Journal
November 3, 2004
Blind Man's zoo…
I've been busy for a while, too busy to keep pace with this journal and too busy to talk politics or rant, but I need to rant, and right away too…
How anyone with any sense at all, let alone over half the voters in this country can endorse the man they just put back in the White House is beyond my comprehension. They say they elected him because he is a strong wartime leader. They neglected to remember HE STARTED THE FRIGGIN' WAR IN THE FIRST PLACE!!! He lied about his reasons for wanting to deliver vengeance on the infidels in Iraq (uh.. I mean the "terrorist-harboring, weapon-of-mass-destruction-hiding bad non-white, not-born-again people in Iraq), he has consistently and with great abandon rewarded those with money and power at the expense of the rest of the country, he is gutting Social Security, bankrupting the country and selling it to the Saudi's… but they elected him because he is more LIKABLE???!!!
WHAT THE FUCK???!!!
Are we electing the leader of the Free World or the President of the Senior Class???!!! If I hear one more person say they just "like him better" I am going to friggin' scream.
How can such a small group of men alienate an entire planet? I mean, LITERALLY an entire planet? On Sept. 12, 2001 the whole world was on our side. They sympathized with us, and were willing to stand with us against terrorism. Has anyone in the White House even seen what is going on in the world right now? Have they paid any attention at how this small group of rich white men have turned world opinion around 180 degrees? Americans are universally despised, mostly because of the arrogance displayed by this administration.
Our soldiers are being killed overseas to support his unjust policies; crude oil prices are soaring (I can't WAIT to see what my heating oil bill will look like this winter) creating an even deeper climate of Recession (YES MR. PRESIDENT, I USED THE "R" WORD…) since fuel prices affect the prices of almost everything, from mail delivery to food. Has anyone else noticed how much more they are spending at the grocery store lately? Those trucks that deliver the food don't run on sunshine, Honey!
And do you think the stores, or the trucking companies or the airlines are going to cut their profit margins to keep the prices down? Think again! WE, yes that's we, pay for it. We pay at the pump, at the store, at the airports and train stations, and to the utility companies. I'm not even going to MENTION the deficit!
Oh screw it, I will too. When Bill Clinton left office in January of 2001, we not only had a balanced budget… we had a SURPLUS. And we're not talking a few hundred bucks left over from scouring the senate couches for spare change… we are talking a substantial amount here. Cut to 2004, a short 4 years later and we are now sporting the largest federal deficit in US History. That bears repeating; THE LARGEST FEDERAL DEFICIT IN US HISTORY! So our fearless leader does what any good Republican in power will do; he cuts taxes by the thousands for his wealthy friends and the companies they own and throws us working stiffs with children a few hundred bucks. Like his father, he just gave the shrinking middle-class a paper route.
His campaign rhetoric talked about looking to the future, but he is leading us straight back to the conservative past. I shudder to think what the Supreme Court will look like in the next year or two. I am horrified at what is happening to our freedoms in the name of "National Security". I simply cannot believe that in this day and age people are still passing referendums that discriminate against minorities. Welcome to "Compassionate Conservatism" and "Politics of Unity". Apparently, our beloved Commander in Chief meant that he would unite all those who were rich, white, not-gay, Republican supporters against everybody else.
And all of you who voted for him BOUGHT IT! I have often said that by dumbing down things in this country, all you get is dumber people. So here we are, the dumb being led by the dumber. I can only hope that someone remembers to set the alarm so that Americans will actually WAKE UP and look around at where this President is leading us.
When they DO finally wake up, I bet I hear: "Where are we going? And why are we in this handbasket?"
<rant>
August 8, 2004
I am flawed, but I
am cleaning up so well…
So I took a month
or so off from writing to celebrate our nation's birthday, get a job, go to
the beach a few times, catch up on my reading, etc.
Ok, you caught me… I didn't need to catch up on my reading.
And yes, I am now gainfully employed! And not in the desperation job I was
expecting, but in a position that could have been tailor-made for me.
Seriously!
I am absolutely excited overjoyed ecstatic STOKED about this job. My formal title is Inside Technical Sales Associate but the job is just barely about sales. It is more "technical support/customer service/occasional sales". The company is a long established leader in home-audio systems and really supports its customers. They stand behind what they sell and stand behind their employees as well. I am so flattered that they chose li'l ol' ME out of the rest of the applicants.
It is really rather incredible how the (non-monetary) effects of unemployment have simply evaporated, like fog under a bright and sunny sky. The anger and frustration are gone, and while money will continue to be tight for a while, we'll be OK. My wife and I have begun to reconnect and the tension that hung in the house like a bad smell has disappeared. The 2000 pound elephant has left the room. My kids can hear the excitement in my voice when I talk about work and I think they are excited too.
So, while things are finally going well with me, we received some sad news last week. One of my uncle's oldest friends, and a close friend of the family, was killed in a senseless traffic accident last week.
Rest in peace Tommy,
you will be missed.
June 3, 2004
Where the Hell have I been?
OK, May was a pretty
big month (not in the 31 days vs. 30 days way, smartass) and I have been trying
to deal.
First off, we have my 40th birthday (please hold all comments until I'm finished,
thanks) then we have my continued unsuccessful attempts at finding a new job,
but with a new twist!
You see, my job search, while being important and urgent, has been funded
by My severance pay and by unemployment insurance… until now. My 30 weeks
were up in mid-May and my severance is long gone. I am trying to adjust my
search to take anything that pays, but as Paul Simon sings "I get no
offers".
Don't really have the time to write much more at the moment.
I did put a new (and depressing) poem up on the site. Check out "Praying
for Rain". That's all for now. Hope to have some good news and more
lighthearted fare up on the site soon.
May 3, 2004
School Vacation …
It's been a while since my last entry because last week was school vacation week here in New Hampster and I was up to my eyeballs in chore-like stuff and kids all week. It's a bit odd that while the wife and kids were on vacation, I ended up with more to do than usual. Actually that's not fair, they did most of it and only left me with the stuff they couldn't do, so I shouldn't complain. We did a bunch of Spring Cleaning type stuff and I ended up painting my daughter's room to go with the furniture I painted for her the week before.
The most fun I had
last week was going to see "Hellboy" with my friend Matt. I drove
down to Massachusetts and we met up for lunch and then took in the matinee.
I have to say the whole experience was a blast. I pumped about 8 bucks in
quarters into stupid video games at the theater while waited, and although
I heard mixed reviews about the movie, I thought it was fun.
I know it was more
fun than I had at the gig I did on the previous Saturday. I don't usually
write about DJ gigs, but I feel compelled to vent. I got a call from a friend
to cover a DJ gig on a cruise out of Boston Harbor. It was a college event
and so didn't start until midnight. I figured "college party on a boat,
late at night… this will ROCK!" I was SO wrong.
The group actually had rented both the upper and lower decks for their cruise and there were supposed to be about 250 people there. I say "supposed to be" because I couldn't tell you how many people were actually there. I saw maybe 30 or forty. I was asked to play a mixed variety of 80's and dance tunes and stuff while upstairs the DJ was going to be playing the usual hip hop and rap. My biggest dance floor was 6 people. I tried mixing it up with current rap and hip hop, top 40 dance, 80's, etc. but had no takers. I guess they choose which will be the "happenin' deck" early and it wasn't mine. The good news, it was only 2 and a half hours and I really needed the cash.
So I wasn't the cool
"DJ God" to these college kids… big deal. I can't remember
the last time I WAS! At least I got paid. And like the song says "Money
changes everything…"
April 23, 2004
Rant Rant Rant…
I am disgusted, really and truly disgusted. I am sick to death of the dozens of credit card offers I receive in the mail on a weekly basis; the pre-approved (except you AREN'T actually APPROVED, you're PRE-APPROVED… there's a big difference) applications touting amazingly low interest rates which will skyrocket to close to 30 fucking percent if you have a credit hiccup ON ANY CREDIT ACCOUNT YOU HAVE!!! If you read the fine print, you will see the phrase "if you are late in paying your account with us, or any credit account you have". What it means is if you have paid them on time, every time, they can STILL change your rate to the default rate if you have made a late payment to ANYONE>
Yes that's right; I actually READ the fine print and if YOU don't, well then you deserve what you get. At least, that's what the credit card companies think. If you are dumb enough to sign up for a credit card which has in its conditions a "We can change your interest rate at any time for any reason" clause, they figure they've given you fair warning and can proceed to screw you for all they can. They don't even have the courtesy to buy you dinner first. I don't understand why we let them do this to us. They must be getting some response to these ridiculous offers; otherwise they would have stopped long ago. But every week, almost HALF of my mail consists of "low-interest" credit card offers.
Never one to waste an educational opportunity; let's go over some "bankspeak" vocabulary words here:
Pre-approved - This basically means that you were "selected" to receive the offer. In English it actually means "You have a mailing address and were on the list. It has NOTHING to do with "approval".
Pre-Selected- See above
Preferred Rate- The "low" interest rate reserved for that select group of customer who do not NEED the credit card. Basically, NOT you.
…may… As in "Your rate MAY be higher". In all situations, the word "WILL" should be substituted here. No exceptions.
Default Rate- The rate which the company will try with every means at their disposal to shift you to, usually in excess of 25%, sometimes as high as 29%.
Now, let me share some words that these companies seem to have forgotten:
Usury (yoo zhe
-ree ) The practice of lending money and charging the borrower interest,
especially at an exorbitant or illegally high rate;
An excessive or illegally high rate of interest charged on borrowed money.
Fraud (frôd) A deception deliberately practiced in order
to secure unfair or unlawful gain. A piece of trickery; a trick
Misrepresent (mis-rep ree-zent ) To give an incorrect or misleading
representation
Yes Virginia, there used to be LAWS which protected people from predatory
lending practices, but apparently our government has decided that we no longer
need protecting, because 'Big Business' loves us and would never hurt or take
advantage of us for MONEY! It's bad enough that we have a mind-numbing variety
of idiotic products being hawked on TV, Radio and every flat vertical surface
on the planet, it's even worse that most of these products are of the "use
once" variety and do nothing but fill up our overflowing landfills, but
now we can buy these stupid things and pay for them a dozen times over in
interest. And while the credit card companies get richer, the unwary or the
desperate consumers get screwed… again.
O.K., I'm done now.
/rant
April 18, 2004
On the mend and busy busy busy…
So, I survived having my head filled with mucus and my brain turned to mush, and started feeling better a few days ago. I didn't really have time to write though. I was busy making preparations for a DJ gig that I did last night, as well as interviewing for a job, so the latter half of this week was a bit hectic. Had a nice day on Friday, it was my 16th wedding anniversary and also my wife's birthday. People tell me it's lucky to have them on the same day since you only have to remember the one date. What I generally reply is that it's true I only have to remember the one date, but if by some chance I forget that one day? Game Over.
Luckily, I am not generally one to forget important dates so I haven't experienced "The Wrath" very often. I bought 16 roses and delivered them to Judy at work. She was thrilled since she wasn't expecting anything with money being so tight right now. We actually threw caution to the wind and I took her shopping that evening and then out to dinner, dropping most of the expense onto the one credit card with a little wiggle room left on it. I truly miss the days when I could buy presents and not worry too much about it. I mean, I could never really afford anything expensive, but lately my idea of expensive has been undergoing some revision. I used to think dinner for the family at a "sit-down" restaurant (insert Chili's, Applebee's, Olive Garden, Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse, TGI Friday's, etc) was expensive. My new definition of expensive is dinner at Wendy's Drive Thru, while sit-down places don't even get considered.
I'm not going to turn this entry into a rant against being unemployed, or the government, or "Big Business" or poverty, just trying to put a little perspective in here. I feel a good rant coming on though… maybe in the next couple of days. I need to focus the rage first, and then let it loose on the internet.
April 13, 2004
Better Living Through Chemistry…
I have been in the grips of a savage head cold for the last 3 days, and haven't been able to put 2 words together, let alone compound sentences. This message is being brought to you by the makers of Advil Cold & Sinus. It is only because I have many milligrams of this wonder drug coursing through my veins that I have any semblance of coherent thought.
I generally try to avoid taking medicine beyond the occasional aspirin (or whatever high-tech equivalent we have in the cabinet). I'm not even sure why. My sister works as a pharmaceutical sales rep and I have no problem with that. I know lots of people who take lots of pills on a daily basis, and it doesn't bother me one way or the other. But right now, I am the poster-child for pseudoephedrine and ibuprofen.
I really have nothing else to say except that I hate being sick and I love cold medicine.
Now I had better post
this before it wears off and my brain becomes a shapeless mass of goo again.
April 8, 2004
Memphis Exorcism…
There's nothing quite as satisfying as a successful exorcism. I spent Tuesday night and Wednesday morning at my sister's place while she continues to baffle physicians with her super anti-healing powers. (She has vowed that she will check herself out of the hospital today whether they like it or not. I can't blame her. If someone wanted me to lie in bed all day so they could stick me with needles and then come in at night and stick me some more, I think there would be plenty of ass-kickings being handed out. Hopefully she is well enough to come home where people don't stick her with needles on a regular basis. End of tangent.)
I was at her place
for 5 reasons (3 sir!) 3 reasons:
1. To stay with my 16 year-old nephew. My mom had been staying there but needed
to go to a class or lose her tuition, so I agreed to go.
2. To bring her much needed relief from hospital cuisine (the New, New Cruelty)
in the form of McDonald's food.
3. To exorcise the digital demons from my nephew's PC. It had more viruses
than a CDC lab. In Botswana.
Anyway, I have been telling him for a long time that the drive needed to be completely wiped clean and he needed to start from scratch, so I was prepared to do a cold install of XP, and then a reinstall of all the drivers, etc. In other words, I was prepared for many hours of hating computers in general and Microsoft in particular.
Wasn't I pleasantly surprised that his PC came with a restore disk which completely re-images the drive to factory specs, while completely destroying all current data on the pc. If I had known he had that, I would have had him do the restore himself a long time ago. Anyway, it was a good trip and the PC is now "clean" and thoroughly armored by up to date security patches, a Zone Alarm Firewall, a trial version of McAffee Anti-Virus, SpyBot Search & Destroy, and a much wiser 16 year-old who finally understands that the Internet is NOT a safe place and that people do, in fact, suck.
It makes me sad that I have to add to a 16 year-old's natural cynicism. I wish we lived in a world where we didn't need to always be on our guard and where people didn't suck quite so much. There are way too many carnivores out there, both online and in the "real world" that are always looking to take advantage of anyone they can find that might be weaker or less intelligent. I really hate that.
On a completely different
note, today is my Dad's birthday. He would have been 71 today. Happy birthday
Dad, we miss you.
April 4, 2004
Good Eats…
I decided to take the weekend off. Aside from a quick glance at email, I decided
to stop worrying, at least temporarily about all the daily crap I usually
deal with (or obsess over) and focus on the positives. I dragged the family
along on this little vacation from stress and…
it kinda worked.
We spent the better part of Saturday at the mall, the girls did some shopping, I found a dress shirt that fit AND was on sale (no mean feat when you are my size and have the wingspan of a condor), and we all actually had a good time. We got some takeout and while the girls plotted revolution with their friends on AIM, the wife and I watched HGTV all night. It was actually really nice to relax and take turns making snide comments about the wacky interior designers. We reconnected and remembered that we actually LIKE each other.
Today could have been a recipe for disaster… dinner with the in-laws. My mother-in-law likes to get us together and take us out to dinner for Easter early, since we usually spend Easter with my mom. It sounds harmless enough, but it can turn into the ninth level of Hell fairly quickly. The funny thing about today was that it didn't. There were a few juicy tidbits held out there for bait, but luckily, there were no takers today.
Except me.
I took a crack at a couple of those and was lucky enough to pull my head out before the jaws on the trap sprang shut. I had fun, the food was VERY filling, and we even had dessert, which we rarely do at this place. We are usually too full to enjoy the after dinner sweets, but today we made an exception. We listened to U2 on the way home and I even sang along. Ok, so it wasn't all roses for my wife, but the kids had their Walkmans (Walkmen… Walkman's?) turned up and blasting EMO into their unprotected ears, so they were unaffected by my vocal prowess. Apparently, Bono has nothing to fear from me. Ever.
Overall I give this
weekend fourteen and a half stars and twenty-three thumbs up.
April 2, 2004
Puddles in the grass…
Ok, I looked out my
window and I saw an actual puddle on my lawn. The ground is actually so saturated
that it can't take any more, so the water just lies there, waiting. Hopefully
the sun will come out and just evaporate it, but more likely it will just
lie there patiently, waiting to be noticed, waiting for its turn to be sucked
into the dirt.
I kind of feel like my lawn right now. There is so much crap to deal with
that I simply can't absorb or deflect it all, so it just kind of pools on
the surface waiting... waiting for the chance to sink in. I figure that, based
on the size of these puddles of emotion and stress, my mood should be pretty
much shot until sometime in 2005. What does it take to saturate my brain so
fully that I simply have to keep the rest outside until I can find the strength
to deal with it?
Well let's just "pop the hood" and take a look at my stream of consciousness
right now:
|
…unemploymentrunningoutmortgagepaymentduesavingsdepletedandnobodywillfuckingcallmebackhundredsofresumessentoutandno |
Yep. It's all fun all the time inside my head. At least the rain stopped for a while. But of course the weatherman says there's more on the way. There's always more on the way.
March 31, 2004
Rain, Rain Go Away…
I just made the mistake
of listening to the weather. Apparently we are in the beginning stages of
a monster Nor'easter. Originally it was supposed to rain for 3 days, then
they said 5... now they are saying it might rain for 7 days. Yes, I said 7
days. Who am I, Noah? I mean, I understand that during Spring it's supposed
to rain and I'm not generally one to complain about the weather, but give
me a friggin' break here! A solid week of water falling from the sky is liable
to make me either homicidal or suicidal, and I'm not real pleased with either
of those choices.
This is the kind of week that travel agents hit their bonus levels for the
year. The kind of week where sensible people bail out of the soggy, mud-soaked
Northeast and head for someplace warm and dry. Like Florida.
Mmmmmmm… Florida. Florida in April is just a few degrees shy of paradise
- the real heat and mind-numbing humidity of summer hasn't hit yet, but it's
warm enough that swimming feels nice. The giant insects are more inclined
to stay hidden underground until the real muggies show up in June. It seems
especially perfect when you are coming from a place that feels like the inside
of a clamdigger's boot. Now if it wasn't for all those pesky sharks making
a buffet of the tourists, I might just call it paradise.
Hey wait… fewer tourists… hmmmmmm, I'll have to think about that
one before calling it a minus.
March 30, 2004
Lost: One Sense of
Humor. If found please return to…
I'm noticing lately that things I would have found mildly amusing in the past are just annoying to me. I've always been of the opinion that anyone who takes themselves too seriously is a giant A-hole and deserves whatever misery is heaped upon them, but now I'm beginning to worry.
What if these people I've always held in contempt are just regular people who, for some reason, lost their sense of humor? And am I (God forbid), following them down their A-hole path? I used to be fun. I was…. really! Ask anyone.
Of course, if I wanted
to throw excuses around, I have plenty of those: Unemployment, a fruitless
job search, dwindling finances, a mortgage, etc. Not asking anyone for sympathy,
I know there are people with much bigger burdens than what I carry. I just
hope that when I finally get through all this, someone turns in my sense of
humor to the Lost & Found so I can reclaim it.