MySpace, March 4 – 11, 2008

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Phoney Baloney

Okay, so I’ve had a cell phone for a week now. This is not earth-shattering news (“Where was the kaboom? There should have been an earth-shattering kaboom.” 10 pt. if you can guess the reference there) to most people, but this is the first cell phone I’ve had that was mine, and the first phone that we as a couple have had since, oh, I’d guess 1998 or so. At that time we got a 15-minutes-for-$15 plan, and threw a phone in the glovebox of the car. When it started costing us $50 per month if we made a call, we canned it. It served its purpose when my wife was commuting from Lafayette, Indiana to Indianapolis, Indiana, which if you don’t know Indiana geography, is a 50-mile drive each way.

Anyway, last week we entered the 21st century and got a pair of phones on Sprint’s cheapest family plan. I like the phone, it’s a cheap knockoff of a Razr — which I guess is a good phone or something — and it has a camera and some web things to play with. My wife’s is pink. I have exactly one contact in my phone, and it’s my wife. Wait, I take that back, I have my dad in there, too. That’s two contacts. I’m not giving my number out to everybody — hell, I’m not giving my number out to anybody at this point. I’m paying like $50/month to have an inert phone in my pocket, basically.

But having one of these things has made me look even closer at the nasty, rude, boneheaded and dangerous things people do while on their phone. Driving is a big one. I seem to be behind more and more people who shake their car around like a rag-doll and play chicken with oncoming traffic…and when I can get beside them, they have that phone crammed up agains their ear. I just want to get a cellphone jammer (illegal in the U.S., but selling like hotcakes out the back of Manhattan electronics stores) except I want my jammer to broadcast the message: “Hang up your phone and drive your fucking car!”

Hellsticks, cell phones today are like cigarettes were when I was a kid. When people exit a building, they have the phone in their hand before they’re even out the door, and it’s flicked open and dialed after two steps. There are so far unproven theories that cell phones can cause brain cancer, and are equivalent to a couple of drinks, when it comes to driving ability. Ladies’ purses used to have a cigarette pocket on them, now they have a cellphone pocket. There are movements to ban driving and talking on a cell phone.

Honestly, I don’t see what the big deal is. They’re phones. I have no desire to always be talking to someone, and I refuse to let myself be tethered to a ringing phone when I’m not at work. Really, I don’t get much from hanging on a phone talking to anyone. It’s a phone…call me if you need me to bring home milk and snow tires. I’ll call you if my leg’s broken or my car’s stuck.

Bah. ’nuff said.

11:55 PM - 0 Comments – 0 Kudos – Add Comment – Edit - Remove

Monday, March 10, 2008

Now We Can Vote!
Current mood: apathetic

So…tomorrow we will have owned our house for one week. We are homeowners — Landowners, even, so now we can vote. I should be excited about it. I’m not. This isn’t the first time we’ve owned a home, and this isn’t even LIKE the first time we owned a home, but that time went so horribly wrong that it’s kind of taken the fun out of it. It’s sort of like, not special to me anymore…home-ownership is supposed to be a big deal, but based on our first experience, it’s just a money-suck. I suppose it helps that we bought the house we already live in, so there’s no big move associated with closing on our house….we really just send our rent somewhere else. And if the furnace breaks WE have to pay for it. Hooray.

It’s not that this house is BAD or anything. It’s been rented for the past four years, so it’s kind of dingy, but nothing’s really trashed or anything. We have plans to replace ugly carpets, countertops and stuff. We have plans to paint, and install wainscoting, and finish the basement, and plant a garden and stuff. We can MAKE this house really nice, but right now it’s just kind of grungy and brown. Yes, brown. The outside is brown, the carpet is brown, the floors are brown, the counters are brown and the inside paint is the worst, it’s kind of a tan/brown/pink/orange congomeration, depending on the light. Uck.

But once we do that stuff, this house will be great — we have a back deck and a private back yard with woods. We have a garage, and enough room for all of us, and the house is laid out fairly nicely. Our last house was just too small — 832 square feet for a family of (at that time) four is just impossible. We ate each other, and it was bad. On top of that, our last house was built with a near-total lack of quality…we had shingles blow off, we had siding blow off, we had cracks in our foundation and warps in our roof, and we had zero privacy on our lot. And if we still had that house today, we’d have been lucky to sell it for 80% of what we bought it for in today’s plummeting house market.

So what’s my point? Good question. Let’s see…we bought our house. I’m not excited. Home-ownership has been a let-down for us. I think that’s it. Maybe once we get some of our plans in motion I’ll get more excited. Until then….

1:53 AM - 0 Comments – 0 Kudos – Add Comment – Edit - Remove

Saturday, March 08, 2008

I’m 72% Redneck. Aw, gawd.

Thank you, Margie, for giving me another addictive quiz. So I’m 72% redneck. I’m kind of surprised by that…if you knew me you wouldn’t picture me living on a farm or camping or eating squirrel, I guess. I’m as likely to say “predicament” as “trouble.” But I guess I’m a redneck. H’yuck.

Are You A Redneck

(x) have you ever lived in the country?
(x)shot a gun?
(x) own a gun?
(x) hunted? (3D targets)
(x) driven a truck?
Subtotal= 5

() chewed tobacco?
(x) gone camping?
(x) listened to country?
()owned a country cd?
(x)fished?
(x) worn a cowboy hat?
(x) worn cowboy boots?
Subtotal= 10

(x) ridden a horse?
(x) seen a farm?
(x) worked on a farm?
(x) lived on a farm? veg. farm w/ rabbits, doves, chickens
(x) fed a farm animal?
() worn carhartt?
(x) lived in a small town?
(x) worked on a car?
Subtotal= 17

(x) seen a nascar race?
(x) been to a nascar race?
(x) been to an oval track?
(x) seen a demolition derby?
() been in a demolition derby?
(x) seen a figure 8 race?
(x) talked on a cb radio?
(x) had a cb in your car?
(x) seen smokey and the bandit more than 10 times?
Subtotal= 25

(x) watched the dukes of hazzard episodes?
() owned more than two cars that don’t run?
(x) been to a junkyard
() been a racist
() been in a INTERNATIONAL vs john deere argument?
() gone cow tipping?
(x)made love in a truck on a back road
Subtotal=28

() had to ponder whether your family said tire or tower
() been sprayed with deer pee?
(x) worn camo?
(x) ridden a 4-wheeler?
() owned a cabin?
(x) went swimming in the pond?
Subtotal= 31

() drank white lightening?
(x) had your whole family on the front porch?
() thought that wal-mart was the coolest place ever?
() own a shirt with a rebel flag?
(x) eaten venison (deer meat)?
(x) cooked over a fire?
(x) ever been muddin?
(x) ate squirrel?
Subtotal= 36

Overall= 36

Now multiply your score by 2 and post it as “I’m –% redneck”.

YEEHAWW! If your redneck score is over 50%, you can officially call yourself a redneck

Dont sound surprised!!!!

1:33 AM - 0 Comments – 0 Kudos – Add Comment – Edit - Remove

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

My Wife.

I don’t blog about my wife. Ever. There are consequences for that.

Currently listening :
She Hates Me
By Puddle of Mudd
Release date: 02 September, 2002

6:38 PM - 2 Comments – 0 Kudos – Add Comment – Edit - Remove

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Antidepressants, Redux

Okay, I tried to post a blog last night, and got too far in to start over when I fumble-fingered some hotkey-sequence-of-instant-Firefox-death. I guess ctrl-shift-I (or whatever it was) means “close immediately, the user wants to fuck up what he was doing.” Not that I’m bitter.

So anyway…I read someone’s blog — someone I may not know, someone who may not be on Myspace, and the last line of their blog mentioned antidepressants, and how you can’t find life in them…life is in you. Had nothing to do with most of their blog. But it reminded me of my former life (say, five years ago or so) when I was on the things.

Here’s the deal…we lived in Indiana for five years. Indiana is the polar opposite of me. To get along with my co-workers, I had to not be me. And that screws one up. I also lost my grandmother, grandfather, mother and an unborn baby while I lived there. Indiana was my very own special five years of hell. And then I moved from there to here, and started a high-stress Help Desk job — national turnover rate: 18 months. I lasted: six years.

So I went from everything-except-my-job-is-Hell Indiana, directly to my-job-is-intense-burning-Hell Michigan. And I burned out…I burned out hard, and totally, down to a smoldering, black bit of volcanic slag. And then I spent another two years at that job. You do what you have to if you support a family.

So yeah, at one point along the way, I got set up with antidepressants. When you start taking them, you don’t immediately feel better. You feel drunk. You feel just-past-buzzed for the entire day. For a month. It takes a month for your brain to accept what the pills are doing to it and settle down.

And then after two more months, that breed of pill stopped working for me. Did I mention that I have huge tolerances to pills? When I take cold medicine, it only works the first time around. If I get another box of the same stuff, it doesn’t work. So they switched my meds. And I spent another month drunk. And after that, I had several months in which the pills made me not-depressed.

That’s what they do. They don’t make you happy. They make you not-depressed. They cut out the lows, and they cut out the highs as well, and they leave you with a middle-nothing kind of blah, day in and day out.

And then that prescription started losing its effect, and I was staring down the barrel of another med change, and another month of side effects, and that’s when it happened. I had an epiphany.

It’s silly, actually, and sounds flippant. I realized that my problems were all in my head. Yeah, I know how it sounds, but it’s deeper than that. I was driving home from work, and thinking, and I realized that there is no drug, no therapist, no doctor that is going to know what’s going on in my head as well as I do. If anyone is going to take charge of my upstairs it’s me. My depression and associated stuff…was all in my head. MY head. I was done being a collection of symptoms, and ready to be ME again. I weaned myself off the drugs, and haven’t taken them since.

It scared my boss shitless. She became my new manager while I was deep in the burned-out-depressed-bitter-cynical-drugged-poor-me-I’m-hurting crap…and then I told her “Oh, I went off my meds.” Her eyes bugged out of her head. It was funny, though I understand in retrospect. There I was, one of the problem-children of her department, and that was all she knew of me, and she thought I was going to snap and start killing people with a hacksaw. Oh…good times…

But there it is. I’ve been there, and somehow managed to snap myself out of it. Life is inside you. YOU. Not a bottle of pills. Use them as a tool, as a crutch…as a TEMPORARY crutch. But never let them be your life, because your life will be a middle-nothing blah, and that’s not living. If you don’t want to be depressed anymore…don’t be. It’s as simple as that. It’s as blisteringly hard as that.

Peace out. (delivered like Kip on ‘Napoleon Dynamite’)

6:13 PM - 0 Comments – 0 Kudos – Add Comment – Edit - Remove

MySpace, Feb. 23 – 27, 2008

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Washington’s Manners. Pt. I

So here’s the deal. I was on the Colonial Williamsburg website and found a list of 104 rules of etiquette, as written by George Washington when he was fifteen years old. I find them interesting in several ways. First, they show some manners that modern society has sadly lost. Second, they show the way people in the 18th century wrote. Third, some of them give clues into things that we find bizarre/disgusting/quaint but were obviously common back then. So here they are…and I couldn’t possibly keep myself from commenting.

1st Every Action done in Company, ought to be with Some Sign of Respect, to those that are Present.

Read back a blog or two from me, and see if we still do that. Ever.

2d When in Company, put not your Hands to any Part of the Body, not usualy Discovered.

“He handles the ball more than Wilt Chamberlain!!” Yeah, this’d be nice, wouldn’t it?

3d Shew Nothing to your Freind that may affright him.

4th In the Presence of Others Sing not to yourself with a humming Noise, nor Drum with your Fingers or Feet.

5th If You Cough, Sneeze, Sigh, or Yawn, do it not Loud but Privately; and Speak not in your Yawning, but put Your handkercheif or Hand before your face and turn aside.

6th Sleep not when others Speak, Sit not when others stand, Speak not when you Should hold your Peace, walk not on when others Stop.

7th Put not off your Cloths in the presence of Others, nor go out your Chamber half Drest.

Now, I’m all for this rule being broken by certain people…Coming to mind are, I dunno…Carmen Electra, my cousin-in-law’s girlfriend, you know. I do sort of miss the days when men wore suits and hats outside…not jogging shorts and tanktops.

8th At Play and at Fire its Good manners to Give Place to the last Commer, and affect not to Speak Louder than Ordinary.

Oh good lord…give people room to sit, and don’t talk over others? Heresy I say!!

9th Spit not in the Fire, nor Stoop low before it neither Put your Hands into the Flames to warm them, nor Set your Feet upon the Fire especially if there be meat before it.

10th When you Sit down, Keep your Feet firm and Even, without putting one on the other or Crossing them.

11th Shift not yourself in the Sight of others nor Gnaw your nails.

12th Shake not the head, Feet, or Legs rowl not the Eys lift not one eyebrow higher than the other wry not the mouth, and bedew no mans face with your Spittle, by approaching too near him when you Speak.

Yeah, I’m all for not spitting when we talk…this one has been shortened to “say it, don’t spray it,” in our typically vulgar Western vernacular.

13th Kill no Vermin as Fleas, lice ticks &c in the Sight of Others, if you See any filth or thick Spittle put your foot Dexteriously upon it if it be upon the Cloths of your Companions, Put it off privately, and if it be upon your own Cloths return Thanks to him who puts it off.

Okay, this one raises my eyebrow as it gives us a glimpse back to pre-Revolutionary times…were fleas and lice so common as to be found on the most respectable people? Wow.

14th Turn not your Back to others especially in Speaking, Jog not the Table or Desk on which Another reads or writes, lean not upon any one.

15th Keep your Nails clean and Short, also your Hands and Teeth Clean yet without Shewing any great Concern for them.

16th Do not Puff up the Cheeks, Loll not out the tongue rub the Hands, or beard, thrust out the lips, or bite them or keep the Lips too open or too Close.

Loll out the tongue? Bleahhhhh…

17th Be no Flatterer, neither Play with any that delights not to be Play’d Withal.

18th Read no Letters, Books, or Papers in Company but when there is a Necessity for the doing of it you must ask leave: come not near the Books or Writings of Another so as to read them unless desired or give your opinion of them unask’d also look not nigh when another is writing a Letter.

Yes! Put the crap down! Don’t watch me when I write! So true then, so true now!!

19th let your Countenance be pleasant but in Serious Matters Somewhat grave.

20th The Gestures of the Body must be Suited to the discourse you are upon.

Of course, they failed to take into consideration the numerous situations in traffic when Gestures of the Body are called for…

21st: Reproach none for the Infirmaties of Nature, nor Delight to Put them that have in mind thereof.

Yeah. Take that, Americans With Disabilities Act. What? You mean don’t stare at wheelchairs and prosthetics and actually treat cripples like real people? Wow!

22d Shew not yourself glad at the Misfortune of another though he were your enemy.

Something else we would do well to return to.

23d When you see a Crime punished, you may be inwardly Pleased; but always shew Pity to the Suffering Offender.

I love this one. “you may be inwardly pleased.” It kills me. Of course, the method of punishment back then was probably the stocks or pillory in the town square.

24th Do not laugh too loud or too much at any Publick Spectacle.

Again, “Publick Spectacle” probably means the pillory in the town square, where people can huck rotten tomatoes at thieves.

25th Superfluous Complements and all Affectation of Ceremonie are to be avoided, yet where due they are not to be Neglected.

So saying “Oh, your hair looks GOOD” is bad…unless the hair actually looks good, then say something like…”Oh, your hair looks GOOD!” Yes? No?

26th In Pulling off your Hat to Persons of Distinction, as Noblemen, Justices, Churchmen &c make a Reverence, bowing more or less according to the Custom of the Better Bred, and Quality of the Person. Amongst your equals expect not always that they Should begin with you first, but to Pull off the Hat when there is no need is Affectation, in the Manner of Saluting and resaluting in words keep to the most usual Custom.

This is where the concept of class, status and aristocracy shows up in Washington’s rules. It’s a totally lost concept in America anymore.

27th Tis ill manners to bid one more eminent than yourself be covered as well as not to do it to whom it’s due Likewise he that makes too much haste to Put on his hat does not well, yet he ought to Put it on at the first, or at most the Second time of being ask’d; now what is herein Spoken, of Qualification in behaviour in Saluting, ought also to be observed in taking of Place, and Sitting down for ceremonies without Bounds is troublesome.

Again, the concept of “one more eminent than yourself”

28th If any one come to Speak to you while you are are Sitting Stand up tho he be your Inferiour, and when you Present Seats let it be to every one according to his Degree.

So don’t rock back in your office chair and fold your arms?

29th When you meet with one of Greater Quality than yourself, Stop, and retire especially if it be at a Door or any Straight place to give way for him to Pass.

This one kills me, too. The whole concept of “one of Greater Quality than yourself” is just to totally alien today. In fact, how many times have you smelled chicken soup, turned around to find a filthy guy wearing an Arctic Cat coat who glares at you and belches out “Whut you lookin’ at? Yew ain’t no better’n me!” We have maybe overdone the equality thing in this country.

30th In walking the highest Place in most Countrys Seems to be on the right hand therefore Place yourself on the left of him whom you desire to Honour: but if three walk together the middest Place is the most Honourable the wall is usually given to the most worthy if two walk together.

There’s just nothing comparable to this today. Maybe in World of Warcraft??

31st If any one far Surpassess others, either in age, Estate, or Merit yet would give Place to a meaner than himself in his own lodging or elsewhere the one ought not to except it, So he on the other part should not use much earnestness nor offer it above once or twice.

It’s the whole “yeah, I offered but I was only being polite” thing that we’re all told NOT to do by our mothers. “Do you need a place to stay?” “No thanks.” “You sure?” “I’m sure.” …aaaand done. But moreover, the concept of refusing an offer because you’re not worthy? Again Wow.

32d: To one that is your equal, or not much inferior you are to give the cheif Place in your Lodging and he to who ’tis offered ought at the first to refuse it but at the Second to accept though not without acknowledging his own unworthiness.

And we see that again…but this time it’s the “no, I really can’t…..awww okay then, but you really shouldn’t have.” How circuitous, really.

33d They that are in Dignity or in office have in all places Preceedency but whilst they are Young they ought to respect those that are their equals in Birth or other Qualitys, though they have no Publick charge.

So, respect your elders…even if your daddy is the governor?

34th It is good Manners to prefer them to whom we Speak before ourselves especially if they be above us with whom in no Sort we ought to begin.

We still try to teach our children to refer to others first.

I’ll try to post more of these later. As for now, I have to go be a father.

8:22 PM - 0 Comments – 0 Kudos – Add Comment – Edit - Remove

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Aww, Crap!
Current mood: drunk

Well, I was going to post this long 178 question survey full of soul-searching questions like “Coke or Pepsi,” and “Black or White” and “Have you ever loved something?” But in the fickle way computers are, I hosed it up after spending a half hour on it and off it vanished into the ether.

Aww, Crap!

Well, we’re buying the house that we’re currently renting. We’ve been jumping at the whim of the mortgage underwriter (whom I suspect is really a monkey) for the last month, but we’re finally going to close next week. What I find amazing is the change in attitude of our landlord toward us, once she found out she’s going to be getting a check for $100,000+ from us. She’s been so friendly that I want to puke. It’s transparent, it really is. She has “avarice” written on her forehead.

So next weekend we’ll own this dump. It’s been trashed by four years of renters — I guess trashed is a bit strong, really. It has the collective dinge of four years of renters. Every wall has dinge. And the whole place is brown. Brown counters, brown floors, and carpets, and walls — the walls are especially hideous, the paint is a nasty brown, orange, tan, pink mess, depending on how the light hits it.

All that’s going to change. We have plans to make this into our French Country / Cottage style retreat from the world. There’s white wainscoting in the works, as well as a sunny yellow entryway, earthy green living room, chair rail, hardwood floors, and cream-colored carpet. Eventually, anyway, this place will be nice.

And on that note, I need to get more ‘Tis Red wine in my glass, my buzz is wearing off.

Currently listening :
Bleed It Out
By Linkin Park
Release date: 10 September, 2007

8:16 PM - 0 Comments – 0 Kudos – Add Comment – Edit - Remove