Unknown Quantity

The Unknown Quantity Blog has Moved!

2009-08-27T11:27:00.002-04:00

Unknown Quantity has moved! From now on you can catch me here!

Healthscare Reform

2009-08-20T18:34:00.006-04:00

Everyone’s bustin’ a nut over healthcare these days. President Obama is on the road trying to sell his plan which he knows no details of, states are whining because they have too many people without health insurance and Joe Average is struggling just to keep the care he’s got. Prices are out of control, availability is out of reach and we’ve got a damn pandemic to worry about. Does anyone remember anything about Swine Flu? N7D3 is what it's called, I think...

Does anyone have a solution? Or is this one of those American issues that will never get resolved, like Roe V. Wade, medical marijuana or us inflicting unwanted democracy in the Middle East?

As with most problems we as a country face, our healthcare problems are deeply based on greed and ignorance. I’ve talked about my proposed solution with several people and most come away thinking I’m a Communist. Well, I have gone on record on many occasions as being a fan of Communism.

No, I’m not talking about the form that features greedy government making their people live in poverty or under an iron fist. I’m talking about the pure form of Communism that spreads wealth evenly, where everyone shares in the whole.

Is there a reason why I go to work every day and make a salary yet paying doctors by salary is a rarity? Does anyone see the benefit of paying doctors a set salary like everyone else? The way the system works now, doctors are more or less salesmen, getting paid for ordering unnecessary tests and procedures for their patients. How easy is it to talk a patient into having tests done? Gee, take a guess. The patient usually doesn’t know any better.

Last month Obama paid a visit to a place in Ohio where the doctors were all paid a salary. He said it should be a model for modern healthcare. And why not? It keeps costs down and doctors don’t waste patient’s time by ordering tests and procedures they don’t necessarily need. Unless a doctor is an idiot, he shouldn’t have to order 20 batteries of tests to find out what’s wrong with someone. That is what medical school is for.

Of course, part of this issue is the fact that doctors are in bed with the pharmaceutical companies. It is now the American medical standard to medicate a patient rather than cure what ails them. This passive approach to medicine makes some people very rich but also forces healthcare to take a giant step backward. This also keeps doctors focused on practicing medicine instead of perfecting it.

I’d rather have a doctor use some sort of archaic technique to cure me, like applying leaches to 85 percent of my body rather than be forced to down eight pills every morning and having to worry about nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headache, uncontrollable erections, dizziness, drowsiness, dry mouth and whatever other side effects may occur. All because this clown of a doctor went to a convention in Vegas and was offered all the gold in Egypt if he prescribed a certain drug a certain number of times per year.

And there is another side of this whole thing that I won’t go into now, and that is all of these supposedly “new” ailments we are suffering. They are being caused by the CRAP food we consume, based heavily on corn derivatives, artificial this and that and preservatives.

We need to stop the madness in the healthcare industry before each of us is priced out of the market or before medicine becomes more of a joke than it is now from a quality perspective. Pay the doctors by salary and let them focus on curing people instead of covering up their symptoms with useless medications.

It’s not the complete answer, but it’s a start. The costs need to come down, people need and deserve better care, and people need to stop raping the system in an attempt to get rich. Doctors shouldn’t become doctors to get rich – they should become doctors out of a sincere desire to HELP people and ease their suffering.

For My Wife, Kim

2009-08-18T13:54:00.005-04:00

It’s been awhile since I’ve had something positive to post on my blog, most likely because people can really be assholes when they open their mouths and spew their crap. Somehow it tends to back everything up like a constipated elephant and can really cloud your days. But alas, today is a day for the positive. And when I think of the most positive thing I can write about I think of my other half, my soul mate, my wife Kim.

When I first met Kim I thought she was a very strong-willed person. I thought she could take on anything no matter how big or difficult and come out on the other side with a sense of strength and pride in knowing she did something a lot of other people couldn’t do.

When I met her she used to work on her Camaro. Not just changing the oil, but she could diagnose engine problems and fix them. She would get under the hood of that car and become a real grease monkey, people.

She owned a Pitbull named Skillet who was such a wonderful dog. She had an unbreakable bond with her best friend that I truly admired. She also worked a job that she knew was on the ground floor but she quickly showed everyone that she had more than what it took to succeed and within a very short time she became one of the most respected people in the company because of her ability to organize and get things done correctly. I was so proud of her during those early days when we worked together. Proud of what she accomplished and proud of how she set herself up to go even further.

When we met I was going through the most difficult time of my life. Without going into detail, what I faced would make anybody run away from me. What I was dealing with stretched my family very thin and would change my life forever. I was honest with her from the very first about what I was up against and she didn’t care. All she wanted to do was support me in any way she could with no questions asked.

And she did.

And it meant more to me than anything ever did before. I thought that would be the last time she would have to sacrifice for me. Turns out in June of 1998 I was a pedestrian struck from behind by a car traveling 55 miles per hour. My body was bent in so many unnatural ways I came away with some rather serious injuries. I knew these injuries would hamper me for the rest of my life, but I had no realistic idea as to how much.

During my rehab time (which lasted close to two years) from the accident Kim made every sacrifice on my behalf and she never once complained. Imagine having a husband stuck at home every day, stuck in a chair while rehabbing from multiple surgeries. I had to piss in a bottle during the day while she was at work because I couldn’t get out of that chair by myself. If I had to take a crap I couldn’t do it alone and I certainly couldn’t finish the job alone.

The sacrifices she had to make during that time were way beyond anything any human should have to go through. She not only dealt with my physical limitations, but she had to manage my emotional state as well. All during that time she never complained. She always told me she made a vow during our wedding ceremony and she intended on keeping it.

She taught me many things about her during that time in hell. I cannot and will not ever forget the bravery she demonstrated every day in the face of my life altering situation.

Shortly after I was well enough we moved to New England in 2000. I was lucky enough to land the job of a lifetime so we could live where we wanted to instead of where we felt we had to.

Over the past decade we have made our home and we have lived our lives. It wasn’t until recently we were able to break away from certain bindings and go back to living our own lives as a couple. We kind of feel like we’ve just gotten married again, like we’ve taken our lives back instead of having to be bow to other people’s objectives and how they think we should be.

As we begin this new phase of our lives together I want my wife to know that I am committed to loving and supporting her without question or hesitation. Just as she did with me on so many occasions, I have one purpose on this earth and that is to provide the best I can for the woman I love. That means the best life, the best happiness and even the best sorrow.

Many things happen to each of us as we go through our lives. Some things we plan for, some come as a complete surprise and some things are just shockingly awful and without any chance of forgiveness. When bad things happen to good people we owe it to each other to support rather than criticize. We owe an understanding ear instead of being on the defensive. We each owe each other a certain level of compassion and dignity.

Those who don’t behave in such a civil manner aren’t worthy of my time or effort.

After my accident there were some people who criticized me for suing the insurance company of the 17 year-old idiot that struck me with his car. Some had the audacity to say the kid suffered more than I did because of the emotional stress he was under. But as I awake each morning and try to put my feet on the floor I think of two things; What that bastard did to me with his car and how much I love my wife for not giving up on me. With each step I take each day of the rest of my life I am reminded of both the good and the bad that came out of that time.

For my wife, Kim, all of the love I have is for you. You can always count on that. You can rest assured knowing that I will always support you and I will always offer to you my shoulder, my hand and my understanding. It doesn’t matter what you do, what you think, what you’re up against, anything.

I love you forever and ever and even longer than that. I love you always, but not until the end of time, because our time will never end.

Bad Trends And Muffin Tops

2009-08-05T14:22:00.006-04:00

I’ve been noticing some things lately that make me think twice, maybe three times about them. They might be trends or just the plain, everyday devolution of mankind. For example, years ago when kids all of a sudden started wearing jeans that had crotches that hung to the ground, I was perplexed. I had to think about it for a few minutes, and then I came to the ultimate conclusion that the youth of that time period were on their way directly to hell. This was solidified as fact as soon as that same generation let the skateboard become their national symbol of pride.

Some things just naturally bother me without having to think too much about them. Hollywood celebrities who come out and voice their political opinions in support of a candidate really piss me off. They think just because they have celebrity we should give their opinion an extra special consideration. Wake up, people – actors are just that – they act. They spend their days acting as someone other than themselves because most of them don’t even know who they are as a person. It’s like going to work every day and playing house or having a damn tea party with invisible guests!

These days I see new things that mesh right into our broken society. These things don’t stand out to many of us because we see our social landscape as one of a broken-but-working thing, hobbling along as we put out the daily fires we each face. Now that I work in the city I am exposed to many more people every day and a lot of them are just flat-out weird.

What’s up with this new trend of wearing a suit AND a baseball hat with it? Since when did that become something that a lot of suit wearers think is cool? It’s like, one or the other, people. The two don’t go together. You might as well start wearing your underwear on the outside of your pants if you’re going to continue with this fashion idiocracy! A baseball hat completely takes away from the entire purpose of wearing a suit in the first place.

Muffin tops. Yeah, muffin tops. I’ve been seeing them for a while now but I never knew how to reference them correctly until just recently. Muffin tops are shortened tops worn by woman with lots of hip fat. The fat conveniently spills out into the open for all of us to see between the bottom of the top (shirt) and the top of the pants. Usually, if pants are not worn, the muffin top becomes a regular top minus the muffin. But, most women prefer wearing some sort of pant whether short or long while in public. Muffin tops are right up there in bad taste along with 300 pound women who insist on wearing spandex. The number of the latter has appeared to have diminished in recent years, possibly because those women are now too large to make it through their home’s doorway and into the outside world.

The worst type of muffin top is one that shows off the woman’s stretch marks. That is bad, very bad.

Another fad I’m seeing is men shaving their heads. I would bet that of all men, baldies make up about 15 percent, at least in my travels. A lot of men sense that a receding hairline isn’t sexy or shows some sort of male deficiency. So, they shave their head. Some men think it’s too much trouble to take care of their hair so off it comes. Hair loss has been around since forever. Have you ever seen a picture of a caveman with a shaved head? Even in the Planet of the Apes saga, you never saw a bald ape and they even had the skills to use razors and clippers!

Here’s what’s really sick about these bald idiots roaming the streets – every head has scars, flakes, scabs and other imperfections. I once watched a bald headed fart sitting in front of me on the train picking at his melon. I’m watching flakes of skin falling off his head, I’m watching him pick the scabs off and look at them on the end of his finger. I look back at his head and he has blood starting to ooze from the divot he just created.

Hey bald guys – if you’re going to pick at your skull, do it in private. I don’t want to see your naked head with all of its imperfections and veins and stuff. Cover that crap up with a baseball hat and then put a suit on for Christ sake!

This post is getting long so I’ll touch on one more and then go take a shower to get this disgusting debris off my body. There are so many things that piss me off but space and your attention span limit me. One last one, here we go…

Goddamn doctors and pharmaceutical companies. Yeah. Is there a doctor out there that knows how to cure anything anymore? Are the only things a doctor can tackle limited to what the pharmaceutical companies provide drugs for? If that is the case, nothing ever gets cured. In fact, the only things that do get cured are things there are no drugs for! There is no prescribed drug to cure a cold or the flu. But get cancer, an enlarged prostate or an erectile problem and you’ll be on prescription drugs for the rest of your life with no cure possible. Prescribed drugs do not cure – they just make your problem(s) more tolerable. The only side effects are, well, the side effects.

I suppose this would be the reason why doctors are always “practicing” medicine. They don’t really have to perfect it or become perfect at it because prescribed medications allow them to get away with only practicing. How damn sad is that?

To really see how to cure what ails you naturally, visit my sister-in-law’s web site. She’s an Acupuncture Physician. It’s pretty amazing what getting your life into balance can do for you. There really is something to be said about having a healthy soul, and having that translates into a healthier you.

That’s enough ranting for now. My list goes on and on forever…

The Question Of A Lifetime

2009-07-28T16:09:00.014-04:00

Since man has had the ability to think and rationalize, since he has been able to ponder the most difficult of issues put before him there has been one question that has yet to be answered. The meaning of life has been discovered, the secrets of the universe have been revealed and the origins of man himself have been proven. Yet one question still burns deeply within the core of man’s existence:

Ginger or Mary Ann?

Up until now there has been no concrete answer. The Center for Cracking The Bullshit (CFCBS) has finally released the answer to this famous question and the results may or may not surprise you based on your intellect, your ability to play Scrabble and how many times you’ve watched Gilligan’s island in first run and rerun formats.

The answer?

Ginger Grant takes the prize!!

The demographics of the respondents in the study fully explain why Ginger won out over the farm girl from Winfield, Kansas. 72 percent of all respondents were males who had “been involved with prostitutes at least twice”. Asked about the validity of the study’s sample, Wynona Numnuts of CFCBS says, “We initially weighed the sample so as to give Mary Ann a running start but we simply couldn’t find enough respondents to indicate that they could prefer a wholesome, sweet, honest girl over a whore-like wallet chaser. Besides, Mary Ann just didn’t have the cleavage necessary to take the cake.”

“Poppycock and bullshit!” says Wilfred Wango of Utah. “Mary Ann was the quintessential girl next door that had quite a nice ass and a bosom that could literally bring the cows home. The contest was rigged just like the election in Iran!”

Still, wholesome nice girl couldn’t hold a candle or even a vibrator to Ginger. 8 percent of those polled were females who admitted to masturbating while thinking of Ginger especially sighting her free solo in the “You Need Us” song sung to Bingo, Bango, Bongo and Irving in one Gilligan’s Island episode.

“Ginger had a radiant way about her that was more provocative than Marilyn Monroe, Jane Mansfield or even Madonna.” Noted one respondent, adding, “I feel for Mary Ann, though. She was the true forerunner of the Daisy Duke blue jean shorts, but the writers just didn’t make her slutty enough to appeal to the advertiser demographic targeted by the show.

Some fault Dawn Wells’ 2007 arrest for possession of marijuana as a major reason why she lost out. Although she claimed the pot wasn’t hers, it certainly tarnished her all-American image. Said Numnuts, “That pot bust left a lasting impression on those who saw her as a serious contender. She was still riding her wave of popularity when it all happened and she pretty much ruined any chance of taking Ginger to task.”

Tina Louise couldn’t be reached for comment as she was lying on her back auditioning for her next big role in the upcoming Children of the Corn XXVII, the Sequel.

“On a somewhat disturbing level we do feel the need to report that Natalie Schafer did receive three write-in votes. Those three respondents also indicated the liked the smell of bus fumes and found playing with toe jam a fun and gregarious way to spend time riding the bus.”

Numnuts said the next question to be tackled and forever put to rest is a logical next step forward. “Now that Ginger has toppled Mary Ann it only seems to reason that we put the next installment out there for a vote. It’s going to be Ginger versus Marcia Brady. We’re talking about the Marcia Brady that was old enough to throw away her training bras and rouse the boys on the set of the Brady Bunch. This will be a truly tasty bite of the American Pie.”

Stay tuned. This next study is set to begin shortly after the Michael Jackson autopsy report comes in.

EDITOR’S NOTE: KDawg is officially on record as stating he believes Mary Ann should have beaten out Ginger in this case. Says the Dawg himself, “I’ve always known that Mary Ann had every quality any normal man would and should look for in a woman. She was sweet, warm, understanding and yeah, she was HOT. Only an idiot like a man who prefers prostitutes or my brother-in-law would be so foolish to think Ginger is a better woman than Mary Ann. I put Marcia Brady right up there with Mary Ann. This next battle should prove interesting, especially since so many things have been revealed from Marcia's closet the past few years!”

The Boston mar-TEA-ni Party

2009-07-26T10:42:00.006-04:00

It’s a Saturday morning in July, my wife Kim and I decided to get out of bed a bit early and take the train into Boston for some relaxed fun without time limitations. We’ve driven into Boston on a Saturday several times before, but it’s always been during the winter. We only knew downtown Boston as a cold, harsh place where the winds could rip through any protective clothing you could throw on. Not only was the season different this time, but so was my understanding of the city, having worked downtown for the past several months. We were going to take the train into North Station and embark on a martini tour on foot.

This would also be the first time Kim would see where I work, and I had ventured far enough away from work during some days to have a pretty good idea as to which direction we needed to head in, also knowing that Boston isn’t that big of a city compared to New York, Chicago, or even Detroit.

We began our adventure having lunch at The Four’s, voted the best sports bar in the country. The Four’s is a half block from where I work. We started out with calamari and burgers helped along with my favorite green apple martini and Kim’s fave, a cosmo. The food and drinks were perfect and we were primed to hit the city on this hot, sun-filled day.

The North End Park (part of the Rose Kennedy Greenway) is a long garden that was once a freeway until this main Boston artery was moved underground as part of Boston’s Big Dig project. The result is a beautiful garden with walkways carved throughout with benches and tables to sit, relax and enjoy lunch. Wide open green spaces are highlighted by a huge pergola and water fountains perfect for cooling off in. Hundreds of kids, adults and dogs were taking advantage of the fountains on this cloudless day. I decided to wait to get soaked until we were on the backside of our day, but it sure was tempting to jump in right then.

We really found out just how small Boston is when we turned around to see we had already reached our first destination, Quincy Market. We’ve been to this touristy place several times before today but this time we got to see what was offered during the summer, and you’d be quite shocked to see the size of the Farmer’s Market! Every possible fruit and vegetable was being offered at ridiculously low prices. Farm-fresh watermelon, cherries, apples, oranges, corn, peppers, squash, every imaginable fruit and vegetable was up for grabs in this three-block stretch of controlled madness. Locals were buying fresh produce for the night’s dinner, tourists were spotting bargains to take back home. It was a classic scene where sellers hocked their goods to a huge, eager crowd where bargaining wasn’t necessary. Quite a site, really.

Quincy Market meant our second bar stop, the Cheers bar. The name Cheers is supposed to conjure up memories of that great old TV series, but in reality, this bar is several city blocks away from the Bullfinch Pub that the series was actually based on. It didn’t matter, though, the green apple martini and cosmo were once again perfect, setting us up for our next jaunt deeper into the market. It was so hot we both had sweat dripping off our faces, but we didn’t care. Drink up, time to continue onward.

Making our way through the huge crowd of people we came upon the usual shops where trinkets are sold. I’ve never bought anything from the venders here but it’s fun to look around for that one unique item you’d like to snag up for your own.

Our next stop was the wharf where you’ll see the playground of the area’s richest. Boats with three stories complete with bars, living rooms, full bedrooms and everything you could think of that gave the comforts of home. Within a short walking distance, Joe’s American Bar and Grill. More martinis!

On our way to Joe’s we walked through more beautiful gardens along the wharf where we stopped to say hello to and pet a wonderful brindle Bullmastiff. He was an awesome dog, friendly as most Bullmastiffs are, and he was solidly built to breed standard perfection. His owner had no need to concern herself with our attention to her dog as she looked the other way, speaking on her cell phone. This brings home another great point about Boston – it is a very dog friendly city and you can bring your pooch with you most anywhere you go as long as you observe the leash law and pick up after it.

Martinis at Joe’s were awesome as we noted how most of the serving staff looked about ready to pass out from the heat. But we knew that we were eventually heading back to the Greenway where the water fountains awaited us. That was our next stop after downing our libations and wishing cooler air ahead for the wait staff. Well, that was our next stop after we walked a bee line to the Hard Rock Café. There the bartender talked way too much and wouldn’t leave us alone, probably because they weren’t very busy inside. We stopped in the gift store and bought some shirts so we could feel like tourists.

We weren’t disappointed with the cooling effects of the fountains at the North End Park – they were just the right temperature to take the heat off. We were surprised they were chlorinated but after a second thought, that made sense seeing they were being used by babies, dogs and everyone else. We soaked ourselves to the skin, got our stuff back together and headed back in the direction of North Station as our 5:30 train departure was approaching.

But the martini tour wasn’t over just yet! The next stop, right across from the TD Bank Garden was The Harp. The air conditioning really cooled us down because our clothes were soaked. This bar was only two blocks from where I work but I hadn’t known this bar existed. This was the only bar we visited all day that wasn’t packed. We slammed our drinks because we knew we had one more stop before hopping on our train home.

Our last bar stop was at the bar inside North Station. It wasn’t very busy, either, and the bartender was somewhat of an idiot. We explained to him that we were concluding our Boston martini tour and he was quick to remind us not to expect much in the way of martinis from a “bar at a train station”. Yet, he surprised us by making a couple of good ones, mine even including a slice of fresh apple. I didn’t get that from any other bar we visited that afternoon – a pleasant surprise.

With a pleasant buzz we boarded our train back to Concord. Just for yucks, half way through the trip back we both put our earpods in and rocked out to our own tunes, just like I do every day going to and from Boston on the train. We got to our stop, exited the train, and we both agreed this was our best trip into Boston ever. I’m sure it makes a big difference when you go in the summer versus the winter. It also made a big difference taking the train as opposed to driving in, driving around forever in circles and then paying out the ass to park for an afternoon. We were able to see a side of Boston neither of us had seen before – the North End Park, the farmer’s market, and the wharf, all on foot at our own pace.

Sometimes I trash the city of Boston and the state of Massachusetts but on this day I learned there is a lot more to Boston than its history. The city has a welcoming appeal and an easy culture that asks you to please stop by again and next time, bring more friends. Boston is truly a city of today even amongst its heralded past. Its streets are safe and clean and it has a pulse that beats today strong as ever.

You can get a damn good martini there, too.

Homeward Bound Through Cambridge

2009-07-17T16:24:00.006-04:00

Here it is, my first day on the train with my new laptop. I’m heading home, it’s 4pm and the train just left North Station in Boston. This is pretty cool to be able to sit here and write and take advantage of the WI-FI connection now being offered on the trains in Boston. A nice perk!

The beauty of being able to write on the way home versus writing on the train coming in to town in the morning is no one is looking over my shoulder at what I’m doing. There aren’t as many people on the home bound train that I take – most take the two trains after mine. On the way home I can stretch out a bit and relax. This morning I had to share a seat with two other people – when the other people sat down it was immediately time to put my laptop away. Drag. Things got too cramped.

We’re at the first stop on the way home – Porter Square in Cambridge. If you know anything about Cambridge, you could guess this is one of the more interesting stops for this train. Cambridge features two unique distinctions – it has more colleges and universities per capita than any other U.S. city and it has an unusually high number of technical businesses within its boundaries. It’s the home of Harvard, MIT and many other high profile institutions. Internet and software companies are everywhere here.

Combine the two types of people that would attend progressive, world-class universities with the geeks that power the Internet and software industry and you can imagine the people you see board and exit the train here. Some days it can be a real freak show when you see some of the clothing and hair styles that exist here. I don’t see much tattoo work, but the body piercing on display can be pretty intense. I’ve seen some people that have so many piercings you lose count of them before you’re even done with the first ear or the upper lip. It’s almost as if Cambridge as a city is its own circus with those who live and work there being the performers.

The demographics for the Cambridge stop are top-heavy with Asians, mostly dudes. White females are probably next with the minority being white, American guys. But you can bet you get a fair sampling of our youth culture here in Cambridge. These people are on the move. Geeks, what used to be called yuppies, and freaks make up this crowd. Generations Y, X and even a few Z’s are represented here and every one of them is tied to their technical gadgets like they are physically connected to them with rivets and chains. Ah yes, even more piercings.

Cambridge is one of only two stops for this train, the other being North Station in Boston, where the train intersects with the Boston subway system. Many people jump right from the train to the subway, taking their travels underground into the oldest subway system in America. It’s not all that pretty but you get to where you’re going. For the people who come and go from Cambridge, it seems fitting that they have the option of going one step further than the rest of us. After all, these people are the movers and shapers of the technical, progressive world we live in. And although they may appear to be some sort of strange breed from outer space, our world would miss them dearly if they weren’t here.

The Drive To Insanity

2009-07-14T15:09:00.008-04:00

Driving in Massachusetts isn’t a whole lot of fun. It’s not quite as bad as being an 11 year-old boy spending the weekend at Neverland Ranch back when the King of Schlop was alive, but it’s remarkably close. The road system is poorly designed and it’s just not built to handle the volume of traffic. The closer you get to Boston the worse it gets. I’m originally from the Detroit area where the entire road system for the city of Detroit and its suburbs is based on a north-south east-west grid. There is no way you can get lost anywhere unless you’re a brain-dead sloth, which, if that were the case, you shouldn’t be driving in the first place.

For several years in a row up until this year Boston drivers have been rated as the rudest drivers in the country. I have never agreed with this distinction. I do, however, believe without a doubt that they are the STUPIDEST drivers in the country, maybe even in the entire world. Since moving here I have paid very close attention to their driving habits, mainly because I always seem to get stuck behind the worst, slowest and stupidest drivers Massachusetts can whip up. I get stuck behind them because if you’re not on a freeway in Massachusetts (otherwise known as a highway), you’re on a two-lane road with a 35 mile-per-hour speed limit. Apparently whoever determines the speed limit in the state already knows that most drivers here can’t hack going much faster without completely losing control of their stupid little hybrid whatever.

But for your information and education I have noted two very important things about the most stupid of Massachusetts drivers. First, for an area that gets pounded with so much snow in the winter, it seems a very small percentage of drivers in the Commonwealth own four-wheel drive vehicles. Translation: During the winter I spend a lot of time travelling at 5 miles-per-hour when I just want to run over the idiot in front of me in my four-wheel drive XTerra while flashing my middle finger proudly out my driver side window. If you can’t handle driving in snow, get the hell out of my way because if I’m on the road, I am going somewhere.

Second, I have compiled a list of the three vehicles driven most often by those who can’t even maintain the minimum speed limit. You know – those assholes who think that if they drive five miles-per-hour under the speed limit they will actually help the world last longer by reducing their carbon footprint. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – we cannot make an impact on saving our planet. Individuals simply can’t make any sort of measurable difference. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking politics, the environment, a quarterback on a football team (except maybe Joe Montana) or even those yahoos that set up schools in third world countries thinking that an education can pull a kid out of poverty. If you think that driving five miles-per-hour under the speed limit reduces your carbon footprint, I have a footprint for you that’s aimed right for your ass, and it’s NOT made of carbon!

Anyway, if you find yourself behind one of these vehicles, you are doomed. Swerve off the road and head directly into that telephone pole IMMEDIATELY. Take a garden hose and some duct tape and attach the hose to your exhaust pipe, run it into your car through the window and breathe deeply because the asshole in front of you is about to make your life miserable.

Beware the following:

* Anyone, man or woman, driving a Subaru Outback wagon. It doesn’t matter which model year the thing is or the color, although the green ones tend to be the most ridiculously stupid. For some suck-ass reason, people who drive “automatic 4-wheel drive” vehicles think they have a reason to drive slower than normal. I don’t get it, but don’t get stuck behind one of these things. If you or someone you know is going to buy one of these dumb-ass station wagons, get to the nearest shotgun and do what should come naturally to you.

* Mini vans driven by “soccer moms”. I do know some people that can drive a mini van and at least drive the speed limit at the same time. But these women who have kids in the van drive like I take a shit! It’s stupid – she drives extra slow because of her supposed “special cargo” yet if you look through the tinted glass you’ll see several kids inside the van bouncing off the walls because they’re all on Ritalin and our soccer mom hasn’t strapped them in with their law-abiding seatbelts. And while these kids are all out of control, soccer mom can’t see out of the back window to notice you flashing your headlights in an attempt to tell her to get the hell out of the way because you’re cramping up and need to get home and use the bathroom before you have an accident of a very specific kind! America, soccer sucks and so do soccer moms!

* Anyone driving a Toyota Corolla. Doesn’t matter - man, woman, kid, kids out on a date, kids out smoking dope and drinking beer, whatever. The Toyota Corolla isn’t built to manage the speed limit of any road. I don’t know how the engineers at Toyota did it, but they succeeded in building a car that simply sucks to no end. Either that or they have developed a marketing strategy that reaches only those specific drivers who don’t want a Subaru Outback or a mini van. Maybe it’s both, I don’t know. All I do know is that whenever I find myself behind a Toyota Corolla I end up crying like a little school girl and wanting to cozy up with my snuggly blanket like when I was a toddler. Kind of like Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber when he met up with Seabass in the restroom. A Toyota Corolla can and will break the spirit of any automobile driver that has any desire whatsoever to enjoy the act of driving. It will make you decide to really decrease your carbon footprint by leaving your car on the side of the road and just walk to your destination because you’ll get there faster than if you stayed behind that hunk of crap Corolla.

AMA = The Academy of Motorist Assholes

Let me tell you, people, Detroit may be having its problems right now and they may have put all of their eggs in one basket. They are paying the price they have to pay right now. But at the peak of everything GM, Ford and Chrysler did, driving was always billed as a fun sport. Driving was meant to exhilarate and excite the senses of the driver and passenger. Compare the dog riding in the front seat of a ’69 Camaro SS or even a ’76 Cutlass Supreme cruising down Woodward Avenue in Royal Oak, Michigan compared to the dog riding in the Toyota Corolla crawling down Rte. 9 in Framingham, MASS. Just look at the face of each dog, the ears, the nose, grab a look at its tail if you can.

Even a dog knows who knows how to drive and who doesn’t. We all live a dog’s life, and some dogs just know how to live. Others might just as well be cats.

Welcome ColdFusion Developers!

2009-07-09T15:04:00.006-04:00

As of this week GetColdfusionJobs.com includes a link to my blog on their site. They solicited member resource submissions to link to on their site. Right up front I told them yeah, I have a blog, but no, it’s not about programming tips, web development strategies or even my thoughts about Star Wars, Star Trek or any other geek related material. My submission just said, “Hey, even though I’m a ColdFusion developer, I am a normal person who writes about normal crap on my blog. It’s not technical and most of the time what I write about doesn’t make any sense to the real world.” I guess they felt the content on my blog was a worthy change of pace from the average techno-garble usually found elsewhere from technical people.

So, welcome to you if you’re coming here from GetColdFusionJobs.com! Come to think of it, welcome to you no matter where you’re visiting from.

I will say this about ColdFusion – the language salvaged my programming career in 2000. Up until that time I was writing code using a proprietary language designed for statistical tabular output from data collected from market research studies primarily for Ford Motor Company. Wow, that sounds like an absolute thrill, doesn’t it? Ooooh, very sexy. About as sexy as my mother wearing a G string while suggestively licking ice cream out of a long, pointed sugar cone on a hot summer day on her back porch.

Um, I just puked on my shoes. Thanks, me, for that visual.

Anyway, in the late 90’s I began hearing rumors about this way-cool language called “ColdFusion” and how it was revolutionizing web development, making it quick and easy with huge amounts of power and slickness never before seen by mankind. The company I was working for wasn’t about to begin using it because they thought the web wasn’t a resource they needed to use. What a bunch of closed-minded dorks! Then again, many of the computers in their offices today are probably still running Windows 95 or 98. Sexy, indeed.

My wife and I packed up our stuff and moved to the Boston area in 2000 and the first thing the company that I went to work for (Stratus Technologies) did was send me to the Fast Trac to ColdFusion course being offered at the Allaire headquarters in Newton, MA. Those three days turned out to be the most important three days of my career! The day after the course was over I dove directly into redeveloping several Lotus Notes web apps into ColdFusion with Oracle as the back end. I’ve been totally digging the language ever since. ColdFusion transformed my career beyond sexy – it made my career orgasmic.

That’s where I am these days. I am not a geek by any stretch of any imagination. If you attempt to imagine me as a geek your skull will explode. If you try to lump me in with all of those web developer clowns that eat, sleep and shit programming code your anal glands will swell and then explode. If you try to get me to attend a programming convention or an offsite users group meeting you will first get a serious frown from me and then I will kick you squarely in the balls and tell you I’m simply not interested. Why? Because I’m NOT INTERESTED.

But, being a programmer/web developer I have to sometimes pretend to be some sort of geek at any given time during a work day. But in reality, I am still searching for my perfect career and I know it isn’t programming because I am just not smart enough to do it. Luckily, ColdFusion has made me at least appear to be smart enough to pull it off. As I sometimes say, “Baffle ‘em with bullshit.”

If you’re a programmer geek visiting my blog, go ahead and navigate around and read some of my stuff. It sure won’t give you inspiration as to how to solve any programming challenges, but it may inspire you to look outside of the confines of geekdom and see that even programmers can be real people with real everyday thoughts far outside the confining walls of technology. And yes, if you feel that there is no such thing as confinement when it comes to technology, then you truly are a geek.

Read on…

Outrage At Petaluma

2009-07-02T08:15:00.003-04:00

The annual 2009 Ugliest Dog Contest is now history and there was a surprise winner this year. In a contest normally dominated by the Chinese Crested breed, this year’s winner literally came out of nowhere. Pabst, a Boxer mix that was rescued from a shelter four years ago as a pup, took this year’s honors.

Pabst isn’t even ugly!

I am demanding a recount of the voting. I want to see the actual tabulation because of all the contenders in this year’s competition, Pabst is one handsome dude. First, he’s a Boxer which instantly means he is a handsome guy. Second, his face reminds me of Jack Nicholson. Last I checked, Jack isn’t considered ugly by women or men.

I would like those who voted to be sequestered for drug testing. At minimum these yahoos should have to pee in a cup. These crackheads obviously can’t tell ugly from their own asses! Ugly is Lisa Lampanelli, Danny De Vito and his wife Rhea Pearlman. Willem Dafoe is pretty ugly, so are Paris Hilton and Steve Buscemi. Just look at my buddy Pabst here – he’s a God compared to the pukefest I just mentioned.

C’mon people – you can find uglier dogs than Pabst that don’t even have any deformities. Look at your average Pug, Bulldog or Chihuahua – naturally ugly dogs usually owned by people who are just as ugly. Of course you can always look to any cat if you want pure ugly…with a touch of Satan as well.

I cast the cloak of shame upon this scam.

Birth, School, Work, Death...Anything Else?

2009-07-01T08:52:00.011-04:00

While our economy tries to rebound from too many corporations and people getting way too fat at the expense of the rest of us, I think it’s time for us to sit down and retool the entire way we as a country define what it is we are, and what we should really be. This is a pipe dream of mine, but dammit, it sure would be cool if we as a country could pull this off. All it would take is for us to grow even half a testicle.

Because Obama Said So
If you think about it, we have all the necessary factors in place that should allow us to chill out for a bit, take a break and rethink our priorities. This is something our president asked us to do in his inauguration speech and I think he’s got a great point. This period really can be the defining hour for all of us. I’m not talking just about those living in this country. I’m talking about all of us – us as a people in this country, us as in our friends and foes around the world, and us as a global population.

But first we need to start in our own back yard.

This country was founded on certain principles and a lot of hard work. We’ve been working so hard for so many years so we can lead the world in productivity that we’ve lost our way. Our culture has slowly transitioned into an environment that spurs workaholics. So many of us have been led to believe that if we work our tails off for years and years we will reap boundless rewards in the end. We will reach the end of our working lives and relish in the fruits of our labors and spend our “golden” years comfortably and without care. Half naked servants will dance around us as we lounge in the sun, offering grapes, wine and song. Holy crap, what a world!

What a seriously large crock of bullshit. This crock runneth over with the shit of bulls.

Wake Up, Your Dream Is Over
First of all, those days of spending your entire life working for one company are over. The way your father had it is long gone. I saw it begin to happen with my dad somewhere around the mid 70’s. First he started changing jobs, then the company he’d work for would reduce his retirement benefits, then they were cut altogether. My father was very fortunate that he had a son (one of my brothers) who was an investment counselor because the day had arrived when he had to do the retirement planning legwork on his own instead of having a Human Resources rep from his company do it for him. By the time my dad retired he had nothing in the form of retirement benefits from any of the companies he had worked for.

Thanks for all of your years of dedication and devoted service. Thanks for working on those Saturday’s, too. Now screw you, it’s time for you to retire, good luck, buh bye now.

Do you have any idea how many people past the age of 65 are forced to work at shitholes like MacDonald’s because they weren’t fortunate enough to have a kid in the family that was a financial planner? According to some sources, 10% of workers in this country over 40 years of age are retirees. Some because they want to work, many because they HAVE to work, and that info is from 2005! Just this year in Australia, 40,000 retirees were forced to go back to work. Sorry, but that is, as I said before, BULLSHIT. I think my father was one of the last who was able to retire with most of what he expected to have when he reached that time when he had to call it quits. Even so, now he always complains that he has no money and social security is a sham. Go figure. Social Security is a sham? Whoda thunk.

Work Sucks Then You Die
Because of this scenario I think the entire concept of working for a living is a farce. It’s really quite idiotic because when you think about it, most of us will work most of our lives with the dream of retiring and doing things we’ve always wanted to do. You know, crap like traveling, or buying a cool place to retire or whatever. Some bloated idiots even dare to dream of playing golf all day every day. Like I said, they are bloated idiots. The problem is that by the time we reach the age where we can retire with even a little bit of financial security, we’re too damn old to do those things we planned on doing once we retired! How’s that for an ironic kick in the pants?

So, America, waiting until retirement to enjoy life is out of the question. What is the answer? How about living that life right now? Think you can’t? Well, you’re partially right. You can’t live that life in America right now because you’re still working. What’s the key? The key is America needs to restructure what our working lives consist of. We need to deemphasize this need that America has to lead the world in the production of everything. The fact is we DON’T lead the world in the production of everything so why can’t we just give up on that stupid notion? What happens if we give up on that stupid notion?

We as a country start making some smart decisions about how we should work, and those decisions can play into how we can actually start enjoying our pre-retirement lives more. What I speak of isn’t a new concept – several countries have developed the correct formula that allows people to work, enjoy life while doing so, and retire at a decent age and still enjoy retirement. Look to Europe for details about what I’m referring to. Look to Europe to see a happier, healthier culture. It’s true that in France women aren’t encouraged to shave their armpits, but that could be a decent trade for a longer life expectancy, don’t you think?

Utopia Defined
What the hell is wrong with making the standard work week four days? Nothing gets done on Fridays anyway! Two day weekends are simply not long enough to allow one to decompress from the previous week and then ramp up in preparation for the upcoming week. Three day weekends provide the perfect amount of time to decompress, ramp up AND have time in between to relax and enjoy time away from work. The physical benefits include more time to sleep and less hurrying around trying to get crap done, and the emotional benefits are a real separation from your job. Put those two together and you have a recipe that can only give you a great chance at leading a healthier, happier life, which should turn into the benefit of adding years onto your existence on this planet. For those who have a distinct dislike for the planet, that’s probably not such a great thing. But for those who like the idea of living, it should be a nice carrot to dangle.

Once we get that work week chopped down to four days we can take a swing at reformatting the work day. I’m a white collar kind of guy in the sense that I am a web developer. I sit at a desk all day writing program code while sitting in a chair that is an ergonomic nightmare. The more code I write the closer I get to complete debilitation via carpal tunnel syndrome, pinched nerves in my neck, ruptured disks in my back and the deformation of my tailbone. Let’s also not forget about how staring at a monitor all day causes my eye muscles to lose their elasticity and focusing ability causing the need for reading glasses, computer glasses, looking-out-the-window glasses and glasses for whatever else I decide to look at during my day. The lighting is always terrible wherever I work, the recycled air is far from fresh, and no one gives a shit as long as the whip can still crack and get things done.

All that and I get a full half hour for lunch. I feel so damn special.

Just like needing a weekend to regroup and re-energize, we should all get a two hour lunch each day so we can have truly productive work days. Four day work weeks and six hour work days. That’s what I’m talking about. Just think about how your attitude would change. Think of how the quality of your life would increase. You never know, it may just make you smile more, laugh more, it might even, I dare to say, help Boston train travelers to let go and say hi to each other from time to time or even talk about the weather occasionally. Well, I don’t know if I’d go that far, but one can dream. You may even notice an increase in your daily productivity at work! Yeah, I know – it’s true!

You probably think I’m dreaming here, or just plain talking out of my ass. But trust me; I know the difference between a fart and a burp. The reason why we can’t ever enjoy this new culture I speak of is because Americans have this natural attitude that says we have to be the world leader in everything. Well, except soccer because we’ll always suck at soccer on the world stage. But whether we’re building bombs, airplanes to drop them out of, cars, lawn mowers, television sets, bird houses, thumb tacks or anything, we have to at least try to be the best in the world at it. But we pay a price for that attitude and it comes in the form of shorter life spans and more therapy sessions per capita than most other countries on Earth. Trust me, look it up. I’m too tired to do the research myself because I work 40 hour weeks, but I know for a fact that the average life expectancy is higher in France and Italy than it is here in America.

There are some signs that America might be willing to hop aboard and join me in my pilgrimage to this state of utopia. America already knows that they can’t lead the world in auto production. There is no way in hell we can compete with Canada, Russia and Sweden in producing quality hockey players (no knock to Chris Chelios intended). Pizza made here doesn’t stand a chance against a pie from Italy and just tell me you’d rather have a margarita made in America versus one made in Mexico. Not happening. You can go to an Outback Steakhouse in America and even with their supposedly authentic Aussie menu, do you really feel like you’re in Australia rammin’ down a bloomin’ onion or havin’ a damn shrimp off the barbi? Hell no!

Old Dogs, New Tricks
So we’re getting close to giving up on this world domination idea. We’re opening up to the idea of enjoying life a little more with less stress and more leisure time. Our president has challenged us all to come up with a better way of life in America for Americans. He wants us to reach out and help one another so we can all be the Americans we are supposed to be. All we need to do is change our belief system a little bit and maybe take a closer look at some of the countries around the world that we thumb our noses at. No, France doesn’t lead the world in many things (including the production of French Fries – that would be US), but they sure know how to live and enjoy life. It’s ironic they gave us the Statue of Liberty and put some kind of inspirational inscription on it, but they forgot to clue us in on the real secrets of a great society. I doubt they really know them anyway, but it could have at least been a starting point for us.

My half hour is up – time to get back to work!

There Is A God - JACKO IS DEAD!!

2009-06-26T15:09:00.002-04:00

He was the clowned Prince of Schlop, the self-proclaimed King of Slop, and now, circuses around the globe are flying their flags at half staff in honor of the passing of the world’s most famous clown, Michael Jackson.

What comes around goes around, and God has taken his last stand as MJ was about to embark on a comeback tour. God decided he had better step in and save the potentially hundreds, maybe thousands of young boys that would be destined to be molested at backstage parties and weekend hotel sleepovers during Jackson’s upcoming concert tour.

While little girls all over the globe (who weren’t even alive yet when Jackson produced his first solo hit single) wept in disbelief and shock, those of us in touch with the real world celebrated the glorious announcement of his death. For me it was extra special – he croaked on my birthday. Other than the well wishes from my wife, this was indeed a present that will be hard to outdo in years to come.

Michael Jackson was one of the world’s most overrated entertainment figures. If you look carefully at what he accomplished musically, you will see he was a one-note phenom who didn’t even play an instrument. The guy lost one of his gloves early on in his career and never had the smarts to replace it. You have to give him credit, though, for somehow finding a way to make crotch grabbing a national sensation and a permanent part of our American culture. Wow, that’s truly inspirational.

If you dig into his life outside of music you can’t help but notice he was a freak. Since his popularity declined in the mid 90’s after being accused of molesting half the boys under 10 in the western hemisphere, his face slowly morphed into that of a circus clown. He claimed he had a disease affecting the pigmentation in his skin. The reality was he wanted to make himself look as white as possible for his gal-pal Elizabeth Taylor. The surgeons who performed the plastic surgery on his face should have been shot in their own collective faces for practicing such failed techniques on the idiot. Problem was, nobody in Michael’s circle thought he looked funny.

I look funny how? Like a clown? I look funny like a clown?

The news media loves this stuff. Barbara Walters loves this stuff. It’s great news content. But so was the last trial where he was acquitted of molesting a little boy. When the news media gave up the coverage of that and went home, MJ and his cronies paid the boy and his mother hush money so they could preserve Michael’s career and image. It was too late – all we were left with was a child molesting circus clown that suffered from depression and withdrawal – career OVER! No wonder so many people on this planet have an intense fear of clowns.

I for one am simply ecstatic over the death of this imbecile. I feel a new, fresh perspective in my life. I am drawn toward the sun and I bask in its warmth, knowing that God or some power of reason has put this clown down once and for all. My newly found mood of happiness even allows me at this time to forgive people like Paul McCartney and Eddie Van Halen for ever working with that no-good child-molesting jerkoff.

In one final gesture of mourning may I suggest that the federal government go to California and take a flame thrower to the Neverland Ranch? Burn that crapshack to the ground to help erase any concrete footprint that clown-ass left behind.

Oh – Tito? Latoya? Marlin? All you other Jacksons? I don’t want to see you taking advantage of your clown brother’s death. No books, no guest spots on TV shows, no nothing. Ya’ll can just fade away…

The Fitchburg 406 Inbound to Boston - PART 1

2009-06-18T14:26:00.007-04:00

Instead of just painting two pictures of my train riding experience I have decided to serve this up in several parts. This is because explaining the experience to someone who has never ridden a commuter train can be difficult because there are so many facets involved. It is impossible to just get on, ride and get off without experiencing a million things during that time.

Every Monday through Friday morning I get up at the crack of dawn’s ass and get ready for work. I get up earlier than most normal people because I have to catch the Fitchburg 406 train inbound to Boston. The 406 rolls into Concord Station at 6:55 and stops just long enough to let about 40 of us board. Then we leave our parked vehicles behind for the day, stopping at Lincoln, Hastings, Kendall Green, Brandeis University/Roberts, Waltham, Waverly, Belmont, Porter Square in Cambridge, and finally North Station in downtown Boston all in about 42 minutes. The people I ride the train with every day are just as different as the stations they board the train from.

I always try to find an empty seat when I first board and that's usually not a problem. By the time we make a few stops most of the cars are filled to capacity, but deciding on finding an empty seat or immediately sharing a seat with someone else is determined by what my ride plan is for the morning which is, of course, dictated by my mood. I may be the only moron on the train who develops a daily ride plan. I develop my strategy in my vehicle each morning while driving to the train station. If I plan on cranking up my iPod and gazing out the window, I grab my own seat anywhere in the car to start off. These types of days usually happen when I had a lot to drink the night before or I am anticipating a not-so-great day at work and I just want to space out and not think about things. I'll also go this route when I don't feel like having to pay attention to anything and I'm not fully awake yet. The latter is in play most of the time.

If I’m going to read a book, I get as far to the front of the car as I can and share a seat with someone. In general I don’t read a lot, but I always have a book in my backpack that I can pull out and look at. I always get on the car that is second from the last in the train. Sometimes when I want to mix things up and be around different people I’ll walk forward a car or two before finding a seat. But for the most part, it’s the second car from the end that I call my morning comfort zone.

I stand in the same spot every day while waiting for the train and I stand right at the edge of the station platform to make sure I’m the first person to board. That gives me more seating options! I love the rush you get when the train pulls in and blows by you, standing as close to the edge of the platform as you can before having your arms ripped off. The feel of the wind the train creates and the way the ground shakes as it goes by are pretty cool. The thing about riding the train every day is that everything is the same from day to day. Everything is based on a schedule whether you’re inbound or outbound. What time you get up in the morning, what time you HAVE to be in the shower by, what time you go to bed at night and a lot of stuff in between is all predetermined by the train schedule.

I board the train at Concord Station with about 40 other people. Of all those people, only two of them converse while waiting for the train. I think they may work together, I’m not sure. What I am sure of is this seemingly ridiculous unspoken New England rule that says you are not allowed to speak to other people while you’re in a group of people. Of course, you can always pull out your cell phone and make or fake a call to satisfy that urge, but this rule is something I’ll never get used to. You can have 200 people packed into a train car and you won’t hear a word spoken. To have two people actually talking to each other at a train station that has 40 people waiting is an anomaly for sure!

Last week while I was standing on the platform sipping my coffee and waiting for the train I noticed a woman walk up and stand near me. I hadn’t seen her at the station before. At that time we were in the midst of several days in a row of rainy weather. For some strange reason I didn’t have my iPod turned on, and I turned to the woman and sarcastically said, “I can’t remember what the sun looks like.” It was just a simple statement, having no weight or importance. It was me making small talk although I knew such an attempt at doing so would break that sacred, unspoken Northeastern rule. Her immediate response was, “You must be from the Midwest!” I asked her how she could tell and she said, “Because you spoke to me! People that are from here don’t talk to each other.”

She had a perfectly valid point (and she just happened to be from my beloved home state of Michigan!). I’ve said it before – just getting a “good morning” or a “have a good night” out of people in the Boston area is like getting the government to balance a budget – it ain’t gonna happen, friends. This bothers the hell out of me because I like to talk with people. I like to hear about their experiences and what makes them tick. The simple exchange of ideas or experiences between people is something that brings us all together as a race. Kind of makes me a bit leery of the race of people that resides in the Boston area sometimes.

Another case in point, and I have to jump ahead to the train that takes me home every day for this one. Each day, as usual, I sit in the same train car, sharing it with the same people on the way home. A long time ago I noticed a girl who looks amazingly like Kirsty Ally. She always sits either just in front of me or just behind me, always across the aisle. I’ve never seen her smile, never heard her voice, and never seen her talk on her cell phone. She’s always reading a book and always has a serious look on her face. One day I decided to just say hi to her and introduce myself. I decided to do this just to see if it would start a rapport, possibly something that would open things up and allow us to at least exchange pleasantries now and then. I was willing to make an outlandish attempt at tearing down that wall, breaking that rule, and communicate with another human on the train. That was my one and only intention.

I said hello to her as I was taking my seat one afternoon and introduced myself. She told me her name was Michelle. I said, “Hi, Michelle, it’s nice to meet you.” Wow. Nothing huge, no earth-shattering crap there at all. She smiled, so it was the first time I had ever seen any emotion on her face. She didn’t have the world’s greatest teeth but I was willing to cut her some slack on that, seeing that we had just broken through the barriers and boundaries established by so many before us. It was the first time I had ever heard her voice. When she got to her Brandeis University stop, I looked up and wished her a good weekend as she put her backpack on and walked passed me to get off the train. She said the same to me, wished me a nice weekend. That was weeks ago and I haven’t seen her in my car on the way home since. She sat across from me in the same car on the same train on the way home every day for three months and now all of a sudden, I see her get off at her stop out of a different car.

In the morning she rides the same train into Boston that I do, and every now and then I see her get off the train and walk with the rest of us into North Station. The other day I caught up to her and asked her if I scared her by introducing myself to her. I asked if she thought I was some sort of kook or stalker or something. She only said, “I saw the wedding ring on your finger and I thought it was really strange for anyone married to introduce himself to me on a train. I decided not to take any chances so I’m just staying away from you. You know, you never know if someone’s out to hurt you these days, people are crazy!”

WHAT? ARE YOU FOR REAL?

I previously said that even though we don’t talk to each other, we - those of us riding the train - seem to share some sort of common bond and some level of caring for one another since we share so much time together every day. Maybe that’s just me being romantic or me having a senseless form of hope for the human species. Maybe I’m naive or maybe, just maybe, people are getting hard and jaded. They’re turning themselves off to their basic need of interaction with others of their kind. Maybe we’re all so busy these days or simply consumed by the ever-constant need of being self-centered that we just can’t find it within ourselves to lean on each other anymore. Whatever it is, whatever the reason, it seems to stick out like a sore thumb on the train.

Don’t get me wrong – riding the train every day doesn’t suck. There are so many facets to this experience that I can’t cover them all in one, two, or even ten blog posts. I’ve got a lot more to say and you’ll see it coming soon right here. The next post will focus on some of the people that make the train experience unique and interesting.

And to you, Michelle, if you ever happen to read this post, I’ll say again that I certainly never intended to flip you out and make you think that I am some sort of crazed, stalking lunatic that eats raw meat and howls at the full moon and pulls the wings off butterflies and drowns innocent little cats in gasoline.

I just wanted to say hi.

Inbound and Outbound - Boston's North Station

2009-06-05T13:39:00.007-04:00

As you can see from my last post, I haven't contributed to my blog in a while. Why? Something got in the way...I found a JOB. Now instead of being able to post something new and worthy everyday while hanging around my house in my underwear, I have to pick my battles and find the exact right time when I have a few minutes to sit down and write. Once I find that time, I have to have something worth writing about. Thus, no posts since forever ago.

My new job is located in downtown Boston. I never imagined myself working downtown because I have always been a guy that likes to drive to and from work in my own vehicle. It affords me the luxury of being able to ramp up on the way in to work and decompress on the way home after a long day. Parking in Boston is expensive and very inconvenient. I work a block and a half from the TD Banknorth Garden where the Bruins and Celtics play, which is also the location of Boston's North Station - the northern hub of where the commuter trains come into town and allow you to hook up with the subway. How convenient is that?

Riding the train to and from work every day is something new for me. I've been doing it for three months now. It is both everything I thought it would be and absolutely NOTHING I thought it would be all at the same time. Does that make sense? I have never been particularly intrigued by trains. I've never found the stories of hobo life all that fascinating and the thought of riding a train long distances makes me want to either fall asleep from boredom or immediately book a flight to my destination instead.

However, being a student of the human condition has naturally made riding the train an interesting and invaluable experience for me. Even after three months it doesn't seem to get old. Even though I see the same people sitting in the same seats every day I still manage to be able to make it interesting inside my own head. I believe there is something romantic about taking the train. One can't help but think back to a point in American history when the train was considered a marvel and a luxury only for the rich to experience. I think often of the way the railroads sliced through our country, begging adventurers westward and how it made the expansion of our country's borders possible. The iron horse allowed us to reach to the Pacific and the great Northwest territories.

Immediately upon boarding the Fitchburg 406 Inbound to Boston on my very first day of work at my new job I knew I had to chronicle my journeys. As I said before, I see the same people usually sitting in the same seats every day. But these people are all interesting to me. Each has their own thing, their own way of presenting themselves to this tribal movement of the masses. Some have walls built around them, some expose more of themselves than you want to see, some read, some sleep, some stare out the window with an empty gaze and some yak away on their cell phone. Most of the time I like to turn the volume all the way up on my iPod and just close my eyes, taking the occasional sip from my morning coffee. But no matter how people choose to ride, they are each a piece of what makes up my train experience. We're all in it together and although we rarely talk to each other, in some strange, unspoken way we all are forced to care for and about one another. It's as if we are all packed into the same car driving to and from work every day.

Possibly the thing that strikes me most as being strange is how quiet it is on the train even when it's packed to capacity. You would think that with all of us sharing the same ride day after day and waiting and getting off at the same train stops together we would at least exchange the smallest of pleasantries every now and then like a "good morning" or "have a good night". But in most cases we play everything close to the vest and mind our own business. But that certainly doesn't mean we don't notice each other or have an interest in finding out more about our fellow travelers.

In the coming weeks I will paint two pictures for you. The first canvass will be Fitchburg 406 Inbound to Boston. This is the train I take to work every morning. The second canvass will be the Fitchburg 467 Outbound To Concord, the train that takes me home each afternoon. Both trains are completely different. The riders, attitudes, destinations, conductors, they're all different and all worth telling you about.

The old days of trains and lore may be gone forever but something is still there today, something just as intriguing riding on those iron rails, rolling through the woods and steelscapes of my piece of Americana. I hope you'll stop by and check out the stories I have from the modern day experiences I'm creating while riding along on the tracks of the Fitchburg line!

KDawg's Guitars

2009-03-13T13:50:00.020-04:00

My guitars are cool even though I don't get the chance to play them as often as I'd like. KDawg's dawgs tend to bark a lot when I play which can be annoying. I'm mostly self taught and I like anything from basic rock to blues. I'm no Stevie Ray Vaughan, but I think I'm better than Neil Young. Well, he may know a few more chords than I do and he can play a great acoustic, but I've never much liked his approach to electric guitar. Oh, I can sing better than he can, too.

This is my Fender Stratocaster. It's a limited edition - only seven were made featuring this body color, neck and hardware configuration. The body is one piece hardwood with a cherry finish. The neck is maple with a rosewood fingerboard. This beautiful guitar gives me a wide variety of sounds and is really a pleasure to play! The damn thing ROCKS!

My other guitar is a Godin Freeway Classic. It's manufactured in New Hampshire using Canadian woods. The body consists of a center block of silver-leaf maple with light poplar wings and a brilliant tiger maple finish. The neck is rock maple and it's hardware configuration allows me to create many unique sounds. This surprisingly affordable guitar out classes most guitars costing thousands of dollars more.

To get the best sounds possible from these beauties I selected the Fender Hot Rod Deville amplifier. Its tube design delivers generous warm tones and unsurpassed power.

Dog Owners, Don’t Be A Vick

2009-03-09T10:14:00.008-04:00

Like any other normal human being I am a dog owner. Owning a dog to me is like married couples having children. My mother-in-law makes comments to people all the time about my wife and I not giving her grandchildren and how crazy that seems to her. Yes, mo-in-law, things do get back to me. She’s got a grandkid from her other daughter and all Kim and I are willing to give her are grandDOGS. That’s it, stop yer bitchin’ already! My wife and I are more than dog owners, though. We are responsible dog owners. There is a huge difference between that and a simple dog owner. That difference can help save a life, save a dog, save our universe, and make it possible to continue our way of life as we know it.

I believe there are a few very important keys to being a responsible dog owner. By understanding and following through on them you can have a wonderful, almost euphoric relationship with your dog. By not paying attention to them you will open yourself up to a constant struggle to maintain your sanity and possible legal action against you. The first misconception about dogs is that they were put on this planet to serve man. This is about as true as politicians in Washington having your best interests in mind. Dogs weren’t “put” here. Dogs are a species that have both evolved and have resulted from cross breeding of certain species, most notably the wolf and the dingo. Trust me, the wolf and dingo were not put here to serve man!

One must remember that Just as humans, and this is huge when it comes to owning dogs, dogs have ancestral traits. Many of these traits were natural behaviors and many have been bred into breeds through cross breeding to achieve certain characteristics. In the case of my wonderfully awesome Bullmastiffs, they are a cross between the bulldog (known for it’s ferocious fighting abilities) and a Mastiff (known for it’s guard dog capabilities, yet gentle natured). When you cross the two you get a very strong guard dog that won’t eat the person it’s guarding against. You’ll get a very intimidating bark from these guys and an imposingly large, aggressive-looking dog but they really wouldn’t hurt you. Even so, because of dog owners who don’t follow the keys to responsible dog ownership, most insurance companies will not write a homeowner’s policy if you own Bullmastiffs.

Here are those simple Keys to responsible dog ownership:

Understand Your Breed
Proper Training
Control The Situation

Understand Your Breed
I’m not someone telling you about dogs because I’ve owned one or two breeds. In my 45 years on this “planet” I have owned Bullmastiffs, a Pitbull, a Norweigan Elkhound/Malamute mix, a Rat Terrier, Cocker Spaniel, Beagle, an Irish Setter and yeah, I admit it, a Shelte. My parents, brothers, relatives and friends have all owned dogs of many varieties, small and large. My wife and I are so dog crazy we regularly watch dog shows on TV and we’ve also been to several in person. I’ve always been around dogs and I wouldn’t have it any other way. With my background it is impossible to not have done hours and hours of research on specific breeds. Whether it’s just for the sake of curiosity or if I’m looking to get a new dog, researching is all part of the game for me.

Each dog on Earth was bred for a specific reason, a certain need. Whether it’s for guarding, hunting, pulling sleds or as simple house pets, every breed has a purpose. When you’re looking for a dog, do yourself - and the dog - a favor by first researching the breed you’re considering. Don’t be an idiot and get a Whippet if you live in a small one bedroom apartment in the city. That would be like hiring Jack the Ripper as the babysitter for your kids. You need to first understand what the breed was bred for and then you need to understand what kind of living space and environment it needs. Don’t get a dog originally meant as a guard dog if you live in a crowded subdivision on .2 acres of land. That dog will piss your neighbors off by barking at everything that moves night and day. Sure, a Whippet is a small dog and might seem like it doesn’t need much room, but that thing needs wide open spaces so it can get up to 45 miles per hour to achieve full breed happiness. If you don’t have a fenced yard, don’t get a breed like the Coon Hound because once you let it out the door you’ll never see it again as it goes off in search of raccoons to corner.

Proper Training
Properly training a dog is much more than training them how to sit, stay, and speak. If that were all there was to it, pretty much everyone would be a great dog owner. The first thing you should do when you get a new dog, puppy or otherwise, is schedule you and your new pal into training courses. For puppies you should begin with obedience training. Older dogs may not require obedience training but they may be in need of other forms of training such as socialization or other specific forms based on the dog’s history. For this discussion, however, let’s focus on puppies since they are new and have the biggest need for this bullet point.

Quite possibly the biggest benefit of puppy obedience training is the socialization that occurs between your dog and other dogs in the class and your dog with other people in the class. To fully understand the benefits of socialization it might be best to think of your life with your dog withoutsocialization. Without it you won’t be able to take your dog on walks or to the local dog park because your dog will not get along with other dogs it meets. You won’t be able to have friends and family over to your house because you’ll spend all of your time being quite embarrassed because of your dog’s behavior. Your guests will most likely be very annoyed as well. This is kind of like children who never learn their social skills and are shipped off to school. They get sent home the first day for fighting with every other student in the class. They pulled a knife on the teacher and threatened to kill her and then pulled out an AK-47 and shot the entire classroom full of holes to create a classroom setting closely relating to that of Swiss cheese. Sounds pretty bad and exaggerated, huh? And that’s just their first day in kindergarten! Well, that’s nothing compared to what can happen when an unsocialized dog is mixed in with other dogs or people. Breaking up dog fights isn’t high on the list of human fun things to do.

A big part of training is also getting your dog exposed to many different types of exterior stimuli. If you take your puppy for a walk on a busy road and it is scared of passing cars, keep exposing your dog to that walk and eventually those passing cars won’t bother your pup anymore. The same is true for any scenario, from having people over to your house to taking your dog to public places. It’s all part of socialization and without those skills your dog will fail and you won’t enjoy being around him nearly as much as you could. Those who have properly socialized their dog know how valuable it is. Sure sit, stay, come and balancing a biscuit on its nose are all important, but socialization cannot be stressed enough.

Control The Situation
By understanding what the breed is all about you can predict how it will instinctively act in some situations. This is an area where I tend to get pissed off. Kim and I owned Skillet, a Pitbull, until we had her put to sleep at the age of 16. She had lived a great life, many years past her breed’s expectancy. Kim got her before we met and I came into the picture when Skillet was 6 years old. She was the kindest, most lovable dog you could ever meet. Everyone that met her gained the realization that a Pitbull is wrongly stereotyped in our society. The most aggressive thing she would ever do is try to kiss you to death. She would pin you down and lick your face until you couldn’t take it anymore. She was raised correctly. We could leave her unattended with children and have absolute confidence that nothing would happen. But as responsible dog owners, we knew that even though she was a great, affectionate dog, if she were put into the position that her breed was intended for, you may have unpredictable results. Nothing ever happened, but you never know. But the real key to maintaining confidence is knowing that you have properly socialized and trained the dog. Even though she was a wonderful dog we always supervised her.

Irresponsible dog owners fail at two of the three keys of ownership. They do not properly train and socialize their dogs and they do not control the situation. Oh yes, they do their breed research because they are, in many cases, seeking a certain type of personality in their dog. If you do not socialize and train your dog and if you fail to control the situations your dog is in, you are guaranteed to have unpredictable results. I’ll tell you what, you can put a Rottweiler that is trained to maul in a baby’s playpen with a baby and you could have the same results as putting an untrained Chihuahua in there! The point here is that the dog’s owner is more responsible for their dog’s actions than the dog itself because every dog has instinctual behaviors bred into it. A toy poodle can be just as ferocious as a Pitbull if it is trained or not trained a certain way.

It always pisses me off when cities ban specific dog breeds or when their is a dog attack and the dog is the first to be blamed and held responsible. When you think about it, responsibility is not a part of a dog’s breeding. Responsibility is a concept understood only by the dog’s OWNER. Think about it - if the Pitbull breed was originally bred to fight other dogs and rip them to shreds, it’s the owner’s ultimate responsibility to train that dog correctly so it isn’t a killer, understand the breed correctly, and control the situations that dog is exposed to. How can that NOT be the owner’s responsibility? The dog is completely incapable of doing all those things on its own. Well, unless it can correctly understand English, surf the web for breed information without thumbs, and make decisions as to how it will spend every second of every day.

I believe dog owners should all be required to put their dogs through obedience training in order to get the dog licensed. I believe that when there is a dog attack, the dog’s owner should be investigated before the dog is considered to be destroyed. The dog’s living environment should be investigated, neighbors of the owner should be interviewed, etc. The dog is almost always considered to be at fault in a dog attack situation, but in so many cases the dog is following it’s natural instincts, not trained properly, or trained to be an attack dog. If we as a society always automatically assume that a specific dog or an entire breed is naturally “bad”, then we give dogs and their ability for rational thought too much credit.

A perfect example is what went down with the whole Michael Vick thing. He and several people associated with him trained those dogs to be pit fighters. The dogs that weren’t up to par as fighters were brutally executed. When the story broke there were two expectations - one, that Michael Vick was going to lose his career because he is a dog killer and two, that the dogs involved would all be put down because they were vicious fighting dogs. They were, after all, Pitbulls, and we as a society know that the only thing Pitbulls are good for is fighting other dogs and chewing the faces off of little boys and girls that get too close to them.

Did you know that of the 47 Pitbulls taken from Vick’s property, 25 of them now reside in rehab shelters and 22 live at the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Utah? These are Pitbulls being rescued and rehabilitated because smart people know that any dog of any breed can be trained to be a wonderful dog no matter what has happened to them in the past. The goal is to eventually get these dogs adopted into real, loving families where they belong. I have to say that Michael Vick’s jail sentence wasn’t nearly long enough. After he gets out, I hope his career is over. I hope that no football team here, in Canada or in Europe gives this guy a dime to play football. 23 months in jail is nothing compared to what he put those dogs through. I might even pay to see him have electrodes clipped to his nipples and then have thousands of volts passed through them, forcing him to lose all control of his bodily functions and being humiliated as he wets his pants with burning urine on national pay per view TV. Or something like that.

People, don’t be a Vick. Train and socialize your dog. Do the research to be able to select the right breed for you and your family. Control the situations your dog is in. Follow those three simple keys and you’ll have more than just a dog by your side - you’ll have a devoted friend that you can trust and have faith in. In those respects, being around dogs can be more fulfilling than being around people.

Hey, here are some cool dog stats:

There are 74.8 million dogs in the United States
Dogs bite nearly 2% of the U.S. population — more than 4.7 million people annually mainly because people suck
Almost 800,000 bites per year — one out of every 6 — are serious enough to require medical attention because many people don't know how to make a dog chill out
In 2007, there were 33 fatal dog maulings in the USA because the people deserved it
Dogs bite because KDawg’s three keys are not followed
Dogs are cooler than people
If dogs had thumbs they would rule the world
Dogs are not capable of deceit, lies, typing or gossip
Dogs provide oxygen so humans can breath
Dogs don’t really fart - it’s the damn humans

America, You Need An Attitude Adjustment

2009-03-02T10:06:00.001-05:00

I’ve been unemployed since December of 2008. I had just taken a new job after being wooed by a small company and they insisted they were safe from the economy. On my five week anniversary, I was laid off along with a few others. We were told that a few of the company’s large clients pulled their business and payroll was becoming increasingly hard to meet. So buh-bye, good luck, it’s been fun, really, it wasn’t because of the quality of your work, you’re a great guy and we wish we could keep you, have fun paying your mortgage, you are now a statistic, see yah! I thought I was being cautiously optimistic when I vowed to have a new job by the end of 2008. Here it is, March of 2009 and I’m still spending most of my time and days looking for work.

Let me tell you something - if anyone tells you that the economy isn’t as bad as everyone says it is, they are full of SHIT. Not only are we seeing jobs being lost and companies closing their doors, we are also seeing a different attitude from those companies that are still afloat and the people that are still employed. I keep thinking we’ll be bottoming out soon while the so-called “experts” keep predicting doom and gloom well into 2010. It is becoming increasingly difficult to keep any sort of positive attitude when you know that companies aren’t hiring and of those that are, they are contract or part-time positions.

Working a contract for someone like me who is a web developer is a worthless proposition. If the contract goes beyond six months, try getting back onto unemployment when that contract is over. If you take a part-time job you lose your unemployment and make crap for a wage. Another problem I have discovered is that companies are no longer hiring people that have specialized skills. Now they want someone who has that specialized skill PLUS twenty other skills. Then if they find that person, they will offer him a salary that is forty percent below what it should be! A recruiter I have recently worked with calls this type of employee a “purple squirrel”. Just like a purple squirrel, that type of employee doesn’t exist.

That is one reason why it will take this economy longer to rebound than most people think. Jobs that once were plentiful and paid well are now a thing of the distant past. If you used to be in what was once called the upper middle class, you will be forced to languish in the middle or lower-middle class from now on (if you ever find a job again, that is). If you were used to earning a paycheck that allowed you to both pay your bills AND save money every month, forget it. Assuming you can find a job, you won’t be saving any money anymore. Couple that with your IRA’s and 401(K)’s that have lost most of their value over the past year, your retirement doesn’t look so good anymore, does it?

These are things I think most people are aware of. But I have noticed a few other things as well, being that I am on the losing side of the employment equation. I have noticed that the people who have jobs are a little bit snotty about it. It’s like they kind of rub it in your face, all the while taking the fact that they have a job completely for granted. Could this be because I’m extra sensitive because I am unemployed? Maybe, I’m not sure. How about the guy working at Home Depot that has that chip on his shoulder? He thinks he’s got it made because he has a job, yet he doesn’t do it any better than I could. He doesn’t give that level of customer service that he could, or he doesn’t smile or go out of his way to help you, yet he walks around like he’s all set without a care in the world. My wife and I used to go out to dinner quite often. Now it’s a luxury to do so. We have waitresses that still don’t care about doing their job the best they can, they still aren’t necessarily overly nice to us and they have no idea how lucky they are to even have the menial job they have. It seems like I notice this attitude in just about everyone I run into that is employed! Is it just me?

Hiring managers don’t care much, either. If they have five candidates that have all interviewed for a job opening, they don’t give any extra consideration to the ones that don’t have a job. They would just as soon hire the guy that already has a job instead of extending a helping hand to someone out of work if all things were equal. They don’t understand that if they’d give the candidate that is out of work a job, then the economy gets better. One person at a time is all it takes. It’s up to everybody to chip in and lend a hand. Do you think that is a naive position to take?

Up until I lost my job my wife and I always did our part to make sure we contributed to our economy. It’s kind of funny because, having no children, we get walloped every year at tax time by the federal government. But we always made it a point to buy big ticket items when we needed to without ever hesitating. When buying those things, like a new washer and dryer or a car or other expensive things, we always did it with the perspective of helping the economy. We were doing our part even though it was a relatively small part and even though the government was still going to punish us at tax time. These days the people that are working, the people who have the money to spend, are sitting on it and not spending a dime. These people are just as guilty when it comes to our crappy economy as the big companies that waste money and the banks that wrote all the bad mortgages. You can call us stupid, by my wife and I even went out and bought that big flat screen HD TV after I was laid off for four weeks. Sure, the money to buy it came in the form of a Christmas present, but we didn’t sit on that money. Doing that doesn’t help anything.

Why not? If you need a new sofa and you have the money and you’re working, why not head down to your local furniture store and buy that sofa and help keep that guy in business? We’ve always made it a point to buy from our local merchants. These people aren’t like the chain stores and franchises. These people put their livelihood on the line in opening their own business. If you’ve got the money to spend, then spend it! Buy their products, help keep someone in business and help our economy! Help keep your town healthy and help everyone get a little closer to pulling through all this mess.

I guess what I’m really trying to say here is meant for those who have jobs, those with money to spend and those who are responsible for hiring people. My message is:

STOP HOARDING EVERYTHING.

It’s a normal thing during a recession to hoard. It’s the people that HAVE that have the most power to bring us out of this economic slump. Obama creating all these $10 an hour jobs isn’t going to cut it. It’s not going to take billions of dollars being pumped into companies that aren’t run correctly in the first place. It takes those that have the money to keep buying goods and services. It takes those responsible for hiring to keep their workforce at a level where those already working aren’t being stretched beyond their normal work capacity.

It also takes a little bit of compassion for your fellow man. A little bit of pride, patriotism, and the desire to do what is right. Those of us on unemployment aren’t looking for a hand out. We’re looking for a chance to get back to contributing and making a difference no matter how small. America needs to get back to being a country that produces things instead of sending our work overseas. We need to get back to rolling up our sleeves, digging in and creating. We need to get back to being a world leader. We need to get back to being a nation that is proud of our accomplishments and excited about where we’re heading.

America, you need an attitude adjustment.

Internet Porn - Wow! Is This Stuff Really Free?

2009-02-26T09:54:00.005-05:00

I remember the first time I got onto the web. Yup, it’s true, there was a time when my co-workers called me a “newbie”. It was the fall of 1995. I had just gotten a new computer and I finally figured out how to connect a phone line into the back of the thing and by using my ISP configurations, I was able to get onto that web thing and poke around. I hadn’t heard about what a great informational resource the web was. I hadn’t heard about what a great research tool it was. All I heard from all of my friends and co-workers was it was an excellent place to get FREE PORN. Gee, they were RIGHT!

I think the first search I ever did was “big tits free porn” or something like that. I was so excited as I hit that Enter button and watched a listing of all those free porn sites slowly paint, horizontal line by horizontal line across my monitor. Of course at this point I had no idea that each picture I would try to view after that would take ten times longer to “paint” onto my monitor, but what the hell, I was a newbie and I was porn surfin’! Even better, it seemed like all that porn was there just for me, intended for no one else to see. There I was, sitting at my desk in my home office, thinking how great it was to be able to see all these cool pictures all in the privacy of my own home. No one else would know I was doing it, no one else would know what I was doing with it, it was just me and the babes. All I had to do was make sure the curtains were closed tight.

So there it was, my porn listing. Each item in that list was a gateway to all that glorious Internet porn. I was just a click away from any type of porn I wanted since my search criteria was so broad…big…tits…free…porn. That covered almost everything. That should give me anything I could ever think of from a porn standpoint, don’t you think?

CLICK!

Popup window flashing popup window another popup window more flashing popup windows another popup window cookie downloaded to my computer popup window another downloaded cookie another popup window another flashing popup window another cookie downloaded another popup window another cookie another popup window another damn cookie yet another flashing window another cookie and HOLY CRAP CAN SOMEBODY MAKE THIS STOP????????

At that point I had no choice but to unplug my computer from the wall. I couldn’t stop the madness that was happening! All I wanted was some free porn and instead I had unknowingly unleashed an onslaught of pornographic mayhem never before witnessed by man! By the time I pulled that plug out of the wall I didn’t even get to see any porn. All I saw were flashing windows, window after window being opened and stacked on top of one another and bells, whistles, cowbells, those damn air horns people bring to hockey games and every other sound possible except any porno-type (”ooooh aaaaah”) sounds that I was eagerly waiting to hear.

I learned that day, that first time, that Internet porn just isn’t worth it. Just as I have never in my life been to a strip club, I have never, since that night, surfed the web for porn again. Being a computer programmer, I learned in the days following that event what had actually happened to my computer. I saw first hand all of the crap that these sites installed on my hard drive. I thought I had cleaned it all off, but my computer never acted the same way after that night of porn surfing. Maybe it felt violated, maybe something was installed that it didn’t like, or maybe it was just plain embarrassed. I always thought of it as “computing without a condom”. My hard drive, my computer’s registry, everything was open, exposed and vulnerable for just those few moments, but it was like a lifetime. Regardless, that computer was never the same again. Years later I gave it to my mother-in-law so she could learn how to use a computer.

There has to be a lesson here, I suppose. Somewhere in this very personal and revealing story there has to be some sort of practical message you can relate to and use in your everyday life. There’s just got to be something you can take away from this story that will enrich your life in some way. I’m not sure what that might be, but my mother-in-law sure learned quickly how to use a computer, and to this day she smiles and giggles like a little school girl every time she boots her computer up and hears that welcoming “Microsoft Sound”.

Oh - in case you wondered what the top item returned from searching for "big tits free porn" was, have a look-see >>>>

Vatican: "Round Earth? That's Utter Bullshit!"

2009-02-24T09:41:00.004-05:00

Officials at The Vatican have officially declared the depiction of Earth as seen from space to be a hoax and an apparition conceived and developed by man’s inability to accept the Earth as being square in form. Paolo Cherubini, Professor of Palaeography at the Vatican School of Palaeography, Diplomatics and Archives Administration went on record early this morning saying he believed the entire “the world is round” theory as being “Complete hogwash, anti-Semitic and utter bullshit”.

Cherubini added, “We believe this view of Earth as seen from space is a man-made image completely manipulated by those in the business of furthering their own religious agenda. It is just as false as the pictures of the moon landings themselves. Everybody knows that space travel is a ridiculous notion based on scientific theories that are steeped and mired in utter bullshit. The Vatican refuses to believe and accept this image as being anything other than utter bullshit.”

For centuries man believed the world to be flat. However, Eratosthenes of Cyrene calculated Earth’s size in 240 B.C. using simple geometry applied to how shadows of the sun looked at the same time in two different places (Alexandria and Siene, Egypt). He used theories developed by Aristotle in his calculations, resulting in the discovery that the world was indeed round. Also, there had been no previous reports of any people or ships actually falling off the edge of the world, as depicted in Christopher Columbus’s The World Is Flat and Other Solved Mysteries of the Universe printed in 1490.

The Vatican is now challenging popular scientific belief by implying that instead of the world being a round mass, it is actually a cubed, three dimensional structure. According to Saul Blitzenstein, Head Space Guy at NASA and writer of the acclaimed book How I became a Jewish Princess, the Vatican is up to their old tricks again. “We’ve seen this kind of thing from them in the past.” Blitzenstein said, “We’ve seen the Vatican deny the existence of the Great Wall of China, the Hoover Dam and other physical structures such as the Arby’s on 5th and Broadway in New York City and the Starbucks in East St. Louis, Indiana. But to say that the Earth is not round and the pictures taken of it from space are doctored, well, that is utter bullshit. What we may be seeing here is the Vatican feeling slighted. They’re still pissed off they weren’t able to send anyone to the Beijing Olympics because of budget concerns and that doping scandal.”

One question already answered by the Vatican is that of falling off the flat surface of any side of the Earthen cube. Most Rev. Mons. Cesare Pasini, Prefect of the Vatican Apostolic Library says, “Based on what we know about gravity on Earth, one cannot fall off a flat side of the cube. Anyone who thinks that way is spewing utter bullshit.”

Attempts to contact Pope Benedict were not returned. However, we were able to speak with Mons. Sergio Pagano, B., Prefect of the Vatican Gift & Souveneer Shop. According to Serg, “We are all very excited to announce the arrival of the new Vatican Earth Cube to our gift line. It works just like one of those Rubik’s Cube things! Pick one up while you’re here or order one online! They’re quite fun and challenging, and remember, if it doesn’t have that official Vatican stamp on it, it’s utter bullshit!”

It remains to be seen if the Vatican’s stance on this issue will demand evaluation or any action at all from the scientific community. The world has believed itself to be round for so long that it may take more than just a statement from the Vatican to convince itself otherwise. In fact, when Earth itself was asked to react to the Vatican’s claim of cubed versus a rounded Earth, Earth replied, “Those clowns at the Vatican had better cool their jets and relax. I am not prepared to give any consideration to me being a cube. Since 240 BC I have been round and damn it, I’m not going to become a cube just because those dopes think so. That’s utter bullshit!”

Next week will prove to be another big week at the Vatican from a news perspective as they are due to give their opinion on Hannah Montana and her affect on the Earth’s rotation around the sun. It is agreed the biggest challenge will be for the Vatican to clearly define which - her career or her possible affect on our cosmos - is utter bullshit.

Fly Our Flag Right Or Don’t Fly It At All

2009-02-24T09:29:00.005-05:00

Our flag was conceived through battle scars, sacrifice, personal pain and our inherent right to struggle to become the greatest nation on this planet. Our flag represents all of these things and more. Our flag also represents freedoms that belong to any citizen regardless of national boundary, and certain rights to those who live by those freedoms. Our flag is seen as a beacon to those who live in the darkness of tyranny and a source of strength to those unfortunate enough to be suppressed by brutality and religious idiocy.

Our flag isn’t a statement of hate to those we battled against to gain our freedom, nor is it meant to be shoved in another country’s face as to force our privileges upon them. Friends, our flag is to be displayed as a true gesture of our heritage with the hope that other nations can find the same in what it stands for. Nations that today fight for what we have do not take these things for granted as unfortunately many Americans do.

I know these things yet I cannot be considered a patriotic maniac by any stretch. It’s true that I did feel an increased sense of patriotism after the attacks of 9/11, but who wouldn’t? I believe the United States is a great place to live and one of the few places on Earth where you can chase a dream and become anything you want to work hard enough for. But I also know this country has many faults and many things need to be fixed (including

keeping sick people off of airplanes!). In fact, if someone were to ask me today what my favorite country is, I’d have to reply with an answer of Canada or Sweden. But that’s something for another post.

It irks me to no end to see the desecration of our flag. There will always be countries that deem it necessary to attach our flag to a tree branch, set it ablaze and dance around it like some ancient African Zulu tribe. It still amazes me how they can get those idiot students in Iran to act like those old wacky Zulus, but year after year they do. There are a lot of countries around the world that see our flag as a token of oppression, aggression and sadistic rule. Hard to believe, but that is certainly true, and that shows how kooky some places are. But, it is what it is and that’s how it will always be.

When I see our flag defiled on our own soil, though, I suddenly feel a need to vomit. Yes, we Americans have our personal rights, but the idiots who use our flag in a disrespectful way within the boundaries of this country are simply wrong. I’m referring to those buttheads who have the gall to protest their point while using our flag in a manor parallel with some of the Iranian rituals by their homegrown Zulus. This is our country! If you want to burn our flag within our borders then do us all a favor - first wrap the flag around your head and THEN set it on fire.

Silly little protests and flag burnings aren’t the only way Americans disrespect our flag. I would bet that if you paid attention on your drive in to work today and looked at each flag you saw hoisted up on a pole, you’d see the other form of disrespect and it’s out there every day. Day after day you can spot it and it’s just as reprehensible as burning the thing. According to the official rules of flying the American flag, it is disrespectful to fly any flag that is faded, worn, torn or in disrepair in any way.

Many companies fly a flag on their premises but I’m not sure why. Look at them - many are torn, shredded and faded. Some are so faded you can’t tell exactly what’s being flown up there on that flagpole. It could be a sheet set or a painting tarp for all I know. Corporate flag fliers do this type of thing more often than the guy who has a flagpole in his front yard. These corpo-clowns just hoist a flag up there and forget about it instead of doing the right thing and shelling out that big $20 when a new flag is needed. Right, they simply don’t have enough money, I guess.

When you see a flag flown like this, you are seeing the flag flyer demeaning the efforts and sacrifices made for this country to be able to proudly fly the flag in the first place. Maybe it’s laziness, maybe you just don’t have the time to notice you’re flying a disgrace to your country. Maybe you don’t have the extra ten minutes it takes to stop at a store to buy a new one. I don’t give a crap what your excuse is - get your ass down to a store and shell out a few dollars for a shiny new American flag that you can show off for all of your neighbors to see!

If you’re going to fly our flag, fly it right! You never know - it may even rekindle some pride deep within yourself for this great country you live in!

Now, once you buy your new flag, destroy your old one correctly. If you’re not certain how to prepare your old flag for disposal, don’t rely on me to tell you how to do it. If you’ve already gone through the toil of getting a new one, hop on your computer and google “proper flag disposal”. Damn, I just did it for you - go

here. Surprisingly enough, the proper method of flag disposal is by burning. Pretty ironic, wouldn’t you say? Be very careful while entering that search phrase - if you accidentally forget to type that “l” in “flag” you’ll find yourself forever lost in an entirely different kind of web hell than you bargained for! You’ll find an amazing number of ways to rid your community of homos and cross dressers.

Do some research for yourself. Current and former Boy Scouts know the etiquette surrounding our flag but very few others do. For example, did you know there is a certain protocol followed when lowering a flag to half-staff and raising it back up to full-staff? You don’t just move the flag to the desired position on the pole, tie it off and walk away.

For something that represents so much at home and around the world we owe it to ourselves and to those who have given us the right to fly our great flag to understand the responsibilities that come with it. Ooh! I get to do another peom!

She watches over our great land, waving her strength fore

Teaching us the meaning of pride, devotion and sacrifice

But she did not reach her destination without struggle

And to her we owe our respect and fortune

Each star and each stripe represents someone you know

The past, the present and the future are all woven into her fabric

Every battle, every victory and every loss is revealed on her face

As you look up and see her waving graciously to you

She is there to welcome you home and to bid a safe journey

She is there in sadness, sorrow, joy and celebration

She is our solemn reminder of the most precious sacrifices made

She is the true ambassador of our great nation

Responsibility Is Not My Responsibility

2009-02-23T15:28:00.005-05:00

There is a phrase I have heard several times that really confounds me. “Don’t fix the problem, fix the blame.” It’s funny because I have used this phrase on occasion and have meant it in a clearly sarcastic sense but for some reason people always take me seriously when I say it. I suppose it comes down to how people are trained to think. It’s a cop-out statement but unfortunately it can be applied to so many areas of our daily lives. It has slithered its way into almost every fabric of our society from personal relationships to our judicial system. On the bright side, you most likely will not find this attitude in traveling circuses and carnivals. Leave it to those wacky carnies to cut through the crap and get down to the realness of the situation.

Because of the way I was raised I know that I must always take responsibility for my actions. I am in control of what I say and do, how I act, and yes, even my own destiny. If I’m not in control of these things I’d better be prepared to suffer the consequences of my actions. Well, either that or I am lying in a hospital bed with tubes rammed up into my orifices and I’m not breathing on my own. But for the sake of argument let’s say I’m standing upright and I am fully conscious. Anyway, there seems to have been some sort of interruption or strange, unexplained blip in the way people have evolved that suggests no one is accountable for their actions anymore. No matter what happens, the blame can always be manipulated to fall upon someone else’s shoulders.

It is now possible to lie, cheat, steal, commit murder or adultry, cheat on your taxes, perform acts of fraud or public indecency and even take steroids as a baseball player and get away with it. You know what? In the town I live in, skateboarding on the sidewalk is against the law so nobody does it. Yet all around us, every day and everywhere, we have people breaking the big laws and getting away with it. It’s not an art, it’s not a science, it doesn’t take someone with an extraordinarily high IQ to pull it off, either. All it takes is one to subscribe to the theory of fixing the blame and not the problem.

In all actuality it’s not a theory. The entire concept is backed by a solid equation that yields the exact results our society has grown accustomed to receiving. The two major components of this equation are lawyers and inordinate idiots who believe they are a victim. Idiots who believe, without a single doubt, that we as a society owe them something because they’re not playing with a full deck. They break the law in an attempt to let us know they need our pitty. They also know the law will eventually provide them with some form of relief or shelter from any legal storm. These idiots are smart enough to know that if they have the proper legal team in place they can get away with just about anything short of replicating the Manson murders.

I’m not just talking about O.J. Simpson or some of the more notorious cases. I’m talking about things that happen every day and everywhere, low profile cases that hardly show up on sonar. Many people thought it was crazy that O.J. got off, yet they’re not even aware that their next door neighbor has already been convicted of child molestation three times! That moron that lives next to you has demonstrated that he is capable of doing it more than once but the legal system still says he can live next to you. The legal system says that he served time so he has been rehabilitated. And when he is arrested for the fourth time on the same charge his lawyer will be the first to tell you that your neighbor had a rough childhood. Your neighbor was abused by his father when he was eight years old. Your neighbor grew up in the penal system and never had a fair shot. Wah wah wah cry me a frickin’ river.

Yeah? Well your neighbor just raped a six year-old girl while she was walking to the school bus this morning. Three strikes and you’re out? Ball four take your base? Nope - call your lawyer and manipulate the system again.

There’s got to be a cutoff somewhere. Let’s make laws that aren’t open to interpretation. If a law is written and there is some confusion as to how that law is interpreted, then rewrite the damn law! That way those conniving lawyers can’t twist things and provide their part in the equation. If a law is broken, the person that broke that law should be held accountable and be punished in a manner dictated by the law that was broken. Bring on capital punishment! Bring on responsibility! It’s about time people are held accountable for their actions. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.

Once we get that part of our society corrected we can start working on getting our government to abide by the laws they have enacted to regulate themselves. These political clowns make the O.J.s and rapists of the world seem like kids at play.

Sick People, Get Off My Airplane!

2009-02-20T15:10:00.005-05:00

I’m not a big fan of having people invade my personal space, especially people that I don’t know. I’m not a germaphobe by any means but I hate the thought of picking up a sickness that has already been traveling inside someone else’s body. I mean, if I want to get sick, I’d like it to be my own virus that started with me, not some used thing that’s already been through someone else’s private inner workings. Science has come a long way and they have now identified 99 different forms of the common cold. That’s great, that’s fantastic, that really puts me in a partying mood. But that doesn’t mean I want to experience the common cold, so can we please keep sick people off of airplanes?

You get on the damn plane, stow your carry-on, plop down in your seat and get situated and then some moron comes down the aisle and you know he’s going to be sitting in that seat next to you. Know how you know? Because he’s got snot dripping down from his nose onto his top lip. He’s sniffing like he’s some sort of cocaine freak trying to get that last little spec of false brainpower up his nose, and he’s sneezing like someone just forced a five pound bag of pepper up his nose. Oh yes, he’ll be sitting next to you for the entire flight from Philadelphia to Detroit.

Well that can’t be too bad, can it? The flight only lasts for about an hour and 45 minutes, and before you know it you’ll be off that plane and on your way, right?

WRONG.

Well, the part about being off the plane and on your way is right as long as you don’t crash into a corn field in Ohio before you get to Detroit. But the truth is that for every one idiot that gets on that plane with a cold or some sort of virus, there are 20 more just like him. You may notice some of them, and some of them will walk right past you and you can’t tell they’re harboring a body full of germs, crawling around inside their lungs, squiggling through their spit and even hiding in the crap they’re going to let loose in the plane’s community toilet. All these little microscopic bastards trying to get into your body and spread their fun like the great potato famine of 1846 in Scotland.

Last Monday I was on that plane flying from Philly to Detroit.

There were at least 20, maybe even 40 of those infested idiots on my plane including that one extra special bufoon sitting right next to me. Each one of them coughing, sneezing and wheezing their filthy germs into the shared air of the plane. I could just see it all in slow motion, the moron next to me with his high-powered sneeze, and the site of his spit spray spewing, broadcasting itself at wider and wider angles until everything in its path was covered by its misty slime. It’s like fishermen casting their nets, spreading them further and further apart until they cover as much of the sea as possible. Not letting one fish, one old boot or dolphin escape their clutches.

As I sat there listening to one after another sneeze, cough and combo sneeze/cough/fart I pictured myself getting off the plane in Detroit completely drenched to the bone in the germ-ridden foam that had accumulated over me during that hour and 45 minutes. I began to wonder if that foam would act as a glue, keeping me from getting out of my seat to exit the plane. It was almost like a rubber cement, sticky, smelly, weighing me down and covering every inch of my being.

BANG! A bump, a bit of turbulence and suddenly I woke from my nap. What a dream I just had! What a nightmare! Thankfully we were descending into Detroit, approaching Metro Airport, signalling the end of this flight. We landed, I got off the plane and was on my way. No crash in a frozen corn field in Ohio, not this time. Another successful flight with no incident.

Here it is, Friday. I have to finish this blog post because I have a doctor appointment in a half hour because I am sick as a dog. My head feels like a bowling ball, my eyes are bloodshot, bleeding, and they itch to high heaven, I can’t stop sneezing and I have diarrhea that just won’t quit!! My joints ache, I have rectal bleeding, some sort of fungus growing in my armpits and my belly button has popped out like a damn turkey timer!

Kids - Bloodsuckers Of The Earth

2009-02-13T14:40:00.005-05:00

Sometimes my mind wanders and at any given moment something will poke itself into my consciousness and make me think. Many times, such intrusions are unwelcome guests that I quickly swat away. For some reason, though, I had a thought today about kids. That usually leads to thoughts about the kids I know, and the only kids I really have any contact with these days are my neighbor’s kids. Know what? Kids SUCK. Why do they suck? Because they don’t do anything.

I have no complaint that many kids these days are married to their TV set while feeding their addiction for console gaming. After all, who am I to question Microsoft, Nintendo or Sony’s right to program the minds of an entire generation? However, I find it somewhat confusing why most kids have lost that entrepreneurial spirit of providing services to make money in a world that emphasises the almighty dollar over any other form of social consciousness.

When I was under the age of nineteen I was always looking for any way to make that ever-elusive dollar. Whether it was by mowing lawns or shoveling snow off driveways and sidewalks, my friends and I always made our services available to those in our neighborhood for a fee. People in our neighborhood would gladly pay what was for them small sums of money in order to make their lives a little easier. For us, those small sums were meaningful and allowed us to fit into our teen-aged society - we got to be included into the group of haves instead of the have-nots. That was a pretty big thing. Back then, if you cut somebody’s grass for $5, that payed your way into a movie. Hell, cut TWO lawns and you can take a date!

Now that I am older and my mind and body don’t quite react as eagerly to physical labor the way they used to, I would greatly appreciate someone at least offering to provide such services for me. Sadly, those offers do not exist. I am 45 years old and I cannot for the life of me remember a kid offering to cut the grass for me for $5 or offering to shovel my driveway for some cash. Oh sure, I occasionally have an adult drive by and offer to cut my grass for $400 per month, but it’s not the same thing. So, I get to break my back doing the snow removal thing in the winter and I get to make time in my busy schedule to walk behind a lawn mower in the summer. Time is such a scarce commodity in my life that I don’t even wash my car anymore! Some kid can’t offer to do that for me on a hot summer day? Spend some time in the warm sun with a hose that spews cold, refreshing water?

While I perform these thankless tasks I can see the neighbor’s kids out of the corner of my eye, quietly chuckling at me under their breath. They all know they don’t have to do anything because they are kids. They know that mom and dad will give them enough in their weekly allowances that the concept of working and earning their money never comes close to entering their little minds. They don’t even do anything for their parents because if their parents forced them to do chores, the kids could sue them for child abuse!

So they get their little chuckle in at my expense, then head back into the basement cave where their XBox is waiting. They don’t care if it’s a beautiful day outside. All they know is they need to finish Gears of War before the next version of the game hits the stores.

I wrote this poem a long time ago and I will take credit for it here because it’s actually relevant!

I was once a child free and divine

Allowed to find my own way in this vast wilderness

As I began to feel my way I stumbled upon the expanse of reason

For not was my turning back, forbidden was any attempt at retreat

Through my gaze I determined truth and awry

And the solemn ability to understand the difference between

For simplicity is the foundation of strength

And the convoluted the basis of limitation

My decisive thought allowed for sound verdict to be posed

Via the teachings of my guide, the way shown to me

I discover that I am inept to stand within the construct

And I bow to the expectation of further knowledge

Taxachusetts - Play, Pay, But Don’t Stay

2009-02-12T14:21:00.001-05:00

My wife and I moved to Massachusetts from the Detroit area in May of 2000. We had very high expectations for what our lives would be like here. We already had family living in the region and we were looking forward to forging new friendships as we took our careers to a new level. After nearly nine years I’ve decided to break my silence for the benefit of mankind. I’ve decided to speak my mind about many of the nasty little secrets outsiders don’t know about in the land called Taxachusetts.

No, it’s not that bad. But as far as I am concerned, it’s not that good, either. The first thing you’ll notice when you get to Massachusetts is there is a tax on everything. I’m not kidding - they really do tax everything. I think the only thing they don’t tax is the air that you breath but that’s because oxygen isn’t a taxable, physical commodity unless you purchase and consume it from a regulated container. In that case, expect to pay the 6.28% Oxygen From A Regulated Container tax on that. To make up for not being able to tax the open oxygen that people breath, Taxachusetts simply imposes a tax on each breath you take (known as the Each Breath You Take tax). Each resident is required by law to wear a special tether device around their neck that registers the number of breaths taken each day. At the end of the tax year you are required to download that data into the state’s central database and it is used in conjunction with your annual state tax return. Pretty slick, huh? Even more shocking is the 2.75% Database Transaction tax incurred when downloading that data!

Have you ever driven in Boston? Even if you have a GPS device it’s a traumatic experience that can possibly render you sterile. Yes, Boston is a pretty old city and the streets follow old trails made by our drunken forefathers looking for a spot to pee. But come on - does every street have to be one way? I come from the Detroit area. The street structure in Detroit is based on a north-south east-west grid system. You cannot get lost while driving in Detroit or its suburbs unless, well, you’re from Boston. Every time I drive in to Boston I am going to the same place and each time I have had to take a different route. I won’t even dare to fly in to Logan Airport because I’d probably end up in Sweden or Norway just by trying to drive out of the city to get home.

Don’t get me wrong, Boston is a very cool city as long as you see it on foot. It is so steeped in history (don’t forget your 3.40% History tax) you’re in awe as you walk around through its winding streets. Some of the old architecture is pretty spectacular and there are some great places to visit. The people appear to be nice but they all seem to just be trying to get somewhere. They don’t make eye contact with you, probably because of the 2.55% Eye Contact tax. Cross the river and check out Cambridge, home to Harvard and MIT. The Harvard campus and surrounding community is quite a fascinating experience. As a bonus, the Fascinating Experience tax was rescinded by voters in 2002!

Winter. There is nothing like winter in New England. If you enjoy skiing, this is your place. It really is the poor man’s Colorado. Men that ski here are poor because of the Ski tax, currently at 3.7%. But if you hate the frozen outdoors like I do, then New England becomes a combination of hell and Martha Stewart rolled into one. It’s like being tied to a chair with your eyelids propped open and being forced to watch Hannah Montana videos 24/7. When it snows here it doesn’t just drop a little and move away out to sea. No, it has to drop a minimum of ten inches at a time, and it’s usually followed up by sleet and/or rain or, as they call it here, a “wintry mix”. There is no Wintry Mix tax because you’re already paying a Snow blower tax at 6.85% and a Broken Back Because You Slipped and Fell tax of 4.5%.

When the season changes and the flowers come out, one experiences a feeling of pure joy. Winters last forever here and the snow usually melts away by mid May. Temper your enthusiasm, though, because after you pay your Pure Joy tax at a rate of 4%, you have to deal with a phenonenon that happens in New England during the months of nice weather. Picture this if you will - you have a funnel that has a quarter inch hole at the bottom and the cone section of the funnel is ten feet wide and five feet deep. You have eighteen dump trucks, each filled to capacity with water. Line up all of the dump trucks around the cone and have each truck dump their load of water into the funnel all at the same time. I’d bet you’re thinking the results would be pretty disastrous, right?

In Taxachusetts we call this “Going to The Cape” if the disastrous flow is heading south. If that flow moves in a northerly direction we call that “Going to the Lake”, which is Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. People have been traveling to these two resort destinations for hundreds of years yet no one had the foresight to build roadways capable of handling the massive volume. People rush to get out of work on Fridays so they can go sit in traffic jams with their car windows rolled up and their air conditioning on. Then when Sunday arrives, they do the same thing only in reverse. When these morons arrive back at their home destination they are welcomed by a You Are An Idiot tax bill taped to their front door. Since the traffic backups become worse going to and from these places each year, that percentage on the tax increases .25% annually.
Boston sports fans are an interesting breed. Many psychiatrists believe the demeanor of the Boston sports fan is based on the deeply rooted inferiority complex they have with nearby New York City. From a sports standpoint Boston has historically played second fiddle to New York especially in the world of baseball.

Even through all of the past successes of the Celtics Boston sports fans still suffer. During the past nine years the Patriots and Red Sox have started becoming successful and suddenly now the Bruins also, but for some reason Boston sports seem mired with a chip on their collective shoulder. They pass the Chip On Your Shoulder tax of 5.2% onto the fan base which makes them treat fans of the away team with a certain rudeness usually only found at European “football” games. I would be an idiot, however, if I didn’t mention that Fenway Park is a truly great venue to see a baseball game. It will be a national shame when that old barn has to come down. Walking around this park begs the spirit of the game and the true history of America’s favorite pastime. To feel her shake under your feet and to catch a passing whiff of the hot dogs of Yawkey Way make this place alone worth coming to Boston for. PS, incredibly there are no taxes on hot dogs at Fenway, but you will have to ante up and pay the big Passing Whiff tax of 9.76%.

It can’t all be bad, can it? I mean, people have lived here for generations and they continue to do so. It seems some people are catching on and discovering the nasty secrets, though. A few years ago collegia.com issued results of their study finding that 15,000 new graduates leave the region annually to find work in their chosen field. Why? Because the cost of living is so incredibly high in Taxachusetts that a person who isn’t yet established in their profession can’t afford to live here! Housing costs, insurance fees, groceries, services, utilities the list goes on and on to the point of having to pay the state Headache tax of 3.55%!

So there has to be an upside to all this. I can’t sit here and rant on and on because if it’s this bad, why have I lived here for nine years? Why have I put up with a situation that many people just become numb to and view as acceptable? The reason is also a little secret that most New Englanders know about but many outside the region don’t. Sure, you have to pay some taxes to experience the secret, but those taxes are actually well worth it because the secret is the secret to being able to tolerate this whole state of Taxachusetts.

Many people don’t know that this region offers some of the most exciting natural beauty in the country! YAY! Something NICE to say about New England! We have mountains, lakes, rivers and a thing called the Atlantic Ocean. We have the coolest shoreline that stretches up Taxachusetts through New Hampshire into Maine. Along with all that coolness we also have some of the most awesome wildlife that we can experience. From the Whales off Cape Ann to the Moose in Maine, we’ve got some pretty cool stuff.

So if you come here, make sure you pay the gas tax and drive around to experience the region. Pay the dining tax so you can enjoy some fine meals at some excellent restaurants. Pay the crazy parking tax at Fenway Park to see the Sox and even shell out some cash for that Passing Whiff tax while you’re there. If you come in the summer you’ll miss paying the Snow blower tax, the Broken Back Because You Slipped and Fell tax and the Ski tax. Hopefully you don’t smoke cigarettes because, well, you wouldn’t believe the tax on those things.

You can play and pay, but in the end it’s best if you don’t stay. I haven’t even begun to talk about the Excise tax, the View tax, the Property tax, the Food tax, the Sales tax, the Payroll tax, the Water tax, the Grass tax, the Gardening tax, the Dream tax, the Swallow tax, the Right Turn On Red tax, the Favorite Color tax, the Happiness tax or even the Right To Vote tax.

Area Girl Goes To School Without A Cell Phone

2009-02-10T14:13:00.003-05:00

Auburndale, MO- Sources in Auburndale, MO say a student was spotted entering the St. Mary God of Our Holy Father’s Chastity Belt school yesterday without a cell phone. According to records kept at the school since 2002, this may be the first time this has happened. Several students were seen gasping and holding their hands over their mouths as the girl entered the school.

The student, 14 year-old Penelope Pinegrape, was described as a loaner and an idealist by fellow students. One student who spoke with us on the condition of anonymity said, “She sits behind me in my algebra class. I’ve never seen her use a cell phone, but I have seen her use this thing that has, like, a numeric keypad or something. I think it’s one of those calculator thingies. I’m pretty sure you can’t text with it.”

Harry Paratestes, the school principal, noted, “I’m not sure what to think of this thing. I don’t know if she is a student that actually wants to come to school to learn or her parents just can’t afford any of the 57 goddamn cell phone plans you can get nowadays.”

When approached for comment, Penelope screamed, “Gozer the Traveler. He will come in one of the pre-chosen forms. During the rectification of the Vuldrini, the traveler came as a large and moving Torg! Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the McKetrick supplicants, they chose a new form for him: that of a giant Slor! Many Shuvs and Zools knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!”

The Missouri state legislature is currently evaluating a proposal that would would make using a calculator while driving a misdemeanor unless a hands free device is being used. Grief counselors will greet and console students as they arrive at the school for classes tomorrow.

Quick! I Need A Hero!

2009-02-10T14:04:00.001-05:00

When I was a young guy, say, 10 or 12 years old, I had my heroes. Like most kids that age I looked to sports figures when it came to someone I wanted to mold myself after. I grew up in Michigan so I looked up to people like Bo Schembechler, coach of the University of Michigan football team. Dave Bing of the Detroit Pistons was up there, Al Kaline of the Detroit Tigers, and I even dared to include a teacher I had in eighth grade on my short list of heroes. Back then heroes were easy to define because you never had to go back and defend them or make excuses for them because they played by the rules. They didn’t cause controversy, they didn’t get arrested and they never broke the law. What the HELL has happened to our HEROES?

Even as I grew into my teenage rebellion years I sought out Ted Nugent as my hero. Ted was a wild, guitar slinging maniacal rocker in his day and he was from Detroit, what I considered as my hometown. He was crazy, he was intense, but he was also sober, never did drugs, and wouldn’t tolerate any of his band doing them either. Ted inspired me to pick up a guitar and teach myself how to play. More importantly he taught me some gool ol’ Midwestern values and he taught me to believe in myself and pursue everything I do with passion. These things have stayed with me throughout my life (thanks Ted!).

How can a 10-year-old pick his heroes today? What sort of algorhythm does a kid have to write these days to safely choose someone to put up there on that shelf? It’s nearly impossible! Whether your hero is an athlete, an actor, a scientist (it’s documented that even Albert Einstein experimented with LSD), an astronaut or even your Uncle Barney, chances are they have either done something in their past that will one day become common knowledge or they will eventually do something stupid in the future that will bring them down a few notches. No one is safe. People used to be safe, but not anymore.

Why has this whole thing changed so much? What’s the damn problem here? Why do I have to withdraw my faith and trust from A-Rod and deposit it into someone else just to eventually have to withdraw and reinvest in someone else again in the future?

If the answer isn’t obvious to you, it sure should be. What has changed is the MEDIA. You know, the same greedy idiots that killed Princess Diana. The same morons that have turned the news business into an entertainment business. The same buffoons that have reprogrammed your thoughts without you even knowing it.

Babe Ruth was a serious alcoholic. It is a fact that he played many games during his great career in a not-so-sober state. The guy produced, the guy made major league baseball what it is today, and people were fine with his antics. His life wasn’t completely exposed to the press as an athlete’s life is now but what people knew about it certainly added to his lore. It was standard in sports back in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s to go out after the game and tie one on with your mates and break your marriage vows. Not a problem, it was life and it was accepted. It was the norm, didn’t matter what sport you played.

If Babe Ruth were alive and playing baseball today he never would have lasted more than one season. His antics would have been plastered all over the news by the media and the media would make you distrust him. They would make you questionhis ability to play baseball because he wasn’t worthy of being a hero. If he can’t be perfect, then he is a juicy hunk of human flesh for the media Piranha to devour.

Bill Clinton? Okay, yes, a president should know better than to do what he did while in office. He just ruined my argument. But if you’re stupid enough to have a president as your hero, then you got what you deserve. But if I were Michael Phelps and I spent a lot of my life training to be the best swimmer in the world and I went to the Olympics and seriously kicked ass, why can’t can’t I take a little brake and snort on the hookah? The guy hasn’t had a chance to make his first mistake yet! Let him have his turn! Let him screw up…and then have the human-ness to let him learn from it on his own instead of spilling the story all around the world! You’re not hurting him by doing that, you’re hurting all the people that call him their HERO!

Every hero is human, unless you’re some kind of jerk that settles for a comic book character or a president as your hero. Being human is about making mistakes. Making mistakes is about doing things that you may not realize at the time are wrong, but that’s ok because you will eventually learn from those mistakes because, well you are human. Humans are smart enough to learn from their mistakes and they don’t really need the media to expose those mistakes to the rest of the world. Why does the media have the right to ruin someone’s life or career? Who gave them the power to say that it is wrong to make a mistake? Who put them above everyone else in the food chain?

The answer? The MEDIA.

My Economic Stimulus Plan

2009-02-06T13:46:00.003-05:00

Our new president wants to throw more money into the pool of cash that we taxpayers will spend the rest of our lives paying off. 937 BILLION dollars to be spent on top of the 700 BILLION dollars already allocated. He wants to use part of that money to develop tons of $10 an hour jobs that will be used to rebuild our roads and bridges. I have to tell you, that kind of creative thinking just sends my heart aflutter! Is this the standard Democrat tactic of Tax & Spend? Nah, it’s just the opposite - it’s Spend & Tax!

Something happened to me today, something just a little short of a religious epiphany. I can’t really have one of those because we all know that religion isn’t about epiphanies, it’s about MONEY. Regardless, I had a thought that seemed so right and so clear that I just had to write it down. Let’s take a look at some statistics brought to you by our friends at the

U.S. Bureau of the Census!

First, I think most people think this bureau is actually called the “U.S. Census Bureau” or even the “U.S. Senseless Bureau”. WRONG. At some point in time the United States government saw fit to spend who knows how much cash to officially change the department’s name. Thank GOD for that. And here I almost took that left turn at Albuquerque! DOH!

Second, the U.S. Bureau of the Census estimates there are 111,162,259 households in this country. That sounds like a lot of households, right? That number is expected to reach 114.8 million by the year 2010. Wow, it’s so cool to be able to back things up with facts.

Anyway, here is the thought I had earlier today. When I explain this, think of yourself as one of those people that lives in a household. If you’ve been unemployed for so long that your living room now consists of an old refrigerator box under a freeway overpass, then this may be a stretch for you, but emotionally stimulating nonetheless.

You live in your household. Let’s say that, just like most Americans living in a household, you have some debt. Maybe it’s credit card debt, or a car payment, or a mortgage payment. Maybe you were a complete idiot and bet most of your life savings on the Patriots winning the Super Bowl last year and having a perfect season and you owe your bookie everything you’ll never have. Everyone’s got some debt because you can’t be an American unless you’re in debt to at least one bank. Well, unless you’ve recently skipped across the border illegally, can’t speak English, and have landed one of those cushy jobs at the underground t-shirt factory.

Anyway, would $35,000 pique your interest? Would $35,000 help you pay down your debt, maybe even buy a new car, maybe a new flat screen TV, or both? If you used some of that money to get rid of your debt and had some left over, could you spend that money and infuse it back into the economy? Now take that thought and multiply it by 111,162,259 households in the United States. Think of all that money being spent, paying off debt, buying things, helping our economy. How about some people actually using some of that money to be retrained or educated in new career fields? just think about what that money would mean to you if the government sent you that check and all you had to do was sign and deposit it.

Last year my wife and I received an economic stimulus check for $1000. Someone hold me back, I’m gonna PUKE. $1000? What I am supposed to do with that? Oh, of course - I can go grocery shopping TWO TIMES.

Okay now, here’s the kicker. Hang onto your hat because here comes the real beauty of the thought I had today. Let’s refresh:

Obama wants to spend 937 BILLION dollars to “stimulate” our economy.

My plan would pay $35,000 to each household at 111,162,259 households (okay, give or take five or ten households).

Let’s whip out the calculator and do some math, shall we? Let’s see…$35,000 times, um, 111,162,259, carry the four, dot that i, right justify the total and POOF!

That comes out to 389 billion dollars. Let’s do a little more math, and I HATE doing math.

Obama’s 937 BILLION dollars minus my 389 billion dollars and I would save the country, the taxpayers, you and I, our children and their children, and their children’s children…548 BILLION DOLLARS.

This is a fine example as to why I don’t vote in presidential elections. Someone can have great ideas, someone can know how to get the house and the senate to work together and really get things done, but if they can’t raise 100 million dollars to campaign, then they will never get elected. If you think about how many bad presidents we’ve had over the years, what is the number of potentially GREAT presidents we could have had, but they didn’t have the means of raising the money, or they made one little mistake in their past like shoplifting condoms from a 7-Eleven or maybe they INHALED.

I don’t have a law degree. I don’t have an economics degree. Hell, I don’t even have a DEGREE. But I can come up with crap like this and our president just wants to print more money and throw it against the wall and see if it sticks? The only things I know that will stick to a wall when thrown at it are spaghetti and DOG SHIT. Hmmm…I’ve heard Obama isn’t a big fan of spaghetti…

All About KDawg’s Dawgs

2009-01-31T12:05:00.001-05:00

I really dig my dogs. They are the coolest. Sometimes they drive me crazy, but most of the time they are a joy to have around. My wife and I have two Bullmastiffs. Bullmastiffs originally came from England and were used to guard hunting lands against poachers. Their job was to locate the poacher and knock him down to the ground and hold him there until the land owner got there to beat the crap out of the poacher. They were not to hurt the poacher, just hold him down and intimidate the hell out of them. Bullmastiffs are a great guard dog and they really can intimidate people. If my insurance agent knew we had them, they wouldn’t write a homeowner’s insurance policy for us.

Saukee is a three-year-old female, red brindle. We got her from a breeder in Massachusetts. She’s done the obedience class thing and she is a little ball of energy. She’s either sleeping or she’s going high speed, rarely anything in between. I love her to death. She is the dog that is standing on the couch and barking at you through the front window as you walk by the house. Her AKC registered name is Saukee Sioux Queen of Sparkling Water.

Cheli is our four-year-old male. We adopted him from a Bullmastiff Rescue in Massachusetts when he was two. Cheli is quite possibly the most mellow dog I have ever known. His personality is completely opposite of Saukee’s. He doesn’t care about anything except when he will eat next, and he is a happy go lucky kind of guy. He sleeps with his tongue sticking out of his mouth and he’s just a big, lovable lug of a dog. We are so fortunate that we were able to rescue him! He is named after Chris Chelios of the Detroit Red Wings. His full name is Cheli the Winged Warrior.

Dr. Emmett Brown: "I Was .75 Gigowatts Short!"

2009-01-30T13:06:00.002-05:00

Zinforg, 2047 - Dr. (Doc) Emmett Brown, inventor and time traveler known most notably for his role in the movie trilogy Back to the Future has discovered that he was .75 gigowatts shy of the gigowattage needed to effectively return to the present. This revelation now casts light on several mysteries linked to some members of the movie’s cast and the movie itself.

Brown’s findings appear in today’s Detroit Free Press. It is believed he actually discovered this flaw in his calculations in 1956, one year after Marty McFly returned to the future after prodding his father, George McFly to lay out Biff in the parking lot outside of the Enchantment Under the Sea dance held at Hill Valley High School the night of the big storm.

In his findings Brown wrote that he believed that although Marty McFly was able to return to his present of 1985, “Serious and unavoidable repercussions were a direct result of my miscalculation. The time-space continuum was breached and Marty’s life will never, ever be the same. Great Scott!” Brown went on to say, “We had actually planned on shooting four Back to the Future movies but we were unable to find Marty and Biff for the final episode. We kept receiving word that one minute they were in 1823, then five minutes later they were trying to escape from 2115. Even though they were under contract to film that fourth movie, we just couldn’t nail them down and it’s all the fault of my miscalculation! Great Scott!”

Brown’s new theory states that 1.96 - NOT 1.21 gigowatts - are necessary to be able to transport a time traveler back to the present. When asked how he could make such a careless mistake in deriving the number of gigowatts, Brown replied, “When I slipped while hanging that picture above my toilet, I envisioned the flux capacitor. That much is true. But what you don’t know is that I didn’t slip because the toilet was wet - I slipped because I had been binge drinking Jack Daniels all day. How can anyone be expected to come up with the necessary gigowattage after downing a half gallon of Jack? I mean, GREAT SCOTT! I took a shot, and I fucked up, okay?”

It has been reported that Dr. Brown has retreated to his family compound and is undergoing intensive therapy because of being overwhelmed with extreme guilt. In a statement released this morning by his publicist, Brown said, “I am learning to accept the responsibility that I, Dr. Emmett Brown, because of my miscalculation of .75 gigowatts, am responsible not only for the demise of Huey Lewis’ musical career, but also the condition under which Michael J. Fox now suffers. Michael is passing it off as Parkinson’s Disease, but I know in my heart that it has to do with the shortage of gigowatts used during his return to the future from 1955. I admit full responsibility and I would appreciate privacy for myself and my family at this incredibly difficult time.”

John Lithgow, who was the first choice to play Dr. Brown in the trilogy but was unavailable come shooting time, released this statement yesterday:

“I am saddened by this revelation by Doc Brown. Any idiot with half a brain could have easily figured out that 1.21 gigowatts wouldn’t be enough to power the flux capacitor with any sort of accuracy. Poor Mr. Fox must now suffer because of this unfortunate error and that is so sad because I really enjoyed watching Spin City.”

It does seem that the real victim here is Michael J. Fox. Eric Stolz, originally cast to play Marty McFly, lives comfortably with his parents in Utah. When reached, his only comment was, “So it ends up being a good thing that I didn’t get that part after all! Otherwise I’d be walking around trembling…shaking, and talking like an idiot. I suspected Doc Brown had a drinking problem. I mean, just look at the dude’s hair! Who knew it would lead to such tragedy.”

Phone calls to Michael J. Fox and his agent were not returned.

What Is “Unknown Quantity”, Huh?

2009-01-30T12:59:00.001-05:00

Unknown Quantity as to how it relates to me or to you, for that matter, really has nothing to do with physics, quantum theory, quadratic equations or, in some cases, even rational thought. Unknown Quantity is the name of the book I spent the summer of 2005 writing. Yup, I spent time every weekend writing this thing and when it was finished, I was really proud of what I had done. But, as most unpublished writers know, writing a book and getting it published are two distinctly different things.

Unknown Quantity is a summation, a snapshot view of my perception of the world around us. It defines what it is, what it should be and why it isn’t. I discuss topics such as why kids suck, why people that own McMansions are idiots, why Americans will never give up smoking, why we suck at dieting, and why Muslims around the world generally hate us here in the United States. I rely on two methods of delivery during my discussion - fact and sarcasm.

When you examine our world today how can one not be so disenchanted by it to realize that sarcasm is the only viable avenue in which we can travel to accurately describe it? The various forms of entertainment available to us, the political structures around the globe, the news media and even sports can seem utterly useless and a complete waste of time. Although these things appear to us as being a necessity in our lives they actually mock our existence and thrive off our inability to secure any true meaning from them.

My version of Unknown Quantity still lives and you will from time to time see excerpts from it in this blog. Just click on the Unknown Quantity category link and you’ll see them. More and more will become available over time. You may agree with some, and some will make you want to do great bodily harm to me. In any case, they are designed to make you think and possibly even try looking at things from a somewhat different perspective.

Things KDawg Hates

2009-01-30T12:48:00.002-05:00

I hate career politicians. No doubt, they are the downfall of our democracy. We need term limits on every elected position at every level of government, and I don’t care if you’re on the local school board or in the United States senate. Fresh people and ideas need to be infused into government on a regular basis. Even if a pro franchise sports coach signs a long term deal, they can still be fired if their team sucks, plain and simple. We as The People (aka the Season Ticket Holders) shouldn’t have to take losing.

I hate the Colorado Avalanche, black beans, diarrhea and Claude Lemieux. Trust me, they are all interrelated in some way.

I hate it when people begin a sentence by saying, “To be honest with you…” If you study psychiatry, you know that means the person saying that lies frequently.

I hate salespeople that try to sell you things you don’t need. They know you don’t need it, you know you don’t need it, so that makes that salesperson an asshole for taking that sales job in the first place. Anyone who tries to sell things to people they just don’t need is an asshole. Or a lawyer. I mean, well, they’re the same thing.

I hate being a man that occasionally suffers from cramps. Other than eating a damn banana, there is no cool product out there for relief like women have.

I hate overcooked fish and well done beef. This dates back to my childhood, but is there anything worse? As a result I will not eat Asian-fried cat or fish that isn’t battered and deep fried.

I hate broken hearts, missed opportunities, blown engines, wasted time, broken bones and FUCKING HEMORRHOIDS.

I hate the news media and how they have brainwashed our society. I am a former radio person, so I was trained in objective news reporting. There really is no such thing anymore. The media now IS the news, creates the news and decides what news is. News people are untalented actor wannabees that have nowhere else to go but behind a news desk.

I hate those that do, those that don’t and those that sit there and think about those that do and those that don’t.

I hate the phrase “wintry mix” to describe the 15 inches of snow that’s about to fall followed by sleet and then rain in New England.

I hate the Internet and how it has stripped people of their privacy and made the world too small. It’s all just electronic junk mail whether it’s delivered to your browser or your email inbox. It’s that same unwanted shit I pull from my mailbox at the side of the road every day that fills up my waste basket only it’s in this “really cool electronic form”. It’s been so long since I’ve had to use a pen to write a letter that I can’t form English written words on a piece of paper anymore.

I hate Siegfried & Roy because gay people should not be allowed to work with big, ferocious cats. You get what you deserve, boys.

I hate television executives that feel American Idol is more entertaining than anything on Animal Planet, The Discovery Channel or even the DIY Network.

I hate hitting myself in my penis with a hammer when the damn hammer was actually directed toward my thumb.

I hate what has happened to Saturday Night Live. Why did John, Gilda, Dan and everyone else have to go on to bigger and better things?

I hate “performers” who lip sync. They remind me of career politicians.

I hate the stock market because capitalism isn’t necessarily the best thing.

I hate moles and shrews because I don’t know the difference between the two.

I hate people that pick their noses, scratch their ass, don’t wear latex gloves AND put my order together for me at Burger King. Super size THIS you ignorant MOFO!

I hate people that have a negative impact on my life that aren’t me. That would include these people:

KDawg’s Best, Worst and Biggest

2009-01-30T12:12:00.002-05:00

Best comfort food: Mac & Cheese made with Velveeta cheese

Best reason I can think of: Because I want to

Best hockey Team: It’s obvious - since 1994, the Detroit Red Wings

Best book I ever read: I don’t read

Best rock and roll band: Rolling Stones

Best practical joke: Getting you to come to this blog site

Best guitar player: Stevie Ray Vaughan

Best friend: My wife - it’s certainly not me

Best vacation spot: St. Martin

Best syndicated radio program: Opie & Anthony

Best beer ever made: Molson Bradeaur

Best sex position: Any position not requiring the use of a condom

Best 4th of July party ever: Dave’s apartment complex, Thousand Oaks, CA 1994

Best Bible verse: I’ve never read the Bible

Best drink on a hot summer day: Ice cold Canadian pilsener

Best way out of a jam: Baffle ‘em with bullshit

Best omelette: Ham and cheese (onion and sausage optional)

Best case scenario: Hopefully

Best joke: Electric cars

Best in show: Any dog not in the toy group

Best actor of all time: Every boss I’ve ever had

Best movie: Night of the Living Dead, the original

Best amusement park: Cedar Point, Sandusky, Ohio

Best practice: I never practiced and I still sat first chair in band

Best story ever told: The Legend of Zelda

Best president: Ronald Reagan

Best guitar ever made: Fender Stratocaster

Best offer I’ve ever received: The Cobb plea

Best day of my life: The day I met my wife

Best time of my life: The time I married my wife

Best vegetable: Brussels sprouts smothered in a thick cheese sauce

Best motivation: Cattle prod/branding iron

Best talk show host: Johnny Carson

Best kept secret: I actually care about things

Best song ever written: Stairway to Heaven

Best time: 4:23pm

Best stand up comedian: George Carlin

Best mayonaise: Hellmann's - any other brand is crap

Biggest waste of time: Watching the news

Biggest liar: William Jefferson Clinton

Biggest game of the season: Who cares?

Biggest misconception: Global warming is a man-made problem

Biggest hypocrite: Almost everyone I meet

Biggest complaint: Hypocrisy

Biggest event ever: Presidential inauguration 2009

Biggest cover-up: Area 51

Biggest idiot: George W. Bush

Biggest loser(s): Those who voted for George W. Bush

Biggest ass: See biggest idiot

Biggest breasts: Wendy’s chicken club sandwich

Biggest single reason why: I don’t need one of those

Biggest bureaucracy: Health care in the United States

Biggest inspirational figure: Is no longer Michael Phelps

Biggest joke: Your vote counts

Biggest lie (tie): “I did not have sex with that woman.” / “There are WMD in Iraq.”

Biggest thing to look forward to: The next version of Grand Theft Auto

Biggest mistake: Thinking that I care

Biggest fear: Going to hell if I commit suicide

Biggest dog I know: Cheli, my Bullmastiff

Biggest enemy: Myself

Biggest obstacle: One’s own sense of right and wrong

Worst nighmare: Reality

Worst case scenerio: Your fingers getting shut in a car door just before rolling your last doobie

Worst city on Earth: Tie between East St. Louis, IN and Gary, IN

Worst state in the union: I guess it’s Indiana?

Worst food: Calves liver with a side of goat balls

Worst drink: Your own urine

Worst hobby: Internet porn

Worst thing to do on a Saturday night: Internet porn with a side of goat balls

Worst sports franchise: The Detroit Lions

Worst place to see a movie: Under water in the deep end of a pool

Worst web site: Facebook

Worst day of my life: When I was hit by a car

Worst hangover I’ve ever had: I have never had a hangover

Worst way to break up with your boy or girlfriend: Via email

Worst way to date your boy or girlfriend: Via email

Worst movie sequel: Lake Placid 2

Worst song ever written: Cheeseburger In Paradise