rejoice!

This is the day that the tilt of the earth in relation to the sun, atmospheric conditions, and the complete total of all circumstances up to this point in time has made!

Let us rejoice and be glad!

today's word is Sysyphian

Sisyphus was a king punished in Tartarus by being cursed to roll a huge boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this throughout eternity.

The word sisyphean means, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, "endless and unavailing, as labor or a task."

Find the word Sysyphian used in this letter.

Sysyphian.

read the letter here: http://tinyurl.com/yg85uog (pdf)

generic blog post

today I took The Complete Works of Shakespeare to Founders and read Macbeth while I ate lunch. If there is one lesson to be taken from Macbeth it is this: don't listen to witches, they will complete screw with your mind. And killing makes you feel guilty. There are probably a lot more lessons in that story, but I'm just getting past the language.

After lunch I took my study to the Common Ground Coffee shop where I had much coffee and smoked a cigar.

Kanye West Was Right!

Holy Crap! I just say the "single ladies" video for the first time, and Kanye West was right: Beyonce DID make the best music video of all time!

a perfect evening

Today was our fifteenth wedding anniversary. Deb and I went downtown to have dinner. The Artprize exhibits were on display everywhere downtown, the weather was perfect, and we had a great time touring the exhibits.

The Chop House

We ended up having dinner at The Chop House. This place has such balls, they actually drew the balls on the stick figure of a bull they have for their restaurant logo. I had the best fillet minion, the best piece of beef I have ever had in my life. The service was amazing. When they bring your food, two waitresses bring the orders and with a little signal they simultaneously set the food down in front of everyone at the table at once. The wine was perfect. The lobster bisque was perfect. Deb had beef Wellington. But that fillet minion was a life changing experience. The ambiance was perfect. The lighting was perfect. The music was perfect; fifties and sixties style Vegas music. I expected the ghosts of Frank Sinatra or Martin and Lewis to walk by.

And then, they have a cigar lounge in the basement. Deb ordered some orange liquor coffee the waitress set on fire at the table. I had a cigar and coffee.

Anywhoo, that was our night, and it was friggin' awesome.

kanye!

Captain Crunch is high on crack.

What the hell is wrong with Captain Crunch? His eyes are bugging out of his head, a look of desperate expectancy, as if he is pleading with you to respond to his manic insanity. He grips his spoon as if he's gripping a butcher knife, and he looks so hopped up on dope he would beat you to death with the spoon before he realized what was happening. His mouth is open as if he's screaming. Why is his mouth open like that? Even his tongue is jumping around, as if he's ululating before blowing up himself and all the insane kids on the box with some explosives he's thrown together on his ship.

The box has a green circle in the bottom corner that reads "Smart Choices Made Easy". "Smart Choices"? This crap is pure poison. There's a (disclaimer?) explanation on the side that says "Cap'n Crunch" is a smart choice because it is low in saturated fat. Please. What kind of bullshit is this? If the FDA is allowing this kind of bullshit, why don't they just shut them down already? Are they trying to claim that Captain Crunch is good for you? That's legal? Is no one monitoring this bullshit? Captain Crunch is sugar. It is "Corn flour, sugar, oat flour, brown sugar, coconut oil, salt, niacinamide, yellow 5, (what the fuck is 'yellow 5'?) reduced iron, zinc oxide, yellow 6, thiamin mononitrate, BHT(a preservative), pyridoxine hydrochloride, riboflavin, and folic acid."

Yes, that is a smart choice made easy. The kids on the back of the box are all zonked out of their minds. Their eyes are all bugged out. They're mouths are open in silent screams. There's a website where they can collect information about you listed on the box.

But you know, for all that, it's delicious.

I am not a cop.

So I'm sitting in my white car, windows down, in the middle school parking lot, waiting for my daughter to get out of basketball practice. A mom in an SUV pulls up in the next space, windows down, and starts chatting on her cell phone.

Her son, maybe five or six years old, peeks up front and sees me and says, "What's up?"

I say, "What's up?"

He says, "You a cop?"

I say "No, I just fix computers."

The mom busts out laughing, I bust out laughing.

generic blog post

I have been walking a lot in the mornings. You notice a lot of things going on regular walks. I enjoy walking more than running, because I can do it anytime, I don't need a shower afterward, I can do it every day, and I can stop for coffee (or a beer) or do some banking on the way.

I am old.

shameless self promotion

Everyone should go to http://www.talesofthetalisman.com/ and order Tales of the Talisman, Volume 5, Issue 1. When it arrives in the mail, turn directly to page 42 and behold the awesome fiction. I wrote the story found there, and it is the most awesome short story you will ever read. Or not. But it is just one great story in a magazine packed full of great stories which you must have.

Today's MUZAK moment:

REO Speedwagon's 1981 power ballad, "Keep on Loving You" from their 1980 smash album "High Infidelity": While buying a gallon of 2% milk and a box of 13 gallon tall kitchen bags (white) at the Save-A-Lot.

Muzak Moments:

Madonna's 1984 hit "Borderline" while getting coffee at 8:45 in the morning. The perky yet refreshingly slutty 26 year old (when it was recorded) told me how I was making her "lose her mind" while I was getting my coffee.

Awkward MUSAK moments:

(1) "For Your Eyes Only" 1982 hit by Sheena Easton endured while buying cat food at Meijer at 10:30AM.

(2) The 1979 Rupert Holmes hit "Escape" (The Piña Colada Song) while watching The Elderly chew their breakfasts and lunches at Perkins while dining with the family. This was followed by the 1978 hit "Le Freak" by the disco band Chic.

# LONG JOHN SILVER'S: DESCENT INTO MADNESS!

~/~

I am ashamed to admit that today I went to Long John Silver's and got a Sampler Platter. I'm proud to say I didn't get the new "Fish Taco" but what the hell is that anyway? Sounds like you could catch a venereal disease from something like that.

I know the food is horrible — deep fried-fat-fried-fish — but it is so delicious I allow myself the occasional visit. The thing that is weird about the Long John Silver's near my house: The employees are all morbidly obese. The girl who takes my order has a head that is perfectly spherical. She is soulless piggy eyes and pudgy arms and sausage fingers. Does she eat at this place? Does the first aid kit in the back room include a defibrillator?

This place is like Day of The Living Dead. There are elderly people everywhere. In the tiny booth next to the exit sits an old man, probably close to a hundred years old, alone, carefully scooping coleslaw into his toothless face, willing each spoonful to slowly, slowly rise to his drooping jowls, precariously held by a shaking hand. Slowly it rises. So slow.

The 1985 number one hit "Out of Touch" by Hall and Oats plays softly on the speakers.

A washed-out red-headed mother and child, both wearing different shades of sickly orange, sit silently eating their corporate mash. What familial madness goes on in their domicile? Trailer or McMansion? It is hard to tell. Who would bring a child to this place? If this isn't child abuse, what is?

Suddenly Elton John's 1975 smash hit "Philadelphia Freedom" plays as I pour Malt Vinegar Sauce on my hush puppies and try to keep the desperation of this place from creeping into my soul. I wonder how this particular Circle of Corporate Hell fits into the fat, bloated American Landscape.

A few more customers have arrived. Watching these overweight people shovel crap into their heads makes me sick, and sicker still when I realize I am doing the same thing.

I go to fill the tiny cups they provide with tartar sauce and cocktail sauce. They've renamed the cocktail sauce "shrimp" sauce; who knows what Stupidity was behind that. I am about to get some ketchup for my fries, but a pale, six-five moon-faced Neanderthal in a NASCAR tee shirt is suddenly standing two feet away from me, hands on his hips, like I'm keeping him from some important appointment. He's wearing black exercise pants, although the prominent gut hanging over his beltline tells me he is not using those pants for their intended purpose. Mark Martin's convex face, stretched over this man's massive gut, looks pained. I go back to my seat without my ketchup. This is what prison would be like for me, if there are condiment bars in prison. I do not make eye contact.

I can feel the batter, the magnificent batter that makes the fish and the chicken indistinguishable by sight, coagulating in my arteries. The grease on my fingers moistens the paper on which I am trying to write. The ink pen is fouled in the stuff. With each bite I am killing myself, ever so slowly.

The old man hobbles to the trash can and puts his leavings into the little door, which swings back and forth as he disgorges himself into the parking lot. My God, he's going to operate a motor vehicle. The children! Oh the humanity! Will he get home to fall asleep in front of his television, watching the Price is Right? Let us hope so.

I can't finish my plate. The FDA should raid this place SWAT style, Taser everyone and shut the place down for public safety. I walk back into the sunlight, bloated and ashamed, holding my greasy fingers before me. "Out, damned spot! out, I say!" I get back into my car which is pre-heated like a fish under a heat lamp. I swear to myself to never to set foot in that place again.

But the Malt Vinegar! It calls me. It calls.

~/~

office move: cubicles in flux

Office moves are the best. Unhooking the computers, waiting on the elevators. The flat-screen monitor has made it easier, but big-ass laser printers seem to retain their original back-breaking weight. The gravitational pull on toner seems to be all powerful. One step ahead of the furniture movers, I deftly save the computer equipment from the random smashing and knocking-over of the moving guys.

The DSL line in place, I reconstruct the network like a smashed face after a head-on collision. Everything works. The patch panels are lined up with the PCs. The router is routing, the printers are printing, the computers are computing.

I am the computer guy.

Cooperation vs. Obedience

Guilty or innocent, we are told that we must "cooperate" with the police.

This is not a call to fight the police. When dealing with police, I will "cooperate". I suggest you do the same.

This is also not a screed against police. We are a nation of laws and we need police to enforce those laws. There are dangerous criminals and we need police to protect us from those criminals.

This is not about "rights" or justice.

This is about the words authorities and policy makers choose to describe the relationship between the police and the public.

When you hear the word "cooperate" in this context, I want you to replace that word, in your head, with a more accurate word:

"OBEY".

The word "cooperate" is inaccurate because in order to cooperate you need two parties working toward a common goal. When you are compelled to cooperate, you are really forced to obey. According to the dictionary, to "cooperate" is to "act together or in compliance", so the word is technically correct, but "obey" is a more accurate and descriptive word.

Sometimes you want to cooperate with authorities. If there are burglaries in your area, and you are not the burglar, you want the police to catch the burglar.

But if you are minding your own business and the police start asking questions, or if the police infringe on what you have been told are your "rights", then it is impossible for you to cooperate because their goals and your goals are very different.

Sometimes people who are doing nothing wrong are interfered with by police. Maybe the police tell them to move along when they have the right to stay put. Maybe the authorities ask questions they have no "right" to ask. Maybe the police break up a peaceful protest. How can citizens cooperate with an armed group that does not have the public's best interest in mind?

Do the police have the right to take these actions?

Of course they do. They can do anything they want. They are armed; they are better equipped and more organized than the public. Armed groups are always right, doubly so if they have badges.

Guilty or innocent, cooperating with police is impossible; obeying the police is inevitable. An innocent person does not want to be detained or interrogated by police, yet he has to OBEY the police because of the simple threat of violence. The criminal defiantly cannot cooperate with the police because his goal is directly opposed to their goal; he does not want to be caught. To ask either party to "cooperate" is madness. To force them to obey is easy. The word obey is a more accurate description in both cases.

From the authorities' point of view, it is wise to use the word "cooperate" instead of "obey". The word "obey" is almost offensive to Freedom loving Americans, but we learned the word "cooperate" on Sesame Street, and if we heard it from Grover and Oscar the Grouch, it has to be good, right?

If the media used the word "obey" to describe the relationship between police and civilians, people might stop to think:

Hey wait a minute, why do I always have to obey the police?

That is a dangerous question, and you should never ask that question. The answer to this dangerous and forbidden question is simple: You must always obey the police because they have Tasers and guns and clubs and if you don't obey, they will beat you down and take you to jail. Your innocence or guilt is irrelevant. Do not question the authorities. You must always obey the authorities.

A less hypocritical thing would be for the authorities to come right out and say it: YOU WILL OBEY. If you are innocent, obey anyway because it is more convenient for the police. If you are guilty, they want you to obey because it will make it easier for them to arrest you and throw you in jail, despite your obvious motivation to get away.

Either way, if you don't obey, they will take you to jail and charge you with something.

The justice or fairness of this is irrelevant. You must obey the police at all times regardless of your innocence or guilt, regardless of your "right" to assemble and protest because if you don't obey they will throw you in jail. You will then be told that this is for "the public good".

So remember, you are not compelled to cooperate; you are only forced to obey.

this is pretty sick right here.

no! wait! don't leave us now!

I love the way the mortgage company you are about to leave suddenly wants to talk about lowering the interest rate AFTER you've already asked for a payoff amount. Like it is the absolute LAST resort for keeping a customer. Ha Ha! Should have just lowered it before. Now you don't get ANY of the sweet, sweet interest on our home loan amount.

movie review: bruno

Bruno

2009

* * *

Meh, it was okay. not as good as I thought it would be. ~ July 11, 2009

tiny update

I'm almost finished cleaning up the felled pine tree in the back yard. We cut it down because it was a filthy, needle-dropping tree and we need its spot for a hot tub.