Archive for the ‘haha’ Category

looking forward to November

Friday, May 7th, 2010

George W. Bush has a book coming out. I’ll let that sink in.

Now, with his decision-making and demeanor, I bet you’re surprised he could legibly write his name. I am too. But computers are glorious machines and maybe he learned how to pay someone to type.

I suggest you read the excerpt highlighted by The Awl. (I’ve been working through my noted items in my reader and finally got to it.)

First, I have to make note of his being baldist. I get that he should fear or loathe Dick Cheney (everyone should) but even for him this sounds hurtful to the hairless:

But he and the bald man had kept in touch. I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being bald bothered me. My idea of baldness came from the movies. In the movies, the bald were always trying too hard, like they wanted to make up for their lack of hair. My friend Karl was that way. At any rate, a bald man in my house was not something I looked forward to.

That’s cold, Georgie. Cold. (Granted, I have friends who probably meet my presence with trepidation.)

Second, you’ll note from that little bit and the passage (if you read it), he writes like a prepubescent. Cool narrative style, right?

Unfortunately, (if you read the passage; seriously, did you read it?) this story can’t take place more than seventeen years ago, so he’d be forty-six, at the youngest. That cool narrative turns into a depressing look at his capacities.

(Sigh.)

Generally, it’s a poorly written, glossy portrayal you’d hear in an octogenarian blogger’s memoir about his first Christmas memory. If that story included homoerotic architectural sketching with a weak-hearted, grunting uncle full of booze. (Which, I think you’ll agree, would be awesome.)

This is how he decided to run for the Presidency? Is it that easy? Along those lines, this is a story about his decisions and there aren’t any. What’s the point? (That’s rhetorical.)

If this is any indication of the rest of the book (I can’t imagine it wouldn’t be), it saddens me it was even put to print. That Palin, Beck and Bush can sell so many versions of their ignorance is telling of where our nation is heading.

I’m looking forward to November.

Photo courtesy New York Times

get in your car, everyone’s dying!

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010

I watch the local news. I don’t watch the local news closely. The former is because I don’t have cable, the latter because it’s universally terrible.

Exhibit #328: Piles of dead people on the roads.

There’s an epidemic of drivers and their passengers ending up dead around here. (If fourteen people out of millions is an “epidemic.”) The local news is on the case.

Of course, it’s not that drivers would have been better off not being idiots. Instead, the state needs to interfere to make the roads safe (for idiots to risk their lives on).

Monday’s newscast used a lead-in that amounted to: “What are officials doing to keep you safe?” Here’s the write-up about Sunday’s fatal fender-bender out in nowheresville (which they were alluding to).

Briefly, one sixteen-year-old driver was out two and a half hours past curfew with two more people than permitted. The other was driving with a revoked license. And the roads were wet.

Those jerk officials better get on it. It’s entirely their fault.

Local “journalists” could blame the number of cars on the road or how many trucks, fueling our consumptive needs, share it. Hell, we could blame drivers for being idiots.

Instead, carmakers make cars easier for idiots to drive. They give the illusion of safety and fill their cabins with audio and visual distraction.

Brilliant.

We don’t hold idiots accountable; we provide them tools to increase their idiocy. Local officials did all they could to keep these idiots alive.

Thanks, local news, for really hitting the issue where it counts.

One caveat. This is only one example. I’m sure the other accidents were caused by state-employed men in reflector vests directing teens into oncoming traffic while they sexted.

Note: I realize I’m getting heavy on posts about stupid drivers. If you’re tired of reading such things, get me cable. (Seriously, buy me cable.) Also, I am not counting myself outside of the idiots. In fact, as an idiot driver, I feel it’s my duty to call out my co-idiots on a regular basis.

Photo courtesy Car Insurance Tips Blog

I don’t want to meet Steve Jobs

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

Steve JobsI’m a Mac convert. Their products are beautiful, somewhat top-of-the-line (at least upper quarter) and expensive. It took me years to buy my MBP and I’m in like with it. Still, Mr. Jobs is a dick.

You can all look back on all the finer points of his large security entourage, his staged conversations with other demigods and that he wears turtlenecks. (Only turtlenecks.)

I don’t need all that. I just need this one answer to a question from the recent OS 4 keynote.

Q: How do you close applications when multitasking?

Scott Forstall (Senior VP): You don’t have to. The user just uses things and doesn’t ever have to worry about it.

The Holy One: It’s like we said on the iPad, if you see a stylus, they blew it. In multitasking, if you see a task manager… they blew it. Users shouldn’t ever have to think about it.

To elaborate: the OS actually has a task manager (so his developers “blew it”).

“You click, hold the icon and quickly delete. It’s as simple as any other part of the interface. You don’t have to think about it.” This, an answer that promotes the product and doesn’t vaguely paint everyone else as an idiot.

Can you imagine a conversation with He Who Knows? I don’t even use half the hyperbole in a typical month Our Savior lays down in five minutes (and I’ve tried… hard). The Great One’s iPad, a tablet based on years of systematic improvements to the iPhone, is “magical.” Really? (::facepalm::)

I will piss off a dozen Macheads out there but I don’t want to meet I Am. He’s just an IRL Gregory House, a toolbox tolerated for his brilliance. (Which in his case is still debatable.)

That said, if Gregory House ran Apple I’d have bought my MBP a hundred years ago. (See what I did there?)

Note: This was written on the ninth; I totally forgot about it. I’m so good at this. Hope you enjoyed the pointed commentary related to something nearly a month old.

“well at least he’s not so late today.”

Monday, April 5th, 2010

Cigarette StandThis quote from one of three men who wait at Southdale for the same express bus as I do when I don’t bike. I’ve taken to the nickname “The Trinity” when cataloging their odd…

The Tiny Badass
This guy shows up occasionally in a bright blue beret. He has anti-establishment, pro-awesome hair hanging a couple inches past his shoulders. (It’s thin and usually greasy, which provides as much disgusting as hilarious.)

This is made worse by two irrefutable facts: Badass is in his mid-forties and he probably weighs 120lbs with his 80s era bright blue ski jacket soaked through. The man is far too small for anything but a Napoleon complex bigger than its namesake’s to justify a bravado he so clearly has.

He’s someone who hangs with bikers but doesn’t own a bike because they’re too establishment. He probably saw many things I’d never want to in a war he didn’t believe in but the chip on his shoulder is heavier than he is.

Quote: “That place Lyle’s? I’m two blocks away and would never go there.”

The Slick Kitten
Both Slick and Badass are avid smokers. They stand in front of the bus stop while indulging themselves, shrugging their shoulders in the face of an imaginary authority that politely suggests they move fifteen feet to their left. With pride, they toss their still smoldering drugs on the sidewalk, into the parking lot or toward the grass because society tells them the sand-filled receptacles need be used.

Slick pines for expensive gadgets he will never afford. He doesn’t talk within earshot often (also, I almost always wear headphones), but when he speaks of magical features no tangible device has, my left kidney shivers. (That he usually attributes them to an iPhone is doubly hilarious.)

He’s taken to wearing shiny black shoes that clash so strongly with his frayed jeans it sparks concern that there are no women in his life. As soon as he finds one, he’ll toss his “too cool” for “too cute.”

The Aged Comedian
Without the nicotine habit, Comedian has to force his way into the conversation. He thinks up a comment no one cares about (you can tell because he smiles to himself), steps within a few feet and then drops said comment like slate tiles.

With his reusable, Colbert-emblazoned bag, he’s both too sure of his being hilarious and environmentally conscious enough to be innocuous. Add that he’s in his sixties and he’s basically invisible. He makes himself laugh, though, and that’s all that matters.

Quote: The title above, which he said every day for a week. That the bus was on time each of those days and hadn’t been more than three minutes late the full week prior makes me think he’s found his catch phrase. You know, if anyone were listening, which (read: said invisibility) they are not.

Photo courtesy Veer, obviously

the scene, politically speaking

Friday, March 26th, 2010

Okay, so we have health care reform. It’s change, maybe, but more like my changing from jeans to khakis after landing a contract position than overhauling my wardrobe (which, admittedly, may need some work).

Where does that leave us? Here’s a look at the political climate as I’ve gleaned from lack of insight and caring very little…

Republicans:
Are idiots. But, with this new bill and some other factors (complete dolts as base; distaste for facts, reality and history; a powerful but shrinking upper-upper-upper class; etc.) they may balance things come fall. They’ll maintain their hate-speak to ensure their ignorance aligns with their ignorant base.¹

Democrats:
Are morons. They could have pushed through real reform but were distracted by sand in their vaginas (I imagine). They forfeited nearly all of their ideas (and all of their good ones) and still barely eked out a majority. They’ve weakened their position, which is apparently how they like it.

The President:
Belligerence is tossed in his face and he wants to sit down and talk about it. Then he agrees with most of the poorly-formed points and suggests changes. That sort of discussion is thoughtful, constructive and progressive but he’s the only one who believes in such things. (More sound-bites, sir. Please. The idiots are confused.)

Pundits: (err… “Media”)
They play both sides against each other in a battle of sound bites. While a battle of wits would be more suiting and could benefit us in the long-run, wits are hard to find just now. They’ll go the easy route and let stupid people verbally wail on each other betwixt commercials.

Ron Paul:
With all of his ideas stolen by the Tea Party, then by Fox News and still being shunned by Fox News, he’s fading. Expect him to only last another seven or twelve terms before he retires. (Career politics, while ineffective and regressive, is incredibly gracious.)

Tea Party:
If anyone from this movement is elected, all members (are we calling them “colonists” yet?)² will become infertile like that one country in Children of Men. (::fingers crossed::)

Health Care Industry:
Two words: Cha! Ching! With all the forced profits enhanced enrollment, without any substantial regulation, revoked exemption from trust laws or rejection of the pay-per-service model, things are looking good. (If you have any health stocks, keep them. You’ll need them.)

… That said, the Blues could add functioning health reform to their bill with a series of amendments. The media could shift focus (with the iPad reminding people how to read and all) to collaborative and comprehensive coverage of issues. The Colonists could merge their message into coherent and realistic complaints, sparking debate and true compromise.

Of course, I could also grow my hair into dreads and start working for a hedge fund. Now that I’m eating vegetables and riding my bike to work, anything’s possible.³

¹ I don’t mean “ignorant.” I mean ignorant or grotesquely rich. It’s easier to lump them together.

² Wait, why aren’t we calling them Colonists? They’re racist, abysmally educated and misinformed, not unlike those that lived three centuries ago. The name fits.

³ This is not possible.

survival of the fittest, valentine’s

Friday, February 12th, 2010

Dear ladies. You’re adorable and you smell nice and your hair looks great that way. That said, go away. Seriously, I’m about to toss down some wisdom you want no part of. If you remain, I take no responsibility for your opinion of me thereafter (it’ll still be outstanding).

Valentine’s is a frightening time. The pressure from those that profit on it is immense. The strongest of women, independent, free thinking and confident, are reduced to sappy sods mid-February, ready to lash out at any lapse in what commercials tell them is love.

Guys. If you’re lucky enough to have a better half, most of you know the perils of the fake-smile slathered near-gift you tried to hand over. You probably know the “thought over cost” save that your fathers passed on, as theirs passed to them. Here I’m talk to leaving work the Friday before Valentine’s without an earful of gush or, probably, guilt.

Depending on your chosen (or forced) occupation (or how you occupy your time), you may heed none of this. Those of you in IT or repairing radiators don’t really run into the fairer sex often. Others must tread lightly.

For those sharing cubes with hopeful-flower-recipients, here are a few tips.

Pretend it doesn’t exist.
This may seem simple but you’ll be reminded in every meeting, every chat around a microwave and any other encounter. When asked, make it seem as if you’re blind-sided. I don’t care if you have to do it fifteen times through the day. Each time you’ve never even heard of the idea of Valentine’s.

Avoid feminine flocks.
Just this afternoon, I entered the lunch room, grabbed a sandwich and noticed a table nearly filled with some women I know and others I don’t. I sat to the corner by myself and enjoyed (sort of) my meal. Walking into a roundtable interrogation like that is hazardous to your health. (Fox News wishes Guantanamo were as intense.)

Make something up.
Maybe those first two didn’t work and you’re roped into some long-winded discussion with a women who’s filling your brain with all her PG fantasies. Here, you make something up. Tell her you’re taking your girlfriend to Vegas because she loves sadness and blown savings. Tell her you’re proposing, whether you plan to, never will or already have. Tell her you bought her ten grand in diamonds because she hates Africans and loves manipulated markets. It doesn’t matter.

Above all, make your ladyfriend happy.
Do the ladies at work really matter? No (unless of course you work with your girlfriend). Then nothing said here will help you in the least. Mostly, just make your girlfriend glad she’s with you.

If you’re not doing that all year or have to be reminded by terrible commercials and a deluge of Facebook ads for flower delivery, you’re a dick. You deserve all the girly grilling you get and much worse.