A Return to Homesickness

*** I read this over once before posting it and it's really jumpy and hard to read, so I apologize for that in advance.***

Two years ago today I wrote a post on this site about homesickness.  How odd it is that I return to that subject two years to the day?  It's like I've applied a layer of dirt to my brain.  The dirt is me covering up the life I used to have back home.  I've tried so hard to bury it underneath my new life here in Nashville.  Every once in a while I dig into the dirt and find the little spot that used to be my life back home, and I sort of forget everything I've done to cover it up.  I litterally forget where in the world I am sitting for a little while.  I have to snap back into reality and realize that I'm in Nashville, not the U.P.  All it takes is to read a news article, or a few facebook posts.  It's really bad when I go to Google street view and look at all the images from home that you can access.  I lived there for what, 26 years?  It's home.  I didn't really leave the area for more than a week, ever before I moved.  It's the weirdest feeling to snap back to reality once I try to.  I realize where I am, and it was like I was in some sort of trance.  I cover those memories back up with the mental dirt, and carry on with what's real, the present.  I dealt with crushing homesickness for a while after we first moved here, but it got better and better.  When I went home for a few days in February, that helped a lot, seeing everyone and everything again.  But every once in a while, I dig that dirt up, and realize how much I miss the comfort of home.  Even if I went back, it's not the same for me anymore.  I miss being ages 0-26 in Negaunee, not 28-death in Negaunee.  You can't ever go back to that time, but you try to, and recreate things like how it used to be.

I try to remind myself that the past is the past.  Don't dwell on the past and try to enjoy the present, because someday, I'm going to want to go back to this very moment as well.  All you can do is try to have the best time possible in the current, and hope you remember these days with fond memories.  The best ways to do that is to just cherish the moments as they come.  As I grow old, I realize that life moves pretty quickly.  If you don't stop and look around every once in a while, you might miss it.

Sorry to get all downer, but that's what's on my mind.  Back to writing about stupider shit tomorrow! 

Don't Get Bent Out Of Shape About Gas Prices

Let's talk about gas prices, shall we?  I currently need gas.  My gas light is on, or as some people refer to it as the idiot light.  First off, I'm not sure why people call it the idiot light.  Isn't that a bit harsh?  I mean, sometimes you get low on gas and the light comes on.  You're not an idiot, you are just a person who uses a car which uses gas which eventually runs out.  Anyway, gas prices tend to make people irritated because they go up, and that means more money out of your pocket.  But how much does that little fulucuation in gas prices really affect you? Sure there's a big difference between say, $1.29 a gallon against, say, $4.50 a gallon, but 30 cents?  Let's do some simple math here to figure out why you don't need to wait in line at the gas station for the cheapest price in town.

First off, most gas prices in your area will be close to the same, if not exactly the same.  Gas stations need to keep the prices close to the other places that sell gas to stay competitive.  30 cents is a pretty big flucuation in price for one area, but I did see it last week.  One station near my house had it the entire 30 cents cheaper than a station in a different part of town.  But how much does that really effect the damage to your wallet?  Let's say you have a 15 gallon tank in you vehicle.  That's about average (smaller cars may be more like 12 gallons, bigger cars more like 16.  SUV's will be 20 gallons or more.)  Filling the empty tank at, say $3.47 a gallon rate will cost you $52.05.  On the other side of town their selling gas for $3.77.  That will cost you $56.55 for a difference of $4.50.  Now, that's a pretty big difference in terms of gas price, but $4.50?  That's a gallon of organic milk.  That's a sandwich at a lunch spot.  It's nothing to get bent out of shape about, but it's also something you would like to avoid if you can. You could totally save $4.50 just by knowing where to buy your gas.  But what if the place selling gas at $3.47 is so busy you will have to wait 15 minutes just to fill up? I would imagine that somewhere nearby, has gas for a similar price.  Like I said, gas stations in proximity of each other need to keep prices competitive so I would bet somewhere nearby has gas for a similar price.  That 15 gallon tank filled up at $3.50 at the Exxon down the street will cost you $52.50.  That's a difference of FORTY FIVE CENTS.  You can't buy anything worth while for 45 cents.  I imagine that there will be no wait at the place with the $3.50 gas either.

So unless the gas prices on one side of town is 30 cents more, just get gas wherever you are, because it really isnt' that big of a difference.  15 gallons at $1.29 a gallon is $19.35, at $4.50 a gallon it's $67.50, so that's something to bitch about, my friends.  I cite these numbers because these are the cheapest and most expensive I've seen gas prices in my driving lifetime, which is just over 10 years of driving.  But if you want to go out of your way and wait in line forever just to save 45 cents, you are frugal, but you are also stupid.  Just think about it next time your getting gas.  

Doom for Google+?

I hate to be this way, but Google+ isn't gonna work out.  I like it, I'll continue to use it as long as my friends do to, but it's not going to work like they said it would.

Facebook has it down, where you are friends with everyone you've ever met.  Myspace was sort of that way too, where you had over one-hundred friends, most likely.  When I signed up for Twitter iin 2009, when it was starting to blow up, I figured that was where everyone was going to gravitate towards next.  But it never happened.  There was a select few that did, a certain circle of friends not afraid to try out the new social networking service that limited your posts to only 140 characters.  What I noticed is that after about six months, the new sign-ups of my extended circle of friends came to a sudden halt, and even some of the people that were my earliest friends just suddenly stopped tweeting.  There has been about 3 people that I know personally that have signed up for Twitter since that initial six month signup frenzy.

Then came along Google+.  It's supposed to challenge Facebook for users, but I'm sensing a trend here.  A Trending Topic, if you will.  The same 15 or 20 people that signed up for Twitter in that initial flurry are the same 15 or 20 or so people that are on Google+ with me.  I think most people are comfortable with what they know, and what they know is Facebook.  I really thought that since Google has all kinds of cool things you can do that their developers have come up with that people would like to have all their stuff wrapped up into one neat package.  What they want is their Gmail and Facebook open at the same time in different tabs.  Google+ probably won't fail miserably into a ball of fire, but it's going to be more like Twitter, where you have a select few friends that signed up for it, and no one new signing up for it for a long, long time.

But the thing is, I don't think we want to be friends with everyone we ever met again.  I hate to say it, but Google+ is doomed to fail, at least in it's goal of taking down Facebook as the king of social media.  I hope I'm wrong, in a way, I have no problem with Facebook, I just want something fresh.  Google+ is pretty cool.  But it's not going to win.  

You Don't Need To Understand.

Planking is like Apple Jacks cereal.  Apple Jacks don't taste like apples, but the kids don't care, they just like it anyway and the people that don't get it try to figure out why the people that do like it, like it.  It makes me feel equally smug and stupid to know that "planking" is nothing new, it's just new to the general public.  Some people get it, some people don't.  What's to get?  Nothing.  There is nothing to get from planking. Yet some people will try to figure it out, and when they don't get it, they will feel left out, and then say it's stupid. Yes, planking is fucking stupid.  That's sort of the point, I believe.

I first heard of "planking" (this is where I feel smug) back in 2009, before it was cool, before everyone was doing it.  Only when I heard of it, it was just called the "laying down game."  From what I understood, you lay down face down in what would appear to be an uncomfortable position, or perhaps even a very unusual place to be laying face down,  and then have someone take a picture of you doing it.  That's it.  Why?  Why not?  So when people are still doing it two years later, now it's "the stupidest thing ever," because you tried to figure out why these people, perhaps even friends of yours, are laying face down in pictures.  There is no fucking reason.  If someone gives you a reason, they're bullshitting you.

I knew that this would happen, maybe not with "planking" but in general.  This is how it works, okay?  The internet comes up with something stupid that makes a few people laugh, then it makes other people laugh because the original people that laughed at it shared the lulz with their friends.  Eventually the idea gets shared around enough that it makes it into the general population, every day life, and someone will not understand what makes it so funny to everyone.  Most people won't get it.  They just don't get stuff.  Is planking stupid?  You bet.  Is it funny?  Absolutely.  I think the people that rally against planking are just as stupid as the people doing it but the only difference is that the people doing it are doing it to make someone (even if it's themselves) laugh.  The person that hates it does so because he or she doesn't get it.    They say "but it's stupid!"  Yes, that is the point.  It's fucking stupid and weird and unusual to see someone laying inside of a jet propeller.  End of story.  End of blog post, too. 

Growin' It Out

This is what I used to look like

Now that I have officially changed my permanent shift to midnights, I will very rarely, if ever, see my supervisor anymore.  I will maybe see my account manager once a month, perhaps less than that even.  It depends on if he drops in on me to see how I'm doing.  He does that every time and again, so I have to be prepared to look busy if he drops by.  He's done it before. Well anyway, the only reason I was keeping my hair at the short length it's at was due to the job's policy on such things.  Well, if I have no boss to tell me to cut my hair, so perhaps I'll bend the policy a bit, no?  I think so.  I like me better with longer hair.  I think it covers up for some of my other serious aesthetic flaws I believe we all feel about ourselves.  Maybe it doesn't?  But it makes me more comfortable in my own skin, so it's what I choose to pursue, damn it.

Another thing I noticed about being on Midnights, I try to write interesting posts, and just fail miserably.  I can't think straight at three in the fucking morning.  It's the weirdest feeling, man.  I have even less focus than I usually do, and I didn't think that was possible.  So if some of those (these) weekend posts seem a bit jumbled, that's why.  Thanks for sticking around.  I'll try to come up with something more interesting.  

Do The Doors Suck?

Alright so I got a rise out of one of my more loyal readers the other day when I said that the Doors suck.  No, I said the Doors "fucking suck."  Well, this is a matter of taste, I suppose, but I decided to figure out exactly what it was that has made me feel this way for my entire adult life and some of my adolescent life as well.


First off, that fucking organ.  Knock that shit off, man.  So irritating.  It literally has ruined every single song I have ever tried to listen to by the Doors.  Secondly, Jim Morrison just comes across as a hack who wrote a bunch of stuff while fucked up beyond recognition on what ever was the drug de jour.  When you're in high school, you try to find something that has meaning, something that has substance in a musical world full of fake bullshit.  Kids gravitate towards stuff that was written long ago and has a lot of safe, well-documented positive popular opinion.  So you either listen to the Doors, Led Zeppelin, or the Beatles. All three acts are innovators in their own rights.  High school kids latch on to one or two or three of these bands and wear their Jim Morrison shirts to school because it makes them look cool because, well, drugs are cool.  You get beat up wearing a Justin Bieber shirt.  You probably don't get beat up wearing a Jim Morrison shit. The dude was a fuck up.  By the way, I am writing this listening to the Doors, and I must say this organ is so unbelievably goddamn distracting...

The thing that most people may be unaware of is that he didn't write many of the Doors hit songs.  Many people would be surprised to find out that many of their favorite Doors songs were written by Robbie Krieger.  In fact, Krieger wrote Light My Fire, which was their only #1 hit.  You can't give all the credit for the great song writing of the Doors without mentioning Robbie Krieger.  But that just doesn't happen.  Morrison gets the album cover, Morrison gets his face on the t-shirt.

If you were able to take inspiration from the poetry of Jim Morrison, I'm very proud of ya.  Just know that when he wrote it, he probably had no clue what he was saying, due to the quantity and quality of drugs and alcohol in his system.  I know a lot of great stuff was written by people who were fucked up on drugs, but just for the sake of argument here, this dude was exceptional in the fact that it wasn't good.  Know what I mean?


Perhaps if Jim Morrison had lived he could have dispelled the bad poet bullshit he is saddled with to this day, like say "wasn't I a tool bag back then?"  But he died, and he is forever remembered for that.  He died and is a legend, a martyr for rock and roll, and is forever put on the same pedestal as Joplin, Hendrix and Cobain for the same reasons.  The music of the Doors isn't terrible.  It's not.  But it's the goddamned organ, and if you get away from the hits, it's just boring and doesn't really do anything.  Songs like Hello, I Love You are great.  Riders of the Storm can suck my balls.  Break on Through can suck my balls.  Light My Fire would be alright if they turned down that GODDAMNED organ.  


To answer the question posed in the title of this blog post, do the Doors suck?  My answer is...not entirely.  There is a lot of stuff out there that truly does suck (soulja boy) and I would choose the Doors over those shitty artists in a heartbeat.  I respect the swagger of Jim Morrison, all the while wishing people didn't worship the ground he walked on just because he wrote things that made people feel cooler for having tried to interpret and then died before he could do anything uncool.  Maybe I'm just missing something here, but every time I've listened to the Doors, I want to stab my ears out with a number two pencil.  Sorry, that's just the way I feel.  I shouldn't have to apologize, but I'm sure you could tear apart my favorite bands a lot easier than I can do to the Doors but I don't want you to go there.  I know I am in the minority on this subject, but I know I'm not alone in feeling this way either.  But I'm leaving this topic right here at this moment.  I will accept responses but I might not reply.


Have a good day.  

Spotify is Here

Well, Spotify is here in the good ol' USofA and this is a good thing for music listeners.  I think it's good for artists too, because they get paid for me listening, or so I'm told.  My biggest thought upon signing up and getting into Spotify is how is this all that revolutionary?  I guess it's revolutionary because it's a way to listen to a shit-ton of songs for free.  You can currenly do that on Grooveshark, my former choice of music streaming on the internet.  The only problem I have with Grooveshark is that it's all disorganized and I can't stand that.  Finding complete albums is a real challenge.  Spotify has all the songs and information available right there.  There's even a "related artists" thing that helps you remember the bands you have been meaning to listen to but haven't gotten around to it.  There is a paid version as well that allows you to avoid listening to the little ads they throw in there, which are not that annoying at this point to warrent me to be tempted to pay for this service.  The only reason I would pay for this is that's the only way to get the music to stream to my iPhone.  Do I really need that at this point for $10 a month?  No, I don't.  This is another reason I questioned it's revolutionaryness, because you could already do that with Rhapsody anyway.  Rhapsody doesn't have a free, ad-supported version, as far as I know, so that's the difference.

I'll be listening to Spotify because I can listen and feel good knowing the artist is getting paid.  That's important to me.  

The 27 Club Sadly Gets a New Member

First off, I figured out how to make a "Favicon!"  So if you have my blog saved in your bookmarks, instead of having the regular old boring blogger logo, you can now see my specialized, custom, slapdash logo I created in about 48 seconds, and is based off the clever use of the letter B.  Exciting times here at Bloggerated!

Let's talk current events, yeah?  Amy Winehouse, the exceptionally talented singer has died at the age of 27.  Personal feelings aside on how she lived her life are besides the point.  The point here is that another person has died.  She died at the remarkable age of 27, which has significance in the famous person/death arena.  As you most likely heard, this is significant because there are several other famous people that have died at the age of 27.  They've dubbed the 27 Club, and Ms. Winehouse is now a permanent member.

Members of Club 27 include:

Brian Jones who was a founder and guitarist/instrumentalist for the Rolling Stones.  He was famously listed as having his death ruled "Death by Misadventure" after drowning in a swimming pool.  

Janis Joplin, who died from a "probable heroin overdose." I think Joplin was overrated, but you know, she is legend now because we're all left to wonder what else she could have done had she not died.

Jimi Hendrix, who died from sleeping pills and wine combo, like so many other people have accidentally done in the past.  I always wonder what it would have been like to have Hendrix still around.  In case you didn't know, Hendrix and Carlos Santana were very similar for the era, and I would hate to see Hendrix go on to score a huge hit on a duet with fucking Rob Thomas from Matchbox Twenty, you know what I mean?  Hendrix is a legend because of the relatively short period of time he was actually around as a popular musician.  There's an entire blog post here about Jimi Hendrix, I imagine...Perhaps next year.

Jim Morrison, who fronted the Doors, who sucked.  Yes I said it.

Kurt Cobain, lead singer of Nirvana, committed suicide with a shotgun after doing heroin, or so they say.

And now, Amy Winehouse died in her London "flat" (or apartment as we Yanks call it) on Saturday July 23rd, 2011.  Everyone pretty much said the same thing, that while it's tragic she died, we all saw this coming.  I would be a liar if I said I wasn't shocked when I heard it.  Wait, that sentence has too many negatives...I was surprised to hear the news.  But when you stop to think about it, yeah, I'm not that surprised.  Her problems with drugs and alcohol were well documented by the tabloids.  It's still sad.  She was a very talented singer, and it's sad whenever anyone dies young, famous or not.  Hell it's sad when old people die, too.  Either way, go listen to some of her music and get back to me.  So rest in peace, Amy.  And congratulations on forever being mentioned in the same breath as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain.  That's good company, my friends.  

The Middle of the Night

Well, the massive change to my life and more specifically my working life has come.  Right now, as I type this, I'm working.  Yes, my job is very easy.  I admit it.  I don't really have to do a lot, especially on the weekends, and now, on a midnight shift on the weekend.   My new life consists of me working two 16 hour shifts on the weekend.  Right now as I type this it's 2:41 a.m. CDT.  I'm not really used to being awake at this hour, as I haven't done this in a long, long time.  I used to work mids all the time, but not since I left the Casino in 2009.  So I'm a little worried that I have another 11+ hours to go and I'm starting to get dizzy.  This is going to suck.

So yeah, I'm pretty damn tired, and I hope to get used to this, but right now, I don't know how well this is going to work out.  Coffee is irrelevant at this current point.  Pray for me.  I'm going down.

I can't think of what else to say right now.  

Whatever the Weather Be

Everyone likes to complain about the weather.  You can't control it, so why bother complaining about it?  I talked before about people talking about the weather and how it's a conversation everyone can have because everyone experiences weather.  But when you complain it's too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter, you're missing a great opportunity to enjoy the season you are currently experiencing instead of wishing it was just perfect for you taste.  Sure there are days that are perfect, and you want it like that more often, but sometimes, you just have to enjoy what you are handed.  If it's too hot, go out and just get sweaty.  If it's too cold, bundle up and get some chills.  

On super hot days, I don't want to go outside anymore because I feel like it's too hot for my little girl.  So I just stay inside and watch Netflix.  Actually, it really doesn't matter what the weather is anymore, all I do is sit inside and watch Netflix anyway.  Ah, the life of a father of a new born.  

Anyway, I urge you to enjoy the weather, whatever it is.  Just know that complaining about it will do no good except be something you can talk about with people when you have nothing else to talk about, which is apparently very frequent.  

The weather is also something you can blog about when you have nothing to blog about.  hehe.  

The Rental Problem

I've talked in the very recent past about the lack of places to easily and affordably rent a video game in this town, and well, just about everywhere else as well.  I thought for about 12 minutes this morning that I had heard the solution, which it very well may be in certain circumstances, I guess.

Without going into detail, just know that here where I work, we have Wii games that we sign out to people when requested.  Anyway, someone came to me and asked if he could get the game that was rented from a Redbox so he could return it.

...eh?

Yes, apparently you can rent video games from Redbox.  I was thrilled!  This is great news!  It totally solves my quandary of where to rent video games from.  I have never used a Redbox for movies before, but I considered it.  Rent video games from them?  I might just have to try that out.

But then I looked up the details.  It's $2 a day.  But is one day enough time to fully enjoy a video game?  Very rarely.  If you only spend one day on a video game, it must not be very good.  No you need a lot of time with a good game. Days at least.  So at $2 a day, if you keep it for five days it'll cost you $10?  Gamefly offers $10 a month, and you can keep that game out for that entire month.  Yet I don't even really want to spend money on that plan. I guess if it's like, a sports game where the demo sucks and you want to play more than one period of hockey or 6 innings of a baseball game using only the Twins and the Yankees.  Then this is a good idea.  But let's say you rent, like, Halo or something?  You're gonna need more time than one day.  If you're like me, you're going to need more than five days.

Maybe I'm just not that committed to gaming, since it's too fucking expensive and I have a hard time finding the time to play anyway.  I thought I had the answer with Redbox, since they rent you movies for a dollar a day, but after thinking about it, it's shitty.   I can see it getting mighty expensive in a hurry.  Forget it.  I'll just play the couple games I got, I guess.

What Does Your Favorite Color Say About You?

I believe a persons favorite color says a lot about who that person is, what they tend to think about, and what kind of person they view themselves in the fabric of society.

For instance, as you may notice by visiting this blog that my favorite color is orange.  I don't know why, but I like orange.  If there is an orange option for stuff, I choose the orange.  And I'm only talking about real colors here, like the main six.  None of these made-up colors Crayola came up with, like Razzmatazz or whatever.  Also, United Nations Blue is an actual color.  I'm talking about Blue, Yellow, Red, Green, Orange and Purple.  Okay, pink, too.  No one's favorite color is black or white, so those are out, too.  Also, technically black isn't a color, it's a shade...Oh I'm not getting into it, goddamnit.

My favorite color is orange, as I stated above.  I believe people like me choose to like orange because it's different.  It's the underdog of favorite colors.  No one picks orange unless you want to pick the unique color. That's me.  I love the underdog.  I will watch a Pirates v Nationals game before watching any Yankees v Red Sox game.  That sort of thing.  I believe everyone who likes orange falls into this category, just like me.

What about Red?  Red is often associated with anger and charging bulls.  Red is nice, it was probably my favorite color when I was 8, if I remember correctly.  But I believe that people that like red are the sort of mainstay types, people who wouldn't ever change the color they prefer, but also know that what they like is bold.  In a world of black and white and tan and beige and silver cars, the red car is still very popular color.  It just pops out against the other cars around it.  It's bold, but not too bold.  Red is sort of sexy, in that red dress sort of way.  Red is blood, so there's the violence aspect in there.  It's beautiful and powerful.

What if you like Yellow?  I think that sort of falls into the same category of orange.  Not many people say that yellow is their favorite color, but I'm sure there are a few out there.  It's an underdog color as well, but it's a bit more mainstream due to it being a primary color.  Every time I think of yellow, I just think of how it doesn't show up well against white because they're both so light shaded.  No one used yellow to color with as kids because you couldn't see it on the white paper.  Yellow is the left out, yet very important piece of the color spectrum, just like the people who's favorite is yellow.

Blue is everyone favorite color.  If you like blue, you drive a Toyota, eat boneless skinless chicken breast for dinner and go to bed early.  You drink Folgers.  You're favorite band is whatever is on the radio.  You're favorite movie is Pirates of the Caribbean.     You fucking _love_ time clocks.

Green is for envy, or so they say.  M&M's have made a decent marketing campaign around the green ones being like an afrodisiac.  Green is everywhere, and you don't every really notice how often it is used.  It's also been used as a verb to say something doesn't cause pollutants.  It's a quick way to say "environmentally friendly."  If you like green, you like love and stuff.  Green is for the people who would normally like yellow if you could have painted with it on white paper. You couldn't, so you used green instead.

Purple is for girls.  I don't know.  Grape Kook-Aid. Um, yeah I don't know what to say about purple.  Nothing rhymes with it.  I don't know, purple looks cool with other colors, so maybe if you like purple, you like the company of others?  Let's go with that.

Pink is for girls and douchey guys who think it's manly to wear pink, like it's fucking 2006 over here.  We got it back then, dude.  Pink is stylish and hip and new and fresh.  Now it's played out.  If you wear a pink shirt, you're obviously just saying to everyone "Look, I can wear pink!  I know it's not totally stupid looking on me because I don't care if pink is associated with girls.  I can rock a pink shirt."  No dude, you can't.  You are an obvious toolbag.  Take off that stupid shirt.  You are a douche.  Believe me, I'm not one to use a color as a  gender stereotype, but when a dude wears a pink shirt, he's making a statement.  I could wear a pink shirt because I know I like to have sex with girls, therefore I know I'm not a cross dresser wearing a pink shirt.  I could do that, but I don't have to.  Why bother making that statement.  You look like an idiot who was dressed by your girlfriend.  I could wear that, but I won't.  Never did.  You are not stylish, you are a douchebag.


So that's it, right?  Is it over?

Bloggerated.com?

So here's what I'm wrestling with right now.  I don't really like the fact that my blogs domain name is my real name.  Granted, I also have nothing to hide, but it's just sort of unremarkable.  I go back to this subject every so often, the question of weather I want to market myself or not.  Who the hell am I?

I want my blog to show up when people search for subject that I have written about.  I also want more readers. But I can't control that.  My only hope is that it would spread to the people I know and love and then out beyond that, to people I don't know.

Anyway, Bloggerated.com is available, but if I actually plop down the ten bucks to have it, that really puts the pressure on me to actually update this more often.  What should I do?

I'm leaning towards doing it, even though I know it does not matter what the actual domain name is.  I just think it'd be neat to have my own domain name.  Is it worth $10 to feel neat?  Maybe?  So, I'm mulling it.  Who knows.  I'll probably do it in the next few weeks, I suppose.  I enjoy doing this, so why not make a little bit "more professional?"

Bad Ass Dude

Replace knife with a road sign

If you don't know, I have a very, very short drive to get to work.  The other day, during that short drive, I saw something awesome.

I was stopped at the stoplight, the only stoplight I have to hit, when I saw this truck pull up across the intersection from me.  It was an all-white truck, with some sort of seal on the side and a bunch of tools sticking out of a truck-tool-holder thingy in the back.  I assume this truck and the worker inside of it worked for the city, or the county, or the state or whatever.  Anyway, the dude pulls over on the side of the road, just past the intersection and immediately jumps out and crosses the street.  The dude had a sleeveless shirt on, jeans and a bandanna wrapped around his head Rambo-style.  He walked over to the road sign, which was one of these, and began yanking on it.  Not "yanking"  himself on it, but yanking on the sign. The sign was crooked, so this guy was straightening it out, I guess.  I suppose that was his job for the day, go out and straighten road signs to make the city a nicer place to be.

It was awesome because of his attire.  It was hot out that day, so these clothes were a necessity, I suppose.  He needs to stay cool, while also looking cool straightening road signs.  It was just the way he parked it, jumped out with his headband/bandanna, strutted over and straightened that bitch into place.  He was well aware of all the traffic around, so he had to know he was being watched by the people stuck at the red lights. He had to look like he was tough, like he could bend that fucker in half if he really needed to, if that's what the job entailed.  He did straighten the sign out, filled in the hole that was left behind with his badass boot or shoe, strutted back across the road and carried on to the next crooked, Nashville road sign.  Boom.  Done.  Take that, crooked road sign.  Eat it.

Posts About Babies: Babality

Sub-Zero Wins

Call her what you want, weather it's Beauty, Cutie, Cutie with a booty, Chicken, Monkey, Little one, or The Littlest One, she's my daughter, and I love her dearly.

I realized that I had hardly even mentioned my beauty of a daughter in a blog post in months.  Um, why?  She's the most important thing to me ever.  She is my life!  She is so wonderful.  Maybe I'm afraid it'll just turn into a gushfest, like it's currently doing?  Yes.  She is wonderful, but every parent says that about their child.  Duh, dude.  Of coarse I feel that way.  She's my frickin' offspring.  I created life!  She is it!  Wow!

So about all that miracle talk, it's true.  It's unbelievable.  How did I do that?  Well, I know how I physically did it, but you know, little old me, creating life.  What?

You hear all these things come out of mouths of parents all the time and they mean absolutely nothing until you are a parent yourself.  I tried to imagine, and I could honestly understand where the person was coming from when they would say it, but you don't know what that actually feels like until you experience it for yourself.

I'm not going to make this any longer than this.  Just know that I'm a happy father.  She is outstanding!  She is Superb.  She is everything else Sho Khan says during a fight in Mortal Kombat.

Babality.  

Casey Anthony: Why Do We Give a Fuck?

While I don't have all the facts, I know enough to say that this Casey Anthony trial is a huge waste of public attention.  Why the hell do we care?  Let me say this before I go on to much of a tirade here, this story is, in fact, a tragedy.  Someone, a child, lost their life.  That's what's important here.  It's also important to find the person who did it, put them on trial, find them guilty, and throw them in jail for a long, long time.  Weather you believe Casey Anthony killed her daughter or not is absolutely irrelevant.  Again, it's a tragedy, and not to get all desensitized here, but this sort of thing happens all the time.  Doesn't make it right, but it also means this particular case is not special.  The main reason it is getting the attention it's getting is the strange twists and turns that happened during all the investigations done by 24/7 news outlets with nothing better to do than find a story and blow it out of the water.  Yes, this whole thing is an escape to your shitty life, a distraction to having to eat another frozen turkey dinner for lunch at your job.  That's what entertainment is meant to do.  The news isn't really supposed to be entertaining, but entertainment makes money.  I am not saying anything new by saying that national news outlets are "infotainment," meant to entertain with news stories, but it's true.  The news, when presented as just the facts, is boring.  Interesting content creates viewers which creates advertising revenue, which creates dollars in pockets of people in charge.

As I said, people like to be entertained and taken away from their shitty lives.  Casey Anthony probably killed her kid.  Sad.  Now we all get to watch as things unfold, twists and turns, just like a movie or a TV show.  Outstanding.  There is no fucking reason for you to drop your regularly scheduled programming on CBS at 1:15 in the afternoon to show the verdict being read.  You can do that for O.J.  You could do that for someone who is actually famous.  You don't do that for Casey Anthony, who has no reason to be paid attention to.  She is only famous because there was a slow news day back in 2008, where the producers of the 24/7 news outlets had nothing else to talk about, so they picked up this child missing, and eventually child murder story to fill air time.  Not saying that the public shouldn't be told about these types of events, but this happens a lot, like, more than you probably even realize.  And they just picked this one.  And we all have to hear about it during the slow news periods like early July.  The only reason I care is because it's sad.  I don't care what happens to Casey Anthony.  I don't really like the fact that I am aware who she is.  It's a culture that is so full of itself and it's greed, it makes us all worse off.  A lot of people got rich off this, I promise you.

It's all bullshit.  Throw away your television.  

The Digital Life

It seems like human nature to want to choose sides.  Good versus Evil.  Axis or Allies.  Chocolate or vanilla.  Transformers or Go Bots.  Superman or Batman or Spiderman or Aquaman...you get the idea.  The world wide web is no different.  There are conflicting companies who are competing for our hard earned dollars everyday, and I'm talking about the big boys here.  Google, Facebook and Apple.  These are the biggest, most involved companies I can think of.  These companies effect my life hourly.  The fact that they are all rivals makes one want to choose a side, but sometimes you need to use, and enjoy using, all three.

Yes, this is ridiculous that we are all tied to these major, major ass-fucking companies who will try to bend you over for each and every dollar you earn, just like every other company that has existed ever.  Well, at least the successful ones will do this. That's why they're successful.  They make money.  They make you spend your money on their product.  They make you want it as well as sometimes need it.  A company's dream is for you to absolutely need the product they provide, because you can't live without it.  See: Drug companies.  Tech companies have spent years developing ways to intergrate themselves into ours lives so that we must have them to do the things they have made us want to do.  Pretty damn clever if you ask me.  Google I would say has done the best job of this, because if you do anything neat-o on the web, chances are it is through Google.

Facebook made it possible to connect with every person you ever had contact with.  Ever.  If I have a conversation with someone on the street and I catch their name, I could probably find them on Facebook and continute the conversation.  They can be my friend forever if I so choose to have them.  It's something that has become almost a necessity.  I can share all the precious moments of my little two-month old daughter with all my family all across the country with the power of Facebook.  I have to have a Facebook.  I could share these things another way, but Facebook just makes it easier.

Apple has made the telephone so much more than a telephone.  They have made the telephone into your handheld computer.  Your connection to everything on the web when you're away from your computer.  You don't have to be tied down to connect with everyone you've ever met, ever.  You can do it while taking a dump at Target.  You can do it on your road trip to Phoenix, while stopped somewhere in Utah.  You can play games whenever, wherever (so long as it's a safe place, like not driving your car, or whatever.)  You get the idea.  Apple revolutionized the way we connect with friends and family.  I can hold my iPhone in my hand and find something to do with it for hours and hours and hours on end.  I say Apple did this because they did it first and they did it best.  They are the industry leader in this aspect.  Google followed suit with Android, but it's a pretender.  Apple is responsible for this revolution, no matter how you slice it.

The point of all this, which I'm sure you're aware of all the facts I pointed out above, is that these are all rivals.  These companies are all vying for your dollar.  They need to come up with innovative ways to improve upon what their rivals come out with.  They need to one-up each other.  Sometimes it works (Mobile photo sharing via Facebook, Google's Blogger and other various add-ons and innovations, iTunes) and sometimes it doesn't (Google Buzz, Facebook chat, um...Apple has never failed, apparently. I can't think of one.)  Apple has the music market cornered with iTunes.  Facebook, I hear, is going to unveil their music division or service or whatever in the near future.  Google will release (or has released, not sure if it's out or not yet) an cloud based music service, like Amazon already has.  (DID I FORGET TO ADD AMAZON TO THE WEB GIANTS?  YEP.)

Anyway, you get the idea.  It all comes back to the consumers choice of which side they prefer.  Some want no part of it, and choose to live in the woods like Bob Balbierz.  Everyone else has their lives touched at least a little by these companies.  But I don't want to choose.  I have an iPhone, use iTunes regularly, yet strictly use Google for web surfing, blogging, emailing, translating, web reading, calendering, and using the internet in general by using Google Chrome.  I am 90% a google guy, except for their phone software.  That's where Apple is #1 for reasons I described above.  Now, Apple doesn't offer ANY of the things Google does, so that's probably why I don't use them for all of this.  If they rolled it any of it, would I use it? Probably not.  Google does a great job and it's what I'm used to.  And I'm not a Mac guy as far as the actual computer.  I have used PC's my entire life and I like them!  Yet I cannot, neigh WILL NOT use any other phone than the iPhone.  I refuse to downgrade.

And then there's Facebook.  I only use Facebook at this point because I feel I have to.  Everyone is on there and I love everyone.  My hope is that Facebook will go the way of the Myspace soon enough.  And that's the hopes of Google when they unveiled their newest thingermabob the other day, Google+.  Apparently Google+ is so badass, some industry experts expect it to do just that, put Facebook in a headlock.  I'm not so sure.  It took this long for mom, auntie Sue, Cousin Larry with one eye and your 11th grade english teacher to get on Facebook, what makes you think they're suddenly going to say, "hey, lets change everything I just got comfortable with."  Ask Twitter how well that's going.  (600 million v.s. 200 million, which is closer than I thought it would be, according to the latest data I found, which was in December of last year.)  No, it's not going to happen overnight, but I think this Google+ thing, if it's really done correctly like the experts are saying it is, will make an impact.  Only time will tell, and in the tech world, that time could be very very short.  So I'll see you on Google+ as soon as we're all able to get on it.  As for whose side I'm on?  Leaning Google, just so you know.  It's so slick!