Joe Biden, how I love thee. He's just so fucking sincere about everything. I don't know that he'd be able to get a lot done as president, but as Vice President, he is the fucking King.
This woman I work with suffers from chronic pain. And she can't get it treated because she had it before she got onto the AmeriCorps plan. I told her she should be happy this bill got passed since it meant that soon they will have to start covering pre-existing conditions. She told me that she was still against the bill because it was leading us towards socialism.
This country has gone completely mad.
I'm pumped. The bill itself isn't going to really make things a ton better, but once people get used to the idea that having health care isn't a privilege reserved for the elite, things will get a hell of a lot better.
I try not to talk politics on this blog, but, fuck it, I'm happy. This was really the one thing I wanted Obama to do when I voted for him.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
These Things I (don't) Know
If I were to post an ad for the job I currently have, it would probably be something along the lines of:
Responsibilities:
You will have to show up and sit at your desk. Loan your co-worker a lighter when they need one, chat with the receptionist about things and realize that she is probably a Scientologist, attempt not to stare at the paralegals ass every single time she walks out of her office.
Occasionally people will ask you how things are going with your work. It is important that you lie to maintain the illusion of the status quo.
It doesn't really matter, ultimately, if you show up or not. Just call in to let people know when you aren't showing up.
Qualifications:
...I'm afraid I don't understand the question.
Compensation:
Let's just say it matches the amount of work we expect out of you.
----
I've become the worst employee I could ever see myself being. I think that there was a veiled insinuation that it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if I quit. This coming from my boss. Today. There was more context than just "you don't do shit around here," but it's clear that I'll likely soon be overstaying my welcome. At least that's what I chose to read into it, as I want to quit.
Impulsively I decide that I am going to quit shaving. Let us see how long it takes them to say something about it.
I need to learn to play the guitar again. I want to start a Traveling Wilbury's tribute band. And I want to be lead singer. Hopefully the guitar duties will be light, but I should at least be able to pound out a few of their songs. I should also finally finish learning "Classical Gas," as I think that being able to play that song on a guitar will get me laid. It isn't the sexiest song, but it looks damn sexy when it's played.
This blog post is random and, probably, pointless. You should thank me for writing it for you. Just for you.
I applied to get a job writing romantic/sultry fantasy fiction today. I'll be sure to let you know how that works out. I think that I will use "Saul Garret" as a pen name. Although I might use two t's... Garrett. I don't know.
It is time for House, so I must away.
Responsibilities:
You will have to show up and sit at your desk. Loan your co-worker a lighter when they need one, chat with the receptionist about things and realize that she is probably a Scientologist, attempt not to stare at the paralegals ass every single time she walks out of her office.
Occasionally people will ask you how things are going with your work. It is important that you lie to maintain the illusion of the status quo.
It doesn't really matter, ultimately, if you show up or not. Just call in to let people know when you aren't showing up.
Qualifications:
...I'm afraid I don't understand the question.
Compensation:
Let's just say it matches the amount of work we expect out of you.
----
I've become the worst employee I could ever see myself being. I think that there was a veiled insinuation that it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if I quit. This coming from my boss. Today. There was more context than just "you don't do shit around here," but it's clear that I'll likely soon be overstaying my welcome. At least that's what I chose to read into it, as I want to quit.
Impulsively I decide that I am going to quit shaving. Let us see how long it takes them to say something about it.
I need to learn to play the guitar again. I want to start a Traveling Wilbury's tribute band. And I want to be lead singer. Hopefully the guitar duties will be light, but I should at least be able to pound out a few of their songs. I should also finally finish learning "Classical Gas," as I think that being able to play that song on a guitar will get me laid. It isn't the sexiest song, but it looks damn sexy when it's played.
This blog post is random and, probably, pointless. You should thank me for writing it for you. Just for you.
I applied to get a job writing romantic/sultry fantasy fiction today. I'll be sure to let you know how that works out. I think that I will use "Saul Garret" as a pen name. Although I might use two t's... Garrett. I don't know.
It is time for House, so I must away.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Wed-Da Sci-Non Ext-Ga pt.3!
Welcome, welcome, welcome to the show that never ends. Well, actually, it ends in a couple hundred words. Still... party. Woo.
I saw an article online today about universities starting to ban laptops from classrooms. For some reason people think that they are distracting. As if being able to update your facebook and twitter account in class is distracting.
twitter example:
ghostmorphine OMG, LOL, ROFL smiley face. I can't believe what my prof just said about evolution. Monkeys! MONKEYS!
The thing is though, people don't realize just how goddamn amazing this technology is. Of course we are going to be distracted! (And by "we" I mean college students and not lazy roustabouts who graduated a few years ago but still consider themselves college students)There is just too much amazing shit online for us to pass up. And as a result, we can't be bothered to take notes while we are learning about, you know, stuff and shit.
There were a lot people on the Fark message boards, the place were I first saw a link to the story from, that seemed to be opposed to such a ban. "How dare they" they screamed "take away our right to fuck around in class!" Listen, buddies, I never used a laptop for notes and I found plenty of ways to dick around. From starring at the boobies of any girl that was in sight, to doodling new and amusing mustaches onto a crudely drawn characture of the professor, there are a million ways to fuck off without a computer.
The thing is, and this is what brings us to "Wed-Da Sci-Non Ext-Ga pt.3!", is that people don't even notice that they are actually communicating with anyone on the fucking planet while they are in a lecture.
I sat behind this guy in one of my classes while I was in college who played WoW all the damn time. He was running around killing, you know, World of Warcraft enemies, while half heartedly listening to the lecture. It annoyed me at times because I would let my eyes wonder over to his screen from time to time to see how he was doing, but for the most part it didn't bug me too much. But the thing was that this guy was playing a game that was un-fucking-imaginable just ten or twenty years ago. He is playing a game populated by millions of other players, with some pretty solid graphics, and the ability to be upgraded whenever the developers wanted it to be. And he was playing it on a laptop. In class. And it didn't seem strange to anyone else that could see he was playing it.
My sister got a Nintendo for Christmas one year. I was young, lets say seven, and she wanted one and my parents got it for her. She let me play, too, and I loved that Duck Hunt, as it was the most amazing thing my seven year old eyes had ever seen. A dog pops up every once in a while! Amazing!
She got that present Christmas morning. We played all day. Then it was time for dinner. In my family we have a tradition of using "poppers" at dinner. If you don't know what that is, imagine the cardboard tube inside a toilet paper roll. Now imagine that all the toilet paper is gone, and someone has filled that tube with a few trinkets. Now imagine they have wrapped it in elaborate wrapping paper. Now imagine that someone, for some reason, has installed strips of cardboard attached to what was, basically, a gun powder filled cap. When pulled apart, this cap "pops!" thus releasing the goodies inside the small piece of cardboard. It's supposed to be fun for the whole family.
That year my popper didn't go off. I pulled on it, but it just sort of ripped. So I got my prizes, but I was curious, 'why didn't mine explode?' I kept asking. So I studied it. Remember that I was six. Or seven, whatever I said before. Anyway, I discovered the device inside the tube that was supposed to explode. I carefully took it away from everything else and studied it for a while. Realizing that friction must ignite the thing like a match, I decided I had no choice but to test my theory by placing the device as close to my eye as possible to actually see the reaction the gun powder had to fire.
Later in the evening, as I sat transfixed watching my sister play duck hunt with a large rag filled with ice cubes covering my right eye, I began to understand the effect that video games have on people. I was in what could only be called "ouchie bad bad pain" and yet I still preferred to watch my sister play that video game, as it was the utmost achievement of human endeavor. Or at least thats what it seemed like.
The point of this story is to illustrate two points. The first is that you shouldn't put explosive items near your eye. The second is that video games, internet, social networking, all that crap is highly addictive. I was in real pain, yet I chose to watch someone else play a video game instead of dealing with the pain. Technology has a hold on us, and we are all still amazed by it. We fight for the right to use that technology whenever the hell we want because we simply can't get enough of it. Yet we are apathetic towards it. Duck Hunt was amazing, but now it is so simplistic it wouldn't last a second against current games.
We've lost all appreciation for this level of technology. We feel we are entitled to play stupid games whenever the hell we want. We aren't holding ice bags over our eyes just so that we can stay up an extra hour to watch someone else play a video game. We've lost all sense of proportion. Technology is just to be expected. It does not need be earned. But it can never be taken away, because we have a right to it. We are a society built on a foundation of thinking that we deserve every technological advance that there has ever been.
Tell me now that you don't think we're living in a science fiction novel.
I saw an article online today about universities starting to ban laptops from classrooms. For some reason people think that they are distracting. As if being able to update your facebook and twitter account in class is distracting.
twitter example:
ghostmorphine OMG, LOL, ROFL smiley face. I can't believe what my prof just said about evolution. Monkeys! MONKEYS!
The thing is though, people don't realize just how goddamn amazing this technology is. Of course we are going to be distracted! (And by "we" I mean college students and not lazy roustabouts who graduated a few years ago but still consider themselves college students)There is just too much amazing shit online for us to pass up. And as a result, we can't be bothered to take notes while we are learning about, you know, stuff and shit.
There were a lot people on the Fark message boards, the place were I first saw a link to the story from, that seemed to be opposed to such a ban. "How dare they" they screamed "take away our right to fuck around in class!" Listen, buddies, I never used a laptop for notes and I found plenty of ways to dick around. From starring at the boobies of any girl that was in sight, to doodling new and amusing mustaches onto a crudely drawn characture of the professor, there are a million ways to fuck off without a computer.
The thing is, and this is what brings us to "Wed-Da Sci-Non Ext-Ga pt.3!", is that people don't even notice that they are actually communicating with anyone on the fucking planet while they are in a lecture.
I sat behind this guy in one of my classes while I was in college who played WoW all the damn time. He was running around killing, you know, World of Warcraft enemies, while half heartedly listening to the lecture. It annoyed me at times because I would let my eyes wonder over to his screen from time to time to see how he was doing, but for the most part it didn't bug me too much. But the thing was that this guy was playing a game that was un-fucking-imaginable just ten or twenty years ago. He is playing a game populated by millions of other players, with some pretty solid graphics, and the ability to be upgraded whenever the developers wanted it to be. And he was playing it on a laptop. In class. And it didn't seem strange to anyone else that could see he was playing it.
My sister got a Nintendo for Christmas one year. I was young, lets say seven, and she wanted one and my parents got it for her. She let me play, too, and I loved that Duck Hunt, as it was the most amazing thing my seven year old eyes had ever seen. A dog pops up every once in a while! Amazing!
She got that present Christmas morning. We played all day. Then it was time for dinner. In my family we have a tradition of using "poppers" at dinner. If you don't know what that is, imagine the cardboard tube inside a toilet paper roll. Now imagine that all the toilet paper is gone, and someone has filled that tube with a few trinkets. Now imagine they have wrapped it in elaborate wrapping paper. Now imagine that someone, for some reason, has installed strips of cardboard attached to what was, basically, a gun powder filled cap. When pulled apart, this cap "pops!" thus releasing the goodies inside the small piece of cardboard. It's supposed to be fun for the whole family.
That year my popper didn't go off. I pulled on it, but it just sort of ripped. So I got my prizes, but I was curious, 'why didn't mine explode?' I kept asking. So I studied it. Remember that I was six. Or seven, whatever I said before. Anyway, I discovered the device inside the tube that was supposed to explode. I carefully took it away from everything else and studied it for a while. Realizing that friction must ignite the thing like a match, I decided I had no choice but to test my theory by placing the device as close to my eye as possible to actually see the reaction the gun powder had to fire.
Later in the evening, as I sat transfixed watching my sister play duck hunt with a large rag filled with ice cubes covering my right eye, I began to understand the effect that video games have on people. I was in what could only be called "ouchie bad bad pain" and yet I still preferred to watch my sister play that video game, as it was the utmost achievement of human endeavor. Or at least thats what it seemed like.
The point of this story is to illustrate two points. The first is that you shouldn't put explosive items near your eye. The second is that video games, internet, social networking, all that crap is highly addictive. I was in real pain, yet I chose to watch someone else play a video game instead of dealing with the pain. Technology has a hold on us, and we are all still amazed by it. We fight for the right to use that technology whenever the hell we want because we simply can't get enough of it. Yet we are apathetic towards it. Duck Hunt was amazing, but now it is so simplistic it wouldn't last a second against current games.
We've lost all appreciation for this level of technology. We feel we are entitled to play stupid games whenever the hell we want. We aren't holding ice bags over our eyes just so that we can stay up an extra hour to watch someone else play a video game. We've lost all sense of proportion. Technology is just to be expected. It does not need be earned. But it can never be taken away, because we have a right to it. We are a society built on a foundation of thinking that we deserve every technological advance that there has ever been.
Tell me now that you don't think we're living in a science fiction novel.
Monday, March 08, 2010
I should be sleeping
There is a time at night, a time that occurs if I haven't really talked to anyone in a while and am getting fairly sleepy, that I feel most at ease with the universe. Not entirely at ease, just the most that I ever feel.
I should be sleeping. I just got back from Vegas last night after going to my sisters wedding. T'was a good time, but tiring. And expensive. And long. Vegas is fun for about two days at a time. At least if you are stuck on the strip the whole time. Crankiness, I'm afraid, got the better of me by the end of the journey.
We drove back from Vegas with my mom and then I had to drive up to Reno from there right afterwards. For some reason I got to thinking about what I was going to do with myself in the coming years. Probably because my sister is 29 and she just got married and almost has her doctorate and her friends have post-graduate degrees and professions. It's strange being around successful people that aren't that much older than I am. A little too strange.
For a bit I was thinking of abandoning every thing that I had wanted to do with my life and pursuing something a little safer and a little more profitable. I contemplated going to law school after college for a few years, before I graduated. I changed my mind about it, but the thought popped back in my head on that drive back into Reno. Impulsively I told myself I'd check out some schools online after I got home, but a little voice in my head told me to hang on for a few days and think it over and see if I actually want to do that. Research couldn't really hurt, but thinking about it would hurt much less.
The thing is that I can't see myself actually going to law school. I'd do well, I do believe, in law school. And I could probably pass the bar in whatever state I wanted to practice in, I mean, not now, but by the end of schooling. And I'd probably be a more competent lawyer than a lot of people out there. But I just can't see myself getting up everyday, putting on a tie, and going to an office or a court room. I can barely manage to put on clean clothes to make it to my job now. Mostly I just can't figure myself for being a nine-to-fiver for the rest of my life.
What hits me on and off from time to time is the fact that I already know exactly what job title I want to have for the rest of my life. A single word that is the culmination of every dream I've had since I was old enough to have dreams that didn't involve action figures coming to life and attacking me. All I've ever really wanted to be was a Writer. And you can throw any old word in front of the word writer, Freelance, Article, Copy, Hack, Creative, Television, Erotic, Mexican. It doesn't really make a difference. I lost sight of that in the shuffle. Got these notions that I had to be a fiction writer, had to do my little stories, had to occasionally fail to finish writing a novel, or maybe actually finish one book one day. But, fuck it, I just want to write for a living.
It's strange that I always thought of myself as sort of having to start at the top. To write something that really grabbed everyones attention and then start making money after I had already sort of made it. That isn't how it works for anything else, though. And when I compared trying to be a writer to trying to be an actor I realized that all they ever tell you is to stop bitching that you aren't famous and start working on getting out there. That's all I needed to understand. I just didn't know where the bottom was for writing. I finally figured out that it is, of course, online. And I've been writing online my entire adult life and most of my childhood, so it's probably not a bad place to start.
All I wish is that I had known earlier what it was that I needed to start doing in order to try and make it. I've never really known what to do whenever I thought of the word "career" before because I always just assumed that I'd make it as a writer or I'd fail miserably. It never occurred to me that I could find a way to work somewhere in between the two extremes. At least until I make it or until I fail. Miserably.
This probably doesn't make a lot of sense to other people. I guess I was sort of in a bit of denial as to what I should be doing with my life. I sort of let myself waste away quite a bit of time and I could never get focused on anything. I still can't stay focused on anything. At least now I can see that there is a pathway to job that I want. To a profession that has a title that makes me feel strangely complete. I can't see myself as a lawyer, but I've always seen myself as a writer. Regardless of how much writing I've ever really done. Again, it may not make a lot of sense.
I guess what I am trying to say is that I have had this same dream, this same goal, this same life ambition, for so long and I never could see how it could possibly come together. But with something so small as doing some freelance writing, a job I really haven't put much time into yet or made much money on, I can suddenly see this whole new world of writing opening up. Being a writer always felt like such a pipe dream before, but now I can see some of the first places finally falling into place and the feeling of contentment I get within me makes the agony of trying to figure out what the fuck I should be doing with myself over the past few years a little easier to swallow. I haven't made it, and I might never make it, but at least I am at a point where it is starting to make sense to really go after it.
Sorry if this was a bit more rambly than normal. Honestly, I should be sleeping.
I should be sleeping. I just got back from Vegas last night after going to my sisters wedding. T'was a good time, but tiring. And expensive. And long. Vegas is fun for about two days at a time. At least if you are stuck on the strip the whole time. Crankiness, I'm afraid, got the better of me by the end of the journey.
We drove back from Vegas with my mom and then I had to drive up to Reno from there right afterwards. For some reason I got to thinking about what I was going to do with myself in the coming years. Probably because my sister is 29 and she just got married and almost has her doctorate and her friends have post-graduate degrees and professions. It's strange being around successful people that aren't that much older than I am. A little too strange.
For a bit I was thinking of abandoning every thing that I had wanted to do with my life and pursuing something a little safer and a little more profitable. I contemplated going to law school after college for a few years, before I graduated. I changed my mind about it, but the thought popped back in my head on that drive back into Reno. Impulsively I told myself I'd check out some schools online after I got home, but a little voice in my head told me to hang on for a few days and think it over and see if I actually want to do that. Research couldn't really hurt, but thinking about it would hurt much less.
The thing is that I can't see myself actually going to law school. I'd do well, I do believe, in law school. And I could probably pass the bar in whatever state I wanted to practice in, I mean, not now, but by the end of schooling. And I'd probably be a more competent lawyer than a lot of people out there. But I just can't see myself getting up everyday, putting on a tie, and going to an office or a court room. I can barely manage to put on clean clothes to make it to my job now. Mostly I just can't figure myself for being a nine-to-fiver for the rest of my life.
What hits me on and off from time to time is the fact that I already know exactly what job title I want to have for the rest of my life. A single word that is the culmination of every dream I've had since I was old enough to have dreams that didn't involve action figures coming to life and attacking me. All I've ever really wanted to be was a Writer. And you can throw any old word in front of the word writer, Freelance, Article, Copy, Hack, Creative, Television, Erotic, Mexican. It doesn't really make a difference. I lost sight of that in the shuffle. Got these notions that I had to be a fiction writer, had to do my little stories, had to occasionally fail to finish writing a novel, or maybe actually finish one book one day. But, fuck it, I just want to write for a living.
It's strange that I always thought of myself as sort of having to start at the top. To write something that really grabbed everyones attention and then start making money after I had already sort of made it. That isn't how it works for anything else, though. And when I compared trying to be a writer to trying to be an actor I realized that all they ever tell you is to stop bitching that you aren't famous and start working on getting out there. That's all I needed to understand. I just didn't know where the bottom was for writing. I finally figured out that it is, of course, online. And I've been writing online my entire adult life and most of my childhood, so it's probably not a bad place to start.
All I wish is that I had known earlier what it was that I needed to start doing in order to try and make it. I've never really known what to do whenever I thought of the word "career" before because I always just assumed that I'd make it as a writer or I'd fail miserably. It never occurred to me that I could find a way to work somewhere in between the two extremes. At least until I make it or until I fail. Miserably.
This probably doesn't make a lot of sense to other people. I guess I was sort of in a bit of denial as to what I should be doing with my life. I sort of let myself waste away quite a bit of time and I could never get focused on anything. I still can't stay focused on anything. At least now I can see that there is a pathway to job that I want. To a profession that has a title that makes me feel strangely complete. I can't see myself as a lawyer, but I've always seen myself as a writer. Regardless of how much writing I've ever really done. Again, it may not make a lot of sense.
I guess what I am trying to say is that I have had this same dream, this same goal, this same life ambition, for so long and I never could see how it could possibly come together. But with something so small as doing some freelance writing, a job I really haven't put much time into yet or made much money on, I can suddenly see this whole new world of writing opening up. Being a writer always felt like such a pipe dream before, but now I can see some of the first places finally falling into place and the feeling of contentment I get within me makes the agony of trying to figure out what the fuck I should be doing with myself over the past few years a little easier to swallow. I haven't made it, and I might never make it, but at least I am at a point where it is starting to make sense to really go after it.
Sorry if this was a bit more rambly than normal. Honestly, I should be sleeping.
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