and served rudely.

3) Believe it or not, servers do not always get a paycheck. Sometimes, because of the taxes they pay and/or deductions, servers must pay in to the company rather than get a check.

In some situations the above situation is true. However again lets put some perspective on that. Some serving jobs are so lucrative that, yes, the restaurant actually charges the servers to work there. The take home for these waiters is generally more than 40,000 a year. Also, the way the above statement is phrased would lead you to believe that the poor servers actually have to pay all their hard earned money to work. People do not work for free in this country. Slavery was outlawed with the thirteenth amendment. No one is being taken advantage of here…except your heartstrings.

4) Your server has to tip too. It is very common for a waiter or waitress to have to tip out their supporting staff, ie; the bartender, buss person, food runners and others. Bartenders may have to tip out their bar backs. These tips are based often on the sales of the server, so if you don’t tip them, in addition to the 8% the government gets they often have to shell out money to the support staff putting them further in the hole. Sometimes the support staff is tipped a percent of the servers’ tips. So not tipping the server is the same as not tipping any of the hard working support staff in the restaurant.

Again, all I have to say is capitalism. If a server is not providing good service on a frequent enough basis to pay the support staff then they need to rethink their job or their support staff will make them rethink it. This really isn’t a difficult job, no matter what some would have you believe. Keep the drinks filled, get the orders right, bring the food out in a timely fashion, and have a smile on your face and I guarantee you will make enough to tip your support staff the way you should.

5) Servers do a lot of work that they are not tipped on also. It is called side work and it is work that is done for no more than their hourly rate. Side work usually involves cleaning the restaurant, stocking supplies and getting the store ready for the next shifts business. Side work can be time consuming and at times physically straining.

Yes, but the waiter does this as a part of their serving job. If all they did were these side jobs then they should be making minimum wages, but they aren’t. They are getting cash at the end of every night of work. On average a good amount of money. Let’s not separate the responsibilities here. The server is making enough during waiting hours to cover the work that he or she does before or after waiting tables. Part of the same job people. Besides if work wasn’t time consuming then what the hell is an hourly wage? Work is time consuming for all of us. Here’s a tissue.

Here is an excerpt from an article written by a server that I would like to share. “When someone asks me why people should tip, I answer their question with a few of my own. Do you want hot food? Do you want your drink refilled? Do you want the person taking your order to care about the quality of food you are going to eat? The answer to these questions is always yes. So why would a person that is getting paid hourly whether you eat there or not care about any of those things if there is nothing extra in it for them?” I want to address the last sentence there, the one that goes “Why would a person that is getting paid hourly whether you eat there or not care about any of those things if there is nothing extra in it for them?”, well God damn it, it is obvious to me that the person who wrote this drivel has never worked in any other service industry because if you have three consecutive “bad customers” who make complaints about the quality of your work, not even three shifts, just three customers, you would be fired. And in most of the other service industries you have to put that smile on your face and work really hard without that carrot dangling in front of you, because that is what is expected. At no point did I ever have the expectation that I would get rewarded for working harder at any of the other service jobs I worked. I had to work hard and be courteous just to keep my employment.

In no way am I saying that you should never tip, what I am saying is that in the absence of all of those things listed above it is completely appropriate to leave a virtual FU. I’m not going to apologize for leaving nothing to the person who ruined my meal or my evening with rudeness or lack of concern for me. In my mind its simple, and all the articles I’ve read agree with my logic though I think they would make a hasty retraction if they read this post, I am tipping for good service; I should not tip for horrible service, ever.

Out of all the people I surveyed, the average for a great tip was anywhere between 18% to anything really. Yeah, I had one person say that they would tip almost anything for great service. In my mind that is just trying to be flashy or maybe just a little irresponsible, but to each his own. For average service I heard anything from 15% to over 20% making the average the 17% I gave you earlier. And finally, for poor service I got anything from a big fat 0 to 15%. I heard from most of the people I surveyed that they will still tip 15% when they receive bad service! The most common answer to this was that the server could just be having a bad night. To this I say why the hell do we have the gratuity system if you people are going to screw it up for the rest of us? Do you think your doing a service to the next people to be seated if you are rewarding bad behavior? Don’t have such good will damn it you aren’t helping anyone.

The surprising thing to me was that only two other people agreed with my point of view. Even more surprising was how much people were willing to tolerate before they would give the server what they considered to be a bad tip which was actually a good or standard tip. I have to tell you it makes me hang my head and give up on the society I live in. Just promise me one thing. The next time you get egregiously bad service think of your children and how they will be brought up in a world where servers are making more than some college graduates. Imagine, your kids, trying to eek out a slim living on their bachelor’s degree they worked so hard for while receiving cold food and rude service from the fat-cat waitress who expects an exorbitant 25% tip on their meal and has no problem brow beating your children for that cash, all because you had to reward poor service. Please, please think of the children.

Speed Demon 2000

2006-09-11T14:25:00.000-07:00

Warning: this post written while in a pissy mood

Ok, here I am, sitting at the most secluded table, at the F’ing Starbucks in the Barnes & Noble down the street from my house. I’m not here to sample any of their girl drink coffee-fections that so many out there think is hard core or whatever. I’m not here flipping through magazines that I have no intention to buy , though it is only hour one and there is only so log I can sit online. No, I payed four bucks to use their internet for two hours so that I could finish downloading a PC game I bought from Target like a week ago. *I never got through downloading it though due to the need for me to be connected for four hours! (*written after initial posting)

LJ and I bought Lappy, the newest member of our growing family, about a month ago. This is the first laptop I have ever owned and it is capable of doing things that a computer in my possession has never been able to do. Like store tons of info and having a good enough graphics card to play games more system demanding than solitaire. So, instead of buying a PS2 game at Target I figure “Hell, lets go check out the PC games." I am ambling through the selection trying to find a title that might peek my interest when I see a game titled “City of Heros”. “Cool”, I think to myself “a game where I can build my own ‘Hall of Justice’, create a heroic alter-ego, and go around fighting evil”. Then my gaze drifted next to it and I see another title, “City of Villains”. If you really know me you should know which game I purchased. “Holy crap, a game where I can build my own ‘Hall of Doom’, create my true villainous alter-ego instead of some pussy do-gooder, and a chance to cause random acts of chaos...delicious. Mwwwahahahaha”.

I take the game home and download it to my computer only to find out when I try and open it that I have to download like 430 megabytes from the net before I can play. I am going to put this gently, WHAT THE FUCK!. I have dial up, and yeah feel free to make all the jokes you want, so downloading anything is a virtual impossibility (no pun intended, unless it makes me sound smarter then yeah I intended it). Fucking PC games! This is no one’s fault but my own I realize. However, for years every once in a while I would try and break into PC gaming and get away from my console dependance and every time I will inevitably be foiled by my computers lack of some crucial component or software. This time I thought would be different though, because of my new lap-sized baby. But no, smacked down again by my lack of high speed internet service. Damn it!

I have been mired in all sorts of speed related bogs recently. After LJ and I sold my crapy little Honda, that while a piece of shit, could still reach speeds in excess of 100 mph. Now I am driving LJ’s crappy Ford Ranger that couldn’t make 100 mph if it was dropped off a cliff (which, strangely, is a somewhat pleasing thought actually). I can’t drive quickly, I can’t even accelerate quickly. Instead of gently passing slower moving traffic I am weaving so that traffic can pass me. The other day I took off from a red-light and was passed by about ten cars before I got up to 45 mph. This isn’t just embarrassing, this is slowly killing me. You ever have nightmares about falling? The ground, at higher and higher velocity, coming at you until the speed is almost palpable? I look forward to those dreams so at least in some way I can get my speed on. I practically get an erection from looking at sports cars and motorcycles. I am looking forward to getting a sedan, something unthinkable to me only four months ago, just so that I can chirp the tires while pulling away from a stop sign.

While I am out on sessions and am driving a company vehicle down some remote dirt roads, I start to throttle up and just see if I can barely corner the SUV into a slide in such a way that no one will notice. I actually said “screw it” on the last session and floored it around this beautiful curve. It was awesome. I put that vehicle into a controlled slide and came out the other side with a grin from ear to ear and my passengers clinging to any stable surface their hands could clasp. I lost my driving privileges for the next day, but it was worth it. I miss driving fast. No, not fast, just driving a vehicle that can keep up with what I want it to do.

Same goes for the internet. I used to have high speed in college and went back to dial up while making a budget with my wife after we got married. I guess I got used to it, but in the same way I miss a car that can preform like I want I miss having the ability to visit sites that require flash (which are on the increase). I can’t get streaming audio, download anything, see pics that my friends or family might post. Sorry, Mike, David, and Ryan but I only visit your sites when I know I have the time (5-10 minutes a page) and my dial up won’t cut out (15% of the time).

As much as Myspace is a joke (whole ‘nother topic that I won’t get into now) it has soooo much shit on one page that it requires too much bandwidth for my crappy dial up to handle. Because, everyone needs to have the latest funny video of that teenage idiot stapling his balls to a wooden chair or some other mindless video on their page. Oh, and I really need to see all those idiotic pics you think humorously define your personality so that everyone will know just how wild and kah-ha-razy you are. Lets be honest that shit is like putting “hilarious” bumper stickers on your car. It not only makes your car an eyesore but it makes you look like an idiot who needs a stupid piece of kitsch to look interesting or clever. It’s called content people. You wanna look smart or be cool then earn it with what you have to say and not with what you can swipe and put on your page.

Ew, that came off a little aggressive, sorry if I hurt any feelings. But, again most of this is coming from me not being able to visit anyone’s blog. Sorry, Patrick, Danny, and anyone else who’s got a crummy Myspace account. Damn, it is just like being a Formula 1 driver and having to drive a golf cart on the track while everyone else is whizzing bye. Oh well, someday I will either be able to afford it or go slowly insane (pun intended that time). That’ll be a short trip.

Say Hi Damn it!

2006-08-27T18:39:00.000-07:00

I am a huge egotist when it comes to my hit counter. Not in the way that I feel superior to anyone or anything. No, it’s more like I wanna know who is stopping by my little corner of the web. So, I check my site meter kinda regularly to see where I am getting hits from , how frequently, and for how long.

I’ll tell you a secret. I discovered from my post “Sty in the Eye” that a more provocative title or even what would be a popular set of search words would yield more hits, thusly making me feel better about both my writing and my subject matter. That is why I have such awesome titles with such lame content. I expend all of my cool-hippness energy on the title and save none for the rest of my blog. Much like the music industry. That is why this blog only appeals to my closest friends…and some wayward blog travelers, who are usually lost, bored, or looking for some pictures to gank.

This brings me to you Mr. or Mrs. (and to a lesser degree Ms.) Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Yes, I know you have been hitting my site every day for like the last week and reading an unhealthy amount of halfassery. And yes, if you are sitting in front of your computer in Murfreesboro, Tennessee and wondering to yourself, “is he talking to me?“ the answer is yes, you are the one I am writing to. I love that you are hitting my page, don’t get me wrong. More power to you. I just want to know who you are and for you to maybe leave one little tiny comment. In fact you can simply copy/paste this comment:

Wow, what an awesome blog. You sir have an awesome blog. I too have an awesome blog or not. Boy, you sure are a card. I even appreciate your sporadic use of comas, and endearing misspellings. Well, I have to run (got other blogs to check out) I’ll bee reading your stuff tomorrow for at least 15-20 minutes. Keep up the mediocre work. ; ) winky smiley

See? That isn’t so hard. I just feel that if I am providing you with up to four hours of entertainment or insult (however you take my material) that you should just drop me a courtesy how-dee-do. That’s all. However if you are totally uncomfortable with the idea or you are fingerless or just painfully shy then no worry’s just keep coming by, there will be plenty more quasi-sophisticate, sophomoric, half assed opinions for you to read. Oh, and hey Murfreesboro, Tennessee…this post’s for you. <--Sung to the Budweiser ad theme.

Hot-Sexy-Toys

2006-08-20T13:55:00.000-07:00

Yay, I’m a happy boy! Let me just start by saying that, with LJ’s help and nagging, I got myself signed up for a college class on statistics at a local community college. This will complete my CLAST requirement that UWF needed so I can finally collect my degree. As some of you might remember this is more of a technicality for completion of my bachelors yet they just won’t give me my sheepskin without it, go figure. Back to topic, this class is offered online. Which is good because in order to keep busy with my job I have to be able to go out on sessions So, in order to get online while out in the boonies LJ bought me a laptop!

I feel like a sweaty nerd at comiccon, renfair, and dragoncon all in one. I’m so happy! In fact I am actually writing this sitting in a Panera Bread in Sacramento, while LJ is working a booth at the California State Fair. I am totally mobile now. I can write blogs at home or anywhere I feel like. This laptop, or Lappy as LJ and I have named it, has 100gb, 1.8ghz processing speed, and an upgraded graphics card. I love it.

Years ago Andrew built a computer for me for like $500 and told me that owning my own computer will drastically improve my knowledge of the hardware and software. He was right. For the next like five years or so I have gutted the thing and installed all sorts of stuff and repaired it either by myself or with the help of various friends. Yet over time I invested less and less into it. Consequently it is now almost worthless and crashes kinda frequently. Hopefully though I will start putting some money into it and getting Desky back up to current par.

SECOND TOY

LJ and I have been saving up for a new car for the past 6 months or so. We thought we were in pretty good shape about three months ago so we went and talked to some car dealers. Well, other than getting the run-around, talked down to, and even threatened we came away with a different idea of what we needed to do before getting the new car. At first we had saved only like three grand for this but in order to get a good interest rate we feel like we need to put down like eight or more. So, in like another three months, NEW CAR!

I’m not really excited about the car per say, I am really eager to get that purchase out of the way so that we will have two reliable vehicles and then I can get a motorcycle. Yep, the bike is my real goal. I am so happy I married this girl she can really organize things, something I have been miserable at since my teachers saw the inside of my desk in elementary school.

It's not ALL about me

2006-08-16T21:53:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven’t posted in a bit. It seems I start a lot of posts that way. I have no excuse.Well here’s one; I have been doing a lot of office work recently which means that I sit inside all day and type on the computer, so coming home and doing the same really doesn’t interest me too much. Also I feel like nothing is really going on. Maybe, I can recap some stuff for you though. Ok, recently my parents and my sister came out to visit.

That was pretty cool because we haven’t seen anybody we knew since we first got out here. We went and saw some sites, ate out…you know the usual. My grandfather sent out some of the best cookies ever with them (Pinwheels) so that I could get some grandparent affection from back east. He even got up early on the day my parents were leaving to take the cookies over and made sure they packed them. Now, that is love. It’s kinda funny too. My grandfather and I love these cookies…like a lot. He gets them special then stockpiles them in a back closet that, if I remember right, my father told me he keeps specially cooled so that he can enjoy them in summer (they aren’t sold in summer in the south east due to the heat and moisture). God I hope I am this obsessive about chocolate when I am his age. What a role model.

He knows I love these cookies and has made sure that he has enough, on hand at all times, so that he and I can sit down and enjoy some together. In fact, he has always kinda surprised me with the links to which he will go to ensure that I have some of these cookies whenever possible. I was driving somewhere recently, just sort of thinking to myself, and I had this funny thought flash through my mind. Sadly, in this thought my grandfather had passed away and I was being read the will from some nameless attorney. “…and finally”, he reads, “I leave my entire Pinwheel Bonanza to Mark. I hope I saved enough to last him the rest of his life.” Then I am led to a warehouse much like the one at the end of Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Arc. Where rows and rows of cookies as far the eye can see have been slowly stored for years. Beautiful.

Back to my parents. We all had a good time. LJ and I loved having them out here. My brother couldn’t come because his comedy career has taken off so that it is hard to get him anywhere that he isn’t being paid to be. I am so proud of him. I have to admit I really thought that he wasn’t going to do well in comedy, I am so glad I was dead wrong. He really is quite a funny guy and this really seems to suit him. He was never really a 9 to 5 kinda guy anyway. My sis (sorry Adrienne. I couldn't find your blog) is starting classes in college again and everything is just sort of rollin’ on as things do. Oh, my mother just started here first week of teaching high school. That promises to be interesting I’m sure. I hope she likes it, though I’m sure she will.

No, real big news other than LJ and I are both tossing around the idea of grad school. I don’t know which of us will do it or even whether that will happen at all, but I’ll just say we are thinking about the option. If I do it I am hoping to do one of those programs where you get your masters and doctorate rolled into like four years, but again we’ll see. ‘Course, if I do ever get a doctorate I’ll have to change my last name to like ‘X’ or ‘Strangelove’ or something.

Oh yeah, you guys should check out my buddy Mike’s blog. He has revamped it and has started blogging again. His content is second only to Half Assed’s and the site looks great too! It also appears that he has built a new site for Reference Toxicity, the only web comic H/A endorces due to the fact that I am a semi-pivital and reoccuring chacacter! Also, it's funny.

Lets see...ummm...oh, my hit counter is about to go over 6,000! Thats pretty cool. This hasn’t really been a very topical blog, but hey maybe I’ll have some half assed opinions about something next week…or the week after…or the week after…

Holy Skeletons in the Closet Batman!

2006-07-30T21:49:00.000-07:00

A few years ago I drove up from Florida for a visit to my parents on a school holiday. After I had packed my car and was on my way out the door I was saying “Bye” to my dad and in the process I casually asked whom the pictures on his desk were of. “Oh, my first wife”, he responded in an uninterested tone. “Ok, I’ll call you when I get back home. See ya.” “Later”, he called out. I actually made it all the way down to my car and was on my way out of the driveway before it fully hit me; “My first wife”!? I quickly ran back up the steps to see what the hell he was talking about. My dad then explained to me how he had been married before to another woman and then had a divorce a year later. Let me just say that he couldn’t understand why this had struck me so hard. When I asked him why he had never told me he merely replied, “It never came up.”

Today my parents and sister came to visit me in Nevada. While everyone was going through their morning routines my mother leans towards me in her chair and says, “I have to tell you something”. After a little back and forth she tells me that she had had a child before she met my dad and had to give it up for adoption. Also, that he had recently contacted her. I have to tell you here that I used up all my disbelief those years ago on my father’s whole first marriage bit so my reaction was a lot more subdued. Still, when I asked why she had never told me the answer was, again, “It never came up.”

It never freakin’ came up! In twenty-seven years of conversations with these people you’d think that at some point the discussion would have veered close enough to make the leap to this subject, let alone crashing directly into it. That aside, I have a biological half-brother out there. Exciting news really. I read a letter he had sent and saw a picture of him and got a bit of a biography too. Interestingly he had slipped his name into the letter through random capitalized letters. I just happened to be the first one to notice this and subsequently fueled a bit of a frenzy this morning that resulted in my mother writing an email to her first son.

You know as proud as I was to have studied and become an archaeologist it ain’t shit compared to this dude. As unrealistic as this may sound to those who know me and thereby feel that anyone hindered by my family’s genetics should achieve this; I swear it’s all true. He is a PhD in atomic physics and works at a particle accelerator lab. That is a lot to meet up to, but hey maybe this is how all younger siblings feel (I’m new to that feeling).

As curious and exciting as this news is I am rather taken aback. I mean is this it? Ok, my dad had a former wife, my mom had another kid. I am terrified to talk to my grandparents. I can just imagine sitting down in their family room chatting about whatever when my grandmother lets it slip that she worked as a spy during WWII and my grandfather wasn’t really in the armed forces, he was actually a globetrotting jewel thief…”d’you want more ice tea honey?”

Mediation = Awesomeness

2006-07-22T13:00:00.002-07:00

So, I am one of those people who are unshakably sure of themselves most of the time. In fact, I am so sure of my correctitude that in a friendly discussion I will fling the rules of etiquette and good graces out the window faster than a pissed-off Russell Crowe in a hotel room and become quite belligerent toward my adversary. At this point I will usually call on my own personal mediator. That’s right, personal mediator.

While most people have personal financial advisors, physicians, lawyers, nutritionists, therapists and trainers; I feel it more advantageous to have a personal mediator. Someone with whom I can call upon to offer an unbiased appraisal of my current discussion. Someone to settle any conflict of trivial fact or opinion that might arise in any of my discussions. This personal mediator, in my opinion, is on call 24 hours a day and will always field my questions whether they are about movies, video games or deep societal issues. So, I guess this post is to say thanks bud for all the outrageous questions you have answered over the years.

Don’t think I don’t appreciate your willingness to wake up on a weeknight at 3:30 AM and entertain my drunken half-baked questions on whether the winged animal in Super Mario Bros. was a flying turtle or a duck. Or answering bizarre questions while at work or in the gym. Even taking impromptu polls, when asked, of your fellow compatriots or co-workers to solve a matter of popular opinion. It is this selfless attitude and willingness to entertain ridiculous questions posed at the most inopportune times that will assure your top five ranking on my cell phone’s speed-dial for years to come.

Kudos to you my personal mediator and kudos to all who toil fruitlessly for the benefit of us, the burdensome friends out there.

At this point I would like to cordially invite my mediator to become a full member of the Half-Assed Opinions Technical Staff. This will mean longer hours, a heavier workload, and an almost palpable sense of slackery that you must exude everywhere you go. Don’t think that this position doesn’t come with an awesome benefits package though. As all members of the H/A staff you will have a .002% financial right to any of the half invented products that will never be created, marketed or even discussed at future H/A meetings. Also, you might get a cool H/A T-shirt someday…if I remember to make one…ever.

This offer will self destruct all over your CPU in; 5…4…3…2…

Putting the ‘Dis’ in Dysfunctional

2006-07-02T22:31:00.000-07:00

So, LJ has been riding my case about having kids for like the last three months or more. It has gotten serious enough that when she goes to Wal-Mart, Target or any other clothes retailer she might want to stop by the kid sections to look at baby clothes. Maybe she’ll just tell me about reading numerous articles or blogs about babies. Hell, today we had to go to Babies R’ Us just so that she could look at baby room furniture.

Its not that I don’t want to have kids, it isn’t that I don’t like kids. It’s just that I don’t know if I can handle kids in a daddly way yet. For example I just know that to me having a kid around would just be, in my mind, supplying me with a punching bag for practical jokes. Now, before any of you fly off the handle you have to realize that this is just about normal behavior in my family. For the first five years of my life my father, in a rather brilliant parenting ploy, had me convinced that he had killed and devoured my older brother because he had misbehaved so grievously one day. Honestly this may have kept me inline somewhat for a time. I’m only trying to illustrate that in my family it was okay to bend the truth with your children because, hey they were easy dupes and it was amusing for the adults.

I can just imagine myself doing all sorts of crazy-ass things to my kids simply for my own amusement. Just off the top of my head the other day I thought about how funny it would be to sneak into my kid’s room at night and pee in his or her sock drawer. Then the next morning when they come running downstairs to tell me that their sock drawer smells like pee, I can look up from my coffee, with a shocked and dismayed look on my face, and say “Oh…jeeze…Well, some kids have this problem…I guess. You know Billy most kids have trouble with wetting the bed but you must be extra messed up…you pee the sock drawer in your sleep. How embarrassing.” Or maybe while they are at school I could raise their bike seat a little bit every day for a week until they come and tell me that their feet don’t reach the peddles anymore. At this point I say something like “Well Susie most kids your age grow up, but I guess you’re shrinking. Not a lot of kids shrink you know. You should be happy though, it’s kinda like winning the genetic freak lottery. Still your Mom and I are pretty disappointed though…(sigh).”

God, that is some heartless shit. That is way worse than any of the pranks I pulled on Mike or Danny, Beth and Brad. I just feel like maybe I need time to mature a little more. I am more concerned with my toys than the possibility of buying some other kid toys. I want a motorcycle damn it! Still, the idea of having a little kid to mold into a pranking-video gaming-punk music listening-machine. That…could be kinda fun. LJ seems enamored with the idea. Sometimes it’s all she ever talks about. It just worries me because it is so much responsibility and we have so many other things going on right now. My mind is just filled with the neat things I would love to do with the kid, but then I think of all the things I have to do for the kid. I’m a little scared. You know my Dad always told me that he wanted a sports car but my Mom wanted children, and she got her way. I better get that motorcycle.

The ADHD Epidemic

2006-06-25T08:49:00.000-07:00

*WARNING: This is going to be a long post so anyone who may not have the time or the attention span then bookmark it and come back later…it looks as though I have to climb atop the old soapbox again.

I was talking to my parents the other day and they told me that my cousin was going to be tested for ADHD (Attention Defecate Hyperactivity Disorder). I was a little shocked and asked why. I got the stock reply that I would say most parents give, “Grades, attention, attitude, etc.”. I must admit I am a bit emotionally invested here, not to mention that I am not licensed in any medical discipline (unless you count MD of Awesomeness, which most people don’t) so take everything from here on with a grain of salt.

You see years ago when I was a pre teen my parents decided that I had to go see a series of shrinks to see if I could be qualified as what was then called ADD for all the same reasons listed above. Though I was declared to have ADD and was put on Ritalin I have always felt that it was done in error. That’s right, I felt the psychologists had misdiagnosed me. Now, I don’t want to come off as a crazy-ass Scientologist here, but I do believe that the human condition is such that accurately diagnosing a person with any disorder could, and in most cases should, take a long time to do. People are just too fucking complex to qualify and quantify into such general behavioral groups like that. I just feel that to diagnose a kid so quickly like that, especially a child whose self-image will be greatly affected by what this professional may say about them not to mention that in this child’s mind their parents have decided there is something deficient enough about them to warrant taking them to this professional, you should get to know them for more than a couple of hour long sessions.

In my case I was humiliated and destroyed by the verdict. I felt that I was different from everyone else around me because of my medication and supposed problem. That I didn’t belong with the normal kids because I was lacking. My self-image was shattered and as a result I had to build a new one. I don’t begrudge my parents for this. I know they were doing it out of concern and love. I mean any parent who doesn’t want to make their child’s life better or even easier is just sadistic. They just wanted me to be successful and for school to be easier, I got that. Yet when I was talking to them the other day about this, though I have on numerous occasions tried to dispel their belief that I was ever truly any kind of candidate for ADD, they were relentless. They still believe that I have a learning disability and were trying to be supportive. I gotta tell ya its like having to prove you’re NOT a witch to a bunch of pissed-off torch bearing puritans. Once the dye is cast it never comes out baby, never.

So, let me explain to you what the symptoms of ADHD in fact are…

Children who have ADHD often:

Are easily distracted by sights and sounds in their environment.
Are unable to concentrate for long periods of time on low stimulation tasks (homework vs. video games).
Are restless and impulsive.
Have a tendency to daydream.
Are slow to complete tasks.

Now it may just be me, but does that not sound like the typical child to anyone else? Is there any child who would rather be doing his or her math homework than out playing with the other kids down the street? Is there any kid with enough life experience or maturity to not seem impulsive? I mean seriously who’s kid is not ruled by their impulses? What I am trying to say here is that, to me and most of the other people I’ve talked to, ADHD is way too broadly defined to have any sort of real merit as a true psychiatric disorder. At least with most other disorders there are much narrower criteria that must be met. It seems that the term ADHD should be re-named “The normal kid complex”.

It is also striking how most of these symptoms are remarkably similar to the signs that anyone would display if they were bored. Now, I’m not saying that all the kids who are diagnosed with this are really a bunch of bright kids who just slipped through the cracks. Certainly there are children and adults who would benefit greatly from the medications provided. However, how many people are misdiagnosed a year?

When the illness was first discovered and the drug Ritalin was first marketed it seemed like most kids were either on Ritalin or had been on it for a while. Huge numbers of children in America were diagnosed as having ADD. Now, years later, there almost seems to be a bit of a backlash as those children have grown up. After doing a bit of research on the net I was surprised to see how many sites weren’t just about the symptoms of ADHD and the helpfulness of the current drugs but almost just as many articles or pages about why you shouldn’t be on these drugs or pages that seemed bent on the negative sides of the psychiatric community (as it pertained to the diagnoses of children with ADHD) as well as the drugs themselves. I felt that I had some vindication at this point. Apparently I wasn’t the only one.

In fact I stumbled across a lot of sites all about the problem of misdiagnosis of ADHD. Some even included a list of alternative reasons that a child might display the symptoms of ADHD. Believe me there were way too many to list here so you’ll have to check out the links at the bottom. Again I’m not saying that ADHD doesn’t exist; what I am saying is that it seems to be this “catch-all” diagnosis that some poorly qualified or inexperienced or even charlatans in the psychiatric community may use to prescribe a medication to children who may have some other condition or in fact nothing wrong with them at all.

Again, I am not saying that some people don't qualify or wouldn't benefit from medication for ADHD. However I am pleading with parents out there to not take this decision lightly. Think about what this could do to your child or even your relationship with your child. Also, think about what other causes this could be stemming from. It is way to easy to just say that this problem is genetic and therefore it couldn't be anything else; "Drug my child please." This should be a last resort and trust me it will have lasting consequences for both you and your child.

Check out these links for more info…

- ADHD Drug Side Effects
- Ritalin Side effects
- Misdiagnosis of ADHD
- The Overdiagnosis of ADHD (I highly recomend this one)

P.S. Yeah, yeah, sorry I haven't posted in a while but what can I say? I guess being a free-lance archaeologist for hire, not to mention a kick-ass husband keeps me pretty buisy. What's that? "But Mark, we need more opinions of a truely half-assed nature...whimper, whimper." Oh, ok. I'll whip up another batch of intelectual trav-sham-mockery as soon as I can. And maybe it won't take me a month like last time.

Eat Shit

2006-05-21T23:36:00.000-07:00

So, I was out walking my dog the other day and per usual, Zeus, my eighty pound wonder-mutt, suddenly was dragging me over to something he had to check out. Before I could stop him he scarfed down a sizable chunk of dog poo. “Great” I think. I feel like the parent of the child who is constantly eating glue or some other rather nasty little habit. As I’m walking back to the apartment, Zeus happily bounding in front, satisfied no doubt in his found culinary treasure, I was thinking “Hmmm, why is there such a stigma attached to this?”

Yeah, yeah I know its poo. I know, I know. Gross as it is to us, maybe dogs just like the taste. I mean they aren’t pent up by social graces like we are and they aren’t people so why stress about it. Why not embrace it as their natural preference. Look at it this way you don’t get on your dog for liking the crotch notch and you don’t get onto them for sniffing other dog’s poop chutes, so why get on them about eating sod snickers? (Too much rhyming?) Anyway, so thinking about it I decided to give the idea to the old Half-Assed Innovations crew as I do any other half conceived notions. And here is what they gave me.

Here’s the thing: No overhead cost for product production or R&D. Simple box and wrapper design. All we need to do is alter people’s preconceived notions that dogs shouldn’t eat poo. Once that’s done its all profit baby.

Oh, yeah and while they were working on it the H/A staff also gave me this idea for future market development…”Scroungey’s Grab-Bag”, much the same as Pooties only for babies. We will just fill the boxes with anything a toddler might find and want to put in its mouth. With an adorable toddler aged mascot who looks like a sailor and is always searching for the next treat to taste. I had one word for my staff at that point…”brilliant”.

Conversations with LJ

2006-05-18T20:50:00.000-07:00

Conversation 1

Mark: Wanna play Risk tonight?

LJ: No, I mean you’re always in the mood for world domination. Me, not so much.

Mark: So true.

Conversation 2

LJ: How was that movie about World War II?

Mark: Eh, it was ok. A little too dramatic, but ok. Well, it was about the last days in Hitler’s bunker, but still over dramatic.

Job Satisfaction

2006-05-14T18:42:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody, sorry I haven’t blogged in a while but, I have had a hectic few weeks. Lets see, I sold my little Honda to an unsuspecting dupe. I have lost five pounds. I went to San Francisco with LJ (but I’ll let her tell that story). I ate the world’s hottest Thai food. I saw a robot pterodactyl fighting with a knight. I saw a homemade jet pack. I went to a haunted house. I discovered a whole new petroglyph (rock art) site that no one has seen since it was made. And finally I went to a small town called Ely (pronounced eelee) where a dog barked at me, then a girl barked at me…weird. Anyway I wanna tell you guys about my new job. (All true I swear to you)

So for years I have had to toil in retail jobs, and service jobs. Always working for minimal or close to minimal pay, and always doing something that I found to be beneath my abilities. I’m not trying to sound arrogant but c’mon, it’s true. Anyone who has a high school education shouldn’t have to work with ex-convicts. So lets see, why is my current job vastly better than any job I have ever had before?

I am appreciated from the get go. Everyone knows I have enough brains to be told something kinda complex once and then be able to do it again. Not to mention be able to expand on it with no explanations. I am responsible for at least $2,000 worth of equipment from the get go with no warnings or supervisors. My job takes me places that are way off the beaten path. I get to see environments that are so completely foreign to me that any little thing is a total thrill. Hmmm, I’ve seen wild horses, huge lizards, eagles, elk, antelope, deer, huge anthills, marmots, quail, rattlesnakes, and huge buzzards; all from a relative closeness that you couldn’t get from a zoo. Every day we are looking for something new so no repetitious work. One day I could be after an ancient Native American site or maybe old mining camps. I have personally found historic cans, mine shafts, prehistoric tools, rock shelters, and petroglyphs (ancient native rock art).

I guess what I’m trying to say is that for a “professional” type job this is more fun than I could have ever imagined. I get to hike around all day for four days then get three days off back to back, or work eight days straight in a paid for hotel in some remote part of Nevada, meals included, then come back to six days off. How could I have gotten so lucky?

Oh, maybe I haven’t mentioned the best part. When I go out and someone asks me what I do I get to say, “Oh me? I’m just an…ARCHAEOLOGIST.” Then sit back while they all go nuts. Its like telling someone you’re a secret agent then letting them buy you a martini while they hold your two way wrist communicator and call all their friends over to get a look. LJ and I went to a historic site recently and when we were finished with the tour I let it drop that I worked for an archaeological firm and from there I was In like Flint. The mood always seems to change, it’s great.

So anyway, there you have it. I am now Mark the successful, intelligent, handsome, and modest archaeologist instead of Mark the under-appreciated retail gimp. I am leaving for another eight day stint but unlike last time I have left two or three more blogs, pre-typed, and ready for LJ to post at given intervals. So you can all bask in my semi-humorous writings. ‘Till later my friends.

P.S. I have yet to punch my first Nazi but I have been assured it will happen. I just have to be patient.

Curing Myself

2006-04-03T13:09:00.000-07:00

There are days when I don’t even think about it. There are more days that I think about it all the damn time. The worst of it came about a week after LJ and I got out here. We went to a casino to look around and decided to have a drink at a bar. So, we’re sitting there and I look around and at every table everyone is smoking. I quickly refocus my gaze down at the table to stem the rising urges and the ashtray seems to be so empty, too empty. Like some meaningless object that needed me to become what it was meant to be, it was calling to me. I started making deals with myself. “Ok”, I thought, “I’ll just smoke in casinos and that’s it. Hell, not even all the casinos just this one…and…and only in this bar. Yeah, in fact only at this table so if I come here and stroll past and see that this table is taken I can’t smoke that day.” But that wouldn’t have happened and I knew it.

I have to say that LJ wasn’t much help that night. She said that she didn’t think that she was going to quit smoking anyway. Easy for her to say, Mrs. smokes maybe one cigarette a week and never feels like having one. She went on to say that she was thinking of having a cigarillo right then and there. When I heard this I thought, “Damn, I can do it! Here is the chance I need. She said she wanted to smoke maybe I can get a pack of cigarettes. Yes!” I even asked the waitress if they had packs for sale. “No”, she said but then motioned to a glass door to the right of the bar where cigarettes were sold. All sorts! I spent most of that evening sitting there, thinking about that door and the colorful little boxes within. God, I wanted nothing more than to walk through that door and into that warm glow and smell the clean plastic coated boxes and the aroma of dried tobacco.

REWIND: About three years ago in Athens, Georgia I smoked a cigarette that started me on a habit that didn’t end until a little more than a month ago. Over the past few years I had smoked about one pack a week sometimes more, sometimes less, during this period. I never really loved the idea that I smoked it just got to be one of those things I did to relax. Marlboro (reds, 100’s, and 27’s), Benson & Hedges, Camels, really what ever would give me my nicotine fix.

I am now proud to say that I have gone a month and a half without one smoke (honestly more like two, but I broke down after the failed CLAST exam and had a pack). It wasn’t easy either, let me tell ya, and I’m still not all the way there. I feel that if I can make it a year without smoking then I will have successfully kicked the habit. Still, I am a little concerned because there is so much temptation out here. Smoking, in Reno, is allowed everywhere. There is smoking in restaurants, in public buildings, even in grocery stores. I can’t tell you how weird it is to walk into a grocery store and immediately smell that familiar stale odor wafting at you. For a recent ex-smoker it is like biscuits and gravy.

All of my co-workers smoke and every fucking day they ask me to come outside with them, that I can even bum a cigarette if I want. And you’re God damned right “I want”. However, every day I say “No”, that “I’m trying to quit” and that “I have come too far to give up now.” Still, every day they invite me. I don’t hate them for this; I just wish they’d stop inviting me. I wish that I didn’t see it everywhere.

They say a smoker’s always a smoker when the chips are down. Maybe, but for now I’m no smoker and I want desperately for it to stay that way. I think I can do it too. Every day gets just a little bit easier. Oh well, one month down ten and a half to go.

Mark vs. Snow

2006-03-30T17:38:00.000-08:00

Venti Crapachino

2006-03-24T16:54:00.000-08:00

Ok, so LJ and I left Pensacola and traveled more than 2,000 miles west. We have come to a strange and wonderful land. Yet this land is filled with danger. Danger that if not minded may destroy the very foundations of our sanity and leave us penniless with not but the vague recollections of speaking in a pseudo-sophisticate that we barely understood and our breath smelling of burnt coffee. I am, of course, alluding to the coffee house of the damned…STARBUCKS.

It seems that the city planners in Reno decided that no shopping mall would be complete or intersection would be left bereft of a Starbucks. The people out here seem to either bask in the lustrous figure of Starbucks’ succubus logo, called to her like doomed sailors to the song of Sirens, or they are seemingly oblivious to the edifices. They ignore it as the proverbial elephant in the corner.

I am a coffee lover. I have sampled most all varieties of coffee from most nationalities that choose to grow and ship it. In my house I keep the coffee that I purchase frozen until consumption. I grind whole beans before I start my machine and I can enjoy coffee black, creamed or sugared. Again, I love coffee. “Why”, might you ask, “do I hate these particular chain café’s so much?”

For a few simple reasons…Firstly, I despise the product. Though most wouldn’t believe it Starbucks coffee is over-roasted. This makes the beverage overly bitter. You may not know this though because most people order deluded variations of the standard Cup-of-Joe. If you don’t believe me go in and order a cup of coffee the next time. I swear that you will not want to drink it black. A truly good cup of coffee should be drinkable black or otherwise without overpowering all of your taste sensations and leaving your tongue ravaged and left for dead.

Second: The attitude projected by the overly smug staff and most patrons always pisses me off a bit. If I forgo the ridiculous language change and presume to order my drink in my native English I must endure the glares of ridicule and pity of those around me. To them I am the un-inducted the brigand who wandered into their private club and who is embarrassing himself and offending all. Sometimes, worse the condescending reprimand given me by the high school educated, metro-sexual behind the counter; “We serve Tall, Grande and Venti here…Sir.” “Whatever. I see that you have three sizes of cups and I will just assume that you have eaten elsewhere in your life and in doing so have ordered a small, medium or large drink. Now, if you were to apply that same formula to the empty cups in front of you which one do you think would be a small?” Why should ordering a cup of coffee be so difficult?

Lastly: I suppose the atmosphere is soothing to some but I am generally made uncomfortable by the time I sit down with my boiling cup of burnt coffee. I sit having to listen to some Italian version of Kenny G (but its foreign so its high class, right?) and marvel at the price tags on all the sundries that have less taste than anything one could purchase from a grocery store.

This may permanently brand me as an uncultured barbarian, however I must toss a life vest to those out there who may not know. Some of the best places to get a great cup of coffee that is reasonably priced are both Dunkin’ Doughnuts and Krispy Kreme. Yes, I know, horrible eateries of the proletariat though they may be, they still can make one hell of a damned fine coffee. Krispy Kreme in particular with their three varieties of richness is outstanding.

Was that over the top? Maybe I need to lay off the coffee.

Will Dig for Food

2006-03-17T17:14:00.000-08:00

Ok so here’s the deal, I went for an interview today with a CRM firm (Cultural Research Management) and was offered a job. This job is basically part-time until they have more work that, from what I’m told, will be all spring summer and fall. So in the meantime I will still be working at The Shack but will be leaving increasingly for more and more archaeological work. The job is going to pay me quite a bit more than Radio Shack, and I have all sorts of room for advancement (with more pay of coarse). I am nothing if not ruthless in fighting for advancements at work.

This is really great especially considering what happened with the CLAST in Florida. This is also a huge ego boost. I mean, the job set up is perfect so that I can work and get the CLAST finished. Also, if I keep both jobs I can be making some real BUCK$!

The CRM guy tells me that I may be working what are called tens. These are ten days on the job in remote areas of Nevada, followed by four days off. He tells me that I will see parts of this country that are remote as hell and more beautiful than the places most people get to see. I can’t wait. I just hope this doesn’t put a strain on LJ and I, but she knew this was what had to happen with this career choice, and I know she’ll like the money. My new boss also seems to think that I’ll fit right in with the crew. “There are some tough hombres that work here”, he tells me “You should fit right in.”

While I was in Pensacola Mike, LJ, her parents and I went out to a restaurant. Once seated the waitress came over and to my amazement it was one of the girls I did my field school with. I am not trying to be demeaning here because God knows I am still not much better off. When I saw that it was her though, the class suck-up and all around know-it-all, I was heart sunk. I felt more than ever that I would never use my training as an archaeologist. I felt like I was doomed to work in low-level sales all my life. I mean if anyone was going to go places and make a name for themselves, hell even just get a job as an honest to God archaeologist, it was her. So, today was a huge day for me. Finally, I am taking the first steps in doing what I set out to do all those years ago. Who knows, maybe I’ll love it, and this will be my career. Not to mention, I will finally be able to wear my Indiana Jones hat with pride instead of longing.

Things that I expected:

The work is unsteady and the only full time jobs are for those who have been there for years

I will have to go out for long stints in the field

What you learn in school and the way it is in the real world are as different as night an day

All professional archaeologists wear earth tones

Things I didn’t expect:

There is no digging in the west when doing basic survey. Not even brushing

If something must be dug it is with a backhoe

My father sent me to college so that I wouldn’t become a ditch-digger…sorry dad.

Go West

2006-03-12T13:19:00.000-08:00

Sorry I haven’t posted anything in like a week or two. We moved…westward. For those of you who don’t know, LJ got a job with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She is now a full-fledged bureaucrat with a cubical and everything. I, however, am still with the Shack unfortunately. Yet, I have had many leads into the CRM (archaeology for hire) field that may pan out. So we are both doing well and are very excited to be out here.

Let me just tell you all a little about our trip. When we were planning our move from Pensacola, Florida to Reno, Nevada (pronounced Nəv-a-də-a not Nəv-ä-də-ä, by the locals, though both are technically correct) I was basing most of my time frame estimates on a trip that I took with some friends out west right after high school. In this rational I thought that 3-4 days was a rather close approximation. Wrong! Here is a little math problem for you: You are leaving on a trip that is approximately 2,500 miles long, in a van that can’t reverse and only goes 65 miles per hour (at best) and that this van also needs to stop and be refueled every 180 to 200 miles. Now also take into consideration that flat tires, road debris, roadblocks, blizzards, and other miscellaneous obstacles will delay you. How log does it take to reach your destination? Answer: 5-6 days at best.

Let me also tell all of you who may be expecting phone calls that the reason we haven’t called is that LJ and I have a very low minute plan and we have already used up our minutes for this month. Our evening minutes start at 9pm and out here nine is actually midnight for those of you on the east coast. So we will have to try saving minutes next month or use the net to communicate more.

Our Place is great. We are situated on the south side of Reno, which is close to all sorts of new development and malls and such. Our apartment has just been remodeled and is awesome. Our digital camera is broken so I can’t show you any pictures yet unfortunately, but let me just say SNOW and MOUNTAINS! Yes the city seems to be surrounded by snow capped mountains that are visible from anywhere. Another mountain range of huge clouds are almost always visible behind them but seem to be held back almost like the rocks on the shore of an ocean holding back a giant crashing breakwater. You will still catch the occasional tumbleweed rolling past, but the city is pretty big and has all sorts of entertainment, food, and recreation to offer. The people have been really nice and though there are trucker types about I have yet to see my first redneck. I’ll try and update as soon as I can with anything. Until I see ya next east coast represent!

P.S. Mike I have your McGuire’s stein. Sorry it must have been packed in the move I will send it back when I can…or maybe hold it for when you come to visit.

Persistence

2006-02-23T22:26:00.000-08:00

I failed today. Just another failure in a long string of failures, some small, some large. This just happens to be one that comes at the last hurtle of a long race for me. A stumble that sets the finishing line just a bit farther away, much to the disappointment of myself and loved ones. In my mind, now, I feel as though I am an abnormality. I feel deficient compared to some I know and many I see in day-to-day life. This particular race has taken me much longer than most and in that sense I feel like a charity case to be pitied. As I look back, there have been so many things that have gone wrong on the road to this goal. Apathy, depression, procrastination, disillusionment, frustration, distractions, wondering, the list could go on.

I’m not writing this, however, as a work of self-depravation; rather, as an article of hope. I have never been one to wallow in misery and I don’t want to come off that way now. This is merely an assertion, to my family, to my friends, and perhaps even to myself, that the struggle isn’t over yet for me. I am not one to give up.

If you were to ask a mountain climber, who had just come back from a failed attempt to summit Everest, would he try again? Despite the time and energy, cost and hardships, the work and suffering (not just for him but his loved ones as well) I would bet you that person would say “yes” every time. Why? Because, this person isn’t doing it for anything or anyone but themselves. They are doing it to complete a goal they had set for themselves. I am much like that person.

When I was eleven, still in Cub Scouts and unprepared for the hard trials a long hike could dish out, I went on a fifty mile backpacking trip with my father and a group of older boys. This was actually my first backpacking trip, a tall order for someone so young. I remember my father got me a kid sized external frame pack and I hiked the first two days in an old pair of sneakers.

On the morning of the third day my mother met us on a road that intersected the trail. She had come to pick up any boys that wanted to go home before the next three days of grueling trail. Some of the younger boys (thirteen to fifteen year olds) decided to leave. When my mother took me aside she asked me if I wanted to go too. She said that there was no shame in it because other boys were going to leave also. There was never a doubt in my mind. I told her I wanted to finish. She walked to the car and came back with a small brown box that contained my first set of hiking boots.

The next few days were hell for me. We encountered rain and cold followed by sleet on the fourth night. I cried one day, as I hiked, because my body was pained to move and I was frustrated with myself for being so weak. I remember being so exhausted that one night I couldn’t eat. I just lay in my tent feeling beaten and anguished.

On the fifth day, in the early afternoon, I walked down to the parking lot where a van was waiting to take us home. There was no celebration or awards only the personal knowledge that you had done it. I had help, of coarse, not just from my father but also from the other adults with me. I held up the rear of the group most days and slowed everything down. But I did it. I finished in spite of physical and mental stress. This has been a metaphor for most of my life.

I rely on those around me for help when I need it and the ones who really care have been there for me time and time again. I am embarrassed that this particular goal has taken me so long to complete especially compared to others, yet I will persist. Not for anything but the knowledge that I could. Maybe I was wrong to use the analogy of a race. To me this is more like a solo run. I don’t care what others think or say. I certainly don’t care how long it should take. For me this goal will be about how long it did take.

---Persistence---

Findor

2006-01-12T20:32:00.001-08:00

The greatest of all Super Heroes

I have been of the impression, for a long while now, that most every super power out there actually sucks. Really, when you ask someone “Hey, if you could have any super power what would it be?” There will be the inevitable person who answers, “I would want to be able to fly” or “I want super strength” or “I want to be able to…” What most people don’t realize is that there are a shit-ton of draw backs to having any of these super powers.

First off, if you could fly you would still be susceptible to any number of problems. Atmospheric pressures, windburn, wind chill, hitting obstacles (what do you think would happen to you while flying 200mph + and you hit a bird), not to mention what would happen if people saw you flying around. You think people are just going to be happy for you? Second, super strength. If you were super strong you would barely be able to handle normal life. Everything you touched would be in danger of breaking. What happens when you have a nightmare and kick whomever you are sleep next to? You might wake up with a hole in the wall and the police at your door. All I’m saying is that to wish for these types of super powers is asinine.

I have long believed that the best super power to have would be the ability to find anything any where at any time. Think about it. How much time in your life would you save if suddenly you knew where your car keys were. Where you left your _____. Better yet, how valuable of a person would you be to any government if they knew you could find who ever or whatever facility or whatever spy? How awesome would it be to know where anything, and I mean ANYTHING was? Totally awesome that’s what. And for this reason if I had this power my super identity would be Findor. I even came up with some T-shirt logos…that’s right T-shirts because I don’t have the money for an incredible costume. So, I guess either one of these.

Upon further thought I decided that any super hero team would have to have this person around otherwise how would they find criminals? I could be all like,”Yeah, Lex Luthor. He’s in the Hall of Doom at the bottom of the Florida everglades. You need me to draw you a map…Superman?” Plus, if a villain ever screwed with me I could tell him “Yeah, I know where you live asshole.” And mean it. Fuck’n A

Half-Assed Innovations

2006-01-04T17:47:00.000-08:00

Yesterday my wife and I were walking through the vacuum section of our local Target. While we were there she told me that Roseanne Barr made a great quote about vacuums.

"The day I worry about cleaning my house is the day
Harrods comes out with a ride-on vacuum cleaner."
-Roseanne Barr-

So that got me thinking. Why shouldn’t there be a ride on vacuum cleaner? I came home and put the entire Hall-Assed Opinions Research and Development Staff on that very problem. Again, we here at H/A are always looking for ways to better mankind, as long as it doesn’t take too much time or energy.

Of coarse when you read the above statement you would assume that the idea is impossible, neigh ridiculous. That, however, is because people would immediately assume that any “ride on” item would look like a Ride on lawn mower. We here at H/A are innovators though. Remember the Segway? That rather useless contraption that was supposed to revolutionize our lives and change the way cities were designed? Stands on two wheels…you’ll see ‘em in Theme Parks. We realized that this would solve our size issue. Then, by simply fastening a Dyson Vacuum to the front using bungee cords and mounting a car battery to power the vacuum we had done it!We had taken a fastenating, yet remarkably unprofitable, invention (the Segway) and a wonderful, yet not self-driven, vacuum and combined them to make the world’s first ride on vacuum.

I was quite proud of this new labor saving device and have dubbed it The Seg-uum [patent pending]. Now, anyone with a severe aversion to manual labor, a penchant for hastily contrived technology and who has loads of money to blow can get this amazing devise. Basic models start at a reasonable $20,000.

All sales final. No refunds or exchanges. C.O.D. only no checks or money orders. Half-Assed Opinions will not be held liable for any damage to personal property, pets or children.

Now read some testimonials from some of our satisfied customers, just follow the link below!

It Started So Innocently

2005-12-13T18:38:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was my 27^th birthday and here’s how it all went down.

I went into work around 10:00am and got off at about 6:00pm at that time LJ picked me up and drove me to a go-kart track with some friends. We pull up around 6:15 and went in. There Mike, Beth and B-rad were waiting for us. The track sadly was closed, which is too bad because I can lay some mean rubber on the go-kart track. We said “whatever” and play some ski-ball before making different plans.

“Where is the nearest bar that you can smoke in?” I ask. “Babes!” (a local strip club) Mike answers with a little more enthusiasm than the situation warranted. Everyone is sort of unsure of what to do so I offer “How about the bowling alley on Ninth?”. This was met with general approval so we go.

At 6:50 we got a lane and our first pitcher of beer. Danny shows up shortly after and we all settle in. The next lane is filled with teenage rednecks and their knocked up girlfriends and I can remember thinking to myself “God, what a bunch of uncouth loudmouths.” Oh, how irony can make fools of us all. At 7:45 we finished our first game and head to the bar where everyone sits down to smoke and much more beer is consumed. Then back to the lanes for one more round.

This is the point in the evening when most of the beer was consumed the volume of our voices rose and high jinks ensued. Mike drank God knows how much but as far as I know I was keeping up with him. He got crazy. Not to say the rest of us were much better. After countless spilled beers, more than a few friendly punches and a couple of epic tumbles (one off of a table another three on the lane, courtesy of Mike). The manager was coming over and asking us to keep it down and to revoke Mike’s bowling license. I, being the responsible 27-year-old smoothed things over twice then at the end of the game helped to Shepard everyone out before the cops were called, after I paid the entire bowling tab I might add.

Once outside however things got rowdier. Long story short Mike slipped a Bar glass in Beth’s purse that shattered after Mike dropkicked it, purse and all. He had to leave his car there and one of the bowling alley employees was sent out to make sure that we left. I got Mike home and he stayed in the bathroom most of the night. Note exhibit 1-A: Pay close attention to the bottom left where you can clearly see the pool of vomit. Later vomit pool is indicated by the blue outline.

Saving the best for last…I got a GUITAR! Not that I know how to play it but I got a GUITAR! It’s awesome. So now I have to learn to play it. I have to admit I was not expecting it. To everyone involved kudos for keeping it so secret and thanks a million to all, even those who helped LJ through the process. This wasn’t easy for her. Mike got me a stand for it and a cool strap though I had to open his tonight because he was in no shape after I got him home…friggin’ lightweight. All in all it was the best birthday ever.

P.S. I will post a picture of my new baby and me after some minor alterations are made per LJ’s advice.

Don't Read This...

2005-12-02T15:39:00.000-08:00

I was recently sent an email from a friend of mine. It was basically a story, fictional in my opinion, about a university professor who tried to disprove the idea of a God but was foiled by a young student who countered his argument with scientific fact then used the basis of those facts as a logical progression to assert his belief that God did indeed exist. This student was Albert Einstein, or so the story would have you believe (again I feel that is doubtful at best). I don’t feel this way because I know that Einstein wouldn’t have argued such or because I feel that such a renowned scientific mind wouldn’t argue for the existence of a deity. No, mine is more the opinion that this is more of a fable like that of George Washington chopping down a cherry tree or throwing the coin across the Delaware River.

This did, however, cause me to think about “The Argument” once more. The essential problem that I have with stories, or arguments for that matter, like these are that one can’t simply equate fact with belief. I am not saying that one’s resolve toward a particular belief can’t be strengthened by fact, certainly any Atheist is such a person, but what I am saying is that you can’t mingle science and religion based faith. It is nearly impossible.

For instance; when dealing with the physical world you could test, verify and recreate scenarios until at some point you can come to the reasonably sound conclusion that water will always flow downhill. On the other hand you could not test for something that has no apparent force, regularity, or physicality what so ever, in short God. This makes any argument for that which is immaterial a debate in beliefs or better yet philosophy.

Intangibles such as what is right or wrong, what is sane or insane or even whether there is or isn’t a God are all fundamentally debates in opinion. One could not, as far as I know, use scientific fact or theory to strengthen any of these arguments. You could express an average or polling data, which could lead you to believe that of all samples gathered most people think that murder is wrong, yet does that make it so? Again we are expressing an opinion, an intangible not a fact. While a vast majority would say yes to the previous question, and assuming that the democratic ideal of majority rule should not take precedent, would those who said no be wrong? I don’t believe so. It is merely the opinion of the majority that would lead you to that conclusion. In the animal kingdom there are multitudes of species that kill their own kind. So then the argument becomes are we better than other animals. And back to the main topic we come.

Faith is a tricky subject. I neither believe nor disbelieve in a deity. I do believe, however, in Ockham’s Razor. This, simply put, is the belief that all things being equal the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. In such case it is as likely that the world was created by an all-powerful deity as it was to have been created by cosmic forces. For that matter it is also as likely that the universe was created on accident or that the universe as we know it is nothing more than the fantasy of a small child. As repulsive as this idea may come to some of you (I am sure there are some snickering in their chairs) you must admit that when dealing with un-testable, un-provable, philosophy that these notions are no more absurd than any other, and I do mean any.

While I didn’t want this to be an epic post I feel I must bring up one more point. LJ and I talked about this and her view was that if this “student” were of a scientific nature of course he would use scientific reasoning as the basis for his beliefs. This was his way of coming to the conclusion that there was a God. In short, it shows his thought process. I can’t disagree with that. Hell, that would be true of most Georgia Tech graduates I know. Although, my fundamental opinion is that one can no more use science to disprove a higher power than a religion can use The Bible, Torah, or Bhagavad Gita to undeniably prove the existence of one.

Is it Cold Enough for Ya?

2005-11-18T21:08:00.000-08:00

It is cold down here in Pensacola…balls cold. So I was thinking about it the other day when I came home from work, walked past my neighbor and into my house. Cold can be an interesting thing, for example:

You can get hypothermia at only 95°

The common fish can have a body temp. between 74° and 82°

It is best to drink wine at 80°

Yet, wine ferments between 69° and 65°

Most refrigerators are set to 60°

Illinois mean temperature is only 50°

Average difference between indoor/outdoor temps. is 45°

The water in beer will freeze at 32° but the alcohol will not

Inversely, my redneck neighbor will sit outside in his folding chair, smoking a cigarette, without a shirt on, in his cutoff jean-shorts at any of these temperatures…though his beer may in fact be frozen.

Parenting is for Suckers

2005-11-15T06:05:00.000-08:00

A frazzled mother came into my work a few days ago and was asking me about getting a new cell phone. While I was answering her questions I couldn’t help but notice the 2 year old in her arms struggling like a trout in the arms of a bear. The mother grabbed a box from a nearby shelf to try and appease the increasingly active child but nothing seemed to suffice. The kid wasn’t crying or anything, she was just antsy. So, finally the mother put the toddler down so she could concentrate on my brilliantly crafted sales pitch for the high-priced crap I was selling. The toddler in the meantime was ambling about my legs and trying to get my attention with the aforementioned box. Finally with nothing more than a quick glance and with no break in my sales spiel I took the box and tossed it a few feet away with the words “Go get it!” then seamlessly returned to the sale at hand.

The mother had a mildly shocked look on her face, but afraid to loose the sale I continued to pitch. When her daughter returned to my legs a second time after retrieving the box I repeated my first action with the words “Good girl” in front, then “Go get it” again. When I looked back at the mother this time she looked pissed. “Are you playing fetch with my daughter!?” she asked. Before I could reply with anything more than an “uhhhhh”, she had swooped up the kid, who was on her way back with the box I might add, and walked angrily out of the store.

The lesson here is two fold. One: Parents always think their kid is frick’n Einstein or Martin Luther King Jr. so it is undignified to play “Dog Games” with them. And Two: Kids love “Dog Games”.

I guess the reason I am even thinking of kids right now is because my Sister-in-law just had a baby girl named Olivia Jean ____. From what I hear she is cute as hell and probably as smart as frick’n Einstein or Martin Luther King Jr. Anyway, congrats to LJ and me (Her middle name was in honor of LJ).

Pranks, Mischief and Dirty Deeds

2005-11-10T11:40:00.001-08:00

I love pranks. I love the planning, the excitement of the moment that you are putting it all together, and the humor that goes along with the whole thing. I was a prankster from a young age ‘till now. I can remember my first prank was when I was ten or so and discovered that salt was invisible in water. I salted the ice trays in our freezer so as to prank anyone who wanted a cold drink. Little did I know that the next day my mother was having a bunch of ladies over and they all had ice tea. My mother just couldn’t understand why no one drank any tea, until I came clean that is. I got a spanking for that but I knew it was worth it. Over the years I have amassed a rather decent collection of pranking props from fake poo to “fart detectors”.

Later in college I joined a fraternity comprised of guys with no imagination for pranks but who all wanted to pull some off. I organized many pranks with them. Yes, it was I who planned the hanging of rival frat letters from three of the tallest buildings on campus. I was the one who set up the sprinkler on top of the Anthropology building to ice the huge tree outside of it (both times). And I who organized the hanging toilets in the quad. Not to mention various pranks that I pulled on friends and relatives (you know who you are).

So this past Halloween LJ, Mike and I were sitting around the house discussing what we should do with our evening when I blurted out “Hey, why don’t we go do some Halloween pranks on someone.” We thought about it and decided to pull a classic on some friends. I gathered all the dog poo I could find and put it into a paper bag then we all drove over to a friend’s house. Yeah, we set it on fire then ran off. Old, I know, but just classic. Funny stuff. Hence they have stolen a statue of Buddha from our backyard and taken it around town taking pictures. Also, they put a dead lobster in Mike’s truck.

Pretty good, so now we find ourselves in the middle of what has been aptly dubbed a “Prank-War”.

I want you all to know that through the years I have followed my own simple guidelines as far as pranks were concerned.

Nothing destructive: So nothing like keying someone’s car or slashing tires
Nothing that will cost the prankee time or money: So nothing like taking wheels off their car so they can’t get to work on time.
Nothing publicly humiliating: So no posting nude pictures or telling dark secrets.
They all have to be good-natured: Use your best judgment here.

With these rules as boundaries I have been able to prank close friends and not come off as a total jerk. Anyway, the group that we are warring against was trying to come up with some guidelines and maybe this will help. I have known good pranksters who have gone a little too far and either lost friends or even ended up in jail. I hope to update you guys soon on what is going on. Maybe there will be some good stories to tell.

One Year Anniversary Spectacular!

2005-10-28T20:12:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s been a whole year of blogging. The day has actually come and past and I posted nothing, however I feel that is in keeping with the frequency of all my postings. What a year though. Ya know, I have no idea how many posts I have actually written. It should be quite a few. I was at work and reading back over many past articles and it was only then I realized my one-year anniversary was even coming up. Those of you who know me are probably not surprised (I don’t remember dates, which is curious because I am striving to be a historian).

Anyway, I thought about how best to celebrate the anniversary and decided that doing what most TV shows do when they hit some landmark would be best. Yes, this is the copout, “Greatest Moments Reel”…in blog form. I have scoured my archives looking for my favorite subjects and posts and have compiled a few that I found fun or interesting or whatever. And just for kicks I even put it into a familiar Top-Ten list format.

10) Christmas Values as told by Sinjon
9) Random Discovery
8) Men on Men
7) Higher Power
6) Jesus is my Hommie
5) We all need a Hero
4) Sty in the Eye
3) Medical Mayhem
2) I Pledge?
1) The Best Girl Ever...

Good stuff, good stuff. It was really tough finding some good blogs back there let me tell you. I’ve covered a lot of subjects and made some cool blog-buddies along the way. All in all I’d say it’s been a cool and worthwhile venture. I plan to keep on truckin' now so that you the reader can be looking forward to more interesting and gut wrenchingly Half-Assed blogs ahead. Thanks everybody for taking the time to read my stuff. I appreciate it.

XYZ

2005-10-17T21:05:00.000-07:00

So, last weekend I went to my bud, Andrew’s, wedding in Savannah. Andrew has been a friend of mine since Boy Scouts. He and I remained friends during college and have had many a hilarious adventure together. I was asked to be a groomsman for the wedding and took great pride in it. LJ and I rented a car drove up, got a hotel, rented the tux, got the gift and everything. The wedding was lovely, but there was one troubling thing that happened.

This may have been better left unsaid, (which was to be the title of this post. I felt the current one captured more of the essence though) but I thought it was hilarious and had to share it. Maybe it can be an anecdote that Andrew can tell for years to come. Anyway, I got to the hotel where the other groomsmen were changing for the ceremony and put on my tux in the bathroom. All of us then went down stairs and accompanied guests on rented trolleys to a beautiful square downtown. We seated people and handed out programs. Then stood in front of the whole congregation and afterward escorted the bridesmaids back down the isle. The wedding party then hung out for a while and took a million pictures in all sorts of poses. Then hopped the trolleys back to the hotel for the reception. Later, I danced with LJ on an empty dance floor to some swing music (no one swings, go figure) so all eyes were on us. We even got applause! It was after downing some refreshments that the urge hit. I went to the bathroom to discover that I didn’t need to open my fly. That’s right it was already down. Why was it already down? Because, it had been down from the time I put on my tux to the time I went to the bathroom at the reception. Now, if you need to re-read all that with the knowledge of my awkward situation feel free, you may have missed something...much like I had.

Embarrassing I know, but still funny as hell. I came back and told LJ immediately. I’m just glad the "old boy" didn’t decide to make any unscheduled appearances while the ceremony was underway. Man, Stephanie would have never let me see Andrew again and probably would have had me shot by the police officer assigned to the square to keep the peace. Maybe at least gotten me arrested for public indecency…, which I would have had to agree to. The more I thought about it though, the more I thought, “Hey, this should be a wedding tradition, kinda like Groundhog’s Day. One of the groomsmen, who isn’t a prude, comes with the barn door open and if the junk falls out the marriage may end in divorce, but if it stays in then the marriage will be long and happy one.” I think that this may have been the best gift I could have given Andrew in the end.

Good luck guys and if my junk did make it into any of the pictures...I want copies.

Shed a Tear and Rejoice

2005-10-09T18:57:00.000-07:00

We had a family meeting the other night and it has been decided that the satellite television bill has gotten way too high so we’re dumping it in exchange for high-speed Internet. I feel like an addict who got clean, then was thrust into a crack house for six months. Let me explain…

Before LJ and I got married we made up a budget so that we could be responsible with our money. We figured in everything from rent to extra spending cash. We thought that $65 or so was better spent on dinners, movies, or evenings out rather than cable television. We also used the cheapest dial-up web provider we could find and we didn’t have cell phones so there were no bills other than rent and utilities. “Like Robinson Caruso, it’s as primitive as can be”

When we moved into our first house all we had was a small collection of movies and some video games. We didn’t have an antenna so we couldn’t even watch local broadcasting. I have to admit it took a month or so to not feel the pull to watch TV. After a while though I got to a point where I really didn’t even care. I could walk into someone’s house where the TV was on and I wouldn’t pay attention to it even if everyone else were enrapt. Plus, me start to be getting better in my mental faculties. It was like this for a year and a half. Then we moved into a new house, after hurricane Ivan, with a friend named Mike.

Mike had lived very much the opposite. He and his ex-wife had cell phones, cable Internet, satellite television, and cable TV (yeah, cable and satellite). So they had it all man. After we moved in together Mike got satellite TV again and it has been downhill for me ever since. I was helpless when the option of TV came back into my life. I would binge like no one would understand. Now though it is all over.

We get DSL tomorrow! Yay! Now I can jump from web page to web page at break-neck speeds. Don’t be surprised if you see some flaming skid marks on your blogs like in “Back to the Future”, it was probably just me speeding off to my next destination. Mike also reminded me that with our computers linked to the same network we could game together. Maybe I’ll hold a Rainbow Six web party for all my old buds that used to do the LAN party thing with me. Anyway, It’s a good trade in my opinion but I will miss some near and dear shows that became close to heart.

[Our Dearly Departed]

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Top Gear

The Venture Brothers

The Dailey Show

and yes, The World's Most Amazing Videos

I will miss you all...

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes...

2005-10-02T07:20:00.000-07:00

Like the new décor? Well, it’s October and October means Halloween and that means LJ and Mark’s favorite time of the year! So I did some redecorating on my site to accommodate. You may also have noticed that I changed my URL. Yeah, that was a bit of a hassle I know but if you recall brilligmark was the old URL and it just made sense to change it before someone else swooped in and took the name of the site "Half-Assed Opinions". Anyway, the Halloween décor won’t be permanent but you also will not see the old look again either. I looked back…back…back into the distant Half-Assed Archives and found that I started this blog on October 24^th of last year. So to celebrate my anniversary I will give the old blog a, much needed, face-lift. I’ve been working with some things to help make the page more eye appealing and have better functionality so I hope it will be a big improvement. Thanks for stopping by and Happy Halloween!

‘Roids n’ Voids

2005-09-28T21:08:00.000-07:00

The first time I went paintballing I went to a field. A field is like a screened in arena with a shop adjacent, to rent or buy gear and stuff. At a paintball field there are referees to assign fair teams and keep order. You get tagged and your out, shooting at close range and your out, etc. The first time I played I had paid admission ($25), rented all my gear ($50) and was psyched as hell to finally play (priceless). As I stood there ready to be placed in my first team the ref said “Ok, every one with rental guns on this side and all the regulars with your own guns on this side.” I was in total disbelief as I stood there on the opposite side of the field looking at fifteen guys with shiny new automatic, high-powered, rapid-fire, CO2 powered paintball guns and me with my shitty single fire pump-gun. Long story short the “renters” got creamed and that was pretty much how the rest of day went. All of us with or inaccurate, single-fire, crap guns getting wasted by guys who did this every weekend and could shoot us from well out of range with total accuracy. You could have been friggin’ Rambo and lost. Was it fair? Hell no. Did I ever go back? Same answer.

Seems like a reasonable solution to the problem right? I mean the way they operated their field wasn’t fair so I didn’t play there anymore. Apparently major league baseball thinks differently on the matter of unfair competition. The issue, of course, is steroids. After all sorts of scandals, court cases, and player suspensions the MLB is being spanked by lawmakers to clean up its act. Despite the national leagues saying they will take care of it the feds may get involved anyway because, well lets be honest, they haven’t done jack to fix the problem.

The proposal went like this: first violation of drug use the player gets a 10, maybe 50, day suspension. Second offense the player is suspended from 30 days to 100 games. Third strike and the player faces 60 days to a lifetime ban. Notice that nothing was said about any record books or Hall of Fame (not yet anyway). Of course after the baseball commissioner’s thought about this they came back saying, “Well, maybe 20 days on the first offense but no mean old lifetime ban.” This was swiftly rejected of course and rightly so.

Damn it! Remember when a major league player was thought of as a really exceptional, hard working athlete. Then you find out Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro were hopped up on drugs to perform like they did. Every game they ever played in is now under question. Who should have really won those games? Should this player be allowed to keep any of his awards? Should he be fined for playing while using steroids? Gee, let me think…Hmmmmm. Well, maybe we should let any cheater keep their ill-gotten spoils.

Remember the snowboarder who competed in the winter Olympic games and was later found to have used marijuana the night before he competed? He had to give his medal back and not even for using a performance-enhancing drug. I feel that if you get busted for using any kind of steroid there should be some incredibly harsh punishments. For instance, a player is busted on a drug test he gets an appeal to see if there is any reasonable explanation (I don’t know maybe the blood samples got switched in the lab) but regardless he is removed from the field until the matter is solved. If he is found guilty then he is either kept from ever winning any awards including entry into the Hall of Fame, his record voided and his salary is capped as low as the lowest paid person on the team. If he wants to be transferred he will be kept at that salary for the rest of his career. Essentially the player is blackballed. ‘Course you could just void their contract and send ‘em packing.

Am I being too harsh? I don’t think so. Cheating is cheating no matter if you use a dirt bike to win the Kentucky Derby or if you use steroids to get the edge on your competition. It is un-sportsman like and should have punishments too harsh to make it worth even thinking about. I don’t want to see sports heroes get busted. I just want to see players who are on even footing. Otherwise you’re just watching a group of “renters” getting pummeled.

T-Shirts Inc.

2005-09-21T22:50:00.000-07:00

A little while back my crafty wife got into T-shirt stencils. Since, she has actually made and even sold self made T-shirts. Me being the forward thinking, trend setter that I am, I decided that it would be cool to make some of my own T-shirts so that I wouldn’t have to be walking around in some over priced, campy, cheesy logo T that wasn’t my campy, cheesy logo T. Now I can have all the flare I need and can make just the right statement by making the designs myself! I just got done with my last one (A Venture Brothers design) that I haven’t even worn out yet and I’m psyched as hell. Here are all the shirts I’ve made thus far…

This one is just an idea I came up with while LJ, Mike and I were discussing possible company names and logos for our non-existent company that never happened! I liked it but they thought we wouldn’t be putting out the right image for a calendar company. Oh well.

This is one I did for an eighties night at a club. I weathered it so as to look as authentic as possible. The back, in my opinion, looks great.

This is one that I did for my love of the [Adult Swim] show The Venture Brothers. If you haven’t seen it then you have really been missing out. Cartoon Network just started making T-shirts for their shows but I think mine is way cooler.

This last one some of you may recognize. This is a logo I made for my blog’s button (which can be found at the bottom of the side bar). I call it Game Skull. Now, if I start seeing this design around on shirts or blogs or business cards (because God knows it’s on mine) I’ll be expecting some royalties.

So there you have it my entire fall line. Yes you can expect to see me around town sporting these trendy new T’s. They are perfect for school, sporting events, and weddings…really anywhere.

Coming soon…

Medical Mayhem

2005-09-15T23:03:00.000-07:00

Half-Assed Opinions: Your source for baseless medical information and indiscriminate biological ramblings.

I have been receiving a shit-load of hits (7 or 8 a day, which is a lot for me so shut up) for the post I did entitled “Sty in the Eye". In fact when I traced it back it appears that my blog is listed 22nd on Metacrawler and just 5th on MSN, just below The Mayo Clinic’s web page. I have been getting so many hits recently due to this that I am considering writing medical info posts to keep up with demand. For my next medical installment I will be discussing diagnosis and treatment of diarrhea. For example, a good sign that you may have diarrhea is if you are sliding into first and you feel something burst. Treatments for this can be as simple as eating fewer Taco Bell three bean burritos or driving in your Chevy less (so as not to feel something heavy), but I don’t want to give away too much baseless medical data just yet.

I just think its funny as hell that people would actually come to my blog of all places to find medical information; funnier still that I am ranked so highly on MSN. However, people who use MSN as a web browser deserve what they get. For now though I’ll enjoy my ill found glory and revel in it, as I tend to do. Maybe I’ll start diagnosing people on the street and then give them my credentials if they ask if I’m a doctor. “Well, Ma’am it seems obvious to me that you have chronic and recessive footyfunkitis. This is a foot stankifacation that can only be remedied by giving me five bucks. Ma’am I am listed just beneath The Mayo Clinic on (*some) medical web searches.”

I Pledge?

2005-09-14T22:48:00.000-07:00

Here we go again. On Wednesday a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that reciting the pledge of allegiance in public schools was unconstitutional. This of course opened the floodgates for a nationwide panic! Now, across America our religious denizens are huddled in their homes both outraged over the decision of this “non-moral” judge, siding with a heathen (for Gods’ sake), and for their poor children who will have to go to school now without the reinforcement of their daily affirmation of citizenship. Woe to the masses. This is truly a black day.
I was at work when I heard the story. Newt Gingrich was interviewed on FOX NEWS about it. He was appalled at the decision and hoped that the president’s speech later would give some direction to the country. I almost hope that the president goes on tonight and DOES address this issue. I hope he says something to this effect “Honestly, I have no response for this court’s decision. Frankly people I have a war in Iraq, a city in Louisiana that is underwater not to mention thousands of displaced people to worry about, an oil crisis and bear market. Guys…I have badder fish to fry. Besides I am not the one who makes changes or interpretations in law. You people are thinking of the Supreme Court and, as I recall, they dodged this case only a few years ago. Now, I promise that if Congress decides to put a bill on my desk regaurding the matter then I will give it some consideration but right now I don’t have the fucking time.” I know it won’t go down like that, but one can always hope.
I never really saw the point in the pledge to be honest. Yeah, yeah, I know it is supposed to be about patriotism and honoring the soldiers who gave their lives and reaffirming our youngsters with “American” ideals. However, lets try and be honest for a moment. It isn’t. At least lets look at the origins of it. It was basically started out as a gimmick used to sell monthly periodicals and flags. Then instituted by our government to help Americanize the youth. Think about the words for a second. Nowhere in there does it say anything about our forefathers or fallen soldiers or our fundamental notions of a free and democratic society. Besides most kids don’t know what more than half of it means. “…And to the republic, for which it stands.” Ask any kid what that really means and I’ll bet they couldn’t tell you. In fact I’ll bet most high school students couldn’t tell you with any real acuracy.
I’m not opposed to God and I’m not opposed to patriotism but I am opposed to blind institutionalized propaganda. You don’t need for kids to stand up every morning and do this because you did it and your parents did it, that isn’t a good enough reason. This is a dogmatic practice at best. In a truly free society you shouldn’t have to pledge your allegiance to anyone or anything. Why don’t we stop all this crap and discuss what this is really about, prayer in schools and separation of church and state.
I know our forefathers believed in a God and I know that the word God appears in many of our founding documents and currency. What our forefathers believed isn’t the issue. They weren’t trying to subtly say that religion has its place in our government, just because they believed in a God. Again, they were the ones who were trying to make a free country without religious sway one way or the other. That was the overall goal people. Why did they leave England?
Honestly, do you think the religious people out there would be pissed if instead of the word God (which is obviously Judeo-Christian) we had the word deity on everything? Of course they would. They want their God recognized above all others.
So where do I stand? Well you’d think I would be siding with the judge in San Fran right? Not really, I don’t think this is any kind of real issue at all. Say the pledge, don’t say the pledge…whatever. Just don’t force anyone to take part in something they don’t want to. Personally, I never stood for the pledge when I had the choice and I didn’t care what others thought. You can’t make someone believe in something like this just by going through the motions, be it religion or be it patriotism. This is a non-issue that the press and some groups (religious and Atheist) are taking WAY out of proportion.

Join the Fight!

2005-08-31T10:07:00.000-07:00

I went to my mom’s blog the other day to find that she had ten new comments on a post no more than an hour old. Not that I think she shouldn’t be getting comments mind you, in fact this was her best post ever, it’s just that she rarely gets any but mine. So I check out who has been leaving notes. They all started kinda like “Hey, I’e been reading your blog. I think you have a great writing style…” or “Wow that sounds really great. I really like your blog…” but then they start talking about how you need to check out their site to find out more about a new diet pill or on-line dating or whatever. It was like opening a cupboard and finding rat feces, yes the telltale sign that blog-spammers had been there.

I don’t know if any of you have been troubled with this insidious advertising scheme yet but I guarantee that you will. I was pissed when I saw it. I know it wasn’t my page but still she had TEN spam comments in just about an hour! I felt like the sanctity of blogers everywhere had been violated. Maybe I am naïve because I didn’t realize what a problem this was. Well, now I’m pissed and I’m going to do something about it.

If you are having this problem on your page then you can add what is called “Word Verification”. I am not sure how well this will work but I did link back to several of the spammers home blogs only to find that they use it so it must be worth it. (Yeah, spammers who don’t want to get spammed…fuckers.) Anyway, another thing you can do is called flagging. This is where ever vigilance comes in. YOU the blog community must police yourselves. When you press the “Next” button on the blogger nav-bar and stumble across a spam blog you need to flag it so that Blogger will know to come back and look for it. They will delete spam or illegal materials. Remember this is not about censorship this is about keeping this space sacred and free. We all have to work together to keep these fuckers out. If you find a spam page make some rude or mean comments then flag the bastard, I know I will.

If any of you find a better way of knocking back spam or of fighting it then please post a comment to tell us all. I found some but they were rather tech and script heavy. Frankly I don’t have the skills required for any of that. There is no legislation against it so as to make it punishable by jail time. I guess this is just another one of those things, if you own a mailbox you’ll get junk mail, if you have a phone line you’ll get sales calls, if you have an email account you’ll get spam, and now if you have a blog you’ll get comment spam. Dirty motherfuckers.

The End is Nigh

2005-08-21T23:20:00.000-07:00

I passed my last class for college graduation! All I have left to do is some stupid exit counseling and an exit exam. The exam is called the CLAST, it’s a basic math assessment. I am a little stressed about it but not much. See, I can take this test as many times as I need without it affecting my GPA or being on my record at all. How bad-ass is that? I mean I passed Spanish II and Primatology so a little skills evaluation is nothing; especially with no pressure for a good grade. Its pass/fail! Hahahahaha!

So, now I’m looking for jobs. LJ has been looking in the national parks system for any openings for a while but nothing has come up. Not to mention its balls hard to get a job with them. Its like “Yeah, we want to hire only people with five years of experience, medical training, a masters degree, military service, and oh yeah, we’re only going to pay them 20,000 a year. So fuck off all you young recently graduated go-getters.” You have to be the smartest idiot in the world to get a job with the national parks system. I just think they want more than they can honestly pay for. So, I am still hoping to get a job with them but I don’t see it happening. I am however seeing a lot of jobs in the archaeology field. Now those people I can relate to.

In the end LJ and I just want to get the hell out of Florida. God, this place sucks. Hurricanes, thunder storms daily, crazy over zealous Christian fanatics. This place is a zoo. I am tired of working retail and I am more tired of having to cater to redneck morons who think its ok to be dumb because its being true to their roots. Damn you Jeff Foxworthy! Am I being an elitist? Hell no! I’m sorry but if I could suffer through reading some books and self-tought computer skills then they can too. Is it too much to ask that the general public know enough to be able to talk about things other than what was on TV last night and their wacky-ass views on theology? It’s like Inherit the Wind down here. I dunno maybe I’m just being mean. On the other hand, more and more I find myself thinking of what Sartre said, “Hell is other people.”

Are You Asking for a Challenge!?

2005-08-12T09:46:00.000-07:00

I was working the other night when the strangest thing happened. This dude walked in wearing a Street Fighter II T-shirt. Casually I told him I liked his shirt and then asked, just to confirm, “So you like Street Fighter, eh?” He and I start to talk about it and almost an hour later he leaves. In the course of our conversation he tells me that he has played in some tournaments and that he still plays with friends. Then he invites me over for a game some time. That was when the problem occurred.

To fully understand my love of this, now ancient, SNES game I have to explain high school. I did two things in my four years and studying was not one of them. I was either at the cliffs rock climbing or glued to a TV in my friend’s basement playing Street Fighter II or the turbo edition. I played it so much that I got not just good, but freakin’ amazing. I didn’t know anyone, until yesterday, which had gotten to the secret ending. I played my friend and though we started as equal I soon learned that I had untapped skills that made me almost impossible to beat on even terms. My friend Mike is much the same as it applies to Mortal Kombat. We both however are very rusty.

So now I’m asking myself, should I call this dude up? Should I step outside my comfort zone and really test my skills? Or, will this hurt my ego too much. I don’t know. I would like to think I can compete in something where I am certainly the underdog, I’ve done it before, but for some reason I am more apprehensive about this. Maybe it’s because Street Fighter is one of the only games I have always been the best at, and I just want to go on feeling like I’m the champ. The other side of me though wants the challenge no matter what. This opportunity could tell me whether I am truly a contender or just a wanna-be. I think I’m going to call this dude up and prepare for the challenge.

Sty in the Eye

2005-08-05T22:16:00.000-07:00

Sorry for my last post. I was just lazy that night. For now, however, I want to tell you all about my horrible affliction. If the title didn’t give it away I have a sty. This is nowhere near as exciting as finding my first gray hair a few months back. This sucks!

Let me tell you that before today I had absolutely no clue what a “sty” was. I woke up with my eye in major pain and decided that I should go to the university clinic to get to the root of the problem. I go and sit for forty minutes in the waiting room. Then get a nurse who decides she needs to check my vision. Then wait for another twenty minutes before I see the doctor; who comes in takes one look at my eye and declares that I have a sty. “A stile”, I ask. “No, a STY”, she replies as though talking to a confused third grader.

That was it; I called work telling them I had an eye infection so that I could go to the clinic and when I show up my boss diagnoses me as quickly as my doctor did. I am the only person at my age, apparently, who has never had one of these little bastards. I feel like a kid who has discovered farts for the first time. Plus, Mike and LJ have had them and I guess I kinda feel like they were hidding something from me. Like I'm the only one not in the sty club.

So what can I do about it? Nothing. I have to sit back and let nature take it’s course. Damn, I hate when my body double crosses me and makes me look like an idiot. I'll have to plan a devious revenge like sitting in an uncomfortable chair or something. Back on topic, at some point I’m going to stop asking people what things are so I won’t look stupid. I can see myself going into a physical at the age of seventy and the doctor leaping away from my back because there is an arm growing out or something equally Outer Limits. “What, that’s not normal?”

150mph Couch Potato

2005-07-23T09:09:00.000-07:00

I was vegging in front of the TV recently when I realized something peculiar. I was watching a show called Top Gear, a British automotive show, on the discovery channel. This was after watching another show called Overhaulin’ which was on after yet another show called Classic Car Rebuild. This is when the revelation struck; however to fully explain this I have to take you back a few years.

(FLAAASHBAAACK)

Ever since I could remember my father would read, watch, and live cars. Some might call him obsessed but that might not give due credit to how far his hobby goes. He is the type of guy every mechanically challenged man wants as a neighbor and every used car salesman dreads. My father to this day has stacks of old Road & Track, Car & Driver, and almost every other car magazine from the 1950’s ‘till now. He has ordered entire volumes of magazines spanning decades from other auto enthusiasts just so he could re-read old articles he remembered and then tuck them away in his closet. When ever one of his kids crossed a state line on a road trip away from home they were required to bring back an Auto-Trader from the states visited for my father’s perusal.

The man has had three sports cars in his garage at one time, that don’t function outside of gathering dust, purely because he likes having them. He also has three motorcycles. He commissioned me four or five years ago to paint him a mural in our basement of, what else, a car in a garage. Once he told me that he could identify any car simply from the silhouette or hubcap, and then he could give a complete breakdown, by the numbers, of every aspect of that automobile. I’ve tested him and he can do it.

When I was young I can remember getting up on Sundays to get ready for church. My dad would already be up in his house robe watching a race. When we got back from church he would be recording one race and watching another. If I wanted to spend any time with him on these days I had to sit down, be quiet, and watch the races with him. After years of this I guess I started building up an appreciation for cars. Not that I am any good as a mechanic. Hell, I have a hard time doing anything with my car. However, I can remember little tidbits of automotive trivia (such as Roles Royce built the engines for the WWII fighter planes, the Corsairs) and I can tell stories that revolve entirely around cars (Link). Also, as I have already stated, I have some deep desire to watch shows about cars. I can’t get enough. Yeah, the shows are good enough on their own, but I wonder if it is somehow attached in my psyche that television shows about cars relates to quality time with my pops.

While some men make time for football games or going fishing, I seem to make an inordinate amount of time for automotive television shows and car talk. Don’t get me wrong, again I couldn’t tell you anything about cars really, but I love talking about them and watching stuff about them. The thing that is really baffling is that cars are in no way associated with any of my hobbies. I’m an outdoorsman. When I do something for myself I tend to get as far away from roads as possible. On that same note, I hate having to work on my car. I absolutely loathe it. But, I will watch shows about cars endlessly. I guess what I am getting at is that our parents do rub off on us, though that may scare many of us somewhat. In some ways I’m glad I can sit in front of a TV and feel close to my dad. Yet sometimes I also wonder why he couldn’t have instilled some of his mechanical know-how too, damn it.

Think of the Childrens

2005-07-21T01:34:00.000-07:00

I don’t know if you’re up on the current video game scandals but let me fill you in. Supposedly there is a code called “Hot Coffee” that you can input into the Grand Theft Auto; San Andres video game that will allow the player to watch a snippet of a sex scene with some partial nudity. No more than you would get on an episode of NYPD Blue. However, due to this ESRB, the guys who put ratings on video games, have made a new category for games to fall into, AO. This stands for Adults Only, meaning that only 18 and over can purchase the game. As a result many large chain retailers (Wal-Mart) are pulling GTA from their shelves. Also, today Hillary Clinton has started a group dedicated to treating games they feel are obscene the same as alcohol or tobacco.

This is a tricky subject. On the one hand I can see some parents views on not wanting games with over the top violence and sex to fall into their children’s hands. Yet, at the same time why is there all this outrage over things that kids read about, hear about, and see on the news already? Yeah little Billy can watch the news with real car chases and watch shows where people kill each other in fantastic ways, but he can’t play a video game with the same elements? It’s like the argument that violent cartoons breed violence in children. I don’t know of too many people who were killed by falling safes or bludgeoned with frying pans. I wouldn’t want my kid watching porn but I don’t feel that these games are porn. It also seems that most parents don’t care about any amount of violence as long as there is no sex.

Kids today have greater access to unfiltered information than ever before due to the Internet and through television. They are able to tell the deference between fantasy and reality just like kids in the fifties knew that if they were to mimic Bugs Bunny and stick their fingers in the barrel of a gun they wouldn’t have any fingers to pull back out. Normal people can separate video game reality from their reality. I don’t feel that anyone playing these games is going to suddenly decide that maybe stealing cars and robbing people is a good idea.

Though, like I said I can understand why some parents wouldn’t want their kid playing these games. Well, why not get more involved? When I was working at Block Buster a game came out called Conker's Bad Fur Day. This game involved violent themes, bad language and sexual innuendo…it was great. I had to stop parents and tell them this out of a feeling of civic responsibility because they didn’t care to walk over and see what it was their 11 year old was handing them to rent. This got me sour looks not just from the kids but the parents too. “Why would you rent out such a filthy game?” Answer: for the same reason we’re renting you the movie Pearl Harbor (a movie with just as much sex and blood as any video game on the market), entertainment.

Well, the times they are a changin’ and video games are getting more mature to follow the market trend. The youth that started with Pac-Man is now old enough to want something more adult oriented. Video games are no longer the innocent, unrealistic, pixilated things they used to be. I am cool with ESRB’s decision. It seems only right, but get off your high horse Hillary you’re showing your age.

Cyclops Drunk

2005-07-12T23:58:00.000-07:00

Well we made it through Hurricane Dennis all right. The power was out for a day and a half and nothing was really terribly damaged, not unless you count a four by five foot hole in the side of our house. LJ and I drove over to the pad right after the storm went over to discover that at the top of our place, just under the peak of the roof a large portion of wall was missing. Interestingly there was no water damage in the house…weird. So we’re getting that fixed. Our landlord kinda did a botched repair job on it already so Mike and I will have to pool our un-considerable home repair knowledge to make it right. The dude may as well have stuck two crisscrossing elephant sized band-aids over the hole for all the good it will do.

Anyway, that night we wanted to go out to eat since no one was hurt and our house was in good enough shape to continue living there (an honest concern when faced with any hurricane, trust me). We all go to an Irish pub/restaurant called Maguire’s to celebrate. The place is packed, but hey, no problem they have an open bar. Mike tells me I should try an “Irish Wake” and LJ seems interested so I order two. These drinks are served in mason jars and are filled halfway with liqueur before being topped off with fresh squeezed OJ.

I won’t make any excuses here. I got nailed, and yes on one drink. About halfway done I am already feeling like I have just shot gunned my third beer. With about a quarter remaining I am having a hard time walking strait. When I finish I am totally pissed. I have a confession to make now. You guys know the picture I use of myself on my page. You know, the one where I am holding the dollar in one hand the glass in the other, I have a grin from ear to ear and it appears as though I’m winking? Well, I’m not actually winking per say so much as trying to stem double vision. That look is something you only get when I am wicked drunk. It has only happened a few times because I am not usually a heavy drinker but it has occurred enough to earn me the drunken moniker “Winky”. Moving on, by the end of that one drink I was looking through mono-vision and my wife had to call the hotel she works at, conveniently situated right down the street, so that all of us could stumble over and sleep in a free room (*LJ wasn’t that drunk and drove down herself I feel compelled to add). Mike claims he wasn’t that drunk but I don’t believe it for a second and you shouldn’t either.

Now, I was told yesterday that I am a rather amusing drunk. I am fun to laugh at and with, and have a very jovial disposition. That makes me glad. I have known so many people who respond differently to alcohol that to be a joker is a blessing. Supposedly I’m quite the entertainer. Anyway, it was great to get out and loosen up after Dennis blew through. Incidentally, we are all making bets on what category Emily will make landfall as and where she will hit. My money is on category two and it will hit somewhere about thirty miles west of Pensacola. I’ve got ten bucks riding on it so Emily better deliver.

Oh, and if anyone is so inclined please link over to my wife’s site and wish here a happy 24^th birthday it would mean a lot to her.

Mother Nature, You Bitch!

2005-07-08T18:08:00.000-07:00

Damn it! I went through hurricane Ivan down here. The aftermath was more than I ever expected and certainly more than anyone else who didn’t live here had ever expected. I would talk to people on the phone 8 months afterward and tell them that Pensacola was still a mess. Most people had no idea. Once the story is off the news everyone forgets. I’d been guilty of it too, but who could know? To anyone who doesn’t know, the hardest part of a hurricane isn’t living through it, it’s the rebuilding after the storm is long gone. Pensacola still isn’t 100%. There are still signs that never got replaced and homes that never got rebuilt. There are many buildings that have just gotten to the point where they could start reconstruction, yeah a year later.

I lived in Georgia most of my life. I am only in Pensacola to finish school. In Georgia all you have to be worried about is occasional flooding, lightning and tornados. A tornado wrecked an area near where I lived once. The devastation was pretty bad, but it was very localized. Nothing could have prepared me for how bad a hurricane is. Let me give you a picture:

The hurricane has past. You wanna hear what’s going on by listening to the radio? You can’t, no towers for miles. You wanna watch TV? Nope, not unless you can pick up a signal from somewhere far enough away from the damaged area which can be a hundred miles or more. Maybe you wanna call your family or friends to tell them you’re ok. Well just hope you have a cell phone whose towers aren’t all down because the landlines are mostly gone. No stores are open for anything, no power, and no clean water. You can’t even flush a toilet for God’s sake. There are trees and debris everywhere, I mean everywhere. The town is, literally, like living in the 1700’s.

Ivan was a category 3, though if you ask anyone here they’ll tell you it was a four. This new hurricane, Denis, could be a solid category four and looks like it is taking the same path as Ivan. Am I worried? No, not really. What’s to be worried about? Yeah, there’s going to be plenty of property damage and a long slow rebuild…again, but I don’t feel like my life or my family’s is in any danger. Most deaths that occur from hurricanes are due to being in a bad location (aka the beach or flood zone). We will be far away from that so I am pretty sure we’ll be safe. Still, my wife and I just don’t want to go through the whole process again. Damn you nature, why must you give with one hand, and bitch-slap with the other.

The Worstest American

2005-06-26T21:29:00.000-07:00

I don’t know how many of you have been watching the TV show “The Greatest American” on the discovery channel. The premise is basically this, people vote via email to give the show a list of Americans who, for some reason, could be considered “great”. Then the list is voted on, again by email, to select someone who could be named the greatest American. Greatness is one of those words that is difficult to adhere any one quality to, so there is some contention as to who should be considered. Some people look at life achievement, while others look at personal bests, still others look at contributions made to our country. Now, I’m not going to get into whom I think is the greatest (Benjamin Franklin) but I was curious as to who would be considered the worst.

I was talking about this to a gentleman I work with on a few slow evenings and we came up with a few people who could potentially make the list for The Worst American.

For the purposes of this list we are not considering anyone who is merely annoying or not popular or even someone who has killed people such as Jeffery Dahmer or the BTK killer. Our criterion was someone who has negatively affected our nation or a large group of people here. They have to be Americans so Osama Bin Laden won’t count, and anyone who was working for the Taliban here in America must be a citizen to count. These people must have had a seriously negative impact in some way or another, so no presidents please. Though I’m sure most of you could list a few that have broken laws or been the causes of grief in some way or another. This does not mean that you can’t list some politicians all I’m saying is that Bill Clinton or Richard Nixon are not considerations. I am going to list some of the people who made our list and give reasons for each, if you would like to add a nominee then post a comment with the name of the person and why you think they should be considered. So without further ado…

Benedict Arnold: In 1779 he sold out America by giving vital information to the British in exchange for a high rank in the British military and lots of money. If he had succeeded it would have ment the deaths of hundreds of West Pointers and soldiers in the field.
Philip Henry Sheridan: A general for U.S. army in the 1850’s. He oversaw the slaughter of countless Native Americans and helped to force them into reservations (though they were more like concentration camps at the time). He killed non-combatants and women and children as a standard practice. He was responsible for an episode of ethnic cleansing in America.
Lester Garfield Maddox: A southern racist during the civil rights movement who sold axe handles from his restaurant to beat up any African Americans that tried to eat there. He later ran for governor and was defeated, twice. Then, to add insult to injury, he actually was elected to office. He makes the list because he stood as a figurehead for intolerance and segregation by force.
Reverend Jesse Jackson: I Know I’m getting in trouble for this one but… While Jesse Jackson raised awareness for cultural issues like civil rights he spun Dr. Martin Luther King Junior’s vision of an equal African American society into a victimized one. He has lead people to, almost, start the march backward for blacks in our nation. Now, there are many African Americans that feel they are owed something from their “white oppressors” instead of making strides to better their own situations. While he has made a mockery of his position as a Reverend by having an affair that resulted in a pregnancy and a fatherless child (something he preached against) he has worked almost in reverse to what the United Negro College Fund and the NAACP has been working towards, an educated and equal community.
William J. Simmons: In 1915 Simmons, a Methodist minister, started what is known as the second, or modern day, Ku Klux Klan. His agenda was bent solely on hurting, harassing, or killing any non-whites in America. He declared himself Grand Wizard and implemented cross-burning and lynching as a standard practice. He paved the way for all subsequent KKK hate groups.
Jimmy Swaggart: Swaggart was a televangelist throughout the eighties and into the nineties. He used this platform to amass vast amounts of money that never saw any of the charities he claimed to be giving to. He was caught with a prostitute not once but three times and refused to give up his seat in his church. Later he told a news reporter that “[he would] kill any gay person who looked at him romantically”, and then tell God “they just died”.

So there you have it. I would love for any of you readers to contribute to the list. Again just try and make it someone who has negatively affected our society and tell why. Feel free to disagree with any of my selections (I know I’m gonna get it for Jesse Jackson), but please say why. I am hoping to get some interesting entries and maybe get a vote on which the worst is.

A Geek from the Past

2005-06-25T20:33:00.000-07:00

I was trading funny web-videos today with a guy at work and I stumbled across one I haven’t seen in a long while. Have any of you seen “Star Wars Kid”? Here’s the premise; this kid, who I guess was in the A/V club at his high school, films himself doing some staff fighting moves with his own light saber sounds while no one is around. The kid is dressed kinda lame, he is a little chunky and he sucks to say the least. The kicker is that he left the tape in the camera. The next day some other A/V kids find the tape and made the fateful decision to put it on KaZaA for all to see. The video takes off like a rocket. In days there are about five, professional quality, downloadable versions of this poor kid. I had it on my computer video file for years. Every time I watch it I keep repeating under my breath, “You poor, poor bastard.”

When I did a yahoo search today with the words Star Wars Kid I got a huge return. There is page after page dedicated to this video. It has become an underground Internet cult phenomenon. There are roughly 108 videos edits now available and at least one more a day is made somewhere. There are T-shirts and bumper stickers. There was even a petition made up to get George Lucas to put him in the last Star Wars movie. I was flat amazed. I remembered downloading the original video in 2002 (the same year it was made) but I had no idea at the time that it would turn into such a huge thing. I have to admit I was halfway tempted to buy a shirt, but I think that may be too geeky even for me. All I can say is, God speed Star Wars Kid…God speed.

Smooth Criminal

2005-06-13T21:10:00.000-07:00

I watched the Michael Jackson case today on FOX News. I have to admit I was strangely curious about the outcome. In the weeks to come I am sure there will be a lot of debate on the results (for anyone who lives in a cave and has internet but only gets this web page for some reason, it was not guilty on all charges) and the public’s reaction and the presumption of guilt that I am sure will follow Michael for possibly the rest of his life.

For me, I feel that the guy is weird to say the least. Has he done anything sexually oriented with any little boys? Well, I am sure that he may have. As to whether or not he did with this boy, whether you like it or not, he was tried and found innocent. Do I feel the guy is innocent of any other misconduct? Again, probably not; the thing that most of us have to keep in mind is this: It doesn’t matter what you may think of the person on trial or how well you think you know the case. If you weren’t there when the crime was committed then you have no authority to pass judgment, that’s what a jury is for. I would expect that most of you would feel the same if you were on trail for something you didn’t do. It is a bittersweet reality of our justice system here in America.

I know one thing, if I was Michael I would be praying night and day for the next week to any and all Gods he can think of. The dude would never have made it in prison for any amount of time. I would be willing to bet that he would have been dead within a week of going in. Also, if I were in Michael’s family I would do my very best to have somewhat of an intervention for the guy. Look he may or may not have fondled little boys but, the dude is a pedophile and he needs help. He also needs the people around him to save him from himself. They need to hire someone to just hang with the guy and make sure there is no way he is ever in the same room as a minor so there will never be any question about this kind of conduct. The guy needs to play it safe as hell for the rest of his life.

Of course a good P.R. campaign wouldn’t hurt. This time though don’t let him run it. He can’t be pictured as this “boy who never grew up”, mentally abused, shut in. He needs to get out. Go to parties (not birthday parties at Chucky Cheese), go to events, hang with sports stars or rappers. Then he needs to do a major image overhaul. Maybe let Dr. Dre help with some videos and let Lil John do the wardrobe. In five years, if he plays his cards right, he could be a person who parents wouldn’t let their kids near and solve any question about his sexuality at the same time.

*Thanks to Mike for help editing the picture

Close-Quarters Combat

2005-06-04T19:53:00.000-07:00

The other day my dog, Zeus, was being a real jerk. He was barking for no good reason, snapping at my roommate and his dog, and generally running amuck. So I did what any good parent should do; I used physical punishment to calm him down. No, I didn’t hit him. I got out the most readily available squirt gun in the house. It just happened to be a rather large “Super-Soaker”. It did the trick but then the Super-Soaker was left out for any additional “parenting” that needed doing. This was a mistake that would later come back and haunt me.

The day after, I’m watching TV or something and I hear my wife screaming. I jump up and head to her to see what’s going on. I find my wife backed into an upstairs corner with Mike pointing the Super-Soaker at her with that menacing grin we all get from holding a water gun on someone unarmed. I ask what is going on. It seems that they had a bit of a verbal putdown contest going on when Mike saw the gun and decided it could be ended quickly in his favor. I acted fast, knowing the only way to resolve a situation like this, so as no one walks away soaked, is to give the armed person whatever he or she wants. I just happened to know what Mike wanted; a copy of some software we had. I just hoped it was enough.

“Hold on. I’ll be back with the disc”, I said. Seconds later, with the disc in hand, I told Mike that the only way he would get the software was if he put the gun down in the middle of the hall and backed away. He thought about it, and then the trusting fool did! No sooner than I saw the gun on the ground I grabbed it. Mike jumped at me so that the tide wouldn’t be turned without fight. So there we were in the upstairs hallway in a desperate struggle to see who would be shot. We wrestled back and forth, sometimes dangerously close to the stairs. Some aimless shots were fired, hitting only the walls and floor. Then I remembered LJ.

Quickly I turned with Mike on my back and told LJ to take the gun. As the gun left my hand Mike got me in a full nelson and another standoff began. I told her “Don’t worry about me just shoot him.” As I struggled left and right to give her a clear shot I could feel Mike dodging behind me. At pointblank range LJ fired.

Now, you’d think that anyone at pointblank range in a small hallway would be able to land a shot on their desired target. Anyone who thinks that needs to watch some girls who never really played with squirt guns. Sufficed to say she got us both. Yes, I got nailed in the head, hard-core, and mike was shot while making a break for his room after I fell to the ground like I was dead. It was great.

I guess the point of all this is that living in your own house and making your own rules is awesome. My parents would have stopped that whole scene from playing out had we all been younger. How many of us have been told “No horseplay in the house” or “Stop that right now”, by our parents. I feel a little silliness can be a wonderful thing. It doesn’t happen all the time but when it does it makes you feel great. Plus, usually nothing gets broken and if it does, well so what? I love the freedoms I have now.

Staying up late
Making a mess…anywhere
Playing loud, LOUD music.
Running in the house
Playing baseball in the house
Etc.

To all those out there who still live with your parents (even unofficially) move out! Move Out NOW! It’s super cool.

Blurry Vision

2005-06-01T20:26:00.000-07:00

I went to get my eyes examined today. It took forty-five minutes and I had to get eye drops that made my corneas dilate. At the end I was all geared up to get my contacts and take them home. It was going to be like Christmas…for my eyes! Did this happen? No. “Well, now we have to see you put in and take out a pair of contacts before we can give you yours”, the lady says. “Why?” I ask incredulously. “It’s the law”, she replies. So as not to be a poor sport I’d try.

I have never put in a contact before and for this reason I have never had to remove them. My eyes at this point were already red and irritated from the glaucoma test and the dilation eye drops, not to mention that they had had lights shined in them and were manhandled by the optometrist, but I said ok. I tried to get those damned things in for half an hour with this woman sitting across the table from me telling me that fourteen year old girls can do it so I should be able to. Eventually I get frustrated and my eyes are killing me so I decide to leave. I pay $99 and leave with a receipt. Did I get my prescription? No. Did I get a pair of trial contacts to try at home? No. I left with the satisfaction of knowing that I had my eyes examined and my pupils throbbing for that lofty price.

I have to go back tomorrow and try again. If I fail to get those bastards in and out then I will go home empty handed again. I can repeat this process though, the wonderful woman taking my money told me. Great, I think to myself. I would have rather been informed before I’d taken the eye exam that should I fail a test at the end I wouldn’t be receiving the contacts I paid for. Maybe I’ll practice with LJ’s before I go back. Still, I have never heard of a law that states you don’t necessarily have to get a product that you paid for.

What a jip.

FREE MONEY!!!

2005-05-27T18:57:00.000-07:00

Well, not really. LJ and I just got our tax refund back and though many people like to look at this as “free money”, it isn’t. I like to look at it as money happily yanked from my paychecks before I could ever get my hands on it. And what does it mostly go toward anyway? Social security and the military. Frankly, I think I could do a better job with it than the government. I wouldn’t be paying old people to sit around and go to the doctor for shits and giggles when I can’t go myself and I wouldn’t be funding operations to liberate anyone who didn’t want to be liberated (that’s a different discussion though and I won’t get into it now).

So we have this money and we need to do something with it. Yeah, I know “save it”. Hmmmmm, no. We had some ideas on where it could be spent like a new computer or maybe a PSP or something equally fun but I think we are going to spend it on boring things that, in the long run, will be better investments.

First, LJ and I need our eyes examined. We can do this and get new contacts. I have been having to wear my glasses for more than a year now and I hate it. God, do I hate glasses! I’ve never worn contacts but it must be wonderful. The only thing is I’ve never had to touch my eye so I am more than a little freaked about having to put them in and take them out. Ggggraaaababababa and EEEWWWWWWW!

Second, we are getting the carpets cleaned. They are gross they need cleaning. That’s it. Other than I will kill any animal that pisses on my floor afterward.

Third, LJ needs her wisdom teeth out. Her parents said they would help with the expense so I think we are going to have to do it. Yeah, sorry babe but its for your own good. I won’t even tell you how bad I had it when my teeth were out. I’ll have to use some devilishly clever ploy to get her to go, like telling her we’re going to a tea party and when we get there saying, “Oh, I said teeth pulling. You must have misheard me. Well, while we’re here we may as well…” Man, that was weak. My ploys have been a bit lackluster lately. I’ll work on it.

Fourth, LJ’s truck is getting recharged with air-conditioning stuff. I hate that neither of us has a car with A/C. Summer in FLA sucks enough; the least we can do is have one comfortable vehicle.

Anyway, you can see where I’m going. I think we’ll be better off paying for the things that normally we wouldn’t spring for due to our tight budget. I think in the end it will make us happier and be things we can look back on as good investments. Though I can’t believe I’m giving up a PSP…

What do you people normally spend your refunds on?

Terror

2005-05-20T23:17:00.000-07:00

**I suggest turning off your lights for this post to have a better mood. Also, turn off any music or other noise.

So, I was talking with Mike about stuff in general and the subject of fear rolled around. I don’t know about most of you but I grew up terrified by my own imagination. I had an amazingly vivid imagination and consequently had some pretty scary childhood moments. I was never really scared of anything real. I guess it was more a fear of the unknown. Let me relate a reoccurring nightmare I had as a child so you could get an idea.

---The Dream---

I wake up to a loud thunderclap. It’s completely dark in my room except for the occasional lightning strikes that illuminate the whole room in those brief ultra-intense flickers from my window. Through the rain I hear these short series of clicks. I listen closely to it and realize that these rapid clicks are not rain, but something on the outside of the house. Another bolt of lightning draws my attention back to the window where I see a dark figure in the upper corner glaring in at me. A silhouette of the top of its head is all I can see. Whatever it is, it’s clinging from the house outside my window. The eyes glint like those of an animal in the beam of a flashlight. They look hollow and ethereal.

I’m terrified to look at it but I must, I know that if I take my eyes away it could move before I have the chance to look back. I blink, and it’s gone. Was I imagining it? I’m listening very intently now; searching for any sounds that may help me identify its location. The clicking returns, but now it sounds different somehow. I cautiously get out of bed and creep toward my door to listen. The clicking sounds come again but now they sound as though they are upstairs…inside the house!

I act fast. I have to leave my room. “It saw me in my room, it knows I’m here”, I think as I dash down a dark hallway and to the basement door. I have to put as much distance between whatever this thing is and myself. I can feel the cold wood of the stairs and the humid air as I run down into the dark. I race across the basement already knowing where I intend to hide, the dark corner between the couch and the wall. I press my back up into the corner and sit in the cold dark room waiting and listening.

It feels like an eternity passes and I see and hear nothing but I know its there…somewhere…in my house. Then I hear it. The clicking sound of claws is closer; it’s in the upstairs hall. I hug my knees up to me. I can feel the fear like I can feel the cold wall on my back or the dusty floor under me. The sound comes again. It’s in front of the basement door. I pray…I pray for it to pass, I pray for someone to come home and find me, I pray for all this to be over. I know none of this will happen though. All I can do is sit and be still and quite. There is a clicking on the stairs…then nothing.

I look hard through the dark and can see that it’s crouched there on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. Its been staring at me all this time. Its small, maybe the size of a large dog but still its as big as me and I know if it comes for me I’ll be dead. The eyes glint again like those of an animal, but from where? There is no light down here. I’m not even breathing now I just sit and stare and it stares right back. I think that maybe that stare will hold it, lock it into place somehow. Maybe I can just sit here and keep it at bay because it knows I can see it. Then it moves but almost too fast for me to see. Its claws clicking on the floor furiously as it races toward me…

I wake up; in a cold sweat usually. I had this dream off and on for years. To this day I have a hard time with dark buildings. I don't know, I guess I'm just affraid of some unidentified thing coming after me, or maybe it's being alone. Though, I have camped several times by myself and have no fear of the woods at night. I just thought it was a creepy dream and you guys might think so too. However, If I hear a camp councilor telling this story to a group of boy scouts several years from now, I'm gonna want some royalties.

We all need a Hero

2005-05-15T02:56:00.000-07:00

First, I would like to thank DeWey, for without his contribution this blog may not have even happened. Yes he fixed my computer hard-core and now it’s running like a champ. Way to go DeWey. I would also like to say that he has a pretty cool pod-cast going. It was actually featured on a fairly large pod-cast hosted by the guy who used to do Headbanger’s Ball on MTV. Coolness.

Next, I thought I would do a blog about my own personal heroes. Not any actual people mind you because I think, that for me anyway, it is more truthful to talk about the fictional characters on TV that I watched growing up rather than…you know…real people. I guess it was easier to identify with the television characters that I saw daily versus those I could only read about and whose actions I had to interpret. Not that I didn’t know about Martin Luther King Junior, Mother Theresa, or Neil Armstrong. I just thought that the fictional characters on TV had more definable qualities. So let me give you a few, but please don’t laugh remember that I was a kid and these were some role models of mine.

MacGyver: He was a nice guy who wanted to help people. He was some kind of peacekeeping agent that didn’t carry a gun. No, all he needed was pocketknife and some ingenuity. I always thought that this guy was smart enough to solve any problem that lay before him, all he needed was a little time and some common household items. I always have a pocketknife on me to this day, in part, from watching MacGuyver.

Danger Mouse: I know it’s a cartoon character, but he was cool nonetheless. He was always really brave. He could march into any situation head first with the utmost confidence. He could even march several times into the same situation where he would inevitably be hanging from the edge of a cliff with his partner, Penfold, dangeling at his feet. I try and have that kind of bravery even if it means hanging from a proverbial cliff.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard: The captain of the starship Enterprise (from Star Trek: The Next Generation). He was an amazingly wise character. He was measured and in control. When the shit hit the fan and two Klingon warbirds were coming in for an attack he would be the guy you wanted at the helm. I always thought that someday I wanted to have the same weathered experience and comand this guy has.

Indiana Jones: Was there any doubt he would make the list? C’mon, he had it all. He was smart, brave, and clever. He was as smooth as James Bond and as tough as Rambo. He is the reason I think archaeology is so cool to this day. He could take on an army of Nazis kick their asses and be back to recover whatever sacred object needed recovering before flying off on his next adventure. And it was always for a museum, so he even had integrity. Not to mention that he always got the girl.

So there you go, some of my personal heroes. I think they are pretty cool. Yeah, I never really idolized the sports stars or the rock stars. I guess I just thought that those people were just people, totally flawed, normal, nothing special...people. Where as these fictional characters could be the embodiment of the traits that I admired. I am sure that most of you out there have at least a few heroes of your own that aren't real life people too. Though LJ thinks I'm weird.

Race is a 4 Letter Word

2005-05-08T17:39:00.000-07:00

I haven’t been posting recently due to some computer problems, which still aren’t resolved, so I made an effort to find a computer that worked. While I had tons of things I wanted to blog about a situation arose that I felt needed some comment.

A little while back my roomy Mike went to the beach and had some humorous, yet annoying, situations occur; consequently he blogged on the subject and then from out of no where was hit with all sorts of angry comments. He checked out where they were all linking from and found this other blogger that had read his page and taken it as a slap toward gays, Hispanics, and the French. If you haven’t, I suggest reading the comments on that page to get an idea for some of the hateful responses.

I was raised in an upper middle class suburb of Atlanta. I didn’t live in an all white neighborhood and I didn’t go to an all white school. I grew up, went to school and was in boy scouts with a multi-racial, multi-ethnic community. To me the only diffrence between the people in my town were whether or not they were intelligent or rude. The only time I ever experienced any kind of racism was when I moved away from there. I have seen racism from many different people, whites, blacks, Asians, Hispanics, etc. I have been called a racist from people who didn’t know me. I have called other people racists on the merit of how they had treated friends of mine or ideals that they made clear to me. The subject troubles me.

There are two words that have become an embodiment of what they are supposed to oppose. One is the word “racist” which is defined as “prejudice or animosity against people who belong to other races.” The other is “reverse-racism” or racism that may be aimed at whites by other minorities. When did the word racism become a word to solely be associated with white people? Isn’t this ugly word just as apt when applied to anyone no matter their color or ethnicity? The very existence of a term like “reverse-racism” is a troubling sign that our community is segregating more and more.

If anyone is interested I would urge you to read some anthropological works in regards to the term “race” as it is. If you do you’ll find that this word is not scientifically accurate. In fact most archaeologists and anthropologists today will never use the term race to describe anyone.

I hate that people use language that singles out generalities about an entire group of people, but let’s leave our politically-correct selves for a moment and be real. People are all prejudice. If you don’t believe me then look the word up and honestly tell me you’re not. Everyone is, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It doesn’t mean that you can’t be friends with someone of a different origin than yours and it doesn’t mean that you are hateful. What it means is that you judge people from what you have experienced. I can’t fault anyone for that. I don’t hold it against the people who have played the race card on me. I just have to assume that they have only had bad experiences with people of my background, too bad for them they judged me poorly before they got to know me.

While I’m on the subject, it is also a shame that in our country today it is almost impossible for a white person to redeem themselves after being labeled a bigot or a racist. Take the example of my friend Mike. After reading all the uninformed mudslinging that others had done, one of the people who had him linked on her page took him off. If you try and defend yourself by saying “No, I’m not racist” people seem to be more disgusted with you. Finally, as a white person you can’t even tell someone about other people you’re friends with without sounding like a desperate back peddler. It is almost like someone being branded a leper and then being shunned by everyone around him. He may not be a leper but the acusation, once made, has more weight than the truth.

You know what people, save your scorn and disapproval for someone who really deserves it. Try and be less sensitive to what might offend and wait for someone who really is a bigot. And for the love, stop being so damned politically correct. It’s stupid. There is no one who isn’t guilty of telling a racial joke, and no one who isn’t prejudice in some small way. Get off you’re your high horses. The thing, I guess, I hate the most is that none of these people feel that they should be held accountable for their harsh words. All of them feel that he "blog-spammed" them. Hey, if you don't like this issue stinking up your pages don't sling it so gleefully at others, it could come back at you.

**Due to public outcry I am removing the racial jokes. I felt they made the point and while being funny to me were not funny to all. That’s fine; I don’t feel they coupled well with my overall argument anyway. I noticed that the only argument that people had though was over the one joke that had to due with minorities, while no one was upset by the white joke. Hmmm, what does that tell me? Maybe that’s why comedians like Dave Chappelle, the South Park Guys and Richard Prior have a booming career.

System Failure

2005-05-06T16:15:00.000-07:00

The reason I haven't been posting recently is due to my computer being stone-cold-dead. I can't access the net or even get MSword running. I can't figure this problem out! I have formatted like 5 times and have just about given up. Not to mention that the school's computer lab is down for a while so I can't blog from there. I was toying with the idea of just giving up blogging. My wife says not to but I don't know. I'll think about it and decide whether or not I'll continue. This may be my last post...

Then again this may also be a sympathy plee to get a new computer. DeWey, HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jesus is my Hommie

2005-04-20T21:38:00.000-07:00

Ok, I’m a bad person. I Know I am. I won’t argue the fact. I did something that I am not ashamed of in the slightest and I got scolded for it so I want to tell everyone what I did to confirm, for myself, whether or not this was actually funny.
On Easter, Mike drug me out to a church just up the street. I went willingly enough but for me it was really more of a time-killer. While we were there I thought it would be a hoot to fill out a pamphlet for new members only I put Mike’s name down instead of my own. I filled it all out and put a check next to every organization that the church had to offer and then wrote in that he was thinking of becoming saved but needed some help to do it.
Alright, it was a bit over the top I realize, but people really, I do these kinds of things all the time. I thought that Mike would receive all sorts of “junk” mail that would be kind of annoying and it would be funny for me every time he got the fat envelopes in the mail…for the next year. You know the no one gets hurt, long-term kind of practical joke. Well, today I get a phone call at the house. “Hello, is a Mike ____ there?” “Not right now”, I reply “can I take a message?” “This is _________ from the (Baptist church up the street) and we were just calling to see if Mike wanted to talk about...” The basic gist is that they think they have a ready convert and are taking the direct approach so they can score another soul for the Big Man. I can understand that. So, what else could I do? “Let me give you his cell phone number and email address”, I said “He is really interested in converting.”
Later I found out that they had called Mike at work and pummeled him into a meeting with two Pastors from the church. They want to take him out to lunch; they would even pay for it. Mike was as resistant as he could be without just saying no and he may not even go in the end. When he told me I said that I would go in his stead. Hey, a free meal is a free meal, but Mike felt that that may just be opening the door to more religion based high-jinks not to mention being “morally wrong”. I guess he’s right a joke should only go so far. However, didn’t Jesus say “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Give a man some gullible Christians and he could eat…”, well, you get the idea.

On a similar note: Someone came by my work the other day and tried to save my soul by giving me a “tract”. If you don’t know what these are check out the link. They are these little cartoon books that are designed to scare you into becoming a Christian. I was so entertained by the one I got that I had to see more so I went to the manufacturer’s website and read like twenty of them. I have got to tell you people, if you have some time to kill read these things they’re great! Over zealous Christians are funny on so many different levels.
I have no idea who these things are supposed to work on. How many people a year do you suppose read one of these things and decide to convert? I don’t know but it sure is fun to read. My favorites are the ones bashing the Theory of Evolution, Catholics, and gays but there is much, much more! Oh, and I liked reading these things so much that I've added them to my links section...but you'll have guess which link it is.

**If I offended anyone with this article please understand that it was all in good fun and not meant to be condescending or derogative to any one or to Christians in general. I only mock because I care and after all life is funny sometimes.

The Future…The Future…what, what, The Future…

2005-04-18T08:37:00.000-07:00

This semester is winding down. Yay! I am so ready to be done. I had a talk with my advisor who has told me that all I need to graduate is one more class (that I can take online for half a semester) and the CLAST (a math exam). Yeah, I’m worried about the math one but the last class is an internet learning course that should be an easy A. I can pass the math test; Hell, if I could get through Spanish 2 I can do almost anything.

So one more half semester in which I really don’t even need to go to a class unless I choose to take something else for shits and giggles. I may, so that I can use the financial aid money. Probably an easy A as well something like basket weaving 101. However, I do want to take something that will look good on my transcript.

Anyway, it’s all coming to an end and I can finally move out of this God forsaken town and start my life. I will walk at the end of fall because they don’t have a ceremony in summer. I guess I will come back for it. I owe everyone who has helped me at least that much. Thanks Mom & Dad, Nana & Pa, and of course LJ. I won’t say I couldn’t have done it with out you (I believe in myself too much to say that), but I will say that it would have been a lot harder than it already was. All of your support both financial and emotional and even sometimes academic has been an incalculable aid to me.

Now, I just need to get out there and get a job and start kicking some ass. When I put my mind to finish something I almost always succeed so now it will be career and money.

Lots of Stuff

2005-04-09T12:15:00.000-07:00

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve posted and I’m sorry. I really like doing this it’s just hard when I have to make time to come all the way over to the computer lab to do it because my computer is shot for the time being. Not to mention my wife hates for me to leave her alone for any amount of time. So, I guess in this post I will bring you up to snuff with some of the highlites that have happened to me in the last week and a half.

First up: I am having issues waking up in the morning. Consequently I have missed a few of my early Art Critique classes. I believe I have found the cause however. It appears that LJ is a habitual alarm snoozer and turner-off’er, this means that though the alarm may be set appropriately I may only get the smallest window of time to hear it before it is shut off by my half-dazed, groggy wife.

Solutions? Since it is likely that I might do the same it has been mutually decided that merely moving the clock to my side of the bed will do no good. It is then apparent that we must get a new alarm clock.

This opens up a whole new argument however. Who gets this new alarm clock? Also, who gets to choose the style? I believe that I should get it as I am the one who has been inconvenienced for the last two weeks. However she asserts that it should be her right as it is technically my alarm clock on her side of the bed. I feel this argument is preposterous though because we are married now and the clock was brought into the marriage ergo it is both of ours. I want a cool and fun clock that looks like a robot or something and she thinks that’s childish. If you have any suggestions on how to resolve this then just comment below, or send a link to some cool alarm clock sites. Moving on…

Next: My parents and brother and family friends came down last weekend and we played paintball. I would like to take a moment now and say how disappointed I am at some people who shall remain nameless. I talked to about four people, outside of the ones already coming down, to join our paintball game. Two of these four were kind of last minute so I understand their not showing up. They also told me that they had work on that day and may not be able to come. That’s understandable. DeWey even called to tell us he couldn’t make it on the day and offered his gun in his stead (for anyone else who wanted to use it, a very cool gesture I might add. Thanks DeWey). Now the other two I am a bit pissed at. Not only had they known about the game for a month in advance but they gave me their word they would be there on time and ready to play. Did they call to cancel? No. Did they send their regrets later? No. They just decided to no-show and leave us in the lurch for players.
Paintball, for those who don’t know, has the same needs as a basketball game. You need even teams and you need enough to make it fun. I am upset because I thought these guys were a lock and they decided to snub us. Not cool. We still played though and it was still fun. Let me give you the stats.

Most Improved Player: Courtney, for his magnificent comeback after playing so blowfully early on.
Most Likely to go “Ape-Crazy”: Patrick, for his tree shaking anger display.
Most Likely to Take a Shot to the Face: Adam, for taking many repeated rounds to the face.

And Finally….

MVP: Mike, for his outstanding playing all around.

Good job guys. Thanks for playing.

Finally: I have decided what to do for my art project! If you can recall I was having a lot of difficulty with what I should do to represent myself artistically. I think I will bring in some of the shirts I have stenciled. I feel that not only are they, for the most part, my own creation but they also show a side of me that reflects my personality to some degree. More so than a giant 5 foot poo. I am working on a political design now that is kind of a slap at Social Security... I can’t wait. I’ll post pictures of all my works when I am finished. Anyway, nice to post again. I’ll write more soon.