Welcome to Deviant1's 1st Monthly Surreal Post award! Here's how it works:
Submit your favorite surreal posts as a comment or link as well as your vote via comment. Vote as often as you like! Why if you vote for yourself enough your pretty much guaranteed to win! Its all in keeping with the surreal theme here folks! I mean who would bother to do that? For that matter who would write this stuff? :) We will update the posts with your entries as received for one week!
***Update: 500 tbucks to who submits, 500 to the writer***
*** If you are both you get an extra 500 for 1500 in all ***
Here is my two entries to start us off. I believe you will see the sort of thing I am looking for. Really easily!
My Brat
Mike,
I was wondering what you are doing right now brat because when I see you again I'm going to seduce you and take off all your clothes and then leave it to your imagination what happens next, and I will show you just how much I have missed you when we are together again. Look forward to doing the land and commune together along with your friends as well, and to our future together. Give me a call or write to me ASAP. See you soon, and talk to you later. I am going to look forward to having uncontrollable passionate sex with you, practicing magick, time travel, O.B.E., Astral Projection ,Time Travel and just being together again in our own R.V. or Boat will be wonderful in the future.
Your Friend 4-Ever,
Krissy
Posted By erica3657 (strangely, erica is also apparently Krissy)
I Want Some Pork Rinds
Personally, Mondays in cubicles always lend themselves to self reflection and inevitably regret. My words seem to constantly be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I am a lyrical scooby doo. I am an akward teen and I am 23. The shirt I am wearing today is second hand and smells like B.O. Now everyone around my cubicle will think it is my B.O. I know what you're thinking I should have had the shirt dry cleaned before I wore it, but who has that kind of time. I actually have a dry cleaning pile in my room...It hasn't been touched since it was started circa Halloween. I just ate a bag of pork rinds sprinkled with splenda because I didn't get laid on my birthday.
I just recieved the following letter from my dad. Reading stuff like this from my cubicle in downtown Toronto make me long for "Out West" AKA Alberta as the refer to it here:
Welcome to the Prairies!! Thank you for visiting our beautiful province. Here are a few things you ought to know to make your stay more pleasant:
1. That slope-shouldered farm boy you are snickering at did more work before breakfast than you will do all week at the gym.
2. It's called a "gravel road." No matter how slow you drive, you're going to get dust on your BMW. I have a 4-wheel drive because I need it. Now drive or get it out of the way.
3. We all started hunting and fishing when we were nine-years-old. Yeah, we saw Bambi die. We got over it.
4. Any references to "grain fed" when talking about our women will get your butt kicked . by our women.
5. Pull your pants up, and turn your hat around. You look like an idiot.
6. If that cell phone rings while a bunch of mallards are making their final approach, we will shoot it. You might hope you don't have it up to your ear at the time.
7. No, there's no "Vegetarian Special" on the menu. Order steak. Order it rare. Or, you can order the Chef's Salad and pick off the two pounds of ham and turkey.
8. Yeah, we have sweet tea. It comes unsweetened in a glass with two packets of sugar and a long spoon.
9. You bring "coke" into my house you better bring rye along, and some ice.
10. So you have a sixty-thousand-dollar car. We're real impressed. We have quarter-million-dollar combines that we use two weeks a year.
11. Let's get this straight. We may have one stoplight in town, but we stop when it's red. We may even stop when it's yellow.
12. Our women hunt, fish, and drive trucks - because they want to. So, you're a feminist. Isn't that cute.
13. Yeh, we eat trout, Northern, walleye, and pike, too. If you really want sushi and caviar, it's available at the bait shop.
14. They are pigs and cows. That's what they smell like. Get over it. Don't like it? Highways #1 and #16 go two ways - get on one of them.
15. The "Opener" refers to the first days of fishing and deer season. They are religious holidays. You can get breakfast at the church.
16. So what if every person in every pick-up waves? It's called being friendly. Understand the concept?
17. Yeah, we have golf courses. Don't hit into the water hazards. It spooks the fish. And stay out of the woods. It'll spook the deer.
Since "project deviant" kind off went off half-assed I decided to change in other ways. I will be starting Aikido as of next week three nights a week. I am familiar with Aiki concepts and techniques at fundamental level but I have never taken proper Aikido before.
The stuff I used to take was a very mixed martial art that took concepts mainly from aiki juijutsu, wing-chun, and philipino kali. It was a very practical combat system.
Studying Aikido is about a lot more than just self-defence:
This link provides a very detailed history of the Life of Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido by his son Kisshomaru Ueshiba. There is just a ton of information on the site about Aikido.
I have always had a laypersons interest in Zen. It is quite obvious Morihei Ueshiba really got to the root of the meaning of zen although he was not a zen monk per se. Budo or 'The Way Of the Warrior' is just another path to the same place. He just grasped "It". If there were an "It" to grasp. Hee Hee!
Big business and fascism have a long history of collusion togther. Those that are in power have always been lobbied by so called “Captains Of Industry”. Why? There is opportunity in tragedy and disaster. The far right wing has always been the true elite of society: The few that control the many. They do this purely because of profits, at any expense. Want some proof?
The simple fact is that the contract signed for lease of Hollerith machines was signed with IBM New York, NY. Not the German subsidiary. Included in the lease agreement was a monthly ONSITE maintenance agreement to service all machines whether in Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald or other concentration camps. They full well knew exactly what was happening.
How did they know? Well, in addition to the monthly visits by IBM technicians to the concentration camps all applications in those days were custom built. No “off the shelf” software like today’s stuff. No SQL databases that you can pirate directly off the non-existent internet. IBM representatives custom built the applications in direct association with the Third Reich.
This information has only come to light through German documentation from the Nazi era not through IBM documentation. How could that be? IBM will not release the documentation to scholarly research:
“Rather than destroy the documents, IBM said it was giving them to “an academic institution” for study. But where did these documents end up? Not the Holocaust Museum in Washington, not the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan, not the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati. An IBM PR man gave them to New York University, to a Biblical archaeologist. They gave them to professor Lawrence Schiffman, a Dead Sea Scrolls expert. He had six boxes in his closet, unaware of what was in them. But he was familiar with my prior Holocaust work and immediately arranged to let me see the materials. I also arranged to view documents in Stuttgart, and IBM blocked that and closed the facility the day I got there. When word got out about my book they transferred those Stuttgart documents to an archive in Germany, but they can’t be seen until some elaborate inventory is completed. IBM still refuses to open archives concerning France, Holland, Brazil, Poland, Italy and Spain, and other units. In other words, all their archives are still closed. As I told IBM corporate PR, “Make me work hard, make me work harder, I will get all this information.” - Edwin Black – Author of IBM and the Holocost”
So I guess the IBM technicians who couldn’t see the starving concentration camp victims couldn’t smell the burning bodies from the crematoriums either. For that matter nor could these mathematical geniuses put 2 and 2 together with row or column headings like the following codes:
For location:
1 Auschwitz 2 Buchenwald 3 Dachau
For “Type”:
2 Jehovah’s Witness 3 Homosexual 6 Communist 8 Jew
For status:
1 released 2 transferred 4 executed 5 suicide 6 special treatment AKA Gassed
Moreover, the punch cards used in these primitive computers were printed by IBM directly. They exclusively printed these cards directly for the Third Reich. One need not be a genius to figure out what was going on by the punch cards ALONE. The Thrid Reich only ever had a 2 to 6 week supply of these cards, meaning that IBM kept printing, and were paid for them, right up until the bitter end. Absolutely sickening.
I wish that I could tell you that this was an isolated incident but its not:
Ford Motor company did business with the Third Reich through it’s subsidiary throughout the war. Opel, a General Motors subsiduary, in fact built German warplanes:
I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration - Adolf Hitler
Coca Cola Co. developed “Fanta Orange” brand specifically for the Nazi Germany market as they could no longer market Coke after the war started. I don’t have web link for this yet but the evils of what “branding” is will be the focus of a subsequent part of this series.
The conclusion, big business is the root of the status quo in the western world. Massive corporations control the mainstream media and use its influence for its own purposes, namely profit and at any expense. Anyone who states that the “left” is the elite is either grossly misinformed or deluded. It is the far right that controls business and is attempting to control government through the insanity of the power of lobbyists. They will do business with the likes of Nazi Germany directly profiting off the German war machine and the holocaust. You tell me: who’s with who?
I have returned home from "The Niagara Excursion". A fascinating experience. First off, we never went to see the actual falls at all. It hadn't stopped snowing since Saturday morning. Fortunately, the casino was nice and warm, had an entourage of conveiniantly located floating Beer Girls, and was some really good fun. Blackjack style.
Our group had its own table which was helpful since if you had crap then you could attempt to draw out the right card for the person on your left, or hold, depending on what the card trend was. Plus the anchor, the last seat at the able) could help influence the dealer to bust. It was somewhere between a 6 and 8 hour run, nonstop. Overall our group came out ahead, raking in some good coin. Small potatoes. I personally lost about 250. not that bad. I was up for a long time. But after about beer #15 or so I started to bet kind of funny. Go figure. When you start playing 50 bones a hand and double down on hard 12's with the dealer showing 10, you tend to start losing. But it sure is fun!
My favorite was "the epic of the d00d". "The d00d" was my roomie for this excursion. An exceedingly cool guy is "the d00d". He is comparatively mild compared to the rest of us wildly extroverted types. He sat to my left.Anyways, after 5 hours or so at it "the d00d" started to get bored and attempted to lose the rest of his chips. At that point something magical happened. All of a sudden Jesus showed up at our table and was on the side of "the d00d". Apparently, the house pissed Jesus off good because after that "the d00d" just couldn't lose. Pretty soon He had quite a collection of 25 dollar chips and they just kept growing. By the end I was in awe of him. Royally smashed, I think He walked away quite pleased. Good stuff.
Almost as good was the story of my buddy "the big loser". Coincidentally, He is married to "the big winner". Even at the height of drunken betting I had to give my head a shake at the betting of "the big loser". This indivdual likes to split on really fantastic (and I mean that literally) hands like double threes with dealer showing 9 or 10. Fortunately, H e is married to "the big winner". Now "the big winner" didn't even play Blackjack. She spent most of the day at the quarter slots and unbeknownst to the rest of us the roullette table. Apparently , a few rolls after "the big winner" hit the table the ball spun out of the wheel and went straight down her top. Now this is a problem when that happens at a casino. The dealer freaks out, the pit bosses come out and check all this out [editor's note: if their is any question about the ball why not replace the thing?]. Anyway, "the big winner" correctly assumed this was a sign from the aforementioned Jesus. So she bet large and inside next hand, meaning on the individual numbers. They pay huge, 30 to 1 or something, I can't remember but the payout was pretty good. and the slots hit twice on quarters for her. Either way, she offset "the big loser" losses and then some. The rest of were playing blackjack and had no idea about this as we were all playing blackjack. "The big loser" was complaining that someone had stolen all his luck. Well, just then "the big winner" showed up to explain where it had gone. Definately, a poignant moment. We all laughed our asses off. :)
Note: "the big loser" is an awesome guy, He just really sucks at drinking and gambling at the same time, despite the big smile on his face.
The other notable was "the degenerate". He organized the whole trip as he is wont to do. This guy is the hub that this group of friends revolves around. He organizes stuff, and is especially good on the fly. Somehow, this guy knows all the good places to go, everywhere in Toronto, on any particular day. Want to smoke in a non-smoking and have cheap drinks downtown TO on a Wednesday? Call "the degenerate". He doesn't even have to think about it. He will give you 3 places, off the top of his head. "the degenerate" had to give up all access to cash before reaching Niagara, credit cards, bank cards, only god knows what else.
Saturday morning we had to take two minivans of us to go out. "The degererate" was directing us in cab 1. We in cab 2 thought we were going to "Ripley's Museum". It became apparent slighlty later on when we saw a suspcious amount of casino signs that we were going to the casino first.
Anyway, "the degenrate" coached us all on the rules of all the games, made sure everyone had what they needed, and was generally quite great. He may have ended up with something of a minimal loss but He had a good a time as everyone else.
The rest of the weekend was spent eating, drinking and partying. Despite the fact that we picked possibly the worst weekend weatherwise ever, everyone had a good time.
My life being more work than anything else lately, thats really all I have to talk about.
Today's tasty techbit:
I never realized that by adding registry entries you can create entire directory strtuctures. Normally, when I enter the registry on a Windows system I am looking for something in particular. Something that should be there or removing something that shouldn't.
I had an asignment that required adding various registry keys. When the task called for it automatically created and populated the directories with the appropriate files.
Now this really isn't an earth shattering "discovery" or anything. It just reminds me that sometimes no matter how familiar you are with something its important to remember that the same tool can be used for different applications. If you apply that to the human condition it reminds me that although we all have various preconceptions (or even just conceptions) about the people in our lives: Every once in awhile you will be shocked in awareness that all people are dynamic beings who are able to surprise you.
In other news, just as soon as I lose my "electronic leash" I am going to lose Toronto too, for the weekend. Niagra Falls should brace itself for Deviant1 and peeps all hellbent on drunken debauchery. Hey! Everyone needs a hobby!
Today started off as one of those not so good days. Rarely do I come across a movement or idea that is simply so astoundingly good that I support it wholeheartedly and with no reservation. At All. Reading the Metro freebie paper for the commute I came across this article. It really did make me laugh out loud.
Flow 93.5 radio personality Wayne Williams and Toronto Argonauts cheerleader Lauren Storey pose for photos at the Flow studios on Friday. Williams is spearheading an effort to have March 14 recognized as Steak and Sex Day in Toronto.
It's rare to see this space used for the purpose of social activism, but as the efforts of a Toronto radio personality were recently brought to my attention, I decided it was time to devote a few words to his cause.
Flow 93.5's Wayne Williams - a longtime fixture on the Toronto radio scene - has taken it upon himself, and in the interests of men across our fair city, to lobby city hall for recognition.
Williams is waging a brave battle to make March 14 a day for men. He calls it Steak And Sex Day. Men across Toronto are calling it a selfless drive for equality.
Williams' theory is simple - if women have Valentine's Day, why can't men have a day devoted to them?
It should be clarified that in no way is Valentine's Day strictly for women. Couples mutually share in our yearly homage to romance.
It's just that women share a bit more.
That's acceptable, I would say, to most men, including myself. There's nothing more satisfying than showering attention on women, be it in the form of flowers, dinner, edible underwear -whatever.
But it's high time that men get their day.
Williams is proposing one devoted to Grade A Alberta prime and alone time with that special someone (tofu steaks are an option for our vegetarian brothers).
Thus far the city has been cool to his crusade.
Flow 93.5 promotions director Mike Dwyer says that Mayor David Miller has gracefully declined the station's offer to discuss the proposed day on air.
"We've gotten a few chuckles from city hall," Dwyer says. "I'm sure the mayor has turned us down to go on-air because it could be a predicament for him."
The station may now take their drive westward and appeal to Alberta Premier Ralph Klein to recognize Steak And Sex Day in his province.
Dwyer confirms that so far the feedback in Toronto been positive on the part of both men and women. Some ladies have even questioned why there should be a day devoted to steak and sex when said luxuries are part of daily life for their men.
Although steak and sex - I might say beer, as well - are integral parts of a man's existence, it's about more than hedonistic satisfaction.
The recognition of a guy's day is a step toward equality and fairness in a city so careful to promote an even playing field for all of its citizens.
I encourage all Torontonians, regardless of their race, creed, gender, sexual preference or social circumstance, to take the time to go to City Hall and offer their support for men's day of pampering.
It's about time we got 24 hours of undivided attention - flowers and chocolate are optional."
When I first heard aboout this it was called "Steak and a Blowjob" day. Either way, its just a damn good idea. Since I didn't get any of the above on the 14th, I figure I will just double up next March 14th. Who's with me?
She gave me her love But only for a minute Now life just sucks balls
What the hell does that mean? I have no idea. My night consisted of a bizarre number of complex support calls. Now all I have left is brain drivel. I am learning to live my life on an hourly basis. The weird part about sleep deprivation is the strange euphoria that comes and goes under its influence.
Another neat advantage of total exhaustion: I am not even remotely worried about anything at all right now. Sometimes there is just not enough cycles. The obscene amount of change I am putting myelf through is not stressing me out in the least.
Sometimes life throws one really weird curveballs. Yesterday I felt pretty awful about things in general. Today, I feel much better. It looks like a lot of change may be in store for this camper.
As with any major changes in anyones life, while the changes are occuring ,life tends to suck. Once it is all over with though usually it heralds a new era in ones life. Hopefully, this will be a step in the right direction. Both personal and professional changes may be in the works. We'll see what happens.
Do you ever feel like your floating somewhere out in space looking down at yourself and your life? Sometimes thats what its like for me. Everything comes and goes in the ebb and flow of a lifetime.
Whatever ones chooses or does not choose can have some pretty astounding consequences on ones life. I don't know if there is always a right or wrong choice. There is just going this way or that way. Is it possible that both ways could be right? Or wrong, in any given situation?
Well all, I have smoked my last cigarette. Today is my first day off the butts. OK! I give up! Just kidding, It seems to be going allright so far. All that I can tell so far is that something is "missing". That and I seem to be hungry all the time.
Hopefully, I will be in the gym by the end of the week to offset this new found ubiquitous hunger.
I took lst week off and didn't accomplish nearly what I wanted too. On the plus side, I did rediscover the joys of the "afternoon nap". Fantastic!
Its all good, just one step at a time they say ...
Disclaimer: the above graphic was made using an automated sign generator. The author assumes absolutely no talent, ability, or relevence in the making of signs, whatsover.
Well, as everyone who has ever encountered Lynn Kramer knows, nobody can make heads or tails out of what He is on about. Of course, neither does he, she whatever that is.
All one needs is a complaint generator and to fill in the blanks. Now we can all be incoherent imbiciles! Just go here and generate yourself a complaint:
The mystery is over! Lynn Kramer is even more bizarre than we thought! Hahaha!
On a side note, it must be really sad that ones writing is so poor as to resort to generators to speak for them. Then again, the complaint letters are far better written than his usual fare :). I guess spamming with meaningless jargon is all some people have. I suggest that everyone contact the "Dayton Right To Life" organization that Lynn Kramer espouses on his blog with an appropriate auto-generated complaint letter. Really, its the least we can do:). The link on his site is broken, so the one above has been all fixed up! Cheers!
These are a couple of pics from my sub-megapixel Cam phone of downtown Toronto. For those not familiar wih Toronto the two semicirular buildings in the top photo is City hall only from way higher up.
I have chosen an official quit smoking last day as February 27th. Also, I took a tour of a gym that is within my building. Way over priced, but you can't beat the convenience, plus they do your laundry for you. For a lazy bastard like me its kind of like heaven :). I have been researching workout routines and have found a workout partner.
Extra added bonus: Should I be stuck downtown for an extended period of time for disaster #268 I now have a place that I can go have a relaxing steam, hottub, sauna, shower. Thats got to much better than the ole "dipped in used cooking oil" feeling.
So "Project Deviant" is coming along nicely so far. I will keep everyone posted. The real test of course will come starting "Day One". AAiiiiieeeeee!
Due to non-disclosure agreements I can only be really non-specific about work, but this tale need to be told.
I am spending my weekend as per usual chained to my desk. Not physically but in these high tech days they have found a better way to do it. It’s a dastardly and demonic device known as a "pager". Whoever invented this form of cruel and unusual punishment needs a severe beating and then to be thrown in prison with a 300-pound sodomite named Bubba who wants to explore your inner child. A lot. Repeatedly. Squared.
Anyway, today’s fun was with application X from vendor Y. Application X spans about 8 high-end servers (give or take one, or two: trying to save my ass here folks!). Hundreds of internal users connect to this monstrosity to perform task Z. Then, they go to the outside world and connect to thousands of other places. Just for shits and giggles, it works in reverse too. I’m sure you get the point by now: this thing is massive and essential.
The bonus today? An update to fix bug #54,565 which involved some code, general tweaking, some prayers and a blessing on an EEPROM. For those not in the know when you get changes to programs from vendors they have some generally hieroglyphic information that is called a "release document" AKA "instructions"(more like "destructions" as I affectionately know them). In all honesty, everything is usually 99.9% correct. Unfortunately, 0.01% error is all you need to fuck something up royally, which is just what happened.
Your friendly neighborhood systems admin guy (me) applied said fix where appropriate and faithfully to the "destructions". Can you guess what happened? I knew you would! Upon a reboot the whole shebang started acting like a schizophrenic crack whore on speed only making less sense, while speaking in tongues. Being the experienced and levelheaded dude that I am I notice that this is not good. Worse than bad even. Fucking awful would be a better way to put it still.
So, what does your humble narrator do? Well, He backs out of said changes and makes things just like they were before. Pull an M$ adjustment (reboot) and everything is just as fine as hot apple pie. "OK, thinks the friendly neighborhood systems admin, "what’s with that?" Lets try again thinking, just maybe its possible the humble narrator missed something, somewhere. Back to the destructions.
What happens? Well, lets call this program "grandma". Grammy (for whatever reason) has no idea how to bake cookies. The obvious thing to do? Tell "grandma" how to bake the cookies. She nods, says that’s all well and good and smiles nicely. Then one might be tempted to ask "grandma" to kindly go bake some cookies. She smiles knowingly, gives you a wink and sets off. Only then "grandma" decides it would be a better idea to have an epileptic seizure, swallow her tongue and masturbate with a highly radioactive plutonium rod for good measure. All the while screaming "WHAT’S MY NAME BITCH!" Needless to say I find this somewhat disturbing. Considering I was expecting cookies and not a psychotic post apocalyptical sex-freak senior citizen with Tourette’s syndrome. Ok, then this can’t be right. Next step, scratch "grandma’s" cookie recipe. Bada Bing! Bada Boom! She is sweet as pie. Off to "Betty Crocker" (the vendor) to see what the fuck they put in ole granny’s recipe. "Sugar, spice and everything nice!" they say. Ok then.
What to do? I decide to examine the ingredients of the old biddy’s recipe. Turns out that what they sent in the mail doesn’t match what’s in the cupboard. Knowing what blue-haired kindly old Madame has in the cupboard they only sent what we needed. A dash of this, a dash of that. But they put it all in one pot named the same thing and called it cookies. What it really was just some new spice to the old recipe? Unfortunately, "Betty Croker" neglected to mention this in her recipe. So what you needed to do was pour the new pot into the old part and stir. Bravo cookies! No bizarre masturbating sexagenarian!
Just some good cookies, although I had quite lost my appetite by this point.
In other words, I was sent changed and new files only, so you had to overwrite the old or changed files, not replace the whole folder. Not included: batteries or that little tidbit. Sigh wasted time? 3.5 hours. On Saturday. Almost enough to make a fellow want to jump out of an airplane, nude, with no parachute.
The president talked about new energy sources, fuel cells, and other initiatives helpful environment. He said next to nothing about what he proposes to actually do to to further any of these things. My favorite: Nuclear power. Just my opinion, but I don't think "Safe and Clean" nuclear power exists. I have worked for our Hydro Company here in Ontario as a sysadmin providing nuclear support. I live spitting distance from a nuke plant. This is just my two cents from an insider perspective.
While I'm on the environment, I am just wondering how many of those "non-producing programs" Bush’s plan to reduce deficit/debt have something to do with the environment by what yard stick they judge what produces and what doesn't. The administration has slashed funding to the EPA This administration has had a horrible environmental record. Kyoto? Who needs it? Bad for business!
Regarding Social Security:
I can tell you what I support what we did here in Canada. It became quite obvious some years ago that our old age pension (we don’t call it Social Security here, we call it the Canadian Pension Plan) was unsustainable. We did two things to fix it:
1. As is the Canadian way we increased taxes on it about three-fold. This was done to save the program against the rising tide of soon to be retired Baby Boomers.
2. We have an alternative as well: What’s called RSP's or retirement savings plans. There is very little government control on this here and it provides remarkable leeway in how you can invest it and what you can do with it. You can invest in stocks, bonds, trusts, securities you name it. In fact, you can self-direct the entire thing. You can borrow against it for many reasons with very lenient payback options, mortgage down payments, education, just about anything and it is still totally tax sheltered. This is one of my personal primary focuses of retirement planning.
What I heard from Bush was:
I don't want to increase taxes at all and in order to "save" Social Security I will slash these benefits (post spin on the democrat side says up to 40%), which makes sense that He is going to slash, otherwise why placate the 55+ crowds that their benefits will not touched? Not once did I hear that he would cut any benefits. All I heard from the president was the usual fear tactic, spiraling costs, etc. Well, no matter what He slashes and burns Social Security in America to the cost of it is still going to go up, as everything does. His analysis is quite obviously based on never increasing the amount taxed.
I will then institute a form of RSP with all kinds of controls on it. Can't take much out, must be doled out over time, somehow he plans to control “Wall street” fees. Just curious as to how he plans to do that? For a President that is ostensibly so against “big government controls” and so pro free market enterprise there seems to be an odd irony here. On a personal note, I find it even more interesting that I live in such an oft defamed “Socialist” nation as compared to the much vaunted “Capitalist” U.S. Still, this one step in itself is better than nothing, which is what most American’s had before.
Bush seems to be looking for a cure all to the issue. As per usual He wants to slash and burn while offering the appearance to the populace that he is protecting Social Security without actually spending any more money or increasing taxes. While I do not have the actual minutes he spent substantially more time espousing the grand tradition of Social Security then what the cuts that would mean less money for people, excepting the above mentioned placating statement that he would not change benefits to those 55+. In fact, He made it sound like Social Security was totally out of control and he was going to rescue it. Never did Bush even implicitly state that these benefits would affect the bottom line of the old folks collecting.
As an aside, the language on this issue was fascinating: Not once did I hear the word “cuts” the entire time. As compared to when he talks about tax cuts when it’s every third word. IMHO, it seems to me that the perception of the content is far more valued to this president than the actual content of the message. Of course, this is pretty much true of all those involved in the political game in my experience. Doublespeak is in prime action right here. If average Joe didn’t know better listening to this I am willing to bet he would think that his benefits were not going to be affected at all after paying into this all his life on minimum wage at a Wall mart type job. I guess intellectual dishonesty is just par for the course.
Regarding further warfare:
The President specifically mentioned Syria and Iran to stop harboring terrorists. He put some very forceful language on Iran to stop “all enrichment of plutonium”. Nothing particularly surprising here excepting that I am never quite sure who is next on the hit list. Sometimes it seems to be North Korea (mentioned only in passing tonight), sometimes its Iran, sometimes and it’s Syria. For a President that markets himself with statements like “people always know where I stand” well, I don’t.
What I do know is that while Bush made mention of a withdrawal of troops from Iraq I highly doubt anyone’s going home soon. One of these places is bound to be invaded or usurped next.
Can a tiger change his stripes? This is something that I have been thinking on for quite awhile. Change to me is somewhat like giving birth. It can be a hellish thing to have to go through but the result can make it all worth it.
Life for me has been more or less on autopilot for the last couple of years or so. Nothing earth shattering in the way of changes have occurred. This is an odd place to be for someone like me. I am very good with crisis management and clawing my way up from chaos to order. In fact, my entire life until lately has been a series of life altering changes. Some I created for myself and before I was able to do that others did it for me. When you find yourself in a crisis situation goals are very clear and one is easily motivated to reach those goals. Chaos, catastrophe and failure are something that I am home with. I usually know exactly what to do and proceed to do it, like a pitbull on cocaine.
Without chaos and drama and it creates I am a bit disorientated and lost. The clarity and focus that drives me under profoundly negative circumstances is gone. As the zoologist Desmond Morris might put it I suffer from the “Stimulus Struggle”.
So what can I do about this? What can I do to get myself one step higher. One more step on Maslow’s pyramid. One step closer to Satori, if your into zen. One step closer to the Beatific, if you be Christian. Reaching your potential, if you like new age crap. Ultimately, its all the same thing.
Well, not being a person with any common sense at all I have decided go radically alter everything all at once. I have a birthday in a few weeks and I am giving myself until then to prepare an action plan.
Firstly, start meditating on a daily basis again a few minutes a day at first.
Secondly, I will stop smoking cold turkey, with the Aid of the patch. I figure in the short term this will cause me to ingest mass amounts of food to compensate. That’s fine, I need to do that (just without my usual far of fast food) for step 2. I will need to plan for a high energy diet.
Next : Start working out again, nothing major at first. General free weight program that will lead to a 5 day split in a few months. Maybe some hockey or ultimate frisbee. After I am in generally better condition maybe I’ll get into Martial Arts again, who knows?
Finally, once the mind and body are working a bit better I will take on coding. Specifically C#. This will help me career wise as coding is my weak point, plus for project management and security aspects of IT. A step on my way to and end career goal.
A lot to do, especially all at once, but like I said without any major challenges I just … stagnate.
What do you think? All out fanatsy on the level of "Alice in Wonderland"? Possible to do? Anyone got any advice for any of these steps?
Have you ever had a night when all hell broke loose, in a good way?
My friday started like every other one. Get up. Get ready. Work, work, work. Well, thats where all sense of normality or common sense ended for me. Having been on call for the previous week all forms of social gatherings that involve alcohol were out. As in my profession the ability to analyse and think properly are paramount. Well, end of business Friday I was freed from the constraints of employment. I guess I had a bit of pent up energy that just needed to get out.
It all started innocently enough with some friends and coworkers at a local downtown Toronto place. To get a sense of this group, mostly 30- 40 (age wise) professionals, with some exeptions in either direction. Slightly more on the male side than female.
We ran this place to its logical conclusion and then went in search of some entertainment and more good fun. Well, we found it. It proceeded to a host of different clubs, bars and pubs before we ran out of legal drinking time at 2:00 AM. Then we proceeded to one of the friends place with a host of hangers on.
The debauchery continued until my mind and body finally gave out sometime around 5 AM. It was a good time had by all. With the exception of one of my friends who decided sometime around 2:30 AM that since He had no idea who this hanger on was that He needed to leave in a hurry. Anyway, He quietly left and everything resumed.
My particular evening came to an end when my body took over and demanded "Its time to go home. Right Now!" So I did.
My observation: while "carpe diem" is probably my only motto, it needs to be tempered with a little common sense. Saturday was a total write off. Please, let summer come soon!
Here in Canada we have a news program called "The Fifth Estate". Tonight I checked it out while waiting for something to go wrong with a server. Anyway, the issue tonight was "Sticks an Stones" discussing the current state of the US news media.
This was my first experience with Bill O'Rielly and Ann Coulter directly. I have one thing to say, "Oh My God". I have heard of both individuals before. It now all makes sense to me how moronic conservatives form their opinions. Bill refused to speak with the CBC in fear that they woulld portray Fox as "Conservative". In my humble opinion they seem to be able to create that opinion without any outside help.
Both of these idiots when confronted with Canadian discontent at the war in Iraq threatened to put some kind of unknown sanctions on Canada. The response was the same in both cases. Canada and the US have the largest trading relationship of any two nations anywhere. Coulter went on to spout off of how we were such staunch allies contributing troops during the Vietnam war. Wrong. Both showed extreme ignorance of history of Canadian involvement is US conflicts.
Bill went on to espouse that it would happen, just like in France, making up some fictitious French publication named "The Paris Review" that claimed billions of dollars in economic loss due to loss of trade with the US. Hey, lets just make shit up on the fly! Of course this was also when being the topic was critical of the US invasion of Iraq. Back here in reality French/US trade has gone up. At least now I know where complete morons like Deshanews gets off threatening the same thing when He does not like what I have to say. I have always known this individual could not think for himself. At least now I know where He gets his information from, as well as his self important threats.
Hi triumph was abusing an interviewee whose father had died in the 911 attacks: "Out of respect for your father ... Shut UP!". Nice.
Coulter's idiocy was too bizarre to even bother with.
Other highlights included a Canadian conservative named Virginia Marsden (a sometime guest speaker on O'Rielly) who when asked, after the White House admission that there is no WMD's in Iraq responded "By who's definition?". Um, I guess that would be the White House's Virg, baby!"
They also showed how the more you watch fox news the more you are likely to believe 1 of 3 verifiable lies about the war in Iraq:
1. WMDS *sigh*
2. Saddam had a direct connection with the 911 attacks
3. Iraq was an immediate threat to the US
Incidentally, Fox news is now available in Canada as a digital channel that I have. I guess its a part of my cable deal: I certainly didn't have it. I have to check this out, for shits and giggles at the very least! I always wondered how a myopic freak like Lynnkramer knew anything at all about Canada, being the freak that he/she is. Now I know.
Do you see “Intelligent Design” is a valid scientific theory? If so you are bound to find the “flat earth society” quite enlightening. Don’t let yourself get sucked into believing the tripe those liberal atheist types are trying to feed your children in commie public schools.
“Spherical theorists” have been attempting to brainwash us for years with the idea that the earth is round. Its time to stand up for what’s right.
Some interesting highlights from these folks:
The original flat earth was confined, restricted, and twisted into a perverse spherical shape by a conspiracy of TELEVISION BROADCASTERS in an attempt to realize their dream of TOTAL HUMAN MIND CONTROL through subsurviant captive homogonized market share.
What about the northern and southern hemisphere?
Globularist rot. This implies the Earth being a SPHERE, which it is not. The Earth has, however, an Inner and Outer Ring.
I love this stuff! The truth is out!
The moral of the story?
Never let a little thing like reality get in the way of your chosen brand of idiocy. Don’t like fundamental tenets of science? Whoneeds them! Everyone knows that most of this science malarkey is just a clever cover in order to destroy your religion and all that is good and holy in the world.
That is only the first step. The real goal of course is ultimately to watch society destroy itself in a spiraling vortex of anarchism. The root of all this is satan working through the hysterical liberal folk. Armageddon causing mofos won’t be happy till they see the four horsemen of the apocalypse running up the street. Stock up on home defense today, before hordes of godless liberal hordes ruin everything.
A public service announcement especially for my fellow bloggers, Deshanews and Lynnkramer. Don’t forget the tinfoil hats boys!
The wonderful world of wireless technology. About a year ago I picked up a wirless router and PC card. Shortly thereafter I also picked up an aftermarket wireless NIC for my xbox.
The xbox card is handy so that I can cart the thing around to various audio/visual setups around the house, xbox live, and shares from my PC. So that was kind of a fun thing. The real enjoyment however has come via the PC card I just got for my laptop. There is nothing quite like being nice, warm and comfy in your bed AND being able to be able to provide support, check my mail, get on the web. All that good stuff.
If you are really organized, really lazy, or both I highly recommend getting some wireless G action. Although B at 11 Mps is more than double what most cable/DSL networks (3/5 Mbps) offer the G at 54 Mbps provides a signifigant improvement in range. It’s the best tech gadget I bought in a long time. An absolute must for the discriminating geek.
Since I had all the other infrastructure setup I have really missed out on this surfing action from bed. Warning to all: if you have a signifigant other they may complain about bed surfing action. When this happens my suggestion is to get them in the bed surfing action! Then they stop complaining J. If that fails, just give them some regular action. Then they just get sleepy and leave to your surfing fun. Hee Hee.
