Fuck, Shit, Piss. (offended?)

This is the first time in a while that a newspaper article has instantly inspired me. This is a good thing.

There is an article on the front page of today's Tennessean, where they talk about tossing out the FCC's near-zero-tolerance policy on broadcasting expletives. Now, while you don't have to swear when you speak, in fact some say it makes you sound less educated, but in my opinion, there is nothing funnier than a well timed swear word. No one was better at this art than Mr. Gould back home. A very close runner-up is these guys. It got me thinking though. We've all been taught from a very young age that we shouldn't say certain words because they are bad. We all accepted that and didn't say those words until we all got older and felt rebellious enough to let our inner sailor out into the world. Even to this day as an adult, I try to censor myself around my mother. Swear words, don't say 'em.

But why though? It's just weird. You can get away with saying "crap" all you want, but make it "shit" and you are in big trouble mister. "Dang" as apposed to "Damn" as well. Now, I know there is a religious reasons for Damn to be a swear word, and that's fine. But shit, fuck, piss, ass, bitch and cock-satchel are all no-no words. You can say "frick" and it's okay. You can say pee, and that's alright. It means the same thing, and even sounds close to the same thing, yet when you put those specific letters in order and write them down or speak them, you can get fined. How is this possible? It is literally just a word. No one knows why they are forbidden words, but we all know that they just are. Well, actually I'm sure someone knows, and I have been reading a bit about the origins of swear words here, but the general public doesn't know. I know that fuck can defiantly refer to having sex, or "fucking," and we sure don't want the youth of america to know what that is. Then they might do it, and that's wrong. Shit, well that's gross. You take a shit, and it's smelly, and you do it in private. No one likes to have their private stuff talked about. But it's really funny when someone uses it to describe how they feel about a statue.

"You like that statue?"

"naw, it's shitty."

"lol"

Swear words just make phrases have more power. You know someone is serious, because they make it perfectly fucking clear their opinion on the matter. (see what I did there?) Example:

"I love summer because I can lay by the pool for hours and relax."

"I fucking love summer because I can lay by the pool for hours and fucking relax."

The second example shows how much passion the person feels about summer, and how much it seems he or she needs the relaxation.

I get the fact that we were raised to not say those words, and to not accept those words in society. I get it. But the fact that the average person on the street (i.e. me) can't explain why we don't say those words is odd to me. It's ingrained into our society at this point, and that's not changing soon. I'm not rallying for the proliferation of the use of the word shit on NBC prime time television, it just struck me as odd, and the fact that it just now struck me as odd, at age 27, is also odd.

Weird world, this is.

Have Adventure

Firstly, I would like to thank the readers for participating in this latest reader poll. It was a huge success, and I have you to thank. The question asked is, "Who was you're favorite Beatle." The winner of the poll was Sir Paul McCartney, and rightfully so. My personal experiences in listening to the Beatles is that the good songs were written by McCartney. By good, I mean the ones that are the best. Not to say that the other members didn't do amazing things, but I prefer Paul's songs. So yeah, cool. Thanks for that.

What brings me to Blogger today is the Newspaper. I like to regurgitate news stories for you, but I like to put my brain to work here.

There was a story a few days ago...we'll say it was this past Friday or Saturday, where a young 16-year-old girl was attempting to sail around the world solo. She was unsuccessful because her boat got wrecked by a huge wave, and she was stranded in the Indian Ocean for a while there. She came out of it alright, but there were questions leveed against her parents, questioning their decision to let her sail around the world at such a young age. I loved the fathers response to the critics, basically saying that she is as capable of completing this task as any other person. She was trained for most of her life on sailing, and she was well equiped with the knowlage to complete this journey. He went on to say that her sailing around the world was just as dangerous as any 16-year-old behind the wheel of a car on the roads, which is very dangerous indeed. He also said that those that felt she shouldn't be doing this had lost their "zeal for life" and that people that hold that opinion are "living in a cotton-wool tunnel to make everything safe." Let me say that I totally agree. What is this life for anyway? Why not have adventure?

This would have been the end of my thoughts on this, which was this past Saturday morning, but another news story came through yesterday, and continued this morning. It's about that guy from Colorado who had made a journey to Pakistan to find and kill Osama Bin Laden. People said he was a crazy person who was getting in the military's way and had no business going over there and doing something so crazy.

Why would you care? Because we're throwing away so many of our tax dollars on a war in Afganastan that has thus far turned up little results as far as what we originally set out to do, which was capture and/or kill the leader of the group that attacked our country, Osama Bin Laden. Why would you oppose a man from our country from going over there, doing what he can by himself to do what we all feel is the right thing to do. I applaud Gary Brooks Faulkner for trying to take the issue into his own hands.

Though he did say he was told by God in a dream that he had to go do it, so maybe he is bat-shit crazy...

The critics say that no none should do this. Why? Why not live you're life how you want, as long as you're not really breaking any laws or anything like that. Go live life. Don't be afraid to take risks. You don't have to play it safe. The best memories from you're life are not the times you played it safe (unless you decided not to go hiking and everyone else that went without you got eaten by a grizzly bear or something. That could be a good memory.) If you want to self-finance a trip to Pakistan to kill the leader of Al-Qaeda, go for it. I mean, don't live recklessly, as to endanger future adventures by cutting you're life short, but just go have adventure. I promise you're life will be more fulfilling. What are we here for? Why not just go see what you can do, doing whatever you feel like. Sometimes playing it safe is the right thing to do, but not you're entire life. The best stories come from the people that have been places and seen things. The ones with life experiences are the best storytellers, and it's something we should all strive for.

Murder! Money! Headlines! (mostly money)

We've undergone some major face-lifting here at Gotta Keep em' Bloggerated! Isn't it AWESOME! I'M ON FIRE! AND NOW I THINK I'M READY TO BUST A MOVE!

Today, I can't help but be bothered by Joran Van Der Sloot. It seems to me like the whole thing is blown out of proportion, considering how many other people are murdered in the world, daily.

Let us briefly go back in time, shall we? To a time, five years ago, when a slow news day brought us the story of a kidnapping in Aruba which was picked up by the major 24-hour news networks. First of all, if the kidnapping had involved young, 17-year-old Sofia Lopez-Rodriguez of Houston, TX, this news story would have never been brought to our national attention. But no, this was the kidnapping of young, beautiful Natalie Holloway, a white, blonde girl from Mississippi. Sad, but true. So the news networks picked up this story and made into a national sensation, like they have a tendency to do. Because Americans love a good mystery, especially a true story, or at least based on a true story, America fell in love with the story. Joran Van Der Sloot was suspected of the kidnapping and/or murder of the young girl, but charges were never brought upon him because of lack of evidence, if I'm not mistaken. American went on with it's life, moving their attention to another story soon enough.

Flash back to the future, back to the present, and Joran has allegedly struck again! GASP! I wonder how much BP paid Joran to kill someone in Peru?

An estimated 520,000 murders were committed globally in the year 2000 alone, according to Wikipedia. To choose one alleged murder in Aruba in 2005 to slather all over the news networks for weeks, and then do it again in 2010, because of the previous incident, seems a little retarded to me. Americans get caught up in the stupidest shit. Not saying that the murders aren't sad, as someone has lost a life here, but Joran Van Der Sloot is just one of many bad, bad people in the world, and it's crazy that our nation, and a portion of the world now, have been caught up in this whole mess. It's news networks looking for ratings, while the public just needs someone else's life to focus on instead of their own, and the people watching have no idea they're just witnessing a ratings grab. The fact that I know this much about this one murder/disappearance is a testament to how much coverage there has been about these two stories. I have deliberately tried to avoid coverage about the stories, yet I'm well informed about a subject and a killer that I need not be.

It's just a payday for the networks, to gain ratings, to sell advertising. If you don't see that, you are blind.

(and I was really talking to myself yesterday about making this blog more slanted towards comedy, then I drop this depressing bomb on y'all. WHOOPSIES!)

Used Words

I sit here, looking at the blank screen, on which I'm supposed to use the keyboard to type things that, as I say on my twitter, are the things I think about. No one wants to read about how I am having a hard time thinking of topics to entertain myself and the reader. I don't want to just throw down words of which I don't know enough about the subject, as I did with the water conservation topic I covered last week, but I am also too lazy to research anything to inform the people. So I think I'll just bullshit my way through this one...

I had a thought. Sometimes after I read something, especially from a physical source, like a newspaper or a magazine, I feel like the words are now used. And anyone who reads that paper after me will be reading used words. Like if I hand the paper to my usual weekday coworker, and she reads an article, then I read the same article, those are used up words. I can't give her the highlights of the article, because she already read it, so why do I bother? If I don't read a section of a the paper, I feel like those are wasted words. They were printed because they felt you should read that. You should know what they had to say or report on. By not reading the Local and Business section, I am neglecting the writer. This is not true, some people I'm sure only read that section, as that is usually the part that actually pertains to peoples lives in the distribution area, assuming there wasn't some really big news that would place the story on the front page, or main section. Sometimes I decide to read it, but mostly I'm ready to move on to video games or whatever after i finish the main section. When I do read that Local section, though, seems that I usually find a bit of information in that section that I'm really glad I read, or else I would have missed out. I need to do a better job on that section from now on. I don't want those words to go unread. I don't want to hurt their feelings.

But seriously, I always felt like, when in a waiting room somewhere like a doctors office or something, when you read the crumpled weeks old copy of US Weekly or People, that you know those words have been read by a whole bunch of people. It feels like the thrift store of words. You know they were used, because they look used, but you don't really know by how many. The thought scares me a little. You are not the first to discover these words, specifically. They're used, and it's old news.

I wonder if a writer knows how many people will read what they are writing when they write it? I know that there will be...oh, say, 5 people reading this. Tops. I know that I can just write whatever, and I don't mean to get all hostile but, I like that you people are reading this and all, but I don't care if you do or not. I just like to write words, man. I'm going to write it anyway. That's it for me. I like it because I get to put thoughts down onto digital whatevers. If you like it, I appreciate it. You would have never made it this far if you weren't mildly interested, right?

Thank you for using these words. They feel the love.

Panera Cashes In On Your Diet

I read an interesting article in the newspaper again yesterday. This seems to be becoming a common trend here, and that's a good sign for me to not cancel the newspaper subscription. Anyway, the article was about Panera Bread. It talked about how the company will start listing the calorie content of their menu selections. According to the picture that accompanied the article, this public display of calorie content will appear right along the side of the item on the big sandwich board behind the registers, or wherever they put them. I'm meaning to say, you don't even have to open a menu to see the content.

There has been a bit of an uproar in the Nashville area in the last couple months because legislators have been trying to make chain restaurants post their calorie content on their menus so that the tubby Tennesseans can know just how quickly they're killing themselves with their food choices. Couple things about the south I should mention here. 1.) The people down here like to eat. When they eat, they eat a lot. The portion sizes are absolutely unnecessary. We went to an Italian place and the waiter explained to us that the food portions are "southern-style, which means they're enough for two, at least." 2.) They love their chain restaurants. Every time we drive by the Cracker Barrel, the place is packed. Every time. They love their Applebees, Chilis, and Logan's. You dream up unhealthy food in your head, any unhealthy food, and they not only eat it, they eat a shit-ton of it.

So, since everyone knows this, they the city wanted to post the calorie content. I say do it, but you wouldn't believe the uproar it caused. Guilt-tripping people into making better choices is at least getting someone to make a better choice.

Back to what I was talking about at the beginning, Panera is posting their calorie content on their menus. Good idea. But in the article, the Scott Davis, the company's Chief Concept Officer is quoted as saying "So, when you look at making a choice between a soup with 100 calories and a sandwich with 300 or 400 calories, it puts it pretty clearly what's in your best interest."

I'll tell you what's in the best interest of Panera. From what I have come to learn, a bowl of soup at Panera would cost you $3.29 to $4.49. I assume that price is ridiculously high, in the way that they would generate more profit from selling a bowl of soup than a turkey sandwich. So when you look at the menu and see that the soup is cheaper and better for you than the sandwich, you'll chose the soup and the company cashes in.

WELL PLAYED PANERA!!! Make yourself look like you're taking responsibility, when you really want to sell more soup. A double win for a smart company. Now to be honest, I am only assuming the company will make more pennies on the dollar on a bowl of soup than on a sandwich, and I don't have the facts. But just knowing that soup is generally cheaper to produce than a sandwich (it's mostly water, how can that be a higher cost to produce) makes me believe that this is clearly the reason to push the soup.

Please steal my things

Everyone should know by now that I'm about 2 weeks behind what's abuzz usually. Not by choice, but because I usually don't think what was abuzz was of much importance when it was abuzz. No, it usually takes me a week or two to realize what everyone was talking about. Also, I was going to talk about what I'm going to talk about when it was abuzz, but I played video games instead.

Did anyone catch any of that? Let me try to clarify.

A few weeks ago, I read an article in the trusty Tennessean about a website called PleaseRobMe. Basically, it takes the information people have posted on FourSquare, especially the ones that post their FourSquare updates onto their Twitter pages, and shares them with the world. As I talked about yesterday, FourSquare lets everyone know where you are and how often you visit, earing points or whatever, and making you look cool because you go to Panera Bread 9 times a week. Having a website like PleaseRobMe makes sense to me, it's public information at this point. You tell people you're not home, and that might indicate that no one is home. You're basically saying Please Rob Me. PleaseRobMe is a service not to encourage that people actually steal other peoples shit, but to make others, like me, more aware of what they're actually sharing via social networking. This whole thing goes back to what you should and shouldn't post on the internet. I have become self-aware of my web presence in the past few weeks and how it can be hurtful, because as it was pointed out, you can say things digitally, and someone will eventually read it. Feelings can be hurt, jobs can be lost, et cetera et cetera. But the idea of not telling everyone in the world you are not home, I honestly never thought of.

I remember suggesting to my mom that it would be fun to change the answering machine message whenever we went out to the store or wherever, to tell people why exactly we weren't answering the phone. I felt it would be of service to our friends and family to share that information. She told me it would be a bad idea, because someone we don't know could call to scope out our house to rob it, hear the customized message on the machine and know we weren't home. Makes sense to me. So I abandoned my plan to enlighten our callers. That concept never crossed over to me when it came to updating my Twitter or Facebook. If someone was scoping you out, you just told them you are not home. Bam, no more PS3, laptops, big screen, dog, Wii, blah blah blah. In fact, sharing your whereabouts via a social networking tool is tenfold worse than just leaving a up-to-the-minute status update on your answering machine. People have to actually call you to hear you personalized message on the answering machine. They just have to search you on the internet and wait for you to tell them the information.

You think to yourself, "I have Renters/Homeowners Insurance! I'm good." How much you wanna think they're gonna give you when they find out you told your robbers you weren't home, come take my things? Good luck with that.

So in the future, I'm going to be careful of what I say about where I'm going/for how log. I don't want to get robbed.

(a little P.S. here at the end of this...This took me so long to finally write because the Please Rob Me website doesn't really work properly here on the work computer, and I kept forgetting to investigate the inner workings of the site on my free time at home, so I've been putting it off and putting it off until I eventually just decided to write this blog today even without really checking out the website. If you do, let me know if it's cool or whatever. Thanks.)

I don't know what I want.

I titled the blog before I wrote it, because I wasn't sure what was going to come out. I don't know what I want to write about. Today is a Monday, which is usually a day people tend to hate. Not me, at least, not anymore. I have no reason to hate Mondays. I am off on Mondays, so therefore I kinda love Mondays. I guess if anything, I would hate Tuesdays, simply because of work. But i really don't have any reason to hate any day I work because my job is such a cake walk anyway. Just show up, try not to get too bored. It is the ideal gig for me. Like I told Brian on the phone last night, it's exactly what I used to do as a tech, but when I do nothing for an entire 8 hour shift, that's OK. In fact, that's what I'm supposed to do! All I have to do is hope that nothing out of the ordinary happens while there. Thus far, it has been smooth. I really, really hope it stays that way.

So I try to read the Tennessean every morning. This morning I actually accomplished more of that task than usual actually, probably due to the fact that Monday's paper usually is much thinner and less daunting than other days. But today seemed exceptionally thin on news stories. I read the stories on the main page, which continued to the back pages, and when those were finished, i realized that there were no short middle stories withing the other pages. They were all just continuations of front page stories. My favorite part of the paper has become the Opinion section. Don't know why I never fell in love with the opinion section in the Mining Journal, but I just think there are so many people down here that i have conflicting views with that it just makes them funny as hell to read. I realized this morning that I can place any letter to the editor into three different categories. There is the nice person who wants to thank someone for recognizing something they believe in. There's the pissed off republican who actually seems relatively well informed and well intentioned, but comes across as a crazy southerner who won't let his beliefs and way of life be compromised by people he believes are after him, just making him out to be a paranoid sore loser. And then theres the condescending asshole. This term is copywritten by Bethany Perala actually, so props to her for that. The condescending asshole is the guy who is basically saying "well done, asshole." This individual usually is on the borderline of being the pissed off republican, but he's just more fed up with stuff and knows theres no way he can get what he wants if he is a pissed off republican, because he knows how that really looks, as I indicated above. He also seems more in disbelief of what he sees going on around him, as if he was also surprised when his son or daughter all of a sudden grows up and gets a job, moves out, starts a family, and wonders what the hell happened. I wish I could provide examples, but it's not that i tried to find examples and had a hurdle in providing them, it's just that I'm too lazy to seek them out. I don't know if they're available on their website or whatever, but if so, seek them out and read some. I don't get excited about shit for nothing.

I drank Makers Mark last night, as well as some PBR Light. The only person i could have been a drunk asshole to was my wife and I don't know if i came across as that way, but it certainly feels that way this morning. I hate myself when I'm drunk because I don't know how to control myself. This is a problem dating back to the first time I ever even drank. Hate it hate it hate it. Wish I could change it, but don't know how. I got an idea, FUCK IT.

**takes break to check phone for Twitter updates.** **Circa Survive signed to Atlantic**

How come everyone seems to know who Circa Survive is. I have no fucking clue who they are. One thing i do know, is that that italic part was a total accident. I just thought of a great band name!!! Itallica. That's fucking great. This part at the end got useless didn't it?

until tomorrow or something, piece out!!!