Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Memorial Day

OK, pet peeve time.

Put the memorial back into Memorial Day. Stores like Macy's started this a long time ago with their Memorial Day sales events and then we started celebrating the day not where it fell on the calendar but stuck it on a Monday so as our spoiled culture could enjoy long weekends and then crowd the beaches like a bunch of sardines and not even swim in the water because it's still too cold. In a word, fun.

They did this with Washington and Lincoln, attached it to Saturday and Sunday and then just whitewashed the whole thing by calling it President's Day. Um, excuse me but we shouldn't honor all presidents like this, most of all Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. It's like they wanna break everything down from its original meaning. Kind of like a, ahem.....

conspiracy

(calling Robodoon)

Thursday, May 24, 2007

If you won a million dollars would you still work?

I said in a blog the other day that I was once out of work for what felt like a substantive period of time and instead of moping around the house I went fishing nearly every other day. I enjoyed it so much and said this must be what true living is all about. Beth made the point that it was such a great experience because I didn't, or wasn't able to, do it all the time because of work. You enjoy your ice-cold Snapple more when you're dying of thirst than if you drink it all the time. I think it goes deeper than this.

If I won a million dollars these are the most likely scenarios for me (nothing set in stone mind you):

(a) I would not return to the workforce (high probability on this one)
(b) I would work sparingly as suits my lifestyle preferences (not bad)
(c) I would work as I am now but would not feel trapped in a job. The slightest aggravation and I'm out of there.

Lack of work can induce depression and boredom (too much time to think) but too much work grates on you and makes you edgy, you get in a rut or a malaise. In an ideal world (b) would be the most rational option. For me work is merely a means to an end, it's sometimes interesting in terms of making new relationships and things you can learn, but my inkling is Sarko and his legion of rightie admirers would still call me a slacker if I won a million semolians and chose not to work anymore.

What does work mean to you?

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Who will be the next poor mofo sent up sh*t's creek without a paddle?

Mel Gibson
Michael Richards
Isaiah Washington (almost up the creek if he does the right thing, if you know what I mean)
Don Imus

we're due

Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, is safe, and that includes our beloved Bob Newhart (careful Bob).

Thursday, May 17, 2007

The man was definitely controversial, no question about that

The Rev. Jerry Falwell, 1933-2007, RIP

If you're controversial this simply means that not everyone agrees with you so in this sense all of us are controversial to a degree. The late Rev. Jerry Falwell of the Moral Majority made it his business to add his very passionate voice regarding issues of life and death, porn and gay "rights", so it's only logical that many many people would take issue with this just the same way that a person who advocates for the things he was against is also by definition controversial since many people will disagree with him but, for the msm, it's as if controversy only cuts one way. A conservative is always controversial but a liberal never is. Got it now? libs are by nature non-ideological peacemakers and conservatives are polarizing figures. Now I never agreed with everything Falwell stood for, I think boycotts of tv shows smack of censorship and draw needless attention to otherwise worthless products, but he never did anything outside the law here, boycotts are our constitutional right as the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are always calling for them when it suits their own political liberal agendas.

Just my .02 on the Rev. Falwell's passing.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Is it all just a case of bad karma?

See, this is why I could never be an atheist/secular humanist, is THIS all there is? This is definitely not IT. Secular humanism promises a paradise on earth so unless you feel that grabbing your lunchpail at 5:30 in the morning and catching the bus to work is what IT's all about you're missing the BIGGER PICTURE. This ain't IT and all the major world faith systems understand this.

Someday someone will explain it all to us. Some guy'll be in the mall and some strange and enigmatic figure will approach him and they'll sit at a table in the food court and talk. "Do you know why your job sucks and you can't get a woman?" The poor slob is all ears now as for years he's been searching for a workable theory to explain it all. "It's because in a former life you were (a) Ghengis Khan, (b)Attila the Hun, or (c)a lowly guard at Auschwitz." You feel better now and go off to the cineplex to catch "Spider-Man 3" or some other escapist flick. It's at least more tolerable now to know that you're in the flip-side to The Secret and in your next life you'll be getting that poolside massage by that Asian whore...sorry, Asian beauty, never mind, it's hard to think in a pc world but you get the point.

However, if, on the other hand, you wake up in the morning and go to the bathroom and have a clean break you just know it's going to be a good day.

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Conservatives are now fully Sarkazmic

Nicknamed "Sarko" by the Right, Nicolas Sarkozy won the French presidential election Sunday night over socialist Segolene Royal. In today's New York Post Ralph Peters writes: "Nicolas Sarkozy, the president the people defiantly chose, is the most inspiring French leader since Charles de Gaulle's fall from power 40 years ago." Um Ralph, inspiring French leader? I thought he was still president-elect but no matter, the Right has a full-blown case of Sarkastic Priapism (you know, it won't go down in 4 hours so see a doctor). Peters then quotes Sarko and this chestnut: "It is hard to exaggerate the damage done to France by the 35-hour work week. How can anyone think that you're going to create wealth and jobs by working less?" Almost echoing this verbatim the Post editorial itself (May 8) says: "He (Sarko) says, rightly, that France's 35-hour work week has devastated the economy - producing a nation of slouchers" (emphasis mine). So, if you decide to work 9-4:30 everyday, that's seven hours of work minus, say, a half hour for lunch, for five days out of seven, you're a sloucher ruining your nation's economy. You see Beth, it's not just conspiratorial thinking on my part, Republicans really do get off on work and invalidate those, like their more religious-minded conservative brethren, who rightly point out that overwork is now the leading cause of divorce in the U.S. The materialistic secular conservatives, whom Bill O'Reilly never mentions, now rule the party and the more social conservatives are the only members of their own party that take that Darn Book too seriously, that work is a punishment from God for the original defiance of Adam, and you're not supposed to enjoy it that much, it's a little weird and not normal.

Beth, the more I listen to the Right these days the less I like the Right. I'm moving out of the Macabre House on the Right, maybe become a political recluse who never votes. Where do I belong?

Friday, May 04, 2007

Everybody jumps the shark sooner or later

It's the natural progression of things as in

"24" - it's always the same, Jack in a bind, Jack working outside the playbook, "your first priority is to arrest Jack and bring him back to CTU", the Big Dilemma - "Jack, this is Chloe, the president's head is going to explode and you have exactly 30 seconds before it does Jack" all the while he's on top of some train about to go through a dark tunnel, an archvillain who somehow escapes the tightest security at CTU, but this season's there's a twist, Jack's bro and Dad turned out to be evil working behind the scenes with the terrorists, Jack even tortured his own sibling and Pops murdered him with an IV injection 'cos he felt he was gonna spill the beans. Even the two executive producers now confess this season sucks.

Bill O'Reilly - insinuated in not so subtle terms that Rosie should be fired from "The View" instead of taking the earthy view that free speech sometimes comes with a small price tag and so move on.

Rosie - can't seem to settle down at any one gig. Maybe add ADHD to her depressive state as gets bored easily and can't stick with one job. Not the best judgement either, leaves "The View" shortly after her famous feud with Trump and so gives the illusion of his omnipotence. After her announcement he went home and Melania caught him grinding into the bed.

WCBS News in NY - last night had on "5 Sex Tips to Save Your Sex Life", it must be hard on the anchorperson who thinks he/she may have landed a serious journalistic job and then is forced to make cutsie-poo jokes after the report airs, "harharhar, get that Barry White music out." 5 Sex Tips you can read about in any Cosmo, #4 will give him a heart attack.

Any Matrix sequels

Sean Hannity - there are other subjects besides the war, take suggestions and stop acting like anyone who disagrees with you is evil.

...to be continued...

Thursday, May 03, 2007

The average person is clueless, put it that way

I've had people say to me over the years I'm very smart, intelligent. You get this at work sometimes, ooh he's a really bright boy but I am convinced that most of us use only about 10% of our minds as they say. I would say that on my brightest days I rise to the mid-level on the intelligence scale but maybe I come across as a genius, an intellectual supernova because the rest of the people I come across are so dumb. I know this can be seen as a hubristic blog but I don't know how else to put it. I'm no George Will but people continually put me on some kind of pedestal. It's like the person at work who asks you a simple question, "how do you spell cat?" - well, kat of course. Maybe it's all the mind-numbing porn out there. On its May 1st broadcast the "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric" had a segment on all the millions of men out there who are addicted to Internet porn. Now the real problem for me is not that there are millions of men out there surfing Web porn but that they have no aesthetic standards at all to judge the stuff, they are addicted to the mindless. At least an obsessed devotee of Marilyn Monroe has a loftier ideal in place, him I can talk and relate to.

Lucifer playing chess with a bunch of idiots, that's how I see the world at the moment. We had a recent tragic case in NY where a man who was to go on trial for rape killed the woman who was to testify against him. The logic of a psycho, of course it never dawned on our wronged man that rape is wrong in the first place but now to prevent his rape trial he is now going on trial for murder. Or Muslim radicals blowing themselves up when their leaders never do. It's like Lucifer going on "Jeopardy" with the clueless and blowing them all away.

Beam me up Scotty, there's no intelligent life down here.