Antarctic emotion

Maybe I’m an idiot, but I thought… May 14, 2008

Now I have never claimed to be the brightest crayon in the box, but it seems to me there is some confusing information going around. This whole GREEN season we are in is not a bad idea in essence. But my big issue is with the frickin corn fuel thing. If I have one global concern, it’s hunger. Now they say since we use the corn to make fuel that we are using too much and starving people in third world countries because there aren’t large surpluses anymore. Now, let’s flashback a few years, maybe three, I’m talking to one of the locals and they are telling me about how it is their turn this year to not grow their corn. I’m all like “you LOST on the farmer’s lottery or what?” He explains how the government regulates the commodities and corn is one and they have to keep the market in a certain area so everyone can get paid. If there is too much, demand goes down and so does the value and every farmer makes less money(and everyone else down the line with their investments in that item). Like corn goes from a dollar a bushel to a nickel bushel, or whatever. So the government pays him a percentage of what he was projected to make to not grow said item. Now he can grow something else that year to supplement his income for that year, but most don’t. It’s good to let the ground replenish it’s nutrients for a year. And catch up on other things. Now this seems like a one-way slide to me. When it’s a bad year for crops our price for that product goes up. When do you see it go down because of a great season?

Here’s my point- why don’t we not pay people to not do stuff and try to get as much corn as we can and if there is some left over still help others. Is that crazy talk?

I just had a great idea. We should pay criminals to not commit crimes. Purse snatcher-$20 House Burglar-$212 (value of pawned jewelry an tv) Car Jacker-$500(chop-shop rates) Store hold-up-$87(money in the register) Bank Robbery-$10,000(seems fair) Murder-$189(Price of a bus ticket far from the person you want to kill). Rapist-$50 for a hooker that’s for a good one(or a cheap one you can pay extra to let you hit her)(but wait I guess there won’t be any hookers either since we’ll be paying them to stay home too) OK I haven’t worked out all the kinks yet. The money would come from the employees and vehicles that we won’t need anymore. Just like a 24hour police station with like 2 guys and a cashier. Like a Little Caesars. People just come in “I’m thinking about mugging somebody in the park” “Here’s $40″

If we are paying people to not do stuff, why not pay them to not do bad things, instead of growing corn. I’m not going to believe that trying to get away from oil-dependency equals starving third-world babies. As far as I understand, the problem in Haiti is the cost of shipping food there because of escalating fuel prices driving the cost up. Wouldn’t a cheaper fuel help that? I don’t know anything about anything, but I listen to what they say, and see discrepancies.

Da Color Wheel May 6, 2008

My Challenge May 6, 2008

“Fool and knave, can’t you leave the old reading alone and not alter it!”

Where is this from?

When the curtain fell on Kenny Rogers May 6, 2008

There has been this slow deevolution in my life. I have found myself immersed in a slightly more rural segment of society than I would normally choose to associate myself with. At work the station of choice is modern country, which to me, not even being a fan of country, is fake country and more trailer park than cows and a barn and all that. There is the hard rock station that is dominated by Metallica and AC DC, and ALOT of 80′s glam rock. It never died here. Poison, Twisted Sister, Guns n Roses, Dio, Whitesnake, White Lion, Great White… you get the picture. Now, this is the stuff I listened to 20 years ago, but it’s not classic. I was 13 and didn’t know better. These are adults. Anyway, back to my point, there is an older country station that comes in usually also. Music at work is VERY important. And I’m not real picky. I don’t have to like the song even, if I know the words. I can sing along. I know those older country songs and they don’t anger the natives. The only clear memory of my childhood is listening to The Gambler over and over in the blue van that caught fire later. So, here I am 25 or however many years later and I hear these songs on the radio and start to sing along. I know bits and pieces of most, but the chorus to about anything. I started finding out about Kenny. The real Kenny. I love the movie The Big Lebowski and liked the music in it too. Started looking for the songs online and found out “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)” was by Kenny Rogers. I couldn’t believe it. But I came to terms with it. So later I’m making a Halloween CD for a school party or something, and I was going to add “Morgana Jones”, which growing up I thought was about a witch. But when I listened to it, it was about a hooker. So then I’m reevaluating “Lucille”, which was his mother’s name. I heard “Coward of the County” at work and I’m pretty sure Becky got raped. But the coup de tat was “Ruby (Don’t Take Your Love to Town)”. It’s about a guy who lost his legs in the war who wants his wife to stay home til he dies, which should be soon, then she can go man-shopping. But no, she goes out anyway and he wants to shoot her but can’t chase her because he has no legs. That’s messed up. He is a darkly disturbed man. I hate being disillusioned. What really sparked my interest in Kenny Rogers were Will Sasso’s portrayals of him on MadTV.

When your driver tells you to keep your arms in the vehicle, you listen April 16, 2008

My family is amusing themselves right now with one of their many “Dad vs. Nature..Nature Wins” stories. This one is just a strange matter of timing, more than the usual, “Oh, hell. What can it do to me?” kinda thing. We had gone camping at a place we had never been. It took a while to get there. Probably 45 minutes. We got set up and walked down a long, steep, rocky trail to the water. Screwed around, headed back up. I was feeling sick. Almost couldn’t get up the hill, and got REAL sick. We picked up and headed for home. It was dark now and we were on a back highway going about 70. I was leaning on the open window to get air laying on my arm for cushion with my hand feeling the cool wind and starting to feel better and thinking of going back and setting up in the dark when BAM! It happened. In retrospect, I had seen a strange flutter in the headlights a split second before and lifted my head. Everyone in the car heard the preceding screech cry cut short by the bat exploding against my hand. I felt it’s head hit the meat between my  thumb and forefinger before the body bent my thumb under and it kind of fluttered and rolled off my hand leaving a generous helping of bat juice. If you don’t know what bat juice is, it’s no vodka collins. Just blood and shit and, I guess, the contents of it’s stomach, which is like an insect mousse. Looked to my untrained eye to have been a good last meal. I was suddenly not feeling good again. My thumb hurt, everything else was numb. I couldn’t tell where bat blood ended and my blood began. I was immediately concerned about rabies and disease and reactions. Jen said “Oh, poor bat. Do you think it’s dead?” Damn, I hope so. I don’t want it coming back for more. I won’t fight him again.

My Response to ‘My run-in with the counter help at Sunoco’ That Got Out of Control April 12, 2008

This is what prompted the tirade that ensues.

http://sammytrambles.wordpress.com/2008/04/10/my-run-in-with-the-counter-help-at-sunoco/

I have this perpetually. I have worked at gas stations and I know how the change safe works. You can’t operate on no money. What if my total was different? Or I wanted things rang up separately? You can’t get change and the world stops? Lock up and go home. There is a manic lack of customer service in our country today. And besides that doesn’t the money from the air compressor go to the same gas station? Call the manager to come open it. Maybe if you do that enough he’ll leave you more quarters.

I went to get gas and pizza at Casey’s and took a fifty. I pumped my gas and went in to order the pizzas and pay for it all at once. The pizza part is dark and abandoned. So I says to the guy behind the counter I says “Theres no pizza?” He tells me all bout he can’t get no good peoples and they’re costing him business and mafugs be fucking around. But I got kids with dreams of taco pizza dancing in their heads at home I have to face. So I go to pay for the gas and he tells me he can’t break a fifty. I got $10 gas. It’s Friday night. He’s the manager. And he doesn’t have 2 twenties? So I told him I would go break it somewhere else and come back. I’m in there alot. Enough for him to feel casual discussing his griefvances with me. It’s a block from my house. I went home loaded up the family to go to Subway because that’s somewhere I can’t order for them. They have to look to decide. I bought $29 and some change worth of Subway (way more than pizza) and gave the girl the fifty and she just points at this sign that says “No $50 bills after 5:00 p.m.” I said “what time is it?”  She leans to her right so I can see the clock behind her head. 5:03
So Jen asks her “why just after 5?” The girl said money came up missing from the drops. I’m thinking “So which one of you took it and why am I being punished?” And “If someone will steal a 50 , they’ll steal 2 or 3 20′s.” She says go to the gas station and get change and I explain about the pizza and my dilemma and the yet unpaid gas because they didn’t have change. Deaf ears. So I asked her who would know if she dropped it after 5 since they obviously don’t have cameras or they would know who took it and they could get rid of that person and the sign in one fell swoop. So I agree to let them hold my sandwiches, wife and children while I go try. The guy is like like “yeah I got two twenties like boom boom right after you left.” I’m all like “right on, ’cause they’re taxing me at the Subway ’bout a $50″ He’s all “cool, cool you got it now.” I go back and this military guy paid for ours already because she made everyone in line behind us wait because she couldn’t clear the register until I paid. It was humiliating. So, anyways, next time I order Subway for the meat I’ll take that wh… nevermind. There won’t be a next time. At least in that case it was a rule, and not just a lack of funds available. I don’t buy that excuse. Unacceptable.

 I had a horrible, horrible incident with a cashier in Walmart and we don’t go in there anymore. It started with Jen saying “Well, the sign said (this)” The cashier said “No it didn’t”

Let’s pause here… What does “No it didn’t” mean to you? Does it or does it not imply that you are wrong? That you A) Can’t read correctly B) Are stupid C) Are lying. And there are many things you can say instead of “No it didn’t. Like “oh it’s not ringing up that way”, “let me get someone to check” And I am stunned that she has this amazing gift of memory to KNOW for sure every sign in the store and what they DON’T say and still has to work as a cashier at Wally-World.

Jen told her ” yes it did.” The cashier cocks her head to the side and smiles and shakes her head and through the smile “nh-nnh.” So this other lady comes and says “what’s the problem?” and goes back to check. So I told the cashier while we’re waiting just to make conversation and pass the time “That is what  the sign said. I saw it too” Again with the head-cock smile denial. I said ” Look, you can stand there wagging your head all day long and it doesn’t change the fact  of what I saw.” She said “You didn’t see that.” I went berserk! “Are you calling me and my wife illiterate or liars?” She said “We will see.” Heavy German accent. I said “What ever happened to the customer is always right?” So the lady comes back and says we’re right. Jen tells me to back off and I turn away and look at that rack of little toys and pet toys and lighters and crap. And behind me I can hear the strange sound of absofuckinglutely nothing! Groceries not moving, conveyor not turning, register not beeping, nothing. I try to wait it out. It felt like 17 eternities in hell. Probably 45 seconds. Turned around again and she is not ringing up our stuff she was just standing there staring at the back of my head. I said “what?” She said “I didn’t say anything” I asked her “what are you doing?” She said “nothing” with raised eyebrows. I said “so do something. Ring up my shit. Push the fucking buttons. Do your fucking job.” She says “I’m not waiting on you sir” I said “then get someone over here who will so I can just get out of here.” I made some comments about her homeland and her countrymen and history and her probable promiscuity and contrasted that with America and how things are done here. The manager rang us up and indicated I wasn’t welcome there. I have it figured that over the last ten years I have given them a quarter to a third of my income. Now they don’t get that. That’s all I’ve got.

Things that hurt April 11, 2008

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp=24053039?

http://www.themuslimwoman.org/entry/from-hijab-to-circumcision-irony-never-ends-for-women-in-islam/
http://www.scarleteen.com/article/politics/its_more_than_just_a_pound_of_flesh

http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/012039.php

Something to offer April 11, 2008

This may or may not be worthwhile, but I find myself telling so many people(and most not children), that I’m just gonna throw it out there and share it. I don’t think anyone reads this except my family, and they should all know, but just in case…

I’m not sure where I learned this.

On a multiplication table the nines have patterns that make them easy to learn. The digits of all products can be added up to 9. 18   1+8=9   27   2+7=9 and so on. Also on 1 through 10 the coinciding opposites are the same numbers reversed. 

09/90, 18/81, 27/72, 36/63, 45/54

9 is an amazing number. I’m thinking of changing my favorite number to nine. It has always been 2, but it has never done me any good. My wife thinks my favorite number should be four because that’s how many children we have. I don’t see the relation between favorite numbers and offspring. But if I say “We might have more still” that stops that discussion. In numerology, nines are thrown out. They are nothing. This lady told me that. She told me alot of things that seemed to come true. But things like that always do. The Beatles thought it was worth recording a song about it. I think on Deal or No Deal, that’d be my case. “Number nine, Howie!” Cats have nine lives. How much luckier can you get?

I also taught a 41 year-old man about the rainbow and the color wheel and primary & secondary colors. I told him if he was still confused I could have my kids explain it in simpler terms. This is the same guy that got me arguing about worms.

The College of Schizophrenic Knowledge March 29, 2008

I have a collection of phrases that I use. As previously stated, I have no original thoughts. Except my spreadable bananas, Bananutter, which I saw for sale on the home shopping network last week. Which led to a stern talking-to from Jen about why I didn’t pursue my dream and how someone else is taking my vacations and drinking my drinks on my boat. As I recall, she thought it was a horrible idea at the time. But I diverge. Not everything is a quote from TV, music, books. Some it came from my weirdness magnetism. Random strangers approach me and tell me things. I told you about the guy in Aldi.

A guy on the park bench across Michigan Ave. from Columbia told me about how just because they make the beer in Milwaukee don’t mean you can drink as much as he had there. He had been arrested and apparently sent out of the city, and here he was, right in my path with a sign that read-

PREGGY

BOO

ZWAH

PIGS

I say preggy bourgeois pigs at least once a week.

A guy on a Greyhound bus from Joliet to Chicago sat next to me and told me his tale. He had just been released from Stateville and they bought him a ticket back to his hometown, Chicago. His story was about Jesus he found in prison, marriage he lost while in prison, child rearing before prison and how he might not see his kids or if they wanted to see him, and stabbings that got him in prison. He told me at the end, “Then you’ll know who’s black, who’s the mack and who’s the stone, the black peace stone.” I don’t get to use that phrase nearly as much as I want to.

The title for this segment came from the story I meant to tell but got distracted on the way. I went to Junior College a few years after high school and didn’t really know how to get started, what was required, what to sign up for, what I wanted to major in. So I stood in line for a long time, and finally got in to see my counselor. He was a skinny, white-bearded bald guy who never made eye-contact. He asked what I wanted to major in, and I said I thought Psychology or Elementary Education. He turned to his desk and scribbled on a notebook. I thought he was doing the math for the formula of my future. He rips the page out and hands it to me. It read-

Read the last page of “The Myth of Sisyphus” Albert Camus

Read the last chapter of  “Crime and Punishment” Fyodor Dostoevsky

Read Dante’s “Inferno” (all the way through in one sitting)

Go back and read the rest of “Crime and Punishment”

Read the first page of “The Myth of Sisyphus”  Camus (You can read the rest of it if you want)

He told me to come back in a week. The next week he wasn’t there anymore. I got a new counselor and signed up for my first classes. I never finished “Crime and Punishment”, but I know how it ends. “The Myth of Sisyphus” is everyday for me. I wish I never read it when I’m pushing the rock uphill, but I’m glad I read when I’m walking down the mountain. “Inferno” is a map to destruction. What were this guy’s intentions?

The Residents March 25, 2008

There is a band I love that I don’t expect anyone else to appreciate. I don’t have any musical talent whatsoever. So I don’t know what’s wrong with their music. Nothing, as far as I can tell. I mean, I know it’s not…right. But I have heard worse. Alot of people find it frightening. I’m pretty sure every song on every album is about love. My wife says “How can you think any of that has anything to do with love?” I love her. But I’m not a big lovey-dovey guy. Not big on Celine Dion. (My wife is) They aren’t ‘love songs’. They aren’t Anne Murray. I can tell you a hundred people they aren’t. What I can’t tell you is who they are. And not just in defining a ‘sound’ or ‘genre’, but WHO they are. Let me give you a brief background to help you feel the impact of this. Most information on the band is speculative, but I’ll try…

They began recording in 1968. They sent their first demo to Warner Brothers in 1971. They had not included a band name, so the rejection letter was addressed to ‘Residents’. Their next attempt to get signed was a 45 (that’s a little record with a big hole) called Santa Dogs and it was sent out to the music industry dignitaries of the time, and Frank Zappa, as a Xmas card. They formed their own label, and in 1974 released ‘Meet the Residents’

This is not the picture I wanted to include. In fact it is one of my least favorite of theirs. But it is the first album, and it is 1974. Since then they have released 60 albums, 9 films, 3 video games?(or at the very least a multimedia release) I have one and you don’t ‘win’ like a game. You just choose your friends more carefully the next time. And hope to live. They also made many, many short films. When the first synthesizer was made they recorded the sounds for it. I think this puts them in every song the synthesizers were used on.

But through all of this, they have remained anonymous. (I’m just now getting to my point.) They dress in tuxes with eyeball heads and top hats. Or they did, until one eyeball mask was stolen and now he wears a black skull as a curse on the thieves. And this is the mystery, and what I love about them. It’s a puzzle to figure out. Not just the albums, but the whole thing. Anyway, here’s the crazier part…these are some of my guesses of their identities….

Penn & Teller or Penn or Teller but probably both

Mark Mothersbaugh (devo, Rugrats cartoon)

Elvis (depending on alive/dead debate)

 Laurie Anderson (or possibly a Pointless Sister, their backup vocalists)

 My favorite album of theirs is called Not Available, but Eskimo and God in Three Persons are up there. Someone who never heard them should start with Freak Show, I think.

 Recently, they ‘revealed’ that two of the members were Hardy Fox and Homer Flynn, high school friends from Shreveport, LA. I have chased these identities so long that the only thing I learned was that I don’t believe anything they tell me. They have ‘revealed’ themselves before and then told us it was a hoax. Big Bubble cover …

 Strange names with the same initials. Sounds like another clue.

It’s hard to remain anonymous for that amount of time, and through world tours and all.  Maybe harder than being famous.

That’s the picture I wanted to put in.