Question one:
If Jamie from The Mythbusters was a crazy Scot and made a music video version of "I'm a Barbie Girl" by the Supergroup "Aqua," what would that look like?
Question two:
I'm not a psychic, but I've always wanted to experience what it would feel like to be Alec Baldwin filming an episode of 30 Rock, is that possible?
Question three and four:
If a country music video and a metal video had a baby and that baby became a professional wrestler, what would that look like? Also, if I were to sing into a light bulb as though it was a microphone, would I get good sound quality?
(if you want to see more video, just click here!)
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Tea Party With A Vengeance
Places online say that this is not a parody. I would believe it, as if it were a parody they wouldn't have tried to be so subtle about showing that same black guy 6 different times.
I don't understand teabaggers. At all. I've been trying to figure out what it must be like inside their brains:
You might notice health care is not in this mind at all, as it is simply too frightening to even think about
For a baseline for comparison, I've also added in an Average American/non-teabagger brain scan:
As you can see, the brain is functioning at a normal level.
Maybe it's wrong to mock Tea Baggers so much. But, honestly, they call themselves teabaggers. I mean, anti-bush protests didn't run around claiming "We are Bush Munchers!" As funny as that would have been. I hate to just flat out call them all idiots because thats what these same people were calling all the anti-bush protesters. But they seriously need to get a fucking handle on things. They are protesting higher taxes, yet taxes haven't been raised, and in this economy they probably won't get raised anyway. They oppose a health care bill that hasn't been passed yet and, in its current form, is basically a 2000 page long essay on why Americans should buy health insurance for themselves (and yes, I know it is far more complicated with that, but stick with me). When you really don't have an actually cause to rally around it just attracts a lot of fringe people who hate Obama and Democrats on principle. I'm all for a healthy amount of protest in any society, from whatever direction it is coming from. But these guys seriously need to stop making overly dramatic movies that open on helicopters flying over Washington and then move into dramatic reenactments starring morons who actually own powdered wigs.
America's Future
Sometimes I think that a vast majority of people in the US are completely incapable of forming logical thoughts, then I came across Amazons page for L. Ron Hubbards "Dianetics" (and I was only there because Reddit was saying they had deleted all the negative comments) and I came across something lower in the page that has once again restored my faith in America, or at least in English speaking countries:
Tags Customers Associate with This Product:
cult(574)
fraud(551)
junk science(473)
avoid at all costs(446)
insane(434)
evil(431)
crazy(427)
snake oil(411)
quackery(296)
scientology(189)
See all 236 tags...
Tags Customers Associate with This Product:
cult(574)
fraud(551)
junk science(473)
avoid at all costs(446)
insane(434)
evil(431)
crazy(427)
snake oil(411)
quackery(296)
scientology(189)
See all 236 tags...
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Are we the future?
For many years I have pondered the age old question: How the hell can I get my beer cold when I am not near a freezer? The question has plagued the greatest minds in history. I believe Plato once said "Death is not the worst that can happen to men. Warm beer is."* This quote is especially pertinent when you realize that he would not have even had a cooler in those days.
Yet even after the dawn of a new Millennium we were left sitting on the beds of trucks drinking Luke warm beer. Oscar Wilde said "I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability," and clearly he was talking about advancements in alcohol chilling processes. But he was proven wrong, alas, when the Tempra Technology company solved the problem once and for all. Yes, a self-chilling beer can was invented. Miller was even planning on using it.
Yet it is late 2009 and I must still suffer as the world continues to sell me cans of beer that cannot simply cool themselves. Perhaps it is the overwhelming cost that each of the one-time use only cans would cost that have slowed them down, but I believe it was Ralph Waldo Emerson (because it was) that said "a man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles." And is not that the problem? Are we not so afraid to pay for the one thing in all the world that can truly cure all of societies woes? Would not the world be better if it had the wealth of cold beer at its finger tips? We have sacrificed who we are, what we want, what we need, to save a few dollars on a case of beer. How have we as a society gotten to a point where the only thing that we have ever desired is available right now and we are too blind to see it?
"Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy," Benjamin Franklin famously said. And he's right, because he's Benjamin Franklin, and he invented electricity. And if he had had a few more years he would have invented a self-cooling beer and he would have become our God, but he ran out of time, though it is true that it was his life long goal, ranking far above building a new country to design self cooling beer**. If he were alive today he'd be spinning in his grave knowing we aren't drinking from state of the art self-cooling cans. And he'd be right to.
"He was a wise man who invented beer." -Plato***
*This quote has been edited to suit my purposes
**This is not true
***Surprisingly, an actual quote
Yet even after the dawn of a new Millennium we were left sitting on the beds of trucks drinking Luke warm beer. Oscar Wilde said "I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability," and clearly he was talking about advancements in alcohol chilling processes. But he was proven wrong, alas, when the Tempra Technology company solved the problem once and for all. Yes, a self-chilling beer can was invented. Miller was even planning on using it.
Yet it is late 2009 and I must still suffer as the world continues to sell me cans of beer that cannot simply cool themselves. Perhaps it is the overwhelming cost that each of the one-time use only cans would cost that have slowed them down, but I believe it was Ralph Waldo Emerson (because it was) that said "a man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles." And is not that the problem? Are we not so afraid to pay for the one thing in all the world that can truly cure all of societies woes? Would not the world be better if it had the wealth of cold beer at its finger tips? We have sacrificed who we are, what we want, what we need, to save a few dollars on a case of beer. How have we as a society gotten to a point where the only thing that we have ever desired is available right now and we are too blind to see it?
"Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy," Benjamin Franklin famously said. And he's right, because he's Benjamin Franklin, and he invented electricity. And if he had had a few more years he would have invented a self-cooling beer and he would have become our God, but he ran out of time, though it is true that it was his life long goal, ranking far above building a new country to design self cooling beer**. If he were alive today he'd be spinning in his grave knowing we aren't drinking from state of the art self-cooling cans. And he'd be right to.
"He was a wise man who invented beer." -Plato***
*This quote has been edited to suit my purposes
**This is not true
***Surprisingly, an actual quote
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Funkadelic Freak Out
Surprisingly I actually got a job today. Working through AmeriCorp of all places. There was a time early in the year I was getting set to join AmeriCorp, then I had some problems getting my application in order and one thing lead to another and I got Fallout 3 and time sort of slipped away. But a week ago I spotted something online talking about AmeriCorp and I thought I should take another look at my application. Turned out the problem I was having before was one most likely due to human error (surprisingly not mine) and it had been fixed. So I threw together an impassioned motivational statement and got a couple interviews and then a job offer. It was that fucking easy.
I have spent probably a hundred hours of time on job sites, another couple hundred writing cover letters, filling out applications, revising my resume (usually with factual information) and I got about ten interviews. The only time in the last year I got a job offer was for the new Ace's stadium, a job I only got because I was willing to stand in lines with hundreds of other applicants for hours on end, essentially hoping to win the job lottery they had going on. And yes, I did quit that job quickly, but only because it was awful and I would have been lucky to make four hundred dollars a month.
Granted, I did sort of give up for a while there (again I reference Fallout 3), but still, the private sector has not been my friend. I want to believe that it is because the people in charge of hiring realized that I would manage to get by on my rugged good looks and insatiable charm and they should hire those people that needed the job more than me. I'd like to believe that. In reality I think that it has to do with the fact that people don't seem to trust me when they first meet me. I've often suspected people see me and think "naive farm boy" and then they talk to me and start to think I've got some sort of strange, dark secret that isolates me from the rest of humanity. As though some sort of darkness got into me too early. Therapists call that projecting, assuming you know what other people are thinking and that they are thinking largely negative things about you. It's just that I get the strong sense that most people simply don't trust me at first. After a while I think it sinks in that I am just a bit of a loner who doesn't spend a lot of time chatting with new people, but it takes longer than an interview to come to that conclusion.
I awoke fairly early this morning and was done with what I needed to do by around 11. So I had quite a bit of time. And I realized that I sort of hate having that much time during the day. At night I have no sense of obligation of things that I could be/should be doing. The night is mine, I feel most comfortable there, safe in my own little world without the rest of the world bearing down on me with a stream of endless possibilities. The night doesn't expect anything out of you. There is great comfort in that. A sense of freedom, an ability to let go of doubts and regrets and to simply exist.
On an unrelated note, I haven't really been able to write any fiction since I moved back to Reno. Something has been blocking me every time I sit down to try to do any work. I know that I have to try to keep writing, I have to try to keep going no matter what. I heard a writer once say, "If you are blocked on one thing, work on something else." I just haven't taken that to heart. I wonder sometimes if I ever will. I have a penchant for writing, but I lack discipline, I lack drive. And lately I think that I have just been convincing myself not to write. For what reason, I don't know. But even when I seem to get a start of something going I'll just arbitrarily stop and do something else. I always think blogging or journaling will help to get me going, but it never does seem to. The only reason seems to be that I really only care about writing about myself, and I am reluctant to fictionalize myself in such a personal way. But that is a hurtle that needs to be overcome. Confidence, that is what I am lacking. Perhaps as things in my life begin to start getting going again, as they might with AmeriCorp, I can build some more confidence again. Being an unemployed slacker takes its toll on my sense of creative talent. I find I get much more writing done when I have a lot of other things on my plate.
I really hope that everything is going to work out with AmeriCorp. I made a commitment of a year, over a year technically since I won't officially start for at least a month since I still have training to go to, to a program that I really don't know a ton about. I guess it boils down to the fact that I am just nervous to take finally take a step away from jobs that require me to routinely clean out grease traps. Although I'm not sure that is it either. Even though as far as I can tell I am officially in the program now, I still get a strong sense that it is going to be taken away from me. That for the first time in a very long time something has apparently gone the way I wanted it to and it feels as though fate is simply playing a cruel joke on me, dangling the lolly in front of my carriage, so to speak. Perhaps I am just pessimistic, but I feel that I have earned the right to be pessimistic at this point. When it comes to jobs and women, things always seem to have a way of backfiring on me as soon as I think it is finally working out.
I have spent probably a hundred hours of time on job sites, another couple hundred writing cover letters, filling out applications, revising my resume (usually with factual information) and I got about ten interviews. The only time in the last year I got a job offer was for the new Ace's stadium, a job I only got because I was willing to stand in lines with hundreds of other applicants for hours on end, essentially hoping to win the job lottery they had going on. And yes, I did quit that job quickly, but only because it was awful and I would have been lucky to make four hundred dollars a month.
Granted, I did sort of give up for a while there (again I reference Fallout 3), but still, the private sector has not been my friend. I want to believe that it is because the people in charge of hiring realized that I would manage to get by on my rugged good looks and insatiable charm and they should hire those people that needed the job more than me. I'd like to believe that. In reality I think that it has to do with the fact that people don't seem to trust me when they first meet me. I've often suspected people see me and think "naive farm boy" and then they talk to me and start to think I've got some sort of strange, dark secret that isolates me from the rest of humanity. As though some sort of darkness got into me too early. Therapists call that projecting, assuming you know what other people are thinking and that they are thinking largely negative things about you. It's just that I get the strong sense that most people simply don't trust me at first. After a while I think it sinks in that I am just a bit of a loner who doesn't spend a lot of time chatting with new people, but it takes longer than an interview to come to that conclusion.
I awoke fairly early this morning and was done with what I needed to do by around 11. So I had quite a bit of time. And I realized that I sort of hate having that much time during the day. At night I have no sense of obligation of things that I could be/should be doing. The night is mine, I feel most comfortable there, safe in my own little world without the rest of the world bearing down on me with a stream of endless possibilities. The night doesn't expect anything out of you. There is great comfort in that. A sense of freedom, an ability to let go of doubts and regrets and to simply exist.
On an unrelated note, I haven't really been able to write any fiction since I moved back to Reno. Something has been blocking me every time I sit down to try to do any work. I know that I have to try to keep writing, I have to try to keep going no matter what. I heard a writer once say, "If you are blocked on one thing, work on something else." I just haven't taken that to heart. I wonder sometimes if I ever will. I have a penchant for writing, but I lack discipline, I lack drive. And lately I think that I have just been convincing myself not to write. For what reason, I don't know. But even when I seem to get a start of something going I'll just arbitrarily stop and do something else. I always think blogging or journaling will help to get me going, but it never does seem to. The only reason seems to be that I really only care about writing about myself, and I am reluctant to fictionalize myself in such a personal way. But that is a hurtle that needs to be overcome. Confidence, that is what I am lacking. Perhaps as things in my life begin to start getting going again, as they might with AmeriCorp, I can build some more confidence again. Being an unemployed slacker takes its toll on my sense of creative talent. I find I get much more writing done when I have a lot of other things on my plate.
I really hope that everything is going to work out with AmeriCorp. I made a commitment of a year, over a year technically since I won't officially start for at least a month since I still have training to go to, to a program that I really don't know a ton about. I guess it boils down to the fact that I am just nervous to take finally take a step away from jobs that require me to routinely clean out grease traps. Although I'm not sure that is it either. Even though as far as I can tell I am officially in the program now, I still get a strong sense that it is going to be taken away from me. That for the first time in a very long time something has apparently gone the way I wanted it to and it feels as though fate is simply playing a cruel joke on me, dangling the lolly in front of my carriage, so to speak. Perhaps I am just pessimistic, but I feel that I have earned the right to be pessimistic at this point. When it comes to jobs and women, things always seem to have a way of backfiring on me as soon as I think it is finally working out.
Sunday, November 08, 2009
The Dumbest Opening Ever
When I was in Fallon over the summer I broke a wheel off of my chair. It wasn't that big of a deal since there are like seven wheels on the chair, but now that its on carpet that one broken wheel seems to find its way to the front so that every time I scoot around it makes it feel like the chair is collapsing in on itself. I could get a new chair, or I could just keep complaining about this one. The thing is its not hard to fix, I just have to stand up and move the chair slightly. Still, I find it to be the most annoying thing ever. Well, the most annoying thing ever when I am sitting at my computer. And I haven't just run out of coffee or soda or whatever else I was drinking. So really, its only the most annoying thing ever a very slim percentage of the time. Which doesn't seem to make sense but it really does if you count the fact that nothing I've ever said has made complete sense into the equation. That doesn't make it better, I suppose, just natural.
This has been a lonely week for me. I mean, a lot of weeks are lonely, but this one was really sad as I couldn't even go out for a couple of hours a day to do something. No, I just sat and watched movies and read and slept. And the next day would be the same thing all over again. I hate getting the flu. I sit around thinking about how it isn't fair then I think, well, its sort of fair. I mean, I don't have a job right now so I'm not missing work, and I would have spent most of the time in the house doing about the same thing I was doing anyway. Still, it was a pain in the ass. Plus I couldn't just drink a few beers and pass out like I can do if I am feeling bored and alone when I am not sick, since I wasn't sure if alcohol wouldn't just make me vomit all over the place with a single sip.
Still, I have started to come to peace with my situation. I have left the house for about a half hour a day to run to the store or return movies and then come back and been all by myself again. I hadn't realized how much more peaceful it can be to be by yourself when you don't expect yourself to be running around doing other stuff. Because I didn't do that much else when I was feeling well, I mean, I did more stuff obviously, but not that much more. But I always felt like I should be doing a lot more. And that desire was making me sad. Now that I don't expect to be doing anything else with my time it has opened up something. I feel a little more at peace and I feel a little more confident about myself. So I am not a social person, I've never really tried to be. I've wanted to be at times, but at the end of the day I am really just happy to be alone most of the time. Sure I would like to have someone to share my life with, but I guess I will just have to wait a while for that to happen. I'll never be able to be completely at peace with being by myself so much of the time, I don't think, but this week has taught me a few lessons about how I can enjoy solitude better.
I keep coming back to this idea that I just need purpose. I've wanted to try a bunch of different things, hell, last night I was browsing flight schools for helicopter training. But I keep coming back to the fact that things just don't work the way I want them too and I eventually tire and give up on them. So I have a new wacky scheme, one that has been in my head for a long time and one that I can do at my own pace and from the comfort of my own home. Will this, at long last, give me a sense of purpose in life? We shall see. But I have decided that for the price of a pad of post-it note I can start working on this project, and I certainly have plenty of time, so I think I will at least try. I doubt I'll succeed, but, fuck it, I really, really think it might finally be my time to get my shit together and actually produce something.
So wish me luck random internet people (although most of you are probably people I know, if anyone still reads this thing). I shall once again try to do something that by all accounts I am not qualified to do, and, if history has anything to say about it, I will surely fail.
This has been a lonely week for me. I mean, a lot of weeks are lonely, but this one was really sad as I couldn't even go out for a couple of hours a day to do something. No, I just sat and watched movies and read and slept. And the next day would be the same thing all over again. I hate getting the flu. I sit around thinking about how it isn't fair then I think, well, its sort of fair. I mean, I don't have a job right now so I'm not missing work, and I would have spent most of the time in the house doing about the same thing I was doing anyway. Still, it was a pain in the ass. Plus I couldn't just drink a few beers and pass out like I can do if I am feeling bored and alone when I am not sick, since I wasn't sure if alcohol wouldn't just make me vomit all over the place with a single sip.
Still, I have started to come to peace with my situation. I have left the house for about a half hour a day to run to the store or return movies and then come back and been all by myself again. I hadn't realized how much more peaceful it can be to be by yourself when you don't expect yourself to be running around doing other stuff. Because I didn't do that much else when I was feeling well, I mean, I did more stuff obviously, but not that much more. But I always felt like I should be doing a lot more. And that desire was making me sad. Now that I don't expect to be doing anything else with my time it has opened up something. I feel a little more at peace and I feel a little more confident about myself. So I am not a social person, I've never really tried to be. I've wanted to be at times, but at the end of the day I am really just happy to be alone most of the time. Sure I would like to have someone to share my life with, but I guess I will just have to wait a while for that to happen. I'll never be able to be completely at peace with being by myself so much of the time, I don't think, but this week has taught me a few lessons about how I can enjoy solitude better.
I keep coming back to this idea that I just need purpose. I've wanted to try a bunch of different things, hell, last night I was browsing flight schools for helicopter training. But I keep coming back to the fact that things just don't work the way I want them too and I eventually tire and give up on them. So I have a new wacky scheme, one that has been in my head for a long time and one that I can do at my own pace and from the comfort of my own home. Will this, at long last, give me a sense of purpose in life? We shall see. But I have decided that for the price of a pad of post-it note I can start working on this project, and I certainly have plenty of time, so I think I will at least try. I doubt I'll succeed, but, fuck it, I really, really think it might finally be my time to get my shit together and actually produce something.
So wish me luck random internet people (although most of you are probably people I know, if anyone still reads this thing). I shall once again try to do something that by all accounts I am not qualified to do, and, if history has anything to say about it, I will surely fail.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)